Twyla Jones: Welcome. This is Emotional Storytelling, a podcast to support you in pursuing your passion, living more creatively and finding work life balance all while growing and scaling your business. I’m Twyla Jones, a photographer and educator based in South Florida. I created this podcast to share the stories and strategies of creatives and masterminds to inspire photographers, to live a more creative, productive, and balanced life. Each week, I’ll be sharing inspiring stories and practical advice to motivate you, to keep showing up for yourself, live more creatively, and enjoy the journey.

Okay. So before we get started today, I wanted to let you know about something new that I’m really excited about. Every time you listen to one of these podcasts, I’m always telling you to go get yourself signed up for HoneyBook, because it’s literally like hiring a virtual assistant to organize track, invoice, and respond to all your clients and inquiries. I just worked out something with them that enabled need to do a lot of the setup work for you, which I already know is always the reason I don’t want to switch platforms or sign up for something new. I don’t have time. So if you sign up with my link, that also gets you 50% off your first year, you also get all the templates I use to communicate with my clients loaded into your account. This is everything from questionnaires, pricing, products, everything. Just visit, share.honeybook.com/twyla, T-W-Y-L-A to get yours today.

Ryan Muirhead: Is podcasting like photography in that, like as soon as you’re done everyone just relaxes and says all the stuff you actually wanted to hear, just like how in photography having a camera is what ruins all the super photographable moments.

Twyla Jones: Ryan. Yes, it’s exactly it. Cause it’s I don’t know. It’s like a, something happens to you when you hit record the same way it does, like when you see the camera, and then when you can just fully relax, it’s just a totally different energy almost.

Ryan Muirhead: I agree. And I’m also of the disposition that like the most fascinating, useful, interesting thing to talk about with someone would be the thing they don’t want to tell you.

Twyla Jones: Absolutely

Ryan Muirhead: So it always just adds that weird dynamic to it that the most interesting thing we could share is the thing we’re definitely not going to. I and I feel that about photography sometimes too.

Twyla Jones: Seriously! I think even just in these podcasts, so a lot of times, so I like to start hitting record early, but then we have to stop, I have to stop recording and then we like comment to each other what we’ve just discussed and that’s always the really good stuff.

Ryan Muirhead: Yeah.

Twyla Jones: Yeah.

Ryan Muirhead: Yeah, I guess the hard part about that conversationally for me is I feel like there is a lot of complicated stuff I really would be willing to talk about, but most of that stuff involves other people. And it’s like, how much of this is yours to share? Yes. So then everything falls into the we don’t talk about that. And then all this stuff, that’s that interesting, or that would be that worthwhile to explore goes unphotographed or unsaid because you just can’t do it.

Twyla Jones: Absolutely. And sometimes though here it is, it’s that?-I don’t think that we like have to share everything with everyone, because some things you just really do want to keep to yourself, And I find that a lot when I’m photographing, either other people or especially my own family, like some moments are too beautiful to bring a camera into it because then you don’t experience it the same way.

Ryan Muirhead: Yeah. I. I’m not sure that’s the same for me. I think there’s, I think there’s a lot of things that I need a camera so that I get the emotional experience out of it. I think I don’t feel a lot of emotions in certain situations where I’d expect myself to and then making something out of it and having a product. Not a product, but like something, a physical product that I made to take away from it is how I interact with those really big moments.

Twyla Jones: I love that. That’s such a great perspective.

Ryan Muirhead: All right. It’s our first fight. We can fight about this now. Just kidding.

Twyla Jones: I would never, because I also agree, I totally get it. And I don’t know. I find things like that, like thrilling. Getting to capture things that I feel that way about. And I think that’s what drives me to keep doing it, to stay in this thing.

Ryan Muirhead: I definitely understand about keeping stuff to not share though, like both of my favorite images I’ve ever made in my entire life. Probably the top three, actually, I’ve never put online.

Twyla Jones: Really?

Ryan Muirhead: No,

Twyla Jones: I was, I researched you a little and, I was reading some other interviews you’d done. And I felt you were speaking on, some of maybe the most beautiful moments you had, experienced you didn’t photograph as well.

Ryan Muirhead: Really?

Twyla Jones: Yeah. You did say it.

Ryan Muirhead: I did? Maybe I’ve changed.

Twyla Jones: Maybe you’ve changed! I think it was an old interview

Ryan Muirhead: Okay. Old interview, new me now I’ve photographed all the beautiful moments.

Twyla Jones: Yeah. Now you have. That’s funny. okay. So to get started, I would love, maybe if you’d like to introduce yourself, just where you, where you’ve been, and here you are.

Ryan Muirhead: Where I’ve been like I’ve been here since I was born, and I’m still here until I die. My name is Ryan Muirhead and I’m a very unsuccessful photography business owner. Just kidding, I’m not even registered as a business. I don’t even have a photography business. I’m just a guy with an Instagram account. And a cat that likes photos, but gets very emotionally conflicted and wrapped up in making them and the end.

Twyla Jones: So what a great intro. And it’s like exactly why I really wanted to speak with you because I feel like I identify with a lot of that as an artist. And one of my favorite things about you and your work and your online presence, is that nothing really feels so like premeditated or like scheduled for success? Is that okay, I really do mean that as a compliment. And it just seems like in this world of like influencers selling their personal success stories and if you do it this way, my way you’ll make a million dollars. You, to me,you feel like you just exist and you are, and that you want to capture and create art in an honest way.

Ryan Muirhead: that’s definitely it, but I gotta say it’s a double edged sword. Like I can’t figure out how a way to take photos for money that I’m comfortable with. And as soon as someone expects me to do something, I don’t want to do it anymore. And that’s so incompatible with being an adult and taking income and paying your taxes and being responsible that it’s insane.

But I think it is a place to create from that a lot of people are interested in. A lot of the times at workshops when I’m explaining how I shoot or how something goes and people will ask what if you’re not feeling that? What if you’re not getting what you want to out of it? And then I just say, I stop. And their response is Oh, that would never work with almost everything. I tell people about how I work. They just, the response is, that would never work with a client. And I’m like, Oh yeah, I know. I’m not saying I would. I can’t imagine how to make this work. When someone’s saying I’ll give you X number of dollars and I need you to deliver X value of photos. I wouldn’t know how to do that.

Twyla Jones: Yeah. what I love about it is that there just really are so many different ways to make a career out of doing this. And if the way you’re doing it, doesn’t feel like the best way to produce like the best possible results, like you can rethink it all. And there’s there’s, I don’t know, countless ways to make money from a photograph.

Ryan Muirhead: yeah. And however people have figured out how to do that for themselves, that they’re comfortable with, that fits with how they want to live, I’m really supportive of it. I’m pretty inherently conflicted because I just despise capitalism as a whole. Like I don’t, it’s not even I wish I could figure out a way to make more money with what I’m doing. It’s more I wish I knew I was giving it away for free. But wasn’t going to starve to death.

Twyla Jones: I know. And, I feel the same way and just, I don’t know, as an artist like making money or having the thought of this like amount of money on top of the work you have to make. I don’t know. They just don’t go together that well,

Ryan Muirhead: Yeah. and for me, it’s a fascinating, litmus test of how much I care about it too. If you say Oh, make something you love and I’ll give you this $500. That’s probably great for a lot of people and maybe it’s even great for me, but then when it gets to the, Oh, spend all your time and money making this, and you’ll probably lose money on it or get nothing back or people won’t even like it, when you throw up that set of circumstances and then you come back to yourself with, no, this is what I want to do. it’s a pretty interesting, like I said, litmus test of. Wow. I want to produce and see it like this, even if it costs me and I’m, overindulgent on that. I’m probably masochistic about that. I like, I, I don’t know. I don’t know what I like. I don’t like making, I don’t like making money.

Twyla Jones: I don’t like, I don’t like it attached to the art because I just, because also what happens when money comes into play our schedules. So like appointment times that you have to create the art, like on this day, at this time, and then also, expectations for when it’s all delivered and all of that. Instead of being able to just let that process unravel, when it’s best for you when you feel inspired to do it.

Ryan Muirhead: Yeah. And that’s not a very, that’s not a very adult attitude. And I understand, I know it’s very toddler ish, but that, I don’t know. I guess that has a lot to do with where I come from and where I’m at, but I still feel like a 39 year old toddler in a lot of regards.

Twyla Jones: Well I do too. Yeah, And I also, I felt like this is important to share with anybody that cares to listen to us because I find that so many photographers are on the hunt for this like magical path to success, thinking that somebody else has the answers for them. But going back to that, like influencer thing, I’d love to hear your thoughts on like, influencer culture as you see it in our world now, and discovering how to find your own place in the world. In spite of that, what’s being pushed on us.

Ryan Muirhead: Man. I was just thinking about this morning, because it’s so easy to hate on social media and be like, these are run by companies that have no interest in your physical or mental health. You are being data mined, and you’re being sold to see what they can make you do to an unbelievable degree, which is true. And then it’s, then the opposite of that is, 70% of my best friends, I met on this app, all the countries I got to go to, all the teaching I got to do, all the print sales I got to be able to support myself, all the companies I connected with, all happened over this. Like without this you’d probably be working at best buy. And, and those two things co-existing at the same time, I don’t know what it strikes me. Like it’s if you needed to get all your energy to go through a day and do what you wanted to do, but the only way you could get it was from cigarettes.

if chain smoking cigarettes is what gave you the fuel to be able to go through your day and it’s I need this to fuel all the good things I want to do and then saying, but this is absolutely cancer. That, that’s how I, that’s how I feel about social media and all my experience is just anecdotal, it’s just how it’s gone for me, but watching something that has so much influence over your life really be so drastically out of your control and watching it change your emotional state is really fascinating. And it’s not a numbers thing, but I, I’ve never bought followers. I’ve never promoted a post.

I’ve never, I don’t use a lot of hashtags, I never did the, try to attract this big following and then. in one of the years I went from like 40,000 to like 140,000 followers, gained a hundred thousand in a year. And then in the last two or three years, my total is I’ve lost 4,000 without changing anything, and just, and watching, Oh, there was a time when for whatever reason, they let a lot of people see your work and it changed for them. And now they don’t. And you have very little information on that and very little control and it affects so much of you. And I don’t know. I don’t think I have that interesting of insight. It’s like the cliche takeaway that it’s so amazing in the way it’s connecting us, but we’re handing over so much control of a thing we don’t even understand. I honestly wonder if there’ll be scientific studies in 50 years on what mass exposure to social media did and there’ll be like, Oh my God, these are the new thalidomide babies. Do you know thalidomide? No. It was a drug in the like fifties for morning sickness for pregnant women, this miracle drug, just taking it away. But then all the babies started being born with missing limbs.

Twyla Jones: That’s right. Yeah. I remember.

Ryan Muirhead: And they went, oh shit. We did not understand what this was doing to people. And I really wonder if with some distance in time, we’re test tube, we’re test tube babies for social media.

Twyla Jones: Yeah. Yeah, it’s so interesting. I can’t wait. Or can I? To see the results of a thing like that. Cause absolutely that, people, they already are studying it. I’m sure, but it’s all a science experiment.

Ryan Muirhead: And I really do feel sincerely conflicted too, because I – as an artist, you make work for it to be seen. That’s the goal. I don’t. I wish I had 10 million followers. I wish when I cared enough to make something that I really felt was we’re seeing and we’re sharing or seeing, I wish it was seen by as many humans as possible. I think mostly artists are like that, but I also sincerely feel like it would be better for my physical and mental health if I didn’t have it. I, I think about this a lot and I talk about this a lot and still I watch myself. And when you get your Apple screen report time, it comes in at six or seven hours a day.

Twyla Jones: I won’t look at it. I refuse to ever look at it. I don’t check it.

Ryan Muirhead: And I can’t, and I can’t. And I can’t stop. And I get weirdly weirdly, like masochistic with it too. I’ll post a photo at 11 at night that I know won’t do well, and then I’ll watch it not do well. And then I’ll get sad it didn’t do well, Like I’m having some sort of presence of mind to be like, Oh, I’m not even going to try, but then I’m still sad at the result.

Twyla Jones: you know what I like about it though? I think when I post and mine are the same way and sometimes I can get, a ton of likes on something and then something I love way more won’t perform as well. But I just appreciate, I appreciate those, 250 people that will show up and engage with that piece of art. I don’t know. It’s I appreciate them a little bit more even.

Ryan Muirhead: Yeah, I understand that. But it’s so nefarious from the corporate side, because it’s not just that the same number of people saw your attempt to do something different and not as many responded, that’s expected. It’s that if the algorithm detects that you’re doing something different, it just makes the decision not to show it to anyone. It’s force feeding us into Creating the exact same thing. It’s not just Oh, your different effort was less popular because it’s a little bit weirder. Its, your different effort was shown to no one because you tried to be different.

Twyla Jones: Yeah. go back to that one that did well, figure out your formula and then do that over and over again.

Ryan Muirhead: Yeah, it’s such a, it’s such a catch 22. It’s if you’re a photographer and you’re trying to network and you’re trying to get your work seen like Instagram, you have to be on it. You have to be there unless you have gallery representation or you’re established in some other way. This is the way to get your work seen.

And then to say, and they’ll do awful stuff with it. And it’ll poison yourself esteem at the same time. What do you do? The answer is find a way to use it responsibly, but I haven’t. And that just leaves me with the, I want to quit, but it also means, making a little place for myself like that, I won’t share my, I won’t put my three favorite images on it.

Yeah, I just can’t, you know somethings you go to try and write the Instagram caption of what a special day in a treasure. And I’m like, this is bullshit. Like I’m trying to, I’m writing this caption for Instagram, not to live up to what these photos meant to me. So I just keep them off of there. I show them to people in person, at workshops and prints and stuff.

Twyla Jones: Yeah, I’m dying to see them now.

Ryan Muirhead: Oh, I’ll show them to you for sure.

Twyla Jones: Oh, good. Okay. And I also think that, that raises like just the importance of having a space for yourself somewhere. Whether that’s like a website or even like a physical art gallery. He would have somewhere else. But easiest is the website where you can display the things that you want to display in a great way. And the people that are like mostly invested in you can interact with them.

Ryan Muirhead: A website is something you work on intensely for a year and then spend the next five years telling everyone how out of date it is.

Twyla Jones: Absolutely. I have other people doing it for me. I can’t be bothered.

Ryan Muirhead: Oh you do? yeah. Oh, that’s amazing. Cause I, I finally buckled down for two months and got all these photos and put them on a website. Now they’re all out of date and probably will be forever. That’s another thing social media trains us on is like that. If you can’t accomplish this task in seven minutes, like what’s the point?

Twyla Jones: Yes. I do I do like that part about Instagram that I can have it feeding to my website. So there is always access to a very updated portfolio at the bottom of every page.

Ryan Muirhead: That’s true. That’s true.

Twyla Jones: Yeah. That’s how I that’s. That’s a really nice, easy way of keeping your website semi updated. I think.

Ryan Muirhead: Thank you Instagram, we love you.

Twyla Jones: Thanks for that. I do, I want to say that. I think one of the. More beautiful things about our industry is that there are thousands of ways to go about being successful and whatever it is that comes most naturally to you can be your way of doing it. And that there truly is no like magic, secret or formula to get there.

No one can actually teach you step by step how they did it and get you the same results. if I tell somebody, how my work started to get noticed, it’s not going to work for them even by taking those same photos.

Ryan Muirhead: Because even at the root of it, the thing you’re trying to do is make something personal, make images that someone would see and be like, Oh, this is this person.

And then to say the way you’re going to use those are the way those are going to be meaningful to you can be mapped out is probably just not true. It’ll probably go along with you making the personal work of personally figuring out what you want to do with it.

Twyla Jones: Yeah. And I think some people end up getting out of line with that, getting distracted by, the numbers. And all of that on social media and wanting those numbers for themselves and getting away from wanting to create that work for themselves. but I would love to hear how you feel, you tapped into that for yourself through your work.

Ryan Muirhead: Oh, let’s see. What’s the way to say that I start, I started shooting pretty late.

I was probably 26 or 27 by the time I took my first photo. And it was, it was absolutely an outlet for crushing depression. I was just not doing well and I needed an outlet and I wasn’t very artistically inclined. And cameras are pretty easy to use. I mean with very minimal effort, you can point it at something on full auto settings and get something that looks pretty respectable.

And then you can put all the effort you want into making that personal and making it your own. But I think pretty early on, I was creating with, just like we talked about money, I never had it in mind to do anything with it? I was just working over and over to look at something I made and say, yup, that’s it. That’s how I feel. And it, and I, I had a few early successes early on where you’re just learning and people like it, but it took years and years before I looked at something and thought this is perfect. And I don’t mean perfect in the I’m an amazing photographer. I think that I really did have some kind of goal of that, I would make an image and I would look at it and I would print it and I would hold it. And I would say, this is it. This is the best I could do. This is an actual representation of something I couldn’t express. This feels like to me, what it felt like to be me. And that’s very personal, but I got to that point with a couple of the images and then people either resonate with that or they don’t. And I think I spent a long time creating and sharing and talking about that place. And a certain subset of people were attracted to that vibe. And I shot a lot of beautiful people and sometimes people just like looking at beautiful people. So there was probably some of that too.

Twyla Jones: Absolutely. So did it take, do you feel like it took you long to feel like that? Like I found my thing and I’m going to keep doing this.

Ryan Muirhead: No, I feel like it took me a couple of days. Like I hadn’t done it. I was desperate for some kind of outlet. Someone showed me how to use a camera. I saw that could be the thing. And I got obsessed with it within a week.

Twyla Jones: I love that. so I feel like my best piece of advice for anyone looking to create more like inspired or unique work is to make time, to have more like beautiful emotive, cinematic, whatever it is that they’re into experiences in their life. And just by filling yourself with those things, enables, those feelings, experiences to pour out of you when the time is right when you’re trying to create art on purpose. but also positions you to be in those kinds of places more often that you’re, that you want to capture. and I feel like you have a similar approach for the way you photograph your sessions in that you spend a lot of time with your subject in order to experience like different emotions or find these like moments of beauty. Could you talk a little bit about what that process often looks like for you?

Ryan Muirhead: Yeah. And, as a disclaimer, I. I barely consider myself classically good as a photographer, a photographer in the sense of I think I’m good at seeing light. And I think I’m observant and I think I’m willing to sit and be in situations that would make people uncomfortable, but as far as like busting out some really great images in a shoot. Most of my successes of what I would consider work I really love came out of really unique circumstances. Almost not things I can repeat. Yeah. Like in a session I had a friend Rachel, that I made a ton of work with and we, I think we both got to the point of realizing like, the worst part about shooting is the camera and the photo shoot. that’s, what’s in the way of trying to capture all this stuff.

So eventually we just started spending huge blocks of time together. Twice. We went on a five week road trip, just so that when it was the right time to make something like that, we’d be there ready to do it. And we also had a deal that we could shoot. Even when we didn’t want to like, everyone captures, whatever happens when both people feel like working together, but very few people capture what you would make when you don’t feel like working together, because that’s when you don’t work together. And we got on a thing of let’s. Let’s work together, even when we don’t want to work together and see what those look like or let’s work when we’re too tired to work or when it’s too tense or awkward, let’s still keep doing that.

Twyla Jones: And then a lot of the stuff that came out of that is more documentary than concept shoots. Yeah. I love that idea because I feel like I’ve thought about it in way different terms of just, going to locations. I don’t normally shoot or shooting at different times of day, but what an interesting idea to do it when you don’t feel like doing it?

Ryan Muirhead: Yeah. I think I just. The place I come from. It’s like what I said at the start of this conversation that I think the most interesting thing to talk about would be the thing we’re both not going to say. And that there’s some Avedon quote that I could butcher, but he said like “over the years I’ve worked out a series of nos. No to exquisite light, no, to inherent composition.” and just thinking about that, it’s that’s insane for a photographer to say, what I don’t want is good composition and exquisite light, but it was on this series that he was doing on this, on these white backdrops with just him, a white backdrop, the person. And the camera, like paring it down to, there’s almost no other elements to work with other than me, the person, and what’s going to happen between us. And I think a lot of the elements in photography can be, they’re all great tools to make whatever you want to make. But I think a lot of them are just things to hide behind, to switching lenses, changing lights, getting to the new location.

It’s just this repetition of changeable variables that kind of keep you from, for me, I’m not trying to speak for anyone else, but maybe keep you from facing, a really direct, complicated thing.

Twyla Jones: and I want to say not to be like a dick about it, but, I feel like I do see the same photograph over and over again often, getting tons of praise and it’s because it’s, I don’t know.

It feels like I’m seeing the same thing over and over again, and it’s not anything like. It’s not the stellar connection or anything captured. It’s a lot of like very superficial things, but that catch people’s eye and that they love to see. Does that make sense?

Ryan Muirhead: Yeah, of course. it’s just like sugar as a meal,

Twyla Jones: Yeah. Yeah. Like where’s that dress from? I got to get that dress. I got to get that dress, as if that’s that made the image and I guess there’s a place for that too. People totally crave that they want that location and that dress. And it’s a lot more about those things that make that image then, I don’t know, getting a little deeper and digging for those connections, I think.

Ryan Muirhead: Talking about like personal motivations, that’s a big one for me is that I want, I think one of my own metrics for success in my own work is I want to look at it and be like, There is no way this could be an advertisement. Like you couldn’t use this to sell anything. And I’ve, I feel pretty conscious of that.

Twyla Jones: I like you so much.

Ryan Muirhead: Oh. And if it’s a, if it’s something that’s tremendously beautiful. I like it to have an air of sadness in it. this is so beautiful, but I wouldn’t want to be there or they’re so beautiful, but I wouldn’t want to be them. And that’s not, I’m not, that’s not as direct as it sounds. I just.

Twyla Jones: No, but I know that feeling. Is there a word, do you think there’s a word for that feeling? Cause I’ve felt it so many times.

Ryan Muirhead: I think that’s actual beauty in my opinion, that beauty, without that, what makes something beautiful is it’s fleetingness. Or it’s not going to last. And when you get beauty shown to you that saying, this is forever, or you could have this and feel this way, those are just advertisements. Those are just people that want to capitalize on how that they know they can make you feel that and they can get something from you when you do feel that.

Twyla Jones: I’m so glad we talked about this, because that is exactly the way that I feel about those photographs. I was trying to describe that’s it.

Ryan Muirhead: But the, there’s a, there’s a hilarious side to that. I made 21 images that felt like that to me, that I was immensely proud of and finally had a solo gallery show and I was looking at them, thinking nobody. these don’t make you feel, Oh, I need to get this to feel anything. And that’s exactly what happened. No prints sold.

Twyla Jones: I love it and I think that, I feel that connection when I’m making that work again, going back to, the stuff that you super love and try to share with the world. And not as many people like it, or you don’t get the reaction, like you feel like it deserves there’s something to be said for those images, I think .

Ryan Muirhead: and I don’t know. I like to try and take the counterpoint to my own argument. That capitalism just makes me sick that you have to that every everything we do has an attached value to it. As a person, you have an attached value to you and everything you make and do has an attached value to it, but maybe if that wasn’t the system we were in, none of the work that keeps me going, that sustains me, that inspires me would even get made. So…

Twyla Jones: Ryan, and I was just talking about this last night in the fact that, I don’t know if I would have created a lot of the work that I have, if it wasn’t necessary to make money from it, to provide for my family, And I do feel like my work, probably I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know if I’d photograph as often and I don’t know what that work would look like if it didn’t rely on making money in some way.

Ryan Muirhead: Yeah. Yeah. I hope that comes across too. I have no opinions on what other people should do or what makes it valuable or makes it worthwhile or what makes that are good. All I have is opinions on myself for myself.

Twyla Jones: Yeah. I love how you do you seem to approach your business from it’s

Ryan Muirhead: you’re about to jump into a black hole. You don’t understand, but go ahead.

Twyla Jones: Okay. from more of a quality of life perspective and really take the time to evaluate what that looks like for you. And this is just from what I’ve read from what you’ve said before. So maybe you don’t feel this way anymore, but, like just putting thought into what you really care about and what useless things you can eliminate from your life to reach those goals. So it’s like you can find more success by taking away the things that don’t truly bring you happiness, like a nicer car, a bigger house, filling your closet with clothes you won’t wear. And making sure you have the time to enjoy the things that really do bring you happiness. And I know for you, I think it was traveling a lot and being with like friends and having these emotional experiences.

Ryan Muirhead: Oh, that explains why I’m so depressed right now.

Twyla Jones: Yeah. So I’d love for you to share a little bit about how you do use your art to generate income and whether or not, you would admit you’re successful, like you are, and you are. I consider you successful. I’d love to know what that looks and feels like to you.

Ryan Muirhead: The lifestyle I chose was all by choice, so I can’t complain about it. I don’t want to do things I don’t want to do. And I don’t very often, but it’s…

Twyla Jones: well. And what a that’s a luxury as much as like somebody buying, like a flashy car or something, I think. Yeah.

Ryan Muirhead: But to, to, a degree that’s unsustainable. I have basically no money. Instagram doesn’t show my posts to people anymore. So my print sales are way down and Corona wiped out all my teaching for the whole year. I’m not. But I don’t really care, which is part of either brain damage or some kind of emotional disorder seriously, but I don’t know, it comes. I don’t know how much to say on anything. I teach and sell prints, but it’s not even enough to sustain myself right now, but I also refuse to do anything else. So I’m, I am what I am.

Twyla Jones: Yeah, there you are.

Ryan Muirhead: I didn’t ask to be born and I feel very resentful of being forced into doing things because that’s how people have to be.

Twyla Jones: Yeah, I get it.

Ryan Muirhead: I don’t care. I’m not uncomfortable. I’ll talk about whatever.

Twyla Jones: Here we are. here we’ve arrived to our talking points.

Ryan Muirhead: Like 90% of my income, the past four or five years has been from teaching workshops. And that all went away.

Twyla Jones: But Ryan, do you not feel like, cause you, I just, honestly, I feel like you have a lot to offer and I just, when I was preparing for this, I felt like I could end up talking to you all day long and there’s a lot that I’m not going to get to, that I would love to talk with you about, but I feel like, there are plenty of ways for you to generate income, doing the things that I think that you enjoy doing, at least even just talking about this kind of stuff. You just have to feel like doing, cause I don’t feel like doing anything. I was just talking about this last night. Like I don’t want to do anything anymore. I don’t want to do anything that’s making me money. But now I have all these little kids that I have to provide for as well. So I really have to, but I feel like you could spend a little bit of time And even this, like even scheduling a podcast, I’m like, Oh, I don’t feel like doing it, but I love doing it once I am.

Ryan Muirhead: Yeah.

Twyla Jones: I love the end result.

Ryan Muirhead: Volkswagen’s commercials like drivers wanted where they’re like, Nope, no passengers for us. We want drivers I’m whatever the exact opposite of that is. I’m like I’m also drivers wanted, cause I just want to be placed in situations. I have almost no self-starter-ism to me at all. When I’m put in a specific circumstance, I feel like I have a unique skill set to make some things, but I don’t know.

Twyla Jones: I feel like you need a little team to help you to like, do the doing of like the stuff you don’t want to do, so that you can just do the one thing you’re good at. You’re good at many things. I’m sure. I don’t mean one thing…

Ryan Muirhead: You’re absolutely correct. I’m only good at one thing and I don’t mind it. I have almost no other skills.

Twyla Jones: You’re good at connecting and you are good at speaking and teaching and photographing. I’m sure lots of other good things too. Playing with cats, maybe?

Ryan Muirhead: I have an entire skillset that was wiped out by a pandemic. And my cat won’t cuddle me lately. So it’s strikes all across the board.

Twyla Jones: That’s awful.

Ryan Muirhead: It’s fine. Everything just is what it is.

Twyla Jones: Yeah. I don’t know. We have to go through these experiences as well. And there’s art to be created from it. I don’t know, as like sad and like looking on the bright side of some things as that is. That’s what it is.

Ryan Muirhead: That’s the whole point of art to me is that whether you’re interacting with something that’s a dream come true or interacting with something, that’s a nightmare.

Your goal is still to output something beautiful. That’s going to connect you to other people. Yeah. that’s what makes art amazing and religious and powerful is that it’s goal is beauty in amazing stuff and awful stuff. That’s pretty unique.

Twyla Jones: Yeah. Yeah. I think, I just want you to have your own little podcast. I was reading again. Listen. I was reading one of your old interviews and you couldn’t write it out, but you spoke it to answer the questions. And that’s exactly what this is. So you could still, and you can just do yourself. You don’t even have to interview other people. You can just speak on the things that strike you when they strike you. And that’s what your podcast is. You release episodes. Like when you have the words to do it.

Ryan Muirhead: What do I do? Do I just use this Zencaster thing we’re on?

Twyla Jones: You can do this or- this is nice for interviews. I’ll tell you how this works. So it’s, the very best quality, like doing this at a distance. Yours is going to upload your track from your house and it uploads my track from my house.

So it’s not dependent on, connections and all that. But if it was just you, you could record. You can record into your phone. You could record into whatever. Like I have another program I use called Adobe audition, which is like garage band or, it’s just like an audio editor, like PhotoShop is for photos. And then I can do our tracks together, but you can record right into it. Say in, I think that’s like the best quality and gives you the most options for cutting shit together. And then You can make a little money because you can get sponsors or if you had anything, I think that you would have a really captive audience and then you can talk about your print sales and then that’s like a better way for you to reach people opposed to, depending on Instagram.

Ryan Muirhead: There you go.

Twyla Jones: Yeah, please do it.

Ryan Muirhead: I’ll have to come up with a really clever name for my podcast.

Twyla Jones: Oh, that’s the worst part I gave up. I just already had a community.

Ryan Muirhead: So what’s yours called, I don’t even know.

Twyla Jones: isn’t that funny. It’s Emotional Storytelling. So I made a course a long time ago for another organization. And that’s what we came up to call it.

Ryan Muirhead: I liked the way you said another organization. It made me think it was like the CIA or something.

Twyla Jones: No ClickIn moms who I love, they’re really great. But, Anyway. So I made a Facebook group to support the people that took the course. And so we could exchange ideas and then that grew to expand to just any photographers that wanted to join. And this podcast is also for them and for them to listen. And it’s become like my own community and space in Facebook world or whatever. so I just went with that name for this.

Ryan Muirhead: Wow. That’s really cool.

Twyla Jones: Thanks. Naming things is like the worst part. Sometimes I think.

Ryan Muirhead: Yeah, my, I steal all my names from stuff I’ve heard. My aunt is the one that said ghost-shaped people, at my grandma’s house.

Twyla Jones: I love it so much.

Ryan Muirhead: Yeah. We were talking about this room at my grandma’s house that’s haunted and it’s definitely haunted. And I don’t believe in that. So both those truths are coexisting at the same time, but

Twyla Jones: I feel if I felt that I would. Say the exact same thing. I don’t believe in this, but this shit is haunted for sure.

Ryan Muirhead: So we were asking my aunt who grew up in that room, we were like, what you grew up in that room is it haunted. And she was like, Oh yeah, I would see ghosts in that room. And we were like, what did they look like? She was like, I don’t know, ghost shaped people? And I was like, and I sat there and I was listening to it. And I was like, why does that sound so interesting? Then I was like, no, that’s backwards. You should have said people shaped ghosts. And then I was like, Ooh, the ghost shaped people are us. And I just kinda fell in love with them. It’s we’re like the living people are reverse haunting the dead people’s place.

Cause you know, most of the people here are dead and it’s just a couple weird living people haunting their dead space. So I don’t know, I thought that was…

Twyla Jones: It gives me goosebumps. I love it so much, honestly.

Ryan Muirhead: It made me fall in love with that phrase. It’s also where I got my the same day was where I got my porn star name. Cause I tried to type Humpty Dumpty into my iPhone and it auto corrected gumption sumptuous.

Twyla Jones: What a great day.

Ryan Muirhead: I know I’ve got my brand name and my porn star name on the same day.

Twyla Jones: Oh, there’s nothing better than that. We used to I felt like I used to, look for phrases like that all the time. It would be my band name. I wish I would have written more of them down.

Ryan Muirhead: Okay. I was going to ask what one of them was.

Twyla Jones: No, I wish I had a good example for you, but they’ve all been forgotten. Unfortunately, you got to write shit down. I should journal. I’ll never do it.

Ryan Muirhead: I’ll never do it either. Every time I write a journal, it turns into lists of things I need to do, and then quasi-suicide notes.

Twyla Jones: Oh, but also now mine become like little, like my kids will get ahold of it. So every once in a while there’s like a monster or like a piece of poop or something drawn on a page. There’s like a, to do list and that’s about it. That’s what I do.

Ryan Muirhead: I thought you meant a piece of actual poop. So it’s better than it could have been.

Twyla Jones: There’s no telling what could happen. I have three boys, so I know it

Ryan Muirhead: It sounds intense.

Twyla Jones: It’s wild. It is intense, super intense, but they’re great though. I think, for me, so I didn’t start with photography until I had two of them already and they were both like under two, so two little babies and I worked full time at a pathology lab. I was cutting up like body parts and stuff. That was my job.

But, when I got into photography, so I was very busy with a full time job and those two at home, trying to learn how to work a camera. And I always wish that I had gotten into it before them, because I would have had all this time. And, once I got better, I had all this opportunity to travel, but traveling and leaving them was really hard. And I just wished I could have done it when I had more freedom, but I don’t think my work would ever be the same. I don’t think it would be what it is without them as part of my life as well. So that’s my like double edge sword. I battle all the time.

Ryan Muirhead: Interesting. Yeah. Yeah, I can’t imagine having kids.

Twyla Jones: It’s a trip and I don’t, I never imagined a life where I did have them, they just started appearing. So it, I don’t know the most unexpected, like weird, but beautiful thing. That’s happened to me.

Ryan Muirhead: Kids just started appearing. It’s like you grew up in Utah and had our level of education.

Twyla Jones: It’s exactly like that.

Oh, I have a couple more questions for you that I really wanted to ask.

Ryan Muirhead: Are there any questions you would ask me if you felt braver, but you’re just not going to?

Twyla Jones: I don’t know. that’s hard because I just felt like, I tried to, so I don’t prepare a whole like, a lot of time in advance for these.

So literally it was like reading your interviews and stuff yesterday. And then I tried to like, look through your Instagram and see what you have to say most recently about things. And I just let that inspire the questions that I wish I could ask you. Cause that’s what I want the podcast to be like, I don’t want it to be like, feel like this selling machine or listen to this for three tips to like, make your Instagram better or whatever.

I just want it to be, I want people to listen that are interested in people I’m interested in and maybe it would be the questions they would ask them if they had the opportunity to.

Ryan Muirhead: That makes sense.

Twyla Jones: Yeah. And I feel like it’s been super nice. Just getting to talk with people that I admire and who are creating like really great work and getting to just share a little bit of time with them. And that is the positive for me. Like I said, a lot of times I don’t feel like doing it, but I get to have the shared experience with somebody that I think is so great. And that is so rewarding for me because otherwise I’m like totally an introvert.

So I wouldn’t do it. Like I’d never talk to you my whole life. If I didn’t have this thing that I am trying to keep up with kinda, I don’t know why I do this to myself either. I’m like, why am I doing a podcast? And I don’t feel like doing a podcast, but it’s so nice.

Ryan Muirhead: That makes sense. I think photography is that impetus for a lot of us also that having a camera gives you permission to do all kinds of stuff. You’d never find a way to make yourself do otherwise.

Twyla Jones: Absolutely. And I feel like that about most of my sessions too. Like a lot of times I just really don’t feel it. I like staying at my house. I don’t really like to leave. So I typically don’t feel like going out to do a session, but I’m immediately, like I get there, I get to the location and I’m just like flooded with inspiration and energy. Like it really does. it just energizes me to be there creating. But it’s getting me to that moment,

Ryan Muirhead: Yeah. Okay. you ask whatever you want and I’ll do my absolute best to answer it honestly.

Twyla Jones: I wanted to talk with you a little bit about ego and how it, I don’t know, like stars, the artist.

I would love to know, especially growing that your Instagram following so much in that one year. so especially maybe that year, what struggles you’ve experienced, fighting against your own ego. And if there is anything that you do to right yourself on that.

Ryan Muirhead: Yeah, I guess withholding certain images from social media is part of that you need.

This is, and like you were saying in talking about advice that I would give people. I don’t know why I said that. I’m not sure you asked if I would give people advice, but here’s some advice anyway. I think a powerful thing to do as a photographer, even if it’s just one image is to really think something through say, this is something I care about.

This is something I want to feel. This is an experience I want to have. This is someone I want to work with. This is something I want to explore. Anddo it and make those images and print them out if possible. And then for some period of time, a day, a week, six months, a year or forever, don’t show anyone.

Don’t show anybody, sit with that stuff yourself and see what it actually meant to you. Because as soon as you mix it in the game of try to post it at the right time on Instagram and try to use that right hashtags and try to get your friends to get on early to comment so it’ll get in the algorithm better, you’re going to get attached to that numerical score. No matter how many followers you have or not. And it’s going to color whether or not you thought the thing you should explore was worth it. So in withholding some of my favorite work I’ve ever made it does it keeps me in check a little bit because I can look at them and say, this is the best I’ve ever done.

these are my favorite images I’ve ever made. And to say, Okay. You can only show them to people in a more personal way. If they come to a workshop or you speak at a conference or you meet them in person. And I carry prints on me so I can show people that kind of work, but yeah, Instagram can’t have it.

We can’t have it. I dunno. Maybe that’ll be of use to somebody and maybe it won’t, but. Make something you think you care about and don’t share it and then reflect on the experience of doing that and how you actually feel about the work.

Twyla Jones: Yeah, no, I just, I just want to sit in what we talked about earlier about how Instagram, can really drive.

Oh, was that your cat?

Ryan Muirhead: She just tried to get involved in the podcast.

Twyla Jones: That’s so cute. I was like, it’s a cat or like a creaky door.

Ryan Muirhead: No, her name is Macbeth.

Twyla Jones: I love that. Is she the black one?

Ryan Muirhead: Yeah.

Twyla Jones: Okay. She’s so cute. I loved her like little cute face. She looks a lot different than a lot of other cats.

Ryan Muirhead: Yeah. She’s a Devon Rex. It’s a pretty rare breed that I’m not allergic to.

But yeah, in the ego thing, I desperately want two different things. I want 10 million followers and I want to quit Instagram and I want them both a lot.

Twyla Jones: Yeah. the nice thing about having so many people exposed to your work is yeah, you can dump Instagram and you can just do it on your website. And you can just show up when you feel like you showing up,

Ryan Muirhead: and they’re like

Twyla Jones: ready and loving it. I don’t know, or ready to connect with it.

Ryan Muirhead: I don’t think I’m anywhere near that point. I think if I stopped social media, my ability to sell workshops and prints would almost completely disappear.

Twyla Jones: I was wondering about it the other day. if I even just quit Facebook, but because I have, I have that group on Facebook, it would disappear and I wouldn’t be able to show up there anymore. And, yeah, are people interested enough to seek you out when you’re not shown to them by whenever these platforms decide to show you to them.

Ryan Muirhead: Yeah, exactly. It’s yeah. And it’s so heartbreaking too, because we built the platforms for them. The people who made the communities on Facebook and Instagram are what made it the place to be. And then that’s just how capitalism works. It’s Oh, thanks for the free labor, now we own it.

Twyla Jones: Yeah, because there was an age of a photographer, before social media, but is it also that, social media is so saturated. If you left, I leave there’s enough. there’s enough to like still continue to inspire people that they don’t need to seek us out because I don’t know. It’s just easier to scroll.

Ryan Muirhead: Yeah. and I’m as trapped as anybody. And I really don’t feel like I have this. High and mighty opinion on it. But I look at myself and I think this would be better for you. If you quit. If you could find a way to not be on this would be better for you.

And then I look at the people that make my life worth living and the friends I have where I’m like, this is the best part of your life. And then it’s okay, you met eight out of 10 of them on Instagram. I have enough friends now, maybe I’m maxed out on friends so I can quit and leave.

Twyla Jones: You can quit, and I just please start your little podcast.

I really want you to, I think, I feel like it’d be good for you. Cause I, again, I’m just. Going off of this interview I read about you, but I feel like the connections that you make when you are sharing yourself. So when you were getting to go teach and speak, I feel like you love that.

Ryan Muirhead: I do love that, but a lot of it has to do with an in per the, in person dynamic that when I’m alone, it’s so hard for me to make myself believe anything. But when I’m in front of other people, it’s really easy.

Twyla Jones: Yeah. And then Instagram also has that immediate thing, where you get comments immediately on your, your images and stuff. You get that like immediate feedback, which is nice, whereas the podcast. So mine’s just launching today. I’ve been recording forever and like just holding it close and not launching it. So it launches today. So I still don’t even know. Yeah. yeah. I don’t know like what the feedback is going to be.

And, if there are a lot of like positive things that come, but I will share with you and then encourage you again to have your own. Cause I, I feel like it will be good. It’s nice to be able to share yourself in a different way, I think. And just be able to share my opinions and just have great conversations with people and let people, I don’t know, in on that and listen.

Ryan Muirhead: I love it. Do you have to rate your podcast for swearing? Like we haven’t said fuck yet. If we say, fuck twice, does it push it into a rated R podcast that now can’t be accessed by a whole demographic?

Twyla Jones: Right? Yes. I just put explicit on it.

Ryan Muirhead: Sorry for that then.

Twyla Jones: I could probably beep it out.

Ryan Muirhead: You should, you can beep it out and make it sound like I was saying something even a way worse.

Twyla Jones: Ooh, I might just. Put beeps, like all over this thing.

Ryan Muirhead: I like that unnecessary censorship

Twyla Jones: every time you said cat?

Ryan Muirhead: Yeah. They’re like, what does he have? Is he Human trafficking. Did he kidnap someone?

Twyla Jones: Oh, this just got a lot weirder than that.

Ryan Muirhead: I know, just wanted to derail it right at the end for you. I just wanted to leave you with the experience of wow, I thought that was going to be so great. It was such a train wreck by the end. What am I supposed to do? That’s the goal that I have in interpersonal interactions and meeting people.

Twyla Jones: I love it.

This is everything I ever hoped. It would be well, and this is just, I don’t know. It’s so nice to share just all these thoughts. Like I. I would hate for every podcast to be like the super positive, superficial way of looking at photographers. Other photographers are looking up to, or, just like wishing they could create the art.

Like these other artists are creating, with this just false idea of like them leading, I don’t know these like perfect lives, which going back to that influencer thing we talked about, I just see so much of, and now right now, a lot of people have been called out for actually being these really terrible people.

Ryan Muirhead: Yeah. I’ve been seeing a little bit of that.

Twyla Jones: Yeah. And they’ve just, they come off as like these perfect people and they’re just these totally unattainable ways of living that also make you feel like shit, because not only are you not creating what they’re creating, but they also happen to have this perfect life where it’s really easy to an effortless to create like all this beauty.

Ryan Muirhead: Yup. Yup. Yeah. And yeah, everything’s an advertisement. Everything that gets put up, even for me, even for us, and I don’t know how to combat it even more effectively when we’re posting something, what we hope someone feels is they wish they were me or they wish they were the person in the photo, or they wish they had been there.

Or they wish that they could do that. And maybe by paying attention to me and giving me money in some capacity, they can get that. And I try to avoid participating in that as much as possible, but that’s what everything is. And it makes me sad and sick.

Twyla Jones: and I have to say. So I was starting to think about the podcasts in a different way. and that’s what I emailed to you today this morning, because I, sometimes I send over the list of questions I’m going to ask, but I felt like I just want someone to come away with a feeling after listening to this. And that feeling is you’re not going to do it like Ryan’s way and you’re not going to do it my way.

But by showing you like all of these different ways, people are like creating, things that take your breath away or things that you like truly connect with. you can do it your way too, but do it your way, Yeah. You don’t have to buy into, I don’t know, whatever it is somebody else is selling you.

And this is the way to do it and be successful at doing it. Like the best way is going to be like this way nobody else has ever done because all that other stuff is already out there, And if you want to stand out and just create a place for your art, like you have to do it your very own way.

Ryan Muirhead: Or. Find the way to just cash in, on being an influencer, or just make horrible vapid, empty soulless stuff, but be financially successful.

Twyla Jones: Isn’t it funny that there are two ways of doing it and they’re so different. Like you’re either like you can do it like this very vulnerable way. Share a lot of yourself and share this like truly unique work people can connect with, or you just fill a feed with what you said, like things that look like advertisements that you’ve seen over and over again, the same beautiful thing over and over again is that way too.

Ryan Muirhead: I know. And it’s so fun to believe that the side we’ve chosen is the right one.

I’m really fascinated with that too, that I think you would find very few people who aren’t the hero of their own story. Like we just need to be, to keep going. And so then you find all the people that are the heroes of their own story that agree with you. And then you just form your tribe of people that are rig ht and know that capitalism’s terrible. And I know that advertising makes me sick and I know that film’s better than digital and I just sit and marinate in those beliefs. But if I had been born as a different person, I would believe exactly what they believe. I know I would. It’s just so fun to sit and feel our feels and feel the cosmic truth of them.

And then to think that these are so insanely subjective and it trips me out because I don’t know how to be anything else other than what I am. Yeah. I can hear you and feel the truth of things for me. And then I can also feel that if I was a different person, I wouldn’t feel them at all.

Twyla Jones: Yeah. That’s I don’t know. That’s that seems like a really important revelation to have though. Even just in dealing with other people in a compassionate way,

Ryan Muirhead: it makes it hard to hate anybody.

Twyla Jones: Yeah. I’m mean how can they help themselves.

Ryan Muirhead: How

Twyla Jones: can I help

Ryan Muirhead: myself? I’m not choosing any of my thoughts. I’m not choosing what to say to you. I just go to my head and it’s already there. It comes up out of somewhere into fully formed sentences. And I say those things, but I’m not choosing to say them and I wasn’t choosing to believe t.

Twyla Jones: it’s just, it’s like the vibrations inside of our head. Caused by all of the vibrations, we’ve put out into the world through voices, movement, all of that. And then that’s what vibrates in our brain to come out of our mouth. I know. It’s so interesting seeing that particular yes. Choosing that particular combination of like movements and places to be and places to go.

Ryan Muirhead: Hydrogen is an element that given enough time starts to wonder where it came from. That’s my favorite quote

Twyla Jones: about

Ryan Muirhead: it.

Twyla Jones: I like it. Wow.

Ryan Muirhead: Wow. Wow. Big picture got real. I know, real deep there.

Twyla Jones: I like it. and I like that there’s just not an answer. that’s what it is. That’s the world we’re existing in it. Yeah. And contributing to, Yeah. Yeah. my last question. Okay. I’m going to go ahead and ask it.

Ryan Muirhead: I love that good intro to it. That set it up nicely.

Twyla Jones: Thank you. I’m really good at those. Anyway, do you have any advice for photographers feeling defeated by what they’re creating and sharing with the world, but not seeing the social media feedback they crave? I feel like that’s, that was the entire episode.

Ryan Muirhead: Yeah. it’s hard for me to not go back to that. Set up a tiny project for yourself, execute it, print it out and only show it to people when you can have a real moment of connection, sharing it, keep it off of the, cause they posted it on Instagram and I scrolled past it and didn’t like it, or I scrolled past it. And saw that they’re my friend and double-tap quick. So they didn’t feel sad and that’s contributing to the success or failure of whether they feel it was worthwhile. It’s just a terrible, yeah.

Isn’t that a funny thing we do, I

Twyla Jones: totally love all my friends stuff, even if I don’t even take, like now I feel terrible. Like I should take, five minutes to like really look at what they posted, but I see the name and see the picture, sure, l, like tap it and move on.

I that’s the thing too. Like just being, maybe being more intentional about the way you’re using social media yourself, and instead of going through and liking like 20 posts today, really spending time on five, and really giving, giving back, like what you would love,

Ryan Muirhead: Yeah, I, for myself, it’s trying to say use social media more responsibly and more helpfully. It’s just never going to happen. It’s like cocaine. It’s being like, yeah, you have to do a bunch of cocaine, but just be smart about it. And it’s no, that’s never, it’s always going to be awful. It’s always going to be poisonous.

So come up with another thing that isn’t that to have an experience with as well. And then spend nine hours a day scrolling until you see the thing or read the thing that makes you feel truly happy because I’m sure it’s right at the bottom of the feed.

Twyla Jones: Oh my God. it is it’s right at the bottom. Just scroll one more minute.

Ryan Muirhead: I know. That’s what I tell myself on hour nine.

Twyla Jones: No, I honestly, I have been trying to be, a lot better and, just be more productive in the things that I’m creating. I will catch myself and I give myself the excuse. Like it’s part of my job to be on Facebook. Cause I have this Facebook group, but I’ll catch myself, just like trying to answer a question and then scrolling, looking for that, one perfect thing to make me feel complete or whatever. And I’m like, what the fuck am I doing? I there’s like actual things that I could be creating or like more pictures that I could go take. And this is not going to get me very close to being better at any of those things.

Ryan Muirhead: I love it. Did I just hear a kid?

Twyla Jones: Yeah. He’s awake and eating Jersey Mike subs. Do you have that?

Ryan Muirhead: I don’t even know. No, I don’t even know what that is.

Twyla Jones: we just ate leftovers from our friend the other day and it was a really good sandwich. So we went and got some.

Ryan Muirhead: Portland is just amazing in all its little local food. And we have an awesome little sandwich shop that actually has sandwich artists called subway here. no, it’s amazing. You smell like it. Even from five minutes in the store, you smell like it for the rest of the day. That’s what people love about it.

Twyla Jones: I made a peanut butter and jelly earlier and the bread was warm. And I was just thinking about what an amazing thing warm bread is like one of the best, I don’t know, like pleasures on earth.

Ryan Muirhead: That’s perfect to transition from like existential capitalist dread into like warm bread. That’s like a nice emotional completion to a podcast.

Twyla Jones: I just would like, if I could leave everybody with a scent, fresh baked bread, take that with you.

Ryan Muirhead: and if I should leave everybody with a scent, it would be whatever artificial, chemical they put into subways, fresh baked bread to make you smell like that all day. I hope Subway’s not your sponsor for this podcast.

What if it was at the end? You’re like, dear God, subway. I’m so sorry. I had no idea that would happen. Subway eat fresh, brought to you by pedophiles spokesman

Twyla Jones: in good faith. I don’t think I could have a sponsor for this podcast. Ooh. Hey Ryan, how about we have your print gallery. Like I’ll, we’ll just plug that.

Ryan Muirhead: Fantastic. I’ll give you, I’ll give you a link to it.

Twyla Jones: Yeah, good do that.

okay. I guess I have to eat these sandwiches and this baby’s going to continue making noise. okay. Oh, I know, I should have locked the door. I have to lock them out to keep them out, but, Aye. So goodbye. Thank you so much for being here. I have to eat this bread. No, it really was. It was so nice. And I do hope to run into you once we can move around again and meet you and see your three favorite photographs in person, I would love to do that.