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A show about cameras, creativity, and the weird shit your brains do while you're trying to make something.
Together, we're exploring photography for all levels — asking the silly questions, sharing the expert knowledge, and digging into what it actually takes to grow as a human being and as an artist.
S02 E02 Focus on the Learning Process
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Casey (she/her): I'm obsessed with courses and continue to spend thousands of dollars on courses somebody has put this information in a beginning to end order for me. Am I always good at following that order? No, that's on me.
You might think photography's all about the technical stuff, the gear, the settings. Some of it is, and we'll get into it. But the harder part is what your brain and nervous system do the second you try to make something. The overthinking, the voice that swears you're getting it all wrong. Some weeks we're deep in the craft, some weeks we're deep in your head.
Either way, it's less about the camera and more about the person holding it. Welcome to this week's episode of The Focus Trap.
Casey (she/her): Confession from me, and this is the root of today's episode, that I am very much a person who wants to all the knowledge in my brain and, like, be done learning and be the expert.
And I also grew up in the era of, like, I'm gonna say the gifted kid program, that language
Amy (she/her): Yeah
Casey (she/her): mixed feelings about. But, like, it was a... I'm a, I'm a former gifted kid, good grades, and learning has felt harder as an adult, and I don't like that gap from knowledge and not knowledge,
I was telling Amy about this recently is, like, when I grew up doing martial arts, and there's kind of a common phrase, idea in a lot of martial arts that you don't actually start learning until you're a black belt. And outside of martial arts, people look at the black belt and they're like, "Oh, you're the, the expert." But, like, at that point you have enough understanding of the foundations to now start embodying the art. And so this idea that, like, the learning never stops even when you are the expert, when you have the black belt.
And so how do we keep doing things are uncomfortable? How do we sit in that messy middle of knowing and not knowing? And that's kind of the root of today's whole episode is how do we do this? So
Amy (she/her): Yeah. Yeah
Casey (she/her): do I, how do I become the expert
[00:01:53] Sometimes Less Is More
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Amy (she/her): let me see Oh, sure. Let me rattle off an answer. I have my own set of frustrations right now that I have talked tangentially about my frustrations with social media. But, um, the bigger piece of that, the reason why social media is a thing, is because I'm trying to get a, some momentum with a membership.
So full disclosure, the membership is tiny. It's just a few loyal people at this point, and I... And that's okay. They're great, and I adore them, but I'd love to get some fresh voices in there. So one of the big changes I made this week was my, the platform I had been using for the membership was gonna renew,
I made the decision to shut that platform down and move to Skool. And S-K-O-O-L will always drive me nuts, but I knew about it. I knew it was I get it. It's cute and clever. Um, but, uh, as the daughter of an English teacher, th- it drives me nuts.
But I am willing to live with it because it's cheap.
Well, I have been pleasantly surprised at how much I like Skool, the, the platform.Because when something is cheaper, there are fewer features, and sometimes that's a bad thing.
But in this case, it's actually made my brain really happy. Like, it's super simple.
And so discovering that the frustration I was having, the friction that I was feeling was, um, maybe more attributable to I wanted a, a platform that did all the things, and I don't need all the things. I just need a place to, for people to find me. So, so far so good.
Casey (she/her): I think what pops to my mind, because I just was doing this, mm, yesterday, Tuesday, for myself, is I think there is a parallel here of sometimes less is more. And we've kind of talked
Amy (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Casey (she/her): bit, but, like, there is that draw to have the platform that has all of the features and all of the capabilities and, like, will fit the long-term vision better. But then... And I just made this decision on one of the softwares that I'm using to, like, try out the studio stuff, I'm using the ones that's the simplest, but it's easy and it does what I want it to, and I don't have to dig around to find the answer.so there's this, like, less is more sometimes. I've been trying to kind of absorb everything about photography all at once.
Amy, you have laughed at me about my learning style, uh, more than once, is I try to ingest everything. I
Amy (she/her): Yeah
Casey (she/her): drink from the fire hose, and eventually I realize that, like, that's kind of not working. I'm doing my first model call on Saturday. It's Thursday today. Tuesday I set up my stuff 'cause I wanted to double-check all my settings, like, one last time and make, like, one last decision on how I wanna set the lights, and I slowed way the fuck down and went back to F-stop, ISO, shutter speed, and the strobe setting, and
Amy (she/her): Yay
Casey (she/her): played with that. I worked with, one of my dogs is white, one of my dogs is chocolate colored, played with each dog to see what minor modifications I need to make. And this is the part that'll blow your mind, Amy. I wrote that shit down. I have
Amy (she/her): God.
Casey (she/her): and I wrote down on, like, what settings I have to have and what settings work to get the lighting I liked.
Amy (she/her): Yeah
Casey (she/her): And it was that, it was that thing, though, of, like, less is more. Like, I
Amy (she/her): Yeah
Casey (she/her): so much more about the nuance of how I'm setting up studio stuff,
Amy (she/her): Yeah
Casey (she/her): to take that half step back and just those four pieces, I'm super happy with how the pictures came out from that day. And I,
Amy (she/her): Good
Casey (she/her): Like, I was starting to, like, panic about this model call, and I'm like, "Oh, no," like, I've got...
Amy (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Casey (she/her): I have this figured out. Now I will see how I do with four very different personalities of dog.
Amy (she/her): Yeah. Yeah
Casey (she/her): like, is that less is more sometimes solves a lot of problems, and I don't think we give less enough credit.
I think sometimes we
Amy (she/her): Yeah
Casey (she/her): for more faster to try to
Amy (she/her): Yes
Casey (she/her): versus back off.
Amy (she/her): Yeah. Well, and one of the reasons why I've just kind of sat back and, and watched you do this and, and, really not tried to impose my will on you other than by giggling a little bit, is I know that eventually if you're serious about this, which I know you are, you'll come around, you'll figure this out, and no amount of me telling you to slow the fuck down is gonna actually make you slow the fuck down.
So I mean, this is a cycle that I see over and over and over again. And the people who have taken my classes, again, you're not that special. Sorry, Casey. You're just,
Casey (she/her): me.
Amy (she/her): you're just not. No, it- you're not. You're, it, this is, this is how the cycle seems to work. I mean, there's, there's many cycles in the learning process, of course.
this cycle of I wanna learn all the things, all the things, all the things, I'm probably the outlier in terms of I didn't know where my photography was going, so I didn't have this grand idea about I need to learn all the things, all the things.
I knew that what I was doing was working, and then I would iterate on that. And so I- I'm a little bit of an outlier, and I, I freely admit that. But, um, I think the normal process is just bring me all the information, and this is why YouTube is where people go. They're like, "Oh, I can, I can learn this and I can learn that and I can learn this other thing."
And, and then they are overwhelmed and they burn themselves out, and then they just put the camera away and they don't pick it up again.
What I wanna do is, is short circuit that cycle as fast as I can with people.
Casey (she/her): Yeah.
Amy (she/her): you know, I didn't need, I didn't feel like I needed to step in with you too much other than I did do a little prodding on the whole focus thing 'cause I, I felt like, you know, that that was something we needed to address sooner than later.
And so I kind of nudged in there a little bit on that one. And then that opened up, th- that opened up the conversation to just slow the fuck down. but intervening and trying to, short circuit it is, is one thing that I wanna do. Um, but it takes some recognition on the other side of people to go, "Oh, I...
Yes, you are correct. I need to slow down and absorb this a little better."
[00:08:07] Learning How to Learn
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Casey (she/her): I think that's a big part of it too. Like, I know this is partly my learning style. I have done this for decades of go as and as hard, as fast and try to like all of it in my brain at once, and I'm reading all of the books about the thing, and then I'm like, "Woo, okay," like system overload, take a step back, deep breath. Which one avenue of this do I wanna focus on now? And like once that initial... For me, there's this initial chaos. It's very much the ADHD and the dopamine of it all. Like, once that initial chaos has settled down a little bit, then I can like settle into this pace of like, okay, I figured out what I need to know about lighting for right now. I have some questions for you for this evening's coaching call about editing. Like I, I have a couple very specific things now that I'm like, great, for the next couple of weeks, these are the only two things that I care about. And so, like, I know this about me, so like I'm not worried when I do it. But like, I think a lot of people don't recognize this in themselves, and there is... As adults, I think especially in our society today, I think like millennials, Gen Xers, we were raised in this perception of like you go to school, you do K through 12, you go straight to college, you get a degree, and you work in a career because now you're an expert in that thing. And there's this implication through our entire life that there's a beginning and an end to learning, and once you hit the end of
Amy (she/her): Yeah
Casey (she/her): you are a learned adult.
But and then for a lot of us, like we get out of the educational system and we are a family, we're doing a career, like we kind of stop learning for a while in a way, and then we come into a hobby. We pick up photography, and we have to learn to learn again. And I think that's m- really unsettling to people
Amy (she/her): Yeah
Casey (she/her): partly learn how to learn again, to not be the expert at something in an era where like adults aren't allowed to be beginners.
And so it compounds into all these things of that then I think, like you said, people burn out or they get frustrated 'cause they're not figuring it out fast enough,
Amy (she/her): Yeah.
Casey (she/her): they bomb out.
Amy (she/her): I think, I think in my case, in, in, you know, what I'm working through now, it's not even that I need to learn how to learn again. I need to learn how to learn. I, that, that's where the academic,straight-A kid, that's where I struggle. I never had to really learn how to learn.
Casey (she/her): Yeah
Amy (she/her): so that's where the piece that I am coming to, um, is there are things about the s- about building a business and is, and selling things even in the way I have set up my dog sports photography business, I haven't had to work that hard to get sales because the audience is delivered to me at an event.
Casey (she/her): Right.
Amy (she/her): Like, I don't have to attract people other than I wanna get them the traffic to my booth or whatever, but, but the audience is there. We are all of a single purpose. This is a dog show, so I sell something that is directly related to what they are there for. Um, so building a business where I have to not only provide the service that I am really good at, but also jump up and down like one of those flappy, you know, balloon things and go, "Hey, I'm over here, I'm over here.
Come and visit me."
Casey (she/her): Yeah
Amy (she/her): the flappy balloon thing that's really uncomfortable and feels really stupid and is really hard for me still,
Casey (she/her): Yeah
Amy (she/her): it's the learning to learn, but, I've had to work hard, but this is a different kind of hard, and so I'm finding myself in this place of frustration, um, that is very challenging.
And, um, still moving through it. I, I, there is not an end. I don't see the light at the end of the tunnel yet, but I at least am recognizing that I'm in a tunnel and I'm searching for the end, but I don't see it yet. So, um-
Casey (she/her): And I, I wonder if I'm more hyper-aware of that, like, learning to learn because when I sustained my brain injury, I actually had to learn how to read again. Um, I had visual-spatial damage that impacted my brain's ability to process written text. And so, like, I went from having a near photographic memory to now I have an abysmal sh- short-term memory.
Like, I couldn't tell you what I ate for breakfast, you know? And so, uh, there... for me, there has been, like, to go from high school where I barely showed up and got As and Bs, college where I flunked out twice, and, like, then to go on and get my bachelor's and my master's finally, like, I very consciously had to learn how to, and I'm still dealing with the brain injury, how to process all of this information that I used to not have to do.
And so I think it is one where I have had to sit down and talk to professors. I, I remember one of the books in one of my classes, the font and the white and the line spacing impacts my ability to read. I could not read this book. I spent hours staring at the pages of this book, and my brain could not process it. And I finally had to sit down and explain it to her, and I'm like, "How do I get the information out of this book into
Amy (she/her): Yeah
Casey (she/her): broken brain?" And we came up with a plan. We got through it. Like, I got my master's degree. But, like, it is interesting to have to learn how to learn.There's a little part of me that's starting to miss, like, having to go down to the library and through a card catalog and, like, have a specific thing that I'm looking for, versus,
Amy (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Casey (she/her): get on YouTube and Google, like, how to photo, and, like, barrage of information.
Amy (she/her): Yes.
Casey (she/her): It's like you can't
Amy (she/her): Yeah
Casey (she/her): in the analog age that we grew up in.
You
Amy (she/her): No, no
Casey (she/her): pick which aspect of the thing you were trying to learn about
Amy (she/her): You may have found a whole section in the library of books on the topic you were looking at, but you had, you, you picked one and you read it, as opposed to on YouTube having to sift through all of the search results that you're delivered, you know, in a fraction of a second.
Casey (she/her): Yeah
Amy (she/her): There was one, one time where I got frustrated with a, with a cohort that was working through one of my classes, that they seemed to be struggling with searching for things. Like, and I jokingly said, "Do I need to write a lesson on how to search on YouTube?" Um, and it was meant as a joke, and there were people who responded, "Oh, that would be great."
And I, and that was a moment for me where I went, "Oh, I have the skill of I c- I know enough that I can read the descriptions, I can watch the first 30 seconds of something and know whether or not it relates to what I'm actually doing." but that's because I've been doing it for a long time.
And so as someone who's coming into it without that knowledge or with the, just the basics of it, having to sort through a YouTube video and know if it's even gonna apply to s- your situation,
Casey (she/her): Yeah
Amy (she/her): Google delivered those results to me, but are they actually valid? Are they actually what I'm asking?
Casey (she/her): Yeah,
Amy (she/her): the idea of, of searching and understanding the information you're given is a big skill
Casey (she/her): It is. Yeah, I don't remember what it was. The other day I was just looking for something and I didn't know what the words were for the thing that I was trying to fix, and so it was one of those like I, I know what I'm looking for when I find it, but I don't know how to ask the internet to give it to me because I don't know the word that I'm look- You know, it was like,
Amy (she/her): Yeah
Casey (she/her): kind of thing.
And so it was kind of one of those I had to kind of start broad and start digging through information and not let myself get sidetracked, 'cause that's my other downfall is like, oh, YouTube hands me a million responses. Oh, this one looks fun. Open that tab, open that tab, open that tab. What was I looking for again?
Amy (she/her): Yes
Casey (she/her): know. And so yeah, there is an element of like knowing enough to know what to look for or how to stay on track and not get overwhelmed with it, 'cause then I just start to see all of the other options and the, the amount of conflicting advice
Amy (she/her): Yes
Casey (she/her): the 10 books that are in that section. I've now got
Amy (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Casey (she/her): search queries that all have a slight different answer,
Amy (she/her): So even if you're not trying to learn it all super fast and all at once, it's still, even if you've got your focus narrowed down to one kind of thing that you're trying to find or figure out, it can still be an, feel like drinking out of the fire hose,
Casey (she/her): This is where I'm a big advocate. People talk online about courses are dying, people are tired of... This is where I'm a big advocate for courses, because anything you're teaching free on t- YouTube. Absolutely correct. You can go find all of the shit. There is no new information being held behind the closed doors of a course. I'm obsessed with courses and continue to spend thousands of dollars on courses is somebody has put this information in a beginning to end order for me. Am I always good at following that order? No, that's on me. I love a course where
Amy (she/her): I wasn't gonna say it, but
Casey (she/her): I love a course where they lock it and I have to go through things a certain amount in order. I, I'm not mad at you when you do that. Um, but like this is why I like courses, is we've stayed on a particular focus of the material, we're doing it in a particular order, an expert has decided that I should have this piece of information before this piece of information. None of that is given to you by YouTube.
And I think it's similar to the draw to like a hardback book.
Amy (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Casey (she/her): is written beginning to end with some level of logic in the flow of those chapters.
Amy (she/her):
[00:17:36] Frustration, Friction, and the Learning Spiral
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Amy (she/her): there was a reel on Facebook that I came across that kind of tried to reframe the whole idea of frustration, and I really appreciated the way it was, was switched, and that's one of the things we like to do here of course is reframe and, and flip things on their head.
What the reel was talking about was this gap between not knowing and knowing, and that the only feeling in between those two points to get from not knowing a thing to knowing a thing, the only feeling in there is frustration, and that can feel really ugly and messy and uncomfortable.
I mean,
Casey (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Amy (she/her): if nothing else, it's just flat out uncomfortable, and I, nobody likes to be uncomfortable. So the flip was, but if you don't feel frustration, then you're not learning anything. And so to take that as a signal that you are learning something, that you are making progress, and I... While I still wanna my, my...
I wanna kind of go, "That's bullshit. No, I don't wanna be frustrated," uh, it rings true if you, if I, once I stop to think about it. I'm like, "Yeah, you're, yeah." I mean, and, and I, these days I'm very frustrated with a lot of things, but it means I haven't given up. It means I haven't walked away. It means I'm still in there in the trenches doing the work and trying to make progress, and the progress feels slow as shit a lot of the time, but it's still progress.
Casey (she/her): Yes. All of it, yes. That's my answer. All of it, yes.
Amy (she/her): Okay
Casey (she/her): no, I, I, I really love that idea of thinking about the f- the friction. Like, I don't love the use of the word fru- like, my first thing is getting rid of the word frustration because words hold power in our brain. And so when we say frustration, that immediately has a negative connotation.
Like, we don't want to be frustrated. That is an uncomfy feeling. And so my brain immediately flips that word to friction because yes, there is friction. It is, it's clunky and,
Amy (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Casey (she/her): you know, there is something slowing us down. so when we shift it to friction, can we get curious about the friction? Like, can we get curious? the idea that that friction is the sign that you're learning because
Amy (she/her): Yeah
Casey (she/her): we, we talk about, the idea that like, of neuroplasticity and like ideas
Amy (she/her): No
Casey (she/her): like go together, wire together. And so this thing that like, you're feeling that friction, it means we're creating a new pathway in the brain.
And for that to
Amy (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Casey (she/her): stuck in our brain, we have to repeat that path. I always think about like, for some reason my pic- my brain always pictures like a college campus. And you know how they have these like, they have these nice little, you know, sidewalks everywhere, and there's that one
Amy (she/her): Yes.
Casey (she/her): across the one
Amy (she/her): Yep.
Casey (she/her): that's too long?
Amy (she/her): Yep
Casey (she/her): what I think of when I think of neuroplasticity, is there was the first student who looked around and was like, just gonna fucking walk across the lawn."
Amy (she/her): Right
Casey (she/her): granted this is like mowed grass, so the friction is relative, but they had to just like pick a path across the grass, and then another student did it, another, and another, and another, and now there is a permanently worn path there. But that took lots of overcoming friction to build that path, and giving ourselves the time and the space to get through that friction and create that new pathway
Amy (she/her): there's a name for those, and I'm drawing a blank and I'm gonna be frustrated about it. But, um, there's a name for those kinds of paths though, and I remember at college, I went to St. Olaf College, um, Golden Girls references welcome, just bring 'em on. But St. Olaf is not a...
Okay, here's my so- here's my little tiny soapbox about St. Olaf. St. Olaf is not a, a town, it is a college in, in Minnesota, and I went there. That's where my math and physics degree came from. So St. Olaf, and the lore is that they waited to put in the permanent paths until people had worn those community paths,
Casey (she/her): there's an interesting anthropological thing that happens where we're designed at some level to find the path of least friction because we need to conserve energy to hunt, to gather, to build a fire, to stay alive. But this other reel I was watching is talking about the fact that we have swung so far the other way as a society that we don't have enough friction in our life, and it's actually, to oversimplify it, it's making us dumber. Like, this is one of the problems we're starting to see rapidly show up with AI, is we need friction in our brain for our brain to continue to build and maintain these pathways. And so that friction used to be for miles every day and looking, like, through the bushes and knowing what you're looking for. It was this physical friction staying alive. And now we don't have that, and it's so easy to not learn anymore, that learning then comes with so much frustration and so much friction. And as a society, we've tied this identity element to it that, like, you're gifted or you're not, you know, you're, you're smart or you're not. when I first started dealing with my brain injury and having to learn again, I had to do a lot of therapy around the tho- fact that I was too stupid for college. And, like, plenty of therapists and people gently holding my hand and telling me, "D- dear babe, you got blown up." Like, "You are not too dumb for college. You got blown up. You got your box rocked." It's like... But, like,
Amy (she/her): Yeah
Casey (she/her): like, there are some kids who don't have brain injuries, and the transition to college, like, rocks their world is...
And so we tie this
Amy (she/her): Mm-hmm
Casey (she/her): identity piece to it, and I feel like I'm hearing that even a little bit in, like, your language of talking about, like... 'Cause you and I talk a lot about the social media and, like, how you're re-
Amy (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Casey (she/her): business as part of the coaching we do. And, like, I hear that, like, identity piece coming up of,
there's this element of, like, I don't want to learn this because I don't want to have to do this. There's this element of, like, I don't know if I can learn this, so that reflects poorly
Amy (she/her): Yeah
Casey (she/her): And so there is this also this, like, it's not just as simple as the frustration in the concept of learning, but also what does that say about you as an individual who is struggling to learn something new?
Amy (she/her): Yeah. 'Cause unlike you, I went to every class in high school, college. I was not only a straight A student type, but I also did all the things I was supposed to do.
Casey (she/her): Oh,
Amy (she/her): I showed up. So yeah, I, I am fascinated by like, the idea... I, I mean, I did have to show up for class for me to, you know, do well. So the, the, the i- the people who didn't...
Casey (she/her): senior year that they almost didn't let me graduate.
Amy (she/her): Okay
Casey (she/her): of the fact I had like a 3.7, I missed so many days that they were not sure if I should be allowed to walk across stage
Amy (she/her): I mean, I skipped school, but it was the official senior skip day. Um, you know, it was, it was unofficially officially sanctioned kind of thing.
Casey (she/her): Yep.
Amy (she/her): but yeah, there's all sorts of, of reasons why
Casey (she/her): Yeah.
Amy (she/her): am struggling with this whole thing.
Casey (she/her): And we've talked about this also in the context of, like, literally the creative endeavor of the people who say that they're not creative. There's always that, like, well, what art teacher in what grade hurt your feelings and told you that you weren't creative?
Amy (she/her): Right.
Casey (she/her): have
Amy (she/her): Yes.
Casey (she/her): trauma and life experiences and family structure that feed all of this stuff, and why we feel the way we do about learning.
Amy (she/her): a lot of the language around learning and, and dealing with it talks about resiliency, and I'm not even sure I know exactly what that means, to be very honest.
Casey (she/her): I go by a relatively dictionary definition of the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties or in like physics, it's the ability to spring back to the original shape. it
Amy (she/her): Good for you. Look at you.
Casey (she/her): me. Is I think about like, I don't remember where I got this example once, but you take like a couple of different types of like bouncy balls and
Amy (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Casey (she/her): it and like without throwing it down, if you just open your hand and like let gravity bounce
Amy (she/her): Gravity
Casey (she/her): yeah, if it comes back up to your hand, it's a very resilient ball. If it kind of thuds and like boop, boop, boop and kind of like doesn't bounce back, bounce back up, it's... Sound effects matter.
Amy (she/her): Yes, I love it
Casey (she/her): very resilient. And so I think about that in, like that's what it means to me, is that ability to back to where you were. And in theory, of those comebacks, like in the human existence, each of those comebacks comes with a new stack of knowledge. And so instead of it being... Trying to figure out how to describe this when you can't see me talking with my hands. Um, for
Amy (she/her): Go watch it on YouTube so you can see Casey talk with, well, talk with her hands
Casey (she/her): hands. Um, so a lot of times when we talk about resilience, it's kind of talked about in like we came... Like I just said it, like we come back to the same level.
But in the human experience, I think of like a spiral going up. And so
Amy (she/her): Hmm.
Casey (she/her): we're always gaining more information, so we bounce back up, but there's a learning that happens in that
Amy (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Casey (she/her): like going down and coming back up. And so we don't back to the exact same space. We're in like this like spiral evolution, the next evolution above it. And so in theory, we continue to kind of climb higher and higher if you're willing to learn from
Amy (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Casey (she/her): these moments that knock you down, from these frustrations, from this friction. Um, you keep building and so it creates this kind of spiral growth instead of like a linear growth. Does that make
Amy (she/her): Well, it does. And in fact, it maps really beautifully to the way that I view learning photography. You know, specifically, if we wanna get really specific, 'cause this supposedly is a photography podcast.
Casey (she/her): Sometimes
Amy (she/her): doesn't feel that way. Um, but that maps so nicely onto how I look at learning photography, because it's not a one and done.
It's not a, I've learned composition and now I know composition, and now I can move on to the next thing. You learned, you learned a little bit about composition. So first time around you learn the rules, like rule of thirds and, negative space and leading lines, let's say.
And you learned very, uh, very simple ways to apply those. The next time you come around and you hit a roadblock of I don't know how to compose this image, now we can start adding a, some nuance, one of our favorite words,
Casey (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Amy (she/her): some nuance to it and go, well, maybe rule of thirds is a little too strict. Maybe you go for in the v- you know, something that's a little more sort of like rule of thirds, but you don't have to put the eye exactly on one of those intersections, and you kinda just generally put the thing over there, and then you have your, you know, leading space over there.
Um, and we, we soften those rules into guidelines. Um, and then you c- you know, m- continue on your merry way, and then you come around again and y- you run into another roadblock. And now we talk about how can we use Lightroom or Photoshop, to enhance the composition and emphasize something that is sort of in the photo but, but needs to, a little bit of emphasis to really bring it out and make it effective.
So it's this layers and, and the spiral is so good because it's not a circle. It's not a I visit each of these stations,
Casey (she/her): Yeah
Amy (she/her): then I'm done, and I've, you know, I've completed my photography education. Um, the adding on the layers of knowledge and application is ... The people that do that are the ones that are successful.
The people that don't stay stuck in I'm gonna apply the rule of thirds to every photo that I take,
So there's frustration built in there. I, I still... I'm gonna push back on the friction and frustration.
I- friction I, I agree with that, that's a really valuable word. I think frustration still has its place because it's more abstract, and I can't always figure... I can name frustration. I can't always name... Friction feels very specific to me, and I may not know specifically where the friction's coming from, so I can't...
I, I don't even see it as friction yet. I see it as just this general gray blob that's surrounding me of, that I'm calling frustration. And then I can go, "Oh, wait, I'm, I'm frustrated, so that must mean there is friction somewhere." And so then I, you know... So it's,
Casey (she/her): Gotcha
Amy (she/her): me, I need that initial layer of just acknowledging that it's frustration, and then I can...
As long as I don't stay stuck there, then I can move into, "Let me see what I, if I can figure out where the, the sources of frustration are." So, um, that's a little bit of a tangent. ADHD, yay.
Casey (she/her): Yes
Amy (she/her): but, the photography education not being a one and done, that it's this constant cycle. And, and I think that's, um, you know, not to toot my own horn, but I will, because that's where a membership is so valuable.
Because I can teach something and you can re- you can do the class once, and then you move along your merry way and you go, "Great, I know all that there is to know about this thing." But the membership is where you get to add layer, the layers of nuance. I could write classes until I'm blue in the face, but I am finally at the point where I'm realizing I can't keep writing classes to give you those layers of nuance and understanding.
That's, that's something that happens in discussion. That's something that happens by looking at photos and talking about them and going, "Hey, did you consider this?" Or maybe it's time you, you know, look a little more into this aspect if I could write a class that would cover every detail of, of photography, I would.
I've tried,
Casey (she/her): Yeah
Amy (she/her): but that doesn't feel like a very worthwhile way to do it anymore. So we add the layers in discussion, in community, in, um, looking at our photos and being critical, and then figuring out where to go next.
So
Casey (she/her): I think, like, I'm gonna toot your horn for you for a second, is I think this is one thing that you do a good job of, is matching what level of, like, the spiral you're talking to is on. Like, when you
Amy (she/her): Mm-hmm
Casey (she/her): lighting in my photography, we have a different conversation than the conversation you're having with a couple of the other gals who are submitting photos for contests and who've obviously been doing this longer.
And so you're getting in more into the nuance of the flow of the image and, like, where we want more light and where we want less light and, like, the details of it, whereas me, you're like, "Stop fucking doing this." Like, there, there's a more f- like, black and white
Amy (she/her): Yeah.
Casey (she/her): to some of
Amy (she/her): Yeah
Casey (she/her): questions versus, like, the nuance of, like, the composition and the flow of the picture.
And so I think that's one of the advantages, like you said, of a membership, or that's part of understanding the spiral of learning, is I love watching you coach these other women and I'm getting information from that and, like, sticking stuff in my brain for later. But I also know I'm currently sitting on a l- different point in the spiral and that's not quite what I need to be worried about yet. I'm still working on the in the camera part of the equation kind of thing.
so that spiral, for
Amy (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Casey (she/her): helps reduce the frustration.
Amy (she/her): I love the mixed groups when I've got people at different places in their, their journey. I used to offer classes and If the working spots didn't sell out for people who were taking the class for the first time, I'd open them up to people who had taken the class already
I, I gave them a separate set of instructions honoring the fact that they'd been through the class before, but saying, "Hey, let's work at the kind of the next level." And the mixing then between the people who were taking the class for the first time versus the ones who were coming back around and doing it again, to see that, for me even to see that progress, but then for them also to see, "Oh, that's where I was, and look at what progress I've made."
And then for the, the first-timers to go, "Oh, look at what happens when I do this class and I get to that point."
Casey (she/her): Yeah
Amy (she/her): on all those levels. And so, the group calls, embody that and, and bring that energy to it, and I just, I really like it, so
Casey (she/her): Yeah, I do too. Yeah, I think it's one where I think a part of what I loved about like martial arts growing up is there is a very linear belt structure. You start as a white belt, you earn the next belt, and there is this like checklist of what order you're learning shit in and when you've learned it enough to be like granted access to the next level. there is also this element of like all the different belt levels train together, and so like as a white belt I was training with black belts, as a black belt I got to train with white belts, and like this like kind of rechecking in on how you're learning it. And then I love teaching and so like then being able to like, okay, now I have to figure out how to articulate this to another person in a way that they understand it, and just that constant evolution of
Amy (she/her): Yeah
Casey (she/her): information
So we've talked about like the resilience and the frustration and this kind of spiral of learning.
knowing and not knowing there's this big gap, this big gap's uncomfortable. What the fuck do we do with that?
[00:34:38] Don't Isolate: Curiosity, Community, and the Little Island
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Casey (she/her): How do we get thr- how do we stay in that discomfort and not give up on something that potentially we enjoy very much and not getting lost in those moments of frustration?
Amy (she/her): the one answer that comes to mind is, is to not isolate yourself, to not pull back so much that you become your own little island and then, the only thoughts you have are, are your own, and that becomes really grim really fast.
Casey (she/her): I can. Yeah
Amy (she/her): You know, and that's why, and that's why you and I are still, you know, why I am still working with you i- in a coaching, you know, capacity because otherwise I'm gonna lose that thread and just drop it all and, or, or walk away or something. So, you know, it becomes that, kind of that lifeline, and I don't want it to, that to sound bigger than it is.
Casey (she/her): Right
Amy (she/her): think breaks are good. I think if you, if you overload yourself and overwhelm yourself to the point where you just have taken on too much, I think stepping back and paring down what you're involved in is really good.
Casey (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Amy (she/her): I guess for me, I think the biggest thing is just to stay engaged at a level that, that you're capable of maintaining.
Casey (she/her): I think community is so important for a multitude of ways, and I love that, like, staying engaged. I, I think about therapy. I've been in and out of therapy for two decades, and, like, do I learn anything new from my therapist at this point? No. But it's having somebody outside my brain when I start
Amy (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Casey (she/her): who can help me sort what is valid and what is,
Amy (she/her): And not the good kind of spiral.
Casey (she/her): Yeah,
Amy (she/her): Not the good kind of
Casey (she/her): about. The, the downward, the downward one that ends up in the fetal position crying on the couch. That, that
Amy (she/her): Maybe, maybe we should, I've g- I've got a, just a cord organizer thing here. Um, uh, maybe the, the learning one is more of a sideways one because then you're just going around and around sideways, but
the vertical one is we're trying to avoid. Anyway, sorry
Casey (she/her): but yeah, it's having somebody to kind of check in on your thoughts, to cheer you along, to share things with. Like, there is so much in that to tell you you're doing a good job when all you can... Like, I've found that a couple of times where I get so deep into trying to fix an image like, I'm sure this is complete trash and I should throw away my camera, and, like, that ability to, like, walk away or have somebody else look at it, like I'll throw something up in a Facebook group just 'cause I need somebody to pat me on the back, does wonders. Good for the soul, you know? So yeah, no, I love that. I love that idea of, yeah, is not isolating. I had not ever thought about that one. Um, the one for me that I think about is curiosity, and this is my answer to a lot of things is
Amy (she/her): I was gonna say, you just need to have that tattooed across your forehead. The answer is always curiosity.
Casey (she/her): Yes. Yep. But curiosity. Yeah, because, but it
Amy (she/her): Yeah.
Casey (she/her): kind of is. So like, if
Amy (she/her): Yeah
Casey (she/her): frustrated and you're really stuck in that, okay, get curious about why you're frustrated. Where is the friction? Um, if you're feeling overwhelmed by the fire hose of information, get curious on like what is the most timely or like the most applicable to you.
You know, right now I don't need to learn anything that isn't related to studios because I'm focused on studio shooting at the moment, and so I can kind of like, for a couple weeks I've kind of got everything else at least on the side, you know, on the, on the, the back burner. Getting curious about the next thing to learn.
So like I was getting frustrated and flustered by some of this lighting stuff and like taking a deep breath and being like, "Okay, come at this from like a curiosity scientific instead of a like, ah, I've gotta find the right answer approach." And so I set up one light and I got out my camera and I changed one setting at a time, and I compared some photos and I was like, "Okay, this gives me information."
Like, okay, now we're gonna set up two lights and we're gonna one setting at a time. Compared some answers like, oh, okay, now like I got curious about, I let myself focus on a little bit at a time and I got myself kind of through what I was frustrated with.
Amy (she/her): I truly believe, my fundamental belief is that everybody can do this.
when someone is struggling, I'm, I'm gonna work my tail off to try and figure out another way to explain it or a, you know, come at it from a totally different direction. And I find myself taking on the responsibility for them not feeling like they're getting it.
for me, in terms of coaching and teaching, it feels very personal like, "Oh, I didn't do a good enough job of teaching you this or of explaining this to you." So My thought is never that you're not smart enough. My thought is this is something that is, you know, structured and can be taught and can be learned, and I just haven't hit on the right combination of words to use and diagrams to draw and illustrations to make to get you to the point where you understand it.
So,
Casey (she/her): Yeah
Amy (she/her): I don't know. That's, that's how it feels on, on the other side sometimes.
Casey (she/her): That's nice to hear 'cause there is that element. I, I think I've confessed this to you that sometimes, like when these group calls, I'm like, I feel kind of out of my element and like I'm asking really dumb questions. But not a dumb question if it's something
Amy (she/her): Mm-mm.
Casey (she/her): and don't know the answer to. And you, you have never made me feel, nor have I think the thought ever crossed your mind of like, "Oh,
Amy (she/her): Yeah.
Casey (she/her): question." You know? It's like
Amy (she/her): Mm-mm.
Casey (she/her): that element of like, no, this is just, oh, this is the phase of learning you're at. Great. How can I break this down for your, you in a way that connects with brain and where you're currently at in the learning process?
Yeah.
Amy (she/her): Yeah. And one of, what my reaction will ... If I hear the same, quote-unquote, "dumb question" multiple times from multiple people, I'll go write a course or I'll write a tutorial or make a video,
Casey (she/her): Right
Amy (she/her): obviously this is something that a lot of people have the same question about. But I'm never, it's never that it's a dumb question, it's that it's a knowledge gap that needs to get covered and is so common that I should just document it
my own personal frustration would be, oh, I'm answering the same question again. But even that is, well, Where did I not put it in a course?
Casey (she/her): Right
Amy (she/her): you know, where is it missing? And so then I'll go, you know, figure that out and write a piece and stick it in or, or make it its own thing and hopefully at least give the, the baseline answer to the question so that the next time it comes up it can be, "Okay, I saw your tutorial.
Now I have X, Y, and Z questions." we're all coming at it from the next step up on the spiral without me having to repeat the first level, um, because we're not there anymore. Everybody, we all know what the first level is, so.
Casey (she/her): Yep
[00:41:27] Window of Tolerance and Tolerating the Discomfort
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Amy (she/her): Um, where does window of tolerance fit into all this?
Casey (she/her): Hmm, that's a good question. window of tolerance being that k- kind of our nervous system's capacity for nonsense. We've talked about this in other episodes, so vastly oversimplifying that for the
Amy (she/her): Yes
Casey (she/her): But this is one where My brain, I have like too many thoughts coming into my brain all at once. Um, one, and you kind of just touched on this with like the isolation or like maybe there's a time and a place where like you kind of need less stuff in life. It is hard to learn when we are outside of our window of tolerance. So if you have chaotic things happening at home, if somebody is ill, just even back to school season, like I've, I've worked online for years and people just vanish for like three weeks every like August, September when school starts.
Amy (she/her): Yes
Casey (she/her): understanding that sometimes life and your capacity supersedes your ability to learn, and acknowledging that and being able to set things down and not see that as a failure and come back to it. Within navigating this gap between the knowing and not knowing, this gap of frustration that we've been talking about, this is kind of actually a great way to grow your window of tolerance.
people like have such mixed feelings about the concept of growth only happens outside of your comfort zone, similar to saying outside of your window of tolerance. If you're too far outside of your comfort zone, your body goes into a fight or flight navigating threat state. You can't function, you can't learn, you can't grow. That kind of outside of your comfort zone is gonna shut everything down. But to grow our window of tolerance, we have to be uncomfortable. So we wanna be like right at the edge or right ab- outside of that window of like, you have to learn to navigate the friction.
You have to learn to hold space for that friction. I kind of hate the saying hold space, because what the fuck does that mean? But I...
Amy (she/her): No.
Casey (she/her): It's what, that's
Amy (she/her): Yeah
Casey (she/her): got, is like have to learn to be uncomfortable. We have to learn to be that friction. We have to learn to let ourselves be frustrated. That will help expand that window of tolerance, which will help keep your brain online, which will allow you to learn move on from there. Part of what you're doing is working on that window of tolerance, and if you get too far outside of that window, that's where you're gonna burn out or stop learning or get frustrated, shut down, things like that
Amy (she/her): So the thought that is coming to my mind is I've had a lot of outdoor events that I've been photographing this, this year. Started with one in March in California, was, and it was the heat wave that was out of season, and yet here we are doing agility in 100-degree heat, and it has continued to a couple weeks ago of doing Fast Cat in 100-degree heat and it's outrageous.
Um, but I am noticing that the more I do of them, the more I am able to tolerate the discomfort. I will never be happy shooting in heat. Never. That's just never gonna happen. But I have, I have gathered more tools. I have, you know, more fans, and I have more umbrellas and things to put over me, and I have ways of managing that heat, um, you know, in addition to, you know, other than just stay hydrated.
yes, I'm drinking all the water and the Gatorade and stuff, but that isn't enough to keep me comfortable and engaged and able to focus on the job that I am there to do. But having a fan sitting next to me, helps. Having, uh, one of those neck fans.
Those things are amazing, by the way.
Casey (she/her): they
Amy (she/her): I just got, got one of those in California and I went, "What the hell? How have I poo-pooed this?" I mean, they look silly, but oh my God, they're amazing.
Casey (she/her): Yeah
Amy (she/her): so just trying to find ways to minimize the discomfort that I'm feeling when I'm shooting outside in the sun and in the heat, um, actually has been more worthwhile than I expected it to be.
So,
Casey (she/her): Yeah
Amy (she/her): and I feel like learning photography is kind of the bigger, you know, learning anything is kind of the bigger scale of that where,
Casey (she/her): Yeah
Amy (she/her): expanding the ability to, to deal with that discomfort is for sure important. Um, I think of a term from, that I've heard in dog training of, of over threshold, and I don't know if it's specifically a dog training term.
It might be a, a universal term, but the first place I heard it used was in, was in terms of a dog, um, in dog training and behavior, and that a dog was over threshold and so then being in a class or at a trial situation, um, just could not function well enough to do the task that it was, um, supposed to do.
So I think my brain, instead of window of tolerance, I think I tend to come to that language of over threshold.
Casey (she/her): Yeah. I
Amy (she/her): so
Casey (she/her): heard, yeah, over threshold in dog training, but it, it's very much the same. It's outside the window of tolerance. I, I actually used to coach a gal who is a dog trainer, and specifically in, like, behavioral work with dogs and, like, dogs who are constantly over threshold. And she would ask me a question on how to deal with something, and I would just look at her and be like, "Well, if this was one of your dogs who was behaving like this..."
Amy (she/her): Would you say?
Casey (she/her): up. Shut up." I
Amy (she/her): Yeah
Casey (she/her): like, I- we aren't as complicated and special as we like to think we are as human beings.
Amy (she/her): Yeah
Casey (she/her): yes, we get overstimulated, we get over threshold. And you can train that, where that threshold is. Like, working dogs are put through so much to
Amy (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Casey (she/her): that threshold up really high compared to either of my reactive knuckleheads who I have done not enough work with on that threshold, you know?
And I like
Amy (she/her): Yeah.
Casey (she/her): the word tolerate the discomfort, and I think that's such a good way to say it, is in a life, in a world, a society of instant gratification, and how can we make everything easier and frictionless and faster and more comfortable, we are losing a skill of the discomfort. And if you don't tolerate the discomfort, you can't grow your window of tolerance.
You can't raise your threshold. You can't learn. You can't deal with hard... Even, like, running the business side of this, dealing with with clients, this is a thing you and I have done a lot over the coup- couple of years, is you get these kind of crazy emails once in a while of, and, like, how to navigate that with that client without blowing up your nervous system in the process, and that's a
Amy (she/her): Yeah.
Casey (she/her): and
Amy (she/her): Yeah
Casey (she/her): with tolerating the discomfort. And now it's just, most of those just roll off your back. You're, you're so good at it
Amy (she/her): Yeah.
Casey (she/her): like, to just be uncomfortable for a while. So
Amy (she/her): Mm-hmm.
Casey (she/her): just such a huge takeaway from everything we've been talking about, is learning to tolerate the discomfort. And how you choose to tolerate it, like, there's a lot of ways to do that, but a lot of it, I think, boils down to it's gonna suck sometimes.
Amy (she/her): It's just part of the, yeah, it's just part of the deal. Yeah, well eh, I don't like that answer
I accept that answer, but I don't like that answer
Casey (she/her): I'm okay with that.