How To Be A World-Class Creative Pro w/ Joe McNally

Joe McNally is one of the most accomplished photographers of his generation, with a list of achievements that I couldn’t possibly do justice to in this little intro. He’s one of the few people who have managed to be super successful in both journalism and commercial photography, and a few of the highlights of his insane career are working with clients including FedEx, Sony, GE, Adidas and Epson; working as LIFE Magazine’s only staff photographer; shooting cover stories for the likes of Newsweek, Sports Illustrated and Time among many many others; authoring three books on photography and creating several high-profile projects such as the incredibly powerful collection “Faces Of Ground Zero” honoring the first responders to the 9/11 attacks. Like I said there’s so much more on his resume but there’s no way I can get through it all – I don’t often use the word legend but that is exactly what Joe is in the world of photography, as well as a very wise, kind and humble guy.

This is one of the more serious interviews with Joe, who’s generally very fun and jovial – and I feel super grateful to get the opportunity to pull out some of the lessons he’s learned from so many decades in the business of photography. There’s simply no other way to learn this stuff other than being the trenches for the better part of a lifetime and looking back on it, and that’s most of what you’ll hear in this interview. It’s way too easy to miss the forest for the trees, so I would highly encourage you to use this as an opportunity to take a step back and look at the bigger picture of your own life. I firmly believe introspection is one of your most valuable tools, and this episode is super fuel for it.

>> PS– For even more of Joe’s insights + hands-on tips, RSVP to watch his FREE CreativeLive class on April 5-7 <<

Today on the podcast,

He talks about something a lot of people think or claim to possess but not so many actually do, which is tenacity. He has some great stories about being – as he says – “pitbull when he has a camera in his hands” and doing whatever it takes to get the shot
We’ve talked about the vital role of failure many times on this show and I love what Joe has to say about it – about how his failure shooting a horse race early in his career is specifically what set him up for success later in his career on projects like shooting the launch of the space shuttle
We get into something that’s very rarely discussed, which is the cost of being a super high achiever – some brutally honest discussion about the tradeoffs Joe’s made in his own career, such as the fact that traveling so much as a photographer meant that he missed a good chunk of his children’s formative years. Very real and raw stuff.

Enjoy!

I’m a photographer. I go to sleep and dream about it.

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Some Questions I Ask:

Can you give us your career arc? [1:30]
You were Life Magazine’s last staff photographer, weren’t you? [4:58]
What are some highlights and shit that you’ve seen working through the professional arc that you have? [5:18]
What does tenacity look and feel like to you and what has it provided for you throughout your career? [9:49]
Talk to me about your experience with failure. [14:15]
Were the pictures that you got of Cher failures? [16:20]
Are there any photos where you remember that you were a quarter of a second late that stand out to you? [17:48]
What are some of the things that you look back on and wish you would’ve done differently? [22:23]
Could you have achieved your career success without compromising on your role as a father? [25:10]
What’s your perspective on whether or not we all should be trying to turn our careers up to 11? [32:45]
What would you tell people who don’t consider themselves creative? [35:50]
What are you great at? [39:58]
What’s your morning look like? [44:33]
Are there any key habits that you have that have either contributed to your success or been a pain in the ass? [46:27]
What adjectives would you use to describe your legacy? [51:10]
How important is all the stuff beyond the craft? [53:00]
What’s next for you? [59:50]

In This Episode, You Will Learn:

How and why Joe got into photography and the many roads it led him down. [2:00]
The ups and downs of photographing some of the world’s best geniuses. [6:00]
That time Joe jumped on stage during a performance to make sure he got the shot. [6:35]
Even for photographers like Joe, some years are more creative and productive than others. [8:55]
Joe’s spirit animal is a bulldog. He will not back down if there’s a shot to get. [10:52]
The unromantic truth about what being a photographer is. [13:30]
Why you should be working towards failure. [14:38]
The lesson that Joe learned from shooting and getting steamrolled by Cher. [15:55]
Photography is about catching that moment, and if you don’t catch it, you fail. [17:35]
Terms like “hot-souping”. What shooting horse races was like before the luxuries of shooting digital. [18:19]
The ingenuity required to shoot launching and landings of a space shuttle and how to disregard something as earth shattering
as a space shuttle to get the job done. [20:50]
Why you need to balance maintaining your ego to grow and keeping your mouth shut about your successes. [27:30]
How to produce a good body of work. [34:19]
There is beauty and joy in the mundane. [36:15]
What the documentary “Finding Vivian Maier” could teach you about treasuring the process over the end result. [38:00]
How Joe manages his studio; he takes the credit and he takes the blame. [42:27
Why staring out the window is sometimes the most productive thing Joe does. [47:20]
How Joe used his childhood and love for comics to shape his creative output. [49:30]
What it means to be a pro’s pro. [52:00]
Knowing your craft is important, but knowing what you want to say is more important. [54:00]
The three components of a great photograph. [55:13]
Why Joe continues to shoot for clients (and suggests you do to) while ramping up his teaching endeavors. [1:03:11]

This podcast is brought to you by CreativeLive. CreativeLive is the world’s largest hub for online creative education in photo/video, art/design, music/audio, craft/maker, money/life and the ability to make a living in any of those disciplines. They are high quality, highly curated classes taught by the world’s top experts — Pulitzer, Oscar, Grammy Award winners, New York Times best selling authors and the best entrepreneurs of our times.