The Focus Trap

What if finding your photography style is less about finding it and more about figuring out what you actually like? In this episode of The Focus Trap, Amy and Casey talk about photographic style, creative voice, and the pressure to somehow develop a recognizable “look.” Instead of treating style as something you choose and then stick with forever, they explore what happens when you learn by copying, experimenting, borrowing from other photographers, and slowly keeping the pieces that feel like yours. Amy talks about learning directly from photographers whose work she admired, following their methods closely enough to understand them, and then deciding what she wanted to take home with her. From bird photography workshops to dog photography to lessons borrowed from landscape composition, her own work has evolved through what she calls the difference between karaoke and sampling: sometimes you copy something to learn how it works, but eventually you start remixing those influences into something of your own. Casey is in the middle of that process now. She talks about being drawn to wildly different styles, getting overwhelmed by everything she'd have to learn to create them, and realizing that imitation can be a perfectly useful place to start. The harder part is learning when to stop looking for someone else's settings, presets, or answers and start making your own decisions about what you actually want a photograph to look like. They also talk about: Why having taste isn't the same as having a signature style Why someone else's presets won't magically make your photos look like theirs Using inspiration photos to figure out what you like and what you don't How new lenses and other tools can change the way you see Borrowing composition ideas from completely different genres of photography Why knowing the Lightroom sliders isn't the same as knowing what you want them to do Trying things once and giving yourself permission to decide they're not for you Along the way, there are conversations about Oxford commas, fake Photoshop blur, Alaskan salmon that Amy still doesn't like, Casey's need for external validation, and the possibility that gold stars may be required on their next photography trip. Focus Makers VIP Membership If you’re a working dog sports photographer, Focus Makers VIP Membership is a small support group for the parts of this job that are hard to figure out alone. Amy brings 25+ years of experience with high-volume dog sports photography, and Casey joins the conversation around burnout, boundaries, nervous system regulation, and making the business sustainable. Through the end of 2026, accepted VIP applicants can join for the Premium price of $49/month instead of $99/month. Apply for Focus Makers VIP: https://form.jotform.com/262586385030055 ------------------- Subscribe so you don't miss the next episode. Email us at [email protected] 📸 Find Amy and learn more about her photography coaching: https://www.skool.com/focus-makers/about 🧠 Find Casey and learn more about what she's up to: www.caseyjourdan.com And follow The Focus Trap @thefocustrap on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok (00:00) - S02 E08 Focus on Making it Yours (00:55) - Do You Need a Photography Style? (06:01) - Karaoke vs. Sampling (12:17) - Figuring Out What You Actually Like (17:15) - Borrowing From Other Kinds of Photography (22:47) - The Sliders Won’t Find the Story for You (34:16) - When Karaoke Feels Safer

What if the difference between taking a picture and making a photograph is everything that happens before you press the shutter? In this episode of The Focus Trap, Amy and Casey talk about the choices photographers make that disappear from the finished image. Sometimes that means choosing your angle, focal length, or background. Sometimes it means scouting a location, paying for access, or simply deciding what kind of photograph you’re trying to make before you pick up the camera. Amy talks about the layers of intentionality that become visible as your photography skills grow, from controlling camera settings to building a photograph from the background forward. She also digs into the less-visible preparation behind wildlife, event, and dog photography and why controlling everything you can control makes you more prepared for the things you can’t. Casey is discovering those layers in real time. A crochet bunny experiment completely changes how she thinks about focal length, while a disappointing photo from a hike becomes less about fixing the image and more about figuring out what she needs to do differently next time. She also wrestles with the realization that sometimes she wants to make a photograph and sometimes she just wants a terrible picture of a dolphin because she saw a dolphin. They also talk about: Why aperture isn’t the only way to blur a background Building a photograph from the background forward Paying for access, workshops, and better opportunities Why intentionality doesn’t guarantee a good photograph Learning from a photo instead of trying to rescue it in post Being ready for the moments you couldn’t possibly plan Along the way, there are conversations about removing whole-ass people in Photoshop, Homer Simpson disappearing into a hedge, the behind-the-scenes of the behind-the-scenes, enormous seagulls, backyard vultures, dappled light, and why sometimes the most intentional photography decision is doing the hike again without your husband. ------------------- Subscribe so you don't miss the next episode. Email us at [email protected] 📸 Find Amy and learn more about her photography coaching: https://www.skool.com/focus-makers/about 🧠 Find Casey and learn more about what she's up to: www.caseyjourdan.com And follow The Focus Trap @thefocustrap on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok (00:00) - S02 E07: Focus on Being Intentional (00:55) - Photos Aren’t Always What They Seem (10:01) - Build the Photo From the Background (15:23) - Sometimes You Pay for the Opportunity (19:40) - Sometimes the Intention Is Just to Be There

What if trusting yourself doesn’t mean knowing you’re right? In this episode of The Focus Trap, Amy and Casey dig into self-trust — what it actually means, how it’s different from confidence, and what happens when you’re so busy looking for the right answer that you stop listening to your own. In photography, that can show up everywhere from deciding whether you like a photo to making creative choices, taking feedback, and figuring out which advice is actually useful. Amy talks about how 25 years of photography and business have given her evidence for what she knows works, even when her approach doesn’t make sense to everyone else. She also explains why critique isn’t about whether she personally likes your photograph, why she wants a photo to “have an opinion,” and how her mathematical approach to photography gives creativity a structure without deciding what someone else’s creative voice should be. Casey comes at self-trust from the perspective of learning: what happens when you’re building new skills while also trying not to outsource every decision to someone with more experience. She talks about external validation, noticing your first reaction before you override it, and learning to separate “this didn’t work” from “I can’t trust myself.” They also talk about: Why getting feedback is its own skill The difference between pretty photographs and photographs with impact When experience helps self-trust — and when ignorance might help too Trusting your instincts while culling and editing Why your first reaction to a photograph is useful information Finding the structure underneath “whimsy and sparkles” Along the way, there are conversations about birds on sticks, compliment sandwiches, Amy’s deeply unfortunate mental image of a social media “hook,” whimsy and sparkles, and the idea that Amy and Casey might collectively add up to one functional wedding photographer. (They are not accepting bookings.) ------------------- Subscribe so you don't miss the next episode. Email us at [email protected] 📸 Find Amy and learn more about her photography coaching: https://www.skool.com/focus-makers-5374/about 🧠 Find Casey and learn more about what she's up to: www.caseyjourdan.com And follow The Focus Trap @thefocustrap on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok (00:00) - Self-Trust in Creative Photography Dynamics (00:42) - What Does Self-Trust Even Mean? (04:15) - It Isn’t About Whether I Like Your Photo (12:44) - Your Photo Should Have an Opinion (14:02) - Self-Trust, Experience, and a Little Ignorance (22:07) - Whimsy and Sparkles vs. the Math of Photography (30:56) - How Do You Rebuild Self-Trust?

What if the way you’ve been doing it “wrong” is actually the way that works for you? In this episode of The Focus Trap, Amy and Casey welcome their first guest, J. Nichole Smith, for a conversation that starts with a five-page Word document and somehow ends up spanning late-diagnosed neurodivergence, business, community, self-trust, and what happens when you finally have language for the way your brain has been working all along. Nic shares the story behind the Instagram reel that caught Amy’s attention: a frustrating attempt to sign her kids up for a holiday camp, followed by an email that immediately made her wonder whether the problem was the system, or whether she was just being difficult. Amy recognizes that question immediately. It’s part of what originally brought her to Casey: needing someone who could help sort out what actually needed reframing and what was, in fact, just ridiculous. Casey brings that same question into business and learning: when something creates friction, how much energy should you spend trying to make yourself do it “the right way,” and when do you trust the evidence that another way might work better? That leads into experimentation, tiny workarounds, ignoring advice that doesn’t fit, and one of the simplest ideas in the episode: fucking trust yourself. They also talk about: * Why successful people aren’t necessarily evidence that a system works for everyone * What late neurodivergence diagnosis can explain without actually changing who you are * Why more information may not be what overwhelmed business owners need * Building community instead of collecting more courses and strategies * Joy, color, and creating room for difficult conversations * Why the things that feel easy to one person can be genuinely hard for someone else * Treating your business like an experiment instead of your baby * The “above, around, and below” support every business owner needs * Why buying back your time can matter more than doing everything yourself Along the way, there are conversations about emergency appendix surgery before a keynote, whether neurotypical people actually exist, the visceral horror of group projects, tiny bags of cash, and business strategies operating at approximately the same motivational sophistication as a five-year-old. ------------------- Subscribe so you don't miss the next episode. Email us at [email protected] 📸 Find Amy and learn more about her photography coaching: https://www.skool.com/focus-makers-5374/about 🧠 Find Casey and learn more about what she's up to: www.caseyjourdan.com And follow The Focus Trap @thefocustrap on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok (00:00) - Recording (00:51) - Meet Nic — and the Keynote That Almost Happened (08:40) - Is It Me, or Is This Actually Ridiculous? (22:59) - Maybe More Information Isn’t the Answer (31:11) - Beyond the Information Era (36:28) - What Changes When You Finally Have the Language? (47:26) - Your Business Is an Experiment, Not Your Baby

What if you can make the photograph even if you can’t picture it first? In this episode of The Focus Trap, Amy and Casey dig into aphantasia — Casey’s inability to picture images in her mind — and what it means for photography. But the conversation quickly gets bigger than visualization: How much of “seeing” a photograph happens in your head, and how much comes from experience, pattern recognition, and doing the same thing enough times to know what works? Amy can visualize in full 3D, but even she doesn’t walk around with finished photographs already formed in her head. She talks about the difference between having a shot list and actually visualizing a shot, why years of photographing agility let her anticipate framing and timing before the dog runs, and how learning to read a photograph is a skill built through experience, including plenty of experiments and dead ends nobody sees. Casey looks at the same questions from the opposite end of the visualization spectrum. She talks about scouting locations when she can’t mentally put a dog into the scene, editing when she can’t picture the finished photograph, and why the predictability of studio work suddenly makes a lot more sense. The more they pull apart what actually requires visualization and what comes from skill and experience, the more the answer keeps coming back to the same annoying thing: reps. They also talk about: Aphantasia, visual memory, and face blindness Why shot lists aren’t necessarily visualization Learning to read a photograph instead of picturing the finished edit Why the creative process is much less linear than social media makes it look Watching the edges of the frame instead of the subject Using saturation, blur, and black and white to make your brain see a photo differently How subject knowledge and anticipation can matter more than visualization Understanding how your brain works so you can find the tools that work for you Along the way, there are conversations about Casey and her mom combining their mental skills to identify a VIP in Washington D.C., stuffed animals as legitimate scouting equipment, Amy’s mental map of badly lit agility venues, an eagle photo she really needs to print, whether “de-enhance” is a word, and the mutual certainty that neither Amy nor Casey wants anything to do with wedding photography. Do you have Aphantasia? Here's are a couple of DIY tests to check it out. https://cognitivetrain.com/aphantasia-test/ https://aphantasiatest.com/blog/apple-imagination-scale-what-the-red-apple-test-says-about-your-minds-eye ------------------- Subscribe so you don't miss the next episode. Email us at [email protected] 📸 Find Amy and learn more about her photography coaching: https://www.skool.com/focus-makers-5374/about 🧠 Find Casey and learn more about what she's up to: www.caseyjourdan.com And follow The Focus Trap @thefocustrap on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok (00:00) - Focus on How We See (00:43) - Photographic Memory (03:00) - Aphantasia and the Red Apple Test (11:28) - Back to the Photography Piece (18:39) - Why Studio Work Feels Safer (26:28) - Shot Lists vs. Seeing It in Your Head (44:44) - Tools, Reps, and Not Using Your Brain as an Excuse