Photojournalism as a Vehicle to an Adventurous Life With Joe Guerriero

Joe Guerriero has traveled the globe as a photojournalist, often finding himself in extraordinary and unplanned situations. From arriving in Guatemala right before an earthquake to spending a night in a Colombian jail due to a mistaken marijuana charge, Joe always manages to make the best of every scenario—even photographing his fellow inmates. Along the way, he’s encountered a Pakistani prince, a Bosnian refugee, and even documented olive oil wrestling in Turkey.

In this episode of the Big Photo Hunt podcast, Joe shares how his adventurous approach to life has opened doors to remarkable experiences and unforgettable stories. Tune in to hear how his photography has driven him to seize every opportunity and live life to the fullest.

Transcript

00:00:01:05 - 00:00:14:21

Guys pouring olive oil all over each other, and the only thing they had on with these leather pants called kiss pits, and that was the only thing that they could use to grab each other. You can't grab somebody's leg with olive oil all over it. 

00:00:14:23 - 00:00:18:02

Were there like loops or hooks on these pants to grab onto? 

00:00:18:14 - 00:00:28:25

No, they go no, Their hand would go right up the leg of the pants all over any part of their body. Their ass. I mean, every everywhere. That's the only thing they could use to flip a guy. 

00:00:29:29 - 00:00:44:08

You know? So you got to go shoot a bunch of wrestlers with olive oil all over their body, sticking their arms up each other's pants. Yes. To bring him down to the ground so that the whole crowd would cheer in front. 

00:00:44:10 - 00:00:48:15

Of thousands of people. That was the the the final event was the heavyweights. 

00:00:48:17 - 00:00:49:04

Amazing. 

00:00:49:06 - 00:01:02:13

These these guys are big and tough and strong. And the payoff for that is that we came back, we had the story. My cousin started marketing, shopping it around, and Sports Illustrated picked it up. 

00:01:05:03 - 00:01:26:17

Welcome to the Big Photo Hunt podcast, a show where we talk with aspiring and professional photographers to help us all grow and improve our photography together. I'm your host, Ken Deckinger. If you're one of our community members and you'd like to be a guest on the show, please visit big photo hunt.com for more information. 

00:01:36:02 - 00:01:39:02

Hi, Joe. Hello, Ken. Hey, nice to see you. 

00:01:39:04 - 00:01:42:15

I always like saying hi, Joe. It just sounds like such a friendly name. Hi, Joe. 

00:01:43:12 - 00:01:44:15

Hey, Ken. 

00:01:44:23 - 00:02:19:01

For everyone listening, Joe is a member of the big photo hunt. That's Joe Guerriero, and he recently joined me for one of our member conversations. I do these periodically to talk to you and everyone, because wanting to know you is one of the reasons I created the big photo hunt in the first place. Joe joined me for one of these conversations, and about a week or so later we connected and spoke on Zoom for about 30 to 45 minutes, and after about 20 minutes shooting the shit with Joe, I realized that his story was and is still both inspirational and educational. 

00:02:19:03 - 00:02:49:21

And so I stopped Joe and right there suggested that we continue this conversation here on the podcast with all of you. And just to set expectations, it's not Joe's success that got me wanting to bring him on the show, Although, Joe, you are clearly a successful photographer and filmmaker, but it's his journey and the insights that having a conversation with him as a pretty normal Joe from New Jersey can lead to. By the way, Joe, did you like how I avoided calling you an average Joe? It was hard. 

00:02:51:26 - 00:02:59:06

You know, years ago, I used to hang out with Bob and Bill, and we'd go and we meet these people and I'd say, I'm Bob, Bill and Joe. And people were like, What? 

00:02:59:08 - 00:03:01:25

I love names like Joe, Bob, Bill. 

00:03:01:29 - 00:03:10:17

There was one point in time I was living out in Santa Cruz that changed my name to Joseph. I came home to New Jersey and told people, My name is Joseph. It's No, you're not. You're Joe. 

00:03:10:19 - 00:03:26:08

I went to school with a guy named John. Then he went to law school and became a big hotshot lawyer. And all of a sudden he was Jonathan. And I was like, No, you're John. But he was Jonathan now, because that's what lawyers do. They become Jonathan. 

00:03:26:16 - 00:03:28:22

I relate totally to what he's talking about. 

00:03:28:24 - 00:03:37:18

Yeah, I didn't want to call you an average Joe because I think you're anything but average. I figured normal was a better word because it means that you're just like all of us. 

00:03:38:04 - 00:03:40:07

Normal. Well, okay. Yeah. 

00:03:40:17 - 00:03:49:27

I'm not normal either, Joe. Just so we're clear. I think a great place to start would be your story. You want to tell listeners a little bit about who Joe is. 

00:03:50:12 - 00:04:21:26

I always think about what, you know, photography, how it got to be for me, how it got to be an interest. When I was a little kid growing up in the late 40s, 1950s, my family always had this target, little black box camera, and that was what a lot of people had in those days for shooting their family snapshots. Then when I was 14, I sold all occasion cards and used to get these prizes and want a camera. So I got a camera, little Ansco Cadet, and this was my first camera. I was so excited when this came in the mail. 

00:04:22:01 - 00:04:52:05

I kept that camera for years and then I started traveling around when I was like 20, 23, started traveling through Europe, went to India and took some snapshots. But the thing is that nobody told me in high school, nobody ever came to my school and said, you know, there's this career you can do photography. You know, it wasn't until years later and somebody gave me a camera, an old Pentax. So I started taking some classes and really enjoyed it. 

00:04:52:22 - 00:05:26:10

I decided, okay, I'm going to be a part of journalist. This is really what the kind of photography that I love to do. So I went on a trip to Central and South America. I really didn't know much about what I was doing. I didn't know what I was getting into. I thought I was a photojournalist. I was going to be a big deal photojournalist. So lo and behold, I get down to Guatemala and there's a major earthquake. I'm sleeping in a hotel with two other friends that I've met. Guatemala City. Pieces of the ceiling start falling where it's 3:00 in the morning and we run outside. 

00:05:26:12 - 00:06:00:21

The whole city is outside. The whole city is black. I run back inside, get my bag, my camera and stuff, and it was like one of the first photographers out on the street just shooting with 23,000 people killed in that earthquake. So after a couple of days in the city, I finally found a bus to take me out to Antigua, Guatemala. And I get out there, things are worse. There's a giant aftershock. I'm on the street, got some shots of like people running and buildings falling. It was more than I expected as a photojournalist says, okay, this is this is it. 

00:06:01:06 - 00:06:33:12

There was a hospital that was collapsing. So I got involved with helping the Army and other NGOs or whatever that were there emptying out the hospital, carrying patients out. So while I'm doing that, I'm shooting. I get into these rooms and there's like aftershocks, and I'm saying, this is crazy. What what am I doing? You know, like, okay, I'm a photojournalist shot this whole story of moving the hospital. And it was a nice little story. The problem was I didn't know what to do with it. I had no experience. It's like, is there a Reuters? I didn't know. Was it AP? I didn't even know about those things. 

00:06:33:14 - 00:06:55:26

I had no idea. So by the time I had actually, you know, the news was out, my stuff was old. But if I'd have had the experience, if I'd have learned a little bit more about what to do instead of trying to be just a big shot and be a big photojournalist but have no idea. So that's the kind of advice that I tell my students at college where I teach that, you know, know a little bit more about what you're doing before you go out and do something. 

00:06:55:29 - 00:07:03:27

You happen to be there to be able to document it. And it could have been your first don't call it a big break, but it could have been your first real publication. 

00:07:04:01 - 00:07:34:08

It could have been, Yes. But didn't but didn't know. After spending a couple of months in Guatemala after that, then I went farther south to Costa Rica and then flew over to Colombia. I was traveling with two friends. I left them in a little village one night and I was going to meet them down in the city of Papillon the next day. So I go down there and I stay and part of the town that people don't usually stay in. It was like drunks, prostitutes. And I figured, well, it's cheap. I'm not. I don't have anything. I had no drugs on me. I did carry some tea. I used to have a little teapot and some teas. 

00:07:34:15 - 00:08:09:02

So stay in this hotel and first thing in the morning we get raided by about 1215. Police not looking for me, but looking for anybody. And they came and they they took out everything. They looked at my bag of tea and they're like, this. That's No, no, this is not marijuana. This is okay, Well, we'll take it to the police station and we'll test it Somehow. They decided that there was marijuana mixed in with the tea, so they threw me in jail. No, in the city jail. I was in there with about 75 other guys, street robbers, murderers. 

00:08:09:04 - 00:08:41:15

It was incredible. I happened to meet this guy who was he was a former Navy Seal. He was there for cocaine. He was about six feet, three big blue, cold eyes. His hair was like Wild Einstein ish. And as the guard put me into the jail, he said, There's another gringo over there. So see this guy walking around? He says. And he motions to me. He says, Just sit over there. Don't talk to anybody. Don't say anything. Okay? Just look around. I said, what the where the hell am I? And he comes to me later. He says, Don't worry about anything is I'll take care of you. 

00:08:41:17 - 00:09:13:14

And he said, I'll sleep on your shoes at. Night. We don't worry about anything. And this guy was like the king of the jail every night. He was beating the shit out of guys. I mean, it's like every time these new robbers would come in, people who were already in there preyed on the new people that came in. If they had a blanket, if they had any possessions. I remember waking up one night and this guy, Edward the Wolf, El Lobo, they called him. He beat the shit out of three guys. It was like a movie he was throwing up against the wall. He was like the king of the jail. Nobody. Nobody touched him at all. 

00:09:14:01 - 00:09:38:02

Talking to him, he told me that he was a former Navy Seal and he was wanted for a triple murder in Texas. It was like, okay, I'm your friend. And after six days, I finally got a lawyer, a public defender, and he got me out and then went back and I took some pictures that was like the guys were my friends. The day I got out, the guards let me in and taking pictures of them through the bars. It's crazy. 

00:09:38:08 - 00:09:45:06

That's nuts. I was going to ask you if you got photos. Well, I mean, you were in Colombia for photos, so I was wondering if you got any good photos anyway. 

00:09:45:10 - 00:09:57:06

I think a lot of good photos in Colombia at the time. It was it was still pretty raw. There wasn't a lot of people traveling around like that down there. It was amazing. It's a beautiful place, Colombia. 

00:09:57:15 - 00:09:59:04

So what was next? 

00:09:59:07 - 00:10:31:04

So I went to Hawaii, took some more classes there, did some work for the newspaper on Kauai, was published in the Honolulu magazine, Hawaii magazine. I did a few weddings. Whatever I could do was fun. After five years. Why I decided I'm going to move back to New Jersey and thought, well, that's the place to be for photography and to be in New York. Thought, well, that'd be really plug into the photo scene, you know? I got a job shooting for some hotels in the Poconos out here, Mount Airy Lodge, which was a big, big one at the time, and some other ones. 

00:10:31:06 - 00:11:02:13

I really didn't even know everything what the hell I was doing. I was really, you know, the fake it til you make it. That was exactly what I was doing at the time. It's Holy shit, I got these lights. I don't know what I could electrocute myself. So I did that for a couple of years, learned a lot and went from there to work in an advertising studio and they had a lot of big accounts. I learned so much at that place just by dealing with clients, you know, advertising agencies. And then I started shooting products and people and catalogs and eventually opened my own studio. 

00:11:02:17 - 00:11:19:25

Still, always. I always felt like I was learning. I always felt like, I don't know, can I do this? And that's what I really try to tell people. You got to. You got to bite off more than you think. You have to take a chance. You can't say, Oh, I don't know if I could do that. Just go for it, you know, What do you got to lose? You might get fired because you don't know what the hell you're doing, but you might not. 

00:11:23:06 - 00:11:45:01

Hey, it's Ken here with the big photo hunt. Thank you so much for listening. If you haven't yet, check out big photo hunt.com. It's our new online photography club for amateur and aspiring photographers so that we can all improve and grow our photography together. Lots of great photos, lots of great feedback. Check it out. Thank you so much for listening today. Back to the show. 

00:11:49:16 - 00:12:22:27

So, you know, that studio was a big thing for me. But really in my heart, I always still want it to be that documentary for the journalists. So while I have my studio, I had the opportunity with a writer friend of mine and she had an in with the Air Force. They were going to Ramstein Air Force Base to pick up some wounded Bosnian soldiers from the Bosnian war. And so they wanted to do a story for Air Force magazine. I said, yeah, I'll go. So before we went, my friend, she happened to know somebody at Life magazine and asked if they were interested. 

00:12:23:15 - 00:12:54:20

And they said, Yeah, show us what you got when you get back. So we thought, Well, that's great because there happened to be one guy who we were really attracted to. He was a former rock star, budding rock star in Sarajevo at the time. He was really pretty well known. They had a few albums out. He was really making it. And during the war, one day he was out there and he saw this thing on the ground look like a bell and he went to touch it. It was a cluster bomb and flew his hand off almost up to his elbow. So they were sending him here to get a prosthetic arm. 

00:12:54:22 - 00:13:27:11

He was going to go back to Sarajevo, but he couldn't because he was part Croat, part Muslim. So he really had enemies. So we managed to get some lawyers and help him get asylum. And he got his prosthesis down in Washington, D.C. and we thought that would be a great story. We followed him for a while and we kept meeting with Life magazine and they kept seeing what we were doing. I got him involved with some bands and we go back to the editor and say, Yeah, yeah, looks good. He said, We'll take it to the meeting. They have their their editorial meetings and he would bring it. 

00:13:27:26 - 00:13:43:07

Then I didn't hear from him for a while. And then they come to find out that he, he left his job and he left my book of proofs on a shelf. So the story never got published in full, like it would have been Life magazine. But pieces of it got published in different publications. 

00:13:43:10 - 00:13:49:21

So the story didn't get picked up. But you did get your first photojournalist. What do you want to call it? 

00:13:49:23 - 00:13:51:22

Chops, you might say. Or Yeah. 

00:13:51:29 - 00:14:00:08

For someone that wants to be a photojournalist, what would you say led to that first real opportunity where you're on a plane to Bosnia? 

00:14:00:10 - 00:14:16:22

Just being out there and knowing what you want to do and the opportunity comes. It's just like it's just like anything else if if you're prepared and the opportunity is there. Deepak Chopra used to say, you know, good luck is nothing more than when opportunity meets preparedness. 

00:14:17:06 - 00:14:48:05

I love your comment about people not being ready or not feeling ready and just the idea of saying, screw it, do it anyway. Don't know if you know, there's a YouTube filmmaker named Johnny Harris and he puts out these really, really great explainer videos and mini documentary videos. He's become quite famous. I was watching one of his videos a couple of years ago, and his tip was to learn as you go, step up every opportunity. 

00:14:48:07 - 00:14:55:26

So, for example, someone comes to you and says, Hey, can you do this for us? And you say yes. And then you go learn how to do it. 

00:14:55:28 - 00:15:04:26

Yes, you want to be able to keep moving. You have to keep moving or you're just going to be bored and you're going to be stagnant. You're going to say, ask nothing in this anymore. You know, he. 

00:15:04:28 - 00:15:41:16

Talks about it as far as skill sets. So, for example, he is an excellent graphic illustrator and he creates these motion graphics with such skill and he explains how that was like his first gig was someone wanted to hire him to do this. And so he learned how to do it. And then someone wanted to hire him to do something else and he just went online and figure out how to do it and then did it and has used his entire career to get better and better and better and better and better. So I love the attitude of saying, look, if you don't feel ready, go figure it out and you'll be ready because that's how you grow. 

00:15:41:18 - 00:15:44:05

And if you don't take those opportunities, you're never going to grow. 

00:15:44:18 - 00:16:01:05

I shot weddings. I probably done about 75 weddings in my life. Hated every one of them. Every one of them said, This is the last wedding I'm doing. And somebody say, Well, I'm going to give you so much money. But I learned so much just by doing every type of photography. He worked for a Cat magazine. I shot cats. I've learned from from everything. 

00:16:01:07 - 00:16:05:00

You shot cats. What did you learn from shooting cats? 

00:16:05:06 - 00:16:05:22

Oh, I. 

00:16:05:24 - 00:16:15:23

Learned that there are some breeds that are very easy to shoot, and there are some breeds that aren't. You just have to kind of overlay because they're not going to pose for you. 

00:16:15:25 - 00:16:18:16

Are there skills there that you could then take to your next gig? 

00:16:18:22 - 00:16:44:16

Yeah, the thing about just be ready, shoot a lot and a lot of people say that about photo journalism and you really have to shoot a lot of I had to explain to me like Tography in that way is like sketching. You know, you're sketching because you don't know what the next movement is going to be. You don't know that, you know, if you turn to the right, that's the shot. But then if you turn to the left, it might be better, but you don't know. So you have to keep on it. You have to be focused on it. 

00:16:44:18 - 00:16:48:21

It sounds like it's almost like a really intense form of street photography in a sense. 

00:16:49:00 - 00:16:55:15

Sort of. Except you're. You're not moving around as much. I would put a cat. I would build a set sometimes with a cat. 

00:16:55:17 - 00:16:59:25

Not. No, no, sorry. Not the cats. I mean. Oh, the. 

00:17:00:27 - 00:17:01:12

Oh. 

00:17:03:08 - 00:17:08:02

I can't imagine the cats being like shooting street photography. 

00:17:10:10 - 00:17:29:23

My question was about photojournalism, especially like some of the stuff you did with the Bosnia shoot. It feels like that is in a sense like street photography on steroids because things are just moving. You don't know where the shot is or, you know, what's the composition like? Oh, it changed. Oh wait though, that's better over there. 

00:17:30:03 - 00:17:46:15

Some of it was like that. But but when you're focusing on one particular subject, like I was with this guy Darko, his name is basically just tuning into him and just watching him and watching his his reactions and just how we live. So it's a little bit different than watching everything. 

00:17:46:17 - 00:17:55:01

And when you do that, are you composing the shot? And then just kind of like following him with the shot composed, or are you having to recompose it each time? 

00:17:55:08 - 00:18:13:01

Sometimes. Sometimes I would compose the shot and just wait for something to happen within that. Other times, you know, it's just a grab shot and whatever you get, you get A lot of journalism is like that. You know, you sometimes you can't worry about your composition as much because you want to get the crux of the shot. 

00:18:13:03 - 00:18:34:18

I wonder that because I see some of these shots in like magazines, the composition doesn't look as if it was really thought out. But what's happening in The Shot is so magnificent that it's very clear, at least as I'm talking to you, it's becoming clear that some of these shots were just taken because the action was there and they had to get the action and the composition was like an afterthought. Is that correct? 

00:18:34:20 - 00:19:07:00

Yeah, I think so, yeah. And sometimes sometimes even maybe it adds to the to the story itself. If you have a little bit of a crooked because because it shows that, you know, there's activity going on, there's a lot of movement and you're not being so stagnant. But anyway, after the after the Bosnia thing, I happened to meet a Pakistani prince in Spain. His brother was a prince. He was sort of, I guess, kind of royalty. His brother was a Pakistani prince and he was a tribal chief of the Baluch tribe in Pakistan. 

00:19:07:02 - 00:19:30:17

And his cousin was the president of Pakistan. I was there for like maybe 4 or 5 weeks with this prince followed him around. And it was amazing the things that he did and the power that he had. And I got the photograph. The president met Benazir Bhutto. We had access. We were a VIPs, you know, all all the time in the presidential palace. 

00:19:30:24 - 00:19:53:20

As you're speaking. I relate so much to what you're talking about because for me, it would be so exciting to get a phone call saying, hey, jump on a plane, Come with us to well, I don't know if I want to go to, you know, some of these places have family now I have to be alive for. But the idea of going to one of these places on a photography mission is so exciting to me. 

00:19:54:12 - 00:20:26:08

I agree. That's how that's exactly how I felt at the time. So I was looking for these things. So even though at the time I had my studio where I was doing catalogs and advertising and was making money, these things I was paying for myself because I love doing it. On that Pakistan trip, I met a I met a guy, a Turkish guy who told me about this oil wrestling in Turkey. It's a festival in Turkey called Kirchner. And they do this wrestling called Liguori. It's actually the oldest organized sport event in the world. It's like 607 hundred years old. 

00:20:26:10 - 00:20:40:21

And the they pour olive oil on themselves. And this is an event that goes on for three days. They pour olive oil on each other. There's from little kids all the way to the third day is the heavyweight. And that's when the president of Turkey is there. It's like a huge event. 

00:20:40:23 - 00:20:42:02

Is this an annual event? 

00:20:42:09 - 00:20:58:05

Yes, it was incredible. Guys pouring olive oil all over each other. And the only thing they had on with these leather pants called kiss pits and that was the only thing that they could use to grab each other. You can't grab somebody's leg with olive oil all over it. 

00:20:58:07 - 00:21:01:13

Were there like loops or hooks on these pants to grab onto? 

00:21:01:15 - 00:21:12:10

You know, they they go, you know, their hand would go right up the leg of the pants all over any part of their body, their ass. I mean, every everywhere. That's the only thing they could use to flip a guy. 

00:21:13:12 - 00:21:27:02

You know, So you got to go shoot a bunch of wrestlers with olive oil all over their body, sticking their arms up each other's pants. Yes. To bring them down to the ground so that the whole crowd would cheer. 

00:21:27:12 - 00:21:28:21

In front of thousands of people. 

00:21:29:02 - 00:21:31:29

That was the the the final event was the heavyweights. 

00:21:32:01 - 00:21:32:18

Amazing. 

00:21:32:20 - 00:21:45:04

These these guys are big and tough and strong. And the payoff for that is that we came back, we had the story. My cousin started market shopping it around and Sports Illustrated. 

00:21:45:06 - 00:21:45:21

Picked it up. 

00:21:45:26 - 00:21:54:04

That is awesome. You know, it reminds me of sumo wrestling, which compared to this is nothing you have you seen sumo wrestling like in Japan? 

00:21:54:06 - 00:21:56:25

I've never I've never seen it live. No, it's really cool. 

00:21:56:27 - 00:22:19:11

It's not as exciting as it sounds, but it's pretty cool. And what I thought was even cooler was afterwards we get on like the subway. The Tokyo was in Tokyo, the Tokyo subway or Metro or whatever. And like the sumo wrestlers are on there with us. And it was so cool because they put the robe back on. But they're there. They just wrestled and they get on the train. And it was it was really cool. This also. 

00:22:19:13 - 00:22:20:10

Great photographs. 

00:22:20:12 - 00:22:30:03

Oh, some photography of. Yeah, it's a great opportunity. You know, it also reminds me of the cheese in England where they throw it down the hill. Have you seen that? 

00:22:30:14 - 00:22:32:06

Can't remember have to do. 

00:22:32:16 - 00:23:05:17

You've got to do this. It's on my bucket list basically. Oh I can't remember the name of the town off the top of my head but there is a town in England once a year they start at the top of a hill. They have this giant cheese wheel and they throw it down a hill and all of these people run after the cheese and the person to catch the cheese as they're going down this massive hill wins. The other 98% of them wind up with broken legs, smashed skulls. 

00:23:05:19 - 00:23:11:00

It's so funny. It is hilarious to watch because apparently there's a technique to it, but. 

00:23:11:02 - 00:23:12:19

I have to look it up. 

00:23:12:21 - 00:23:13:18

Oh, look it up. 

00:23:13:27 - 00:23:15:00

What's it called it? 

00:23:15:06 - 00:23:45:24

Cheese. Cheese. Cheese hill or something. Hold on. Let me see what it is. Wait, I'm going to type this up. England cheese. Here we go. England. Cheese. Rolling the Cooper's hill. Cheese Rolling and Wake is an annual event on the spring bank holiday at Cooper's Hill near Gloucester, England. What it says is from the top of the hill, a 7 to £9 round of double Gloucester cheese is sent rolling down the hill, which is 200 yards long. Competitors then start racing down the hill after the cheese. 

00:23:45:26 - 00:23:58:20

The person it's I'm telling you, Joe, this is amazing. The the first person over. The finish line at the bottom of the hill wins the cheese. The competitors aim to catch the cheese, However, it has around a one second head start and can reach. 

00:24:00:23 - 00:24:01:13

50 miles an. 

00:24:01:15 - 00:24:03:04

Hour, 70 miles an hour, 

00:24:05:12 - 00:24:09:06

enough to knock over and injure a spectator. It must be some. 

00:24:09:08 - 00:24:10:04

Video on that. 

00:24:10:06 - 00:24:11:16

Oh, it's all over the Internet. 

00:24:11:25 - 00:24:12:26

Absolutely. 

00:24:13:05 - 00:24:15:22

Here, let me see if I could find a clip for us real quick. 

00:24:24:21 - 00:24:25:06

What? 

00:24:27:25 - 00:24:30:00

Well, that's as crazy as the oil wrestling. 

00:24:30:02 - 00:24:30:28

That's nuts. 

00:24:31:00 - 00:24:58:07

They must have a fleet of ambulances waiting for them at the bottom. Oh, here we go. Injuries due to the steepness and uneven surface of Cooper's Hill, There are usually a number of injuries each year. Cooper's Hill cheese rolling has been summarized by a previous participant as 20 young men chasing a cheese off a cliff and tumbling 200 yards to the bottom where they are scraped up by paramedics and packed off to the hospital. 

00:24:58:16 - 00:24:59:11

Oh God. 

00:24:59:13 - 00:25:02:12

That's from the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper. 

00:25:02:14 - 00:25:03:06

Oh, God. 

00:25:03:18 - 00:25:05:21

And the only thing they win is the cheese. 

00:25:06:02 - 00:25:12:17

Don't guess so. Guess they get a bunch of cheese. Anyway, the point of all this is that I really want to go photograph that. 

00:25:12:19 - 00:25:14:05

That sounds like fun. 

00:25:14:16 - 00:25:44:27

I would love to do that. So you are an adjunct instructor of photography, right? At Sussex County Community College in New Jersey. I always enjoy talking to professors of photography because I usually walk away with a skill or insight to a skill that I can then realistically, for me, have no idea what to do with it. But down the road, all of a sudden I'm like, Oh, I remember talking to so-and-so and they mention this and that's what's happening here. 

00:25:45:13 - 00:25:53:13

What is a skill that you would say like you want to give to your students to think about as they go down their journey in photography? 

00:25:53:26 - 00:26:24:19

One of the things that I always tell my students, even like, when do these photo trips to Cuba and Bhutan and Tuscany and I always tell people. Try to find your own. I mean, it's a cliche, but yeah, try to find your own way to shoot things like when take groups to Cuba. First thing people do is they shoot the cars, shoot a picture of the car, shoot a picture, the buildings. Okay. Yeah, yeah. It's a nice car, but what more can you give it? Do something different. Find your own way of seeing that. 

00:26:24:21 - 00:26:41:28

It's really what makes photography exciting. Everyone these days, thanks to a photographer, everybody has a camera in their pocket. Everybody's always showing me beautiful pictures, beautiful sunsets, beautiful flowers. Okay. Yeah, very nice. But what can you add to that? What else do you have to put into it? 

00:26:42:00 - 00:26:45:29

So it's up to the photographer because that's the creative component. Yeah. 

00:26:46:01 - 00:26:46:19

Make it. Make it. 

00:26:46:21 - 00:27:23:04

Your own. Make it your own. Because you see a beautiful flower out there and you go out and shoot a beautiful flower. But if you shoot the flower, find your own way. That's what's going to make people really suck it up and it gives it something, something else, something new. You have to be conscious of it all the time because we all we're always tempted to shoot cliches. Everybody's, you know. Yeah. Sunset, you know, even tell people now, well, you're going to shoot the sunset so it's just the sun going down So nice clouds but maybe put something in the foreground shoot through a window for, I don't know, whatever else you can add to it that makes it not just the sunset, makes it your sunset at that moment. 

00:27:23:21 - 00:27:55:00

I know you spend a lot of time in Tuscany, and I know we've talked a lot about Ponte Vecchio Bridge and how I want to take photos of it. And I joke about that because I've seen that bridge in photos for years. I'll be in Florence and I want to take photos of the bridge, but I'm also a little anxious because I get bored of just taking photos of the bridge and trying to figure out without even seeing it, what will I take a photo of if there's the bridge? Well, what are the tourists maybe doing photographing the bridge? So my real photo is the 15 other photographers or tourists. 

00:27:55:02 - 00:27:57:08

They're taking a picture with the bridge in the background. 

00:27:57:16 - 00:28:27:17

Right. Another big tip that I try to tell people is that patience, you know, you can't just go out and you want to shoot a picture of the Vecchio. So you go out there and there's a of Vecchio. Oh, it's got it. Got a picture. It sit there for a while. Light changes the light there. The evening light is like, spectacular on the Ponte Vecchio. So sometimes you may have to wait. Wait till there's a boat coming through underneath or at the right spot. Maybe there's somebody who walks by, you know, and they're a beautiful, flowing white dress. You just don't know. 

00:28:27:19 - 00:28:41:04

You have to really wait. You have to be patient. You have to wait for things to happen sometimes, like, say you can get your composition, wait for things to move within that, wait for that decisive moment in that composition. And it works. 

00:28:41:11 - 00:29:05:11

As we're talking today. One of the things that comes through to me is this idea that a lot of your experience and background is almost like kismet. It's like things just kind of have crossed your path and have happened and opportunities that presented themselves. What would you say to aspiring or amateur photographers who want to put themselves in a position to allow these things to unfold in a way that they did for you? 

00:29:05:23 - 00:29:06:14

You have to. 

00:29:06:16 - 00:29:07:01

Just. 

00:29:07:03 - 00:29:07:24

Do it. 

00:29:07:28 - 00:29:31:21

It's simple. You just have to be out there. So many people call themselves a photographer, but they don't have a camera with them. They go out and they're a photographer on a Saturday. If you're going to do this, you have to keep doing it. You have to really commit to it. That was a big moment for me when I finally said photography is that's that's what I'm going to do. And I knew I had to just commit to it. So when you do that, you have to be there, you know, 100%. 

00:29:31:27 - 00:29:39:06

What's one thing that you wish you could have done differently as you look back to maybe land some more of these opportunities or change your path? 

00:29:39:12 - 00:29:57:25

I wish there were a lot more focused back in earlier days. I didn't have any great mentors at the time. In the early days. I wish I would have got my experience all my first travels through India And you know, I was traveling around as a hippie. That was just I wasn't focused on anything but being part of the world. You know. 

00:29:57:27 - 00:30:08:05

I look back at moments like that in my life, though, and I say, Well, I wish I was doing this then, or I wish I had known this then and and I do. But at the same time, it made me who I am today. And so. 

00:30:08:07 - 00:30:08:22

Exactly. 

00:30:08:24 - 00:30:15:17

Yeah. I think when you tell me this, I say, yeah, you could have had a camera, but then you may not be the person you are today. 

00:30:16:03 - 00:30:18:03

I agree. I agree totally. 

00:30:18:12 - 00:30:43:18

Joe, I have appreciated your time so much. I think your journey is such a great story because it really does illustrate the path that many photographers take to a successful photography career. As someone that likes to talk to people such as yourself to learn, I find it inspiring and I've gotten so many nuggets out of this today, so I hope our listeners will as well. 

00:30:44:00 - 00:30:45:20

Well, thanks so much for having me. 

00:30:46:04 - 00:30:49:29

Well, we're not done yet. We're not done yet. Joe, I got a couple more questions for you. 

00:30:50:04 - 00:30:50:19

Okay. 

00:30:51:00 - 00:30:55:28

Do you have any resources or anything that you would recommend people check out? 

00:30:56:13 - 00:31:22:10

Well, I like Social Documentary Network. Are you familiar with that Zeke magazine? No, check that out. They have some great stuff. They have a print magazine and they have awards. They have contests. They have some great workshops. I follow certain people on Instagram that I love, photojournalists like Mark Peterson, David Burnett, all the seven photographers around survive. I always look at their work. 

00:31:22:24 - 00:31:37:15

You mentioned documentary and photo journalistic photography a lot, which leads to the first of my three questions that I'm starting to ask everyone on this podcast. That first question is What's your favorite genre to shoot and why? 

00:31:38:08 - 00:32:01:28

I feel like documentary, well informed journalism, but they're sort of like hand in hand, but documentaries a little deeper. I've always felt like documentary and photojournalism was the most important kind of photography. I mean, I know there's fine art. People do fine art. They beautiful photographs. You know, it's beautiful stuff, but. The stuff that really, I feel changes. The world is documentary and for journalism. 

00:32:02:00 - 00:32:15:20

I expect that that answer and if you would have said something like portraits or event photography, I probably would have fallen over and disbelief and say, What did we just talk about today for the last hour? All right. Number two, what kind of camera system are you using? 

00:32:16:07 - 00:32:20:04

I'm using Sony that have A9 and A7 R3. 

00:32:20:13 - 00:32:20:28

All right. 

00:32:21:00 - 00:32:35:20

And then question number three, Joe, this is my favorite one. On a scale of 1 to 10, how often do you get that burning itch to get out there and go shoot photos? Not to be confused with simply, how often do you get a burning itch? 

00:32:37:18 - 00:33:07:29

When I'm at home here, I don't get that as much. But when I get the burning itches, when I go to places like Cuba or Italy, and when I go out by myself just tuning in to photos, just being invisible or whatever, and just nothing else is around me but me and my camera. I'm like, the camera. And you'll talk to a lot of photographers who who feel that you get it. You do get into a zone, but it doesn't come when for some reason around here where I live, maybe because I have so many other things to do while I'm here. 

00:33:08:01 - 00:33:16:28

Do you think that's it? I asked myself that question all the time, like at home. Why am I not as inspired? And is it just because we know it and we don't see things? 

00:33:17:00 - 00:33:17:15

I think you're. 

00:33:17:17 - 00:33:19:20

Just busy doing other things. 

00:33:19:29 - 00:33:24:25

All right. And Joe, where can people find you online? Social media website, everything. 

00:33:24:29 - 00:33:36:12

My website. Joe at Joe Photo on Instagram. Road Warrior Productions is my production company that I use for my films and from my photo trips. 

00:33:36:19 - 00:33:41:29

Joe, I can't thank you enough for your time. I love talking to you. Thank you so. 

00:33:42:01 - 00:33:42:20

Much. All right. 

00:33:42:22 - 00:33:44:09

Good luck to you and your endeavors. 

00:33:45:08 - 00:33:59:26

Thank you so much for joining me for today's episode. Our next show will feature more valuable stories from our community members. If you'd like to audition to be a guest, please visit Big Photo Hunt for more information. Thanks again for listening today.