Episode 16: Finding Balance in Creative Photography with Cami Turpin | Photographers Create Podcast
Summary
In this conversation, Alison and Cami discuss the balance between art and science in photography, the pressure to stay on brand, and the fear of trying new things. They emphasize the importance of embracing failure, letting go of control, and trusting the creative process. They also discuss the need for patience and self-acceptance in the journey of creativity. Overall, the conversation highlights the power of social media in providing validation and support, as well as the importance of finding balance in both photography and life. In this conversation, Alison Hatch and Cami Turpin discuss the importance of mental health, the stigma and misconceptions surrounding it, and the available support and resources. They emphasize the need for open conversations and understanding to create a supportive environment for those struggling with mental health issues. The conversation concludes with gratitude and appreciation for the opportunity to discuss this important topic.
Takeaways
Embrace failure and view it as a stepping stone towards growth and innovation.
Let go of the fear of trying new things and trust the creative process.
Find balance between personal work and business, allowing space for creativity and experimentation.
Don't be afraid to break free from the constraints of a brand and explore different tools and techniques in photography.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction and Cami's New Camera
02:15 The Power of Social Media and Validation
03:51 The Expensive Nature of Photography
06:30 The Balance Between Art and Science in Photography
09:38 Finding Balance in Photography
12:48 The Importance of Balance in Life
18:25 The Pressure to Stay on Brand
23:46 Letting Go and Embracing Failure
28:30 The Need for Space and Trust in the Creative Process
34:33 The Fear of Trying New Things
37:46 Embracing Failure and Working Hard
38:56 The Importance of Patience and Self-Acceptance
10:00 The Importance of Mental Health
20:00 Stigma and Misconceptions
30:00 Support and Resources
40:00 Conclusion and Gratitude
Alison Hatch (00:51)
go. Cami. so much for coming on. I am excited to talk to you It's been a while since we chatted and I love being in your creative energy I love it like you just lose creativity all the time So this is gonna be so much fun to talk with you all things
photography and creative everything. I just saw that you bought a big old ancient dinosaur of a camera. Yeah. Yes. And that looks like so much fun. Like just tell me what you're up to, my friend. Just tell us what you're doing.
Cami Turpin (01:17)
Yeah, large format camera. Yes.
Okay, let's see. I mean, it's funny that you bring up the large format camera. I actually bought it in the summer. I have had it for a really long time. I just barely took my first picture with it. So it is just such a bigger process than I ever expected it to be. You think you know a lot about photography and then you get into a different technology and you're like, oh, I actually know nothing. That's, you know, I really want.
Alison Hatch (01:54)
Yep, yep.
Cami Turpin (01:56)
I really love getting to know my cameras every time I get a new one and things like that, but this one just intimidated me so much. Every time I was like, today, today I'm going to take a picture. Then I'd find out I don't have half of the stuff I need. So then I would have to buy more things. I was like, film holders. I don't know why I thought, I don't know. There's just so, so much to learn. So that has been making me really excited. It was really amazing actually to just go through the process.
that day of finally taking a picture and deciding to develop it myself and scan it in myself and I didn't have everything I needed for that but I kind of did it anyway. Anyway the reason I'm bringing this up is I posted all my kind of journey just in my stories because I can't wait, you know, I can't wait to actually tell anybody anything. And the energy even that I just got from other people being excited about it with me was so amazing and it just
really...
drove me to even do more. And I know sometimes we really, we're kind of, you know, social media is hard and it can also be really rewarding. And I know we think, you know, don't ever get any kind of outside, you know, don't let outside validation really cause, or I don't know, deter you from creating in any way, but it also can be just this energy booster. It wasn't.
that I got a million likes or it wasn't anything like that, but just that I got to have the conversation with people who were just as excited. That was amazing. And I'm grateful for social media for that reason. Yeah, that was kind of a long spiel about that, but there you go. I've been excited about it.
Alison Hatch (03:36)
it? Well, first of all, I have never touched large format. Like that scares me to death. I don't know why. And maybe it's just like you, like I didn't have this and I didn't I didn't know I needed this. And you know what I mean? Like, but the picture. Oh my gosh. It was. It's lovely. It's absolutely lovely. Please put it in your feed there forever.
Cami Turpin (03:40)
Ha ha!
Yeah, it's... Thank you.
Alison Hatch (04:04)
Cause it was just, I don't know if you put it in your feed yet, cause I saw it on stories, but it needs to be in your feed for ever and ever. Cause it's just gorgeous. You have, I don't know if you guys know Cammie or follow her, but she has a fantastic teenage daughter that will let her mom take pictures whenever she wants of her. And it, it's, she's like your muse, I think. She's just always been your muse. And it was a beautiful, beautiful picture. It was just
gorgeous.
Cami Turpin (04:31)
Thank you. The reason I haven't put it in my feed yet is because the day I developed it, I had posted a Polaroid of the exact same thing that I just took after I took the large format. I was like, this is too pretty. I need to take a Polaroid. So at least I have it in case something happens to this. And I love the Polaroid too. It's really pretty. And so I just am like, well, now it has to wait for a little while. So I just couldn't, I told you, I'm very, couldn't wait.
Alison Hatch (04:49)
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, no, and you developed it yourself. I think side by side would be a really cool comparison though. But I get it. I get you're like my feed has to look a certain way and we're all like that. But you developed it yourself.
Cami Turpin (05:01)
to put them together.
Yes.
Yes. Yeah.
Well, it was mostly just that I posted it before. Yeah. Yes, I've done a lot of developing myself. I've done a lot of developing for myself just for 35 millimeter and 120 film, medium format film. But the reason this one took me so long is I needed a completely new tank. I was planning on just taking it to the find lab because they do a great job and most of my film goes to the find lab. But...
Alison Hatch (05:16)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Cami Turpin (05:40)
because I get to drive to them. It's very nice. That saves me some money. But I found out it was $8 to develop and $20 to scan. So we're talking about $28 per shot to take it to a lab. And I want this to be sustainable. I want to be able to do it. It's so expensive. So I just thought, I'm going to have to figure this out for myself so that I feel free to just do it as much as I want. Now.
Alison Hatch (05:57)
Yeah, Mercy, yes!
Cami Turpin (06:08)
I spent hundreds and hundreds of dollars just getting the equipment that I need. So it'll take me a while to actually catch up to how much I would have spent at the fine block. But that's okay. This is, you know, I think of this as an investment.
Alison Hatch (06:21)
If anybody, no one has ever said that photography is a cheap thing. I don't care if you shoot film or digital. And my friend, it's expensive all the way around. No matter where you're going with it, it is a very expensive. Maybe it's not cars or horses expensive, but it's expensive. So I did the same thing. I was like, oh, go ahead.
Cami Turpin (06:25)
No.
It absolutely was.
Right. Well then.
Oh, I was just gonna say, it's, you know, I say this a lot to my friends and to, I teach a workshop and I say this to my workshop people because we feel a lot of guilt, I think, about spending money on this thing, especially if it's a hobby. I do this for a business, but not with large format, obviously. So the thing is, like, when we spend a lot of money on our hobbies, I think, well, if I were in a pottery class and I was spending the money on that, would I
have the same sort of guilt?
If my husband buys himself a new TV and a game system, is he saying, how can I make money on this? Of course not. We are allowed to spend money on our hobbies and the things that we care about. So it really, I mean, I have turned a big corner there and yet at the same time, oh, it feels hard for every shot being that much. I can't spend $40 a shot. So developing myself it is.
Alison Hatch (07:26)
Good.
It's definitely gonna make you, yes, it's definitely gonna make you think about it before you press that shutter, when you already had that for film anyway, but you're like, okay, it's gotta, that might be hard. Like, that might be too much pressure, Cammie. Yikes.
Cami Turpin (07:44)
Yeah. Really slow.
I mean, this is the thing, it's really scary. I think this is why it took me six months. And I say it was scary and I'm like super anti-fear in creativity altogether, but still, I am, I'm a huge evangelist for letting go of fear, but I just feel like pushing that first picture, it had so, pushing the shutter for the first time, it felt so heavy, like you get one chance here. There's no sketch images, there's no like,
Alison Hatch (08:00)
Yes, you are. Yes.
Cami Turpin (08:19)
Oh, let me take a few and get into the groove. It was like, this is, this is going to be a shock. This, this has to be it. And there is a lot, there's going to be a different kind of picture that I take with that large format. You know what I mean? And I find that with every camera, there's a different kind of picture that I take. I mean, I, I also equally love, I don't know if equally, but I have a lot of toy cameras. So, you know, cameras that cost 10 to 40 dollars and I have zero control over theirs.
Alison Hatch (08:32)
Yeah.
Cami Turpin (08:49)
those. And so I find that yes, there's a different kind of picture I take with that, and I love them just as much. So I'm also about using the tools that are right for what you're trying to create. So I am not trying to recreate the things that I do with 35 millimeter or that I do with 120 on the large format. It's going to be a different kind of picture. And the reason I bought it in the first place was to eventually do tin types and wet plates.
Alison Hatch (09:03)
Yes.
Cami Turpin (09:19)
photography. So this is why I'm very excited because I feel like I'm drawn really, really into the tactile right now. That's I want and this is why I also developed. I want to have that experience of actually being with the film and really being invested in the process and all of that. It's a much slower process, but I feel like it's worth it. It took me all day to do that one photo, but I got so energized by that day and it was amazing.
Alison Hatch (09:20)
Uh huh, yes.
Okay.
Yeah. Well, that's what creativity is supposed to do for us. We're like tapping into that energy that the universe has. It's floating around, right? And we're all just as creatives trying to tap into that. So when you, and when you find it, it's such a drug. You're like, ooh, I need more of this. I need more of this. And how can I tap into it? And you're doing it through your different cameras and following where you need to go
tactile. I mean,
wet plate and tintype. Oh baby, that sounds so, so good. So good and so freaking scary to me at the same time because the stakes, yeah, get bigger, higher and higher and higher. And it's harder and harder to make the image and more and more and more expensive. And gosh, you got to become a chemist basically, Cammie.
Cami Turpin (10:39)
I know, and I think the chemistry actually was maybe the scariest part for me, starting even developing. I have a friend, Annamette Kaaf, she's in the photography world and I'm like, sometimes she takes pictures. Anyway, she came over to my house with all of her chemistry and everything and helped me develop the first role. And she's actually a chemist. She teaches, she's a chemistry professor at our local college.
I was like, yes, then I can kind of, and then I just saw her do it, and it's just measuring and pouring stuff, and it's not that scary. But you really do get super kind of stuck in your head about like, this isn't something that I do. I'm an artist, I'm not a chemist, I can't do this, but you know, I also really love a formula. Like I loved math as far as like, you know, algebra and things like that, because if somebody can give me something that says, do this, and I just get to do an order that makes me feel like,
Alison Hatch (11:12)
Yeah.
Cami Turpin (11:35)
sense of order. And so that's, I feel like that scientific part of photography, sometimes we ignore it, but it really balances out the sort of, I mean, and I'm talking even digital photography. We're doing a lot of math. We are, we are figuring out how compression works on different kinds of lenses. This is all science. And the more we know about that, the more we can use those creative tools. And I just think that's so cool that this is such a...
Alison Hatch (11:42)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Cami Turpin (12:04)
I don't know, right and left sided brain sort of moment. This is, this kind of art is so balanced and I'm like super into really getting kind of both sides of things and having that balance. And that's, I guess why I'm fine with a really cheap toy camera and also a really technologically advanced camera or a really old camera that's complicated. Cause I feel like that balances everything out, you know?
Alison Hatch (12:30)
Yeah.
So cool. I haven't thought about that. I have never had this thought, Cami. That's very profound to me that photography is a balance between the artist, the artistic side and the scientific side, because it is very true, especially when you're first learning. It's like aperture and ISO and numbers and numbers and measurements and all these things. And, and yeah. So how let's can we like just
take a little like detour over here. Balance, let's talk about balance. So if you're saying that you're like really into this balancing thing, tell me more. Tell me more about it. Like you have all of your different cameras that do different things for you, which I get as a film photographer, I think in the digital world, it's lenses and other things and you know, programs and whatever, which is awesome. But how are you, where are you finding this balance?
Cami Turpin (13:03)
Yeah. Let's do it. Thanks.
Alison Hatch (13:26)
Like tell me more.
Cami Turpin (13:28)
So I actually wrote a lot about this morning. In my, I do morning pages for anybody who does the artist way. And anyway, I feel like there's a balance in so many different places and we have to find it in all these different ways. One of the big ways that I first found balance in photography is personal work versus business. Sorry, that took me a minute to figure out money. The money part.
Alison Hatch (13:34)
Yeah.
Cami Turpin (13:58)
and the just art part, the part that is just for you. That was a big, it took me a long time to balance that out because I know especially if you're a family photographer, there's so much of it that we kind of shoot for ourselves. And then we expect our business to somehow fulfill the artistic side of ourselves. And sometimes it just can't. And we have to be able to sort of separate that or else we get too invested and we get burned out.
if that makes any kind of sense. That's what I have found. So in order to balance that portion out, I kind of quit taking clients altogether and I only do school portrait photography for money. And I also teach. So there is that aspect, which is a huge piece of it for me, but the things that I do for money do not kind of enter into my creative space. And that helped me specifically just because I really did. I kept getting caught up.
in this sort of like, I want this one thing to do everything. And it was too much. I got, I got burned out immediately. All of these negative emotions were getting pulled into my business that didn't need to be there. And then, and then into my personal work, which didn't need to be there. And it was just too much. So for me, this is the balance that I found all businesses, digital photography, school portraits. Nobody pays me anything unless they like their pictures. This feels very safe to me. Um,
So that's one way. But another way is I do a lot of really creative work that sometimes will take me, like I said, all day for one picture or sometimes a week for one picture, right, if I'm really digging in. But if I only did that, I would also, I think, burn out. So the toy camels, the play, the just I'm going to take this picture of my daughter playing the piano or.
Alison Hatch (15:44)
How interesting.
Cami Turpin (15:51)
My other one like up on the, you know, playing with her color-guarded flag outside. I'm gonna take all of those pictures, the cat in the window, whatever. If I have an inkling to take a picture, if I see something's beautiful, the millionth picture I take of the sunrise outside, I'm not gonna question it. I'm just gonna let myself play. I say to people, you know, when they say, I wish I could be... I just don't... I can't plan out every shot the way you do. And I'm going...
How long has it been since I posted or even done really a picture that I really planned out? 99% of my shooting is just instinct fun play and That way I balance out those days when I'm spending all day being really creative really hands-on that kind of stuff so That that has to be a balance too. There has to be
There has to be all of this, but it doesn't balance in the way. This is what I wrote about this morning. It doesn't balance in the way that you would think where I say, I'm going to spend this many hours on this and I'm going to spend this many hours on this. The balance comes from just trusting the natural rhythms. I, I am kind of one of those people that will work really, really hard and they get totally burned out and watch TV for like a week straight. Right. And that may sound crazy, but at the same time, like, why, why am I not letting myself rest?
Why am I not letting myself just have those kind of periods of really intense work and then really intense rest? I think that is something that I should stop questioning instead, lean into. And so that's the kind of balance that I'm thinking about right now is not just making sure there's a pie chart and every, in fact, there's in my planner, there's a pie chart I'm supposed to fill out. What does your pie chart look like right now? And what is, what do you want it to look like? And I it's been sitting there empty for a month.
And I realized that's because none of it, it doesn't work that way. Sometimes it'll all be one thing and sometimes it'll all be the other. Or if I say, I have to balance out this much time with my family and this much time with my work and this much time with my creativity, it doesn't work that way either because so much of my creativity involves my family. And so, you know, it doesn't, there's no lines there. And so the balance is really about trust. It's just about listening to yourself, feeling those natural rhythms. And I'm getting...
better and better at that, but it's scary sometimes. You know, in this world of Instagram where we think we have to be constantly creating and having something new. It feels scary when you're like, well, it's been a year. I haven't really created anything I'm excited about, but why not? You know, why not wait a year?
Alison Hatch (18:17)
Yeah, yeah.
No, I can see this. So after taking a couple of your classes, and especially in your PDF form, I can tell that you are just so, kind of analytical in a way of how you execute things. And I mean, it's so crammed with information and so thorough and amazing guys. If you haven't done anything with camera, you really definitely need to. But that you're needing to lean
into this.
flow, like whatever the flow is riding the wave of whatever needs to be is totally seems like on the opposite end of the spectrum for you naturally. But I get it. I totally get it. Like, but I never thought of balance and photography as like your creative, your creative side in your business side, because I have both. And my creativity last year, I was like, this is what I'm doing. My business sucks. Bye.
I totally just leaned into my creativity and made work for myself. And my business was in the toilet and I was okay with that. And now that this new year has come around, I'm like, okay, let's pick up the business again. And it's interesting these cycles that we go through as creatives. I grew up with a mom who's an artist and it's really easy to see her cycles.
of what she did and what she worked on and why she worked on it with this perspective. Her work changed and morphed over, you know, 30 years, 40 years, and it continues to do so. And she's so good at leaning into that. And I can see that in you too. Like what things you have worked on, what has really made you excited to do creatively. And it's changed over time. Like for a long time, you were into Polaroids and lots of emotions and all
awesome things you can do with Polaroids and it hasn't been coming around so much anymore. It hasn't!
Cami Turpin (22:09)
Oh, I see.
No, I still do it.
Alison Hatch (22:15)
That's okay! It's totally okay! I'm not sure if I'm gonna be able to do this again.
Cami Turpin (22:16)
It is okay. I think when we get... Okay, it's all this fear versus love based stuff. That's why I keep kind of going back to this fear thing. If we feel like, oh no, I haven't done an Emulsion Lift for a long time, but I'm supposed to be known for Polaroids or whatever and there's that panic about it, then I'm not just following the idea that I've got that tool.
Alison Hatch (22:28)
Yeah.
Cami Turpin (22:42)
and I can pull it out when I need it. And now I'm ready to learn a new tool and I'll be able to pull that one out when I need it. We don't have to stick to one thing. It's the idea that we have to niche down that I think really gets us stuck. But if you look at the masters, if you look at people like Sally Mann or Irving Penn, they don't stick to one thing. They're just like, and this time, I'm gonna take pictures of cigarette butts or I'm gonna make weird still lifes that look like faces out of fruit or I'm gonna take pictures of.
like wet plate landscape, and then this whole thing where I'm gonna only do teenagers. They don't care about, there wasn't this idea that you have to be one thing, I think. And of course, there's a lot of privilege in that as well, I admit, like people who are extremely successful or independently wealthy or have all the time in the world may feel a little bit more relaxed about, oh, I get to do whatever I want to because there are really no consequences. But this...
is the, this is tricky. But even if you are doing it in a different space where you do have to make money or you are concerned about, um, some sort of, you know, growing your following for some reason or educating or whatever. And so you need to kind of make the space for yourself. Still, if we can get into that space where nothing we do is wasted.
You can completely fail at something and it will still move you forward. Fail, I hate even calling it fail. But you don't have to succeed at everything you try. If we can get there, we're going to make our best work. We're going to get the most connection with people. And it just really is this kind of scary place to be in if you have more consequences. But nonetheless, I think we have to get there. You know what I mean? Maybe I'm not explaining that very well, but I really do feel like, yes.
Alison Hatch (24:12)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Cami Turpin (24:36)
When you went back to, I'm very analytical, let me kind of explain that. When I'm writing a class, I have to go backwards through, how did I get here? How do I create, say, a really symbolic portrait? And then I have to say, OK, let me break it down into steps and have a formula. The formula is really nice for falling back on when you get stuck. But whenever I teach this, if I teach a formula,
Then I say, learn the formula, use it when it's helpful, and then the rest of it is just letting go. I feel like I'm an entire year or two of completely letting go. I really worked hard on these really specific things, and now I just have to say, I've learned that. It will come to me. It will come to me when I'm ready for it, if I'm just open to it. So really, it's true. This is a big part of the balance, is...
having this really analytical side where there's a step-by-step process and then saying, I've done that work, now I just have to let go and trust myself. And that is hard to do. This is one of the reasons I do so much experimental photography is to practice completely having no control, just letting completely go. And that really brings everything kind of back around.
And also I feel like there was a hard left there in what I was talking about. I don't remember where we started.
Alison Hatch (26:02)
No, you made total sense. You made total sense. Like we live in a world where as a creative, and if you're wanting or needing to make money off of your creative endeavors, you have to have a brand and you have to stay on brand. Oh my gosh, Cammie, I did that. And after I like did this branding, I was like, oh gosh, I hate this. I hate being in a box. I don't want to be in a box. I want to be able to make whatever freaking work.
Cami Turpin (26:14)
That was... Yes.
Alison Hatch (26:32)
I want to make and yes, it is a privileged, definitely if you were in that place where you can. And I'm grateful that I have the space to be able to do that. But then the same time I feel this pressure that my creativity needs to make money. You were saying like, you know, you spent all this money to develop your film with your large format camera, but, and so you feel like you need to be making money off of it somehow, but at the same time, why? Like you don't need to.
Cami Turpin (26:33)
Yes.
Mm-hmm.
Alison Hatch (27:01)
It's a hobby. You make money doing something else. You do school portraits. So it's this balance of, yeah, like where you are at the moment, where you feel like your creativity needs to take you and not being afraid to follow that instead of like, oh, no, I have to post it this way. It has to look this way and I have to make this kind of work because that's what I know for it. My clients expect this of me and blah, instead of following that
Cami Turpin (27:08)
guys.
Alison Hatch (27:27)
creativity flow wherever it needs to take you and the energy it needs to take you and not being scared of it. That's exactly what you said and it was beautiful. You did it very well. You did not take a hard left. It was great. Yes, we are.
Cami Turpin (27:35)
Okay. And I remember now where it came. Yes, because that's what it is. I'm like, I remember where it came from. But that really is it, is that we have to feel, it almost feels like doing the opposite of what we're supposed to do, but that's going to grow our business. I mean, I kind of joke that my brand, the brand that I get to lean into is like, try everything. Lucky me. I get to be a spaz for, you know, as my brand. But it really is kind of...
Alison Hatch (27:56)
Haha, yeah!
Cami Turpin (28:04)
I don't know. I read in Rick Rubin's book this morning, the creative act. Oh no, is that no way of being? Oh no, I have forgotten what it's called.
Alison Hatch (28:13)
It's called the creative act away of being because I just read it too. Yes, yes.
Cami Turpin (28:17)
Okay, so, and in it, he said he was talking about the chapter I read today was talking about the beginner's mind. And it was basically saying, if you can get into this space where you forget all of the rules you've learned, that's when you allow yourself to innovate. It's almost, you know, we kind of look down, I think sometimes, or at least I know people who do, I don't. Look down upon kind of beginners and say...
Oh, they're not quite doing it right. Or, you know, the camera bros, they'll be like, you're not using this tool correctly or whatever. But this is the space where we really innovate, where we really push boundaries because we don't know there are rules to break yet. And that's kind of the idea that I'm getting at is, you have to, it's really awesome if you know all the rules and all the technical stuff and all the chemistry and all the everything, because you can use it, but you have to somehow.
Get your mind out of that and say, but what else is possible? Like, what if I didn't care about any of that? What if I pushed this camera to its limits and just tried something that shouldn't work? It shouldn't work, but I'm gonna try it anyway. And you have to let go of all of this. This is gonna cost money. This is a lot of time and energy, and I may get absolutely nothing out of it. Because just the joy of trying it is enough.
but you still usually get somewhere else. And all of that creative energy goes into building your business or goes into helping you kind of let go in your, you know, in those other spaces. You know, there really is, it all kind of comes around. And it's hard to let ourselves get into that space, but it's imperative that we figure out how to do it, however we can. I mean, at least to me, because it's also a way of getting rid of that fear.
If we don't have to succeed, then what would we try? Like so many things, you know? It's kind of a really hard thing. So.
Alison Hatch (30:15)
Yeah.
love that. Yeah, it's an awesome mindset if you can get there. It's definitely something that takes practice. When I started doing my creative work and started working with Phil more and more, I had to be okay with failing. And in business, I learned I have to be okay with failing. And failing isn't a dirty word. Failing is a path. It's just another step
along the path.
of where you need to go. I feel like we're so scared of our failures and we hide them and embarrassed by them. And I don't think we should. And you're so good at posting stuff that does not turn out. And it's awesome. I love it. You are the queen of it. If you're like, I love this fail, it's awesome. And it looks so cool. And it's just, I love that you're willing to do that.
Cami Turpin (30:59)
Yeah, I love it. It's my favourite thing.
Well-
Yeah, and sometimes I do look cool. And sometimes I already look cool. You know what I mean? So the thing about it is this is another time when we have to be scientists instead of artists. Because in science, a failure is, like people get excited about failures. You know, they say, all right, I'm gonna try this. Okay, that didn't fail. Check that off. I mean, that failed, check it off. Like now I get to try the next thing. It is part of the process. You expect to fail in science.
Alison Hatch (31:18)
Yeah.
Oh.
Cami Turpin (31:42)
We do not expect to fail for some reason in photography. And not just any art is that way. It's photography specifically, I think. I mean, I may be kind of wrong, but I guess as a writer, because that's what I actually went to school for. But as a writer, I expect to have rough drafts. I expect to work on something, one thing, for a long time, and get it a little bit better each time. Never be perfect, but it's gonna get a little bit better each time.
But for some reason in photography, because it's this one instantaneous thing, we think I have to do it one time
and I have to do it right this time. We don't allow ourselves the rough drafts. We don't realize. I mean, I think there used to be more. There used to be more of this that were allowed rough drafts, but for some reason digital photography for some reason makes it even more difficult to have rough drafts because you get immediate feedback. You expect, I don't know.
Maybe I'm thinking of that wrong, but I look at my old photography books and you see, like, they did a whole roll of film for one shot, you know? So they have...
Alison Hatch (32:40)
Noah.
Yeah, yeah. I totally agree with you. I feel like, yes, because things have started rolling so fast, right? Like our world has gotten faster and faster. You were talking about some of the photography greats. That was back in the day. That was back before digital. That was back before a fast, like instant culture and throw away culture. What am I trying to say? Yes, yes. And I think that...
Cami Turpin (33:08)
decades of work.
Alison Hatch (33:13)
we just move like that instead of having this space in between creating and finishing, right? Like there isn't as much space, it's so much smaller now. And in digital, yeah, it shows up faster, but I feel like.
Cami Turpin (33:26)
So that feeds into the faster approach, I guess. But you can be constantly creating. Yes, get it done. Post it this day. Like people who do 365 and they take a picture and they edit it and they post it that day. That feels completely unsustainable to me. Like, wow. I mean, if you do it on film. Yes, or self-portraits. This is another one. I could not take self-portraits until I was shooting film.
Alison Hatch (33:30)
Faster. Yes, get it done.
Yes!
I tried it. I lasted like a week. Nope, I hated it. It was awful. I need that. I need that space.
Cami Turpin (33:55)
because I had like a week before I saw it or more. And there's so much like, I don't know, we need that time to process. And I don't know, we are moving too quickly. We don't have a lot of time to linger. We don't let ourselves have space to just say, that was really hard work what I just did and now I need some time off. And I think I touched on this earlier. We get into a panic, like if I put down my camera, maybe I'll never pick it up again.
Alison Hatch (34:00)
Mm-hmm.
Cami Turpin (34:26)
And one of the things that I try to tell my students in my, I hate to call them students, the participants of my workshop are, is that who cares? If you, and this again, very scary. If you put down your camera and you never pick it up again, that means it's served its purpose. And you'll come back to it if you need it. And that is, it is scary when we put so much of ourselves into it, but I'm a huge reader.
I love reading and right now I don't read very much and I'm not in any kind of panic that I'm gonna somehow lose the ability to read or love it or any of those things. I know it'll come back or I crochet sometimes and I will crochet like a mad woman for like a year and a half and then I'll put it down and not pick it up again for five years. Never once have I said, oh no, if I put down this crochet hook, I will never pick it up again. They're just...
either it's social media or just the fast pace of everything, we really do feel like I have to stick with this one thing. I mean, I even look at my journals through the years, and the way that I have recorded my life or my feelings or anything like that, that has moved through like 10 iterations. And never once have I said, oh no, I'm not being consistent with the way that I'm journaling. I'm just using the tools that make sense. But because photography is so...
I think we just don't give ourselves that same grace period and that same rhythm. We don't trust that. But I mean, it really is kind of one of those things. You have to be willing to be able to say, if I put down my camera, I may never pick it up again and that will be okay. And if you can get to that space, that's one of the ways of banishing fear, I guess. That gets you to a better place to be able to create. So, again.
Alison Hatch (36:21)
Amen. You said it all. No, you said it so well. No, you did. Amen. Amen to all of things that you said because creativity is letting go. Film is letting go. The more you can let go. And I visualize it as partnering with the creative process and the creative energy and inviting in the unknown and letting go of control and just allowing
Cami Turpin (36:21)
That went all over. It makes sense to me.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Alison Hatch (36:49)
what the creative process needs to do through me and through my medium. And yes, if you have a business, and yes, if you're posting on social media, it puts this pressure on you to produce, produce. Like you've got to post this video times a day. You got to be seen. And we all want that feedback. I mean, you talked about it in the beginning, how you got such great feedback from your large format portrait of your daughter. And it was so energizing to you. And we love that community. And we want our work to be seen because we're proud of it.
And unfortunately, stinking social media is the way to do it anymore. And it just puts a lot of pressure on us. And if you can even let go of that, I mean, the sky's the limit with what you can create, the more you let go, the higher you can fly. Like and I you're definitely the person to do that because you've done so much of it. You've like not followed rules. You've broken all the like you've done all these different kinds of cameras, all these different kinds of film. You did family photography and I do school portraits for your business. Like you've done a lot of stuff, my friend.
Cami Turpin (37:32)
It's true.
Alison Hatch (37:48)
and you teach and like you do and but you're not scared. Like I can totally tell that you're not scared to try anything, which I love.
Cami Turpin (37:49)
Ha!
Yeah, I don't think I am. Like I said, I get nervous, I guess. I did get kind of intimidated. I'll put it that way by that large format camera. And the anything, anytime I try something new, I do get intimidated, but my curiosity and my excitement about the thing is so much greater than any amount of fear that I have. And that's really all that it has to be. It's kind of like you have to say to yourself,
you have to kind of change it in your mind and say, I'm going to give myself the gift of working really hard on this thing, rather than, oh, I'm going to have to work really hard on this thing. It really is just that little shift in your brain. And then it's like, sometimes when people are afraid of trying, so for example, um, what do you call it? Uh, blind doubles, you know, just take a bunch of pictures, reload your film, shoot over it. Who knows what's going to happen? I say like, how much is this going to be? 20 bucks?
take a $20 bill and like crumple it up and throw it in the garbage. Like, how did that feel? Is your life over? Like it's, how much are you willing to give? Maybe you just give yourself a budget. I love giving myself a budget. I love being able to say, like, I care this much about this thing. I am willing to spend this much money. I am willing to spend this much time because I'm excited to do this thing. And if I have that sort of contract in my head ahead of the game, then I don't, I stop thinking about it.
And I know that sounds, again, it's from a place of privilege that I could take a $20 bill and throw it away. But at the same time, if you have $20 that you could spend on whatever, on Netflix for two months, do you care enough to try this thing? I think it's really empowering to do that. Like, allow yourself, give yourself the gift of this experimentation. You know what I mean? It really, it really puts you into a new space. I feel like I had a thing.
Alison Hatch (39:49)
Yeah.
Cami Turpin (39:55)
I have all these, I should take notes while you're talking. Cause there was something you said. Ooh, I want to say that. And now I can't
remember. It'll come back.
Alison Hatch (40:04)
Well, this was awesome. This was so great. Like we started with like an actual tangible technical thing and like just like exploded into the creative process, which just makes me so freaking happy and excited. And now I wanna go try something new. Like, I don't know what yet, but try something new. I love it. Thank you so much.
Cami Turpin (40:10)
Bye.
Yeah, I should have said like the main thing, the main thing I want to say is just like, quit being scared of stuff because it's fun. You know, it's, it really is. I think I just, yes, play and love what you do and also work hard, but like give yourself that gift of working hard. Don't be afraid of it. Let it, let it in. You know what I'm saying? Let the failure in. It's always it's just the best, honestly. I know, I know it feels like that's the For sure.
Alison Hatch (40:26)
Yeah, we play.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I love it. I know I seriously do because failure. I did a podcast a little while ago about failure because I was sitting in it. My friend, I was like just steeped in failure all over the place and it was a mindset like shift. I had to shift my mindset around what had happened and where I was and it like have it be my journey. Like this is my journey
Cami Turpin (40:56)
Yeah.
Alison Hatch (41:11)
and I'm going to learn from it.
embrace what it gave to me because it did. It gave me things. It didn't, wasn't just all yucky. It was, it gave me a lot. Yeah. And like moving through it. And I just, I think we should talk about failure more. So thank you so much for this conversation about creativity and failure and fear. It was so wonderful.
Cami Turpin (41:31)
Absolutely. And patience. Patience. Everybody have patience with yourself and give yourself a big hug.
Alison Hatch (41:36)
Yes, yes, yes. Thank you so much, Cammie. I will be posting all the links of how people can find you. And thank you, thank you, thank you for being my friend and being on here. I just adore the heck out of you.
Cami Turpin (41:39)
Thank you.
Oh,
