Something shifted last week. Not dramatically. Quietly, the way things in this industry tend to change — while you're working, while you're trying to keep the phone ringing.

Google's AI Mode is rewriting how clients find photographers. The search box that used to send people to your website now answers their question and keeps them inside Google. The content you spent years building to get found is being consumed by the machine that replaced you.

So I did what I always do. Stayed up too late, rebuilt half my website for an algorithm, and unpublished pages I'd spent months on.

This episode is about that night. About what it costs to hold the wrong things too tight. About a portrait subject who sat in her car for ten minutes before she could walk through my studio door — and what happened in the room after she did. And about the part of this work that no platform update, no search algorithm, no AI announcement has ever been able to touch.

The ninety percent is window dressing. This episode is about the ten.

Resources and Links

Lessons From A Terrible Photographer (The Book) https://www.terriblephotographer.com/the-book

Support the show https://www.terriblephotographer.com/support

Subscribe to Pub Notes, the newsletter https://the-terrible-photographer.kit.com/223fe471fb

The Terrible Creative on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/terriblephotographer/

Patrick Fore on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/patrickfore/

Podcast written, produced, and hosted by Patrick Fore Music licensed through Epidemic Sound and Blue Dot Sessions Recorded from my garage in San Diego, California

There is a man standing in a clearing in Arkansas with a yellow guitar, singing about insulin prices to nobody in particular.

Three million people found him. Not because of the production value. Because he was saying the thing.

This episode is about the gap most professional creatives never talk about — the distance between the skills that pay your rent and the thing you actually have to say. How years of executing other people's briefs can quietly atrophy a different kind of muscle. And what happens when you finally try to use it.

I talk about Jesse Welles, Oliver Anthony, a series of images I made in 2024 that landed in silence, and why Marcus Aurelius titled his most important work "To Himself."

This one took a while to say out loud.

In This Episode

Jesse Welles — "War Isn't Murder" Watch on YouTube wellesmusic.com Jesse Welles on Bandcamp

Oliver Anthony — "Rich Men North of Richmond" Watch on YouTube oliveranthonymusic.com

CNN News Coverage — Sandy Hook Elementary School, December 14, 2012 Watch on YouTube Used for editorial purposes.

The Book

Lessons From a Terrible Photographer

Support the Show

theterriblecreative.com/support

Stay Connected

Subscribe to Pub Notes (the newsletter)

The Terrible Creative on Instagram

Patrick Fore on Instagram

Podcast written, produced, and hosted by Patrick Fore Music licensed through Epidemic Sound and Blue Dot Sessions
Recorded from my garage in San Diego, California

There's a composite photographer in this episode named Nate. His details have been changed. His situation has not.

This episode is about the creator economy — what it actually costs, who it was actually built for, and the quiet compromise most creative professionals are making every day. Not loudly. Not dramatically. Just quietly, in parking garages, watching the blue light of a phone, waiting for a signal that isn't coming.

I talk about the Gilded Age, the algorithm, and a system so elegant it doesn't need to be cruel. I also name something I've been avoiding saying out loud for a while.

If this one lands close, send it to someone who needs to hear it.

Nate is a composite character. Details altered to protect identity.

THE BOOK Lessons From a Terrible Photographer is out now. It’s part memoir, part field guide, and part honest conversation about what it actually costs to build a creative life. If this episode landed, the book goes deeper into finding the "Source" when the "Resource" runs dry.

LINKS

• Website: terriblephotographer.com
• Support the show: terriblephotographer.com/support
• Subscribe to Pub Notes: the-terrible-photographer.kit.com
• Instagram: @terriblephotographer
• Patrick on Instagram: @patrickfore
• Email Patrick: patrick@terriblephotographer.com

Email is always open. Questions, thoughts, hate mail. I respond to everything. Link above.

The Terrible Creative is written, produced, and hosted by Patrick Fore. Images Licensed through Adobe Stock. Music licensed through Epidemic Sound and Blue Dot Sessions. Recorded from my garage in San Diego, California.