Last week, we recorded the last episode of On Taking Pictures. If you’re a longtime listener, you may think you’ve heard this before, and you’re right, you have. But this time it’s different. I’ll get to why in a minute, but first I need to back up.
In 2008, I was teaching Photoshop at Tri-Community Photo in Covina, California. One of the other instructors and I started doing photo walks with some of the students on the weekends. As they got more popular, we put up a simple web page called Faded & Blurred that had details about the upcoming walks. It pretty quickly evolved into a full-blown site, complete with a blog, spotlights on some of our favorite photographers, and a podcast called Q&A@F&B, which was a series of long-form conversations with photographers who were willing to sit down with me for an hour and talk about their work. In addition to getting to talk with photographers like John Keatley, David duChemin, and Ibarionex Perello, I also spoke with Bill Wadman for the first time. Bill and I hit it off straight away, and in 2012, when he was thinking about doing a weekly photography podcast, he started auditioning potential co-hosts. He reached out to me and asked if I’d be interested. I said sure, and my audition ended up being the first episode of OTP. For the next 6 years and 325 episodes, my Tuesday mornings were spent recording the show, with me in Rancho Cucamonga, California—at least to start—and Bill in Brooklyn, New York.
The show seemed to find an audience pretty quickly, and we ended up starting a Google+ group where listeners could share photos and connect with Bill and me outside of the show. But here’s the best thing—despite the shortcomings of Google+ (of which there were many, in my opinion), people started signing up. What’s even better is that they started to engage, not just with us, but with one another. For a few years, it was a terrific example of an online community that really became an extension of the show and inspired a number of real-life friendships. In fact, several people who I still consider friends came out of the show, the Google+ group, and the occasional in-person meetups, including someone who was a witness at my wedding—but more on that in a minute.
I don’t remember the exact timeline, but we ended up getting on a network, which was great because that meant sponsors. In fact, for a little while I was making enough to pay my rent just by doing the show. Unfortunately, shifts in the way podcast ads were structured meant that the network eventually—and pretty much without warning—renegotiated our deal, and my income dropped by about 90%. Still, we were having fun doing the show and the number of listeners and members of the community kept growing.
At some point, I wanted to find out some information about nonprofits and foundations and I asked Bill whether he knew anyone I could talk to. He said that his friend Adrianne might be able to help and he gave me her contact info. I won’t bore you with the details because I’ve told this story many times, but after several visits from one coast to the other, on August 5th, 2015, with Adrianne in the passenger seat of my packed-to-the-gills Honda Fit, I watched Southern California fade in the rear view mirror as we drove east. Five days later, we arrived in DC. I never thought I would leave California, but after losing both of my parents and watching the relationship I’d been in come apart, I felt like I was surrounded by ghosts. So when Adrianne asked me to move to the East Coast, I said yes. It was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. A year after I got here, we took the bus to New York City and got married at the courthouse, which almost didn’t happen because we didn’t think about the fact that we needed a witness. I called Freddy Clark, who was working across the river in New Jersey. “I’ll be right there,” he said. About 45 minutes later, a friend I had made because of doing a podcast signed his name on our wedding license and watched us say our “I dos” before heading back to work. I will be grateful to him for the rest of my life.
In maybe late-2016 or into 2017, I started feeling restless about doing the show. It wasn’t that I didn’t enjoy it—and I still loved the community aspect of it—but I started to feel like Bill and I were drifting in different directions in terms of what we wanted to bring to the show and what we wanted the show to be—at least that was true for me. I was frustrated that we had lost our sponsors and hadn’t found a way to keep monetizing the show. To be clear, the show was never just about the money, but going from making enough to pay rent and a few bills to basically not making enough to pay for a cup or two of coffee changed things. Since it really was Bill’s show, the options for what I could do about it were limited. It also started to feel like we were revisiting some of the same conversations—or at least some of the same topics—week after week, which meant it just didn’t feel fresh anymore. Aside from all of that, I was working on a few other podcasts and was trying to focus more on writing and making art, which meant that I was thinking about how I wanted to prioritize my time and creative energy.
In July of 2018, after six years of weekly episodes, we ended OTP with episode 325. Although to be fair, it was me who ended it. I was the one who told Bill that I needed to step away, which was an extraordinarily difficult decision. On one hand, I felt grateful to Bill for how the show had materially changed my life. On the other, I didn’t want to disappoint our community of listeners by abandoning them, especially after the enormous amount of incredible feedback we had gotten from them over the years. And to be clear, when I say “feedback,” I don’t mean the occasional “great show” kind of comment. Our listeners have always been extraordinarily kind, generous, and honest with how much they share about themselves and their lives. The show genuinely helped people, and in some cases changed lives and careers, none of which has ever been lost on me. Still, I had to do what felt right, and that meant moving on.
For the next five years, we continued to get emails from listeners, often asking if and when the show was coming back. Bill and I had spoken a few times during the hiatus, and at the end of 2022, we toyed with the idea of recording one of the calls and releasing it as an episode. In January of 2023, we released episode 327 on the OTP feed. It felt good. We got a ton of terrific feedback, just as we always had, though we hadn’t said the show was officially “back.” Over the next six months, we released a handful of episodes and in July, I think I said to Bill, “What if we did an episode every week for August?” So we did. August became September and 2023 became 2024 and here we are in April. I have to say that I think the on-mic chemistry between Bill and me is undeniable, and it has been since the first episode, so it was easy to fall into a familiar rhythm. That’s never really been the issue. But nine-ish months in and I’ve come around to feeling largely the same as I did in 2018. Also, the podcasting landscape has changed dramatically since I started recording them in 2009, and certainly in the years since we started doing OTP, and I just don’t think the “buddy chat” type of format is very interesting anymore, as a listener or as a maker.
Look, I am and will always be grateful to Bill for the opportunities that doing OTP has given me. The show literally changed my life for the better in more ways than I could have imagined. The same goes for the audience who have come along for an incredible journey that started in 2012 with a story about a bear falling out of a tree. That said, I find that I’m in a season in my life where I want the things I do to be a “hell yes” and if they aren’t, they have to be a “no.” It’s really that simple. Will I miss doing OTP? Of course. Will I miss connecting with that audience through their comments and feedback? Absolutely. But my hope is that the other work I’m doing will be just as interesting and just as compelling and that at least a few folks (maybe even you) will come along. And if not, that’s really okay too, because in the end while I do want to serve an audience, I’m not making things for an audience. Rick Rubin talks about the distinction between the two in his book, The Creative Act (Amazon | Bookshop | AbeBooks), which I can’t recommend highly enough. In fact, if you’re a maker of anything, just go buy it. You don’t have to read it start to finish. Of course you can, but it’s one of those books that you can just pick up, flip to a random page, and start reading. Pretty much every page has some brilliant nugget of wisdom or piece of creative inspiration.
“The audience comes last not because I don’t care about them or I don’t like the audience. In service to the audience, they have to come last. The thing that the audience wants is the best thing that they can get. If we’re trying to make it for them, it won’t be the best thing it can get. It’ll water it down. The process of making something for someone else undermines it.”
Rick Rubin
I couldn’t have said it better, but what I can add is thank you. Thank you for listening week after week, year after year, and thank you for sharing a bit of yourselves. It really does mean the world to me.
If you enjoyed this Iteration, it would be great if you would share it with a friend or two, and if you’re not subscribed, maybe you could do that as well.
Thanks for reading.
Well, dammit. Been through this before, Jeffery, and it feels bad the second time, like it did the first.
There is a peculiar thing about podcasts in that longtime listeners can feel like we know the hosts personally, even though we don't, and we can feel entitled to continued episodes, which of course isn't fair or realistic. However... here's the question I have for you: what makes this show either (a) difficult to maintain, or (b) subtract from your output in other projects that you want to be doing? Or, (c) is it some third thing?
I don't want to be dismissive of your resolution to only continue with the "hell yes" things in life, and I think that's a good attitude to have. But I also want to let you know (you, Jeffery, not so much Bill in this particular detail) that I don't have expectations of these episodes. I don't want a song and dance routine from you, I don't need things to feel planned or rehearsed or for the technical quality to be great. I don't even need the episodes to be as long as they typically are (though I like it). I just want what you mentioned: the undeniable chemistry of you and Bill chatting about art and process and all of the good stuff.
I can see how the format and style of the show can eventually burn you out as hosts, because you don't have any recurring, dependable "content." You need photography news in order to have something to talk about. Ibarionex has guests, some other photography podcasts have regular segments, but you guys are freeform and that's just the style of the show. It's fun, but it's also maybe not fully sustainable. I have noticed that the voicemails haven't been acknowledged for some time lately and maybe that was happening due to this second ending being in the works - but the audience interaction could have fueled more conversation without putting as much burden on you two to come up with topics.
I wish you well, and I do hope to listen to more of your longer-form podcast episodes soon. I especially liked the series with Sean. I'm sure you'll have some new and interesting stuff and I'll always be a dedicated listener. It's just, there is a special something about the way you and Bill interact. I'm sure I'll listen to the whole OTP back catalog again sooner or later, but I sure enjoyed the revival.
Unlike many people I really 'know' you so to speak via your Instagram walks and your artwork there so don't know much about OTP. However if it's not working for you then it will show through what you are doing as anything that becomes a chore will shine through ( I mean that respectfully ) eventually. You have to do what's best for you , and I'd love to be one of the people who will continue to see ( and hear ) your journey :)