The Terrible Creative
The Terrible Creative is a storytelling podcast for photographers, designers, and other creative professionals. Hosted by Patrick Fore, it explores the mental health, artistic identity, and personal costs of creative work rather than gear, presets, or client strategy. Episodes are solo, story-driven, and typically 30 to 40 minutes long. The show is aimed at mid-career creatives who feel competent externally but quietly lost internally.
Episodes
Before Episode 081
Dear Terrible Friends,This episode is going to be a little different. I wanted to let you know that I'm going to be taking a little bit of a break for a bit. I’m actually about to leave (in a few days) for a three-week trip with my daughter. We’re going to bounce around the East Coast a little bit. Spending some time around the mountains of Virginia, then DC, then Philly, NYC, Boston then
Worth - Why Great Photographers Get $600 Clients
Episode 80 — WorthPhotographers love telling each other to “know your worth.”Okay. What’s mine?One client trusts you with a production worth tens of thousands of dollars. Another pays you a few hundred bucks and tells you that you didn’t do a very good job.Same photographer. Same experience. Same eye.In this episode, I’m trying to figure out what those numbers actually mean. We talk about
Photography - The Voice - What Do You Actually Want To Make? - Part Three
You can buy the camera. You can learn the lighting. You can spend years mastering the technical side of photography until the camera finally gets out of the way.Then comes the harder question: What do you actually want to photograph?In the final episode of Photography: Gear, Craft & Voice, I’m talking about what happens when technical competence is no longer the problem—and you’re lef
Photography - The Gear, The Craft, and The Voice - Part Two
There is a quiet, infuriating moment every creator faces: looking at the LCD screen and realizing the image in front of you isn't even in the same conversation as the one living in your head.In Part Two of our series on Gear, Craft & Voice, Patrick Fore breaks down what it actually takes to close the gap between imagination and execution. From late-night isolation sessions trying to l
Photography - The Gear, The Craft, and The Voice - Part One
Photography: The Gear, The Craft & The Voice — Part OneEvery photographer inherits a definition of good before they've earned one. This episode is about where that definition actually comes from, why gear ends up being the evidence of it, and why the real question was never which camera to buy.Patrick walks through camera store tribalism, the teachers nobody asks to have (YouTubers,
Creep - You don't need a harder no. You need a better sentence.
A client says "we love these." Then they ask for more images, for the same money, and call it a collaboration. This episode is about what that word is actually doing to you, why the moment feels impossible to say no to, and why the fix was never confidence. It was having the sentence ready before you needed it.In this episodePatrick breaks down the psychology behind scope creep and the "c
The Audit Part II - The Soul of the C-Stand - What does competence actually look like?
A lot of photographers assume it’s your portfolio. Your lighting. Your gear. Maybe your day rate.I’m not so sure anymore.A few weeks ago I spent three and a half days photographing hardware products in a twelve-by-fifteen room. White seamless. Capture One. Cardboard boxes. SKU spreadsheets. The kind of commercial job nobody posts on Instagram because it isn’t glamorous enough to be intere
Good Faith - The Small Decisions That Destroy Photography Careers
Every creative career begins with an invisible handshake.Before the photographs exist, before the campaign launches, before the work is delivered, someone decides to trust you.In this episode, Patrick explores what happens when that trust is broken, beginning with North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson’s May 2026 press conference announcing the state’s lawsuit against Holly Christin
The Imposter Filter - What If Confidence Was Never the Requirement For Success?
Have you ever sat in a high-stakes room, looked around at the expensive titles and corporate validation, and quietly wondered when the actual adults were going to arrive to take over?Eventually, you realize they aren't coming. Everyone is waiting on everyone else.In this episode, Patrick Fore breaks down the messy, internal reality of managing high-stakes commercial sets when self-doubt i
The Missing Map - How To Become A Commercial Photographer in 2026
A friend of mine named Megan has spent more than a decade making beautiful, deeply human photographs of families. The kind of work that makes you feel something long after you’ve put the camera down. More than once I’ve told her she should be shooting commercial lifestyle campaigns.Every time I do, she smiles and says the same thing.“I couldn’t.”Not because she lacks talent.Because somewh
Let's Talk Money (Again) - A Terrible Conversation with Shelly Waldman
This week, we are throwing a match into one of the most heavily guarded hiding places in the creative industry: financial trauma, pricing shame, and the business choices we make when the market goes cold. In this special "pod swap" episode, Patrick joins forces with Shelly Waldman from the Creative Campfire podcast. This isn't a sterile lecture on spreadsheets or corporate accounting pipe
Money Talks - Audiobook Preview: The psychology of undercharging and how financial stability creates true creative freedom.
We are doing something a little different this week. To give the live microphone a brief rest, we are pulling back the curtain on a project that has been built in the dark for months. In this episode, you are getting an exclusive, unedited listen to an entire chapter from my newly released audiobook: Chapter 14 — "Money Talks."This chapter cuts straight down to the bone of creative capita
We’ll See - The quiet anxiety of marketing
She said two words and I haven't stopped thinking about them since.This episode started at an APA event in La Mesa, in an artist's studio, in a conversation with a commercial photographer who's doing everything right. Personal work that matters, cold pitches going out every day, a real strategy executed with discipline. I asked how it was going."We'll see."This one is about that phrase. W
Playing Hurt - How Professional Creatives Perform at Full Capacity When Everything Goes Wrong
There is a version of this job that looks incredible from the outside. The gear. The clients. The portfolio. What nobody sees is what it costs to produce it.In this episode I'm talking about the part of the creative life nobody puts in the brochure. What it actually means to be a professional. Not the romantic version. The real one. Where you photograph a CEO with a fractured finger, shoo
Death Grip - Google AI Just Changed How Clients Find You. Here's What It Can't Replace.
Something shifted last week. Not dramatically. Quietly, the way things in this industry tend to change — while you're working, while you're trying to keep the phone ringing.Google's AI Mode is rewriting how clients find photographers. The search box that used to send people to your website now answers their question and keeps them inside Google. The content you spent years building to get
Mute - You've Spent Years Getting Good. Do You Have Anything Left to Say?
There is a man standing in a clearing in Arkansas with a yellow guitar, singing about insulin prices to nobody in particular.Three million people found him. Not because of the production value. Because he was saying the thing.This episode is about the gap most professional creatives never talk about — the distance between the skills that pay your rent and the thing you actually have to sa
Clown Nose - What the Creator Economy Actually Costs a Working Creative
There's a composite photographer in this episode named Nate. His details have been changed. His situation has not.This episode is about the creator economy — what it actually costs, who it was actually built for, and the quiet compromise most creative professionals are making every day. Not loudly. Not dramatically. Just quietly, in parking garages, watching the blue light of a phone, wai
Terrible Conversations - Tom Wright - Tom Wright on Creative Work and Photography
Terrible Conversations w/ Tom WrightTom Wright is a photography consultant based in Burnley, UK. He calls himself a phototherapist, and no, he's not a doctor. But photographers that work with him tend to leave unstuck.Tom started in 2011 teaching photographers how to shoot Impossible Project instant film. From there he shot weddings for over a decade, moved into commercial photography, an
Stop Being A Tool - Why Creatives Were Never Just Useful
We’ve spent a century conditioning ourselves to believe that if we aren’t "producing," we aren't "valuable." But in 2026, the machines can out-produce us all. This episode is about The Great Decoupling—the moment we stop being high-end processors and start being the source. We dive into the "Productivist Fallacy," why Maya and Chris are grieving the loss of their utility, and why your "Wh
The Cost of Getting Good - The Cost of Getting Good - How Success Becomes a Creative Trap for Creatives
Getting good at your craft is supposed to be the goal. But for a lot of us, competence became the cage. This episode is about the feedback loop nobody warns you about: the better you get, the harder it is to leave. And what we build around the good thing to protect it.Also, some honesty about why I called this show "Terrible" that I haven't said out loud before.MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODEBa
Subterranean - On Obsession, Part II
Where does creative obsession actually come from? Not how to manufacture it. Not how to find it on a vision board. Where it actually lives. How it grows underground without your permission. And what it sounds like when it finally tries to break through.This episode is the follow up to Episode 61: Obsessed. If you haven't listened to that one yet, start there.This week I go back to a speci
Obsessed - Finding Your Creative Voice When the Algorithm Rewards Everyone Else's
What separates a photographer who makes important work from one who just makes good photos? It might not be talent. It might not be gear. It might be something harder to name and harder to fake.This week I walked into an APA Peer-to-Peer Photo Book Critique in San Diego with six copies of my own book, a smug attitude, and some assumptions that didn't survive the first thirty minutes. What
The Unknown - The Version of Yourself Nobody Has Seen Yet
This is the last one.Four episodes. Four quadrants. Four different ways of asking the same question: who are you — really — when nobody's grading you?In the final episode of the Johari Window series, Patrick texts eight people the same question without defining the word first. A photographer in Texas who's bored at events but wants the money. A friend who performs down to what shoes she p
The Facade - The Gap Between What You Show and What's Actually Driving the Work
Episode 59: "The Facade" The Johari Window Series — Part ThreeSome weeks Patrick knows exactly why he's making this podcast.Other weeks he almost quits.This week he almost quit.In Episode 59, Patrick pulls back the frame on the third quadrant of the Johari Window — the Facade — and what it actually costs creative professionals to maintain the gap between what they show and what's driving
The Tell — Self-Handicapping, and What Everyone Around You Already Knows
Everyone around you already knows.Your clients see it. The people who've worked alongside you see it. The people who love you have probably tried to name it — in ways you found reasons to dismiss.In Episode 58, Patrick continues the Johari Window series by moving from the Arena into the most uncomfortable quadrant: the Blind Spot. Not the things you're hiding. The things you don't know yo
The Glass House - Visibility, the Johari Window, and Why Being Seen Isn't the Same as Being Known
There's a difference between being visible and being known. Most of us have confused the two.In this episode, Patrick is sitting at a networking event in San Diego when a graphic designer asks him a question he wasn't ready for: "Who are you to write a book? To make a podcast?" What followed was a masterclass in what happens when radical transparency meets a closed receiver — and why no a
The Audit - Was Your Work Already Replaceable Before AI Arrived?
The fear underneath every AI conversation in photography right now isn't really about the future. It's recognition.In this episode, Patrick sits down with the hard question nobody in the industry is asking out loud: were we already making replaceable work before AI arrived? He traces the argument from a weekend with the Capture One leadership team, through his own portfolio audit, two uns
Widening The Frame - Welcome to the Terrible Creative
Something is changing.This bonus episode is the announcement I've been putting off — partly because I wasn't sure how to say it, and partly because the timing is, as with most things in my life, sideways.The Terrible Photographer is becoming The Terrible Creative.Same show. Same voice. Same refusal to pretend I have it figured out. But the door is wider now — because the emails I've been
Cosmic Cruelty - Freelancing, Isolation & Why the Universe Feels Like It’s Against You.
There's a moment in Season 11 of Alone where a man named Dub — forty days into the Canadian wilderness, starving, alone — watches a bull moose stand just out of reach on the other side of a freezing river. He has the shot. He has the skill. The river is just between him and the thing.He watches it walk away. Then it starts to snow. Then he slips. Both boots go into the water."The moose wa
The Cliff - Why Freelancing Has No Floor
Every job has a floor. A salary. A review cycle. Someone in authority who tells you you're doing fine, keep going.Freelancing has none of that. There's no feedback mechanism that tells you you're okay. No quarterly check-in. No laminated menu that says: this is what we are, this is what we cost, this is what done looks like.There's just the work. And then the silence after the work. And t
The Mask - The Hidden Cost of Performing Expertise You Actually Have
A photographer friend once gave me three words of advice that I've never been able to use: just be yourself.Not because the advice is wrong. But because it assumes a stable, available self waiting underneath—one you can just step into when needed. For a lot of us in the creative industry, that self got covered over so gradually we didn't notice it happening.In this episode, I'm getting in
Heresies - The Hyde - How Photography Is Used for Sexual Exploitation
London. 1886. A respected doctor stands before a mirror and drinks a potion he swore he would only use once. He doesn’t grow horns or sprout claws. He simply becomes... lighter. The weight of Victorian morality, the heavy wool of his reputation—it just slides off his shoulders. The first time, it requires the chemistry. By the end, Hyde doesn’t wait for an invitation. He just arrives.This
Heresies - The Corpse - How Instagram Trained Photographers to Be Perfect, Then Called It Boring
I posted a question on Threads: "Where are you posting your images these days?"The answers were scattered. Glass. Grainery. Pixelfed. Substack. Flickr, somehow. Very few said Instagram.There is no home anymore.Instagram was built by photographers, for photographers. Square format mimicking film. Filters mimicking darkroom techniques. A grid layout that functioned as a digital portfolio. F
Heresies - The Oracle - Why Photography Influencers Are Modern Televangelists
It's 3 AM. You're scrolling through infomercials. A televangelist is selling "Miracle Spring Water" for $50—promising financial breakthroughs, healing, transformation. All you have to do is send money and believe.Fast forward to 2026. A YouTube thumbnail: "This CAMERA changed EVERYTHING 📷🔥" Description: "Amazon affiliate links below."Same hustle. Different spring water.In this bonus heres
Heresies - The Cult Member - Why Your Camera Brand Doesn't Care If You're a Good Photographer
Rochester, 1888. George Eastman releases the Kodak camera with a brilliant slogan: "You press the button, we do the rest." Serious photographers immediately panic, calling new users "Button-Pressers" and "Kodak Fiends." One writer declares photography dead: "When everyone is a photographer, then no one is an artist."Same fear. Same argument. Different century.This is Episode 2 of Heresies
Basics, Deconstructed - Editing is Violence - How to Choose What Matters When Everything Looks Good
Most photographers drown in the edit.Not because they can't see what's good. Because they can't choose what matters.This episode is about the violence of editing—the courage it takes to kill good images, the ego that dies in the process, and why great portfolios are built on rhythm, not range.I tell the story of a La Jolla shoot where I took 1,900 frames in two hours and couldn't figure o
Heresies - The Proxy - Why Listening to Your Clients Might Be A Bad Idea
When a client says "I want exactly this," are they hiring you to execute their vision—or are they asking you to solve a problem they can't articulate?This is the first episode in a five-part series called Heresies—where we say the uncomfortable things the industry doesn't want you to think too hard about.In this episode: Why listening to your client might be killing your work. Why taste i
Amature - Why I Envy Photographers Who Don't Get Paid
There's a woman in Bangkok who's been selling noodles from the same corner for 43 years. She turned down Bon Appétit. Not because she's shy. Because she didn't want to cook for strangers with expectations.This episode started with a voicemail from Jason, a listener in North Carolina who shoots photos of his kids and has no interest in going pro. He called me out for ignoring non-professio
The Fresh Start Fallacy - Are You Building a Boat or Just Floating in a Tube?
EPISODE DESCRIPTION:Three hundred years. That's how long my family has been in America. Jamestown. Virginia. Colonial laborers. Post-Civil War homesteaders in Missouri. And not one of them—not one—ever owned anything that lasted.In 1726, when a British clerk wrote "Fore" instead of "Fauer," my family's name changed. But the pattern didn't.This episode isn't about New Year's resolutions or
The Long Middle - The Third Space - How to Actually Build Community When Traditional Third Spaces Are Dead (And Why We Have to Try Anyway)
You've mastered the craft. You've built the business. You're successful. But you're still lonely. You're Joshua Bell in the subway—playing a Stradivarius while everyone walks past. You've taken off the costume, rejected the hierarchy, and you're still isolated.So now what?In the finale of "The Long Middle" series, Patrick explores sociologist Ray Oldenburg's concept of "The Third Space"—t
The Long Middle - Part 3 - The Enemy - How Gatekeeping and Hierarchy Keep Creative Professionals Isolated (And Why We're All Complicit)
Why does a $600 light get dismissed while a $3,000 light gets respect, even when they produce identical results? Why do wedding photographers apologize by saying “I’m just a wedding photographer”? And why do we hide the work we’re actually doing because it’s not the “right” kind of work?In Part 3 of The Long Middle series, Patrick examines the hierarchies that divide creative professional
Basics, Deconstructed - Framing - Deconstructing Christopher Anderson’s Vanity Fair Portraits: What Every Photographer Needs to Know About Framing Power.
When Vanity Fair published Christopher Anderson’s portraits of the White House’s inner circle, the internet reacted to the politics. But as photographers, we need to look closer. We need to look at the framing.In this bonus episode, Patrick Fore deconstructs the word "Framing." It’s not just the rule of thirds or leading lines—it’s authorship. It’s the decision to show truth over comfort,
The Long Middle - Part 2 - The Costume - Why We Hide Behind Professional Roles
Why do photographers wear so much black? Why do we feel confident on stage but panic at networking events? And why is it so hard to find real community in the creative industry?In Part 2 of "The Long Middle" series, Patrick explores the costumes we wear—not just the black clothes and gear, but the professional roles and personas that keep us safe and isolated at the same time.From 17th-ce
The Long Middle - Part 1 - The Island - Why Mastery Is Lonely
In January 2007, Joshua Bell—one of the world's best violinists—played a $3.5 million Stradivarius in a Washington D.C. subway station. Over 1,000 people walked past. Only 7 stopped to listen. He made $32.If you've ever felt like you're playing your heart out while everyone walks past... this episode is for you.This is Part 1 of a 4-part series called "The Long Middle"—about that specific
The Curator's Disease - The Cost of Turning Your Life Into Content
Belle Gibson faked cancer. The Stauffers rehomed their adopted son when the content became too difficult. Ruby Franke is currently sitting in a prison cell.It’s easy to look at the monsters of the influencer economy and think, "I am nothing like them." But if you peel back the layers of how we document our own lives, the difference might be smaller than we’d like to admit.In this episode,
Noise in the Shadows - When the Enemy is Competence
June 6, 1944. Robert Capa is wading through the freezing water of Omaha Beach. He captures the most important images of the 20th century, and technically, they are a disaster. They are blurry. They are grainy. They are imperfect. And that is exactly why they matter.In this episode, Patrick explores the physics of light, the "hostage negotiation" of the exposure triangle, and why we are so
Basics, Deconstructed - Good vs. Bad - If It Feels Safe, It's Dead
In 1863, the Paris Salon rejected Édouard Manet's The Luncheon on the Grass for being too messy, too flat, too "unfinished." Today, it's one of the most important paintings in art history. Meanwhile, the "perfect" paintings that won the medals? Nobody remembers them.In this episode, we're deconstructing the biggest question photographers face: What makes a photo "good"? How do we measure
Still Terrible - A Confession About Fear, Failure, and the Middle of the Story
In this episode, I talk about the question that has been following me around like a stray dog with abandonment issues:“What am I doing wrong?”A late-night Zoom call.A missed phone call that might have cost me a job.Fabric mocking me at 2 AM.Postponing Christmas.Pretending patience is a virtue when really it’s just a financial liability.This one is not a framework or a lesson.It is a confe
Bloody Knuckles - Let’s talk about A.I.
This is the episode I’ve been avoiding.Not because I don’t have an opinion about AI — but because I have too many feelings about it. Gratitude. Fear. Anger. Wonder. All tangled together.AI has become my external brain — a tool that helps me function, organize, even parent. And at the same time, it’s the thing that might end my career.In this episode, I talk honestly about what Adobe’s new
Economic Dumpster Fire - Why the Creative Economy Split in Half (and How to Navigate It)
Episode 34 | November 2025I was in my garage last Tuesday, shooting beef tallow. Yes, beef tallow—jarred cow fat with a marketing department. And while I'm adjusting highlights on solidified animal fat for the fourth time, I'm thinking: I used to shoot for Rolling Stone. What happened?Then my friend Candice texted. An illustrator in St. Louis. I asked how business was going."Everything is
Yeah, Maybe - Why Some People Kill Your Ideas (And How to Protect Them)
Have you ever shared something you were excited about only to have it met with "yeah, maybe" or "how are you going to monetize that?"In this episode, I sit down with a story that's been eating at me for weeks — a conversation at a coffee shop that revealed something uncomfortable about regret, haunted creatives, and the ghosts of unmade work.This isn't about toxic positivity or hustle cul
Gold Star - Why Artists Keep Chasing Validation and How to Find Meaning Without the Awards
You ever buy a twenty-two-dollar airport sandwich and convinced yourself it was worth it?That’s what this week’s episode is about — except the sandwich is a photography competition.In Gold Star, Patrick unpacks his love-hate relationship with the American Photographic Artists’ Untitled competition — and what it reveals about the creative world’s obsession with approval. From spreadsheets
The Cage - Three Invisible Prisons That Keep Creatives Small
Why creatives stay stuck, even when the door’s wide open.We all want freedom. Creative freedom, emotional freedom, professional freedom. But here’s the thing nobody tells you:You can be free… and still live like you’re caged.In this episode, I break down the three invisible cages every creative person ends up pacing:The Industry Cage – tribes, gear cults, status games, and the performance
Dirty Little Secrets - 8 Secrets Photographers Never Admit
A milestone. And maybe the most uncomfortable episode I've made so far.A few weeks ago, I sent an email to thirty photographers I know. I asked them one question: What's your dirty little secret? The thing you'd never admit publicly. The thought that lives in the back of your brain at 3 AM.I told them it would be anonymous. I just wanted the truth.And I got a lot of responses.This episode
The Sacred Mundane - Beating Hustle Culture, Escape Procrastination, and Focus Deeply
Have you ever had a day where you told yourself you were “busy”… but couldn’t actually remember what you did? I know I have. Hours lost to scrolling, inboxes, half-finished tasks — and somehow at the end of it, I’m exhausted but nothing’s really done.In this episode of The Terrible Photographer Podcast, I go after the two liars in my head who keep me trapped in that fake middle ground:Hus
The Tyranny of Okay - Why Most Creative Work Is Just Work
What if the most radical thing you can say about your creative work is: it’s okay?In this episode, Patrick dives into the beige middle of creative life — the 80% of days that aren’t fireworks or disasters. He tears into LinkedIn’s toxic lobster-and-champagne highlight reel, confesses his late-night burger-level Photoshop grinds, and introduces us to Sarah, a catering coordinator who redef
Permission to Quit - AI, burnout, and why photographers are leaving the industry
A New York–based commercial portrait photographer (big clients, covers, immaculate work) asked to talk. What came out wasn’t a portfolio review—it was a confession: he hasn’t made anything for himself in over a year, and he’s exhausted from performing passion he doesn’t feel. This episode is a permission slip for the photographers—and all creative workers—secretly pricing escape routes at
Pub Meditations - Six Meditations, One Pint: Notes on Survival, Shadows, and Light
One meditation. One burning question. One reminder you’re not alone. Every Wednesday in your inbox — shorter, sharper, and more honest than I could ever be in a long essay.Subscribe to Pub Notes: terriblephotographer.comSome days the world is too loud, too endless. You don’t need another lecture. You need a pint, a hard truth, and a line you can actually carry into tomorrow.This week’s ep
Is It Good? - Photography, Approval, and the Fight for Creative Truth
Every kid asks their art teacher, “Is it good?”—and most of us never stop. In this episode, Patrick sits in Lucy’s middle-school art room and realizes he’s still chasing the same answer on high-stakes sets: watching client faces, parsing murmurs behind a monitor, riding the narcotic of approval.We get into the modern authorities—clients, algorithms, mood boards—and the way we internalize
In the Shadows- A creative deep dive into photography, shadow work, Carl Jung, and the emotional weight of what we avoid.
A podcaster recently told me this show was "really dark." So today, we're leaning into that darkness—because that seemed way more fun.This episode is about shadow work. Not the Instagram version. The real version. The kind that happens when you realize the thing limiting your creative work isn't technical skill—it's the parts of yourself you've been hiding from.Through David Bowie's near-
We Work, Rome Burns - How to Keep Creating When Everything Feels Like It's Falling Apart
Community & FeedbackTake the Listener Survey: What kind of episodes do you want more of? Your feedback directly shapes future content. 🔗 Complete the survey hereShare Your Story: Have you experienced professional compartmentalization? The cognitive whiplash between personal crisis and work demands? Share your story—email or leave us a voicemailWhat happens when you have to switch from
The Dangerous Creative - How Solving Problems Makes You Dangerous (Even If You're a Barista)
Sometimes creativity has fuck-all to do with your job title.In this episode, Patrick explores why the most dangerous creative minds often don't call themselves artists—they're teachers buying classroom supplies with grocery money, middle managers translating executive gibberish into human language, and baristas solving problems that million-dollar consultants couldn't crack with PowerPoin
Permission to Suck - Turning Failure Into Data
Every photographer needs permission to suck. And I mean that literally. In this episode, I explore the difference between accidental failure and strategic failure, and why that difference will determine whether you spend your career playing it safe or actually growing into the photographer you're meant to become.From my own lighting disaster at a corporate shoot to Jerry Seinfeld's brutal
The Wrong Target - When Freelance Invoices Go Unpaid, and Rage Takes the Mic
One phone call. One late invoice. One moment of controlled but very real rage. In this episode, I unpack a recent client conflict that left me feeling powerful, anxious, vindicated—and deeply uncomfortable. It’s not about being right. It’s about what happens when your nervous system hijacks your ethics, and you end up blowing up the wrong bridge.Social psychologist Jamie Hughes joins to h
The Job I Hate The Least - Because photography isn’t about the photos. It’s about surviving the job.
There are shoots where everything clicks.The light is magic. The client is chill. The work feels effortless.This episode isn’t about those.Instead, we’re going into the plumbing.Literally.From overflowing toilets in luxury villas to Fortune 500 invoice purgatory, from last-minute gear fails to moments that remind you why you ever picked up a camera in the first place — this one’s for ever
The Light Hits Back - What if the worst thing for your art… is being seen?
What happens when the thing you made in the dark suddenly ends up in the spotlight? This week, Patrick gets personal about the strange pressure of being “featured,” and why attention might be the most creatively dangerous drug of all.From a viral photo in the dunes to the slow collapse of chasing relevance, this episode dives into the algorithm’s indifference to honesty, the myth of momen
The Technician - When the identity you built starts to crumble, what do you build next?
"I thought the work would save me. I was grossly mistaken."What happens when a stranger on Clubhouse calls you a technician instead of an artist? Patrick breaks down the brutal midnight conversation that cracked open everything he thought he knew about his photography career. From the golden handcuffs of corporate work to the humbling reality of freelancing for $650, this episode is about
Angry - A brutally honest episode about creative burnout, anger, and the choice to keep going.
Everyone loves a comeback story. But what about the part where you’re just… sitting in a garage at 2 a.m., surrounded by half-charged batteries, broken gear, and a growing sense that something inside you might be cracking?This episode isn’t about triumph. It’s about that strange, quiet middle, the one nobody posts about, where you’re not broken, not healed… just angry. Angry at the indust
Insider/Outsider - Surviving the Creative Industry
What happens when you still love photography but start to wonder if there’s any place left for you in the industry?In this raw, vulnerable episode, Patrick Fore gets brutally honest about what it means to be a working photographer in 2025. From a moment of personal crisis in a cluttered garage to the soul-draining grind of cold outreach and algorithm-chasing, this episode pulls back the c
Why Shapes How - On Intention, Execution, and the Lie of Objectivity
Episode Title:Why Shapes HowOn Intention, Execution, and the Lie of ObjectivityDescription:You can nail the lighting. Get the shot. Hit all the settings.But if you don’t know why you’re making the image, it’s just visual noise.In this episode of The Terrible Photographer Podcast, we dig into the lie at the heart of modern photography — that technical mastery is the pinnacle of the craft.
Tear Gas & Pixels - What protest photography teaches us about truth, power, and not looking away.
This episode wasn’t planned.But with federal troops deployed in Los Angeles, students arrested, immigrants targeted, and journalists silenced — it felt dishonest to pretend everything was normal.In this special essay-style episode, I explore the role of photography in moments of protest and power:Why the frame is never neutralHow truth is shaped, and sometimes distorted, by the cameraThe
The Revolt - Why Your Creative Rebellion is Failing
At some point, every artist has to choose:Keep making work that gets likes.Or make work that actually says something.This is an episode about the quiet uprising.The moment you stop painting for the academy.The moment you realize you’re not burned out from doing too much, you’re burned out from doing too much that means nothing.We start with a true (and strange) story from 1863, when four
The Silence - When the work goes quiet, what is it trying to say?
This week, I throw out the episode I was planning and respond to an email from Carri, a baby photographer from Michigan, whose words hit like a punch in the face. We’re talking about a different kind of burnout. Not from hustle, but from creative absence. From stillness. From not getting to do the thing you love.This is for the photographers, and all creatives, who feel the slow ache when
Stinky Dead Mouse - Why most portfolios all look the same, and how to stop being everyone else.
You ever clean your entire house and still smell something rotting?This episode is about that. Except the smell is coming from your portfolio.In Episode 10, we’re talking creative decay — that slow, invisible rot that sets in when your work looks good but feels dead. From personal stories (including one involving a bathtub and a topless model reading Vogue) to a breakdown of the 60/40 Rul
Pillow Talk - The emotional and economic toll of creative work.
Some nights, what keeps you up isn't anxiety, it’s the quiet ache of misalignment. In this episode, we dive into the emotional and economic toll of creative work: the burnout, the spirals, the slow erosion of joy when your art becomes your paycheck. Patrick opens up about nearly quitting photography, the paradox of making a living off your creativity, and what it really means to protect
Copy Machine - On Imitation, Identity, and Making Work That’s Actually Yours
We all start by imitating. That’s human. But somewhere along the line, many of us stopped making work we love — and started making work that just looks like it belongs to someone else.In this episode, Patrick tells the strange, slightly heartbreaking story of Klarbinnax-7, an alien who crash-lands in California and becomes a crude copy of a workshop guru named Brad. Through this fictional
My Friend Hue - Seeing Color as Emotion, Language, and Power
this episode is a love letter to color. Not just as an aesthetic choice—but as psychology, science, culture, and storytelling.We start with a fictional moment on a busy New York City street, then dive into a 5-minute crash course on color theory (Bill Nye style), unpack cultural associations across time and geography, and land on practical ways to use color intentionally in your work. Whe
Dim, Not Done - Burnout, Breakdown, and the Slow Road Back
This one’s personal.In this episode, Patrick shares the story of a full-blown burnout that ended behind a dumpster — and why it didn’t start there. We talk about what burnout really looks like (spoiler: it’s not just being tired), how the body reacts to prolonged stress, and how that quiet voice telling you you’ve “lost it” might just be your nervous system waving a white flag.With insigh
Still Here - Why Resilience Is a Creative Act
This week’s episode isn’t about trends, trolls, or gear. It’s about something quieter — the part of you that refuses to give up, even when the work feels impossible.We explore the idea of creative resistance, the myth of “falling behind,” and why showing up (even in small ways) is its own kind of creative power. There’s a story about trees, Biosphere 2, and why life’s “wind” might be shap
No Secret Sauce: Just Show Up (How Careers Are Actually Built)
You’re not missing a magic lens. There’s no course, preset pack, or algorithm trick that’s secretly holding you back. The truth is less glamorous — but way more powerful.In this episode, Patrick peels back the myth of overnight success and calls out the industry’s obsession with shortcuts. Through stories from world-class kitchens, overlooked jazz clubs, and forgotten film sets, he explor
Recommended
Solved Murders - True Crime Stories
紐約鳥｜New York Aperture
The Swerve Podcast: Obscure Topics | Conspiracy Theories
The Bread and Banter Podcast
The Church of What's Happening Now: The New Testament
Busted Open
Deadline: White House
Crickets Corner
History of the Earthquake and Fire in San Francisco
Fox news
K-Drama Obsessed Mamas | Beyond “Just One More Episode!”
True Crime Classics
