A podcaster recently told me this show was "really dark." So today, we're leaning into that darkness—because that seemed way more fun.

This episode is about shadow work. Not the Instagram version. The real version. The kind that happens when you realize the thing limiting your creative work isn't technical skill—it's the parts of yourself you've been hiding from.

Through David Bowie's near-destruction during his Thin White Duke era and his eventual disappearance to Berlin, we explore what it actually looks like to confront the buried parts of creative identity. Plus the story of a wedding photographer who missed the most important moment of the day—not because she wasn't skilled enough, but because she wasn't emotionally ready.

This isn't comfortable. It's not content-ready. But it might be exactly what your creative work needs to become whole.

In This Episode

The Australian Podcaster's Question - What happens when someone calls your work "really dark"

Bowie's Shadow Period - Los Angeles, 1975. Red peppers, milk, mountains of cocaine, and the creation of an "emotionless Aryan superman"

The Berlin Disappearance - How the world's biggest rock star chose to vanish and why that wasn't the failure—it was the beginning

Jung's Shadow Theory - The psychological framework that explains why we hide parts of ourselves (and how it shows up in creative work)

The Wedding Photographer's Dilemma - When professional distance becomes emotional cowardice

The Five Creative Shadow Territories - Where every creative person hides parts of themselves:

• The Fear Shadow
• The Identity Shadow
• The Creative Shadow
• The Power Shadow
• The Authenticity Shadow

Personal Excavation - Why I hate shooting events (and what teenage depression has to do with adult creative limitations)

The Integration Process - Shadow dialogue, creative audits, and the difference between working around wounds versus working with them

Key Takeaways

• The shadow isn't your enemy—it's your undeveloped creative self
• What you avoid photographing reveals more than what you shoot
• Professional distance can be emotional cowardice in disguise
• Your creative limitations might be survival strategies from decades ago
• Integration isn't about fixing yourself—it's about letting buried parts speak

Mentioned in This Episode

Carl Jung - Swiss psychoanalyst who developed shadow theory David Bowie - Particularly his Thin White Duke period (1975-1976) and Berlin years Carlos Alomar - Bowie's guitarist who observed his creative process during the shadow period

Community

Share your shadow work discoveries using #TerribleShadows

Don't share the polished answers—share the parts of you you're just beginning to reclaim.

Music Credits

"Heroes" by David Bowie (approximately 1 minute used) Additional music licensed through Blue Dot Sessions

If This Episode Hit You…

• Leave a review on Apple Podcasts.
• Share it with someone who hides behind the work.
• Or drop me a note and tell me what question you can’t stop thinking about.

Follow the podcast

📸 terriblephotographer.com

📬 Subscribe to Field Notes (The Terrible Newsletter)

📷 Instagram: @terriblephotographer

A Note About This Episode

This episode deals with themes of depression, anxiety, and psychological shadow work. It's designed to be therapeutic rather than triggering, but please listen with care for your own mental health needs.

If you're doing this work and it brings up difficult emotions, consider speaking with a mental health professional who can provide proper support.

Stay haunted. Stay human. And yeah... stay terrible.

Community & Feedback

Take the Listener Survey: What kind of episodes do you want more of? Your feedback directly shapes future content. 🔗 Complete the survey here

Share Your Story: Have you experienced professional compartmentalization? The cognitive whiplash between personal crisis and work demands? Share your story—email or leave us a voicemail

What happens when you have to switch from consuming apocalyptic news to selling creative services in the span of 10 minutes? Patrick explores the cognitive whiplash we've all learned to navigate—that jarring ability to temporarily forget the world's chaos and focus on the work at hand. From photographing weddings while your own relationship crumbles to creating lifestyle campaigns while democracy feels fragile, this episode examines the emotional labor of compartmentalization and asks whether our growing skill at "professional forgetting" is survival mechanism or something more troubling.

Featuring insights from trauma researcher Bessel van der Kolk on collective trauma, plus permission-giving wisdom about maintaining joy and connection during uncertain times—not despite what's happening, but because of it.

What You'll Learn

• How to navigate emotional whiplash between personal reality and professional demands
• The three layers of reality creative professionals must hold simultaneously
• Why compartmentalization isn't fake—it's selective authenticity
• The psychological research behind collective trauma and why maintaining normal life is neurological necessity
• Permission to laugh, celebrate, and live fully while staying aware of larger struggles
• Practical frameworks for moving between realities without losing your humanity

Key Takeaways

"That's the rhythm now. That whiplash. The emotional split screen. It's been the soundtrack of the last few years."

"You have permission to laugh at dinner with friends while democracy feels fragile. You have permission to celebrate your small wins while staying aware of larger struggles."

"Every time you choose connection over isolation, joy over despair, presence over paralysis—you're saying no to the forces that profit from keeping people scared, disconnected, and unable to think clearly."

Episode Timestamps

• [0:00] Cold Open: The Morning News Mistake
• [2:15] Intro & Survey Results Discussion
• [4:30] Act I: The Emotional Gear-Shift
• [8:45] The Professional Face We All Wear
• [12:20] Personal Stories: Cancer Diagnosis, BMW Client, Wedding Paradox
• [18:10] Act II: The Compartmentalization Framework
• [19:15] The Three-Layer Reality
• [22:30] Selective Authenticity vs. Professional Performance
• [26:45] Act III: The Strange Comfort of Craft
• [28:00] Why Work Matters When Nothing Makes Sense
• [31:20] NEW: The Permission to Keep Living (feat. van der Kolk research)
• [35:10] Light Leak: Your Compartmentalization Audit
• [38:45] Closing: The Choice Between Resistance and Surrender

Resources & References

Researchers & Thinkers Mentioned:

• Bessel van der Kolk - The Body Keeps the Score, collective trauma research
• Ram Dass - "Be here now," presence and consciousness teachings
• Joseph Campbell - Hero's journey, mythological wisdom
• Noam Chomsky - Systems analysis, intellectual self-defense

Audio Sources:

• Brief clip from The Daily podcast (The New York Times) used under fair use
• Music licensed through Blue Dot Sessions

For Creative Professionals

This episode applies whether you're:

• Managing teams while dealing with personal stress
• Teaching children while processing anxiety about the future
• Providing healthcare while worried about systemic collapse
• Creating art while navigating financial insecurity
• Building a business while questioning larger systems

The pattern is universal: How do you show up fully for the work in front of you while carrying awareness of everything else happening?

Connect

• Website: terriblephotographer.com
• Instagram: @terriblephotographer
• Email: [email protected]

Subscribe & Support

The Terrible Photographer Podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and everywhere podcasts are found. Subscribe for honest conversations about creativity, identity, and finding your voice.

Sometimes creativity has fuck-all to do with your job title.

In this episode, Patrick explores why the most dangerous creative minds often don't call themselves artists—they're teachers buying classroom supplies with grocery money, middle managers translating executive gibberish into human language, and baristas solving problems that million-dollar consultants couldn't crack with PowerPoint.

Through the story of surgeon Atul Gawande's surgical checklist revolution, we examine how creative problem-solving becomes subversive when it works too well, threatening systems that profit from keeping things broken.

What You'll Learn:

• Why pattern recognition plus intervention courage makes you dangerous to institutions
• The three stages every dangerous creative goes through (and why most people stop at stage one)
• How "strategically lazy" problem-solving threatens people who've built careers on complexity
• Why your creative solutions face resistance even when they obviously work
• The economic forces that fight back when you prove alternatives are possible

Featured Story: The tale of how a Harvard-trained surgeon nearly got blacklisted for suggesting doctors use a checklist—and how his "radical" idea of making sure surgical teams knew each other's names reduced complications by 35%.

This episode speaks directly to photographers, CEOs, therapists, teachers, stay-at-home moms, baristas, and anyone else solving problems that others ignore.

Atul Gawande TED Talk excerpt: "How do we heal medicine?"

Links:

• Leave a voicemail: terriblephotographer.com/voicemail
• Subscribe to Field Notes newsletter: the-terrible-photographer.kit.com/223fe471fb

Music: Licensed through Blue Dot Sessions

"Creative work that actually changes things doesn't feel like art. It feels like resistance."

Episode Photo by Alexander Krivitskiy - Follow his work on Instagram

Every photographer needs permission to suck. And I mean that literally. In this episode, I explore the difference between accidental failure and strategic failure, and why that difference will determine whether you spend your career playing it safe or actually growing into the photographer you're meant to become.

From my own lighting disaster at a corporate shoot to Jerry Seinfeld's brutal honesty about audience judgment, we dive into how the greatest creatives use failure as a laboratory for growth. Learn why test shoots are your creative lifeline, how Roger Deakins broke convention to create cinematic magic in Skyfall, and why Ira Glass's famous "gap" between taste and ability is actually a feature, not a bug.

Key Topics Covered

• The Anatomy of Avoidable Failure: Why I overcomplicated a simple lighting setup and what it taught me about scouting, team structure, and the control illusion
• The Comedy Club Method: How comedians like Jerry Seinfeld test material in low-stakes environments and what photographers can learn from their approach
• Strategic vs. Random Failure: The four pillars of testing that turn mistakes into data
• Roger Deakins' Skyfall Innovation: How the master cinematographer used LED panels as primary lighting to create one of Bond's most iconic scenes
• The Ira Glass Creative Gap: Why the distance between your taste and ability never fully closes—and why that's exactly what keeps you growing
• Reframing Failure as Data: How to approach creative setbacks with scientific curiosity instead of personal inadequacy

Featured Audio Clips

• Jerry Seinfeld - "The Best of Jerry Seinfeld" (Netflix Is A Joke): On the relationship between comedians and their audience
• Ira Glass - On the creative gap between taste and ability (original clip source unknown)

Music Credits

• Max Richter - "On The Nature of Daylight" (transitional music)
• Additional music provided by The Blue Dot Sessions (used under The Blanket License)
• Additional music provided by Epidemic Sound

Referenced Works & People

• Roger Deakins - Cinematographer (Blade Runner 2049, No Country for Old Men, The Shawshank Redemption, Fargo, 1917, Skyfall)
• Jerry Seinfeld - Comedian and creator of Seinfeld
• Ira Glass - Host and creator of This American Life
• Chris Rock - Comedian referenced for his methodical approach to material testing

Your Assignment

Schedule a test shoot this month. Not someday when you have more time or better gear, in the next 30 days. Pick one specific thing you want to explore:

• One lighting technique you're curious about
• One narrative approach you're afraid to try with clients
• One stylistic choice that feels risky but intriguing

Write it down. Put it on your calendar. Treat it like the professional development it actually is. Give yourself permission to suck spectacularly—because bombing in private is how you learn to shine in public.

Connect With The Show

Leave a Voicemail: Share your own creative failures, test shoot discoveries, or questions about strategic experimentation at terriblephotographer.com/voicemail

Get Field Notes Newsletter: Weekly insights on creativity, identity, and finding your voice as a photographer. Sign up at terriblephotographer.com

Resources Mentioned

• Test shoot planning and execution strategies
• The four pillars of strategic failure framework
• Environmental lighting philosophy and practical application
• Creative audit questions for identifying growth opportunities

One phone call. One late invoice. One moment of controlled but very real rage. In this episode, I unpack a recent client conflict that left me feeling powerful, anxious, vindicated—and deeply uncomfortable. It’s not about being right. It’s about what happens when your nervous system hijacks your ethics, and you end up blowing up the wrong bridge.

Social psychologist Jamie Hughes joins to help me understand what the hell happened inside my brain—and how anger, justice, trauma, dopamine, and freelance stress all get tangled up when money’s tight and respect feels scarce.

It’s about accountability. It’s about empathy. It’s about not turning into the thing you’re fighting.

Listen if you’ve ever:

• Been ghosted by a client after delivering your best work.
• Sent an email you were 90% sure you’d regret—but hit send anyway.
• Felt the righteous, electric satisfaction of finally standing up for yourself… and then the quiet shame that followed.
• Wondered why you get excited when you’re angry, even though your whole body is on fire.

Featuring:

• The HPA axis and why your shoulders hurt when you’re mad
• ADHD and justice sensitivity (why fairness feels life-or-death)
• How financial pressure rewires your empathy
• Why anger feels good… and why that should scare you
• What empathy actually looks like when the system sucks
• The guilt that follows a justified overreaction

Special Guest:

Jamie Hughes

Social Psychologist, Trauma Specialist, and Certified Life Coach

📲 @managing.mental.health

🔗 Website + Resources: beacons.ai/managing_mental_health

📩 Got a story?

If you’ve ever burned a bridge and still think about it in the shower five years later, I’d love to hear it.

Not to fix it. Not to absolve you. Just to witness it.

👉 Email: [email protected]

💬 Help Me Be Terrible, Together:

If this episode hit you, leave a review on Apple Podcasts. I’ll probably read it on air in the most awkward, self-deprecating way possible.

Music Licensed via Epidemic Sound and Artlist.io

There are shoots where everything clicks.

The light is magic. The client is chill. The work feels effortless.

This episode isn’t about those.

Instead, we’re going into the plumbing.

Literally.

From overflowing toilets in luxury villas to Fortune 500 invoice purgatory, from last-minute gear fails to moments that remind you why you ever picked up a camera in the first place — this one’s for every photographer (and creative) who’s quietly asked themselves:

Turns out? It is.

But maybe that’s not a bad thing.

Because hidden under the chaos, the duct tape, and the missed payments…

there’s still something worth fighting for. And sometimes, the most honest thing you can say is:

And maybe that’s the most romantic thing you’ll ever say about your career.

🧰 Mentioned in this episode:

• Client disasters (featuring two Kyles, mushroom water, and sewage)
• Scope creep and hostage negotiation skills
• Invoice limbo with billion-dollar brands
• A failed choir shoot and a thousand-dollar mistake
• The shoot that broke your heart in the best way possible
• Why the photos are just the receipt

📬 Stay connected

If this episode made you feel seen, stolen from, or slightly less alone—

subscribe to The Terrible Newsletter:

👉 terriblephotographer.com

You’ll get Field Notes, updates, and the occasional nudge to keep going.

🙏 Support the show

If you’re enjoying the podcast, please rate and review it on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

It helps more misfit creatives find their way here.

And honestly, it just feels good to know someone’s listening.

Credits

Music in this episode is licensed through Epidemic Sound and Artlist.io.
Episode Photo by Gryffyn

What happens when the thing you made in the dark suddenly ends up in the spotlight? This week, Patrick gets personal about the strange pressure of being “featured,” and why attention might be the most creatively dangerous drug of all.

From a viral photo in the dunes to the slow collapse of chasing relevance, this episode dives into the algorithm’s indifference to honesty, the myth of momentum, and what Johnny Cash’s American Recordings can still teach us about making art that matters.

This is for the ones who still believe in disappearing. In pausing. In letting the light hit you… without immediately bottling it.

Includes a clip from “The Beast in Me” by Johnny Cash (used with reverence, not profit).

All other music licensed via Artist.io.

Episode photograph by Casey Horner — Instagram: @mischievous_penguins.

"I thought the work would save me. I was grossly mistaken."

What happens when a stranger on Clubhouse calls you a technician instead of an artist? Patrick breaks down the brutal midnight conversation that cracked open everything he thought he knew about his photography career. From the golden handcuffs of corporate work to the humbling reality of freelancing for $650, this episode is about dismantling the fantasy of what creative success looks like.

No metaphors. No inspiration porn. Just the uncomfortable truth about technical skill versus authentic voice, and why sometimes the thing you think defines you is actually limiting you.

Part one of a two-part series on creative deconstruction and what comes after.

In this episode:

• A photo campaign that felt more like forgery
• The invisible shift from artist to technician
• Why being trusted isn’t the same as being seen
• The quiet way burnout creeps in
• What I learned after walking away

Light Leak: A Creative Check-In

Are you being hired for your vision, or just your ability to mimic someone else’s?

Grab The Darkroom – a free guide to creative clarity and finding your artistic voice

 terriblephotographer.com/darkroom-download

Music licensed via Artlist.io

Audio excerpt from Conan O’Brien’s farewell message on The Tonight Show (2010). Used under fair use for commentary and inspiration. All rights belong to NBC/Universal.

Subscribe, support, or scream into the void at: terriblephotographer.com

Email me: [email protected] – I’m always interested to hear your thoughts, ideas, and read hate mail. I respond to every message.

Follow: @patrickfore & @terriblephotographer

Everyone loves a comeback story. But what about the part where you’re just… sitting in a garage at 2 a.m., surrounded by half-charged batteries, broken gear, and a growing sense that something inside you might be cracking?

This episode isn’t about triumph. It’s about that strange, quiet middle, the one nobody posts about, where you’re not broken, not healed… just angry. Angry at the industry. Angry at yourself. Angry at the space between who you are and who you thought you’d be by now.

But that anger? Maybe it’s not a problem to solve. Maybe it’s fuel.

Topics Include:

• The weird middle space between burnout and breakthrough
• How anger can be creative fuel—if you let it
• Why “healing” and “finding joy” aren’t the point
• The choice to keep working, even when the work feels pointless
• Depression, resistance, and what it means to show up anyway

Opening Song:

“Demons” by The National
Used under license. All rights to 4AD Records and the artists.

Support the band at: americanmary.com

All other music provided by:

🎧 Artlist.io

Mentioned in the Episode:

• A broken laptop stand
• The hum of depression
• That 2 a.m. garage air
• The space where the butterfly might land

Subscribe to the Newsletter + Get the Free Download:

Want more of this kind of honest, no-BS creative conversation?

Subscribe to The Terrible Newsletter and get The Darkroom — a free digital download about making real work in dark seasons.

 terriblephotographer.com/thedarkroom

What happens when you still love photography but start to wonder if there’s any place left for you in the industry?

In this raw, vulnerable episode, Patrick Fore gets brutally honest about what it means to be a working photographer in 2025. From a moment of personal crisis in a cluttered garage to the soul-draining grind of cold outreach and algorithm-chasing, this episode pulls back the curtain on the emotional and existential cost of staying in the game.

You’ll hear:

• Why radical honesty might be the only antidote to creative burnout
• The tension between art and commerce, and why it matters more than ever
• A reflection on the dark side of the photography education economy
• A personal story about hitting the wall, and choosing not to walk away
• A deeper dive into the concept of Flow vs. Resistance, and how to find your way back to meaning in the chaos

Whether you’re a full-time freelancer, a weekend warrior, or someone questioning the whole damn thing, this episode isn’t about pretending. It’s about naming the mess, wrestling with it, and finding a way to keep going.

📬 Subscribe to Field Notes, the weekly companion to the podcast:

https://www.terriblephotographer.com

💬 Let’s connect:

Instagram @TerriblePhotographer

Newsletter: Field Notes (via Substack)

Book: Lessons From a Terrible Photographer (coming soon)
Email me - [email protected]

Credits:

This episode contains a referenced clip from “How to enter ‘flow state’ on command” by Steven Kotler for Big Think (Watch here) and a short excerpt (under 30 seconds) from Pixar’s Soul, used to illustrate the concept of creative flow.

Music provided by and licensed through Artlist.io.