Welcome to Imagination in Action, where we have conversations with compelling people driving the action that will power our futures. These are successful Imaginators you want to know?
Hey, Jason, how are you? Good? How are you, brother? Good. So this is recording. So there'll be a transcript of our show at the end. So excited to have you. Where are you? Are you in Texas or you are on the West Coast, East Coast. You're in Europe. I know you're not in Antarctica, because you said you. You haven't shot a wedding there yet?
No, I am at home actually, believe it or not. I just got home two days ago from Hawaii. But I leave for Ecuador in a week. So you caught me at a great time.
And, and where's home? Is it Texas? Do I remember that? Oh, California, California. Yeah. Great. And, you know, part of tonight's show, is about the future of photography. But I guess, let's let's get grounded in your own photography. I know that you're, you know, you use a mirrorless camera. I know that you're on the Sony platform, maybe talk a little bit about your evolution with with gear. I know you're interested in landscapes and then you became a wedding guy. And and now you you go to the US border and document and and you take great photographs, Aurora Borealis to me you're one of the best photographers I know. So as we get into NF T's and the future of photography, why don't you just tell us kind of what's the gear you're using? And how did you get into the photography the way that you are? As you are?
Well, yeah, I mean, I started off as a photographer, as just loving photography a long time ago, like many of us as a kid, you know, watching my dad's shoot and old Nikon film cameras. And then when I when I was old enough to, you know, be a newspaper boy, I started working and making money to buy a camera. And so I bought my first Nikon when I was in high school and shooting film, and that progressed into DSLRs. At first I did a lot of landscape photography, just as fun. And then I became a wedding photographer, kind of volunteered to do that by someone. And then as I got into weddings, I was a hotelier and I left the hotel I was an executive with Starwood Hotels, and I left Starwood to become a photographer, which was a big move at the time for me. And so I left left hotels, got into photography as a full time wedding photographer, and then started doing wedding photography with the DSLRs ended up shooting around 300 weddings. And then I became I started putting my work up on YouTube that that moved me into becoming a quote unquote, influencer. And then once I started putting my work up on YouTube, photographers wanted to learn how I was doing what I do. And so I started teaching photography. And so slowly, I transitioned out of being a wedding photographer to somebody who teaches and then I got sponsored by people, Sony and RHODOLITE, and other companies. And then I really transitioned I was one of the leaders, the, to really leave DSLRs and go into mirrorless cameras, and a lot of people. I took a lot of flack for it at the time, because, you know, at the time let's be real Sony was a nobody in the world of photography. I mean, if you shot Sony, you it was a joke. And so I left when before Sony was good. Now if Sony is the rage, and everyone shoots it, but you know, once upon a time people really made fun of Sony Trust me, I was one of them. And so I left Nikon went over and started shooting Sony when when it was their main camera was in a 6000 which is a crop sensor camera. And from there I left before they even had lenses to be honest for their mirrorless cameras, but I stuck with them. And because I believed in I believed in the actual technology of mirrorless cameras. I really did. And I believe that was the future and so I stuck with Sony stuck with it and I I've been shooting Sony now for I don't know, eight nine years. And it's funny you say this because I did a video about four or five years ago to where I was speaking to at a photography store and I I want and photographers, I said, You guys better keep it better be careful, I'm telling you phones are the future. And man, I got a lot of flack for that video too. And here we go. Fast forward to today, one of my main content creation tools is the iPhone 13 Pro, I can't believe how much it's replaced so much of my gear. And so I'm always leaning forward towards the future to find ways to make my work more efficient, and, and more accessible, so I can actually feed it to my audience. Because we live in a world where if you don't get the information out quick and the data out quickly. No, nobody cares. So Jason,
I have two follow up questions on what you just said. You said you photograph like 300 weddings? I think it was your wife that volunteered you? I'm curious, do you have a style? That if you look at all the photos from the 300 weddings, you can people can kind of say, oh, that's Jason style, and? And how to? If so how did you come up with that? Or do you create a style? For each each wedding? That's one question. And then another question. I know a lot of these DSLRs you can shoot and wrong I guess also these mirrorless cameras? Are you shooting everything wrong? And then you have all that data? And then you tweak it to create your your look, are you doing jpg as you do the weddings? Or Or? Or does it really depend on on the type of shooting you're doing?
Great questions. First, I always shoot RAW, I think it's a huge mistake to shoot JPEG. And even back to what I just said with iPhone 13 Pro, it shoots raw. So even when I shoot with that I shoot in RAW. And the main reason to shoot in RAW is because you can go back and re edit your work and remaster your work once you become a better editor because all of us, as newer photographers, we're horrible at editing, we're atrocious. And so one of the best things we can do for ourselves in our career, if we're looking forward is to always shoot in RAW gives you a much better dynamic range. And the ability to tweak your images before they're cooked. You shoot in JPEG, it's just that you're cooked. So I never ever shoot, no matter what genre I'm shooting, I never shoot JPEG. And when it comes down to my style, you know, I was really informed by an influenced by Norman Rockwell. I love I love those paintings. I love the stories that he told. And so while I'll definitely employ a lot of different lenses and things when I'm I very much and prefer a wide angle, look, because it tells an entire story. And so a lot of the times you'll find me shooting with a 20 millimeter or 35 millimeter lens to be able to tell that story. And so when people see my work, it's it is very, it's very distinctive, it's it's people can know it's one of my shots without without seeing a watermark or my name attached to it. And what really builds that different kind of a look really boils down to how I light how I tell story. And yes, how I edit. So you put those three things together. And it really makes for a distinctive look.
Great. So I'm going to turn to Allison, we're just getting started here. This is Imagination in Action, where we have Imaginators every week, who are using their imagination and making action happen and really driving the future. And I'm really proud to have an influencer. Jason linear, who's extraordinary photographer, you can see his work, I pinned a link to his website on the top here. He has an incredible range. And he's been at the forefront of, of technology using mirrorless. And, and I knew he has a lot to say about the future of smartphones, as computational photography kind of evolves. But let me turn to my co host Allison. I know you heard Jason give a talk last November and we're really intrigued by him. What's top of mind for you?
Allison, you're on mute. If you're trying to ask something. Jason weren't until Alison comes in. Let me my next question to you is in terms of lighting, what are what are your advice to new photographers on how to how to master light? I mean a lot of people think about photography as megapixels but but how much how important is light when it comes to creating your the work that you love to share with the world?
Another great question. I mean, the word the word photography means painting with light. I mean so if you don't learn lighting as a photographer in my opinion, you're not really a photographer and lighting Another thing I tell people all the time is all the best artificial light photographers have to become a great natural light photographer first you have to understand natural light and how it impacts your your entire environment. Because whether you're shooting and darks scenarios, or where you're shooting them, where there's great backlight behind you, whether it's day or night, you have to expose for that ambient exposure in your composition, or whether it's harsh, harshness of of shooting, you know, full, full nude, when the sun is out, and your subject is getting, you know, huge highlights on their face, you have to learn how to expose for that. So it really boils down to first become a great a great natural light photographer, but the mistake that a lot of photographers make, and I would say this boils down to about 75% of photographers out there is that's where they stop, and they stop there because natural light, you know, you can get good enough results. And so people plateau, they become good enough, if you want to become a master of light. First, you understand the elements of natural lighting and you and and then you incorporate those into your use of artificial light. And there's really two forms of artificial light. And that's using strobes and using constant lighting. And that's something that I do a lot. And so when I got into photography, to photographers that I looked up to and thought, wow, I would love to be able to do what they do someday. They all use lighting. And if you think about if you if you apply that even to movies and directors, I mean, so much of storytelling boils down to lighting, and no scary movie has scary lighting. And so I think that you have to learn lighting, if you're really going to consider yourself a master photographer. And if you want to make money, you know, I've
looked at your, your work, and I noticed that you do have a lot of video footage. How do you balance between video and still photography? And actually, before you answer that, let me welcome Mark Scribner onto the stage. This is being recorded. We'll create a transcript at the end of this and let the record show that Mark has joined the stage. Mark, I know you are. You really appreciate Jason's work and I think you're like a disciple of his work. How would you describe Jason's work for those who may not know him? Yeah,
so I mean, indirectly, Jason got me through connections into the NFL. I took one of his workshops many years ago, and I was impressed. I found him on YouTube and the stuff that he was doing I I have a favorite artists called Caravaggio, if anybody's ever seen any of those paintings, and what always struck me with Caravaggio is the way that he was able to handle lighting. And Jason has a very unique style, like when you see his photographs, even if he doesn't put his logo on there, you know, it's him just the way that he's able to edit. But beyond being the master of light, he early on was an industry disrupter, like a lot of the stuff he put on video, like he got criticized, as he mentioned, you know, because he was exposing all the secrets of how the business works, and how to make money and how to be a professional photographer. And, you know, his style and how he's able to incorporate his personality, as well as his craft is, is what I think has made him a huge star across the industry. And I agree with what he said, other than I'm an NFL sports photographer, I still believe with the cameras that I shoot on like a Sony A one, JPEG is the way to go for getting 21 frames a second. And that's the only reason to go that route. But it's interesting to see that, like iPhone 14 is coming out potentially with like a 48 megapixel camera. And the whole industry is changing, like really, really fast. And I don't think a lot of these camera manufacturers have been able to anticipate that disruption that's happening right now.
We'll put Mark and I this is a two hour show. And Jason, we have a lot to get into. I'm looking forward to talking about the future of the smartphone and the form factor. But before we get there, Jason, how do you interpret your work? What's the ratio of still photography to video? Do you pull stills out of your video? Maybe kind of talked about that range? And then I did just get a message from Alison, her mic wasn't working, but she's now on and she'll ask the next question. Jason after you take that one.
I do not pull stills from my video. I liked my work to be very, very well thought out and planned. Even though a lot of people would describe me as very spontaneous and I am but I like my work to be executed well and so I'm not going to just roll video and just pull something from I'm there, to me that's lazy. And also, it's not going to deliver the same type of result that you really want. As as our as our technology currently exists, mind you, I expect that to change. But as our current as our technology sits today, it's still not adequate for what I want to do with my work. Because I am, I got into YouTube, and it took off. And that led to so many other opportunities. I do do at least 5050 video and stills. And that makes for a very big workload, because you really have to think differently for both mediums. They're very different mediums and how you incorporate lighting, and how you incorporate sound, and how you incorporate and tell stories with the video camera is very different than you do with a steel camera. And so, I mean, I was just in Hawaii, and I was I got access to a really rare car, the Shelby GT 500. And, and I had a week to drive it around on my own and create a movie out of it. And it's it was incredible. And I use so many different kinds of cameras, from iPhones to mirrorless, to GoPros, to actually I mean, just everything to film to drones to film that film this thing. And it was incredible. So that was almost primarily video work. But I It's about 5050.
Great. So Jason, as John said, I am so thrilled to see you because I was lucky enough to hear you at one of John's TEDx events. And I think you and I met at something John arranged at Logan Airport, and I was like, Oh, my gosh, we have to get Jason. So thanks for coming. It's really interesting. I mean, you gave such an interesting story, just sort of off the cuff as a master of storytelling about how photography was sort of, really at the front edge of defining what our sense of reality is, and how that's starting to change. So this idea that, you know, some of your photography is super realistic, you obviously also work with fashions and models, and do you know, enhanced or augmented photography, but I'd love you to share with this audience a little bit about what you shared with me. I mean, how do you look at an assignment and figure out whether your storytelling job is to tell the harshness of what you see to enhance the story? Or to change it in some way?
That's another great question. Yeah, because during COVID, because, you know, I've always been somebody who is very much believed in, in the value of truth and the value of reality. And so going back 10 years ago, I was asked to go out to Ethiopia and work with work with some NGOs out there, to help them tell the story of how the kids were eating out of a trash out of the trash dump in Addis Ababa. And it's very interesting, because when I went out there, the the organizers said, you can't go into the trash dump. And my response was, Well, how in the world am I going to tell the story? If I can't go to the dump? Well, we just have to have them tell the story. I said, Absolutely not. She says, Well, you could get arrested if you go to the trash dump. I said, that's all right. I just want to tell you, I just want to tell him, I'm with you. But I gotta go to the trash stop. I mean, how do I tell the story? And so my crew and I went to the dump. And I mean, you talk about the harshness of the story, there's dogs drowning in the water, and, and I strapped a GoPro to my boots. And we walked up this mountain of trash, where there's hyenas and there's, it's raining, and it's just, it's just so harsh and, and visceral and, and, you know, even my, my sister at the time, she said, I can't believe that you filmed the dog die. And I said, but that's reality. She says, Well, how do you separate the two? How do you How did your heart not feel that moment, I said, it's not that my heart doesn't feel it's that the story needs to be told so others can feel it. That's the entire point of this entire thing that we're doing is helping people feel so that we can change the lives of these people who live this every day versus us, we just go home to our our nice cushy life. And so that is how we told that story. And even when I released the the documentary footage of that, for this organization, the the head organizer ever said, well, Jason, this is raw. And I said, but that's exactly what we need to be doing. We need to be telling these stories, and she said that she was kind of scared to share that with our donors. But she said that when she shared it, her, her donations quadrupled because people really finally understood exactly what the problem was over there. And so fast forward to you know, I got into the like I said earlier into the influencing and Sony and all that other fun stuff. And then when I went through and You know, so I was teaching and flying around the world and shooting models. And honestly, I haven't time in my life. And then COVID hit, like we said, and when COVID hit, there was nothing to do except sit around at your house. And I wasn't going to have that. Because I don't do well sitting around my house. So I started filming documentaries again on COVID. And on, you know, and I had people reaching out to me telling me about how, you know, we're talking about New York Fire Department and the NYPD dying of COVID. And then I had the people from the MTA reaching out the Metro Transit Authority reaching out to me and saying, Hey, man, our people are dying at a far higher rate than NYPD and NY FD combined. Because we're down in the down in the subways where there's a concentration of sickness and homeless, and we went down there and filmed it. And that was hugely impactful, because after we filmed it, and we published it, Andrew Cuomo goes down there and does this photo op to clean the place up. And then fast forward, then to the border and everything going on at the border. I think what we all struggle with is what's true, Fox, CNN, MSNBC, whatever it is, I just want to know the truth of what's really going on because we can't fix anything until we know the truth. And so when I've gone down and filmed the border over the last year and a half or, or done things of that nature, you have to truly ask yourself, can I try it? Can I be objective, can I look at this, and just film it without putting my spin on it. And that is the biggest struggle because we all have our own belief systems. But if you really believe in reality and truth, then you have to do that. And you have to show the stuff that you may not want to show and, and live with it. Because that is the reality. And if you want to change people's lives for the better and change our society for the better, we have to deal in real terms. And so it's tough. I mean, I was down at the border, and
just a couple months ago, and I'm just driving around on my own, and down and down at the Rio Grande area, and I find this tree and I have footage of all this, I have this, I drive up on this tree. And there's there's ladies, undergarments, bras and bottoms sitting in a tree and somebody had made what they call a rape tree, which is that like that's their trophy of all the women that they had sexually trafficked through that area and everything else and it blows your mind to see this. And, and that's why I do what I do. So we can actually try and fix things. And so I don't know it. I think if more people really knew the reality of what's going on in our world, they would, they would want to make better changes, but we pick our camps and stay in our camps. And that's our problem. And so yeah, with all of this, it really is about trying to, to tell the truth of the story, wherever that falls, and then let people come together to hopefully make a change for the better.
I love that so much. Just to ask one follow up, it's so powerful to kind of hear about the course of where your work has taken you. And I love the fact that you weave in and out from being a wedding photographer to an influencer, you know, to the slums of Ethiopia and back. It's just, I don't really know any other photographers who've done that kind of range. Maybe they exist, but they haven't come across my path. But my question is one step higher, you know, above your work, which is so amazing. You know, what do you think about the fact that photos are now so easy to adjust that one of the trends I track is something called Real versus foe, which is people's ability to sort of know, okay, this is real vanilla versus artificial vanilla 90% of people can't really tell the difference anymore. And when people see a photograph, is there do you think there'll be a system as the world evolves for sort of this photos been adjusted? Or do you think we should just come with that kind of assumption to every photo?
I've done other Fanta fantastic question. I think that we're dealing in a world now. And this is stuff that I mentioned at the TED talk was that we're dealing in a world now where photos and videos are so instantaneously changing public perception of what's going on. I've even thought of going to the going to Ukraine right now to try to film some of this. Because you know, you hear the stuff going on and Bucha with the Russian troops and everything else and you're trying to figure out again, what's true because Russia says one thing in Ukraine says the other as it relates to the reality of photos, I think, to be candid and I think there's there's a true sadness to this. I think that we now all assume that if something looks really good, that it is fake. I did a shoot with a Ninja fire guy, it's on my Instagram, people want to see it. But I did it recently, and everyone assumed it was fake. And that's one reason I film virtually everything that I shoot. Because I want people to know that what I'm producing is real. And so whether there's going to be like something saying, hey, this photo is real versus this photo has been doctored up. I don't know, I people will get around that I mean, people are gonna fake stuff forever. And with technology, getting as crazy as it is, I mean, it used to be difficult to replace skies or to do things like that in Photoshop. Now, it's instantaneous, I mean, the Photoshop applications or other programs like Luminar that you can utilize, it automatically senses where the sky is, and you can just plop in a fake sky within one second. You can just change anything out. So it's really wild. What technology gives us and so I think to be honest, I think that more often than not, people are just going to assume something is fake. And now we're in a scenario where we have to actually try to prove something's real. And that's that's a scary place to be. Because we don't know what's real anymore.
John, I'm gonna turn it back to you unless you want me to keep going.
No, no, i. So, Jason, I guess I'm wondering if you could go anywhere in the world? I know you haven't been to Antarctica, where would you like to photograph? And is it a cultural event? Is it nature? Is it? Is it celebrating some, some something that you think needs to be a story needs to be told about that today? I just if you had like an I Dream of Jeannie, or the Bucha, which knows, or Aladdin three wishes, you know, where would you go? What would you do? What would you be celebrating? Love to hear that?
It used to be it used to be shooting in Africa with lions and elephants. And I've been very fortunate to have done that many times. And that's a truly remarkable experience. Allison said something earlier. I don't know any other photographer who jumps the genres that I do, I don't really think someone else does it to the extent that I do to be honest. And to answer your question, John, I think that what I do is, this is a good example. Like, when I go down to Ecuador, I'll have a model with me, but I have a model with me. And then we go visit the ancient tribes in Yasuni. And, you know, one moment I'm filming a sacred ritual of the Ostuni tribe, wild ani tribe actually, based in Yasuni. And the next time I'll and you know, 30 minutes later, an hour later, I can be doing a model shoot of the of her an Amazon. To answer your question, I've one thing that I believe is the true essence of creativity is leaving yourself open to letting anything that hits your mind, be a possibility, this is something that we can do, we can create this. And I think that if more creatives stuck with that mindset, versus trying to predetermine what they're going to do there, they'd find that their creativity would actually flourish exponentially. What would be my wish list? Uh, well, to be honest, I'm not saying this to be funny. And people who have followed me will know this is true. I have set for a long time, I wanted to go to Chernobyl. So another thing that I do a lot of is going into abandoned places. So Chernobyl was a big one. Hopefully, I'll get there someday. If things can calm down over there, hopefully. I've done some. I mean, Aurora Borealis was a big one for me. And I've done that. Animals. Gosh, I think I'd like to do like I John keep saying that ARCA. I mean, I definitely want to do that. plowing through, you know, all this stuff. I don't know, it could be anything but. But truly, like, if I went to Antarctica, I would want to have a model with me, I'd want to film the polar bears. And then I would want to have a model on the ice with the polar bears. And I would want to split it up, and then I would want to do a video, a documentary, and then I'd want to do a fun fashion shoot. i That's just the way I'm built. I love to try to do all this. And I think part of that is also maximizing the experience. I'm somebody who absolutely loves life. But if you ask me if there's only one thing that I could do, I think it would truly boil down to is there something I can do that would benefit those who need it? How can my photography help to an actuate to actually change for those who can't change their own situation? And that would be my ultimate calling is to try and make a change in the world. And if my photography could help soften people's hearts or help people to shift their minds to where we could actually help those who need it, I think that would be my ultimate goal.
Hey, Jason, what's your feeling about street photography? You know, in this, I think millennials are growing up where privacy is dead. And and, you know, they they put all sorts of stuff online. And don't worry about it, I guess. Do you think there? Is it ethical to just walk around and photograph in Times Square? I've heard people call, I think, slum porn or something like, I don't I can't think I may not be saying that. Right. But I'm just curious on your thoughts of like, what do you do when you photograph people that you don't know their names? And do you have any advice to others? And then I'm also curious, what's your workflow for all your photography? And how many images are you taking a year? And, and what are you saving? And how are you backing it up? So two big questions. They're
two great questions. First off, I think if somebody is the subject of your image, you should not ever take their image without their their permission. I think that that's rude. I think it's disrespectful. I think it lacks human dignity. And I think it's very voyeuristic and wrong. That true, unless we're talking about photojournalism, or you're doing, you know, shooting politicians, and I don't mean shooting with a gun, I mean, with a camera, things of that nature. And I'll give you some examples. So if I'm in Times Square, and there's a million people there, if I'm, if I'm going up to a homeless person and shooting their image, and, and they're clearly the subject of my image of my my photograph, I should go and ask their permission. And I also believe that you should compensate them for doing that. And I have always employed that technique. So, you know, a lot of my photojournalistic work has taken place down in places like Cuba. And when I go to Cuba, I will go if I, again, bat based on those parameters, if I go and I will walk up to that individual and say, Hey, is it okay? If I take your your image, I'm happy to compensate you. And some, you know, more often than not, if you're in a more destitute area, they will they will accept the compensation. Sometimes they'll say, No, it's okay. Go ahead and just take my picture. And sometimes they'll say, No, I don't want you to take my picture. And, and that needs to be respected. I mean, none of us want, all of us have our moments where we're not in our best place. And we don't necessarily want that plastered all over the world for others to see what whether we're homeless or not. I think it's treating people like they're in a fishbowl, and I think it's wrong. We're not animals at a zoo. So we shouldn't be treating other human beings like that. So when I'm in Cuba, or wherever else it is, or Africa, wherever I've been, I've definitely asked for permission and compensated people when they want it. Even when we did the COVID documentary, for example, we, we compensated the homeless people that we, we photographed or put on video, and we, we ask their permission before doing so in regards to backing up and how many images, I'm definitely one of the most prolific photographers out there, I think that that's, that's easily said, I think on a given month, I'll shoot, I don't know, 20 to 35,000 images. And those are all shot in RAW, like I said, the workflow is pulling them into Lightroom. And then from Lightroom, you call the images and you choose which ones that you want to forward, or or keep. And so if you really want to get techy, and get into the nerd stuff of it, I won't go too deep. But, you know, I'll create separate catalogs for each one of my trips, or shoots. And when I have those catalogs, then I'll go in and select the images that I want to keep. And those are the those are the images that I ended up, you know, developing and editing. And then I'll export those as JPEGs. And I'll put them up online for either sending them to the models that I worked with, or just for my own personal storage. And then and then I will export those catalogs out as an individual catalog of only the selected images. And so out of the 20 to 35 that let's say 20,000 images are taken a month, maybe 5000 are kept. And so and that's kept as a final catalog. And so that final catalog, has the thumbnail previews of all of those images, as well as the rods that are the route image or route information for that shot. And that's how I do it
I can imagine that there's so many groups that one to have you tell their story. I mean, can you give us a sense of what your email inflow is like and what kind of things you say As to and what you decide is not something you want to work on.
Wonderful question. First, I'd say to anyone listening to this, even you, Allison, I know, you and I spoke at the airport about doing some fun stuff. And I'd love to follow up on that as well. But in regards to my email, here's what I would tell anyone. And here's what I do. Unless you really feel that you can put your heart into it. Unless you really need the money. And you know, you and I'm not talking about documentary work, I'm talking about, you know, weddings or whatever else, if you need money to make it as a photographer, take the work that you can take, I'm fine with it. But in regards to some of these, you're talking about groups or other stuff. You know, it has to be something that I really feel like can do a good job at. And not from a technical standpoint, but from is my heart into it. Because if your hearts into it, you're going to sacrifice sleep, sacrifice, comfort, sacrifice everything, because you really want to tell that story. And so I mean, you know, back to 2020, all the riots and protests and everything else going on, I put myself in the middle of it. I went right into Portland, and I was there. I was getting chased. I got chased by by groups, I got chased by people, I got my car smashed by hockey sticks. Because I was filming people setting things on fire. I mean, it was, but I loved it. And I was getting gassed, I guess mass. I mean, the footage I have is insane from those events. But I truly believed in it believed in telling the story, regardless, again, of which side you take, just telling the story. And I think, from an email standpoint, I get Yeah, I get a lot of requests to do stuff. But you know, a lot of it is, you know, some of it is just money based. And again, all of us need to make money to keep going. But I tend to stay away from some of those, I tend to look for the projects that has something that can help support what I do from a financial financial standpoint. But it has to be something that I think, Hey, this is a really cool story, we really should tell this, I can really see myself digging into this and working 20 hour days to make sure that the story gets told. And so if anyone's trying to get me to tell the story, that's how to do it, just give me something that I can really see sink my teeth sink my teeth into.
Jason, what are some mistakes that you see photographers making? And then I'd like to hear a little bit more about the form factor of these rectangles, these bricks, that people you know, everyone, the Brownie camera was the camera and I guess that Kodak came out with generations ago and and that gave photography to the masses. And I think you'd have to mail in the box. And then they sent you back the camera with the film and it created a revolution. And we're at a similar revolution. Now that everyone has a smartphone, I think 80% of the, you know, it's like some ridiculous number, high percentage of society has it. But the form factor of holding these rectangles to take pictures. What is your take on that? If things are going towards the smartphones? Do you think they need to change in terms of how they how they fit in our hands? Or are we going to change and we're going to start taking photos, holding the rectangle and doing the selfies and holding the camera like vertical as opposed to horizontal.
We've already changed. We've already been conditioned to do this. And if you the biggest disrupter to how we hold our phones and how we actually utilize them from a content creation standpoint are it's two words tick tock, tick tock changed everything because it went from us. You know, we used to make fun of people for any one that filmed anything from a vertical standpoint. But now with tick tock and reels on Instagram, if you're not filming things vertically. Yes, I have some workarounds for it. And I do create rules and tiktoks now and I will use footage that I filmed horizontally, but there's, you have to understand photo or video editing to be able to utilize that footage. So yeah, I think we're already we've already been conditioned because everybody wants to have a viral video. Everybody wants to put their stuff up and and film it. And so yeah, we've already changed. I think the biggest change that needs to come from smartphones that are really rock, the whole photography world. The biggest change is they just got to get a bigger sensor in those in those phones. Once they get a bigger sensor and it's going to be it's going to perform a lot better from a low light performance standpoint, when they when they spit out huge megapixels. I'm not too worried about that because the more megapixels you cram on a small sensor, the worse it's going to perform in low light scenarios. And so the biggest change will truly Come when they get a bigger sensor inside of those phones, and that's when camera manufacturers that are already struggle even more.
What about all the glass that these DSLRs? And these mirrorless cameras have invested in creating? Like, are they smartphones don't have that glass. So are they going to be at a disadvantage, at some point, you know, are DSLRs and mirrorless going to be eliminated? Or does all that glass give the mirrorless and DSLRs an advantage that the smartphones will never have?
It definitely gives them an advantage. But look at the 13 Pro, there's three lenses crammed onto that. There's actually different lenses, there's a wide, there's an ultra wide, there's a macro lens. So you can already film and or take pics of these different types of genres of photography, with three different lenses just on your phone. That is something that camera manufacturers lens manufacturers have to really really think about. Are we ever going to be rid of the the lenses? No, I mean, you get an 85 1.4 lens, a 51, two, whatever it is, those lenses are just just ridiculously gorgeous. But here's the thing that I try to tell the photography world, when the world is full of tick tock and reels and Instagrams and all of the millennials and the younger generation from them, I don't even know what their name is. But when all of these younger generations are so conditioned to seeing things on, on and captured by a phone. When we post our beautiful 50 millimeter 1.2 shot, they don't care. And that's what I try to tell people. At the end of the day, you have to think of the end user, you can't tell the end user, well my shots better because it was shot at 1.2 aperture, well, if they don't care, then it doesn't matter. And if you're going to spend $2,500 on a on a 50 millimeter 1.2 lens, and nobody cares about it kind of makes you silly. And you have to really start to think about those things as a pro. There's already so few professional photographers left in the world, full time professional photographers, they are almost extinct. I'm one of the few ones out there. So if that's already the landscape, and and someone like me, has gone from using my Sony's to film all of my stuff, I don't shoot anything with my Sony's anymore from a film standpoint, as you everything with my phones, I own three phones for that purpose. And I'll set them up at different angles to film and our use of drones and our GoPros. So when people are thinking about these things, they really need to understand that the end user is what matters. And and yes, if you look at a 13 Pro, what they're doing, when are the creative video mode inside of the 13 Pro, for example, yes, it's just applying a blur, right? But when you look at the fact that you can choose which area you want to focus on, after you've already selected the footage, that's an enormous game changer for somebody who,
you know, last night I was watching the final finals of March Madness. And I you know, I don't watch a lot of basketball, but the shots of the coach, and I know it's a big stadium, but it to me it looked like it was a 1.2 lens, on on the camera, because everything was blurred out in terms of the fans and I usually don't see that in, in in sporting events. But But I took notice to that I don't know if you saw that. And you think that was the case. And I know it was in a big stadium. So so the fans were actually way back and they were step back a little bit different. But that's interesting. So you say a generation has been growing up where they don't they don't care about the blur, blur blur out, are there other ways to achieve it through computational photography? Not through aperture photography.
Yeah, I mean, again, I I'm a purist from the standpoint that if you can give me the option, all things being equal of using an 85 one for versus blur in, you know, with the phone, I'm going to choose the A 514 But here's the reality of it when I'm out and about doing my stuff and and even though I'm older than millennials, I really much I really do behave like a millennial not you know, from a standpoint of traveling and and I find myself more often than not shooting with my phone more and more and more just because it's constantly readily available. So I'm getting
shot. Jason, I read a study not too long ago that said Millennials are going to take 25,800 selfies and their lifetime and I'm and I'm wondering does that mean that they're self centered and they just want to look at the world through looking at them and they're not seeing the world aurora borealis or not seeing the rest of the world and is Is this unique to the millennial generation? What do you have any observations on that stat? Like, what what does that mean?
Well, it means again, I behave like a millennial, because I definitely take selfies. But I would say, I would say that we can say, and I definitely can make tons of jokes about millennials, everyone does. But the truth of the matter is, when it comes down to it, our generations, I don't even know X, Y, whatever, I don't even know what I am. But our generations, we would have done the same, let's be real, we just didn't have the technology to do it. That's, that's a fact. And so we could talk about how self centered they are. But the fact is, they're the first generation that actually had the ability to post selfies. And when you see everyone else in the world from celebrities, and everyone on down posting pictures, and this is what I'm doing, and they're sharing, of course, they're going to do it. And so to think otherwise, I think is selling them short, to be honest. And I don't think it's a matter of necessarily being self centered. It's just that's the way the world is at this point.
What do you think of Instagram? Do you love it hate? It is love hate? What's your, I take too many photos, and I don't edit enough to like, select down to a few. So I don't play the Instagram game. Do photographers need to be on Instagram? But what's your take on that?
Absolutely. Instagram definitely took over Facebook as the most important base for photographers. But and I said this many years ago, since Facebook bought Instagram, eventually Facebook will kill Instagram, and they are definitely doing that. But, you know, right now, the I mean, I hate to say this, but I mean, I Facebook stuff, but where I pour in the vast majority of my effort and time, definitely on Instagram, because that's, that's where it's at. I mean, it's an app built literally for sharing the visual medium. And so that's if you're a photographer, if you're not on Instagram, then good luck.
Hey, Jason, it's mark here. How you doing? Good Brother, how are you? Good. Um, yeah, I was curious about like, you're seeing a huge increase in AI, like some some of these images now are indistinguishable, like real people. Like, you know, you see a bunch of these sites that have replicated like, people, and almost nobody, no experts can tell the difference of what's real and what's not. Like, how big of a problem do you think that is going, you know, back to the realism, where people won't even be able to tell if it's a real image, whether it be marketing or storytelling, and it's manufactured by a computer.
Yeah, again, I think that you can thank people like James Cameron and stuff for stuff like this, because we just don't even know what's real anymore. And in fact, this is this is crept into the world of photography competition, where now for certain competitions, you have to actually submit the raw file to be able to prove that what you took was real. And so it's another reason that I tell photographers having a raw file, just for whatever reason, if you actually need to prove that what you took was, was real then shooting in raw is is definitely the way to go. Because if you shoot in a JPEG, people will always assume that it was manufactured. So if you shoot and I understand, like, Mark, you said, with the NFL 20 frames a second, I get it, trust me, I get it. But that's a very, very, very unique circumstance. So I just think for most people shooting in raw for that reason, it's also better, but I definitely think we're, it's one of the reasons why, even at the TED talk, I said that our world is so upside down is we really don't know what to do, because we don't know what's true out there.
And that's a facing, we're finding there's a war going on in the Ukraine. And, you know, Vietnam, I think they said that was the first televised war. But even in Vietnam, people use photography, they had to send their film in to be developed. So it wasn't instantaneous, but now we have the ability to do instantaneous stuff. What do you think of war photography? You know, we hear some of the war photographers are losing their life, being in harm's way. What do you think of the role of war photography? I know you've been in situations where there's tear gas and, and, you know, gunshots? Maybe talk a little bit about that, because that's a big genre.
No, I think war photography is one of the most important types of photography that could possibly that could possibly be done by by our colleagues, I would love to be able to, like I said earlier, I'd love to be able to get over to Ukraine and do that. Even going back to, you know, I was in Poland, I went and documented Auschwitz, you know, clearly now, not, you know, 70 years, but I think war photography is an incredibly important and it's, it goes to show you too, that many people may not know this, but the war photography done at Gettysburg, right during the Civil War, for example, it's well known to historians that the photographers actually moved the bodies to tell a better story, which so they people have been faking stuff for 150 years. And so that's why I referenced earlier with Bucha. And now the Russians are claiming that Ukraine is staging it. And Ukraine's claiming that Russia left all these 400 bodies behind in the streets, and so on and so forth. That's why think objective for photographers are vital to be able to just show this is an from a very raw real standpoint, this is what's happening. Because, again, we don't know what's real, even even sitting here myself, someone who consumes the news. I don't know how much of what I'm hearing is true about Ukraine. You, you know, you hope that what you're hearing is true. But nowadays, all of us just just trust the media so much. I mean, there's such a distrust for the media, that it's hard to know what's true.
JSON drones and NF T's. Those are two topics, I'd like to hear your your thoughts on. How are you using drones? And NF T's? What do you think the future of photography is, you know, are NF, Ts, a way to help support photographers and make a living, I do get the feeling that as technology becomes cheaper, and anyone can document, the way to make money as a photographer is less than less than a generation ago. But maybe there are other ways to do it. And I know you've been incredibly entrepreneurial in what you do. So curious on your thoughts on that? Oh, and another thing you mentioned Instagram, I do think clubhouse and social audio is sort of the anti Instagram because it's not about images. It's all about audio. And so in some ways, I think the rise of social audio is that people are exhausted of the lives being told to images on Facebook and Instagram. And they want an alternative. I don't know if you believe that. But that's sort of an observation I've come to believe.
No, I definitely think that mediums such as you know, clubhouse are truly refreshing from the standpoint that you can just sit here and listen to people and ask questions and you know, talk about what's what, and really kind of get to know people from a different level and have some real honest conversations versus everything being so edited and edited and scripted. From from an entrepreneurial standpoint, I just believe that there will always be a small segment of professional photographers, but it's going to become so you. I mean, as we know, you know, newspaper staffs, sports, illustrated, all of them cut all of the photography teams in over the last five, whatever years, and so it's just something that we have to constantly think about. And you have to be able to move yourself within different genres to be able to be a full time photographer, I think. I always tell photographers, if you aren't willing to shoot weddings, then you really don't want to be a photographer. Because you know, that's what pays. We'll get to a day where people are taking cell phone pics that are almost the same quality as as somebody taking a picture with a traditional camera. It very well could. I think one of the biggest, one of the biggest blocks currently existing or obstacles is that, you know, cell phones cannot strobe they can't, you know, FIRE FLASH. But that will change. I fully expect that to change within the next one to two years, to be honest. And so you'll be able to set up your big lights and trigger with your phone, which will be another big game changer. So I mean, definitely I think that that's that's changing from an NF T standpoint.
Yeah. So Jason may maybe do drones first and then then go to NF TS because I think, you know, there's hardware involved. And you know a lot about the hardware, maybe talking about the range of drones that are and how you use them. I was in Iceland not so long ago. And it was we went in this big this big truck and there's only like three of them in the country. And we went to the back area where they actually filmed game of some of Game of Thrones. And the guy who drove us there said, Oh, they had this really, really, really expensive drone to film. And there was a lot of like lead in one of the big rocks and the drone wasn't able to get its GPS and it's like $40,000 drone ended its life by smash into some mountainside. So that made me chuckle. But I always felt bad for the drone, but may talk about drones, who, you know, they've come a long way, wherever they come from, where are they going? You know, how often do you use them? Are you taking photos? And there's a drone around you? Or do you do when you do drones? Are you just 100%? Focused on the drone? Yeah, drone us?
Drone, you Yeah, I absolutely am. 100% in love with drones. You can use drones for a variety of reasons. If your herb vaccine. I'll just say this, if this wasn't me, but you know, urbex, yours will put a drone in the air to look for cops or security to see. And then they'll watch their phone.
Those of us who don't know what that term means, enlighten us.
Yeah, or vaccine is urban exploring. And so they'll put up a drone in the air, your eyes in the sky, it's really insane. Because you can see if, for whatever reason, you have to be careful of someone coming to see you. So that's going into a band that's going into places that, you know, are most more often than not not the best place. So I know guys will do it for that purpose. I love drones for all of my work. And drone is never, I always have a drone with me. Always I own two drones to the DJI drones, I own the mat, the Mavic mini two and I own the air Pro two, the Mavic mini two I love because you're you know, you have to have an FAA license to fly drones unless you do the Mavic mini two because it's under the weight limit. And so I've gotten away with murder with that I was up in Alaska, you know, on the ice road trucker highway, where it's insane for anyone to go. But yes, I went and you know, I'm filming the oil pipeline, and the oil security comes over which up there they are the law and asked me what I'm doing and wanting to bust me because I'm flying a drone around the oil pipelines. And I know, this is the Mavic mini to this, I don't need a license for this. They had to let me go, which was awesome. So I wasn't doing anything bad. I was just filming the environment. But I mean, the point is, and I'll use drones for stills, like the air ProTour 48 megapixel stills. So I was in Ecuador, and there's this abandoned university that I shot in the middle of the Amazon, it's absolutely gorgeous. And being able to, you know, it changes everything from a perspective of what we can take pictures of now, because you know, now we don't have to be in a helicopter. I was in Australia 15 years ago, 10 years ago, something like that. The Great Barrier Reef and I was in an actual helicopter, trying to take pictures with my DSLR. And the pictures I could get with a drone are 10 times better than they are in an actual helicopter. Because you can pause it you can it can pause in the air stop wherever you want. I mean, it's really difficult to do all that stuff with just a traditional helicopter. And so the range on them is pretty fantastic. You can take them a lot. And you know, you said that guy who crashed the drone, I feel bad. I mean, I've lost drones in the Amazon River, I've lost drones to the side of mountains or buildings. If you know I fly drones so much that I'll I'll lose at least one to two to three drones a year easy. And so one recommendation is to make sure that when you're filming film to where it's backing up on your phone as you're filming, so not if but when the drone goes into the water or just evaporates. You have some footage on your phone
and FTS light like you know, I feel like the web three NF ts a really captured the imagination. Is it hype? Is it real? Are you involved in it? What do you make of it?
I am not involved in NF TS from the standpoint I don't have any NF T's Mark Mark would educate me on that really quick but
Mark like when all of Jason's work be turned into NF Ts and, and that that may be a direction he's gonna go like he may not now, but would you advise him as his financial friend?
Yeah, I mean, it's really the first. You know, if you think about music, what's happened, you know, in the Apple Music and the streaming like the artists have basically been nixed from having any control of their, their work and ownership and it's a chance for an artist to publish their catalogs or anything that they want. Control it and then as that, that NFT gets either owned or traded, it's a chance for an artist to receive royalties like over and over and over. Whereas, you know, the conventional environment and photography has been stock where, you know, you put something on the stock side and you sell it and but it can be replicated and kind of clone so I think I think NF T's have a big place for photography's and For Jason's work, but it is a lot of work to create you know, an NFT it's not like super easy right now I think over time as it becomes very similar to posting like an Instagram post, it will be the predominant way that people will get compensated for their creative artwork.
And I'm definitely a believer in in anything that is forward looking. So I definitely believe that my work will become NF T's and I definitely believe that I'll become part of that environment. But like Mark said, it's just with as busy as I am, I haven't actually dug into the time to make that a reality. But I definitely believe it's the future.
So I see these people walking around with these little Leica cameras and they, they feel very, they look very self satisfied. Is there anything? What's that?
They are self satisfied?
Like, like, Is there is there anything to it like it? Yeah, I
look, I don't begrudge anyone who wants to take pictures for their own edification. But you know, you buy a like a camera because you have way too much money to spend. And you like to show off that you're shooting like a camera. I mean, they don't do anything from an autofocus standpoint. They are exorbitantly expensive in comparison to you know, other Sony Nikon canon Fuji. And again, if somebody's listening to this, and they're big into Leica, but the market for that is so tiny. I think that again like it cameras just boiled down to your rich doctor or lawyer or dentist and you want something different. And you don't want to look like every other Joe, Joe Blow out there who has a Sony. And so you get a Leica
M how different is the are the mirrorless cameras, the Sony, the canon and the Nikon? Are they converging? Where they're pretty similar? Or is there a difference?
There used to be a huge difference between them. Sony clearly led the way with mirrorless cameras, Canon caught up to a great extent with especially with their glass, I love the Canon glass for their mirrorless system. It is ridiculously beautiful. I mean, it's gorgeous. Nikon like always are trailing behind, they came out with the Z nine and other cameras that are really pushing the envelope for them. But again, I think Nikon still lacks in the glass range from a mirrorless perspective. But are they catching up? Yes, the biggest differentiating factor between Sony and Canon used to be focused. And the best part of a Sony camera was its ability to do Eye Autofocus and facial recognition and things of that nature. But at this point, you know, the Canon is very much improved. Sony still has an edge, but but they've really, really worked to close the gap.
And the advantage of mirrorless is the glass is closer to the sensor, the sensor doesn't have a doesn't have a shutter that goes up and down. It's kind of like an iPhone, like, like talk about what are the advantages of, of mirrorless and wire DSLR still around? Is it because they're cheaper? And is it that their legacy are they going to be eliminated?
DSLRs when people say they're around, they're really not. Not from people who are DSLRs around just like there's old, you know, someone's gonna get angry at this, but I'm just like, there's old cars around. I mean, clearly, there's a lot of stock of of DSLRs but people are not going out and saying you know, I'm gonna go buy a new DSLR today, that's just not happening. The reason that there's the big shift in just removing that mirror is the technological advances and really what it really boiled down to was the focus the foot, the cameras most important function, and this is why, you know, I'm gonna go back to you know why, again, if somebody isn't like us, they love it, that's fine, but that's why I would never shoot it like that because to me, I want to I want my camera to help me create great shots. And so if you're someone who has all all day to be able to sit there and manually focus that's fine. But the purpose of a camera for me and for a lot of photographers is to acquire great focus and so what a mirrorless camera enables you to do versus SLR are things like that Eye Autofocus and it does Eye Autofocus and what their iterations that they're coming out with now. Why autofocus bird autofocus, and you know when you're shooting at, it used to be that you couldn't really shoot at really wide apertures, because so much of the image is out of focus. And so you would really miss the focus being on the eye when you're shooting a living subject. And when you do that, if you're really into photography, you're Shot is no good. And so the advantage of a mirrorless camera, especially the the current generations now is they acquire such great focus. And they do it so quickly. And that's one of the biggest advantages they have over a DSLR. And it's why DSLRs I said this nine years ago when I released my tanneries by Nikon, and, and all of those reasons came true. And you know, just from the focus to focus peaking to, to where it can help you see if you're over exposing an image or not, and so on and so forth. I mean, there's so many things that you can do. And now things that are commonplace, you know, from transferring images from your, your phone to your camera, you couldn't do that with DSLRs. And, and when DSLRs even to this day, try and do it, it's laughable, it's still clunky, it's still slow, it still doesn't work nearly nearly as as seamlessly as it does with a mirrorless camera. And so that's why the vast majority of the market is now mirrorless.
Great, you guys, this is Imagination in Action. We're just getting started here. We're Jason, an influencer and photographer. He's a legend in Mark in my mind, we love his work. He's an inspiration. And he's he's he's let he's telling us how he does it. And if anyone wants to be like Michael Jordan, good luck. If anyone wants to be like, Jason, this is the show to figure out how to do it. And Imagination in Action, we have Imaginators. And the idea is to have people share their imagination and and show how they're making action happen, how they're driving the world. Alison, welcome. Your your your question.
Jason, this is so fascinating. And I will admit, you've got such a rich background, that there's just infinite questions that popped to mind. And I know we're gonna want to invite the audience in also. But I want to go back to some of the earlier comments you had about, you know, climbing the the waste dumps in Ethiopia or wearing gas masks in the protest, but also being filmed with some of the most beautiful models in the world. It occurs to me that photography is sort of a way for you to totally immerse yourself in the midst of what it means to be human today. And maybe this is way too big an unfair question to ask on a random evening, but I'm just fascinated what you've taken away from your crash course in humanity. I mean, do you have good days and bad days? Do you feel? I guess I really would just love to hear your thoughts on that.
Yeah, that's, that's a great question. And I think first and foremost, I tell people that I started photography, and I built the business the way that I built it based on the life that I wanted to live. And I think if more people did that with their life decisions, they would be far happier. So I could be making like, if I sat down with Mark, and talked about money, he would tell me 10 ways that I could be making more money as a business. And I would tell them, probably nine of them I don't want to do, because it would take me away from doing the things that I love. And so I, like you said, i going from the trash dumps in Ethiopia, to shooting with beautiful models. I love every single aspect of life. I'm someone who absolutely loves life. And I think when you talk about what's my biggest takeaway from my crash course, in humanity, I think the vast we're not as different as people think. Whether you're black, you're white, you're Brown. I think most people want to live a good life and to have other people not mess up their lives. I think most people whether whatever the nationality is, whatever the the race is, people just want to to be decent. And they want people to treat them decently. And so whether I'm in people something that people will say to me as Jason, it's amazing. When I watch you go to places you connect with people, even if you don't speak the language. And I think it's because of the energy and the and the feeling that you put off, how are you helping people feel something, and we live in a world that lacks so much feeling and we were so cold so many times? That it really helps. It's it's a struggle to live? Do I have hard days? Absolutely. I mean, the stuff you guys don't see on cameras, when the cameras fall and break when the drones go into the water. And that's why I try to share as many of those failures as I can too, because I want people to not see this as some big, luxurious, glamorous life. There's aspects of my life that are like that, but there are really sucky days there's days. I mean, I was filming the protests in North Carolina, I got arrested and I got put in jail during COVID. And I'm sitting there in a drunk tank during COVID This is This is April of 2020. And when COVID Just everybody's terrified and I'm sitting there in a drunk tank or whatever the cell is. I've never been arrested. I don't even know how to call I I'm talking to these guys. And I'm like, How do I get out of here? And they all laughed. I'm serious. How do I get out of here? And then like you got to call a bail bondsman. I don't know any bail bondsman. And so I think what someone asked me when I got out of there, what was your biggest thought when you went into that prison? Jason are not a prison is the detention center. I said, my biggest regret is I couldn't film it. Because that is, to me, the essence of life, the essence of life is truly experience. I want to experience every single aspect of life that this world has to offer. And that's why no matter what situation I'm in, whether it's a positive or a negative, I view it as something I can learn from, and I can grow from, and I can tell that story to the rest of the world. And that is why I love what I do.
Hey, I would I would say, as a friend to Jason, if there's one word I could apply to you as curious. You just have a very curious mind. And you just need to know the why. And I think that's one of your drivers that's been helpful to make you successful your whole career?
Absolutely. I mean, my I always, no matter what the situation is, it's, it's either a why or why not? Why can't I do this? Or if someone says, and my assistants have said this over the year, it's really cute. They'll say, Hey, can we try this? I'll always say, sure. We got to try it at least. So when it comes to food, I'm the kind of person who thinks you should at least try everything once. And when it comes to life, I kind of feel the same way as long as my rule is very simple, as long as you're not hurting anyone else with what you're doing. And so very much a libertarian from that kind of a perspective. And so definitely Mark I, my mom would say the same thing. I drove me crazy when I was young, because I Why is the sky blue? Because that's the way God made it. Well, why God made it blue. I mean, everything was like that. Everything was curiosity. I love that nature of life.
Jason, I have to say I think you've probably met some other why kids but John surely was one. I think I was one. Probably a lot of us who get you know, drawn to these. These amazing sessions on clubhouse have that and it's so fantastic. I when I guess I'd love to know. Have you ever gotten over your head? I'm so glad you got out of the North Carolina drunk tank, but has that? Has that philosophy of life? Ever gotten you into places that you thought you'd never get out? Of?
Yeah, I mean, I've I've had some, some real close calls. You know, I was in Ethiopia. And I went to film and they started throwing huge boulders, not boulders, but huge rocks at us. I mean rocks. And I try to classify that because, you know, someone thinks of a rock that someone's gonna throw and they think of like something that will fit easily in the palm of your hand. No, they were throwing rocks that took two hands to throw. And, and luckily, it didn't hit one of us in the head. I hit one of the cameras and destroyed it. But situations like that, definitely from getting arrested to having your life in danger. Guns pulled on you. Like I said at the protests. I was. I mean, they they assaulted me. They assaulted my car. They opened up my car while I was driving it. They they chased me in a huge truck. I have all this on film. So even in the middle of that I'm trying to film it. Like, God tell story. But have Yeah, absolutely. There's times where you sit back, you're like, holy crap, that that was That was intense. That was That was brutal. But anyone who's been around me knows that as soon as I'm feeling that, within about 15 to 30 seconds, a smile is going to creep onto my face because I'm gonna be like, that was cool. And even if it's me getting hit or punched or whatever it may be, it's a it's not that you enjoy it, but it's that you experienced something. So as long as you can live through it, I think that it's it's a worthwhile venture
What do you predict in the next 510 years? What are the new features? Is there going to use LIDAR UVC at night and and you have boxes that eyeballs that you can't see with your human eye? Is it going to be 100 megapixels? You know, you can take a picture of of the Super Bowl and have in a wide angle and have resolution of everyone there. Is there going to be TiVo for life. You know, kind of like The Truman Show. You can have a drone following you around and and getting footage and you can kind of zoom in on any aspect of it. What do you think we're gonna go you know, from from what you see right now.
Well, everything that you mentioned boils down to one thing I think we as human beings have lost pretty much all all of our Public privacy. So that's something that we're going to clash over as societies as we progress because, you know, Europe already tried to do with GDPR. And for those who don't know, that's Europe's, you know, they find you if you're posting pictures of somebody without their permission, and you have to have their written permission. But that's very, that's still very hard to, to enforce, if you're Europe. Secondly, I think that yeah, I think that that's definitely the way life is going to trend and the only thing holding back these huge resolution, you know, answers are, excuse me, you know, machines, whether it's a drone or camera or whatever else, is, we just have to make sure that the computers and the hard drives catch up, to be able to handle those files in a way that it's not cumbersome. But that's definitely happening as well. And so yeah, I think that, when you talk about the Super Bowl, you know, you may think that you're gonna go there with your buddy or just a normal football game, or whatever it may be. And think that nobody knows you're there, like you tell your girlfriend or whatever that you're in, or you're just going out to the grocery store, but then you, you know, you go to the bar or whatever else, I think that it's going to be kind of scary, just how much we are out there. And I think people aren't ready for that. And it's, it's, it's going to be pretty crazy. There was a show with Jim Caviezel or something a number of years ago, where they showed what NSA was tracking, and it was all make believe, but, you know, with facial recognition and seeing where people are and
what the point of interest or something. Yeah,
yeah, exactly. And I think that that's kind of what we're looking at. If you go over to England, for example, what their CCT right
now on Snapchat, my kids can see where all their friends are, you know,
I know. And that's the crazy part, it's so as much as we love knowing where everyone is and what everyone's doing, we will hit a point where we're like, Whoa, I don't want everyone knowing. And not necessarily because you're doing anything bad. It's just, I don't need people knowing what I'm doing even me. And I'm not saying I'm some big celebrity, because I'm not. But even me, I don't tell people when I travel to places, because people show up at the hotel, people have gotten into my cars. I've had stalkers, I've had people who, oh, my gosh, I love your work. And they'll find out what hotel I'm staying at. And they'll literally sit in the lobby waiting for me to come in. And while I appreciate that support, and it's awesome. Sometimes more than 99% of the time, I'm walking into a hotel, I have mud all over me. I'm exhausted, I'm barely scraping into the hotel. The last thing I want to do is back to privacy. Have somebody look at me and post a picture of me looking like I just crawled out of, you know, hell I want my privacy is respected as well. And so yeah, I think that it's it's insane the way the world is moving. And I, like I said at the TED talk, I really believe that. We haven't really grasped how fast it's changing and the consequences of all of it.
Can you tell us about the classes you offer? And what is what has worked? What are people demanding? And encore? Which ones flopped? And where do you think your courses are going? Because I feel like, you know, a big part of you is giving is creating these opportunities for people to get better? And how do you construct these classes? What are the things that you're trying to solve for? How are you able to make money on them?
Great question. First, when it comes to the classes, this is a unique time for me in particular because well I think for anyone that would be in my, my my genre of being someone who teaches other photographers, but coming out of COVID because we've really gone with two years where travel was very difficult, as we all know. And that's really part and parcel of my business traveling to other parts of the world and the US to teach other photographers how to get better. So I've just within the last two to three weeks launched my first schedule in, you know, two and a half years. And I've only done that through July through the end of June because I have to wait for other travel restrictions around the world to clear so I'm able to, you know, go to these places and do these workshops without masks and so on and so forth. So that that clearly has been a big struggle for me and anybody else who's an educator in the world of photography over the last couple of years. In regards to the types of stuff I offer I offer, I'm doing a lighting tour with the company RHODOLITE that that sponsors me, where we're teaching people how to use lighting in a better way. That's all around the US. I'm doing Photowalks which is like a hands on training mini mini workshop. And then I do the full on workshops where you spend two or three days with me and I really teach you how to become a better photographer and I think something that separates my workshops versus maybe some others out there as I don't do a ton of shooting. I'm there to really help you critique your work and help you move and something I always tell photographers when they come to one of my workshops is it If your goal should be to move two or three pegs up the ladder, not, you're not going to go from a one to a 10, if you're a four, you should try to become a six, if you're an eight, you should try to get a nine. It's about progress, and working on the things that you really struggle with. And so when it comes to photography, and how I teach it, that's really what I do. And I spoke earlier about setting up my business for the life that I wanted to live, to be honest with you, I love doing client work. But I love teaching photographers even more, because I get to go to these exotic places, shoot beautiful models, and just hanging around with photographers. It's awesome. And I thoroughly enjoy it. And so some of the stuff that the photographer's really loves when I do the excursions like when I took groups down to Cuba, it's one of the reasons I'm going to be going back to Ecuador, this month is because what I'm doing is I'm setting up the logistics to be able to take a group down to the Amazon. So I kind of figure out all the bumps and bruises and potential obstacles ahead of time and then take a group down there, so they don't have to experience that. And they can experience the Amazon without all of the stuff I went through prior to it. You know, some of the workshops that were more difficult for others to grab onto, I had photographers say to me, we'd love for you to do in a really advanced workshop. Well, the problem is, I would do, I would schedule one or two really advanced lighting workshops, or posing workshops, or whatever it may be. And then it would scare photographers like Oh, it's too advanced for me, I won't be able to do it. So I think if anything were to quote unquote, flop it would be the advanced ones because of that reason. But I think the other thing that I should say is that what photographers need to learn about success and just anybody is so much of success is about confidence, and communication and your ability to use your mouth to move everything else that you want to do in your life. And if you can't communicate well, it's going to be very difficult for you to be successful in any genre or any field to be honest with you. And so communication has been a big piece to what I do. And so when I do teach photographers how to shoot, they're surprised how much time I spend on that communication piece, because it's almost comical to put, usually my my workshops are about, if there's 10 people there, there's seven men and three women, right, the women great communicators, the dudes can barely speak, especially when you put a beautiful girl in front of them, it's really funny to watch to be honest. And teaching them that comfort level of speaking in a very respectful manner, but also in a way that makes people feel good. And I tell photographers, your job is to inject energy into your subject. Because if you can't put energy into your subject, your shots not going to be very good. And so that's really kind of what breaks down how I do my workshops. And and I think the last thing I'll say is I just want photographers to come away with better confidence from from having attended one of my events, and I wanted to feel good. Now we're told so often when we post our shots, we either have one or two things people tell us their shots are amazing when they're not. And that's where self awareness needs to kick in. For be people tell us how horrible we are. And I think there's a good mix, there's a good, you know, right in the middle is a good way to hey, here's what you need to work on. But here's what you're doing great. And that's what I do at my workshops.
Great, Allison, I have like a zillion other questions. But do you want to throw a few in?
I do. I will admit. I'm kind of curious. In today's world, are there photographers or videographers, who you really admire in terms of their ability to tell a story in a totally unique or different way? I mean, who do you sort of look to these days that you find broaden your own sense of techniques?
Great question. When I was, quote, unquote, growing up in the world of photography, I really looked up to Jerry Jonas. And I really looked up to a photographer named Gary vont. They're both wedding photographers, and very successful in their own right. And they're they are great storytellers. And they really use lightyear Vaughn especially used a lot of cinematic aspects to his work. And he used wider angle photography, and I really loved what he did. And he's just, he, his editing is beautiful. I will admit that I don't really follow other photographers at this point. And that's not out of arrogance. I don't follow others because I don't want my work to be derivative. I don't want to feel like I have copied someone. And that's something that's very big for me and you have to be careful of it in this world. I mean, how many times have we listened to songs and it sounds like 20 other million songs that we've heard and so I don't want my photography to be like that. And so I really, to be candid, stay away from that at that point, this point, but just for that reason.
Alison, do you want me to we also want to welcome people in the room If they want to come up on stage and ask a question, Allison, do you have another question? Or do we want to go to Todd? Or should I?
Let's go to Todd and then I'll jump in.
Todd, we love you, you come to so many of our shows, and you always ask the best questions. Well, you got.
Oh, well, thanks, John. That's very complimentary. Yeah, thanks, Jason. It's great to really learning a lot. It's been strictly amateur photographer over the years. But you know, John started out talking about the depth of field of Friday, right, the bokeh effect, and you can just do that digitally or have a big, big, big lens. What about some of the other things, you think they'll all just become a digital effect? Like, I spent a lot of very early mornings and late evenings cold high up in the mountains, getting that mountain blade effect, you know, that magical moment around sunrise or sunset? Beautiful? Is that another one that they'll eventually just be? You know, mountain light buttons push? Or do you think really, sometimes, you've got to be in the right environment at the right moments with the right lighting?
Great question. Thanks for being here, Todd. Couple of things, I would say is a, I think it depends on on you, as as a creator. I personally don't get the same. Personal I don't get the same edification and gratification of a composite image. And I know there's composite photographers out there. And they always hate it when I say stuff like this. But like when you see this perfect image in the Milky Way, is right in the middle of a road, and it's perfect. And it's in the middle of a canyon, you're like, Oh, come on, guys. That's not the way the universe works. I personally don't get the same satisfaction out of faking it. So for me, personally, I understand what you're saying. I've been at the Bonneville Salt Flats, sitting there, miserable, waiting for sunrise or waiting for a shot. I think if you're a pure, love those things. But also keep in mind, if you're from making a living standpoint, you know, the person's image, and it's all fake, but it still looks beautiful. They're putting out a lot less money and resources and effort to produce an image that actually uses an NFT or sell a stock photo or each time our friend. What may take you 1000s of dollars from tourism, travel and everything else to do. And before you know it, they're making money. So I think it depends on why you're doing it. But do I expect it? Yeah, I mean, even if you look at something like Luminar, you can fake bokeh, she can raise your fake sunsets, you can fake everything you can, you can manipulate and move sunrays on everything in the image. You can create rim light everything just inside of a software program. And yeah, it's a little defeating the honest. But to me, at the end of the day ain't nothing like the real thing. So I think if you are like minded, then you're still gonna get up for that sun. Sunrise shot. Miserable and cold.
Yeah, maybe maybe the activities reward itself. But I saw I talked to a guy at an art fair who had gotten the Milky Way fireflies and mountain background all balance, and I just assumed as fate, how could you get those three things like ballots, but then I talked about what he done. And I was totally convinced that it was a real shot afterwards. Maybe that personal contact becomes important for the authenticity and to have, you know the shared experience of what he had to go through to get fireflies the Milky Way. And mountain outlines.
There is left ended world for a photographer, if you're really a photographer and not a graphic designer, there's a big difference. If you're a photographer, there is no feeling in the world that makes you feel incredible. Like when you know you got the shot of a lifetime. And that moment is worth it worth its weight in gold, whatever you paid, whatever you did, that moment is worth its weight in gold and you absolutely love it. I was in Africa, searching, searching and searching for a place to shoot lions and my assistant and I ran up rent. Well be careful here. But we went on a road you probably weren't supposed to go on wherever we were I'm not gonna say we went on a road you weren't supposed to go on. And we found a pride of lions and there are about 40 of them. And I parked the Jeep, literally, like you'd see on National Geographic probably even closer to be honest. We're about maybe 15 feet from this enormous light of pride of lions. And I turn to her at the time when I whispered because you know, you're, it's like this moment is so huge. And you're like, do you understand how amazing this is? She's like I do I do. And I think that no matter what you can design on your computer. You'll never, ever, ever replicate that moment. And I think that if you're a real if somebody who loves photography then nothing will ever replace the real thing.
Mark And Sam and BT let's, let's get questions, we're going to stack them. So Jason maybe have a pen and paper to write on. Because you can answer the questions in any which order you want. And we'll do this, you know, also occurs to me that iPhone and Android are such, you know, they've such evolved operating systems. Why don't these, these mirrorless cameras use those operating systems? Why? Why are they clinging to their own proprietary software? I wonder if that's something that's going to change in the near future? Mark? What's your question? And thanks for joining the show.
Sir, actually, I can also help answer the question you just asked. I happen to work for one of the manufacturers. And it's basically because they don't have the ability to sell on volume like a cell phone does. And the licensing fees involved would be extraordinary, or the court fees would be extraordinary. They just can't afford to work with Android or iPhone OS just yet. Although I think the camera manufacturers are going to be forced into it one way or the other. Jason knows me well enough to know half a dozen questions. But the only the question that I would have is,
by the way, by the way, Mark, Mark is incredibly intelligent in the world of photography as well, this man is like the Yoda of of lenses and stuff. So if you guys, this guy knows his stuff.
Mark, I use the Tamron lens throughout my journey. So I, I have deep respect for you, I just looked up your background.
The fun thing about my company is that you've probably used a Tamron lens without knowing it, we make a lot of lenses that don't see Tamron on them. The background party of the photo industry is a lot bigger than people think. The question I'll actually ask for Jason and a little bit to post to the room. Just discussing journalism. And the question of belief in media and the faith in media and faith in the quote unquote reality reported by the images that we see something that gets kicked around a lot when too many photographers are at bars, drinking too much whiskey is the question of what what would the public think about a photo journalistic rule where especially for Open Media associations, like White House press pool AP things of that nature, where the camera would have to be set to a position where the image is pixel locked, and cannot be adjusted in any form? Even with a code so that the shot stays as it is exactly as shot? From camera to FTP site to to the to the world, would that be an infringement on rights? Or would that be something that would actually secure a better face and what we do?
That's a freakin awesome question there.
You know, Jason, what, why don't you? Why don't you have a dialogue with Mark? You know, Mark, why don't you Why don't you ask Mark a question. You know, given that he's a pillar in your field.
Oh, Mark, and I talked quite a bit. Mark, I've, I'll leave that alone. But no, Mark, I think Brother, just to be honest with you, I think that if I was in the White House, press pool, or if I was, you know, I to be honest with you as somebody who is so independent. And so I don't want people telling me what to do. And I want my freedom and all that jazz. I'm actually proponent of that if you're going to be somebody who purports to tell the truth through imagery, then I think that you would be okay with having that having that pixel or whatever else you're talking about, because otherwise, or again, people are putting out information that's false. And that's people don't understand how detrimental it is when we're getting this false information. And then we make assumptions. And we make decisions based upon this false information. And that's so detrimental to our society as a whole that I think yeah, there should be some, some instruments in place to make sure that people cannot manipulate the truth.
Oh, that's literally the question I had. I was really enjoying that aspect of the conversation. It's good to see you, Jake. Good to see you too, brother.
Jason, before we go to Sam and BT. Jason, do you have a question for Mark given you know, his role is that he's the Yoda in your industry.
Gosh, the questions for Mark I've pummeled him with questions even today but when I all I can tell the listening audiences if you want to know anything in the world about lenses, talk to mark it. He's just just such a. I met Mark. When I was a Sony artist. You worked with Sony so many years back, and it's been a fun ride ever since. But do I have any particular questions for him? No, because we, we get the chance to talk quite a bit.
Great. Mark, do you have another question for Jason or you want to keep listening?
This is Mark s. I have a question for Jason. Yep. Bring it. Yeah. So Jason, what's, um, what's the importance of like, partnerships, like, I know, you have an affiliation, and do a lot of work with rotolight. Sony, like, from your vantage point, like, how important is professional partnerships? You know, I know the gear is expensive. And, you know, my kit just for the NFL, is, I don't know, $22,000. But, like, as a as a budding photographer, or anybody starting off or professional, like, how important is it to get some kind of a corporate partnership, affiliation.
It's important, but but but photographers also need to be careful, because the truth of the matter is that as sales for camera companies have continued to diminish, because there was a uptick with Sony for a while during the mirrorless wave. But we all knew that eventually that would subside, because let's face it, I mean, there's, there's, there's only so much market penetration you can do before you hit, you know, capacity. And so, you know, even the opportunities as somebody who's a Sony shooter, or like a Sony artisan, or not the Canon explorer of LiDAR, and Nikon ambassador, and there's only like 20, or 30 of those photographers, for each respective brand around the world. And what many people don't know, oh, Sony gave you millions guys, Sony, Sony Nikon canon, they give you like five to $6,000 a year a year. That's your stipend. That's it. So while that may seem like a lot, and somebody listening to this could say, oh, wow, I would love to have that. When you're at the level where you're really producing a lot of incredible content, and selling these companies. It's really not an equitable partnership at that point, because they're using your social media to sell their products, and you're creating free commercials for them. And so you have to be very careful that when you're doing this, all of us want those big brand names behind us because it makes us feel more important. But at the end of the day, it's not really fair to the photographers, other industries, musicians, actors, other artistic endeavors, they have figured out the roadmap for the actual talent to get paid photographers still haven't really figured this out. And so any of the brands that I currently work with, I only currently work with them, because I have made sure that the financial end of it made sense for me. And if it doesn't, then I don't do it. So we have to, we have to be very careful on what we take that as, quote, unquote, exposure. The truth of the matter is, if you're out there listening to this, if you work on your social media, and you work on your own brand, look at what athletes are doing. athletes don't even care if they if they're a Laker, or if they're Celtic or whatever else, they work on their own personal brand. And so you need to think about that as you're branding yourself. And that's what I've always done. I had a brand before Sony and I had a brand after Sony. And people need to think about that when they're building. And don't ever become so much a part of your brand, that you lose your own identity. Because if you take the assumption, and if you make the assumption and then take it that you need to be able to exist without this brand, then you're going to be healthy. But if you can only coexist with that brands help, then if and when the brand doesn't want you and when the brand fails, which they do, you're done. So partnerships are awesome. Just make sure that you're always working on yourself at the same time and make sure that you devote more of your time and energy and more higher percentage of that to yourself than you do to your partnerships. That way you can always make sure that you are a healthy brand.
Great Sam and Beatty. Love to hear from you. Sam, do you have a question?
Yeah, just a quick question. I love Mark's question, by the way. Mark, thank you for that earlier and the on a different front. Apple uses however many different images to produce the image that the final image is do expect that that type of sort of computerized image taking or is it already been used in Sony and canon and the others or Is that likely to work? Or would you think that that is actually deceitful way of producing a better image?
You mean like stacking the images like putting Exactly, exactly. Well, I don't necessarily think that's deceitful if your as long as the content you're shooting is, is real. I don't think that that's deceitful just as long as you know You're not digitally adding stuff after the fact. Like, I think what's his name? Steve McCurry, you know, he's famous photojournalist, he got in trouble, because he would take pictures of people out in the world, but then he would remove things. And, you know, and I understand why he did it because you remove things because once you remove, remove it easier to focus on your subject, but at the same time, that wasn't real. And you presented it as real. I think that, that that's really where it comes down to. But no, I in regards to focus stacking and things of that nature. I think that that's just really adding resolution and more information to your image to make it look better.
Thank you very much. This was I do too, but I was wondering your view because you, I like your purest use.
Thank you, Sam, I know you worked in Reuters years ago. What were what was it like, with the photography desk or, or the stringers that sent in stuff? I
worked at UPI before I've worked at Reuters, which is where Reuters got its, its garlic press in the first place. And it was, it's always the most phenomenal part of the business, actually, frankly, making that all work. Back before digital course was a lot more crazy.
No, thanks, Sam. Beatty. Love to hear your question. Welcome to the stage.
Thank you, John. Jason, can you guys hear me because I'm outside? Yep. Okay, perfect. So I just want one statement that Jason said, we don't know what is real anymore. That kind of struck me. And implications, especially in in the world, in terms of peace, conflict, is just a huge application. So I wonder if this is anything being done? Maybe, to understand and the other question I want to ask is about AI and image. So we have one use case that is in the pipeline. I'm sure you probably know that self driving is being assisted by just cameras, and then AI. So what what is your thinking? Thank you.
Regards to the first question. The I think what Mark referenced was probably one of the best solutions where there's, if you're that if you to your vocation that you're going to, you're a trusted photographer with credentials that you're at an event, you know, like, you know, people don't know, I've shot the last three inaugurations. I mean, I, I just, I really know for I did both of Obama's Trump's and Biden's I mean, I love this stuff. And you have to present information that's real. So I think that, you know, we may end up in a scenario where you, you have to have something that that does, make sure it locks, your camera locks what you do, so you cannot alter the image. That being said, we're also in a day and age where, you know, us old guys, so you know, so to speak, who believe in purity and all this stuff, you know, you can believe it all you want. But then you got you know, you know, one of the Logan, Paul boys, whatever they call it, whatever those guys are, you know, with 25 million followers, if that dude goes and takes a picture with his phone and puts it online? Well, what are those? What are those 25 million followers gonna believe they're gonna believe him. That's the problem. And I spoke about this in my TED talk is that anyone can influence the world in dramatic fashion at this point. And that is a very, very impactful thing that we're not really grasping I think as a society. I don't I didn't quite hear all of the second part of your question with regards to AI. So
yeah, the second question was about image and AI and like application and your your opinion about using images and AI to to do self driving, like Tesla is trying to do. Oh, well, are other applications that you can
look them up? No, I mean, one of the ones that I've referenced is called Luminar AI, that's Luminar artificial intelligence and again, even Lightroom will do it at this point where they can it'll it'll find your subject for you it'll find your sky for you it'll find the face the eyes everything you can shift. And this is again another area that we have to be careful I mean, you can very easily just with the with your mouse now you can take 20 pounds off someone you can give people issues with Body Dysmorphia with worrying about you know, oh, wow, all the girls look this thin. Well, honestly, a lot of is fake or everyone's teeth are this way you can really give people some real image issues with the fact that we can so easily shift everything and that's pretty insane. I I think that as long as you're using it for purposes and you're honest with, with how you're utilizing it, if you're asked, I think it's okay. I mean, that is technology. And I am a huge fan of technology. I mean, I love the fact that I can, instead of me having to go old school and select someone's face and make sure that everything's perfectly the way it's supposed to be, I love that I have technology that can illuminate and bring out the exposure level in somebody's face. And it's almost instantaneous for me to be able to make that change. I love that. But I'm also not trying to pretend that you know, that this was some, you know, historical, you know, moment that is changing the course of the world. And so, I think it just comes down to integrity, to be honest with you. AI is okay, as long as we're using it with integrity.
Mark, do you have another question? Or anyone else on stage? Have a question?
Yeah, I've got one. Since Jason, you're, you believe in integrity and truth? What's your thinking on Elon Musk buying into the board of Twitter with the premise of opening up? Ah,
I absolutely love it. I absolutely love it. Because there definitely has been. There definitely has been I mean, I've had my videos removed from YouTube, I've had my videos removed from from Instagram. As a funny note, you know, I was in Times Square, this is back in October of 2021. And I did a livestream on Instagram. And I just said, Hey, look, I'm here in Times Square, hardly anyone's wearing a mask. Now keep in mind, this is when the mask mandates are, are in place. This is when the COVID mandates are in place, you can't even go into a restaurant without a COVID vaccine, not the COVID mandates, the vaccine mandates are in place, you couldn't even go into a restaurant without the vaccine. And I just made a simple video. And this is what I tried to do whenever I didn't say vaccines are great, or vaccines are bad or vice or same with masks, I don't care. Because I really am one of those folks. And if you want to wear a mask, and it doesn't hurt anybody else, go ahead just or if you don't want to wear one, it doesn't hurt anyone else. Go ahead. So I'm in Times Square, and I'm going around and I'm just filming and saying hey, hardly anyone's wearing a mask. Well, if that was true, you could see the video that hardly anyone was wearing a mask. And I got flagged and warned by Instagram that my I was spreading false and potentially harmful information, which made me laugh. And so my response to that was I went back the following day and did it again, pretty much daring Instagram to pull it. And, and they did. And so. So I even when I've posted stuff on the inaugurations or stuff on the riots, the protests all of it, I will have it flagged by YouTube. And to me, it's, I understand they're trying to balance misinformation. I understand that. But I mean, let's be real, I don't care, whatever political spectrum you come from. I mean, we're all hearing now about how Hunter Biden, all the stuff they're saying two years ago is true. And all these newspapers are saying, Well, it's true. Well, that stuff was all banned off Twitter and everything else two years ago. And that's scary. It's scary that that that that can happen. And so do I get a kick out of Elon Musk buying 9% of the stock of Twitter? I do. I wish we're all rich enough to be able to influence the world that way. But regardless, I hope that all of our social media platforms have some sort of regulation put in place so both sides of the aisle whether you're liberal or conservative can be told I when we lose our free speech is when we lose our soul. I just really believe that.
Great, Alison, any anything else you want to ask? Or should I jump in?
Jason, what is the next six months look like for you? How are you charting your photography adventure?
Well, it's it's, it's like I said, it's really a ramp up for me coming out of the COVID You know, era. And so starting right now, I'm team building. I haven't had a team for a good while because of COVID. And so I'm actually out there looking for talent, looking for ways to help build my team. That's what I'm doing over the next month and a half before I start my lightning tour, which starts with RHODOLITE in mid May, and then coming so I'm going to be doing workshops and Photowalks across the US over the next up April, May June. And then starting in July. I'm gonna start going international because I still have several workshops that I have to make up from COVID In Europe, in Australia, and places like that, so I'm going to be doing some makeup workshops, but then of course, just doing a lot more on my own. And so it's going to be getting back to travel and hopefully spreading the love of photography.
Great. So, Alison, do you have any, some summarizing points you want to make from from the show?
So I was gonna give Jason a chance to summarize. And then I was going to attempt to wrap up this incredibly rich discussion. But Jason, do you have any last thoughts before I do that?
Thank you, I would, you know, I've spoken so much. Obviously, everyone who knows me knows I'm very verbose. But I just more than anything, I really tried to communicate this in my social media and everything else, just be a good person, like, whatever you're trying to do all of us struggle so much. Just whatever you're doing with your craft, try to do something that makes someone feel good, something feel good. tell a good story, tell a story that needs to be told. Tell a story that will change and benefit people who need you to help tell that story and change things for them. Or do something that makes you feel good, something that makes you know, a lot of people use photography, it's as a cathartic measure to deal with the stresses of life. A lot of people who come to my workshops are engineers, and, and software developers and people who they have real stressful lives. And so they need something they need an outlet. So whatever you're doing in the world of photography, do something good. And I think that's just what I would say.
Wow. And just before I wrap up, John, do you want to add anything as quite a photographer yourself? I feel like
yeah, no, yeah. What I would say is, Jason is one of the best. And I think you hear a lot about megapixels. But there are a lot of other factors to consider. Lighting workflow, who your audience is what you want to get out of photography. And I think Jason is someone that can be really helpful. You kind of think about a lot of the things that that help make you into a great photographer, and I'm glad many people are going to be able to listen to the show that we're going to, we're going to post and we'll live in perpetuity and, and hopefully people won't break into your car, meet you at your hotel when you're traveling the world. But they'll get to know you through the show. And Jason, thank you so much for your time tonight.
Thanks so much for having me. And just everybody go out there and tell a beautiful story.
Alright, so Jason, we have a tradition where Allison pulls some of the themes together at the end of the show. So sit back and enjoy.
Oh my gosh, this is so rich. I have to admit, I have seven pages of notes. I've tried to figure out how to do this justice. We had an incredible night with Jason linear and Mike and Mark Scribner. Jason started with the amazing story of his personal journey when he bought his first Nikon in high school, became a wedding photographer, and eventually left being an executive at Star Woods hotel to become a full time photographer. He shot around 300 weddings, but that is the least of things he's shot. He's also shot three and algorithm integrations and a lot more as we learned in the course of the evening. He teaches photography and he also just has a love of life, of curiosity of storytelling and of the photographic image. His story started, he left Nikon and switched to Sony at a time when Sony was basically mocked. He believes in the technology of mirrorless cameras and also really seeing around the corner of what's coming. He made a video that predicted that the iPhone would play a larger role. I think at the time he said people were skeptical, but now the iPhone 13 Pro is his main camera. If I got that right, Jason said he's always leaning forward to the future. To make the world more accessible to his audience. He always shoots in raw because it's easier to edit later and he never shoots in jpg. Jason told us that so much of storytelling boils down to to lighting, and you have to learn lighting. If you want to be a master photographer. That could be one of the many reasons why I've yet to reach that phase. He spends 5050 A time between photography and video. And Mark Scribner said said Jason reminds him of his favorite artists Caravaggio. He tells us that Jason is not only a master storyteller with a unique style, but also an industry disrupter and innovation leader. We soon learned that no other photographer jumps as many genres as Jason does. Jason explained the diversity of his work. And by believing in the value of truth and reality he described for example, his work with end Yo Yos, with an NGO in Ethiopia where he and a crew went to a trash dump site and walked up a mountain of trash risking arrest. When COVID hit, he started filming documentaries on COVID. And eventually fill mass transit workers who were badly hit by COVID, leading the governor to visit and see about easing restrictions. He's filmed the border over the last 18 months and some of the places Jason has been in the world. We're just extraordinary to hear about. Jason said today what we all struggle with is what is true. And even as a professional photographer, it's not always easy to discern that he says, As a photographer, you have to ask, can I be objective, versus putting your own personal spin on it. And he's very moved by the effort to tell the truth of the story. He talked about the power of videos and photographs, which are instantaneously changing public perception. We all assume now that if something looks really good, it's fake, or doctored, which is why he videos a lot of his
photographic shots, including for photographic contests, so people know the photo is real. He talked about how easy it is now with Luminar and other tools to plop in a fake sky with one click of the hand. He said, Now we have to prove what is real. And that's a scary place to be, which is really powerful to hear from our master photographer. He is very attracted to an incredibly broad range of work, and talked about when John asked him what would be an exciting next trip, taking a fabulous model to Amazon, but also filming a traditional ritual with indigenous people, or going to Chernobyl or going to a place like Antarctica and photographing a model with a polar bear. He said he loves to mix it up and to maximize life full on. He says part of his ultimate calling is to try to soften people's hearts and to make change in the world. Then he told us a little bit about photographic etiquette. In his view, he says you should not take any images without someone's permission. And he believes in compensating people for their images. He thinks it's wrong to treat people as fish in a fishbowl or as animals in a zoo. He also talked about how the younger generations are conditioned to see things on and buy phones. And he says that the full time professional photographers almost extinct, that you can now shoot everything with three phones, drones and GoPros. He says he doesn't use Sony equipment anymore. And the end user is what mattered. John asked him about millennials who are meant to take 25,800 selfies in a lifetime. And Jason said he this only proves he is a millennial at heart. He says you really have to be an Instagram if you want to be a photographer. Mark brought up a critical question that several people came back to have the significance of AI and faked photo generated images. For example, there was an article in last week about LinkedIn having 70 profiles of people that look super friendly, but are completely fake. Jason says it's very hard to know what's real anymore. And that's why for the photo competitions, you have to actually submit the raw file. He said our world is upside down. And it's very hard to know what's true out there. We talked about drones and NF T's he says that he's 100% in love with drones and explained that you can use them for Uber for or is it urbex thing? Is that right? Urban exploring, looking for cops or securities, you can use it for stills. Jason says he owns two drones and he always has a drone on hand. One of his favorite drones is the maverick mini two which is one gram below the FAA Wait, requiring a drone pilot license, which you use to film an oil pipeline in Alaska. He explains that the drone changes what we can take pictures of No longer do we have to be in a helicopter drone pictures are 10 times better than the helicopter much better range. And of course you can steal it and play with the image. He's not involved within it. FTEs and he told us later that his philosophy is that there may be at least 10 more ways to make money than he is doing now. But nine of them wouldn't fit with his life goals. And he says that he really believes in covering life and every aspect of life. Buddy thinks that it's really important to not lose your values just in a attempt to make more money. We talked about Jason's biggest takeaways in his Crash Course. of life having been in so many places, needing gas masks and all kinds of other things. He said, most people are not as different as you would think. They want to live a good life they want to be, they are decent, and they want to be treated decently. He said, we often live in a world that lacks feeling and is so cold so many days, he tells us, he tries to share his failures, as well as successes. He got arrested and put in jail in North Carolina and April 2020. At a time COVID was ramping up, it's hard to see that as a failure, but he shares both. So people really get a sense of the fullness of life. And that, to me is one of the biggest takeaways that Jason shared. He believes the essence of life is true, full on experience. He wants to experience every aspect of life, whether positive or negative, and wants to share that fully with his audience. He says every situation, you can ask why or you can ask why not. And he believes the same philosophy we apply to food where you should try everything at least once should be applied to life, as long as you're not hurting anyone. He admits he has been in real coat close calls, he's had boulders thrown at him in Ethiopia. He's been assaulted at protests. He's been chased in a truck. He's been in a jail cell in North Carolina. But he believes as long as you can live through it. It's a worthwhile venture. And finally, he reminds us at the end, that whatever you are doing, do your craft and tell your story in a way that makes you feel good. And that makes others feel good. Because as long as it's okay. It's important that we really live life as intensely as we can. Thank you for an amazing, amazing evening. I feel like all of us whether we're not photographers, amateur photographers, or wannabe photographers, we learned so much, and John, really appreciate it.
Awesome. Thanks for that summary. I think he said for inaugurations and I heard you say that he uses his iPhone exclusively? I don't think he's my guess is that it's a it's a balance. But Allison, you back channel to me. Something I want to end on this. Jason, the Trump photographer has been in the news a little bit. Have you followed that? And I'm just curious how you weigh in on that?
I to be honest, I haven't followed that. What happened?
Mark? Have you been following it?
No, not really.
Yeah. Allison, why don't you frame it? And let's see if these guys have an opinion on it? Well, I
think it just came out in the news this week that I guess there isn't exactly a official rule on the presidential photographers. But usually there's a deference to the photographers, being able to release their own books that they want to have the trip of the photos they have with the President. And apparently, Trump's photographer, it's the first time that rule has been reversed, where he would not give her permission to release any of the photographs of him. And he released his own book without really giving her credit. And I guess, for me, the questions that I would love to hear from you is, do you think that photographers have enough control over their, their prints? Is this just an example of Trump's ego? Or is it also an example of maybe not having clear enough rules over who has a right because I believe now Trump is getting all the royalties. And the photographer who followed him around, which apparently was not an easy job is not getting any.
I think it boils down. To be honest with you, I have a couple different thoughts on that. Number one, what was the agreement? At the end of the day, no matter what anyone thinks, what was the agreement between the photographer and Trump, if the agreement was that they'd be able to share those images and use them on their own right and hat and retain a copyright to those images, then the photographer should be able to do so and Trump is wrong. If the agreement was that they wouldn't retain copyright and they wouldn't be able to do that, then Trump is right. It really is that simple. And for me to I'm nowhere near the level of being known, like Trump, not even close. But I will tell you, when I do my own shoots, I don't let people fill me and I don't let people pull up my permission. Because we do live in an age and Trump went through this. We do live in an age where people say stuff about you or post up about you. And it's very damaging. And sometimes, sometimes more often than not, it's fake. And so I think ultimately, it really it boils down to what was the agreement between the photographer and Trump and if the photographer took the job knowing that they were going to give away those royalties and rights to Trump than that they decided to do that. But if not, then Trump's wrong. It's just that simple.
All right, well on that note, here's to creating great work and mentoring the future. Future photographers, Jason, thanks for your example you are a true Imaginator you are using your imagination and and having impact on the world keep up to action. Thank you and to all a good night. Thank you so much. I
appreciate you guys really, really grateful to be on here. Thank
you. What an awesome evening. Thank you so much. Have a good night guys.
