Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
The Terrible Creative is a storytelling podcast for photographers, designers, and creative professionals working through the parts of the creative process no gear review or business course ever covers.
Each episode is 30 to 40 minutes. Solo. Story-driven. Built around mental health, artistic identity, and what honest work costs in a career rewarding performance over truth.
This is not a photography podcast about cameras, presets, or client strategy. This is a podcast about the inner experience of being a creative professional, made for the mid-career photographer or designer who has mastered the technical side but lost the thread.
Hosted by Patrick Fore, commercial photographer, author, and former lead photographer and brand designer for Taylor Guitars. His work has appeared globally for clients like Nike, Petco, and Verizon. He built this show because none of the podcasts he found addressed the real problem.
If you are a photographer or creative professional who feels competent on the outside and quietly lost on the inside, you are a Terrible Creative. This is your podcast.
I was going to talk about something else today.
But then I watched federal troops march through Los Angeles like it was Fallujah. Watched ICE agents hunt people through neighborhoods I've walked, eaten in, photographed. Watched Americans get gassed for the crime of saying "this is fucked up."
So here we are.
Look, I make pictures for a living. I worry about light and composition and whether my clients are happy. Small concerns in the grand scheme. But I also have eyes. And what I'm seeing right now isn't America having a policy debate — it's America having a nervous breakdown.
Marines deployed to watch immigration raids. Not to defend the homeland, but to help round up people whose paperwork expired. People who've been here longer than some of the agents hunting them. People whose kids are in Little League, whose mortgages are current, whose only mistake was believing that doing the right thing — showing up to court, following the rules — would protect them.
It didn't.
And when citizens gathered to say "wait, this isn't us" — when students and teachers and regular people who probably couldn't find ICE headquarters on a map decided to stand up — they got tear gas and rubber bullets for their trouble.
Here in San Diego, I see the machinery up close. ICE vans parked outside the coffee shops where I edit photos. Checkpoints on the highways I use for shoots. The disconnect between the America I thought I lived in and the one unfolding outside my window is... considerable.
So maybe this seems off-brand. Maybe you came here to hear about f-stops and burnout and creative authenticity. But authenticity means calling it like you see it. And what I see is a country that's forgotten the difference between enforcement and violence.
The only question now is whether we're going to document it or pretend it's not happening.
My name is Patrick Fore. This is the Terrible Photographer podcast. Today: "Tear Gas and Pixels."
Segment 1: The Frame Is the Weapon
There's this phrase I keep coming back to: "The frame is the weapon."
What we choose to photograph — and what we choose to crop out — shapes how the world sees reality.
You want to know why so many people in power hate photographers? Because we show what actually happened.
The cracked skull.
The raised baton.
The blood in the grass.
The child separated from their mother.
Photographs don't flinch. They don't spin. They don't have talking points.
They hold people accountable long after the press conference ends.
Think about it: Kent State. Four dead students became a turning point in American consciousness not because of the speeches or the editorials, but because of a single photograph. A girl screaming over Jeffrey Miller's body. That frame ended a presidency.
Rodney King. Eighty-one seconds of amateur video that revealed what Black Americans had been saying for decades. The frame became evidence. The weapon became justice.
And that's why image-makers are often the first targets.
Because if they can shut down the cameras, they can rewrite the story.
Right now, we're watching a master class in narrative control. The federal government is calling peaceful protesters "agitators." They're calling documentation "fake news." They're calling accountability "bias."
But the frames don't lie.
When you see a Marine in full combat gear facing down a college student holding a sign, you don't need a caption to understand the power dynamic.
When you see families running from men in tactical gear, you don't need a spokesperson to explain the fear.
And maybe you're listening to this thinking, "I'm not a photojournalist. I shoot weddings. I shoot brands. What does this have to do with me?"
But if you hold a camera — you're a part of this.
Because image-making, even in the most commercial sense, isn't neutral.
Every frame is a choice.
Every edit is an argument.
Every post is a position.
And when you learn to see — really see — you start to recognize just how many people have been systematically cropped out.
The immigrant worker who cleaned the venue before your wedding shoot.
The undocumented family living in the shadows of the neighborhood you're gentrifying with your lifestyle content.
The protest happening three blocks away while you're shooting a brand campaign about "authentic living."
You can't unsee it once you start looking.
And that changes everything.
Segment 2: Clout vs. Conscience
Here's the part I don't want to say.
But I'm going to anyway.
Because it's been gnawing at me.
While students are getting zip-tied on sidewalks…
While professors are getting tackled and gassed for trying to shield their students…
While families are being torn apart by men with badges and guns…
I've seen photographers out there shooting with the same energy they'd bring to a styled shoot.
Treating a protest like it's an instagram model.
As if this is a chance to go viral.
I watched someone livestream themselves getting "great content" while a kid was being arrested in the background. Not helping. Not intervening. Just framing it perfectly for the algorithm.
And look — I'm not trying to gatekeep the right to document.
But you can feel the difference between someone who's there to witness… and someone who's there to perform.
One tells the truth.
The other builds a brand.
If you're photographing protest to raise your platform — if you're treating tear gas like a aesthetic choice — you're not a documentarian. You're a tourist.
There's no honor in aestheticizing pain while distancing yourself from the cause.
And I say this as someone who has made beautiful things.
I understand the pull of light and shadow. The drama of movement. The poetry in the chaos.
But real documentary work? It's not about the shot. It's about the subject.
It's about understanding that when people are bleeding, when people are risking arrest and assault and academic retaliation — when people are putting their bodies on the line for something bigger than themselves — the least you can do is not use them as a backdrop for your next engagement spike.
The least you can do is remember that these are human beings, not content opportunities.
I want to share something I read from photographer Chelsea Lauren — someone who’s been out there, actually documenting what’s happening in Los Angeles.
She wrote:
“There are no riots in LA.”
“Let me repeat it. There are NO riots in LA.”
She explained that the photos — the ones that make the city look like a war zone — are real. But they’re also specific. Focused. Shot right at the skirmish line, where police and protesters clash.
And just 200 feet in any direction?
Business as usual.
Protest contained to a single block while the rest of the city shops for groceries, picks up takeout, scrolls their feeds.
And then she shared something else. Something quiet.
She wrote that after one protest, police kettled a group of demonstrators near Pershing Square.
Protesters took shelter in a nearby apartment building.
And the residents?
They opened their doors.
They hid them.
They protected them.
No arrests. No violence. No headline.
Just people… doing what people should do.
And Chelsea ended the post like this:
“I love my city. Tonight, it lived up to its name.”
“Truly, a City of Angels.”
That’s a photograph too.
It might not go viral.
But it matters just as much.
Segment 3: The Photographer as Witness
There is a sacred responsibility in being the one who sees.
Not the first to post. Not the one with the fastest caption. Not the one with the most followers.
The one who sees.
The one who shows up — camera in hand, heart in throat — and asks, "What does the world need to see right now?"
I've been thinking about this a lot lately. About what it means to be a witness.
Not just to beauty. Not just to joy. But to injustice. To violence. To the moments when power reveals its true face.
There are photographers out there right now who will never get hired by an agency, never shoot a cover story, never win an award — but they are doing the real work.
Quiet. Risky. Underfunded.
But real.
They stand between the lie and the proof.
They're the ones documenting ICE raids at 5 AM when no one else is awake.
They're the ones following up on the families three months later when the news cycle has moved on.
They're the ones getting arrested for filming police brutality, then posting bail and going right back out with their cameras.
And I think we forget that sometimes.
That the work doesn't have to be flawless to be necessary.
That truth doesn't need polish. It just needs light.
Some of the most important photographs in American history are technically terrible. Blurry. Grainy. Off-center. But they showed us something we needed to see.
The liberation of concentration camps. The Birmingham fire hoses. The falling man.
These images changed the world not because they were beautiful, but because they were true.
And right now, in Los Angeles, in cities across this country, there are photographers doing that work.
Documenting what happens when federal troops occupy American streets.
Showing what happens when the Constitution becomes a suggestion.
Revealing what happens when "law and order" becomes a weapon against the most vulnerable.
Honest photography isn't about having the right lens or knowing how to dodge and burn in Lightroom.
It's about having the guts to point your camera at something no one wants to see — and keeping it there.
It's about understanding that your job isn't to make people comfortable. It's to make them aware.
And sometimes, awareness is uncomfortable.
Sometimes, the truth is ugly.
Sometimes, the frame that matters most is the one that makes people turn away.
But you don't turn away. You keep shooting. You keep showing.
Because that's what witnesses do.
Segment 4: The Historical Echo
This isn't the first time.
American history is full of moments when photographers became the conscience of the nation.
When power overreached, when violence erupted, when the comfortable distance between "us" and "them" collapsed — photographers were there.
Jacob Riis showing us how the other half lives.
Dorothea Lange documenting the Depression.
Gordon Parks revealing the reality of segregation.
But it's the moments of state violence that cut deepest.
Kent State, 1970. Students protesting the expansion of the Vietnam War. National Guard troops deployed to "restore order." Four dead. Nine wounded. And one photograph that changed everything.
John Filo's image of Mary Ann Vecchio screaming over Jeffrey Miller's body. A moment of absolute grief captured in black and white.
That photograph didn't just document what happened. It ended the illusion that American troops wouldn't fire on American students.
It made the abstract concrete. It made the political personal.
And it helped end a war.
Now we have Marines on American streets again. Not protecting us from foreign enemies, but enforcing domestic policies.
Not responding to invasion, but to people seeking refuge.
Not maintaining peace, but suppressing dissent.
The echo is deafening.
And just like in 1970, the cameras are what stands between the official story and the truth.
The difference now is that everyone has a camera. Everyone can be a witness.
But not everyone understands what witnessing means.
Not everyone grasps the weight of the frame.
Segment 5: What You Can Do
Maybe you're listening to this and thinking: "But I'm not there. I'm not on the ground. What can I even do?"
The answer is: More than you think.
First, you can call bullshit when you see it.
When someone shares a video that's been edited to remove context, you can provide the full story.
When someone posts a photo that's been cropped to change the meaning, you can share the wider frame.
When someone spreads misinformation about what's happening, you can correct it with documented facts.
You can amplify real documentation — from protesters, from students, from independent journalists.
You can support photojournalists who are doing the work. Buy their prints. Share their stories. Fund their next project.
If you're local, show up.
Not for content. Not for clout. But because people are being harmed and silence is how this stuff spreads.
You don't have to be perfect. You don't have to have all the answers.
You just have to care enough to be present.
Use your camera to tell the truth.
Use your platform — even if it's small — to create clarity, not confusion.
Use your voice to speak for those who can't.
And most of all… don't look away.
Don't let them normalize this.
Don't let them convince you that federal troops on American streets is just politics as usual.
Don't let them tell you that documenting injustice is "taking sides."
Don't let them crop you out of your own democracy.
Because here's what I know about frames:
The most powerful ones are the ones that refuse to look away.
The ones that insist on including what others want to exclude.
The ones that force us to see what we'd rather ignore.
That's the frame we need right now.
Wide enough to show the full picture.
Sharp enough to capture the details.
Honest enough to change minds.
Soft Close
Photography was never just about likes.
Never just about paychecks.
Never about curating a perfect little feed to prove we exist.
It’s always been something bigger.
Stranger.
More dangerous.
Photography is how we remember.
And how we refuse to forget.
It’s how we cut powerful men down to size —
and how we lift the forgotten up to where the kings and queens used to stand.
It sells a product.
And stops a bullet.
It’s protest and poetry, commerce and confession.
It’s how we say: “I saw this.”
“This happened.”
“This matters.”
To photograph is to take notice.
To stare down what most people would rather blur.
To watch the faces of the poor and the gestures of the proud.
To see strange things — machines and shadows and sorrow.
To look at the world —
and to keep looking.
So keep showing up.
Keep shooting.
Keep seeing.
Stay courageous.
Stay kind.
And yeah…
Stay terrible.