The Beginner Photography Podcast

492: Justin Tedford: How to Capture Rural America: From Road Trip to Published Book

August 27, 2024 • Raymond Hatfield

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In this episode of the Beginner Photography Podcast, I chat with Justin Tedford, an insightful photographer specializing in capturing the essence of old, abandoned structures. Today Justin shares his journey of putting together a self-published photo book, exploring the challenges of curating and arranging photos, and taking a photo roadtrip. He also dives into the significance of intention and connection with your subject matter.

The Big Ideas:

  1. Embrace Emotional Connection: Engage deeply with your subject to capture photos that evoke emotions and tell a story.
  2. Value Quality over Quantity: Spend time refining your shots instead of focusing on producing a large number of images.
  3. Adaptability is Key: Be flexible and adjust your techniques based on the environment and light conditions you encounter.
  4. Curate Thoughtfully: Select and arrange your photos carefully to create a cohesive and compelling visual narrative.

Photography Action Plan:

  • Experiment with Light: Shoot during different times of the day to see how light affects your images. Use natural light and reflectors to fill in shadows for better composition.
  • Curate Your Portfolio: Start by organizing your best photos into a digital portfolio. Arrange them thoughtfully to tell a coherent story or showcase varied styles.
  • Slow Down Your Process: Spend more time on each shot, focusing on framing and composition. Analyze your photos on-site to identify and correct any issues immediately.
  • Capture Emotion: Select subjects that evoke a strong emotional response in you. Aim to tell a story through your images rather than just capturing a scene.
  • Engage with the Community: Join photography groups like the Beginner Photography Podcast Community to exchange tips and get feedback. Participate in workshops to learn from other experienced photographers.

Resources
Check out Justin Tedfords Website - https://www.tedfordphoto.com/home
Follow Justin on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/jtedfordphoto

Grab your free 52 Lightroom Presets at
http://freephotographypresets.com/

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Thanks for listening & keep shooting!

Justin Tedford:

To me, there's no bad light. Some people are going to rake me over the coals for that, but there is no bad light. There's a type of light that's going to work with a photo. You get to a location. It's just crappy light. I had 1 place I think it's Tucumcari, New Mexico. I got there and it was downpouring rain all day. And I thought, well, what can I do? Do I go back later? Maybe I just switch my itinerary up a little bit, maybe move it around or stay here later, skip some other spots. This is not what I wanted. I'm just going to whine about it and go cry in bed all night and say, I missed what I missed, or I could take it as an opportunity and try to create something that's different. Because we're always chasing nice, pretty light, right? All photographers do but how many times do I see a photo of someplace where it's downpouring rain, and there's things like that in there. And you just have to look at it and sometimes it's really stretching your brain power to come up with it. I had to just say, okay, I'm uncomfortable and I tell people, when you are uncomfortable, you were learning.

New Justin in out:

Hey, welcome to the beginner photography podcast. I'm your host Raymond Hatfield. And today we're chatting with landscape photographer, Justin Tedford about creating and publishing personal photo projects. But first the beginner photography podcast is brought to you by CloudSpot. You know, this. So your photos through prints projects, and of course the digitals as well. You can set up a storefront in minutes and start earning more with every single gallery you deliver. So grab your free forever account over at deliverphotos. com and only upgrade when you are ready. Today's guest, Justin Tedford, he's an insightful photographer. He's a really interesting dude. He's this guy who loves, capturing, I think the essence of, old abandoned farm structures. It's like so many more things about his own location where he lives. and Justin actually put together a book and today he shares kind of that process of what goes into self publishing a photo book, which I'm always interested in. So we talk about everything from the challenges of what to shoot to curating and arranging the photos to, knowing when he has enough photos or if he needs more. Justin also talks about the importance of intention and connection with your subject matter. We also touch upon slowing down to be deliberate, over your shots. Recognizing what is the deeper story, with your subject matter, whatever it may be. And also the emotional process of selecting and refining your work before sharing. And you know what, speaking of sharing, I just want to take a quick moment to remind you that the beginner photography podcast community is, it's stronger than ever. It's more helpful than ever, and it's just overall more fun than ever as well. So I invite you to come back into the beginner photography podcast community, if you want to become a better photographer and see what it's all about. So you can join for free over at beginnerphotopod. com forward slash group. So with that, let's go ahead and get on into today's interview with Justin Tedford.

Raymond Hatfield:

Justin, when did you know that photography was going to play an important role in your life?

Justin Tedford:

I would say early, early on. So I probably, if I go back, I would say my hard start date of photography was 2003. Did I take it seriously then? I thought I did. As I always tell everybody, it was supposed to be an easy a plus, right? I was in high school. Let's get an a and because I was more into drawing and painting. I was more of that. That kind of art versus the photographic art that I do now. So I went back and I was like, I'll take this class. And then I got into the dark room and I was like, Oh, this is kind of fun. And then you start seeing those prints coming through developer. And then my instructor who was also the shop teacher was like, Hey, I think you got an eye. So then somehow I got hooked up with my already art teacher, Mr. Mallory. And he's like, yeah, you got this eye. And then somehow, I don't even know how it became to be the local newspaper said, here's four rolls of film. Let's go photograph basketball games for us. And I did that. And I was like, that's awesome. I like it. It's fun. And I think for me, it was the access, I get to be where you're not. That was 2003. So I graduated in 05. So now I have to start thinking about real jobs in life. So I said, what about photographer? Right. I love this. So I job shadowed the Omaha world Herald, which is cool. And then that's when I kind of caught the bug. I was going to be a photojournalist. And I think that's at the time I was like, yes, this is what I want to do. And obviously I'm now not a photojournalist. So.

Raymond Hatfield:

Yeah, very rarely do we end up being the place where we wanted Um, being like in the world of painting and drawing, what do you think it was about specifically photography that, captured your attention?

Justin Tedford:

On the photo journalistic side. I think it was like access. I could go places and no one would go and people, they wanted you there, right? They wanted your events, documented captured kind of thing. And that's what it did it for me for the most part. And I think to the experiences, because if I look back, I'll look and say, Oh God, I don't feel like I've ever done anything exciting in photography. But if I go back to like 2003. I mean, I got to hang out with associated press photographers at the time, which I thought was the coolest thing I got to do, living in Iowa, we're big in the caucuses every January. So we get all these presidential candidates coming through. And at that time I was doing for fun. I just go to these places and take photos. So it was experiences I could sit down and paint something or draw something. But then I'm done. I can do that anywhere, but to me, I think it was that experience of going to a location, finding something, taking a photo and then coming back where anybody could see it. I had at that point, a little bit of outlets, whether it was through school, yearbook stuff, and even the local newspaper that I was taking photos. People actually got to see my work plus it could be all over the place. I could make 10 prints of one thing and 10 different people in theory could see it where if I did one painting or one drawing, I'd have to do it a different way. Long story short. It's glamorous. To me, photography is glamorous to many. It's probably not, but to me it is

Raymond Hatfield:

I feel very similar to you, in the sense that, when I had went to film school and focused on cinematography, it's like, that was what was so cool about it. These different experiences and going to different places and sometimes even being paid to do these things. It was, it's, it's incredibly exciting, something that you don't get. And one of the reasons why I never really wanted, could see myself working a job, in an office, which, I just want to be outdoors. I just want to like do different things. And photography was definitely one of the things that called me most. So when you're learning photography, it was kind of, obviously you're still in your young years. Um, but the act of learning photography is still, big project at times, uh, did you find it challenging or did it come relatively easy for you?

Justin Tedford:

To me, it was relatively easy. Yeah. Because when I'm doing mentoring sessions with people or I'm teaching a class, the biggest question I hate is how do you do it? And I say, this is the worst answer ever. I don't know. To me, it's natural. I just do it. People like, I want to learn to see like you teach me. I don't know. I just do it. I see that. So I capture it. It's hard for me to tell that person, Hey, so for me, it's always been easy, but also in the beginning, I felt like not that I wasn't learning stuff, but I wasn't so worried about the technicalities. I was more worried about capturing an image. So everything was on auto, right? Everybody starts out on auto. I did. So I shot basketball in a gym on auto with three or four rolls of 24 exposure film. And if I went back and look at those photos, those are the most God awful things that I've probably ever taken. But to me, they were the greatest thing at the time. But I think that was probably, it's just the hardest part is it just came easy for me for most things. So in the long run, when I was getting around to that, once I finally decided to settle on the technical part, then it was kind of boring for me.

Raymond Hatfield:

Learning the technicals was boring?

Justin Tedford:

Yeah, it's weird because I just want to go out and capture a photo. But then there's that point. I think every photographer gets to that. You decide that there comes a point in time that you actually have to start learning something just you got to learn light. You got to learn composition. You just have to do it. And that probably took me the longest to do just because I didn't want to learn it. I just wanted to do I just wanted to do it.

Raymond Hatfield:

I totally get that in the sense that when I buy a new camera, I buy it imagining all the great photos that I'll be able to take. But when the rubber meets the road, it's not the camera that does it. turned it around for you? What made you say okay, I need to actually sit down and figure this thing out?

Justin Tedford:

Yes, so after high school, I graduated, started like mass community, mass media, photojournalism. That wasn't going to work out just due to the timeframe of photojournalism. So I went to culinary school. After I got back from a year deployment overseas with the military. And then I did that and realized that is not my passion. Go back to photography. So I did it. And what really changed all around to, I really needed to get my affairs per se, in order was I started working at the local camera store. I knew photography. I loved gear. I could talk about it. And that's when I kind of got more. I was, Well, I was good, but that was the point where there's so much technical stuff that I need to know. And I have to prove myself to be that guy behind the counter and say, I took this photo and they're always going to say, how did you do it? I can't just say, well, I did it. I liked it, I had to say, Hey, this is how I did it. So I have to know all that technical stuff. And to me, I was living the dream. I was doing photography and getting paid. And so it was on somebody else's bill. And I just had to show up to work every day and I have to go market and I have to do anything. So that was probably the turning point for me was, I knew shutter speed, aperture, ISO, and all that stuff out of college. But I thought that's all photography was aperture, shutter speed, ISO, which it is in the smallest form. But there's so much other things, lighting and what lights to buy. And I could go on for all the other things besides that. So that's probably what it turned it around for me. I was like, okay, I'm doing this. And I actually, for the first time to people like wanted to come to me for my opinion, because I was the man to come talk to. And it was so weird and people'd wait. And that's, I was like, okay, I have to be better than they think I am. And I challenged myself to learn anything and everything. Things I don't even shoot.

Raymond Hatfield:

Oh, geez, that's quite a task. the world of photography is so big Oh my gosh. working in this camera store, so it forced you to, be your best because you're constantly being asked questions by customers, essentially. So you got forced into it. That's great. I love that. That's like, reverse engineering, how to learn something. Like they always say the best way to learn something is to teach it, right? Like you have to prove your knowledge of it.

Justin Tedford:

Yes.

Raymond Hatfield:

Um, so then even though the technical side wasn't super exciting to you at first, you still learned it. tell me, was there a certain photo that you had taken after you really decided to focus on learning the technicals that you thought, holy cow, this works This pays off. I'll never shoot an auto again.

Justin Tedford:

Oh, yes. I think every photographer has that one photo that they'll always go back to. They like, or they vividly remember no matter how many thousands and hundreds of thousands of photos you took. And it was a night photo and on a gravel road in Iowa. Doing a little bit of research at that point. And it was like, Oh, full moon. Mm hmm. That might not be a bad night to do some, late long exposure. So I went out to this gravel road, positioned the angle and everything where the tree was backlit. You could see stars. And I got super lucky. This is like God, one or two in the morning and a car drives through of all places. And I got, taillight, streaks. It was like a perfect moment, I hit the shutter button at the right moment. It recorded it, and I said, okay, this is what it's all about. And that's when I started just digging deeper and deeper and deeper into things and trying to peel back every layer that I can learn.

Raymond Hatfield:

That's funny. I feel like, the photo where people, really feel like they understand the technical side is either always something related to either aperture or shutter speed. And for me it was the same. it was one night I went out with a buddy of mine, it was similar. We did long exposures, but, It was like light paintings, and I made it look like, a fireball was coming out of my hand and he was getting hit by it and just stupid things like that, that, you're never able to get on auto. You're never able to get with a cell phone. These are the things that don't just happen even by accident when you take a photo, but they're done with intention. And when you're able to capture them, it's. magical. magical. It's when that thing clicks in your head that says, Oh, this is the thing that I want to do forever. So then when you look back at some of those earliest photos of yours, right? I would say even after really embracing the technical side of it, during that time, all those photos that you had taken, if you were to look back at those photos now, where do you think you've grown the most as a photographer?

Justin Tedford:

That's a good question. I think probably making more photos with intention, not just blasting the camera shutter all around, actually looking at something, thinking about it. And instead of just taking the photo and then coming back later to decide in light room, is it good? Is it bad? it's just looking at the screen and saying, I don't like it. And not leaving it at that and just saying, okay, why don't I like it? Okay. I don't like it because of this little branch sticking out of the edge of the frame. Okay. How can I fix that now in camera? Well, I could, zoom in a little closer now that my compositions change. Well, I still don't like it now because that branch is here. But if I change my, you know, change per se that I made, then it's like, well, how do I fix it? That it's just, I think taking a slower approach to things and realizing that I do not have to learn anything and everything all at once to say that I can go take a photo. I think that's the biggest area improvement and realizing I do know what I'm doing in the long run because as photographers, we all look at our stuff like this is horrible and don't want to compare ourselves with the guy next door. Just intention. That's probably been biggest, biggest improvement.

Raymond Hatfield:

How did you get there? a

Justin Tedford:

oh boy, I think it was just finally coming to realization again that the more time you put into any process, the better it's going to be, and I think a lot of it was just the interwebs, you know, the internet, you see all this stuff where people are like, I'm doing this and I got to do this. I got to take 85, 000 photos of this. Then I'm thinking, God, I think I do the same thing. The things that used to drive me up the wall, I was doing myself and just didn't find it in myself. So I just decided, well, you know what, let's create things with intention because it's more quality over quantity. We all had that mentality. It's human nature. I think the more we have, the better we are when truly we're not.

Raymond Hatfield:

mindset from when we were all cavemen, right? Like you don't know where your next meal is going to come from. We got to gather as much as possible. when you, finally start, going from a hunter gatherer to farmer and you can like create your own stuff, that does change the way that you look at things. But yeah, deep down, we're still, still that caveman making sure, hoping that we don't run out of resources. Now I want to know, at that time, what were the things that you were shooting? Because, want to get, to your book as well, we're focused on, Iowa. This is awesome. But did you always start with, would you say landscapes? Would you say, cityscapes? What were you shooting mostly? Yeah.

Justin Tedford:

It was rural America. That's very specific. over the years of all my teaching and all these things that I have to think about and things for the book and all these, things like podcasts I've been on all that kind of stuff. People always come back and say, okay, what do you take? Like you're saying, you know, what do you take photos of? And one time, somebody finally asked me, why, why do you take photos of Iowa and the Midwest? And to me, I think as photographers and kind of what you end up photographing is based off all off your environment, right? I was 18 I'm not going to go off to far off islands, you know, and photograph or have all this money to go. So I photographed what was nearest to me. And that was rural Iowa and rural Americana per se. So I started doing landscapes. It was easy I mean, you can go anywhere and take a landscape photo, really, and for me, I don't have to drive hours. I can drive 10 minutes from my house right now and be on a, gravel or dirt road somewhere. And that's where I fell in love with that too, because I don't think a lot of people were. I would say at that time, or just in general, they don't look at Iowa as the most photographic location in the world. It's flat. It's not flat. So that's landscapes was always my thing that in it. It still is to this day.

Raymond Hatfield:

Did you ever have that feeling of, so my wife, was born and raised here in Indiana. She always wanted to leave. She's like, almost every other state is better than Indiana. And me growing up in California, I almost felt the same way. It was like, I want to get out of here. And I don't know if we just have this thing inside of us that's the grass is always greener somewhere else, but, one thing that I hear from a lot of listeners is, I don't have a fancy beach to photograph, I don't live in a busy city, so what are the things that I'm gonna shoot? It's like, they want to go somewhere else, but you didn't, you stayed right where you were. Was that by intention? Did you always love Iowa? Or, was it simply out of necessity that you had to shoot something and that's where you were?

Justin Tedford:

It's necessity at that point. it was always necessity because like I said, I couldn't go off to far off islands or here or there. You're 18 or younger at that point to, you know, you only got so much money in the world and you just, so is that a necessity that that's where I photographed it because that's what I had to do. But then I just took that subject and fell in love with it, and trying to find those unique places, moments, or the everyday things that people say, where'd you take a picture of this barn? I've never seen this barn. I'll tell them and they're like, no way. I drive past there for the last 20 years. I've never seen it. Exactly because you didn't take time to stop and look and I found it for you, you know, so that's been my jam. Mm

Raymond Hatfield:

so than just, this is where I am. What was that process like cause to, create a book, you have to be intimately connected with it.

Justin Tedford:

Yes. So, I mean, process wise of just kind of the whole Iowa thing is again, it was a necessity. And then I just started, I just look at things and thought, okay, when I'll photograph one thing forever and ever and ever, and I get bored and I start looking at other things within the landscape and I photograph it. And then I come back to the barns again, and then the barns leave. And then it was, just straight up landscape kind of photo. And then over the years, there's just all this stuff that I see that I got, I want to photograph. And my brain starts bouncing around with all these ideas. And, now I'm more into photographing rural towns and I have a small project I work on, on and off, where I photograph rural Iowa farm families because they're disappearing left and right for big commercial agriculture. So I start to focus on those kinds of things. When I see things disappearing, Barnes are going here left and right. So if I see one, I usually won't miss it. So I'll stop and take a photo.

Raymond Hatfield:

That's interesting. You like to photograph things that are disappearing. As I drive through Indiana, I feel like I see lots of similar things, right? Lots of dilapidated barns, lots of old grain silos, things like that. And I don't know what it is. Why do you think we as humans like to look at things that are, falling apart and, abandoned? Why is that?

Justin Tedford:

You know, that's a very good question. I've always been drawn to it because I think it's interesting because it's not pretty. It's not, perfectly manicured. You see the layers. Yeah, we all know that there's wood under your roof, your shingles, but we don't see it. So when I look at an old barn, I like to look at things. I almost see it as what it was, not what it is. And I just kind of imagine everything. It went, I'll look at wow, they had six outbuildings and three barns and they were doing good at some point in their life and now there's no one there.

Raymond Hatfield:

That's so wild. I'm the opposite. I never look at it for what it used to be. I always look at something for exactly what it is. And like your perspective a lot more in terms of telling a story because now we have a progression, but we had this, old glass factory, not too far from here. And I remember shortly after moving here, a buddy of mine was like, Hey, let's go check that place out. And we walked in there and it was this massive, I don't even know the size. If I had to guess. 100, 000 square foot, property, multiple buildings. And there's just this lame chain link fence all around it. You shouldn't go in there, but it was very easy to get in there. And I don't condone obviously trespassing at all. Uh, I made some mistakes. But walking in there, it was so interesting. I could kind of imagine wow, at one point there was, tables in here and all this stuff. And that is really interesting to think about, but I think for me, what I find interesting is yeah, at one point, this was somebody's dream, building this farm, building this barn, building this factory. This was somebody's dream, even building this house, right? There's dilapidated houses sometimes.

Justin Tedford:

Yep.

Raymond Hatfield:

And now it's this. This is what it is. And yeah, I find that fascinating. Sorry, that was a bit of a tangent. Let's go back to the topic of Iowa here, because, uh, Iowa, it's a state, it's multifaceted, there's lots of things that you could capture within that, as you mentioned earlier, right, all the caucuses, farming is big, these rural towns. How do you narrow down your subject matter for a book as big as an entire state so that it's something that is cohesive and not overwhelming? Transcript

Justin Tedford:

hardest part because, like you said, there's so many things you can go for. Now, the people who had reached out to me do this book, they kind of have some parameters, they have certain little things subcategories or genres of books that they're looking for people and he specifically reached out and said, I love your landscape photos. So, that whole process that they kind of not 100 percent were like, you have to do this. It was pretty open, but I also looked at a body of work that, there's requirements. It's 96 pages. We've got to have at a minimum of 100 ish. I think it's like 140 photos, something. Okay. What do I have that a, I'm going to have enough photos for and B, that's going to flow well, right? You know that I just don't have flipping through pages like barn, pretty landscape, barn, landscape, and then a caucus photo, to throw this whole thing off. So that was probably the biggest challenge is trying to find photos that all kind of went together, but as I planned out, I had to do a little bit of writing for the book and I am no writer by any means. I feel like. But it was easy on that. Once I got that outline done, of the different kind of categories that I wanted to focus on, then I could go and look for the photographs. To build those around those parts of the book per se, I think I have one, it's things off the beaten path, I think those things are off the road. So all the photos were probably taken off a gravel road, or other ones were more of structures of Iowa. But then when I got down to the structure part, that could be a million different things. Do I want the state Capitol next to, a dilapidated barn? Nope. They're not going to flow well together. So at that point I just started looking at more rule buildings type thing. And then just went from there. There was lots of throwing photos in and out as I went through, I called that, geez, a million times. It felt like.

Raymond Hatfield:

Was the hardest part about that? I mean, how many photos do you think that you tried to gather up initially before you got down to the, uh, the final, what, 140?

Justin Tedford:

Yeah. Probably like 800 or more. And the hard part for me is I think any photographer you're so emotionally attached to your work because you know, the sweat and tears and all this stuff you put into it. But then you have to look at it from an aspect and say, okay, I like the photo, but is this photograph worthy to go into a book? Is it going to, as a group add or take away, And that's probably the hardest part because I could have added a million photos to that book that I love, but then I had to think, okay, again, and putting myself out there as a photographer. there's some that I'm like, ah, that one's just slightly, I thought was little sharper than it was. And then you try to talk yourself into it and say, we can put it in the book. It's only going to be four by six. So no one's going to see it's not sharp. These is not 24 by 36. And then you have to come back down to reality and say, okay, this is a pretty serious project. A book was always a bucket list, a dream. I didn't think I'd ever get there. But everybody has to have that one top notch thing to shoot for, whether it happens or not. And I think that hardest part was just, man, what do I get rid of? Like, as I felt like you were like throwing your kid out the window, every time you checked out a photo, because those are everything we do, you know? And we always are always, obviously slightly biased to our own work that, every photo we take is awesome. And we know it's not, but we like to tell ourselves that.

Raymond Hatfield:

Did you set yourself guidelines to be able to pick which photos would go in the book versus which photos wouldn't go in the book? Or was it just a gut thing?

Justin Tedford:

It was a gut thing. I'm glad you just said gut thing because I'm a gut instinct kind of person photographer. If I got that one or two thing that just keeps coming back to me, that's what it's going to be. I'm not going to overthink it. I'm one of those is I want to know why a or b happens. But if I can't figure it out, I'm just going to say it's fate, right? It's supposed to happen. Just whatever. That photo needs to be there. And there are some photos I just could not get rid of. And I'm thinking, but they don't flow well with some of the other photos. I'm like, for some reason, these photos have to be here. Let's get rid of those other ones. And just, I kept doing that over and over and over till I was happy with for the majority of what I have in there, 95%. There's some filler photos that I don't love, but it is what it is.

Raymond Hatfield:

Well, sometimes those filler photos help tell a fuller story. So like I fully get that. so now the book is done, right? book is done. And now, you told me about in your email that you're working on another project, right? your photo road trip through route 66. Is that going to be a book?

Justin Tedford:

It is. So that's going to be a self published book. So the other one in the world of books, they're self published and then there's the but Yeah. traditionally published. So, the traditionally published book, there are parameters they have a cost, right? We all know as business people are non business people. You have a life, things cost money. And if I'm going to sell something for 25 bucks, it's got to come in at this price range, right? They're going to say, okay, it's a soft cover book. it's all these parameters. A lot of that I didn't care for, but I have to go buy that and work it around. So I thought, well. I want to do my own thing. I want to have a hundred percent utter control over this entire process. Self published. So before I went on my Route 66 trip, I thought this might be a book that I could self publish. I always wanted to do a hardcover with a dust jacket and all this fancy stuff. You see, you know, Barnes and Nobles, right? Any, you know, Ansel Adams book, hardcover, or any Leibovitz hardcover book. And I don't know, to me, there's something when I pick up a book, it's sexy about a hardcover book. So that's not cheap and most people aren't going to do a hardcover book for you. So that's why I went the self published route on the Route 66 book. I have pitched a similar version to the publisher already, but that could be another year to two years before that hits their shelf. So I wanted something instant now while it was hot and people were excited about the project I went on and worked through.

Raymond Hatfield:

Well, it sounds exciting. but before I ask you more questions about this upcoming book, because I really want to know about the process of it, let's start with the actual, road trip itself. So you said before you went on the road trip, you thought that this could be a good idea for a book, potentially. Did you go into. the road trip with an idea of what photos you wanted to capture? Was it more of a feeling? How did you approach planning for the photos that you wanted to take, knowing that they would ultimately end up, in print in a book?

Justin Tedford:

Yes, so I did a little bit of research, Instagram type in route 66, see what people are finding out there, but I didn't heavily focus on specific locations because I'm that person that if I say I'm going to photograph a, B, C, D, and F across this entire trip, and I find something that's awesome between a and B. I'm thinking about getting to be so I won't focus on that weird, middle ground of where I wanted to be. So I left it really wide open I had those iconic per se locations, but I wanted to leave it open to just exploring because when I get down to my root core as a person, I just like to explore. I want to see what I can find. And I feel like no matter what part of photography, whether you're doing a book or. you'll hear people say niche down, niche down, niche down. That's probably a good thing, but sometimes we put ourselves too much into this box that we forget that there's so much outside that box that we can find and explore. Everybody says, Oh, route 66, you're going to go to Roy's and Amboy, California. That's a no brainer. That was a stop, but that's somewhere I wanted to. And I felt like would, if I did a book would be a location I should add in there. But most of it was literally just all I planned was how much money is this going to cost? Where am I going to fly into and drive back to, and where am I going to stay? That's it. And

Raymond Hatfield:

what today brings.

Justin Tedford:

Yep, I knew from I'd get up. All I planned was I was going to fly from Omaha, Nebraska to LAX Friday night, stay in a hotel, get up the next morning at 4 AM. And all I had to do was be in needles, California at a decent time to get at least six hours of sleep that I know I can live off of and that's it. That was my only parameters for each day. I had to go from A to B and B to C and get there at a decent time. And if I ended up finding an awesome spot and I burned more time there, oh well.

Raymond Hatfield:

So, one, this sounds like a blast, this must have been amazing,

Justin Tedford:

Ah, it was. It

Raymond Hatfield:

so much fun. How much did your idea of what the trip was going to be change, while you actually started shooting? Because I can imagine, I could set myself up these expectations of, oh, all of these photos, that I have in my head. They're all sunset. They all have like this beautiful cloud cover. But you're gonna show up at some of these places at like 2 in the afternoon. Near Death Valley. It looks like garbage. how do you adjust?

Justin Tedford:

Yeah, so you know, as photographers, especially landscape charge just starts to where all right, golden hour, beautiful light. Right? And when I'm teaching a landscape, I teach for Paul's photo in the creative photo Academy out in Torrance and I teach their technique landscape class and we learn about light. Light is light, if you can make that like light work for that said photograph, yeah. Then it's great. To me, there's no bad light. Some people are going to rake me over the coals for that, but there is no bad light. It's just there's a type of light that's going to work with a photo. There's 1 day that, like you said, you get to a location. It's just crappy light, or you're expecting these preconceived notions and I had 1 place that I was, I think it's Tucumcari, New Mexico. I usually butcher that name, but it's got all the old neon signs. That was like dead set. I have to be there. It's where the Blue Swallow Hotel is. I got there and it was downpouring rain all day, all day. So I wanted to throw it out the window and just skip it. And I thought, well, what can I do? Do I go back later? Maybe I just switch my itinerary up a little bit, maybe move it around or stay here later, skip some other spots. But I just said, no, take it in the moment and create images that are going to work in this situation. And you just have to be fluid with it and just get the negative thoughts that this is crap. This is not what I wanted. I'm just going to whine about it and go cry in bed all night and say, I missed what I missed, or I could take it as an opportunity and try to create something that's different. Because we're always chasing nice, pretty light, right? All photographers do. But how many times do I see a photo of, someplace where it's downpouring rain, and there's things like that in there and you just have to look at it and sometimes it's really stretching your brain power to come up with it. But I was very uncomfortable that day because I was totally like, I have to have a photo or photos from this location or this trip because I'm not doing this again. Probably maybe not the whole thing and I had to just say, okay, I'm uncomfortable. I tell people, when you are uncomfortable, you were learning and that's the only way you're going to get better. So now. I made some photos. I switched and went to more detail shots, right. Versus that grand scenic kind of wide shot where I was getting all the flat, boring sky and things like that. So I'm like, how do I eliminate the sky? Shoot detail shots or maybe just signs and things like that. So it was just kind of just rolling with the flow. And again, going with my gut and say, okay. And then reviewing images and looking at the camera and saying, okay, these are not working. What do I need to do differ? And just keep diving into it deeper and deeper. And if you keep doing that, it's just going to work out. It always will, because there's light and it might not be the best light, but if I understand how light works and the quality of lights, and I can find an image that works, like, let's say kind of back, like, and boy, I wanted to go to Roy's when they light up the neon sign, I was going to have to sit there for six hours that I was not willing to do. I thought, okay, what do I do? Let's switch this. I'll drive back at night. That's an hour and a half. Okay. I'm going to be there more than an hour. I know So I have to take all this into time and say, okay, it's not going to happen. But the great thing is when you're in the middle of the desert, harsh light works. it tells a part of that story. It's hot. You got really harsh shadows. There's no, you know, soft light and you just work with it and you find something like finding that building, harsh light, cruddy light, it's horrible, find something that works with it, like an old building. It's decrepit, right? Old, decrepit building, harsh light. It might work. So it's one of those things you just have to go over and over and over and just keep pushing yourself, I think.

Raymond Hatfield:

Yeah, Sometimes I'll go out and I'll have this like great idea, a few years ago, our family, had some extended time, on a vacation and I had all these great ideas for photos that I wanted to take. And when I showed up, it's like, I started very slow. And then, as I would take more photos, I almost recognized patterns and new ideas for photos. And by the end of our trip, it's like, dang, I knew exactly what I want to capture here. I wish that I would have known this on day one. Right? So how did your idea for the photos that you were going to capture or the story that you were going to tell in the photos change you got to the end?

Justin Tedford:

So the one thing I wanted to do was, originally, I started out. I love one to one ratio square. It's probably my days back in medium format. I love it. So I thought that's what I wanted. Plus I was using the Nikon camera profile called Dream. It just seemed to work in that kind of look. It's more nostalgic y kind of look. So I knew that's what I wanted to do for the look. That I had dead set. But when I was going through, I just again went with my gut and I was just seeing in square. At first I do a square photo, change it, my ratio in camera and shoot it square. And then I shoot it in your standard, three by two, two by three or whatever. And then I might do a 16 by nine. And then I did that for every shot. And I'm like, Oh my God, this is taken forever. Then I do some without the profile on. I'm like, there's no need to do this because they're going to show up in Lightroom without the profile anyway, showing because they're raw. I just have to add it later. So I just left that profile on. And then once I felt like I was seeing the best photos that I was capturing in squared, that's why I just there. On a dime switched and said, okay, I'm going to do all this in square. I'm keeping this look. Then I started just looking at the pattern at each night. I stopped. I uploaded, all my photos to my hard drive as a backup. And I just started looking at what I was seeing during the day. And I started to notice patterns. It was buildings. It was signs, things like that. So that's what I did the next day and the next day and the next day. And then there's all those other oddball things in between, but then. Once I had that, I knew at that point that I kind of had the style set all those weird little things, ratio, style, I kind of started tweaking and playing with photos on the road to on my laptop and looking like that. And then I was like, Oh, as I'm a notorious, I slightly underexposed, but with this profile, more you underexposed, the muddier it became and crappier. Yeah. So then I had to switch my normalness of slightly under and go slightly over, which in my book is like, Oh God, but it worked. I just had to trust the process that what I was doing and going with my gut was going to in the end, after eight States would all come together. And it did.

Raymond Hatfield:

It did. Tell me how it did. when you got back and looked at all the photos.

Justin Tedford:

There was too many photos at that point, when I'm starting to call image to put together for the book and that kind of thing, I was to the point where I had so much stuff and the look was so consistent. I almost say that the consistency of that body of work is probably my best ever for capturing the same thing over and over and over the same look, but having completely different images. But then that worked all the way through that dream look worked perfectly from LA all the way through Oklahoma, but when I hit illinois and Missouri, it's a lot greener and the buildings aren't pastels and it's, I'm like, Oh God, so then I had to just start again, swap things, change a little bit, go back and say, okay, how am I going to make this work again, those other six states work, but how do I make the same style work? And again, it was just, yeah. tweaking each time and looking and sometimes there's photos that a lot of photos I just took one photo of and like I this doesn't work and it's just not going to because of the building colors aren't right or the scene colors aren't right and no matter how much I try to polish it it's not going to work so I just forget it and move on

Raymond Hatfield:

Can you tell me about the process now that you have all of your photos? How are you building it into a story for your new book?

Justin Tedford:

Yes. So what I did was I went laying the photos out. So I ended up not realizing it subconsciously. I do this a lot where I'm doing things I don't realize I'm doing. So picture on the left was I kind of had that bigger green scenic landscape per se that wide shot. And then I had a detail shot. I was doing that all along the trip and didn't realize it. So then as I was going through photos, I was laying out these images like, okay, when somebody opens the book, I want this to flow well. So when I was in Shamrock, Texas at the Conoco station, if you're any with route 66, you know what I'm talking about? It was in the movie cars. I believe they took inspiration from it. I had some interior photos. And I had one of the corner booth, then I had a detailed shot of this napkin holder. It said Coca Cola on it from the 50s or earlier. I remember taking those, but not consciously realizing those would go together. As I'm going through the book, finding images that match. And then I noticed, wow, I've had this pattern of a wider shot. And a tight shot, like a detail shot. So then I started pairing images that would go together. And that's what I did. I just laid it out that way, you know, interior. And then just in the story, like each location, some locations, I had two photos that I just, that was it. But at the Conoco station in Shamrock, Texas, I had outside shots. So I had a detail shot of the outside and a wider shot. Then when you flip the page, then we go inside the building. And I have a picture where it's the inside kind of looking out of the door. And then another interior shot. And then you flip the next page and there's deeper. So that was probably of the book. And those photos are like, I felt like I really was taking from the outside to the inside and kind of going through the whole building within itself. So it's just finding images that are going to connect and mesh well together where we're not getting like, a nice, pretty well done, hundred percent restored gas station. And then picture next to it is of an abandoned gas station on the inside where the roof's missing. And you can tell it's abandoned, like those wouldn't flow together. So I had to just do that. And what helped me was I printed them all out on contact sheets and light room, just black and white off my laser printer. I cut them out and then I shifted them around on the table.

Raymond Hatfield:

Mm.

Justin Tedford:

and those go together. Those don't. And then I found out in of, well, 300 ish photos I may have decided on out of 3100 photos that there's just somebody just, I loved him, but they didn't mesh well with the rest of the flow of the book. And no matter how much I loved him was connected to him, I had to get rid of them because it was going to throw the whole book off. And again, I go back to, this is your work. You're putting yourself out there. It's got to look decent.

Raymond Hatfield:

together images chronologically? Does the book start with a photo of like Santa Monica Pier and then end there in Chicago? how do you play with that?

Justin Tedford:

Yeah, that was the thought process originally where I would have one beginning photo I knew in my head. I went to Santa Monica pier because I went backwards per se to most people. I went from LA to Santa Monica to Chicago where most people swap and go Chicago to LA. And it was cheaper to go the opposite. You saved 1, 000 on a car rental. So I just think of all these things like that. And I get to the point where I want to Santa Monica pier, but I was there at 4 in the morning. I didn't feel terribly comfortable there at four in the morning by myself, because if there was nobody there, there wasn't, but there are some people hanging out there gave me that weird vibe. And I'm like, yeah, I may not have any gear for the rest of this trip if I get out of the vehicle. So I'm just going to skip it. I did lay the book out in chronological order on how I went, I struggled with why don't I do it? What? With what people would want. And then I was like, no, this is your project. This is the reason you're doing it. Do what you want. They really probably not going to care because I'm an overthinker. I'm thinking this is what they want. They just want a book to be honest and photos. So I laid it out kind of in my head, like day by day, like I went from here to here. That's this first set of photos here to here the next day and all 10 days across.

Raymond Hatfield:

What is the goal for the book? When does it all get put together? When does it go on sale?

Justin Tedford:

It's actually already on sale because I am a hyper focused fixation. I don't have a true ADHD diagnosis, but they think I do, but they won't say so. So when I get hyper fixated on something, I'll go. So I left the photos for quite a while and I just pounded that thing out I wasn't waiting on a publisher. So I could take 10 months or a week to do this if I really had time. And this was one of those things that was so subconsciously planned out and it all just by luck all fell together where I could go through. I just got my book two days ago. The final one. There were some issues with the cover and some bleed issues and I thought it was my fault and I was racking my brain to fix it. So I emailed them the company has printing through and they're like, Oh, that's our fault. Sorry. It was us. So it wasn't me. So then they sent me a new book and to make sure it would look correct before I threw it out there. So I threw it up on my website and it's there. So I got a couple of pre order sales per se, not going to make a million dollars off any book. I'll tell you that right now. And you're not going to quit your job. You're gonna have to be Stephen King to do that, but you know, it's a very small limited run. I'll probably do about 20 to 15 copies and I can always reorder if I need to in the future, but so yeah, it's already up. Yeah,

Raymond Hatfield:

to, build this book? How long did it take you to compile the book and design it?

Justin Tedford:

things like the dust cover. And just go a hard cover without the dust jacket I wanted some in whatever they call it the paper at the end of your book. It's connected. I wanted to change those to a color that kind of felt like Southwest. But then that added cost. And I just I had to give up a couple things. So a lot of it was based off of waiting on the printer to get this completed and printed. And then going back and saying, okay, how much do I want to make, not make, so on and so forth and tweaking, tweaking. The photos probably took me a couple of weeks because I, I will pick photos. And then I, I left them for about two weeks or three weeks before I started the project, before I looked at it, because you had those kinds of rose colored glasses on where everything's great. So you need to step away from the work for quite a while and then come back to it later Then I would give a couple of days from when I compiled, say 800 photos. Then I come back and I'd get rid of some more. And then I just went through Lightroom and five star on the ones I liked. And that one now I don't like it anymore because of this clear it out. And then before I just did that over and over and over and over. And before I knew it, I had what was supposed to be 96 page book is like 184 now, but it is what it is.

Raymond Hatfield:

Oh, having now done a traditionally published photo book and now a self published photo book. What advice would you have for people who maybe want to make one themselves?

Justin Tedford:

One, you have to do it. I just did a, Facebook, live on this last week about your first self published book and you have to have a solid blueprint in my opinion. You need to think of all the stuff we don't want to think about, paper types, do you want coded glossy? I went with my book, a mat, because if I went glossy, Glossy tends to be a little bit more contrast here than that. Look at the image changes. So all that work I did photographing a certain way now kind of gets thrown out the window. So you have to have a very, very solid blueprint to what you want to do. Don't just go and pick. And then at that point, really, really look at the photos because obviously it's a book of photos. So that's going to be your most important thing. Then it's all the little piddly things. Do you want to write a little bit, add something., Also, you need to have a solid idea of what you want it to be about, because if you start out and just say it's a photo book of Iowa or a photo book, a route 66, it won't flow well. He's like, oh, it's a photo book of Iowa. I can put anything in there. You can, which if done right, will work, but that's probably the hardest. So you've got to have that blueprint, a layout, even if it's rough and you have to be open to changing it. Do not write this down on a paper and say, it's done. This is how it will be because I ran into things that I had in my head. When I put it into the online calculator for pricing, there was things that I wanted to do that they just don't offer in that configuration. So I had to go back and take out something and then say, what do I want a more or be more? And then make that decision. That's probably the biggest thing is the blueprint and how you're going to do it and change.

Raymond Hatfield:

There sounds like a lot of steps involved, a lot of things. I understand the, if you want to do something, you got to just do it. But I know that, at least for me, I get hung up sometimes on the technical. I know that listeners do as well. Cause they email me asking questions at times. So, as we get to the end of our interview here, If anybody has questions, if they want to, make a book, if they want to, start on this project on their own, where can we find you online to be able to ask you these questions and to be able to see your work as well?

Justin Tedford:

Yes. And please reach out because I tell people I am an open book. There are no secrets with me because that's happened too much in the past, right? With photographers. We don't want to hold the secret sauce recipe when it's out there. You just have to find it. And I try to tell people like, I want to help you Get things figured out you could learn from my mistakes and have less stress than me. I'll take your stress on. So, you can go to my website, which is Tedford photo dot com. There's a contact form there. You could reach out on Facebook. I'm on Facebook is Justin Tedford. Fine art photography. Send me a DM, Probably on my websites, my phone number, shoot me a text. Just say, Hey, you don't know me. I heard you on the podcast. Okay, cool. Just so that I know and we can have a conversation. if we have to hop on a zoom call, let me know. We'll make it happen.

Raymond Hatfield:

All right, let's go ahead and recap what we have learned today. Number one, define a book's blueprint. So having a solid plan for your photo book is going to help guide you, in your project to completion, right? So creating a blueprint should include things like choosing a theme, understanding the layout, and even deciding on the paper and image quality as well. So before you start a book, start by writing out the blueprint. Kind of a concept for a book that you would like to create and the key elements that you would like to include as well. Next embrace intentional photography. You should really be striving to build a deeper connection with your subject matter, because sure, we can take pretty photos, but like, what is it for, when we go deeper with our subject matter, You're going to create more intentional images, which is just going to really elevate the quality that, in them themselves. So try to spend more time understanding, what is the history? What is the context of your subject? Before photographing them. And lastly. Make a plan, but stay flexible. So whether you're planning a photo road trip, you're working on a long term photo project, keep a loose schedule, have a schedule, but allow room for, those spontaneous and kind of unexpected moments or, situations to pop up because I can tell you personally, sometimes your best shots come from those moments that are unplanned, that come from just exploring and being instinctive, yet intentional with your images. That is it. I would love for you to share your biggest takeaway in the beginner photography podcast community. Come join us today over at beginnerphotopod. com forward slash group. Until next week, remember the more that you shoot today, the better of a photographer you will be tomorrow. Talk soon.