Sam Hurd on Prisms, Photos, Power Chords, and the Artistic Crossover
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[00:00:00]
[00:00:30] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: The countdown stayed on my screen longer than it
[00:00:34] Sam Hurd: Oh, I think it, it might have been waiting for me to click, confirm.
[00:00:39] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Oh, okay. I
[00:00:40] Sam Hurd: Yeah. It was like warning me that it was being recorded and then I had to clear that, and right when I did that you said it was working, so Yeah.
[00:00:47] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: who did
[00:00:47] Sam Hurd: Good to know.
[00:00:48] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Descript is hilarious.
[00:00:49] Sam Hurd: Yeah.
[00:00:50] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: for those listening, we're recording this in Descript.
[00:00:52] Sam Hurd: First time for me, I'm a Riverside person personally, so.
[00:00:55] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: use Riverside on the Imagen side, you know, for, for the
[00:00:59] Sam Hurd: Mm-hmm.
[00:00:59] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Imagen. [00:01:00] But for, for this, I'm just like, I'm editing in Descript, let's try Descript Rooms and it, it's been working pretty good for it, so thankfully.
[00:01:09] Sam Hurd: Okay. Okay.
[00:01:10] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: but what, what I really like is I hit stop and then two seconds later shows up in the Descript app for me to start playing around with. So it's
[00:01:18] Sam Hurd: That's nice. Yeah. Integration, they're, they're covering all the bases. They've been around a while too as a company.
[00:01:24] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: yeah.so Sam, I already know your music history, but for those listening, when we first met, we connected on, on the fact that we both have a background in mu in music, which, iReady at the time had the idea of this podcast. and it's just like the more, more and more people in the industry that I've met over the years, it, it kept coming up that there's such a. A, a wide range of people who have a
[00:01:50] Sam Hurd: Overlap of?
[00:01:50] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Yeah.
[00:01:51] Sam Hurd: Mm-hmm.
[00:01:52] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: so, so share with everybody listening who doesn't know history with music, I.
[00:01:57] Sam Hurd: Okay. Yeah, I, I [00:02:00] grew up playing, violin, my first instrument ever. when I was seven years old, I decided to take that up because. The girl named Carmen, who lived across the apartment from us, said she was gonna take violin. She was a year younger than me and I had a huge crush on her, so I had to compete with everything she did.
So I was like, I'm gonna take violin too. And I asked my mom and she said, sure. And so from seven years old, on, I, I played through basically, I dunno, the first one or two years of college, that's when my violin,Kind of slowed down, but I'm really grateful for that because I just ended up realizing, I had a, a natural, passion for, for playing music.
And I did not grow up in a very musical household at all. My mom never listens to music. Like the most amount of exposure I would ever get to listening to music on purpose was just like going to our church and singing, you know, terrible hymns and yeah. [00:03:00]
[00:03:00] Transition to Guitar and Self-Taught Journey
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[00:03:03] Sam Hurd: So that was violin and I think around.sixth grade I, was in orchestra and there were a couple other guys around my age who, were starting to get into other instruments like guitar and, bass and all that kind of rock type stuff.
And so I got a, an electric guitar. The brand is called Lady Luck. Lady Luck Electric Guitar, and. Then went off to, summer camp and one of the coolest camp counselors there convinced me that it's way easier to, you know, woo. The, the ladies with acoustic guitar. And so I came back from summer camp like Mom, I.
I wanna trade in my electric guitar for an acoustic, and I got an Alvarez acoustic guitar. And, you know, a couple years after figuring out I'm totally self-taught on guitar. I mean, violin obviously gave me a wonderful foundation and I, you know, learned how to properly read music and was competitive in violin with like junior regionals and like all that stuff, and played in orchestra and trios and stuff like [00:04:00] that.
Every. You know, every year through, high school, then college, just for fun. But, guitar, totally self-taught. First thing I ever learned was the lead line to the Cranberry song Zombies. and once I figured that out, just by listening, I was like, oh, this is crazy. You can just listen and mimic. And then once I learned the power chord, I was like, now I can play every Green Day song.
This is the cheat code. Like this is how you make it. And so I, you know, I grew up listening to all that kind of music in that era and, joined a couple bands. You know, we would start with cover songs and then, started writing our own stuff. Played in a couple bands in high school, and then a few more serious ones in college and beyond.
And then. Yeah, my mom used to be a drummer, so at some point, I was, she wasn't like a professional or anything, just for fun. She, she played drums, which was pretty cool. And, at some point in our, like, going to music stores or whatever, maybe I was around 16, I, I convinced her to buy like a $500 drum kit so that she could like play drums and of course.[00:05:00]
I was the only person to take that drum kit to my room and learn, teach myself how to play drums. So, I started playing drums and that was where I started to, I wasn't a very good drummer. I'm much better now, but, that foundation of having drums in songwriting is what motivated me to try and start recording this stuff.
'cause now I could like just. In my room, you know, this is what, 1998 with Cool Edit Pro on a pc. I could start recording songs, with one microphone and figure out music production. So that kicked all that off, and I ended up doing about, 15 records or so for bands throughout, college and, Mostly like friends bands. And, I got sucked into a couple of metal bands that did pretty well. So I did a bunch of metal records, but I a lot of acoustic, like indie and folk stuff and, and then of course, recording my own bands and stuff that, I write just for fun. So I have, you know, an obscene amount of [00:06:00] the gear acquisition syndrome is, is.
Strong with me and, it's particularly strong with music stuff. mostly 'cause I, I like to collect it. Sorry. Yeah, I know I'm ranting.
[00:06:09] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: So the gig acquisition syndrome, which is a lot of photographers are familiar with, just for
[00:06:15] Sam Hurd: Yeah.
[00:06:16] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: it's
[00:06:17] Sam Hurd: Oh no, not at all.
[00:06:19] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: it.
[00:06:20] Sam Hurd: Almost anything you can think of. I was talking to a photographer the other day, you know, he has like a hundred pens, you know, like all these ball points and like crazy pen. There's like a whole industry of. Pen, pen makers and Yeah. But music is, it's almost, in a lot of ways, it's exactly the same as photography in terms of how you think about your gear.
And in some ways it's, it's very different. But I would say it's more similar than not. There's so many things that. I guess it's a little trickier in the music world when you're recording because it's not something you can see, so you, it really requires you to [00:07:00] train your ear in a way that it's hard to explain, and I don't even know what direction we want to go in, but if any one thing in your signal flow, you know, your like chain of effects, microphone, preamp, sound card all the way through the speakers or headphones you're listening through, if any one of those things is like a poor quality.
It doesn't matter how much money you spend on anything else in the chain, it is going to be brought down. and it, it may potentially bring down the entire quality of
[00:07:30] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: could literally
[00:07:30] Sam Hurd: your output.
[00:07:31] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: simple as the XLR cable that you're using, which might cost 40, $50 for a good one, but if you bought the $10 one. That doesn't have the right insulation, gonna get signals that are going through that cable that then buzz throughout the entire recording.
[00:07:47] Sam Hurd: And I, I lived through the era of recording when edge cell phone connectivity was everywhere. And you would get the like beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep beep, the cell phone interface with the, especially if you [00:08:00] coiled up your cables. It was like a, basically an antenna now. So that I would say is a little trickier in music because there's so many links in the chain where photography is sort of just lens and sensor.
Monitor your screen. You know, there's like three, with recording it, it can be infinite, especially if you start using analog effects like, compressors, EQs, reverbs, all that stuff. Yeah, it's, it's wild.
[00:08:28] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Every little thing makes a difference. it, it could even be something as simple as what battery you're using. Like if, if for, for guitarists that use foot pedals that are battery powered to use a crappy battery and that battery goes out on you, you're getting no sound go through.
[00:08:44] Sam Hurd: Yeah.
[00:08:45] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: So.
[00:08:45] Sam Hurd: Right. Yeah.
[00:08:47] From Music to Photography
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[00:09:03] Sam Hurd: So in a, in a big way, I, I think music shaped, it's hard to explain exactly, but it, it, it gave me a, a really fast [00:09:00] ability to adjust and understand, almost in an intuitive sense of, what I needed to do in my photography to.
[00:09:09] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Yeah.
[00:09:09] Sam Hurd: better or feel like I was doing better. Like the ramp up for me being like a good photographer was very, very fast.
And I attribute that to my understanding in music, specifically music production. and not only about the technical aspects, in fact, just as much I would say about the, the instinctual creative aspects, the decision making that you have to go through when recording a song. You know, I, I hear, hear all the time and.
[00:09:32] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Mm-hmm.
[00:09:33] Sam Hurd: world, you know, you have to kill your darlings. I don't know if that's still the phrase people resonate with, but you know, it's, it's about like curating down your work to where it's the best, that it can be because it is not just because you have an emotional connection to it. So many photographers show things in their work that they themselves personally love because they have least a memory, memory or some sentimental connection to it where, that there's [00:10:00] space for that.
But if that. Is the overriding reason you're doing something, you're just never gonna get anything done. Like you have to have output for your clients. Right? And so with music, it kind of became the same thing for me, where it's just like, yeah, yeah, that is, that take absolutely perfect. No, is it good enough?
And have we tr like given it our best? Yes. Well then let's stick with it. And then what do you know? Two years later people are like, I love that take, that felt really raw and like real. And it's like, yeah. At the time, it's hard to have that perspective 'cause you want like perfection and you want clean, takes of everything with no problems.
And then you realize later on that like, actually what really makes it work a lot of times is, not having that, but it's all a balance you have to strike. And that's where it really, any, any type of creative output you do can inform, other, other. Creative outputs and, and kind of teach you to strike that balance, no matter what you do.
So it's kind of amazing.
[00:10:57] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: I, I wanna, I wanna fores, fast [00:11:00] forward a bit. then we're gonna
[00:11:01] Sam Hurd: Mm-hmm.
[00:11:02] The Prism Band and Photography Connection
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[00:11:02] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: But, in the photography world, one of the things that you're known for, with your work is your work with prisms and, and other objects. what came first, was it with photography? This is the chicken rag question.
Or is it the band named
[00:11:19] Sam Hurd: Yeah,
[00:11:19] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: which came first?
[00:11:21] Sam Hurd: so literally the band, was, I remember the day, this was sophomore year of college. We all were on summer break and wanted to start a new band where there were like four of us and we. We wanted to start a band where we each played not our primary instrument. So I was, I would at the time describe myself primarily a guitarist.
I wanted to play bass, and a guy who was primarily a bassist wanted to play guitar. A guy who had never really played any instrument, wanted to play guitar. And then we had a guy who's primarily guitarist, wanted to play a dropper. So we were really just like, we're just gonna try this [00:12:00] 'cause it's weird.
And I remember the day we were, we narrowed down our list of band names to two contenders, prisms, or rhinoceros. And I, I don't even remember how we got to either of them to be honest, but we went with prisms and that. By far and away it was, you know, years before I had been doing photography in a serious way.
I had always done photography kind of just as a, you know, hobby picked up in high school and, never really did anything with it seriously until I graduated and randomly got a job with it. So, prisms, the band came first, and that is why I bought. The prism that I still shoot with today. I mean I've lost the original, I bought like a hundred once I realized, oh, there's actually something to this.
so I just wouldn't have to think about or worry if I dropped or lost it. 'cause that happens a lot. I'm probably down to like 50 prisms now. But we were trying to figure out album art concepts for our [00:13:00] first record that we recorded in college and we were mixing. In that stage and I bought a, a prism, it just kind of sat on my desk.
We ended up not using it at all for the album art. but you know, I was thinking something in the vein of, I, I don't know, not Pink Floyd necessarily, but it was just something, it was a prism, right? Like certainly we can come up with something to do with it and I ended up bringing it with me to a wedding, and that's how that kicked off the whole Prising thing.
That's the whole story. I realized, oh my gosh, I can reflect things. Especially during getting ready photos, like distracting elements, trash food bags, makeup stuff. I can just reflect it out of the shot and it just opened up the entire thing. So yeah,
[00:13:45] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: it's just, it would've been much harder if you went with the rhinoceros to bring a rhinoceros to every wedding.
[00:13:51] Sam Hurd: we ended up naming a song Rhinoceros, and it is one of our better ones, but I think it was just sort of like a.
[00:13:59] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Like,
[00:13:59] Sam Hurd: Y
[00:13:59] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: are you gonna name [00:14:00] it?
[00:14:00] Sam Hurd: you just,
[00:14:00] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: thing out there.
[00:14:01] Sam Hurd: yeah. You don't kn Yeah. What band is named ocs? I still think it's a good name, actually, but no one would know how to spell it.
[00:14:08] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: when you played shows and somebody had to design a flyer, they would've hated you for having to type out the word Reno Eros, or
[00:14:14] Sam Hurd: yeah,
yeah,
[00:14:15] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: from magazines and newspapers to throw on a flyer with the word rhinoceros.
[00:14:20] Sam Hurd: yeah. Yeah. But Prisms had its own issues because, you know, in a live venue when we'd play shows and stuff, we'd be like, yeah, we're prisms. And people would always think we were prisons like a prison cell. Like, oh, you guys are prisons. It's like, no prisms. It's really hard to get that clarity when you're, you know, and a PA
[00:14:41] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: I can
[00:14:41] Sam Hurd: for some reason.
[00:14:42] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: you, you started mentioning your shift into photography. can you dive into that?
[00:14:47] First Professional Photography Job
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[00:14:47] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: So you didn't, your first like job, job in photography, like as a professional was not weddings, correct? It was.
[00:14:58] Sam Hurd: Correct.
[00:14:58] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: talk about that
[00:14:59] Sam Hurd: Yeah, [00:15:00] it was, mm-hmm. Yeah, it was, through Craigslist who I would later photograph the actual Craig, at a press event. There's a real Craig. Yeah, he sold it a long time ago. Apparently he just randomly will take support calls for them. Now, I don't know. This was, so I met him actually 2008, right when I started, at this place called the National Press Club.
They were looking to, expand their offerings. So the Press Club, very renowned, historic location for events in DC literally. Anybody can rent a room with a microphone, rent a, you know, teleprompter tv, video cameras, the whole works. And many historic events have happened there over the years, but they have a whole broadcast studio and it's, it's a whole thing.
But they wanted to just add cheap and easy photography for clients. if they wanted their own photos, a lot of these events would be open to the public. And so, you know, hordes of [00:16:00] photographers would show up. But, it was, They would never get like the photos, right? They would always just be pushed to the, the newswire kind of agencies and that'd be that.
So anyway, they wanted, to hire somebody real cheap.I had another job offer in a more related field information in computer science, which is what I actually studied. but I decided to go for this route because I would've been able to kind of build the photography. Service from scratch. And I really did start from scratch.
All I started with was actually my own Nikon D 50 and the kit lens that it came with, and I worked for them full time, but they, put some money behind, you know, some, some lenses and camera bodies and stuff. And yeah, it was, it was just general events. And so, you know, people speaking in front of a podium, sometimes especially pre-social media.
The way that it is now, at least, you know, really high level people would come in person to, you know, try and generate more buzz. 'cause you'd be having a press conference [00:17:00] with a bunch of journalists and stuff. You have a celebrity or a high level politician come. Yeah. More journalists would turn out and so you would get more coverage.
So I, I just stumbled into this, A situation where I had access to really, amazingly high level people. And the better I got and the, the more efficient and quick and professional I got, in the scenario. 'cause I was the only photographer, you know, officially the press club photographer there. the more they let me kind of just do whatever I wanted.
'cause the work was really good and they knew, yeah, I was never gonna. It was always a balance again that I tried to strike between pushing myself into trying something different, even though these are boring press events and, delivering what I know the client needs without making it about me. So, yeah.
[00:17:48] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: was,
[00:17:48] Sam Hurd: Yeah.
[00:17:49] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: so most of the people that were that you'd be photographing are politicians, some. Maybe some movie stars, actors, et cetera.were there musicians ever [00:18:00] that would come and do an event there that you'd photograph? yeah,
[00:18:03] Sam Hurd: yeah. yeah. Will I, am Was there, nobody turned up for his event. It was really awkward. Yeah. Sometimes, you know, the press club itself. Is a famous place, but a lot of times just saying like, oh, I'm having an event at the press club. That doesn't guarantee turnout. The press club doesn't do any promotion.
They might put your event on their like agenda on their website, but it's up to that organization to promote and get the turnout. And so a lot of my job as a photographer would be photographing things strategically so that it looked more exciting and more crowded than it.
[00:18:40] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Right.
[00:18:41] Sam Hurd: was. That was a lot of the time, a lot, the case.
So anyway. But Will I am, there's so many, honestly, it's gonna be hard. Billy Joel, Dolly Parton. gosh, who else? there's another rapper, ludicrous. Oh, fricking Jonas. Nick. Nick Jonas.
[00:18:59] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: boy.
[00:18:59] Sam Hurd: [00:19:00] Yeah. Yeah, so there's probably at least 10 others. I'm just, I'm terrible at names. I'm never gonna remember, but yes, yes, many.
'cause, you know, musicians, like anyone would attach themselves, Billy Joel, they, they would attach themselves to all kinds of causes. And, that, that's again, just kind of lucked out with that access.
yeah.
[00:19:23] Performing Music and Its Influence on Photography
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[00:19:23] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: you've, you've performed front of people with past, orchestra, school concerts, the bands, how has performing. Music in front of other people influence how you connect with people when you photograph their weddings or, you know, for couples that you photograph, know, outside of weddings.
[00:19:46] Sam Hurd: That's really good question, huh? Well, I mean, one of the. The traditions of, I assume it's still the case. most school systems use something called the Suzuki Method, [00:20:00] which is just the, for violin instruction. It's a collection of 10 books. They, you know, you start from lightly row and twinkle, twinkle little star actually.
You start learning how to play violin with an egg carton
[00:20:11] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Really?
[00:20:12] Sam Hurd: to just like hold it. Yeah. You just hold it in your shoulder to try and work the muscle of like holding something with the right neck shape and everything. Yep. And then. A pencil to try and get the bow. 'cause there's a really specific way you, you hold the bow, with a violin and then, then you move to an actual violin after like four weeks.
God bless those violin instructors. Could you imagine, you know, a bunch of like six, seven year olds with egg cartons, like trying to teach them something musical. Like I can't
[00:20:43] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: doing
[00:20:43] Sam Hurd: anyway.
[00:20:44] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: actually like playing and you know.
[00:20:46] Sam Hurd: Exactly. I can't even remember what we, maybe we had music on or something. But one of the traditions of that, I think it's part of the Suzuki system, is to, you would have a solo, as a, individual student, each one would've to [00:21:00] play a solo.
maybe, maybe that wasn't like your first few years, but very young and very early on you had to start doing one solo. Each kid would have a song and then he'd kind of come out for a group thing and, I mean, that was terrifying, right? I was nervous shaking, but I, I did learn something I think early about myself and how my body would physically deal with that.
and, you know, so many people get like the shakes or start sweating or, and all this, and I, I would just, I would yawn. It was really weird and I, I picked up on that when I was like 10 years old that if I'm yawning in a way that I can kind of. Float out from myself and observe like, you're yawning a lot.
You're, and you're not tired. Then I, then I know that I'm nervous and, I dunno. Something about that knowledge, prepared me in a way that it's hard to articulate. I guess as, as time went on, you know, doing these like yearly, performances, solo performances, did get easier and easier. [00:22:00] but I, you know, I don't know.
I, I obviously that had to help in some way, but the, I was still nervous for a long time to ever get up and, and. Talk to people. I remember one of the requirements in college was to take either,communications like PR class where you had to give speeches in front of your class or, do something else.
There was an alternative and I always did the alternative 'cause I didn't want to give up and talk and get up and talk. And so, that was an acquired skill for me that I just, I, I was, I never really, I guess where I was going with the yawning thing was eventually I started to realize I, I wasn't yawning as much toward like my later years as a violinist, and I realized the, the energy that I was feeling was more just excitement, than anything else.
And that's sort of the same transition that happened with weddings where, you know, around year three is where I, I kind of transition from this sort of passive lethargic. Energy where I was nervous, but that's how my body was expressing it for whatever reason. I feel like that's a pretty good defensive thing.
'cause if your competitors see you [00:23:00] yawning, they're like, oh, he doesn't give a shit. But I did, trust me, I was nervous. But, around year three, I, I started to feel less of that and more just these butterflies that were just excited. Energy, just like, can't wait to go do this. Because, I know I'm good at it.
And yeah, it took years to develop, but, the actual public speaking and, and kind of connecting with people verbally, just tons and tons and tons of practice and a lot of the workshop stuff I did, you know, small group workshops, really helped. And I have a habit of. Kind of overextending and over pushing myself in the beginning of something to not only like prove to myself on some level that I, I can do it, but 'cause it, if you, if you kind of start there, then it only gets easier.
And so my first like workshop ever was on, when it was in Santiago, Chile, 25 people each day. So 50 students total through a translator. 'cause I did not speak Spanish. My first workshop [00:24:00] ever and I was like, if I can make it through this and people are happy, then I could, I could take a workshop in English.
No problem. So, yeah, that,
[00:24:09] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: to throw yourself out off at a away from the comfort zone is do it in a language that you can't even speak
[00:24:13] Sam Hurd: I. It's crazy. I've had to do many presentations in like South America and, you know, you're up on a stage sometimes and, and they gotta translate every sentence and eventually again, it kind of comes back to music. You, you hit this rhythm of speaking and especially with a translator, you hit this cadence of back and forth where you, you fall into a groove.
And I think, I don't know exactly how that. Tracks and lays on top of, the foundation of having a musical background. But I guarantee that it does. And also just stage awareness. You know, what to do with, the microphone and how to not do the thing that I see every weekend where it's like, hello. Oh, and then they tinker with the mic and it's like, is [00:25:00] this thing on?
Hello? Hello? It's like.
[00:25:01] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Yeah.
[00:25:02] Sam Hurd: natural flow of how things need to go in a performance is something, that has somewhat come naturally to me. But it's always hard to also get a read on that. 'cause I never, never watch myself like recorded
[00:25:15] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Yeah.
[00:25:16] Sam Hurd: in a presentation like that. I will never bring myself to do. I just, people ask me to come back.
I just consider that a good thing. If they don't, then
bad.
[00:25:25] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: up the microphone placement.
[00:25:26] The Importance of Audio in Videography
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[00:25:26] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: before we hit record, we were talking about something really interesting and that is that, for the past year so you've been doing, like basically having a video as like a another upsell package for your weddings.
[00:25:41] Sam Hurd: Mm-hmm.
[00:25:42] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: don't have to get into the nitty gritty in this episode, but. I do wanna talk about one thing that was brought up again before we hit record, which was the audio. 'cause I
[00:25:52] Sam Hurd: Yep.
[00:25:53] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: that when it comes to video, yes you can have an amazing cinematographer, you know, and, and, and all that stuff, [00:26:00] but if the audio is crap, then all goes out the window potentially, right? So,
[00:26:06] Sam Hurd: Yes.
[00:26:07] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: so could you talk about, you're actually miking up. couples or you're miking
[00:26:13] Sam Hurd: Mm.
[00:26:13] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: the, the, the father of the bride who's doing a speech or whatever it might be that that's getting filmed. Can you talk about, that process and whatnot, how that came to be?
[00:26:23] Sam Hurd: Yeah, so let me actually pull it back to one of my fundamental issues I have with, videography in general, or maybe even cinematography, right? Or I don't know, but it's the fact that. I would say 99% of the time, it's gotta be somewhere in that realm, the person putting together, especially the wedding video.
If it's a wedding video, I dunno about corporate stuff, but almost certainly there too, 99% of the time the music that [00:27:00] is chosen to go along with that wedding highlight reel or what have you, is just a song that is hopefully legally licensed, but. Not at all made by the, person making the video, right.
They're just choosing a song and cutting a video to that. But music does like 80% of the emotional labor when it comes to watching a video or watching a movie. Like, have you tried, have you seen many films without?musical soundtrack. There aren't many, I'll say one of my favorite Prism shows we projected no country for old men on top of us the entire time.
'cause there's no music in that. And I thought that was a really interesting sort of just fun thing. I don't think there's music in it
[00:27:44] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Yeah, I don't
[00:27:44] Sam Hurd: or there's very little
[00:27:45] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: is.
[00:27:46] Sam Hurd: and I just thought that was a fun thing. But, you know, this is like. Not a show we made money from, so nobody come after us, but we projected that whole movie on us during our like CD release show or something.
And we thought we were being really cool, but I've always had an issue with that because it's so, [00:28:00] it's just doing so much of the emotional labor. and I would want to write the music. Personally, which I would never have time to do. Yeah. I could like AI generate it now, but I don't wanna do that either, to, to really feel like this was something I have a hundred percent made.
All on my own and put out into the world for my couples or for me, or to just like, you know, push something forward. And so I've always had an aversion toward leaning much into video because of that simple fact. It's also why I've never done wedding slideshows, right? That's a huge marketing tool for a lot of photographers to just pick a song, slideshow, set to music, line up the beats, you're done, right?
And it's a powerful, powerful way to tell a story. But. I don't want that energy to come from something I literally just chose from a catalog that has always felt really just disconnected from my motivation for why I do this to begin with. And so, when video started to become a little bit more just.
In demand from people asking, just like, do you have [00:29:00] videographers you work with? Do you provide it yourself? I started to think about what I would want to provide for my clients if I could do it or, or provide it under, you know, the Sam Herd photography umbrella. And I thought more and more about the audio, and how I really only think I care about the speeches, right?
The things they're officiant, they themselves, the couple their friends and family are saying.to each other during the majority of the day. So, once, the little, now very commonplace like DJI style microphones became, you know, popular on the market. Very affordable, super easy to kind of hide anywhere, really easy to tie into your equipment.
Great battery life, 32 bit float, so it's really hard to like clip and distort in a way that's terrible. once those came on the market, I realized like. Audio is not that hard anymore. It used to be ter terribly hard. You'd have to mic people up with a big pack on their back and a whole lav. And I've seen some videographers use two.
They would, they would [00:30:00] like not know how to like hook into the DJs system or maybe they were just worried about redundancy, but they'll like hook two packs up. I also had years of observation of seeing how videographers would approach things, especially from the audio side and eventually realized I, I can do it myself with just a couple DGI mics.
One that I would just like snap on magnetically to the DJ's own speaker. And then another one near the actual, I have these little slide on microphone. It's literally like an elastic thing that goes around the microphone handle and then slides into that. The DGI mic itself, so people just hold the mic like normal, but I'm getting clean audio directly from their voice.
[00:30:40] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: won't
[00:30:40] Sam Hurd: anyway.
[00:30:40] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: the little DJ I mic that's rubber banded to the
[00:30:43] Sam Hurd: Yeah.
[00:30:44] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: mic.
[00:30:44] Sam Hurd: Yep.
[00:30:45] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Yeah.
[00:30:45] Sam Hurd: And it's not gonna like, hopefully potentially fall out or anything super awkward. 'cause you don't want those little mics
[00:30:50] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Yeah.
[00:30:51] Sam Hurd: out. Right. So not having to mic people up. On their body. I mean, I come with a law of mic and a wire to do that if I [00:31:00] absolutely had to, but it hasn't happened yet.
If people are saying something important, there's a microphone for it usually. And so I based everything that I deliver in my videography, the like long form stuff, like the features all around the important like audio moments of the day, the ceremony, speeches. And then of course like little first dance.
Vignettes, but I don't even edit together a storyline. I just let the audio be what it is from their day. And then I take a bunch or have somebody shooting, take a bunch of like 32nd clips that I deliver alongside, like chronological order in my photo gallery. All those clips get delivered alongside it.
Just like you're in, your photos app, if you've ever scroll through that. you see your videos play alongside your still photos, and that's a really nice balance for me. it's a lot less work on the editing side, but I feel like it's again, a great balance between what I think is important. I think long term people are gonna be much more interested in the emotion of [00:32:00] seeing like the raw straight up here's, here's the scene and here's great clean audio of what is being said here.
compared to. Whatever is trendy in the moment. Super fast paced, highlight reel, that's cut to a song that is, again, probably from some random catalog. Yeah. So that's, that's been my, my thing. And again, I can attribute my history to music, music for kinda taking, gravitating toward that approach in a way that I, I don't know.
I'm sure other people have done that in their galleries, but, For me, it's new and unique and what I'm leaning into, so we'll see how it goes. Yeah.
[00:32:40] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: the approach, actually. I like it a lot. Especially as like, I know you've been doing the BTS thing as well for many, many years where it's just like on you and out of the way. when
[00:32:49] Sam Hurd: Yeah.
[00:32:50] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: my surprise proposals, I've had a GoPro on top of my camera. I'm now in the process of migrating that to a, Osmo Pocket 3. On top of my camera, which is gonna be a little more awkward, but [00:33:00] also much better quality in my opinion.
[00:33:02] Sam Hurd: Yes. It is way better quality. That's the one trade off. I'm striking that balance in. Again. It's like all about balance. The I wear a 360 camera, that's just rubber banded to my sling. I know you know this, but just so anybody, so I can just hit record and it just goes. Now I got the newest one, the,instant 360 1 x 5, and that thing just goes for like two hours.
So I don't have to think about stop record, stop record. I can just let it go and I don't have to think about aiming it, you know, as long as my bag is on me. and that is very freeing creatively, so I don't have to, even taking little 30 second clips throughout the day is, is a new constraint that, is a little uncomfortable and I like that.
It's good to do things in your process that trip you up a little bit, because it keeps you. Engaged, I think, and mindful, but it is, it is a lot of work. Even just to like simple [00:34:00] 32nd clips and then balance the should this moment, is it well served as a clip of video or should I take it as a still photo?
Do I have enough time to do both or not? Right? Like, I don't know. So it's, it's really interesting, but I think a really nice way to, to integrate. And I think people will look at the like actual. 32nd clips more often than they otherwise would like. How often are people really sitting down and watching their highlight reel after the first couple months that they have it?
Right. It's probably every couple years at best. And so these little clips just right there embedded alongside their still photos. I think they're just gonna have fun with, I hope.
[00:34:40] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: I'm gonna throw at you real quick as we wrap this up.
[00:34:42] Hot Seat Questions
---
[00:34:42] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Three hot seat questions. You've got, gimme like 10 seconds for,
[00:34:47] Sam Hurd: Okay.
[00:34:47] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: answer if you can real quick. At weddings you often have earbuds in, so you don't hear the lovely wedding music that is at every single wedding.
[00:34:55] Sam Hurd: Yeah.
[00:34:56] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: so when the wedding
[00:34:56] Sam Hurd: Hmm.
[00:34:57] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: to the typical wedding songs, what is, [00:35:00] what are you jamming out to in your ears?
[00:35:03] Sam Hurd: Yeah, so, shout out to Colorware Color Wears. It's just the number one Google search. I don't have any partnership with them. they will. You don't like buy and then send them off. You literally buy from them a brand new pair of whatever headphones they have in their catalog. But I have AirPod Pros painted Matte black, so they look totally not like AirPods.
Obviously they look like headphones, but. It's not like I'm sitting there with white air pos and yeah. during receptions when it's just open dancing and all the classic top 40 like stuff that I've heard a billion times over and over and over. They really started to wear on me, emotionally. Like I can only hear Sweet Caroline so many times on a weekend.
You know, there were years I was shooting 50 plus weddings, a year like that just starts to grind you down a little and, Now I'm finding weddings are like they're playing more music. I grew up listening to like Blink 180 2 and Green Day and all this, and I'm like, well, that was fun for a little while.
And now I'm starting to hate those [00:36:00] songs too. So yes, I pop in my AirPod Pros, noise cancellation. First of all, you should do that anyway, even if you don't do what I do and actually listen to songs, protect those ears seriously. The prime spot for me. My, my back is like right in front of the DJ speaker.
'cause I want all the guests in the background, not the DJ stuff. Maybe if there's a band that's a different story. But yeah, I listen to a veil of Maya. I, I like the contrast of just ridiculously hard metal, in my ears while people are like. Visibly dancing to shout. 'cause it, it just makes it fun for me.
One, one, I feel like I'm getting away with something maybe I shouldn't be. And two, occasionally the beats of what I'm listening to, no matter how chaotic and crazy, occasionally match up with what they're dancing to. So it feels kind of like they're like dancing to, you know, punk or metal songs and that just makes me smile and I love it and it really does tune me in visually 'cause.
Navigating the space [00:37:00] around me, making sure nobody's like about to throw their arms up and like hit me in the face or something. I have to be very, very visually dialed in 'cause I'm not hearing the auditory cues. I'm, there's like this weird layer of disconnection that I find really just refreshing.
Like I can shoot hours and hours with that set up. And I'm so glad. There's a Kickstarter campaign in 2015 called een. They were the very first that I found in ear. Bluetooth connected headphones, that had like the memory foam. They didn't have noise cancellation, but it was enough that I could listen to something while music was being played.
So that's my story there.
[00:37:35] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: if you could photograph any musician or band, past or present, who would it be?
[00:37:41] Sam Hurd: Oh gosh.
[00:37:45] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: It's a hard one.
[00:37:46] Sam Hurd: PR
[00:37:47] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: You think
[00:37:47] Sam Hurd: probably that is dang. Ooh, probably. you know what's funny? I don't even listen to his music, but I [00:38:00] respect his, ethos very much about music. Jack White,
[00:38:05] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Interesting.
[00:38:06] Sam Hurd: the guitarist from Yeah. White Stripes.
[00:38:07] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: that. I could
[00:38:08] Sam Hurd: yeah. He's just a very, in, first of all, visually just an interesting guy, right? Like, like, you know, the hair and everything.
[00:38:14] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: he's all about the analog.
[00:38:16] Sam Hurd: Yeah. Which I'm not necessarily, but, but I respect that he's thought through the reasons why and he's really articulate. And anytime I've ever read an interview from him about his choice in, in analog, equipment. I'm like, yeah, that makes perfect sense. I understand now I still don't, it's not for me, all the, all the analog stuff, but, but he's right in so many ways.
And, but I think he would be just open to just
[00:38:45] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Oh yeah, it seems like
[00:38:46] Sam Hurd: you know, photographically in, in a session. So, yeah,
[00:38:49] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: question.
[00:38:49] Sam Hurd: that's.
[00:38:50] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: If your photography style was a genre of music, what would it be?
Dang. It's funny, so, you and I came up in the same era of [00:39:00] music with the same.you know, underground scene and all that stuff, right? and, and not far from each other. And I remember very
[00:39:07] Sam Hurd: yeah.
[00:39:08] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: when everything started getting the emo genre throw on
[00:39:13] Sam Hurd: Label. Yeah.
[00:39:14] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: I'm like,
[00:39:14] Sam Hurd: Yeah, that, that's where it's tricky. There's so many like sub genres and now it's like, I always think of stuff as being under like just the indie rock umbrella and it's like, what is that? Like that there's such a range there. So, that is a really great one.You know, alternative indie rock is what I would hope for.
But that covers, I mean, and hopefully this is represented in things like my portfolio and, and in my kinds of weddings that I get. I, I've been really grateful to have,
[00:39:45] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Yeah.
[00:39:46] Sam Hurd: always said yes to anybody who is interested in working with me. I've never said. I don't, you know, after a client call, I don't think this is a good fit.
let me refer you to another photographer, right? I, if people wanna hire me, even if I don't understand why, [00:40:00] based on like what they've told me about their wedding day or the location or whatever, I, I trust that they want that because I have only been true to myself in showing what I want to shoot right in my.
A portfolio in a blog post on my Instagram. Like I really, really try and only show what I'm most proud of and, and what resonates with me. And so I have to trust that that is gonna serve me well by bringing people in that maybe they can't even articulate why they wanna hire me. And, maybe everything about their, their venue they even know isn't like what I normally would shoot, but they trust me to bring.
What I do out of that environment or out of them and their personalities. And so I just, I mean, I'm along for the ride. And so I've been very, very grateful to have just a huge array of just cultures, religions, locations and, Personalities of people that, [00:41:00] you know, I, I, I love, like, I love having that overarching indie rock label and I can just photograph every sub genre within that.
Right? as long as something about us is aligned, and I am not at all trying to make the case that all my clients like my kind of music, 'cause they do not.
[00:41:17] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Yeah,
[00:41:18] Sam Hurd: but it's just, you know, a metaphor I suppose. Yeah.
[00:41:20] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: visually
[00:41:21] Sam Hurd: metaphor.
[00:41:22] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: how your style could fit into both alternative and indie rock in many ways. and I, and I think That's a, a good, good label I'll throw on there.
[00:41:33] Sam Hurd: That's cool.
That's a really good, really good question. yeah.
[00:41:36] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Sam. This has, this has been a lot of fun. I'm, you know, you, were a, a big part of my push to like, actually like make this show happen.
And even though I'm just getting
[00:41:45] Sam Hurd: Nice.
[00:41:46] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: I know there's so many more people I can talk to, which I'm really excited about to, just,
[00:41:50] Sam Hurd: It's 90, 90% of photographers, I feel like, come from a music background or like a graphic design background. It's like there's some funnel system happening there.
[00:41:59] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: It is so
[00:41:59] Sam Hurd: [00:42:00] Yeah.
[00:42:00] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: I'm gonna link to all the places everybody can find you, in the show notes, but if you wanna just do a quick shout out of where people can find you, please.
[00:42:07] Sam Hurd: Oh yeah, just samhurdphotography.com. HURD.although how cool would it be if it was H-E-A-R-D then it would be really meta with the music and photography tie in, right? Sam heard photography. HURD, and then I am the Sam. That's my Instagram. And yeah, those are my two primary, primary places, but oh, and then Prisms.
Yeah, that's, you know, our, our drummer had a kid and we haven't really played since, so it's been a few years, but our most recent release is definitely the one we're most proud of. The album's called Noise and it's on everything. But, if you look up Prisms Noise. The cover art's kind of cool. Maybe a good closing note.
My, my friend Nathan and I, he's the singer and primary singer and guitarist. I do some singing. We took a bunch of convex lenses and stacked them in front of a macro lens. You get diminishing returns where it doesn't actually do anything past a certain [00:43:00] point, but put that in front of a giant 65 inch tv and we realized.
With some extra cropping. On top of that, we could get the pixels of the, you know, the array of pixels from the TV screen. close enough that we have the red, green and blue pixels from my TV as the album art. And it's just kind of cool. We just sat there for like an hour photographing stuff until we figured out like, oh, this is kind of neat.
[00:43:28] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Yeah.
[00:43:29] Sam Hurd: you know, it's very colorful the way prisms tend to be and everything else, so, yeah.
[00:43:32] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: I'll definitely be having, both the Apple Music and the Spotify links to Prisms, in the show notes as well.
[00:43:38] Sam Hurd: Awesome.
[00:43:39] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: thanks for, Thanks.
[00:43:40] Sam Hurd: Thanks.
[00:43:40] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: and sharing all this fun stuff about music.
[00:43:42] Sam Hurd: I'm ex I'm excited for this. I hope this takes off for you and, you get just loads of interesting people and you're gonna get a lot of different perspectives and stories. I mean, yeah.
[00:43:52] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Yep. Appreciate it.
[00:44:00]