Photography: The Gear, The Craft & The Voice — Part One
Every photographer inherits a definition of good before they've earned one. This episode is about where that definition actually comes from, why gear ends up being the evidence of it, and why the real question was never which camera to buy.
Patrick walks through camera store tribalism, the teachers nobody asks to have (YouTubers, algorithms, magazines, the guy at the counter), a British portrait photographer who rewired how he thought about images during a COVID-era Clubhouse call, a viral coffee photo he's since made peace with, and why he was wrong to blame Canon for any of it. First of a three-part series on gear, craft, and voice.
In this episode:
- The quiet neurosis of buying a new camera, and the specific lie it tells you
- Why brand loyalty (Canon vs. Sony vs. Fuji vs. Leica) is never really about the gear
- The trend history nobody wants to own: shallow depth of field, HDR, orange and teal, drone reveals, LUTs, AI skin
- Tom Hoops and the conversations that happened on Clubhouse during lockdown
- A photo Patrick made that went semi-viral, and what he now understands about why
- Why "gear doesn't matter" and "gear matters" are both the wrong question
- What actually changed his relationship to his own cameras, four to five years in the making
Mentioned in this episode:
Resources
Podcast written, produced, and hosted by Patrick Fore.
Music licensed through
Epidemic Sound and
Blue Dot Sessions.
Recorded from my garage in San Diego, California.
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What is The Terrible Creative?
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.