It’s only been a few short weeks since our last episode, but it already feels like the entire world has been flipped on its head. We all saw and were outraged beyond words at the murder of Goerge Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis Police Department. Soon after, my city responded to a collective pain, sadness, and anger with protests that engulfed the Twin Cities in the days after Floyd’s death. The message was and is clear: Now is the time for change. Now is the time for justice.

These days, being stuck in isolation, a lot of us are being forced to grapple with the question “If I’m not taking photographs, am I still a photographer?” (or insert your applicable verb and profession here). We’re all trying to figure out WHO we are rather than WHAT we are or WHAT we do. That’s a painful process for a lot of us creatives, myself included. And it’s the self-same journey today’s guest has been on for years in, around, and through the photography world — and has some mindful wisdom to share from her experience along the way.

Well, this is certainly not a podcast episode I thought I'd have to make but it's one that ought to be made. In this time of incredible uncertainty and confusion surrounding Coronavirus and COVID-19, I just wanted to provide a little bit of respite for all of you photographers all of you videographers, with just a few things to keep in mind and ways to come out the other side of this better than when you started. Which I know sounds pretty much impossible right about now. This episode's gonna get into seven ways that you as a photographer or a visual creator can really make the most of this time of social distancing as we try to fight the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. And on top of that, I want to provide some ways to help out some of our freelance brothers and sisters in the visual community, so today's episode is gonna touch on a little bit of all of that.

Today’s episode is all about connections. Not in the smarmy, LinkedIn Request, crap networking sort of way, but in the genuine engagement and empathic authenticity that you can only achieve from true photojournalism greatness. Who better to learn from than a photographer would you self-proclaim to rather be a good person than a great photographer, building meaningful connections with the individuals and building a rapport through words before ever picking up a camera to capture images, today’s guest, Alyssa Schukar is an excellent resource to learn from for any working photographer.

Unless you’ve been living under a proverbial rock in the photography world, you’ve likely heard the quote attributed to Robert Capa “If your pictures aren't good enough, you aren't close enough.” Well, as it so happens, there’s some science behind the photojournalist great’s piece of advice.

everybody listening to this podcast probably knows either from practical experience or just intuitively that crafting a career as a photographer or other visual creator is no small feat. From staving off burnout to managing finances, freelancers have to DO IT ALL. So why is it then that freelancers so often fail to actually break out of the vicious cycle of feast or famine workloads? Well, our guest today is the perfect example of how to make it happen as a freelance photojournalist by diving in headfirst into new locations and experiences and figuring it all out along the way. Lauren Justice is a freelance photojournalist currently based in Madison, Wisconsin. Trust, intimacy, and time are cornerstones of her work and believes in using photography as a tool for education, awareness, and understanding. Clients of hers include The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, and NPR just to name but a few. Lauren has attended the Eddie Adams workshop and the New York Portfolio Review (where we start today’s conversation – so if you’ve been pining after getting that invitation letter, we talk about everything you’ll want to know going into it). Lauren and I talk through her strategy as a two-time NYT portfolio review invitee and how in-person meetings with editors have led to far more work than cold emails or pitches. We then get into her career as an independent photojournalist and the path that took her across the country from Ohio to Flint, Michigan, Nebraska, and finally to Madison, Wisconsin and the visual stories she crafted along the way. And finally we go in deep on her recent incredible portrait series featured on the NYT Lens Blog ‘What Would I Have Done if I Would Have Killed Her That Night?’ and her process for long-term storytelling.

Picture this: It’s late 2018. Feels like a lifetime ago, right? Like the whole damn world’s changed since then. Enter me: Freelancing pretty regularly, working at a past desk job and feeling creatively TOAST — I wasn’t happy with the quality of the work I was producing, but without any buffer time in my life to practice my craft and grow as a photographer. What would you do? Well, if you’re crazy like me, you’d respond emphatically with… start a podcast? Yep. That’s right.

When you hear the word “photojournalist” – What comes to mind? A warzone or conflict photographer? A sports shooter lugging a few supertelephoto lenses around the sidelines of a professional sporting event? Or maybe it’s the fly on the wall, spending countless hours following a singular subject, telling a singular, poignant story with images? Well, in my mind, it’s ALL of that and NONE of that. In today’s episode, Ruthie Hauge and I dive in on treating your creative work as a business, how to get connected in new locations and building your tribe, and the importance of finding a partner who shares your values and complements your skills.

“Only a fool learns from his own mistakes. The wise man learns from the mistakes of others.” Two areas we haven't gone to yet on this show are critique and coaching (Arguably the most impactful way I’ve grown as a photojournalist). That’s why I’m so excited to share a new feature on Photo Forward, a segment I’m calling “Push|Pull.” "Push|Pull" is a periodic Q+A or AMA (ask me anything) style segment where I’m going to do real, unscripted critique and coaching taped podcast episodes with YOU Photo forward listeners.

Probably the majority of you all listening this right now would classify yourselves as creatives of one sort of another. And if that’s the case and you self-identify that way like I do, you’ve probably been fed a similar popular wisdom throughout your lives — creatives (photographers/artists/writers/you name it) produce their best work when they are free, unencumbered and left to their own devices, following their creative spirit… while businesspeople/entrepreneurs and the like need structure and analytical thinking to thrive. Well, quite frankly...we’ve all been fed the same lie. It’s time to get SMART and set some goals.