How to Build a Thriving Wedding Photography Career with Michael Freas

Michael Freas is a photojournalistic wedding photographer based in Asheville, North Carolina, who went from picking up his first camera just nine years ago to becoming a highly awarded professional. His stunning work has been featured in The New York Times and Rolling Stone, making him a rising star in the wedding photography world.

In this episode, Michael shares the inspiring story of how grit, hustle, and ambition fueled his rapid success. We also dive into the pivotal role mentorship played in his growth, and he offers practical advice on finding the right photography mentor to help you take your craft to the next level. Whether you’re looking to break into wedding photography or any other creative field, this conversation is packed with motivation and real-world tips you won’t want to miss.

Transcript

00:00:00:03 - 00:00:29:00

I basically worked my way into a real estate office and said, Hey, I know what I'm doing, which I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. Sat in a two bedroom apartment, took me four hours to photograph because I was watching YouTube step by step as I was doing it in there. Next thing I know, I'm shooting real estate. I sold two 6,000,000 million dollar houses sight unseen for the photos alone. Got published in Florida Design mag for some photos I took and then the wedding photography journey began. 

00:00:31:26 - 00:00:53:11

Welcome to the Big Photo Hunt Podcast, a show where we talk with aspiring and professional photographers to help us all grow and improve our photography together. I'm your host, Ken Deckinger. If you're one of our community members and you'd like to be a guest on the show, please visit bigphotohunt.com for more information. 

00:01:03:11 - 00:01:46:07

Today. I want to talk about just making it happen. My guest today is photographer Michael Freas who has done just that. Michael picked up a camera in 2014 and never looked back. Since that time, he has built a respected career as a wedding photographer, where he's been recognized as a top 100 photographer by wedding photojournalist association, a top ten by North America Masters of Wedding Photography, a recipient of a fearless award by Fearless Photographers Awards from The Knot Best of Weddings, including Being in the Best of Weddings Hall of Fame and his photos have appeared in publications such as Kite Surfer Magazine, Rolling Stone and The New York Times, to name a few. 

00:01:46:09 - 00:02:17:11

And Michael, one of the things that I'm super interested in talking to you about today, in addition to your journey because think we can all learn from your experiences, is how you think about wedding photography, because your photos are different and they tell stories about your clients. I remember when I got married and I walked away with some portrait photos and some photos of the event and they were nice. But want to talk about how you look at the world and come away from your clients weddings with truly journalistic feeling photos. So, Michael, welcome to the show. 

00:02:17:17 - 00:02:20:02

Hey. Hey. 

00:02:21:02 - 00:02:22:14

That was great, man. You might. 

00:02:22:16 - 00:02:23:21

You should. Oh, that was fun. 

00:02:23:23 - 00:02:30:18

You should take over my jingle. Speaking of the “Hey,” probably the most important question is, what did you think of the intro jingle? 

00:02:30:24 - 00:02:36:18

I was digging it, man. I felt like I was listening to, like, Sirius XM, always Channel 53. The Chill Channel. 

00:02:38:04 - 00:02:39:15

Did it have you dancing? 

00:02:39:26 - 00:02:45:17

I was moving in my chair. Okay. Yeah, There are some hands go some jazz hands going back and forth. 

00:02:45:19 - 00:02:55:21

I wasn't really going for like a chill vibe, but I had this guy create a jingle for me and I kind of gave him an example, and he came back with the chill vibe, and I was like, It's kind of cool. I kind of feel chill. 

00:02:55:23 - 00:03:04:15

It's like that good elevator music in the good hotels, not the, like, horrible jazz from 1993. It plays in the Holiday Inn. 

00:03:07:01 - 00:03:09:13

Holiday Inn. Do you remember the old Holiday Inns? 

00:03:09:20 - 00:03:17:05

Old school, Old school? Like when you saw a Hampton Inn, you thought you were like, in top notch, like you thought you were a baller? 

00:03:17:28 - 00:03:18:13

Yeah. 

00:03:19:00 - 00:03:26:09

Why don't we start by telling everybody where you are, where you're from, and give people a little background on your story. 

00:03:27:00 - 00:04:03:08

I'm up in the mountains in North Carolina, Asheville, North Carolina. It's one of the most beautiful places in the entire world, and I will fight you for that. I went to college to play soccer. My mom passed away when I was 19. I decided that drugs and alcohol were cooler than going to class. And so I carried that on until 2014 when I got sober, picked up a camera. And that's why we're talking right now. The places and the hopscotch is through there was Central Florida where I first met one of the first kind of photographers that got me like this dude, Von Miller, and started messing around with cameras. 

00:04:03:10 - 00:04:44:24

And then it finally when I moved to Key West, Florida, I started taking pictures of sunsets with my cell phone. It was like, there's so much more than this. And then bought a camera. And then once I got sober, it was like, Oh, let's replace one addiction with the other. And then it was like the camera was always attached to my hip. I took it everywhere with me, photographing people that were working at bars, people working at restaurants, people walking down the street. And then I basically worked my way into a real estate office and said, Hey, I know what I'm doing, which I had absolutely no idea what I was doing, had figured out what tools I needed lens wise, tripod wise, all that fun stuff. 

00:04:44:26 - 00:05:15:25

Sat in a two bedroom apartment, took me four hours to photograph because I was watching YouTube step by step as I was doing it in there. Next thing I know, I'm shooting real estate. I sold two $6 million houses sight unseen for the photos alone. Got published in Florida Design mag for some photos I took and then the wedding photography journey began. How'd that start? Collaborating. So this lady, I saw a post on Facebook that I was looking to, like, learn wedding photography. 

00:05:15:27 - 00:05:55:29

And so she hired me as an assistant. Second photographer. Worked for her for like a year and a half. She had no idea how to use her gear. I was YouTubing on the way to weddings, like trying to explain to her how to use her off camera flash and her lighting gear, which in a way kind of got me interested in off camera flash that I didn't understand and didn't know because it was a crash course where it was pretty much like I had to learn it quick because she didn't know it. And then she published ten photos in a wedding magazine and eight of them were mine and didn't give me photo credit just as her second or as an assistant or anything. 

00:05:56:10 - 00:06:26:21

That was kind of like the drive to get better because I was like, I've been busting my ass to make my life better. She just affected me negatively. How do I take that animosity and channel that? And I just focused and that's why I'm where I'm at now. I think that was like that first little test when I started being a photographer that made it go like, okay, this is it's again, it's up to you to either make or break. It's either feast or famine. 

00:06:27:01 - 00:06:41:09

And I had lived I mean, full story. I'd spent three years of my life homeless. I didn't want to be there again. So that was kind of I just like, okay, here we go. And then, like, that should all happen. And then you and I met like two years later. 

00:06:41:19 - 00:06:45:24

So after that, how did you go about getting your first solo gigs? 

00:06:46:21 - 00:07:19:22

Back then, Wedding Wire and The Knot were big. Instagram wasn't big on weddings. Facebook was, but Instagram wasn't really there. We didn't even have TikTok. And so I started advertising on those. And then there was this thing around. It's still around, but it was really big thing called two Bright Lights and two Bright Lights was just like blog. So I submitted my work from a couple of weddings I'd done well, then they got published. Well, that helped me get some exposure because it started doing link backs to to my website. 

00:07:19:24 - 00:07:50:03

And any time any person knows me that talks to me, knows that I absolutely hate social media and that I focus on my website, I can be in the top ten rankings of any city I moved to. Well, granted, not New York, not like big, big, big cities like that, but like something like Charlotte or lower. I can be top results very quickly if I focus on website. So put a lot of focus into a website. I hired my buddy Mike, so it was the Mike and Mike show. He knew about websites. 

00:07:50:05 - 00:08:24:16

He was a builder. We took a lot of my imagery. He helped me build it. He taught me the SEO. Next thing I know, I'm like number one ranking and Key West, Florida. But I also I kind of pulled some gangster SEO tactics, too, at the same time. Like, it's like old school at Guerrilla tactics, where I got a mailbox in one of the highest trafficked areas of Key West. Key West is a two by Four Mile Island. So I put it got a mailbox in the center of the island. So anybody that's there visiting this Google and wedding wedding photographers on the first result pulling up because of the location map. 

00:08:25:15 - 00:09:14:00

Did that, it took off. I ended up getting my first big publishing and Rangefinder magazine two. It was one wedding that got published on PopSugar.com Huffington Post. I do Apartment Therapy, Destination I Do Magazine. And I think back in like 2016 through 2019, there weren't a lot of great photographers that were in the wedding space because people were still like me. They were still growing and they were hungry. And then it seems like 2019 to now, it's like, holy shit, where did all this talent come from? But also go against the grain and don't do my photography the same way other people do, which makes me stand out, which the biggest thing I could ever give advice to any person is build a market around you. 

00:09:14:02 - 00:09:18:10

Because if you try to build yourself into the market, you're not going to win. 

00:09:18:21 - 00:09:29:12

You know, I got married and got these photos and like they were wedding photos. I have seen your work and they look much more journalistic. They much more like documentary file photos. 

00:09:29:17 - 00:10:00:20

I got involved with the wedding journalism photojournalism, like early in my career, which was I think I am so, so thankful for. I met this dude, Ken Pak, up in DC. He's the funniest dude I've ever met in my life. One of the most genuine people. He starts mentoring me, I start understanding photojournalism more. Then I joined. I wanted to join the Wedding Photojournalism Association. They came back and told me no. I was like what. They were like, hey, your website has too many portraits on it. 

00:10:00:22 - 00:10:31:04

It's too posed when you can put together a website that shows storytelling, that serves journalism, you can consistently maintain that year after year. They're like, Then we’ll let you in. They let me into it. And the people that are members of it, that's who inspires me. Like when you ask me who inspires me? And it's those people. It's been a journey, man. It's fun. I just that's the thing. It's fun. You just document what happens and you're a friend with a camera. 

00:10:31:06 - 00:10:32:17

Like, that's the mentality. 

00:10:35:16 - 00:11:04:03

Hey, it's Ken from the big photo hunt, and I wanted to take a quick break to say thank you for listening and for being a part of our community. Of course, if you're listening to this and saying to yourself, what in the heck is this lunatic talking about, check out our website at bigphotohunt.com. Okay. That's all I've got for my commercial here. Thanks again for listening today. Back to the show. By the way, we have cheeseburgers too. cheeseburgers. Big photo hunt dot com.

00:11:09:03 - 00:11:16:22

So you got your start in Key West, which to me sounds like an ideal place to start because people come down there to get married. Yes?

00:11:17:04 - 00:11:47:22

Yes and no. It was a factory, pre-COVID. Probably still is. But it's I think it got too much publication in the wrong way and everything started running together and becoming very repetitive. So I started branching out, doing the destination markets. I've done Italy, I've done Puerto Rico, going to New Orleans this October. I'm going to Hawaii in January. And I did that to kind of pull myself out of the I've shot so many weddings at Ernest Hemingway's house on his lawn. 

00:11:47:24 - 00:12:06:19

I could tell you where every sprinkler head is blindfolded, with my hands tied behind my back like, it's ridiculous. I got tired of beaches and taking photos on a beach because your gear gets destroyed and you always have sand in your shoes and it gets really annoying. So I decided to come back to the mountains. 

00:12:07:04 - 00:12:12:13

Whether it's in the wedding space or any space. What kind of advice would you have for people? What should they do? 

00:12:12:25 - 00:12:44:22

So I think it's I honestly I attribute to taking the correct learning route that doesn't consist for every single person the same way for me, I can't sit down. I have to do hands on like I have to do it myself. But I also need to learn from someone that I also respect and want to be at their level. I learned everything though, from YouTube, like Anthony Morganti. That's who I learned how to do, do how to do Lightroom through. 

00:12:44:25 - 00:12:54:04

But literally picking your camera up, shooting and shooting and shooting and shooting, shooting and shooting every day and then letting people who are better than you critique it, make you feel like you're an ant. 

00:12:54:17 - 00:12:57:10

And it sounds like mentorship is a big deal?

00:12:57:21 - 00:13:28:27

I think it is. I mean, for me, it was so like mentorship will help you cut through the through the bullshit, wade through the social media and stuff and find legitimate mentors, make sure they're good. They have like documented, legitimate things. Like my first mentor was Kim Pak. He was MyWed.com Wedding Photographer of the Year in the whole world. Like, dude is ridiculous. My second one was Tyler Wirken. Tyler taught me about the client experience, about the storytelling. 

00:13:29:01 - 00:13:34:27

Tyler was 2013, 2015, number one photographer in the world by American Photo Mag. 

00:13:34:29 - 00:13:48:13

So how did you go about connecting with these mentors? How did you go about finding them? Ken You mentioned which by the way, you know, my name is Ken and Ken, in case you didn't know which you probably didn't, but the name Ken means handsome, believe it or not. 

00:13:50:21 - 00:13:54:09

I'm going to tell Ken Pack that like Ken, you are a handsome man. 

00:13:54:13 - 00:14:15:10

Its origins are Celtic. Its its origins are Celtic. And it does mean handsome. Kenneth means handsome. And if you listen to this podcast, you may hear in other episodes that I truly believe I am handsome. Other people may not and most of them don't. But I get to hide behind a microphone and tell people that I'm handsome when they can't see me. 

00:14:15:15 - 00:14:16:02

So 

00:14:19:09 - 00:14:53:29

that's funny, I would say. How did I find them? Like Ken was like random. We, me and my buddy Philip were in D.C. shooting a wedding on Embassy Row, and I just like randomly reached out to him as we were driving, as we were on the plane and was like trying, trying to find like somebody within the area to like, maybe show me around. I found Tyler through my community of Fearless. So yeah, that came from my community and I think that's probably it. Like you need to find a true, like a true community of photographers that do what niche you're in. 

00:14:54:07 - 00:15:26:04

Find an association like PPA, like professional photographers of America, the people you might have a local chapter. That might be a good way to get in. I definitely think not sitting down to like search mentor photographers. I think that's your first mistake if you even think of that. A lot of it, I would take it from referral and I would ask photographers who you look up to to say, Hey, I just literally send them a message because I've had it done to me before and I've ended up mentoring those people where they just sent me a message like, Hey, I love your work. 

00:15:26:06 - 00:15:57:03

I love everything that you do. How do I do it? I'm open for criticism. Can you help me or can you guide me in the right direction to someone that can help me? And I'm like, Holy shit, this person appreciates what I do. They get it, okay? I don't mind helping them. They're not trying to get something out of me. They're actually genuinely want to become me. Why would I not help them, you know? So anytime somebody is like, How did you do that photo? And they love it, I'm like, Oh shit, let's talk about it. Like, this person appreciates what it did. This is how you did it. 

00:15:57:07 - 00:16:02:26

All right, let's do this. And then you might learn something about that photo and actually grow from it as well. 

00:16:03:18 - 00:16:25:16

For our listeners who are considering finding a mentor who can help them, what is the pitch to the mentor? What is in it for the mentor? Realizing that some of these people that are in a sense famous photographers probably get pitched a lot. What should the aspiring or amateur photographer who wants the support and guidance of a mentor ask for or offer? 

00:16:26:16 - 00:16:58:07

I think it really boils down to like knowing what you want to get out of it and being genuine, but not being all over the board. Like really knowing like focus. Like, you know, you want to learn how to use off camera flash. The best place to start is in the community. And then from there you might find a photographer that you really dig that's doing off camera portraiture or off camera lighting that you want to do their stuff. I think it's really just knowing like, what do you want to get out of it? And then trying to find someone that you think can offer that. 

00:16:58:25 - 00:17:30:10

Because I don't think there's really a set definite. I think any person can mentor anyone. It's just making sure that the person who wants to get mentored has a clear and concise view of what they want to learn. And then that person that's mentoring them feels confident about it. Like there's certain things I wouldn't mentor people about, but like composition, maybe anticipation for sure. Seeing light really hard to teach. And that's the thing about photography. Like honestly, either you see light or you don't. 

00:17:30:12 - 00:17:38:18

You can't teach it, Don't think you can. I mean, it wasn't taught to me. I just started to understand it to which makes me see it. 

00:17:39:00 - 00:17:50:27

You mentioned composition and that's something I'll have to hit you up for because I especially layering because I am trying to practice my layering and trying to build photos that have more going on. 

00:17:51:00 - 00:17:52:03

There's a book. 

00:17:52:05 - 00:17:52:23

Oh, please. 

00:17:52:25 - 00:18:04:04

I think it's called Life of a Photograph by Sam Abell. Sam. And then a, b, e, l, l. It's the Life of a Photograph by Sam Abell. 

00:18:05:11 - 00:18:06:15

Just get the book. 

00:18:06:29 - 00:18:41:22

Literally get the book and read it and study those pictures. That's step one. Step two. If you use Lightroom, if you go up to the tools while you're in the develop module, there's a dropdown that says crop tool overlay, and there's one called Triangles. And I use that and I try to put my certain points on the way that triangle is laid out, which is now made. My image is 3D. And after editing all my crops that way for so long now, I intentionally do it in camera because I see those. 

00:18:41:24 - 00:19:12:21

You just kind of like start and visualize those points from point to point throughout the camera, throughout the viewfinder. There's an app. It's called Composition Cam. It's literally just a bunch of different ways of composition, like all these different like stars and triangles. You just start to put things on each point and you'll start seeing that composition. I'll never forget it's the biggest joke that we have. My friend Viktor. He's one of the best damn photographers in this world. Lives in Spain, Viktor LAX. He always says clean backgrounds. 

00:19:12:23 - 00:19:45:15

Michael. Clean backgrounds. So it's like, don't cut people's head off with the horizon. Don't cut people's legs off with horizon. Don't take decapitate somebody with a bookshelf, you know, like don't want things running through their heads. And you start putting people on those clean backgrounds, which starts making the image 3D, which starts doing. Then all of a sudden you're like, Oh shit, I'm doing layering. I'm not even thinking about. Just practice, practice, practice, practice, practice, practice. The one thing that they always said was like, one of my mentors says, Start before you're ready. 

00:19:45:20 - 00:20:13:13

He says, Just create a huge volume of shit. People are always like, Hey, can I see all the raws? And I'm like, You don't want to see them? They're like, Why? Because like, 90% of the stuff I take is garbage. Like it's just not there because I'm I'm adjusting in the moment to get to that point. And then it's like we were talking about light and I wrote down. It was like, look and expose for extremes. Shadows are just as important as highlights. The midtones don't matter. 

00:20:13:29 - 00:20:21:22

What if the highlight is in the background? And so by exposing for your highlight, you're putting your subject in too much shadow. 

00:20:22:13 - 00:20:24:06

That's what post-production is for. 

00:20:24:11 - 00:20:25:09

Okay. 

00:20:26:11 - 00:21:08:04

You know, for me, that was real tough for me at first. And then I started shooting like it's like on professional grade cameras. Like what I shoot. I shoot the Nikon Z6 two. I've got a D850 and a Z9. And when I shoot those, it's like I can recover anything. It's different now than when I learned on film in high school, like my high school. Back then, when you captured images in film, there had to be more of a balance because you weren't taking data, you were capturing light. Whereas now we capture light, but we also capture data in a scene and we have these huge dynamic range of up or down poles that we can do on sliders to create these things. 

00:21:08:07 - 00:21:40:09

You know, we said, you said teach composition. And one thing I wrote is like learn all the rules so you can break them. I think compose your scene visually and instinctively. Like, do you think like for a photojournalist, do you think something's about to happen? Okay, great. I learned how to sit and wait. And then I went over to Williamsburg Square in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and I was sitting, taking a picture where there's anybody that's ever been to Williamsburg knows where the big in the square. There's the big mural of the female and the side of the building looking off to the right. 

00:21:40:11 - 00:22:03:18

She's looking off to the left, right hand side. You got the up in the background, you got the Williamsburg Bridge, and there's this dude. And I just sat there and I sat across from it. I composed my scene and I waited. And I probably waited for five minutes with a camera ready and dude walked right into scene and I waited on him to look right at me and snap the photo. And it's like, perfect. 

00:22:04:00 - 00:22:12:10

Yeah. I mean, that's what attracts me to your work is your eye and the look and the angle that you take with your wedding clients. 

00:22:12:12 - 00:22:23:26

And I was going to say, you just said like the angle, like that's something that just reminded me to is like, you should never shoot at eye level. You should always get high, get low, get close, get far. 

00:22:23:28 - 00:22:24:18

Yeah, I'll. 

00:22:24:20 - 00:22:29:22

Never be like that. Perfect. You know, like, get outside your comfort zone. I'm. 

00:22:29:26 - 00:22:59:04

I'm referring to angle as in how you see the world. But you do bring up a great point. So thank you. And I think that that's actually key. And I've seen a lot of your work where you there's one shot where you're down on the beach and there's a couple along near the water line and it's looks like sunset. You've got it lit by a speed light or something. It's gorgeous. It's gorgeous. And it's it's on the ground. 

00:22:59:29 - 00:23:28:24

There's three photos that I take in my wedding photos. Is I take it this is us photo, the photo that's going to go on grandma's mantelpiece and then an environmental portrait. That environmental portrait is what you're talking about. It shows where they were, what they were doing, what were the surroundings. And it's like if somebody says, Where did you get married? Boom. They've got this like wall banger that's going to go and be like, Oh, we got married at this this fort that's close to the beach. Well, nobody knows what it looks like. Well, there you go. 

00:23:29:13 - 00:23:43:04

Something that is on my mind that I wonder as you're talking is what do you do now for fun? I mean, if you're not, are you out there taking photos when you're not working? Is that still fun to you or do you need a break from your camera? 

00:23:44:06 - 00:24:15:13

So this past weekend, shooting music was real fun. Just trying to see how much how different you can play with the light. Honestly, I go and shoot sunset. I go up on the I go up to about 6000. I live at like 1800 feet. So I'll get in a car and drive up to 6000 or I'll go in and put in a sunset hike with my camera on a tripod. I'll do that when I need to, like get back to center and take a break. Sometimes I put the camera down and relax like. 

00:24:15:15 - 00:24:34:04

But I also do take I take it with me anywhere I go. But I only busted out of something. Really got substance. I like to do landscapes when I'm shooting for myself because I know that it's a put me out in nature be it's put me somewhere away from my cell phone has put me somewhere away from people. 

00:24:36:26 - 00:25:07:01

I like to document things for my family. Like we got my grandmother's, like celebration of life coming up this summer, and I will probably have a camera out the entire time. That's what my grandfather did. He documented everything our family and nobody else does it. So it's up to me to make sure that it's done. That's probably what I do for fun. Like I used to like taking pictures of food for fun. Then I photographed during Covid for DoorDash and GrubHub, and I hate myself now. Like, I don't even want to take pictures of food. It's like I don't want to do it anymore. 

00:25:07:03 - 00:25:08:10

I don't even like I made this. 

00:25:08:12 - 00:25:09:07

Banging. 

00:25:09:09 - 00:25:25:09

Banging Korean pork bowl last two nights ago, and it was like, oh, and then even the soup I made last night, I was, you know, I was a chef for 14 years. And like, I understand plating and presentation and I like, did it. And I was like, Man, that looks really good. And I was like, not busting the camera out. 

00:25:25:16 - 00:25:26:07

To eat dinner. 

00:25:26:15 - 00:25:27:09

Stop. 

00:25:28:09 - 00:25:40:18

You've already showered us with a lot of this, but I'm just wondering if there's 1 or 2 resources that you would recommend for people to give a look in order to focus on improvement and growing. 

00:25:42:00 - 00:26:02:03

I think learning how to edit is first and foremost if you want to learn Lightroom. Anthony Morganti. Morganti. Anthony Morganti on YouTube. His Lightroom tutorials are in depth. They explain things. And that's how I learned Lightroom. 

00:26:03:03 - 00:26:04:02

I think I honestly just. 

00:26:04:09 - 00:26:25:15

I think the best resource of finding photographers in your local area, like you want to learn how to do stuff, call that photographer up and say, Look, I want to learn and I don't care if I got to carry bags or I got to set up umbrellas. I want to learn how to do what you do, show up, put in a full day with these people. Don't expect to be paid. Expect to learn. 

00:26:27:00 - 00:26:35:01

You'll become a better photographer if you go into helping people expecting to be paid for something that you don't know how to do. You're not going to learn. 

00:26:36:11 - 00:26:48:10

Great advice. Really great advice. All right. And three quick questions. One of them you already answered, but I'm going to ask it anyway. The first is, what camera system do you use? 

00:26:48:27 - 00:27:19:10

Nikon, baby. Nikon. So I just started my Nikon Mirrorless about four months ago. I'd always been dSLR. Nikon's Mirrorless is not fully there yet. I will say that there's some things that need improvement, but I've also been a Nikon customer my entire life, so I'm a Nikon guy. I like the colors that come out on Nikon. I like the way the skin tones come out. I really like the on some of their lenses. 

00:27:20:06 - 00:27:25:10

All right. Number two, what's your favorite genre to shoot and why? 

00:27:26:00 - 00:27:58:08

Street photography. Hands down. Street. That's what I do for fun. Street photography. Yeah, Let's say that. That's what I do for fun. I shot street photography in Rome and the Amalfi Coast and just focused on tourists and interesting Italians. And that was one of the most fun parts of my entire trip. I like street photography because it's that whole compose and wait for it to happen so you know what you want to get, but you don't know if it's going to happen or not. So you got to sit there and put in the work to get it. And it's not like you just show up, take a pretty picture and leave. 

00:27:58:10 - 00:28:31:19

You got scope the scene out. You got to look for contrast. You know, shooting street photography in the middle of the day is really fun because the shadows are so extreme and the highlights are so extreme. So it's tricky. You never know what you're going to get. Street photography is just fun because you're capturing life. Those are great for your house because it just like you go on vacation somewhere, people are like, What's that? Oh, this is this baker I shot in Cuba. Oh, well, tell me about it. And it just starts that conversation versus like, here's a picture of a beach that I could have taken anywhere. 

00:28:31:21 - 00:28:58:24

I was just talking to a friend, actually. She's on another episode of the podcast and she was I'm going to Italy for three weeks this summer and I'm going to bring my camera and just run around. And she was in Italy and I asked her, actually, what do you photograph when you're in Italy? Because everything in Italy has either been photographed or there's going to be a tourist in your photograph. And she she was like, I tend to photograph what's happening with the people waiting in line, the people, you know, on the grass. 

00:28:58:26 - 00:28:59:12

I said it. 

00:28:59:14 - 00:29:16:24

I sat at the Trevi Fountain for three hours photographing tourists, taking photos. The best one I got was a sequence of these young girls that were doing the whole like, let me flip my hair and fix it 15 million times because I have to have the perfect selfie of me standing in front of the Trevi. 

00:29:16:28 - 00:29:18:04

Oh, God, what kind of lens? 

00:29:18:07 - 00:29:55:01

I'll tell you if you if you're going if I'm shooting street photography, I'm shooting with a 35 millimeter or a 50. Some people like the 24 to 70 because you get some compression. But I like the 35. And because that's what your eye sees and I like the 50 because it's close to the 35. But I also feel like you can still get wide angles with a 50 and a 35. You can get an ultra wide with a 35. Just by backing up with a 50, you can make that wide if you need to. But those just seem to be good focal lengths because that's you're going to need a fast lens, especially if you're shooting in an alley or you're shooting dark. 

00:29:55:04 - 00:29:56:00

I think if you're. 

00:29:56:02 - 00:29:59:27

Going to Rome, I'm going to hook you up with my boy Brian. I'll introduce you to him. 

00:29:59:29 - 00:30:00:19

Dude would love. 

00:30:00:21 - 00:30:11:21

It. Yeah. He's a professor of photography at Rome. Like, this is actually. This is a great idea. This is how I met Brian. If you're going to big cities in Europe, look up and see if they do street photography workshops. 

00:30:12:09 - 00:30:13:08

Or look in a. 

00:30:13:10 - 00:30:47:16

City, go to like an Airbnb experience and find somebody that actually make sure they share their actual portfolio of what their real work. So you can see what they actually do. Make sure it's good looking stuff. But I called the guy, I emailed him, I was like, Hey, I'm going to be in Rome for a week. I'd like to come to your workshop, but I don't need to take your workshop because I already know how to shoot photography. So but what I would like to do is can I hire one of the people that teaches your workshop to be my guide to take me around Rome? So Brian took me to just a very he took me through the Jewish ghettos. 

00:30:47:18 - 00:31:28:11

He took me all through the Colosseum. Oh, dude, I caught this young kid outside the Colosseum steps, sitting on steps with a street corner, street light just coming right over top. Top of him rolling a joint, looking up at me with his big shitty smile. And we just kept walking. I get that. And then next thing you know, I'm going and eating the best ketchup in all of Rome at this place called Vecchia Roma in the Monti neighborhood. Because we were stumbling through neighborhood to neighborhood, just shooting photography. I think honestly, the best way to do tourism in any city is find a photojournalist in that city and have them show them there, show you their city versus you trying to find it out that way, too. 

00:31:28:13 - 00:32:00:02

You're not going into like I went to in Puerto Rico accidentally stumbled into the into the the neighborhood La Perla. Yep. With a camera that didn't end very well. What happened? Sketchy The dude shows up, he comes up to us. He like, was walking across the street as we were taking this like, landscape of the street scene. We saw his head poke out. I just kept shooting. I thought it was kind of cool. We come walking up and next thing you know, we get surrounded by these five guys and we're like, okay. And he was like, he told us in Spanish and he was like, Dude, I'm a drug dealer in this town. 

00:32:00:04 - 00:32:10:06

You're not taking pictures of me. I want you. You got to delete all that off your camera. He's like, I don't know if you're if you're policy or not. And so we deleted off the camera. But what he didn't know is we had dual card slots, 

00:32:12:12 - 00:32:28:15

blessing lesson to that. Don't show them how many memory cards you have in your in your camera. But if you're told to delete it because you take photos of a drug dealer, just know that you still have backup on your backup. That's why you should always redundancy keyword of the day redundancy. 

00:32:28:17 - 00:32:33:04

I was reading an article about La Perla because there are a lot of tourists now heading down there. 

00:32:33:06 - 00:32:33:21

And. 

00:32:33:23 - 00:32:40:19

Yeah, into the neighborhood. And while now it is safer than it was, it's still a perla. 

00:32:40:24 - 00:33:14:03

This was 2017 when this happened. It wasn't safe back then. And I've spent a lot of time in Puerto Rico, like I've spent a lot of time in Salinas and and say, you can go out because, like, I love to eat food. Gravity's got rooted to Puerto Rico, which is, you know, the root of pork. Yes. One mile of lechoneras. How do you pronounce lechonera. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's like those are all through there. And it's just like going on Friday and there's just smoke coming out of him you can't see and you just you literally, you can't see. 

00:33:14:05 - 00:33:19:21

You just your nose. You use your sense of your nose. Your nose will guide you to the best lechon. It's so. 

00:33:19:23 - 00:33:20:24

Great. Did you bring your camera there? 

00:33:20:26 - 00:33:21:11

Well, yeah. 

00:33:21:23 - 00:33:35:01

I didn't take. So when we went that time, I didn't have my camera. I just have my cell phone with me. But I got some cool stuff. I would love to go shoot in Novato 100%. I bet if I went back there I could sit there for a whole day and just document them. 

00:33:35:03 - 00:33:44:11

I've been to Puerto Rico about five times, but we're going in November and I've never been to lechon and I want to go, go. 

00:33:44:13 - 00:33:48:10

Oh my God. I went like a year after I saw Anthony Bourdain go. 

00:33:48:29 - 00:34:08:26

Okay. My third question is, on a scale of 1 to 10, how often do you get the burning itch? And frankly, I love asking this question just because I love to say burning itch to get out there and go shoot photos and not to be confused with simply how often do you get a burning itch, but how often do you get the burning itch to go out and shoot photos? 

00:34:09:16 - 00:34:22:22

Anytime the sun's out, I want to shoot because I just like I see light everywhere. I go. I see. I see shadow. I see contrast. When I see good light I want to shoot. And then you're like, Wait a minute, what am I taking photos of? 

00:34:22:29 - 00:34:28:04

I'm no expert, but on a scale of 1 to 10, how often you get the burning itch? That's ten. 

00:34:28:25 - 00:34:56:00

I'd say a bit every day. Probably ten. Yeah. The days I don't want to pick up a camera or the days after a wedding. Like if you ever consider getting into wedding photography, I'll tell you, this is somebody that's been in it for nine years and has also been sober for nine years. Wedding hangovers are real and they don't involve alcohol. My brain is just mush the day after a big wedding because I put in 12 to 14 hours that day and your eyes hurt because you're through a viewfinder for 12 hours. 

00:34:56:15 - 00:35:01:04

Michael How can people find you online? Social website, all the good stuff. 

00:35:01:17 - 00:35:07:14

MichaelFreas.com @Michaelfrease and @freaseframes. 

00:35:08:15 - 00:35:14:21

Michael Thank you so much for joining me today really. Appreciate your time and chatting with you. Yeah, man. 

00:35:14:29 - 00:35:15:29

This is fun. 

00:35:17:00 - 00:35:31:21

Thank you so much for joining me for today's episode. Our next show will feature more valuable stories from our community members. If you'd like to audition to be a guest, please visit Big Photo Hunt for more information. Thanks again for listening today.