About this podcast
The MOOD Podcast is a long-form conversation series exploring photography, creativity, identity, and the inner life of artists. Hosted by Matt Jacob, the show moves beyond technique and trends to examine why people make work, how creative voices are formed, and what it takes to sustain a meaningful artistic life.
Through thoughtful, unhurried conversations with photographers, filmmakers, and creative thinkers from around the world, the podcast explores themes of process, mental health, ethics, purpose, legacy, and the tension between art and industry. Episodes are grounded, reflective, and often philosophical, offering listeners provocation of thought rather than formulaic answers to copy.
The MOOD Podcast is less about instruction and more about understanding, aimed at emerging and established creatives who care not just about what they make, but why they make it.
At its core, The MOOD Podcast is the art of conversation, one frame at a time.
Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@the_moodpodcast
Instagram: @the_moodpodcast /@mattyj_ay
Website: https://themoodpodcast.com
Episodes
The newest 20 of 167 episodes
- Feeling Like a Fraud Doesn’t Make You One, Says Photographer Emiliano Zúñiga Hernández · 2 h 13 minIn this episode I’m joined by Emiliano Zúñiga Hernández, a Costa Rican photographer whose photobook Paraíso, published by Trespasser in 2023, grew out of one of the hardest…
- What If a Photographer’s Fear of Failure Isn’t Fear at All? Psychologist Zahra Ciardi Explains · 1 h 8 minI'm joined again by Zahra Ciardi, a registered psychologist and the founder of Ascendant Bali, for a second conversation about the psychology behind photography and creativity…
- Q&A: Why Your Photos Might Feel Stagnant (And How to Fix It) - Moments of Mood, 4.2 · 51 minThis is a Q&A with questions sent in by photographers from my community. I answer whether your audience needs to understand your photography, if a project shot in a few days can…
- Why Photobooks Will Outlast the Internet - Matthew Genitempo (Part 2) · 1 h 11 minTHIS IS PART 2 OF A 2 PART CONVERSATION WITH MATTHEW GENITEMPO. In Part 2 of my conversation with photographer and publisher Matthew Genitempo, we go deep into his photobooks…
- If You Still Question Your Photography, You Are Not Alone, So Does Matthew Genitempo (Part 1) · 1 h 4 minTHIS IS PART 1 OF A 2 PART CONVERSATION WITH MATTHEW GENITEMPO. I sat down with photographer Matthew Genitempo, the graphic designer turned photographer and publisher behind the…
- Andrea Modica's answer to the question every photographer asks eventually: what's the point? E134 · 1 h 0 minI sat down with Andrea Modica, the ‘Italian Story’ photographer (as well many other books) who has made every photograph since 1980 with an 8x10 view camera and prints all her…
- Your Worst Thoughts Arrive Dressed as Your Best Ideas - Moments of Mood, 4.1 · 19 minIn this week’s Moments of Mood episode, you’ll learn why I believe meditation is the most direct route to a photographic voice that is unmistakably yours, and exactly what it…
- Richard Sharum On 600 Deaths And His New Book 'American Homicide', E132 · 1 h 51 minIn this week’s podcast episode you'll learn why the photographs you're most proud of are probably the ones hiding you, and what a documentary photographer who has stood at 600…
- Work Does Not Speak For Itself - Moments of Mood, 4.0 · 13 minIn this week’s Moments of Mood episode, you'll learn the 4 questions curators, juries, and publishers silently ask about every photography project, and how to answer them in 100…
- Why Should Anyone Care About Your Photography? Shana Lopes, E130 · 58 minLearn exactly what an SFMOMA photography curator looks for, what she passes over, and how to get your work seen without an MFA, a gallery, or a 6-paragraph artist statement. I…
- Stop Explaining Your Photographs - Moments of Mood, 3.9 · 15 minIn this Moments of Mood episode, I get into the question of whether we as photographers should explain our images or let them try and ‘speak for themselves’, why the readings you…
- Why Your Photos Are Boring - Photographer David Chancellor Explains..., E128 · 1 h 18 minOn this episode, I sat down with David Chancellor, the award-winning documentary photographer behind ‘Hunters’, ‘Handle Like Eggs’, and the Taylor Wessing Prize-winning portrait…
- One Photograph Is All You Get Now, and Why That's Good News for Photographers - Moments of Mood, 3.8 · 11 minAttention has collapsed, and every photographer feels it. In this Moments of Mood episode, I make the case that this might be the best thing to happen to serious photography in a…
- Odette England Answers Every Photographer's Worst Fear, E126 · 1 h 38 minOdette England makes her photographs and then damages them, and this conversation is about why that is the most honest thing she has ever done with her voice. Odette is an…
- How To Find Your Voice Without Building a Signature Style - Moments of Mood, 3.7 · 17 minIn this Moments of Mood episode I sit with a single photograph from my own archive, one I made by accident in under ten seconds, and use it to unpack an idea Cristina Mittermeier…
- Trent Davis Bailey: Every Photographer Hits The Wrong Notes Before Finding Their Voice, E124 · 1 h 47 minTrent Davis Bailey spent 7 years photographing a remote farming valley in Colorado, convinced he was making documentary work. He wasn't. The pictures knew before he did: he was…
- The One Skill That Actually Makes Photography Beautiful (It's Not Composition) - Moments of Mood, 3.6 · 23 minIn this episode you'll discover why beauty in photography is made by your attention, not found in your subjects, and how reading your own form reveals the photographic voice…
- The Inner Voice That Stops You Taking the Photo And Lies to Every Photographer, with Rory King - E122 · 1 h 20 minIf you have ever felt technically capable but creatively lost, this conversation shows you how one photographer turned a decade of pictures, and the hardest years of his life…
- What Koudelka's Photos Show Photographers About Finding Their Voice in the Age of AI - Moments of Mood, 3.5 · 16 minIn this solo episode of Moments of Mood, you'll learn why the flood of AI images is about to make real, human photography more valuable, not less, and how to find the voice…
- Why Photographer Ridwan Didot Asks Every Artist "What's Wrong With You?", E120 · 1 h 20 minIn this episode you'll learn how to tell whether your photography is actually art, why chasing technical perfection is holding your work back, and how to develop a photographic…
