The Full Frame, a Sony Podcast
The Full Frame, a Sony Podcast, is a podcast dedicated to exploring the art of storytelling through imaging.
Hosted by Sony Digital Imaging Advocate Clyde Vaughan, episodes will take a deep-dive into the creative journeys of photographers, videographers, content creators and imagemakers, unpacking their motivations, inspirations, challenges and passion for storytelling through their camera. The show also explores developments in digital imaging technology, emerging trends, industry news and more with insider guests from the Sony team.
Watch The Full Frame on YouTube or listen on all major podcast apps.
The Full Frame, a Sony Podcast
Pat Kay On Why Novelty Keeps Creativity Alive
Pat Kay, photographer and Sony Digital Imaging Ambassador joins us to discuss his photographic journey from Sydney street photographer to international creative. We explore the power of community in the creative industry, finding inspiration in unexpected places, and the technical aspects of capturing powerful travel and street photography.
Follow Pat on Instagram and YouTube @pat_kay and check out his business education platform at @CreativeFreedomwithPatKay.
Join us every Tuesday for the latest conversations, plus follow us at @SonyAlpha.ANZ where you can submit your questions and give your feedback.
Make sure to subscribe so you don't miss an episode!
Imagine you just rock up to a scene. Boom, I'm done. The only way to actually get a sense of community is to put yourself out there.
Clyde Vaughan :Yeah, is to start networking, is to start driving value for other people If you could give like one technical piece of advice for street photography.
Pat Kay:Seemingly simple but kind of hard to master, and it's the same advice that I actually give for portraiture.
Clyde Vaughan :Okay, you have to elaborate. I'm intrigued. Welcome to the Full Frame Podcast presented by Sony. I'm Clyde Vaughan, photographer, filmmaker and Sony digital imaging advocate. We've created this podcast to bring together the community and share the talented work and stories from creators across Australia and New Zealand. We'll be chatting to ambassadors, advocates and creators, as well as doing deep dives into technical gear with our Sony product specialists. Join us every Tuesday for the latest conversations, as well as follow us at sonyalphaanz where you can submit questions and give us feedback. Make sure you subscribe so you don't miss an episode. This is the Full Frame Podcast presented by Sony. I'm Clyde and this is Pat K. Hello everyone.
Pat Kay:I'm Pat K. I'm a travel photographer, sony digital imaging ambassador. Hello everyone, I'm Pat Kay. I'm a travel photographer, sony Digital Imaging Ambassador, based in Tokyo, japan actually. But I grew up in Sydney and decided to move to Japan to pursue more of my photography career At the moment, back for Kando, actually. So I fly back to Sydney and Australia every year for our Kando event and make sure that I'm here because it's just such a fantastic event to reconnect with everyone and spend time with you guys. Super excited to talk about that today and also here for the podcast. Absolutely, yeah, absolutely here for the podcast.
Clyde Vaughan :But we just got back from Kando. Kando is like Australia and New Zealand's big community event, bringing together ambassadors, advocates, creators, friends and family of Sony, so to speak. This time it was down in Hobart in Tasmania. We've done the Gold Coast and Queensland before and, yeah, we just got back. It was a four day experience.
Pat Kay:Yeah, I mean Kando is such a special thing, right? Because it's something that Sony and Sony alone does. I don't know of any other camera brand doing something of this size.
Clyde Vaughan :Yeah, and the scale and the level of execution right.
Pat Kay:It just absolutely blows me away every single time. This year, no exception, of course, we went to Tasmania, hobart, which I really like because I love the cold.
Clyde Vaughan :Yeah, so do I.
Pat Kay:The last two continents are like really like you know, warm, humid, that kind of vibe. But yeah, we stayed at the Mac Hotel and then had pretty much two and a half days, three days, of skirmishing around Hobart and doing various photography activities and stuff like that. Super fun to catch up with everyone. You know we joke a lot about like I'll see you at all next year, once a year catch up, kind of thing. You know, and it's just so great to catch up with everyone in the community and stuff like that. And you know, do all the activities and all the rest of it.
Clyde Vaughan :Yeah, for me it's not so much about the shooting Like it is cool to shoot some like fun stuff, yeah, but I think the thing that really makes it stand out is, like you said, like the people and the community and catching up with everyone that you've kind of got to know over previous years and so on. I mean, like the there is a lot of shooting experiences, like we did mountain biking, there was a boat tour, some people got some helicopter ride yeah, you got. Yeah, you got. You got on that one, yeah, um, so there was some really cool experiences. But for me the big takeaway is like it's bringing together the whole kind of team and kind of giving a unified direction to like what sony wants going forward and also like dealing with scene and the community platform that sony's working really hard to develop, absolutely yeah for me it's also like it's like there's so many talented creators there and you know, just talented photographers, videographers and just skilled creative people.
Pat Kay:Yeah, it's just amazing to be around that much talent and see other people working, catching up with what they're doing and getting their stories of, like, you know, what have you been doing this past year and yeah, and all that kind of stuff, and just hearing all these amazing stories and I, I love that aspect the most as well. Yeah, same with you. You know, uh, the shooting experiences are amazing and they are most certainly like to the level where it's like I would never put this on myself, yeah, and I would never shoot this myself, because it's so outside of my you know, realm of expertise, but that just executed so well yeah like I'm so glad I get these opportunities because, yeah, I wouldn't shoot these otherwise, and, you know, in this amazing setting.
Pat Kay:So, yeah, we, uh, we started off the the whole kind of experience with going to the. What was it?
Clyde Vaughan :the theater royale.
Pat Kay:Yeah, that which was such a cool experience because you know, I don't do a lot of theater, I haven't been to a lot of theaters, um, but they set it up and in such a way that they had, you know, three different acts and then you were able to go, like backstage and you know, check yeah, it was like an all access kind of all access thing. You know you got to shoot them getting ready and then go backwards and and kind of see the, the performances from side stage and stuff like that and you know, it was just all so well put together, and what was your favorite activity?
Pat Kay:uh, overall yeah, yeah the helicopter ride right uh, actually no, oh, surprisingly no. So the helicopter ride was fantastic, don't get me wrong, um, and I love the, the tasmanian landscapes. I did manage to cop a middle seat, so the photos that I ended up getting weren't as good as I would have wanted.
Pat Kay:Um, but actually the boxing was my favorite okay yeah, it was just so like well put together, like you know, a very old school fight scene, just a very simple white ring around a room that's just lit up and super aesthetic with a lot of fog and smoke and lights, and you know, the actors were just amazing. They they teach um boxercise and like, yeah, boxing exercise in real life.
Pat Kay:And so, you know, the actors were just amazing, they teach boxercise and like boxing exercise in real life and so you know they're just like aspiring with each other really lightly and stuff like that. But you know you could tell they knew what they were doing and you know it was really really well put together and the theme and everything was just so locked in and it was such a fantastic experience that, yeah, I don't know it's just, yeah, it was really really good.
Clyde Vaughan :I noticed that a lot with my own workshops and a lot of the workshops of the other ambassadors and advocates run through. Sony scene is, rather than creating a shot list or creating a specific shot, it's building out a scene that then people have a better time shooting. Like you said, it's not just a single shot of a boxing match. The whole scene was curated to have movement, action, emotion and it's lit like a film set and I think obviously Sony has that history in filmmaking and I think that really shows with the kind of events that they're running for us.
Pat Kay:It's such a privilege, honestly to have it. Have someone think about a set at that level, yeah, and to that degree. Yeah, absolutely good.
Clyde Vaughan :And I find that so funny because the list of people that are there like you know, the creators, advocates, ambassadors and so on everyone has their own like niche or their own skill set, but their own skill set. But it's really incredible to be, you know, in a scene with someone who maybe shoots stills, and then you're next to someone else who's you know, like if you're standing in a room with pete devries, who works obviously with, like james cameron and everything, and you're standing next to him and he's saying, oh, maybe we adjust this light or let's move over here, and you're like, okay, I'm gonna listen exactly to what you're saying because yeah, so it's like that, uh, that like uh passing on of knowledge, you know, not just from people who are far more ahead, yeah, than me in my career, but just being able to collectively learn and grow together yeah, and even at a basic level.
Pat Kay:Just you know what is someone else's perspective, what is someone else shooting like? Why are they standing there? You? Know that kind of stuff. It's like it's so great to be able to learn from, yeah, someone else, just through osmosis yeah, that's a good term for it.
Clyde Vaughan :Yeah, I find that when I'm shooting something that's outside of my kind of wheelhouse, if I end up standing behind or next to someone who that's their thing, I'm like, all right, sweet, I'm in the right position yeah, that's what I was doing, yeah, yeah yeah, let's do a bit of a rewind, bit of a throwback to the old city street days um, do you want to talk us through kind of the community that you were a part of or that you also helped develop, and talk us through kind of like how that shaped your career and, uh, moving forward, like what kind of direction you think community has for people like us?
Pat Kay:sure, um, huge one, huge stories here. Um, that was a huge question, yeah, which is great. Um, I think it also requires a little bit of my own context on on like my own background and and what I focused on in my early photography days.
Pat Kay:So you know, I was very inspired by street photography to start with, because, in a world of photography where you can choose umpteen different categories and genres to go and pursue what is interesting to you when you're first starting out and so for me, it was street photography because it was so technical and so different to what I did in the past you know, um, I have a kind of history and and a career of product design 10 years behind me prior to doing this uh photography thing, um, and so for street photography, I was like, yeah, this is so great, um, and I ended up practicing street photography every single day after work, going out into the city minimum half an hour every single day, usually two hours, three hours and just practicing craft and over that time, you kind of get absorbed into the greater community and I was trying to find other people in Sydney like me greater community and and I was trying to find other people in sydney like me.
Pat Kay:And so, you know, I actually ended up finding, you know, people like demis, um, good friend of mine and one of my you know, my best friends and and really, really great photography group that I've got as my own personal, uh, close friends now, him and another friend of ours, uh, we started doing like meets uh, throughout sydney under uh, under a brand, and these meets were they ended up to be just so huge. You know, I think at the time it was about like 2017, 2018, something like that. Um, instagram as a place, instagram as a social media platform, was a lot more friendly and a lot more community driven back then yeah, because the industry itself is already quite isolating and then you're adding in instagram as part of that, and that's also both.
Pat Kay:You know it's community driven, but it's also quite isolating, or maybe um hard to hard to develop that sense of community yeah, and so I think at the time, you know, instagram was actually very pro community and they would well in the, the larger global community, there were things called like insta meets just kind of where it all came from, um which were literally just meets of creators, creative people coming together and just sharing craft and you know, shooting it together and and and just hanging out.
Pat Kay:And so we kind of took the spirit of that and made our own kind of collective here in sydney and and started doing photo walks and stuff like that and they became absolutely massive. Yeah, like, I think the largest one we had was like three, four hundred people really that's huge absolutely huge so I don't know if you're familiar with, uh, like winyard station.
Pat Kay:Yeah, so winyard station, there's like a, there's like a kind of park thing. Um, at the upper exit as you, before you go down underground, anyway, this, this park is like I don't know maybe. Yeah, I know the park. You're talking 150 meters long and, like you know, 50 meters deep and whatever. Um, and we filled it like you know what I mean and it was so insane because, uh, we had this like planned route to go around and you just have these hundreds of people, like with armed with cameras, yeah, doing this photo route and you know, just going around sydney and gallivanting around and we we obviously didn't know the the level of response we would get yeah and so it's not like it was sanctioned by anyone.
Pat Kay:We didn't have, like police, escorts or like you know that kind of thing, so it was just, it was mayhem.
Clyde Vaughan :but it was grassroots.
Pat Kay:Yeah, yeah, absolutely Grassroots kind of thing and, and you know it, it kind of gave us the realization that you know a massive, massive community here. There's so many people in sydney sydney alone and some people have flown up from, you know, melbourne and so on, yeah, um, that are just so hungry for a sense of belonging, you know, that are so hungry for to find other people like them, and so, you know, that was a feeling that I treasured a lot, because it was, it was really cool to be able to connect everyone together and just have a great time. You know, at the time we had Sony sponsoring some of the prizes for the photo comps and stuff like that that we were running at the time as well.
Clyde Vaughan :Is that how you got involved with Sony?
Pat Kay:So after that actually it was around that time I actually ended up winning the alpha awards for abstract. Oh okay, yes, one of my japan photos and and I did another one, ended up winning an rx competition as well. Uh, and from there, you know, just kind of built conversations and built connections with people at sony. And then over the years it's just kind of expanded and and built connections with people at Sony. And then over the years it's just kind of expanded and grown and and you know, especially with kind of having such such great access to an amazing amount of Sony staff and just getting to know them and stuff like that- yeah, Thinking back on a lot of the questions that maybe some of the other advocates and ambassadors get often is you know, how do you start working with big brands, how do you start working with Sony, Things like that?
Clyde Vaughan :And the answer is often not necessarily your talent or skill, or you know the work that you're producing. A lot of the time it is. You know, do you embody that spirit of community? Do you? You know? Do you educate? Do you you run workshops? Are you the kind of person that's really pushing and driving the industry forward by helping others? And I think that's a that's really like the, the heart of it, right?
Pat Kay:yeah, absolutely like it's, it's just being in it. You know, I think a lot of the challenge nowadays is that photography is such a videography. Being a creative person is such an isolating experience as, as you mentioned before, oftentimes people try and sit back and do the work and almost let the people come to them, where the only way to actually get a sense of community is to put yourself out there. Yeah, is to start networking, is to start driving value for other people and creating value for other people and you know, teaching people and making events that connect people together is is a fantastic way to do that and you know it.
Pat Kay:It if you have something built so in our case, with the photo meets and stuff like that, if you have something built and it's for a cause that people can get behind, you know, if you're connecting creatives together and that kind of stuff, like other people will also brands, you know, will also be like oh, I want to be a part of this. You know this sounds like a really, really cool idea. Um, and you know we also had like a bunch of different camera retailers and stuff on board and you know we also had like a bunch of different uh, camera retailers and stuff on board and you know giving discounts or like gift vouchers and all the rest of it, yeah, and it's like you know you build something first and then you ask for brands and if it's good enough, then in that instance you know you'll, you'll get those affiliations when you're in that kind of those earlier days of the um, the photo walks and insta meets and stuff like that did you find that they were a big source of inspiration?
Clyde Vaughan :just because you know, like you said, it's very isolating when you're working on your own and very often quite comparative I know I am myself. You know you see things on Instagram or online and you see people much, maybe much further ahead in their journey than you and there's that kind of comparative aspect, whereas when you're working with other creatives and you're all growing together, it's not so much a competition but I feel like a big source of inspiration. And was was that a big, a big thing for you in that kind of that period? I think?
Pat Kay:as it relates to work specifically, yeah, um, I'm fortunate enough to be in the position where photography is my, my second career, essentially, um, specifically a second career as a creative person. So you know, when I was 22, 23 decades ago now, um, I, I had already gone through this process of being like, okay, I'm comparing myself and my work to others and peers and all those kind of things, and so I think the lesson of age is really just about knowing that, especially as a creative person, everyone's trying to do their best and you should always, ever, be in a war with yourself, but a healthy war, not a negative one.
Clyde Vaughan :Yeah, yeah.
Pat Kay:I use the word war because Steven Pressfield's the War on Art comes up a lot for me in my life and so for me, creativity is a battle, yeah, but it's a very healthy battle and it's just a little bit of a different way to think about things. Yeah, um, but yeah, in terms of inspiration with other creatives it's it's less about comparison and more about the, the, the feeling of connection with one another and and and knowing that we're all on the same journey together and and everyone's got the same struggles and the same triumphs, and and doing all the same things and, you know, knowing that you're not alone, when it can feel pretty alone, yeah, so yeah.
Clyde Vaughan :Yeah, I know that when I started um, I obviously moved to Sydney, uh around a similar time to that, but, uh, I didn't really start my creative journey until a little bit later. But knowing that groups like this existed and communities existed that would help you on your journey, I think is just invaluable to not just the next generation but, you know, future generations going forward.
Pat Kay:Yeah, as I mentioned, it's like really inspiring being able to see that other people are doing the same thing as you and, yeah, taking away the isolation and that feeling of, you know, not being able to deal with the challenges of becoming a full-time creative and all those things.
Clyde Vaughan :So, based on what we've just been talking about, about developing those communities back in the early kind of street Sydney street scene going forward, like what do you think the? There's obviously a lot of value you can add to. You know not only your own community, but you know the communities of all your peers and everything else, and you do a lot of work in terms of education and YouTube. What's coming up next for you? Uh, I'm actually making a bit of a pivot. Yeah, I saw you announce this on Instagram yeah.
Pat Kay:So after how many years uh, six or seven years of just teaching photography? Yeah, um, in terms of education, I kind of feel like I've hit a ceiling of all the things that I've ever wanted to say about photography. I've said yeah okay.
Pat Kay:And I don't want to continue to repeat things in such a quick fashion, I guess, especially on YouTube. You know YouTube is such a quickly revolving place. You know people expecting videos every week, once a week, and you know topics can get kind of dry or set already, especially when you're trying to think about different ways to say the same thing. Yeah, like conceptually being trying to be different and trying to deliver things in a different way. You can only kind of remix the wheel so many times, yeah, and so I'm actually uh making a bit of a pivot to uh more creative business.
Pat Kay:Okay, so over the, the last like little bit um half decade, you I've been trying to really bolster my own creative business in in this photography thing and and trying to make it a big success. And you know I've gotten, I've got a lot of experience with working with brands, doing service-based stuff, working with you know teams, building my own products, um, building my own social media accounts and know amassing followers and all those kind of things, and so I think a lot of the, the, the problem in the, the modern creative person's toolkit at the moment is that, like, no one teaches you business. Yeah, I totally agree with that and, and I want to like teach creatives business, but not in a businessy kind of way, yeah, and only enough, such that they they can make enough to have a sustainable creative life, yeah, and so you know what is the? The bridge in the delta between the two, and that's kind of what I'm going into next.
Clyde Vaughan :Okay. So what? How do you stay motivated? Cause that's obviously a big challenge for someone who's been doing what you do for as long as you do. Um, I'm only 10 years in and I'm already feeling the burnout. So, uh, in terms of what you're doing and what you're doing moving forward, uh, what's kind of like how do you stay motivated, especially with how fast social media is these days?
Pat Kay:So this something that you know it doesn't stop coming up as a creative person.
Pat Kay:I've been a full-time creative person for over 20 years yeah, and that's insane yeah, and and it's like the, the question of inspiration and motivation and drive and all those things. They they ebb and flow, you know, and they don't ever go away. But one of the biggest tips, at least for myself, um, to keep motivation, inspiration and things going, is the idea of novelty okay and specifically, like introducing new things into your practice or changing directions altogether, like I'm doing like like changing um business or creative practice, or both either okay either.
Pat Kay:And then some, you know, even in within the niche of like photography for example, if you are a wedding photographer, go and try some street photography. You know if you are shooting on apsc, or you know full frame or whatever try shooting on your phone and try and mix things up at a micro and a macro level. And I think there's a fine balance between knowing you know how long to stay with something and then seeing that through to the end, versus knowing you know when the time is to to change and to do something else and to pivot, introduce something else, introduce a level of novelty, keep yourself inspired and keep yourself interested in the thing that you're doing. I think a lot of the time. Whilst consistency over a long period of time is often the key to success and the key to winning at anything, within that consistency, there are little changes that you can do to help you get to the end of the line, yeah, and so you know whether those changes are big or you know small.
Pat Kay:As long as you're continually adding those changes, I think that's at least has been my experience um, the the easiest way to kind of cure for a lack of yeah, yeah, motivation and burnout and all those kind of things. I'm not saying that I'm immune from burnout. I most certainly like have my own own spouts of burnout. Um, specifically for me on a more in like intense level, the way I deal with that is I literally just go snowboarding for three months I respect that.
Clyde Vaughan :You know what I mean like sometimes you do just need a break that's that long from what you're doing coming back from kando, I always feel quite inspired because know you get to shoot so much stuff that you, you know, usually don't shoot. Like you said, something that's novel. When it comes to novelty, though like a lot of advice you might hear on other podcasts or from other kind of like mentors or coaches and things like that is really to niche down, whereas you're saying to go against the curve which I agree with you because I like to shoot everything but from a business standpoint, I think a lot of people lean into the niching down because that's how you generate and build a brand and stay consistent with income and things like that. But you're sitting on the other side of the line here. So that's kind of exciting and I like that, yeah, yeah.
Pat Kay:Well, let me give you the thing about niching down from my perspective, yeah, yeah. Well, let me give you the thing about niching down from my perspective. Okay, sweet, because I feel pretty passionate about this With niching down, advice that you get from people is only reflective of the period of life that they're in.
Clyde Vaughan :Yeah, okay.
Pat Kay:And with niching down, it's like you might hear some advice being like you should only do this and focus on this for this amount of time and for that period of time. For that person, that's the correct advice, but for a different person, under different circumstances, in a different stage of life, that advice might not be correct. Yeah, and so it's really about like filtering that piece of advice and understanding how that applies to your own life and whether or not that is actually the right piece of advice for you to go down. Yeah, okay, because at some points of your life, niching down most certainly is the correct thing to do, but if you've gone through that and you cut out the other side, then that's most certainly not the right thing to do.
Pat Kay:Yeah, if you've gone through that and you cut out the other side, then that's most certainly not the right thing to do. Yeah, so it just depends on where you are and you know this feedback and advice just it's pretty general and it applies to a lot of things in the creative sphere and just business in general, and you know just kind of life in general. But you know, feedback is only useful as much as you can apply it to your own life. Yeah, and Feedback is only useful as much as you can apply it to your own life, and if you are taking feedback at the wrong time, at the wrong stage of your life, then you might as well just try feedback from someone else.
Clyde Vaughan :Yeah, okay.
Pat Kay:Yeah.
Clyde Vaughan :I think it's interesting as well about the divide between, maybe, the photo and the filmmaking community is that a lot of photographers will niche down, but a good dop or a good cinematographer can shoot anything right. I find that really interesting. Like as a stills photographer who's then gone into video, I want to treat my stills like a cinematographer, where I want to not necessarily be a creative swiss army knife, but you want to. You think well, you know, like if you have, you understand the lighting, you understand emotion, storytelling. How can you apply that to steals in the same way that a really good DOP does? Right, exactly.
Pat Kay:And with, especially with the DOP. If you think about the arc of of skill acquisition or that person, a DOP is respected because they're they're a generalist of many things, they're good at a lot of things. Right, but how did they get there? They went and niched down into specific things, got really really good at that, then back out and then tried something else and got really really good at that, and did that enough times such that they have a very broad range of skills that they're great at, which makes them desirable from both a business standpoint, but also someone to learn from as well Definitely, exactly and so that's where the whole niching down thing is like okay, well, what stage are you at, like you know, do you want to go deep on something and become a specialist in something?
Pat Kay:Yeah, and then how long do you stay there? And then you come out again and then you start, you know, increasing your skills over a broad range and all those kinds of things. And I first learned this idea in product design, because we talk about, like, e-shaped and T-shaped skills.
Clyde Vaughan :Okay, this is interesting.
Pat Kay:I've never heard this before, so this is like you think of the letter T, right, and it's like, if you're a graphic designer, within the skillset of graphic design, there are a lot of meta skills that you can learn and you might become a specialist at one thing and that thing might be typography, for example.
Pat Kay:Right, and you spend a significant amount of time going down this T, getting amazing at this thing, yeah, and you become a specialist at it and you identify, as you know, being a graphic designer and then you know being a specialist at typography. Then, over time, when you become a senior or a lead or you know you you're working your way up the corporate ladder or whatever it is you become more of an e-shaped person. Because you've mastered topography, you come out, you might do. You know illustration, yeah, you might. You know master that for a couple of years. You come out, you do something else and suddenly, like, your skill set looks like an e, yeah, and then over time, in given the same like career path, you become more like a hairbrush. You know, it's like you have lots.
Clyde Vaughan :I like that. You have lots of prongs.
Pat Kay:Yeah, yeah, okay so that's kind of the the skill arc of any creative really. You know, when you think about photography, I'm a travel photographer. Well, I identify as one.
Clyde Vaughan :Yeah, because you said about not niching down and obviously the body of your work, um, from a first glance may appear very city, street focused, but on deeper kind of like looking through there's, so there's, there's big degree of like portraits, travel, landscape, editorial, like there's so much in there, right, yeah, and so as a travel photographer.
Pat Kay:Uh, you know, for me, my definition of travel photography is specifically street documentation and how people live where people live, so landscapes and you know, urban cities and all those kind of things, and then the people themselves. So what is that? Street photography, landscape and portraiture? Yeah, sometimes a little bit of architecture thrown in there as well. Yeah, just for fun. Um, but they all required very different skill sets.
Clyde Vaughan :Yeah, I was going to say it's very multidisciplinary, that's right.
Pat Kay:And I think that's what I really really like about travel photography having the ability to go down those different routes and give myself that level of novelty being able to come to a city and being like I want to go and see the art museum and then I want to go and walk on the streets for a while and then I want to go and talk to a local and then I want to go and see what the the most common thing landscape building thing is here to go and see.
Clyde Vaughan :That novelty comes from location, first and foremost.
Pat Kay:You feel Um yeah, location and being able to just use the skills in in different areas within the same location. If you're, if you're going to a city and you're only seeing the best views of that city, do you like in my opinion, like I think you know do you really understand how that city works? And yeah you know the, the culture and all those kinds of things. I think you really need to speak to the people, see how they live you know, go and catch public transport and and do all that kind of stuff in order to feel the real beating heart of a city.
Clyde Vaughan :Yeah, okay, so you, you did move to Japan. Was that because you wanted to really dig into the delving heart of of that, like that, that big cultural change?
Pat Kay:yeah, so, like at some stage in my career, a lot of my work, a lot of the things I was becoming um quote-unquote renowned for were all based in japan, and there was a period of time where it was like, okay, well, I'm traveling twice a month back to japan.
Pat Kay:Okay, that's a lot for an entire year yeah you know, I'm I'm going, I'm doing 20 flights just to japan a year, or whatever it is. Um, and I was like this is insane. Yeah, like, fair enough, I should, I should probably move here, yeah, okay. And so the first time I moved was pre-covid, and I was on the, the working holiday visa, which is like the best visa because you don't have to do anything, and loved it. Covid happened, and then I was like, oh, I need to come back home to Australia because the borders are shutting and all the rest of it. And then, after that whole period of time, it was like, okay, it's uh, it's time to move back to japan. Yeah, and so now I've been there for coming up officially two years, but more like three years yeah, okay yeah, but yeah, a lot of the work is like in japan, close to japan.
Pat Kay:I love japan. It's like it's been my life for the last eight years and there's something about it like I grew up in sydney, yeah, and I've explored every single coastline, every single inch of the coastline on the east side of sydney, yeah and there's only so many times you can shoot bombo.
Clyde Vaughan :Yeah, exactly, you know what I mean.
Pat Kay:Like, yeah, there's only so many times you can shoot bombo. Yeah, exactly, you know what I mean like, whereas in japan I've traveled all up and down the entire country now, yeah, you know, I've been to almost every single prefecture. I've been to the northernmost point, the easternmost point, about to go to the southernmost point in like two weeks or something like that. I love it. You know the, the variety of things you can do there, the variety of things you can do there, the variety of things you can shoot, the people, the culture, all those kind of things. They're so different to the Australian upbringing and you know the Western upbringing at large, and it keeps a level of novelty that I really treasure and can keep going for for a long period of time.
Clyde Vaughan :I'm not going to lie. I was in Tokyo and Kyoto across a little bit of October, november, and there is something special about the quality of light. Yeah, there's just something that we don't. We have a very clear skyline here, like very clear air, but there's something special about, kind of the early morning and late sunset in and around Kyoto and Tokyo, where just there's this like beautiful glow and there's this haze that I can't quite describe. I know it's probably pollution, but it is beautiful, especially at that time of year though.
Pat Kay:Yeah, it has a very like Ethereal, almost like alpine glow. You know what I mean. Like when you go into Europe and stuff like that, and you're getting into the twilight hours, especially in like a late or early winter kind of vibe, it's like there's a little haze, a little mist, a little light cast that you see, that just happens a little bit more and and japan has a lot of that during this period, that specific period of time in your editing process?
Clyde Vaughan :are you kind of accentuating that as well, because I know like a lot of your images have very, um, very strong highlights, but also like they're very soft at the same time and a lot of like glow. Are you shooting with a mist filter or are you doing a lot of that in editing? Just curious, yeah, yeah, so it's.
Pat Kay:It's interesting, I think, like originally negative clarity was never a thing um. Especially at my early stages of photography, it was always like positive clarity.
Clyde Vaughan :Yeah, crank that, crank it.
Pat Kay:Detail all the things all the time, um, and at the time you know, 2017, something like that I just decided to like go against the grain and started like exploring more softer techniques yeah we're using so stuff like orton effect and negative clarity and all that kind of stuff. But now my kind of signature throughout the career has just been, like you know, maybe a minus 20, maybe a minus 30, kind of negative clarity kind of thing.
Clyde Vaughan :yeah, but it really I think for a lot of your work that is done in j it's quite minimal, as in there's very clean frames, good strong contrast, things like that, and I think that softer clarity or just a softer image in general really accentuates the key eye-drawing components of the images, right.
Pat Kay:Yeah, and it's a nostalgia that I'm trying to evoke, I think Japan landscapes are, they're quite iconic and for a lot of people they hold a lot of memory and that's kind of one of the things that I'm trying to evoke by doing things like, you know, more grain and and you know, negative clarity, and shooting with a perhaps slightly lower contrast ratio than other people might shoot okay edit at and giving a more filmic look to it. I think that really helps the subject matter that I'm trying to shoot at the same time.
Clyde Vaughan :So yeah, not necessarily contrast in terms of the, you know, technical tones, but contrast across the image in terms of bringing the subject out and, like you said, like you're really kind of trying to evoke the storytelling in the actual image itself.
Pat Kay:That's right, yeah, yeah, and that really, the editing techniques on top of that really really speak to to that kind of technique?
Clyde Vaughan :Yeah. So when we're talking about finding inspiration and staying motivated to keep shooting or keep creating and things like that, what inspiration do you draw from? Or you know other photographers, filmmakers, creatives or do you draw from inspiration outside of your genre filmmakers, creatives or do you draw from inspiration outside of your?
Pat Kay:genre. I think this is a really important question for a lot of people. It's all well and good to draw inspiration from your own niche and I think to a certain degree probably more than most people would realize you need to really immerse yourself within the niche that you are in so that you understand what good looks like.
Clyde Vaughan :Yeah, okay, yeah, I mean that's a funny term, being like you know what is good, what is bad, and it being so subjective, right, and then from there.
Pat Kay:The next kind of step from that is how do you define between good and popular, being in the industry and your niche and understanding those two very different things and having a really good understanding of that and then being able to take inspiration and understand okay, does this serve me, does this not serve me, et cetera, et cetera.
Pat Kay:I think that's really really important and I think a lot of creatives don't spend enough time understanding what good looks like, what popular looks like, and then how their work either fits into those things, ideally both, ideally both. Sure, you know, like we've been talking a lot about on this podcast, with, like, business stuff, popularity is actually really important. Yeah, you know, like, from a business perspective, popularity and doing things people enjoy, consuming, watching, being entertained by, learning from, et cetera is really important. But things can be both good and popular and also come from yourself. So I think, inspiration-wise, getting to that level is really important and then you can start to see okay, in my niche, these kind of things inspire me, so I want to like get more of of that particular bit of inspiration, whether that's like editing or it could be, you know, composition or style or tone and things like that, that's right.
Pat Kay:yeah, okay. So like when I was in my early like landscape, trying to learn and master that you know, I was looking at people like Chris Burkhardt and Alex Stroll, and, and, and Alex Stroll is a big one for me as well yeah, yeah.
Pat Kay:Yeah, I've actually done some stuff with Alex in the in the past and he's he's a great guy, yeah, um, but I was very influenced by that kind of minimal style and that kind of simple and elegant approach to landscape photography. Yeah, and so for them, you know, I I knew that this is the the kind of landscape style I would want to emulate, but most like once I understood that it's for me generally and this is how I've been in my previous career as well it's what are the other things around in the creative field? Yeah, that I can then bring into my own process. Yeah, uh, for me at the time, you know, I was a huge weeb and you know, yeah, okay, uh, and so I loved anime and specifically, you know, when I look at anime and I I remember this one video that I made that absolutely bombed and, uh, it didn't do well at all. Yeah, but I love it and I still remember it to this day. Yeah, and it was a video on analyzing, uh, compositions in anime yeah, like a technical breakdown Right.
Pat Kay:Of like, how, like, frame by frame, level, well, scene by scene, yeah, okay, you know, like what do I like about this scene from this anime and what do I like about how, to you know, in this scene, how do the animators like decide to compose a particular scene? What colors do they use? What layout do they use? You know what kind of juxtaposition are they looking for. You know, are they using emotional beats? You know all those kind of things. And I remember I loved making it so much because so much of my inspiration came from the way japanese, you know manga artists and anime artists, you know manga artists and anime artists compose their scenes.
Clyde Vaughan :Yeah, and there's such an emphasis on movement and action in in such a stylized way. Right, I also really appreciate um, and you can. You can say that like in terms of like you know, capturing movement in street and things like that, where you're really trying to emphasize the movement.
Pat Kay:Sometimes, you know, using, you know you can shoot slow, shutter, you can freeze, like there's so much you can do creatively, but street and travel, you know, a landscape that's still can be really, you know, really aesthetic and beautiful, but it's not exciting for me, it's it's the level of intentionality that they had because, and they still have, because with animation, you know you're unlike photography where you're just capturing a fraction, you know a moment in time an animator has to be like, okay, I have to invest 24 frames a second, I have to do this 24 times.
Pat Kay:Every single second like this scene better be damn good. You know know what I mean. So there's like a lot of intention behind. You know how they set up the gate of a walk or like you know the simplicity of using a half body, completely empty sky kind of cutoff scene to like illustrate a sense of like wonder and magic, right. So there's a, there's a level of simplicity in an anime composition that is so respectful of visual elements that I really, really enjoyed, especially as a as a former designer, you know it's like how can you it was always like how can you make the most elegant solution with you know, the least amount of components, least amount of like visual clutter?
Clyde Vaughan :Yeah.
Pat Kay:The most elegant solution and I approached my photography in the same way, and I think that has been one of my biggest inspirations. How do you visually communicate a photograph, the core essence of a photograph, with the least number of elements that you can use?
Clyde Vaughan :Also, we talked about this at Kando, but I'm going to bring it up again. You've kept every image you've ever taken and I had to bring it up because it just blows my mind, because I'm a chronic deleter. Okay, yeah, I had to bring it up again.
Pat Kay:Yeah, it's worth digging into, though. Yeah, yeah, I mean for context. We're talking about Lightroom catalogs.
Clyde Vaughan :Yeah.
Pat Kay:And how you have a catalog for everything.
Clyde Vaughan :Yeah, I have a new catalog for every shoot and you laughed at me.
Pat Kay:I think, look, ultimately there's no right or wrong way. Yeah, yeah, whatever me. I think, look, ultimately there's no right or wrong way. Yeah, yeah, whatever works for you is whatever works for you. Yeah, um, for me, I, I enjoy having, uh, my entire collection and then kind of categorizing my entire collection yeah, you're talking about like keyword searching and stuff like that.
Pat Kay:So so I'm actually not very a big keyword searcher, but I'm a huge collections user. Yeah, okay, so I have folders upon folders and then I use every version of like categorization you can use. So like flagging, smart collect, quick collections, smart collections, ratings, stars the whole thing, yeah, the whole shebang, um, and yeah, I have my entire collection in one catalog.
Pat Kay:uh, I organize it by year and then I have the date and then a little like description on what that thing is, and it allows me to just like go back in time and and be like okay, 2014, 2015, I did this, whatever, um, and I can just kind of remember what year that is and then quickly find the date and I don't know. It just works for me, yeah, okay.
Clyde Vaughan :So much storage so much storage.
Pat Kay:yes, so I travel with 32 terabytes of storage with me everywhere I go. That's insane.
Clyde Vaughan :How much did you shoot at Kando?
Pat Kay:Not a lot.
Clyde Vaughan :Yeah, I feel like this year was really social and like it was all about the people, so I didn't shoot that much either, absolutely.
Pat Kay:but I think for me, I I'm always quite intentional about my shots, anyway. Yeah, you were talking about this as well. Yeah, yeah. So you know, especially at the start of my journey, street photography you're trying to get that, you know, decisive moment yeah the decisive moment is literally just the moment in time that expresses the essence of whatever is going on the most clearly.
Clyde Vaughan :Yeah, usually in street photography that's like a the the gate of someone walking yeah right a gate where like, like the weights on the front foot or on the opposite right Like it's like if both feet line up it doesn't look like someone's walking.
Pat Kay:Yeah, right, so you want a spread out kind of gate to make it look like someone's walking, and so to do that in street photography, I, you know, had to learn how to burst fire quite a lot and, you know, pick out the decisive moment after that. And so I wasted a lot of time and a lot of space and a lot of you know, learning trying to pick that up and over time you just kind of learn okay, in this scene, this is the moment that's going to express it the best, yeah, and so I'm always looking for those scenes and trying to shoot a little bit more deliberately and slow down quite a bit. Yeah, if I do find a moment for high burst scenarios, you know, then I'll have the shortcut button on the front on the A1 or whatever, and then it'll just quickly go on burst and I'll get that shot. But otherwise, yeah, I actually don't take that many photos.
Clyde Vaughan :Yeah.
Pat Kay:Because generally I know what I want yeah, out of any given scene.
Clyde Vaughan :I think that's kind of the arc that most creatives follow is that I don't think I've never, I haven't necessarily, become a better photographer from when I started.
Clyde Vaughan :Like, obviously there is a degree.
Clyde Vaughan :Yes, you get better, you learn the techniques, you learn more techniques, but in terms of, like the shooting ratio, I haven haven't become better.
Clyde Vaughan :I just take less, worse photos. Right, like, like you know, when I, when I, when I started, or when you started, you know, maybe once every couple of weeks or once every couple of months, you take like, oh my God, that's like such an, I'm so proud of this image. But instead of that happening on a frequency of every couple of weeks, every couple of months I know for you it might've been every day, but for me it would be like once a year you take one that you'd be like, wow, like this is, I've really learned something from this and then, over time, instead of it being once a year, it's a couple of times a year, and then it's a couple of times a month and then it's. You know if, when you're working as like a commercial photographer, every day, you have to deliver an incredible image. So, and I think, yeah, you don't. I feel like you take less bad photos and you just start taking more good ones.
Pat Kay:Yeah, right, there's a very common uh trope, yeah, saying I guess in the street photography kind of niche, where it's like you know, out of 99 shots you'll only get one keeper, yeah, or one select or whatever it is um, and in the game is just lowering that number until I like that yeah, yeah, until you can get one of one. Yeah, one of one, one of one, right, exactly less editing. Awesome, imagine you just rock up to a scene, boom I'm done.
Clyde Vaughan :Okay. So if you were starting again, what would be the kind of direction or those key talking points or kind of those, those key takeaways you would impart on someone who wants to get into travel, tourism, street photography, you know all the stuff we've talked about so far I think if you're trying to develop a career and you're serious about developing a career, I think that's like the best first step, because I think too many people kind of do photography as a hobby and then keep the mentality of keeping it as a hobby. Yeah, okay.
Pat Kay:And then expect more from it, and I think that's actually kind of backwards. Okay, great, but the men literally like the mentality of switching between this is a hobby that I do for fun versus this is a thing that I want to spend the rest of my life doing and and living from. That's a very different mindset, completely worlds apart, yeah, and so what I see a lot is a lot of people starting photography as a hobby, which is great, but then wanting the life from a full-time photographer yeah, but keeping everything else as a as a hobbyist yeah, okay and so if you're a full-time, well, if you want to be a full-time photographer, videographer, creative person, I think the first step is most certainly to make the mindset shift of I need to make this work.
Clyde Vaughan :Yeah, okay, I mean that's what I did. I left a nine to five job and it's kind of like you. Just you have to make it every. You have to hunt for jobs, you have to. Really you just have to go all in. Right, and I know a lot of people that try maybe try to do like a transition from full-time to uh sorry, like a full-time nine to five to a full-time to uh sorry, like a full-time nine-to-five to a full-time photographer or filmmaker. But it is really hard to do both, like trying to juggle two effectively, two workloads yeah, so yeah, I actually did the same thing, okay.
Pat Kay:So you know, leaving a product design, uh career of 10 years, I was in a nice like cushy tech job yeah and at the time, you know, I was doing photography and then, you know, starting to get jobs and all the rest of it, and I was like, oh, you know what I could probably make like a living out of this?
Clyde Vaughan :I could probably make a decent living was there like a defining moment when you're like, oh, like this is possible. Or was it a gradual kind of change? It's a gradual change.
Pat Kay:You know, when I first I remember I like first started getting like retainer jobs for, you know, watch companies and you know, just photography jobs here and there through my Instagram and stuff like that when that was, you know, kind of coming up, and over time it's like, you know, you get more and more jobs and you realize, oh you know, I could probably, if I do this more, I could probably make a full-time living out of this.
Pat Kay:And so the goal was for me to save enough money through my product design job to give myself a year's worth of runway and also, at the same time, have enough recurring jobs coming in from the photography side so that I could make my best effort at making the leap. And then, you know, giving it a, giving it everything for my first year and then, you know, making it after that. And so you know, I think, the the mind shift of. I think for me I was kind of lucky because Instagram gave me a lot of those opportunities and gave me the belief that the jobs would come in and that there was going to be recurring income here somehow and leveraging the other businesses I've made in my life and all those other things and starting to make, like photography related products and tourism related products and all those kinds of things and bolstering income, and that just gives you more confidence to to know that you're going to make it.
Clyde Vaughan :Yeah, and it's like it's not necessarily a safety net, but yeah, it definitely feels better knowing that there's not necessarily like a path that's just paved out in front of you, but you know the direction that it needs to go in. If you could give like one technical piece of advice for street photography, like for me for working with portraits and editorial work, my number one is just shoot backlit. That's like my number one.
Pat Kay:Yeah. So this one is seemingly simple but kind of hard to master, and it's the same advice that I actually give for portraiture, which is find the in-between okay, you have to elaborate, so I'm intrigued find.
Pat Kay:The in-between means, like in street photography, when you, when you're in a scene and you understand how the scene is going to unfold, yeah, like you're predicting it. You're predicting it like some person is going from this corner of the street and they're walking and they're going to end up on this corner of the street and so you know the general path that they're going to go. The traditional kind of preemptive approach might be to wait till that person is in the middle of the road and then you take the photo. Yeah Right, for me that's fine. Fine, all well and good. But what would happen if you know it was just the in-between moment of that instead?
Pat Kay:yeah, okay where maybe like a car would be coming in prior to them crossing the road and then suddenly, like you have them on the kind of left third, and then like a car on the right third, and then it almost looks like they're walking into, into the car or something like that, and suddenly, like the the scene shifts and changes.
Clyde Vaughan :Yeah, in a in a portraiture setting, it's like sometimes the best poses aren't actually the ones that the model strikes yeah, yeah, it's like the moment afterwards where they start laughing or or um, you know they're, like you said, like between poses or something, when they're not putting on that like mask. Exactly. I was going to say when. As soon as you mentioned it, I was like I know exactly Cause, like with with shooting weddings. We use these kinds of tools all the time to try, and you know the awkward moment when they're trying to figure it out, you're shooting the like, the, the comedy that happens after it.
Clyde Vaughan :Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly, yeah, so it's, but you can use that in street.
Pat Kay:That's really absolutely, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Pat Kay:And and this goes down to like how you find specific subjects as well so, like there's a, there was a really big uh, like trend of like shooting hands yeah, I remember this it was really cool, because it's really cool, it's a unique take on, kind of like the detail shot right yeah but that comes from well, I mean the general trope from that comes from shooting people from behind, and you know, people just having their hands behind their back, and you know, I walk like this because I'm an old man and I was gonna say it's usually old, it's usually older men and but there's a lot of story in those hands, exactly, yeah, and so it's like that's the the normal scene, right.
Pat Kay:It's always like a wide ish, maybe a mid-ish kind of shot someone's back hands behind the back, yeah, and and you're kind of following them, right, and that's the the typical shot. But then, like, how do you kind of search for the in-between moments, the stuff that people don't usually see, whether that is maybe that person has a really interesting haircut, and then you zoom in on real detail on that, right, or maybe that person is wearing shoes and they're about to step in a puddle, and then you take the photo of the reflection of the puddle rather than the big wide shot of everything else yeah, okay you know it's like how can you notice those details in between the, the main shots?
Pat Kay:yeah, that add texture, add emotion to to a story, right? And so those hands are one of those. Yeah, and you know, it is the hands that just happen to speak a lot to the emotion of, like, what someone lives through.
Clyde Vaughan :Yeah.
Pat Kay:When it comes to a street photography perspective.
Clyde Vaughan :I really like the idea of like a carousel, where, instead of just having one hero image I love carousels more than I like probably like single images, just because, like you said, like if you intersperse those hero images with those in-between moments, like you'd get a really good understanding of like, say, you were shooting one specific street. Now the viewer can really build a picture, both like spatially, but then also like emotively. They can build the scene in their head, right, yeah?
Pat Kay:And so, coming back to the question, it's like this is the biggest tip. Like, when you go to a fancy landscape, take that hero shot that everyone takes.
Clyde Vaughan :Yeah, a hundred percent. You have to do it Because you kind of want it in your, you kind of want it anyway. Yeah, yeah.
Pat Kay:You're there, you might as well do it, yeah, but then quickly go and do something else, like try and find a different angle. What are the, what are the opportunities in between? Right, you know what are the things that you can shoot that add more texture and more context to your main hero image. Those are the things that can really, you know, try and elevate you very quickly all right, so a bit of a wrap up now.
Clyde Vaughan :What's next for you?
Pat Kay:Well, I actually fly back tomorrow morning back to Japan and then going straight into hiking, hopefully snowboarding right. Well, I mean at the end of the season, end of the year, absolutely, but I'm actually climbing Mount Fuji.
Clyde Vaughan :Oh, wow, it's my next thing. Super exciting, third time. Third time. I was about to ask if you'd done it before. I was assuming you had. Yeah, yeah, yeah, so very excited for that.
Pat Kay:And then back onto the business and creative mentorship stuff for Creative Freedom.
Clyde Vaughan :Where can people find you if they don't follow you or like they're not following your journey already, which you should? Yeah, where can we find you?
Pat Kay:Yeah, so just Instagram and YouTube. For the photography stuff is just Pat K, and then for the photography stuff is just Pat K, and then for the business stuff is Creative Freedom with Pat K.
Clyde Vaughan :Yeah, and we'll put all the links in the description in the show notes as well. Thanks so much, Pat, for coming in and sharing so much of your journey so far. Love to chat to you again at Kano next year and hopefully again on the podcast sometime.
Pat Kay:We can catch up next year.
Clyde Vaughan :Yeah, it's always like, oh, I'll see you next year. It's always like, oh, I'll see you next year. Yeah, we've got lots of new guests coming up, so stay tuned. All the details will be on the sonyalphaanz Instagram page. I'm really looking forward to seeing what this becomes.
