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Helping creatives find their voice in an industry that rewards conformity, trends, and bullshit.
Photographers. Designers. Filmmakers. Writers. If you’ve ever felt like you’re doing it all wrong in a creative industry obsessed with followers, hustle, and aesthetic perfection, this is for you.
Hosted by Patrick Fore, The Terrible Photographer is part therapy session, part creative survival guide. We talk about burnout (without the platitudes), making money (without selling your soul), and what it really takes to build a sustainable, honest creative life.
If you’ve ever wondered:
• How to make money as a creative without losing your voice
• How to recover from burnout and stay in the game
• Where to find clients who value the work
• Or if you’re just too honest for this business…
You’re not alone.
New episodes every Tuesday. Listen if you’re ready to build a creative career that still feels like you.
Hey nerds—quick thing before we dive in.
I made something called The Darkroom. It’s a short, honest little PDF—no funnels, no affiliate links. Just something I wish someone sent me when I first started freelancing.
It’s part arm around the shoulder, part kick in the ass.
For example, there is a page for when “Money is down” (AKA Broke)
It will give you some encouragement, then some tough love. Followed by some quick action steps that you can do in the next 5 minutes to get started. Then three questions for you to think about as you strategize how to move forward.
You’ll get it instantly when you sign up for my newsletter, Im’ calling it Field Notes.
No bullshit. No spam. Just some helpful insight, recaps of episodes and extra content I think you’ll find interesting.
The link’s in the show notes. Now, lt’s get to this week’s episode.
It was past midnight during the pandemic. I was in my backyard, sitting at a metal patio table, lit only by the moon and the sharp glow of my iPhone screen. AirPods in. Clubhouse open.
And then came the voice:
"Patrick, you're not really an artist. You're more like... a technician."
It hit like a sucker punch—not because it felt true, but because it didn't. Not to me. Not then.
His name was Alex. A photographer from New York. We'd known each other for a while—at least a year. Talked a bunch. Had some rapport. Smart guy. Thoughtful. He runs his own business, has a day job, and sees photography first and foremost as an art form.
But we’ve always had different philosophies. Especially when it comes to photography as a profession—and more specifically, commercial photography. We saw things differently. Still do.
I'd just shared a few images: polished commercial stuff from Taylor Guitars, a few campaign shots. The kind of work that gets you hired. Clean. Colorful. Controlled.
"Your work is sharp," he said. "It's beautiful. Technically perfect. But it's not art."
And I remember thinking—bullshit.
I don't usually argue unless I'm convinced I'm right. And let’s be honest—I'm usually right. And in that moment, I was sure I was. Because I do think a lot of commercial work is art. Maybe not the soul-baring, paint-yourself-in-blood kind. But there's honesty in it. There's vision. There's craft and aesthetic and tension and purpose—even when it's done for a brand.
So I pushed back. Thirty minutes of defending my images. Listing clients. Magazine covers. Grammy-winning artists. Trying to explain that just because something pays doesn't mean it's empty.
"It's beautiful," he said again. "But it's not you. If I showed these images to ten people, would any of them say, 'That's Patrick Fore'? Or would they just say, 'That's good commercial photography'?"
That's when I snapped.
"Fuck you. Just because it was shot for a brand doesn't mean it isn't art."
He didn't respond. There was just silence. Eventually, I closed the app and leaned back in my chair, staring up at the sky, trying to convince myself he was full of shit.
And I did. For a while.
But here’s the thing about creative insults—the ones that sneak past your defenses. They don’t always hit right away. Sometimes they sit there. Quiet. Slow-burning in the background.
Weeks passed. Then months. And somewhere in that mess of time and reflection, I started to admit... maybe he wasn't completely wrong.
Because the truth is—I can reverse-engineer just about anything. I can study the masters, mimic Leibovitz's portraits, echo Lindbergh's tonality, break down compositions and rebuild them for a client. But that doesn't mean I think like them. It doesn't come from the same raw, internal place.
I can make beautiful, effective, even emotionally resonant work for a brand—and I believe that can be art. But it doesn't always come from the deepest corners of me. It doesn't always carry my fingerprint in a way that's unmistakable.
That conversation didn't flip a switch. But it cracked something open. It made me start asking a much harder question:
If I'm not just a technician... then what am I actually building?
I'm Patrick Fore. This is The Terrible Photographer Podcast.
And this is Episode 17: The Technician.
ACT I: The Golden Handcuffs
August 2018. I get the call.
Taylor Guitars—a major acoustic guitar company based here in Southern California. You’ve probably seen one, even if you didn’t know it. Zac Brown plays a Taylor. So does FINNEAS. And a young artist on the rise named Taylor Swift.
It was a dream gig. Steady paycheck. Big-name artists. Creative control—or so I thought.
And for a while, I believed I’d made it.
I shot images that ran in Rolling Stone and Guitar World. I had my own studio. The backing of a global brand. I was respected. Trusted. Valued.
Then came the product launch.
The creative director handed me a reference deck—images someone higher up had seen and liked. My job? Match the vibe.
Same lighting. Same car. Same kind of model.
They didn’t want my ideas. They wanted an echo.
Against my better judgment, I did it. I found a matching location. Rented the car. Cast the model.
I recreated someone else’s vision—right down to the color palette.
And when it went live—on storefronts, in magazines, splashed across the brand’s site—I didn’t feel proud. I felt… hollow.
Was it good? Sure. Clean, polished, technically solid.
But it wasn’t mine.
I knew how to make it—even how to make it better. But the soul of it was borrowed at best, and stolen at worst.
My fingerprints were on it, but none of my DNA.
That’s when it hit me:
I wasn’t being paid for my perspective.
I was being hired for my precision.
And that’s what a lot of commercial work is.
It’s not always about vision. It’s about execution.
Make it fast. Make it clean. Stay on brand. Don’t complain.
But it’s also where I started to crack.
Because being trusted isn’t the same as being seen.
Being respected isn’t the same as being fulfilled.
I thought being good at execution meant I had an identity.
I thought shooting for prestige meant I had prestige.
I thought being a technician with taste made me an artist.
But I’d become a very expensive echo machine.
Reflecting trends. Mimicking styles.
Serving up visual comfort food that looked important but tasted like nothing.
And here’s what I didn’t understand at the time:
You can be trusted and still feel disposable.
Respected and still feel empty.
Valued—and still have no idea who the hell you are.
The workload multiplied. New campaigns. New deadlines.
New artists who needed their guitars to look like extensions of their souls.
I delivered, every time.
On schedule. On brand. On point.
But somewhere in the process, I stopped asking why I was making these images—
And started focusing only on how fast I could make them.
Burnout wasn’t a bonfire.
It was a slow gas leak—filling the room quietly, waiting for a spark.
Mine came on a Thursday.
I was behind schedule.
The art director didn’t like the lighting.
Something about the shadows wasn’t right.
Something about everything wasn’t right.
The thought of taking a vacation was so foreign, I might as well have been planning a trip to Mars.
By 4:30, I was in the parking lot—crouched behind a dumpster—trying not to pass out.
My chest felt crushed. My hands wouldn’t stop shaking.
That was the beginning of the end.
I left Taylor in October 2022.
No plan. No parachute.
Just the taste of gasoline in my throat—
And a feeling I couldn’t shake:
Something had to change.
ACT II: The Education
Month three of freelancing. No work. No money. Inbox a wasteland of unread pitches and polite rejections.
I'm staring at another email titled "Brand Collaboration Opportunity," written in the same hopeful tone as a first date text. And just like a bad Tinder match, I already know how this ends: silence.
The broken promises hurt most. All those enthusiastic conversations on my way out of Taylor: "We should definitely work together!" "I'll keep you in mind for projects!" "You're going to kill it out there!"
Radio silence. Not even rejections—just the digital equivalent of being left on read by an entire industry.
Then comes a lifeline—or so I think.
A small agency offers $650 for a two-location fitness shoot. The product was some kind of resistance band system—the kind of thing you see on late-night infomercials promising beach bodies in 30 days. Two-part shoot: warehouse product photography in the morning, urban lifestyle shots downtown in the afternoon.
No budget, no crew, no plan. But I say yes. Because broke creatives don't get to be picky.
I should have asked questions. How many talent? What's the lighting situation at the urban location? Do you have permits for the outdoor shoot? What's the usage? What about the raw files?
Instead, I packed my SUV with every light I owned—which wasn't enough—and drove to the warehouse at dawn, hoping my enthusiasm would compensate for my lack of preparation.
The warehouse looked like a CrossFit gym designed by someone who'd never seen a CrossFit gym. Concrete floors, industrial lighting, and five incredibly fit models who looked like they'd rather be anywhere else.
I made it work—barely. The product shots were serviceable. The models looked strong and confident. But I knew, even as I was shooting, that this wasn't my best work. I was problem-solving, not creating.
The afternoon was worse. Downtown San Diego, harsh sunlight, no permits, no grip equipment, just me and a 5-in-1 reflector trying to make magic happen on a busy street corner. The images looked exactly like what they were: desperate and underprepared.
And when they asked for the RAW files, I handed them over. No contract. No kill fee. No backbone.
They butchered them in post. My name still lingers on those images like graffiti on a church wall.
Then a seasoned photographer pulls me aside. Los Angeles commercial veteran, the kind of guy who shoots for Nike and doesn't blink at day rates that would make me weep. He's kind—but not soft.
"You're not just cheapening your work," he tells me. "You're cheapening all of ours. Every time you undersell yourself, you drag the whole industry down. That $650 rate tells every client that this is what photography is worth. And it's not just about you—it's about every photographer who has to compete with that race to the bottom."
That hit harder than the $650 gig. Because it was true. I wasn't just failing at business. I was failing at integrity.
Craft without conviction is just labor.
And I was tired of laboring for crumbs.
The Conan Interlude
This is where I need to tell you about Conan O'Brien. Not because his story is mine—but because his story shows what's possible when everything you thought you wanted gets ripped away.
Here's a guy who spent his entire career building toward one goal: hosting The Tonight Show. The crown jewel of late-night television. The job he'd dreamed of since he was a kid making Super 8 films in Massachusetts.
He gets it. And then, seven months later, it's gone. Yanked out from under him in a corporate shuffle so brutal it played out in real time on national television. Network executives in boardrooms deciding his fate while he cracked jokes to keep from crying.
Most people would have imploded. Thrown chairs. Burned bridges. Filed lawsuits and spent years nursing grudges.
Conan didn't. He walked out with grace. Class. He cracked jokes while bleeding. "If you work really hard and you're kind, amazing things will happen," he said in his final Tonight Show monologue. Not bitter. Not defeated. Just...real.
But here's the thing that matters: he didn't spend the next decade trying to get The Tonight Show back. He didn't play by the same rules that had just chewed him up and spit him out.
He reinvented. Not by trying to win back what he lost, but by building something else. Something with fewer rules. More soul. A podcast that became a phenomenon. A travel show that let him be weird and curious. A production company. A community of people who got his particular brand of absurd brilliance.
Conan stopped chasing the machine and started making his own.
And now? He's built an empire that's entirely his. No network executives. No corporate overlords. No one who can walk into a boardroom and decide his worth based on demographics and advertising revenue.
That's the path. Not back—but forward. Not compromise—but creation.
Watching Conan's journey taught me something I wish I'd learned earlier: sometimes what feels like career death is actually career birth. Sometimes losing the thing you thought you wanted is the only way to find the thing you actually need.
ACT III: The Reckoning
Fast forward to now. Two weeks ago, to be exact. Rent's late. The electricity bill is glaring at me from the fridge like a disappointed parent. My savings account has the kind of balance that makes you laugh just to keep from crying.
I’ve sent more cold emails this week than a VC-backed tech bro with a new app for dental scheduling.
Subject lines like:
“Creative Collaboration Opportunity,”
“Photographer Based in San Diego,”
and “Following Up on Our Previous Conversation” (spoiler: there was no previous conversation).
Monday: Fifteen emails to creative directors and agency producers. Zero responses.
Tuesday: Rewrote my capabilities deck in Keynote like that was the missing piece.
Wednesday: Rebuilt my music industry landing page and added more photos of people holding guitars, because apparently I think that’s the secret to inbound leads.
Thursday: Wrote a six-part email sequence for a welcome funnel that no one is currently in.
Friday: Designed a lead magnet called “How to Plan a Killer Photoshoot (Even If You’ve Never Done One Before)” — and watched zero people download it.
Which by the way you can literally go to my website right now, patrickfore.com and download it if you’re interested.
I've built funnels, launched newsletters, created downloads with smart ass names. All of it designed to lure the algorithm gods into blessing me with relevance. I felt like I was standing in the middle of a busy sidewalk, screaming and dancing and doing everything I could to get anyone's attention. And people just walked, right, fucking, by.
But relevance doesn't come. Not when you need it. Not when you ask nicely.
Saturday morning, I'm sitting at this same dining room table, staring at my laptop screen, and I have this moment of clarity that feels like getting punched in the soul: I've become everything I used to make fun of. I'm creating content about creating content. I'm hustling to hustle. I'm performing authenticity instead of just being authentic.
So I start to wonder: maybe this isn't just about photography anymore.
Maybe I've spent the last 15 years becoming a very talented mirror. Reflecting the desires of clients, art directors, brands. Giving them back their own ideas with better lighting and sharper focus.
But not once—not once—have I stopped to ask: who am I when there's no one else in the room? What do I have to say when nobody's listening? What would I make if it was just for me?
The answer is uncomfortable. But maybe that's the point.
So I'm letting go. Not of photography—but of the fantasy. The fantasy that the work will save me. That talent will carry me. That good lighting and clean composition will be enough.
They're not.
I'm building something else now. Something mine. This podcast, for starters. A book that's half-written and completely terrifying. Consulting work that lets me use my brain instead of just my camera. Revenue streams that don't depend on someone else deciding I'm worth hiring.
Not because I'm giving up on photography. But because I'm finally growing up about it.
A voice, not just a portfolio.
Light Leak: Burn the Map
Maybe you’ve been told that if you just get good enough—technically sharp, commercially polished, clean and clever—then it’ll all fall into place. The gigs. The recognition. The feeling of finally making it.
But maybe that’s the lie.
Because here’s what I’m learning, slowly and painfully:
Technical skill isn’t the same thing as a voice.
Prestige doesn’t mean purpose.
And the work? The work won’t save you.
If you’re holding tight to a fantasy—of the client that’ll fix everything, the portfolio that finally gets noticed, the version of you that’s always performing and never at peace—then maybe this is your moment.
To stop.
To burn the map.
To let go of the story you were handed and ask a better set of questions:
What would you create if no one ever saw it?
What would you chase if there were no likes, no followers, no awards?
Who are you when you’re not auditioning for a job you don’t even want?
You don’t need to quit. But maybe you need to deconstruct.
Dismantle.
Scrape it down to the studs and figure out what’s actually yours underneath it all.
The truth won’t hand you a career.
But it might hand you back your voice.
Stay curious. Stay courageous.
And yeah… stay terrible.