The MOOD Podcast
Hosted by Matt Jacob
About this Show
The MOOD Podcast is a long-form conversation series exploring photography, creativity, identity, and the inner life of artists. Hosted by Matt Jacob, the show moves beyond technique and trends to examine why people make work, how creative voices are formed, and what it takes to sustain a meaningful artistic life.Through thoughtful, unhurried conversations with photographers, filmmakers, and creative thinkers from around the world, the podcast explores themes of process, mental health, ethics, purpose, legacy, and the tension between art and industry. Episodes are grounded, reflective, and often philosophical, offering listeners provocation of thought rather than formulaic answers to copy.The MOOD Podcast is less about instruction and more about understanding, aimed at emerging and established creatives who care not just about what they make, but why they make it. At its core, The MOOD Podcast is the art of conversation, one frame at a time.Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@the_moodpodcastInstagram: @the_moodpodcast /@mattyj_ayWebsite: https://themoodpodcast.com
Latest Episodes
What If a Photographer’s Fear of Failure Isn’t Fear at All? Psychologist Zahra Ciardi Explains
I'm joined again by Zahra Ciardi, a registered psychologist and the founder of Ascendant Bali, for a second conversation about the psychology behind photography and creativity. We talk about what happens when a photographer's identity becomes fused with their work, and why that turns ma...
Q&A: Why Your Photos Might Feel Stagnant (And How to Fix It) - Moments of Mood, 4.2
This is a Q&A with questions sent in by photographers from my community. I answer whether your audience needs to understand your photography, if a project shot in a few days can have real depth, how to deal with perfectionism, the small steps behind my own work that nobody saw, and what to do...
Why Photobooks Will Outlast the Internet - Matthew Genitempo (Part 2)
THIS IS PART 2 OF A 2 PART CONVERSATION WITH MATTHEW GENITEMPO.In Part 2 of my conversation with photographer and publisher Matthew Genitempo, we go deep into his photobooks Mother of Dogs and Dogbreath, and into Trespasser, the small press he runs with Bryan Schutmaat and Cody Haltom. We talk ab...
If You Still Question Your Photography, You Are Not Alone, So Does Matthew Genitempo (Part 1)
THIS IS PART 1 OF A 2 PART CONVERSATION WITH MATTHEW GENITEMPO. I sat down with photographer Matthew Genitempo, the graphic designer turned photographer and publisher behind the photobooks Jasper, Mother of Dogs and Dogbreath.In part one we go deep into Jasper, the photobook he made largely in th...
Andrea Modica's answer to the question every photographer asks eventually: what's the point? E134
I sat down with Andrea Modica, the ‘Italian Story’ photographer (as well many other books) who has made every photograph since 1980 with an 8x10 view camera and prints all her work herself. Andrea studied with Richard Benson at Yale, teaches photography at Drexel University, and has just publishe...
Your Worst Thoughts Arrive Dressed as Your Best Ideas - Moments of Mood, 4.1
In this week’s Moments of Mood episode, you’ll learn why I believe meditation is the most direct route to a photographic voice that is unmistakably yours, and exactly what it does to your attention, your creativity and the way you see.I make the full case for meditation as a photography practice....
Richard Sharum On 600 Deaths And His New Book 'American Homicide', E132
In this week’s podcast episode you'll learn why the photographs you're most proud of are probably the ones hiding you, and what a documentary photographer who has stood at 600 deaths says it actually costs to make work that changes something.I sat down with Richard Sharum, the American ...
Work Does Not Speak For Itself - Moments of Mood, 4.0
In this week’s Moments of Mood episode, you'll learn the 4 questions curators, juries, and publishers silently ask about every photography project, and how to answer them in 100 words so your work actually gets seen.I take apart the idea that photography speaks for itself, starting with the ...
Why Should Anyone Care About Your Photography? Shana Lopes, E130
Learn exactly what an SFMOMA photography curator looks for, what she passes over, and how to get your work seen without an MFA, a gallery, or a 6-paragraph artist statement.I sat down with Shana Lopes, Assistant Curator of Photography at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), to find ou...
Stop Explaining Your Photographs - Moments of Mood, 3.9
In this Moments of Mood episode, I get into the question of whether we as photographers should explain our images or let them try and ‘speak for themselves’, why the readings you want to correct are actually a map to your photographic voice, and the two gaps every photograph has to cross, from Ga...
Why Your Photos Are Boring - Photographer David Chancellor Explains..., E128
On this episode, I sat down with David Chancellor, the award-winning documentary photographer behind ‘Hunters’, ‘Handle Like Eggs’, and the Taylor Wessing Prize-winning portrait ‘Huntress with Buck’, for a conversation about the moral grey areas of documentary photography, trophy hunting, wildlif...
One Photograph Is All You Get Now, and Why That's Good News for Photographers - Moments of Mood, 3.8
Attention has collapsed, and every photographer feels it. In this Moments of Mood episode, I make the case that this might be the best thing to happen to serious photography in a generation. You'll learn why the photographers who matter from here on won't be the ones who make the most, ...
Odette England Answers Every Photographer's Worst Fear, E126
Odette England makes her photographs and then damages them, and this conversation is about why that is the most honest thing she has ever done with her voice.Odette is an Australian artist, writer and photography professor at Rhode Island School of Design and Brown University, whose latest book ...
How To Find Your Voice Without Building a Signature Style - Moments of Mood, 3.7
In this Moments of Mood episode I sit with a single photograph from my own archive, one I made by accident in under ten seconds, and use it to unpack an idea Cristina Mittermeier gave me: that the photographer is not a messenger but a membrane, a semi-permeable skin whose job is to let a conversa...
Trent Davis Bailey: Every Photographer Hits The Wrong Notes Before Finding Their Voice, E124
Trent Davis Bailey spent 7 years photographing a remote farming valley in Colorado, convinced he was making documentary work. He wasn't. The pictures knew before he did: he was searching for the family he'd lost to a twenty-year estrangement, and by the end of The North Fork he had foun...