The Beginner Photography Podcast

Lessons from a Lifetime of Photographing the World with Joe McNally

• Raymond Hatfield

Share episode

#483 In this episode of the Beginner Photography Podcast, I chat with Joe McNally, a renowned photographer known for his daring and diverse career. Joe shares gripping stories from helicopter photo shoots to capturing unique subway moments with Tony Bennet. He delves into the evolving landscape of the photography industry, stressing adaptability, the critical role of lighting, and the power of authentic storytelling. 

THE BIG IDEAS

  • Adaptability is Key: The photography industry is always changing. Be ready to pivot and explore different paths to stay relevant.
  • The Power of Light: Master lighting to influence and enhance your photos, giving character to your subjects and depth to your stories.
  • Own Your Mistakes: Embrace and learn from your errors. They are valuable lessons that shape you into a better photographer.
  • Seek Adventure: Push yourself to capture compelling images. Step out of your comfort zone and let the story unfold naturally.

PHOTOGRAPHY ACTION PLAN

  • Master Lighting Techniques: Experiment with various lighting setups, including natural, studio, and mixed lighting. Study how light interacts with different surfaces and subjects, and practice using reflectors and diffusers.
  • Develop Storytelling Skills: Create a series of photos that tells a compelling story, such as a day in the life of a local artisan.Focus on capturing authentic moments and emotions, not just technically perfect shots.
  • Expand Your Skill Set: Try photographing different genres, like portraiture, landscape, or street photography, to broaden your experience. Take a challenging assignment, even if it's pro bono, to push your limits and grow.
  • Build a Strong Portfolio: Curate a collection of your best work, focusing on diversity and range. Regularly update your portfolio to reflect your growth and current style.
  • Embrace Continuous Learning: Attend photography workshops or online courses to learn new skills and techniques. Follow and analyze the work of photographers you admire, taking notes on what makes their photos successful.

Resources:
Check out Joe's book, The Real Deal  - https://amzn.to/3xedGBe
Follow Joe on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/joemcnallyphoto/
Check out Joe McNally's Website - https://joemcnally.com/

Sign up for your free CloudSpot Account today at www.DeliverPhotos.com

Connect with Raymond!


Thanks for listening & keep shooting!

Joe McNally:

If you want to influence a situation, if you want to speak with light, if you want to characterize your subject, if you want to tell the story of your subject, then bringing lighting along with you and being competent with it is absolutely part of the game. I always say, if you're on location and you don't have a light with you. That can work out just fine. Could be beautiful natural light, that's wonderful. When those days happen, I'm like, thank you God, But at the same time, if you're pushed to the wall, the light's not good, then you become a victim of circumstances. Even with one flash in your hand, you can turn the situation around.

Vocaster One USB & Studio Display Camera:

Hey, welcome to the beginner photography podcast. I'm your host, Raymond Handfield and each week I interview one of the world's most interesting photographers. To learn what it really takes to capture beautiful images so that you can start to do the same. In today's rewind episode, we're chatting with legendary photographer, Joe McNally about the lessons. That he's learned in his 40 plus years of shooting, shooting everything from covers for national geographic and time to shooting at the top of the Burj Khalifa and more. But first, the beginning of photography podcast is brought to you by cloud spot. Simplify your business with studio management, organized clients, send professional contracts, automate invoice payments, and more. Keeping track of everything just got a whole lot easier. You can grab your free forever account over@deliverphotos.com and only upgrade when you and your business are ready. Now Joe McNally is, what they call a pros pro. He is the real deal, which is also the name of his most recent book. And today he is sharing a few stories from the mini assignments that he has been on over the years. One thing that is unique about Joe is that he is a self-proclaimed generalist, meaning, I mean, he'll go into the Amazon and, shoot for national geographic. He'll come home and shoot swimming for the Olympics and then go out to France just to shoot portraits. He does it all and he does it all very well. So in today's episode, we're going to talk about how important it is to be flexible. and be able to adapt, especially in today's fast changing world of photography needs. We're going to talk about how to master light and how it can help you to not only enhance, but to have influence into your images by giving your subjects depth. We're going to talk about quantity and quality of light. Of course. And how to own your mistakes. Joe shares of several mistakes that he's made over his career and how he bounced back to become an even better photographer. For them. So with that, let's go ahead and get on into today's interview with Joe McNally.

Raymond Hatfield:

Joe, I know that you went to school for, When did you know that photography was going to play a larger role?

Joe McNally:

Well, yeah, I went to, to school to be a writer at the Newhouse School at Syracuse, but it was really, it sounds kind of hackneyed to say love at first sight, but I had to take a photography class. It was required of all writers. majors to take one photography class to familiarize yourself with this medium, and as soon as I picked up a camera, I borrowed my dad's old rangefinder camera that he shot the, family vacation pictures with. And as soon as I picked up a camera, I was just in love with it. It's like, This is cool. I can do this.

Raymond Hatfield:

Was it just simply having something in your hand or was it seeing the photos that you got back?

Joe McNally:

Both really, the camera felt very natural in my hands and anyone who's experienced, the magic of the old black and white dark room and watching that first printer to come up and in a developer and start to. Blossom right in front of your eyes. Yeah, there you get bitten by the bug and you can't get unbitten, you know, my feeling, you know?

Raymond Hatfield:

So I know that when it comes to, especially shooting with a range finder, that's like not particularly easy. No auto modes. The focusing is, is kind of difficult when you picked up that range finder. What were some of those first challenges that you had technically related to photography that you had?

Joe McNally:

Oh, with the Rangefinder camera, I was foolishly, thinking I could shoot, sports , ah, can't shoot sports with a rangefinder. I'm very difficult. So I, I one of my first critiques from one of the professors in the department. I, was a big basketball fan, so I, I went to one of the Syracuse games and I thought, well, I'll just concentrate on action around the hoop and I'll prefo on the hoop, wide open. Not a good move. Because everything looks sharp in a range finder, but when you get the film back, but I thought, I, you know, it's almost there it's, so I made a couple of prints and I brought them to the professor in question. And the first thing he said to me was, how are your eyes? That's got to build some confidence. Yeah. So that was a little daunting. everything was out of focus. So I learned very quickly that range finders were strong in certain ways, but certainly not for sports. But it gave me a window, literally, showed me that I could get out in the world with a camera. And I had a lot of failures, occasional success here and there as a student. And it convinced me, yeah, I I need to chase this. I didn't need to go after it.

Raymond Hatfield:

So was your first, obviously, you got that range finder from your dad. You're shooting with that. But then when you started, more of the educational route and learning photography, again, I really want to know what was it that, that captivated you so much, because to make the decision to go to school, to become a writer, like to choose major in something that means that it's got to stand out. it's got to be a part of who you are. So then to completely change that, I'm always interested in that, was it, the teachers that you had? Was it the education that you were receiving? What was it that, that changed your mind?

Joe McNally:

Yeah, I've always been in love with the written word. I wrote for my high school newspaper and I thought, you know, was a wannabe athlete as a youngster. And I thought, well, I'll never be a professional. sports guy, but I could maintain a tether to that world if I became a sports writer. Now I was, you know, I wrote for the Daily Orange, which was the daily, student newspaper at Syracuse and I covered sports and I was very happy to do so. But then when the camera got in the mix, I started thinking, wow, this is a ticket to the world. And also this will keep me. outside. this is not an indoor job. This is not an office job. I'm not going to be tethered to a desk, doing this. You have to go places. You have to see things you have to witness. And that was really powerful for me. the other intersecting force then, was, my professor, Fred Demarest, who I acknowledge in the book, uh, was a very, very powerful and patient teacher. And he was my mentor and my teacher. And he also became my dear friend over the years. And, he was just extraordinarily, he had this very mild mannered ability to channel. The lunatic urges and screaming id of a graduate students who knew nothing but wanted to take on the world with a camera, and he could really, patiently channel that and he made your pictures better.

Raymond Hatfield:

Just through the criticism and the, the critiques that he would give through his images.

Joe McNally:

Yes. he invited me to To become his graduate assistant after I graduated. I knew I wasn't ready to go into the world as a photographer, and he offered me an opportunity to go with him to London in England and become his graduate assistant, and he would pay me a stipend and give me nine graduate credits for free, which was a pretty good deal. And in return, what I did was I ran the lab for him. I mixed all the chemistry for all the other students and kept the lab going. And an independent study project was required. I could choose anything I wanted. So I, with his blessing, I jumped on a train to Lowestoft, which is the eastmost tip of the United Kingdom. And at that point, a thriving fishing port. And I just walked the docks and I talked my way onto a fishing trawler. And I went to sea on a fishing trawler. In the North Sea in November. The North Sea is not a mill pond. It is a raging body of water. And I was gone for 14 days, no contact with land, nothing. And I remember just plunging through literally 40, 50 foot waves. We hit force nine at one point, had to stop fishing and the wheelhouse you would dive into the trough of a wave and you'd be in the wheelhouse and look either way and there, there'd be nothing on either side of you except a wall of water. And I thought to myself, this is it. This is what I need to do.

Raymond Hatfield:

Tell me more about that. Because when you tell me that story, I think to myself, No thanks. That sounds horrible. was it just the experience of, seeing the world? Was it the experience of creating a story? What made you think, yep, this is it?

Joe McNally:

All of the above, any photographer, I think will tell you that, accompanying at least some measure of the assigning work that you do. There is a sense of adventure. There can be a sense of risk. you have to go where the pictures are. So, I went out on the trawler. I've been in coal mines in Siberia, I've climbed buildings. I've been in, some dodgy places. You go where the pictures are. That is, is the deal,

Raymond Hatfield:

So in that situation, you're trying to tell a story with your images, right? Did you know the scope of what the story would be before you got on that boat? Or did you just let it unravel in front of you?

Joe McNally:

Yeah, there was no plan. That would be, I would be lying to you if I told you I had a plan. Um, I just jumped on the boat and I went to sea and I thought, well, This'll be cool, and I didn't even give a thought, Fred, Professor Temaris told me later, he said, after he got off the phone with me, he thought to himself, well, okay, well, he's over 21, you know, he can make his own decision because he kind of felt responsible, you know, like if I got lost at sea or something and, Yeah, I've made pictures of the crew, the, dining and fishing and the 24 hour rhythm of the boat because the boat never stops, right? You're always fishing. And it was a sidewinder trawler, which means they threw the nets over the side on a boat. On a, kind of a winch type of a thing and they would haul up, after several hours of dragging, they would haul up and then just, see what they had gotten. And this is all fascinating to me because that's the thing, Jay Maisel very famous photographer, has always said that being a photographer is a license to steal experience. So I'm not a fisherman, but I got to go on that boat because I asked to take pictures. So I always tell young photographers. Don't think of the camera as a camera. Think of it as a visa. you're able to cross boundaries. you enter worlds you would be prohibited from, but for the sake of Carrying a camera

Raymond Hatfield:

now that's very different than kind of how you approach an assignment today, right where you don't just show up and you just hope for the best and see what happens. I'm sure that there's a little more direction into it. And I know that you spent a number of years shooting, assignments for large publications, uh, a question about that because that's a world that's foreign to me. If you go on an assignment, you already know what the story is, correct? Like you already know that obviously a story is going to be, say, about a person, and you know kind of what the idea is, is that correct?

Joe McNally:

Yeah, to a degree. Stories come in all shapes and sizes. Sometimes it's personality driven. you're sent to photograph a celebrity, or someone who is excellent at what they do, a dancer, a writer, a composer, whatever it might be. And the story necessarily revolves around that individual. So there's your North Star, if you will. You're building a story about this person. Other stories are, you know, far more diffuse, the things that geographic tends to Um, and I did many of these for them were much larger. I mean, I had a story assigned to me at the National Geographic. The title of the story was the universe. How did he do that? You know, and the gist of the story was we were taking a look at the new at that point, a lot of the newer, huge telescopes that were starting to spring up around the world that were taking a look into deeper and deeper space. And it was a highly technical story and difficult to do, but I've done stories on the limits of the human body. I've done stories on the globalization of culture. These are much more amorphous. And when you work with your editor to identify the goals of the story, That's the rough parameters you can dream up in an office, but then you still have to go out into the field and find it. And there's a lot of, I would say, guesswork. Happenstance might be a better way to put it. Hopefully happy accidents. Hopefully you stumble on something. That in the course of, your projected path, you see another avenue. And then say, Oh, okay, like the first time I went to Africa for the National Geographic, I was on a story called the sense of sight and I was documenting, trachoma in interior Tanzania. And when I went there, I was slated to spend maybe seven to 10 days. Well, I immediately recognized that this was a much larger, potentially pictorial aspect of the story. So I just stayed for three weeks. And I didn't tell anybody about it because I couldn't. There was no email, there were no computers, no cell phones, no sat phones, no nothing. There was one generator in this tiny village that I was staying at. I was staying in a hotel that was a dollar a night. So, when you make decisions like that as a journalist in the field, you have to trust your instincts and hope that the folks back at the office equally trust those instincts. And when I came home, sure enough, Bill looked at me and he didn't even bat an eye. I was like, yeah, okay, all right. So, but that was also back in the day when Geographic had money to burn. I don't know. If that would be possible now, given the state of magazines.

Raymond Hatfield:

want to know when it comes to those types of, of stories, you know, I guess either one, whether it's personality based or, you know, you have to go photograph large telescopes where you already know, what needs to be done when, before you go and photograph the assignment, are you trying to conceptualize one photo in your head that you need, that you have to have, or is it more of, you know, A series of photos that you just want to capture, and then you show up and try to do that.

Joe McNally:

Again, I'm not dodging the question, but it is both. something like telescopes is kind of a connect the dots story. You know, you know you have to go to Double Keck. You know you have to go to the VLT in Chile. You know you have to go to, the University of Arizona, where they make the telescopes. The giant lenses, all of that stuff, okay, so these are things that it's, you're checking boxes. I have to go there and I have to make good photographs. And then when you get there, you let the situation kind of dictate to you what might be possible, you know, for double keck in Hawaii, it's on the top of Mauna Kea, which is 13, 500 feet. So a few miles away, people are bathing in warm water and you're up there in a ski parka and leggings and you're battling 40 50 mile an hour winds and snow drifts that are three or four feet high and you work 24 hours because you have to light the telescope and then you have to stay up all night while the telescope makes its run, so it's a extremely difficult physical thing to do. And the parameters of the physicality of the location sometimes dictate to you what is possible and what is not. So there's that element that you have to deal with. Other things are more in the realm of imagination, perhaps. And so you dream up something and then you pre visualize it and you go get it. And the globalization story, I had to photograph, an Asian actor or actress. In Hollywood because at that time story was all about how we are sharing each other's cultures at very rapid rates now and Asian stars were making huge impact in Hollywood movies. So I worked with Michelle Yeoh from Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. And she was also a Bond girl, and she's an amazing actress, and she was a trained martial artist and a ballet dancer. And, so I took her out into the desert, and I photographed her kind of in a fashioning way, and my, my editor said to me, I can't use these, are you, some sort of idiot, that said nothing, they're nice pictures, but there's nothing to do with the story. I need something that says, Hollywood. Stunt. and, Asian star, you know, and so I called her back up and I, her agent immediately said no, but she said yes, thankfully. Cause she's, she grew up being in Jackie Chan movies and she's incredibly brave and adept physically So we both dropped on wires under a helicopter We're both dangling below a helicopter and I floated her over the hollywood sign, I photographed her up there So it said immediately stunt Asian actress hollywood

Raymond Hatfield:

hollywood.

Joe McNally:

Yeah, so you have to You know, photography is cheap physical oftentimes, you have to put totems physically in the picture that are signposts for the reader, out in the desert, Bill was right, it's like, this doesn't say Hollywood, it's pretty, but it doesn't say Hollywood. So I came back with something that said, Hollywood, quite literally.

Raymond Hatfield:

Hey, Raymond here and we will get back to today's show in just a moment. Do you want your photos to have more life? Do you want to know exactly what camera settings to use and why? Well, professional photographers all over the world capture beautiful images by shooting in manual mode. Why? Because it unlocks your camera's full potential. But how do you know what settings you should use? Well, I wanna break that down for you in my free ebook picture Perfect Camera settings, which you can download over@perfectcamerasettings.com. In the book, I'm gonna share different lighting situations that you'll find yourself in and photos that I've captured with real camera settings and how to know which settings to change to get the look that you want. So don't wait. Download your free copy over@perfectcamerasettings.com to unlock your cameras off. full potential. Now, let's get back to today's interview. Do you think that the breakdown was just not, preparing enough for the story, not understanding the story enough, or was it a, technical understanding from your part? Where do you think that breakdown occurred?

Joe McNally:

You

Raymond Hatfield:

mean in the first photograph? Yes.

Joe McNally:

Yeah. No, I was, I was, out of control. That was the main issue. I flew her out to the desert in a helicopter. I mean, we had budget, so I flew her out in a helicopter. And then when we were out there, when the helicopter, we did an impromptu stuff without stunt, without safety belts, the two of us are hanging on the skids and the chopper pilot is hovering the chopper at a hundred feet over the desert floor. Really, really dumb. but yeah, I was just determined that I was a bit, let's call it a headstrong.

Raymond Hatfield:

I like that. I like that. So bring it up there, talking that, that those photos in the desert were more fashion side. I know that a lot of photographers today are told that they need to niche down, that they need to find, if they want to find success, that they have to shoot, the same thing over and over again to become known as that thing. But, here you are flying a helicopter over, the Hollywood sign, you're shooting with, Blue Angels, you're shooting corporate campaigns, the Olympics, you're in a subway car with Tony Bennett, you call yourself a generalist, do you think that you could come up? In today's, or not you specifically, do you think that it's possible to come up in today's photographic world as a generalist, or do you think that the landscape has changed too much? I

Joe McNally:

think it's tough. photography's never been easy, but my path was relatively straightforward. I started as a newspaper photographer, I moved into color, and then I started shooting for magazines, small magazines, and then you try to shoot for bigger magazines, and then you try to shoot cover stories, and then you try to really aim high, and that was the arc of my career for, 25 years, and but magazines are by and large Not well, so they're certainly not the force they used to be I mean a lot of magazines I shot for i've shot covers for time newsweek life, they're all gone time is still sort of around sports illustrated had a contract with sports illustrated shot many covers of sports illustrated It's gone I was on the last team that Sports Illustrated will ever really field, at the Rio Olympics. There were six of us. In 1984, which was my first Olympics, I was not shooting for Sports Illustrated, but I remember going to dinner with them. I was kind of this And they invited me to dinner. I was like, Oh man, these guys really know what they're doing. And I think they had 18 photographers there. So the world has changed and photographers have to adapt. I certainly have had to adapt. And magazines and editorial work is really not so much on our roster anymore. So if you can make it as a generalist, it's a very tough path. Let's just say that, even, a very notable editor in the newspaper industry actually was quoted, interviewed and quoted and said, if you wanted to be a photo journalist nowadays, it would be advisable to have a trust fund. Oh, ouch. she actually said that, and there's no real arguing with it, because magazine day rates are common knowledge. If you can get them, they haven't kept pace with The expense of being a photographer. So I think photographers have to seek other paths and, go into, as you say, niche, weddings, family portraits, things that actually, tend to, are extremely hard to do. I mean, nobody in the business works harder than a wedding photographer. My God, that is hard work, but there, there really is viable, opportunity there, there's wedding photographers who do very, very well because they're very, very good at what they do and they should do well. But the editorial part of the marketplace is a bit of a shambles. Staffs of newspapers, you know, they're either non-existent or they shrunk. When I joined the New York Daily News in 1976 as a copy boy, and I was never a staff photographer there, I was a copy boy, and then I graduated Studio Apprentice in the photo studio. But, I think there were, well, I wouldn't say an exact number, but there were over 50 staff photographers at the New York Daily News.

Raymond Hatfield:

My goodness. For essentially just citywide newspaper,

Joe McNally:

right? New York City. It was, it was New York's picture newspaper. The photo gathering operation was astounding. There are precisely zero staff photographers there now. So, yes, landscape has changed. It's gotten tougher. You have to really choose your battles and pick your goals very carefully.

Raymond Hatfield:

Now you said, that becoming, or that being a generalist essentially comes from just your, you had to, right? When you came up, right? You can't just choose to do one thing because you're sent on assignments to do multiple different things. You don't know what you're going to have to do. You have to shoot a portrait. You have to shoot a product, whatever it is, you got to do these things. I'm interested now, if you had to start over today, right? Brand new, which sounds daunting, I'm sure. What area of photography would you go into?

Joe McNally:

Good question. I can't help myself, but pursue people, I am hugely uninterested in still life, and I'm not a particularly good landscape photographer, and weddings, tough, the best weddings I've ever shot, I've shot for free, for friends. I've had the most fun. When you start to put a price tag on weddings, then the responsibilities really seriously grow. So I'd probably pursue trying to do some sort of portraiture. You know, start locally at first and try to graduate, try to push into, showing work that would get me interested or bring me to the attention of people who were, perhaps managing celebrities and or commercial types of, advertising work that involve portraiture.

Raymond Hatfield:

So you would still work or you would work in the advertising space rather than just, photographer to client.

Joe McNally:

Yeah, I would certainly angle that direction. I mean, we're up for an ad right now. it's a huge job, and it involves portraiture and it's a little quirky. But, there is work like that out there, that would be the direction.

Raymond Hatfield:

Gotcha. Now, being in business as a photographer, as long as you have, I know that I'm sure that you've made a number of mistakes in your life or in your business, rather, um, and not one in your book, the real deal. You share of a story of you photographing Phil Sokoloff. And it fascinated me because it's kind of a story of a client loving the So where does it go wrong from the business side?

Joe McNally:

Well, I had gone out, for Time Magazine and I had to linger. There was, I think, weather problems and we had to make the set and, I came back with the pictures and they loved the pictures, but they just didn't want to pay for the extra time and travail that occurred. And I got pretty angry about that. Like why that was, that was when magazines really started to come push back. Photographers, and I'm sure every photographer for any magazine has heard like, Oh, would you, do you think you could go scout it? And, you could scout it for free, right? Like total disregard for the freelancer's time. And so I got ornery, which is never a good idea. You have to keep emotions apart from your business life. And, I did good photographs. But I did poorly in the aftermath, because, I just got curmudgeonly about it and I refused to release the pictures. And everybody wanted them, and I said no. And that was just plain dumb, and immature, and selfish. I think that's why I titled that chapter, When Hubris Meets Stupid. I did well photographically. Everything else I failed at.

Raymond Hatfield:

Now, I want to know though, where does the selfish aspect come in? Because the issue was that the time wasn't willing to pay you for the additional time. So what's the selfish aspect?

Joe McNally:

Well, also, Phil was, we got along okay, but he was kind of difficult and, I was just feeling mistreated across the board. So I refused to sell him the photographs. And he had friends, one of whom happened to be one of the editors at Time, Time Life in the system there. And then, they asked me if I could give him the pictures and I kept saying no. And, I should have just. just said fine, I do say this in that chapter, the house always wins, when you tilt at the windmill. You're going to get knocked off your horse.

Raymond Hatfield:

Okay, so then tell me, because I know that oftentimes new photographers especially are feeling that pushback in this world of, what they call, quote unquote, very saturated markets of photographers. The pressure to shoot for free or extremely cheap is stronger than ever, and it makes a lot of photographers feel very, used, useless. So at what point does it make sense, because was your time that you shot for, is the answer you said that you should have just given him the photos, but at what point does it not become about, about that? And you should really hold your ground. Does that question make sense?

Joe McNally:

Sure. I mean, there are certain, you know, Lynn, who is my studio manager has been with me for 30 years. She knows the business backwards and forwards, and she's also a marvelous producer. So she's gotten me everything from an elephant in the desert to a five ton crane on Fifth Avenue. So she is the face So the business, it's best that she answered these emails because I might say something really rash. She's always, always cordial. And the way we liken ourselves to is that we're like a rubber band. We'll stretch, but we won't break. There's a certain point we won't go beyond, and I had a situation once with, um, I won't go into the specifics of it, but, I was willing to bend and bend in bed because I really wanted the job. And they just held their line and said, No, this is the most money we have. And I walked away. And as I said afterwards, I was like, I understood, because it was just a mom and pop shop called the NFL. small, little business. Yeah. And so I was, I was willing to backpedal like crazy because I really wanted to do the job because the individual in question, the portrait subject was fascinating to me. And, they just wouldn't get off the dime, literally. And we walked away. We walked away.

Raymond Hatfield:

Does that happen quite often where, I mean, you get really emotional about wanting a job and then just not, not choosing it, or do you get the job more often than not?

Joe McNally:

Well, the jobs that I really gravitate towards or get at this point really are oftentimes my own proposals. I art direct a lot of things myself. I write proposals. I do a fair amount of work for, for Nikon cameras and when they need ideas, they might ring me up. Not always, but sometimes, and I teach a fair amount. So off of that teaching, I try to create scenarios that I enjoy that I can teach within. So there's a lot of, of, variety to it, really, in terms of the way, I get work now, though the two big jobs that we are facing off with came in across the transom, so you just don't know, you really don't know where the work is going to come from, and the jobs I occasionally get asked to do. Most of them I just walk away from. And I used to kind of shake my head. Now, I just don't really have any emotions about it at all. Other than to wonder why, ascending to the position of an art director or photo editor at a magazine precludes one from being able to add, uh, it's like, can you like add this together? Like you're offering 500 for the entire job. Here's the thing, my assistant makes 450 a day when we go into the field. So, kind of do the math there, some things come across and they're just so ludicrous as to be painfully laughable. Mm hmm.

Raymond Hatfield:

Do you think that that's just poor expectations on their part? Or do you think that, guess what I'm trying to get at here is that, do you think that photographers will ever be able to create the caliber of work that say you were able to create coming up to have the time to have the access to have the budget or was that just a poor mistake on on that in particular company?

Joe McNally:

Well, yeah, I think there's a lot of photographers now who are doing great work and they're finding work and they're being funded and a lot of it is commercially driven, think photographers who are being successful in more of the editorial realm You I've turned the trick of using social media to their advantage and they've created essentially their own ecosystem. And you particularly see that in the natural history realm, conservation and ecology, where photographers are essentially creating their own foundations, if you will. Yeah. And soliciting donations. Nations across the board from potentially unlikely sources or varied sources. the first jobs I did series of jobs for many years at geographic all had budgets North of 250, 000. It's hard to get 250, 000 from anybody right now to go do a major job. So you have to be adept at fundraising, grant writing, soliciting funds from corporations, all of whom then have expectations, you know, that you go into the field with. So there is that element where photographers are being very energetic in setting up, a system by which they can quote unquote self fund their own work. And then there's the commercial world which is still very viable and a lot of activity occurs there and that is well funded, the tough thing is, the aspect of just being a lone assignment photographer, pursuing a journalistic type of a story or endeavor. That's a tough road right now.

Raymond Hatfield:

you give me some sort of context to that quarter million dollars? Like, what would a big job, pay today? Or what would the budget for a good sized job be today?

Joe McNally:

National Geographic. Sure. I mean, it varies, right? Every institution has its own budgetary guidelines. Sure. So, the first cover story I did for National Geographic, my contract was for 26 weeks of work, seven day weeks. it was implicit in the contract that occasionally you would take a day off. Okay. It was seven days a week, 500 a day for 26 weeks. Okay. So you can do the math from there, you know, and you could, you can make a living, you know, because then at that point in time, the National Geographic only had the National Geographic, the United States, English edition, National Geographic. So if you had a, a well received story in geographic as a photographer, you could then turn it over to your agent in the aftermath after the embargo was over. And then they could market that story to magazines in Europe, say, or Japan. Or Australia and there would be actually be competitions. you'd have very viable magazines like in France, you know, you had, Figaro and Perry match and Germany had blunted and stern and a pocket in Spain. And, the London magazine scene was very viable. So they'd actually compete. And then you and your agent would split that money. And you could, in the aftermath of a geographic story, you could make an additional 7, 500, 150K. Wow. And that would be a living. That could translate into a living. so, it wasn't, jet set living, but you could work, you know, and continue to work. That's all gone because the geographic, took, the English language edition and it exploded, now I think, I don't know, don't quote me on this really, but you know, there's 20. 25 maybe more international editions of the National Geographic, which automatically breaks the exclusive. That means your story is running in those countries.

Raymond Hatfield:

Sure. Oh, wow.

Joe McNally:

that went away, that source of revenue, the aftermath, the stock potential of your story. Over time disappeared,

Raymond Hatfield:

that makes sense. It's unfortunate, but it makes sense. I know that you are very well known for, your use of light. I think you and just having copious amounts of lighting gear are very synonymous with each other in a world of, YouTube video suggesting to just shoot in open shade or, the dynamic range of today's camera is so good. You can just look the shadows and posts. do you think that your use of light? And your, desire, or maybe not desire, but just, always bringing lots of light and gear with you. Is that just a carryover from the old school film days, or is there more to it than that? Are you about to ask me if I'm a dinosaur? Not at all, and I apologize if it comes out that way.

Joe McNally:

So, no, the availability of technology in cameras today is astonishing, as you say, the dynamic range, the upper reaches of high ISO reach numbers that we never dreamed of high ISO has everything to do with quantity of light, how much light there is. It has nothing to do with quality of light. If you want to influence a situation, if you want to speak with light, if you want to characterize your subject, if you want to tell the story of your subject, then bringing lighting along with you and being competent with it is absolutely part of the game. I always say, if you're on location and you don't have a light with you. That can work out just fine. Could be beautiful natural light, that's wonderful. When those days happen, I'm like, thank you God, But at the same time, if you're pushed to the wall, the light's not good, then you can't counter that. You become a victim of circumstances. Even with one flash in your hand, you can turn the situation around. And express yourself, articulate yourself and literally subdue the location, even with one flash. So, lighting is part of the game. I mean, the photography comes from the Greek word, photographos, which means to write with light.

Raymond Hatfield:

I always love talking about light because, light is something that, it's so interesting because technically it's. But being able to train your eye to be able to see light, I think in the sense that, that you have, it takes work. It takes time. but I think always hear from new photographers, how do we see light? How do we train ourselves, to see light? Do you have any, exercises or any recommendations that you have for photographers who are looking to get into photography to better see light?

Joe McNally:

I mean, the obvious one is experiment, shoot lots and lots of pictures. See what you like, see what you don't like. But the other thing that again was available to me and is still available now, though there's a lot of retouching going on, is I look at lots of photographs. When I would get onto airplanes back in the day, when I was trying to learn light, and I never assisted anybody. I learned on my own. I wouldn't have like time in Newsweek. I'd buy Vogue, or Cosmo, or, Harper's Bazaar, and I'd look at the way those photographers, the fashion photographers were using light, and those photographers really knew what they were doing. And you could tell because there wasn't that much retouching going on. If you looked at the catchlights in the eyes, you could tell if someone's using an umbrella softbox, where it was placed, was it low light? Was it highlight where the catchlights coming from? Where's the brilliance where, you know, all of that stuff. And I could piece piece out the various components that I was seeing and experiment myself. And you learn, through many mistakes. I mean, I was thrown into the breach. My first staff job, I wrote about it in the book, was for ABC television. And it was a great job in the sense that I had to shoot color and black and white on every single assignment. So that meant I was juggling different, what was then called ASA, now called ISOs, in my head. And on Monday night, I'd go shoot ABC Monday Night Football. Then I'd bomb down to Washington to shoot, Ted Koppel, on the set. And then I'd come back to New York and I'd shoot a still life of an Emmy. in the studio, and then I go to Susan Lucci and photograph her on all my children, and it's all color and black and white. And oftentimes, I was in situations I had to like something. So, I learned. I had to learn. I wanted to work, so I had to learn.

Raymond Hatfield:

How much of that learning Do you think can happen, in the real world versus taking your own time and learning lighting yourself before a job? I

Joe McNally:

think the bulk of it can actually happen in the real world. We'll take your lumps, but, yes. I mean, I always counsel young photographers, take the job. You'll figure it out. Even if the job terrifies you, tell them, tell the client. Yeah, no, I can handle it. Unless of course it's obviously. Just way overmatched, I've had photographers write to me and say I've got to shoot a group photo of our church chorus And I have it's 30 people and I have one flash and i'm like the best thing you can do is give that job back Yeah Because you're just not ready for it. You can't do that, so there is a boundary there, but if you are, you reasonably have your pins under you and you are determined, most of the time, I would suggest say yes to the job, even if you think it's over your head.

Raymond Hatfield:

That's perfect. One thing that we talk about on this podcast a lot is, that a great photo is, It's more than the sum of its settings, that there's a lot that goes into it. You talked earlier about happy accidents. Have you ever had an assignment where, you know, Maybe the shot that was used or the shot that you loved the most didn't work out technically, but the moment of the reaction just made it a showstopper.

Joe McNally:

Sure, I mean, some things just don't work out. I mean, I have, I made beautiful pictures of Fiona Apple. She wanted to be a warrior woman, and so she asked me to get her a suit of armor. I said, alright. And we did a, a thing in the Puck building in New York as a daylight studio, and I, I went to town on this, she was in the armor, we had fake blood dripping on the sword. I took two or three dozen roses, and I had my assistants pull the petals off of them, and they're on ladders on either side of her, and they're dropping rose petals on her. You know, we went full blown Camelot, on this. And at the end of the day, Her agent looked at me and said, we have to get back to the bus. The only way, we're late, we have a commitment in New Jersey. The only way we'll do that is jump on the subway. And I looked to Fiona and I said, get on the subway in the armor. And she was like, sure. And so we got her on the subway with the sword and the armor and everything. And I shot like mad through like 10 stops subway stops in New York City at rush hour with flash on camera bouncing it off the ceiling of the subway. Now it's the picture that ran. Studio session went away, you know. yeah, so things can take unexpected turns and measure of a photographer is that you're adept enough to pivot with them.

Raymond Hatfield:

Why do you think it was the photo in the subway, like, was it just that the subway added an interesting element to the photo or was it, Fiona's reaction? Was it everybody else's reaction? What was it? What made that the shot?

Joe McNally:

It was because it was just plain, simple, weird. You know, you have this incredibly petite woman dressed in armor with a sword at rush hour.

Raymond Hatfield:

you don't see that every day.

Joe McNally:

Yeah. As they say, you can't make this stuff up.

Raymond Hatfield:

Of course, Joe, I know that we're coming to the end of our time here. So I got one last question for you. I know that, over the years you've been on a lot of assignments. you've been in a lot of dangerous situations, you know, actually let's take that, situation earlier where you went out on the fishing boat, right? It's a very dangerous situation. I listened to your interview with Chase Jarvis and in it, you said that it's very important to keep yourself in check and to tell yourself nobody really cares that these are just photos for you personally. Like what is it about the photo that makes the juice worth the squeeze?

Joe McNally:

I never heard that before.

Raymond Hatfield:

Oh, really?

Joe McNally:

because it's, it's your job. It's your mission. And I don't take myself particularly seriously, but I take the work of being a photographer very seriously. It's an important component of who we are. And thank goodness, there are photographers out there who are chasing this stuff. I mean, right now there's photographers on the Russian Ukrainian border putting themselves at serious risk. To let us know what's going on there. it's becomes part of your heart and soul.

Raymond Hatfield:

Joe, I don't know how to, to end it. I think any better than that. It really is one of those things to where I feel like it's hard. Oftentimes for people who are non photographers, I think to. And I think that when talking to other photographers, it can be almost implied, but being able to hear it from somebody, as accomplished as you, that it's gotta be in your DNA. You have to really want this is, it's powerful. And obviously it comes from a place of truth. So, so thank you very much. before I let you go, Joe, I know that you have a new book coming out. I know that listeners are going to be interested in finding out more about you, obviously online. So can you share where, listeners can see more of your work and find your new book?

Joe McNally:

first off the new book is called the real deal field notes from the life of a working photographer. And there's a lot of information there, presented anecdotally, and it's at your friendly neighborhood, Amazon. And hopefully Barnes and Noble and other places. it's published by Rocky Nook and they are offering it as well on their website. And as far as my presence online, Joe McNally photo is my handle on Instagram. And, same thing for Twitter, I'm out and about, you know, so I'm fairly easy to find my, website is Joe McNally. com. And then we write a blog off of that Joe McNally. com backslash blog.