Cultcast #160 - Grandpa Clown

The Power of Following Your Passion and Helping Others

In this episode of Cultcast, we're joined by David Hobby, a renowned photographer and educator who has built a community around his passion for photography. David shares his insights on how he got started with photography, what drives him to keep creating, and the importance of helping others in his work.

According to David, the key to making his passion a reality is to focus on what he wants to achieve rather than just thinking about who will pay him to take pictures. He believes that following your passion is the way to go, as it opens up new doors and creates a sense of fulfillment. For David, helping others has been a vital part of his journey. He notes that not only does it benefit those he's working with, but also contributes to his own career growth. By believing in karma, David finds that helping others spurs his own creativity and passion.

David's approach to photography is centered around lighting and ecosystem. He spends more time than anything else exploring the world of light and sharing his knowledge on Twitter, where he's easily accessible for interactions with fans. His Twitter handle is @strobist, and he's also active on Instagram, although he doesn't have an account. David occasionally teaches courses, including a popular "Learn How to Take Better Travel Photography" course through Linda, which is part of his platform.

One of the notable aspects of David's work is his involvement in teaching others. He created a series of DVDs, "Lighting and Layers," released in 2011, which are now available on Londa, where he was introduced to our host. The courses cover in-depth tutorials on how to light on location, offering valuable insights for photographers looking to improve their skills.

David's work has been recognized by Linda, who has taken an interest in his photography and asked him to teach her courses. This collaboration highlights the importance of community and networking in the creative world. David's success is a testament to the power of sharing knowledge and experience with others, creating a ripple effect that can lead to new opportunities.

For those interested in learning from David's expertise, he recommends checking out his work on Londa.com/cultcast. Currently, Linda offers a 10-day free trial for access to all of David's courses, allowing potential students to dive into his knowledge and improve their photography skills. With David's guidance, photographers can unlock new techniques and develop their skills in lighting and travel photography.

In conclusion, our conversation with David Hobby has been enlightening, offering insights into the world of photography and the importance of helping others. His dedication to sharing his passion and expertise has created a community that is committed to learning and growth. By following in David's footsteps, photographers can tap into his wealth of knowledge and experience, unlocking new possibilities for their craft.

Throughout this episode, we've discussed various aspects of David's work, from his approach to photography to his teaching endeavors. We've also touched on the value of community and networking, highlighting the importance of connections in the creative world. By supporting artists like David Hobby, we can foster a culture that celebrates creativity, innovation, and collaboration.

As we come to the end of this episode, we want to thank David for sharing his time and insights with us. It's been a pleasure to have him on the show, and we're grateful for the opportunity to connect with our listeners through Cultcast. We hope you've enjoyed this segment and learned something new about photography and teaching.

In closing, if you're interested in learning more about David Hobby's work or would like to explore his courses further, please visit Londa.com/cultcast. Don't forget to check out the free 10-day trial offer, which allows you to access all of David's courses and start improving your photography skills today.

Thank you again for joining us on this episode of Cultcast. We'll see you next time!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhello I'm a Mac and I'm a PC I can't believe 2007's over PC it was a great year though huh buddy not really what what do you mean I came out with Vista that didn't work very well some people are downgrading to XP meanwhile you come out with your new operating system leopard a new iMac lots of new iPods oh the iPhone I almost forgot the iPhone right it was terrible year but next year looking forward to the future 2008 is going to be the year of the PC that's a great attitude PC what do you got planned what are you going do I'm just going to copy everything you did in 2007 hello and welcome to the cast the best 30 plus minute Apple conversation you're going to hear all week long I'm your host airon Elijah hello joining me today he's written a few Apple Books sometimes he wears a powdered white wig when he's in the bathtub Mr Leander kany Leander welcome Hey not just in the bathtub off and out throughout San Francisco you see one car you spotted him he's also on a horse that makes him hard to miss also joining us he has a thick Rich carpet of chest hair women love it Buster shiny Buster hey how's it going man two very accurate introductions today you guys that listen have listened for a long time you know normally I like to make fun and make some jokes but today I was like I'm just going to tell it how it is that was the result Happy New Year to everyone can you guys believe we're already in 2015 oh wow I mean my gosh it seems like it's still in the future but it's now it's right this very moment 2015 we have a great show plan for you guys today hopefully you guys are recovering from I don't know a night of celebrity or festivities I should say maybe with a celebrity that would be fun before we hop into all the fun I do want to say a few things a thanks to Linda for supporting this episode linda.com l y nda.com learn to run your business better become a better Photoshop expert learn how to create music on your iOS devices learn how to be a better marketer learn how to run a business Leander you can learn how to run a Blog I'm sure really you might take that course check that out Linda has over 4500 video courses for you to choose from and you can watch them anywhere on your Mac on your iOS device all available to you 24/7 to help you learn some stuff improve your life improve yourself you can start off with a 10-day free trial over at linda.com cultcast that's l y nda.com cultcast and stay tuned to the end of cultcast proper we're going to be doing a cultcast second hour directly after this episode you can just leave it playing and I'm going to be talking with David hobby David hobby is a photographer and we're going to be chatting about travel photography how to do good travel photography what kind of gear you should bring with you the kind of apps he uses to edit his photos and also street photography some tips on how to be a better Street photographer especially if you're taking pictures of people which can be kind of tricky and as some of you know I'm a big fan of David hobby I learned a lot of what I know about lighting from him so I learned how to light how to use strobes how to use flashes how to bounce light how to direct light and he's helped improve photography a ton he has a website called strobist.com St o b.com where you can go and learn all the stuff I just talked about about photography and lighting for free and he also does some really fantastic linda.com courses that you can check out and uh he's going to be giving us some tips and tricks so stay tuned for cultcast second hour uh directly after this and also next week if you're going to be in Las Vegas maybe you live there you uh as some of you know it's CES the consum Electronics Show next week and team Comm including Leander Alex Buster and some other people are going to be in Las Vegas I unfortunately can't attend this year so if you're going you should definitely try to meet up with them and take a selfie with Leander because Leander loves taking selfies with people yeah which I say sarcastically but you actually kind of do don't you Leander um no I hate him he might bust his shirt off he'll do something really creative I you know I avoid the mirror let alone taking pictures of myself well they'll be taking pictures of you guys together Leander uh okay you never you never actually have to have to see well I should do I should get like a Hair Force wig right he'll he'll fix his white wig and he'll judge you as you take a photo of both of you but it's it's going to be fun I mean CES is all the best technology on one place in Las Vegas is there anything that you guys are excited to see Leander anything devices gadgets yeah yeah yeah yeah you know like I was um really wanted to check out um all the uh I mean there's going to be a ton of um health kit and home kit um stuff there so all these connected devices you know for fitness and for for the home yeah you're probably right that's going to be it's probably going to be a big thing this year it's gonna be a huge thing it's and you know Buster has been looking into it um and so you know there's there's a ton of stuff a ton ton ton of stuff and unlike previous years where I feel like CES was kind of declining in becoming more and more boring each year I think it had a big turnaround in the last two years and last year I really enjoyed myself there was a ton of great stuff to see the I Lounge uh where they have all the Apple stuff actually had some stuff that was interesting and not just a bunch of Apple cases so you guys will probably see a ton of great stuff while you're there and also uh since I'm going to be here holding down the fort we're I'm going to be having our old pal with hars on uh he's a famous instagrammer if you guys don't know who that is he's got Buster how many followers does he have on Instagram 440,000 I don't know tons of them though and he just won an award isn't that right yeah he was named uh one of AD AG's 50 most creative people along with uh Mark new Apple's new designer whoa really yeah wow good company I thought you were going to say me Johnny I like I won but that's not where you went that's sad uh so I'm going to have Corey Stocker on go check him out on instagram.com withth Hearts he has really really beautiful photography we're going to be talking about whatever is going on in his life also we're going to be talking about um mobile photography the kinds of things that he does to make his photos really pop he's got 440,000 is Instagram followers as I said he knows what he's doing and he'll be back to share a bunch of his tips I know last time we had him on everyone was like those tips were fantastic he has the best tips Aon please have him back on so we'll be doing that next week so please join us for that uh okay guys I have to know did anyone get any good Christmas gifts oh Christmas gifts what can you name one really great thing that you got yeah I Le did you get anything well I did get something yeah I got a couple couple of great gifts from from my uh from my from my mom and from my from my wife my mom gave me a Tartan cap so so you have about you have another one The Three Stooges a complete clown and so I have to wear this thing wait I got to look this up a Tartan cap yeah I don't so does it have a big bill on it uh oh my you're going look like a grandpa what color is it Granda clown it's Tartan you know which just means it's it's red okay it's red with that Tartan um so is tart a pattern P it's Scottish oh my gosh you're gonna look so cool on this thing does it have a big fuzzy ball on the top it should do that's the classic design well now you have to become a golfer and you need to you need to age at least 20 years well I think I've done that but yeah um that's bad enough but then wait wait till hear what my wife got me yeah I'm dying to know oh my so it um it's a um it's a toilet suit oh wait wait wait is it have a bedet yeah oh okay I'm gonna go ahead and just go out on a limb here and say this is TMI I think are fantastic I think the are the best they're the best thing I mean our European listeners I'm sure will totally agree I have a bedet in my house you do yes I have a bedet in my house I've had one for years and I absolutely love is it a toilet seat one or a yeah it's a toilet seat one oh my where' you get it welcome to the club the first time it's spr I almost jump through the ceiling well you got to be careful you don't set the jet too high well know it was high and hot and crazy and it's like the weirdest weirdest feeling wait yours has heated water yeah oh wow yours is very Posh oh you don't have a hated one no no mine's straight from the tap so on the winter on a cold Winter's day you know that sounds really unpleasant actually I found it to be quite refreshing okay it's amazing how uh you know it's very functional I mean it looks I think they're amazing and you know it's funny because whenever you tell people about Beday especially American people they're always like ew that's gross and and they make a face but what is more what is more hygienic taking a w of paper and rubbing it around your ARS or actually let me use another analogy you take your truck your new truck off-roading you come back it's covered in mud do you a grab a bunch of paper towels and wipe the mud off or B shoot it with a hose hose it down right you got to hose it down yep there you go this is a Perfect Analogy that sounds like you practiced that one well I have I have had to use that analogy before because whenever I tell people I have a bedet especially in this country they I always get looks it's frowned upon people don't understand they're they're very they're they're much better than the standard way of you know the status quo cleanup efforts yeah yeah well I talk my French friend about it William and uh does he call you l no okay well it was I thought maybe he did so sorry he he and he was like what he was the most horrified of all really the weird thing is yeah well because you know like he grew up um he grew up poorer in in France so Beday were something that rich people had I common throughout France you know because but I've only stayed in hotels yeah I would have thought they were common throughout France too apparently not only only rich people in middle class I guess the French are just very unhygienic we just lost about 100 100 listeners that's okay fellow Frenchmen Americans are the same way it's frowned upon but once you get used to it there's no going back no no no precisely I look forward to having a good uh sit down what's that I made some films of the kids too sitting on it and getting a squ you filmed your kids well that faces I mean nothing you know below the B oh boy so shock she got off and it started spraying water everywhere she she got off before she turned it off yeah oh my gosh so there like there's like a stream of water going like 2 feet in the air right yeah oh my gosh that's hilarious so you thought we were gon to make fun of you you had no idea I had no idea you were a fellow bedday uh B Enthusiast yeah I'm trying to think of a good word that we can that we can use I don't know anyone else who's got him my brother lived in Japan for a long time and he said he used to love the ones in Japan they very popular in Japan like they're everywhere there they're everywhere yeah everyone's got one and then in the department stores they have ones which which will blow dry too so it's a really nice expence just sit there with a blow dryer on wow that is very fancy yeah I don't know if I want a a jet stream of air around that area I don't know just remember just remember keep the keep the stream pressure low Leander oh low okay that's a pro that's a pro tip and Learn To Shimmy flow and shimmy and you're G to be shimmy I figured that one out already so what motivated this purchase I just have to know did you want one of these or was Tracy just trying to communicate something a week before Christmas she's she's like she's G you know she's she's asked me what I bought and and of course I bought all this you know these gadgets and all this text stuff she's berting me because she's like oh you're typical you know you just buy stuff that you want and you give it to other people and then Christmas morning you know oh thanks dear yeah I'd always wanted one of these how did you know it turns out that she'd been at her friend's house she's got one and um and she liked it so much at her friend's house that she she you know that she she she did what she accused me of which is I getting one for herself then getting me to Plum it in on Christmas morning it couldn't have worked any better and you had it connected to the hot water and everything no you just connected to the cold water but it's got a built-in heater so it has plugged in wow so yours really is fancy yeah I guess I mean it it heats up too so that's pretty nice the lid gets all nice and warm for you yeah wow well Buster there's no way you're going to be that but you might as well tell us what you got I got a book that was cool no yeah oh man I've always wanted to try one of those it can it can be used to clean your rectum as well I guess an emergencies that's true especially if it's one of leander's books got St here right in the bathroom they're like oh Le you must really love to read why do you have so many your books in the bathroom oh what the printer put it on some nice cheap Pap you should print on some really lovely like soft tissue paper right actually you g me an idea for my next book it's actually not a bad idea you could do like a kids book or something where the stories can be torn off and used to cleans yourself as you read it right yeah yeah so Buster anything else uh not really I mean I didn't it's tough to buy us stuff because we either buy what we want already or our our tastes are so esoteric that no one actually knows how to buy us what we want like I swear every year I end up getting a hard drive well who's going to buy me a hard drive no one even knows what a hard drive is let alone you know which one to get there's so many different kinds so I asked for something I knew I would like and that is an assortment of salted Meats I love I love beef jerky I love have you guys ever had Bavarian l yers no oh my gosh they're so good so lanagers are a German kind of dehydrated sausage and they're really salty and we have this Bavarian Market here Pike Place Market in Seattle which people are probably familiar with because it's been to movies and stuff and they make these really wonderful spicy Bavarian lanagers so they're salty they're spicy it's kind of like beef jerky in a sausage form it's like my two favorite things sausages and beef jerky combined into one so that's literally what everyone got me I just kept opening up salted meat product after salted meat product and I was thrilled to have so many things that I could actually eat and enjoy cuz you know normally I just get like a tube of you know men's Underpants that are very form-fitting and very revealing right I'm done with that I don't need any more pairs of those so this year I actually got some stuff that I'm actually have you've eaten most of it already well that's funny you should mention cuz I was almost going to get my brother a a subscription to some kind of meat Club where they sent month club yeah and they sent you that kind of stuff you know in a surprise you know in the mail that sounds like a fantastic gift yeah but you know I was always kind of a little bit like it's like you know I used to work in when you work in restaurants you always learn that you should never eat like dish of the day because dish well dish of the day is when the chef's got some stinky fish that he needs to get rid of shck so he makes it a quote unquote special right you know and um and they and they you know they pedal that and they shift it real quick before it goes off so that's what I thought these like you know things like that me of the month club is going to be like it's like okay you know that that pallet of um of uh lamb shanks back there you know that out pretty quick what's this green stuff on here oh just pull that off and put it in the Box let's ship it out right I don't know how things work in the UK Leander but I used to work at a lot of restaurants and we weren't serving rotten food as the specials oh this is in the States this is here yeah yeah yeah yeah look at this this crazy um this really badly run um sushi restaurant and that was what they used to do there all the time people have to like clench their butt cheeks and run out suddenly yeah well like you know we used to everyone got everyone it was there was a lot of Saki fly at this place so um is this the same place that you used to be a bartender at no I was um I was just a waiter there oh okay but I helped myself to plenty of stuff I bet you did plenty of fish he's like we have to of the stinky fish cuz none of the good stuff is left it's it's all gone suddenly all righty well let's go ahead and move on to some actual Apple stories this episode I thought this was really amazing and since we're talking about Christmas gifts uh I'm sure you guys probably saw that video of that developer who gave his parents that very special Christmas gift I have one more gift for you for both of you only me and your daddy see so this this developer from video shop his name is Joe Rael it have to be a nice present because this is special after this and for Christmas he decided he was going to pay off his parents home and they had no idea what so he sits there with his parents and they're sitting there with him and he just kind of indiscreetly hands them an envelope and like here's your here's your present his mom was opening it and when she opens it she can't speak and and she gets very emotional and she starts hugging him and then his dad's like you know looking at them like what's going on and he takes it and then they're all just sitting there crying leer it was beautiful wasn't it I'm looking at it now yeah up didn't you I can't you know I don't know if I can I can't watch this it's too was heart-wrenching yeah so um apparently Joe just just went and paid off his parents Mortgage in full and then got the you know the documents that you get whenever that happens and just gave them that for Christmas and I and I thought that was amazing um you know he's their son so obviously kids do nice things for their parents all the time but this is obviously really special how how often does someone's house get paid off unexpectedly and maybe his parents had a lot of a lot of years left on their mortgage and were planning on paying this thing off you know forever and and if they had just moved moved here from another country you know they they probably struggled I mean my my mom wasn't from this country and she moved here and it was a struggle for her to make it in this country and to have a gift like that given to you I thought was really so pretty nice yeah yeah bust you didn't see the video no I just watched him okay I don't know I haven't even heard of this app video shop yeah nether but apparently it's sell pretty well good yeah right he's he's just a recent graduate too from UC Davis University of California Davis 2006 so he's only been out of college like a few years what and he's got enough money to pay off his parents mortgage yeah yeah well good on him oh my gosh we're in the wrong business I got I gotta make an app and then we can just Coast yeah I wonder what it's like because i' never heard of this one and I mean I thought that you know that you know that that there was a genre of stories right you know like hitting the jackpot the app App Store jackpot yeah I mean that I haven't heard of those stories for a long time I haven't either but they're obviously still happening yeah and everyone's complaining about how hard it is to get you know smaller apps to be seen um to get any traction you know well apparently this guy was able to do it I my guess is a lot of apps you you hear about the the hit it out of the park apps right the ones that everyone knows but there's probably a lot of these smaller ones where this guy isn't courting the Press he's not sending stuff to people to try to get coverage he's just has a good app that people like and he's selling it and it's probably really easy to make $300,000 if you have a great app as opposed to you know the bigger app companies don't know you know the story these days was that you know less I mean because you know making a good app is only half the problem the problem really is getting attention for it it's it's a marketing problem it's getting people to know it's out there um and um there were a lot of people complaining that they you know they were really disappointed by the amount of Revenue they were getting it was only a fraction of what they they they expected well that's probably only going to you know be compounded by the fact that uh Buster you wrote the story on how the iPhone 6 is driving app store app sales to a whole new record a whole new level so apparently all the stuff or all the phones that were sold in the holiday season have caused you know apps to Skyrocket and well yeah app downloads app downloads right exactly apparently previously last year the cap was or the highest level was 7.8 Million downloads in October and this year it was like 42% more than that in November and they had reached a level that they had never seen before there's probably how many apps would you say there are in the app store if you just had to guess God I don't know man I'm GNA say like like 500,000 maybe God yeah at least I'm going to say B do you think there's a million apps in the App Store I think so yeah I mean you're right how would you get let's just say the number is 500,000 even if it's more how would you ever get your app noticed by any well there's so many crappy apps you know that's the biggest problem is I feel like apple needs to put a ban on really crappy apps like I don't I I can't tell you how many like pitches a day I get in my inbox for hey will you review this app and you know I look at most of them and they're all just so bad man yeah they are I mean I do think that I mean I know I hear what Leander is saying that yeah you know marketing is a big problem but I still think if you make a great app then I think it will you know shine eventually I a little bit harder I think if you make a really a really great app that meets a need so actually you're actually doing something that brings value to the marketplace and someone uses it and they say oh my gosh this actually helped me this is really great they'll tell their friends about it or they'll make a stink about it and other people will download it and your reviews will be positive and people will download the app more that's not to say that it's it's not not hard or it's not easy or it's easy to get attention when you first build an app it probably isn't at all but there's all sorts of crazy weird apps on the on the App Store that get reviews I mean people are buying fart apps right yeah I mean some of like the worst apps too it seems like are on the top of the chart sometimes can you think of one I'm going to look it up right now about every top that you know there was uh Marco and man was complaining about this on Twitter though this last week about you know the fact that the the um the Apple's in you know the built-in Discovery tools that Apple has that you know built uh uses top 10 top 10 paid top 10 free top 10 you know grossing they're all completely they skew towards all of these um uh you know well-known apps yeah apps that don't you know from Big Publishers that don't you know need that kind of um from Big Publishers you know who don't necessarily need or have the resources to you know to do their own kind of marketing to try to get attention for it and that you know he's complaining like you know his podcast up and that's done extremely well but I think despite the fact that you know he didn't really get much help or any help from Apple and of course you know everyone's had the same problems we had the same problem with our new stand magazine which I thought was really pretty good but of course you know it was in Apple's new it was buried in news stand and then it goes onto the new stand page in iTunes which is like buried about eight levels down and it was in the new and no noteworthy for a little while MH um and uh and then it kind of disappears you know and then unless you know it's unless you know to go looking for it you don't know it's there and it never once you know goes on the front of um iTunes or in the other places where people visit to go look for stuff yeah so and same we have the same with this with the codcast right I mean even though it's a popular podcast it it doesn't really pop up into iTunes ever No No in fact you're absolutely right I mean we have one of I don't want to Pat ourselves on the back here but we have one of iTunes most popular podcasts and you really don't see it show up anywhere on iTunes unless you're searching in like the top Tech technology podcast in which case you might find it there but as far as Discovery goes you're right I kind of feel like iTunes they focus on things that already have a big audience they bring more attention to things that are already popular as opposed to here's something that you may not know about you should try it out so it's not very good for Discovery right well you know it it it's h problem because you know like they're pushing seral right which is a great podcast and of course um it it's you know it's the kind of thing that I think an editor over there would think oh yeah you know a lot of people are going to might like this um and so quite rightly they put on the front page but you know like surfacing other stuff that's a little quirky a little you know a little you know less mainstream uh you know to fulfill that Discovery function even though it's great for like that vast majority of people who are putting content up there it doesn't necessarily serve the you know the the mainstream audience MH I think it's a tough problem I think so too and I know that apple is trying to figure out how to make Discovery easier and I iTunes for music and for podcast and everything but they have so much content and when you're when you're navigating on a mobile device especially they try to really simplify the experience you're not you know bombarded with results and sometimes I'm surprised that you receive so few results when you're searching for something it just doesn't show you very much well the search is completely broken I mean it doesn't work at all you can actually be searching for I've tried it myself I mean searching for cultcast and and it just doesn't even come up yeah really nope that they might be blocking us and I couldn't find um the our magazine either that doesn't come up either huh well I'm gonna send Tim Cook an email about that um because he's a big fan of the show you guys know he loves cultcast and he's like your impression you probably don't even have to bother we just can you please just yeah I'm not even to send him an email Tim please just do something about it you got it y'all what Buster what were you going to say well well I think yeah what you're talking about with Discovery and everything it's something that Apple definitely needs to address in 2015 did either of you guys see uh Andy Bao's idea to kind of turn like the App Store into more of like a social network no but that would be fantastic I think it's a great idea because then you basically you follow your friends and you see like what apps they're downloading what apps they play with the most that way you can like tap into like those Indie apps like you're saying you know see what your friends are using and just have better ways to promote apps that way uh developers could promote their apps as well I don't know I think app the app store is just it's really still crappy even though they've done tons of improvements over the year they've never really fixed the Discover problem yeah I like that idea so you know you download an app and it shows up like in Spotify like I can always see the weird music that leander's listening to and all the other people that I follow so I can discover new music and stuff on there I mean it can work maybe similarly to that but don't they really have a feature that's kind of like that you know like popular from your friends they have like the no they don't not for the App Store they have like trending searches that's the only like kind of like local type of like trending app search that they have right now yeah they need to do something to fix it and I I I do like the idea of crowdsourcing it or making it more like a social network like like Reddit is you know for the internet yeah to feed like those gems to the top you know exactly right the power of crowdsourcing it's just like Wikipedia just like right it people go in there and somehow they they percolate and they bubble up things that are actually good and Rise it to the top because I agree serial is great and you know the Nerdist podcast is great but these things are already so popular like why it's like giving a Grammy to Rihanna which actually I'm not going to rant about that but you she's already popular enough right sometimes I feel like the Grammys give Awards to people who are very popular just because they want to because you're popular want to keep you popular well not because they want to keep them popular P necessarily but because they want to keep themselves relevant and so the Grammys are always giving attention to things that are already you know mainstream and sometimes iTunes feels like they do the same thing like they just make things that are already popular like more popular so that they can sell more stuff or whatever yeah kind of like apple I think Apple kind of has their favorite developers and stuff like that you know that they boost up oh definitely I'm sure and they probably have relationships with some of these people I think that's probably a big part of it mhm like some developers like panic when Panic releases something they're going to get covered but you know I guess we do the same thing at cult toac like there's there's certain developers certain people that make products that we just know about and they have a reputation for creating high high quality stuff so they get more attention than you know Indie developers who send you an email Buster and they're like have you heard about my new fart app different yeah actually 20 sounds this time 25 farts and we we've built them in MIDI and they all sound lifelike and there's an illustration of the butt cheeks vibrating it's it's textures are beautiful you can choose the kind of butt cheeks male female ethnicity it's unlike any fart app you've ever seen actually now that we're pitching this I kind of think this might be an app that we need to build G's apps I thought he yeah we need to build a more realistic fart app with more realistic sounds more realistic buttocks it's going to be in iTunes in the next in the next year um well tell you what do you guys want to just move on to this Disney story that we uh that we got on Forbes about Bob Iger Lander yeah so this was cool if you guys didn't get a chance to read the story on Forbes we'll make sure we put it in the show notes so Bob Iger CEO of Disney and Forbes did a piece on Iger and in the piece they talked about the relationship between Bob Iger and Steve Jobs and I actually found the story to fascinating I know Leander you may have been less impressed but I thought it was really amazing how they were friends and really influenc each other and more than anything else how Steve Jobs kind of indirectly affected the new Disney and helped to build out the new Disney in that he built this Pixar company Disney was really struggling at the time to create good animated content and then Pixar came into the story through the relationship between Steve Jobs and Bob and they released Toy Story which of course was immensely popular and now you know computer animated films are a huge part of Disney and Disney through that relationship has also become somewhat of a technology company surprisingly and that was all on account of the relationship or it seemed like heavily um influenced from the relationship between Bob Iger and Steve Jobs so in a way Steve Jobs helped bring this new Disney into being and and are helping them have I think Disney's having a Renaissance right now right they're they're doing a lot of amazing things with technology at their theme parks they just bought Marvel they just bought movies Star Wars yeah they bought uh um ilm ilm and uh Lucas film is what I'm trying to trying to think of and that included industrial Light and magic and all the Star Wars stuff I mean they are a juggernaut now I I think they're Unstoppable so I found 40 40 billion in in Revenue in 14 or something I mean they're just as huge as Apple in many ways you know and very similar in a lot of ways as far as well doesn't Apple make that every quarter well whats what they made that today close they wait let me pause for a moment okay they just made that Leander um I'm droning on and on what did you think of the piece well it was it was interesting yeah for sure um uh it's um I thought the most interest I didn't really get into the most interesting thing which is that Boba got his start as a TV weatherman yeah that was interesting like he started like all the way from the bottom right I'm like how did the weatherman get to be the CEO of uh of Disney it kind of skipped from weatherman to he was ceoo so Chief Operating Officer when um what's his face was there who was the evil guy around e right yeah um and then it kind of glassed over you know he lobbied hard for the job and then he got made CEO and it was like they you know they they wrapped it up in a sentence I was like huh that that was kind of like the most interesting part I wonder how he managed to do that you know yeah that's a story in and of itself yeah you know it was a lot there was a lot of there was you know there I didn't know all that stuff about the technology and about all the different divisions and you know like of course it's a story really like this sort of corporate Synergy and that was what I think this the part about jobs discussed the most was you know that he found um a very willing partner in in eisa was a lot more of a I think Eisen was more like jobs he was he was more Hardball yeah and you know Eisen I think has an unfair reput being you know CU he he made a lot of enemies and he was kind of abrasive and he wasn't that very he wasn't very charismatic but you know he was he really um I think Disney was in a lot more trouble when he took over you know which is like in the sort of 70s and 80s um and he set up a lot of the deals like he bought he was the one who bought ABC and ESPN and all these other cable networks that now account for more than half their revenues and that was what ia opened up to jobs like in the early days the iTunes Store they became such a good friends that you know over a couple of days they managed to do a Content deal that turned the iTunes Store from being music only into being a you know uh music and video and and you know then later on software so it become this all-in-one multimedia store but you know they were saying in that piece that the the the sort of the shoe dropped when when jobs and and AA were able to make a sort of Buddy Buddy deal I was surprised when I remember when iTunes started carrying video content and Steve Jobs announced that Disney was going to be providing it I was very surprised because dis Disney has always been very proprietary with their content right I mean Disney Vault and they only release content at certain times and then they would lock it away forever and you wouldn't be able to buy it and all of a sudden all this content available on iTunes I thought that was incredible true yeah very true what I didn't know is that Iger actually pursued Steve Jobs and and in the piece it talks about how when Iger got hired as CEO he called his family I think he called somebody else and then he called oh he called his old boss and then he called Steve Jobs whom he didn't even know that well and very intentionally went after Steve Jobs and courted Steve Jobs and said hey look I know you you were kind of didn't have the best relationship with with Eisner but I want to heal that relationship and work together yeah and I mean that one telephone call led to all these you know different interactions and with Steve Jobs owning being the biggest uh single Disney stock holder when uh Pixar sold to Disney right I mean what would Disney be without Pixar now can you even imagine I can't yeah right yeah yeah and it didn't spell it out in that piece but you know like he just said I mean the fact that he founded him up of course was that was obviously to do with Pixar rather than Apple but then they made the piece seem like it was you know about the sort of the Apple technology rubbing off and all the technology mindset that intersection of like you know the technology and the liberal arts that mindset was rubbing off on him but yeah Pixar had had had all you know everything to do with that relationship in the early days and I one of my favorite Parts in the in the piece was when um they were talking about uh Tim Cook to talking about uh Iger and he said that Iger wasn't afraid to lose sight of the shore he was willing to I'm paraphrasing now kind of follow technology even away from Disney tradition and do things that maybe Disney wouldn't normally do and that's really I think what has helped Disney become so successful these days is the fact that they're so willing to kind of like apple just totally shoot the baby and take something that's making them a lot of money and do something drastic that they've never done before you don't agree well he he says that but go on Buster they never shoot the ba I mean if you go to Disneyland they've never shot any of their babies that would be a popular all all I'm trying to say is shoot the baby ride would be very popular at Disney I mean they still like Mr Toad's Wild Ride is still you know an attraction at Disneyland so they never really let everything go you know well maybe not everything yeah I get what you're saying but the the last the last few paragraphs of the story was talking about unbundling right um you know had the relationships with with ESPN and ABC with the cable networks and of course there's a lot of talk um about um HBO they're going to start selling you know their content directly to customers right instead of going through the cable companies and of course you know that if they could everyone would love to unravel the cable company strangle hold um over the you know over the media distribution and people want to get un unbundled content so that so you know he says oh yeah he's never you know afraid to lose like the sh and he's very adventurous but then the last part of the story goes on to talk about that and how you know they're trying to unbundle Disney content ESPN especially live sports I mean you know Apple TV that's one of the biggest reasons Apple TV will never or at the moment can't become a standalone set top boxers because you know you can't get live sports on it no one is going to make a choice of an Apple Apple TV over a cable box because it's so limited so you know like and then he and then he goes on to say well you know like he knows that this is what people want but he dare not unravel that hugely hugely uh important business relationship because you know there's no way they can replace those those um revenues those revenues no not by selling directly to Consumers not now anyway did you say that ESPN and the other broadcast broadcast networks that Disney owns are half their revenue now yeah I think it was yeah there was a graph I saw a couple of days ago where they broke it out and it was like huge that's by far by by far the biggest part of the revenue that's incredible I wonder how much the parks actually make them I doubt I I doubt it's a big chunk I a big chunk too and you got the Marvel Universe too plus Star Wars I mean they have such huge franchises coming you know out of the gate I don't know how anyone's going to compete with Disney I mean oh it's ridiculous from from an entertainment perspective they have the parks which kind of give you that interactive experience when you go and make you feel like you're a kid again and then they have Marvel they have Star Wars I mean they have some of the biggest franchises in the world and then they have Disney right and pix Pixar too did you guys see Frozen I've seen it like a billion times I got surprise surprise how is it Buster H you know what it's I hate to say it but it's it's good yeah I mean yeah the stupid song is in my head all year but did you see Tangled Buster I saw Tangled as well yes did you like that uh Frozen is better than Tangled that's for sure elsea is just a way cooler princess well naturally naturally I I'm all about the cooler princess I like Tangled a lot too that was one of the first Disney movies I've seen in a long time that really legitimately impressed me and made me think wow Disney has actually really got something here again because I haven't seen anything that really drew me in in quite a long time I think I mean Frozen it's I think the most the highest grossing animated film of all time now so it's everywhere all the kids that I know have Frozen this Frozen that I mean the merchandising on that is insane and I mean it came out over a year ago and it's still the most yeah it's still the most popular kids movie you know it's it's crazy I yeah I was around a bunch of kids over Christmas and it was like Frozen dresses Frozen tops frozen pants Frozen shoes it's like in Space Balls have you you guys seen Space Balls not for a long time merchandising oh you need to you need to watch that it's it's it's uh it's frozen the toilet paper Frozen the lunch pail that's what I always hated about Disney was that you know was the was the way that they could you know merchandise everything they ever did oh you got the toys yeah oh yeah and the cultural influence you know like there was a long time when I felt Disney was truly evil oh yeah just because they make money selling kids well it's you know it's it's it's safe corporate culture and it's you know it's the it's the very epitome of it isn't it I like a lot a lot of the art I like is you know anti-corporate and um you know I know that they do do a good job and some Disney stuff is absolutely fantastic um but you know like the whole when you get into the whole Disney package the merchandising the you know the putting it on sugary cereals you know all that kind of stuff in a way it's it's it's a little bit you know it can be a little bit it skirts with evil so you're saying you don't like Mickey Mouse well I don't know you know um I don't like what you're saying one bit early Mickey you know Mickey is not the worst I guess um but you know you know what I'm saying it's like that I think they've become better than they used to be I get what you're saying though they're also a massive machine yeah yeah a massive machine that's selling stuff to your kids you visit Disneyland or Disney World and I just can't help but like loathing them in in some ways because yeah you see like people coming out there with spending like $500 on Disney shirts and then the food and all kinds of crazy stuff especially now that they are so this we were headed this way we there incorporating Apple pay so Disneyland I think Disneyland and Disney World didn't they say by I think it was the end of this year I thought it was by Christmas Eve they were going to have it in the Parks yeah I think the 24th I think that's what I heard as well so now can you imagine they're going to it's going to be as easy as just tapping your thumb and paying for stuff you're already high on that feeling of being in Disneyland do you guys get that feeling do you know what I'm talking about of being in Disneyland is it just oh yeah oh yeah Leander probably doesn't get it no cuz he didn't grow up in this country when I die and go to hell it's going to be Disneyland you're going to be on the It's a Small World ride well just waiting in line in the baking some with a bunch of screaming children and then someone scks up on your leg or something it's like and they spill your coffee and into your sandals um Coke I'm into sandals your feet are all sticky it's like I hate that place then of course I would always lose Olan so he would be disappeared for like three or four hours and i''d be like out of my mind with worry trying to find a child and all the others are screaming yeah now it's awful I hate that place in fact I refuse to go anymore kind of Grinchy I know not very you know family oriented but I bet you if you went with your adult children it might be more fun I don't know there you know like together not a lot of adult you know it doesn't to adult Pleasures not the kind of adult Pleasures likes yeah he's more into those like those emails we got for uh CES where it's like hey want Escape CES for a day we have just the thing was it like the Bunny Ranch or something yeah that was I couldn't believe that existed that was yeah Leander did you know that you reply all when you rsvpd no I F everyone just just for Giggles all right guys I think we should go ahead and wrap it up there all right feels odd doesn't it we've only gone 700 minutes I feel like we should continue but that's all the cult cast we have for you guys this week but make sure you stay tuned for C second hour that's going to be airing in just a moment all you have to do is just do nothing just sit there it's coming up my conversation with David Hobby and all the great travel photography tips so on and so forth and if you're going to be in Vegas make sure you follow culac on Twitter and on Instagram I'm sure you guys will be posting all sorts of products and stuff yeah Buster oh yeah carpet of CES series is that coming back H I think CES candies is coming back oh I think my favorite one was the sayings like CES sign like motos oh yeah those are great just the the the ridiculous corporate we bring life to tomorrow yeah all right well that's all the ccat we have for you guys this week if you want to follow Buster on Twitter he is bst3 I'm Aon Landers lcy and of course cult ofmc this has been the codcast the best 30 minute Apple conversation you're going to hear all week long new episodes of the codcast come out every Thursday night I want to thank everyone for listening and stay tuned for cultcast second hour in just a moment and we'll see you guys next time we said Happy New Year right hey happy New Year people woo Happy New Year the only thing I would mention is I can kind of hear your microphone sliding around I think your shirt or something okay okay so there's anything that you can do to kind of keep that yeah I'm I'm I'm stripping down nude right now okay perfect keep it I find that works very well got it got it cool okay let's just jump right into it hey everyone welcome to cultcast second hour thanks for sticking around we have a very very fun show planned I'm aan Elijah you guys know me joined by David hobby who is a I'm I'm just going to use some some descriptors for you that I think are accurate David renowned photographer oh jeez renowned teacher I'm stopping you at renowned photographer I'm I'm like a I'm like a utility infielder photographer but Renown is a strong word but you are welln you are very welln you're also a linda.com instructor and by the way Linda is supporting this uh this discussion so thank you to Linda for that and I was surprised that you were you were one of their instructors because I have actually been following I guess your teachings it sounds like you're my Guru following your i prer s okay I will refer to you as Sensei for the rest of the segment I have been following strobis so you you started a website called strobist.com and your and your slogan is learn how to light and at the time when I was really trying to figure out how to do lighting and you know how to improve my photography I kind of stumbled across your website and I learned a great deal from all the different tutorials and stuff that you had on there I learned how to light better and I learned how to take better photographs I learned how to use my SLR better I mean just my photography imp improved dramatically through through your websites and I'm not alone I you kind of have a a large community of people who have been kind of bolstered and have improve their own work through through the strobis community are you still doing strobis by the way it's still ongoing right it it is but as of the beginning of 2014 um I I kind of went from feeling like I owned it to where it owned me so I I recast it as as rather than a like a two times a week blog because God knows we don't have enough photo blogs right now um I I recast it as an information archive and I really only update it like once a month or so but it's updated with more significant things when it goes up so yeah I kind of like quality over quantity as well and I feel like there's a lot of websites out there especially in regards to photography that are just kind of putting out a lot of content but not necessarily anything that's very very useful which is why I think strobist was so popular because you were putting out these tutorials these really high quality tutorials and they were totally free you could go through them I would imagine they took a lot of time to you know to actually put together and when you went through them you actually got to a point where you could see there was a market Improvement in your in your own ability which is probably why you got so popular you said you started the was strob started in 2006 you said it was and and and it's sort of like a payback for the people who helped me when I was younger and and not a lot of people were doing this in 2006 and I just like from day one I wrote it to myself like I was uh like 41 42 at the time I wrote it to myself as a 20-year-old that's like I wanted this the site that I would have wanted to read as a 20-year-old yeah and as a man who was in his 20s at that time um I got a lot of use out of it I mean it really kind of took me to the next level and as I said you built up a huge community of people and and now your your primary focus is actually photography right you're traveling everywhere and it's great because all these guys that you used to reference on strobis like uh Zach Aras uh Joe MCN these really well-known photographers now you're kind of shooting with these guys and and doing assignments with them right yeah I mean we we've actually become a pretty tight circle of friends there were a group of us photo plus every year and um actually interesting story I was sitting in my old house before we moved and and I'm working at the Sun and doing the blog and not having any time with my family and the phone rings and and I pick it up and hey hi my name is uh Joe MCN and you know inside my brain all stop right there he'd been a long time Idol of mine he go I'm a photographer in in like in New York City and I'm thinking like yeah you think and and and I read your site I'm like oh never be able to write anything again ever but no he's he's a good guy as it turns out he's really nice uh back up a moment so when when for people that don't know who Joe mcnali is he's a very well-known commercial photographer really beautiful photographs and you used to always reference his work I remember when you started appearing with him in different capacities on shoots and stuff and I was like this guy this guy has made it he's been talking about these he's been talking about Joe MCN specifically for such a long time at least you know on on strobist and all of a sudden you're kind of like his colleague that must have been incredible for you you know it's it's really funny we became very good friends because we are complimentary in a lot of ways like um he had been particularly successful building a standalone career just like um like a a project driven self-generating photographer for 20 or 30 years after he started in newspaper and that was really where I was at that point I was leaving a newspaper and had to figure out what it was that I wanted to do with my life photographically and he was a fantastic Mentor for that and and I think I was able to help him in some ways as far as uh digital business ecosystems and such like building around a publication so we would just like get in these long discussions and throw stuff back and forth and and he's been an amazing influence on me and and to the extent that I've ever been able to help him it's just like I I really don't feel like I could ever do enough to to to pay him back it'd be like one of my longtime Heroes is Bono it'd be like if he called me and asked me to sing backup right right you should be you should be writing about him every week it might just happen you might get a phone call yeah I'm a I think I'm going to give that strategy some serious consideration I would be a backup singer for you too no problem let's talk about photography so I I I wanted to have you on and Linda was gracious enough to uh connect us and I wanted to talk about photography you do a linda.com course all about travel photography and I think one of the things that you and I kind of have in common is besides photography that is I I love photography I've grown up you know taking pictures and all sorts of different kinds of cameras but DSLR specifically but I also love the travel and travel photography is really challenging you you're out of your element and it's always a question of well what gear do I bring you know especially if you're going on a long journey the trips I usually go on are you know 6 weeks to 8 weeks right and you have to be really cognizant of how how many pounds of gear you're going to be carrying around with you when you're walking around Paris for eight hours you don't want to have a three PB camera around your neck let's start with gear when you're walking around when you're traveling what do you normally take with you you know and that's funny that was the absolute Genesis of the idea for uh for the traveling photographer was um it was a trip to Cuba that I took with uh a dozen or so people in 2013 and these weren't just a dozen typical people these were a dozen of the smartest people that I know they were like they're from square and Google and and like all it was it was sort of like a a quiet email kind of hey you know we're getting a band together kind of a thing you know we're going to Cuba it was legit it was through um Santa work which does a totally aboveboard state approved um photographer trip to cubaan it's fantastic I highly recommend it but um but these guys it's like it's like they showed up at the airport and I felt like I was like in the middle of an infantry squad or something I mean I can I can visualize it right now well and and they're good photographers but more important is these people are really smart and I looked at that I'm thinking you are are are you freaking kidding me I mean this is like this is a tropical country it's hot you're carrying more around your neck literally than most families will earn in several years as far as in a in a in a developing communist country um I I just couldn't I I couldn't rationalize that and I went just with a um a Fuji x100s I just got in the camera fallen in love with it and that was a it was a defining moment for me for how little I choose to travel with and for the people that were with me by the end of the week I I think a lot of them were really coming around to the idea of not carrying a full weight pack you know out for that 8 hour walk in the city so I should mention the Fuji x100s is a mirrorless camera with a fixed lens so you don't have to worry about carrying your 2B DSLR body around and your you know your managerie of lenses and then your carrying cases for those lenses but you know you also lose some flexibility you don't have you're not you're unable to zoom because you don't have a zoom lens with you you well if you if you bring your feet you know that's cool you can zoom with your feet you're the most manual kind of Zoomer you just walking closer well no so like it's easy to look at this in terms of restriction I see I see that particular camera which has since been replaced by the x100t although I'm still using an S because I I I like there's like a there's an emotional attachment to that camera it was the first camera I really digital camera that I ever fell in love with wow um so it works in super low light you know it doesn't have a mirror in it so it's a mirrorless camera so there's no shutter vibration like I can shoot handheld at a quarter second very easily and it's really clean at iso800 it's an F2 lens that sharp wide open so that means I I literally can see if I can see into an environment I can shoot in it and I can do it without attracting attention without looking like a mark for uh like I can be in a really rough area and the camera like taped up right looks like something that was 30 years old and something you wouldn't even want to steal you're right it does look like an old film camera which I love about it I think a lot of people probably love the aesthetic of that camera Fuji did an incredible job designing it they did they they came out with the X100 which looked beautiful but wasn't quite there it was like um like like uh hate is not the opposite of Love indifference is the opposite of love and and I hated that camera because of what I what because of what it could be but it wasn't like I'm indifferent to Sony's like the like whatever the cameras that feel like you're like holding a a misshapen box of playing cards or something I mean this camera was so ergonomic but it wasn't great focus and had a couple other little quirks so I hated it because it it was like being in absolute love with this woman except for there were like two or three things she did that just made you want to like she sounded like Bridge exactly that laugh that laugh right right right so when the x100s came out they went from being like 60% of where it could be to like 95% of where it could be and at that point I was like I I'm ready to marry this camera let's go would you say the the x100s change the game because before that camera I feel like there was really no great mirrorless option you if you wanted to take good photos when you traveled when you out on the street you had to take your your DSLR with you and it seems like a lot of people feel that the Fuji offering is a good substitute and and light enough and takes good enough pictures that you could kind of just leave your DSLR at home and just travel with that yeah you know I I think it happened in a couple of steps because I think the X100 changed the game in terms of portability and and Fuji's color has always been awesome because my people don't realize they've been doing film for 80 years and they they also do a lot of the scanning of like they were they were in the really heavily into the transition between film to digital like they've scanned millions of krumbs because they make the machines that do that for outsourcing so when they build color algorithms it's just like it's insane right out of the box but so that happened pretty quickly in the X100 but there were but it was like a two-step process it needed to get the rough edges sanded down and it's like you see them at at conventions and stuff just asking photographers how can we make this camera better you know Nikon's like there you go 36 megapixels fi's like what can we do to make our cameras better and and I I've always respected that oh man I I love Nikon but when they moved to the uh the higher megapixel model I bailed out I just I was like I don't need all these megapixels this actually makes photographer more laborious for me so I actually I'm on the Canon bandwagon right now just trying it out but um to each who asked for 36 megapixels 2 years ago like I don't know I was really surprised by that move cuz I was using a d100s I had an older camera that's a big jump yeah yeah I was I was looking to make a big big jump and and I just I was like I I don't have anywhere to go this is too much of a jump for me right to to go this direction so you carry your your uh Fuji x100s in your bag what what else do you have with you so it depends on where I'm going if if uh like I have a pretty good idea of what I'm going to shoot and it's mostly just shooting on the street the x100s is fine for me I'm I'm good to go um so I'll carry that and and a MacBook Pro a 13-inch Macbook Pro not the not the air I like I like having the optical with me um in case I need it and the backup for both of those two items is pretty sparse the backup's going to be my iPhone um because it can back up my you know it can be my net contact in case something happens to my laptop or it's stolen or uh in a pinch it can especially now with the iPhone 6 out it's a decent backup camera and it's 32 mm with you know uh in terms of a um an equivalent view for a 35 camera which is really close to the the Fuji which is a 35 millimeter equivalent view um so you back up your photos to your iPhone how many gigabytes is your iPhone oh no no I mean in terms of having a backup camera oh gotcha you're not backing your data up to it exactly like so my first thought when I'm traveling is taking as little as possible unless I know I'm going to be shooting from a building top and I need some long L length or something I will carry a fui interchangeable lens cameras sometimes um but I think of carrying as little as possible but not having a single point of failure anywhere so you you actually consider the iPhone 6 camera to be a worthy backup camera it's it's not ideal but uh you know my wife and I we did our annual Christmas book this year and there were a lot of pictures in the iPhone in it and they look fine um it it is that oh crap my camera just went down or my camera got stolen at least I can still take pictures camera right I have to say the iPhone 6 Plus camera is the best mobile camera I've ever used they're ridiculous I think it's incredible I mean the the the the quality the dynamic range that I see in those images is so incredible that it kind of makes me wonder if I cuz I've been considering we actually just talks about about the Fuji x100t on our on a recent show and I was kind of thinking to myself do I even need to buy one of these is it that much better than the iPhone 6 Plus cuz the 6 Plus is amazing in my opinion do you think there's a there's a there's a market Improvement in quality from an image perspective from a mirrorless camera like the x100t and the iPhone 6 plus uh I'm going to say yes for for a few reasons number one low light is going to be a big difference number two and especially with respect to Fuji the color palette and the control over the color palette is fantastic um it's there's just there's a quality jump and for me I really like shooting when the light is mixing like like shooting through mix and Twilight and Dusk and just when the light gets the absolute most gorgeous that's when the iPhone starts falling apart when the wait so when you you feel like when the when the light gets good the iPhone starts failing is that because it's just it's just too dim outside totally totally yeah it it's um like my my favorite picture that I've shot travel picture in the last couple years was shot in Havana actually and and the literally the light was dropping it was gorgeous and and everything was getting pushed like I was wide open I was shooting in a quarter of a second um my ISO was just going up and up and up as that light went away quantitatively but qualitatively it was just freaking gorgeous and and the last thing I want is a camera that limits me when the light is at its beautiful it would be like the most frustrating thing that's a very good point well let me ask you this do you feel like there's a big difference in quality between a mirrorless camera like the x100t and you know a Canon 5D Mark III so I I think in a lot of ways it's not an apples to Apple's comparison um for instance like the 5D Mark II pixels are going to be bigger um because they're spread over a larger uh chip and you're going to get the ability to throw the background more um at a given focal length than you would with an apsc sized mirrorless chip when you say throw the background more you mean blur it out like out of focus right sorry uh uh and um but on the other hand Fuji's color kills Canon's color and kills Nikon's color it's not hard to believe that is hard to believe it's really not if you think about the the the color and digital DNA that the that the different companies have um like uh like Fuji black and white right out of the camera is just like it's ridiculous and the ability to set up individual palletes and then shift the you know shift the color and shift the contrast internally throughout the range and all the stuff that they do like I don't even shoot raw with Fuji anymore I tried it and and I literally could not create better files than the camera was cranking out in camera so I think uh I shoot JPEG but I think of myself as shooting a raw and processing it literally when I'm pushing the button because these things capture I think 12 and a half stops of range with every image MH wow I so you're not even shooting Raw anymore CU I always shoot raw I mean it's kind of the photographers Mantra right shoot raw shoot raw and on my Canon 5D Mark III I I don't think I've ever used the jpeg function because you want to be able to go into Lightroom afterwards and finesse it and make things better and so you're saying that it it gets it right so often that there's just no need to do that well I know I mean I'm definitely giving up something by by not shooting raw occasionally certainly burst and card space like I can go in with a 16 gig card and I've got a bottomless pit um um it it's just it's it's a workflow thing for me and at the sun where I used to where I used to shoot the Baltimore Sun where I was a staffer um we shot jpegs we learned to shoot jpegs and get them good in camera uh because we wanted to see our kids literally and at the end of each day we would have to Archive everything we shot with a CD burner like every frame and the guys that were shooting raw that was like uh like a 45 minute process and the guys who were shooting jpeg it was like you know a five minute process we're like that's pretty easy that's an easy choice so you kind of felt like you were getting maybe 80 to 90% of of the image quality or or you know the kinds of images you want you would want to see V in jpeg as opposed to having to spend all that time in in raw you know kind of finessing your images to make them just marginally better is that kind of your thought yeah it's it's more um like like I want to be a photographer when I'm being a photographer I don't want to just like like there are some of these guys that are just like I only shoot raw I'm like well that's great you know I I'll push the button and then I'll worry about everything later I I really like the feedback that I'm getting um you know uh moment to moment in the uh in the in the the digital back and it's just it's a I think it's a more uh it's a it's it's a more legit Choice with the Fuji than it was with the Nikon with the Nikon I felt like I need to go in there and make the color better um I really feel like they it it just does a great job in camera and and a lot of the people that that I talk with they feel that way too it's like you can go to Raw but it's the same you can take a phase one on vacation if you want absolute maximum quality but is that the best workflow Choice all the time probably not I guess that's kind of the overarching consideration to this entire conversation right is you could take a DSLR with three different lenses and get some that's okay I really like your ringtone it's very festive um you could take all that Gear with you you could take a tripod and all this all this crap with you but you know then when you're on your vacation I've I've done that and you're you're cting around all this gear and it kind of just makes your vacation suck because you're you're constantly tired your neck hurts you have all the all this gear that you're carrying around with you it makes you a target for for theft and you kind of want to enjoy yourself when you're on your vacation that that is that is exactly and and for the traveling photographer thing did a 4-Hour section on fundamentals and and so much of it comes down to that it it's uh and I'll even go further with that if you are not paid to be taking travel photos like if if I'm not an assignment for the Sun or whatever um I shouldn't be lugging all that stuff around it's like if I've got two cameras and zooms and a waistback with two other lenses and a flash you know and a light standand and a tripod I'm not on vacation anymore I'm I'm like I'm infantry and and it's and it goes Beyond just gear too uh it's not just that I don't I want I don't want to be taking a lot of gear it's also that when I'm traveling especially with my family I want to spend most of that time just traveling and enjoying the experience and being in the moment and having fantastic uh family time and occasionally I want to step outside of that at mix light and do something really cool that maybe I planned or just wonder or what so it's the experience first and it's the memories first if someone is not paying you to take travel pictures you're an idiot if you're just like man I gotta I just got to get a good picture I'm I'm in traler square I've got every lens I own you know and it's like it's it it's it's a it's a losing game it just it doesn't make sense if you look at a big picture so you're on the streets in Rome you're somewhere exotic in Cuba how are you thinking about taking pictures and how are do you have any like Photo tips that you could share with people to really take great travel pictures when they're just kind of walking around yeah a couple actually um number one uh would be to always have your camera with you and that comes down to how light you're traveling um I T I tend to carry like a day pack a backpack and I've got a carabiner on the strap up around my shoulder and I'll just clip the camera into the Carabiner the small the Fuji x100s and I'll forget it's there it's just like there's no weight but it's distributed evenly over my shoulders so I think the last day I was in London I walked 22 and 1 12 miles which is like 53,000 steps on Fitbit and I have my camera with me and I just wouldn't have done that with a D3 and a 24 to 70 no you're right when I was traveling there were some days where I just left my camera in my bag you know at the hostel because I just couldn't bear to carry it anymore no Moss right right um so the other thing that I would say is is to um is to just you vacuum up a lot of pictures just I want to remember this or this gave me an idea or wow that's a cool business with that work in my town I just do things to to jog my memory later but there are some things that you see that have potential you should be willing to stop and put put 5 minutes or 10 minutes or 20 minutes into waiting for something to converge and make it a better picture MH um and then finally I would say that like you should just like be up front with your family and say look mix light kind of belongs to me as a photographer I want to create as much time and space all the rest of the day as I possibly can to hang out with you guys and everything but like uh but for the time from maybe 15 minutes before Sunset to 30 minutes after Sunset I'd really like to be here this evening if you guys want to be here that'd be fantastic and maybe come up with things that work both ways like uh like looking out at Paris um from sakur is a fantastic example of that it's it's a sunset party but it's also a great place to shoot pictures so so you can you can spend minimal time outside of family traveler mode and get maximum return and you can often cross those over because it's they're they are cool activities to do at dusk that also yield great pictures it's interesting I think a lot of times when we talk about photography tips people expect here's the gear you need to use here's how to take a good photograph you know um and here's how you frame the image for example but often what I hear from people is what you just said is is you need to take the time to kind of let your creative Juices Flow take a bunch of pictures but but make that time for that to happen because it's a process and you're going to spend a bunch of time you know that you designate just taking pictures and then you'll get some great ones and it has nothing to do as much with gear and Framing and all that kind of stuff right like if you ask me for travel photography tips you're never going to hear f stops and shutter speeds it's mostly about being in the moment and being hyper observant and just like being open to things hitting you in a city and I it's kind of weird and counterintuitive but I think one of the um the best ways to become a better walking around photographer is to spend more time walking around not being a photographer just observing as opposed to just walking around with the camera up to your eye going what about this what about that what about this what about that it's it's just it's it's just it it maybe it works for other people it absolutely doesn't work for me so since you mentioned street photography be observant and look for good opportunities to take photos what about if you want to take a photo of someone who you don't know um that always is very highly awkward for me how do you deal with that situation yeah you know it's there are a lot of ways to do it I I can shoot really stealthily with that camera um uh Zach has taught me a fantastic trick like I can literally walk up to you and be making picture after picture of you from 3 or 4 feet away and you have no idea um and it's it's a wonderful trick and you can only do it with a P with a camera where you can shoot off of the back viewfinder um like you can obviously with the interchangeable uh the mirrorless cameras but uh but you shoot above somebody like really obvious dumb tourist mode you go look at that view right above your head you're it's like taking pictures taking pictures taking pictures and and then you hold the camera down and you chimp right in front of your face like you're looking at it and you get like a furrowed brow so you pretend like you're looking at the image you just took but then you're actually taking a picture of them you can stick a camera right in someone's face and shoot again and again again um that's good well and you also need you need a mirrorless camera for that because it's got to be it's got to be very quiet um that's the less ethical way that I would say but yeah like if you don't want to disturb what someone's doing if that is what's making the picture I'll do that in a heartbeat okay um but if you are if you want to uh create a moment with someone and actually meet them God forbid you actually meet someone from a different country and and and such then I'm going to point you to Steve Simon who is um he wrote a book called the passionate photographer which is phenomenal um and it is really about that um developing interpersonal connections with people like quickly and and and over time and just that asking with your eyes if you don't speak the same same language and and just that gentle bedside manner that all really good photojournalists have like the great ones have it better than other people have it I agree with you um being able to just deal with people and build a rapport with people is very very very important when you're taking pictures of people that you don't know because you need to build that relationship quickly and there needs to be a certain level of trust there where they're they're okay with you taking their picture and a lot of times it's just like like raising your eyebrows like holding with you know is this okay and just for asking it kind of put you in the a stack a lot of times because they see a lot of tourists basically and and and just like walking up and grabbing a picture like really um there there are some people that that that really don't get how important the interpersonal part of it is I think um they just don't those are the guys that get punched well okay okay here's an extreme example uh you know but this guy didn't get punched because it wasn't possible for him to get punched but uh I'm lying in bed uh with my wife who was an editor at the paper where I originally worked when I got out of college and it's like 10:00 at night and and we had assigned this person to go shoot a uh a funeral like a a funeral in the African am like AFC like Nigerian community and in our area and um and the reporter was calling crying saying I can't work with this guy he's got a 20 million 20 MIM lens jammed into the coffin shooting past the the like the deceased's face to the people who work like clearly like mourning and stuff and like probably not the best way I mean that guy's not going to punch you but still that like it doesn't get much worse than that I don't think yeah when you're just you know hanging out around the coffin and just being totally uh yeah yeah how would you want to be approached yes right that's that's what it comes down to like it's an opportunity to meet someone best tip I have for that if you see if you want to meet people on the road you'll see them like holding up their tablet shooting a picture of everybody else in their group just just walk up them say he you know you want you do you want a picture of all four of you or like if there's five just five fingers but and they'll look at you and they'll think can I outrun this person if he steals my iPad and for me the answer is generally yes and they'll go oh yeah sure thanks and and it's a like you make a nice picture and it's a great way to start a conversation H that's that's a very good tip as well just start a conversation with somebody yep and then you know and then kind of build a rapport with them and then if if it seems right you know get get your picture with them be careful about handing your camera to The Strangers by the way yeah can can you outrun them that's the only thing that you need to it's like I'm not going to hand this to a guy who runs a like who runs the 440 right cuz I'm never going to like if he decides to go then that one's on me um do you have any favorite iPhone editing applications things that you use to edit your photographs when you take you know iPhone photographs um I got to say I think the new one build into iOS is actually really good and and it's like a raw converter basically uh I like uh oh gosh what it uh snap yeah yeah that's that's good I don't I I find myself not going outside of the IOS app nearly as much as I used to lately because the quality of what it does is so good and it just gives me it gives me control of all the knobs and a really intuitive um powerful way I think so you're editing your photos within the photos app yeah and and and uh now and and and not to bang the Fuji drum but they they are really good with their uh smartphone integration now like like I can just tap a couple buttons and have my full resolution pictures literally coming into the IOS app and um and and adjusting in there or they have this little paperback book size thing that that is basically a Polaroid camera with a Wi-Fi card in it um so I can I can sync between my camera and it's battery operated I can pull it out my backpack and literally make a hard print for somebody like I can tone it on the iPhone and output a hard print and that's all done in just a couple of minutes I think I've seen that printer that's really super handy yeah there it and it's it's like you wouldn't do this in Paris but like if you were going to a developing country where where it's unusual for for people to see like a camera like way out in the Hinterlands or something there just things that you can do that that really quickly connect you uh we were shooting um a Pakistani wrestling Kushi wrestling in Dubai and one of the empty it was like in the Sandy pit and these guys show up Frid wish I had seen something like that yeah well but we brought a uh we brought an insta camera with us and it went from like should we trust you like I mean they were cool but we were definitely like not in the group yeah to like you're just like the hit of the party all of a sudden it's like everybody wanted to hang out and like you start pulling out like Polaroids and handing them out and they're like 65 cents a picture it's no big deal um it's just it's the best Icebreaker I think pound-for-pound that would be really fun just to kind of travel and go to different countries take photos of incredible you know events like what kind of wrestling did you say it was it was kushy wrestling Kush wrestling kushy guys wrestling in the dirt and basically they're slamming it's it's it's over really fast and you wouldn't want to be out there like if you read if you wrestled in high school it's not the kind of thing where you're gonna like you're G to join the band go because they kick your butt did you take off the old shirt hop in the ring for a couple rounds well yeah I don't want to embarrass anybody uh like specifically me I have done that uh not in wrestling but I was in Costa Rica in 1997 and and I had no money and I was traveling around kind of in the rural areas and we're in this place called La Fortuna uh Des s Carlos I think and they had a rodeo there and if you uh if you volunteered to be a rodeo clown you didn't have to pay to get into the rodeo and I thought well that seems like a good idea so so I did that how did that go for you did it did it end with you waking in the hospital a week later it you know I I just handed I had a Nikon fm2 and Trix in it and I I I handed this my camera to this nice Canadian couple that I was pretty sure I could outrun and I said if you see me and the bull in the in the frame just start shooting and don't stop shooting until you run out of film um here's my wife's address send the pictures to her if I don't make it out totally totally and and uh and like the the bull would come out and it was typically a drunk amateur Rider so he would be on the bowl for about a quarter of a second and then he would be in the air and then it was your job to distract the now very angry bull that was looking to finish him off yeah right wait you were like the rodeo clown yeah yeah there were there were like three or four of us in the ring it was uh it was me and a couple of guys from Costa Rica wow and like they're all machismo and they're running up and slapping the bull on the ass and running to the other side all and I'm like I'm I'm getting I'm staying as very close to the wall that I can climb as I possibly can and they said no no closer closer closer and I kept getting closer and closer and and they got me about like closer to the bull than I was to the wall and this guy grabbed me from behind like really hard yeah and scared The Living Daylights out of me and then I realized that like that's the that's the that's the joke they play on every like visiting Ringo rodeo clown it's like the it's like everybody in the crowd was was in on it and uh so at that at that point I was a little less stressed plus you get free beer if you're going to be a volunteer rodeo CL oh well I mean what could go wrong with free beer and an angry bowl and a total lack of experience yes it's a self-contained ecosystem at that point well let me ask you this um favorite project that you've shot maybe I know you've traveled around a ton shot with lots of different photographers what's been one of your favorite projects that you've worked on um I I was lucky enough this year I think to do more travel photography than I'm ever than I've ever done uh but my favorite project far and away is the what I've been working on for the last five years now with the Howard County Arts Council where um every every year they pick 10 Young performing artists that show a lot of promise and they have this sort of American Idol night where it's it's the best night out in Howard County every year because these people are so good and so dedicated and so young and so broke and and it's by Applause it's 10 acts and by Applause and the winner wins like 5,000 bucks or something that's incredible I love that it's awesome and and the tickets are like a 100 bucks and all these restaurants come out and food is provided and and it's like they raise like 50,000 bucks for the artart you know in that night but what I've been doing is each one of these finalists these 10 finalists I give them a photo shoot every year and it's it's a way for me to work with young creative people who are not like the typical white guys and ties corporate guys and um and and to do for something that's really not a lot of trouble for me to leverage them quickly and Visually so their website or their promotional pictures can look like the successful person that they have a good chance of becoming in the next few years that's wonderful I um I was recently talking on our show about this show on HBO called young arts masterclass and they do exactly what you just talked about they they pair it's a documentary series they pair young broke artists but you know Young Artists young photographers who are really really talented Have and Have you know they have a big future ahead of them if they could just get someone to Mentor them and they pair them with the absolute best of the best like the Joshua bells of the violin world and and really famous painters and then they film the entire process they usually end up mentoring them for a week and then they you know do a project together and it's magic and by the end of it you can see how much the artists have grown I mean mainly emotionally and just from a professional perspective having someone of a much higher caliber just kind of take them under their wing and I just love that I mean that whole that whole idea of mentoring you know someone like yourself who has so much experience you could share so much with someone who just has a lot of potential but just doesn't really have anyone who could work with them to to kind of help them you know get better at what they do I just think that's incredible and then the fact they they get a cash prize it's yeah it's it's cool and you know if you if you're Howard County is a really good place to be um a starving artist for instance or or or a recent immigrant and we we pretty much have our stuff together around here as far as the way that we handle a lot of um things that are a little out on the edges like that um and and not saying that what I'm doing is any great thing for them but but it's something it's easy for me and and potentially they have the ability to leverage it into something really cool so so as a photographer I'm looking I don't think of myself as someone who takes pictures and f- stops and shutter speed so much as all right what is the what's the coolest thing that can happen because of my pictures now you know if that's attainable that's something I can work towards all right now what what am I going to have to do to make that happen so I tend to think that way rather than just who will pay me to take pictures and and uh and and it opens up lots of new doors for me I find out yeah I think following your passion is really the way to go and doing things to help others obviously is always good for your not just for you not just for them but it's also good for you you know like it feels good to help other people and I think in a way I mean if you believe in karma it it it helps spur your own you know career and passion in a way so I think that's great well uh David I don't want to take um much more of your time you're an incredibly important man and I know yeah right you told me before we started you had five minutes max I'm sorry Mr Cruz I'm almost done uh he's playing me in the movie obviously so so let me just let me just finish with this um if people wanted to follow your work um where could they find you online well strobist is is a it's a cool information archive for uh with the occasional new thing if you're into lighting and um and some cool like just what we were talking about some of the ecosystem around that um but I spend more time than than anything uh probably hanging out on on Twitter that's the easiest place to uh to ping me or interact and and then uh and those two those two vectors point to a lot of different places basically what's your Twitter handle uh strobist oh strobus at strobist are you on Instagram I am not I I uh it's it's like me and Facebook we just we just don't we don't get along see and then you're also teaching some Linda courses uh the one that I saw was the learn how to take better travel photography and are you teaching any other courses or is that the primary one so no the um there's a lighting and layers series of uh seven DVDs that I did in 2011 that also is on Londa which is kind of how we got introduced to each other um I think I watched the some of those yeah so th those are there if if you want to learn if you want to uh like a real like a a pretty in-depth right along tutorial on on how to light on location those are there Linda's got a lot of cool content I really got a give them credit for how they're building the photo section lately they're they're just like we want to make the photo section big as the how to use Photoshop software section so so they're going nuts and and and more power to them that's cool yeah I really like it too and I mean just the fact that they found out who you were and decided to ask you to come teach I think says a lot because you were kind of like this underground guy I thought I mean you were like doing it and as you were doing it as you were figuring stuff out you were teaching others what you were learning and which is kind of how you built this really huge Community because you were giving away all this incredibly valuable you know information on how to get better at photography and and at least when I was trying to learn there wasn't a whole lot of good information out there so it was really cool that Linda latched on to you so if you guys are interested in checking out if you're interested in learning how to light better which I highly recommend I mean it's not just you're not going to just apply these skills to you know some kind of professional lighting situation the things that I've learned about lighting I use when I take pictures of everybody you know when whenever you have a family shot you're taking pictures of your friends the things that I have learned have improved my photography all across the board it's not just like I'm doing professional commercial photography which I'm not and then also if you want to learn how to become a better Travel Photographer head on over to linda.com cultcast Linda is giving a 10-day free trial so if you are so motivated you could watch all of David Hobby's courses in 10 days if you wanted to um make sure you have some coffee my mom didn't even do that make sure you have some coffee so you can have some late nights but you could do the entire thing we'll link up all of David's courses on linda.com cultcast that's l y nda.com cultcast I want to thank Linda for supporting this episode David it's been a pleasure to talk with you likewise thanks man I I I really enjoy being here thank you very much and uh thanks for making the time this has been cultcast second hour hopefully you guys enjoyed the segment hopefully you learned the finger too I'm Aron Elijah and we'll see you guys next timehello I'm a Mac and I'm a PC I can't believe 2007's over PC it was a great year though huh buddy not really what what do you mean I came out with Vista that didn't work very well some people are downgrading to XP meanwhile you come out with your new operating system leopard a new iMac lots of new iPods oh the iPhone I almost forgot the iPhone right it was terrible year but next year looking forward to the future 2008 is going to be the year of the PC that's a great attitude PC what do you got planned what are you going do I'm just going to copy everything you did in 2007 hello and welcome to the cast the best 30 plus minute Apple conversation you're going to hear all week long I'm your host airon Elijah hello joining me today he's written a few Apple Books sometimes he wears a powdered white wig when he's in the bathtub Mr Leander kany Leander welcome Hey not just in the bathtub off and out throughout San Francisco you see one car you spotted him he's also on a horse that makes him hard to miss also joining us he has a thick Rich carpet of chest hair women love it Buster shiny Buster hey how's it going man two very accurate introductions today you guys that listen have listened for a long time you know normally I like to make fun and make some jokes but today I was like I'm just going to tell it how it is that was the result Happy New Year to everyone can you guys believe we're already in 2015 oh wow I mean my gosh it seems like it's still in the future but it's now it's right this very moment 2015 we have a great show plan for you guys today hopefully you guys are recovering from I don't know a night of celebrity or festivities I should say maybe with a celebrity that would be fun before we hop into all the fun I do want to say a few things a thanks to Linda for supporting this episode linda.com l y nda.com learn to run your business better become a better Photoshop expert learn how to create music on your iOS devices learn how to be a better marketer learn how to run a business Leander you can learn how to run a Blog I'm sure really you might take that course check that out Linda has over 4500 video courses for you to choose from and you can watch them anywhere on your Mac on your iOS device all available to you 24/7 to help you learn some stuff improve your life improve yourself you can start off with a 10-day free trial over at linda.com cultcast that's l y nda.com cultcast and stay tuned to the end of cultcast proper we're going to be doing a cultcast second hour directly after this episode you can just leave it playing and I'm going to be talking with David hobby David hobby is a photographer and we're going to be chatting about travel photography how to do good travel photography what kind of gear you should bring with you the kind of apps he uses to edit his photos and also street photography some tips on how to be a better Street photographer especially if you're taking pictures of people which can be kind of tricky and as some of you know I'm a big fan of David hobby I learned a lot of what I know about lighting from him so I learned how to light how to use strobes how to use flashes how to bounce light how to direct light and he's helped improve photography a ton he has a website called strobist.com St o b.com where you can go and learn all the stuff I just talked about about photography and lighting for free and he also does some really fantastic linda.com courses that you can check out and uh he's going to be giving us some tips and tricks so stay tuned for cultcast second hour uh directly after this and also next week if you're going to be in Las Vegas maybe you live there you uh as some of you know it's CES the consum Electronics Show next week and team Comm including Leander Alex Buster and some other people are going to be in Las Vegas I unfortunately can't attend this year so if you're going you should definitely try to meet up with them and take a selfie with Leander because Leander loves taking selfies with people yeah which I say sarcastically but you actually kind of do don't you Leander um no I hate him he might bust his shirt off he'll do something really creative I you know I avoid the mirror let alone taking pictures of myself well they'll be taking pictures of you guys together Leander uh okay you never you never actually have to have to see well I should do I should get like a Hair Force wig right he'll he'll fix his white wig and he'll judge you as you take a photo of both of you but it's it's going to be fun I mean CES is all the best technology on one place in Las Vegas is there anything that you guys are excited to see Leander anything devices gadgets yeah yeah yeah yeah you know like I was um really wanted to check out um all the uh I mean there's going to be a ton of um health kit and home kit um stuff there so all these connected devices you know for fitness and for for the home yeah you're probably right that's going to be it's probably going to be a big thing this year it's gonna be a huge thing it's and you know Buster has been looking into it um and so you know there's there's a ton of stuff a ton ton ton of stuff and unlike previous years where I feel like CES was kind of declining in becoming more and more boring each year I think it had a big turnaround in the last two years and last year I really enjoyed myself there was a ton of great stuff to see the I Lounge uh where they have all the Apple stuff actually had some stuff that was interesting and not just a bunch of Apple cases so you guys will probably see a ton of great stuff while you're there and also uh since I'm going to be here holding down the fort we're I'm going to be having our old pal with hars on uh he's a famous instagrammer if you guys don't know who that is he's got Buster how many followers does he have on Instagram 440,000 I don't know tons of them though and he just won an award isn't that right yeah he was named uh one of AD AG's 50 most creative people along with uh Mark new Apple's new designer whoa really yeah wow good company I thought you were going to say me Johnny I like I won but that's not where you went that's sad uh so I'm going to have Corey Stocker on go check him out on instagram.com withth Hearts he has really really beautiful photography we're going to be talking about whatever is going on in his life also we're going to be talking about um mobile photography the kinds of things that he does to make his photos really pop he's got 440,000 is Instagram followers as I said he knows what he's doing and he'll be back to share a bunch of his tips I know last time we had him on everyone was like those tips were fantastic he has the best tips Aon please have him back on so we'll be doing that next week so please join us for that uh okay guys I have to know did anyone get any good Christmas gifts oh Christmas gifts what can you name one really great thing that you got yeah I Le did you get anything well I did get something yeah I got a couple couple of great gifts from from my uh from my from my mom and from my from my wife my mom gave me a Tartan cap so so you have about you have another one The Three Stooges a complete clown and so I have to wear this thing wait I got to look this up a Tartan cap yeah I don't so does it have a big bill on it uh oh my you're going look like a grandpa what color is it Granda clown it's Tartan you know which just means it's it's red okay it's red with that Tartan um so is tart a pattern P it's Scottish oh my gosh you're gonna look so cool on this thing does it have a big fuzzy ball on the top it should do that's the classic design well now you have to become a golfer and you need to you need to age at least 20 years well I think I've done that but yeah um that's bad enough but then wait wait till hear what my wife got me yeah I'm dying to know oh my so it um it's a um it's a toilet suit oh wait wait wait is it have a bedet yeah oh okay I'm gonna go ahead and just go out on a limb here and say this is TMI I think are fantastic I think the are the best they're the best thing I mean our European listeners I'm sure will totally agree I have a bedet in my house you do yes I have a bedet in my house I've had one for years and I absolutely love is it a toilet seat one or a yeah it's a toilet seat one oh my where' you get it welcome to the club the first time it's spr I almost jump through the ceiling well you got to be careful you don't set the jet too high well know it was high and hot and crazy and it's like the weirdest weirdest feeling wait yours has heated water yeah oh wow yours is very Posh oh you don't have a hated one no no mine's straight from the tap so on the winter on a cold Winter's day you know that sounds really unpleasant actually I found it to be quite refreshing okay it's amazing how uh you know it's very functional I mean it looks I think they're amazing and you know it's funny because whenever you tell people about Beday especially American people they're always like ew that's gross and and they make a face but what is more what is more hygienic taking a w of paper and rubbing it around your ARS or actually let me use another analogy you take your truck your new truck off-roading you come back it's covered in mud do you a grab a bunch of paper towels and wipe the mud off or B shoot it with a hose hose it down right you got to hose it down yep there you go this is a Perfect Analogy that sounds like you practiced that one well I have I have had to use that analogy before because whenever I tell people I have a bedet especially in this country they I always get looks it's frowned upon people don't understand they're they're very they're they're much better than the standard way of you know the status quo cleanup efforts yeah yeah well I talk my French friend about it William and uh does he call you l no okay well it was I thought maybe he did so sorry he he and he was like what he was the most horrified of all really the weird thing is yeah well because you know like he grew up um he grew up poorer in in France so Beday were something that rich people had I common throughout France you know because but I've only stayed in hotels yeah I would have thought they were common throughout France too apparently not only only rich people in middle class I guess the French are just very unhygienic we just lost about 100 100 listeners that's okay fellow Frenchmen Americans are the same way it's frowned upon but once you get used to it there's no going back no no no precisely I look forward to having a good uh sit down what's that I made some films of the kids too sitting on it and getting a squ you filmed your kids well that faces I mean nothing you know below the B oh boy so shock she got off and it started spraying water everywhere she she got off before she turned it off yeah oh my gosh so there like there's like a stream of water going like 2 feet in the air right yeah oh my gosh that's hilarious so you thought we were gon to make fun of you you had no idea I had no idea you were a fellow bedday uh B Enthusiast yeah I'm trying to think of a good word that we can that we can use I don't know anyone else who's got him my brother lived in Japan for a long time and he said he used to love the ones in Japan they very popular in Japan like they're everywhere there they're everywhere yeah everyone's got one and then in the department stores they have ones which which will blow dry too so it's a really nice expence just sit there with a blow dryer on wow that is very fancy yeah I don't know if I want a a jet stream of air around that area I don't know just remember just remember keep the keep the stream pressure low Leander oh low okay that's a pro that's a pro tip and Learn To Shimmy flow and shimmy and you're G to be shimmy I figured that one out already so what motivated this purchase I just have to know did you want one of these or was Tracy just trying to communicate something a week before Christmas she's she's like she's G you know she's she's asked me what I bought and and of course I bought all this you know these gadgets and all this text stuff she's berting me because she's like oh you're typical you know you just buy stuff that you want and you give it to other people and then Christmas morning you know oh thanks dear yeah I'd always wanted one of these how did you know it turns out that she'd been at her friend's house she's got one and um and she liked it so much at her friend's house that she she you know that she she she did what she accused me of which is I getting one for herself then getting me to Plum it in on Christmas morning it couldn't have worked any better and you had it connected to the hot water and everything no you just connected to the cold water but it's got a built-in heater so it has plugged in wow so yours really is fancy yeah I guess I mean it it heats up too so that's pretty nice the lid gets all nice and warm for you yeah wow well Buster there's no way you're going to be that but you might as well tell us what you got I got a book that was cool no yeah oh man I've always wanted to try one of those it can it can be used to clean your rectum as well I guess an emergencies that's true especially if it's one of leander's books got St here right in the bathroom they're like oh Le you must really love to read why do you have so many your books in the bathroom oh what the printer put it on some nice cheap Pap you should print on some really lovely like soft tissue paper right actually you g me an idea for my next book it's actually not a bad idea you could do like a kids book or something where the stories can be torn off and used to cleans yourself as you read it right yeah yeah so Buster anything else uh not really I mean I didn't it's tough to buy us stuff because we either buy what we want already or our our tastes are so esoteric that no one actually knows how to buy us what we want like I swear every year I end up getting a hard drive well who's going to buy me a hard drive no one even knows what a hard drive is let alone you know which one to get there's so many different kinds so I asked for something I knew I would like and that is an assortment of salted Meats I love I love beef jerky I love have you guys ever had Bavarian l yers no oh my gosh they're so good so lanagers are a German kind of dehydrated sausage and they're really salty and we have this Bavarian Market here Pike Place Market in Seattle which people are probably familiar with because it's been to movies and stuff and they make these really wonderful spicy Bavarian lanagers so they're salty they're spicy it's kind of like beef jerky in a sausage form it's like my two favorite things sausages and beef jerky combined into one so that's literally what everyone got me I just kept opening up salted meat product after salted meat product and I was thrilled to have so many things that I could actually eat and enjoy cuz you know normally I just get like a tube of you know men's Underpants that are very form-fitting and very revealing right I'm done with that I don't need any more pairs of those so this year I actually got some stuff that I'm actually have you've eaten most of it already well that's funny you should mention cuz I was almost going to get my brother a a subscription to some kind of meat Club where they sent month club yeah and they sent you that kind of stuff you know in a surprise you know in the mail that sounds like a fantastic gift yeah but you know I was always kind of a little bit like it's like you know I used to work in when you work in restaurants you always learn that you should never eat like dish of the day because dish well dish of the day is when the chef's got some stinky fish that he needs to get rid of shck so he makes it a quote unquote special right you know and um and they and they you know they pedal that and they shift it real quick before it goes off so that's what I thought these like you know things like that me of the month club is going to be like it's like okay you know that that pallet of um of uh lamb shanks back there you know that out pretty quick what's this green stuff on here oh just pull that off and put it in the Box let's ship it out right I don't know how things work in the UK Leander but I used to work at a lot of restaurants and we weren't serving rotten food as the specials oh this is in the States this is here yeah yeah yeah yeah look at this this crazy um this really badly run um sushi restaurant and that was what they used to do there all the time people have to like clench their butt cheeks and run out suddenly yeah well like you know we used to everyone got everyone it was there was a lot of Saki fly at this place so um is this the same place that you used to be a bartender at no I was um I was just a waiter there oh okay but I helped myself to plenty of stuff I bet you did plenty of fish he's like we have to of the stinky fish cuz none of the good stuff is left it's it's all gone suddenly all righty well let's go ahead and move on to some actual Apple stories this episode I thought this was really amazing and since we're talking about Christmas gifts uh I'm sure you guys probably saw that video of that developer who gave his parents that very special Christmas gift I have one more gift for you for both of you only me and your daddy see so this this developer from video shop his name is Joe Rael it have to be a nice present because this is special after this and for Christmas he decided he was going to pay off his parents home and they had no idea what so he sits there with his parents and they're sitting there with him and he just kind of indiscreetly hands them an envelope and like here's your here's your present his mom was opening it and when she opens it she can't speak and and she gets very emotional and she starts hugging him and then his dad's like you know looking at them like what's going on and he takes it and then they're all just sitting there crying leer it was beautiful wasn't it I'm looking at it now yeah up didn't you I can't you know I don't know if I can I can't watch this it's too was heart-wrenching yeah so um apparently Joe just just went and paid off his parents Mortgage in full and then got the you know the documents that you get whenever that happens and just gave them that for Christmas and I and I thought that was amazing um you know he's their son so obviously kids do nice things for their parents all the time but this is obviously really special how how often does someone's house get paid off unexpectedly and maybe his parents had a lot of a lot of years left on their mortgage and were planning on paying this thing off you know forever and and if they had just moved moved here from another country you know they they probably struggled I mean my my mom wasn't from this country and she moved here and it was a struggle for her to make it in this country and to have a gift like that given to you I thought was really so pretty nice yeah yeah bust you didn't see the video no I just watched him okay I don't know I haven't even heard of this app video shop yeah nether but apparently it's sell pretty well good yeah right he's he's just a recent graduate too from UC Davis University of California Davis 2006 so he's only been out of college like a few years what and he's got enough money to pay off his parents mortgage yeah yeah well good on him oh my gosh we're in the wrong business I got I gotta make an app and then we can just Coast yeah I wonder what it's like because i' never heard of this one and I mean I thought that you know that you know that that there was a genre of stories right you know like hitting the jackpot the app App Store jackpot yeah I mean that I haven't heard of those stories for a long time I haven't either but they're obviously still happening yeah and everyone's complaining about how hard it is to get you know smaller apps to be seen um to get any traction you know well apparently this guy was able to do it I my guess is a lot of apps you you hear about the the hit it out of the park apps right the ones that everyone knows but there's probably a lot of these smaller ones where this guy isn't courting the Press he's not sending stuff to people to try to get coverage he's just has a good app that people like and he's selling it and it's probably really easy to make $300,000 if you have a great app as opposed to you know the bigger app companies don't know you know the story these days was that you know less I mean because you know making a good app is only half the problem the problem really is getting attention for it it's it's a marketing problem it's getting people to know it's out there um and um there were a lot of people complaining that they you know they were really disappointed by the amount of Revenue they were getting it was only a fraction of what they they they expected well that's probably only going to you know be compounded by the fact that uh Buster you wrote the story on how the iPhone 6 is driving app store app sales to a whole new record a whole new level so apparently all the stuff or all the phones that were sold in the holiday season have caused you know apps to Skyrocket and well yeah app downloads app downloads right exactly apparently previously last year the cap was or the highest level was 7.8 Million downloads in October and this year it was like 42% more than that in November and they had reached a level that they had never seen before there's probably how many apps would you say there are in the app store if you just had to guess God I don't know man I'm GNA say like like 500,000 maybe God yeah at least I'm going to say B do you think there's a million apps in the App Store I think so yeah I mean you're right how would you get let's just say the number is 500,000 even if it's more how would you ever get your app noticed by any well there's so many crappy apps you know that's the biggest problem is I feel like apple needs to put a ban on really crappy apps like I don't I I can't tell you how many like pitches a day I get in my inbox for hey will you review this app and you know I look at most of them and they're all just so bad man yeah they are I mean I do think that I mean I know I hear what Leander is saying that yeah you know marketing is a big problem but I still think if you make a great app then I think it will you know shine eventually I a little bit harder I think if you make a really a really great app that meets a need so actually you're actually doing something that brings value to the marketplace and someone uses it and they say oh my gosh this actually helped me this is really great they'll tell their friends about it or they'll make a stink about it and other people will download it and your reviews will be positive and people will download the app more that's not to say that it's it's not not hard or it's not easy or it's easy to get attention when you first build an app it probably isn't at all but there's all sorts of crazy weird apps on the on the App Store that get reviews I mean people are buying fart apps right yeah I mean some of like the worst apps too it seems like are on the top of the chart sometimes can you think of one I'm going to look it up right now about every top that you know there was uh Marco and man was complaining about this on Twitter though this last week about you know the fact that the the um the Apple's in you know the built-in Discovery tools that Apple has that you know built uh uses top 10 top 10 paid top 10 free top 10 you know grossing they're all completely they skew towards all of these um uh you know well-known apps yeah apps that don't you know from Big Publishers that don't you know need that kind of um from Big Publishers you know who don't necessarily need or have the resources to you know to do their own kind of marketing to try to get attention for it and that you know he's complaining like you know his podcast up and that's done extremely well but I think despite the fact that you know he didn't really get much help or any help from Apple and of course you know everyone's had the same problems we had the same problem with our new stand magazine which I thought was really pretty good but of course you know it was in Apple's new it was buried in news stand and then it goes onto the new stand page in iTunes which is like buried about eight levels down and it was in the new and no noteworthy for a little while MH um and uh and then it kind of disappears you know and then unless you know it's unless you know to go looking for it you don't know it's there and it never once you know goes on the front of um iTunes or in the other places where people visit to go look for stuff yeah so and same we have the same with this with the codcast right I mean even though it's a popular podcast it it doesn't really pop up into iTunes ever No No in fact you're absolutely right I mean we have one of I don't want to Pat ourselves on the back here but we have one of iTunes most popular podcasts and you really don't see it show up anywhere on iTunes unless you're searching in like the top Tech technology podcast in which case you might find it there but as far as Discovery goes you're right I kind of feel like iTunes they focus on things that already have a big audience they bring more attention to things that are already popular as opposed to here's something that you may not know about you should try it out so it's not very good for Discovery right well you know it it it's h problem because you know like they're pushing seral right which is a great podcast and of course um it it's you know it's the kind of thing that I think an editor over there would think oh yeah you know a lot of people are going to might like this um and so quite rightly they put on the front page but you know like surfacing other stuff that's a little quirky a little you know a little you know less mainstream uh you know to fulfill that Discovery function even though it's great for like that vast majority of people who are putting content up there it doesn't necessarily serve the you know the the mainstream audience MH I think it's a tough problem I think so too and I know that apple is trying to figure out how to make Discovery easier and I iTunes for music and for podcast and everything but they have so much content and when you're when you're navigating on a mobile device especially they try to really simplify the experience you're not you know bombarded with results and sometimes I'm surprised that you receive so few results when you're searching for something it just doesn't show you very much well the search is completely broken I mean it doesn't work at all you can actually be searching for I've tried it myself I mean searching for cultcast and and it just doesn't even come up yeah really nope that they might be blocking us and I couldn't find um the our magazine either that doesn't come up either huh well I'm gonna send Tim Cook an email about that um because he's a big fan of the show you guys know he loves cultcast and he's like your impression you probably don't even have to bother we just can you please just yeah I'm not even to send him an email Tim please just do something about it you got it y'all what Buster what were you going to say well well I think yeah what you're talking about with Discovery and everything it's something that Apple definitely needs to address in 2015 did either of you guys see uh Andy Bao's idea to kind of turn like the App Store into more of like a social network no but that would be fantastic I think it's a great idea because then you basically you follow your friends and you see like what apps they're downloading what apps they play with the most that way you can like tap into like those Indie apps like you're saying you know see what your friends are using and just have better ways to promote apps that way uh developers could promote their apps as well I don't know I think app the app store is just it's really still crappy even though they've done tons of improvements over the year they've never really fixed the Discover problem yeah I like that idea so you know you download an app and it shows up like in Spotify like I can always see the weird music that leander's listening to and all the other people that I follow so I can discover new music and stuff on there I mean it can work maybe similarly to that but don't they really have a feature that's kind of like that you know like popular from your friends they have like the no they don't not for the App Store they have like trending searches that's the only like kind of like local type of like trending app search that they have right now yeah they need to do something to fix it and I I I do like the idea of crowdsourcing it or making it more like a social network like like Reddit is you know for the internet yeah to feed like those gems to the top you know exactly right the power of crowdsourcing it's just like Wikipedia just like right it people go in there and somehow they they percolate and they bubble up things that are actually good and Rise it to the top because I agree serial is great and you know the Nerdist podcast is great but these things are already so popular like why it's like giving a Grammy to Rihanna which actually I'm not going to rant about that but you she's already popular enough right sometimes I feel like the Grammys give Awards to people who are very popular just because they want to because you're popular want to keep you popular well not because they want to keep them popular P necessarily but because they want to keep themselves relevant and so the Grammys are always giving attention to things that are already you know mainstream and sometimes iTunes feels like they do the same thing like they just make things that are already popular like more popular so that they can sell more stuff or whatever yeah kind of like apple I think Apple kind of has their favorite developers and stuff like that you know that they boost up oh definitely I'm sure and they probably have relationships with some of these people I think that's probably a big part of it mhm like some developers like panic when Panic releases something they're going to get covered but you know I guess we do the same thing at cult toac like there's there's certain developers certain people that make products that we just know about and they have a reputation for creating high high quality stuff so they get more attention than you know Indie developers who send you an email Buster and they're like have you heard about my new fart app different yeah actually 20 sounds this time 25 farts and we we've built them in MIDI and they all sound lifelike and there's an illustration of the butt cheeks vibrating it's it's textures are beautiful you can choose the kind of butt cheeks male female ethnicity it's unlike any fart app you've ever seen actually now that we're pitching this I kind of think this might be an app that we need to build G's apps I thought he yeah we need to build a more realistic fart app with more realistic sounds more realistic buttocks it's going to be in iTunes in the next in the next year um well tell you what do you guys want to just move on to this Disney story that we uh that we got on Forbes about Bob Iger Lander yeah so this was cool if you guys didn't get a chance to read the story on Forbes we'll make sure we put it in the show notes so Bob Iger CEO of Disney and Forbes did a piece on Iger and in the piece they talked about the relationship between Bob Iger and Steve Jobs and I actually found the story to fascinating I know Leander you may have been less impressed but I thought it was really amazing how they were friends and really influenc each other and more than anything else how Steve Jobs kind of indirectly affected the new Disney and helped to build out the new Disney in that he built this Pixar company Disney was really struggling at the time to create good animated content and then Pixar came into the story through the relationship between Steve Jobs and Bob and they released Toy Story which of course was immensely popular and now you know computer animated films are a huge part of Disney and Disney through that relationship has also become somewhat of a technology company surprisingly and that was all on account of the relationship or it seemed like heavily um influenced from the relationship between Bob Iger and Steve Jobs so in a way Steve Jobs helped bring this new Disney into being and and are helping them have I think Disney's having a Renaissance right now right they're they're doing a lot of amazing things with technology at their theme parks they just bought Marvel they just bought movies Star Wars yeah they bought uh um ilm ilm and uh Lucas film is what I'm trying to trying to think of and that included industrial Light and magic and all the Star Wars stuff I mean they are a juggernaut now I I think they're Unstoppable so I found 40 40 billion in in Revenue in 14 or something I mean they're just as huge as Apple in many ways you know and very similar in a lot of ways as far as well doesn't Apple make that every quarter well whats what they made that today close they wait let me pause for a moment okay they just made that Leander um I'm droning on and on what did you think of the piece well it was it was interesting yeah for sure um uh it's um I thought the most interest I didn't really get into the most interesting thing which is that Boba got his start as a TV weatherman yeah that was interesting like he started like all the way from the bottom right I'm like how did the weatherman get to be the CEO of uh of Disney it kind of skipped from weatherman to he was ceoo so Chief Operating Officer when um what's his face was there who was the evil guy around e right yeah um and then it kind of glassed over you know he lobbied hard for the job and then he got made CEO and it was like they you know they they wrapped it up in a sentence I was like huh that that was kind of like the most interesting part I wonder how he managed to do that you know yeah that's a story in and of itself yeah you know it was a lot there was a lot of there was you know there I didn't know all that stuff about the technology and about all the different divisions and you know like of course it's a story really like this sort of corporate Synergy and that was what I think this the part about jobs discussed the most was you know that he found um a very willing partner in in eisa was a lot more of a I think Eisen was more like jobs he was he was more Hardball yeah and you know Eisen I think has an unfair reput being you know CU he he made a lot of enemies and he was kind of abrasive and he wasn't that very he wasn't very charismatic but you know he was he really um I think Disney was in a lot more trouble when he took over you know which is like in the sort of 70s and 80s um and he set up a lot of the deals like he bought he was the one who bought ABC and ESPN and all these other cable networks that now account for more than half their revenues and that was what ia opened up to jobs like in the early days the iTunes Store they became such a good friends that you know over a couple of days they managed to do a Content deal that turned the iTunes Store from being music only into being a you know uh music and video and and you know then later on software so it become this all-in-one multimedia store but you know they were saying in that piece that the the the sort of the shoe dropped when when jobs and and AA were able to make a sort of Buddy Buddy deal I was surprised when I remember when iTunes started carrying video content and Steve Jobs announced that Disney was going to be providing it I was very surprised because dis Disney has always been very proprietary with their content right I mean Disney Vault and they only release content at certain times and then they would lock it away forever and you wouldn't be able to buy it and all of a sudden all this content available on iTunes I thought that was incredible true yeah very true what I didn't know is that Iger actually pursued Steve Jobs and and in the piece it talks about how when Iger got hired as CEO he called his family I think he called somebody else and then he called oh he called his old boss and then he called Steve Jobs whom he didn't even know that well and very intentionally went after Steve Jobs and courted Steve Jobs and said hey look I know you you were kind of didn't have the best relationship with with Eisner but I want to heal that relationship and work together yeah and I mean that one telephone call led to all these you know different interactions and with Steve Jobs owning being the biggest uh single Disney stock holder when uh Pixar sold to Disney right I mean what would Disney be without Pixar now can you even imagine I can't yeah right yeah yeah and it didn't spell it out in that piece but you know like he just said I mean the fact that he founded him up of course was that was obviously to do with Pixar rather than Apple but then they made the piece seem like it was you know about the sort of the Apple technology rubbing off and all the technology mindset that intersection of like you know the technology and the liberal arts that mindset was rubbing off on him but yeah Pixar had had had all you know everything to do with that relationship in the early days and I one of my favorite Parts in the in the piece was when um they were talking about uh Tim Cook to talking about uh Iger and he said that Iger wasn't afraid to lose sight of the shore he was willing to I'm paraphrasing now kind of follow technology even away from Disney tradition and do things that maybe Disney wouldn't normally do and that's really I think what has helped Disney become so successful these days is the fact that they're so willing to kind of like apple just totally shoot the baby and take something that's making them a lot of money and do something drastic that they've never done before you don't agree well he he says that but go on Buster they never shoot the ba I mean if you go to Disneyland they've never shot any of their babies that would be a popular all all I'm trying to say is shoot the baby ride would be very popular at Disney I mean they still like Mr Toad's Wild Ride is still you know an attraction at Disneyland so they never really let everything go you know well maybe not everything yeah I get what you're saying but the the last the last few paragraphs of the story was talking about unbundling right um you know had the relationships with with ESPN and ABC with the cable networks and of course there's a lot of talk um about um HBO they're going to start selling you know their content directly to customers right instead of going through the cable companies and of course you know that if they could everyone would love to unravel the cable company strangle hold um over the you know over the media distribution and people want to get un unbundled content so that so you know he says oh yeah he's never you know afraid to lose like the sh and he's very adventurous but then the last part of the story goes on to talk about that and how you know they're trying to unbundle Disney content ESPN especially live sports I mean you know Apple TV that's one of the biggest reasons Apple TV will never or at the moment can't become a standalone set top boxers because you know you can't get live sports on it no one is going to make a choice of an Apple Apple TV over a cable box because it's so limited so you know like and then he and then he goes on to say well you know like he knows that this is what people want but he dare not unravel that hugely hugely uh important business relationship because you know there's no way they can replace those those um revenues those revenues no not by selling directly to Consumers not now anyway did you say that ESPN and the other broadcast broadcast networks that Disney owns are half their revenue now yeah I think it was yeah there was a graph I saw a couple of days ago where they broke it out and it was like huge that's by far by by far the biggest part of the revenue that's incredible I wonder how much the parks actually make them I doubt I I doubt it's a big chunk I a big chunk too and you got the Marvel Universe too plus Star Wars I mean they have such huge franchises coming you know out of the gate I don't know how anyone's going to compete with Disney I mean oh it's ridiculous from from an entertainment perspective they have the parks which kind of give you that interactive experience when you go and make you feel like you're a kid again and then they have Marvel they have Star Wars I mean they have some of the biggest franchises in the world and then they have Disney right and pix Pixar too did you guys see Frozen I've seen it like a billion times I got surprise surprise how is it Buster H you know what it's I hate to say it but it's it's good yeah I mean yeah the stupid song is in my head all year but did you see Tangled Buster I saw Tangled as well yes did you like that uh Frozen is better than Tangled that's for sure elsea is just a way cooler princess well naturally naturally I I'm all about the cooler princess I like Tangled a lot too that was one of the first Disney movies I've seen in a long time that really legitimately impressed me and made me think wow Disney has actually really got something here again because I haven't seen anything that really drew me in in quite a long time I think I mean Frozen it's I think the most the highest grossing animated film of all time now so it's everywhere all the kids that I know have Frozen this Frozen that I mean the merchandising on that is insane and I mean it came out over a year ago and it's still the most yeah it's still the most popular kids movie you know it's it's crazy I yeah I was around a bunch of kids over Christmas and it was like Frozen dresses Frozen tops frozen pants Frozen shoes it's like in Space Balls have you you guys seen Space Balls not for a long time merchandising oh you need to you need to watch that it's it's it's uh it's frozen the toilet paper Frozen the lunch pail that's what I always hated about Disney was that you know was the was the way that they could you know merchandise everything they ever did oh you got the toys yeah oh yeah and the cultural influence you know like there was a long time when I felt Disney was truly evil oh yeah just because they make money selling kids well it's you know it's it's it's safe corporate culture and it's you know it's the it's the very epitome of it isn't it I like a lot a lot of the art I like is you know anti-corporate and um you know I know that they do do a good job and some Disney stuff is absolutely fantastic um but you know like the whole when you get into the whole Disney package the merchandising the you know the putting it on sugary cereals you know all that kind of stuff in a way it's it's it's a little bit you know it can be a little bit it skirts with evil so you're saying you don't like Mickey Mouse well I don't know you know um I don't like what you're saying one bit early Mickey you know Mickey is not the worst I guess um but you know you know what I'm saying it's like that I think they've become better than they used to be I get what you're saying though they're also a massive machine yeah yeah a massive machine that's selling stuff to your kids you visit Disneyland or Disney World and I just can't help but like loathing them in in some ways because yeah you see like people coming out there with spending like $500 on Disney shirts and then the food and all kinds of crazy stuff especially now that they are so this we were headed this way we there incorporating Apple pay so Disneyland I think Disneyland and Disney World didn't they say by I think it was the end of this year I thought it was by Christmas Eve they were going to have it in the Parks yeah I think the 24th I think that's what I heard as well so now can you imagine they're going to it's going to be as easy as just tapping your thumb and paying for stuff you're already high on that feeling of being in Disneyland do you guys get that feeling do you know what I'm talking about of being in Disneyland is it just oh yeah oh yeah Leander probably doesn't get it no cuz he didn't grow up in this country when I die and go to hell it's going to be Disneyland you're going to be on the It's a Small World ride well just waiting in line in the baking some with a bunch of screaming children and then someone scks up on your leg or something it's like and they spill your coffee and into your sandals um Coke I'm into sandals your feet are all sticky it's like I hate that place then of course I would always lose Olan so he would be disappeared for like three or four hours and i''d be like out of my mind with worry trying to find a child and all the others are screaming yeah now it's awful I hate that place in fact I refuse to go anymore kind of Grinchy I know not very you know family oriented but I bet you if you went with your adult children it might be more fun I don't know there you know like together not a lot of adult you know it doesn't to adult Pleasures not the kind of adult Pleasures likes yeah he's more into those like those emails we got for uh CES where it's like hey want Escape CES for a day we have just the thing was it like the Bunny Ranch or something yeah that was I couldn't believe that existed that was yeah Leander did you know that you reply all when you rsvpd no I F everyone just just for Giggles all right guys I think we should go ahead and wrap it up there all right feels odd doesn't it we've only gone 700 minutes I feel like we should continue but that's all the cult cast we have for you guys this week but make sure you stay tuned for C second hour that's going to be airing in just a moment all you have to do is just do nothing just sit there it's coming up my conversation with David Hobby and all the great travel photography tips so on and so forth and if you're going to be in Vegas make sure you follow culac on Twitter and on Instagram I'm sure you guys will be posting all sorts of products and stuff yeah Buster oh yeah carpet of CES series is that coming back H I think CES candies is coming back oh I think my favorite one was the sayings like CES sign like motos oh yeah those are great just the the the ridiculous corporate we bring life to tomorrow yeah all right well that's all the ccat we have for you guys this week if you want to follow Buster on Twitter he is bst3 I'm Aon Landers lcy and of course cult ofmc this has been the codcast the best 30 minute Apple conversation you're going to hear all week long new episodes of the codcast come out every Thursday night I want to thank everyone for listening and stay tuned for cultcast second hour in just a moment and we'll see you guys next time we said Happy New Year right hey happy New Year people woo Happy New Year the only thing I would mention is I can kind of hear your microphone sliding around I think your shirt or something okay okay so there's anything that you can do to kind of keep that yeah I'm I'm I'm stripping down nude right now okay perfect keep it I find that works very well got it got it cool okay let's just jump right into it hey everyone welcome to cultcast second hour thanks for sticking around we have a very very fun show planned I'm aan Elijah you guys know me joined by David hobby who is a I'm I'm just going to use some some descriptors for you that I think are accurate David renowned photographer oh jeez renowned teacher I'm stopping you at renowned photographer I'm I'm like a I'm like a utility infielder photographer but Renown is a strong word but you are welln you are very welln you're also a linda.com instructor and by the way Linda is supporting this uh this discussion so thank you to Linda for that and I was surprised that you were you were one of their instructors because I have actually been following I guess your teachings it sounds like you're my Guru following your i prer s okay I will refer to you as Sensei for the rest of the segment I have been following strobis so you you started a website called strobist.com and your and your slogan is learn how to light and at the time when I was really trying to figure out how to do lighting and you know how to improve my photography I kind of stumbled across your website and I learned a great deal from all the different tutorials and stuff that you had on there I learned how to light better and I learned how to take better photographs I learned how to use my SLR better I mean just my photography imp improved dramatically through through your websites and I'm not alone I you kind of have a a large community of people who have been kind of bolstered and have improve their own work through through the strobis community are you still doing strobis by the way it's still ongoing right it it is but as of the beginning of 2014 um I I kind of went from feeling like I owned it to where it owned me so I I recast it as as rather than a like a two times a week blog because God knows we don't have enough photo blogs right now um I I recast it as an information archive and I really only update it like once a month or so but it's updated with more significant things when it goes up so yeah I kind of like quality over quantity as well and I feel like there's a lot of websites out there especially in regards to photography that are just kind of putting out a lot of content but not necessarily anything that's very very useful which is why I think strobist was so popular because you were putting out these tutorials these really high quality tutorials and they were totally free you could go through them I would imagine they took a lot of time to you know to actually put together and when you went through them you actually got to a point where you could see there was a market Improvement in your in your own ability which is probably why you got so popular you said you started the was strob started in 2006 you said it was and and and it's sort of like a payback for the people who helped me when I was younger and and not a lot of people were doing this in 2006 and I just like from day one I wrote it to myself like I was uh like 41 42 at the time I wrote it to myself as a 20-year-old that's like I wanted this the site that I would have wanted to read as a 20-year-old yeah and as a man who was in his 20s at that time um I got a lot of use out of it I mean it really kind of took me to the next level and as I said you built up a huge community of people and and now your your primary focus is actually photography right you're traveling everywhere and it's great because all these guys that you used to reference on strobis like uh Zach Aras uh Joe MCN these really well-known photographers now you're kind of shooting with these guys and and doing assignments with them right yeah I mean we we've actually become a pretty tight circle of friends there were a group of us photo plus every year and um actually interesting story I was sitting in my old house before we moved and and I'm working at the Sun and doing the blog and not having any time with my family and the phone rings and and I pick it up and hey hi my name is uh Joe MCN and you know inside my brain all stop right there he'd been a long time Idol of mine he go I'm a photographer in in like in New York City and I'm thinking like yeah you think and and and I read your site I'm like oh never be able to write anything again ever but no he's he's a good guy as it turns out he's really nice uh back up a moment so when when for people that don't know who Joe mcnali is he's a very well-known commercial photographer really beautiful photographs and you used to always reference his work I remember when you started appearing with him in different capacities on shoots and stuff and I was like this guy this guy has made it he's been talking about these he's been talking about Joe MCN specifically for such a long time at least you know on on strobist and all of a sudden you're kind of like his colleague that must have been incredible for you you know it's it's really funny we became very good friends because we are complimentary in a lot of ways like um he had been particularly successful building a standalone career just like um like a a project driven self-generating photographer for 20 or 30 years after he started in newspaper and that was really where I was at that point I was leaving a newspaper and had to figure out what it was that I wanted to do with my life photographically and he was a fantastic Mentor for that and and I think I was able to help him in some ways as far as uh digital business ecosystems and such like building around a publication so we would just like get in these long discussions and throw stuff back and forth and and he's been an amazing influence on me and and to the extent that I've ever been able to help him it's just like I I really don't feel like I could ever do enough to to to pay him back it'd be like one of my longtime Heroes is Bono it'd be like if he called me and asked me to sing backup right right you should be you should be writing about him every week it might just happen you might get a phone call yeah I'm a I think I'm going to give that strategy some serious consideration I would be a backup singer for you too no problem let's talk about photography so I I I wanted to have you on and Linda was gracious enough to uh connect us and I wanted to talk about photography you do a linda.com course all about travel photography and I think one of the things that you and I kind of have in common is besides photography that is I I love photography I've grown up you know taking pictures and all sorts of different kinds of cameras but DSLR specifically but I also love the travel and travel photography is really challenging you you're out of your element and it's always a question of well what gear do I bring you know especially if you're going on a long journey the trips I usually go on are you know 6 weeks to 8 weeks right and you have to be really cognizant of how how many pounds of gear you're going to be carrying around with you when you're walking around Paris for eight hours you don't want to have a three PB camera around your neck let's start with gear when you're walking around when you're traveling what do you normally take with you you know and that's funny that was the absolute Genesis of the idea for uh for the traveling photographer was um it was a trip to Cuba that I took with uh a dozen or so people in 2013 and these weren't just a dozen typical people these were a dozen of the smartest people that I know they were like they're from square and Google and and like all it was it was sort of like a a quiet email kind of hey you know we're getting a band together kind of a thing you know we're going to Cuba it was legit it was through um Santa work which does a totally aboveboard state approved um photographer trip to cubaan it's fantastic I highly recommend it but um but these guys it's like it's like they showed up at the airport and I felt like I was like in the middle of an infantry squad or something I mean I can I can visualize it right now well and and they're good photographers but more important is these people are really smart and I looked at that I'm thinking you are are are you freaking kidding me I mean this is like this is a tropical country it's hot you're carrying more around your neck literally than most families will earn in several years as far as in a in a in a developing communist country um I I just couldn't I I couldn't rationalize that and I went just with a um a Fuji x100s I just got in the camera fallen in love with it and that was a it was a defining moment for me for how little I choose to travel with and for the people that were with me by the end of the week I I think a lot of them were really coming around to the idea of not carrying a full weight pack you know out for that 8 hour walk in the city so I should mention the Fuji x100s is a mirrorless camera with a fixed lens so you don't have to worry about carrying your 2B DSLR body around and your you know your managerie of lenses and then your carrying cases for those lenses but you know you also lose some flexibility you don't have you're not you're unable to zoom because you don't have a zoom lens with you you well if you if you bring your feet you know that's cool you can zoom with your feet you're the most manual kind of Zoomer you just walking closer well no so like it's easy to look at this in terms of restriction I see I see that particular camera which has since been replaced by the x100t although I'm still using an S because I I I like there's like a there's an emotional attachment to that camera it was the first camera I really digital camera that I ever fell in love with wow um so it works in super low light you know it doesn't have a mirror in it so it's a mirrorless camera so there's no shutter vibration like I can shoot handheld at a quarter second very easily and it's really clean at iso800 it's an F2 lens that sharp wide open so that means I I literally can see if I can see into an environment I can shoot in it and I can do it without attracting attention without looking like a mark for uh like I can be in a really rough area and the camera like taped up right looks like something that was 30 years old and something you wouldn't even want to steal you're right it does look like an old film camera which I love about it I think a lot of people probably love the aesthetic of that camera Fuji did an incredible job designing it they did they they came out with the X100 which looked beautiful but wasn't quite there it was like um like like uh hate is not the opposite of Love indifference is the opposite of love and and I hated that camera because of what I what because of what it could be but it wasn't like I'm indifferent to Sony's like the like whatever the cameras that feel like you're like holding a a misshapen box of playing cards or something I mean this camera was so ergonomic but it wasn't great focus and had a couple other little quirks so I hated it because it it was like being in absolute love with this woman except for there were like two or three things she did that just made you want to like she sounded like Bridge exactly that laugh that laugh right right right so when the x100s came out they went from being like 60% of where it could be to like 95% of where it could be and at that point I was like I I'm ready to marry this camera let's go would you say the the x100s change the game because before that camera I feel like there was really no great mirrorless option you if you wanted to take good photos when you traveled when you out on the street you had to take your your DSLR with you and it seems like a lot of people feel that the Fuji offering is a good substitute and and light enough and takes good enough pictures that you could kind of just leave your DSLR at home and just travel with that yeah you know I I think it happened in a couple of steps because I think the X100 changed the game in terms of portability and and Fuji's color has always been awesome because my people don't realize they've been doing film for 80 years and they they also do a lot of the scanning of like they were they were in the really heavily into the transition between film to digital like they've scanned millions of krumbs because they make the machines that do that for outsourcing so when they build color algorithms it's just like it's insane right out of the box but so that happened pretty quickly in the X100 but there were but it was like a two-step process it needed to get the rough edges sanded down and it's like you see them at at conventions and stuff just asking photographers how can we make this camera better you know Nikon's like there you go 36 megapixels fi's like what can we do to make our cameras better and and I I've always respected that oh man I I love Nikon but when they moved to the uh the higher megapixel model I bailed out I just I was like I don't need all these megapixels this actually makes photographer more laborious for me so I actually I'm on the Canon bandwagon right now just trying it out but um to each who asked for 36 megapixels 2 years ago like I don't know I was really surprised by that move cuz I was using a d100s I had an older camera that's a big jump yeah yeah I was I was looking to make a big big jump and and I just I was like I I don't have anywhere to go this is too much of a jump for me right to to go this direction so you carry your your uh Fuji x100s in your bag what what else do you have with you so it depends on where I'm going if if uh like I have a pretty good idea of what I'm going to shoot and it's mostly just shooting on the street the x100s is fine for me I'm I'm good to go um so I'll carry that and and a MacBook Pro a 13-inch Macbook Pro not the not the air I like I like having the optical with me um in case I need it and the backup for both of those two items is pretty sparse the backup's going to be my iPhone um because it can back up my you know it can be my net contact in case something happens to my laptop or it's stolen or uh in a pinch it can especially now with the iPhone 6 out it's a decent backup camera and it's 32 mm with you know uh in terms of a um an equivalent view for a 35 camera which is really close to the the Fuji which is a 35 millimeter equivalent view um so you back up your photos to your iPhone how many gigabytes is your iPhone oh no no I mean in terms of having a backup camera oh gotcha you're not backing your data up to it exactly like so my first thought when I'm traveling is taking as little as possible unless I know I'm going to be shooting from a building top and I need some long L length or something I will carry a fui interchangeable lens cameras sometimes um but I think of carrying as little as possible but not having a single point of failure anywhere so you you actually consider the iPhone 6 camera to be a worthy backup camera it's it's not ideal but uh you know my wife and I we did our annual Christmas book this year and there were a lot of pictures in the iPhone in it and they look fine um it it is that oh crap my camera just went down or my camera got stolen at least I can still take pictures camera right I have to say the iPhone 6 Plus camera is the best mobile camera I've ever used they're ridiculous I think it's incredible I mean the the the the quality the dynamic range that I see in those images is so incredible that it kind of makes me wonder if I cuz I've been considering we actually just talks about about the Fuji x100t on our on a recent show and I was kind of thinking to myself do I even need to buy one of these is it that much better than the iPhone 6 Plus cuz the 6 Plus is amazing in my opinion do you think there's a there's a there's a market Improvement in quality from an image perspective from a mirrorless camera like the x100t and the iPhone 6 plus uh I'm going to say yes for for a few reasons number one low light is going to be a big difference number two and especially with respect to Fuji the color palette and the control over the color palette is fantastic um it's there's just there's a quality jump and for me I really like shooting when the light is mixing like like shooting through mix and Twilight and Dusk and just when the light gets the absolute most gorgeous that's when the iPhone starts falling apart when the wait so when you you feel like when the when the light gets good the iPhone starts failing is that because it's just it's just too dim outside totally totally yeah it it's um like my my favorite picture that I've shot travel picture in the last couple years was shot in Havana actually and and the literally the light was dropping it was gorgeous and and everything was getting pushed like I was wide open I was shooting in a quarter of a second um my ISO was just going up and up and up as that light went away quantitatively but qualitatively it was just freaking gorgeous and and the last thing I want is a camera that limits me when the light is at its beautiful it would be like the most frustrating thing that's a very good point well let me ask you this do you feel like there's a big difference in quality between a mirrorless camera like the x100t and you know a Canon 5D Mark III so I I think in a lot of ways it's not an apples to Apple's comparison um for instance like the 5D Mark II pixels are going to be bigger um because they're spread over a larger uh chip and you're going to get the ability to throw the background more um at a given focal length than you would with an apsc sized mirrorless chip when you say throw the background more you mean blur it out like out of focus right sorry uh uh and um but on the other hand Fuji's color kills Canon's color and kills Nikon's color it's not hard to believe that is hard to believe it's really not if you think about the the the color and digital DNA that the that the different companies have um like uh like Fuji black and white right out of the camera is just like it's ridiculous and the ability to set up individual palletes and then shift the you know shift the color and shift the contrast internally throughout the range and all the stuff that they do like I don't even shoot raw with Fuji anymore I tried it and and I literally could not create better files than the camera was cranking out in camera so I think uh I shoot JPEG but I think of myself as shooting a raw and processing it literally when I'm pushing the button because these things capture I think 12 and a half stops of range with every image MH wow I so you're not even shooting Raw anymore CU I always shoot raw I mean it's kind of the photographers Mantra right shoot raw shoot raw and on my Canon 5D Mark III I I don't think I've ever used the jpeg function because you want to be able to go into Lightroom afterwards and finesse it and make things better and so you're saying that it it gets it right so often that there's just no need to do that well I know I mean I'm definitely giving up something by by not shooting raw occasionally certainly burst and card space like I can go in with a 16 gig card and I've got a bottomless pit um um it it's just it's it's a workflow thing for me and at the sun where I used to where I used to shoot the Baltimore Sun where I was a staffer um we shot jpegs we learned to shoot jpegs and get them good in camera uh because we wanted to see our kids literally and at the end of each day we would have to Archive everything we shot with a CD burner like every frame and the guys that were shooting raw that was like uh like a 45 minute process and the guys who were shooting jpeg it was like you know a five minute process we're like that's pretty easy that's an easy choice so you kind of felt like you were getting maybe 80 to 90% of of the image quality or or you know the kinds of images you want you would want to see V in jpeg as opposed to having to spend all that time in in raw you know kind of finessing your images to make them just marginally better is that kind of your thought yeah it's it's more um like like I want to be a photographer when I'm being a photographer I don't want to just like like there are some of these guys that are just like I only shoot raw I'm like well that's great you know I I'll push the button and then I'll worry about everything later I I really like the feedback that I'm getting um you know uh moment to moment in the uh in the in the the digital back and it's just it's a I think it's a more uh it's a it's it's a more legit Choice with the Fuji than it was with the Nikon with the Nikon I felt like I need to go in there and make the color better um I really feel like they it it just does a great job in camera and and a lot of the people that that I talk with they feel that way too it's like you can go to Raw but it's the same you can take a phase one on vacation if you want absolute maximum quality but is that the best workflow Choice all the time probably not I guess that's kind of the overarching consideration to this entire conversation right is you could take a DSLR with three different lenses and get some that's okay I really like your ringtone it's very festive um you could take all that Gear with you you could take a tripod and all this all this crap with you but you know then when you're on your vacation I've I've done that and you're you're cting around all this gear and it kind of just makes your vacation suck because you're you're constantly tired your neck hurts you have all the all this gear that you're carrying around with you it makes you a target for for theft and you kind of want to enjoy yourself when you're on your vacation that that is that is exactly and and for the traveling photographer thing did a 4-Hour section on fundamentals and and so much of it comes down to that it it's uh and I'll even go further with that if you are not paid to be taking travel photos like if if I'm not an assignment for the Sun or whatever um I shouldn't be lugging all that stuff around it's like if I've got two cameras and zooms and a waistback with two other lenses and a flash you know and a light standand and a tripod I'm not on vacation anymore I'm I'm like I'm infantry and and it's and it goes Beyond just gear too uh it's not just that I don't I want I don't want to be taking a lot of gear it's also that when I'm traveling especially with my family I want to spend most of that time just traveling and enjoying the experience and being in the moment and having fantastic uh family time and occasionally I want to step outside of that at mix light and do something really cool that maybe I planned or just wonder or what so it's the experience first and it's the memories first if someone is not paying you to take travel pictures you're an idiot if you're just like man I gotta I just got to get a good picture I'm I'm in traler square I've got every lens I own you know and it's like it's it it's it's a it's a losing game it just it doesn't make sense if you look at a big picture so you're on the streets in Rome you're somewhere exotic in Cuba how are you thinking about taking pictures and how are do you have any like Photo tips that you could share with people to really take great travel pictures when they're just kind of walking around yeah a couple actually um number one uh would be to always have your camera with you and that comes down to how light you're traveling um I T I tend to carry like a day pack a backpack and I've got a carabiner on the strap up around my shoulder and I'll just clip the camera into the Carabiner the small the Fuji x100s and I'll forget it's there it's just like there's no weight but it's distributed evenly over my shoulders so I think the last day I was in London I walked 22 and 1 12 miles which is like 53,000 steps on Fitbit and I have my camera with me and I just wouldn't have done that with a D3 and a 24 to 70 no you're right when I was traveling there were some days where I just left my camera in my bag you know at the hostel because I just couldn't bear to carry it anymore no Moss right right um so the other thing that I would say is is to um is to just you vacuum up a lot of pictures just I want to remember this or this gave me an idea or wow that's a cool business with that work in my town I just do things to to jog my memory later but there are some things that you see that have potential you should be willing to stop and put put 5 minutes or 10 minutes or 20 minutes into waiting for something to converge and make it a better picture MH um and then finally I would say that like you should just like be up front with your family and say look mix light kind of belongs to me as a photographer I want to create as much time and space all the rest of the day as I possibly can to hang out with you guys and everything but like uh but for the time from maybe 15 minutes before Sunset to 30 minutes after Sunset I'd really like to be here this evening if you guys want to be here that'd be fantastic and maybe come up with things that work both ways like uh like looking out at Paris um from sakur is a fantastic example of that it's it's a sunset party but it's also a great place to shoot pictures so so you can you can spend minimal time outside of family traveler mode and get maximum return and you can often cross those over because it's they're they are cool activities to do at dusk that also yield great pictures it's interesting I think a lot of times when we talk about photography tips people expect here's the gear you need to use here's how to take a good photograph you know um and here's how you frame the image for example but often what I hear from people is what you just said is is you need to take the time to kind of let your creative Juices Flow take a bunch of pictures but but make that time for that to happen because it's a process and you're going to spend a bunch of time you know that you designate just taking pictures and then you'll get some great ones and it has nothing to do as much with gear and Framing and all that kind of stuff right like if you ask me for travel photography tips you're never going to hear f stops and shutter speeds it's mostly about being in the moment and being hyper observant and just like being open to things hitting you in a city and I it's kind of weird and counterintuitive but I think one of the um the best ways to become a better walking around photographer is to spend more time walking around not being a photographer just observing as opposed to just walking around with the camera up to your eye going what about this what about that what about this what about that it's it's just it's it's just it it maybe it works for other people it absolutely doesn't work for me so since you mentioned street photography be observant and look for good opportunities to take photos what about if you want to take a photo of someone who you don't know um that always is very highly awkward for me how do you deal with that situation yeah you know it's there are a lot of ways to do it I I can shoot really stealthily with that camera um uh Zach has taught me a fantastic trick like I can literally walk up to you and be making picture after picture of you from 3 or 4 feet away and you have no idea um and it's it's a wonderful trick and you can only do it with a P with a camera where you can shoot off of the back viewfinder um like you can obviously with the interchangeable uh the mirrorless cameras but uh but you shoot above somebody like really obvious dumb tourist mode you go look at that view right above your head you're it's like taking pictures taking pictures taking pictures and and then you hold the camera down and you chimp right in front of your face like you're looking at it and you get like a furrowed brow so you pretend like you're looking at the image you just took but then you're actually taking a picture of them you can stick a camera right in someone's face and shoot again and again again um that's good well and you also need you need a mirrorless camera for that because it's got to be it's got to be very quiet um that's the less ethical way that I would say but yeah like if you don't want to disturb what someone's doing if that is what's making the picture I'll do that in a heartbeat okay um but if you are if you want to uh create a moment with someone and actually meet them God forbid you actually meet someone from a different country and and and such then I'm going to point you to Steve Simon who is um he wrote a book called the passionate photographer which is phenomenal um and it is really about that um developing interpersonal connections with people like quickly and and and over time and just that asking with your eyes if you don't speak the same same language and and just that gentle bedside manner that all really good photojournalists have like the great ones have it better than other people have it I agree with you um being able to just deal with people and build a rapport with people is very very very important when you're taking pictures of people that you don't know because you need to build that relationship quickly and there needs to be a certain level of trust there where they're they're okay with you taking their picture and a lot of times it's just like like raising your eyebrows like holding with you know is this okay and just for asking it kind of put you in the a stack a lot of times because they see a lot of tourists basically and and and just like walking up and grabbing a picture like really um there there are some people that that that really don't get how important the interpersonal part of it is I think um they just don't those are the guys that get punched well okay okay here's an extreme example uh you know but this guy didn't get punched because it wasn't possible for him to get punched but uh I'm lying in bed uh with my wife who was an editor at the paper where I originally worked when I got out of college and it's like 10:00 at night and and we had assigned this person to go shoot a uh a funeral like a a funeral in the African am like AFC like Nigerian community and in our area and um and the reporter was calling crying saying I can't work with this guy he's got a 20 million 20 MIM lens jammed into the coffin shooting past the the like the deceased's face to the people who work like clearly like mourning and stuff and like probably not the best way I mean that guy's not going to punch you but still that like it doesn't get much worse than that I don't think yeah when you're just you know hanging out around the coffin and just being totally uh yeah yeah how would you want to be approached yes right that's that's what it comes down to like it's an opportunity to meet someone best tip I have for that if you see if you want to meet people on the road you'll see them like holding up their tablet shooting a picture of everybody else in their group just just walk up them say he you know you want you do you want a picture of all four of you or like if there's five just five fingers but and they'll look at you and they'll think can I outrun this person if he steals my iPad and for me the answer is generally yes and they'll go oh yeah sure thanks and and it's a like you make a nice picture and it's a great way to start a conversation H that's that's a very good tip as well just start a conversation with somebody yep and then you know and then kind of build a rapport with them and then if if it seems right you know get get your picture with them be careful about handing your camera to The Strangers by the way yeah can can you outrun them that's the only thing that you need to it's like I'm not going to hand this to a guy who runs a like who runs the 440 right cuz I'm never going to like if he decides to go then that one's on me um do you have any favorite iPhone editing applications things that you use to edit your photographs when you take you know iPhone photographs um I got to say I think the new one build into iOS is actually really good and and it's like a raw converter basically uh I like uh oh gosh what it uh snap yeah yeah that's that's good I don't I I find myself not going outside of the IOS app nearly as much as I used to lately because the quality of what it does is so good and it just gives me it gives me control of all the knobs and a really intuitive um powerful way I think so you're editing your photos within the photos app yeah and and and uh now and and and not to bang the Fuji drum but they they are really good with their uh smartphone integration now like like I can just tap a couple buttons and have my full resolution pictures literally coming into the IOS app and um and and adjusting in there or they have this little paperback book size thing that that is basically a Polaroid camera with a Wi-Fi card in it um so I can I can sync between my camera and it's battery operated I can pull it out my backpack and literally make a hard print for somebody like I can tone it on the iPhone and output a hard print and that's all done in just a couple of minutes I think I've seen that printer that's really super handy yeah there it and it's it's like you wouldn't do this in Paris but like if you were going to a developing country where where it's unusual for for people to see like a camera like way out in the Hinterlands or something there just things that you can do that that really quickly connect you uh we were shooting um a Pakistani wrestling Kushi wrestling in Dubai and one of the empty it was like in the Sandy pit and these guys show up Frid wish I had seen something like that yeah well but we brought a uh we brought an insta camera with us and it went from like should we trust you like I mean they were cool but we were definitely like not in the group yeah to like you're just like the hit of the party all of a sudden it's like everybody wanted to hang out and like you start pulling out like Polaroids and handing them out and they're like 65 cents a picture it's no big deal um it's just it's the best Icebreaker I think pound-for-pound that would be really fun just to kind of travel and go to different countries take photos of incredible you know events like what kind of wrestling did you say it was it was kushy wrestling Kush wrestling kushy guys wrestling in the dirt and basically they're slamming it's it's it's over really fast and you wouldn't want to be out there like if you read if you wrestled in high school it's not the kind of thing where you're gonna like you're G to join the band go because they kick your butt did you take off the old shirt hop in the ring for a couple rounds well yeah I don't want to embarrass anybody uh like specifically me I have done that uh not in wrestling but I was in Costa Rica in 1997 and and I had no money and I was traveling around kind of in the rural areas and we're in this place called La Fortuna uh Des s Carlos I think and they had a rodeo there and if you uh if you volunteered to be a rodeo clown you didn't have to pay to get into the rodeo and I thought well that seems like a good idea so so I did that how did that go for you did it did it end with you waking in the hospital a week later it you know I I just handed I had a Nikon fm2 and Trix in it and I I I handed this my camera to this nice Canadian couple that I was pretty sure I could outrun and I said if you see me and the bull in the in the frame just start shooting and don't stop shooting until you run out of film um here's my wife's address send the pictures to her if I don't make it out totally totally and and uh and like the the bull would come out and it was typically a drunk amateur Rider so he would be on the bowl for about a quarter of a second and then he would be in the air and then it was your job to distract the now very angry bull that was looking to finish him off yeah right wait you were like the rodeo clown yeah yeah there were there were like three or four of us in the ring it was uh it was me and a couple of guys from Costa Rica wow and like they're all machismo and they're running up and slapping the bull on the ass and running to the other side all and I'm like I'm I'm getting I'm staying as very close to the wall that I can climb as I possibly can and they said no no closer closer closer and I kept getting closer and closer and and they got me about like closer to the bull than I was to the wall and this guy grabbed me from behind like really hard yeah and scared The Living Daylights out of me and then I realized that like that's the that's the that's the joke they play on every like visiting Ringo rodeo clown it's like the it's like everybody in the crowd was was in on it and uh so at that at that point I was a little less stressed plus you get free beer if you're going to be a volunteer rodeo CL oh well I mean what could go wrong with free beer and an angry bowl and a total lack of experience yes it's a self-contained ecosystem at that point well let me ask you this um favorite project that you've shot maybe I know you've traveled around a ton shot with lots of different photographers what's been one of your favorite projects that you've worked on um I I was lucky enough this year I think to do more travel photography than I'm ever than I've ever done uh but my favorite project far and away is the what I've been working on for the last five years now with the Howard County Arts Council where um every every year they pick 10 Young performing artists that show a lot of promise and they have this sort of American Idol night where it's it's the best night out in Howard County every year because these people are so good and so dedicated and so young and so broke and and it's by Applause it's 10 acts and by Applause and the winner wins like 5,000 bucks or something that's incredible I love that it's awesome and and the tickets are like a 100 bucks and all these restaurants come out and food is provided and and it's like they raise like 50,000 bucks for the artart you know in that night but what I've been doing is each one of these finalists these 10 finalists I give them a photo shoot every year and it's it's a way for me to work with young creative people who are not like the typical white guys and ties corporate guys and um and and to do for something that's really not a lot of trouble for me to leverage them quickly and Visually so their website or their promotional pictures can look like the successful person that they have a good chance of becoming in the next few years that's wonderful I um I was recently talking on our show about this show on HBO called young arts masterclass and they do exactly what you just talked about they they pair it's a documentary series they pair young broke artists but you know Young Artists young photographers who are really really talented Have and Have you know they have a big future ahead of them if they could just get someone to Mentor them and they pair them with the absolute best of the best like the Joshua bells of the violin world and and really famous painters and then they film the entire process they usually end up mentoring them for a week and then they you know do a project together and it's magic and by the end of it you can see how much the artists have grown I mean mainly emotionally and just from a professional perspective having someone of a much higher caliber just kind of take them under their wing and I just love that I mean that whole that whole idea of mentoring you know someone like yourself who has so much experience you could share so much with someone who just has a lot of potential but just doesn't really have anyone who could work with them to to kind of help them you know get better at what they do I just think that's incredible and then the fact they they get a cash prize it's yeah it's it's cool and you know if you if you're Howard County is a really good place to be um a starving artist for instance or or or a recent immigrant and we we pretty much have our stuff together around here as far as the way that we handle a lot of um things that are a little out on the edges like that um and and not saying that what I'm doing is any great thing for them but but it's something it's easy for me and and potentially they have the ability to leverage it into something really cool so so as a photographer I'm looking I don't think of myself as someone who takes pictures and f- stops and shutter speed so much as all right what is the what's the coolest thing that can happen because of my pictures now you know if that's attainable that's something I can work towards all right now what what am I going to have to do to make that happen so I tend to think that way rather than just who will pay me to take pictures and and uh and and it opens up lots of new doors for me I find out yeah I think following your passion is really the way to go and doing things to help others obviously is always good for your not just for you not just for them but it's also good for you you know like it feels good to help other people and I think in a way I mean if you believe in karma it it it helps spur your own you know career and passion in a way so I think that's great well uh David I don't want to take um much more of your time you're an incredibly important man and I know yeah right you told me before we started you had five minutes max I'm sorry Mr Cruz I'm almost done uh he's playing me in the movie obviously so so let me just let me just finish with this um if people wanted to follow your work um where could they find you online well strobist is is a it's a cool information archive for uh with the occasional new thing if you're into lighting and um and some cool like just what we were talking about some of the ecosystem around that um but I spend more time than than anything uh probably hanging out on on Twitter that's the easiest place to uh to ping me or interact and and then uh and those two those two vectors point to a lot of different places basically what's your Twitter handle uh strobist oh strobus at strobist are you on Instagram I am not I I uh it's it's like me and Facebook we just we just don't we don't get along see and then you're also teaching some Linda courses uh the one that I saw was the learn how to take better travel photography and are you teaching any other courses or is that the primary one so no the um there's a lighting and layers series of uh seven DVDs that I did in 2011 that also is on Londa which is kind of how we got introduced to each other um I think I watched the some of those yeah so th those are there if if you want to learn if you want to uh like a real like a a pretty in-depth right along tutorial on on how to light on location those are there Linda's got a lot of cool content I really got a give them credit for how they're building the photo section lately they're they're just like we want to make the photo section big as the how to use Photoshop software section so so they're going nuts and and and more power to them that's cool yeah I really like it too and I mean just the fact that they found out who you were and decided to ask you to come teach I think says a lot because you were kind of like this underground guy I thought I mean you were like doing it and as you were doing it as you were figuring stuff out you were teaching others what you were learning and which is kind of how you built this really huge Community because you were giving away all this incredibly valuable you know information on how to get better at photography and and at least when I was trying to learn there wasn't a whole lot of good information out there so it was really cool that Linda latched on to you so if you guys are interested in checking out if you're interested in learning how to light better which I highly recommend I mean it's not just you're not going to just apply these skills to you know some kind of professional lighting situation the things that I've learned about lighting I use when I take pictures of everybody you know when whenever you have a family shot you're taking pictures of your friends the things that I have learned have improved my photography all across the board it's not just like I'm doing professional commercial photography which I'm not and then also if you want to learn how to become a better Travel Photographer head on over to linda.com cultcast Linda is giving a 10-day free trial so if you are so motivated you could watch all of David Hobby's courses in 10 days if you wanted to um make sure you have some coffee my mom didn't even do that make sure you have some coffee so you can have some late nights but you could do the entire thing we'll link up all of David's courses on linda.com cultcast that's l y nda.com cultcast I want to thank Linda for supporting this episode David it's been a pleasure to talk with you likewise thanks man I I I really enjoy being here thank you very much and uh thanks for making the time this has been cultcast second hour hopefully you guys enjoyed the segment hopefully you learned the finger too I'm Aron Elijah and we'll see you guys next time\n"