Ian Azariah, Tintype Photographer

[00:00:00] Speaker A: I always romanticize growing up like the age of, you know, the Avedon power age of photography, where it's like, look like you're a name, not a person, not an influencer, not an entity. And your name is linked to your work. It's not linked to like you. You are your work, but your work speaks for you. Now you speak for your work. [00:00:19] Speaker B: That was clip from today's guest. So everybody, welcome back to the show. I am a person who's into kind of like real, like niche things. Like I love vinyl records and that might not be niche anymore, but like, I love vinyl records, grew up with those kinds of things. When I was a kid, I like, collected comic books. Like, I like things that are that, like, we're not everyone. It's maybe not for everyone, but if you get it, you get it. And whenever I find someone who's like built up a business that's based on something that's like really unique and you can tell they're. It comes from a place of just like, they really appreciate this thing. I'm always interested in it. And today's person is just that, someone who's done something that's super cool, like really, really, really cool. And it's also something that I just like. If you hear about it, you'd be like, how the heck does that work? So that's what we're going to find out today. So before we get to it, please rate, review and subscribe to the podcast. My name is Aram Arslanian and this is one step be welcome to the show. [00:01:30] Speaker A: Well, right on. Thank you so much for having me and so much for the kind words of introduction. Means a lot. [00:01:36] Speaker B: You bet. So for the uninitiated, for those who don't know, who are you and what do you do? [00:01:42] Speaker A: So most simply put, I am Ian Azariah and I am a tintype photographer as well as I own, operate and refurbish analog photo booths. [00:01:51] Speaker B: There's like, when your name first came up and you provided that video for us to look at, I was like instantly like, I gotta talk to this guy. Just like that. How does one first of all, like, what is it? Which is what I want to get into, but then how does one get into that and then actually turn it into a thing? So first could you explain and I know it's two things, but can you first explain the type of photography you do and like, what does it actually mean to a layperson? [00:02:19] Speaker A: So the type of photography I practice is called tintype and it's the Second form of photography ever invented. What it is is essentially taking either sheets of metal or sheets of glass and then sensitizing them with real silver, loading them into an accordion style camera that most people associate with Ansel Adams. Photographing the image directly onto the sheet of metal or glass and then developing it right instantaneously in front of the person who I just photographed. [00:02:44] Speaker B: When did this, like, okay, when did this first start being a thing? Like, when did. Was this invented and kind of entered into popular culture? [00:02:52] Speaker A: So, first form of photography, and I might get some of this wrong, whatever, but I'm just going to give you what I think is correct. It's where they took paper, coated it with salt, and then they used camera obscures which they'd already developed, which is like these small pinholes or lenses attached to rooms that were flipping image and projected onto a wall, right? So they developed a camera obscure first and they're like, look like, this is so crazy. We can like create a two dimensional image of what's going on outside. Everyone became motivated to figure out, like, well, how do we, how do we capture these images, right? And so that creates kind of a spiral of people using the power of observation to figure out things that are light sensitive. Or at least they were just trying to figure out how we can capture this light that they're trying to see and understand. So the first morphed rv, I believe, people took paper and they coated it with salt. And then based on different levels of exposure to light, this particular salt would either darken or remain bright, right? So they do that, place it in front of the camera obscura, and they're able to capture images over long durations of exposure time. And so this basically set into action people trying to study other things that became light sensitive and trying to understand how they could use those to create a photographic medium, which at the time, no one even knew what to call these things. This was just like witchcraft, right? So a certain chemical that's very critical in this process is something called silver nitrate. Silver nitrate is just a brick of silver melted in sulfuric acid until it turns into a powder form. And I mix that with distilled water till it hits what we call the correct specific gravity. Long story short, liquid silver. If you take this liquid silver and you drop it on your skin initially, nothing will happen. It'll be as though you dropped water on your skin. You'll wipe it off. But then if you sat there and just watched it the whole time, or created a time lapse of it over a duration of time, it will slowly darken and turn your skin black and stain it black for like two weeks. Right. And people realize that this was happening. Like, oh, well, if we spill some of this silver nitrate on anything organic, initially it seems fine, but then it darkens out quite a bit. So people came to the realization that silver was a light sensitive metallic. So then became the journey to figure out how they could create images out of this silver. And so initially what they did is they started taking egg whites and beating them up and trying to coat like plates with egg whites and then pour the silver onto it to hopefully create a substrate that could adhese to metals. Then someone came to find that through the chemical table that metal was what we call a halide. And if they used a bromide within their substrate, they could probably encourage the halide to bond to the bromide more readily. And that is when I believe somebody named Frederick Archer Scott in France basically concocted what we call collodion, which is basically the substrate which we either pour on top of our glass or metal to create a very thin, tacky and gelatinous layer before we submerge the plate into a bath of liquid nitrate so that we can allow liquid nitrate to adhesive the plate before going into a dark room, loading into a camera and photographing. [00:06:00] Speaker B: That is crazy. [00:06:01] Speaker A: Yeah, pretty crazy stuff. [00:06:04] Speaker B: So like sometimes Monica and I talk about like, who made bread? Like, who figured out bread? Like, how did that happen? You know, all of these things that. [00:06:11] Speaker A: Like, to us, what's more impressive, Bread or toast? Tell me more. I don't know because like once we don't, we don't consider toast bread. It's a transformative process. Right. I'm sure that bread's more impressive, but I always just thought like, who's a genius who just sliced this shit up and like. [00:06:29] Speaker B: And toasted it up? Yeah, well, dude, it's so like, you know all this stuff that we're, that we just take for granted, like, take it again. Like all this stuff we take for granted. It's like how the, like Brett, like how who came up with that and also like such ancient peoples came up with this. It's totally crazy. So that extrapolated out is like all the crazy stuff that we have built. But what you just talked about and what I like that you kept hitting on is like, so people figured out, oh, this could do this, this could do that. [00:06:59] Speaker A: Steps. Yeah, steps. Most people are like, you know, immacul conception. Right. But that's, that's like, that's not the case in most things, you know, it's a series of small observations linked into a larger picture. Almost, almost like everything. [00:07:12] Speaker B: Well, but also it's like, what, like the will to do it without, like, necessarily, like there isn't like a return on investment or better. It's just like, oh, I just want to figure this out. Like, this could be a cool thing. Like, I love when people just kind of innovate things because they're like, oh, like, yeah, let's figure this thing out. Let's do this thing. And nobody can know what it would go on to become like commercial photography. Da, da, da, da, da. It's just people figuring stuff out for the sake of figuring it out to do something cool with it. So to the best of your knowledge, and I'm not asking you for a complete history here, but so this format takes shape, how long was it popularized and was kind of like a common or would be like the main form of photography before it was replaced by other innovations. [00:07:55] Speaker A: One of the purists are going to kill me for my lack of like dead on nailing out knowledge here. But all right, so this bad boy is invented and what I'm to understand is like 1851-18, like let's call it like 65 or something like that. Right? Not a huge window. Right. And half the reason for this is, is by technical name. This process is called wet plate collodion. That's what the technical name for it is. Tintypes, just like colloquially is and that everyone kind of knows. Right? And the reason why they call it wet plate clothing is because you're absolutely required to have a dark room like literally next to you and running water next to you to make these photographs. I can't like prep these plates and like carry them around all day and then be like you, you want a tintype, do it and then like carry it back to my studio and develop it later. I need to make this thing start to finish with a perfect time cadence with perfect technique on the spot without skipping a beat, back to back to back from start to finish within a 10 minute window. Otherwise it will not work. So in order to accomplish tintype, you usually have to cruise around with like a literal covered wagon that would act as your dark room. Right. And so that became audience to people and it just made it an incredibly specialized craft. And that's when it was like replaced with what we today know as like the Ferro type or daguerreotype, which is what we call a dry plate process, which is where like I Can coat like a liquid emulsion onto a plate in a dark room, allow it to sit and dry, load them into a rack, and then go out in the field and shoot them and then come back later and process them. And like, that is very cool, but it just, it somewhat lacks like the infinite level of information that we receive from a tintype just due to its process. [00:09:46] Speaker B: Well, tell us about that, this infinite, infinite amount of information. Like, how is to again, to a layperson? So if I said to someone about like vinyl records and like, why that's more important than a cd, and I'm just talking to like, I don't know, someone who just only listens to Spotify, they're not going to get it. [00:10:01] Speaker A: So the vinyl record analogy, we'll probably talk a lot more about that later when we get into sort of my other side of things, because it's more applicable analogy there. But that is one of the greater ways which you can lay it down to the quote, layperson, because everyone hears and understands music. To some people it all sounds similar. But to people who, you know, know and love this medium, there is an intangible X factor that can be perceived from it. And this is something that will very much, I'm sure, get into later as well. This is being happening across the world, where we've gone so far into the digital perfection era that we are realizing that the true benchmark of visceral experience has already been passed. And, you know, so what it is in terms of tintype and why it is irreplicable in the digital world is just its process in and of itself. It was one of the first photographic mediums ever made. And it's what we call a contact photograph, where we photograph the final size of the photograph in camera. So unlike say a 35 millimeter film camera, which some people might be familiar with, where we create a 35 millimeter slab of film and then stick it into one larger and multiply it by like what would be, you know, 8 to 12 times its size to create an 8 by 10, we lose quality in that. Right? In addition, the ISO of modern films to accommodate fast photography is usually around, say, minimum of 100 and up. Now, with tintype, since what we're doing is a contact print, we have zero loss of information because we are looking at an original replication of the image through the lens. Since we didn't have the technology to speed up light sensitivity when this was invented, ISO of tintype registers starting at 0.5 ISO and then as the chemicals degradate the ISO or sensitivity of those chemicals becomes even slower. Now what ISO means in terms of explaining that to a regular person, it means how sensitive the film is to light. But in addition, the higher your ISO, the larger what we call your grain structure is in the photograph. And grain structure is what breaks up the amount of detail within the photograph. So in terms of grain structure on a tintype, it is virtually infinite. One could interpret it as pixels, where if we photograph with like a NASA camera that's got a thousand megapixels, we can zoom and zoom and zoom and zoom and zoom and it never pixelates. It holds the degree of information. Tintype is exactly that tintype. When you zoom in on these scans and you start going in and going in and going in and going in and going in and going in, it never ever breaks down quality. When you're able to scan in a high end scanner and actually swim into the detail of tintypes, it is like nothing you have ever seen. And I personally have, you know, worked with like phase one cameras, which are giant medium format commercial level cameras that shoot up to 240 megapixel images. This is for doing, you know, like giant billboard posters for whatever movies, etc. Those have a ton of detail, but it is not absolute, lossless, infinite detail. There's always battles in digital photography of chromatic aberration and how the sensor processes color. And we end up having a lot more optical limitations in how glass is designed in order for digital sensors to be able to read it properly in terms of capturing light using silver, seamless. And so when you light a tintype properly, expose it properly and develop it properly, the amount of information in there is unparalleled to any methodology of image creation that we'll ever find in this modern world. [00:13:52] Speaker B: So was it left behind just because it was kind of like unwieldy and like, you know, kind of a pain? [00:13:58] Speaker A: Same reason records were left behind. You know, do you want to carry 300 pounds of gear to the wedding to D.J. this bad boy? Do you want to show up with your ipod that can hold 3,000 albums in your pocket? You know, so like, what are we talking about here? We're talking about the advancement of capitalism and the advancement of, you know, speed of delivery for the sacrifice of quality. And this is like a linear tangent that the world's been on for quite some time. And you know, we always sacrifice quality and then technologically advance that technology. So we come to a point where we're very happy. Like, you know, every single one of US has a professional camera now. It's called your iPhone. They're unbelievable. But, you know, it is in the keyword visceral experience that we truly find that some mediums are better than others. And we may have just overlooked them momentarily just due to human nature constantly, like you said, figuring it out just for the sake of figuring it out. You know, it's just what we do. [00:15:01] Speaker B: So how did you come to this shooting tintype? [00:15:05] Speaker A: Yeah, so I guess a little bit of sidebar tangent going on here. Like, in addition to doing all this original photography stuff, I ended up sort of like, you know, frankly and truthfully just lying my way into the world of film. And I ended up basically working in tandem with a three dimensional motion capture crew known as Weta Digital to build three dimensional motion captures for like, you know, big Hollywood films type vibe, like all the Planet of the Apes and the pirate security and stuff like that. Right. And it's, it's incredibly numerical in the sense that, you know, if you make an error on set and triangulating and creating the grid that we need to properly capture the information, you know, it's probably going to cost more than most people make in a year to fix it. And that's NBD to the Hollywood industry. But you know, like anybody of the mentality of doing something and doing it to their absolute highest ability, get into it and you get so dialed, you know. And for me, I like dichotomies because I believe that always being an amateur at something continues to, you know, just keep you on your toes and keep you fresh, I guess, like without getting too deep into it. So I had been contracted to go and do a film in Texas for Weta and I had been doing pretty nonstop three dimensional motion capture volume work at that point for like three or so years. And, you know, good living, it's, you know, very, very. You're very coddled in the world of like Hollywood, you know, whatever. And obviously when these opportunities come around, you don't just pass on them, you know, buy the ticket, take the ride. So I was contracted in to go and get like my O2 visa down in America. And I was going to be doing this film for them, some anime feature called Battle Angel. Leave us obviously come out since. And I decided that as a way to stay, you know, connected to my original roots of passion, which was always kind of photography. I used to shoot for like all the local magazines, Vancouver magazine, Monte Cristo and all that. I used to do a lot of editorial portraiture work. Shooting predominantly on Hasselblad 501C, developing all my own film, scanning it myself, retelling, loved it. So I decided I wanted to do something tactile again. I used to run the darkroom back in University as well. Love, love all that stuff. So I singled out Tintype as what I'd like to try and pursue next. Mostly because it's widely regarded as absolutely the most difficult pursuit. You know, like, there's none above it in terms of technical execution. It's the hardest. And this is right around the time when, like, the world had really gone Instagram. You know what I mean? Like, it's not like, oh, let me see your portfolio. How many followers you got? My dog. I don't know. Like, that's cool and everything, but, like, I always romanticize growing up, like the age of, you know, the avidon power age of photography, where it's like, look like you're a name, not a person, not an influencer, not an entity. And your name is linked to your work. It's not linked to, like, you. You are your work, but your work speaks for you. Now you speak for your work and you're just like, you know, spinning the wheel. I don't buy that too much, but anyways, so at that time, the world had gone that way. And, you know, I was like, you guys are zigging, I'm zagging, let's go. Like, everyone can operate Lightroom. Got it. Like, I studied photography back when it was like a masterful craft. We were pushing and pulling film, just trying to figure out what our look was going to be, or at least that's what I loved. And so, you know, when the universal application of, you know, what used to be considered a specialized skill set, you know, we're seeing it right now with coding and chat GPT, you know, obviously we end up, you know, either you double down and show people what you're really fucking made of and that you can't be replicated by a machine or the machines win. [00:18:53] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:18:53] Speaker A: So I was like, let's go. Like, I like, let's try this next challenge. And so I grabbed myself, you know, all the necessary kind of things to teach myself Tintype, and I started teaching myself Tintype. [00:19:06] Speaker B: How long it take? [00:19:08] Speaker A: Still, still learning. I mean, like, you know, that's the thing is like, Tintype, anybody who's actually, like, properly finessed and crafted at it will tell you, and it is dead true that you need like a minimum of five years in Tintype before you get a point where you just straight shaft it up. Yeah, you're tuned into the chemicals and it's like one of those things where, you know, it's like driving race cars, I'm sure, where, you know, you can talk about it all you want, you can watch it on the television all you want, you can think about it all you want, but, like, there. There's nothing quite like doing it in terms of gaining experience. Right. [00:19:46] Speaker B: All right, I gotta bounce back to something. So tell me about lying your way into the film industry. [00:19:50] Speaker A: Oh, easy, right. Basically, we're going back to Chicago on this one, right? So I'm living and working in Chicago. I'm doing that whole thing this post university. Post university or over summer breaks, whatever. And so I'm doing that whole thing and like, essentially, like, this guy who I know there he mean it. Meaning basically, like, I couldn't make a living just off being a freelance photo assistant. But, like, I'm always, like, been the entrepreneur, right? Trying to figure out ways to, like, you know, crack and hack the system. And one of the ways at the time that you could do this was through iPhones, right? You might recall when an iPhone was released. IPhone One, right? Where could you get them? Could you get one here in Canada? [00:20:44] Speaker B: No, you couldn't. [00:20:45] Speaker A: No, you couldn't. But if you were a baller, it was the biggest flex to be like, look at this, it's connected to Telus Fido Rogers, and this is an iPhone one. You know what I mean? And you're just like, I have the Steve Jobs flex, right? So how does that guy get that phone? Someone has to be able to purchase that phone from the localized area that they're in, use their geographical advantage to procure an item that's desirable worldwide. But beyond that, they must also figure out how to crack them. Because jailbreaking an iPhone is what we referred to it back in the day as, right? Where if your iPhone was, quote, unquote, jailbroken, it means that it was no longer tethered to AT&T's networks. Any SIM card inserted into the jailbroken iPhone could then run on the operating system. Up delivery, right? That's a market, right? So we did that. So we did that. So we basically, like, I was just buying iPhones and I was unlocking them and stuff. [00:21:49] Speaker B: Now, did someone teach you how to do it or did you figure out how to do it? [00:21:51] Speaker A: I taught myself on YouTube as well as one of my friends was kind of like slightly into it, but, like, as the iOS would update, you know, you would order the new phones from Apple, right? I don't even know if I should put this in. This could be illegal. [00:22:05] Speaker B: Like, this is what I mean. [00:22:07] Speaker A: Anyways, so, yeah, as the ISOs, iOS would update and stuff, in essence, they would become more difficult to break. So you'd have to relearn how to jailbreak every new iPhone iOS update, because they ship it with the new iOSes. And like, eventually, obviously, this market cratered on itself when the AT&T monopoly goes down. And then all of a sudden, you know, we have the worldwide iPhone rush. But, like, excuse, like two years, let's say, of, you know, creating a market in a way for you to generate income, right? So, you know, we're doing that or whatever. Anyways, we became good friends and he at the time was a like a PA in film and essentially did a lot of that kind of work. And I was doing my thing, like, you know, sort of like freelance, kind of like, you know, right hand man to the lens man, right? So kind of we're doing that. And then I ended up, like, going backpacking, Asia, Australia, doing all that thing, right? And then I come back to Vancouver and I, once again, like, start buckling in more of a sense where I'm like, I'm going to be a shooter. You know, I want to start as I intend to go on. You don't want to be like, oh, Ian, I know that kid from set. He's like, gets my coffee, right? Like, that's something you have to be conscious of when you switch markets. And I was like, win or lose, like, we're. We're going to be known as the guy who shoots frames, not the guy, you know, sets of lights and whatever, which is, you know, it's a path that is very important to take at times. And so I'm doing that, and then I remember I get a phone call from Robert, and he's like, dude, you need to listen to me very carefully. I don't have a lot of time to talk, but this is all really important. No, got it. And, like, you know, he's like, okay, so I'm working on Superman, man of Steel, and it's in Chicago. That's where Superman's realm, right? And so he's like. And I just walked past, like, the visual effects guys, and I overheard them saying that they have, like, no idea who to hire to, like, run their camera systems in Vancouver. So I, like, jumped in there and I was like, you don't want to hire. I got a guy you can hire. You should hit up my guy, Ian. Like, this guy's the Best at. He absolutely kills it. He's done this work before. None of that is true, right? And like, he knows that, but, like, I would have said the same thing for Robert. Like, oh, yeah. I absolutely dunks it because, like, one thing I know about him and one thing he knew about me is that, like, you know, you can write a check because we're going to cash it, you know. And so he basically, like, talked me up. Pump my tires. They're gonna call you up. They're gonna use like a code name for this film or whatever and, you know, just tell them you're really good at it. I've seen what these guys do on set and, like, you know, I. I feel as though like with your background and knowledge, it shouldn't be an issue for detection. Really quick. So I just did that and like, they called me up and I was like, oh, yeah, man. Like, at the time, like, what I was getting hired into was such a new world in film just due to, like, the constant advancements. Visual effects department. And it was like, ungoogleable, you know, like, it was like, what even is? Like, I was just like, yeah, right on, dog. Like, you know, let's go. Like, yeah, what I'm going to do? Just be like, no, it's cool, man. Thanks for thinking of me. [00:25:11] Speaker B: But they didn't ask, like, what do you worked on before? Or anything like that. [00:25:14] Speaker A: That's the thing. It was so new that there was no way you could even have been like, yeah, like, I've done this feature before that like, required this particular. Okay, yeah. [00:25:25] Speaker B: So you take it on and then what? [00:25:27] Speaker A: I show up on the planet Krypton, right? Which is in Burnaby in a warehouse, and I have no idea what's going on, right? Like, I remember, like, at one point in time, they're all like, don't look at the actor's eyelines. And I'm like, dude, like, what is an eye line anyways? Yeah, I basically show up with Planet Krypton and I'm like, you know, I watch and learn, right? So, like, obviously you're playing like a bit of a finesse game where you're trying to get it, but, like, meanwhile, like, I'm like sewing over my head like a lot of these, like, worlds. But, well, yeah, I showed up and I just like, figured it out on the spot. Like, you know, got nice with it real quick. And like, if you fast forward, you know, a couple years down the road, I end up becoming like, head of that department. So I knew what's Going on and still do, like. No, I. I don't really accept those jobs anymore, but I still get emails about them. [00:26:13] Speaker B: Yeah, I have two questions about that. The first is after you became, like, not just proficient, but then ended up, like, heading. Heading the department. Yeah. Did you ever catch someone else trying to kind of fake the funk and get their way in there? [00:26:27] Speaker A: Well, sort of, like, you know, that's like, once you, like, roll into your crew and you've got your squad that, like, you guys are rolling from a future feature and you're banging these things out, like, yeah, 100%, man. Like, there was this guy who I knew, and I liked his jive, right? And, like, I thought he was cool. And I knew at the time that we were going to be going down a member in our team and, like, the person who was leading the team at the time. We were, like, thick as thieves. We got along really well. And so he asked me if I knew anybody who would be, like, kind of dialed for this position. And my friend, I knew he would probably be pretty good at it. And, like, he. He really wanted to, like, you know, have a win. He is having a really tough year at the time, and I knew he always was interested in jumping into film. Now, granted, we're working on a Steven Spielberg film at this point, so it's not like, oh, you're going to start on, like, this Hallmark Indy. Like, it's going to be, you know, pretty. Pretty cool. So I. I remember I hit him up because I had to do, like, a photo shoot on, like, the Sunday, just, like, for some gallery as part. I was, like, living two lives at that point. And I hit him up and I asked him to go and get me a smoke machine from Hollywood North. And I made sure to, like, leave out some details, like where that is and, like, all that other stuff, right. Just to see if this guy's, like, really on top of stuff, being like, got it. No problem. I got you. I'll fill in the dots because, like, that's what you want, is you want somebody who's just like, look, I do this. And they're just like, all right. And he did it. And he had worked in some films before, but he never, like, worked at this magnitude or in this department whatsoever. We just hired him in right away, whatever, you know, so Nepal hire, I guess, but, like, at the same time, absolutely no idea what he's doing. And, like, in that world, in my opinion, you know, you get a lot further in that world by being proficient at your job. But Affable to hang out with for literally endless hours amount a day per week. Right. Than you do being like the best in the world at your job. Know it all. Who's absolutely flawless, but you're absolutely insufferable to be around because like, who wants to hang out with a guy in literal pouring rain. [00:28:41] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:28:41] Speaker A: For 18 hours a day in the trenches carrying hundreds of pounds of gear up and down muddy slats when this person's just not going to do it with a smile and a laugh, you know, like, yeah, you're picking your soldiers. So sure knowing what you're doing is important, but being someone who can learn what to do and being someone who's really great to spend time with, an asset to a team is nearly more important in my opinion. [00:29:08] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, A, I totally agree, but B, what I'm real interested in here is like because I'm going to ask you a second question about cracking the system and something you said there. But I'm just going to ask you a fictitious thing. [00:29:20] Speaker A: You. [00:29:20] Speaker B: Can you play or not play on it? If you were in a position of where like, hey, I actually need someone who knows what they're doing here and someone was coming in, you knew they were faking it. Like they didn't actually know. Like they were good. Like they could probably figure it out. [00:29:34] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:29:35] Speaker B: But they were overstating their qualifications of what they've done. Would you give them like a. Yeah, I'll give this guy a shot because I like, I like the guts that he has to take to do it. Or would you be like, no, I really need to know if you can do this. [00:29:47] Speaker A: Depending on what position I'm in, you know, like, obviously there's things where you need someone to thread the needle and that's just. And a day I need to have like zero questions about what the end result is going to be. I need to like delegate this and I just need to be positive that this is going to turn out the way it needs to turn out. And other things. Yeah, I mean like whatever. If you're like, if you're finger gunning from the hip. But I like your moxie. Like, you know, I'll probably be like, yeah dog, like let's go. Like, let's see what you got. Like, I don't know because like a lot of times like my life, I feel as though like I was just like the persistent underdog, you know? [00:30:24] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:30:25] Speaker A: And so like I see that and others and like, obviously you want to like, you know, if you end up in that position, you want to be able to like give forward and give somebody else who is really deserving of that opportunity despite qualification is, I guess what I'd say. If somebody is deserving the opportunity despite qualification, it's always worth it to give them a shot. And in my opinion, usually it's like within a three week window, you're going to understand whether this is something that's blossoming or this is something where like you may have made a judgment call in which this wasn't exactly the best route to take and then analyze whether it's something where you want to like either correct the route or figure out what happens next. [00:31:07] Speaker B: The reason I'm, I'm asking all this and I'm interested in it is two reasons. One, we had another podcast guest, this friend of ours, Martin, shout out to Martin, you're awesome. Who had a hilarious story about he basically talked his way into this like government job and like, it was like, it's a great story. [00:31:23] Speaker A: Well, every interview's talking to a job, I guess, right? [00:31:26] Speaker B: Well, his was more like, I was woefully unqualified for this job, but got into it and a great story and it kind of set him up for all this other stuff. And so a, I just like, I like stories like that because they're like fun, interesting stories. But the other side of it is so I used to be a therapist when I was younger and when I first became a therapist it was kind of the wild west in Canada where like almost like a well intentioned person who had a good life story and was good with people could be a therapist. You had to have some qualifications, but they weren't like what they became. And over my time working in that field, it became more and more like you had to have like a master's degree and all these kinds of trainings. You had to have an rcc. Da da da da da. And the person I learned the most from was this woman named Diane who I worked with at this out in New west in this addiction mental health unit, who had no formal or very, very little like formal, formal education was kind of grandfathered in and was like this insane, like unbelievable therapist, like super, super good. I learned a ton from her. And then I worked with people who had master's degrees who was just like, have you ever talked to a human being before? Like how, like how did you get this job? You are not good at what you do. And of course there's like, everyone's different, da da da da, da da da. But there's all sorts of jobs Like a job, like a therapist is like a highly sensitive job. So I think there's, there's got to be. I think, like, the idea of having credentials isn't wrong and having education is wrong, but it also can preclude you for some people who are just like, goddamn good at it, either because they have natural talent or they got life experiences or they've got moxie and they can learn. And that idea about whether or not education or experience or moxie or any of these things, like, what's the magic formula? I don't think there's any magic formula, but I do think it's about being able to read people and give them a shot, but also being willing to fail quick if they're not doing the job. [00:33:18] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, you know, I think, like, I don't even know if, like, if they have the merit to be, you know, considered for that position is kind of what I look at, because you have merit to get to this point. But yeah, I mean, I think that's an apt take on it. [00:33:38] Speaker B: All right. You also said you've always liked cracking the system. Where'd that come from? [00:33:43] Speaker A: It's just like something that's just always kind of been like a part of my personality where, like, you know, I want to go and figure out, like, how I can get it, you know? Like, when you were a kid, where did you grow up? [00:33:59] Speaker B: Me, myself. [00:34:00] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:34:00] Speaker B: Calgary. [00:34:01] Speaker A: Calgary, right. Snow's there. [00:34:02] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:34:03] Speaker A: What'd you do in the winters? [00:34:04] Speaker B: I skateboarded in my basement. [00:34:06] Speaker A: What'd you do for money? [00:34:08] Speaker B: At what age? [00:34:10] Speaker A: 8. [00:34:13] Speaker B: What did I do for money? I think I had an allowance, but my allowance was based on doing chores around the house, mowing the lawn, da da da, stuff like that. [00:34:20] Speaker A: Were you in a neighborhood or a farm? [00:34:22] Speaker B: I was at not just a neighborhood, an ultra safe neighborhood. [00:34:26] Speaker A: Okay, so this is exactly how you can identify who's an entrepreneur. First step, look for the kid who's shoveling driveways. If you were shoveling driveways and you're a kid, nine items out of 10, you're going to probably at least try to own a business by now. You know what I mean? Like, and that was me, right. If it snowed, I was like, there's money in these streets. We got to get shoveling. Right. So you establish like a relationship with like the person next door to you or like the person up the crescent, right. Where all of a sudden they're like, yeah, like this kid's going to wake up and my driveway shoveled by like 8:30am when I need to drive to work or, like, at least, like, have it shoveled. So when I get home, like, we're good. It's. It's pennies on the dollar to these guys, right? Like, they're paying you, like, 10 bucks, and you're, like, minted as a result of it. But, like, they're just, like, one last thing for me to worry about. [00:35:15] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:35:16] Speaker A: So, yeah, that. That was kind of like the jump point, right? Like, where, like, I'm trying to think back and be like, like, where's it all start? Yeah, it starts from having that. And, like, you are just kind of, like, you just kind of, like, take to it, where all of a sudden you're like, oh, like, I did this. And, like, you're, you know, counting your money, and grandma is exciting, you know, like, whenever I can invest in my hobbies or interests, if I can continue to spiral this up. So I'd say that's where it started. And then, like, it just kind of like, I always never really stopped. Right? Where it's just kind of like I had to rub two sticks together to figure out how to make fire. And, like, then a lot of this just became, like, a geographical thing. Right. Where I ended up going to school in America. Right. In Michigan. And as part of going to university, a lot of the university require of international students that they're not allowed to work. Right. You're not allowed to get a real job. You can work on campus, but then they pay you through some weird, like, scholarship loophole where they can literally pay you, like, $4 an hour. [00:36:19] Speaker B: That's crazy. [00:36:20] Speaker A: Yeah. And that was my world. Right. So you think the kid who wakes up and shovels driveways outside of the purvi of the system is going to take that? No, not a chance. Like, how am I supposed to become the person who I need to become when I'm skin broke? I'm not even allowed to go out and apply for a real job. I require cameras, I require computers, I require lights, and I don't have any of that. And I know where I need to be to attack this industry in the way that I think that I can. And that requires money. And if you're not going to allow me a traditional channel to acquire that money, you know, you build your walls, we're digging tunnels. That's how it works. Like, that's just basic. Chase the Dream 101. Yeah. Because if you're not doing that, then you're. You're gonna fail. You're gonna fail. And if you're gonna let that dictate your win or loss, consistency or your ability to win or lose, you've already failed, you know, and in the world of business, like that's, everyone knows that, everyone knows that. Like you cannot, you cannot have any gift. You have to stay true to your ethos, you know, so those are, those are, you know, formulative things that make it so. Like, and even just my choice of quote profession of being a photographer, you're a one man band. That's, that's an entire business in and of itself. And that, that I don't even know just happened, you know, that's all of a sudden like for me it's never been like I'm, I'm gonna become a guy who starts his own business or I'm gonna like, you know, it just always was how it was wired and like, in addition, I. My experience with getting employed in any standard venue is dismal and it's not due to lack of effort for me. You know, like, I remember when I was like first moved here and I live in a Gastown. Basically. One might sound like I was bald because I lived in Gastown. I convinced somebody that how I convinced them that I could afford this loft I was trying to get just because I wanted to live in a loft. Because in my mind every photographer I idolized lived in a loft, Shot images like, you gotta put it together, brother. This is what I was thinking, right? So I basically, I'm a guy with zero work experience who just dislocated his shoulder, had surgery. After backpacking around Southeast Asia for ages and working in Australia. The only meaningful work history during that point in time is I ran a film lab in Australia. Running it would be an overstatement. It was the C41 processor. I basically didn't have on paper what it would take to get this place. So we need to hack the system. How do you hack the system in this situation? All they want to know is that you have what it takes to come up with their money month after month without question, right? How could someone have the money to pay that rent on what at the time was considered, you know, like an upper market value apartment? Because I knew I was going to put three people inside of it immediately. You know what I mean? I was like, we're just going to get all the homies in there and keep it cheap. There's one nice location. So simple. My parents are rich. It's that simple. There's so many of them around Vancouver. Why can't it be me? I Look like some weird, ostentatious idiot. Why can't my parents be loaded and be paying all my rent? You know? So this isn't the case, but you need to be convincing enough that someone is going to take that bet on you sight unseen. Zero knowledge of what you do, zero job. I'll tell you what my first job after I locked that apartment was in. I became a balloon animal orgamist. And if you're asking yourself if that's a sophisticated way of saying clown, yes, it is. Paid more than minimum wage, though. And yeah, I did lie and I did say that I could make balloon animals without ever having made one before in my life. I then got hired to go into a child's birthday party three days later. And I spent those whole three days on YouTube watching an account called Mr. Bubbles Home Dog. Mr. Bubbles taught me the ones and twos of how to make balloon animals there. And you better believe by the time I hit that kid's party, I was cheffing out parrots in swords for every chiddler who wanted one, you know, because I had to get that money and, like, people wouldn't hire me. People are like, I'm like, literally walking around trying to get a job as, like, a dish boy and I can't get hired. I have, like, holes in my shoes. It's pouring rain, I'm freezing. I'm out there every day with resumes trying to get hired, and I can't somehow, like, I just couldn't. I remember next, I became a Virgin mobile angel. [00:41:17] Speaker B: What is that? [00:41:18] Speaker A: You ever seen a bunch of girls walking around with wings on their back with T shirts that say Virgin trying to sell you a phone plan? Really? Yeah. This is back when Richard Branson ran the company. And this is 2010. It's a different time. I was rolling around with them also sometimes with wings on my back. But, like, I was just helping, like, explain the phone plans to the dudes at, like, Best Buy so they could help more effectively hawk Virgin mobile phone plans and stuff. And these are just like, weird, like, Craigslist promotional gigs that I could find because that was another thing I used to do in America. I used to go and do, like, Craigslist promotional gigs all the time because paid straight cash. No one needed any, like, actual documentation, stuff like that. And, like, I just needed to, you know, you. We had to get. We had to cover the spread, you know, And I used to do tons of focus groups, man, all the time. Just because you're paying me cash, you need to cover this Spread like, we need to. We need to inject capital into this dream, and we are living in a very bootstrap economy. [00:42:23] Speaker B: Yeah, so that was. [00:42:25] Speaker A: That's. That's. That's how it started. [00:42:27] Speaker B: So over the video that you sent over, one of the things that stood out to me was talking about directing your learning into things that, like, excited you or were interesting to you because you'd gotten a lot of, like, feedback around spelling. [00:42:39] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. Well, once again, editing, right. I was like, oh, snap. Didn't realize I put that in. Calling me out for being a bad speller. Right. Okay. I'm trying to remember. We're talking about the TurboTax video. Okay, gotcha. [00:42:52] Speaker B: Which is also wild. That's like. Like, how I got so much information from you was a turbo. [00:42:56] Speaker A: Yeah, I know this guy, Christian Tisdale made it. He's alleged. He's great. [00:43:01] Speaker B: It's a great video. [00:43:02] Speaker A: It's similar to this orchestration. Mostly I met him just because I tintyped him and his wife. [00:43:07] Speaker B: Right, Right. [00:43:07] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. So anyways, yeah, great. Great piece. Yeah. I think at that time I was just saying someone was asking me about, like. I think they were like, you seem like you're good at everything. You seem like you're proficient, you're excellent. Like, is there anything you're not good at? No, I was like, virtually, to begin with, everything, you know, and then, like, I went on a tangent about just how I was a speller, right? And I don't know, it's just one of those things where, like, you know, as a kid, everyone can do it, right? It's like, oh, I can spell, right? And, like, I couldn't. Right? And, like, you know, it gets under your skin a little bit. You start having these, like, mental, whatever, spirals. Maybe I'm not, like, together like these other kids are or whatever, right? It works on your psyche. And, like, I think all I was trying to get to in that little clip was I was like, look, like, you know, sometimes you're good at stuff, sometimes you're not. But, like, there's things you're not good at you need to learn because that's in the way of you and where you want to be as like, whatever, a business or a person or whatever. Then there's other things where it's like, yo, like, let's just not worry about that. You know what I mean? Like, when I see kids and they're, like, not good at math or some shit, right? And, like, the parents, like, really hounding them to be good at math, it's like, dude, how much math do you need to do as a therapist? Probably none. [00:44:28] Speaker B: Zero percent. [00:44:29] Speaker A: Exactly. Right? So there we go. There's avenues for these kids, right? Like, I've. I still have to do a lot of emails, and, like, I sometimes love, like, my partner, proofread them and stuff. Like, you know, not being able to spell overcomeable. You know, I can talk just fine. I'll call you. You know, I hope you. All right. Anyways, so, you know, I think that was what I was trying to riff on there, where I said going, you know, there's nothing that can't be overcome. But some things we're more naturally talented at than others. And, you know, if we can focus our application and I guess, our energy on things that we have, like, you know, either a slight aptitude towards, but more importantly, an intrinsic passion for to begin with. And that's more important. Like, if I'm terrible at something, but I'm, like, stoked on it, I'm gonna work on it. But you know what? I don't like spelling. Who gives a. Like, fuck those words. Like, we're gonna get them phonetically on paper. You know, that might be the. Sound it out. Come on. I don't know, man. [00:45:38] Speaker B: That might be the best quote on the podcast of all time. You know, I'm driving at all this stuff, man, because you're clearly someone who likes figuring stuff out, right? And, you know, everyone. There's probably not a human being who doesn't like figuring stuff out, but you like figuring out, like, complex things. Whether it's like, how the hell do I get this apartment and, like, break through that system here and, like, kind of game it to make things happen when not having the traditional things that people might associate with getting those things, like figuring out how to get it through so you can get on with what you want to do is something that seems to be like, a real fingerprint of, like, all the stuff that you do and very specifically figuring out more complex things and moving from being a. Like, a novice at it to having some kind of level of, like, understanding or even expertise on it, that sounds like something that's, like, a part of your life, but correct me if I'm wrong. [00:46:28] Speaker A: No, no, I think I already touched on that. Gotta be an amateur at something, right? You know, like, right now, my newest amateur pursuit is. I've been rally crossing a beamer of mine, which has been fun. I placed tfl so badly my first race, and now I'm like, we're mid pack, baby. We're getting there. [00:46:45] Speaker B: Good. All right, so let's go back to tintype. How did it go from being something that you were figuring out to starting to be, like, a business where you're like, I'm actually going to do this and try and like, make some stuff out of it. [00:46:56] Speaker A: So that all kind of happened in one foul swoop, right? So, like, essentially I initially started trying to teach myself tintype because I was going to go to, like, MAGA or sorry, not Mexico, Texas, make this film. That's what was going to happen on paper. Right. I had already signed the contracts. I already knew when I was flying out, you know, pre production was going to start rolling in, like, let's say, two and a half, three weeks, something like that. And like, I had already started, like, moving around in that world. And like, at this point, like I said, I'd done like three and a half years of this mocap stuff. And like, before that, I was doing a lot of editorial portraiture, a lot of, like, ecom work for, like, the Frank and Oaks and whatever of town, doing all that stuff. And obviously you can only do so many things and film is all, all encumbering. So all that stuff, it kind of just like left behind, right? And if, like, you're not going to shoot the next one, somebody else will, and then a new relationship emerges within that subsect of what would be considered your income previously. So I had, like, left behind, per se, all my editorial and all my commercial work. And I very much so, like, guided my way into, like, being this, you know, more film focused guy. And we're going very hard on that. We had gotten done a big film, and I was going to be going to Texas to do the next one. And then I got a phone call where I was like, dude, you got time to talk? You might want to sit down. Like, all right, what is it? And they're just like, yeah, so like, our A team was going to do the Avengers or whatever. Like, they got replaced with another company. And so as a result, well, you are our B team. It's like, Avi, I'm brand new. And they're like, so you don't have a job? And, yeah, sorry about that. And they're just like, you know, let's, let's, let's get you your severance package. It's like, what? I haven't started working my brother. That's so cool of you. Right? And like, I've worked for a lot of different, like, very large, various larger companies. And these guys are so fair in how they treat you. So Shout out Weta Digital. It's Peter Jackson's company and like, those guys are great employers and I gotta give it to them miles above everybody else in that industry. So I had like a severance package built into my contract ever since I penned it, and they, like, contracted my time for the film. I mean, I didn't really read too deeply into it because I was like, we're doing this thing, like, you know, like, I signed something, I'm ready to do it anyways. So they sorted that out for me and I was just left with no job time and just kind of like this vast expanse where like, you know, like, it's like the train had hit the station and it's like, now what? Right? Like you didn't realize the train was even stopping. You thought. You thought you were, you know, many stops ahead in terms of your final destination and you just got let out in a town abruptly and you're looking around being like, well, like, what now? You know, right? And that's cool, you know, and so it's not like I hadn't been there before, right? Like, that's kind of the nature of like, you know, starting out on your own and doing something that's challenging and difficult. And I just was like, well, you know, life as of now has always been about one thing and one thing alone. And it's like just living behind cameras and like constantly doubling down on that bet that, like, that this is, you know, what you're doing, this is how you make a living. And I'd already, like, like started leaning into the tin type thing. I was planning on trying to teach myself well in Texas, but then I was like, well, now you got this, like, time and you might as well teach yourself tintype. And so I began teaching myself tint type. Just reading old books. There was no YouTube videos or anything at that time, and just like pure trial and error. I knew a lot about darkroom work, so it helped. And I kind of got to a point of like, semi competency. Really not, not great by any standard. It's looking backwards, but, like, good enough that like, all of a sudden the girls around the east side Flea hit me up and they're like, oh, we heard you do tintype. We. We'd like you to do 10 type of the east side Flea. Initially I was trepid because I was like, I don't know if I'm like, at the point where I want, like, hang my shingle and sling these things out. I also like, custom built this Crazy dark room that's on the back of a tricycle. My friend Jonathan Harris used to have a DJ trike that was so sick I thought I was like mind bending. And then like, I was like, I'm gonna figure out tricycle business one day. So when this all happened, I was like, we're building a tricycle with the dark room on the back of it, custom building myself and all that stuff. And then now I got asked to go to Eastside Fleet to make some tin types on location for people who came to flee. And initially it's a little trepid about it and then I don't even know if this is true or not, but they, they said that somebody else in town would do it if I didn't. And I was like, no chance, no chance. Like, forget about it. There's no way that like I'm letting someone be like, quote unquote, first to market. That's just like my kind of competitive side coming out, you know what I mean? And I'm like, there's no way I'm letting this person go first to market and like, them, like hang their shingle first within, like, you know, the Vancouver area code. Like, if I'm going to be that dude, I'm going to be the dude. And so I was like, all right, whatever, then I'll see you this weekend. Like, let's go. You know, that's. That was it. It was over. It was done showed up and the response was tremendous. Basically, people were just like amped, right? And like, obviously, you know, within that subject that you slightly. People go there, people like you, people like vinyl, people like tangibles, people like, you know, maybe a bit of nostalgia in their life. And I was really busy. I was sold and made a bunch of tintypes and people were incredibly stoked. [00:52:45] Speaker B: And. [00:52:45] Speaker A: And I love a business like that where people are so amped on, like the outcome and product of what you're providing, where you're just like, yeah, like thumbs up, dude. Like, we're both stoked. You know, commerce has occurred. It maintained. Like I was describing before in terms of the early days of photography, the romanticism of true specialty, where, like, it wasn't like, everyone's crowded around the monitor and I swear to God it was. I've literally been there where you're the shooter. You have a person hired as your digital tech who's literally just like playing mastro on the computer. And then we have like the client and the art director and the stylist and the hair and makeup and everyone is just like spread around the monitor and they're just like watching the images pop up, right? And like, depending on what kind of people those people are, a lot of them in their mind are kind of constantly. This is just human nature. They're going to be like, maybe pump the shadows a bit or like, maybe decent. Everyone in their mind is like. Like being like, oh, I might do it this way because these tools are so universally accessible that everyone is like, well, I have light rumor, you know, like, I have, like, capture one. Like, I've, you know, done this before. Like, you know, and everyone's kind of going through it and there's no longer that, like, you know, Richard Avedon, Helmut Newton, you know, Henry Carter Bresson, Jeu de V. Where all of a sudden it's like, look, relax, this is me. I got this. And they weren't. It wasn't like, you're like, oh, I know what preset he used. It was like, no, you don't have any idea how this guy gets his look. You don't know what, like, you can see the film stock, but you don't know if he's running in Rodinol or D76. Is he pushing it two stops? Is he pulling it a stop? What kind of filters is he using in the dark room? How does he make his tone so juicy? Like, no one knows how that works. And you had to hire the guy who was the specialist at that to get it done. And no one's going to question them. No one's going to be like, are you sure you want to be using a Triax 400? [00:54:43] Speaker B: No. [00:54:43] Speaker A: You hired that guy to show up because you liked his portfolio, you liked his look and you wanted it and you couldn't get it because only he has that unique skillset to achieve that. And that's what attracted me to photography, is it brought about that classic romanticism where like, like, this is not a cookie cutter pursuit. You know, if you want to create tintype images, you have to have to be an absolute finesse specialist. And you can make it tintype, but it's going to look flat, it's going to wash out, it's going to be overexposed. But if you want to make perfect tintype. Yeah. The only way to do it is pure skill and finesse. [00:55:22] Speaker B: So you start this thing you do, you know, you start going to east side Flea and then what happens? [00:55:27] Speaker A: I'm just starting to do Eastside Flea. And like, essentially, you know, at that point in time, like, people are stoked about it. And the people who are actually most stoked about it are people who organize markets. Because I am a performance craft, right? Like, I'm not selling you a bar of soap. I can't make you a tintype of yourself beforehand. I do it on the spot, I do it live. And if you've ever seen it done in person, it's mind blowing just watching it take shape. To this day, it's just fascinating to me. Like, I'm going to create a negative image on top of the sheet of glass or metal. I'm going to be able to wash it off, show you the negative image, and I drop this image into a vat and the entire thing magically disappears and goes and reappears as a unbelievably graded positive. If you do a tintype right, you're replicatable just because they only read one spectrum of light. Unlike every other form of RV that reads all spectrums, it only reads the UV spectrum spectrum of light. And so in and of that, even of itself, it just creates much more luscious tonal grade in black and white than almost anything can achieve. [00:56:34] Speaker B: Yeah. So where does it go from there, though? [00:56:38] Speaker A: Oh, so we're at the east side fleet, we're shooting these things, it's incredibly popular. And then all of a sudden it's like, cool, you know, and like at the time too, I'm still shooting, like commercially per se. I'm doing like a lot of work for like March work, warehouse. At that point, I'm just like flying out to Calgary like once, twice a month to like shoot a bunch of like in store ad campaign work and stuff like that. And I'm, you know, I'm, I'm banging it up, you know, like I'm a lens man. You got the cash, I got the vision. Boom, team, let's go. You know, and those are kind of happening both side by each, right? The thing that I didn't like about regular photography is it's the working for work, right? Where you're constantly qualifying yourself constantly to achieve the job, and only then does the real work begin. And so like you're working so much just to like, what begin working? Like, what are we even talking about here, right? And like meanwhile with Tanzania just like started like streamlining a lot of that out, right? Where it's like, look like I don't have to like talk with a million art directors or send out ad portfolios, mailers, and you know, create like a marketing list and like literally wear like every hat out of the set sun. I just need to shoot excellent tint types and that's it. And I will make excellent tint types for anybody who wants to contract me to make these tint types. And a twist started to happen where all of a sudden I just like, I wasn't interested in actively pursuing new traditional photography shooting jobs. And all this happened frankly at like inadvertently the perfect time. Just because the Harvey industry is a dark place these days. And yeah, I just was like, you know what, like this is hella specialized. You're not just going to show up and be like, yeah, I went to London drugs and got this camera in this lightroom program. But we're there brother. Like watch some YouTube tutorials now it's like hella specialized. And so I just like leaned into that and I just became more like, you know, I was like the tin type guy and like I was still doing the, you know, photography work for like March work warehouse or whatever. And you know, I still get like, just not every movie needs like massive Hollywood mocap production. Right? But like when they do, there's not a lot of guys can do that either. But I'm not working non stop and film either at this point. It's like all of a sudden I'm gonna go and I'll do like a two month job or like a three week job or whatever. So I'm doing all this and that's all going great. It comes to a point where like I become so busy with tintypes and it's so exhausting to go from market to market to market to market to market, much like we were talking about DJing. You're carrying on everything, everything setting up, breaking down everywhere. So after like my first Christmas season where I'm literally like, I'm talking like lineups of people where I'm sweating doing these back to back to back to back to back to back to back to back as fast as I can. Because I paid to be at the market, I get a fixed amount of time. I'm not selling bars of soap that I made beforehand. So I can't just off my skus. I literally have to make that money back. Like a race. Yeah, like literal racehorse. And you know, obviously working under those pressurized conditions just, you know, came from the past of the film. So I understand it. Like I know how to like execute under pressure. That's always my strong point. And this becomes somewhat exhausting where not only do I find it exhausting, but I'd love to be able to provide a more in depth experience to every single person who I photograph. And come my second Christmas season, because my first one was insane, I ended up just being like, you know what? We're gonna, like, literally hang the shingle and set up a studio, right? And that, that was my transition point to where I, like, brick and mortared. Up to that point, I was still just like, bootstrapping. I storing my, like, tricycle and, like, the box that bounced the back of it to do dark memories, just storing it all in, like, very small storage space I had beneath my apartment. And I was just staying, like, super, super tight and compacted. And I do all the work where it's like, load everything, move everything. It was so intensive. And then, like, once you get there, it's not like, great now, like, the work does itself. So then you were like, you were chefing, you were cooking them up. So. [01:00:45] Speaker B: So you start your brick and mortar. Tell us about that. But also, let's talk about the other side of, well, your other business. What else do you do? [01:00:55] Speaker A: So I started my brick and mortar kind of out of a response of having just a massive demand at every single market that I'd set up at. And I wanted to be able to provide people who came to see me sort of the most in depth and immersive experience they could have, where I take the time to explain the process to them, answer any questions. They had just been incredibly gracious with my time where I'd have to do it once, twice, three times. Whatever resulted in my sitter's end result, being stoked was what I became most concerned about, in my opinion. Every great business sells stoke and they sell stoke through the medium of that product, regardless of what that product is. So if you are not stoked, I have not provided the product that we sent out to offer. So that is my stance at when it comes to tintypes. And that's what led me to set up a brick and mortar tintype situation. And so I did that for a while. And that between my other kind of commercial photography world and stuff, was, I guess, paying the bills, as it were. And I was still doing some visual effects motion capture. And what happened was, is I got a phone call. I was going to be going to the Yukon on behalf of Disney. And I kid you not, my whole job was to make reference images of the northern lights, which means that I would just be, like, getting taken out into the middle of lake beds and spending the night in an igloo, time lapsing the northern lights so that they could be replicated digitally for a film called Call of the Wild with Harrison Ford. I'd already done the summer component of this job, which is 3D, mapping some mountain ranges. And I was supposed to be going back for the winter. I was going in three days, and I decided to go snowboarding with my friends. And one of my friends ran into me while snowboarding, sent me head over heels, and I shattered my collarbone many places. I was like, oh, God, like, this is great. Because I immediately knew, like, all right, this job is done. Like, you're cooked. Like, you just you. This one's not happening, right? So it was a real bummer. And I don't know. I believe in, like, examining situations, studying them, learning from what's happening and finding that silver lining. So what was happening was very clear. We had an injury, like I mentioned, sort of when we were chatting. I've had a lot of injuries. ACL tears, shoulder dislocations, et cetera. This is a common, recurring factor in my life. Life. And in no way am I willing to quit sending it. I would love to dirt bike more. I would love to mountain bike more. I love, you know, being on that edge, right? And so how do I solve this problem forever? How do I make it so I can be just written off due to my decisions, but still maintain income? Beyond that, stick to what, you know, some people would describe as their circle of competence. Are you familiar with that term? You know, little Warren Buffett number, Right? So I want to stick to my circle of competence. And, you know, obviously, through our discussions, it's very clear what that is, is highly specialized, dying analog processes. Right? And one of the things that I absolutely loved, which at that time had disappeared from Vancouver within the past, like, eight months, was analog photo boosts. The result that they create is much like we've been discussing with records and tintypes, irreplicable. Its depth of texture and its quality is insane. And so I decided then, when I was down and out and I lost a ton of money, we were going to do what every creative and every business person does. You have to double down. You have to double down where you're like, well, let's go. This thing is not winning. I am winning, right? And I. This is like, right now, analog photo booths are on the rage. Like, kids love them now, but no one gives a right. And I went about trying to find one and buy one and unwilling to discuss any of how that works. I get so many emails per week. And the thing is that no one in our community wants to sell anybody an analog photo booth, because the essence of A sale is you are selling an asset. When you sell someone an analog photo booth, you are actually just buying a headache because everyone's gonna be like, it's not working, something's broken, it's not doing the thing. And unless you're like a very in depth, process based person who's like, got what it takes to deal with that on their own and realize it's not the person, it's like, it's like buying an old VW Bug. Just because the guy sold it to you, it was running, you drove it home. Just because you don't know how to tune Weber carburetors does not necessarily make it the previous owner's problem. You know what I mean? And so there's that kind of issues. But I managed to, you know, I became part of the analog photo booth much earlier than this rage that we're currently experiencing today, right? And yeah, I ended up purchasing analog photos because I loved them. And they were leaving the town and it almost felt as though, well, this is Perfect. I am 100% the guy who could do this, you know. And I ended up talking to my friend Simon, who he owns and operates the American, it's a bar here in town on Main Street. And I chatted with him. I saw him a couple days after I chattered, my collarbone all gimped up, you know, headed to the party class, one in one hand, chilling. And I was like, hey, Simon, I got something I want to ask you. He's just like, he got it. He was like a record lover where he got it right away. He's like, you mean the black and white ones? Like the this, the this, the this? And I'm like, yeah, absolutely. And he already knows that I'm doing the tin type game. We've known each other for a while. So he knows I'm no joke, I ain't no slouch, right? And he's like, yeah, let's do it. Because I was like, I need someplace to put it. Like, it's gotta like do business for this to be, you know, a part of this path that I coursed to circumnavigate when I'm broken, you know, Robotic, I guess. And he was into it and he was like, great. Like, you know, like, let's. This, this is phenomenal. I love it. And so that was kind of the journey that led me to purchasing my first analog photograph. [01:07:02] Speaker B: So when we were taking a quick break there you went and got like, you got a real energy about it when you were talking about it. Has to be right, like, when you're talking about, like, fabricating these things and making sure that every element is, like, true to form. So tell me about that. [01:07:19] Speaker A: That comes a bit later on where, in essence, like, these analog photographers are incredibly hard to come by. There's like 500 of them worldwide. There's 50 of us to 60 of us who know how to operate them worldwide. And so everyone who knows how to operate them loves them very deeply. We've got everyone coming out of the woodwork these days, dudes, tick tock, trying to join in. But those guys are. We can't ensure that they're there for the love, let's put it that way. So they're very hard to find. And what ended up happening was a location that I was trying to partner with. For some reason at the time, I couldn't understand why they were refusing an analog booth. They didn't want it. They're like, no. And I kept on trying to be like, are you sure we're talking about the same thing? You know, these things are, like, a part of, like, photo history. And, like, I think it would be really important to, like, have one. You know, it was a gallery and I was, like, focused on photography as well. And I was like, I think it'd be really important to have one here. And they refused. And they were like, we'll only accept a digital one. And I was like. And this is where, like, all of a sudden I'm like, all right, bet. Like, I'll show you. I'll show you what we're really made of around here. So, like, I was like, cool. Like, and then in my mind, like, there was only one solution because, like, I had to meet, you know, I had to meet this engagement where it stood. And so I, in my mind was like, great, like, if that's the path through and this is, like, what we need, like, I'm always going to rise. And, you know, I obviously was, like, very involved in the photo booth industry at this time. And, like, I just like so many things about the way that most digital photo booths and how they were constructed, how I'd see that it bothered me. I was like, this isn't spec. This isn't correct. This isn't the proper experience. And it can be done better. And it irked me that no one was doing it better. And so you got to put your money where your mouth is, right? Like, if that's how you feel, you know, like, let's see it. You know what I mean? Like, you know, judgment can only belong to the gladiator within the arena. You know, that's Teddy Roosevelt, I believe that's his quote. And so, you know, anybody who's a spectator will cheer and jeer and judge, but no one except for the gladiator within the arena truly has the grounds to make judgment. And I feel that very much so. And so within that I was like, well, you know, let's enter this arena. So I noticed all these idiosyncrasies that I knew could be corrected if someone had just taken the time to build it correctly. And I started going down the path of doing this. That where I began fabricating my own digital cabinets that as I interpret them are replica homage built of exactly the experience that the analog would provide for you short a chemicalized dip and dunk output. [01:10:23] Speaker B: So you did it for the gallery and the gallery was happy 100%. But that's not what you do with your business though, is it? [01:10:30] Speaker A: I mean, analog is where my true passion lies. Like don't get me wrong, like if I could continue to acquire these analogs like no tomorrow. In fact, I like the degree in which I'm interested in continuing to proliferate analogs within the market is like there's a guy in France who actually figured out how he can 3D print and code with Arduinos, his own dip and dunk photo booth. The only stand back right now for making it something that you could really like get working in a public space is that it only has the ability to articulate one arm per exposure. So every exposure has a three and a half minute wait time between that. Right. So there's overcomeable things. And like yes, the analog is the true, true passion, but you know, they're not cheap by any standards. They will leave you flabbergasted as to how much money an analog photo booth would cost you. Like I can tell you how much you would have to pay if you wanted to buy one. [01:11:25] Speaker B: How much? [01:11:25] Speaker A: I'm going to give you two guesses. We're going to do under over 20,000, over 60,000, under probably about 40,000 USD. That's how much it would cost you to buy one. [01:11:38] Speaker B: And that's just entry point, not all the other stuff involved with it. [01:11:42] Speaker A: You just get a booth that may or may not run, then you don't even know how to modify it to use the new paper that we have to use worldwide because it used to only be made in Russia. And that ended two and a half years ago. We had to work with Czechoslovakia to custom engineer solution like like, you better know somebody who knows how to use a 3D printer. You better know somebody who knows how to use like, you know, a 3D modeling program, LIDAR scanners. You're going to want to know some people who know how to solve some problems if this is something that like intrigues you, you know what I mean? [01:12:14] Speaker B: So how many analog booths do you have now? [01:12:17] Speaker A: 4. And then I've got the parts to build a fifth one. Recovered some parts from some old Ace Hotel booths that were being disassembled and turned into digital tools and plan to begin the process of trying to build analogs from the ground up using old stock parts pretty soon, as well as exploring different methodologies and where we can take this one guy's technology that is 3D printable. And you know, my specialty is building really cast classy cabinets. That's where I stride and kind of blending those two together. So there is pathways, very much so in the future where we can build brand new analog photo booths using 3D printing technology and our duo coating. [01:13:05] Speaker B: That's so crazy. [01:13:06] Speaker A: So. And what's even crazier about those for like serious photography nerds is to describe how an analog photo booth currently works. It's like anybody mechanical understand it's belt timed and can actuate. So there's no way that any step in the 13 step chemical process can last longer than the next step. Everything needs to be chem, actually. And if you need a chemical step to last longer, you simply just need to put another bath after it that contains the same chemical. But you only have 13 steps to remix to make your images work. Right. What's interesting with the ones that are like arduino and like 3D printed and stuff like that is some guys over in London are doing some fascinating projects where you can recode how long it spends in each bath. And so they've been able to re engineer how to shoot color photos in photo booths through this new process. So it's been kind of fascinating. [01:14:03] Speaker B: Heck yeah, man. So Mike, I think Mike, our engineer, for anyone who doesn't know. Big photo guy. [01:14:11] Speaker A: Right on. [01:14:12] Speaker B: What are some questions you have? I'm curious to hear your thoughts on gatekeeping in photography and maybe AI in photography as well. [01:14:21] Speaker A: Well, gatekeeping, I mean, gatekeeping, gatekeeping in both my industries exists in a major way. And like, I think that like gatekeeping with Tintype is falling down. Gatekeeping within the analog photo booth community is not a matter of ego, it's a matter of self preservation because, you know, we're all struggling to keep all of our photo booths around the world alive. We're all a family who is assuredly in this for the pure love of our pursuit. A lot of us got into it when, you know, no one cared. And we cared and we held that torch. And now that it's getting all this shine and there's like a lot of, like, I guess just newcomers to our field whose interest has been piqued by what they consider popularity, not true intrinsic love. I think that people are a lot more hesitant to welcome them into our fold because there's just. There's just. There's going to come a point where, you know, you need to hold all of your cards in order to keep your robots working. So it's kind of a tricky one. [01:15:31] Speaker B: Listen, man, you know, we talk about gatekeeping on here a lot because anyone who really cares about something is protective of it, right? And there can be a version of like, I'm protective of it because I want it to survive and be great. And you can be protective of it because you're being a jerk and you're trying to keep people out and, and there's probably. There's like a gray area in between those things where great people can act like assholes or assholes can act like great people. It's not an easy conversation. But I think like, anything that's worth being passionate about and being like, really into is going to engender some. Some of that people. [01:16:05] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, but yeah, within our community, we are very much so family, you know, like, everyone's helping everybody. I think, like, it, it's. It's more of just like. Not just. It's not, I wouldn't say a distrust of newcomers, but like, I think everyone's always trepid to figure out, like, where these people are coming from and what leads them to this road. And like, you know, anything that gains mass popularity tends to convolute the motivations that lead people to those destinations. [01:16:39] Speaker B: Yeah. I never think to add this into a conversation, but Mike's. Take Mike's question about what do you think AI me like. And you mean adjacent to this, right? Like creating photos with AI. I didn't know it was a thing until recently, and I'm a bit of a hater. But my buddy Carl mentioned that when photography was invented, painters probably felt the same way about photographers as I do about AI photographers. So thoughts about that. [01:17:09] Speaker A: I mean, what I think of it personally. Don't really use it myself, not in a very frequent manner. I know people who love it. What I think of it is that, like, I think it's a cool tool. And I think that there's no point in hating it or trying to run against the grain of it. In fact, like, we used AI, as it were, ages ago with these Hollywood films to replicate these actors. And people have, like, no idea the power that this technology has because everyone's like, wow, it's doing this these days. I was like, dude, we were doing that in 2013, but it was just at a billion dollar company, bro. Like, you just have the tools in your hands now. So, you know, the one thing I have, I don't have anything against it. And in my world personally, I'm entirely insulated from it. Because what I do and what our companies do is, as we've discussed, irreplicable. You cannot, you cannot end up with the results that we provide through any other way than the original methodology of creation, which cannot be done through a computer, has to be done in a tangible sense. So I'm insulated from it. What concerns me is more from like a sidebar and economic prospectus where we already have a massive, you know, overpopulation problem that's creating a giant housing problem, right? And like, you know, housing gets more expensive. And the only thing you have to do to continue to run on the hamster wheel to stay buoyant is you need to make more money, right? Money is a result of supply and demand. So my problem with AI is that it's going. It already has, you know, it speeds up the wealth conglomeration to the top. That's my big problem with it, where, you know, the amount of jobs that are going to be demolished by AI, and whether that's, you know, your coding department or AI, you know, takes its form in the robotics department for retrieving and warehouse delivery situations, whatever. You know, it's happening so unbelievably fast that there's no, like, you know, not like, give a shit about government oversight, but like, there's no government policies limiting, like, what's going on here. And that's maybe like, my concern is that from an economics perspective, it's like people sadly enough, need a hamster wheel to run on to power the larger machine at hand. You know, everyone's a quote, cog in the machine. And when we start removing these cogs and replacing them with, let's call it a digital component in terms of like AI's application, you know, we end up with a pile of cogs on the side that are no longer needed because we've Streamlined it. We've seen it happen so many times in different technologies. But like, the big problem is, is that these are people, these are people who have lives, who have jobs, who have homes, who have dreams, who have aspirations. And that's my thing is I'm like, dude, like, must really be rough to like all of a sudden just like have, you know, everything that you've worked for be sidelined by a computer. And now. Now what? Like, now what job do you go and where do you go that's safe? Where do you go that's you're confident that a robot won't be able to come and take that over? And you know, and it's, it's like that's one thing and that's worrying about actual humans, you know, but then, then the other thing on top of that is kind of like the mass wealth conglomeration to the top. And like, what? I'm not an economics student, not qualified for any of this. I'm just a guy who's very observative and I understand patterns, right? And you know, rich people don't really love money. You know what I mean? What do rich people love? [01:20:57] Speaker B: Comfort? [01:20:58] Speaker A: Assets. [01:20:58] Speaker B: Oh, I see what you're saying. [01:20:59] Speaker A: Rich people love assets. And why do they love assets? [01:21:03] Speaker B: You tell me. Me? [01:21:04] Speaker A: They outperform cash. Cash actually loses value every year. Assets tend to gain value. Now what's the best performing asset class? [01:21:15] Speaker B: I think it's real estate. [01:21:16] Speaker A: It's technically art, but real estate is actually close second. So, you know, if we shove a ton of money up into the very, very, very top tier and they don't like money and they like assets, right? And these people who just got their cog pulled out of the machine and sat down over here, they continue to need to have a place to live, right? Guess who just bought all the places to live? The dudes who just have robots running these positions, right? And just creates like a really rough like sort of like downward spiral of absolute like, you know, lead stage capitalist dystopianism. That's my qualm with it, right? Other than that, that fuck, you know, like, other than that. Other than that. But like, you know, these are like. This has been going on for a long time though, you know, like Henry Ford invented the production line and we've been speeding up ever since, but we've always been speeding up with the asterisks of human oversight involved, right? And now we've eliminated that. And for like a corporate dreamscape, this is the best thing that ever happened. Happen like you know, shareholder value. It's like people care about that, you know, and so that's the problem. That's the problem. I see. You know, and I'm always like a people's champ in that respective because like, you know, like I've been there, dude. Like I've been on that hamster wheel. I know what being employed unfairly is like and I know what all this feels like and that's my concern. But other than that, like, hey, you know, what are we going to do? Hate the future. It's not happening. [01:23:00] Speaker B: Yeah, man. And we kind of came a good full circle there. Talking about assembly line and oversight, but also movement of technology away from really quality things to things that are just build it cheap and you can have less quality experience. I have one more question for you, but before we get to it, in the episode, notes will put like where people can look you up and all that kind of stuff. So I'm going to put a backdrop to this question that I ask. The way that I started my business and the way that I build things is I'm a specialist in something. And I didn't set out to be totally accidental, but I found myself in a position where I was like, I think very few people on the planet could do what I do, how I do it. And it's been awesome. And when someone asked me recently, do you want to have a business that is that anyone can just like contact and get services or do you want to be someone who. Someone has to know who you are and have your phone number to get a hold of you. And when they said it, it really made me think because it's like on one side, the first one's compelling. It's like, oh, I could have a business and all this, grow the company, da da. But the other was like, listen, I don't want to be having people ask me to a bunch of stuff that I'm not interested in doing or that like another person could do. It just seems like a huge headache and I'm unconvinced in one way or another. But going to you if you're thinking about like young creatives coming up, like let's say people want who are passionate about photography or writing or film or whatever, anything. The landscape's changed a lot. AI is like a good example of that. Are people better off becoming really strong generalists or are they better off become becoming really deep specialists in something? [01:24:45] Speaker A: That is a question that can only be answered by the person who is on that path. Because some people, they enjoy being a generalist, because they love variety. They're like, oh, I love it. I'm doing something different all the time, right? Like, you know, other people, they love absolutely mastering something super niche, and they love, you know, doing a hundred versions of the same thing till they find perfection. So, you know, I'd say that's. That's something that's more guided just by individuals, you know, and, like, in the Buddhist belief is that everyone around the world is trying to achieve happiness. They're just misconstrued in what avenue will get them there. [01:25:24] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. Awesome, man. I think it's a great place to end it, dude. Thank you so much for coming by. This was a super awesome conversation, everyone. For those listening, you know, check out all the links below to see where you can look up Ian's work. And also, I just want to say, like. Like, you know, there's a lot of talk on the podcast about, like, betting yourself taking a leap and all that. And it's also okay not. Not to do that. It's fine to take, like, more of a kind of the beaten path. But I will say, when you do take a leap and you bet on yourself and you do some really wild stuff, it's not just easy, it's hard. But the hard stuff is also super rewarding. And everything you learn from it, all the crazy experiences you have, I think that's part of the. That's part of the pay in a lot of ways, and I think today's guest tells you that. So thanks so much. We'll see you next time. One step beyond on.