I still Lose Sleep Before Photography Jobs!

I share what 32 years as a photographer have actually taught me. We talk about pattern recognition that can’t be learned from courses or AI, the scar tissue from jobs gone wrong, and how stress-testing myself over three decades means I bring real judgment and problem-solving to every client project. I explain why losing sleep over my work is actually a sign I’m still invested, and how my business is a living system built on constant real-world feedback. When you hire me, you’re not just getting a photographer—you’re getting 32 years of experience staying calm under pressure and delivering results, even when things don’t go perfectly. 

 #Photography #PhotographyBusiness #Experience #ProfessionalPhotographer 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Well, hello there everybody. Welcome back to the Visual Historian. It's um. It is um. Um again. So question to you. How many of you are actively working with AI? You know, maybe for your SEO, for your blog post, maybe for you know, checking your emails that are going out, you know, AI. First of all, there's so many darn apps already. So the ones that you've heard of, like a chat GPT, obviously, but what about Claude? Have you heard of Claude? Have you heard of Manus? Have you used them for more things than just a word processor? Well, today I was thinking about what my podcast was going to be about, and I decided that as I'm sitting here on my desk looking at my NASA station is what I'm calling it, because everything I need is on my desk. My Rodcaster Duo for my podcasting, my laptop is on a stand, so I have some more room underneath it for storage. My Yalonzi um Stream Deck type device. Um, super awesome, by the way, the DX200. Super awesome. I didn't think I was gonna like it as much as I do. My second screen, my speakers, and then on top, which does not stay on top of my desk, but today I'm recording. I have my uh LED light from Godox, and it's on a monopod stand, which also holds my phone. So I have this little studio, this little mini studio that I've been working on for a long time. And now I have sit-down and everything is at my fingertips. When you open one of the drawers, like there's two drawers on the top, you know, the little long skinny ones, the one to the right is charging all of my batteries. So my camera, my flash, um, my second camera is like all those chargers are in the drawer and the wires are run through the back. So now I don't have all that is mess on the floor, it's in the drawer, literally. Um, I just have to get in the habit of remembering all those things are in the drawer. It's uh it's easy to forget. So I've been using Claude for the past couple of weeks, and the more you use, I guess any AI really, it starts to learn your language, your tone, like it's it kind of, I don't know. I don't know how it does it. I guess that's why it's artificial intelligence. Maybe this is one of the features how it just kind of learns to uh adapt your vibe and your language, pretty much. It's pretty cool. Um, and I've been doing so much work on my SEO on the website. I've been writing articles, it's been helping me. I've been fact checking, you know, everything. I've done more computer work in the last two weeks in this depth, this realm that I've had to dig. I haven't done this. I haven't done this kind of digging since uh when we went from film to digital completely, probably back in uh 2002. And, you know, I grew up on computers, you know, not like not like Gen Z, not like these people uh that are in the last 10 years. I'm talking grew up with computers. Like if you don't know what a Packard Bell computer is, or if you never bought a computer from um this company, let me see if you know the brand, the box that had the cow, the black and white spotted cow as the box. You know what I'm talking about. Dell. You know, if you don't know how you know Macintosh um, not Macintosh, oh darn. Uh Commodore, Commodore 64. Those are the computers that I grew up with, which means basically things were not breaking, but we were teching a lot. That's when the the Wi-Fi and um before the Wi-Fi, they were modems and they were connected from the phone to the wall, and it was dial-in. And I was on a BBS, a bulletin board system, way before the internet. So we had uh message boards basically how you can log in. People may have games or some other stuff that you could look at, you can download, you can also chat in the comments. Uh, it was really neat. So, anyway, I've been doing this since that era. Okay. So these days when I call for actual tech support for myself, I usually start with asking the person on the phone to say, Hey, can you do me a favor? Let go of your script for a second. And they're like, Okay. I'm like, no, I'm not gonna explain the whole story. I said, but let me just tell you where I am, what I did do, because I tech'd it before I called you. And then you can pick up from where I'm gonna leave off. And they're like, okay. So I start telling them my issue, what I've done. I've already rebooted, I've already cleaned cash, like whatever it is. I tell them all the steps. And you can, they're like, wow, we just passed up like four pages that I have to read. I said, I know. That's why I wanted you to just skip it, pause it for a second. So you understand, you can talk to me in a certain way, unlike most people who don't understand what the hell you do for a living. So I've been teching for a long time. Okay, so jumping into 2026 today, June uh 16th. I've been using Claude, and it's been getting to know me a lot better, and it remembers in your conversation all this info that you're putting in to your blog post, to your messaging, to your verbiage. Like it just like adds to its experience, I guess. And it learns about you, it learns the facts, it also goes on the internet and checks everything, and it's just amazing on what you can do today. That um instead of having a team around you, you've got this thing, you've got this app on your phone or it's on your computer, like I have. And the amount of quick knowledge access is what is impressive to me. And honestly, I thought we would have been here 10 years ago, you know. Um, all of our technology was growing pretty fast when I was younger. And then we like hit a wall after the fourth generation of iPhone. It's like the big to-do's stopped coming so quick. So that was kind of boring. And uh, I'm glad we're here now, you know. So I told Claude, and I'm literally gonna read this to you, okay? I typed to Claude, I'm doing a podcast. Provide me the aspects you get with my 32 years of experience. I've been through the problems that have shaped me into the business I have. I still lose sleep over my jobs because I truly care about the service and product I am delivering. That's all I wrote. Okay. Let me read you what it wrote to me. And the wild part is I proof this first. You know, I read it first to make sure nothing was off kilter, wasn't really me. You know, it'll do that sometimes. It'll throw in a couple of things, it's kind of like, eh, that's not really me. And you make your changes. This version was the first version it came up with, and I'm not lying, it made me hit record on the roadcaster. I'm like, I gotta share this because this is um impressive to me. It really is. Okay. Claude says, Here are the key aspects worth highlighting on your podcast. In bold, what 32 years actually buys you? You've seen trends come and go, you know which ones matter and which are noise. That pattern recognition is something no course, no YouTube tutorial, and no AI tool can replicate. You've earned the ability to read a situation before it becomes a problem. Period. Now, that's phenomenal because there were some other blog posts on my website. I may have mentioned my expertise in some situations or wherever it is. Apparently, it keeps it in its toolbox, in its quote unquote memory. Okay. So this is just really neat how it can spit you back to you. That's just really cool. Okay, in bold, the problems that shape you, like each one of these things could be a separate blog post, you know? Okay, every photographer has a portfolio. Not every photographer has scar tissue. That's so cool. The jobs that went sideways, the client who changed everything at the last minute, the gear that failed at the worst moment. Those aren't failures. They're your curriculum. You've been stress tested in ways that newer photographers simply haven't been yet. Is that is that incredible? I mean, that's like the perfect way to summarize what I was saying. And it's completely right as it's saying this. I've got stories of stories of each of these scenarios that I could easily talk to you about and share with you. You know? Okay, so in bold, losing sleep as a diff a differentiator. I that's a hard word to say cleanly. Okay. This is actually a powerful thing to say out loud. Most people hide it. The fact that you still lose sleep means the work hasn't become routine to you. You haven't checked out. That kind of investment is felt by clients, even when they can't name what they're feeling, they just know it's different. Isn't that a powerful paragraph? You know? And what I like about Claude is that it'll like set you up in a way, like this one paragraph, to where he can hand a baton to you and you run with it. I can continue stories from here, I can take it from here. It's just awesome. Okay, next one in bold. The evolution of your business. You didn't arrive where you are, you were built into it. The business you run today is the result of constant recalibration based on real-world feedback over three decades. That's not a resume line, it's a living system. Bro, come on. That is, I gotta do it. I had to hit the button. That's that's Rockstar, dude. Where I would say rockstar, Claude spells it out in English and sets up the tone of what you're really trying to say. That was that was powerful. Like I'm 100% gonna make this a blog post and then add a story or two that I may have. All right. Um okay, so the next one in bold, what that means for the client. When someone hires you, they're not just hiring a photographer, they're hiring 32 years of judgment under pressure. The ability to stay calm, solve problems in real time, and deliver. Not because everything went perfectly, but because you navigated imperfect before. That's that's come on. This is this is great. You know, this is just the perfect way because I do enjoy writing. I do like to be very descriptive when I write. And, you know, what it wrote isn't really far off from what I would normally write. But to use the powerful words and how it's being told is impressive. It really is. Uh, that's a story worth telling. The emotional honesty of I still lose sleep, end quotes, is the hook. It's the line that separates you from someone who treats it as a transaction. Whoa. Come on, bro. That is that is tight. That is pimp. That is awesome. That is rock star. I mean, think of all the cool words you can come up with. You dig. This is just so cool, man. So cool. So, so what was very interesting to me when I started using Claude is how it's programmed to respond to your requests. And the funny thing is, it kind of stays on the positive uplifting side, like it's encouraging to you, you know. Like I'll even say thank you and like goodnight when I'm going to bed. And it's it's hysterical. It's like, you know, GK, great work today on the SEO. We got a lot accomplished. We did, and it lists out all the steps that we did do. They're all green. He's like, uh, get a good night's sleep. We're gonna do this thing tomorrow. Like, what? What? Okay, okay, Jarvis. This is just so cool, man. So I have also been experiencing the other side of AI because it's new, because we're basically okay, hold on. So back up. Do y'all remember, you oldies out there, do y'all remember when Windows, because I was a Windows PC guy forever. I didn't become a Mac guy until 2013. Um, do y'all remember how the joke with the difference of Mac and PC? We used to say, yeah, Mac is expensive because it works. PC, Windows seems to release something, and then they live through updates and they do their updates according to us, responding to, hey, I have a problem with this. Hey, this is this is an issue. So they keep tweaking off of what we were experiencing in a negative way. So when the update came out, it was like, yay, they fixed that other thing. So one piece of software would have like nine upgrades within a year, year and a half. Mac didn't do that. Mac didn't release anything until it was great, until it's good to go. Like, I I can't explain it to you. I didn't have software that was crashing, I didn't have issues. It's just wild. So when I did go Mac, I was like, wow, this is awesome. So for you, for your experiment today, moving forward, I want you to go to chat, go to Claude, go to whatever it is that you're using, and use it like an employee. Use it like your own PI. You know, if you had an if you had to pay for an SEO team, it'd be a lot of money, you know. So when you deep dive into yourself and be prepared, because even though it's pretty kind to you and positive, it does list all the truth, which is great, which is what we need. More people need to hear the damn truth, you know. Um there's so many aspects of where we are right now in the photography world in today's today's world, today's industry, that I feel like not so much that I don't fit, I feel like I could help so much more if more people knew I was here to help. And I want nothing more than me, you, the person that just got a camera for the first time, you know, that got excited. I remember that excitement, dude. I remember I couldn't wait to put film in this camera. I couldn't wait to manually expose. Do you have my meter? Or look at the light meter in the camera? And I was judging that exposure and I decided on what it was focusing on. You know, that kid, that teenager, that adult, it doesn't matter what age you are, you never forget your first camera, you never forget your failures, and you always, always ride on your wins. It's like playing golf. My son is 16. He got interested in golf. I took him out, I was telling him all the rules, and as we're playing one hole, two hole, three holes, I told him, I said, you do realize, first of all, we're not keeping scored. This is just learn how to swing the club and learn to read everything around you, pay attention to everything around you from the wind to the line of the grass, where's the cup on the mound, how, which direction is the mound leaning? Like all these things he didn't think of. Like all of them. And I was like, Jack, I said, here's the one thing about golf that you need to understand that why so many guys and girls love golf. He goes, What's that? I'm like, we don't talk about our failures. You always remember those few good shots, and that's what makes you come back the following week. And he he was like, Okay. Well, after we did all 18, we were going to the car, and he was like, Dad, you're right, man. He goes, those two or three good shots that I had, he goes, it wasn't many, but you're right. That's all I'm thinking of. I'm not thinking about every swing that went to a slice. I'm not thinking of every time it went to the sand or how many balls he lost in the water. That's a that's a separate story all by itself. But you ride off of your wins. That's what you grow on, you know, but you have to make the failures to fix the issues that give you more successes. Isn't that amazing? My Venom is in the comments. You gotta tip me. You gotta tip the hat. If that helped anybody, send me a dollar. Just one dollar. Oh, dear Lord in heaven. Uh, listen, I'm glad you're here today. We're working on what, 19 minutes? Um, you know, I don't like my podcast being extremely long. If you're like me going for a run, going to the gym, maybe you're driving to a job or whatever it is. I like getting a podcast in within the time frame that I can actually get it in. Um, so yeah, man. Today I just wanted to inspire you to one, dig into AI a lot more than maybe you have, you know, make it do more for you than rewrite an email cleaner for you, you know, which I still do. I mean, it just does a better job than me cleaning it up. It's it's wild. But today I wanted to give you hope. Hope for your future. If you're feeling like you're lost, if you're feeling like you don't know where you fit, if you're feeling like this generation is just passing me up, if you're feeling any of that, okay. One, I got you. Two, stop, stop feeling the negative. Think about the golf swings that were bad, okay? But then you then you had a beautiful chip, you hit that nine-iron, and it it went above the tree, landed on the green. That was a good swing. That was your best swing of the day. That's the only damn swing I talk about from playing golf. I forgot about every single slice, but I do remember the wind. And I it goes in your head. That moment sticks in your head. The wind that was in my face. How hard did I swing that club? Did I keep my head down? Like you remember those things. You remember how you got there. Now, you as a photographer, as an artist, I don't care what kind of artist you are, no matter what you're doing in life, I understand it's hard to get through the hard times. I understand that it's difficult when nobody's here to cheer you on. But I was just telling my son, I'm gonna end with this. I was just telling my son the other day we're having, and I love this, he's 16 and we can have deep conversations. He's he's just amazing. But I told him, I said, Jack, there's one makeup of the human being that it just it just is what it is. And it's exciting and it's a little nerving, it's a little scary at the same time, because what's that? I said, We are the only creatures on this planet that need to have adversity in our life, so we learn to progress, progress. I don't know what it is, and you look, you may not have adversity for a while, but then you're in other words, for you to grow, for you to grow, you I I don't know why. This isn't me, this isn't my assumption, this is just real. And you know, listening right now, when was the last time you had some adversity? Or you're going through it now? Do you see it ahead of you and you're afraid to go through it, so you don't want to? You know? Like, is there another position you could be doing, but you don't want to face the problems that come with that position, so you don't do it? Am I calling somebody out right now? You know, life is meant to be challenging, and how blessed are we that the good Lord believes in you and I, that we have the skills to go through it. That's awesome. That's just awesome. So for that kid, for that person, whoever picked up a camera for the first time, and you're putting that film in there, or you're putting your images on the computer, and you're like, oh, I messed up. Oh, it just doesn't look like the people I follow on Instagram or whatever it is. Just remember there's tools of our industry, of our trade, okay? The rules that were there, they're not even like rules, they're more, they're more like truths, you know. Learn your truths, keep making mistakes, because if you're making mistakes, then that means you're telling me you're trying things that you that are beyond what you already know. So you're already growing. All right, you're already growing. And trust me when I tell you, if you're moving one inch a day forward, you're moving forward. And take an inch a day, times a week, times a month, times a year, bro. You made a lot of positive steps forward. Okay. So I am gonna get us out of here with my band, Ambush. We uh haven't really played together in a while. We have a lot going on with our own personal lives, but all original rock and roll, so this is my music, it's my copyright. Um, but this is our rock, baby. Have a great, fantastic day, everybody. If you'd like to hear more from Ambush, go to www.reverbnation.com slash ambush nola. Peace.