From Road Trip to Published Book with Justin Tedford

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Justin Tedford (00:00):
To me, there's no bad light.

(00:01):
Some people are going to rake meover the coals for that, but
there is no bad light.
There's a type of light that'sgoing to work with a photo.
You get to a location.
It's just crappy light.
I had 1 place I think it'sTucumcari, New Mexico.
I got there and it wasdownpouring rain all day.
And I thought, well, what can Ido?
Do I go back later?
Maybe I just switch my itineraryup a little bit, maybe move it

(00:21):
around or stay here later, skipsome other spots.
This is not what I wanted.
I'm just going to whine about itand go cry in bed all night and
say, I missed what I missed, orI could take it as an
opportunity and try to createsomething that's different.
Because we're always chasingnice, pretty light, right?
All photographers do but howmany times do I see a photo of
someplace where it's downpouringrain, and there's things like

(00:43):
that in there.
And you just have to look at itand sometimes it's really
stretching your brain power tocome up with it.
I had to just say, okay, I'muncomfortable and I tell people,
when you are uncomfortable, youwere learning.

New Justin in out (00:56):
Hey, welcome to the beginner photography
podcast.
I'm your host Raymond Hatfield.
And today we're chatting withlandscape photographer, Justin
Tedford about creating andpublishing personal photo
projects.
But first the beginnerphotography podcast is brought
to you by CloudSpot.
You know, this.
So your photos through printsprojects, and of course the
digitals as well.
You can set up a storefront inminutes and start earning more

(01:18):
with every single gallery youdeliver.
So grab your free foreveraccount over at deliverphotos.
com and only upgrade when youare ready.
Today's guest, Justin Tedford,he's an insightful photographer.
He's a really interesting dude.
He's this guy who loves,capturing, I think the essence
of, old abandoned farmstructures.
It's like so many more thingsabout his own location where he

(01:40):
lives.
and Justin actually put togethera book and today he shares kind
of that process of what goesinto self publishing a photo
book, which I'm alwaysinterested in.
So we talk about everything fromthe challenges of what to shoot
to curating and arranging thephotos to, knowing when he has
enough photos or if he needsmore.
Justin also talks about theimportance of intention and

(02:01):
connection with your subjectmatter.
We also touch upon slowing downto be deliberate, over your
shots.
Recognizing what is the deeperstory, with your subject matter,
whatever it may be.
And also the emotional processof selecting and refining your
work before sharing.
And you know what, speaking ofsharing, I just want to take a
quick moment to remind you thatthe beginner photography podcast

(02:22):
community is, it's stronger thanever.
It's more helpful than ever, andit's just overall more fun than
ever as well.
So I invite you to come backinto the beginner photography
podcast community, if you wantto become a better photographer
and see what it's all about.
So you can join for free over atbeginnerphotopod.
com forward slash group.
So with that, let's go ahead andget on into today's interview

(02:42):
with Justin Tedford.

Raymond Hatfield (02:45):
Justin, when did you know that photography
was going to play an importantrole in your life?

I would say early, early on.
So I probably, if I go back, Iwould say my hard start date of
photography was 2003.
Did I take it seriously then?
I thought I did.
As I always tell everybody, itwas supposed to be an easy a
plus, right?
I was in high school.
Let's get an a and because I wasmore into drawing and painting.
I was more of that.
That kind of art versus thephotographic art that I do now.

(03:11):
So I went back and I was like,I'll take this class.
And then I got into the darkroom and I was like, Oh, this is
kind of fun.
And then you start seeing thoseprints coming through developer.
And then my instructor who wasalso the shop teacher was like,
Hey, I think you got an eye.
So then somehow I got hooked upwith my already art teacher, Mr.
Mallory.
And he's like, yeah, you gotthis eye.

(03:33):
And then somehow, I don't evenknow how it became to be the
local newspaper said, here'sfour rolls of film.
Let's go photograph basketballgames for us.
And I did that.
And I was like, that's awesome.
I like it.
It's fun.
And I think for me, it was theaccess, I get to be where you're
not.
That was 2003.
So I graduated in 05.

(03:53):
So now I have to start thinkingabout real jobs in life.
So I said, what aboutphotographer?
Right.
I love this.
So I job shadowed the Omahaworld Herald, which is cool.
And then that's when I kind ofcaught the bug.
I was going to be aphotojournalist.
And I think that's at the time Iwas like, yes, this is what I
want to do.
And obviously I'm now not aphotojournalist.
So.

Yeah, very rarely do we end up being the
place where we wanted Um, beinglike in the world of painting
and drawing, what do you thinkit was about specifically
photography that, captured yourattention?

On the photo journalistic side.
I think it was like access.
I could go places and no onewould go and people, they wanted
you there, right?
They wanted your events,documented captured kind of
thing.
And that's what it did it for mefor the most part.
And I think to the experiences,because if I look back, I'll

(04:44):
look and say, Oh God, I don'tfeel like I've ever done
anything exciting inphotography.
But if I go back to like 2003.
I mean, I got to hang out withassociated press photographers
at the time, which I thought wasthe coolest thing I got to do,
living in Iowa, we're big in thecaucuses every January.
So we get all these presidentialcandidates coming through.
And at that time I was doing forfun.
I just go to these places andtake photos.

(05:05):
So it was experiences I couldsit down and paint something or
draw something.
But then I'm done.
I can do that anywhere, but tome, I think it was that
experience of going to alocation, finding something,
taking a photo and then comingback where anybody could see it.
I had at that point, a littlebit of outlets, whether it was
through school, yearbook stuff,and even the local newspaper

(05:30):
that I was taking photos.
People actually got to see mywork plus it could be all over
the place.
I could make 10 prints of onething and 10 different people in
theory could see it where if Idid one painting or one drawing,
I'd have to do it a differentway.
Long story short.
It's glamorous.
To me, photography is glamorousto many.
It's probably not, but to me itis

I feel very similar to you, in the sense
that, when I had went to filmschool and focused on
cinematography, it's like, thatwas what was so cool about it.
These different experiences andgoing to different places and
sometimes even being paid to dothese things.
It was, it's, it's incrediblyexciting, something that you
don't get.
And one of the reasons why Inever really wanted, could see
myself working a job, in anoffice, which, I just want to be

(06:13):
outdoors.
I just want to like do differentthings.
And photography was definitelyone of the things that called me
most.
So when you're learningphotography, it was kind of,
obviously you're still in youryoung years.
Um, but the act of learningphotography is still, big
project at times, uh, did youfind it challenging or did it
come relatively easy for you?

To me, it was relatively easy.
Yeah.
Because when I'm doing mentoringsessions with people or I'm
teaching a class, the biggestquestion I hate is how do you do
it?
And I say, this is the worstanswer ever.
I don't know.
To me, it's natural.
I just do it.
People like, I want to learn tosee like you teach me.
I don't know.
I just do it.
I see that.
So I capture it.
It's hard for me to tell thatperson, Hey, so for me, it's

(06:55):
always been easy, but also inthe beginning, I felt like not
that I wasn't learning stuff,but I wasn't so worried about
the technicalities.
I was more worried aboutcapturing an image.
So everything was on auto,right?
Everybody starts out on auto.
I did.
So I shot basketball in a gym onauto with three or four rolls of

(07:16):
24 exposure film.
And if I went back and look atthose photos, those are the most
God awful things that I'veprobably ever taken.
But to me, they were thegreatest thing at the time.
But I think that was probably,it's just the hardest part is it
just came easy for me for mostthings.
So in the long run, when I wasgetting around to that, once I
finally decided to settle on thetechnical part, then it was kind

(07:37):
of boring for me.

Learning the technicals was boring?

Yeah, it's weird because I just want to go out
and capture a photo.
But then there's that point.
I think every photographer getsto that.
You decide that there comes apoint in time that you actually
have to start learning somethingjust you got to learn light.
You got to learn composition.
You just have to do it.
And that probably took me thelongest to do just because I

(08:02):
didn't want to learn it.
I just wanted to do I justwanted to do it.

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

Yes, so after high school, I graduated,
started like mass community,mass media, photojournalism.
That wasn't going to work outjust due to the timeframe of
photojournalism.
So I went to culinary school.
After I got back from a yeardeployment overseas with the
military.
And then I did that and realizedthat is not my passion.
Go back to photography.
So I did it.
And what really changed allaround to, I really needed to

(08:42):
get my affairs per se, in orderwas I started working at the
local camera store.
I knew photography.
I loved gear.
I could talk about it.
And that's when I kind of gotmore.
I was, Well, I was good, butthat was the point where there's
so much technical stuff that Ineed to know.
And I have to prove myself to bethat guy behind the counter and

(09:04):
say, I took this photo andthey're always going to say, how
did you do it?
I can't just say, well, I didit.
I liked it, I had to say, Hey,this is how I did it.
So I have to know all thattechnical stuff.
And to me, I was living thedream.
I was doing photography andgetting paid.
And so it was on somebody else'sbill.
And I just had to show up towork every day and I have to go
market and I have to doanything.

(09:24):
So that was probably the turningpoint for me was, I knew shutter
speed, aperture, ISO, and allthat stuff out of college.
But I thought that's allphotography was aperture,
shutter speed, ISO, which it isin the smallest form.
But there's so much otherthings, lighting and what lights
to buy.
And I could go on for all theother things besides that.

(09:45):
So that's probably what itturned it around for me.
I was like, okay, I'm doingthis.
And I actually, for the firsttime to people like wanted to
come to me for my opinion,because I was the man to come
talk to.
And it was so weird and people'dwait.
And that's, I was like, okay, Ihave to be better than they
think I am.
And I challenged myself to learnanything and everything.
Things I don't even shoot.

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

Yes.

Um, so then even though the technical side
wasn't super exciting to you atfirst, you still learned it.
tell me, was there a certainphoto that you had taken after
you really decided to focus onlearning the technicals that you
thought, holy cow, this worksThis pays off.
I'll never shoot an auto again.

Oh, yes.
I think every photographer hasthat one photo that they'll
always go back to.
They like, or they vividlyremember no matter how many
thousands and hundreds ofthousands of photos you took.
And it was a night photo and ona gravel road in Iowa.
Doing a little bit of researchat that point.
And it was like, Oh, full moon.
Mm hmm.
That might not be a bad night todo some, late long exposure.
So I went out to this gravelroad, positioned the angle and

(11:09):
everything where the tree wasbacklit.
You could see stars.
And I got super lucky.
This is like God, one or two inthe morning and a car drives
through of all places.
And I got, taillight, streaks.
It was like a perfect moment, Ihit the shutter button at the
right moment.
It recorded it, and I said,okay, this is what it's all
about.
And that's when I started justdigging deeper and deeper and

(11:32):
deeper into things and trying topeel back every layer that I can
learn.

That's funny.
I feel like, the photo wherepeople, really feel like they
understand the technical side iseither always something related
to either aperture or shutterspeed.
And for me it was the same.
it was one night I went out witha buddy of mine, it was similar.
We did long exposures, but, Itwas like light paintings, and I
made it look like, a fireballwas coming out of my hand and he
was getting hit by it and juststupid things like that, that,

(11:57):
you're never able to get onauto.
You're never able to get with acell phone.
These are the things that don'tjust happen even by accident
when you take a photo, butthey're done with intention.
And when you're able to capturethem, it's.
magical.
magical.
It's when that thing clicks inyour head that says, Oh, this is
the thing that I want to doforever.
So then when you look back atsome of those earliest photos of
yours, right?

(12:17):
I would say even after reallyembracing the technical side of
it, during that time, all thosephotos that you had taken, if
you were to look back at thosephotos now, where do you think
you've grown the most as aphotographer?

That's a good question.
I think probably making morephotos with intention, not just
blasting the camera shutter allaround, actually looking at
something, thinking about it.
And instead of just taking thephoto and then coming back later
to decide in light room, is itgood?
Is it bad?
it's just looking at the screenand saying, I don't like it.

(12:50):
And not leaving it at that andjust saying, okay, why don't I
like it?
Okay.
I don't like it because of thislittle branch sticking out of
the edge of the frame.
Okay.
How can I fix that now incamera?
Well, I could, zoom in a littlecloser now that my compositions
change.
Well, I still don't like it nowbecause that branch is here.
But if I change my, you know,change per se that I made, then

(13:13):
it's like, well, how do I fixit?
That it's just, I think taking aslower approach to things and
realizing that I do not have tolearn anything and everything
all at once to say that I can gotake a photo.
I think that's the biggest areaimprovement and realizing I do
know what I'm doing in the longrun because as photographers, we
all look at our stuff like thisis horrible and don't want to

(13:34):
compare ourselves with the guynext door.
Just intention.
That's probably been biggest,biggest improvement.

How did you get there?
a

oh boy, I think it was just finally coming to
realization again that the moretime you put into any process,
the better it's going to be, andI think a lot of it was just the
interwebs, you know, theinternet, you see all this stuff
where people are like, I'm doingthis and I got to do this.
I got to take 85, 000 photos ofthis.
Then I'm thinking, God, I thinkI do the same thing.
The things that used to drive meup the wall, I was doing myself

(14:05):
and just didn't find it inmyself.
So I just decided, well, youknow what, let's create things
with intention because it's morequality over quantity.
We all had that mentality.
It's human nature.
I think the more we have, thebetter we are when truly we're
not.

mindset from when we were all cavemen, right?
Like you don't know where yournext meal is going to come from.
We got to gather as much aspossible.
when you, finally start, goingfrom a hunter gatherer to farmer
and you can like create your ownstuff, that does change the way
that you look at things.
But yeah, deep down, we'restill, still that caveman making
sure, hoping that we don't runout of resources.

(14:40):
Now I want to know, at thattime, what were the things that
you were shooting?
Because, want to get, to yourbook as well, we're focused on,
Iowa.
This is awesome.
But did you always start with,would you say landscapes?
Would you say, cityscapes?
What were you shooting mostly?
Yeah.

It was rural America.
That's very specific.
over the years of all myteaching and all these things
that I have to think about andthings for the book and all
these, things like podcasts I'vebeen on all that kind of stuff.
People always come back and say,okay, what do you take?
Like you're saying, you know,what do you take photos of?
And one time, somebody finallyasked me, why, why do you take
photos of Iowa and the Midwest?

(15:15):
And to me, I think asphotographers and kind of what
you end up photographing isbased off all off your
environment, right?
I was 18 I'm not going to go offto far off islands, you know,
and photograph or have all thismoney to go.
So I photographed what wasnearest to me.
And that was rural Iowa andrural Americana per se.

(15:38):
So I started doing landscapes.
It was easy I mean, you can goanywhere and take a landscape
photo, really, and for me, Idon't have to drive hours.
I can drive 10 minutes from myhouse right now and be on a,
gravel or dirt road somewhere.
And that's where I fell in lovewith that too, because I don't
think a lot of people were.
I would say at that time, orjust in general, they don't look

(16:01):
at Iowa as the most photographiclocation in the world.
It's flat.
It's not flat.
So that's landscapes was alwaysmy thing that in it.
It still is to this day.

Did you ever have that feeling of, so my
wife, was born and raised herein Indiana.
She always wanted to leave.
She's like, almost every otherstate is better than Indiana.
And me growing up in California,I almost felt the same way.
It was like, I want to get outof here.
And I don't know if we just havethis thing inside of us that's
the grass is always greenersomewhere else, but, one thing

(16:33):
that I hear from a lot oflisteners is, I don't have a
fancy beach to photograph, Idon't live in a busy city, so
what are the things that I'mgonna shoot?
It's like, they want to gosomewhere else, but you didn't,
you stayed right where you were.
Was that by intention?
Did you always love Iowa?
Or, was it simply out ofnecessity that you had to shoot
something and that's where youwere?

It's necessity at that point.
it was always necessity becauselike I said, I couldn't go off
to far off islands or here orthere.
You're 18 or younger at thatpoint to, you know, you only got
so much money in the world andyou just, so is that a necessity
that that's where I photographedit because that's what I had to
do.
But then I just took thatsubject and fell in love with

(17:14):
it, and trying to find thoseunique places, moments, or the
everyday things that people say,where'd you take a picture of
this barn?
I've never seen this barn.
I'll tell them and they're like,no way.
I drive past there for the last20 years.
I've never seen it.
Exactly because you didn't taketime to stop and look and I
found it for you, you know, sothat's been my jam.

(17:37):
Mm

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

Yes.
So, I mean, process wise of justkind of the whole Iowa thing is
again, it was a necessity.
And then I just started, I justlook at things and thought,
okay, when I'll photograph onething forever and ever and ever,
and I get bored and I startlooking at other things within
the landscape and I photographit.
And then I come back to thebarns again, and then the barns

(18:08):
leave.
And then it was, just straightup landscape kind of photo.
And then over the years, there'sjust all this stuff that I see
that I got, I want tophotograph.
And my brain starts bouncingaround with all these ideas.
And, now I'm more intophotographing rural towns and I
have a small project I work on,on and off, where I photograph
rural Iowa farm families becausethey're disappearing left and

(18:31):
right for big commercialagriculture.
So I start to focus on thosekinds of things.
When I see things disappearing,Barnes are going here left and
right.
So if I see one, I usually won'tmiss it.
So I'll stop and take a photo.

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

You know, that's a very good question.
I've always been drawn to itbecause I think it's interesting
because it's not pretty.
It's not, perfectly manicured.
You see the layers.
Yeah, we all know that there'swood under your roof, your
shingles, but we don't see it.
So when I look at an old barn, Ilike to look at things.
I almost see it as what it was,not what it is.

(19:23):
And I just kind of imagineeverything.
It went, I'll look at wow, theyhad six outbuildings and three
barns and they were doing goodat some point in their life and
now there's no one there.

That's so wild.
I'm the opposite.
I never look at it for what itused to be.
I always look at something forexactly what it is.
And like your perspective a lotmore in terms of telling a story
because now we have aprogression, but we had this,
old glass factory, not too farfrom here.
And I remember shortly aftermoving here, a buddy of mine was
like, Hey, let's go check thatplace out.

(19:55):
And we walked in there and itwas this massive, I don't even
know the size.
If I had to guess.
100, 000 square foot, property,multiple buildings.
And there's just this lame chainlink fence all around it.
You shouldn't go in there, butit was very easy to get in
there.
And I don't condone obviouslytrespassing at all.
Uh, I made some mistakes.
But walking in there, it was sointeresting.
I could kind of imagine wow, atone point there was, tables in

(20:17):
here and all this stuff.
And that is really interestingto think about, but I think for
me, what I find interesting isyeah, at one point, this was
somebody's dream, building thisfarm, building this barn,
building this factory.
This was somebody's dream, evenbuilding this house, right?
There's dilapidated housessometimes.

Yep.

And now it's this.
This is what it is.
And yeah, I find thatfascinating.
Sorry, that was a bit of atangent.
Let's go back to the topic ofIowa here, because, uh, Iowa,
it's a state, it's multifaceted,there's lots of things that you
could capture within that, asyou mentioned earlier, right,
all the caucuses, farming isbig, these rural towns.
How do you narrow down yoursubject matter for a book as big

(20:57):
as an entire state so that it'ssomething that is cohesive and
not overwhelming?
Transcript

hardest part because, like you said, there's
so many things you can go for.
Now, the people who had reachedout to me do this book, they
kind of have some parameters,they have certain little things
subcategories or genres of booksthat they're looking for people
and he specifically reached outand said, I love your landscape
photos.
So, that whole process that theykind of not 100 percent were

(21:28):
like, you have to do this.
It was pretty open, but I alsolooked at a body of work that,
there's requirements.
It's 96 pages.
We've got to have at a minimumof 100 ish.
I think it's like 140 photos,something.
Okay.
What do I have that a, I'm goingto have enough photos for and B,
that's going to flow well,right?

(21:49):
You know that I just don't haveflipping through pages like
barn, pretty landscape, barn,landscape, and then a caucus
photo, to throw this whole thingoff.
So that was probably the biggestchallenge is trying to find
photos that all kind of wenttogether, but as I planned out,
I had to do a little bit ofwriting for the book and I am no
writer by any means.
I feel like.

(22:09):
But it was easy on that.
Once I got that outline done, ofthe different kind of categories
that I wanted to focus on, thenI could go and look for the
photographs.
To build those around thoseparts of the book per se, I
think I have one, it's thingsoff the beaten path, I think
those things are off the road.
So all the photos were probablytaken off a gravel road, or

(22:31):
other ones were more ofstructures of Iowa.
But then when I got down to thestructure part, that could be a
million different things.
Do I want the state Capitol nextto, a dilapidated barn?
Nope.
They're not going to flow welltogether.
So at that point I just startedlooking at more rule buildings
type thing.
And then just went from there.
There was lots of throwingphotos in and out as I went

(22:51):
through, I called that, geez, amillion times.
It felt like.

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

Yeah.
Probably like 800 or more.
And the hard part for me is Ithink any photographer you're so
emotionally attached to yourwork because you know, the sweat
and tears and all this stuff youput into it.
But then you have to look at itfrom an aspect and say, okay, I
like the photo, but is thisphotograph worthy to go into a
book?
Is it going to, as a group addor take away, And that's

(23:29):
probably the hardest partbecause I could have added a
million photos to that book thatI love, but then I had to think,
okay, again, and putting myselfout there as a photographer.
there's some that I'm like, ah,that one's just slightly, I
thought was little sharper thanit was.
And then you try to talkyourself into it and say, we can
put it in the book.
It's only going to be four bysix.
So no one's going to see it'snot sharp.

(23:49):
These is not 24 by 36.
And then you have to come backdown to reality and say, okay,
this is a pretty seriousproject.
A book was always a bucket list,a dream.
I didn't think I'd ever getthere.
But everybody has to have thatone top notch thing to shoot
for, whether it happens or not.
And I think that hardest partwas just, man, what do I get rid
of?
Like, as I felt like you werelike throwing your kid out the

(24:11):
window, every time you checkedout a photo, because those are
everything we do, you know?
And we always are always,obviously slightly biased to our
own work that, every photo wetake is awesome.
And we know it's not, but welike to tell ourselves that.

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

It was a gut thing.
I'm glad you just said gut thingbecause I'm a gut instinct kind
of person photographer.
If I got that one or two thingthat just keeps coming back to
me, that's what it's going tobe.
I'm not going to overthink it.
I'm one of those is I want toknow why a or b happens.
But if I can't figure it out,I'm just going to say it's fate,
right?
It's supposed to happen.
Just whatever.

(24:54):
That photo needs to be there.
And there are some photos I justcould not get rid of.
And I'm thinking, but they don'tflow well with some of the other
photos.
I'm like, for some reason, thesephotos have to be here.
Let's get rid of those otherones.
And just, I kept doing that overand over and over till I was
happy with for the majority ofwhat I have in there, 95%.
There's some filler photos thatI don't love, but it is what it

(25:16):
is.

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

It is.
So that's going to be a selfpublished book.
So the other one in the world ofbooks, they're self published
and then there's the but Yeah.
traditionally published.
So, the traditionally publishedbook, there are parameters they
have a cost, right?
We all know as business peopleare non business people.
You have a life, things costmoney.
And if I'm going to sellsomething for 25 bucks, it's got

(25:55):
to come in at this price range,right?
They're going to say, okay, it'sa soft cover book.
it's all these parameters.
A lot of that I didn't care for,but I have to go buy that and
work it around.
So I thought, well.
I want to do my own thing.
I want to have a hundred percentutter control over this entire
process.
Self published.
So before I went on my Route 66trip, I thought this might be a

(26:15):
book that I could self publish.
I always wanted to do ahardcover with a dust jacket and
all this fancy stuff.
You see, you know, Barnes andNobles, right?
Any, you know, Ansel Adams book,hardcover, or any Leibovitz
hardcover book.
And I don't know, to me, there'ssomething when I pick up a book,
it's sexy about a hardcoverbook.
So that's not cheap and mostpeople aren't going to do a
hardcover book for you.

(26:36):
So that's why I went the selfpublished route on the Route 66
book.
I have pitched a similar versionto the publisher already, but
that could be another year totwo years before that hits their
shelf.
So I wanted something instantnow while it was hot and people
were excited about the project Iwent on and worked through.

Well, it sounds exciting.
but before I ask you morequestions about this upcoming
book, because I really want toknow about the process of it,
let's start with the actual,road trip itself.
So you said before you went onthe road trip, you thought that
this could be a good idea for abook, potentially.
Did you go into.
the road trip with an idea ofwhat photos you wanted to

(27:16):
capture?
Was it more of a feeling?
How did you approach planningfor the photos that you wanted
to take, knowing that they wouldultimately end up, in print in a
book?

Yes, so I did a little bit of research,
Instagram type in route 66, seewhat people are finding out
there, but I didn't heavilyfocus on specific locations
because I'm that person that ifI say I'm going to photograph a,
B, C, D, and F across thisentire trip, and I find
something that's awesome betweena and B.

(27:47):
I'm thinking about getting to beso I won't focus on that weird,
middle ground of where I wantedto be.
So I left it really wide open Ihad those iconic per se
locations, but I wanted to leaveit open to just exploring
because when I get down to myroot core as a person, I just
like to explore.
I want to see what I can find.

(28:09):
And I feel like no matter whatpart of photography, whether
you're doing a book or.
you'll hear people say nichedown, niche down, niche down.
That's probably a good thing,but sometimes we put ourselves
too much into this box that weforget that there's so much
outside that box that we canfind and explore.
Everybody says, Oh, route 66,you're going to go to Roy's and
Amboy, California.

(28:29):
That's a no brainer.
That was a stop, but that'ssomewhere I wanted to.
And I felt like would, if I dida book would be a location I
should add in there.
But most of it was literallyjust all I planned was how much
money is this going to cost?
Where am I going to fly into anddrive back to, and where am I
going to stay?
That's it.
And

what today brings.

Yep, I knew from I'd get up.
All I planned was I was going tofly from Omaha, Nebraska to LAX
Friday night, stay in a hotel,get up the next morning at 4 AM.
And all I had to do was be inneedles, California at a decent
time to get at least six hoursof sleep that I know I can live
off of and that's it.

(29:13):
That was my only parameters foreach day.
I had to go from A to B and B toC and get there at a decent
time.
And if I ended up finding anawesome spot and I burned more
time there, oh well.

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

Ah, it was.
It

so much fun.
How much did your idea of whatthe trip was going to be change,
while you actually startedshooting?
Because I can imagine, I couldset myself up these expectations
of, oh, all of these photos,that I have in my head.
They're all sunset.
They all have like thisbeautiful cloud cover.
But you're gonna show up at someof these places at like 2 in the
afternoon.
Near Death Valley.
It looks like garbage.

(29:50):
how do you adjust?

Yeah, so you know, as photographers,
especially landscape charge juststarts to where all right,
golden hour, beautiful light.
Right?
And when I'm teaching alandscape, I teach for Paul's
photo in the creative photoAcademy out in Torrance and I
teach their technique landscapeclass and we learn about light.
Light is light, if you can makethat like light work for that

(30:12):
said photograph, yeah.
Then it's great.
To me, there's no bad light.
Some people are going to rake meover the coals for that, but
there is no bad light.
It's just there's a type oflight that's going to work with
a photo.
There's 1 day that, like yousaid, you get to a location.
It's just crappy light, oryou're expecting these
preconceived notions and I had 1place that I was, I think it's

(30:32):
Tucumcari, New Mexico.
I usually butcher that name, butit's got all the old neon signs.
That was like dead set.
I have to be there.
It's where the Blue SwallowHotel is.
I got there and it wasdownpouring rain all day, all
day.
So I wanted to throw it out thewindow and just skip it.
And I thought, well, what can Ido?
Do I go back later?

(30:54):
Maybe I just switch my itineraryup a little bit, maybe move it
around or stay here later, skipsome other spots.
But I just said, no, take it inthe moment and create images
that are going to work in thissituation.
And you just have to be fluidwith it and just get the
negative thoughts that this iscrap.
This is not what I wanted.
I'm just going to whine about itand go cry in bed all night and

(31:14):
say, I missed what I missed, orI could take it as an
opportunity and try to createsomething that's different.
Because we're always chasingnice, pretty light, right?
All photographers do.
But how many times do I see aphoto of, someplace where it's
downpouring rain, and there'sthings like that in there and
you just have to look at it andsometimes it's really stretching
your brain power to come up withit.

(31:36):
But I was very uncomfortablethat day because I was totally
like, I have to have a photo orphotos from this location or
this trip because I'm not doingthis again.
Probably maybe not the wholething and I had to just say,
okay, I'm uncomfortable.
I tell people, when you areuncomfortable, you were learning
and that's the only way you'regoing to get better.
So now.
I made some photos.

(31:57):
I switched and went to moredetail shots, right.
Versus that grand scenic kind ofwide shot where I was getting
all the flat, boring sky andthings like that.
So I'm like, how do I eliminatethe sky?
Shoot detail shots or maybe justsigns and things like that.
So it was just kind of justrolling with the flow.
And again, going with my gut andsay, okay.

(32:17):
And then reviewing images andlooking at the camera and
saying, okay, these are notworking.
What do I need to do differ?
And just keep diving into itdeeper and deeper.
And if you keep doing that, it'sjust going to work out.
It always will, because there'slight and it might not be the
best light, but if I understandhow light works and the quality
of lights, and I can find animage that works, like, let's

(32:40):
say kind of back, like, and boy,I wanted to go to Roy's when
they light up the neon sign, Iwas going to have to sit there
for six hours that I was notwilling to do.
I thought, okay, what do I do?
Let's switch this.
I'll drive back at night.
That's an hour and a half.
Okay.
I'm going to be there more thanan hour.
I know So I have to take allthis into time and say, okay,
it's not going to happen.

(33:00):
But the great thing is whenyou're in the middle of the
desert, harsh light works.
it tells a part of that story.
It's hot.
You got really harsh shadows.
There's no, you know, soft lightand you just work with it and
you find something like findingthat building, harsh light,
cruddy light, it's horrible,find something that works with
it, like an old building.
It's decrepit, right?
Old, decrepit building, harshlight.

(33:23):
It might work.
So it's one of those things youjust have to go over and over
and over and just keep pushingyourself, I think.

Yeah, Sometimes I'll go out and I'll
have this like great idea, a fewyears ago, our family, had some
extended time, on a vacation andI had all these great ideas for
photos that I wanted to take.
And when I showed up, it's like,I started very slow.
And then, as I would take morephotos, I almost recognized
patterns and new ideas forphotos.

(33:48):
And by the end of our trip, it'slike, dang, I knew exactly what
I want to capture here.
I wish that I would have knownthis on day one.
Right?
So how did your idea for thephotos that you were going to
capture or the story that youwere going to tell in the photos
change you got to the end?

So the one thing I wanted to do was, originally,
I started out.
I love one to one ratio square.
It's probably my days back inmedium format.
I love it.
So I thought that's what Iwanted.
Plus I was using the Nikoncamera profile called Dream.
It just seemed to work in thatkind of look.
It's more nostalgic y kind oflook.

(34:25):
So I knew that's what I wantedto do for the look.
That I had dead set.
But when I was going through, Ijust again went with my gut and
I was just seeing in square.
At first I do a square photo,change it, my ratio in camera
and shoot it square.
And then I shoot it in yourstandard, three by two, two by
three or whatever.
And then I might do a 16 bynine.

(34:47):
And then I did that for everyshot.
And I'm like, Oh my God, this istaken forever.
Then I do some without theprofile on.
I'm like, there's no need to dothis because they're going to
show up in Lightroom without theprofile anyway, showing because
they're raw.
I just have to add it later.
So I just left that profile on.
And then once I felt like I wasseeing the best photos that I
was capturing in squared, that'swhy I just there.

(35:09):
On a dime switched and said,okay, I'm going to do all this
in square.
I'm keeping this look.
Then I started just looking atthe pattern at each night.
I stopped.
I uploaded, all my photos to myhard drive as a backup.
And I just started looking atwhat I was seeing during the
day.
And I started to noticepatterns.
It was buildings.
It was signs, things like that.
So that's what I did the nextday and the next day and the

(35:29):
next day.
And then there's all those otheroddball things in between, but
then.
Once I had that, I knew at thatpoint that I kind of had the
style set all those weird littlethings, ratio, style, I kind of
started tweaking and playingwith photos on the road to on my
laptop and looking like that.
And then I was like, Oh, as I'ma notorious, I slightly

(35:50):
underexposed, but with thisprofile, more you underexposed,
the muddier it became andcrappier.
Yeah.
So then I had to switch mynormalness of slightly under and
go slightly over, which in mybook is like, Oh God, but it
worked.
I just had to trust the processthat what I was doing and going
with my gut was going to in theend, after eight States would

(36:10):
all come together.
And it did.

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

There was too many photos at that point, when
I'm starting to call image toput together for the book and
that kind of thing, I was to thepoint where I had so much stuff
and the look was so consistent.
I almost say that theconsistency of that body of work
is probably my best ever forcapturing the same thing over
and over and over the same look,but having completely different

(36:38):
images.
But then that worked all the waythrough that dream look worked
perfectly from LA all the waythrough Oklahoma, but when I hit
illinois and Missouri, it's alot greener and the buildings
aren't pastels and it's, I'mlike, Oh God, so then I had to
just start again, swap things,change a little bit, go back and

(36:59):
say, okay, how am I going tomake this work again, those
other six states work, but howdo I make the same style work?
And again, it was just, yeah.
tweaking each time and lookingand sometimes there's photos
that a lot of photos I just tookone photo of and like I this
doesn't work and it's just notgoing to because of the building
colors aren't right or the scenecolors aren't right and no
matter how much I try to polishit it's not going to work so I

(37:21):
just forget it and move on

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

Yes.
So what I did was I went layingthe photos out.
So I ended up not realizing itsubconsciously.
I do this a lot where I'm doingthings I don't realize I'm
doing.
So picture on the left was Ikind of had that bigger green
scenic landscape per se thatwide shot.
And then I had a detail shot.
I was doing that all along thetrip and didn't realize it.

(37:52):
So then as I was going throughphotos, I was laying out these
images like, okay, when somebodyopens the book, I want this to
flow well.
So when I was in Shamrock, Texasat the Conoco station, if you're
any with route 66, you know whatI'm talking about?
It was in the movie cars.
I believe they took inspirationfrom it.
I had some interior photos.
And I had one of the cornerbooth, then I had a detailed

(38:16):
shot of this napkin holder.
It said Coca Cola on it from the50s or earlier.
I remember taking those, but notconsciously realizing those
would go together.
As I'm going through the book,finding images that match.
And then I noticed, wow, I'vehad this pattern of a wider
shot.
And a tight shot, like a detailshot.

(38:36):
So then I started pairing imagesthat would go together.
And that's what I did.
I just laid it out that way, youknow, interior.
And then just in the story, likeeach location, some locations, I
had two photos that I just, thatwas it.
But at the Conoco station inShamrock, Texas, I had outside
shots.
So I had a detail shot of theoutside and a wider shot.
Then when you flip the page,then we go inside the building.

(38:57):
And I have a picture where it'sthe inside kind of looking out
of the door.
And then another interior shot.
And then you flip the next pageand there's deeper.
So that was probably of thebook.
And those photos are like, Ifelt like I really was taking
from the outside to the insideand kind of going through the
whole building within itself.
So it's just finding images thatare going to connect and mesh

(39:18):
well together where we're notgetting like, a nice, pretty
well done, hundred percentrestored gas station.
And then picture next to it isof an abandoned gas station on
the inside where the roof'smissing.
And you can tell it's abandoned,like those wouldn't flow
together.
So I had to just do that.
And what helped me was I printedthem all out on contact sheets
and light room, just black andwhite off my laser printer.

(39:40):
I cut them out and then Ishifted them around on the
table.

Mm.

and those go together.
Those don't.
And then I found out in of,well, 300 ish photos I may have
decided on out of 3100 photosthat there's just somebody just,
I loved him, but they didn'tmesh well with the rest of the
flow of the book.
And no matter how much I lovedhim was connected to him, I had
to get rid of them because itwas going to throw the whole
book off.
And again, I go back to, this isyour work.

(40:06):
You're putting yourself outthere.
It's got to look decent.

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

Yeah, that was the thought process originally
where I would have one beginningphoto I knew in my head.
I went to Santa Monica pierbecause I went backwards per se
to most people.
I went from LA to Santa Monicato Chicago where most people
swap and go Chicago to LA.
And it was cheaper to go theopposite.
You saved 1, 000 on a carrental.
So I just think of all thesethings like that.

(40:40):
And I get to the point where Iwant to Santa Monica pier, but I
was there at 4 in the morning.
I didn't feel terriblycomfortable there at four in the
morning by myself, because ifthere was nobody there, there
wasn't, but there are somepeople hanging out there gave me
that weird vibe.
And I'm like, yeah, I may nothave any gear for the rest of
this trip if I get out of thevehicle.
So I'm just going to skip it.

(41:01):
I did lay the book out inchronological order on how I
went, I struggled with why don'tI do it?
What?
With what people would want.
And then I was like, no, this isyour project.
This is the reason you're doingit.
Do what you want.
They really probably not goingto care because I'm an
overthinker.
I'm thinking this is what theywant.
They just want a book to behonest and photos.
So I laid it out kind of in myhead, like day by day, like I

(41:21):
went from here to here.
That's this first set of photoshere to here the next day and
all 10 days across.

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

It's actually already on sale because I am a
hyper focused fixation.
I don't have a true ADHDdiagnosis, but they think I do,
but they won't say so.
So when I get hyper fixated onsomething, I'll go.
So I left the photos for quite awhile and I just pounded that
thing out I wasn't waiting on apublisher.
So I could take 10 months or aweek to do this if I really had

(41:52):
time.
And this was one of those thingsthat was so subconsciously
planned out and it all just byluck all fell together where I
could go through.
I just got my book two days ago.
The final one.
There were some issues with thecover and some bleed issues and
I thought it was my fault and Iwas racking my brain to fix it.
So I emailed them the companyhas printing through and they're

(42:14):
like, Oh, that's our fault.
Sorry.
It was us.
So it wasn't me.
So then they sent me a new bookand to make sure it would look
correct before I threw it outthere.
So I threw it up on my websiteand it's there.
So I got a couple of pre ordersales per se, not going to make
a million dollars off any book.
I'll tell you that right now.
And you're not going to quityour job.
You're gonna have to be StephenKing to do that, but you know,
it's a very small limited run.

(42:35):
I'll probably do about 20 to 15copies and I can always reorder
if I need to in the future, butso yeah, it's already up.
Yeah,

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

things like the dust cover.
And just go a hard cover withoutthe dust jacket I wanted some in
whatever they call it the paperat the end of your book.
It's connected.
I wanted to change those to acolor that kind of felt like
Southwest.
But then that added cost.
And I just I had to give up acouple things.
So a lot of it was based off ofwaiting on the printer to get

(43:27):
this completed and printed.
And then going back and saying,okay, how much do I want to
make, not make, so on and soforth and tweaking, tweaking.
The photos probably took me acouple of weeks because I, I
will pick photos.
And then I, I left them forabout two weeks or three weeks
before I started the project,before I looked at it, because
you had those kinds of rosecolored glasses on where

(43:49):
everything's great.
So you need to step away fromthe work for quite a while and
then come back to it later ThenI would give a couple of days
from when I compiled, say 800photos.
Then I come back and I'd get ridof some more.
And then I just went throughLightroom and five star on the
ones I liked.
And that one now I don't like itanymore because of this clear it
out.
And then before I just did thatover and over and over and over.

(44:10):
And before I knew it, I had whatwas supposed to be 96 page book
is like 184 now, but it is whatit is.

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

One, you have to do it.
I just did a, Facebook, live onthis last week about your first
self published book and you haveto have a solid blueprint in my
opinion.
You need to think of all thestuff we don't want to think
about, paper types, do you wantcoded glossy?
I went with my book, a mat,because if I went glossy, Glossy
tends to be a little bit morecontrast here than that.

(44:48):
Look at the image changes.
So all that work I didphotographing a certain way now
kind of gets thrown out thewindow.
So you have to have a very, verysolid blueprint to what you want
to do.
Don't just go and pick.
And then at that point, really,really look at the photos
because obviously it's a book ofphotos.
So that's going to be your mostimportant thing.
Then it's all the little piddlythings.
Do you want to write a littlebit, add something., Also, you

(45:09):
need to have a solid idea ofwhat you want it to be about,
because if you start out andjust say it's a photo book of
Iowa or a photo book, a route66, it won't flow well.
He's like, oh, it's a photo bookof Iowa.
I can put anything in there.
You can, which if done right,will work, but that's probably
the hardest.
So you've got to have thatblueprint, a layout, even if

(45:31):
it's rough and you have to beopen to changing it.
Do not write this down on apaper and say, it's done.
This is how it will be because Iran into things that I had in my
head.
When I put it into the onlinecalculator for pricing, there
was things that I wanted to dothat they just don't offer in
that configuration.
So I had to go back and take outsomething and then say, what do

(45:52):
I want a more or be more?
And then make that decision.
That's probably the biggestthing is the blueprint and how
you're going to do it andchange.

There sounds like a lot of steps involved, a
lot of things.
I understand the, if you want todo something, you got to just do
it.
But I know that, at least forme, I get hung up sometimes on
the technical.
I know that listeners do aswell.
Cause they email me askingquestions at times.
So, as we get to the end of ourinterview here, If anybody has
questions, if they want to, makea book, if they want to, start

(46:23):
on this project on their own,where can we find you online to
be able to ask you thesequestions and to be able to see
your work as well?

Yes.
And please reach out because Itell people I am an open book.
There are no secrets with mebecause that's happened too much
in the past, right?
With photographers.
We don't want to hold the secretsauce recipe when it's out
there.
You just have to find it.
And I try to tell people like, Iwant to help you Get things
figured out you could learn frommy mistakes and have less stress
than me.
I'll take your stress on.
So, you can go to my website,which is Tedford photo dot com.

(46:55):
There's a contact form there.
You could reach out on Facebook.
I'm on Facebook is JustinTedford.
Fine art photography.
Send me a DM, Probably on mywebsites, my phone number, shoot
me a text.
Just say, Hey, you don't knowme.
I heard you on the podcast.
Okay, cool.
Just so that I know and we canhave a conversation.
if we have to hop on a zoomcall, let me know.
We'll make it happen.

All right, let's go ahead and recap what we
have learned today.
Number one, define a book'sblueprint.
So having a solid plan for yourphoto book is going to help
guide you, in your project tocompletion, right?
So creating a blueprint shouldinclude things like choosing a
theme, understanding the layout,and even deciding on the paper

(47:36):
and image quality as well.
So before you start a book,start by writing out the
blueprint.
Kind of a concept for a bookthat you would like to create
and the key elements that youwould like to include as well.
Next embrace intentionalphotography.
You should really be striving tobuild a deeper connection with
your subject matter, becausesure, we can take pretty photos,

(47:57):
but like, what is it for, whenwe go deeper with our subject
matter, You're going to createmore intentional images, which
is just going to really elevatethe quality that, in them
themselves.
So try to spend more timeunderstanding, what is the
history?
What is the context of yoursubject?
Before photographing them.
And lastly.
Make a plan, but stay flexible.

(48:19):
So whether you're planning aphoto road trip, you're working
on a long term photo project,keep a loose schedule, have a
schedule, but allow room for,those spontaneous and kind of
unexpected moments or,situations to pop up because I
can tell you personally,sometimes your best shots come
from those moments that areunplanned, that come from just

(48:42):
exploring and being instinctive,yet intentional with your
images.
That is it.
I would love for you to shareyour biggest takeaway in the
beginner photography podcastcommunity.
Come join us today over atbeginnerphotopod.
com forward slash group.
Until next week, remember themore that you shoot today, the
better of a photographer youwill be tomorrow.

(49:03):
Talk soon.

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