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The MOOD Podcast

The MOOD Podcast

Matt Jacob 151 Episodes Jul 23, 2026

The MOOD Podcast is a long-form conversation series exploring photography, creativity, identity, and the inner life of artists. Hosted by Matt Jacob, the show moves beyond technique and trends to examine why people make work, how creative voices are formed, and what it takes to sustain a meaningful artistic life. Through thoughtful, unhurried conversations with photographers, filmmakers, and creative thinkers from around the world, the podcast explores themes of process, mental health, ethics, purpose, legacy, and the tension between art and industry. Episodes are grounded, reflective, and often philosophical, offering listeners provocation of thought rather than formulaic answers to copy.

Episodes

How To Find Your Voice Without Building a Signature Style - Moments of Mood, 3.7
How To Find Your Voice Without Building a Signature Style - Moments of Mood, 3.7 Jul 23, 2026 1009 In this Moments of Mood episode I sit with a single photograph from my own archive, one I made by accident in under ten seconds, and use it to unpack an idea Cristina Mittermeier gave me: that the photographer is not a messenger but a membrane, a semi-permeable skin whose job is to let a conversation pass between the subject and the stranger who will one day stand in front of the print. I look at
Trent Davis Bailey: Every Photographer Hits The Wrong Notes Before Finding Their Voice, E124
Trent Davis Bailey: Every Photographer Hits The Wrong Notes Before Finding Their Voice, E124 Jul 16, 2026 6453 Trent Davis Bailey spent 7 years photographing a remote farming valley in Colorado, convinced he was making documentary work. He wasn't. The pictures knew before he did: he was searching for the family he'd lost to a twenty-year estrangement, and by the end of The North Fork he had found his aunt, his cousins, and the woman who became his wife. Then he turned the camera toward something
The One Skill That Actually Makes Photography Beautiful (It's Not Composition) - Moments of Mood, 3.6
The One Skill That Actually Makes Photography Beautiful (It's Not Composition) - Moments of Mood, 3.6 Jul 9, 2026 1352 In this episode you'll discover why beauty in photography is made by your attention, not found in your subjects, and how reading your own form reveals the photographic voice you've been searching for elsewhere.In this Moments of Mood, I sit with one idea from my recent conversation with photographer and writer Tim Carpenter: that beauty in a photograph is form, not subject matter. Drawin
The Inner Voice That Stops You Taking the Photo And Lies to Every Photographer, with Rory King - E122
The Inner Voice That Stops You Taking the Photo And Lies to Every Photographer, with Rory King - E122 Jul 2, 2026 4830 If you have ever felt technically capable but creatively lost, this conversation shows you how one photographer turned a decade of pictures, and the hardest years of his life, into a body of work that is unmistakably his own.In this episode I sit down with Rory King, an Australian photographer who works in black and white, prints by hand in the darkroom, and turned 10 years of images into his phot
What Koudelka's Photos Show Photographers About Finding Their Voice in the Age of AI - Moments of Mood, 3.5
What Koudelka's Photos Show Photographers About Finding Their Voice in the Age of AI - Moments of Mood, 3.5 Jun 25, 2026 984 In this solo episode of Moments of Mood, you'll learn why the flood of AI images is about to make real, human photography more valuable, not less, and how to find the voice that's unmistakably yours.I break down what AI really means for emerging photographers, starting with VSCO's "your eye can't be generated" campaign and the paradox that the same company also builds
Why Photographer Ridwan Didot Asks Every Artist "What's Wrong With You?", E120
Why Photographer Ridwan Didot Asks Every Artist "What's Wrong With You?", E120 Jun 18, 2026 4828 In this episode you'll learn how to tell whether your photography is actually art, why chasing technical perfection is holding your work back, and how to develop a photographic voice that's unmistakably your own.This week Matt chats with Ridwan Didot, a fine art documentary and wedding photographer from Indonesia who runs the studio Native Visual and approaches commercial work with the e
Your Body Decides the Photograph Before You Do - Photographer Tim Carpenter, E119
Your Body Decides the Photograph Before You Do - Photographer Tim Carpenter, E119 Jun 11, 2026 6041 Matt sits down with photographer, writer, and educator Tim Carpenter, author of 'To Photograph Is to Learn How to Die' and photobooks such as 'Local Objects', 'Little' and 'Christmas Day, Bucks Pond Road', for a deep conversation on the philosophy beneath the photographic image. In this episode you will learn a way to understand why the form of a photograph,
Zahra Ciardi - The True Self, Limiting Beliefs & Why Photographers Crave Validation, E118
Zahra Ciardi - The True Self, Limiting Beliefs & Why Photographers Crave Validation, E118 Jun 4, 2026 5175 Matt talks with psychologist Zahra Ciardi, founder of Ascendant Bali, to explore the inner life of the creative person: why so many photographers feel their work isn't truly theirs, the limiting beliefs that keep artists stuck, and how to put your work into the world without being ruled by validation.By the end of this episode you'll understand why your photography stops feeling like you
Cristina Mittermeier Explains Why Being A Good Photographer Isn't Enough Anymore, E117
Cristina Mittermeier Explains Why Being A Good Photographer Isn't Enough Anymore, E117 May 28, 2026 6267 Cristina Mittermeier is a National Geographic photographer, co-founder of SeaLegacy, and author of "Hope." Her work has been featured in National Geographic's series "Photographer" and in publications around the world. Cristinais the photographer who coined the term "conservation photography," co-founded SeaLegacy, and made the starving polar bear image seen by a
The One Question That Helped Rich-Joseph Facun Find His Photographic Voice, E116
The One Question That Helped Rich-Joseph Facun Find His Photographic Voice, E116 May 14, 2026 5173 In this episode, Matt sits down with Rich-Joseph Facun, a celebrated American documentary photographer, former photojournalist of 15 years, and founder of the independent publishing imprint Liars Corner. In this conversation we discuss his three monographs: Black Diamonds, Little Cities, and 1804, the ethics of street and portrait photography, photographing strangers in Trump-era Appalachia, walki
Pricing, Prestige & The Business Of Photography - Miriam Schulman, E115
Pricing, Prestige & The Business Of Photography - Miriam Schulman, E115 Apr 29, 2026 3398 In this episode, Matt sits down with Miriam Schulman, professional artist, art business coach, host of the Inspiration Place podcast, and bestselling author of Artpreneur (HarperCollins). Miriam left Wall Street after 9/11 to build a six-figure art business and now teaches photographers, painters, and visual artists how to price their work, sell art online, attract collectors, and build a sustaina
The Psychological Trap Quietly Destroying Your Photography - Moments of Mood 3.4
The Psychological Trap Quietly Destroying Your Photography - Moments of Mood 3.4 Apr 22, 2026 891 In this Moments of Mood episode of The MOOD Podcast, Matt returns after a road accident left him physically immobilised for several weeks, unable to photograph, travel, or work, and uses that enforced stillness to examine one of the quietest but most destructive reflexes in modern photography: the need for proof. What happens to your photography, and to you as a photographer, when the images you m

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