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"You can't become great without first embracing terrible.""Your confidence has outpaced your competence, creating a dangerous gap where overreach meets inadequate skill.""Be humble enough to swim as a small fish among giants — better that than flexing in a pond full of tadpoles thinking you're Jaws.""That tension you're feeling — between what you want to say and what you know how to do — that's not a problem to solve. That's where the good stuff lives."
The Terrible Creative is a storytelling podcast for photographers, designers, and creative humans trying to stay honest in a world that rewards pretending
Episode 1: You're Not Terrible — You're Just Early
The Terrible Photographer Podcast
[COLD OPEN] Length: ~3:00 – Slow, deliberate delivery. Each pause carries weight.
March 2020. The world had just stopped. Not paused. Not taken a breather. Just full-on faceplanted into the pavement like a drunk uncle at Thanksgiving.
Complete silence where rush hour traffic used to be. Empty grocery store shelves. That eerie, apocalyptic quiet that made even extroverts question their life choices — or start baking banana bread like it was a religious calling.
Most of us were trapped in our own heads — and our own homes — scrolling through feeds of people pretending everything was normal while slowly losing their minds behind closed doors. We were all slightly feral, desperate for human connection, clinging to anything that felt like community.
I found my way onto this bizarre app called Clubhouse. Think of it as live radio, but hosted from someone's kitchen. Conversations that felt like eavesdropping on the most interesting table at a restaurant — except everyone was in pajama pants and secretly grateful for any excuse to talk to another human being.
For photographers like me, starved for creative connection during endless lockdowns, it became our virtual bar, conference workshop, and group therapy session wrapped in one glorious, dysfunctional mess.
So I’m in this photography room one evening — surrounded by twelve brilliant, seasoned commercial photographers. The kind of people whose work I’d been drooling over for years. Whose careers I’d quietly envied.
These were the guys who had photographed everything: sitting U.S. presidents, global Nike campaigns, every Academy Awards show from the past twenty years.
Meanwhile, I was the lead photographer at Taylor Guitars — living what should’ve been a dream job, but quietly suffocating under the weight of endless product shots and brand guidelines.
These were the names you whispered when you wanted to sound like you actually knew something about the industry.
The conversation was flowing — portfolio critiques, creative process, the usual shop talk. When someone asked about my portfolio's range, I mentioned Jeff Lipsky, a photographer I genuinely admired. Jeff seamlessly balanced intimate celebrity portraits for magazines like Vanity Fair with high-end commercial campaigns — a master of versatility without compromise.
I wasn't comparing our talent levels. I was simply pointing out how diverse work could maintain visual DNA, how his voice carried across genres. That was something I was trying to figure out for myself.
And this voice — this photographer whose work I'd actually bookmarked — jumped in.
"The fact that you would compare your terrible work to Jeff Lipsky is laughable."
The words hung in the digital air like smoke from a cigarette no one wanted to claim.
Silence. Not the comfortable kind. The kind that makes you acutely aware of your heartbeat and suddenly questioning every creative decision you've ever made.
I could've fired back. Could've defended my work, my intention, my right to dream bigger than my current skill level. Could've sulked or thrown my phone against the wall.
Instead, I started laughing.
Not the polite chuckle you give when someone tells a mediocre joke, but that unhinged cackle that happens when someone accidentally speaks a truth you've been trying to ignore.
Because if I'm being brutally honest? Part of me knew he wasn't entirely wrong.
[MAIN NARRATIVE] Length: ~11:30 – Conversational but elevated. Let ideas breathe.
I'm Patrick Fore, and this is episode one of The Terrible Photographer — a podcast for working photographers and creative humans who are just done.
Done with fake positivity. Done with algorithm-chasing advice disguised as inspiration. Done pretending a new preset pack or mirrorless upgrade is going to heal the deep, existential ache of not knowing if your work actually matters.
This show isn't a tutorial. There are no lighting diagrams. No branding funnels. Just the messy, honest, occasionally unhinged side of making art while trying to pay rent and not lose your mind in the process.
We'll talk about burnout. About self-doubt. About why that camera you've been obsessing over for six months probably won't save your career — or your sanity.
Welcome to episode one: You're Not Terrible — You're Just Early.
Here's what that stranger didn't know: I was slowly suffocating in my corporate photography job at the time. Shooting the same product shots every week, watching my creative soul get strangled by brand guidelines and revision rounds that turned every image into committee-approved beige.
The work paid okay, looked impressive in presentations, but left me wondering if I'd already peaked creatively before I'd even figured out what I wanted to say.
I was bored with my work, burned out from my job, and desperately searching for any sign about where to take my career. That brutal Clubhouse moment? It cracked something open that had been sealed shut for months.
Oh, and the plot twist that made me laugh even harder? My brutal critic turned out to be a 22-year-old photography student from Los Angeles whose biggest credit was probably shooting his girlfriend's Etsy jewelry.
But the kid wasn't entirely wrong. My work wasn't honest. It was safe. Technically competent. Forgettable. It looked like someone who knew what they were doing — but felt like someone who was still pretending.
That comment was the match that lit something I didn't even know was waiting to burn.
A week later, I created an exclusive, invite-only group called "Terrible Photographers." What started as a sarcastic middle finger to photography elitism became something unexpectedly valuable: a sanctuary for creators who wanted to experiment without ego, who didn't need to impress anyone, who could admit their failures without shame.
We shared fears, disasters, half-baked ideas — and discovered something rare in our image-obsessed industry: permission to suck spectacularly without having to pretend it was intentional.
I'm a commercial photographer who shoots brands, portraits, and campaigns — and someone who spends an embarrassing amount of time questioning whether what I'm making actually matters. Some days I feel quietly confident about my work. Other days I feel like I'm one critique away from applying for a job at Target.
You want to shoot for clients and still sound like yourself. You want to get paid without selling out. That's the tension. That's this show.
Because here's what no one prepares you for: the creative journey isn't a straight line from beginner to master. It's a series of peaks and valleys that will test your sanity and your commitment.
Let me tell you about confidence — and why it's probably going to try to kill your creativity.
I love motorcycles. Everything about them: their sculptural beauty, the addictive pull of acceleration, the smell of mountain air rushing past as you carve through winding roads. They're also genuinely dangerous in ways that make skydiving look like a knitting circle.
According to research, new riders face their highest crash risk during their very first month — nearly four times more likely to wreck than in their entire second year. That initial period is terrifying because everything feels foreign: your reflexes are untested, muscle memory doesn't exist, and you're still figuring out basic operations.
But survive that baptism by fire, and a different, more insidious danger emerges: false confidence.
Around the three- to six-month mark, fear begins evaporating. Speed transforms from terrifying to exhilarating. Corners start begging to be taken faster. You think, "I've got this figured out."
The problem? You absolutely don't.
Your confidence has outpaced your competence, creating a dangerous gap where overreach meets inadequate skill. One unexpected patch of gravel, one distracted driver, and suddenly you're sliding across pavement, wondering how everything went sideways so quickly.
I've encountered countless photographers trapped in this same perilous zone — where swagger vastly exceeds ability. This perfectly illustrates what psychologists call the Dunning-Kruger effect, where people with limited knowledge dramatically overestimate their abilities.
I call it "Mount Stupid" — that treacherous peak where your ego writes checks your skillset can't cash. The kind of Top Gun energy where you think you're Maverick, but you're really just one bad decision away from flaming out spectacularly.
The telltale signs? They jump straight into charging clients with their Costco camera bundle, armed with caffeine, misplaced confidence, and a YouTube certification in 'crushing it.' They dish out unsolicited critique while their own Instagram resembles a graveyard of over-sharpened disasters. They can't handle feedback, obsess over gear specs, and drown weak images in post-processing filters.
We've all lived on Mount Stupid. I've critiqued photographers way beyond my league. I've looked at legendary work and thought, "I could do that." I've been the overconfident idiot, drinking too much of my own ego and calling it craft.
The opposite extreme is what I call the "Valley of Despair" — where you land when your taste develops faster than your ability, making every shot feel like bitter disappointment.
Most serious photographers cycle between these extremes like emotional ping-pong balls. The secret isn't avoiding these places — it's moving through them with self-awareness and grim determination.
But here's what I've learned about building real confidence: it comes from two sources that can't be faked.
First, master your tools. You can't create exceptional work while fighting your equipment. This isn't about owning the most expensive camera — it's about achieving fluency with whatever you have until it becomes an extension of your creative vision.
Second, put in the hours. Do the work. There's no shortcut here. Confidence comes from repetition, from shoots that don't go according to plan, from learning to troubleshoot when everything's falling apart.
Every frame you capture is either a victory worth celebrating or a lesson worth learning. And those accumulated lessons create the foundation for unshakeable confidence.
You know what else I've learned? Study the masters, ignore everyone else's noise.
If you want to excel at portrait photography, don't study your competitors posting on Instagram. Immerse yourself in Annie Leibovitz, Richard Avedon, Yousuf Karsh. Study them like you're preparing for a PhD defense.
Spend days in libraries with dusty photography books. Take notes on lighting techniques, composition choices. Hunt down interviews where these legends discuss their processes, their failures, their breakthroughs.
Be humble enough to swim as a small fish among giants — better that than flexing in a pond full of tadpoles thinking you're Jaws. If you stay in their waters long enough, studying their movements, learning their patterns, you might discover something powerful staring back in the mirror — not a copy of them, but a version of yourself that's been elevated by proximity to greatness.
That tension you're feeling — between what you want to say and what you know how to do — that's not a problem to solve. That's where the good stuff lives. That's where your voice starts to emerge.
[SERIES HOOK & OUTRO] Length: ~2:00 – Build anticipation, end with weight.
Over the coming episodes, we're going to dig deep into this journey. We'll explore the psychology behind creative growth — why overconfidence gets you in trouble, how to navigate the valley of despair without losing your mind, and what it actually takes to build lasting creative confidence.
We'll talk about the difference between learning from masters versus learning from peers. We'll examine when gear becomes a creative crutch versus a creative tool. We'll explore the phases every photographer goes through and how to recognize where you are in that journey.
We'll discuss why "terrible" might be the most important phase of your creative development — and why the greatest photographers all started somewhere embarrassingly mediocre.
Because here's the truth that kid on Clubhouse accidentally handed me: you can't become great without first embracing terrible. Not the kind of terrible that comes from copying someone else's work, but the good kind — the kind that shows up when you're trying to say something real, something that doesn't have a reference point.
What you're calling terrible might just be the first time your work isn't trying to impress anyone. It's not chasing trends or playing it safe. It's just you, trying to communicate something deeper.
Here's your challenge this week: Make something you're not sure about. Not something you know will perform. Make something that's unfinished, too personal, a little uncomfortable. Then sit with it and ask yourself — what am I actually trying to say with this?
You don't have to post it. You don't have to show anyone. But make it. Because that's the muscle you need to build — the willingness to be terrible in service of something true.
That comment on Clubhouse? That stranger thought he was cutting me down. Turns out, he handed me the match. That burn became a spark. And the fire hasn't gone out since.
Your journey starts now — messy, imperfect, uncomfortable, and exactly as it should be.
Thanks for showing up. I'll see you in two weeks.
Until then — stay curious, stay terrible, and keep making something that matters. And if this episode hit somewhere between doubt and inspiration, subscribe, share it, or send it to a fellow creative who's out there trying to figure it out too.
We're just getting started — and I'm glad you found it.