Sean Tucker on Reinventing Your Photography in the “2nd Half”

Sean Tucker is a photographer, author, and YouTuber. Known for his thoughtful approach to creativity, Sean’s work inspires photographers to go beyond the technical and embrace the deeper, more personal aspects of their craft.

In this episode, Sean shares his remarkable journey—from his early days as a pastor in the Catholic Church to becoming a photographer—and the lessons he’s learned along the way. We dive into topics like Carl Jung’s influence on his work, the power of embracing paradox and uncertainty, and how to grow as a photographer once you’ve mastered the basics.

This episode isn’t just about photography—it’s about creativity, purpose, and the journeys that shape us. A huge thanks to Sean Tucker for joining me for this thought-provoking and inspiring conversation.

Transcript

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:21:00

But at some point you will hit a crisis where you've done all that. You've spent a lot of money on camera gear, you've got a lot of technical skill at this point, and you're taking a lot of images and you're still sitting there going, like, I don't care about this. None of this means anything. That's that's that noon crisis point, right? I remember when that was for me. I remember the day that was for me. 

00:00:23:29 - 00:00:45:12

Welcome to the Big Photo Hunt podcast to 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 Big Photo hunt.com for more information. 

00:00:55:11 - 00:01:28:24

You know how some people get so excited when they meet a famous person or someone that they look up to? That's not me. I'm just not that kind of person that gets excited like that. Other things make me smile. With my guest today, though, Sean Tucker, it's a little different because he's influenced me along my entire path, whether he realizes it or not. Based in the UK, Sean is a photographer who has worked for NGOs and multinational corporations across 20 countries. He's also a YouTuber with over half a million subscribers. 

00:01:28:26 - 00:01:53:18

But rather than focus on the how of photography, he largely speaks about the why, with an emphasis on the meaning behind the work that we all try to achieve. His videos are philosophical, feeling contemplative and inspiring. They're the little conversation in photography that none of us realize that we need, but all of us can benefit from. So, Sean, welcome to the Big Photo hunt. 

00:01:53:24 - 00:01:54:19

Thanks for having me. 

00:01:54:25 - 00:02:26:22

I was thinking for today we could try to break this conversation to three parts. I first was hoping that maybe. Have you introduced yourself to our listeners? I also want to talk about your perspective on photography. I've heard you speak before about the second half or the second part of our photography journeys. And then finally, there's the reason that I reached out to you to talk about layering. I've been in trying to improve my layering with my photography, and I just haven't felt like I understood it. Sean recently put out a video that dug into layering, and I felt like for the first time I got it. 

00:02:26:24 - 00:02:36:15

So I reached out to him and here we are today. So we'll talk about that. Maybe we just start with like, who Sean Tucker is and talk about your perspective on photography. 

00:02:36:17 - 00:03:06:20

Yeah, I, uh, I am now a photographer, filmmaker and author. I guess, of the three main prongs of what I do. But I've only really been working as a photographer for the last 10 or 12 years, I think maybe a little longer now. Um, so I was born in the UK, but, uh, grew up mostly in Africa, uh, in countries like Zimbabwe, Botswana, the south to Swaziland and then South Africa. Um, so that's mostly where I grew up. 

00:03:06:22 - 00:03:41:04

And I only came back to the UK in 2012. And before that, for most of my 20s, I was actually working in the church as a pastor. So, uh, youth pastor mostly. Yeah, it was about 30 when I, when I left the church and sort of went off on my own and basically needed to rebuild a career from scratch. So I was already doing some photography and video work on the side of church to kind of pay the bills. I thought, I wonder if I can make that the thing that pays the bills. You know, like I think all of us aspire to who love photography. We think like, I wonder if it can not just be the thing I do on the side of my job, but it be my actual job. 

00:03:41:06 - 00:04:22:02

So then it took me a long time to make that happen. The first 3 or 4 years of trying, I was waiting tables. That was my main source of income, and that was at 30. That wasn't an early 20s or something. Um, and taking a bunch of images and a lot of bad images and thinking I could get higher, but not realizing that I didn't have the skill set yet, and eventually, slowly starting to get little freelance jobs and then some full time jobs. And then I went to work as a product photographer, mostly for the next 7 or 8 years with, uh. Initially it was food photography and small sort of tabletop products and kitchenware and then moved on to bigger products, sofas, dining sets, all that kind of stuff in a company in the UK when I moved back. 

00:04:22:08 - 00:04:53:00

And then, yeah, just while I was doing that, thought, I wonder if I can give back somehow. I want to be more honest than that. I think actually thinking about it, it was definitely to give back with the videos, because I think a lot of the things that I was looking for information on, I saw holes, and so I wanted to make some educational videos, but I think there was also a sense that what I used to do with the church, in terms of youth work and speaking to especially young people and trying to inspire them to get a better handle on their lives. I wanted to find a way to do that again, because it really I mean, that's what gives me energy. 

00:04:53:02 - 00:05:25:06

That's what makes me happy, feels like I'm living in a fulfilling life, is helping other people in that way. And so, I mean, my ex-wife at the time just joked and said that, you know, the only reason I started a YouTube channel was so that I could keep preaching. And she wasn't she wasn't entirely wrong. In in some ways, what I do on YouTube is a little bit of a Trojan horse. I love photography and I love educating and photography, but anyone who watches knows that. I'm always talking about more important stuff as well. And I'm using photography as a vehicle to get to how do you get a better handle on your life? So yeah, nowadays I don't do a lot of client work. 

00:05:25:08 - 00:05:38:12

I shoot for myself, I sell my own work through books and magazines, and I produce videos on a YouTube channel. And like you mentioned in the intro, I've, I've written a book about the creative life and having a good philosophy about the creative life. That's where I find myself today. 

00:05:38:24 - 00:06:04:18

Before I read your book, I had a sense that you were a pastor or something because you're so good at it and your videos, they're not preaching, but they're communicating a message. Yeah, with depth. And that is something that I have found. You're really good at. I have a friend that was a pastor and left the church and is now in technology. How did that transition go and do you miss that at all? 

00:06:05:03 - 00:06:40:22

It was rough. I mean, it's it's I think what people misunderstand or don't anticipate when they when you sort of tell this story about the fact that, you know, you leave church as a career, it's not like leaving another job. If you leave another job, it's like, okay, well, you know, I'll retrain something else and start again. Mostly your, your, your friends and family are all intact and you're just changing your career. But when you leave the church, it's a massive threat to them, especially if you've been deep on the inside. And you know, if you if they teach you everything they have to teach you and you on your own, decide, this isn't for me for a bunch of reasons and decide to leave, that's a big problem. 

00:06:40:24 - 00:07:18:04

So you don't just lose your job, you often lose a lot of friends and a lot of community because they feel they need to choose loyalty to the institution or their relationship with you. And so, you know, I kept some friends who, to be honest, we're already having the same questions as me and on the, you know, in their own private space. But I yeah, I lost a lot of I lost a lot of community too. So it really was like a proper dark night of the soul where, you know, I have to rebuild everything from scratch. I have to well, for one, I have to rebuild my own worldview because everything I thought about, the way the world worked, uh, kind of started to come unraveled. 

00:07:18:06 - 00:07:50:09

So there was that personal existential crisis. Then there was the practical thing if I need to put food on the table, I need to retrain and build a new career. And then there was, wow, um, I've been pushed out of a group that pretended to accept me unconditionally, but actually it was very, very conditional. And now I have to find a whole new place to fit in and a whole new group of friends and everything else. And and the last church I worked for were quite aggressive about it. This book you've started dipping into is actually the second book I wrote. I wrote one way back then, over ten years ago, about leaving the church and why. 

00:07:50:17 - 00:08:18:13

And, uh, at the time I was going around and giving, I was just self-publishing it, and I was giving these little book talks. Um, and the last church I worked for preached three sermons that that Sunday before my book launch in the, in the city, uh, to tell everyone not to go because I was the Antichrist. Like, they were quite serious about making sure don't go anywhere near this guy with a barge pole now because, uh, he's he's turned to the dark side. So it was, uh, it was quite aggressive and obviously a very, very difficult thing to go through. 

00:08:20:27 - 00:08:54:04

Your videos, they tend to focus on helping people and as you mentioned, they tend to have a deeper meaning than the title in a lot of cases. So, for example, for our listeners, some of the titles of Shawn's videos include advice for the Creative introvert, finding yourself through photography, the thinking versus the feeling, the courage to be disliked, which is huge. And that's something that I actually went through when I started photography. Not necessarily dislike me, but just putting yourself out there and saying, hey, here's who I am and here's my art, take it or leave it. 

00:08:54:15 - 00:09:07:11

All these titles are helpful in a way that photographers I don't think realize they need. How do you think about that, and what kind of feedback are you getting from your audience when you put these videos out? 

00:09:07:21 - 00:09:37:24

I mean, I'm aware that those sorts of videos are not really crowd pleasers, especially when you're if you're trying to be strategic on a platform like YouTube, the clever thing to do would be to go, okay, who is asking what questions, and how can I serve out videos that answer the most asked questions? But and this is a hack if anyone wants it, if you want to quote unquote successful YouTube channel as a photographer, most people who watch YouTube who are also photographers are beginners. 

00:09:37:26 - 00:10:08:19

So you have to serve beginners. And the two ways to do that, that are really easy are one help the workout, which gear they need to buy. So do camera reviews and tell them what lenses do and tell them what bodies do. Because most of them really want to know how to get started and they don't know what to purchase and they want to spend their money, right? Or do tutorials that are that are fairly basic, that give them quick tips, that are quick wins, that they can see little bits of growth in their photography that are actually tangible. That's the way that you make popular videos, because that's mostly who's watching. 

00:10:08:21 - 00:10:43:01

I mean, not a lot of intermediate photographers and very few advanced photographers are watching photography channels on YouTube. So in a way, I'm doing it wrong because I, I'm making videos for at least the intermediate photographer. Almost those who've gone through that first part of their journey and are trying to ask themselves deeper questions now about like, I might have a ton of skills, but I need to work out what to point these skills at. So I'm always going to have a more niche audience. But I just made a deal with myself at the start and said that if I was going to do this, I was only going to do it in a way that I made the videos that I really wanted to watch, because that was that was important to me. 

00:10:43:03 - 00:11:25:23

If I was going to do it in the long term, because otherwise I'd hate the content. In fact, the first three videos I put up in 2015 were a three part series on how to shoot large products in a studio and how to cut them out, drop shadow and recolor fabrics and all that kind of stuff. And when I took a step back and looked at that, I'm like, this, isn't it? This is not what I want to do. I don't want to do dry tutorials. And so I left that channel for 18 months and then came back with a better idea of what I wanted to do that I knew I actually cared about, and I've stuck to that going forward. So in terms of the feedback, I guess, you know, I see less numbers on videos like that compared to channels that are doing more practical, you know, quick win sort of videos. 

00:11:25:25 - 00:11:57:18

But the depth of the comments I get back is what I'm after, and I'm always touched by how much people say it means to them, those who it connects with, it really connects with because they're at that point in their journey, like I was making those videos that they really, really hear this stuff. And that's always what I'm after. I always had in mind that Kevin Kelly article, the 1000 True Fans article that did the rounds a few years ago. But I wanted a strong core audience that really cared about this stuff, and I wasn't chasing big numbers attached to what I was doing. 

00:11:57:21 - 00:12:19:18

Have you been pleasantly surprised that that strong core audience is massive? You know, because I sit there in my living room watching you. I've been watching you for about three years and I had no idea, like, I thought you were talking to me. And then I look one day and I'm like, Holy shit, Sean's got over half a million subscribers. He's not just talking to me. You've focused on that core 1000 followers, but it's hitting a massive market. 

00:12:19:22 - 00:12:50:06

Well, yeah, but but let's be honest about it. Right. And I think it's important to do this, like you might look and say, oh, he's got over half a million subscribers. And that's true. But most of those subscribers came along because I gave them a very practical video once because I do the odd tutorial. So my most watched video is how to shoot portraits with a single speedlight. So almost everyone who subscribes seen that video and they've all come because they've seen something practical like that. But if you go look at the average views on videos, it's between 20 and 40,000, which is not a small number and I'm not ungrateful for that at all. 

00:12:50:08 - 00:13:20:08

I'm very happy with that. But when you put that in context, that means that less than 5% of the people who one day hit subscribe have already moved on and forgotten because because I'm not serving them the practical stuff. So I'm always very sober about what that number actually means. And I'm focusing on those people who keep coming back and watching. So I think that core audience is better represented than the people who always watch, and that's between 20 and 40,000, which I'm very grateful for. But it's not half a million that. 

00:13:20:15 - 00:13:25:06

Someone who clicked a subscribe button one day and forgot. Which is what happens to most of the people. 

00:13:25:09 - 00:13:57:04

Yeah, I understand that. It makes sense. When I watch your videos, I find that I do it when I have the mind space to actually focus some videos. You know, they're brainless and I just turn it on and it's on. And I actually reserve your content for when I can focus on what you're saying. You mentioned that you're focused on the intermediate photographer, and that's a great segue into the next idea that I wanted to talk about, which is what you've spoken about before, about this second part or the second half of your photography. 

00:13:57:13 - 00:14:41:16

Yeah, it's a video I put out a few years ago now, which is which is just ripping an idea from Jung, uh, Carl Jung, the psychoanalyst who basically suggested that our lives are split into two halves, broadly speaking. So in the first half of life, we are trying to work out who we are. We're trying to construct an ego, a sense of ourself. And we're doing that by working out what the details of our life look like. So what's our politics? What do we believe about the way society should run, or about spirituality versus science? Or we're trying to work out what sort of job do we want? What partner do we want? What sort of house do we want to live in? What car do we want to drive? Do we want kids all these things and we construct this sense of self, and maybe we start to get a lot of those things set in place in our lives. 

00:14:41:18 - 00:15:12:21

But. But he suggests that at some point a crisis will hit us. You know, that we'll lose the job, we'll lose the career, or there'll be a death in the family or our partner leaves us. So something happens where suddenly we think, have I built the person that I want? Have I constructed the kind of life I want? And he suggests that at that point we have a choice. Either we can just retreat back into that box that we built, reinforce the walls, or go through a midlife crisis, which, you know, he's the guy who coined that phrase midlife crisis. 

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

You know, where we go? Like, oh, I just didn't get enough stuff. I need to I need to go and get, you know, data 20 something and buy a sports car. You know, like if I change some of the details, it'll all be fine. And we just reinforce that box. We can't rethink the big ideas about ourselves because it's just too difficult and painful. And we just fight off the world. And anytime crisis come, we push it all away. We deny it. And unfortunately, I think that leads to bitter people in their older years. Or he suggests, we can let what we've built fall apart and move through into the second half of life, where we've got a greater comfort with paradox. 

00:15:45:21 - 00:16:20:20

We don't need to define things as tightly, that we're more okay with uncertainty, and we don't need to grip onto things quite so tightly. So in terms of our creative journeys, I think it follows a very similar kind of pattern in that that first half of your journey is working out who you are, what do you want to say? So it is going out and working out like give me tips and tutorials. What cameras do I need to buy? What colors do I like? What focal length do I want to use? What's the subject matter? What genre am I going to focus on is building all that stuff. But at some point you will hit a crisis where you've done all that. 

00:16:20:22 - 00:16:52:16

You've spent a lot of money on camera gear, you've got a lot of technical skill at this point, and you're taking a lot of images and you're still sitting there going, like, I don't care about this. None of this means anything. That's that's that noon crisis point, right? I remember when that was for me. I remember the day that was for me. Um, I'd been shooting product photography for 5 or 6 years, you know, I'd gone from waiting tables, doing a little bit of photography on the side to being the head of the photography department for a big company in London with a big budget and and shooting lots of products. 

00:16:52:18 - 00:17:23:20

The rest of it, I had achieved what I thought I wanted to achieve, and I was staring out the window going, I don't care about any of this, and go like, I want to use this camera, this medium, for something more meaningful. And that was my crisis point. So I had this choice. Do I just keep going with this job and stick my fingers in my ears and, you know, go like I just need a 15 mil 1.2 lens and everything will be great. Forget it. I just need more gear. Or did I let all that fall apart and go, okay, I need to build something new now, something simpler that is not quite as tightly defined. 

00:17:23:22 - 00:17:57:24

And that's when I started going and taking portraits, just using one light as simple as possible away from the like 7 or 8 lights I was using in studios and getting very technical and fancy. Strip it right down and try and say something simple and meaningful. And that's why I say like my channel is constantly tried to talk to. I think that first half of the photography journey is very well serviced on YouTube, like there are thousands of tutors I taught myself on YouTube, thousands of tutorials that will teach you pretty much everything you need to know, help you buy the right gear. But I think that's second half of the journey isn't very well serviced, and that's the gap that I want to feel like. 

00:17:57:26 - 00:18:03:23

What happens when you hit that crisis point, and then how can you start to build more meaning into your photography going forward? 

00:18:04:11 - 00:18:38:19

It's interesting that you say you remember that moment when you cross that bridge, because I remember that moment, too. And it was this summer. We have a little beach house on Cape Cod, and every summer, as I'm I'd say I'm in the later stage of my beginning photography. And for the past few summers since I've been interested in photography, I've gone out there and shot everything I could see on Cape Cod. And this summer I just wasn't inspired. And I remember the moment and I couldn't figure it out. I take these walks I'm trying to like, keep my, you know, slim figure. 

00:18:38:21 - 00:19:09:19

So I take these walks to the beach to get some exercise. And I was walking back and I couldn't figure out for the month or so before a month or two months before I couldn't figure out why, that this summer I was not inspired on that walk. I was listening to something with you in it, and you brought this topic up and I was like, Holy shit! That's what I need. And I remember that point vividly. And since then, I've focused on learning how to get more depth in my photography. 

00:19:09:21 - 00:19:39:21

And that's one of the things when it comes to layering, which when we get into that conversation, I don't view the layering conversation as technical necessarily. I view it as getting more depth from my photography, and that's why I think what you spoke about spoke so much to me. Do you think people get to this point and deliberately recognize that they need to kind of shift into this thinking, or is it just a process, or do they get hung up if they can't shift into that second part, adding more meaning? Is it just part of their creative journey? 

00:19:40:00 - 00:19:47:24

Yeah, I this is why I thought that video was so important to make, because I don't think people recognize what's happening. And I think that. 

00:19:48:03 - 00:19:48:18

We. 

00:19:48:20 - 00:20:25:05

Used to get I mean, we used to have this system of apprenticeships in things like photography or, you know, trades that were out there where you had somebody who could walk you through what the journey of life looked like, especially when it comes to the specifics of your chosen artistic outlet. And we don't really have that anymore because we're so separated from each other and we're so aggressively trying to pursue our own fame or fortune that we don't really pass stuff on. And and I think that a lot of photographers, in particular, give up photography because they hit that noon crisis point and they think it's the end instead of a new beginning. 

00:20:25:07 - 00:21:01:00

And they don't know how to recognize that. They're just needs to be a very brave transition now. And instead they go, oh, this is pointless. It doesn't work. I'm putting my cameras away. Which is why I thought that video was a really, really important one to make. So at least be one voice saying, that's what this is that you're going through. It's not the end. It's actually when the exciting stuff starts to happen. It's actually when you start to make great work. I think if you stick with it, and I almost had in mind making that video that my hope with this is that this will get a lot of people who are on the verge of quitting to not quit, and to think about this as a transition rather than an ending. 

00:21:02:03 - 00:21:15:26

I wasn't at the point of quitting, but I was at a point of confusion. And it wasn't until you communicated that message through your content that I recognized how to kind of get over that bridge, so I'm thankful for it. Cool. Yeah. Nice job. 

00:21:15:29 - 00:21:16:18

That's great. 

00:21:16:20 - 00:21:17:07

That's good to hear. 

00:21:20:24 - 00:21:52:22

Hey, it's Ken. Pardon the interruption. I wanted to take a moment here. I don't know if you know, but last month we did a giveaway at the Big Photo Hunt. It was the first time I'd ever done something like this. The way it worked was big. Photo hunters submitted photos, and then the person that got the most total upvotes from the community at the end of the month won a prize. The prize was a Wotancraft camera bag. That winner was Veronica Bo. Congratulations, Veronica. We had a bunch of runners up too, and I wanted to acknowledge them. 

00:21:52:24 - 00:22:25:04

They're taking home, uh, big photo hunt, beta edition camera bag tag. Because losing your gear when it looks bad is just not cool. So congratulations to Daniel Serrano, Steff Chave, Sarbajit Chakraborty, Lola Delabays, Natalie Leung, Samuel Messerini, Colin Lowe, Daniela Hurtado, Pamela Fricke, Christian Conklin, Jay Levy, Derrick Buckner, David Allam, João Gomes, and Josh Hoffman. Thanks to everyone that participated and thanks to everyone that's participating in the Big Photo Hunt. 

00:22:25:06 - 00:22:26:29

Let's get back to the show. 

00:22:31:10 - 00:22:59:27

Let's talk about layering. I have focused on thinking of layering as adding spatial depth into photos. I've looked at it from the perspective of saying, how can I add elements to my photography from, say, foreground Mid-ground background perspective? What you spoke about is looking at layering as adding depth of interest to your images, not necessarily spatial depth. Could you speak to that? 

00:23:00:05 - 00:23:37:06

Yeah, the first thing to say is, is credit where credit's due? This is and I say this in the video, this is not my idea. This is my friend Joshua Jackson, who is a vastly superior street photographer to me and someone like a friend I learn a lot from every time we go out to shoot together. And I understand, I understand the kind of confusion on the layering thing. And I did have someone in the comments very upset with me for using layering in this way rather than the traditional way, saying that's not what layering means. You should correct yourself. I'm like, well, layering is a word, right? There's a lot of different ways to apply this, and I understand that traditionally, street photographers, when they talk about laying probably are talking about foreground Mid-ground background. 

00:23:37:08 - 00:24:15:20

Okay. But that's just that is just a that's just a compositional consideration. Where where am I placing my elements in terms of how far away from the camera are they? And then maybe what sort of depth of field am I using to include or not include those elements in the video? I suggest that to make a good street photograph. You need to try and build in layers of of interest, like you said. So for example, the four layers I talk about are. One is an aesthetics layer and aesthetics can be interesting. Use of light and shadow or interesting color combinations, complementary colors or uh, how you're composing elements in the actual frame. 

00:24:15:22 - 00:24:48:06

You could be shooting like a graphic designer, placing those elements so that they visually work together, balance each other out, or throw people off balance, but deliberately, that's that. That's the aesthetics layer. And that's great. You could just shoot. And by the way, hands up most of my photography that I post to Instagram, for example, only has that one layer. It's just aesthetics. It's just interesting and it's quite graphical in nature, but there's not a lot more going on than that. So for me, that isn't a great street photograph. If I'm only playing with aesthetics, I want to always push myself to build more. 

00:24:48:09 - 00:25:24:04

So then the second layer might be an interesting subject a person or an object in the frame that says something, that brings something that is a character on its own. So now you can imagine, okay, I could stack two layers now. I could have interesting light and shadow. The aesthetics are there, and maybe the color in the frame is interesting. And now there's an interesting subject in the frame, something that makes me look a little longer because this person, the way that they're dressed or this object and the way it's lying on the ground or it speaks to human life somehow, and that's interesting. 

00:25:24:06 - 00:25:58:20

Two layers. Three layers. You might add that there's an interesting moment as well. So what is the subject doing is important. You see a lot of people who like take a photograph of an interesting subject and they go, well, this is this is incredible, right? But the subject is kind of in a weird half pose or just carrying a shopping bag. I mean, the example I use in the video is from another friend of mine, Mark Fernley, who is a great street photographer too. And he, um, I heard him talking on a podcast saying, you know, he had someone send him a photograph of a woman coming out of Tesco's, which is just a supermarket chain here in the UK with two shopping bags. 

00:25:58:22 - 00:26:33:24

And someone sent in this image say, isn't this a great image I took? He said, no, I don't really I don't think it's that great. Honestly, if I'm being honest with you, they're like, yeah, but this is a beautiful moment. It's ladies carrying our shopping home. He's like, it's just the lady carrying a shopping cart. Yeah, but every moment, you know, tells us human stories like, yeah, but I think you need to push yourself. And he said that he gives himself a bar where he says he gives himself what he calls the tap the shoulder test. So he says if he sees a moment happen on the street, if he was walking with a friend and it would be enough of a moment to turn and tap his friend on the shoulder and say, hey, look at that. 

00:26:33:27 - 00:27:07:11

That is an interesting moment. But a woman coming out of a supermarket carrying shopping bags probably isn't enough for him to tap the shoulder and say, hey, look at that. So it's not that that's right or wrong to take. It's just that always push yourself. If you want to include one of those layers of interest is an interesting moment that's happening. Make it a moment that is worth stopping everybody else around you to say, hey, that's an interesting moment, isn't it? So you've got three layers. Now you've got a statics subject and the subjects engaged in an interesting moment, maybe with himself or with somebody else, or with a group of people. 

00:27:07:14 - 00:27:37:15

And then on top of that, your fourth layer, I would just say is like alchemy. It's something when everything just seems to come together, that becomes a surreal nature to it. You're like, what am I even looking at anymore? The one of the examples I give is, uh, Vivian Maier's shots of the the guy riding bareback through New York on the on the streets under the under the overground. Under. Yeah, the overground train. The kind of elevated train. Um, and you look at you go, when is this taken? What is going on? Why is this guy riding bareback through the city? There's just like a moment that happens. That's. 

00:27:37:17 - 00:28:09:12

And I think also this alchemy layer builds with time and the distance we get from images like that. So I think that kind of stuff accumulates. But now you can imagine if you've got an image that has amazing aesthetics, the compositions nailed, the light's great, the color is good, you've got an interesting subject in your frame, and that subject is engaged in an interesting moment. And there's something surreal about that scene that you're looking at going, what? This feels otherworldly. Somehow I don't see this ever. This is something new that to me is the recipe for a great street photograph. 

00:28:09:14 - 00:28:40:08

Now, you could place those elements on different layers in the traditional sense, as in foreground mid-ground background, but I don't think just having a foreground mid-ground background element, if they're all boring elements, makes a great street photograph. But if you stack those layers of interest somehow and push yourself to constantly be going, I need more to the image than this. I think you're getting closer. And the reason I say that is because when I walk around with Josh, I would often watch him and walk around a corner and say, oh, this is an interesting scene. 

00:28:40:10 - 00:29:05:22

And he'd shoot it and he'd show me the photograph he'd taken. I'm like, that's a great photograph. And he'd just go, nope, needs another element, needs another layer. It needs more. It needs the subjects. Interesting. The scenes great. But they need to be doing something more interesting. And we're like watching him go, wow, he's pushing. Himself. He needs more. He needs more. So he's just out there often, always not settling for the good. He's after the great which comes around, you know, handful of times in a lifetime. 

00:29:06:00 - 00:29:08:02

It's hard for everyone, right? 

00:29:08:06 - 00:29:38:22

I don't have one. I don't have one. With all four layers that I looked, I thought, do I have something that qualifies as those four layers stacked and I don't I and I've been shooting for a while and that's okay. I don't feel bad about that because. Because my favorite photographers, the greats, they maybe only have ten in a lifetime, right? That's the ten you know them for. You don't know any of the other stuff. And when you look through the rest, you're like, yeah, it's the kind of the top ten that we all know and love. It takes a long time to get that stuff. 

00:29:38:24 - 00:29:56:13

I've got lots of one layer photographs. I've got a few one or twos and I've got a handful of three. I don't have a single four. And because because I know that's that's an acceptable hit rate for any photographer, I'm happy just to keep going and see what I get and play the long game with it. 

00:29:56:17 - 00:30:05:10

I assume this concept applies to other genres as well landscape and other genres that have depth. Maybe not as much, say portraits. 

00:30:05:12 - 00:30:05:27

Yeah, I. 

00:30:05:29 - 00:30:35:25

Haven't really thought about it. Maybe. I think I think the minute you start doing anything that's set up, like portraits or environmental portraits or anything like that, you're not really relying on what the universe serves up to. You're creating it from scratch by placing the elements yourself. So I don't think it's quite as, as, uh, as applicable, although you could apply it saying, how many layers can you build in on purpose? It's not candid photography anymore. You're doing it. You're constructing it. Um, you could definitely apply it there, I suppose. Landscapes? I'm not sure, I guess. Aesthetics for sure. 

00:30:35:27 - 00:31:07:15

Moments, perhaps with some weather events or something that's happening potentially subjects is difficult because I think subjects, a lot of landscape photographers are shooting exactly the same subject. They're going to the postcard shots. I've got friends that my friend Simon Baxter doesn't. He goes and he shoots local woodlands and he finds individual trees off paths that people you know aren't passing off in at all. So he's trying to find things that no one else is photographing as a landscape photographer. But I would imagine that landscapes, it's a very hard thing to pull off the kind of truly unique. 

00:31:07:25 - 00:31:34:10

This is a question I hadn't intended to ask you, but while we're here, do you think that photographers have to focus on like, one specific genre? I know we talk a lot about street photography, but for me personally, I'm planning to go up to Maine, which is a state, you know, in the northeast here in, in the US, and try to practice some landscape photography and have been trying to learn a little bit about that. Do you think that the lutes are skills in one specific genre if we start spreading ourselves thin? 

00:31:34:13 - 00:32:05:10

No, not at all. I mean, I've shot a lot of different sorts of photography. You know, product photography is very technical, studio based. The portrait work I've done has been a mix, some natural light, some studio. Street photography is just candid out and about, but they're all very, very different skill sets, which I've enjoyed building in some feed into others. So like I used to shoot with very, very soft big, beautiful modifiers when I was shooting portraits. But the more I shot on the street and use harder light sources that started to feed back into my portrait work where I start to go actually harder. 

00:32:05:12 - 00:32:59:09

Light here is interesting to I. It used to be scared of it, but if I can handle it out there, I can handle it in here. So I think you can get crossovers where you learn new things that can jump genres and teach you something new as well. The only thing I'd recommend, though, the caveat to that is if you're either trying to build a following around your work, or you're trying to go out there and get client work, then yes, I would suggest that when you present yourself, you present yourself as doing one genre of photography per account or platform or website, because, I mean, the example I was used is like wedding photographers, if you go if you if you want a photographer for your wedding and you go to three websites and the first two are like just wedding photography and you can tell it's what they do, but you go to the third website and it's somebody who's got some wedding photography, but also some portraits, and then some of his holiday as well, and then some of the dog and some of his lunch. 

00:32:59:11 - 00:33:20:19

It's like you're not hiring that third guy because you're like, no, this isn't your thing. I want someone who is their thing. So for yourself, shoot everything you want to shoot. You'll learn a ton. Don't limit yourself for how you present yourself. Following or work. I would suggest decide on which account you're going to post that material and keep it about that genre I would recommend. 

00:33:20:21 - 00:33:32:28

That's super helpful. Do you have any resources that you would recommend or anyone? I know you mentioned Josh, anyone that you would recommend our listeners follow or focus on? 

00:33:33:26 - 00:34:04:22

Oh my gosh, that's a long list. Yeah, I definitely go check out Josh K Jack at Josh K Jack on Instagram for street photography I mentioned Simon Baxter. Definitely check out Simon Baxter on Instagram. If you're a landscape photographer in particularly somebody who goes out and photographs very locally and is the master of his craft, he's really. Cited. He's not just a landscape photographer, so he's not photographing, you know, hills and mountains and valleys and seascapes and forests or what? He's just photographing woodland. That's it. That's all he wants to do. 

00:34:04:24 - 00:34:29:11

And he's become a master at it. He's fantastic. Maybe the easiest thing to do, actually is if is if you do end up going along to my YouTube channel is just look at the there's a playlist on there called Featured Photographers, which is a series of documentaries I've made with other photographers about their work, and there's a whole long list there of people you can discover and hear about their story and how, why they make the images that they do. That might be a good way to check out. 

00:34:29:18 - 00:34:32:28

Where can people find your YouTube channel and your Instagram and everything? 

00:34:33:00 - 00:34:41:20

It's just @SeanTuck S E A N Tuck, I believe you can now just go youtube.com forward slash SeanTuck. Same thing on Instagram. 

00:34:41:22 - 00:35:04:27

You'll find me and the book is the meaning in the making available on Amazon I bought it, I'm two chapters in. I hope to report that I'll be all chapters in soon. Remarkable book Sean. I always ask three questions of all my guests. The first is actually I already know the first question, but the first is what is your favorite genre to shoot and why? 

00:35:04:29 - 00:35:05:25

Portraits? 

00:35:06:05 - 00:35:06:29

Yeah. Shocker. 

00:35:07:06 - 00:35:08:09

Ah, no. 

00:35:08:11 - 00:35:09:21

I've never been shocked. 

00:35:10:02 - 00:35:27:22

Yeah. I mean it's it's it's it's definitely where I have the strongest skill set is portrait photography. I don't get to do it as much these days. Um, I'm trying to work on that, but yeah, I mean, dealing with people and capturing a moment with somebody in a studio, uh, or out and about, uh, portrait photography for sure. Yeah. 

00:35:28:10 - 00:35:29:24

I had street photography. 

00:35:29:26 - 00:35:39:28

Most people do because they see the Instagram, you know, and I don't I don't post the portraits to Instagram because I keep that about the daily kind of scrapbook of images that I'm creating. But yeah, for sure, portraits here. 

00:35:40:03 - 00:35:42:24

Number two is what camera system do you use. 

00:35:43:00 - 00:36:13:12

On the street? I use mostly the Ricoh GR3X, which is a 40 mill little pocket camera, fixed focal length and um, nice little manual controls on it. For everything else, it's Sony. Uh, so I use a Sony A7RIV and a 50mm uh, in studio for studio portraits. And I have an A7 three and an A7 C, which are my run and gun, kind of, uh, other street travel cameras. Plus all the filmmaking I do is on is on the Sony system. 

00:36:13:14 - 00:36:13:29

Yeah. 

00:36:14:06 - 00:36:25:06

And my final question, number three, on a scale of 1 to 10, how often do you get that burning itch to just get out there and shoot photos? 

00:36:28:22 - 00:36:52:26

It varies a lot. Uh, at the moment, probably about a six, probably out of six. Yeah, it really, really depends on the week I go through these kind of cycles of, you know, it depends if I'm traveling that week or doing something else. If I'm doing talks. It's quite difficult to focus on photography. If I've got a video that I need to film again, that kind of takes up a lot of time. But when I've got those gaps, it's the first thing I think of getting out and doing, especially if the lights out. 

00:36:53:06 - 00:36:57:14

Is there anything I didn't ask or anything that you think might be helpful to mention to our listeners? 

00:36:58:12 - 00:36:59:17

No, man. I think you nailed it. 

00:37:00:23 - 00:37:20:09

You nailed it. All I did was sit here. Check out Sean's YouTube channel. The book is the meaning in the making available on Amazon. I highly recommend that you both follow Sean's work and that you check out the book. Sean, thank you for being here today. Grateful for your time and for all that you do. 

00:37:20:11 - 00:37:21:29

You're welcome. Thanks so much for having me. 

00:37:22:27 - 00:37:37:18

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.com for more information. Thanks again for listening today.