# When He’s Not Working on the iPhone, He’s Making Photographs

## Метаданные

- **Канал:** The Art of Photography
- **YouTube:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbtSiUoGgFI
- **Дата:** 07.04.2026
- **Длительность:** 59:33
- **Просмотры:** 6,150

## Описание

You can order Jon's book here - https://jonmccormack.com/book/

Jon McCormack works by day as a VP at Apple over camera software. His work impacts more people in photography than just about any other camera technology I can think of.

But what you probably don’t know about Jon is he is also an accomplished photographer in his own right. I first met Jon in Cupertino years ago at an iPhone launch and he’s appeared on this channel before. 

I’ve gotten to know Jon pretty well since both as a photographer and an incredibly interesting human being. His new book has just come out on Dam-yah-ni. It’s simply called Patterns and showcases Jon’s beautiful work made over the past few years. This project takes the viewer on a visual journey both across the world and also an impressive range of subject matter showing us the associations and beauty of a visual syntax that is part mathematical, part other worldly and always beautiful.

I had a chance to sit down with Jon a few weeks ago to talk about the book as well as his philosophy and approach to photography.

Sign up to the mailing list for weekly updates https://theartofphotography.tv/list
My Adobe Lightroom and Capture One Presets https://theartofphotography.tv/presets/
AoP T-Shirts https://aop.threadless.com/
Need a website? http://squarespace.com/aop

00:00 Introduction — Jon McCormack & “Patterns”
01:00 From Apple Park to Photography
02:04 The Book as a Visual Poem to the Planet
03:00 How COVID Sparked the Project
04:21 Discovering Patterns on a Single Beach
05:59 Finding Beauty in Mathematics
07:10 Math, Creativity, and Finding Your People
08:59 From Observation to Visual Language
10:13 Seeing Patterns Across the World
11:04 The Rock That Became a Landscape
12:24 Why Humans Are Wired for Patterns
14:07 Breaking Out of Photographic “Genres”
15:07 From Zebras to Microscopes — Same Pattern
16:24 Photography as Connection
18:02 Patterns Across Time and Nature
19:03 Building the Book — What Changed
20:00 Why the First Edit Didn’t Work
21:03 Sequencing, Surprise, and Flow
23:10 Creating Meaning Between Images
25:02 Ice Caves and Extreme Environments
28:38 Access, Trust, and Real Exploration
33:14 Photography with Purpose (Conservation)
36:07 What Are You Trying to Say?
47:18 What’s Next — From Earth to Space
50:20 The Octopus Story (A Perfect Ending)

On my channel you will find videos about photography, cinematography, post processing tutorials for Capture One, Lightroom and Photoshop, photo assignments that YOU can participate in, the Artist Series and more. The Artist Series is an ongoing set of videos I produce as documentaries on living photographers. I am extremely passionate about photography and video and my goal in making these videos is to share my passion and enthusiasm with you! Don’t forget to subscribe and make sure to hit the like button and share this video if you enjoyed it!

Ted Forbes
The Art of Photography
2830 S. Hulen, Studio 133
Fort Worth, TX 76109
US of A

## Содержание

### [0:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbtSiUoGgFI) Introduction — Jon McCormack & “Patterns”

John McCormick is a VP at Apple. He is over camera software and his work impacts more people in photography than any other technology in the camera world that I can think of. But what you probably don't know about John is that he is an accomplished photographer in his own right. We first met in Cupertino at an iPhone event several years ago. I followed him ever since and we've kept up and he's an incredible photographer, but more importantly he's an incredibly interesting human being. His new book has just come out on Damiani. It is simply called Patterns and it showcases John's beautiful work made over the past few years. This project takes the viewer on a visual journey both across the world and also across an impressive range of subject matter showing us the associations and beauty of a visual syntax that is part mathematical, part otherworldly and always beautiful. I had the chance to sit down with John a few weeks ago to not only talk about photography, but also his philosophies and his approach to the work that he does. So without further ado, this is my interview with John McCormick. John, it

### [1:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbtSiUoGgFI&t=60s) From Apple Park to Photography

is a pleasure to have you on here once again. This is your second time on my channel and our first meeting. — is. Yeah, was in a very odd and unusual place. — All right, Apple Park of all the whole places. Yeah, we we met under the rainbow in the wonderland. We did. Actually it was fun because at that point I don't think many people had gotten to go inside the oval there and do a recording and it was a beautiful day and we were under much different circumstances. We were talking about iPhone back then and we're going to do something very different today, but uh Yeah, but it's good to see you. It's good to be back in touch, sir. So yeah, let's get into it. Let's get right into it. So no iPhone today. We're going to talk about you as a photographer and interestingly enough when we did that interview, that was the first time you and I had actually met and afterwards we stayed in touch and I started following on Instagram and I'm like this guy's an amazing photographer and here we are today several years later with your new book that is out that I'm really excited to share with everybody.

### [2:04](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbtSiUoGgFI&t=124s) The Book as a Visual Poem to the Planet

everybody. — Thank you. Um that by the time this comes out this will be out and available, correct? By the time this is — Uh yes, it launches in UK April 1st and April 21st in the US in time for Earth Day because the whole thing really is kind of for me a big visual poem to our planet and so launching it around Earth Day was 100% right. Well said. Um this is the culmination of a project that spans I guess at this point at least 5 years, maybe 6. Is that correct? Yeah, um interestingly like the earliest image in it is from 1999 shot on film. So it goes all the way back, but yeah, this was one of those crazy the project came about as a result of COVID and yeah, we all sort of remember COVID where like we all had plans and

### [3:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbtSiUoGgFI&t=180s) How COVID Sparked the Project

then one day we woke up and it's like nope, we don't have plans and we don't even know if it's okay to go outside and breathe the air anymore. Um and uh we went through the whole corporate lockdown thing working from home and so my wife and I moved down to a little beach community and um near Monterey and every night I just started to like get out and walk this beach and camera came with me just because it always does and uh at some point like sort of how many sunset photographs can you actually take? But what I got really interested in was these tiny patterns that only seem to happen like a single time when the light and the waves and the winds and the rocks they all come together and they just form this thing and the pattern comes together, it stays there for a couple minutes and then it goes away and I got somewhere between intrigued enough and crazy enough from being locked up inside the pandemic but I was like, what if I spent the rest of lockdown just photographing this one beach, about 100 yards of beach, single camera, single lens? Because the other thing is a photographer, right? Like you go there and you got the bag of gear and it's like, should I use the zoom or wide angle? Blah blah blah. And I'm like, no, I'm just like I'm going to take all of that away and uh I found that like what I

### [4:21](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbtSiUoGgFI&t=261s) Discovering Patterns on a Single Beach

really fell in love with this idea of patterns, this idea of these formations that sort of light up our world and then when the pandemic was finally over and I sort of got back to my kind of regularly scheduled photography patterns took over, but then in looking back because as you said like a lot of the a lot probably two-thirds of the book is kind of from 2020 on. But that leaves a third of it that is sort of prior to that and it turned out that patterns were part of my life for a very long time photographically. I just never really sort of had that aha. That's fascinating. I want to touch on that because part of what I know about you is your upbringing being from Australia growing up in the Outback. And one of the things that I find fascinating is you were telling me once that the idea of math when you were a kid. When I was growing up, you know, I start math classes at you know, kindergarten first grade age of seven. And at first it's a lot of memorization and it's all very black and white like you know, 2 + 3 = 5 always you know, and so you're just memorizing it. Uh and then later I remember getting into high school and when I was taking algebra I was like, when in my life am I ever going to have the need for the quadratic formula? It just didn't make sense. Yep. — But one thing I heard you say is that at a very young age you found a certain beauty in mathematics. In fact, I think you said specifically math you found beautiful. Tell me a little bit more about that.

### [5:59](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbtSiUoGgFI&t=359s) Finding Beauty in Mathematics

What was the interest? Um I just it it's sort of it makes it made it made a lot of sense to me, but also um and this is a really important distinction. Unless you're an accountant, math is a creative thing. Um you know, for those accountants out there, no, math should not be creative. But if you think about kind of pure mathematics, um it really is it kind of came out from this idea of like there's nothing, there's one, there's two, there's three and then this whole body of math got built on top of that and so it is this really interesting space where um creativity flourishes in math. And one of the really interesting things that I found in that is because actually I went on and did um uh uh got to know math in sort of like elementary school and then um high school was sort of this interesting thing. I I'd finished high school math by the time I was grade in grade nine because I just loved it and ate every available textbook and

### [7:10](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbtSiUoGgFI&t=430s) Math, Creativity, and Finding Your People

um and then sort of like went on to kind of start thinking about university level math, but that became this gateway drug into computer science that it turns out that the mathematical brain and the computer science brain really are very similar and what I found in sort of our little community of nerds was a lot of creative people like these like really good photographers both technical photographers and folks that while they're brilliant, they're not necessarily technical photographers. Like a lot of intuition because within mathematics there is to go and figure out like well, how do these things kind of come together, but also dear friend of mine uh who I work with at Apple, um he's brilliant mathematician, brilliant color scientist and a concert level trumpet player. Uh I it was really like through math that I was able to one find something that was an interesting organizing principle to the universe. But also it's kind of where I found my people which I think that's the other part. I mean we sort of we talk about kind of especially like in in within photography, right? There are so many tribes. It's like, I'm a Leica photographer or I'm a landscape photographer or I'm this. It's like, you know, like I'm a math photographer and I'm proudly I found my people. That's it it's interesting to me because I mean I have noticed that as well and there is sort of this critical thinking particularly in music which has a notated theory behind it of why things

### [8:59](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbtSiUoGgFI&t=539s) From Observation to Visual Language

work and maybe in visual it does, but in a very different way. And one of the things that I've noticed that really drew me in when I started looking at your book is it's I mean, you know, we're talking about this idea of patterns, but the difference between a photographer who just has a camera and shoots all the time and somebody who's actually producing something in this cohesive manner that the word narrative may come into mind here, but not necessarily so, but there are associations as you go through the book. Uh you were just talking about the idea during COVID about photographing the same thing and noticing that over time, you know, there's an Eastern philosophy in there of impermanence where something will last for a few minutes in a certain light and it goes on to something else. And then I think on a larger scale, one of the associations that you have in the book is patterns that you find in completely different types of environments, in different conditions, in different places in the world that still are part of the same that have an association together. At what point as a photographer did you start thinking in those kinds of terms? Um the Yeah, in terms of like finding patterns that were similar, um that happened a little bit after COVID

### [10:13](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbtSiUoGgFI&t=613s) Seeing Patterns Across the World

where I started photographing rocks. And uh and sort of like rocks as in sort of like agates and sort of all sorts of like basically any rock I can they can get my hands on. And um this actually goes back to a comment that um an early mentor of mine, a guy called Bill Atkinson, who um was uh he was early on at Apple way before I was there, but he was really the one that gave us a lot of the printer profiles and things like that we have now. He uh he went into and for a long time Epson would just like would just ship his printer profiles. Um and Bill um uh was retired, and so one of the

### [11:04](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbtSiUoGgFI&t=664s) The Rock That Became a Landscape

things that he loved to do every year is he'd go to he'd get in his RV and he'd like he'd go to these rock shows. And because Bill was um he took crazy to a whole new level. In the back of his RV, he had both a uh photo studio setup, but he also had a large format printer in the back of his RV. And so he would show up at these rock shows, and he would go and convince people uh that yeah, he was legit. And he would just like borrow a rock for the evening like after the after everything shut down um for the day, he would borrow a rock, go back, photograph it, and he would come back uh the next morning and give them back the rock, and give them this sort of 30 by 40 print of the rock as well. And the thing that he talked about, he's like I would look at these rocks and I would find mountain ranges and rivers and um and sort of and so I ended up um sort of like following a little bit in Bill's footsteps. And I really did see this. You sort of look inside a rock, and it's like, "Wow, there's there are really interesting things here. There are like there are all of these patterns that start to repeat everywhere. " And sort of my the the first time it happened was

### [12:24](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbtSiUoGgFI&t=744s) Why Humans Are Wired for Patterns

first the first time it happened was this um this slice of agate, and I found this snow-covered mountain in this kind of 1-in by 3/4-in square that I'm like, "Wow, that sort of you know, that looks like an abstract painting of a mountain. " And so then it just became this quest to find these But the other thing about patterns is um that as humans, we are actually really deeply attuned to patterns. And because if you And from a neuroscience perspective, like our brain it's not this passive camera. It's not just kind of a security camera waiting for things to come in. It's like an active thing. And um and our brain uses patterns to make order out of the world and to make us able to sort of make sense and feel safe. And so I think in all of us there is sort of there is this deep kind of like deep brain search for patterns that is subconsciously going on all the time. And so then it just becomes one of these things. The more you spend time looking for patterns, the more patterns you see. It's sort of like kind of like being a photographer, right? The more you photograph, the better a photographer you are because you're just more aware. You're you're seeing more things. Patterns are the same. And then then it just kind of became this adventure and crazy going from everywhere from microscopic all the way up to aerial and everywhere in between. Well, one of the things that I talk about a lot because it's association

### [14:07](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbtSiUoGgFI&t=847s) Breaking Out of Photographic “Genres”

that I made, but it does become a visual language at that level. And I think one of the cool things that I love about what you're doing in this book or what you're doing about your work in general is you're transcending kind of these specific um ideas of what visual art is. And so, you know, if you think about like in the 19th century in France, they would define the aesthetics. There's the portrait, there's the landscape, there's the you know. And so you're always working within one of those genres, so to speak. And I love the way that you were able to transverse very fluidly uh in And then I think it's because you're looking at that visual language, you're blurring those lines. It's like you were just What you were just describing is a landscape in macro, right? Or find it on the side of a an animal even. It It's amazing. Yeah, or or my my favorite one is uh and this is sort of the crazy sort of scale juxtaposition of I was photographing a Grevy's zebra in

### [15:07](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbtSiUoGgFI&t=907s) From Zebras to Microscopes — Same Pattern

northern Kenya, and there are there are there are there a specific subspecies of zebra, but they've got these um really beautiful cascading line patterns that come down from their forehead. And I photographed that with no intention other than like, "Well, that's really pretty. " And then um a year later I was looking through a microscope slide at a smear of caffeine. And it had the exact same pattern, the exact same structure. And I was just like, "Oh, wow. " And this is something sort of like tiny and you know, like that necessity of daily life, right? I mean, like I don't know about you, but I had two cups of coffee before I got on the call this morning. — Yeah. Just get out of bed. Uh and like who knew that like caffeine is not only high art, but it also exhibits the same pattern that uniquely identifies a zebra on the other side of the world. It's like it just It was a mind-blowing thing. And yeah, and so for me yeah, this whole the whole schools of photography thing and stuff like that, it's like I don't find that particularly interesting because for me

### [16:24](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbtSiUoGgFI&t=984s) Photography as Connection

photography is all about figuring out what you want to say and say it. I you know, the idea of like, "Ooh, I'm a West Coast landscape photographer, and so I'm uh I only shoot at F64 on 4 by 5 or 8 by 10 film. " It's like, "No, totally uninterested in that. " I uh like I photograph the things that I want to talk about in the world. And you know, the things that I want the thing I really want to talk about is like is how magical our planet is. Like you know, sort of just how beautiful these patterns are, how connected the world is. When we can sort of go from uh a um a cracked riverbed in uh Death Valley, and then you can go from there to that sort of webbing pattern and see that in a rock that was created in Utah 100 million years ago deep in the earth all the way through to a Masai giraffe in western Kenya, and realize that's the same pattern. It keeps coming back. And um yeah, everybody can sort of make of that what they want to, but the thing that you have to do is sit back and just marvel at the fact that exists. It It almost And without trying to sound too heady on this, but I think what your discoveries in a lot of this or what I got out of the book anyway is that you realize that there's something greater than us at work.

### [18:02](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbtSiUoGgFI&t=1082s) Patterns Across Time and Nature

Because it's transcending hundreds of years at times, or it's transcending places in space. And — Okay, so And this is the math nerd in me for a second, but um so an ammonite fossil from 400 million years ago has got this perfect spiral. And it's because of because 400 million years ago, when this ammonite created its house to live in, this kind of this logarithmic or Fibonacci spiral was the best, most structurally sound thing to uh make it with. And then if you look at a uh a shark's eye or a South Carolina sea snail today, it's the exact same thing. And so that's um you know, similar-ish animal that sort of like at some level kind of like come down from history together, but um this idea of this pattern, it's endured for a half a billion years. It's extraordinary. Yeah.

### [19:03](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbtSiUoGgFI&t=1143s) Building the Book — What Changed

Yeah. In the course of And I know sort of the answer to this, I just want to get you to talk about it. You When one does a project such as a book, um you're forced to all of a sudden start to organize and look at your work in a different way. Do you feel like how did that affect you as a photographer? Like do you see your work a little bit differently now than when you started? Cuz I mean, you had the concept initially, but then when you really get into those associations and you really start digging into how it's going to lay out and flow uh to the reader, um did that change anything for you in your approach to your work? I mean, well it was such a big learning. So I I've traditionally published in magazines and that sort of six photos, 1,500 words, and you know, and um Uh, and the photos are sort of all there in a couple of pages and uh, when I first put my book together or put some of a dummy of my book together, I looked through it and I was like

### [20:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbtSiUoGgFI&t=1200s) Why the First Edit Didn’t Work

"This is as boring as hell. " Um, because it was just kind of like there was no connective tissue. There was just like pattern after pattern after pattern and um, thankfully I was introduced to somebody who is a really thoughtful um, book photo book editor and yeah, and she was like, "John, the thing that you need to do here is" and she did the first sequence of the book for me. She's like, "Give me your entire library and I'm going to go play. " And she comes back with like the first um, sort of and a like a run of about 30 pages and there were images in there that I never would have chosen that I would never have thought of a pattern and they had this interesting sort of connective tissue that like that basically or also this element of surprise. So, I go from like sort of one photograph to another photograph and uh, and the next was yeah, the thing she said is like, "You want folks to have an

### [21:03](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbtSiUoGgFI&t=1263s) Sequencing, Surprise, and Flow

expectation of like when I turn the page, what crazy thing am I going to see next? " And so, I think it um, it really got me sort of out of that um, out of that sort of narrow-minded thing of like because when I first started putting the books together, I'm like, "Okay, there are patterns in the air of the Lake Magadi and there are patterns in the ocean rocks. " And so, I was like, "Okay, is this just like three chap three you know, three sections type thing? One on this subject, one on this subject. " And instead of it like it really kind of pushed me into this idea of no, there's a bigger thing here at play that um, that it's you know, because like the whole idea of you know, the pattern the photo book of patterns, that's been around for a while and we've seen a lot of those but a lot of them are organized as like there's a bunch of spirals in nature and here's a bunch of circles in nature. Um, while the work is beautiful, I tried you know, for me I tried to do something different and the thing that I tried to do was like not talk about like a specific pattern. You're in circle land or you're in square land or triangle land. Instead, I tried really hard to go, "You're in pattern land. " And these patterns can turn up in surprising places. And so, if you go from like this page to another page and and all of the sudden you went like from one side of the world to the other like sort of this idea that um, if you're over the Okavango Delta in Botswana and you see these trees, they just like look like these little specs of stars. Uh, and then if you're hanging out with a grizzly bear um, when it's uh, fishing salmon in a uh, during the salmon spawn, they go down, they feed for salmon, uh, they come up and they shake and there's just this explosion of water

### [23:10](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbtSiUoGgFI&t=1390s) Creating Meaning Between Images

uh, that like sort of looks the same. And that's really the thing that I wanted to do was not was to also like give folks a place where their mind could just journey and wander and sort of uh, and and give a sense of that genuine surprise. The same that the same surprise that I would feel when I would look at a photograph and then all of a sudden I would be like, "Wait, I've seen that somewhere before. " And go wandering through the library and it's like, "Oh yeah, I took that same pattern a decade ago attached to some completely different thing. Maybe it maybe one's a life form and one's a rock or and that that's where I think for me it became this really interesting journey of pattern then became connection. It's like this idea of the world being this connected place. I um, I really fell in love with that. I love that. You know, I think the area of the book that really takes it to a different level for me is because you know, we have these associations, we have the differences between them but when you get into the ice structures, it's one thing to just go shoot ice if you're in a cave but you can tell that your mind is really going for the pattern and the difference in those for me at least is that you start introducing something of a great complexity with the you know, where it's basically being formed as ice melts and freezes and things start coming down and it's this I think earlier you mentioned even abstract painting. It almost goes into that territory for me. It's very complex and you're out of circle land at that point, you know. Yeah, yeah and they um, and the thing that you know, like so of all of the places that

### [25:02](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbtSiUoGgFI&t=1502s) Ice Caves and Extreme Environments

I get to photograph, ice caves without a doubt they are my happy place and um, yeah, uh, the yeah, one one incredibly happy thing about it um, as you just pointed out is like cell phones don't work in ice caves. It's like, "Okay, I'm I'm disconnected from the rest of the world and I'm just with these things. " And it is that like that same thing of like looking for patterns both at large scale and small scale and within the ice we've all sort of seen yeah, we've all like like pulled a piece of ice out of the fridge so out of the freezer and we're like, "Huh, it's got like some interesting like sort of like crystalline pattern or something like that. " And that didn't think of that at this grand scale and then when you've got um, patterns when you've got ice that sort of interacts with light and sometimes it is your the wall of the cave is so thin and it's so this cave is coming to the end of its life and you just have this like it's thin wall that the sun comes through and it's it becomes like stained glass window because these are nature's cathedrals. They are special and wonderful places. And then other places where the roof is so thick that it just feels like it can swallow a uh, a sunset hole and then there are other places where there's no light at all. There was this on this crazy cave in Svalbard uh, up there I think it's 78° north in the high Arctic. Uh, we had to repel into it and so there was um, no light at all and so for that everything was light painted and so you you're down and uh, uh, and actually this will this this will probably amuse um, some of your folks who or at least make them feel better about themselves. Um, so repelling I was shooting on a um, uh, uh, the brand the the the the brand isn't important but it was a medium format digital camera that happened to be not weather sealed. Uh, and so yeah, you so you can instantly see where it's going. And so I drop into this cave and there was running water at the bottom of the cave uh, and we're deep inside a glacier so it was really cold and so here I am kind of like photographing and life is happy and stuff like that. Uh, and then all of a sudden I felt as I would sort of look at the images I I'm sort of like mid shoot. I just started to see this spot form and sort of grow and grow and I'm like, "Okay, not going to deal with it now. " So, I changed bodies, put that one away, put uh, got the next one out. And then sort of like you know, some amount of photographs later I was like, "Oh wait, the same thing is happening again. " And so, I'm like, "Well, I guess photo shoot's over. I'm going to climb out of this cave and then we'll go figure out what happened. " Well, what had been happening was like the cold sort of like mist and liquid in the air was getting its way into the cold the wet cold air was then hitting the sensor which was getting warm [clears throat] and then was just like trickling down and flooding the bottom of the camera. And so um, yeah, you can imagine that like sort of when I when I got back and realized what was happening, I'm just like, "Okay, I got I've got two very expensive medium format cameras that are now just paperweights and there's nothing about it at all. " That was that that was um

### [28:38](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbtSiUoGgFI&t=1718s) Access, Trust, and Real Exploration

both not a good day and a learning experience all wrapped up into one. Knowledge is expensive, John. No, knowledge yeah, like knowledge is power and knowledge is expensive or the acquisition of knowledge is expensive. Well, it's funny because you know, when I do reviews on new cameras, you know, and you get questions in the comments and a lot of times people say, "How's the weather sealing? Is it good enough to go out there? " No, John will ask me, "Is it good enough to go down to an ice cave at a certain temperature? " Yep, yep and and it turns out with these cameras, the answer would be no. Not so much. so much. — Explain that one to the insurance company. Uh, you know, that actually brings me to another thing I want to ask you about because you know, one thing that and not that I've known you forever but I feel like I know you fairly well because we we connected first on the iPhone and then as photographers and what we like to talk about and yeah, but the thing that I didn't know about you until I really saw this book and got into it is that like you're like the adventure guy. You're like an Indiana Jo- I didn't know that level to you're a diver. You I mean, you're going to tell me you're a pilot next but you know, there's a lot that you do and what's interesting is you know, we were talking about Kenya a little bit and I've been invited to go to Kenya before and to go to a safari tour where you sit in the back of the truck that goes I have zero interest in that at all. One of the things that I love about your work though is that you do you have access to certain things that and I want you to talk a little bit about this because to especially younger photographers who are starting out this is a little bit of a deterrent sometimes. And it's more work than you think but it clearly the results are worth it in the end. And how did a lot of this start for you cuz you're not sitting in a safari truck in the in Kenya, you know. No, the and so a lot of it is um and like just think about this as a human for a second like you let's say like some let's say some random person knocks on your door and says like hey, I want to come in and it's like you know photograph your house. You just like no, get out of here. What are you thinking? But if you know but if that same person is like sort of like you know in your life and in your community and stuff like that then you sort of like that they actually go from being like a random person to someone you know and the and so for me I did a lot of I've done a lot of work and continue to do with big conservation organizations nature conservancy and rainforest alliance conservation international Mara elephant project and that um that's been a real sort of gift to me in terms of one I get to understand much more deep the thing that I'm photographing. I mean like let's take on let's take spirit bears for a second. And spirit bears they're these wonderful animals they're a white black bear and they only live in a few islands in the Great Bear Rainforest. There's 140 of them left in the world which makes them 10 times rarer than a panda bear. And so to get to know the right people and to be able to sort of get in took it took a lot of time and learning about this ecosystem. One of the things that sort of motivated me being there was the there was an oil pipeline about to be put through the the Great Bear Rainforest and for all of the bears there not just the white bears but the black bears and the grizzlies as well so much of their food source is the salmon and the salmon streams and in fact this is one place I photographed a lot where grizzly bears are usually solitary in September October of every year this is one little river and 400 grizzly bears coming together feed and gorge before they then go and hibernate for the winter and so if there was a single oil leak which you know there would be at some point this entire ecosystem would be gone and because

### [33:14](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbtSiUoGgFI&t=1994s) Photography with Purpose (Conservation)

the salmon wouldn't survive and if the salmon didn't survive the bears wouldn't survive. And so by being part of this conversation I got to go in and photograph spirit bears. That was uh it is um the main thing about photographing spirit bears is it is just wet. It is like and but it's it's green and it's wet and then you have this magical moment where this little bear this little silver bear just emerges out of the green and you can't help but look at that and say this is nature speaking this is nature saying I'm precious I'm extraordinary I'm wondrous but yeah to your point this didn't come from me just kind of like booking a tour and showing up but like and by the way there's nothing wrong with that. I mean the first time that I went to Africa it was in the back of a safari van and um and I had a grand old time but now yeah I want to be able to do crazy things like um put a a camera with a remote right on the ground in front of a crash of rhinos that's coming towards me and then get the hell out of the way so that photograph it. It's and that just it just takes the time. You just need to kind of like spend a lot of time and um and it's also this give to get right? It's like sort of you know I would um show up as a volunteer and this doesn't have to be the other side of the world. Near me is this place called Año Nuevo which is one of the big elephant seal haul outs on the west coast in the US and so volunteered there and then they get to know you and they're like yeah come take photos in the morning totally cool you know just go jump into a bunch of scientists and like you know don't get in the way and like hey good deal. Works for me. Well it's also you know I talk about this as being a point of departure and I think this is uh like you said your first trip was in the back of the safari van and you do something as a starting point and it gives you a taste of something and then if you have enough interest you'll drive further and so much of this I mean I found at least it with the stuff that I do is that it a lot of it has nothing to do with the camera. It's about trust and interest and being part of community or you know volunteering or the things that you do to get there. You know you legitimately have to be interested otherwise you know it's it takes so much — Yeah but I think that's one of the interesting things about the evolution of cameras. So like you and I both

### [36:07](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbtSiUoGgFI&t=2167s) What Are You Trying to Say?

started out in the film days. I was never a darkroom rat I was always a slide guy. Um which I think is a special kind of masochism and just shooting slides but it was like think of like the first time I went to Kenya um I was I was shooting um Provia which I think had like a lot of maybe five stop tolerance It's shallow yeah. — of dynamic range and so like black to blown out there was like there was not a whole lot in that and so it was a very technical craft. And so now and like my keeper right was like just horrid but now if you go and look at mirrorless cameras phone cameras where it really is what you see is what you get especially if like if you pop a histogram up like a lot of this kind of like this technical sort of um thing that you had to have um is now it doesn't get in the way anymore and the learning curve is so much smaller and so much more quick and this means like it's not about this question of like can I take the photograph because like there are a lot of like photographers who like from like that even from the heyday of National Geographic that like the thing that like sort of like that they traded on was like technical skill of being able to take a photograph and you know having sort of Nat Geo get them there whereas now anybody can get to Kenya. Anybody can just sort of like take a photograph. The real question now is not like you know like can you take a photograph well and it's like what is the thing that you're looking to say and that for me does come out of this interest. It's like and um yeah well I guess one of my things are like I've got this insatiable curiosity and so I love this idea of um getting to learn about species of lion sort of different parts of the world where things like conservation has been extraordinarily successful like cheetahs which are these incredible animals are you know really are in deep population decline but there's this one little area in the Serengeti in the east in the Serengeti where the American plains where they closed for 29 years they they closed off all access to people and all of the animals came back all of this all of the antelopes came back and when you get antelopes you get cats and so now there's this like really big cheetah population and so um learning about that and getting to understand that is you know that for me is just as interesting a part of journey as taking the photograph but it also means that now the photograph is is something that's got a story behind it. It's not just like here's a picture of a pussycat it's like here's you know here's a picture of nature fighting back and nature saying if you leave me alone the right things will happen. That that's fascinating to me actually. I mean when I heard that story the other day and it was just like, "Yeah, he shut it down and let nature do its thing. " It It's amazing what will happen. You know, another point that I want to make about this whole conversation, I hope that people are inspired by this, is that you do all this on nights and weekends. You work in the corporate world for a company most people have heard of on a product most people have in their pocket. And balancing those two things, you know, are they related to you at all? I mean, not related to you, but are they related to each other? About the photography versus working on iPhone. I think so. So, yeah. So, for uh uh you know, to be kind of explicit um about sort of what I do, I'm like I get to be a part of iPhone's camera team. And that uh it's a it's an extraordinary and really fun job. But, the thing that it does is it puts me around photography all of the time. I look at images critically every day. I'm around other photographers. I'm around creatives. Uh I'm talking and thinking photography all the time. And yeah, it's different because like iPhone like is predominantly used to take um photographs of people. I will do almost anything to avoid taking photographs of a person. But, it um it does kind of keep me in that photographic headspace. And so, that for me is has been a really important thing because then it's like it we you know, we've all had that thing of like sort of like in for me thing about, you know, different jobs I've had before like you're working you're working and then you're just like, "Oh, I'm going on vacation night or going away for the weekend to Yosemite and get to take photos. " It's like it's not a case of like remembering how to use the gear. It's getting back into that creative headspace. And so, for me, I'm in that headspace a lot because there are some great photographers that are part of the team. And uh uh all sort of like you know, very different disciplines. We like to photograph different things. You know, that's all that that's all great. But, like sort of um being surrounded by a creative community. And and I think this is one of the things that if I look back to um say the 1920s and 30s in Paris where there was the the salons that photographers would come together and all that sort of that the artists would come together and whether they'd be photographers or painters and get to just discuss their work and be in community um around their work. I think that's a very important thing. You know, one you know, sometimes we learn from each other, sometimes we don't, but being in that photographic mindset, being inspired, being inspired to kind of to go look for what's next, look for um look for sort of like different ways of expression and point of view. I think that's really valuable. And I think that's why because yeah, as you said, like a lot of my photography is done on nights, weekends, or like let's take the this Svalbard trip, that crazy ice cave. I'd been in the UK for a week working with the team there. And because it was like vaguely in the same hemisphere I went via Svalbard on the way back. And so, I was there on the ground for uh sort of two full days. The first day we hiked all the way in, got sort of got close to got on the onto the top of the glacier. And then it was just complete whiteout. We had to turn around and go home. And then the next day uh the weather was a little bit more gentle. And so we got there. You know, the you know, when I've got a really short amount of time to go photograph, and I sort of like need to be kind of get into the zone really quickly. It helps a lot that I spend so much of my time being photography adjacent. Because it is one of those things I wonder too if if because you're forced and I've noticed this about myself even because you're forced into a narrow point of time, you're forced to be more organized about it. You know, being able to like first day it was a whiteout, you know, you've got to be able to adapt and roll with it. Do you feel like you you spend an enormous amount of time kind of organizing those things and — Absolutely. Because it's like I've got And so And this is where like the internet is just a magical thing in terms of both tools and being able to find resources so far for landscape photos, things like the photographer's ephemeris where you can go and look at yeah, figure out on any given time where the light is going to be with with respect to your subject, long-range weather forecasting, Google Earth, sort of like looking for patterns in the um California and Utah deserts in on on Google Earth. Uh And then also just like reaching out to people. I mean, the thing is if like folks are so often like afraid to like you know, reach out to like sort of like domain experts. It's like most people who like you who love things, love taking photographs, love being out in nature, we all sort of talking about it. So, like you know, someone reaches out to me and said like, "Hey, like you know, I want to go photograph an ice cave. Like what do I do? " And I'm like, "Here's all of my contacts and here's when I would recommend going. You know, go do the thing. " Wonderful. It is amazing that we it's like I remember you know, my nephew is in his early 20s and he grew up you know, with phones and stuff. And I you know, you and I were pre that. And it's fascinating because I get so into it and I think a lot of times with him I used to tell him all the time, "You're too close to the forest to see the trees. " I mean, but this is a really amazing thing that we have now is it's another example of that the mathematics side where you have data points that actually enable you to do something with a lot less prep, a lot less planning because you can pre-plan it so well. Um I would even venture to say that you could probably most people could go somewhere they've never been before and be pretty organized about it, you know. You can. And the um And of course, there's also there's always some level of luck in making a photograph, right? In terms of like do the are all the conditions things that you want. But, you can really do everything that you can do a lot to sort of to maximize that luck. And all the max maximize chances of that luck. Like good weather windows, right time of year, etc. And also just like local knowledge. Just kind of like asking folks who have like sort of like you know, what is the right thing to um you know, when should I come? You know, um you know, like uh for example, like you know, people like going back to Kenya, people you know, talk about the great um the great migration. It's like we're all sort of like "Where is the great migration now? " Because it's this big circle. It is like moving in a big circle all year round. Um and so uh it's like, "Oh, well, I can't get there in July um to watch the Mara River crossing, but like there's you know, 2 million animals on the move. They've got to be somewhere sort of thing. " And so ask people. Uh — Yeah, they don't keep a calendar. We're going to be crossing the river on the 9th. No. Um yeah, and so they um and so And I do find that like you know, if you're respectful that people can be extraordinarily generous with their time. Absolutely. Yeah. So, John, what is next for you? This is

### [47:18](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbtSiUoGgFI&t=2838s) What’s Next — From Earth to Space

It's always interesting and you may not have gotten to that point where you're thinking about it yet. And for those who who've done a book, you know it's an extraordinarily intense amount of work and looking at the same thing over and over again. You know. And you've done a beautiful job with it. I mean, I hope that you're really proud of this cuz it is absolutely fantastic. I was excited to get this in the mail. Um And what's next for you? What do What are you thinking? Are you kind of just exploring more down this path or do you have something more planned or I am because I did sort of wonder if this was part of {quote} "just a project" that I feel like I'd go, I'd do my patterns thing, and then I'd be like, "Well, I'm going to go do something else. " You know, it's much more than that for me. It really was this sort of this big awakening of what is the thing that I've got to say. And so now it is searching for more patterns, but also uh searching in harder to reach places. Like my uh the thing that I know is in my future is deep space photography. Um that um I am uh going to get into the crazy world of telescopes because it um you know, I see a lot of these. Um astrophotography and there's I'm there's a guy that I work with that's really good at it. And I'm just like there are patterns out there that sort of you know, that like yeah, if you look at it from a scientific point of view, it's like yeah, that's a great photograph of a nebula, etc. But, the more interesting from things for me is like zoom all the way in and you find this thing that sort of like you know, like you could go like, "Wow, that's a you know, that's however many light years away, but it's also there's like a similar pattern in a flower in my backyard. " I mean, I'm all about this. Love it. That I mean, only you, John. I mean, if you were to call me in a year and say, "I'm going on the space shuttle. " I'd believe it. Um you know, it's I love the way that you bring it back actually to the flower in your backyard. And we started this whole conversation with your your tales during COVID of just going for the walk with one camera, one lens, and then noticing those small things. I remember it was kind of a you know, kind of a Zen slap for me a couple years ago when I was talking to Keith Carter one time, and he said, you know, one thing he does with students is he said, you want the hardest assignment possible? Go make me a portfolio of 12 pictures all taken within 100 ft of your house. Cuz you see it every day, and looking for those moments, and I love that you you embrace that as well. It doesn't I mean, we're talking about the exotic stuff, but it doesn't have to be that way all the time. There's beauty in that. — um and this one uh like going back to those like sort of crazy patterns coming together. I had uh photographed a giant Pacific octopus

### [50:20](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbtSiUoGgFI&t=3020s) The Octopus Story (A Perfect Ending)

octopus um in uh in the Georgia Strait in uh British Columbia. And octopus are amazing because they blend they change colors and pattern to blend in with whatever they're around. And then um last year I was photographing a hibiscus flower that was out in the yard, and I look at this thing, I'm like I've seen that pattern before. Where did I see that pattern before? 120 ft down in pitch black when I was hanging out with an octopus, and I'm like they look the flower and the octopus's skin, they look the same, and it just it was beautiful. And so and yeah, like the um I do find uh I do find a lot local to photograph. And it's also that idea of like how do you keep fresh because like yeah, like we can't be traveling all the time to take photographs, and so how do I keep that creativity going? How do I go find like sort of random little things that maybe I could like put on a slide and look at under a microscope or a 50x macro or something like that. Um and how do I go explore that? Um you know, like Yeah, and how you know, maybe it's so like you head to a local beach, which is 20 minutes away, 30 minutes away, and just kind of like maybe it's a piece of kelp, maybe it's something interesting in the sand, maybe it's sand and rocks together, but it's not um uh but yeah, like so just like keep like little keeping an open mind instead of because we've all we all do that thing right as photographers of like yeah, we pre-visualize in all of the wrong ways. It's like, okay, I'm going to this place, I'm going to take that photo. And it's like, no. For me to get to that point where I'm going to this place, and I'm going to see what this place says to me. You know, because like um — to you. Yeah. Yeah, like as much as I love, you know, Yosemite, like sort of I personally don't need another photograph of Half Dome. I mean, like you know, Ansel Adams kind of nailed that, and um and I think we're sort of good, but um and yeah, like go get your own version of it, etc., but then like you know, after you've taken like sort of like the big like um landscape kind of like these iconic things, then walk away [clears throat] and go, oh yeah, let's now I'm going to photograph the things that are really um just speak to me personally. And hopefully for all of us that's different, and that's what makes this journey so beautiful. Yeah, you keep the open mind to let the place speak to you somehow, and it's John, speaking of that, and I don't I hope you don't mind. I want you to tell the octopus story. Oh, yeah, so um — I mean, it's I mean, it's right in line with what we're talking about cuz it was an unexpected moment, and I it's a beautiful story. I'm going to let you Yeah, so um so what when you uh when you get in the water with um uh with an octop a camera you need to make a decision about what lens you're going to take um because you can't change lenses underwater without [snorts] even worse things happening to your camera. Um and so I'd um I'd been photographing octopus, and I really wanted to photograph an octopus's eyeball because when you look at an octopus uh and they look back at you there is this deep sort of like connection there. I mean, they are curious, intelligent animals. So rig for macro, jumped in um uh got uh found a willing octopus and we hung out, had a little photo shoot, and we were down on a ledge pretty deep. And the water was cold, it was about 48°. I was um and you know finished photographing, and the area that I was in really there was no other thing to use a macro lens for. And I'm just like, okay, well, I'm I guess I'm kind of done photographing. I'm like just going to hang out for a little bit and see what happens. And then I'd heard that octopus are really sensitive to changes in temperature variations. So uh I was diving in a dry suit, but I was diving wet gloves, and so I pulled my glove off, and so this creates this instant temperature differentiate differential of um uh you know, body temperature is like 90°, probably 10° colder than that, uh but still a 40° temperature differential. And I just kind of like sat my hand there sort of between me and the octopus just to see what would happen. And within 30 seconds, this tentacle just reaches out. And these tentacles can grow up to 10 ft long, so um you know, it's you know, they're the real deal. But the tip of this tentacle came out and just like wrapped itself around and around my hand, and um and so we sat there for probably a minute, this octopus just holding hands with me. And then it eventually unwound, and then um took its arm um took its tentacle back and then decided that you know, it had enough of this crazy person, and just like sort of disappeared into the black. But it was this profound moment. And yeah, and it sort of it came from not just you know, like initially the plan was to go take a photograph, and I I took the photograph, but then you know, I find it really important for me after you take a photograph that you don't then move on. That basically because I'm here taking a photograph with this magical thing. So I go then put the camera down and experience this magical thing. And um the gift that this octopus um gave me. And like and yeah, and very clearly, I have not eaten octopus or even squid soup. I just it's like that would be like eat eating the family dog at this stage. It's just something that I could could not get my head around. No, I think I would be the same. It's such a great story, but I think it's important, too. I mean, there's so much of photography and I've been fortunate to interview people such as yourself and other other photographers who are extremely talented, and I'll I'm always fascinated by the stories that have nothing to do with a photograph. Um they're photographic in a in a different sense. — Yeah, like photographically motivated. And um and that's but like we're not just photographers, we're people, too. And um and I think that that that was the other thing that um this COVID experience taught me because I used to be one of those photographers like I was always on the lookout for a keeper if like you know, if like if I was going, I was you know, I was going get a winner, I was going to take a photograph, and it was going to be amazing. And um like photographing the same beach every day for hundreds of days um it it just taught me to love the process. And my camera was always there, but like sometimes I didn't even bother to turn it on because it was um there was just nothing to photograph. Or actually some days there actually was something to photograph, but I was just like, you know, I'm just going to be here. And I think that's really important with sort of like um certainly if you're doing any landscape photography natural history and stuff like that just enjoy being in the landscape. I mean, cuz it's like you know, this sort of this whole idea of like you know, I'm like I pack up all my stuff, and I fly or I drive, and I get to Yosemite or whatever, and I'm like, I'm up in the morning, and I go take pictures, and then I come home, and I edit my pictures, and then I go out, and then it's like well, did you did you ever go for a hike in one of the most beautiful places in the world? It's like, oh, yeah, no, actually I didn't. Um so I'm like, well, maybe you should. And so like we get to go to these extraordinary places. It's like remember that we're human, too. Yeah. That's excellent. John, it has been a pleasure to have you. Thank you so much for making your time. — So fun, sir. So fun. And I and and also like I just want to thank you for everything you do for our community. It's like I am I I am a Ted Forbes addict, and I will I will proudly say that. But the um but no, for folks like you who just like take you know, take your time to just kind of keep helping to build this community of photographers because, you know we are better in community. And and um and yeah, on behalf of your listeners, thank you for what you do. Well, thank you. I appreciate that. No, it's funny cuz we met a few years ago at an iPhone launch, and Renee hit me up, and she said, hey, we would you be willing to interview this guy, John McCormick? And I had never met John, and I had several friends who said, oh my god, you're going to get to interview John McCormick. I had no idea what was coming. So it was and it's nice to be friends with you and to be able to keep up these years and have you on here talking about your book now. I think it's awesome, so thank you so much.

---
*Источник: https://ekstraktznaniy.ru/video/49109*