Episode 01 - Welcome to Shutter Nonsense!
- Shutter Nonsense
- Jun 3
- 40 min read
Updated: Aug 11
Talking photography gear, workshop lessons, and general banter with Michael Rung and Jeffrey Tadlock
Welcome to the world of "Shutter Nonsense," a fresh and absurdly delightful photography podcast. If you're a fan of candid conversations, insightful debates, and are even slightly inclined towards photography, then you're in for a treat.
Join the fun! All Patreon members, whether free or paid, can participate in our community chats for each episode. Don't miss out!
Contents
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Episode Summary
Introduction to Shutter Nonsense
"Shutter Nonsense," as the name playfully suggests, is a brand new podcast that revels in the casual yet intriguing discourse on photography. Hosted by nature photographer Michael Rung and landscape photographer Jeffrey Tadlock, this podcast promises to be an engaging platform where creativity and expertise merge with lighthearted banter. Both hosts bring unique perspectives from their respective backgrounds in North Texas and Central Ohio, enriching discussions with their distinct experiences and insights.
Meet the Hosts
Michael Rung is a nature photographer based in Fort Worth, Texas, often humorously referred to as the "dead zone of nature photography." His approach to photography intertwines technical precision with artistic flair. Alongside his photographic ventures, Michael has a rich background in corporate training, which he brings into his instructional style during workshops.
Jeffrey Tadlock hails from Central Ohio and identifies as a landscape photographer. His journey involves numerous workshops that have solidified his standing as a seasoned educator in photography. Jeffrey and Michael share a mutual understanding of both photography and education, which they explore extensively in their workshops.
The Inception of the Podcast
"Shutter Nonsense" germinated from Michael's idea to create a platform akin to "Creative Banter" by Cody Schultz and Ben Horn. The inspiration derived from seeing a gap left by similar podcasts going on hiatus, propelling Michael and Jeffrey to venture into podcasting themselves. Their aim is to create a space where photography is discussed with an easy-going yet knowledgeable approach.
Workshop Experiences
The podcast delves deep into the essence of running photography workshops. From contending with unpredictable weather in national parks to discovering the soul of a location through photography, the hosts share insights from their experiences. They highlight their journey through the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, emphasizing the importance of adaptability and learning in real-time with participants.
Michael and Jeffrey discuss the balance required in workshops—how to keep energy levels high, despite long hours, and ensure each participant garners substantial photographic expertise. They reflect on their own learning curves, drawing from the nuances of differing photography equipment to the shared excitement of discovering unseen potential in unexpected photographic scenes.
Practical Photography Tips
Interwoven in their narratives are practical photography tips, such as leveraging smartphone cameras to set up compositions before committing to more cumbersome equipment. The discussions iterate the importance of exploring scenes thoroughly and using various lenses to capture both the broader narrative and finer details.
Reflections and Future Directions
Towards the end of the podcast, the hosts reflect on their personal experiences and aspirations in photography. They convey their journey from part-time enthusiasts to professional photographers juggling various projects, workshops, and the inevitable admin work that accompanies any creative practice.
What’s Next for Shutter Nonsense?
Michael and Jeffrey outline their vision for the podcast. They aim to maintain an every-other-week release schedule, providing content that is both informative and entertaining. The podcast will feature discussions on industry trends, personal anecdotes, and maybe even a few guest appearances. The goal is to foster a community-centered podcast that encourages listener interaction and aligns with their passion for building photographic knowledge.
Conclusion
"Shutter Nonsense" is less about rigid formats and more about fostering a dynamic community of photography enthusiasts eager for genuine, lively conversations. Whether you're a seasoned photographer or an aspiring amateur, this podcast promises an exploratory journey through the multifaceted world of photography. So, if light-hearted banter entwined with rich photographic discourse interests you, tune in, connect, and as Michael Rung always says, "Take care."
Full Transcript
Please note that this first episode, due to how it was recorded, does not have speaker labels. Future episodes will indicate who said what.
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Obviously, it's a bantering, right?
Yeah.
We're just talking.
It's Shutter Nonsense.
It's Shutter Nonsense.
We did, it's Shutter Nonsense, exactly.
And it was like, you had to just loosen the whole thing, and just, wow, great.
Now we're back to getting all three accesses figured out.
Her frustration was, the thing's not cheap either.
Right.
All this money, and she's frustrated with it.
At the beginning of the workshop, it was like, let's check different weather apps and figure out where we're going.
Go to a specific location.
The forecast never really aligned with what we thought it was going to be.
So by the end, we were just sort of going more towards, we are going to this location no matter what.
This is pretty off the cuff.
Yes.
100%.
No script.
I almost never do anything unscripted.
We just literally sat down and started recording.
It's the old Bill O'Reilly meme.
F it, we'll do it live.
All right.
What happens if you get a bunch of YouTubers trying to do a podcast?
Right.
Oh, I already screwed it up.
Not going to let us in the menu I record.
Maybe not.
Oh yeah, I forgot about that too, didn't I?
Let's just stop this.
This is a great start.
Oh, by the way, I'm recording.
What?
All right.
Well, after that wonderful banter, I guess let's just kick into this.
Sounds good.
Welcome to Shutter Nonsense, a brand new ridiculous photography podcast.
For those of you that don't know, my name is Michael Rung.
I'm a nature photographer based out of North Texas, Fort Worth, Texas specifically, aka the dead zone of nature photography for the most part.
And this is my cohort, Jeffrey Tadlock.
Introduce yourself, Jeffrey.
I'm Jeffrey Tadlock.
I am a landscape photographer based out of Central Ohio.
Why are you saying landscape?
Like it's bigger or more pop-ish compared to nature photography?
We had this debate earlier this week, or somewhere we had this debate recently on nature versus landscape photographer.
Nature probably sums it up best.
I agree.
That's why I call myself a nature photographer.
Old habits die hard.
Yeah, so do old men.
Actually, no, old men die young.
Old man jokes already?
Old men die easy.
So as you can probably tell, not just from the podcast name of Shutter Nonsense, but also by our ridiculous banter here, it's intended to be a pretty casual, easygoing, go-with-the-flow kind of thing here.
So we'll see.
My intent with this was, and I've been thinking about doing a podcast for a little while, but I've really enjoyed the podcast, like Creative Banter with Cody Schultz and Ben Horne, especially with their announcement of an indefinite hiatus on that podcast, possibly permanent hiatus.
Thought this would be a good opportunity to jump into it ourselves.
Why not, right?
I also like, I admit I don't watch too many of them, but Bruise and Views on YouTube.
For sure.
I struggled to find the hours of time to sit down and watch them.
But again, just very casual banter.
There's a pub cast with a bunch of UK photographers that kind of take a similar approach.
So here we are taking a swing at it, whether we should be or not.
Did your mic fall off?
Or are you just slouching?
See what I'm dealing with already?
I asked the wrong guy.
Did you think I don't even know how to make a YouTube video or something like that?
So there's a segue.
Hey, look at that.
We both have YouTube channels.
In addition to this Shutter Nonsense channel, you can find me at Michael Rung Photography.
And I'm over at Jeffrey Tadlock Photography.
Look at that.
So what do you do on your YouTube channel?
Mine's predominantly education-based topics.
And I do what I call mini gear reviews.
They're not super in-depth, the technical specs.
It's more like how does the gear I use perform out in the field.
So I'll play with different things and I try to do it after I've used it for a little bit in the field and less spec related, but just more how does it work for an actual photographer in the field.
Cool.
I'd say mine's pretty similar in terms of the gear.
I've only done two gear reviews, so what am I to say?
I have many more gear reviews.
Yeah, that I'm some pro on gear reviews.
I've got a tripod review and a geared head review.
Otherwise, most of my videos are around Lightroom tutorials and education.
I am starting to branch out a little bit into infield vlogging as well.
And we can talk about that.
That's been kind of my response to a quote unquote threat of AI, and how do you know something's authentic or legit?
And I figure if I can show myself making my photos, then maybe people actually trust that my stuff is actually rooted in reality.
But I think the main thing we wanted to talk about is we're sitting here in the beautiful Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennessee.
We just wrapped up, what, a four-day workshop?
Yeah, it's actually a four-day workshop.
So we had six attendees on a four-day workshop.
This is my first group workshop that I've co-led.
So Jeffrey's done several of them at this point in his hometown of, well, home turf.
So home turf would be good.
My hometown would be pretty boring for a workshop.
But home turf, home region, I've done lots of one-day workshops in a particular popular area and in multi-day workshops out in West Virginia.
And this is the year of branching into national parks.
And Michael is a great person to collaborate with us with this workshop on.
He brings a lot of skills to the table that are not my strongest skills.
And I think between the two of us, we actually worked really well.
We have a lot of the similar approach, I think, though we've got different strengths, our core approach, I think, to things is fairly similar.
So I think it worked.
Yeah, I think it went really, really well.
And not surprisingly, I had a little bit of nerves going into it for the first time.
But once I got in the rhythm on the first outing, it went fantastic.
We had a great group.
And out of the six people, five people had actually already done workshops with Jeffrey, so that made it very easy as well.
So kudos to Jeffrey for having your little list of people you can reach out to.
So overall, I think it went really well.
What would you say some of the takeaways from this first National Park workshop were?
Some of the first takeaways is probably, I mean, we had to contend with weather.
I think that was probably one of the biggest things.
A lot of my other workshops, I've gotten lucky and had good weather.
This particular workshop, we had to balance a lot of weather patterns through here, judging whether it's going to be overcast, whether we're going to get downpoured on, things like that, and then trying to make intelligent choices around that while trying to get people to interesting photographs for the weather you were supposed to get.
Yeah, making intelligent choices, but also realizing by the end of the workshop that forget about the forecast because it was never right.
Which is essentially how we got by the end of the beginning of the workshop, it was like, let's check different weather apps and figure out.
Go to specific locations and it worked out.
It did, it did work out.
The forecast never really aligned with what we thought it was going to be.
So by the end, we were just sort of going more towards, we are going to this location no matter what.
And that worked out for the most part as well.
Yeah, we only had one bust.
That was the overlook last night.
And even that, there were some detailed shots with some of the low clouds coming over the ridge line.
But yeah, it didn't go to a real great term.
I had my fingers crossed.
I was highly optimistic going into it.
There was one windy forecast model that showed it was going to be good.
The other ones showed it was going to be bad.
But I think the lesson learned from there, even though shot wise, there was only some brief environmental stuff, was just, it's still fun to be out, right?
Like we were sitting up there in the overlook.
I think everyone still had a good time.
We had our tea and coffee session.
We had our tea and coffee set up.
That's one of the things we do on workshops is...
Seemed to be very popular.
It was.
It got to become a regular sunrise, sunset thing.
After sunrise, hey, Jeffrey, you going to fire up the coffee and tea station?
And then at night, while we waited for a sunset, it also became that, hey, can we get a little coffee and tea going?
And it works really well because it helps to be, you want to get there early so people aren't rushing.
And I think it helps to have that little something to do.
While you're waiting, you can talk photography, you can talk about the scene.
It lets people socialize.
Everybody can kind of come to get to know each other over tea and coffee.
That sounds very British.
It does, but it works.
It was popular.
It was popular.
And it was about a 50-50 split on the coffee and tea.
You need to get some biscuits for the tea.
That's what we're looking for.
And sugar.
And sugar, yes.
I didn't have sugar.
I had some decaf options.
I meant to swipe sugar at one of my gas stops on the way here, but I forgot.
I couldn't believe everybody drinking caffeinated coffee at like 18.
And now it was surprising, because if you're right, it'd be like 730 at night, 8 at night, and all we have is caffeinated drinks and people were signing up.
So I guess everybody was a little worn out, which is definitely, so again, wonderful segue, Mike.
I would say one of my biggest takeaways, just as an instructor, is that I need to do a better job of managing my sleep schedule.
Yeah.
Because the last day especially, I was really running ragged.
I'm still feeling it.
You can hear my voice is a little scratchy from yelling over cascading water.
But getting back, we had a great Airbnb, but getting back there, by the time you get yourself situated, and then you want to sit and relax a little bit and just decompress.
I was probably decompressing for too long, instead of just going back to the bedroom and crashing out.
Yeah.
So I think I averaged about five hours of sleep each night.
That was my average too.
I was five hours of sleep.
And from the instructor perspective, it is tough to balance because you're trying to...
I think from an instructor perspective, you've got to go into everything with energy.
Right.
And Michael, despite being tired, he completely...
Can't show up.
No one would have known that he was.
I don't want to be here.
I knew it because I was getting up.
Oh my gosh, I'm so tired.
I need caffeine.
Hey, can you fire up the coffee?
But from the actual interaction with our clients and stuff, I think both of us came in with high energy.
But that is a very difficult thing to balance because it's hard to show up.
You've got to be there ready to help them with the questions they have, help get them the locations, and it is difficult to balance.
And it wasn't just this workshop.
I know previous ones where I've done the multi-day ones.
It's like, you're out there at sunrise, so you're getting up early.
Sometimes you've got drives here in the great Smoky Mountain National Park.
The drives to some of the spots, you're in for an hour to get to a spot from where we were based out of.
And that means you've got to get up super early.
You want to get there so they're not rushing.
And same, you're out at sunset, and you're there till 8.30, 8.45, 9 o'clock, and then you drive home another hour, hour and a half from there.
So you're burning it at both ends, for sure.
Yeah, long days.
And we had midday breaks.
We did.
Even there, you and I would spend half an offloading photos.
We were talking about what we were going to do for the evening, afternoon, and evening shoot.
So I think I only took an afternoon nap twice.
And yesterday, I took that one and did the opposite.
He slept a little too long.
Yeah.
But no, I mean, I've got a corporate training background and you still have to show up, no matter how you're feeling, you got to show up interested and with energy.
Otherwise, nobody else is going to be interested and they're going to just be dragging even more than what they really are.
Exactly.
If you don't come in with that energy, they get, if they see you looking tired or acting tired, or disinterested, it fades into them.
But if you keep that energy up, because I know our clients were getting fatigued, they appreciated those midday breaks.
Everyone seemed to, yes, I want to go out because I understood this is a limited opportunity.
I'm with someone to go places, so they wanted to be there.
But I do think us coming in with the energy, no matter how we feel, was important to that, because otherwise they would see, hey, we met at 6 a.m.
Right.
The instructors aren't excited.
Why should I be excited about this?
I think that is an important point to...
On the flip side, what was great about the workshop is going to some of the lesser known locations that we went to, and I can't remember which overlook it was we pulled up to yesterday, and everybody was kind of like, we're actually going to...
It was like, should I get my camera out for this?
It was like, yeah, come on.
Yes.
Then suddenly, you help them see whether it's with longer 100-form, 100-500 lens or whatever, you help them start picking out the little details that when they roll up, they're not necessarily looking at.
So it was good teachable moments too in terms of that participant viewpoint of why are we here?
There's nothing obviously exciting or grand or anything like that.
And to me, that was one of the biggest pieces that we were able to help the attendees learn throughout the week is it's not just, and I repeated it several times, especially when we're shooting cascades.
The big obvious thing might be that cascade, but don't forget to look around and look for the other little areas.
And I refer to it in past writings and on this workshop is showing the place as well as showing the place of the soul.
So the place is the broader sense of it, maybe the wider view or whatever, but showing its soul is those little details that you can pick out along the banks or the trees or dogwoods along the streams or whatever.
So yeah, I think that was all really good.
Yeah, and I think that was probably one of the key takeaways from the workshop is the workshop, we did the normal, we did the, we help you with your technical settings.
Oh, I want to learn more about focused acting or how you set up your camera controls or anything like that.
And we did all of that normal stuff for the people that needed that and wanted to help somewhere, that range of questions, but it's that showing up to a scene, the number of times we would show up somewhere and people would be, what?
And you tell them, we'll be here 15 minutes and if no one finds you, we'll move on to another spot.
But in almost all of those cases, we ended up an hour, hour and a half.
We'd be there an hour.
Everybody's kind of split off and hunting around and finding things and getting excited.
So I think that's key to walk up to a scene and really explore it to get a chance to see it.
Yeah, and conversely with the getting so locked in on the view or the subject, it's also can't find or can't see the forest for the trees mentality too.
Sometimes they'd walk up and they just want to know where to even begin.
Kind of like that overlook.
But even at some of the cascades, if it wasn't like a big cascade with a lot of elevation, they may not have been terribly interested.
And again, it's like, well, look at this and you can notice that.
And starting to help them see how we see, I kept referring to it as my 500-millimeter vision.
And how do you get that?
Well, it's just becoming familiar with it over time.
The more you do it, the more you practice, just like anything, you're rolling out.
So any other takeaways from this one?
Because this was your first in a national park.
This was my first national park workshop.
I've done a couple of years of getting used to the smaller areas, but national parks have a little bit different permitting system to be authorized to run in a national park.
So this is my first year really branching into the national parks to get my feel for the permitting process and how that all works.
So that was interesting.
It wasn't too bad to do that, but yeah, that was a bit of a little bit of work.
And you said this one, Smoky's was much more difficult than like Death Valley.
It was.
The parks I'm doing two this year were Great Smoky Mountains and Death Valley towards the end of this year.
And both systems, they have different people responding to your permit stuff.
So Smoky's was always very slow to respond to questions or anything like that.
Whereas Death Valley, I'd get a response within a business day from that.
And even the permit processing was way faster with Death Valley to get approved and signed off on than it was with the Smoky.
Right.
Right.
So maybe it's park size, number of people running in here.
But yeah, it was interesting how the two situations are completely different.
Death Valley was pretty easy to do.
And I would guess, although Death Valley is certainly, I think, growing in popularity with photographers and photographer workshops.
I would guess that Smoky Mountains may get inundated.
Probably, because they're running permits.
They're in the busiest park in this time of year.
I mean, just right now, how many other photographers have you seen?
We've seen so many workshops.
There's overlapping workshops and the whole bits.
And in the permitting process isn't just for photography workshops.
So I'm thinking that there's any activity that happens.
Exactly.
Any commercial activity that happens inside the park needs to have one of the permits.
Well, now we became very quickly aware of the big Bronco meetup.
Yes.
Yes.
The Ford Bronco meetup, which has been overtaking the town of Townsend and parts of the park at time.
And us running ahead of it to not get caught in the traffic jam.
But I'm sure that sucked up a lot of their time.
That's a huge event, man.
They got that whole field blocked off.
Oh, yeah.
That one day we saw probably 100 plus Broncos cruising through Cades Cove.
Yeah.
That was interesting.
Well, good.
So what do we talk about next?
We're at 15 minutes.
15 minutes.
Do we have anything we can bore people with?
So we can talk about-
Moving to the part where the first episode of the podcast stalls out and everybody leaves.
I mean, one of the things on the workshop, I think that you and I both sort of talked people through and seeing those small scenes and narrowing it down, was using the phones to set up your composition.
It might be interesting to touch on that just a little bit.
Yeah.
Take your test shot.
You sort of taught me the focal length trick to get how to get the focal length.
With the iPhone at least, I've got the iPhone 16 Pro, so you've got the multiple lenses.
But even when you're taking the photo, if you hold down on the 1X or 3X or 5X, whatever it is, then it brings up a dial, so you can go anywhere in between those focal lengths as well.
You can even go beyond the 75 millimeter that I think the 5X is.
So I think it goes up another 10X digital zoom on top of that.
And I don't think it on the dial.
It shows the millimeter focal length between.
But if you take the photo, then you can just go in and look at the info.
And that's why I found it super helpful, because I was used to using an iPhone to...
Both of us obviously are.
He just taught me an extra little trick to it was, I think when you're trying to line up those small scenes or line up the scene before you get your gear out of the bag, because I think we both encourage, don't set up your tripod right away.
Don't plant roots.
Right.
Approach the scene, wander around and shoot with it.
And using the iPhone, I find useful because it gives you that 2D view of the scene, which is I think why we both do it.
And you can change that composition, is it interesting or not to get that.
Play a square comp or a 4.3 or whatever to try to get a better idea of what might work.
And so I'd always been doing that, but then I heard Michael say, well, you can get your focal length of what?
And I'm always grabbing the wrong lens out of my bag.
Like, oh, is this, do I want my 24-120 or my 100-400?
And I'm always like, I'm not 100% sure what I've got.
But that little trick of take the photo and hit the little I button information, and it'll tell you what focal length, I can't tell you how much time that probably saved me grabbing the right lens, because I would line it up.
Oh, that's a 120, 135 shot.
And so that means, well, I'm grabbing my 100-400 then, as opposed to dragging my 24-120 out.
So I thought that was super helpful, and a little tip I picked up on that.
I know several of the participants, or at least a couple of them, have started doing it too.
I think for me, where I struggle with what lens to grab is kind of that gray zone between the two.
Like, eh, my 24-105 might reach it, but not quite sure.
I can just take that quick test shot.
But for me, it's also, if I'm not entirely sure if a scene is worth photographing, obviously it's a lot easier to just take that.
And these are lousy quality, because I'm just taking with the JPEG.
It's not like it's a raw file even.
So they look awful.
But you can at least get that idea of whether it's worth pulling out.
Or you can refine the composition before you set down the tripod.
Exactly.
It's a great way to move and work through the scene before, I like how you put it, plant roots to the tripod.
And I'm 100% guilty in my YouTube videos, I talk about don't set up a tripod.
All too often I'm guilty of walking up, set up my tripod, and I don't know what it is, but it's like you're tethered to that silly thing, as opposed to let me go wander a little bit before I set up a tripod.
And the phone trick for the compositions, what lens to grab, all of that.
I think it really helps work a scene to see it, to take it from that grand big scene to the stories and...
How did you say it, the spirit of the scene?
The place is the broader view, and then the soul is the little snippets you can pick out around you.
I gotta pick that up, because that's a great way to describe it.
And again, on the flip side, too, is I used the 100-500 pretty...
Aside from the stream photography, most of my work is probably in that 100-500 range.
And was it yesterday morning when we went back to Cades Cove?
Yep.
Yeah.
So we were standing out in one of the fields, and our participant Steve was standing there and using his 100-400, and taking some tight shots of some trees.
They were kind of nicely lit with some, I think, some orangish C pods hanging off them or whatever.
And he was all excited because he realized that with that 100-400, you actually can kind of plant roots, because you can just pan around and pick out all these little details that are totally different, even though you're not moving.
And I do that a lot too, and I kind of treat it like a challenge or a game of like, how many different compositions can I get without leaving this little spot?
Or maybe I just take a step or two or something.
But when you've got that tight, tight focal length zoomed in, there's just almost endless opportunities, especially when the light is good and you're surrounded.
And the nice thing with Cades Cove is, it's kind of my sweet spot in terms of like woodland photography, because there's so many meadows that you can stand in, and then you're picking out the details on the edges of the woodlands around you.
Yeah, it was great.
I know many times in Cades Cove, even while you and I were going through the park before our clients arrived, we would see one interesting scene that caught our attention.
And we were thinking, well, we'll stop here for 10, 15 minutes, photograph this scene.
I think in most of those cases, we stayed there an hour, hour and a half again, similar to almost our own clients, because you would photograph that, you're like, well, what's over this way?
Right.
And you just spend all that time there.
Well, the more you start seeing, once you find that first little scene with the long lens, then you start noticing, because again, your eye just gets used to it.
So you start seeing, oh, there's a little interesting combination of branches swooping over or the dogwoods interacting with this other tree or whatever.
So it's also just trained in the eye again.
So I think that all worked out really well.
But I do like playing that little challenge with myself.
And I'm working alone even of like, okay, I've got that shot that I first saw, but what else is there?
And I think I told you and the participants, like, once you get your shot to, before you even move the tripod or even step back to look, just take your camera and pan while you're looking at it and see what else might be even in that limited field view that you've got set up already.
So yeah, I think that was a good takeaway for the participants and you.
It is, and you know, that's one of the things that's been fun hanging out.
Michael, we've been online buddies for quite a while now, I feel like.
At least a couple of years.
Yeah, at least a couple of years.
And then we met and photographed a bit out in Lone Pine, California last year, a little over a year ago.
But it's been really great to spend sort of more extended period of time where we're not just, you know, it's been good because, and the reason it's been good, because even though we might lead workshops, there's always more to learn.
And like I said, Michael has a certain set of strengths and hopefully I have a certain set of strengths somewhere.
But it's been good to get his take on Woodlands, because I love, it's fun to photograph.
It's one of those creative areas I struggle.
So it's been fun to be able to walk over and look away.
He's composing and say, oh, I didn't see that to help it click.
Well, I did that plenty with you.
How many times do we joke about comp stomping each other?
Yeah, we talked a lot.
So we're both rushing to post our pictures first so that it looks like the other one comp stomped, regardless of which way it went.
But it's been good.
It's been great for that.
And it's fun to get out with someone else to photograph and see those scenes and learn to see them better.
That's certainly an area I continue to work on and try to improve.
And I think I'm making progress, but it's part of the fun of photography for me is to keep growing that.
Well, and the beauty of teaching, too, is you learn by teaching, because it forces you to think through things a little bit more on how to describe it.
And I think that was one of the biggest things for me, too, is coming into it, and I'm just naturally at the level of knowledge and everything that I'm at at this point.
And then suddenly talking to somebody that is where I was maybe five years ago and realizing, oh, I really got to dumb this down, and starting to get excited about showing them other things.
And you're like, oh, no, I'm going to overwhelm them.
So you got to find that balance of teaching versus, now I've just done this huge data dump on them, and they're completely overwhelmed, and they've just tuned me out because they lost me five minutes ago, and I'm excitedly like, oh, you can do this and that and that.
So I was trying to build up through the week, like, okay, I feel like they've got that little piece of knowledge in their head now.
So maybe now I could show them, oh, here's how you do focus stacking.
We had a split of Nikon and Canon.
We did, which it was nice because you're a Canon shooter and I'm a Nikon shooter.
And so if we got into something overly, for me, which would normally be I've got to go dig a manual out on my iPad that I've downloaded, I could just go, Michael, can you help with this?
And vice versa, hey, can you help with this?
So that was super nice as far as partnering up with somebody to have, since we had experts on both camera systems to help through menus.
But yeah, it's kind of like placing gumdrops along the trail and leading them bit by bit as opposed to just dumping the whole bag out right at the beginning and they just, you know, you get over satiated with it.
Establish just fundamentals and board.
That was one of the things I had to figure out really quickly.
So I think the first couple of conversations, I caught myself starting to go down like you're trying to share five, six years of just my knowledge all at once.
Everyone's at their different place in their photography journey.
And you know, if there is someone more advanced and they're trying to dump all the knowledge they've learned in their five years, it's completely overwhelming versus, okay, I need to simplify down to this element.
And like you said, over the course of the workshop, you can build on that even over the same workshop.
It's not like it takes the whole workshop to build a base, but it's like, okay, let's get this.
Cool, you got that.
Okay, we're gonna take it one more step.
Remember how yesterday we talked about this?
We're gonna add this component to it.
So yeah, there's certainly a tact and a style and an awareness to do that.
Yeah.
I think the other big takeaway for me, not takeaway, just realization, is stepping back in time for myself to a ball head instead of a geared head.
And a tripod that maybe isn't quite as sturdy or intuitive or just easy to use.
And seeing the participants have that frustration that I used to have with my cheap tripod when I first started out and realizing the value of that.
And I even had the conversation with one of them, how many thousands of dollars is sitting on top of your tripod right now?
Well, the body was this and the lens was that.
And how much did you spend on your tripod?
It was like $150, $250.
Let me balance that up here.
And I'm looking at it, I'm just like that tripod is giving me anxiety.
And realizing that, of course, everybody's going to, I did the exact same thing, but realizing what a difference.
Spending that money, what's the term?
The cry once, buy once, cry once.
Yes, 100 percent.
I certainly didn't do that.
I don't think most people do, because especially when you're getting into it, if you're not sure you're going to stick with it, like, why would I go out and spend between my tripod and the geared head I've got, and the leveling base I've got, I've got $1,000 into my tripod setup.
And for somebody that isn't full bore into it or...
Casual or figuring out if you're going to stick with it.
Yeah, exactly.
Like, why do you buy a cheap camera when you start?
Because you don't know if you're going to stick with it.
But man, it is an epiphany of how far my setup has come.
It's funny, whenever I give tripod talks either on my videos or if someone asks me, I've done tripod talks for my local camera club where we get them out.
And because I've done what I tell people not to do, which is go buy a good one first, but I didn't do that either.
And I can literally take to a camera club like five tripods.
And I can say, this is the one I bought first and then later I upgraded here.
And here's this head versus that head.
And it's not because I collected them all to talk about them.
It's because I repeat it.
I did what people told me not to do.
Don't buy a cheap one.
Get a nice one.
It's the right of passage, I think, for a photographer.
And I think we can definitively say, and I don't think we'll offend our participant that had it because she was fully aware of it by the end of the workshop, too.
Do not buy the peak design travel tripod.
Oh, yes.
She was very fed up with that tripod.
Yes, she was very fed up with that tripod.
It is just so cumbersome to use.
It's cumbersome and, to me, totally unstable.
Yeah.
It's got those thin legs.
It's like razor thin legs.
Yeah.
That is certainly an issue.
My gosh, I'm surprised the thing ever sits still.
It's so thin, but the head on that thing is just, it's the first time I've seen one in the wild.
I can see where she was frustrated.
I think even early on.
I know several times I would help her with compositions, and we would set something up, and all we needed to do is pan a little bit one side of the other.
You had to just loosen the whole thing, and we were just, wow, great.
Now we're back to getting all three accesses figured out, up, down, left, to sort of out.
So yeah, that...
And her frustration was, the thing's not cheap either.
She's got all this money, and she's frustrated with it.
And then we're working with it, and kind of reinforcing, this isn't really stable, you've got a big camera and a big lens on it.
Yeah, I heard her many times say, I need to get a different tripod.
Which is unfortunate, given in that particular scenario, it wasn't cheap.
Right, right.
Yeah, and it's not like we were scolding her.
No, we totally worked with it.
You know, we worked with it.
We beat her down over it.
She was fully aware of it, I think, before she even got to the workshop.
And I think this workshop, since we were working on uneven terrain and awkward positions, we reinforced that.
With all the screen size.
Yeah, yeah.
We're on a tangent with poor peak design.
It had to be sad because...
No, I brought it up.
I mean, you know, I've got some peak design stuff and it's great, but that tripod is just, whew.
Yeah.
So if you got questions about tripods, we can help you out a little bit.
And heads.
So I'd say let's, to use a Matt Payne term, let's shift gears.
Oh, my.
I think that's a trademark phrase.
I don't know if we can use that.
Well, yeah, we're going to shift gears.
So I'd say we're at the end of the workshop.
You're heading home tomorrow.
I'm heading home the next day.
What do you have coming up next?
I know you've got Death Valley in December.
I've got a Utah workshop that will be co-leaning with Nathan St.
Andre in October, but more immediate.
What do you have coming up besides editing your photos?
Yeah, so I got to edit my photos, of course.
And then actually, this coming up Friday, next to my time you listen to this, this will be passed.
But I am getting set to head to another one day workshop that I do regionally.
And then looking further out that you'll actually be able to participate in post podcast release is I've got a West Virginia workshop, which I do in Davis Thomas area of West Virginia.
That's a multi-day workshop, a lot of waterfalls, overlooks, and the beautiful scenic West Virginia.
When is that?
That is second week of October, I think is where we're that.
Hopefully this will be out by then.
Yeah, it better be out by then.
We better not put this on that one.
It's April 26th.
Yeah, so we should be good.
Six months.
Yeah, you will not be making the Hocking Hills workshop, but the West Virginia workshop, I still have a couple of spots open on that one.
It's a great workshop.
It's an area a lot of people don't know, but everyone I've ever taken there has been like, oh, wow, because you get some very scenic waterfalls or some great overlooks.
There's a high mountain valley that's fun to photograph.
So that one and then Death Valley in December.
Anything specific planned for your YouTube channel?
Continue the same thing.
I've found it harder and harder to maintain.
I typically do weekly video production, but as I continue to build the workshop side of the world, you know, there is prepping for this and then being at this.
So working to make sure I get back to at least every other week release video.
But a lot of the video the same, a general mix of some vlogging, which I do minimal of, but some of that, but some gear stuff.
I actually have a couple gear things that I need to get a little more use on and talk about out there.
And then just in general, camera education, landscape photography education.
So maintain the same track with the channel and try to hit that every other week release just to sort of back off because with spring workshops, fall workshops, it just gets very challenging.
I'm sure you can relate to a regular schedule.
It's funny, you're still working full time and building up your business.
I went full time with photography back in January of 2022.
Yet somehow I feel like I've got less time now than when I was working full time.
But I do want to get back on the YouTube bandwagon a bit.
I've been very sporadic with it.
I just released my first Enfield video since last June, as a child screams in the background.
I want to do more of that, but even here, I thought I'd be recording some Enfield sessions between crowds.
And even when it was just you and me, this is the first time I've been here too, so that makes it harder.
So yeah, I want to get back to that.
I'm hoping to get to Arkansas again in a few weeks, but I'm suspecting that's not going to pan out.
But I'm hoping to get back to Colorado this summer.
But other than that, I think I want to reflect back on this workshop and try to do some videos, whether it's Lightroom and some of the questions that were coming up.
It kind of got me excited to get back into the Lightroom tutorial stuff, which I haven't done a ton of.
It's a great source, right?
You get to see people at different level, different needs and see, oh, there's a gap here because if they'd asked you a question, if you couldn't say, I've got a video on it.
Right.
Great video topic, right?
You get a whole list of things.
Oh, I should do a video on that.
It's helpful for workshops because there were questions we would get where it's like, hey, we're going to do a real brief overview of this particular Lightroom thing.
But in your case-
We can't show it all.
Right.
You can't show it all.
Sometimes it's just chaos around, you're tired.
But Michael, in a lot of times, is able to say, I've got this video here that talks about it, and it digs in a little bit.
So yeah, it's a great way to help know what content to create that's helpful.
Again, provides that value.
Yeah, I'll admit, I've been in this position with Lightroom.
Other than a new feature coming out, I've been stuck on where to go next with my Lightroom videos, and whether I try to do an actual true, let's take a few images and provide downloads that viewers can download and charge for it, like a course, or I've started recently doing some just off the cuff, like, hey, I'm sitting down and working in Lightroom, I'm just going to start recording my screen myself, and throw those up on Patreon as a new perk for my paid members.
But I've been feeling a little, not like I've tapped out on everything there is to show in Lightroom, we're like, what do I do next?
And I've covered masking, but I think even my masking video is from 2021, so how much can I go back and refresh and update, and do it better or in smaller chunks or whatever?
So that was me covering everything when Adobe rolled out the brand new masking.
But yeah, I think from a Lightroom perspective, definitely got some really good questions that got me excited about doing that content again, and also just in field questions, or rather it's like even talking about the value of a better tripod, or here's again why we love our geared heads versus the ball heads and everything.
Even though we've got gear reviews, or maybe we've covered it on the podcast.
I almost put it in that field craft category of like, we don't have to say get this geared head, get that geared head or anything like that.
But as much as just here's a type of equipment that makes my life easier, and that can range anything from how you carry your equipment, store your equipment, to it doesn't have to be brand specific, but just things that make your life easier in the field over course of time.
It's that sliver I like to call field craft to a degree a little bit.
A little gear, but.
Yeah, yeah.
And moving on from there, again, it's like I'm doing this full time.
How do I feel like I'm so behind?
But I've got my third limited edition print portfolio, or print folio that I need to desperately sit down.
I haven't even picked the images I want to do in it, and I've been telling my email subscribers for like four months.
I'll have free orders open in the next month, and granted, I've had a lot going on in my personal life.
For viewers that don't know, my fiance was diagnosed with breast cancer last fall, and so we've been dealing with a lot there with surgery and stuff.
But yeah, it's like I know I need to get home, and I've got like 40 or 50 photos from my archives that I've been working on for months and trying to find a slot of when I'm going to release them.
Now I've got, you know, who knows how many new images from this tape.
You've got the print folder I want to get life in going, right.
We've got a presentation for Nick Stover coming up in May.
You had one already.
Yeah, back in mid-April I did one.
Yeah, so I've got that I've got to prepare for.
I've got another presentation that came through Nick Stover, but for a photo club, but that's not till July.
So I got a little breathing room there.
But yeah, it's just, I think that's the biggest thing that with the whole full-time photography is the more you do more to drive your business, which is great because, you know, I'm on track to have my best year financially and everything.
But that means there's so much more work that comes along with it, right?
Yeah, just like this, it takes the workshop.
It's not just show up and do the workshop.
There was a lot of marketing ahead of it, building web pages to support the workshop, you know, both of us creating newsletters with content that writing blogs, running blogs and logistics.
And there's a lot of overhead to it.
Like even this workshop, you know, I was away sending emails about my Hiking Hills workshop because I had to get questions or I had to get food orders in order to be ready.
And that's all happening during this workshop.
So whenever we got internet, it's like, Oh, I got to make sure this is happening.
Another reason you don't get much rest during downtime is that's our time, like you said earlier, get caught up.
So yeah, it's as much as I want to get back to Arkansas next month, I'm also feeling kind of, what's the word, relieved, maybe not quite right, but kind of relieved that like if I don't go, that gives me just another week to actually sit and work on admin stuff.
Yes.
And a lot of it and not do photography, deal all the business side of things.
For sure, it takes a lot of time.
But fortunately, I've got a nice chunk of images that I can trickle out over the next however long.
So yeah, I think we've covered it pretty well here.
Let's say one more thing, a little more about the podcast.
For those that have stuck this far, I mean, they probably like it.
So where do we see this podcast going?
Obviously, it's bantering, right?
We're just talking-
It's Shutter Nonsense.
It's Shutter Nonsense.
We did, it's Shutter Nonsense, exactly.
But we sat down, we obviously, we had no script, we just talked and went through it.
But how do we see this podcast going?
What can viewers look forward to if they like what they're hearing so far?
I think at least starting out, we've agreed we're going to do every other week.
So as we just finished talking about how much we feel overwhelmed, how much we got to do, let's add a podcast onto it.
That's what we do.
Yeah.
So I think every other week, by the time you watch this, we'll hopefully have the first handful of episodes recorded.
So we have some cushion too for the times where we just can't get together.
Because as YouTubers, we've learned, if you don't have a cushion, that's why you miss weeks.
Right.
I think realistically, we won't be recording in person very often.
Correct.
Yeah.
Although hopefully we do more workshops together.
Well, you drove like 13 hours to see me, right?
Right.
If I was meeting you in Ohio, I think it'd be much further.
Yes, it would be even worse, and there'd be nothing to photograph.
Right.
So I think our goal is to continue to do them with video.
So there's that aspect of it, and we can take advantage, frankly, of the YouTube.
Right.
Everyone's on YouTube.
While I don't tend to watch podcasts on YouTube, there's definitely an audience that does.
And well, I think if people do that, then it's probably worth the time for us to do it.
I think I share with you something like 45 percent of, what is it, Zillinia?
What's the?
The Z's.
The Z's.
Generation Z.
The youths.
The youths, right?
Watch their podcast instead of just listen.
So we're doing this for you, Generation Z.
Yes, it's for the youths, for kids.
Yeah, yeah.
So anyways.
We're not that old that we're going to ignore trends.
But yeah, so the video, I think we've decided to do that.
Hopefully, the video hits the same day as audio.
We'll see how that plays out.
Otherwise, yeah, every other week, I think keep the conversation casual night, kind of updates on what we're working on.
Might be things we're seeing in the industry currently that we want to talk about.
I was thinking about there's a podcast, I listened to that Colin and Samir podcast that had the Jack content from Patreon on there.
And they, on some of their episodes, they have a gripe session at the end where they air a gripe, which I thought was kind of funny.
And they keep it light hearted.
I don't want this to be a podcast.
It's two old grumpy men, two old muppets.
That could be a whole new podcast.
The grumpy old landscape photographers.
Well, we got an old grumpy.
That might be trademarked.
But now I just totally lost my train of thought.
But anyway, yeah, not just making gripes, but maybe we finish the episode with something that's inspired us recently or whatever.
So there's also the positivity to wrap up episodes.
We'll probably have some broad topic.
Like today we had workshops, we talked about that experience to keep us on something.
But it'll be fairly laid back.
Topic might be, how in the world are we going to run a podcast?
Exactly.
We can talk through it in real time.
How's that going?
How did this first edit go?
What did we learn?
What did we not like?
I keep losing my train of thought.
We've talked about having some guest on here and there.
We'll do an occasional guest.
I don't think we want to be a full guest podcast.
I don't want to be an interview podcast, but I think it'd be nice to freshen the pot.
I agree.
Get different perspectives, get some folks coming through.
Pull in some of the folks we know pretty well, and see how those go.
And I think that's really just, obviously if you're still watching by this point, I think you've picked up that this is pretty off the cuff.
Yes.
100 percent.
No script.
I almost never do anything unscripted.
And this guy here is like, I was like, do you got a script?
Like a bullet point?
He didn't add nothing.
We just literally sat down and started recording.
It's the old Bill O'Reilly meme.
F it, we'll do it live.
Yes.
So that's what we did.
This is one take.
We just sat down and did it live.
Forty-one minutes of just.
Which is what we wanted.
Stream of consciousness, right.
And it's what we wanted because.
I feel like it's going pretty well.
Yeah.
I'm entertained.
We may have one person listening by this point.
But yeah, I think that will go pretty well.
But yeah, I want it to be lighthearted.
That's kind of what I like about a creative bang.
We've got Matt Payne with F-Stop Collaborate doing a phenomenal job with interviews, Richard Burnaby does a phenomenal job with interviews.
That market's kind of there.
Like I said, I really did enjoy Cody and Ben on Creative Banter.
I could see them sort of drop back.
And I think there's Creative Banter, there's Pubcast that I've started listening to recently.
I probably wanted a little more focused on photography as opposed to Ben and Spandex or whatever.
No offense, Ben, but we did have, we thought we might have seen Ben out on the Foothill Park way that one day, right?
There was a guy in full, I think the colors were a little too bright for Ben, but it definitely had the outfit down.
So yeah, I think that's really the goal here is just keep it lighthearted.
And obviously, from a viewer or listener standpoint, if there's something you want to talk about or want us to talk about, let us know.
Actually, that's something else we talked about, you know, at some point, you know, we don't want to have our first episode and immediately, you know, let's monetize it, ask people for, you know, support it and everything.
We got to see if it's actually any good first.
But if we do a Patreon, I think it's less if, but when we do a Patreon, you know, do a monthly live stream or monthly Q&A with listeners.
Whether the listener, I don't think we would do listeners on the actual session, you know, have a list of questions where we can answer.
Yeah, listener and viewer questions and stuff like that.
So I'm excited about that too, because I think that's something that I don't feel like I see a whole lot in the photography space is kind of, you know, getting the listeners engaged a little bit and answering questions that way, which some might be difficult to answer in this format, but I, you know, certainly from a conceptual standpoint, or just picking our brains around our approach or whatever.
I mean, I think it's like anything we do, like you and I are both very community focused, I think.
We like to see it go both directions and not just be us sitting here talking and listening.
Like we want, as you start, if you like what we say, what we talk about, we want input and try to make it into a two-way, what can we do?
Obviously, it's a podcast, so it's predominantly going to be us talking about it, but we'd like, you know.
I mean, we are the most interesting people in the world.
Of course.
That's why we're here and why we're doing this.
Yeah.
And I'd say too, like I don't want it to feel like a one-sided relationship.
Yeah, for sure.
You know, I've talked about it.
Again, I'm full-time.
You're not there, but especially as a full-time photographer, hopefully this is for any type of photographer.
But as a full-time, it can be a lonely world because I work from home in my home office, and it's not like I can meet coworkers for drinks or anything, especially where I live in Texas.
So let's make this a two-way relationship, hopefully, instead of just us talking about whatever the heck we want.
Well, we don't care what you, the viewer, you, the listener are interested in.
And to that end, too, give us feedback.
If you think we're idiots and we're crazy people, then, well, this may not be for you.
I don't think we're going to change the format.
Sorry, you're out of luck.
But feedback is welcome.
If we dwell too long on something, not to others.
I've never led a podcast.
I've been on podcasts, but I've never driven a podcast.
So hopefully, we don't drive it off the cliff.
Yes.
We're definitely open to the feedback and hopefully positive, but we'll take it from there.
So I think we're just kind of talking circles at this point.
I think we're good.
I think this is our inaugural episode.
Hopefully, we can say, check back in two weeks.
Yes.
Subscribe if you like it.
Give us a review if you really loved the first episode.
Again, if you got ideas or topics you'd like us to cover, feedback for this first episode, certainly let us know.
And with that, I would say I'll give my usual tagline of until next time, take care.
What do you think I was going to say?
I don't know if I have a tagline yet.
No.
Well, it's technically my podcast, so we can do this.
Okay, we're using your tagline, we're using his tagline.
All right, take care.
See ya, everybody
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Follow your Shutter Nonsense Hosts
Michael Rung
Michael is a nature and landscape photographer based in Texas, with a deep appreciation for quiet forests and the unique character of trees. His photography often explores the subtle beauty in overlooked scenes, capturing atmosphere and emotion through careful composition and light. Michael brings thoughtful insight, honest reflections, and a grounded perspective to every episode of Shutter Nonsense.
Jeffrey Tadlock
Jeffrey is a landscape photographer from Ohio who finds inspiration in waterfalls, scenic overlooks, and the ever-changing light of the natural world. He enjoys sharing stories from the field and helping others improve their skills through practical, experience-based tips. With a passion for teaching and a love of the outdoors, Jeffrey brings clarity and encouragement to fellow photographers at all levels.
