Todays guest is Chris Mar-quart. A photographer, author, and host of the Future of photography podcast. What better time to talk about the future of photography than the start of a new year?
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In This Episode You'll Learn:
A brief history of photography
Why we humans cant be happy with the camera technology we have today
What misconceptions people think about the future of photography
What specifications would be in the perfect camera for Chris Marquardt
The worst thing Chris hears being taught to new photographers
The best investment Chris has made in his photography
What advice Chris would give to himself if he was just starting out
Premium Members Also Learn:
Is post production a thing of the past
What is the allure of photography and how technology pushes it
What current technology will explode in popularity in the coming years
Why we will still need competent photographers in the future
Resources:
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Full Episode Transcription:
Disclaimer: The transcript was transcribed electronically and may contain errors that do not reflect accurately what the speaker said. Because of this, please do not quote this automated transcript.
Raymond: 00:00 Hey Raymond here from the beginning of photography podcast and I secretly want to open up a gourmet French fry restaurant. How does that sound? Huh? Okay. Anyway, let's get into today's interview.
Speaker 2: 00:13 Welcome to the beginner photography podcast with Raymond Hatfield, the podcast dedicated to helping you grow your photography skills. Raymond interviews the world's top photographers in their field to ask questions that will get you taking better photos today. Now with you as always, husband, Father Home brewer, La Dodger Fan, an Indianapolis wedding photographer, Raymond Hatfield. Welcome,
Raymond: 00:43 Welcome to 2019 I am Raymond, your host of the begin of photography podcast and we have done it. We have arrived to the future. If you're listening to this welcome. Also, if you're listening to this and like 20, 25 let me know how 2019 turned out though. That would be great. I'd love to, I love to now I hope that you have a great new year's. I know I really didn't do much honestly you know, in years past I've done a lot. Last year we had a, like a little family get together and that was fun. But this year my wife had to work, so it was just a me and the kids. Chubby had piano lessons and and I was in bed pretty early in fact. So we cut the cord earlier this year, so I stayed up to try to like watch like the ball drop.
Raymond: 01:30 But unfortunately we wow, that's, you can't do that when you cut the court. At least we can. So I went to bed. So I hope that, I really hope that you took some time over the past month to really reflect on where you were in 2018 as far as your photography goes and where you want to be in 2019. Because I just think that, you know, new years, it really gets me thinking about the future and, and thinking about the future. It's fun and exciting. You know, there's so many opportunities and every year this should have been my intro of fact today. Dang it. I've always had this idea to make a journal of everything that I ate in a year, like for an entire year, like make a coffee table book. Unfortunately, like, like six years ago now, I guess it was like eight years ago, I found that somebody had already done that.
Raymond: 02:24 And I bought the book and it was way better than anything that I could have come up with. So I, I didn't do that, but, but the point of that being is that like, it's a fresh start, it seems like, you know, and it's always fun and it just like an exciting time. There's like electricity in the air. So I'm thinking about the future is really exciting for me and that is why I have brought on Chris Marquardt today onto the podcast. He is the host of the future of photography podcast. And today we get to talk about the, you know, this really exciting time to be alive and where we are headed. But if you just got a, a brand new camera for the holidays and are thinking, wait, I don't even know how to work this thing and now I have to worry about the future of photography.
Raymond: 03:08 Well, no, this interview is more of a, a fun mental exercise and not how to change everything, you know, or don't know. So this isn't like a, you know, you need to buy this camera and that because this is where the feature is headed. This is like I said it, it's two photographers talking about the future of photography where we're headed into. And it's just a fun interview I think to listen to. It was definitely a fun one to be a part of. But if this is your first time here listening to me Raymond Hadfield of the beginner photography podcast and you're trying to learn how to use this new camera of yours, I want to invite you to sign up for our free online two day video photography boot camp, which teaches you all about the basics of photography. And you can get started taking better pictures today, which is what we all want to do.
Raymond: 04:03 Right. So if you're interested and you can sign up over on our website at beginner photography, podcast.com. So with that, let us get into today's interview with Chris Marquardt and Oh yeah. And stick around after the interview where I will name the winner of the GoPro seven GoPro hero seven black. Okay, let's go a quick introduction and then we'll go ahead and get on into it after the call, after we, you know, say thank you so much for coming on. Don't hang up at that point. I'll just wrap everything up. All right, fine. Okay. Do you have any water or anything close by a no, but I won't need any. Okay. Okay. Here we go. And just to double confirm your last name is Marquardt correct. Pronounce it or whichever way you want. That is pretty close actually. Okay, perfect. Perfect. Okay, here we go.
Raymond: 05:01 Today's guest is Chris Marquardt, a photographer, author and host of the future of photography podcast. And what better time to talk about the future photography then the start of a new year. So Chris, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Oh, thank you so much for having me. I am really excited for this episode today because I know that we're technically recording this here in 2018 this is going to come out in 2019 and the beginning of a new year is always exciting because there's new camera technology. We always have these grand ideas of what the future is going to hold and we never seem to figure it out. There's all this new technology and I, I really want to chat with you about that today. But before we get into that, I know that you've been shooting for years. Can you tell me how it all started photography wise for you? Oh, just out of interest. I have no formal education. I'm completely self taught. I, I started shooting when I was 14 and that was my first SLR with
Chris Marquardt: 05:58 Film back then. And it just kept going and going and I was interested and I learned and I improved. And then I went digital and then I rediscovered analog after awhile actually. So I'm [inaudible] shooting both film and digital and yeah, that's, that's how I got here just by being curious. So what was it that drew you in to the first place? What was it about that first camera that you saw that you thought, oh I got to pick that up. I always, I was always interested in some form of artistic expression even though even though I didn't really know back then that, that, that that was a thing to freeze a moment and to show a picture that you want to show. So with photography you always have this, this disability to, to leave things out, to design things, to compose things. And that was quite appealing to me.
Chris Marquardt: 06:57 Yeah. Now I know that you said that you are self taught. What would you say was the hardest part about the technical side of photography for you to learn the honesty? The technical side is probably the easy one for me cause I do have an art background but also a technical background. I used to work in the computer industry for awhile. I used to do all the internet stuff and I always ended up being the kind of the link that translator between like business people and tech people. And so I was always kind of in the middle there. And the, with photography I see myself somewhere in a similar role because I, I understand the art side of it quite well, but I also understand the technical side and bringing those two together. I think that's the sweet spot. Right. So was there anything that was, that was difficult for you to understand?
Chris Marquardt: 07:50 Was it like composition or, or just seeing the light, anything like that? And I'll see seeing the light is obviously kind of the, the thing. The moment I understood light better that was when my photography really changed. And I would, I would recommend for everyone to do just that little, you know, the egg the egg assignment where you take like you take a hard boiled egg, a, you take like a desk lamp in a dark room and then you photograph that by lighting it with a desk lamp from different angles, different distances, different heights, changing the size of that light source and, and, and that as simple and as, as funny as that sounds, this is really a very good way to get a better idea of what does that do? I mean that it can stand in for anything like ahead in a portrait shot or something along those lines.
Chris Marquardt: 08:42 So you can easily translate that, what you learned there and it will help you in your photography. And that's a good first step as second exercise that is easy to do is look out of a window where you live and photograph the building next door, a tree, something that's there and do that repeatedly over, I don't know, a few months, a few years every now and then take that same photo in different lighting conditions. And I did this with like Olivia in Germany and I had this, a view of a church and there were all these different lights, situations in overcast, in direct sunlight in the evening sun throwing during a thunderstorm with dark clowns clouds behind it with bright clouds behind it. And that just in total ended up being being a really good exercise. Going back to those pictures and just understanding what light will actually do to a photo.
Raymond: 09:45 Yeah, I, I would imagine that just observing light is a, is something that is a difficult to get started with. But once you kind of understand it, where it's coming from and how it can change
Chris Marquardt: 09:56 And it takes awhile, it takes a while. It, it's a, I know people always are looking for the silver bullets. Something that will get them from one to 100 in minutes and now you have to take a bit of time and practice these things and the practice will make you better.
Raymond: 10:12 Yeah. Yeah. Would you recommend doing the, the egg experiment? Several times? Sure,
Chris Marquardt: 10:18 Sure. Yeah. Every now and then. And it doesn't have to be an egg. I mean, take anything that, that nicely reflects light and, and play with it. Look at the different light sources you have available. It could be a bigger surface light source. It could be just a point light source from a little led a d flashlight or something. And, and experiment with that with the size of the light, with the distance of the light, with the strength of the light, with the direction of the light and yeah, be playful. I think that's, that's what helps most.
Raymond: 10:50 Yeah, exactly. That, that curiosity is really going to kind of bring it to that next spot. For sure. Now. so we know that you picked up this film camera and then you kind of progressed to digital, you said, can, can you tell me how, like how far along into your journey of photography, where you until when you first picked up that digital camera and what, what did that mean to you?
Chris Marquardt: 11:12 Oh must be over 20 years into my photography when, when digital came along and being a bit of a tech head myself, the, the, the, the d the, the really excited going into digital was exciting because I didn't have to wait for my photos to come back from a lab. It was just immediate. And that's what also gave me an additional boost in my learning because you have immediate feedback and you just, yeah, you just learn very, very quickly. Especially these kinds of things like things you have much more, much more of an immediate feedback there. And that changed a lot of things. And I ended up selling my SLRs right away. And that in retrospect it was a bit of a mistake, but it was really kind of a revelation how fast everything moved forward all of a sudden.
Raymond: 12:05 Yeah. It's funny because I think that photography and technology have this really like beautiful relationship together. Even from the beginning, like literally like the first camera. So can we kind of start before we start going forward about the future of photography? Can you kind of give us a history lesson of photography and let us know how we got here?
Chris Marquardt: 12:27 Hmm. So this all started, I mean, I don't want to go into like the daguerrotype and all this burial stuff, but, but pretty much film photography is what photography was and it started with large formats, with big formats and those shrunk over time because film became better and you didn't have to have the, the, the bigger surfaces anymore. And I think the, the longest format that we've had around is 35 millimeter Oskar Barnack, a Leica employee, came up with that. And it has been the gold standard for almost ever now. And so that's what a lot of people who came to photography through through SLRs are used to. And interestingly enough, if you look at on the film side, that comes from the bigger formats. And if you look from the digital side, it's Kinda hard to make bigger sensors. It's expensive to do that.
Chris Marquardt: 13:23 So the sensors were really tiny and they kept growing until you, until they ended up calling it full frame. If you, if you speak German, you know that the 35 millimeter format in Germany is called small format. And so, so the, the, the film heads call it small format and the digital ones call it full format. It's the same thing. And it is kind of a sweet spot in terms of manufacturing. And we're seeing a lot of mirrorless full frame cameras coming out now. But yeah, the history is film and film is, has pretty much gone for a while and now it's kind of coming back. And it's interesting, a lot of people who didn't shoot film are getting interested in how it, how it relates to photography and what it can do for you. So that, that's one of the reasons I'm doing film again because it gives me access to different formats, like medium format, large format, and it also kind of slows me down and gives me a physical result. I can touch the negative. And that's so much fun. That adds so much value, so much perceived value to a photo and so much happiness because our digital photos are all somewhere in the cloud right there. They're just not, you cannot touch them. And until you print them and with film photography, you, you have access, you have a haptic experience. And that's I think, a very good thing.
Raymond: 14:53 Yeah, of course. Do you think that's the main reason or that's the main motivate, motivating driver for the rest of the industry to start picking up film again?
Chris Marquardt: 15:02 Well, on the one hand, yes. On the other hand, it's also financial, a reward. If you look at Fujifilm who are big in digital cameras, but they also came from film, they also make film still. Fuji Instax the, the instant photo product that they have is their biggest cash cow makes more money than all of their digital stuff together. So people want that experience to have that, to have that physical photo, the one of a kind thing that just adds value and perceived value and that is yeah, makes photography different. And another thing that film photography does is it teaches you a lot because with, with our cameras, I mean they do everything for us, right? We press the shutter and they, they focus and they expose and they some, some even choose the moment when to shoot. So the, it's a guaranteed smiling photo. Yeah. And with film there's a lot of stuff that you have to be aware of and that you have to take to take care of. And even though we don't really need it, it's good to have those skills even when you shoot digital because often the camera doesn't get it quite right. And if you manage to, to overwrite them to take control of some of the things, you'll have to be a better photographer. So film teaches you and you can take those things back into digital and be your better photographer that way.
Raymond: 16:34 Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. it is fun. It is that, that, that tangible result that you get knowing that you got the perfect moment. There's, there's really not much better than that. But as far as today, here we are, right? We have cameras that are small enough to fit in our pockets with great ISO performance. We have all the megapixels we need and these cameras are waterproof, right? Like, is that, don't we have enough now? Like, is this, is this, it is this, is this the best?
Chris Marquardt: 17:06 We never have enough that's very American way of thinking. They're crazy. Well, I think, okay. I personally, I go, I'd be happy with, with the cameras I have right now. But then I'm also curious, I mean, that's what's one of the, one of the reasons that Adrian and I my partner and I started the future photography podcast because we are both kind of rooted in film. We both shoot digital and we are both really curious about where this is going. And I mean, if you look just again a bit at a history, we, there is, there are some, some pivotal moments in photography's a moments where things changed and one definitely back. The original Leica rangefinder cameras shooting 35 millimeters. Another thing where we're, where it really changed was when SLRs came along, when you had the, when, when you could see the photo through the Lens, which is in digital it's easy, but in, in in a mechanical way with mirrors and stuff and the prison, that's not really much couple.
Chris Marquardt: 18:14 Yeah. but that really changed a lot of things. The shutter and the camera used to be in the lens and then it moved into the camera. So the lenses became cheaper. So photography became more accessible and then they started adding computers to the cameras to help you with exposure and motors to help you with with focus. And that all changed it and made it more accessible to people again. And then it turned in, well that whole thing turned digital, which again made it way more accessible to people. And then there was miniaturization and that, I mean, every person on this planet has a camera in their pocket now, at least one, several, at least one. And you have always have it with you. And those are incredibly powerful nowadays. And the one thing that's now happening, I think we're right at the right in the middle of another big shift. And that is the the computational photography where a lot of things are not done in hardware anymore, where a lot of things are done by computation, by software. And I think that's what we're looking at right now.
Raymond: 19:23 Yeah. I think that's what is, is getting really exciting, right? Because once again, this is, this is the curiosity. This is where, who knows what can happen with this camera when a computer is involved. And it's one of the things that I definitely want to get into for sure. But before we do that, what do you think is one of the misconceptions people have about the future of, of photography and just having more cameras?
Chris Marquardt: 19:49 Well, the one thing that I think is kind of over at this point is the megapixel race. I mean they're the, yeah, they adding them. They're not 20 megapixels. They're now 35 and 40 and 50, but I don't think this will go on forever because you don't really have much benefit from more pixels. So so I think one of the misconceptions is that it's just going to be more of the same, just more and bigger. I think we're looking at a fundamental change. The biggest misconception I see is that people expect it. It's like, it's like when, when cars gave along and people were expecting the horse, a horse horse, horse drawn carts, kind of just with motors, you know, they replaced the horse with the motor. Instead of thinking ahead and, and looking at what cars might be in the future. And they have totally changed. They're not, they're not they're not just, they didn't just replace horses with motors. And I think the same is going to happen in photography where w they're, they're a few things that are pretty clearly on the horizon. And then there are a few things that, yeah, my guess is as good as yours
Raymond: 21:06 With. Okay. So let, let's, let's get into that a little bit then, because we're currently living in an age, which is definitely one of the craziest times to be alive in the history of photography and which you couldn't have said like 20 years ago, right? We might've been at the pinnacle at that point 20 years ago, but today, like you said, there's a fundamental shift happening and it's because of computation and information technology cameras where you can choose your focus point after you've taken the photo or cameras that automatically adjust the settings based on what it sees in front of the camera or recommend a compositional changes just based on AI. But we're still at the beginning of all of this technology, even though it's, it's, it's changing, like there's no doubt about it. We are at the beginning of this technology. Do you think that we can see what the future truly holds for photography or are we still looking way too narrowly minded?
Chris Marquardt: 22:07 Oh yeah, definitely. I mean that's, I mean that's, that's with every fundamental shift in, in a technology or a cultural shift that comes with it. I remember when I was younger and that was that we still had records and cds and I envisioned the music to turn into like little chips, almost like an SD card, you know, and I, I envisioned that you'd go into a store and buy one of these digital chips with music on it. What I totally didn't see was the internet, you know, so I had, I thought I had a vision there, but I totally missed that one thing. And now music just comes streaming to us. So I think w we, we are, we are bound to make the same mistakes when thinking into the future photography. We are going to not see some fundamental things that are going to happen sometimes within the later. I think that's just a, that's just a fact. We, it's hard to really predict the future. If it was easy I'd probably be rich by now.
Raymond: 23:15 Yeah, I was going to say we'd all be millionaires for sure. It's funny, I'm just kind of bouncing off your your experience with music. When I was in, it must've been like middle school. So like seventh or eighth grade is when I saw the first like RCA MP3 player and like inside it had like 16 megabytes of storage, right. Extremely tiny. And I knew like the moment that I held that in my hand, I was like, this is the future. This is the coolest I've ever seen in my life because kind of like you, I thought I can just switch out the chips and just put them in and ha like it's a much smaller package. So I had saved like an entire summer's worth of like mowing lawns to buy this thing. And the day that I went to go buy it, my Stepdad went with me and he saw it and he's like, he literally said this technology is going nowhere.
Raymond: 24:05 People have spent so much money on cds, nobody is going to buy this MP3 player. It makes no sense. And here we are. And my Stepdad was wrong and I always loved to rub that in his face. So we'll go ahead and move on from that. But I think it's funny cause, cause like you said, I never would have guessed when I had my, my, my, Modo a razor or even this a Sony, you know, floppy disk [inaudible] right. That I was using in, in, in yearbook that we would be to where we are today. That is a glorified button. That's all that it does, right? It just opens up the shutter. It makes no decisions whatsoever and then it's done. And now here we are at a time where where you can take amazing photos without any intervention as far as the camera goes. Do you think that that is going to degrade the, the perceived value of photography? Cause that's something that I think about
Speaker 2: 25:02 Enjoying today's interview with Raymond's guest wants to hear their full interview and gain access to more monthly educational photography tutorials. Become a premium member of the podcast. There is no commitment and you can cancel at any time. To sign up, head over to patrion.com/beginner photography podcast or by clicking the banner on beginner photography, podcast.com sign up and start taking better photos today. Now let's get back to the interview with Raymond's guest.
Raymond: 25:35 With all this excitement of new cameras new technology. It technology. I want to know for you Chris Marquardt. What is in the perfect camera like current technology aside, what would the perfect camera look like in the future of photography?
Chris Marquardt: 25:56 That is a good question cause I'm, I'm an old fart. You know, I, I won, I won my, my mirrors. I'm happy with my DSLRs cause I know them and I built up all this skill to use them. So that's something that, that's gonna be taken away from me pretty soon because I'm pretty sure my DSLR sells the last mirror based cameras that I'm using. Sure they, there is a mirrors on the way out. So their history we see the full frame mirrorless trend and the view finder's now that the electronic refiners have become so good that I'll probably be just fine with on there. So I'm not worried about that. But they are heavy be still, especially when you're looking at full frame. So, and full frame is, yeah, just it just kind commands the, it mandates the lenses to be, to be big cause optics is that, that's just optics.
Chris Marquardt: 26:49 So using smaller sensors and more of them adding, making cameras into camera areas that are smaller. Something along the lines of what l 16 does. The light dot. Dot. CEO Yes. Is Exciting. Now the product isn't there. I mean read some of the reviews and you'll see that the, even the hardware is good, but the software is kind of a bit of a problem. Blacking. Yeah. Yeah. So I don't think they're there yet. And I think they're moved to two. A smartphone with multiple cameras in it is an interesting one at least because all that computation is sooner or later going to replace the big and heavy glass. And that's going to be painful for me because I love my glass. I love my good lenses and the big, big chunks of metal. But on the other hand, having that available in smaller and much more easier to carry packages that gave me the exact same quality or better who wouldn't love that? So of course, and, and speaking of a megapixels, I think we have plenty of a resolution output, but I also said that when we were 12 megapixels, so I don't think we can ever have enough, at least to a certain point. So I think there is still something in it. On the other hand, there are now algorithms out there that can resize photos without quality loss. They can up-size photos by synthesizing parts of the image. So,
Raymond: 28:19 So do you think that the future is going to be five megapixel sensors with 20 megapixel outputted files?
Chris Marquardt: 28:27 Or at least they, they use the current sensors and they run those through algorithms and make our make have 20 megapixels in there, meg, a hundred out of them. For some photography I think that'll be just fine. It'll again not give you the exact thing you see, but something that is so good and so believable that and, and this is, this is not fantasy, this is already out there. These algorithms are out there. I've seen examples that were just mind blowing where you were, where they had like a, a small resolution photo of a bird and they blow it up big and the feathers were just perfect with all the fine detail. And what the thing did is was an AI that was trained on recognizing what is missing and then it synthesized feathers that looked similar to the thing but totally believable.
Raymond: 29:22 So it's not even just like filling in the missing data, it's going out and finding new data and it's wow, it has learned what fare does look like. It has learned what skin looks like and so on. That is a scary thought. But yeah, because suddenly it's like all these years, you know, like in, in, in courtrooms you hear that like a camera can not lie, but now here we are, little cameras can lie quite well. We'll be lying as best as it can. Yeah. That's, that's very scary. That's interesting. I'm going to have to look that up for sure.
Chris Marquardt: 29:52 Yeah. Jeez. We, we had, we had a couple of episodes on the future of photography about exactly that cause it scares us as well and it's but on the other hand, what we're looking at with photography, if it's not scientific photography, if it's more on the art side, it's, it's a evoking emotion, right? That's what it's all about. If, if someone loves a photo, they love it for reasons they probably don't even know. And at that point I questioned if it's important that those feathers are the exact original feathers or if they are just very similar to the ones that should be there.
Raymond: 30:33 I think that's the right question. I think that's the right question right there. Yeah. I mean it really is going to depend on the, on the case on what, what, what it's being used for. And I guess having access to whatever the original is going to be because that's what's going to tell the truth I guess. I don't know. I think my wife just watches way too many crime shows that that's all that I think about now when it comes to cameras
Chris Marquardt: 30:55 In these days, in these days, truth is a very touchy concept.
Raymond: 31:01 It's not even, it doesn't even always have a, the exact same definition, which is, which is what's most scary. But yeah. All right, well, well, thank you for sharing that. I'm definitely gonna have to link to those episodes in the show notes of this episode. When it comes to people just getting started in photography today, they have more opportunity at their disposal than ever before. Do do you think that there's any misinformation that, that they're being taught that you think is just that they just shouldn't be listening to?
Chris Marquardt: 31:33 Well as much as, as people might hate that. But I think the simple answer is there is no silver bullet. You will still have to learn. You'll still have to spend the time and put in the work to become better and, and not better. At the technical side. That's very easy to learn, at least for tech minded people. But it's still your responsibility to frame the shot, to compose the shot, to choose a focal length, to to press the shutter button at a point in time, even though that is now kind of in the flux, but, but it's still your task to make the photo to compose the photo. And that is something that takes a lot of looking at other photography that's that takes trial and error. What works, what doesn't work, why does it work, why doesn't it work? And yeah, I think that's really important to learn and give it time and experiment and don't be too afraid to share because even even if you're just at the beginning of that process, sharing with others is going give you feedback is going to give you information as to how you want to go forward. So put in the work. Don't just take a photo on the weekend and go, I'm a photographer now. Just be, it'll just be a bit more, more effort.
Raymond: 32:56 Yeah. Great Advice. Great advice right there. When it comes to growing your skills or, or I guess anything for that matter is, have you ever had an investment, I want to know what the best investment that you've ever made in yourself is, whether it's through money, time, or, or energy, what has advanced you most as a photographer?
Chris Marquardt: 33:20 Well, most of the things, investments are not financial. That the investment is the time is the, the amount of photography that you do. Because the best way to become better is by doing a lot of it. And if, if, if you have a way to kind of force you into it, maybe pick up assignments somewhere, do take, pick up a job that makes you go out and shoot regularly then you will put in the hours and you'll put in the time and you'll, as a reward, you build will become a better photographer. So I think that's probably the biggest investment that you can make. Just spend the time.
Raymond: 34:00 Yeah. And finding ways to force yourself to find that time
Chris Marquardt: 34:03 As I need. I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm lazy. I mean, I need ways to do that. So, so the moment I started teaching it, I became much, much better the whole podcasting. I've been podcasting for 14 years now and that, that has really fueled my, my growth in photography because I have to have content ready every week. That means I will get questions from people I have to research stuff because of course, I don't know everything. So that all together is yeah. Maybe start a podcast about photography. Everyone gave out. Nowadays, making a podcast isn't that hard, so everyone can do that. And teaching others is definitely a good way to, to advance that.
Raymond: 34:50 Yeah. I will let all the listeners know that if you think that starting a podcast is hard I did it and if I did it, you should see my high school transcripts. You will know that it does not require being very smart to start a podcast. It's very easy. So again, great information. I want to know what advice this is my last question for you. I know we're, we're, we're going over on time. I want to know what advice you would give to a new photographer about to set out on their photography journey. What information would you give that smart and driven new photographer?
Chris Marquardt: 35:25 Keep at it. Don't give up too quickly. There's this wonderful short snippet of Irag glass. It's on youtube, it's about creativity and about how you become better at things. And I'm just looking it up. We'll, we'll link to that in, in the show notes. Absolutely. The creative process and how you, I mean, let me try to paraphrase that. The, how you start off with something and you, you have killer taste, everyone has taste and you see the good things and you want to do those things and you want to become good, but your skills are just not quite where your taste is. And that's kind of the, the, the level to achieve, to get your skills to where your taste is. And hourglass glass has a few interesting things to say about that and it's definitely one of those very motivating things to watch. So I'll, I'll send you a link.
Raymond: 36:25 Absolutely. You're definitely not the first person to, to talk about the, the power of, of this talk than I read glass gave. It is like you said, it's one of those things that sticks with you no matter what, where you're at, I guess in your photography journey for sure. So that will definitely be in the show notes of this episode. Cool. I'm sorry, I thought I just heard my wife screaming out. There she is. Okay. She, I think she's just laughing. That was good. I might've had to have kept this a little bit short, but Chris, before I do let you go and I'm 90% positive, she's okay, but I'm going to assume that the other 10% she is okay. Before I let you go. Can you let listeners know where they can find you online?
Chris Marquardt: 37:04 I think the best place to look is on my, on my own homepage, Chris Marquardt dot com. We'll give you the link and that leads to everything, the podcasts and the books and the photo travel and everything else I do.
Raymond: 37:19 So I said that, that was the last question, but actually this is going to be the last question with a photography a, we talked about it being a very immersive experience and that's why I think social networks are kind of taking off, right? Because people like to experience other people's experiences, I guess. Do you have a favorite social network? I'm still on Twitter mostly. I'll really be the most text heavy platform.
Chris Marquardt: 37:46 It does. It handles photography quite well. I'm also an Instagram and I'm a bit on Facebook even though I'm not a real fan of Facebook. But yeah, Twitter would be probably my main, my main hangout place online.
Raymond: 37:58 Yeah. Perfect. Well, if anybody is listening who's on Twitter, go ahead and give a Chris a Fowler. Chris again. Thank you so much for coming on, sharing your thoughts and talking about the future photography. It's something that I'm excited for and I can't wait to be there along with Ya.
Chris Marquardt: 38:15 Cool. Thank you very much for having me.
Raymond: 38:17 Was I right about that being just a fun interview to listen to? It's, it's, you know, it's one of those things that it's hard to write questions for an interview like that because it's all just speculation. But I did have a quite a few takeaways from this interview talking with Chris. And my biggest one I think was when I asked if computers will be able to learn our style and will shoot like us and edit how we edit and just like, you know, replicate everything. And he replied with know, yeah, of course. But it might not be extremely useful because we still learn and grow as photographers every day, no matter where we are. You know, in our photography journey. And it just isn't, even if a computer could shoot in our style and edit in our style, it will become stagnant because if we just let the computers do all the work, then we're not going to be learning and growing as a, as artists and as photographers.
Raymond: 39:19 And that really, that statement right there really pushed I think, the usefulness of a photographer to me at least out of, you know, a few more years. So, Hey, I got a question for you. Did you get a new Amazon devices holiday season? If so, did you know that you could use it to start off everyday by learning more about photography using our daily photo briefing? That's right. You can just ask Alexa to launch the daily photo. Bree, my Alexa just went off there. OOPS, hold on. Okay. Or you can just search for a photography in the Alexa app and add it to your daily flash briefing, which is great because every morning you can wake up and learn more about photography while you are in the shower or brushing your teeth or even making coffee. You know, it requires no extra time out of your day. You can do what you're already doing and become a better photographer assume so now it is time.
Raymond: 40:13 It is time to announce the winner of the GoPro hero seven black. That is a really long name GoPro. Why don't they just take out the word hero, the GoPro seven black. So to be entered in the contest, all you had to do was be signed up for the newsletter, which is why it's so important to sign up for the two day photography bootcamp so that you can be a part of future giveaways. Everybody who's on the email list is automatically entered. So we got a surprising over 500 people entered in the month of December, which is awesome. So then it came time to pick a winner. So to pick a winner, I imported our entire list into a random name picker, which you can find the exact one that he used over at miniwebtool.com, forward slash random hyphen name, hyphen picker. Okay. So once I did all that, it was a lot of emails.
Raymond: 41:08 I went ahead and press enter t to pick a random name and I had it. The winner of the GoPro seven black is Chris Thompson from right here in the u s a. So today we have two Chris's on today's podcast, which is awesome. So Chris, since you are not in the beginner of photography podcast, Facebook group, [inaudible] you need to check your email so that I know where to send this beauty. So Chris, maybe you should sign up for the or maybe you should join the Facebook group and get notified much quicker. So, but regardless, congratulations Chris. That was, that was a complete blast. I know that you're gonna love this camera as much as I love mine. It even though it's so small and I don't know, it's, it is, it is. Fundamentally, I think changed how I view photography. So Chris, I know, I know that you're going to enjoy it. All right guys, that was our interview today. Why don't you join me again next week and we will do it all over again. So there you have it. Until next week, I want you to get out. I want you to keep shooting. I want you to focus on yourself and stay safe. Okay? That is it. I love you all.
Speaker 2: 42:27 If you enjoy today's podcast, please leave us a review in iTunes or your favorite podcast player and continue the conversation with Raymond and other listeners of the podcast by joining the beginner photography podcast Facebook group today. Thank you. We'll see you again next week.