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Welcome to this very special edition of the KAJ Masterclass Live,
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the show which ensures that you profit from your time
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spent here with experts, either through their industry insights, information,
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or simply learning from them.
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And today we.
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Have with us Kirk Walkland, professional photographer of 40 plus years,
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turned novelist. And we learned from him how visual discipline
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transforms into written narrative.
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We'll talk about his books.
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And how to turn real-world observation into compelling scenes, plan
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chapters with a photographer scout, and build a sustainable creative
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career without selling your soul.
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Welcome to the show, Kirk.
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Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. I
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appreciate you having me here.
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You're welcome.
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Welcome to the show. Welcome to India in this online forum, Kirk.
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And I'm sure not just in India, but a lot
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of people, a lot of writers, novelists, from across the
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globe will benefit from what we are going.
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To talk right now. We'll talk about journey.
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We'll talk about journey from photographer to becoming a novelist.
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So we'll talk about all this.
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And before that, let's talk a bit about your journey,
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your background, so that the audience knows who they are
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listening to.
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Absolutely. Yeah, I've been a photographer for I did my
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very first wedding when I was 15 years old. So,
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I mean, I'm 63 now, so I've been photographing as
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a professional practically my whole life. You know, I mean,
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it goes back even further than that. I mean, I
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think I was eight years old when I saw the
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back of a Kellogg's Corn Flakes cereal box and it said,
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save up your box tops and get a camera. And
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this is the camera right here. So go figure. I
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still have the camera. You know, I took pictures of
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my sister and my family and things like that. And
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then I think I was around 13 or 14 years
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old when I saw a professional camera, you know, with
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an interchangeable lens. And I just had to have one
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of those. And I tried to borrow the money, but
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that didn't happen. And so I got a little paper route.
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I threw papers for six months, saved up enough money.
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We'd bought a camera and I still have that camera.
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This is the camera it was. And a friend of
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mine who was getting married saw me with this camera
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and he says, oh, would you take pictures of my wedding? Now,
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at this point, I'm roughly 15 years old. And even
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at 15 years old, I had a bit of sense.
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And I said, no, no, I will not take pictures
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of your wedding. That's too much responsibility. And he begged
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me and begged me. And finally, one day I thought
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to myself, I reasoned to myself, how can I tell
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this man no? And he understands no means no. And
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so I thought, I know. I'll say yes. He'll then
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ask for a price. And then when he asked for
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a price, I'll give him a price that's so high,
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there's no way he'll do it. So the next time
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he asked, yeah, that's exactly what happened. I said, yeah.
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He said, great. How much? And I said, $ 100. Because
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in my 15-year-old mind, that was an astronomical figure. And
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he then said, OK, I'll take it. So now I
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was stuck. And so I remember very vividly, even to
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this day, being at the reception of and thinking to myself,
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you know, I just made a hundred bucks doing what
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I love more than, than anything else. And I remember
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thinking to myself, this is what I want to do forever.
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This is what I, I want to do this for
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a living. And so I started doing whatever it took.
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I joined the library club so I could read every
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book I could get my hands on about photography. I
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started doing everything in that direction. By the time I
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was 17, I was, the manager of a local camera store.
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Even before I got out of high school, I was
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working at this camera store. And so that's how the
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whole thing evolved until finally here I was, a professional photographer.
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And that's the journey of me becoming a professional photographer.
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The journey to becoming a writer, a novelist, is interesting because,
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I mean, it goes back probably 30 years ago, maybe
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a little bit more, I was at an airport going
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through airport security. I was headed towards some job. I
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don't know what job it was. I can't remember. And
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in photography on a tripod, there's a device that we
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photographers use to make it convenient. And it's called a
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pistol grip. That's what it's literally called. And the reason
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it's called that because, well, it looks like a gun, okay?
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And I'm going through security. The guy sees this in
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my bag. He freaks out. Two big old guys come
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up on the side of me. And the security is
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losing its mind. He wants to check my bag. I'm like, sure,
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I got nothing to hide, you know. And so when
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he pulls out this pistol grip, I said to myself,
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I even said to him, I was like, oh, that
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looks like a gun. And he's like, are you kidding me?
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And I just like, dude, it's not a gun. Keep digging.
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Keep digging. You'll find that it's a camera. It's a tripod. Anyway,
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he did. And, you know, of course, I was allowed
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to go through security and there was no problem. But
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as I started thinking about the event, I thought to myself,
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you know, what if? What if I really was a
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spy or some other clandestine type? And what I was
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doing was I was trying to sneak a gun on
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the airplane airplane, and I was using photography as a
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way of disguising what I was doing. And, and all
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of that started resonating in my mind. And so for
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30 plus years, I started writing this book. Okay. And anyway,
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It's just here recently that I took the time, I
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sat down, and I said, okay, let's write it. Let's
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take all these stories that's been piling up in my
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brain and let's put it out on paper and let's
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actually create the novel Double Exposure. And so, you know,
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that's how it all happened. And that's the fast version
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of how it all happened. So, you know, I'm a
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writer now. Go figure.
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Absolutely, you indeed are.
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And I see two books written, Double Exposure and Boots
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as Stilettos.
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So we'll come to the books.
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But I want to understand, it's not an easy journey,
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easy thing to write, especially someone who is a photographer.
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And both are slightly different fields. Even the ideas could help.
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But how did you gather all that apparatus and thought
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process and everything and the patience to actually write a book.
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Yeah, people ask me that a lot. And here's how
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I answer it. I'm going to let you help me
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answer it. It's said all the time. I assume it's
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even said in India that a picture is worth....
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A thousand words.
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Everybody knows this, right? A thousand words. So as a photographer,
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that's what I do. I take a picture and I
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plant a thousand words into your mind. That's what I do.
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I've been doing it for 40 plus years. Well, as
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a writer, I reason to myself, it's the same thing,
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but in reverse. I take a thousand words and then
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I plant a picture in your mind. And so that's
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all I did with double exposure and the other one,
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boots and stilettos. I'll tell you that story in a minute.
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I basically take all these experiences, all these stories, all
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these things that frankly happened to me. And then I
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take those thousand words and I arrange them in such
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a way that I'm painting that picture in your mind.
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And that's what several if you go look on Amazon,
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you'll notice most of my reviews. That's what people say.
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They'll say things like it's like a movie going off
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in my mind. And that's my goal. That is my goal.
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So for them to say that just charges me up
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like you wouldn't believe because I am trying to do
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exactly that. So that's how a photographer can become a writer,
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in my opinion, is you just do what you normally do,
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but you do it in reverse.
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Absolutely.
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So which was the first book, Double Exposure or Boots
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and Stilettos?
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Double Exposure was the first book. I did the thing
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that writers say never do. I have two completely different genres.
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Double Exposure is a thriller. It's an espionage. It's a
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spy novel. And Boots and Stilettos is a romance. novel.
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And I'll tell you listeners, actually, it'll be for the
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first time anywhere that I'm telling anybody this. But what happened,
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the way that happened is this. I was in the middle,
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I was on vacation. And I don't know what it
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is about vacations. They charge me up for writing. And
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so I was in the hotel room and I'm typing
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away and I'm writing double exposure. And the people, our
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friends that we, I call them our vacation friends, we
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were off with them. And Lisa is her name. And
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she said, Kirk, what are you doing? And I'm like,
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I'm writing my novel. She goes, oh, you're a writer now?
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I said, yeah, I'm a writer. She goes, okay, well,
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I got a challenge for you. She said, I want
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you to write a love story. And so I'm like,
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that ain't happening. Okay. And she says, no, no, no. Listen,
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it's about this Italian heiress who comes to America, comes
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to Montana. She falls in love with a cattle rancher.
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His name is Jake. Her name is Annie. I mean,
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she had it all laid out for me, you know?
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And I said, well, you got it all laid out.
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Why don't you write the story? And she says, no,
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I want you to write it. And She says, I
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want you to loosely base it upon me and Bob.
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That's her husband. And I just said, look, this ain't happening.
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And she said, come on, Kirk. She says, come on, what,
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you're not a writer? I am a writer, but I
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don't write that kind of thing. She goes, oh, well,
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I got the ultimate challenge for you. It has to
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be clean. It has to be G-rated. And I don't
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know what it was about that that just charged up
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my juices. And I was like, Okay, I'll write one chapter.
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So I did and I sent it to her and
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she thought it was so cool. When do I get
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chapter two? And so then I wrote chapter two, still
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a joke, totally a joke. I'm thinking this is just,
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I'm just playing with her. And so I sent it
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to her and she's like, oh, it's so good. And
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so I'm halfway through chapter three, sending her and that's like,
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this is gonna be it. And I'm halfway through chapter
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three and I thought about it and I started realizing that,
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you know, this is pretty good. So I just kept going.
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And now we have Boots and Stilettos. There you go.
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The second book. So this is the thing, though, I'm
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going to tell everybody. I ain't really told nobody this.
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But that I'm in the process right now of writing
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a prequel to Boots and Stilettos. It should be finished
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this week or next week. I'm kind of all the
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way to the last chapter right now. And as I
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was writing it, I realized I could connect both worlds.
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I have an opportunity, but the way it was written,
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because one of the main characters, he was in the CIA,
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you know, he was kind of clandestine. He was a
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spy and he falls in love with this girl from
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Montana and, you know, okay. Well, that guy is going
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to eventually be the grandfather of the main character in
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this book. Now, it's going to take me two or
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three books to get all this connected. But I am
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having a blast with this. This is like the most
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fun I've had in years,
putting all these parts together
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and creating these two worlds that are eventually going to
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connect and become one world. So there you go. A
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scoop for you and your listeners.
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Absolutely. Absolutely. So what can other photographers learn from your writing,
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from your work?
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Story well i mean the the uh the double exposure
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book is full of real world photography stuff okay i
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mean i like a kessler crane that's a real photography
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item you know uh light meters and cameras now of
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course there's some fake spy stuff like hiding a gun
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inside of a lens i mean that that i don't
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know about maybe that really does exist but uh anyway
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there's some of that kind of stuff But there's a
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lot of real world photography stuff. In fact, I have
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a teaching website for professional photographers, pro4um. com. And I thought
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to myself, I'm going to include that as part of
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the story. And in the book, Double Exposure, he uses pro4um. com
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as his where he gets his information. It's, it's where
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he communicates with other spies. It's the, and they all,
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it's in code and, and this kind of stuff. But
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I mean, this is a real website. This is not some,
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I own it, but I mean, so that's why I
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connected that in there. And I even put the logo in, in, on,
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on pro.com is for anybody who happens to go there
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and they say, Oh wait, that's the logo from double exposure. Yeah,
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it is. So anyway, uh, Real photographers will recognize absolutely
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a ton of things in this book. And I'll tell
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you another thing real photographers will know and notice is
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when you are a photographer, you absolutely, it's the most
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amazing thing to me, how you can go and get
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into places that people, normal people, for lack of a
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better word, cannot. Secure, you can get past security, you
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can sneak into all kinds of things, all because you're
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the photographer. If you have a camera hanging around, this
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has happened to me countless times. I have a camera
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hanging around my neck. I walk up, a lot of confidence.
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Don't ask permission, just simply walk in. And if security
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questions it, if they go, hey, hey, hey, what are
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you doing? You go, I'm the photographer. Oh, they'll say.
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Come on in. And it is amazing to me how
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many times that you're allowed to just enter the premises,
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no ID check, no background check, no phone call. Hey,
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this is this photographer. I got a photographer here at
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the gate. Nothing. Just sure. Come on in. And that
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is part of also the reason why in some of
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the stories of double exposure that I put real world
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things like that into the book. So, I don't know.
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That to me is just how it all kind of
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developed into this, into me being a writer now, you know.
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Absolutely. You are a writer now.
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So, you are a photographer turned novelist or a novelist
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who was a photographer.
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How do you see your career now?
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No, I absolutely still a photographer. You know, that's the
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crazy thing about being a photographer. I do for a living.
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what most people call a hobby. So, I mean, it
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is a fun job. Okay. It is really a fun job.
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I mean, this is my van right behind me, you know,
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that I, I work out of, you know, and, um, I,
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I still to this, in fact, I have, I have
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several jobs today as soon as this, this little podcast
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is over with. And I, I still make a living
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doing professional photography. The novel part, um, To be honest
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with you, it makes a little bit of money here
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and there. I do little podcasts. People buy the book.
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That's pretty fun. It is absolutely not at a place
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right now where I'm making a living as a writer.
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I would love for that to happen one day. And
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they tell me if you keep at it, it will.
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And so I'll keep at it because it is so
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much fun. It is just so much fun. Taking and
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telling these stories. I'll tell you another quick story. If
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you got half a second. I love to play golf.
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All right. And there was a golf course that I
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played down in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. And the way
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this course is laid out, you play three holes and
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they bring you into what is known as a comfort station,
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which is, you know, you drink tequila and you have
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some tacos. And anyway, and then you go play three
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more holes. And then they bring you right back into
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that comfort station. And this happens throughout the whole golf course.
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So when I was playing it, I thought to myself,
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what a fantastic place for a clandestine meeting. Because you
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could be sitting there with three other people and anybody
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coming in and out of that place is going to
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assume you're playing golf. They don't know that you've been
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sitting there three hours. They think you've been playing three
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holes and then came back to the comfort station. And
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that's in the book. So it's a bunch of things
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like that whereby just real life experiences, stories, things that's
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happened to me.
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Absolutely. Absolutely, Kurt.
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So what can photographers in terms of, you know, in
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today's time when you see lots of things digital, you know,
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AI happening, so many things happening. And photographers in several
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parts of the world may think, you know, what else
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can I do? What would you like to tell them?
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Not everyone can be a novelist, but maybe they can be.
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But other things also, what would you like to tell
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them about surviving, thriving in a world like this as
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a photographer?
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Well, first and foremost, my advice to any new photographer
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is do not get in debt. OK, do your best.
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I know that photography gear is extremely expensive. Do your best.
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I mean, some true real world experiences with me is
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if I, if I bought something and I had to
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use a credit card, cause it was the only way
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to be able to afford it. And that did happen
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from time to time. I, I forced that piece of
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equipment to pay for itself. So if I did a
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job and it made two, three hundred extra dollars because
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I had this piece of equipment, that two or three
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hundred dollars went to paying off the credit card debt.
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So that's my first and foremost advice to anybody who's
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starting out in photography. My second thing is this. I
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come from the world of film. That's where I cut
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my teeth. You know, digital is like almost a new
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thing for me. So I still shoot as if I
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was shooting film. And back in the day when you
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would shoot film, you had to buy film. Then you
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had to develop film. Then you had to process film.
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And then you would see the pictures. So you had
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to see it in your mind and understand the craft
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of professional photography before you could ever see the image.
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So again, my advice to someone, if you're struggling and
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you're taking thousands of pictures to get one good one,
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take a business card, tape up the back of your
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camera where that little screen is and start practicing taking
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pictures without looking at that screen. Get it here in
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your mind before you get it on to the camera.
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Try an exercise of today, I'm only taking two pictures.
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That's it. I'm going to photograph that tree or whatever,
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but I'm only going to take two pictures. I'm not
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going to take a thousand pictures. And now what that
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does is it forces you to look at it differently.
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It forces you to think. It forces you to decide
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what is the best angle? What is the best time?
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What is the best exposure? You know, it forces you
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into all of that. And the output is a much,
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much better image. So that's my advice. Learn the craft
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of
professional photography. Don't rely on the tools. Look, I
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use AI in professional photography a lot. It just happened
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to me fairly recently. I had a girl. I was
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photographing some high school senior portraits, and she made a
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comment about how much she loves mermaids. So I took
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that picture of her that I did using AI, and
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I added a big old mermaid tail to her, and
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I put her in the middle of the ocean. And
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all kinds of stuff that does not exist. And she
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loved it and it was great. But you know what?
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You had to understand before you could get to any
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of that, you had to understand the lighting, the technique,
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how to create it in such a way that what
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you end up with is an image that AI could
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then take and stick a tail on. So all of
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that is what I'm talking about to me. In the
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world of professional photography, learn your craft. And, you know,
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spend time educating yourself. Don't just run around taking a
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bunch of pictures.
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Absolutely. Absolutely. Learn your craft. So two novels. Any other novels?
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You talked about the prequel also. What else?
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Wait, say that again. You had a little break up.
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Yeah, I said two novels you have written, then you
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have the prequel there.
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So how do you look at your life as a
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novelist from here?
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Oh, the double exposure has got two more books at
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least behind it, maybe more. I mean, I kind of,
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I have like one paragraph. The double exposure is written
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from the perspective of Reed Sawyer. He's the main character.
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He's the good guy. The bad guy is named Barry Cox. Well,
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the very next book coming out, I'm going to take
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and flip that. It's going to be Barry Cox is
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the good guy. Everything's going to be from his perspective.
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And it's going to make like Reed Sawyer is the
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bad guy. So that's absolutely already in the works. After that,
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the
book, it sort of lends itself to a sequel. Like, okay,
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now what happens kind of ending. I mean, it isn't
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a horrible cliffhanger. It's the way you're going to have
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to wait years and years. But it does lend itself
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if I choose to continue on. And I do. So
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there's going to be another one. The very next one
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that I just talked about, I already know it's going
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to be called counter exposure. The one after that I
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already know is going to be called under exposure. So
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I know for sure those two. And I've also been
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playing with some small, like, I don't even know what
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you call it, but maybe like, you know, 10,000, maybe 15,000
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word supplements that explain things that sort of, it makes
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the double exposure world expand. Like someone said the other day, who,
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who is this PPI organization in your book? I'm like,
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just be patient. It's coming. I got a little, I
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got a little supplement coming for that. And so there's
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going to be a whole world around that kind of stuff.
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So yeah, it's just, I'm having too much fun to
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suddenly just stop.
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Absolutely. Absolutely.
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There is so much to learn about photography, about writing.
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And I'm sure a lot of people would want to
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learn more from you about you.
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Get your novels. What's the best way for them to
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do so?
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Just search my name. They're on Amazon, wherever you are
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all over the world. I mean, if you search my name, K-I-R-K-V-O-C-L-A-I-N,
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I'm the only one. That's one of the unique things
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about my crazy name. There's no other Kirk Volklane. So
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search and you'll see the book come up. On social,
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just same thing. I mean, all the different social media sites.
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If you search my name, you'll find it because they
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all named that way. I have an author's website that
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is my name, KurtVauclain.com. My photography website, if you want
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to see the kind of work I do as far
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as professional photography, is KVPhoto.com. I already told you about
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my education site, ProForum, P-R-O, the number four, U-M.com. I
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just started also one other website, and it's F-I-I-P.net. And
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that stands for FreshIndieIncPromotions.net. And my observations about the writing
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world is everybody's got their hand up, okay? Everybody wants
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you to pay, pay, pay, pay, pay, pay, pay. Even
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00:26:49.569 --> 00:26:53.230
the smallest promotion is hundreds and hundreds of dollars. And
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I thought to myself, there's got to be somebody out
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there who's looking out for the indie authors, the self-published guys.
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So I'm like, I'm going to create a website. It's
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going to be mostly free. And let's get out there
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and promote self-published authors. So that's what FIP.net is. So anyway,
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that's me. That's where you can find me. Hey, send
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me an email. My email is all over the place.
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I'd love to hear from you if you enjoy my stuff.
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Wonderful.
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With this, it's a wrap on this very special edition
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of the KJ Masterclass Live.
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00:27:30.019 --> 00:27:32.099
Thank you so much indeed for joining us.
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Thank you for having me.