Lessons

Lesson Info

Andrew & Alex Talk Creativity

(men imitating whiplash) (men laugh) Welcome to the studio, Mr. Kerns. Thank you for having me. What do you think of this little studio? It's sick. I really value having a good workspace and you've crushed it. I could see myself working here. Really? Oh, yeah, anytime. Yeah, you can always come collab, have cortados. We welcome you with open arms. Oh, I'm honored. (men laugh) So I know we have limited time. I have a series of questions for you. For sure. Some pretty random, some pretty deep. So we're gonna start with the random ones. Yeah. Like fast paced format. Long life? (men laugh) What is your favorite lens? Favorite lens? I've always ran something like a 24 to 70 most times. That's everything? Yeah, like pretty much the last four years. That's the only lens that's been on the camera. I've had like a Sigma 35 and, of course, I always have like a 70 to 200 type lens with me. The 24-70 is the guy. Yeah, yeah. And even on the Sony, I just have a 28...

to 75, which is a Tamron lens, and that focal range is so good for my style 'cause it's just like running gun. Lifestyle. Yeah, I'm not swapping all the time. It's like one and done. Yeah, it's just like a really solid one off. You're a minimalist. (interviewer chuckles) Yeah, I mean, I'm trying to be at least. Okay, now we're gonna shift into a bit more deeper stuff. Alright. Andrew, what excites you? What excites you most about 2020? New year, new me. (men laugh) Going to the gym? I'm just kidding. Yeah, like life's pace has changed quite a bit. And so, I don't know, I'm not really one to be like, new year's resolutions kind of thing. I'm just here right now and that's kind of what's going on. That's kind of how I think of time and whatnot. But I guess so for the current, like right now, I'm just excited to push forward on a lot of things. I feel like I have a much better perspective over the last half year to a year. I've allowed myself to think really deeply on values, this and that. And I feel like I have a lot clearer and concise direction. Pushing forward. What I want to be pushing forward. And staying the course. Yeah, staying the course and just knowing, really, what I want to be moving on. I mean, as simple as just saying yes to and simple as saying no to. I feel like I have a much stricter track. A more disciplined track. It's always about who you say no to versus the other way around, I think. Yeah, yeah. It's important to say no sometimes. What's been the hardest project you've ever done? Probably the book, yeah. It's like kind of going back to switching to just one camera. I don't like to have a ton of choices. I like keeping it concise. So when you're looking at every photo you've ever taken and you can piece it together any way, yeah. On a big illustrator board. I had this massive illustrator file, and it's just like, there's so many options you can run it. So that was hard? I put like, yeah, 300 hours into it and it came out great, though. I really am pleased with-- I did it through a publisher and they laid it out. They did all the printing and stuff, and I just did the mess of the illustrator and pieced it together. Cool. It was hard to define exactly what collection was what and all that. But it was also like one of the best. It feels good. It feels like a nice curated board. Yeah, it was one of the best exercises I could have done. It was like the best education I never asked for kind of thing. I just learned a lot about like, when you're looking at all your work, you see which is your favorite, which is your least favorite. And you look back at photos you were stoked on and now it's like, you're not as stoked on 'em. And then you look at older photos that you passed over and you're like, oh, I'm stoked on that now. It's weird. I love that feeling. Yeah, it's like-- So it feels good? Yeah. You learn a lot from it. More than you'd expect. You just get answers to questions you never thought you would ask when you do something like that. That's a creative process. Yeah. What's some nugget of wisdom you'd tell to somebody who's gonna make a book? Just to do it. I wouldn't even say like, you don't have to make a book. You can like make a little zine or something. Those creative, personal projects. So pushing yourself to reduce the quantity into something that's physical? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think it's really important to do that 'cause, I mean, it's just so hard to put it in words. But it's basically just a good education for yourself. It's gonna be different. You're big on that, improvement. Yeah, yeah. I think it's hard to define what each person will learn from it. And I think it's gonna be very personal to each person no matter what they do. Would you say just do it? No excuses. Yeah, no excuses. Terkman said it. Teekman. No excuses, fam. Moving onto the... Still in photography. What about photography excites you to share and to make you go share and experience moments? What is that that excites you in photography? I like capturing people experiencing the environment around them. It just gets me stoked to capture that moment and share it. But then even more so, like looking back at those pieces lately has been really cool because I see, and this kind of shows through in the book, like I see those collections, those photographs and there's a certain feeling attached that no one else will feel other than me 'cause I know where my head state was. I know what my missions were at that time. Would you try to convey that to the viewer? Do you try to convey that to the viewer or you keep that experince personal? Not necessarily. I think that's the really cool part lately that I've been thinking about is that what I feel in that image is like very personal to me. And most times, 'cause I know that was January, 2018, whatever. I know what I was doing, where my head state was, what my ambitions were. Whether I was sad or happy during that time. So it's like this internal catalog for you? Yeah, it brings me back to that time period. And I can look at like, January, 2018 versus now and see the measure of my growth. And I think that's really cool. Sweet. But then, someone else looking at that image is gonna get something totally different. Different context. That's the beauty of it. I think that's really cool to share that and not over define it so they can define it for themselves. Like I think that's a really fun-- Yeah, letting people interpret it. Yeah, I think that's really fun. Cool. What's the biggest lesson you've learned in making 250 plus vlogs? (Andrew chuckles) Yeah. A couple things. That's a lot of work. (Andrew chuckles) Yeah, it's quite the undertaking. Yeah, yeah. And you don't have to do that many. Do you feel like after 200, you got the gist of it? (interviewer chuckles) Yeah, yeah. It's a good recipe for burning out. (Andrew laughs) Starting from where you felt it? What? Starting from how many vlogs do you feel like you're like, getting a little overworked? Yeah, it kind of becomes like a chore almost. But 100 vlogs, 150 vlogs, when do you start feeling it? Yeah, like 150. You can kind of see it, I feel like, in the vlogs too, where it starts to change. But in that too, I feel like one of the best lessons I learned that I always try to like tell people is like, hey, just stop and think for a moment. Like, what the heck are you doing? Like, what are your purposes? What are your ambitions for this? And do those motivations align with your values? 'Cause if they're not aligning... Then you're just doing something for no reason. Yeah, and so if you stop and analyze those motivations and values, and if they're in line, you'll actually go on the track you want versus just like trying to keep something up for the sake of keeping it up. Yeah, that's stupid. Yeah. It's easy to get caught up, though. Yeah, but also too, like the opposite end of that, it has shown me what I'm capable of. Yeah, and you can look back at it, like I've done that. Yeah, and like I've done that. And same thing with what I was saying about the photographs. I can look back at those times and remember. The books too. Yeah, I can reminisce on those times and measure my growth again through those. So you just see it as a forming exercise? Yeah, yeah. Cool. You mentioned when giving people advice, so it's a good segue to my next question. On the why do you enjoy passing along the message? 'Cause obviously you've gone from when I met you in 2015, 14, like you were smashing lattes and pumpkin spice lattes at Starbucks as a barista. Yeah. And then, it was awesome seeing all the change and the growth. And we've all grown a lot. Yeah. But it's quite a drastic change to go from a barista to like a full time photographer. Yeah. So what makes you want to pass what you've learned along? Yeah, I think it's cool to come from that Starbucks background because if I can do it, anyone can do it. Like it's simple. It's a simple thing, but it's also true. And I think people will limit themselves too much. So you consider yourself to be just trained just as anybody, like you've just built your knowledge yourself without any special-- Yeah. And especially now, there's so many-- YouTube is way different than 2015. Yeah. I'm learning stuff on YouTube still. I'm looking up stuff, learning after effects, crap, learning this and that. I'm learning so much and that's just video stuff too. There's so much you can do. Yeah, that's only videos. Yeah, I'm getting into other things, like just music production, all this stuff. Anything you want is there. That's kind of what I want to pass on. I wanna be a part of that. Why didn't you make a YouTube series? What's the benefit of bundling all this into like a class, for example, here? Yeah, it's just being able to share, being able to showcase and share what I've learned over the past five years. It's my way of being able to give back and be that person that I saw in 2015 that was like... I looked up to them and I was like, this person is doing it and I'm learning X, Y, Z from them. And now I want to be that person passing on that info to hopefully the next UPS worker, Starbucks employer, someone can see it who's hating their nine to five or whatever, sees that and has the nerve to just cut ties on that situation they're in and just full send. Make it happen. Yeah, make it happen. Full send. (interviewer chuckles) Yeah. Yeah. When you get those messages from people saying like, they dropped outta college. Or I mean, you don't have to drop outta college. But you get those messages from people that say, "I started a wedding side business, "I'm paying off my college debt." Something like that. And it's like, yo, I was just cooping around on a video, you know? That's one thing. But then being able to like, create something like this where I'm just like-- Here's everything you know. Here's everything I know. Here's my process behind the scenes, post, pre-production, everything. Take it and go and work toward being able to build your life around creating good work that you're stoked on and getting out of the situations you don't wanna be in. Love that, cool. Now going back to the early beginnings. What do you know now about the photography industry that you wish you knew starting out? You know, back in Teekman's 2015. (Andrew chuckles) Yeah. What are you telling him about the photography industry that he needs to know? It's a lot of things. I guess the most important thing, and it's like kind of classic, is just like stick to your guns, stick to your lane. I feel like I kind of jumped around. Stay in your lane, yeah. I kind of jumped around at a time. It's because of the internet. Yeah, yeah. It makes us go so many different ways. Yeah, yeah. But if you can, I mean, like going back to those value system, like if you can define those values and know where you want to be heading toward, all of a sudden your five lane highway turns into a single lane. Old country road. Yeah. You do 1,000 miles an hour on your country road. Yeah. (men laugh) It's like you're tunnel visioned into the direction you want to go if you're in line with those values. The thing only you can do. Yeah, I wish I would've thought about that more back then. So what would you tell somebody who's like facing that eight lane freeway in LA? Yeah. The 405. Yeah, the 405. What do you tell them? Five o'clock traffic's rough. (interviewer laughs) Yeah, what do you tell them, if somebody's got trouble picking what they wanna do exactly? How do you get them to choose their strength, to find what they only can do? Yeah, yeah. Two things. There's one quote that I pretty much think about every day. Wow. I apply it all the time. And it's this book, "Seven Habits of Highly Successful People." Stephen R. Covey. He ends this chapter on this just banger quote. And it's, "Examine your own motivations "against your highest values because that impacts "your perception, which impacts your behavior "and the results that follow." And that quote alone-- It's a very methodical approach. Yeah, and that quote alone dictates a lot of my decisions now. So you just cross reference a decision to your values. Yeah, and so the second part of that is journaling. That alone, you take this internal just shit show and put it on paper and it's like, you can talk to people and you hear their problems and you know the obvious answer. Yeah, 'cause you've faced it. Yeah, it's because I feel like we have so little time now to process information, 'cause whenever we're bored waiting for a bus or whatever, subway, you pull up your phone. You pull out your phone. And then there's never time to process, except when you sleep. But when you sleep, it's not enough. So the journal, I agree, like gets you to process things. I'm very big about not being on my phone too. I'm pretty strict about just being off of it, and that alone helps me so much sift through those thoughts. Yeah, yeah. And be honest with myself too. That's what journaling, that's what that quote, that's what less time on the phone, like all that together really brings a lot of life change for me. Start a journal. Yeah, journaling is, hands down, one of the most important things you can do. As well as reading. Yeah. They kind of go hand in hand. They do, yeah. Love it. Mr. Teekman, thank you so much. There's a lot of gold nuggets in here, so I'm really excited we were able to get this on camera. I guess it hasn't even felt like there's a camera rolling. It's always intimate, catch ups with you. It feels like coffee and sharing. Yeah, it's like a glass of water instead. (Andrew chuckles) Cheers. Cheers, mate. (imitating whiplash) (men chuckling)