Episode 34 | November 2025
I was in my garage last Tuesday, shooting beef tallow. Yes, beef tallow—jarred cow fat with a marketing department. And while I'm adjusting highlights on solidified animal fat for the fourth time, I'm thinking: I used to shoot for Rolling Stone. What happened?
Then my friend Candice texted. An illustrator in St. Louis. I asked how business was going.
"Everything is a garbage fire out there."
And that's when I realized: we're both drowning. But for completely opposite reasons.
She doesn't have enough work. I have plenty of work—just the wrong work. And neither of us could shake the feeling that something bigger was happening.
So I dug into the data. Economic reports, central bank surveys, and consumer debt studies. And what I found explains why so many freelancers feel like they're either sprinting or sinking right now.
The economy didn't just slow down. It split in half.
What You'll Learn in This Episode:
The Three-Restaurant Economy
The Economic Data (Made Human)
What to Actually Do Tomorrow
Why Craft Still Matters
Timestamps:
00:00 - Cold Open: Beef Tallow in My Garage
08:45 - The Text Message That Changed Everything
12:30 - The Three-Restaurant Economy (The Metaphor)
18:20 - The Economic Data: What Actually Happened
26:15 - Why We're Both Drowning
31:40 - Where the Money Actually Is (Three Specific Markets)
38:50 - What to Actually Do Tomorrow (Tactical Actions)
48:20 - The Productivity Lie (And the Stoic Response)
53:10 - The Shadow Question (What Are You Actually Ashamed Of?)
58:30 - Why This Still Matters (Lucy, Charlie, and Showing Up)
01:06:45 - Outro
Key Takeaways:
Resources Mentioned:
Economic Data Sources:
Strategic Frameworks:
What's Next:
If this episode resonated with you, text a fellow creative and ask them: "How are you? Really?" Because the loneliest part of this moment isn't the struggle—it's the belief that you're the only one struggling.
And if you want to talk more about navigating the bifurcated creative economy, hit me up on Instagram @patrickfore or email me at patrick@terriblephotographer.com
The garbage fire is real. But so are we.
About The Terrible Photographer Podcast:
This is a show for creative humans navigating the messy reality of making work that matters while also paying rent. We talk about identity, craft, failure, and the absurdity of the creative industry—with radical honesty and zero bullshit.
If you're tired of toxic positivity and gear reviews, you're in the right place.
More Episodes: http://terriblephotographer.com
Book: Lessons From a Terrible Photographer (coming Dec 2025)
Credits:
Hosted, Written, and Produced by: Patrick Fore
Music: Epidemic Sound
Recorded in: San Diego, California
Support the show: If this episode helped you, the best thing you can do is share it with another creative who needs to hear it. Word of mouth keeps this show alive.
Have you ever shared something you were excited about only to have it met with "yeah, maybe" or "how are you going to monetize that?"
In this episode, I sit down with a story that's been eating at me for weeks — a conversation at a coffee shop that revealed something uncomfortable about regret, haunted creatives, and the ghosts of unmade work.
This isn't about toxic positivity or hustle culture. It's about understanding the difference between someone who's tired and someone who's haunted. Between love and regret. Between the people who will protect your ideas and the ones who will kill them — often without realizing it.
And if I'm honest, it's about recognizing when we become those people ourselves.
In This Episode
The Coffee Shop Moment A conversation with a photographer friend that starts with excitement and ends with something closer to mourning.
The Difference Between Tired and Haunted Why some people poke holes in your ideas — and it has nothing to do with you.
Three Faces of Haunting
The Idea Graveyard My own confession: the photo essay about my hometown that will never exist, and what it taught me about shelf life.
Love vs. Regret How my wife Jaimi saved me from launching a business I didn't actually want — and how to tell the difference between questions that protect you and questions that undermine you.
The Physics of Regret How other people's ghosts create friction that converts your creative momentum into heat, defensiveness, and eventual paralysis.
Protecting Your Butterflies Practical strategies for guarding your ideas and building a "Go" list instead of a "Know" list.
Key Takeaways
Quotable Moments
"He wasn't trying to kill my idea. He was mourning his own."
"When your idea gets that big, that expensive, that unreachable — it becomes a shield. The dream has become the cage."
"Ideas have a shelf life. They start fresh, urgent, necessary. Leave them too long, they spoil."
"Haunted people ask questions to protect themselves. People who love you ask questions to protect you."
"Friction converts kinetic energy into heat. Your momentum gets converted into defensiveness. Your creative energy burns off as anxiety."
"The only thing worse than starting something and failing... is not starting something at all." — Seth Godin
"You can't hitch your momentum to parked cars."
The Light Leak Assignment
Make two lists:
List One: The Haunted People who respond to your excitement with skepticism, apathy, or "yeah, maybe." They don't get access to your butterflies.
List Two: The Builders The ones who finish, ship, say "fuck yes," and offer help instead of obstacles. These are your people.
Stop pitching to List One. Guard your butterflies. Feed them only to people who still believe they're real.
Concepts Explored:
Quote: "The only thing worse than starting something and failing... is not starting something at all." — Seth Godin
Connect With Patrick
Website: patrickfore.com
Instagram: @patrickfore
Podcast: The Terrible Photographer
Book: Lessons From a Terrible Photographer (coming soon)
Credits
Host & Producer: Patrick Fore
Episode Photography: Amy Humphries Find Amy on Instagram: @amyjoyhumphries
Music Licensed Through:
Support The Show
If this episode resonated with you, here's how you can help:
A Note From Patrick
This episode has been living in my head for weeks. The coffee shop conversation happened months ago, but it took me this long to understand what it was really about.
I hope this gives you permission to protect your ideas. To say "fuck yes" to butterflies when they land on your shoulder. And to stop asking permission from people who stopped saying yes a long time ago.
Thanks for being here.
Until next Tuesday — stay curious, stay courageous, and yeah, stay terrible.
— Patrick
The Terrible Photographer is a podcast for creative humans navigating the messy reality of making work that matters. We don't do hustle culture. We don't do toxic positivity. We do honest conversations about creativity, identity, and finding your voice.
You ever buy a twenty-two-dollar airport sandwich and convinced yourself it was worth it?
That’s what this week’s episode is about — except the sandwich is a photography competition.
In Gold Star, Patrick unpacks his love-hate relationship with the American Photographic Artists’ Untitled competition — and what it reveals about the creative world’s obsession with approval. From spreadsheets of judges to award-show absurdities like the Oscars and Grammys, this episode digs into why artists still crave validation from systems they don’t even believe in.
It’s funny, frustrated, and a little too honest — a meditation on why we keep chasing the gold stars that will never love us back.
Featuring a clip from Jim Carrey’s Golden Globes speech, a story about Patrick’s first Houston Addy Award, and a Light Leak that challenges you to make something that doesn’t need anyone’s permission to exist.
You’ll hear about:
Mentioned in this episode:
Light Leak: The Paradox of the Work
What if you stopped making work for judges, algorithms, and invisible audiences — and started making the thing that’s too honest to explain?
Why creatives stay stuck, even when the door’s wide open.
We all want freedom. Creative freedom, emotional freedom, professional freedom. But here’s the thing nobody tells you:
You can be free… and still live like you’re caged.
In this episode, I break down the three invisible cages every creative person ends up pacing:
It starts with a pacing lioness in San Diego, makes a detour through childhood Masonic mystery, and ends in a gallery in LA with a man named Jesse and a story I still can’t shake.
If you’ve ever felt trapped by your own success, your style, your niche, or your silence… this one’s for you.
Light Leak Assignment:
Choose your cage.
Take one honest step outside it.
Before the week ends.
No excuses.
Listen if you’ve ever said:
Support the Show:
This show is 100% listener-supported, which means I’m not selling presets, funnel hacks, or “ten ways to make six figures with your camera.”
But if the episode made you feel something — if it helped you name the cage — I’d love your support.
👉 terriblephotographer.com/support
Three amazing humans have already joined. Be the fourth. Let’s get weird and honest together.
Episode Topics:
🔗 Other Mentions:
Stay curious. Stay courageous. And yeah… stay terrible.
A milestone. And maybe the most uncomfortable episode I've made so far.
A few weeks ago, I sent an email to thirty photographers I know. I asked them one question: What's your dirty little secret? The thing you'd never admit publicly. The thought that lives in the back of your brain at 3 AM.
I told them it would be anonymous. I just wanted the truth.
And I got a lot of responses.
This episode is about those secrets. The ones we carry alone. The ones that make us feel like frauds, or failures, or like we've made a massive mistake.
Some of these might be mine. I'm not telling you which ones.
But they're all real. And if you've thought any of them, you're not alone.
The Eight Secrets
Mentioned in This Episode
Leslie's Podcast: Niche to Meet You
A great show about finding your creative lane. Check it out.
Support The Show
This show costs money to make—hosting fees, software, time. If you're getting value from it and want to help keep it going, you can support the show here:
terriblephotographer.com/support
The show's free. It's staying free. But if you want to chip in, I appreciate it.
Stay Connected
📸 Instagram: @terriblephotographer
📧 Newsletter: Subscribe to PubNotes
🌐 Website: terriblephotographer.com
Credits
Music:
Hosted, Written, and Produced by: Patrick Fore
Your Turn
Write down one secret. One thing you've never said out loud. Not for Instagram. Not for anyone else. Just for you.
Take it out of the dark and look at it in the light.
You don't have to solve it. You just have to stop pretending it's not there.
If this episode resonated with you, share it with another creative who needs to hear it. And if you want to support the show, leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It helps more than you know.
Have you ever had a day where you told yourself you were “busy”… but couldn’t actually remember what you did? I know I have. Hours lost to scrolling, inboxes, half-finished tasks — and somehow at the end of it, I’m exhausted but nothing’s really done.
In this episode of The Terrible Photographer Podcast, I go after the two liars in my head who keep me trapped in that fake middle ground:
Neither one delivers real work. Neither one delivers real rest. And both are lying to us.
Instead, I want to talk about presence — the kind my Border Collie, Loki, embodies every time he drops into that crouch and locks onto a tennis ball like it owes him money. Which leads to…
⏱️ The Light Leak (36:40): The Loki Method — a simple, one-task-at-a-time rebellion against hustle culture and procrastination. Full attention, sacred focus, and real rest are scheduled like it actually matters.
This episode is about rediscovering focus, dignity in the ordinary, and finding a way to work present instead of just working harder.
If you’ve ever felt stuck between fake productivity and fake rest, this one’s for you.
Music provided by Blue Dot Sessions
What if the most radical thing you can say about your creative work is: it’s okay?
In this episode, Patrick dives into the beige middle of creative life — the 80% of days that aren’t fireworks or disasters. He tears into LinkedIn’s toxic lobster-and-champagne highlight reel, confesses his late-night burger-level Photoshop grinds, and introduces us to Sarah, a catering coordinator who redefined what “ordinary work” can mean.
Along the way you’ll hear:
This isn’t an episode about settling. It’s about survival, dignity, and gratitude for the work that keeps us human.
The tyranny was never that work is ordinary. The tyranny was believing ordinary wasn’t enough.
👉 Listen if: you’ve ever felt guilty for not loving every second of your “dream job,” or you’re tired of pretending passion is renewable.
👉 Stay for: a story that will make you grateful for the burger on your plate.
Resources & Mentions
Connect with Patrick
Credits
A New York–based commercial portrait photographer (big clients, covers, immaculate work) asked to talk. What came out wasn’t a portfolio review—it was a confession: he hasn’t made anything for himself in over a year, and he’s exhausted from performing passion he doesn’t feel. This episode is a permission slip for the photographers—and all creative workers—secretly pricing escape routes at 2 a.m. We talk about the unsaid epidemic of burnout, the grief under AI “efficiency,” and three practical permissions to help you stop performing and start feeling again. If you need someone to say it: you’re allowed to quit the version of creativity that’s killing you.
What you’ll hear
Chapter guide
The Light Leak (listener assignment)
For the next 7 days, make one thing a day that no one sees but you. No posting, no portfolio, no feedback. Just curiosity. If you want to break the rules publicly, tag #StayTerrible—but the real win is remembering what it feels like to make without an audience.
Pull quotes
Resources & references
Music & audio credit
Episode Photography by Filip Mroz | Unsplash
Who this episode is for
Commercial photographers, portrait shooters, freelancers, art directors, and any creative who’s tired of performing passion while running on empty—and needs permission to step off the treadmill without abandoning their voice.
Stay connected
If this hit a nerve, share it with one photographer who needs the permission too.
Newsletter & Field Notes: terriblephotographer.com
IG: @terriblephotographer • @patrickfore
Business inquiries & notes: patrick@patrickfore.com
One meditation. One burning question. One reminder you’re not alone. Every Wednesday in your inbox — shorter, sharper, and more honest than I could ever be in a long essay.
Subscribe to Pub Notes: terriblephotographer.com
Some days the world is too loud, too endless. You don’t need another lecture. You need a pint, a hard truth, and a line you can actually carry into tomorrow.
This week’s episode is an experiment I’m calling Pub Meditations — three acts, two meditations per act. Six in total. Each one pulled from the episodes that hit hardest this year, reimagined as something shorter, sharper, and closer to the way the Stoics wrote: notes to survive the day.
In the cold open, I borrow the first couple minutes from Ryan Holiday’s The Daily Stoic — a podcast I can’t recommend enough. Ryan’s voice is where I first realized Stoicism wasn’t about flatlining your emotions, it was about surviving chaos with your humanity intact. Go listen, subscribe, and keep a notebook handy.
What’s inside this episode:
Line you carry: Survival. Shadows. Light. Beauty. The tools haven’t changed in two thousand years — keep it short, keep it sharp, keep it honest.
Credits
Every kid asks their art teacher, “Is it good?”—and most of us never stop. In this episode, Patrick sits in Lucy’s middle-school art room and realizes he’s still chasing the same answer on high-stakes sets: watching client faces, parsing murmurs behind a monitor, riding the narcotic of approval.
We get into the modern authorities—clients, algorithms, mood boards—and the way we internalize them until we’re grading ourselves before anyone else can. We talk Gordon Parks, who lived the tension between immaculate Vogue spreads (noble, beautiful, necessary) and dangerous truth-telling (American Gothic, segregation, Malcolm X). We bring in Tolstoy’s blunt metric for art—sincerity that transmits feeling—and then admit the hypocrisy of needing authority to say “ignore authority.”
Finally, we bring it home with practical footholds for working photographers and every other creative human: how to hold the tension between survival and legacy, how to make room for truth without burning down your life, and what it looks like to start small, local, and personal—today.
Chapter markers (suggested)
Key takeaways
Practical prompts (do one this week)
Pull quotes
References & shout-outs
New listener compass
New here? This isn’t “business hacks to win in 2025.” We go deep on the real life of making honest work while paying bills—sometimes deadly serious, sometimes ridiculous. Photographers, designers, teachers, parents—if you’re trying to lead a meaningful life, solve interesting problems, and make beautiful things, you’re in the right place. Try: Ep. 5 Still Here (hopeful), Ep. 19 The Job I Hate the Least (funny), Ep. 17 The Technician (identity & reinvention).
Credits
A podcaster recently told me this show was "really dark." So today, we're leaning into that darkness—because that seemed way more fun.
This episode is about shadow work. Not the Instagram version. The real version. The kind that happens when you realize the thing limiting your creative work isn't technical skill—it's the parts of yourself you've been hiding from.
Through David Bowie's near-destruction during his Thin White Duke era and his eventual disappearance to Berlin, we explore what it actually looks like to confront the buried parts of creative identity. Plus the story of a wedding photographer who missed the most important moment of the day—not because she wasn't skilled enough, but because she wasn't emotionally ready.
This isn't comfortable. It's not content-ready. But it might be exactly what your creative work needs to become whole.
In This Episode
The Australian Podcaster's Question - What happens when someone calls your work "really dark"
Bowie's Shadow Period - Los Angeles, 1975. Red peppers, milk, mountains of cocaine, and the creation of an "emotionless Aryan superman"
The Berlin Disappearance - How the world's biggest rock star chose to vanish and why that wasn't the failure—it was the beginning
Jung's Shadow Theory - The psychological framework that explains why we hide parts of ourselves (and how it shows up in creative work)
The Wedding Photographer's Dilemma - When professional distance becomes emotional cowardice
The Five Creative Shadow Territories - Where every creative person hides parts of themselves:
Personal Excavation - Why I hate shooting events (and what teenage depression has to do with adult creative limitations)
The Integration Process - Shadow dialogue, creative audits, and the difference between working around wounds versus working with them
Key Takeaways
Mentioned in This Episode
Carl Jung - Swiss psychoanalyst who developed shadow theory David Bowie - Particularly his Thin White Duke period (1975-1976) and Berlin years Carlos Alomar - Bowie's guitarist who observed his creative process during the shadow period
Community
Share your shadow work discoveries using #TerribleShadows
Don't share the polished answers—share the parts of you you're just beginning to reclaim.
Music Credits
"Heroes" by David Bowie (approximately 1 minute used) Additional music licensed through Blue Dot Sessions
If This Episode Hit You…
Follow the podcast
📬 Subscribe to Field Notes (The Terrible Newsletter)
📷 Instagram: @theterriblephotographer
A Note About This Episode
This episode deals with themes of depression, anxiety, and psychological shadow work. It's designed to be therapeutic rather than triggering, but please listen with care for your own mental health needs.
If you're doing this work and it brings up difficult emotions, consider speaking with a mental health professional who can provide proper support.
Stay haunted. Stay human. And yeah... stay terrible.
Community & Feedback
Take the Listener Survey: What kind of episodes do you want more of? Your feedback directly shapes future content. 🔗 Complete the survey here
Share Your Story: Have you experienced professional compartmentalization? The cognitive whiplash between personal crisis and work demands? Share your story—email or leave us a voicemail
What happens when you have to switch from consuming apocalyptic news to selling creative services in the span of 10 minutes? Patrick explores the cognitive whiplash we've all learned to navigate—that jarring ability to temporarily forget the world's chaos and focus on the work at hand. From photographing weddings while your own relationship crumbles to creating lifestyle campaigns while democracy feels fragile, this episode examines the emotional labor of compartmentalization and asks whether our growing skill at "professional forgetting" is survival mechanism or something more troubling.
Featuring insights from trauma researcher Bessel van der Kolk on collective trauma, plus permission-giving wisdom about maintaining joy and connection during uncertain times—not despite what's happening, but because of it.
What You'll Learn
Key Takeaways
"That's the rhythm now. That whiplash. The emotional split screen. It's been the soundtrack of the last few years."
"You have permission to laugh at dinner with friends while democracy feels fragile. You have permission to celebrate your small wins while staying aware of larger struggles."
"Every time you choose connection over isolation, joy over despair, presence over paralysis—you're saying no to the forces that profit from keeping people scared, disconnected, and unable to think clearly."
Episode Timestamps
Resources & References
Researchers & Thinkers Mentioned:
Audio Sources:
For Creative Professionals
This episode applies whether you're:
The pattern is universal: How do you show up fully for the work in front of you while carrying awareness of everything else happening?
Connect
Subscribe & Support
The Terrible Photographer Podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and everywhere podcasts are found. Subscribe for honest conversations about creativity, identity, and finding your voice.
Sometimes creativity has fuck-all to do with your job title.
In this episode, Patrick explores why the most dangerous creative minds often don't call themselves artists—they're teachers buying classroom supplies with grocery money, middle managers translating executive gibberish into human language, and baristas solving problems that million-dollar consultants couldn't crack with PowerPoint.
Through the story of surgeon Atul Gawande's surgical checklist revolution, we examine how creative problem-solving becomes subversive when it works too well, threatening systems that profit from keeping things broken.
What You'll Learn:
Featured Story: The tale of how a Harvard-trained surgeon nearly got blacklisted for suggesting doctors use a checklist—and how his "radical" idea of making sure surgical teams knew each other's names reduced complications by 35%.
This episode speaks directly to photographers, CEOs, therapists, teachers, stay-at-home moms, baristas, and anyone else solving problems that others ignore.
Atul Gawande TED Talk excerpt: "How do we heal medicine?"
Links:
Music: Licensed through Blue Dot Sessions
"Creative work that actually changes things doesn't feel like art. It feels like resistance."
Episode Photo by Alexander Krivitskiy - Follow his work on Instagram
Every photographer needs permission to suck. And I mean that literally. In this episode, I explore the difference between accidental failure and strategic failure, and why that difference will determine whether you spend your career playing it safe or actually growing into the photographer you're meant to become.
From my own lighting disaster at a corporate shoot to Jerry Seinfeld's brutal honesty about audience judgment, we dive into how the greatest creatives use failure as a laboratory for growth. Learn why test shoots are your creative lifeline, how Roger Deakins broke convention to create cinematic magic in Skyfall, and why Ira Glass's famous "gap" between taste and ability is actually a feature, not a bug.
Key Topics Covered
Featured Audio Clips
Music Credits
Referenced Works & People
Your Assignment
Schedule a test shoot this month. Not someday when you have more time or better gear, in the next 30 days. Pick one specific thing you want to explore:
Write it down. Put it on your calendar. Treat it like the professional development it actually is. Give yourself permission to suck spectacularly—because bombing in private is how you learn to shine in public.
Connect With The Show
Leave a Voicemail: Share your own creative failures, test shoot discoveries, or questions about strategic experimentation at terriblephotographer.com/voicemail
Get Field Notes Newsletter: Weekly insights on creativity, identity, and finding your voice as a photographer. Sign up at terriblephotographer.com
Resources Mentioned
One phone call. One late invoice. One moment of controlled but very real rage. In this episode, I unpack a recent client conflict that left me feeling powerful, anxious, vindicated—and deeply uncomfortable. It’s not about being right. It’s about what happens when your nervous system hijacks your ethics, and you end up blowing up the wrong bridge.
Social psychologist Jamie Hughes joins to help me understand what the hell happened inside my brain—and how anger, justice, trauma, dopamine, and freelance stress all get tangled up when money’s tight and respect feels scarce.
It’s about accountability. It’s about empathy. It’s about not turning into the thing you’re fighting.
“You can’t cuss out the situation. So sometimes, we just need someone to unload our stress on.” — Jamie HughesListen if you’ve ever:
Featuring:
Special Guest:
Jamie Hughes
Social Psychologist, Trauma Specialist, and Certified Life Coach
🔗 Website + Resources: beacons.ai/managing_mental_health
📩 Got a story?
If you’ve ever burned a bridge and still think about it in the shower five years later, I’d love to hear it.
Not to fix it. Not to absolve you. Just to witness it.
👉 Email: patrick@terriblephotographer.com
💬 Help Me Be Terrible, Together:
If this episode hit you, leave a review on Apple Podcasts. I’ll probably read it on air in the most awkward, self-deprecating way possible.
Music Licensed via Epidemic Sound and Artlist.io
There are shoots where everything clicks.
The light is magic. The client is chill. The work feels effortless.
This episode isn’t about those.
Instead, we’re going into the plumbing.
Literally.
From overflowing toilets in luxury villas to Fortune 500 invoice purgatory, from last-minute gear fails to moments that remind you why you ever picked up a camera in the first place — this one’s for every photographer (and creative) who’s quietly asked themselves:
“Wait… is this really the job?”Turns out? It is.
But maybe that’s not a bad thing.
Because hidden under the chaos, the duct tape, and the missed payments…
there’s still something worth fighting for. And sometimes, the most honest thing you can say is:
“This is the job I hate the least.”And maybe that’s the most romantic thing you’ll ever say about your career.
🧰 Mentioned in this episode:
📬 Stay connected
If this episode made you feel seen, stolen from, or slightly less alone—
subscribe to The Terrible Newsletter:
You’ll get Field Notes, updates, and the occasional nudge to keep going.
🙏 Support the show
If you’re enjoying the podcast, please rate and review it on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
It helps more misfit creatives find their way here.
And honestly, it just feels good to know someone’s listening.
Credits
Music in this episode is licensed through Epidemic Sound and Artlist.io.
Episode Photo by Gryffyn
What happens when the thing you made in the dark suddenly ends up in the spotlight? This week, Patrick gets personal about the strange pressure of being “featured,” and why attention might be the most creatively dangerous drug of all.
From a viral photo in the dunes to the slow collapse of chasing relevance, this episode dives into the algorithm’s indifference to honesty, the myth of momentum, and what Johnny Cash’s American Recordings can still teach us about making art that matters.
This is for the ones who still believe in disappearing. In pausing. In letting the light hit you… without immediately bottling it.
Includes a clip from “The Beast in Me” by Johnny Cash (used with reverence, not profit).
All other music licensed via Artist.io.
Episode photograph by Casey Horner — Instagram: @mischievous_penguins.
"I thought the work would save me. I was grossly mistaken."
What happens when a stranger on Clubhouse calls you a technician instead of an artist? Patrick breaks down the brutal midnight conversation that cracked open everything he thought he knew about his photography career. From the golden handcuffs of corporate work to the humbling reality of freelancing for $650, this episode is about dismantling the fantasy of what creative success looks like.
No metaphors. No inspiration porn. Just the uncomfortable truth about technical skill versus authentic voice, and why sometimes the thing you think defines you is actually limiting you.
Part one of a two-part series on creative deconstruction and what comes after.
In this episode:
Light Leak: A Creative Check-In
Are you being hired for your vision, or just your ability to mimic someone else’s?
Grab The Darkroom – a free guide to creative clarity and finding your artistic voice
terriblephotographer.com/darkroom-download
Music licensed via Artlist.io
Audio excerpt from Conan O’Brien’s farewell message on The Tonight Show (2010). Used under fair use for commentary and inspiration. All rights belong to NBC/Universal.
Subscribe, support, or scream into the void at: terriblephotographer.com
Email me: patrick@terriblephotographer.com – I’m always interested to hear your thoughts, ideas, and read hate mail. I respond to every message.
Follow: @patrickfore & @terriblephotographer
Everyone loves a comeback story. But what about the part where you’re just… sitting in a garage at 2 a.m., surrounded by half-charged batteries, broken gear, and a growing sense that something inside you might be cracking?
This episode isn’t about triumph. It’s about that strange, quiet middle, the one nobody posts about, where you’re not broken, not healed… just angry. Angry at the industry. Angry at yourself. Angry at the space between who you are and who you thought you’d be by now.
But that anger? Maybe it’s not a problem to solve. Maybe it’s fuel.
Topics Include:
Opening Song:
“Demons” by The National
Used under license. All rights to 4AD Records and the artists.
Support the band at: americanmary.com
All other music provided by:
Mentioned in the Episode:
Subscribe to the Newsletter + Get the Free Download:
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Subscribe to The Terrible Newsletter and get The Darkroom — a free digital download about making real work in dark seasons.
What happens when you still love photography but start to wonder if there’s any place left for you in the industry?
In this raw, vulnerable episode, Patrick Fore gets brutally honest about what it means to be a working photographer in 2025. From a moment of personal crisis in a cluttered garage to the soul-draining grind of cold outreach and algorithm-chasing, this episode pulls back the curtain on the emotional and existential cost of staying in the game.
You’ll hear:
Whether you’re a full-time freelancer, a weekend warrior, or someone questioning the whole damn thing, this episode isn’t about pretending. It’s about naming the mess, wrestling with it, and finding a way to keep going.
📬 Subscribe to Field Notes, the weekly companion to the podcast:
https://www.terriblephotographer.com
💬 Let’s connect:
Instagram @TerriblePhotographer
Newsletter: Field Notes (via Substack)
Book: Lessons From a Terrible Photographer (coming soon)
Email me - patrick@terriblephotographer.com
Credits:
This episode contains a referenced clip from “How to enter ‘flow state’ on command” by Steven Kotler for Big Think (Watch here) and a short excerpt (under 30 seconds) from Pixar’s Soul, used to illustrate the concept of creative flow.
Music provided by and licensed through Artlist.io.