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The Terrible Creative

Patrick Fore

The Terrible Creative is a storytelling podcast for photographers, designers, and creative professionals working through the parts of the creative process no gear review or business course ever covers.

Each episode is 30 to 40 minutes. Solo. Story-driven. Built around mental health, artistic identity, and what honest work costs in a career rewarding performance over truth.

This is not a photography podcast about cameras, presets, or client strategy. This is a podcast about the inner experience of being a creative professional, made for the mid-career photographer or designer who has mastered the technical side but lost the thread.

Hosted by Patrick Fore, commercial photographer, author, and former lead photographer and brand designer for Taylor Guitars. His work has appeared globally for clients like Nike, Petco, and Verizon. He built this show because none of the podcasts he found addressed the real problem.

If you are a photographer or creative professional who feels competent on the outside and quietly lost on the inside, you are a Terrible Creative. This is your podcast.

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  • 22 episodes
  • weekly
  • Avg 46 min
  • English

Episodes 22

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  • #61
    April 21 · 40 min

    Obsessed - Finding Your Creative Voice When the Algorithm Rewards Everyone Else's

    Office Hours with Patrick Stuck on your website, portfolio, pricing, marketing, or business strategy? Office Hours is a one-on-one, 60-ish minute conversation to help you work through whatever you’re trying to figure out. No agenda. No curriculum. No pitch. Just honest feedback, thoughtful questions, and a fresh perspective. $99 Learn more or book your session: https://theterriblecreative.com/office-hours What separates a photographer who makes important work from one who just makes good photos? It might not be talent. It might not be gear. It might be something harder to name and harder to fake. This week I walked into an APA Peer-to-Peer Photo Book Critique in San Diego with six copies of my own book, a smug attitude, and some assumptions that didn't survive the first thirty minutes. What I saw that night from two photographers, Michele Zousmer and Andrew Hertel, forced me to sit with a question I keep asking about other people's work but rarely ask about my own. Who is this for? And what drove you to make it? This episode is about obsession. What it looks like when it's real. What it costs. And what it means when you've been swimming in borrowed obsessions long enough that you stop noticing. People and work mentioned in this episode: Michele Zousmer, documentary photographer. Her Irish Travellers project is some of the most honest and important photography I've seen in years. Website: michelezousmer.com Instagram: @michelezousmerphoto Andrew Hertel, fine art nature photographer based in San Diego. His Japan book White Silence was made in a single day in Hokkaido. It shows. Website: andrewhertel.com Instagram: @andrewjameshertel This week's clip is from @dishcreates on YouTube, talking about choosing a new artistic obsession. Worth your time. Lessons From A Terrible Photographer is available now on Amazon. Get your copy here: https://a.co/d/0aqcL8Rq Website: terriblephotographer.com Support the show: terriblephotographer.com/support Subscribe to Pub Notes, the newsletter: the-terrible-photographer.kit.com/223fe471fb Terrible Photographer on Instagram: @terriblephotographer Patrick Fore on Instagram: @patrickfore Podcast written, produced, and hosted by Patrick Fore. Music licensed through Epidemic Sound and Blue Dot Sessions. Episode photography from Adobe Stock Recorded from my garage in San Diego, California.

    • Transcript
  • #60
    April 14 · 42 min

    The Unknown - The Version of Yourself Nobody Has Seen Yet

    Office Hours with Patrick Stuck on your website, portfolio, pricing, marketing, or business strategy? Office Hours is a one-on-one, 60-ish minute conversation to help you work through whatever you’re trying to figure out. No agenda. No curriculum. No pitch. Just honest feedback, thoughtful questions, and a fresh perspective. $99 Learn more or book your session: https://theterriblecreative.com/office-hours This is the last one. Four episodes. Four quadrants. Four different ways of asking the same question: who are you — really — when nobody's grading you? In the final episode of the Johari Window series, Patrick texts eight people the same question without defining the word first. A photographer in Texas who's bored at events but wants the money. A friend who performs down to what shoes she puts on. A pastor in Iowa who said he doesn't feel fake — and then sent a follow-up voice note from a friend's house over Long Island iced teas that changed everything. Not one person said they don't perform. Not one. The Unknown is the fourth quadrant. In the original model it was framed as a limitation — territory nobody has access to. Patrick thinks that's the wrong way to look at it. Especially for creatives. Especially for people making personal work in the gaps between the jobs that pay the rent. This episode is about the version of yourself that exists underneath all the other versions. The one that neither you nor anyone else has fully seen yet. The one that isn't always good. Isn't always safe. Isn't always received. And why you might make something from there anyway. In this episode: Eight people, one question, no definition provided. What performing actually means when you ask people who have been doing it their whole lives. The pastor who works every day to keep two versions of himself close enough to touch. The stylist Patrick hired because he fell for the full version of her on Instagram — and what the transaction cost. The irony of finding more of yourself in a podcast garage than in a building founded on the radical idea that humans should show up whole. The serial killer problem and the Pokemon Go executive — and the question neither of them can answer. Why the Johari Window isn't a self-help tool. It's a mirror. And mirrors show you everything. The 16 year old, the 21 year old, the 31 year old — and who Patrick has been making this for all along. The Johari Window — the complete series: Episode 57 — The Glass House: The Arena. Visibility versus being known. Episode 58 — The Tell: The Blind Spot. What everyone around you already knows. Episode 59 — The Facade: What you hide. What it costs. Episode 60 — The Unknown: The version of yourself that doesn't exist yet. And why you make something anyway. On Harrington: Back in episode one Patrick pushed back on the model. Said the Arena requires two people. That you can't open the door alone and expect to be known. He still believes that. But Harrington was right about the window itself. It's neutral. It's just glass. It shows you what's there. It doesn't tell you which parts are good and which are dangerous. It doesn't sort the rooms for you. What you do with what you see — that's on you. If this series landed somewhere: Email Patrick. He reads everything and responds to most of it. The emails that cost something to send are the ones he remembers longest. patrick@terriblephotographer.com Connect: Website: terriblephotographer.com The Book — Lessons From A Terrible Photographer: terriblephotographer.com/the-book Support the show: terriblephotographer.com/support Newsletter — Pub Notes: the-terrible-photographer.kit.com/223fe471fb Instagram — The Terrible Creative: @terriblephotographer Instagram — Patrick Fore: @patrickfore The Terrible Creative is written, produced, and hosted by Patrick Fore. Music licensed through Epidemic Sound and Blue Dot Sessions. Episode photography from Adobe Stock and Unsplash. Recorded from a garage in San Diego, California.

    • Transcript
Showing 21–22 of 22 episodes