Lens Legacy: Kyle Sparks Unveils His Epic Odyssey from Yearbook Dreams to Patagonia Peaks.

Embark on a captivating journey in our latest episode as we dive into the incredible story of photographer and editor Kyle Sparks. From his humble beginnings in high school yearbook photography to conquering the challenges of breaking into the industry, Kyle shares the twists and turns that led him to his dream job.

Join us as we explore Kyle's relentless pursuit of his passion, attending the renowned Brooks Institute and persistently submitting photos to Patagonia for over a decade. Discover the setbacks he faced, including a rock climbing mishap right after landing his dream role, and the inspiring resilience that fueled his journey.

This isn't just a podcast; it's an intimate conversation about overcoming obstacles, following your passions, and achieving the extraordinary. Tune in now for an episode that proves dreams are worth chasing.

Transcript

Hello, everyone. Thank you for being here. You're listening to your photography podcast.

I'LL BE YOUR HOST, Adam PHILLIPS. I'm an active lifestyle and commercial business photographer and videographer with over 16 years of experience. And while I may have a good knowledge base for creating images and video, everyone has a unique perspective on creating still and motion pictures and the do's and don'ts of operating a business.

That's why I created your photography podcast so that we can make a space for learning and growing a community. Whether you're just starting to find your eye in photography or you are a seasoned professional, there will always be something here for you. HEY, EVERYONE.

I am super excited for today's guest on your photography podcast. I have Kyle Sparks. He has been doing photography since 1999, and we're just kind of going to go through some of the questions that I usually ask most guests and kind of go from there and get to know him and why I'm having him on here.

COOL. YEAH. Thanks, Adam.

So one of the first questions I ask you and most guests I have here is what they enjoy most about photography. Yeah, I think what I enjoy most about photography is a connection I'm able to make with folks while I'm creating pictures of them. I also really enjoy coming up with an idea for a photo, then getting together a few people to bring that image to life.

So whether that's like pre conceptualizing something like the night before or with a group of folks on a creative team, and then bringing that image, being able to light or go to the right location or time of day, whatever it happens to be to make that happen, I really like that process of photography. SWEET. I guess the next question I've got here is, how long have you been doing photography, and how did you get started at photography? Yeah, so I've been actively shooting photos since 1999, when I bought an underwater camera with my first paycheck from a lifeguard job.

I think it was like an aqua something. It was like a point and shoot 35 millimeter camera that had a little flash on it that came in a housing that was more of like, a scuba diving camera, but I used it for surf stuff because I wanted to start shooting that, and it was a lot less expensive than dropping into a legitimate surf housing because those were quite a bit more. Yeah.

So, yeah, I started using that. Then I started shooting photos for my high school yearbook, or, like, the yearbook class. And then in 2004, I enrolled at the Brooks Institute of Photography, which at the time was in Santa Barbara and Ventura, California.

While at Brooks, I was in the visual journalism program, focusing on shooting mostly outdoor sports, like surfing, rock climbing, and then a ton of portraits. And then in addition to studying at Brooks, I also worked at a photo studio in Camarillo, shooting school portraits, which gave me a lot of experience in dialing and lighting and working with people, because we photographed around 100 folks a day between three photographers. So it was like, roughly like 30 folks per day per person.

So the sessions were quick, and we were just kind of, like, hustling through things. So, yeah, I got a lot of experience there, the studio. And working at the studio and attending Brooks allowed me to really experiment with my photography and push things in new directions, especially from a technical standpoint.

Brooks was very hands on, and it allowed me to try out all kinds of different equipment, which would allow me to create images that I wouldn't have been able to create without that specific sort of equipment. So, I don't know. The best example I can give is having access to a 600 millimeter lens all the time was pretty epic for being able to shoot surfing stuff, because if you want to shoot long lens and you don't have that, you kind of can't make those types of photos.

So, yeah, Brooks was really good about being able to just run over to checkout and grab whatever kind of equipment you wanted to. That's really cool. Yeah.

And then while I was at Brooks, as I said earlier, it was super hands on, but something I kind of took upon myself was to really study the gear, and I was super nerdy and still am and read all the manuals a couple of times before taking the piece of equipment out, because that allows me to then purely focus on the creativity versus the technical side of the piece of gear or the equipment. When I'm on set, I can just focus on how to use that thing to create the type of image that I want versus, like, oh, what does this button do? Again? That sort of stuff. So, yeah, knowing really helped out.

So, yeah, that was kind of Brooks. And then after graduating from Brooks in 2007, I went over to the Patagonia office here in Ventura, California, to pass off my portfolio, which I had at the time on, like, a custom printed CD, which kind of tells you the era that we were living in at that time. And when I went to the Patagonia headquarters, I ran into my old neighbor, who at the time was leading this building called the Forge, which is kind of like their AR D center.

And I was like, hey, could you introduce me to anybody on the photo team? I'd be super interested to talk to them because I want to drop off a portfolio and see what I can do with starting to shoot photos for them. So my old neighbor took me up to this building on campus known as the Crystal palace, and I was immediately taken aback by all the incredible black and white photos of early Patagonia days and some really amazing images of Yosemite by photographer named Glenn Denny that were just all around the building space. It was just so cool to see big prints beautifully displayed in this room.

So I was just totally in awe, like, walking into the room and then went up the stairs and then met Jane Seavert, who at the time was leading the photo team and was personally responsible for launching more photographers careers than she can count within the outdoor industry. She's like a huge force within outdoor sports and launching careers of people like Jimmy Chin, Ben Moon, Corey Rich. Like, all three of those folks, I think Jane published them first.

So that was pretty incredible space for her. So, yeah, I started talking with Jane, and she was reviewing some images from a trip that Dustin Humphrey and a bunch of the Patagonian ambassadors went on to Iceland to go shoot some surf stuff. So it was like, Dustin at the time was like, one of my photographer I looked up to a lot just because I really liked his style.

And then shooting with all these folks kind of like from in and around the Ventura area, I was just like, whoa, this is so what, what an amazing job. You, how, how fun is like, just to be able to talk with people, hear the stories about the trips, and then look at amazing photography. So during that conversation, I let her know that I was heading to Patagonia, the region, in a couple of days to lead a photo tour and to do a little bit of hiking around and photographing of some of the mountains down there.

I was like, yeah, if you need anything from the area, I'm super psyched to shoot some photos. And she gave me some advice, which still kind of plays to this day at Patagonia of sort of their photo standards. And it was like dirt humor using natural light photojournalist approach, authenticity being like the big one, being true to the sport and not faking any of the photos.

So those kind of tenets, I guess, really speak to the photo department and the type of imagery that we're looking for at Patagonia, it just has to be very authentic and true to the sport from the athletes perspective. It's kind of what they were looking for at the time and what we're looking for today still. So, yeah, I left the meeting with Jane, wanting to somehow work my way into being on the photo team.

And a couple weeks after that, I returned from my trip to Patagonia, sent Jane all the photos that I had shot, and then a few days later, I got an email from her saying are like, thanks for thinking of us and shooting photos. We're going to pass on all these images because we don't need them at this time. So I was a little bit dejected, but knew that that's all part of it.

She said, keep at it. Send in more submissions. So basically, for the next ten years, I started focusing solely on Patagonia, shooting photos for them as much as I could, and eventually started to get published on a regular basis and started to work with the photo team on a more regular basis, like shooting specific projects, and then worked as a vigilant merchandiser here in the retail store in Ventura for a couple of years to kind of get in with the brand a little bit, and then switched over to the photo team working as an archivist because I had some experience in digital asset management systems and a bunch of nerdy computer stuff.

So I kind of like bounced from doing the merchandising side of things on more of a retail level to arch this sort of thing. And then a couple years into the archive job, a photo editor position opened up to backfill for Jane because she was going to start working remotely and working on the books and provisions project. So I interviewed for that position and landed it, which was a huge accomplishment because now I was at the time editing for the climb trail run and bass layer categories is what I got hired in for.

So I was super psyched to be kind of in Jane's shoes. I was like, whoa, I'm doing the thing. I'm working on all those categories.

And then like a month into that role, I was on a climbing around in the Santa Monica Mountains with a buddy and I fell and broke my foot. And then I was like, oh, this is pretty fitting. Like, new climb editor starts immediately breaks himself off climbing.

So I spent the next three months with my foot in a boot up on Jane's old desk, or we had met ten years prior, and I was like, this is kind of fitting. It was a funny experience. Yeah, that's cool.

Yeah. Wow. So when you first approached them, did you think that you were going to try and go for a job at Patagonia or were you just trying to be more of a photographer that submitted images? Mean, I knew pretty much immediately after leaving that meeting that I wanted to work? Yeah.

And like, even while I was at, like, I knew that I can shoot photos and I'm like a decent photographer, but I know there are people out there that are more talented or hungrier or can tell stories in a better way using photography than I could. And I wanted to work with those people to elevate their storytelling. So I've wanted to be an editor for quite a long time.

And I also really like the consistency of it and being kind of in one place, not traveling all the time. Because while I did that earlier in my career and really enjoyed it, it is a little bit of a burnout. And I really enjoy the collaboration that I get while working at Patagonia versus being on the outside as a contributing photographer.

No, I like that. That's cool. Yeah.

Do you have a favorite lens or look? Yeah, if I had to pick one, which is pretty difficult to do, I'd probably go with the Canon RF 51.2. The 50 millimeter lens is great in low light. It's a little bit bigger than the Canon's EF 1.2,

which I shot on for many years. So the front element is a little bit bigger and it's just heavier overall, but still, it's a great lens. The 50 on a full theorem 35 sensor is pretty close to the human eye.

So it's like a really versatile focal length. And then something that I like to do personally with that lens is to try and create a wide, a medium, a telephoto, and a detail feeling image of every scene that I go to without changing it. So that's getting up in really close for detail, backing up quite a bit for a wide or overall establishing shot, maybe shooting at a really wide aperture to have a more telephoto look.

So, yeah, that's something I really enjoy about that lens is it kind of lets you cover all your bases. But with that being said, I don't go to any photo project without the same four lenses that I've been bringing around for the last 20 years, which is like 15 to 35, a 5100 macro, and then a 70 to 200. I think with that kind of kit, I can basically shoot everything I need to.

Unless it's like something super specific, like shooting surfing from the beach, or, I don't know, shooting like a really specific climbing image on like 300 or something like that. But, yeah, those four lenses, I can kind of get everything I need to. Nice.

You have a favorite project that you've worked on, or a recent project that you're stoked about? Yeah, I think my favorite project that I've worked on was creating imagery for Patagonia's Family Business book, which came out in 2016. The project originally was going to be a small photo book for someone that was retiring from the Great Pacific Child develop. Sorry, the Great Pacific Child Care Development center, which is the acronym, is GPCDC.

And it's basically Patagonia's onsite Childcare Center. So, yeah, this woman was retiring from GPCDC. She had been there for, started it and had been there for 30 years.

However, instead of just making this small photo book, Melinda Shannard and Jennifer Ridgway decided to turn it into a massive 400 page, full color photo book, which actually, there happens to be one in this conference room sitting right over there, which is kind of funny. This detailed, insightful book illustrates why providing onsite child care to working families is at the reheart of responsible business today. It's a story of how one corporation provides support for working families and preserve the courage and ingenuity that begins in early childhood.

It was truly an honor to work directly with Melinda and Jennifer, and I learned a ton of valuable lessons about photography and just life in general on this project. Jennifer is super close friends with Melinda, who's Yvonne's wife. Obviously.

Yvonne started Patagonia. Melinda's been around the whole time. And then Jennifer came on really early on in the program as well and helped found the marketing department.

And then she was also instrumental in defining Patagonia's photographic style of the kind of like, the unexpected sort of look and feel to our photographs. So being able to work directly with her on something was truly valuable experience for me, because there's no one else in the industry that has seen more of it, I guess, than her. So when I was shooting photos for that project, I knew that I was like, oh, man, Jennifer Richway is going to be looking at these photos later today.

I better do a good job. So it definitely was motivating for me to photograph to the best of my abilities. And it was like, of a subject matter that I didn't really expect that would be something I would cover, because it was like photographing my coworkers, kids at the daycare centers, going through different developmental milestones, and having them spending time with all the kids for the different activities that they were doing, like creative play and painting things and going to the beach or something like that.

It was just a totally different experience to kind of drop into the world of little kids and document that whole thing. It was really cool. And because we worked on the project for so long.

We got to see a lot of the kids grow up during the project, which was super neat to be there for the first time that a child rolled over to taking the photos of the first time that kid took steps. It was so cool to see that happen. That's way cool.

Yeah, it was really exciting. And then there was just some other things within the book I was able to photograph. The CEO at the time, Rose McCarrio, Chris Tompkins, and Melinda together, all for one photo that Jennifer helped sort of produce and set up.

And there was just like, I knew I was going to have maybe ten minutes with all three of those folks to make a good photo. So. Okay, pressure is on.

Don't mess it up. Lighting, everything was dialed. I think I had four cameras that were all set up to the exact same camera settings, all right, next to each other, just in case something went down, which, in that situation, nothing did, and it was totally fine.

But I know just from past experience, had I showed up to that with one camera, one lens, something would have broken and I would have been kind of screwed on the shoot. But, yeah, proper preparation prevents poor. Yeah, that project was pretty instrumental one for me, and we worked on it for a year and a half or so, and then the book ended up coming out along with Patagonia, produced a catalog around kind of the book launch, and did, like, a mini takedown of the book within the catalog, and they had an image on the COVID of that, which was, again, just like, I was totally blown away because I thought for sure it would have been, like, a surfing and climbing image of mine that ended up on a cover, but it did make me kind of, like, embrace the unexpected and what could happen.

So, yeah, it was really cool to. That was a super fun project. That's way cool.

Yeah, I guess that kind of goes into the next question I got here is your favorite subject to photograph. Yeah, I think for me right now, portraits are and have been my favorite thing to photograph. I really like being able to, again, connect with people.

That's a super important part of photography to me, is that connection you make with the subject. So I started working on a portrait series called the Black Background Project. I started that, like, 13 years ago.

And basically, I have a foldable, I think it's a five X seven foot black background that I picked up at BNH long time ago when I was living out on the East Coast. And what I'll do is I'll just set that behind a subject and create some kind of tighter shots. Of their face and some more, slightly more pulled back, kind of like three quarter portraits of people after we go out and do some sort of activity like surfing or climbing or road riding or mountain biking, whatever it happens to be.

So currently for the project, I've photographed, like, big wall climbers in Yosemite, surfers in Mexico and the Maldives, cyclists in New Jersey, whitewater rafters in Maine, trail runners in California, and everything kind of in between. And that list of subjects and locations kind of keeps growing. At last count, I think I have about 150 people for the project.

And eventually I'm going to try and make it into a book, but there's no end date. It's just kind of like an ongoing thing. So after every bigger trip that I go on, I'll try and make a few portraits of folks after the day.

I think for that project, the most recent stuff I shot was up in Whistler this summer after a day of riding at the bike park, and everybody's super dirty and big smiles on their face and cuts on their elbows or whatever. And those are the types of portraits that I really like. Again, it just goes back to that authenticity sort of thing, and it's all naturally lit, just with a little reflector kind of catch light for their eyes.

But, yeah, just pretty basic portrait, but it's just kind of a cool thing to see over time. And a couple people have ended up in a few different portraits. Like a friend of mine I photograph after we climbed a wall in Yosemite.

And then I know I photographed that same person after a big mountain bike ride one day. So it's kind of cool to see the same person pop up a few different. That's fun.

Yeah. Okay, I guess that answers that question. So if you could change anything about the photography field or industry, what might that be? If I could change anything about the photo industry, I'd probably pump a bunch of funds and energy back into magazines.

Social media is fine. I know I'm active on it, and a lot of other folks are, too. But it doesn't compare to the anticipation of getting a magazine in the mail every month.

Many outdoor sports magazines are gone, like crowns, World Surf, bike, surfer, surfing, beta powder, nachio, adventure. Like all those magazines that were so instrumental and kind of like my photographic development all don't exist anymore. And that's a super huge loss for the industry.

I have vivid memories of cutting images out of surf magazines when I was growing up and putting them on my wall. And that whole process is gone because of the downturn of print and sort of the rise in social media. It reminded me of my buddy who took the glue stick, your old glue stick, and he glued the back of the pages.

I think it was Transworld Skate and stuff, but his whole wall was like skateboarding. So it reminded me. I'm like, yeah, I mean, I definitely had, like, a poster board of specific to Ventura and Santa Barbara county images or, like, surf images on, my know, in middle school or high school or.

Yeah, I guess even back then I was kind of editing to some degree because I was like, oh, it's got to be from this specific area to make it up onto the wall. So that was kind of fun. That's cool.

But, yeah. Social media has made photography kind of monotonous because instead of seeing, like, 96 pages of a specific sport in a monthly magazine, you can now open your phone and see truly unlimited amounts of photos, which is kind of like mind bending. So I find it difficult to really recall the last image I saw on social media, but I know exactly what was on the COVID of the 2003 Surfer magazine.

So it's like, oh, yeah, it was shot of Dan surfing here in Ventura. Beautiful, light, really cool wave, shot with a flash, kind of like new stuff for that era. And that's just an image like that has so much more lasting power because you see it in a prominent placement in the COVID of a magazine versus just like a tiny two X Two box on my phone while I'm waiting in line to check out at the grocery store or something.

Another example that I kind of point back to of the power of photography is there is a Surfer magazine cover from February of 2001 of Laird Hamilton on the, quote, millennium Wave. It was a wave he rode at Chopu in Tahiti. And it was super iconic moment for the sport.

Several magazines ran a very similar photo, just like from a couple different photographers that run boats. And those images appeared on covers. All of the magazines, posters for his movie, it's been in books.

It's a pretty iconic photo, and everybody that was following surfing during that time knows exactly which photo they're talking about and can kind of transport themselves back to seeing that image. And whAt's crazy is since then, because that was more than 20 years ago now, way crazier waves have been written into Ed and elsewhere around the world, but you're seeing it basically from the channel now. Like, images are being uploaded to people's cell phones or even being shot with a cell phone straight to the Internet.

And instead of seeing two or three photos from the one really big wave that came through. You're seeing 100 photos of all sorts of different waves that people are riding every single swell. So it's just like, we're just inundated with so much photography.

So I feel like everyone's kind of, like, just a little bit numb to it at this point. Yeah, it's kind of crazy. I can see that, definitely.

And it's something that I don't think I really ever thought too much on until you're saying it. And it's true. It's a little sad, but we don't appreciate an image as much as maybe we used to.

Yeah, no doubt. I don't know. I still really like print in any sort of form.

And magazines especially. There's a couple of magazines I still subscribe to, like Surfers Journal or freeHub magazines, Matt Bike magazine. And I go through every single one of those every single time.

They come out cover to cover and look at all the photography, see who's shooting photos, see what stories are out there. It's just like, I really like to be able to spend that time because when people, it takes a lot of work to put something like that together. So if that many people got behind those stories and those images, it's worth looking at and worth spending some time with.

It's not to say that, like, I don't spend time with images that I see on social, but again, it's just like, the amount that you can see there and the amount of stories that you can uncover on Instagram or something, there's just too many. It just all kind of becomes noise after a while. No, I definitely agree with that.

I have one photo that I had published in the last year in Powder magazine. The last year that powder ran. Any issues? Maybe the second to last.

Second to last, anyway. But I was picking up some magazines in the grocery store once and my wife was like, what are you doing? I'm like, they're fun to look at. It's fun to see the stories and stuff.

Yeah. I mean, every time I get on a plane going anywhere, I always make sure to have at least one or two magazines because I don't like being on my phone in airports and I like being looking at holding something. It's the more tactile experience and flipping through a magazine while you're waiting for your flight or something.

Yeah. Goals for photography or life. Yeah, I mean, that's pretty heavy one.

But I think it would be super awesome to somehow land the COVID of Surfers Journal or be featured in one of their portfolio pieces. I mean, I touched on this a bit earlier. The Surfer's Journal is definitely my favorite magazine out there right now and has been for a very long time.

I think the quality of photography and the photographers that they're working with and the storytelling that they're able to do is just like, at such a high level. So, yeah, being included in something like that would be pretty inspiring. I'm not shooting nearly enough surfing right now to have something like that featured, but I do have aspirations of firing that up again and, like, okay, like, maybe I can kind of get back out there and start working on a bit more specific project to accomplish something like that.

That'd be cool. Yeah. Do you have any tips or advice for anyone beginning in photography or wanting to start a photography career? For sure? Yeah, like my current role at Patagonia.

Like I said, I'm a photo editor, so I'm working with photographers every single day and sort of like, helping them with their edits, helping them pitch stories to our creative team, putting assignments together for them, that sort of thing. So there's, I guess, not so much advice, but it's more just like working with people a lot. And I kind of give the same sort of guidance, I guess, to everyone, whether they're quite new to the photo business, because a lot of the folks that I've worked with have been like, people deep in sport, like, say, climbers is a big one.

And specifically in Yosemite, like on the Yosemite Search and Rescue team, there are a bunch of folks that have been part of that program that were out there climbing all the time, shooting photos of life in the valley, which is perfect for Patagonia. And we're like, oh, yeah, those are the types of things that we want, but they're just like a bunch of rock climbers and maybe don't have the technical skills or something. So whatever they were sort of lacking, I'd kind of help in where I could if it was from a technical standpoint or more about the business or something, but just kind of like working with them to develop their skill set and develop their craft.

And now a couple of those folks are getting published with us all the time or have gone on to shoot for other brands and are telling stories in cool places. And it's like, oh, sweet. When I first met that person, they were just like, oh, yeah, I got like a camera.

Yeah, that's kind of it. But they were just in such cool places and doing these amazing things that the imagery was going to be there. They just had to maybe dial it in a bit.

So kind of some random advice in no particular order is like mastering your craft, whether that's like camera, light editing software, whatever it is, know, inside and out, that's like step one. So you can again just focus on the creative and not the technical part because time goes real quick when you're like, oh, I'm getting this air on the camera. How do we fix it? Your time frame for your shoot is going to be just dwindling if you have something like that.

So yeah, knowing how to skirt kind of those technical challenges is super helpful. And then another big one is doing location research, like knowing what the light is going to be doing before your shoot, during your shoot, after your shoot, because that can certainly play into how you're going to create images, like what you're going to shoot, in what order, that sort of stuff. And then something I go back to quite often is I encourage people to specialize in a specific sort of subject.

So currently I'm editing for the Alpine equipment map like categories and that allows me to work with a really wide range of talented folks who are creating impactful imagery on a regular basis. So if I need images of rock climbing pants, I'm going to reach out to the person who just got off climbing El cap. If the project calls for ALPI conditions, I'll contact the person who's spending their time in Patagonia for the season.

Folks that are deeply embedded in their sport and all the ins and outs of it create the most authentic photographs. And I've seen this play out from time to time where a climbing photographer will go and shoot surfing and you're like, yeah, cool. Your images are technically exposed or properly exposed in focus.

From a technical standpoint they're great, but from a cultural or like a sport standpoint, maybe the image that they showed that the person doing of the surfer setting up a bottom turn is too early. In the bottom turn, the surfer is not low enough or they've already exited the bottom turn and they're showing that moment instead versus the peak moment where the rail and fins engage or the surfer is in the barrel, but you can't see the whole, the sequence is off or something, just like wrong moments because the photographer maybe doesn't know the sport intimately enough. And same thing.

If a surf photographer went to go shoot climbing, those aren't going to be the same moments because they're not going to probably have the access to be up on the wall with the climbing team. So it's just kind of a different thing. Yeah, I feel like specializing in the one thing is kind of like where it's at, because now everyone is a photographer.

Right. Like, with a cell phone. So specializing in one area of photography, whether that's portraiture or landscapes or a specific sport or something.

I just feel like it's more fruitful than being sort of a generalist. Yeah. And Then the last one is just play the long game.

I mean, for me, I've had to do that with my career. It took ten years to go from graduating school to photo editing. So that's, like, incredibly long time to wait and kind of have to be patient for.

But, yeah. Again, I knew that was something I wanted to do, and so I was just putting in the time, and that's what worked for me. I know other people have gotten to accomplish what they want to in different ways, but, yeah, for me, it just took a little bit of time and hard work of kind of knocking on doors and always showing up and trying to make it happen as best I can.

No, definitely. I could definitely attest to that because I took, like, a photography class in high school in 2003, and that was with an old pentax came out, 35 millimeter film camera that was my mom's. And then after that, it was, I think, 2007.

I got, like, a Canon 20 D. And things have slowly but surely made their way. But at the same time, there's been times where in the past, whatever, 20 years now, it's been from the first days of picking up a camera till now that I'm like, is this for me still? And you kind of have to question.

Maybe you don't have to question yourself, but I've found myself wondering. I'm like, man, you kind of can find yourself in some burnout or whatever. The long game really does pay out.

And I'm glad I'm still picking up a camera today. Totally. Yeah, I still really enjoy shooting.

I'm not shooting as much as I am or as I did when I was freelancing full time, but just last week, I got called 11:00 to like, hey, Kyle, we need some port hurts on some votes on campus right now. What are you doing? I'm like, oh, yeah, cool, let's go and do this. And it's just fun to roll out to something like that, to already have a good idea of what I'm going to shoot just because I've shot stuff like that so many times before and just like I have, this is still super fun.

I still really enjoy doing this and just talk to folks about what they're doing and why we're photographing them for a specific project or something like that. I still really enjoy that part. Nice.

Yeah, I appreciate you being on here. Yeah, thank you for your time. Yeah, no problem.

It was fun to check out. Thank you so much for tuning in to another episode of your photography podcast. We hope you enjoyed the insights and tips shared today.

If you found this episode valuable, be sure to subscribe so you never miss out on future conversations with amazing photographers and industry experts. And here's a quick favor to ask. If you love what we're doing here, please take a moment to rate and review the podcast wherever you are listening.

Your feedback means the world to us and helps us continue to bring you quality episodes. For more photography inspiration and updates on upcoming episodes, be sure to follow us on social media at your photography podcast. We appreciate your support and until next time, keep capturing those moments that tell your unique story.