From Film to Caffenol: Sam Fahmi’s Unconventional Photo Journey

On this episode of the ZoomPod, Columbus, Ohio-based Professional Photographer, Videographer and Producer Sam Fahmi stops in the photo-lab to talk about starting his journey with a Kodiak 110 camera, helps me get over my fear of shooting weddings, and how you develop film using coffee grounds! (Seriously...)

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https://www.studio-79.com/
https://www.instagram.com/Studio79

His Websites:
https://www.columbus-wired.com/
https://massive-report.com/

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Transcript

TMac 0:11

Hello and welcome to another edition of the Zoom with Our Feet Podcast. With me, your host, T-Mack, professional photographer, videographer, and teacher. On this episode of the Zoom Pod, chances are excellent you've seen this photographer's work from high-profile events like OSU football, the Columbus Crew, and the Columbus Fury Online. Columbus-based Sam Fahmy joins me to talk about his journey from a Kodak 110 camera to shooting professional sports and weddings. Let's talk to a pro. Sam Fahmy, welcome to the Zoom with our feet podcast. How are you, sir?

SPEAKER_01 1:03

I'm uh I'm doing pretty well. It's Friday before long weekends.

TMac 1:07

Tell me about your photography journey. How did you start?

SPEAKER_01 1:11

Oh boy. Um, so from the time I was probably, I don't know, 10, 12 maybe. Um, I had my my parents gave me like a 110 camera, and I would run around and take that to camp with me, and I would take it to, you know, school sometimes and stuff like that, and I've probably broken more 110 cameras than I could think of. Uh I had to be extra judicious with how much I use them because developing film cost money, and I only had my allowance. So, but uh I got my first what I will call a real camera that wasn't a point and shoot, that wasn't a uh plastic camera that came out of uh McDonald's Happy Meal. Um in 2002, we were literally wandering around. My wife and I had been married for about a year, it was close to my birthday, and we were wandering around Walmart, and uh I saw a Canon Rebel X, and I got attracted to Canon. This is gonna sound incredibly superficial, because I'm a huge Andre Agassi fan. And if you remember that Andre Agassi did the Canon commercials, so I was like, ooh, this is an Andre Agassi camera. I love this. Honey, can I buy this? And she said, um, she said, sure. Uh so I bought it from Walmart with a stock lens, and kind of like just started kind of doing things from there. I've always, like I said, I've always taken pictures since I was young, and uh then you start seeing what multiple layers of lenses do, and you're like, oh wow, that's different. Like, I have something called depth of field. What is that? Why is everything blurry? And then um it wasn't until 2006 uh that I got my first digital SLR. And uh it was pretty interesting because I was like trying to figure out how to make some extra income, and uh I literally called my parents and asked to ask them to lend me money to buy a digital camera because I felt that I could make that into a good business. Uh and my parents were incredibly gracious, and they're like, my dad was like, here, here's this amount of money, and my mom called me five minutes later. She goes, like, double it because I'll I'll give you the same amount. And I was like, wow, that is that was beyond my expectation. Um, so yeah, in 2006 I started taking pictures. I did a few seniors, I started doing some family pictures, just kind of like learning and growing and learning and growing and figuring out lighting and figuring out backdrops and what to do and what not to do. And I mean, really, I did not go to school for photography. It was mostly about teaching myself. Uh, read a lot, learned a lot. I would watch, I would look at um the pictures that they have in restaurants and try to break down how they did the lighting for the pictures. Um, learned a lot from a website named Strobist, if you've ever heard of it, uh, about how to use flash and how to shape light and stuff like that. And then um in a complete and random twist of events, I call it twist of events, but it was really an open door that I was not ever expecting. Uh, I decided to go to a soccer game with my camera. Um, and because this is MLS uh and they don't really care uh at that time, that was a that would have been the the opening game of 2008. They let me in with my camera and my 75 to 300 uh on my 20d, on my Canon 20D. And I just found a spot that I like and I just started taking pictures, and I was like, huh, this is kind of fun, you know, maybe I'll do this again. And uh I think I did five out of the next eight home games uh because I was you know I was paying for my own ticket and it wasn't you know where I was at that time, it was not cheap, you know, for me. So uh started meeting some people, started like posting those pictures online. And um one time I'm standing in the stands and I'm taking pictures, and this gentleman in a suit and a credential comes up to me and he said, Are you so-and-so? And I was like, um, yes. And he goes, like, what are you doing in the stands? And I'm like, Well, I mean, I don't what what else do I what else am I gonna do? He goes, like, here's my card, shoot me an email. Uh uh, I'm gonna get you down here. I really like your stuff. And I'm like, Okay, sure, okay, thanks. So I come home, I shoot him an email, and uh the next game I was shooting from the sideline, and I knew I was I was terrified, and I had no clue what I was doing. Uh, but my philosophy is, which is still to this day, um, if I'm shooting a sport, if I'm the fin, what do I want to see? What do I want to see in the pictures that tell me what the game story was about? What happened in this moment of the game, what happened to this player, how how is somebody bleeding on the field, and why? Um, you know, uh that kind of stuff. And that that I think that's what propelled. And it wasn't just about what's happening on the field. Uh, it was what was happening in the stands. It was a very lively supporter community that um had fun, that wore random outfits, that did crazy signs, that um, you know, were were lively, and that gives you feature material that you're like, oh, this is cool. This is good to showcase, and you know, so that other people can see it.

TMac 6:58

How did you um I think I know this answer based on what you've said so far? How did you teach yourself the exposure triangle, shutter speed, aperture, ISO?

SPEAKER_01 7:11

I kind of already knew that from having shot before. Um, and even though I was shooting on film before, I still kind of like understood, you know, I understood like, oh, why is half of my frame dark? And that's like, oh, because I had my shutter speed way too high, and I had to understand what the sync rate is between the shutter and the flash. Uh, why is something too dark? It's because this. And it took me some time, like, it's like I had inklings of what I needed to do, but your trajectory of the learning curve once you switch to digital is incredibly fast because you can change on the fly and you're seeing instant results. So, yeah, that that moved pretty quickly once you moved to digital. But when you're shooting film and you don't know you're depending on auto a lot, um, and I know now how easy it is to manipulate the auto in any camera, film or digital. Uh, so I I can, you know, kind of now adjust, obviously, accordingly.

TMac 8:10

You mentioned the you mentioned the website, uh, which I know who else or what else influenced you.

SPEAKER_01 8:18

Um from an influence standpoint, I don't know if there was really a lot of like specific influence. I think uh what I learned from the website was a lot of how to what different light setups do to the subject and how that changes the dynamic and the feel and the the vibe for lack of a better term that you're getting in each image. Um I think I've I've always been fascinated by sports photographers. Uh, so I just looked a lot of on a lot of that. If you tell me like anyone in particular, I'd say no, nobody in particular. Now, there have been photographers that were instrumental in mentoring me, especially in sports. I would be remiss if I don't say my good friend Greg Bartram, who probably, if it wasn't for him, I would not be doing what I'm doing now at the level that I'm doing now. Uh, he was incredibly great. He kind of like, within the first couple of games, he took pity on me and he took me under his wing and he started teaching me stuff and what to do and what not to do and how to be professional on the sideline. Not that I wasn't professional, I just didn't know the etiquette, you know, how to how to um really he was a like everybody really at that point was a welcoming face. Um, which, if you know anything about the Columbus Sports Photography Room, it's a very welcoming room. Um, but he was he was the first like person that I've seen his pictures, and I was like, wow, this is amazing. And he's like chatting up with me on the sideline as we're shooting a game, and we have cameras stuck to our faces, but we're still talking, and you know, he's telling me about what to look for and how to do certain things, and um yeah, and it yeah, Greg, I I owe Gred a ton of Greg a ton of gratitude for um really kind of putting me on starting me out on the right path, and then um kind of kind of pushing me in that direction and like lifting me up and in times when I needed it, and that and honestly, it's I I feel to a large degree, I feel like I owe that to the newbies that do come in. Not owe it, but like I feel it's it's it's like it was the right thing to do. Um had that also with uh Jamie Sabo at the Blue Jackets. Um, you know, uh a lot of guys that shoot uh Ohio State football, uh whether it's Jake Aries or Stuart Scott or any of those guys. Um one of the guys that I really love looking at his stuff right now is my good buddy Aaron Doster, who is out of Cincinnati. Uh he also shoots for the NFL. And uh he sees he sees sports in a very, very different way. And I absolutely love it. His his his images are dynamic. Um yeah, I could talk about about I could talk about guys that I look up to that are now my friends, that I'm always in awe. And when they like when they like one of my pictures and I'm like, I've I I've made it, you know, it's like it's it's like a badge of honor to me. Uh, but it's like uh it's it's good. I we all we all it's fun because we all learn from each other and we all encourage each other, even the guys that are shooting for Getty and that are shooting for AP and that are shooting for this, and they're like encouraging us little guys who are not shooting for wire services, or not shooting for newspaper, um, and and help us like we all help each other with like crops when we're editing postgame, or you know, do we like this image better or that image better? And it's it's a it's a it's a really good, it's it's been a blessing to be around this really good, really encouraging bunch of people.

TMac 11:59

Well, I can tell you how friendly the photography room is from my recent experience, how important mentors are. So it's here I get to say thank you because I've shot I've shot plenty, but I didn't I was actually kind of nervous because you don't know the room, right? You don't know how the room works, you don't know the house and how the house works. So uh I appreciate you paying it forward.

SPEAKER_01 12:28

Absolutely, and you're very welcome. And I think we hit it off right off the bat. First of all, you came highly recommended, and that I mean, regardless, um, we would have still received you well, but uh I think we we hit it off right off the bat pretty good, and we discovered that we have a lot of similar uh interests and and uh uh techniques and professions that we do in our day jobs. Um so I think and and our senses of humor, I think, kind of mesh pretty well. So it it you know those are those are good when you gel really early right off the bat.

TMac 13:03

It works.

SPEAKER_01 13:03

Yeah, for sure.

TMac 13:05

Well, speaking of other jobs, you and I both have video backgrounds. So tell me so, where in that trajectory did video come into the picture? So I know that the 20D didn't have video. I had the 30D, it didn't have video.

SPEAKER_01 13:23

So when did 5D Mark II was the first one that had video, I believe. Um I didn't start doing uh oddly enough, actually, my video work really started long before I did photography. Um I did I did a lot of video work. Um, not like you know, nothing heavy production extensive, like just hold a camcorder and make sure everybody looks in the middle, you know, just real basic stuff, probably from the time I was in high school. Uh in college, I did a lot of our sports video, so like the the scout cams and stuff like that. Um, but from the time I moved to Columbus, my wife and I moved to Columbus in 2000 and 20, 2003, and uh in 2005, I think, we started doing video at church, and I was the camera operator for our single cam at that point. Um, so I started doing that kind of video then, and then um started doing a little bit of video here and there, not nothing, nothing too crazy, uh, but then the more I volunteered at the church, the more we started doing more and more things to the point that I I worked, so I worked at a church in communications for five years. In those five years, I did all of our photography, I did some of our video, I helped a lot with our video production team, uh, I helped a lot with our weekend production team. Um we develop I helped develop lighting setups and stuff like that. And we switched everything to live streaming during COVID, develop sound stages, develop um how we're gonna do different things, and uh help with that. And that was that was a I think that that actually really pushed my video experience way higher. That just took it to a different level. Um so by the time I left actually the church, I was operating multicam setups that were like six cameras uh on, you know, and and um that are automated. So I'm running I'm running a board with a touch screen and I'm moving things around and things like that simultaneously. So it was fun. I also ran uh uh remote cameras like handheld you know uh gimbal cameras. There we go. It's Friday, I'm tired.

TMac 15:48

How did the how did the current gig come about?

SPEAKER_01 15:54

Um the current gig came about I was having breakfast with a friend of mine, and I was starting to feel that I needed to do something different, and not not something different, just you know, it was it was time for the next step. And um he is a chief communication officer for a local municipality, and he was like, Oh, you're still wanting to do this, and I said, Yes, and he was like, you know, I might have something coming up here pretty soon. I would love to have you because I think your skill set would really fit well. And I was like, Okay, um, you know, I'll, you know, I'm sure this is a this is a pretty good, well-to-do municipality, and I was like, I'm sure you're gonna get people that are incredibly more qualified than I am, you know. I I didn't go to school for this. I didn't go to school for any of this. This is all self-taught and experience and being put in places where I get to learn from other people. And um lo and behold, the spot did open, and I went through the interview process, which was which was actually pretty stringent and had to do a couple of like uh graphic design projects, I had to write press releases, I had to, it's it's a full-on communications, government communications job, like public information level. So um after going through the process, I got the job and uh so far so good. I just heard that my annual review was just turned in, so I would get because I'm about to close in on my year, so uh it'll be interesting to see how that comes about. But it's honestly been a great experience, it's been a great time. Uh, got to do, got to really develop and execute some newer things that they hadn't done before, got to bring a skill set um that they didn't have on staff before. So now we're able to do more things uh that they would have contracted out or not really done at all. So it's it's been a it's been a really good experience. It's been a very fun. We've we've had a lot of really good times.

TMac 17:52

And you get to freelance. Oh, yeah, I do. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Shoot games and get your photography on. Yep, yep. Um now as a second instead of feeling the pressure of full-time freelance.

SPEAKER_01 18:08

Right, right. And it's I I don't think I've ever done full-time freelance. If I did, I did it for like very, very short periods of time. Um I I am a big wuss, and as you know, in photography it ebbs and flows, and I panic a little bit. And when you have, you know, a wife and two kids and now one in college, um uh you you kind of like tend to want that that safety net of a of a daytime job with its steadiness and and benefits, um, and then do the photography stuff on the side.

TMac 18:43

Well, when the TV production career got out of hand and it now suddenly it's 200 days on the road, that's when I uh got off the treadmill and went back, and Pennies from Heaven got offered a chance to teach. So for me, it essentially is was the same thing. I I couldn't do it anymore. Kids were coming and growing and I was missing stuff. So that that pretty much ended that. So but it's nice to be able to. I fell into it because now I can offer that to my district. So I can offer photography services. Um, yes, it's unpaid, but guess what? I get to shoot pretty much everything. Right. From uh you know, theater, which we'll talk about, plays and sports, and just general assignment stuff. Um, so I really think that that uh helped me continue and be available to freelance as a photographer because I'm shooting practically every day, m many times multiple. Oh yeah. Uh so it, you know, in the end it it all worked out. Um what's what's in your kit? I wouldn't I would lose my photography nerd card if I didn't ask what's in your kit. You mentioned Canon, so lay it out.

SPEAKER_01 20:16

You want to talk about my uh digital kit or my fell my film kit?

TMac 20:21

Oh, we'll get to the film kit. Digital first.

SPEAKER_01 20:23

So digital, I'm running right now a um uh Canon R6 Mark I, a Canon R6 Mark II, and my remote camera is a Canon M5. Um from a lens standpoint, uh let's go from smallest to longest. Uh 1116, 11 to 16 F2.8 Tokina, uh 70 to 200, uh 24 to 70, I went out of order, uh 50 millimeter 1.4, which I love, and uh 300 f2.8. That's the sports one.

TMac 21:00

Yep. Indeed. Uh that's pretty much the Trifecta plus some extras.

SPEAKER_01 21:06

Yep, yep. I have a couple of like random lenses here and there that I just use for like special things. Yeah, yeah.

TMac 21:12

Pay no attention to the shelf in the back. That's what I always tell my wife. Uh um, and you are shooting video on the DSLRs?

SPEAKER_01 21:23

On the R6s, yeah.

TMac 21:25

Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:26

And I've shot now, I and and for for what I do day job and for my personal work using that is great. When I was um doing stuff at the church, I was using all cinema line. So C100, C200, C300, that's all I was running.

TMac 21:45

I have uh C100 sitting in a bag.

SPEAKER_01 21:50

C100 is a good camera. It has some limitations that you don't get with the C300 or uh even the C100 Mark II. Uh, but C100 is a good like start. Super 35.

TMac 22:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:02

Yeah.

TMac 22:02

Yeah. No, it's it works great. You know, I use it for interviews.

SPEAKER_01 22:06

Yeah. Yeah, they're great for that.

TMac 22:08

Yeah, everything's you know specific and set up and it works it works fancy.

SPEAKER_01 22:17

I mean it's it's a it's one of the better ones out there.

TMac 22:19

I love this question for especially for sports photography. What is a must-have accoutrement that you bring to when you're shooting sports?

SPEAKER_01 22:34

Um you gotta keep your head on a swivel. And always and this is something sometimes I struggle with, is like always remember to follow the play to the end. Because you never know that reaction shot might reaction might be better than the actual action shot. Um I'm I'm incredibly guilty of following the action shot and not the reaction shot. Um so I try to remind myself, and that really goes for all sports, uh, whether it's soccer, I shot a lot of volleyball this year, um, hockey, uh, basketball, um, those reaction shots are the emotion. It's the story, it's the what do I want to see as the fan? So the fan in me kind of comes out a lot. Um, but yeah, it's and honestly, I tell people the same thing. They're like, oh, they're shooting sports, and they're like, I can never shoot weddings, and I'm like, why? It's the exact same thing. You're shooting moving targets, you're gonna keep your head on a swivel, hold out for the reactions.

TMac 23:40

I love it. I wouldn't shoot a wedding on a bet, bro. That is too much pressure. I I I bet you if you were setting up, Super Bowl, Olympics, World Series, I've done it all. Same thing. No way would I do a wedding. Gotta look a bride in the eye and go, uh you wanted that shot?

SPEAKER_01 24:01

Well, you'd you'd be surprised. I've I've had a lot of friends that shot like they were like, I wouldn't shoot a wedding to to if my life depended on. I'm like, why don't you come sh and second shoot a wedding with me where there is like literally no pressure, and then we'll see where we'll see what happens from there. They come and they have fun, and you know, they're like, This is great. I don't have to edit, they just hand me their cards, you know. I'll take it, I'll do the editing. It's fine.

TMac 24:25

Sign me up, bro. I'll do it.

SPEAKER_01 24:26

All right, cool. We'll we'll make it happen.

TMac 24:28

It's just like my son did a little DJing when he was in high school, and he said he was gonna do a wedding, and I'm like, man, you are good for you. And he did fine. And I'm just like, God, having to face a bride, that's way too much. You know, come on, if we miss it in sports, we go, I missed it.

SPEAKER_01 24:49

Right. And and you have to think of how much are you actually going to miss. If you're thinking, if you're using the mentality of like, if I'm the bride or the groom or both, or the parents, this is what I want to see, then you're really you're gonna tell the story. If you if you are a storyteller, you're gonna tell the story regardless of what um what what the venue is, whether it's a wedding, whether it's a sport, whether it's a bar mitzvah, whether it's a whatever. If you're a if you are trying to tell a story and you've told a story before, that it's like riding a bicycle, it'll automatically translate to a large degree. You know, you it you don't even have to think, you don't have to write down a shot list for what you have to shoot at a wedding because you've been to so many weddings that you know it by heart, right? So that's that's kind of like my approach usually to explaining the wedding photography thing.

TMac 25:46

Well, and uh and a wedding photographer explained to me that the customer and the customer's family tend to like the portraits, right? The the groups, right? That's for them, that's the money because everybody's there, everybody got there, they're sharing. Um, you know, whereas because of all the action stuff I'm shooting, I'm like worrying about missing this and missing that, and it's it's not, it's all the groups and everybody together.

SPEAKER_01 26:17

That's the stuff that gets shared online. That's the that's the stuff that gets, you know, you'll get some of the artsy stuff, if you depending on how artsy, but your your portraits, the the pictures that you're doing of the bride and groom, the big family pictures, the reception where everybody's having fun and getting rowdy and sometimes very, very inabrated, those are the things that they're gonna share and they're gonna laugh at and they're gonna enjoy uh more than like actually I I usually actually shoot very little during the ceremony, like I shoot the big the highlights, but then everything else is what they end up getting a lot of pictures of.

TMac 26:53

For soccer, yeah. Uh who who are your clients for soccer?

SPEAKER_01 27:00

Who are my clients?

TMac 27:02

Yeah. Or clients.

SPEAKER_01 27:04

That's uh that's a good uh that's a good question. That's that's more of a trick answer. So here is why. Uh my clients, okay. We're gonna call my clients for soccer are um for for like who I work for is Massive Report, uh, which is the second largest outlet of crew news outside of the dispatch here locally. Um if we're gonna talk about uh no, that's really it for soccer. Um my my non you know, not that any of this is paid is obviously the crew fans, the Nordek, the crew fans around is like they're the people that I shoot for. So uh fun fun little nugget is that I actually don't make any money off of sports. In any sport for that matter.

TMac 27:56

The majority of what I shoot for my district and sports, I don't get paid either. So I'm already an employee.

SPEAKER_01 28:06

What has what has been what has been absolutely phenomenal is that um I I shoot a lot of things, I shoot a lot of sports, and uh first of all, I haven't paid to get into a sporting event in almost 15 years, so no complaints here. Uh they paid for our food and our drink and our parking, so still no complaints here. Um and people see all of these pictures, and then they inquire about weddings and senior pictures and family pictures and engagement pictures and uh all kinds of things like that, and uh other events for their companies and um you know that kind of stuff. And so that has supported the habit, so to speak.

TMac 28:51

Um gotta buy lenses.

SPEAKER_01 28:53

Yeah, gotta buy lenses. And uh, you know, it's been it's been good to build some good relationships with a lot of people, and uh, yeah, so that's that's why like when people are like, oh, how come you don't make any money off of sports? And I'm like, the perks are good, and I get business off of it, but not directly from it. So in my mind, I'm I'm blessed enough to be able to uh do that, and I have a very understanding wife who lets me do that, and is most of the time understanding when I say I need to buy this lens. Most of the time.

TMac 29:27

Uh eventually mine said start an LLC champ, buy your own lens.

SPEAKER_01 29:33

Oh, yeah. All the all of mine comes from photography income, so it doesn't come out of the household, yeah, household income.

TMac 29:41

Yeah. McCarty Inc. is kicking you off the island. Yep. Let's talk process for a second because I get asked all the time, uh uh you mention about high-profile sports photography. So let's talk process for uh a few minutes. Um go through um a crew game when you arrive, uh, you know, and uh what you're thinking about once the whistle blows and and we got a ball game.

SPEAKER_01 30:15

Uh yeah, once the whistle blows and we have a ball game, it's it's what's happening on the field, uh, but also keeping an eye on the stands. There's signs, there is uh fans doing certain things, there is um you know all sorts of antics that the supporters do. Uh having done it for so long, it's uh you start developing things that you know are happening or coming, and you kind of prepare for those and keep an eye on them. Um, we have been truly blessed with a very, very photogenic stadium uh in lower.com field. And some of the sight lines and some of the lighting setups that we have in there really lends itself to a lot of art. Um, and just some of those stuff that, like, you know, people see it and they're like, I'm gonna put this as the wallpaper on my desktop, you know, and uh and I enjoy that kind of stuff. I do lean into the art a little bit more sometimes. Uh, if it's on the field, it's mostly game action. It's it's pretty straightforward, just like any sports photography. Uh occasionally I'll take something and kind of mess with it around in a non-sports fashion, but uh pretty straightforward. You're looking for, you know, slides, collisions, dribbles. You always I I try to shoot, um, I try not to shoot uh trading card style. Trading card style is like where you have an individual and a ball or a stick or a puck or whatever, and that's it. It's like who's attacking them? Where's the story here? Why is there a second person from the opposing team that's challenging them or somebody from their team that is waiting to get the ball, or you know how that um how that represents uh the emotion on the field, collisions, collisions are good because there's a lot of facial expressions going on. Uh also kicks, like like, you know, take shots on goal and stuff like that, where you can see just bodies flying everywhere. Um, my favorites are usually when like it's a one-on-one between a player and a goalie, and the the player just jumps over the goalie or the goalie tackles the player or something like that. Those are always cool. Um but yeah, after after the game's over, usually at halftime I'll try to. I I love having Wi-Fi on my cameras. So I'll grab a few pictures and I'll send them up to my writer. That way he has something ready for post-game once his postgame is done. Um, then we'll go back into the photo room, I'll start dumping the pictures, and then I use photomechanic to do my culling. It's way faster to cull through photomechanic. And then once I've called everything, I go into Lightroom and do my edits. Presets? Um no, actually honestly, hardly ever. Hardly ever on presets. But uh, there's a great function in Lightroom where assuming that you shot everything consistently, so you're not on auto white balance, you've shot basically on manual the whole game. Um you can actually copy once you do an edit on an image, you can copy those edits and you can paste them to subsequent images. That makes things a lot faster. So everything else you're doing is just straightening out your horizons and cropping. Um, and that's that's really about it.

TMac 33:28

Oh yeah, and it goes so much faster. Yeah, I will do I tend to do it by burst. So I got the burst, I figure out what I like, fix one, apply, next. Yep, next. And you're doing them multiples at a time. Yeah. Let's talk settings. Um, are you all manual all the time?

SPEAKER_01 33:50

I'm all manual all the time, unless it's like a mid-afternoon game and we have a split field, and then I'll switch to like shutter priority, uh, just because it's just a pain to keep going back and forth in the shutter speeds. But we don't get those very often. We may get them like once or twice a year. Uh, usually middle of the summer we'll get like an afternoon game, or late in the summer we'll get an afternoon game. And it like your half of the field is in bright daylight, and half of the field is in shade. And um, so that's the only time we'll switch to like shutter priority. Uh the great tools in Lightroom nowadays, though, allows me to split. Uh and for example, like if the player is in the shade, but the rest of the stand everything else is blown out behind them, I can go into Lightroom, separate the two, and kind of bring it down a little bit, and just just to try to balance it out. The the goal is to you have those tools, use them for good, and don't overdo it.

TMac 34:48

You uh I love the idea of um offering some images at halftime, uh another professional work a day, which I'm not, um, turn me on to the little adapters. So I can usually spin off four or five and send them off to our friend Gary uh at halftime, and then you know, by the time I get back to Stark County, I can get him the rest the next day for his for his purpose.

SPEAKER_01 35:24

Funny that you mentioned that because I literally have one right up here on my desk.

TMac 35:27

Come on.

SPEAKER_01 35:28

And I love this one, so this is an SD and a micro SD card reader. I love this one because it has um regular USB A.

TMac 35:36

Flip it open.

SPEAKER_01 35:37

You can flip it open to uh a micro USB, but also has USB-C on the other side. And uh I love this because I can use it on my laptop, I can use it on my tablet, um, and it works really, really well. But I I usually do it via Wi-Fi, so I don't I don't even take that out, but it it moves about the same.

TMac 36:00

What is the most rewarding thing for you with photography? What is what keeps you in it?

SPEAKER_01 36:10

A lot of things. Uh I I I'm I'm still always in disbelief when a professional athlete uses a picture that I took as their profile picture. And I'm like, what if you would have told me uh 15, 16, 16 years ago that this is what I would be doing these days, like this is what I would be doing at this point in my life. I would have been like, no, you're out of your effing mind. Uh I did not expect, I did not expect to do or to shoot a lot of things that I have shot. Um, so I'm incredibly very blessed in that. Uh, but part of it is the art, part of it is the therapy. Does it turn into a what feels like a task and a job, and I don't want to do this sometimes? Absolutely. Have I had moments where I'm like, you know what? I really suck and I'm gonna sell all my gear because it's just not worth it anymore because I'm a terrible photographer. And uh it's funny because now my wife is the one that talks me off that ledge. Um but it's it's hard to pin down one thing that makes it satisfactory. Uh I am, however, an extrovert and I am a people pleaser to a large degree. Uh, but the joy that I see when people see their picture in action, when they're not like posing for it, and it's like they're like, oh, this looks really good. Um, or like when my fellow like really high-end photographers, whether it's like sports photographers or wedding photographers, that are like, this is really good, and I'm like, wow, this is cool. So the the the endorphins are like nice and nice and high. And um, you know, now I'm I do a lot actually, I do almost 50-50 between photo, actually, I do almost like 50% video, 40% photo, and about 10 to 15% graphic design in my job. And um, I'm doing a lot of video now that people are like, we love those videos, and we have other municipalities trying to imitate what we're doing in our videos that I'm creating, and I'm like, what is happening here? You know, so it as long as people keep set keep being satisfied, that's kind of probably what keeps me going. Um and I I tried to, this is when I started getting into film, is to need something to slow me down a little bit from digital uh and to kind of like back off of the craziness. So I started, you know, I've I like I said I've shot film since I was a little kid, but I didn't learn how to develop film until 2017. And uh I had wanted to learn how to develop film for a long time, so I got on YouTube just like anybody would do, and I was like, How do I develop film? You know, blah blah. Started out like, well, you do these chemicals and this, and then I saw this video. The title said, Can you develop film with coffee? And I'm like, I'm intrigued. So I probably watched about 15 videos and I learned that I can develop film, black and white film, using instant coffee. And I'm like, so guess what? I developed my first oh 30 rolls of film were developed in instant coffee in black and white, uh, including including 10 rolls that I shot while we were in while I was in Egypt. Um and yeah, it was like the the uh the excitement rush that I got in the for when the first roll I developed in coffee, and you open it after you followed all the steps for years, and you open it, and you're like, oh my god, there are actual images on this film. I have, I have, I have made fire, you know? And it worked, like it worked exactly. That's I ran up the stairs from the basement so fast and when it worked, it worked. I can't believe it effing worked. And um, yeah, so that was that was pretty exciting. And then I was like, well, if it worked, then I'm gonna try this other stuff. So I developed some C41 color film, and I was like, well, this worked well, I'm gonna try some other stuff. So I developed some E6 slide film and uh and so on and so forth, and then and then I bought an enlarger and paper, and then I switched to medium format, and then I went to large format. So now I shoot 4x5, I shoot medium format and four by five, those are my two favorites. Medium format is really my primary four by five, it's more of a process, and I have another Souping in Coffee. No, no, no. This is different from souping. This is actual development, it has development times on the uh on the film dev chart. How to develop in coffee. I would be that that's a whole other episode that we can talk about.

TMac 41:11

Yeah. Next game, we have dinner conversation.

SPEAKER_01 41:14

The short of it is that it's a mixture of instant coffee and it has to be the cheapest, worst instant coffee you can get your hands on, and uh vitamin C powder and washing soda. That is basically it. And then you do use regular fixer, you know, Ilford fixer, but otherwise the developing agents are the coffee, the vitamin C powder, and the washing soda. And it does work. I can confirm.

TMac 41:43

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 41:45

Yep.

TMac 41:46

All right.

SPEAKER_01 41:46

This is this is a path you were not expecting.

TMac 41:49

Uh no. Not at all. Uh I'm gonna need uh visual evidence, which you will send me.

SPEAKER_01 41:56

I yes, I'll have to find you some of those because that was back from 2017, which, you know, considering the last four years is feels like an eternity ago.

TMac 42:07

So this is the pay it forward question we'll we'll end with. Okay. Um I'm sure you get asked, but as a teacher, uh maybe I get asked way more. What's uh three things if you were talking to someone who wanted to begin their photography and maybe a little video and develop in coffee, what would you tell them? Uh give me three things you would pass along to them that they need to know, do man, those are three very different things.

SPEAKER_01 42:49

Because they're three very different skill sets. Um find something. Again, this is probably gonna sound a little bit cliche, but find what you enjoy the most. Because if you enjoy it, it's not gonna not feel like a job. It is a job, especially if you're getting paid for it. But you're gonna discover ways of how to be more creative. Your persistence is gonna be a little bit stronger. Actually, it's gonna be a lot stronger because this is something that you enjoy. You're gonna discover ways and and find yourself seeking out ways to learn, to get better, to make it cooler, to make it different than everything else that's out there that is competing. And and you know, considering the saturation of everybody with a camera and a phone who can do photos and video, and you know, what what makes you stand out? And do you have to be like completely stand out out on left field? No, no, not necessarily, but do the simple things well, which is probably number two. So when you find that thing that you enjoy, do the simple things well. Because if you do the simple simple things well and consistently, that is already going to separate you from a lot of people. Um, so those are Those are I'd say probably one and two. Number three is actually just really more personal, has nothing to do with skill. It's like uh I teach this, I taught this to my kids from the time they were young. Uh, rule number one is don't be a jerk. You're gonna go into places, you're gonna go into rooms. Um, you have to be able to uh present yourself humbly and professionally. And, you know, when I bring on new people to shoot for me for Columbus Wired, for example, which I run that covers Central Ohio sports and entertainment, it's like when you're going into the room, know that a whole bunch of these other people are, this is actually their day jobs. We're doing it for uh, I don't want to say for fun, we're doing it for for the people, but we don't make any money off of it, but we do have access. So know know your place, know that the guys that are getting paid, they get the priority and don't be upset at that because that's real, you know, and that's okay. At some point, you're gonna you're gonna have established yourself and you're gonna build the rapport and the credential to be like to to get and it will be given, it will be handed to you or offered to you. You're not even gonna have to ask for it. Build good relationships with people. That's it's incredibly important, especially in this profession. If you want to do professional sports, if you want to do professional uh concerts, if you want to do professional weddings, your people skills are really important, and build good relationships with people. Don't be a jerk.

TMac 45:32

Don't be a jerk. Simple, but sometimes so hard to implement correctly. There's a humility uh that that you just it's a part of being a professional. There are plenty of people that are better than you. Just relax and do your thing. You'd be surprised what you'll learn. Right.

SPEAKER_01 46:00

And learn from them. They're not your enemies. You know, they're not your in most cases, they're not your competition because you're not in it in the same playing field. But you know. And most of that, like I said, most of that has nothing to do with skill. That's just that's on the personal level. With the skill, like I said, you keep doing what you're what you what you like, what you enjoy, and you're gonna grow into that and you're gonna make a space for yourself.

TMac 46:30

Sam, I can't thank you enough for being a part of the project. Thank you for having me. I uh can't wait to get back on the sidelines, talk some smack.

SPEAKER_01 46:40

Never a dull moment.

TMac 46:42

I I was gonna pass along that maybe the next time the uh Cuccio Goles celebration will run towards you.

SPEAKER_01 46:49

Right, right. Yeah. You you uh you were you on that side? Yeah, you were. You were next to me. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, right at the time. That was fun. That might have been the most fun Kucho celebration we got.

TMac 47:01

Yeah, that was nuts. Yeah. Safe travels. See you soon.

SPEAKER_01 47:08

Yep, have a great day.

TMac 47:14

Thanks again to the multi-talented Sam Fami. You can check out his work at studio79.com and on all of his social media channels. The Zoom with our feet podcast is a production of TV Commando Media. The Zoom Pod theme is by November's and their funky groove Cloud 10. Until next time, photographers, if you're not shooting, you're not learning.