The Terrible Creative

Patrick Fore
  • 4.7 (38)
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The Terrible Creative is a storytelling podcast for photographers, designers, and creative humans trying to stay honest in a world that rewards pretending

  1. The Unknown - The Version of Yourself Nobody Has Seen Yet

    1D AGO

    The Unknown - The Version of Yourself Nobody Has Seen Yet

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

    43 min
  2. The Facade - The Gap Between What You Show and What's Actually Driving the Work

    APR 7

    The Facade - The Gap Between What You Show and What's Actually Driving the Work

    Episode 59: "The Facade" The Johari Window Series — Part Three Some weeks Patrick knows exactly why he's making this podcast. Other weeks he almost quits. This week he almost quit. In Episode 59, Patrick pulls back the frame on the third quadrant of the Johari Window — the Facade — and what it actually costs creative professionals to maintain the gap between what they show and what's driving the showing. The polished portfolio. The confident host voice. The finished frame with the 400 failed shots cropped out. This isn't an episode about lying. It's about omission. And about what happens when you build a professional identity around a creative practice that has no letter grade, no client approval, no clean signal telling you whether what you're making is landing or disappearing into silence. Patrick talks about Episode 7 — the color theory episode where he ran out of ideas and made something anyway. About the specific loneliness of having no one to call mid-crisis who has the context to help. About talking creative decisions through with AI because that's what the forest looks like sometimes. About the analytics graph that will eventually reduce this episode — this specific vulnerable, costly, self-inflicted colonoscopy of an episode — to a data point. And about why he kept walking anyway. In this episode: The almost-abandoned Johari series — what Patrick was going to make instead and what made him stay. The Facade as omission — how showing only the product accidentally creates a culture of impostors. The feedback loop problem — why the podcast is the hardest creative work Patrick has ever done to measure, and what his brain does in the absence of data. The AI collaborator admission — the specific loneliness of having context nobody else has. The difference between performed vulnerability and actual vulnerability — and why Patrick monitors that line constantly. The color theory episode — what episode 7 actually proved about whether the podcast could survive without a plan. The forest — the dim flickering light, the disappearing trail, and the thing that terrifies Patrick more than getting lost. The Johari Window — where we are: Episode 57 — The Glass House: The Arena. Visibility versus being known. Episode 58 — The Tell: The Blind Spot. What everyone around you already knows. Episode 59 — The Facade: What you hide. What it costs. Coming up — The Unknown. The three words that describe this episode: Bleeding. Silence. Walking. If this one felt uncomfortably familiar: That's the episode working. Email Patrick. He reads everything. Some weeks your email is the only signal he gets that any of this is landing. No pressure. But also — no pressure. Connect:Email Patrick: patrick@terriblephotographer.com Website: terriblephotographer.com The Book — Lessons From A Terrible Photographer: terriblephotographer.com/the-bookSupport the show: terriblephotographer.com/support Newsletter — Pub Notes: the-terrible-photographer.kit.com/223fe471fb Instagram — The Terrible Creative: @terriblephotographer Instagram — Patrick Fore: @patrickfore The Terrible Creative is written, produced, and hosted by Patrick Fore. Music licensed through Epidemic Sound and Blue Dot Sessions. Episode photography from Adobe Stock and Unsplash. Recorded from a garage in San Diego, California.

    46 min
  3. The Tell — Self-Handicapping, and What Everyone Around You Already Knows

    MAR 31

    The Tell — Self-Handicapping, and What Everyone Around You Already Knows

    Everyone around you already knows. Your clients see it. The people who've worked alongside you see it. The people who love you have probably tried to name it — in ways you found reasons to dismiss. In Episode 58, Patrick continues the Johari Window series by moving from the Arena into the most uncomfortable quadrant: the Blind Spot. Not the things you're hiding. The things you don't know you're broadcasting. Using his own creative identity as the case study — the self-deprecation, the Terrible brand, the mid-sentence bail — Patrick traces the armor back to its origin: a three-bedroom house in Freeport, Illinois, a dinner table where the competition was already over before it started, and a crayon surrender he signed before he was old enough to know what surrender meant. This episode is about the system you built to survive. Why it made sense when you built it. And why it might be costing you more than it's protecting you now. In this episode: The specific look Alycia gives when Patrick abandons his own story mid-sentence — and what it means that he smiles instead of getting defensive. Steven Berglas and the Harvard research on self-handicapping — why capable people undermine themselves before anyone else can, and why success doesn't fix it. The sociometer — Mark Leary's theory about the internal gauge that monitors social acceptance in real time, and why most of ours are still calibrated for rooms we left twenty years ago. The two kinds of armor: lead and chrome. Why one makes you invisible and the other makes you blinding — and why both are running the same old software. Brian, the coloring book, and the crayon surrender. The Katie problem — what it means to be fully seen, how rare it actually is, and what the armor has to do with why it's so hard to find. The Johari Window — where we are: Last episode: The Arena — what you show the world, and why being visible isn't the same as being known. This episode: The Blind Spot — what everyone else can see that you can't. Coming up: The Facade, The Unknown, and the negotiation between all four. If this one landed somewhere uncomfortable: That's the episode working correctly. Email Patrick. He reads everything and responds to most of it — especially the ones that cost something to send. Connect:Email Patrick: patrick@terriblephotographer.com Website: terriblephotographer.comThe Book — Lessons From A Terrible Photographer: terriblephotographer.com/the-bookSupport the show: terriblephotographer.com/support Newsletter — Pub Notes: the-terrible-photographer.kit.com/223fe471fb Instagram — The Terrible Photographer: @terriblephotographer Instagram — Patrick Fore: @patrickfore The Terrible Creative is written, produced, and hosted by Patrick Fore. Music licensed through Epidemic Sound and Blue Dot Sessions. Episode photography by Michał Parzuchowski — @m.parzuchowski Recorded from a garage in San Diego, California. Episode title and subtitle: "The Tell" The Johari Window Part Two — What Everyone Around You Already Knows

    44 min
  4. The Glass House - Visibility, the Johari Window, and Why Being Seen Isn't the Same as Being Known

    MAR 24

    The Glass House - Visibility, the Johari Window, and Why Being Seen Isn't the Same as Being Known

    There's a difference between being visible and being known. Most of us have confused the two. In this episode, Patrick is sitting at a networking event in San Diego when a graphic designer asks him a question he wasn't ready for: "Who are you to write a book? To make a podcast?" What followed was a masterclass in what happens when radical transparency meets a closed receiver — and why no amount of clever explanation, diplomatic humor, or honest disclosure can open a door that's locked from the other side. This is Part One of a five-part series on the Johari Window — a psychological model built in the 1950s to map the gap between what we show, what we hide, what others see, and what nobody knows yet. Patrick uses it as a lens to examine what it actually means to be seen as a creative professional in an attention economy that rewards the performance of transparency without any mechanism for checking the real thing. Also in this episode: why Zach Galifianakis crying at his sister's wedding is the most honest thing in this conversation, what Jerry Seinfeld gets wrong about talent, and what it costs to make the self-deprecating joke when the room can't receive you. In this episode: The networking event that started this whole series — and the question that hasn't left Patrick alone since. The Johari Window, explained by an organizational psychologist named Erin over coffee. Why the Arena isn't just built by what you put out — and what happens when the receiver can't take it in. Zach Galifianakis, his sister's wedding, and five hundred people who thought grief was a bit. The mom joke, what it cost, and why Patrick stopped making it. The Johari Window — the four quadrants: The Arena — what you know about yourself that others know too. The Blind Spot — what others can see that you can't. The Facade — what you know but keep hidden. The Unknown — what neither you nor anyone else has figured out yet. If this episode hit something: This is Part One of five. The series continues with the Blind Spot, the Facade, the Unknown, and the negotiation between all four. Subscribe so you don't miss it. And if you've ever been in a room where no arrangement of words was going to make it land — email Patrick. He reads everything. Connect:E-Mail Me: patrick@terriblephotographer.com Website: terriblephotographer.com The Book — Lessons From A Terrible Photographer: terriblephotographer.com/the-book Support the show: terriblephotographer.com/support Newsletter — Pub Notes: the-terrible-photographer.kit.com/223fe471fb Instagram — The Terrible Creative: @terriblephotographer Instagram — Patrick Fore: @patrickfore The Terrible Creative is written, produced, and hosted by Patrick Fore. Music licensed through Epidemic Sound. Episode photography from Adobe Stock. Recorded from a garage in San Diego, California.

    34 min
  5. The Audit - Was Your Work Already Replaceable Before AI Arrived?

    MAR 17

    The Audit - Was Your Work Already Replaceable Before AI Arrived?

    The fear underneath every AI conversation in photography right now isn't really about the future. It's recognition. In this episode, Patrick sits down with the hard question nobody in the industry is asking out loud: were we already making replaceable work before AI arrived? He traces the argument from a weekend with the Capture One leadership team, through his own portfolio audit, two unscripted phone calls with a working commercial photographer, a portrait session with a professor who had never been photographed, and a Christopher Anderson image made inside the White House that quietly pulls itself apart at the seams. This isn't an episode about AI killing photography. It's about what AI is making visible — and what that means for the work you make next. Show Notes The conversation about AI and photography has been happening at the wrong altitude. Markets, economics, job security — those are real questions. But they're the surface conversation. The thing underneath is harder: what were you making before AI arrived, and why? This episode starts in Paris, 1839 — the moment photography was supposed to kill painting — and ends with a question you probably haven't let yourself ask yet. Along the way: — A weekend with part of the leadership team at Capture One, and why Patrick came home more excited than afraid — The portfolio audit: scrolling back through his own work with new eyes, and what Gemini did with one of his best-performing images in four minutes — Two unscripted phone calls with commercial photographer Morgan Turner — including the two words that said everything — A portrait session with a professor in her fifties who had never been photographed, and what that responsibility actually looks like — Christopher Anderson's White House portraits, a light switch, and why AI would have removed it — The difference between a mistake and a strategic sacrifice — Why the making might matter more than the image Referenced In This Episode Christopher Anderson — White House Portrait Series Shot for Magnum Photos during the Trump administration. Worth finding and sitting with. magnum photos.com Capture One Professional photo editing software and the people building the tools photographers will use next. captureone.com The Long Middle Series If this episode landed, go back to Episode 40. It's the first in a four-part series on creative loneliness — what happens when you're good at what you do and something still feels off. It connects directly to everything discussed here. Guest Morgan Turner — Commercial Photographer, Cranbrook BC Website: mturnerphoto.com Instagram: @mturnerphoto Episode Photography Photo by Teslariu Mihai Instagram: @photosbymihai Links 📖 The Book — Lessons From a Terrible Photographer terriblephotographer.com/the-book ☕ Support the Show terriblephotographer.com/support 📬 Pub Notes — The Newsletter the-terrible-photographer.kit.com/223fe471fb 📷 Patrick on Instagram instagram.com/patrickfore 🎙 The Terrible Creative on Instagram instagram.com/terriblephotographer 📧 Email Patrick patrick@terriblephotographer.com Connect Have thoughts on this episode? Did the audit hit different than you expected? Did you find an image in your portfolio that survived it — or one that didn't? Email patrick@terriblephotographer.com — he reads everything.

    55 min
  6. Widening The Frame - Welcome to the Terrible Creative

    MAR 15 ·  BONUS

    Widening The Frame - Welcome to the Terrible Creative

    Something is changing. This bonus episode is the announcement I've been putting off — partly because I wasn't sure how to say it, and partly because the timing is, as with most things in my life, sideways. The Terrible Photographer is becoming The Terrible Creative. Same show. Same voice. Same refusal to pretend I have it figured out. But the door is wider now — because the emails I've been getting for years have made something clear: the struggle we talk about here doesn't belong to photographers. It belongs to anyone trying to make honest work in a world that keeps asking why you bother. In this episode I talk about why the name was right when it started, why it stopped fitting, and a handwritten letter from a ceramicist in Vermont that I've been carrying around in my bag for eight months. I also talk about the Impressionists, a twenty-two-year-old kid in Los Angeles who told me my work was terrible, and a brand manager who had feelings about a throw pillow. Oh — and the book is done. Lessons From a Terrible Photographer is real and you can buy it right now. MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE Lessons From a Terrible Photographer — the book → https://www.terriblephotographer.com/the-bookJeff Lipsky, photographer → jefflipsky.comLINKS Buy the book → https://www.terriblephotographer.com/the-bookSupport the show → https://www.terriblephotographer.com/supportSubscribe to Pub Notes (the newsletter) → https://the-terrible-photographer.kit.com/223fe471fbThe Terrible Photographer on Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/terriblephotographer/Patrick on Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/patrickfore/Email Patrick → patrick@terriblephotographer.comThe Terrible Creative is written, produced, and hosted by Patrick Fore. Music licensed through Epidemic Sound and Blue Dot Sessions. Recorded from my garage in San Diego, California.

    29 min
  7. Cosmic Cruelty - Freelancing, Isolation & Why the Universe Feels Like It’s Against You.

    MAR 10

    Cosmic Cruelty - Freelancing, Isolation & Why the Universe Feels Like It’s Against You.

    There's a moment in Season 11 of Alone where a man named Dub — forty days into the Canadian wilderness, starving, alone — watches a bull moose stand just out of reach on the other side of a freezing river. He has the shot. He has the skill. The river is just between him and the thing. He watches it walk away. Then it starts to snow. Then he slips. Both boots go into the water. "The moose was rubbing it in my face," he says. Every freelancer knows that sequence. Not the moose — but the cascade. The opportunity that was real and unreachable. The ethical choice that costs you anyway. The universe punctuating the loss with weather. And then, because it's not done with you yet, the small stupid thing that compounds everything. This episode is about the forces nobody puts in the brochure. Not the craft — you already have that. The River. The Weather. The Wet Boots. And the specific, invisible loneliness of navigating all of it while the rest of the world has no idea what the weather is like where you're standing. We're not talking about failure. We're talking about terrain. This episode is for anyone in the early years — still building, still surviving, still making camp on days when the moose walked away and it started snowing. In this episode: The selection process for Alone — and why the skills are the entry fee, not the game. The River, the Weather, and the Wet Boots — three invisible forces the portfolio review doesn't measure. Apophenia — why your brain invents a tiger when three clients ghost you in a row. The Zeigarnik Effect and why there are no days off, only hours off. The specific loneliness of people who love you but can't follow you into the room where the hard thing lives. Why the freelancers who last stopped measuring themselves against the whole game. And what witness actually costs — and why it's sometimes the only floor available. Podcast written, produced, and hosted by Patrick Fore. Music licensed through Epidemic Sound & Blue Dot Sessions. Episode photography from Adobe Stock & Unsplash. Recorded from the garage in San Diego, California. 🌐 terriblephotographer.com 📖 The Book: terriblephotographer.com/the-book☕ Support the show: terriblephotographer.com/support📬 Newsletter (Pub Notes): the-terrible-photographer.kit.com/223fe471fb📸 Instagram: @terriblephotographer / @patrickfore

    42 min
  8. The Cliff - Why Freelancing Has No Floor

    MAR 3

    The Cliff - Why Freelancing Has No Floor

    Every job has a floor. A salary. A review cycle. Someone in authority who tells you you're doing fine, keep going. Freelancing has none of that. There's no feedback mechanism that tells you you're okay. No quarterly check-in. No laminated menu that says: this is what we are, this is what we cost, this is what done looks like. There's just the work. And then the silence after the work. And then waiting to see what the silence contains. In this episode, I'm talking about the specific psychological cost of operating without a floor — and what happens when, after years of calling that freedom, you find yourself at midnight rebuilding a lunch counter from your childhood just to feel the relief of knowing what the job is. We're going back to a dead pharmacy in Freeport, Illinois. We're talking about ambiguity, clarity, and the thing nobody tells you about creative independence — that freedom without a floor is just a different word for a cliff. And why sometimes the most creative thing you can do is make something small, completable, and finished. Even if nobody ever sees it. This episode is for the photographers, writers, designers, and creative humans in the long middle — still building, still surviving, still showing up. In this episode: Emmert Drugs — a pharmacy lunch counter in Freeport, Illinois that treated time like a suggestion. The specific relief of a task with edges. Why ambiguity has a metabolic cost. The Karasek demand-control model and why high demands plus low control is the actual engine of exhaustion — not hard work. What small floors are and why your nervous system needs them. If you're interested, you can see the spec Emmert Diner Spec Project I designed in 24 hours. Podcast written, produced, and hosted by Patrick Fore. Music licensed through Epidemic Sound & Blue Dot Sessions. Episode photography By Elijah HiettRecorded from the garage in San Diego, California. 🌐 terriblephotographer.com 📖 The Book: terriblephotographer.com/the-book ☕ Support the show: terriblephotographer.com/support 📬 Newsletter (Pub Notes): the-terrible-photographer.kit.com/223fe471fb 📸 Instagram: @terriblephotographer / @patrickfore

    32 min
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4.7
out of 5
38 Ratings

About

The Terrible Creative is a storytelling podcast for photographers, designers, and creative humans trying to stay honest in a world that rewards pretending

Information

  • Creator
    Patrick Fore
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    62
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2025 Patrick Fore Photography, LLC
  • Show Website
    The Terrible Creative

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