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The Terrible Creative is a storytelling podcast for photographers, designers, and creative humans trying to stay honest in a world that rewards pretending
In The Shadows - Revised Complete Script
Opening Hook (3 minutes)
So a few weeks ago, I was interviewed by this fellow podcaster. Really nice guy, Australian. Popular show, he has interviewed the best of the best in the photography industry.
There was a point in the interview where he casually said that the podcast, this podcast is really dark, and asked if that was my intention.
I swear to all that was holy that he had some concern in his voice when he said it. And please hear me that he didn't say it as a dig, he said it as, I assume, an outside (maybe concerned) observer, or listener in this case.
I've been thinking about that phrase the past couple of weeks, "So dark". If you're on our email newsletter, I wrote about it a week ago, but it was on my mind I thought I would bring it to the podcast.
And if I'm being honest, this isn't the first time I heard something like that. My wife alluded to it actually too at one point she was like, "you're really going to publish that?"
Yes, yes I am.
So, when I set out to write this episode, I had a few choices:
I could pivot the podcast and make it more … pleasant.
I could deny the darkness and just use words like authenticity and honesty. (which maybe what it actually is) Or 3, I could lean into it and show my Australian mate what Darkness actually is.
So here we are, leaning into the darkness, because that seemed way more fun. Today we're going down into the dark creepy basement and we're going to poke around some. We're going to open some boxes that haven't been open in decades, we're going to enter the side rooms that have a dead rat or two in the corner.
And I can't think of a better guide into the shadows than legendary musician, the late David Bowie.
[Single piano note enters, minimal and haunting]
Before Heroes, before the redemptive Berlin years, David Bowie was hollowed out.
It's 1975. He's living in Los Angeles — the city that devours souls in daylight — and he's surviving on red peppers, milk, and mountains of cocaine. His weight drops below 100 pounds. He's burning black candles. Seeing bodies fall past his window. Sketching occult symbols on the walls.
He would later say he remembered almost nothing of recording Station to Station. Entire albums, gone. A career at its peak. An artist disintegrating.
And then… he left.
Not gradually. Not after meetings with managers or interventions. He just vanished. Packed up the house in Bel Air. Moved to Switzerland. Then Berlin.
There's no footage of him in Berlin. Few photographs. The biggest rock star in the world — anonymously rattling around the cobbled, battle-scarred streets on an old Raleigh bicycle.
He shaved off the Thin White Duke persona like dead skin. And for the first time in years, started walking around as just a man with a face.
Going to cafés. Riding the subway. Watching people.
[Piano sustains, building slightly with subtle strings]
But here's what the myth-makers always leave out: Bowie didn't disappear to find himself. He disappeared because he'd forgotten how to be himself. The Duke had become so complete a performance that David Jones — the kid from Brixton who just wanted to make music — was suffocating underneath.
[Music swells gently, then fades to silence]
The moment that fascinates me isn't when he got clean. It's when he chose to disappear. When he realized: This isn't me. I need to find the parts I abandoned to survive the spotlight.
[2 seconds of silence]
That's shadow work.
[Soft opening notes of "Heroes" fade in at -25dB, just recognizable]
It's not sexy. It's not publish ready. It happens when the mask starts to suffocate you — and you realize you don't even know who's underneath anymore.
["Heroes" fades to barely audible, then silent]
Three years later, he would record Heroes in that same Berlin studio. But the song everyone remembers — about lovers kissing by the wall — that wasn't the real victory. The victory was that David Bowie could finally sing it as himself.
[Brief pause, then soft acoustic guitar enters]
I'm Patrick Fore. This is The Terrible Photographer Podcast — honest conversations about creativity, identity, and finding your voice. Today's episode is number 24: In The Shadows.
[Guitar continues for 3 seconds, then fades]
Jung Introduction (2 minutes)
[Soft acoustic guitar continues from intro, very minimal]
Let's back up for a second.
What if the thing holding you back isn't a lack of talent, or gear, or time?
What if it's something quieter? Something older? Something you've been dragging behind you like an invisible anchor?
Carl Jung — the Swiss psychoanalyst who basically invented half the shit we now call "self-awareness" — had a theory. He said we all carry a shadow.
Not metaphorically. Not poetically. Literally — a psychological shadow.
[Guitar becomes more contemplative]
It's made up of every part of yourself you've disowned. Every impulse you learned to hide. Every instinct that made someone else uncomfortable. Everything that got you punished, shamed, dismissed, or told: "You're too much."
You push it down. Bury it. Perform around it.
And if you're creative — God help you — you start building an identity out of what's left.
You don't stop being you. You just stop showing the parts of you that could get you hurt.
[Music swells slightly]
And here's the punchline: That shadow? It doesn't disappear. It just goes underground. Into your work. Your relationships. Your voice.
It shows up as imposter syndrome. As procrastination. As perfectionism. As the part of you that always feels a little bit hollow — even when things are "going well."
But here's the twist: the shadow isn't trying to sabotage you. It's trying to complete you.
[Music fades to silence]
That's what shadow work is. Not fixing yourself. Not transcending your flaws. Just finally letting the parts you've buried speak. Giving them a seat at the creative table.
And when you do that — when you stop building walls between who you are and what you make — your work stops sounding like everyone else's.
It sounds like you. Finally.
[Brief pause, then transition to Act I]
Act I: The Creative Shadow Territories (10 minutes)
Personal Entry Point
[No music - raw vulnerability]
My friend Liz is a wedding photographer.
A few years ago, she shot a wedding on the coast — one of those perfect days that looks like it was art-directed by God. Elegant venue. Golden light. Floral arrangements that probably cost more than a used car.
But underneath all of it — was grief.
The bride's sister had died the year before in a car accident. Twenty-four years old. Gone in an instant.
The family didn't talk about it much during planning, but it was there — in the way people hugged longer than usual. In the silence before the toasts. In the bride's eyes. In the empty chair next to her at the head table.
During the reception, the bride gave a speech. So did her father.
And they cracked open.
Tears. Shaky voices. The raw, beautiful ache of remembering someone who should have been there.
And Liz didn't shoot it.
She had the frame. The camera was in her hands. But she lowered it.
Not because the moment wasn't important. But because it was.
I asked her about it recently and this is what she said.
"I thought I was giving them space. Doing the respectful thing. But really… I just didn't want to be in that feeling. I didn't know how to let that much pain be part of something beautiful."
What she didn't say — not right away — was that her mom had died five years earlier from aggressive cancer.
Grief she buried under work. Grief that stayed unspoken.
And ever since, she's felt uncomfortable around death. Around loss. Around the kind of emotions you can't color correct.
When she delivered the gallery, the images were stunning. Romantic. Polished. Joyful.
But something was missing.
A few days later, the bride sent a thank-you note. Warm. Grateful. Then, at the end, she added:
"Are there any more photos of me and my dad during the speech? I know we kind of lost it, but I wasn't sure if you had any of those?"
Just a question. Soft. Curious. Not even disappointed — just hopeful.
And Liz felt her stomach drop.
Because she remembered the moment.
The bride, voice shaking, thanking her dad for carrying the weight of two parents.
The father choking back tears.
The room silent, sacred.
She had seen it. She had framed it. And she had put the camera down.
"I didn't want that kind of emotion in the gallery," she told me. "I thought I was protecting them. But I think I was just protecting myself."
So yes — the photos were beautiful. But they weren't whole.
She told the clean half of the story. The curated half. The half she could handle.
The shadow didn't show up in the gallery. It showed up in the moment she chose not to witness.
The Cultural Mirror
[No music initially]
The shadow doesn't just make you miss a moment. It teaches you to avoid the kind that matter.
Not because you don't care — but because caring is dangerous. Because if you let yourself feel too much, you might fall apart.
So you stay safe. You stay clean. You stay on script.
We tell ourselves we're being professional. But what we're actually doing is protecting ourselves from the cost of being fully present.
Liz didn't miss that moment with the bride and her father because she was distracted. She missed it because she didn't feel safe enough to witness it.
And that kind of avoidance — that emotional distance hiding inside creative clarity — it doesn't just happen to wedding photographers.
[Brief audio clip of "Station to Station" - 2 seconds, crossfade to contemplative strings]
This is exactly what happened to Bowie. The Thin White Duke wasn't his creative failure—it was his emotional hiding place. He called it "an emotionless Aryan superman" and "a hollow man who sang songs of romance with an agonised intensity while feeling nothing."
Sound familiar?
Technically brilliant. Emotionally bankrupt. A character so removed from humanity that he could perform without risking his actual self.
[Music supports the weight of this realization]
According to Bowie's guitarist Carlos Alomar, even at his most hollowed out, "When we were in work mode, it was always about the work. David was always able to manage the decision-making." The shadow didn't stop his creativity—it distorted it. Made it hollow.
Most photographers and creatives I know are living some version of this story.
The Five Creative Shadow Territories
[Gentle rhythmic guitar begins, contemplative but building]
After years of creative work, shadow work, and personal excavation — I've started to notice a pattern.
There are five territories where almost every creative person hides some part of themselves.
Not because they're broken. Because at some point in their life, they were taught it wasn't safe to bring those parts into the light.
These aren't flaws. They're survival strategies.
And like most survival strategies, they eventually start to shrink the life they were supposed to protect.
Territory One: The Fear Shadow
This is the shadow of avoidance. The part of you that freezes, shrinks, or spirals the second you're exposed.
It's not about lacking talent — it's about what your nervous system learned to fear.
What situations make you feel twelve years old again? Small. Self-conscious. Like everyone can see right through you.
For photographers, it might be directing a team on set. For writers, it's reading their work out loud. For a stay-at-home parent, it might be speaking up at a PTA meeting and hearing that old voice: "Don't be difficult. Don't be too much."
The Fear Shadow is the part of you that flinches every time you're asked to take up space. And it's often guarding the very thing you're here to do.
Territory Two: The Identity Shadow
This is the shadow of disowning. The roles, labels, or lives you quietly want — but believe you're not allowed to have.
Complete the sentence: "I could never be the kind of person who…"
Maybe it's: …quits a job and travels. …sells their paintings. …goes to therapy. …starts a podcast. …gets loud.
That reaction — the inner tightening — is your identity shadow. It's the part of you that learned to stay in character. To protect the version of yourself that's acceptable, palatable, non-threatening.
But the person you're afraid to become? That's usually the one trying to surface.
Territory Three: The Creative Shadow
This is the shadow of envy, longing, and buried desire. It shows up when you see work that moves you — and immediately dismiss it as "not for people like me."
You hear a filmmaker get emotionally raw and think, "I wish I could do that, but…"
You see a street photographer's gritty, soulful work and think, "That's not really my thing," even though you can't stop looking at it.
This shadow isn't about skill. It's about permission.
It says: "If I did that kind of work, people wouldn't take me seriously." Or: "I'd embarrass myself."
Sometimes, to do the work that's actually yours, you have to let go of the version of you that felt most accepted.
Territory Four: The Power Shadow
This is the shadow of invisibility. It's not just that you play small — it's that you don't believe you're allowed to take the lead.
It shows up when you defer in meetings. When you let someone else take credit. When you stop yourself from raising your rates because "Who do I think I am?"
For parents, it might look like going weeks without anyone asking how you're doing — and you pretending that's fine. For creatives, it's getting used to being "support" instead of "vision." Being part of the crew, not the author.
The Power Shadow says: "Stay useful, but unimportant."
But the truth is: your authority isn't a threat. It's the part of you that knows how to lead — if you'll let it.
Territory Five: The Authenticity Shadow
This is where creative compromise lives. Every small betrayal of your instincts. Every time you choose what's expected over what's true.
You photograph what the client wants, not what the story needs. You shave the edge off your writing so no one gets uncomfortable. You dial back your voice because you're afraid of being misunderstood — or worse, fully seen.
And slowly, you build a version of yourself that is safe, professional, likable — and completely disconnected from the creative impulse that started it all.
This is the territory where burnout begins. Not from working too much — but from betraying your voice in tiny, daily ways until you can barely hear it anymore.
[Music builds, slow and atmospheric]
The shadow isn't your enemy. It's not your flaw. It's the part of you carrying everything you were told was too much, too weird, too messy, or too real to be loved.
But integration? That's where it gets dangerous. Because once you start listening to that voice — the one you buried — you can't go back to playing small.
Not if you've heard your real voice speak.
Act II: Shadow Work in the Body (10 minutes)
Act II: Shadow Work in the Body (8 minutes)
Let’s talk about what shadow work actually feels like—not in theory, but in the body. In a moment. In the field. When the camera turns on you.
[Long pause – no music.]
I hate shooting events.
Weddings. Corporate parties. Fundraisers. Cocktail hours.
It looks easy from the outside. Easy money. Low effort. Just show up and document people having a good time. Smiling executives. Drunk cousins. Everyone on their best behavior.
But for me? It’s torture.
[Sparse piano enters – minimal and contemplative.]
The moment I walk into one of those rooms, something in my chest knots. My breathing gets shallow. I feel like a ghost at someone else’s celebration.
Everyone’s laughing too loud. The lighting’s bad. The mood feels fake. But what’s worse is how it makes me feel: lonely. Small. Out of sync with the entire room.
I used to tell people I wasn’t an event guy because I liked control. I liked sets. I liked direction. But that wasn’t the truth.
The truth? Those rooms make me feel like I’m 15 again—like I’m back at a party I shouldn’t have come to, pretending to text someone just so I don’t look as out of place as I feel.
[Music deepens – subtle, introspective.]
The smiles in those rooms? They trigger something in me. Not envy. Not boredom. Something closer to grief.
Because I know what it’s like to fake that kind of joy. To be surrounded by people and feel utterly alone.
Shadow work, when it’s honest, doesn’t show you what’s wrong with the world—it shows you what’s unfinished in you.
So I had to ask: Why does this type of work drain me so completely?
And the answer had nothing to do with photography. It had everything to do with memory.
[Music becomes still, grounding.]
There was a stretch of my life, starting in adolescence, where joy felt like a foreign language. Where depression was the water I swam in, and social anxiety kept me frozen on the shore.
I’d get invited to a party, walk in, feel the wrongness flood me, and leave within minutes. Not because I didn’t want to connect—but because connection felt like a private club I never got the password to.
And now? When I shoot those events? That same old wound reopens. The one that says, “You don’t belong here. You’re here to serve—not to be seen.”
[Music swells gently.]
The camera becomes a shield. The assignment becomes an excuse to stay invisible.
And the worst part? I’m good at it. I know how to disappear into the background, how to smile politely, how to keep moving so no one starts a conversation I don’t want to have.
But inside, I’m shutting down. Because my shadow’s whispering: “This joy isn’t for you. This room isn’t for you. You’re the outsider. You always were.”
And that’s the part that kills me.
Because even though I’ve built a career. Even though I’ve created work I’m proud of. Even though I’ve led teams, worked with brands, taught workshops—
That scared kid still lives in my nervous system.
[Music slows – reflective, tender.]
Shadow work doesn’t just reveal the defense mechanisms you’ve built.
It shows you where they came from.
The tight creative control I insist on? The small teams, the carefully curated shoots, the obsession with intimacy?
Not just preference. Protection.
Because the jobs I avoid? The environments I tiptoe around? They aren’t just inconvenient.
They’re haunted.
By versions of me that still don’t feel welcome.
By echoes of rooms where I was present in body but not in spirit.
[Music shifts – darker, steadier.]
Jung said that the shadow holds all the parts of ourselves we’ve rejected or disowned. Not because they were evil. But because they were too painful to carry.
The shadow says: “That hurt before. Don’t touch it again.”
So we shape our creative practice around those avoidances. We call it style. We call it niche. But really? We’re just avoiding the wound.
And that avoidance has a cost. A real one.
It limits what we create.
It limits who we work with.
It limits what we allow ourselves to feel while doing this work.
[Music supports the truth of this.]
My shadow doesn’t hate photography. It just doesn’t trust me to survive the kind of vulnerability that happens when joy is loud and real and unfiltered.
So I avoid it.
Even when I know those moments—the ones I’ve been hiding from—are often where the most honest images live.
[Music slows – near silence.]
This is what Jung meant when he said, “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”
My fate, if I let it go unexamined, would be to stay safe. To stay small. To stay behind the camera. To photograph life instead of participate in it.
But now I see it. And once you see your shadow clearly, you can’t unsee it.
And the real work begins: not erasing the fear, not muscling through it, but asking—
What would it look like to make work from that place?
Not to run from the wound. Not to disguise it.
But to integrate it.
[Music fades. Transition to Act III.]
Act III: The Integration Process (8 minutes)
ACT III – The Integration Process (8 minutes)
[Music returns — low, warm tones: layered acoustic guitar, ambient textures. A feeling of quiet reckoning.]
You made it this far. Congratulations, but we are going to chase venure a little but further down into that basement, open a few more dust covered boxes.
And I’m not going to lie and pretend this is easy.
This isn’t the part where everything wraps up in a clean bow and you walk away feeling inspired.
This is the part where you look in the mirror and realize:
It wasn’t your lighting.
It wasn’t your gear.
It wasn’t your “ideal client.”
It was you.
And something inside you didn’t want to be seen.
[Music deepens — slow piano chords layer in.]
That’s what Jung meant when he talked about the shadow.
He didn’t mean the dark, brooding villain inside you.
He meant the part of you that learned to go quiet.
The part that felt too big, too emotional, too disruptive, too exposed —
so you tucked it away beneath technique and professionalism and safe deliverables.
It’s not sabotage. It’s survival.
The shadow’s job is to protect the parts of you that were never given room to breathe.
And for a while, that protection looks like composure.
Until it doesn’t.
Until it starts shaping what you’re willing to see.
What you’re willing to feel.
What you’re willing to shoot.
[Brief pause — let that land.]
It’s not just Liz.
It’s not just me and my avoidance of joy-soaked events.
It’s probably you, too.
The things we avoid documenting —
those aren’t just stylistic choices.
They’re emotional trailheads.
Signals.
So follow them.
So here's what I want you to do. And I know this sounds like therapy bullshit, but stay with me.
I want you to have a conversation.
Not with me. Not with your mentor or your spouse or your business coach.
With the part of you that's been making the creative decisions you think you're making consciously.
Find a quiet room. Grab a pen. And let both voices speak.
The professional you — the one who knows what's smart, what's marketable, what's safe.
And the shadow you — the one who's been whispering "not that" for so long you barely hear it anymore.
[Music pulls back slightly, creating space]
Don't script it. Don't make it pretty. Just let them argue.
Maybe it starts like this:
Professional Self: "We don't shoot that kind of thing."
Shadow: "No, you don't. Because it makes you feel something you can't control."
Professional: "It's not our style."
Shadow: "It was once. Before you buried the part of you that actually wanted to be seen."
Professional: "Our clients don't want messy. They want beautiful."
Shadow: "They want real. But you've convinced yourself it has to be either/or."
Professional: "I'm protecting them."
Shadow: "Bullshit. You're protecting you. Because you don't want to feel what they're feeling."
Professional: "We have a reputation to maintain."
Shadow: "You mean the one where everyone thinks you're fine? Where no one sees how badly you want to be held?"
Professional: "If we go there, we might lose everything."
Shadow: "You already are. Just more slowly. With a smile on your face and a wall around your heart."
[Pause. The music breathes.]
Let the fight get ugly. Let the quiet part scream. Let the mask crack — just a little.
Because under al your strategy, all your polish, all your good taste — there's a part of you that's still waiting to be invited into the room.
And if you keep shutting that voice out? You'll keep creating work that's safe. Respected. Maybe even celebrated.
But never whole.
A Different Kind of Audit
[Music slows — warm, grounded, human.]
Forget the grid. Forget the gallery. Forget your last campaign.
Ask this instead:
What kinds of images make your chest tighten?
What moments do you avoid shooting — because they remind you of something you’d rather not feel?
What emotion does your work consistently sidestep?
What would you make if no one else ever saw it?
That’s your compass.
Not the thing that gets the most likes —
but the thing you’re afraid to want.
That’s your creative shadow.
Not evil. Not broken.
Just hidden.
Waiting.
The Real Work
[Music lifts, slightly cinematic now. Emotional arc unfolding.]
You don’t need a rebrand.
You don’t need another course.
You don’t need permission.
You need to sit with the part of you that didn’t feel welcome in the room —
and tell it: I see you now. You can come in.
Because the shadow doesn’t disappear.
It doesn’t get “fixed.”
It gets integrated.
It becomes part of the story.
The thing you once avoided —
becomes the most honest part of your voice.
And that voice?
It’s the one people will remember long after they forget how “clean” the edit was.
Light Leak: Shadow Integration in Practice (4 minutes)
[Music softens — warmest moment, small harmony swells]
This work isn't just for photographers.
Every creative discipline has a shadow.
The writer who mocks "commercial fiction" while secretly longing to tell entertaining stories. The designer who dismisses "pretty" aesthetics but dreams of beauty. The musician who says pop is trash… and hums hooks in the shower.
So here are your creative audit prompts. Don't just hear them. Write them. Wrestle with them. Let them haunt you for a while.
What kind of art do you secretly crave to make — but publicly mock or distance yourself from?
Who is the creative you can't stand — because they remind you of a version of yourself you rejected? (Be honest. That "cringe" you feel is usually a mirror.)
What would you create if no one ever applauded again? (No followers. No likes. Just you and the work. Would you still show up?)
What part of your voice do you constantly edit out — because you're scared it will make you unlovable?
What emotion terrifies you so much that you've surgically removed it from your work? (Anger? Grief? Joy? Desire?)
Where in your creative life have you become a ghost — present in form, absent in soul?
These aren't prompts for content. They're invitations for self-return.
Journal them. Wander around with them. Let them itch under your skin until something true shows up.
Community Activation
[Music continues — warm, expansive, rising slowly]
If you're doing this work and it's hitting something deep — don't go numb again. Name it.
Not for performance. Not for validation. For practice.
If something surprised you — a projection, a truth, a resistance — post about it. Tag it: #TerribleShadows.
And don't share the final polished answer. Share the part of you you're just beginning to reclaim.
Because the photographers whose work moves people? Aren't the ones who avoided their shadows. They're the ones who learned to co-create with them.
They let the buried parts back into the room. And the work got messier. But it also got real.
Closing (90 seconds)
[Signature acoustic guitar melody enters, contemplative]
The shadow isn’t some spiritual hangnail or poetic metaphor.
It’s not just the trauma you survived or the pain you’ve buried.
It’s subtler than that.
Smarter.
It shows up in the choices you think are logical.
In the work you convince yourself is practical.
In the version of yourself you perform — just enough to stay safe.
It’s the voice that pulls you back into the costume.
The one that whispers, “Don’t show that part. Not here. Not now.”
We like to believe we’re being authentic — and maybe we are…
but only with the parts of ourselves we’ve decided are safe enough to be seen.
That’s what the shadow does.
It builds the script.
It casts the character.
And if we’re not paying attention, we’ll spend years playing a role we never consciously agreed to.
The clothes you wear.
The car you drive.
The jokes you don’t laugh at, the opinions you don’t share, the work you say you don’t want —
but maybe secretly do.
That’s shadow territory.
Not evil. Not broken.
Just unexamined.
And when you finally do the work?
It doesn’t feel like triumph.
It feels like walking into the basement of your life.
The one with the dead rats and the broken boxes and the old clothes from a version of you that never got to finish their sentence.
Shadow work asks you to go down there.
To open the boxes.
To shine a light.
To look without flinching.
Because those parts of you — the ones that didn’t get picked, the ones that felt too tender, too angry, too different —
they didn’t die.
They just went quiet.
They waited.
And now, they’re still shaping your life from underneath the floorboards.
You want to create honest work?
Start there.
Not with trends.
Not with what’s “working right now.”
Start with the part of you that’s still hiding.
Still afraid.
Still unsure if it’s allowed to want what it wants.
The shadow doesn’t want you to disappear.
It wants you to show up — completely.
Not performatively.
Not safely.
Just… truthfully.
And when you do?
God, it feels like coming home to a version of yourself
you thought was lost.
So go ahead.
Stay haunted.
Stay human.
And yeah…
stay terrible.