The Beginner Photography Podcast

The Mirror and the Megaphone: How Photography Reveals Who You Truly Are

• Raymond Hatfield

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#566 In this episode of the podcast, I explore how photography can be a powerful tool for self-discovery—not just a way to create beautiful images or chase technical perfection. I share my belief that the most meaningful photos aren’t always the ones that earn the most likes or comments. Instead, our true value as photographers comes from how honestly we depict our lives and the world around us. 

KEY TOPICS COVERED

  1. Photography as Self-Discovery - Raymond explains that photography is more than just technical skill or visual appeal—it's a tool for self-exploration. The choices you make behind the camera act as a "mirror," revealing your interests, values, and the way you see the world.
  2. The Mirror and the Megaphone Metaphor - The “mirror” captures your authentic, unfiltered truth, while the “megaphone” amplifies what you choose to share with the world—curated, staged, or idealized moments. The real magic happens when your megaphone projects your mirror’s truth.
  3. Practical Ways to Shoot Authentically - Raymond recommends concrete strategies, like setting reminders to document ordinary scenes (e.g., your fridge, messy rooms) to foster honesty in your work. He challenges listeners to photograph something honest, unpolished, and meaningful—if only for themselves.

IMPORTANT DEFINITIONS & CONCEPTS

  • Mirror: The aspect of photography that reflects your true self—your interests, emotions, and what you naturally notice. It’s about authenticity.
  • Megaphone: The way you present or share your images, shaping how your story is told to others. This can be more curated or staged but is most powerful when aligned with your mirror.

DISCUSSION & REFLECTION QUESTIONS

  1. What do your everyday photo choices reveal about you?
  2. Have you ever felt pressure to shoot for an audience instead of for yourself?
  3. How can you begin to capture more authentic and honest moments in your daily life?

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Thanks for listening & keep shooting!

raymond-hatfield_3_05-23-2025_120036:

Why would you go against your instincts just to chase what's popular? The more that you lean into shooting how you see the world, the more unique, the more meaningful and amazing and personal your work is gonna become. Who doesn't want unique, meaningful, amazing, and personal work? Who doesn't want to create that? Hey, welcome to the Beginner Photography Podcast. I'm your host, Raymond Hatfield, and today we're gonna look at photography a little bit differently, not as just a way to capture beauty. I. Or nail the perfect shot, but as a way to really understand yourself and how you see the world, and you know me. My goal is not to get all philosophical and then just leave you hanging. I'm also gonna be sharing some practical tips on ways that you can photograph more freely and create images that are not only beautiful, but more authentic to yourself. We are going to stop tying our worth as photographers to the amount of likes or comments that our images get. My goal is that you walk away from this episode with a renewed sense of purpose behind the camera, and maybe realize that the experience of shooting is just as if not more valuable than the actual photos themselves. But first, the Beginner Photography Podcast is brought to you by Clouds Spot. Come on, you know this. If you wanna turn your passion for photography into income Clouds spot is the way to do it. Clouds Spot offers not only beautiful galleries, not only the ability to start selling your prints in seconds, but also with cloud spots Studio you can start to manage clients. Send out contracts, send invoices, collect payments, organize your photo life. So get started with your free forever Cloud spot Plan by signing up over@deliverphotos.com. To start off this interview, I want to share a metaphor that I thought of the other day, and I'm kind of still workshopping it, but I think that it's built out enough that it's gonna make sense. I was looking through my Lightroom catalog for an image to use as a thumbnail for one of the podcast episodes a few weeks ago, and I started to feel kind of self-conscious. I was looking through the images. I thought to myself, man, I have got to have a better photo than this one. And it's not necessarily that the photo that I was looking at was a bad photo. In fact, I loved it. But knowing that I was sharing the photo made me think, just a little bit different about it. Maybe you've experienced this as well, you have photos that you like, but if somebody, gives you, a praise or says that they like the photo or something like that, you almost like dismiss it. Like, no, no, no, no. I've definitely taken better photos like, you know, and you may have heard this term before, not term idea, that photography is simply a mirror of ourselves as artists, but photography is so much more of a mirror than you think it is. It's also more than mirror Photography reflects back to us so much about ourselves, not only from the subject matter of what we photograph, but also how we photograph it. And if we look close enough and if we listen to that voice in our head that says, photograph this, shoot it this way. Again, it's gonna show you who you are as an artist if you let it. But here's the flip side of that, and the part that I was struggling with when I was choosing a photo to share is, is the thumbnail for the episode is that photography. It can also be a megaphone, meaning sometimes it is about projecting what you want others to see from the perfect vacation photo where the whole family's together and they're so close and they're all smiling. Even though, let's be honest, five seconds before somebody was crying about sand in their shoes or something, but the megaphone is. the megaphone is what you shoot and the mirror is how you shoot. It's not necessarily about like sharing the images online, but the real magic in photography. Those who have successfully created images that are resonant to so many people are the ones who have figured out that. How to use the megaphone to amplify the truth that they see in the mirror. So let me break this down for you. The mirror is when you photograph what's real to you. Messy, honest, raw. The megaphone is what you want the viewer to see. More curated, more polished, maybe a little staged. But when the megaphone speaks your truth from the mirror, again, that is when photography really hits home. And again, I don't even mean like you're curating this body of work for other people online to see. This also applies to you if nobody but yourself ever sees these photos because this is about why you shoot. Not just what you share Again, it has nothing to do with sharing your images for the world. Think of it as sharing the images for a viewer. That viewer could be the people of Instagram. It could also be yourself 10 years from now, looking back at your own images as a totally different viewer than you are today taking the image. What you shoot today is telling the story of what life is like. even to the version of yourself 10, 20, 30 years from now. You're using a megaphone to perpetuate a story. You have to be intentional about what that story is. Okay? So if you're with me, you may be thinking, okay, I think I get it, but I'm not the kind of person who shoots for likes. Or maybe you're thinking, I am not the kind of person who curates every one of my photos to make it look like something I'm not, or we are not. And on the surface, I would say that too. That's exactly what I would say. But I want you to think about these everyday scenarios. Okay. You are at the zoo with your kids. Your daughter's favorite animal is the penguin. So what do you wanna do? You want to take a nice photo of your family, of your daughter in particular in front of the penguins, her favorite animal. You want the photo to look nice. So while you got the penguins there in the background, you ask your daughter to look at you and smile nicely. But instead, because she's a child, she gives you this really weird face that only kids for some reason think is funny or worse. Maybe she's melting down completely because, I don't know. the penguins just kind of stand there and they really don't jump around all the time. Like, like she was hoping. So the question is, do you take the photo anyway of this wild, goofy smile or this meltdown in front of penguins, or do you give her this stern look and say, Hey, smile, like what are you doing? There's a good chance that you're probably. I'm gonna wait until she decides to smile and that you're not gonna take a photo of her acting all goofy and weird or melting down in front of these penguins. Here's another example. Let's say you are attending a close friend's wedding. You're not the wedding photographer, but you're attending. Do you try to capture all of the, quote unquote important, big moments. Like the kiss, the first dance, the walk down the aisle, The moments that, that as a guest, you are not gonna be printing and hanging on your walls because it's not special to you. It's special to the couple. Like, why would you have a photo of another couple kissing, hanging on your wall? Like, that's a little weird, but, you know, whatever. No judgment or do you find yourself photographing the smaller details that you personally naturally notice. The heels finally being kicked off and pushed under the table during the reception'cause I'm sure that they hurt, not that I've ever worn heels, but they do not look comfortable. That quiet hug in the corner, you know, as everything kind of quiets down and the couple finally realizes, oh my gosh, we did it. Or that photo of the flower girl picking her nose. Which ones are you gonna shoot? Okay, last example here. What if you're out for on a walk? There's this nice, beautiful sunset, but the way that the sun creates this beautiful golden, halo around the shadows of these trees on the ground. or the light that's just hitting this crumpled up leave. These things that there's real no audience for, but it feels right to you. Sure. You could say, why can't you photograph both? Like, I get it, but what are you naturally drawn to? Here's the thing, even if those photos live on your hard drive forever. They're reflections of what matters to you. That's the mirror and the act of choosing to photograph something that's the megaphone, even if nobody else sees it. Even if nobody else hears it. How many times do we show the photo with the big smile rather than the breakdown? And I get it. It may seem kind of weird to just post a photo of a flower girl picking her nose, right? I've been there, I've done it. It doesn't get a ton of likes, gets a lot of laughs, but you know, whatever. So we take the photos of the kiss and the aisle and the normal stuff because that's what we think is quote, unquote, most important. That's the normal stuff. And again, I'm guilty of it too. We all want to look back and remember the good times, right? But in doing that, sometimes we skip the part where we discover what we truly value as, as artists, as photographers, by only taking those quote unquote normal photos. We are changing the message that we share with our megaphone to the world. If you share your photos, but mostly to yourself, when you look back on your images. to go to the, most extreme version of this, it's that we are lying to ourselves in the photos that we take. I will share something that I've learned, from shooting weddings or I guess maybe this is, since shooting weddings, but I only really realized it because I had shot weddings for so long. It's that for years I was so focused on capturing the moment, the shots that people expect, the reason why we're being hired. It's the kiss, it's the cake cutting, it's the bouquet, it's the whatever else. But once I stopped shooting weddings. I had a really hard time finding my ground in photography, like, what am I supposed to be shooting? Because I was constantly thinking about the viewer. I was constantly thinking about the audience for who this photo was for. And because of that, I was taking photos that would be considered more traditionally nice. But once I stopped worrying about getting every shot. and Started just shooting. What was interesting to me, my photos changed. They became more playful, they became more experimental, and honestly, they became a lot more me. I started taking a lot of photos of clouds. I started taking a lot of photos of just being on the road, cars on the road, signs on the road, things that you can see from the road. Again, these are things that don't have an audience, but they're interesting to me because when I'm not concerned about, pleasing anybody but myself, I notice smaller things the way the light hits a wall. How my daughter's shoes seem to end up in the oddest of places. How do you have one in the backyard and the bathroom? Anyway, it's these little stories. They're the ones that I want to remember because those are the things that I notice. And look, I don't want this to sound like, I'm telling you to take photos of your kid's shoes or the dandelions in the grass, or things like that because maybe you are the kind of person who does live for and love those big moments, and you love creating something from nothing. And that's fine if that's who you are, because that's who you are. What I'm sharing here today is to shoot the images that are authentically you. I'm not that kind of person, so I'm not gonna shoot and share things because maybe it's trendy or others expect it. I want to shoot the things that I notice, not just the expected things. Now shooting for yourself, shooting images that are more authentic to you is, it's simple, but it's not necessarily easy. Every day we see a barrage of images, and subconsciously we start to judge our work against everything that we see. If you drive a, I don't know, a Honda Civic, no hate on Honda Civics, I had a Honda Civic. But you go to a car show that is just nothing but supercar. When you go back to your Honda Civic, you're gonna judge that Honda Civic based on the, all of the cars that you saw that day. When beforehand, your car was fine, you liked it. But now subconsciously we're judging it in a different way. So where do we start if we want to capture images that are more of a mirror of our true selves? Well, when you go to take a photo, ask yourself, who are you shooting for? Are you composing for likes? Is this photo some trend that you saw? Not that those are bad things, just something to be aware of. Are you trying to recreate what you think is a quote unquote good photo? Are you trying to make something that just based on what you think or what you see as popular online, or are you photographing what you actually see and are you photographing what actually matters to you? This is where I remind you that moment matters more than settings always has, always will shoot what's real and not just what's quote unquote right or expected. The truth is we define ourselves based on the photos that we take. You may not even realize that you're doing it, but there was a study that had came out, the study, is called digital photography and self-Identity among youth, and it had found that teenagers subconsciously curate their identity of their life through the photos that they take. Choosing, you know, maybe, these are just some examples. you get your first paycheck and you get it all out in cash, and you just show off all the cash and you take a photo of it. You are, on a vacation with your family. You're gonna photograph the time by the pool. You're gonna photograph the sunburn that you get as some sort of, brand that you spent so much time outside. You're gonna take photos of laughing and where everything looks perfect. So if you've ever caught yourself photographing for trends or what you think people are going to like, you're not alone. This is just something that people do inherently. It's not a conscious choice. It is just something that people do, and it's not because you necessarily think that you're not good enough. It's just something that we're wired to do. Why we do this? I don't know, but here's the good news. You got the power to stop it. You have the power to stop photographing trends and start photographing your truth. I bake in these moments of truthful photography for myself. How do I do that? I have it in my phone under my reminders app to go off every 90 days. I'm gonna take a photo of our fridge. I'm just gonna go over there, open it up, snap a photo. A few photos and then that's it. There's no online audience for that photo. There's no art gallery audience for that photo. That photo is for me to be grounded in my truth. Our fridge is messy. We have junket times. We have better choices. At other times, we can see the trendy barbecue sauce that we buy, and we'll see when I was going through my pickled beet phase. But that is the truth. I also have a reminder in my phone again, to go off every 90 days. Just to photograph the kids' rooms. When that timer goes off, or that reminder rather, I'm gonna grab my camera, I'm gonna go into the room. I'm not gonna touch a single thing and I'm gonna take a photo. Am I gonna share it online? No. So why do I take the photo? Because it's my truth and I'm not photographing for myself today. I'm photographing for myself 10 years from now. I wanna know what the truth looked like objectively. Yeah, their rooms were a mess, but guess what? Over the past, I don't know, year and a half, two years that I've been doing this, I've also seen a lot of change in their rooms. I've seen their beds get bigger. I've seen their rooms get rearranged and become more mature. Even if there's some papers and stuff on the floor and it's, it's dirty. That's what that room look like because again, I, I don't want a photograph for myself today. I don't find photos taken today interesting because I'm living it. I want to photograph for the future. I want my kids. And you know, as well as couples that I photographed to look back at their photos and say, yeah, that was us. That was our real life. It's not just posts, smiles. I want my kids to, to see the discovery within them, the wonder, the play, and yeah, even sometimes tantrums. And you might want that too, or you might not. I don't know. Like I was saying earlier, everyone's version of the truth is different. Your truth is based on your life experiences. It's shaped by everything that you've ever done. So why would you go against your instincts just to chase what's popular? The more that you lean into shooting how you see the world, the more unique, the more meaningful and amazing and personal your work is gonna become. Who doesn't want unique, meaningful, amazing, and personal work? Who doesn't want to create that? I mean, we all know. We all know there, there's no question about it. There's no debate. We all know that social media is just a curated highlight reel. I. Even knowing that it is so easy to judge our worth as photographers by somebody else's feed of perfectly curated images, knowing that they take more than the photos that are just, the picture perfect ones that they posted. We have to actively try to not fall in that trap of believing that somebody else's highlight reel is an accurate representation of every photo they take, because I promise you it is not. So here is my challenge for you this week. The one thing that if you implement it, is going to move the needle forward in your photography. Next time you go out shooting, pick one moment that you wouldn't normally photograph. Maybe it's something unglamorous, something overlooked. just as long as it's something that's honest. A crumbled up leaf, that beautiful light hitting your trash cans on the curb. Your kid throwing a tantrum. maybe I should pick up a different metaphor for that. I feel like I'm putting out this idea that every time my kids throw a tantrum, I just run and go grab my camera. But I don't, I promise. But if I have my camera and you know the moment's, right, I'm gonna take that tan photo, believe me. Shoot it, whatever it is, shoot it, and then look at that photo. I mean, really look at that photo and ask yourself, does this image tell my truth? Why does this image matter to me? You don't have to share it with anybody, but if you do want to post it in the beginning of photography, podcast community. And there's more than 6,000 listeners just like yourself who just want to learn and grow their skills as photographers. We'd love to see it. It's the safest place on the internet for new photographers. And again, you can join by heading over to beginner photo pod.com/group. But if you don't wanna share it, you could just look at the photo and jot down a few lines in a journal about what you notice. The important part here is what are you paying attention to? Because what you pay attention to is the mirror. The more you're aware of the mirror, the better you can use your microphone. So to bring it all together here, photography becomes transformative when, the truth that you see in yourself is what you choose to share with others, and that's what people connect with honestly, in your work. it's not about likes, it's about resonance. It's about relatability, honesty. Here's a practical tip to close things out, right? Before you share a photo, either online or just by saving it in your Lightroom gallery, ask yourself two questions. Is this what I want others to see? And then two, is this what I see in myself? If the answer is yes to both, then you've struck gold. Even if it doesn't get a ton of likes or praise, I promise you that is the direction that you need to move forward with. So even if your photos never leave your computer, you're still telling a story with your images. The mirror helps you to see yourself. And the megaphone reminds you that your story is worth capturing. And together they turn photography into something that is so much more powerful than a quote unquote perfect picture. They turn it into this personal truth and there's nothing more valuable. Remember, the best photograph doesn't just show what's beautiful. It shows what's true. And when you share what's true, you don't just become a better photographer, you become a more connected human. So keep learning, keep seeing, keep growing. That's all that I got today. Remember, the more that you shoot today, the better of a photographer you will be tomorrow. Talk soon