The Power of Visual Storytelling: Movie Posters and Mobile Photography w/ Lisa Carney

[00:00:00.250] - Lisa Carney
Not enough credence is given to the motivating factor of being pissed off, told you can't, or fear. Fear drove me. I moved out in high school, had food insecurity. I had physical insecurity, and, boy, that really got me an engine that I can now access. And I think it's amazing. I think it's very helpful to get a hair up your ass, if you will, and that's what drives you, I think rock on.

[00:00:26.430] - Jesus Ramirez
Today's creator is Lisa Carney, a renowned movie poster finisher, retoucher and Photoshop educator, Lisa's work has graced the posters of some of the most iconic movies and TV shows of the last 25 years, making her a true master of her craft. In this episode, Lisa shares her inspiring journey to becoming a world-class retoucher and lifts the veil on the unspoken truth of creating posters for the Hollywood industry. She also shares her passion for mobile photography and how anyone can use a phone to tell meaningful and captivating stories. Hey, Lisa. How are you?

[00:00:57.380] - Lisa Carney
Hey, I'm doing great, honey. Thank you.

[00:00:59.220] - Jesus Ramirez
Yeah. So for the two people listening that don't know who you are, tell us a little bit about yourself.

[00:01:04.290] - Lisa Carney
I love you. So, yeah, I'm an entertainment art finisher, so I do movie posters or when you're scrolling on Netflix or Hulu or Amazon, those little pictures of the shows, that's what I do finisher. And I'm photographer and an instructor.

[00:01:17.820] - Jesus Ramirez
That's how we met.

[00:01:18.920] - Lisa Carney
And an instructor or heckfire, I keep forgetting about that. That's my side hustle.

[00:01:23.680] - Jesus Ramirez
Yeah, we were just talking about this. You do a ton of stuff like you got nine things going on at the same time, so I can understand if you forget one thing. I want to start the interview just by going way, way back. How did you get started into being a creator? Not even a photographer, a researcher? Were you a creative kid growing up?

[00:01:40.640] - Lisa Carney
Yeah, actually. I'll tell you, it's funny. No one's ever asked me that in second grade, Mrs. Medfit's class, Verdugo, Woodlands, Glendale, California. We got to make these bells out of ceramics and you're second grade, what can you do? I made the fucking coolest bell. Like, I put shell embossing on it and some other stuff, and I knew at that moment I was like, oh, this is my jam. I didn't have the language for it, but I knew, oh, this is what I'm going to do. So in second grade, I knew I was going to do arts in some capacity.

[00:02:09.510] - Jesus Ramirez
Now, the second question is, were you this colorful of a speaker as a kid? I have to have the bleep button ready.

[00:02:17.370] - Lisa Carney
I'm surprised you're asking that, but interesting, I was a really quiet, low energy kid. I don't know when this hyper, spazzy, potty mouth woman evolved, but no, I was really shy and quiet.

[00:02:32.350] - Jesus Ramirez
By the way, feel free to talk however you normally talk. I just knew that I had to be ready with the beep button.

[00:02:38.370] - Lisa Carney
Yes, you do. And I will tell your friends, listening, folks, listening. My swearing is always out of enthusiasm. Never like criticism.

[00:02:47.790] - Jesus Ramirez
Sure.

[00:02:48.140] - Lisa Carney
Never bad, right?

[00:02:49.030] - Jesus Ramirez
It's always how this is freaking cool or whatever.

[00:02:52.620] - Lisa Carney
Fucking cool.

[00:02:53.350] - Jesus Ramirez
Yes, fucking cool. You were somewhat of a creative kid, a quiet kid. I was also very quiet myself. And that's actually how I got into Photoshop. I used to draw a lot. I was a big Spider Man fan. Still am. Which, by the way, I know you did. Spiderman far from home. Is that the one you did?

[00:03:07.980] - Lisa Carney
I don't know. One of them. I don't know.

[00:03:09.680] - Jesus Ramirez
Yeah, you've done them all. Anyway, so I remember seeing that Spiderman poster, and I'm like, oh, my God, that's so cool. And it turns out you did it. Of course, one of my friends had to do it, and I didn't even know it was you till much later.

[00:03:17.580] - Lisa Carney
I think that's the only reason you're my friend.

[00:03:19.950] - Jesus Ramirez
I was your friend before I knew you did that, I didn't know till later. But what I was going to say is to this day is still it's almost like my therapy. I used to just draw and just get lost in drawing, and now I get lost in Photoshop. I'm in Photoshop for sometimes ten or more hours a day. Is that how it was for you as a kid?

[00:03:37.090] - Lisa Carney
100%. Yeah. I used to draw murals in my bathroom and paint them. Yeah, even for me. Now you're right. I'm working on the new Hunger Games piece, and I'm passing out branches, like squiggly branches. And it is so meditative and therapeutic.

[00:03:51.430] - Jesus Ramirez
Yeah. And how did the whole photography thing come about? I know you went to school for it, if I'm not mistaken.

[00:03:57.310] - Lisa Carney
Yeah, photography is really interesting, how that came about. And one of the things I like to talk about is learning how to pivot. And when the universe tells you no, or you can't do what you think you're going to do, you pivot to something else. So I fancied myself to be an illustrator or a painter.

[00:04:12.660] - Jesus Ramirez
Okay.

[00:04:13.070] - Lisa Carney
And it turns out that I'm really crappy at rendering, and I think it has to do with my hyperness also, but really to render. I'm terrible at it. So I realized, shockingly, my whole plan was to go to Art Center for illustration in Pasina, and I couldn't. I wasn't good enough. And so I was living in Italy at the time, and I came home to try to get into Art Center, and they said no, I went back to Italy, and I started working at a photo school, helping American kids in Florence develop and process their film like analog. And it's interesting because my dad was a lawyer, and he was an avid photographer, and I think I grew up thinking, you can't be a photographer. That's not a career. Because my dad didn't do it as a career.

[00:04:53.830] - Jesus Ramirez
And what did your parents do?

[00:04:55.660] - Lisa Carney
My mom was a judge and my father was a public defender. So he was a lawyer and a judge.

[00:05:01.540] - Jesus Ramirez
And then the thought of their daughter being a photographer artist was like, no, this is not going to work out.

[00:05:06.920] - Lisa Carney
No, I would say they didn't want me to go into law. Okay. But it was more that it just was in our mind that this was a possibility, that you could do this as a career. It just didn't occur to me. So while I was in Italy, I created a photography portfolio and then submitted that to Art Center and got in for photography.

[00:05:24.700] - Jesus Ramirez
That's actually one of the questions that I wanted to ask you. You don't have to give me any dates if you don't want to. But you started with photography when it was analog prior to digital.

[00:05:34.260] - Lisa Carney
Oh, 100%, yeah. Handlining four by five film.

[00:05:38.490] - Jesus Ramirez
Do you think that had an impact in terms of how well you develop your Photoshop skills? Because it seems to me that the more that you know how something works, the better that you are with a newer tool. And in those days, Photoshop was the new tool that was shaking up the industry. Was that an advantage that you knew those foundations?

[00:05:58.380] - Lisa Carney
Yeah, I think so. Very much so. Painting having a background, and I have a degree in art history, so that helps me inform how I design and choose colors and make decisions and photography is all about light, right? So it's capturing with light. And so that informs how I use Photoshop and I will say I have two thoughts about it. One, it's super helpful to understand light when you're working in Photoshop, because I think that's where people get lost, is like, what do I do? You want separation. You want light against dark against light. And I know that from film, from shooting and putting a light on someone and actually doing the work. And two, it helps with Photoshop because Photoshop, like masking. Masking had Ruby Lift red. People often ask, why is the mask red when you turn it on? And that was because in a print shop, you used to paint this thing called Ruby Lift to make something not show. I worked in a print shop, so I used to paint the Ruby Lift. That's how old I am. And so, yeah, I think it's very helpful if other creative tools I believe.

[00:06:56.230] - Jesus Ramirez
That one of my strong suits when it comes to Photoshop is compositing. And one of the reasons why I think I didn't have so much trouble developing that skill set is because I started with traditional art. I used to do a lot of drawing and painting, so I learned a lot about creating the illusion of reality in a piece of paper. I was never a great artist by any means, but I did understand those principles. And I think those principles translate very well into Photoshop perspective. Atmosphere, perspective, contrast, all this other stuff rendering, as you were talking about earlier. And I do think that those fundamentals are very important when it comes to Photoshop.

[00:07:32.390] - Lisa Carney
Yeah, I'll say you're one of the best people I know in terms of doing perspective work, especially for backgrounds and creating scenes. You're one of the best, one of the best in the industry at doing that.

[00:07:41.940] - Jesus Ramirez
Thank you. Since we're giving compliments to each other, I often tell people, without making myself sound too good or anything, I haven't seen a video that taught me something or read a book that taught me something. I've developed things that I learned by me practicing stuff or trying new things. But you are the only person that has shown me four things, if I remember correctly, that I didn't know in Photoshop. And most recently, it was, I believe, December of last year. I don't think it was this year. You showed me something that I was like, God darn it, that is such a good method for creating the illusion of detail you were sharing with me. You know what I'm talking about? Patterns. Patterns. And how you would change the blend mode to create the illusion of detail in a photo that didn't have a lot of detail. And I was like, I've never would have figured that out. I was like, oh, my God. You've made me do that several times since I've met you. And I rarely have that feeling. And you've given me that feeling so many times. I've had it, obviously a lot of times when I was beginning and starting out, of course.

[00:08:43.980] - Jesus Ramirez
But now, 20 years in, I've had it a few times, and every time it's happened, it's been you. So you do know your stuff.

[00:08:51.390] - Lisa Carney
That's awesome. And I'll tell your listeners, too, that you're the guy I call. So I'll tell you guys I was working on a job, but it was really complicated, and I was trying to figure out a formula, how to do it with Smart Object and updating it. And I was like, God. And I remember I was dropping off my dog at daycare. I'm like, hey, Jesus, I got this job. How would I do this? And in 30 seconds, you're like, oh, yeah, just do this.

[00:09:11.350] - Jesus Ramirez
And I'm like I remember the phone conversation. I remember the specifics. I remember sitting down in this desk, and I remember I got up, and I was like, all right, what's the problem? I'm the kind of person that just can't sit still if I'm on a phone call. Like, me sitting still right now is weird, because usually if I were on the phone with you, I'll be walking all over the house going downstairs. I live in a three story house. I would be in the first floor. Second, I would hit every floor, including the garage, if I'm in a conversation just because I can't sit still. So I do remember getting up and walking over, and I ended up in the guest room next door when I was like, oh, yeah, you can do that with Smart Objects, or whatever it was.

[00:09:43.600] - Lisa Carney
Yeah, with Smart Object. And I was going to say, if the folks out there look, it's the key art finish for yellow jacket.

[00:09:51.430] - Jesus Ramirez
Oh, that's right. Yeah. That is absolutely correct. Before we move on, I want to just skip ahead way into the future because we're talking about you starting out and all that with traditional media and how there is a transition at some point for you and for the rest of the world from analog to digital. Are there any similarities in your perspective with the way people are talking about that shift in technology compared to AI today? In other words, artists today are freaking out. I'm going to lose my job, or now it doesn't require skills to be an artist. Was that fear around back in those days when people who were very good at analog photography felt maybe threatened or afraid by this new emerging technology?

[00:10:36.250] - Lisa Carney
Yeah. Okay, so I have a few thoughts about this. Maybe some controversial, maybe not. First of all, as far as the tool yeah. So as far as the tool goes, the analog versus digital tool, huge issue, huge fear base. You have these older photographers who are like, Photoshop, digital, never going to happen. But I'm going to tell you, the technology is not the same as AI creation.

[00:11:00.780] - Jesus Ramirez
Sure.

[00:11:01.350] - Lisa Carney
And I believe really strongly about these are two separate issues that are conflated all the time. And I don't think it's the same conversation. And I'm not in the populace here. Most people probably disagree with me. That's fine. The tool of digital, when it first came out, the reason I feel like photographers were so freaked out and tend to still freak out a bit, like with mobile versus DSLR cameras and whatnot is photographers as a grouping in general, they're too attached to their tool. They think they are that camera, that device, it's the wizard, not the wand as I love to say and it's a problem with photographers and that was what I saw during that digital revolution. And I was right there for all of it. I would say the mobile shooting is more akin to that revolution going on right now versus AI conversation.

[00:11:50.920] - Jesus Ramirez
Interesting.

[00:11:52.210] - Lisa Carney
Okay. Yeah. Now, the AI conversation, the issue I have with the AI conversation or dialogue is that it's wordsmiths who are creating artwork. It's a computer. You're typing in words. So writers, AI for creation, for writers is going to be amazing. But for digital creators, I would not say if I created something in mind journey, Midjourney, excuse me, that I made it. I didn't make it. I typed Midjourney, made it and referenced other artists and stole work and did whatever. If your folks have not heard it, Mark and you, Mark Heaps and you had an amazing conversation about AI that I would highly recommend everybody listen to because it really opened my eyes to reevaluating how I feel about it. And people's jobs are going to get lost, there's no question. The issue is, for me, it's not the same as a technology like film to a chip. That's a different conversation.

[00:12:47.400] - Jesus Ramirez
Okay, fair enough. I just wanted to get your thoughts on that since I knew you were around for that shift, and I was just wondering if there were any similarities. So you were doing, I believe, portrait photography, and then, if I'm not mistaken, you also did wedding photography at some point. How did you go from that to becoming this master retoucher movie poster person? For those people listening, I'm 1000% sure that they've seen your work. They may not know it's your work. It'll be easier for you to name the studios you haven't worked with, if there is one, and you just done it all. So how was that transition from being this young student into doing these things? And then the photography career, how did that shift happen?

[00:13:27.380] - Lisa Carney
Awesome. And thanks for the opportunity to talk about it, because I think as creators, this is super important. This is the giant pivoting that I was talking about earlier. I am very willing to pivot. So when I graduated Art center, there were 150,000 photographers in Los Angeles.

[00:13:42.010] - Jesus Ramirez
Jesus.

[00:13:42.610] - Lisa Carney
I owed $100,000 for my degree. $100,000 I owed. So I was portrait shooter and also wedding shooter. And weddings are just hard. They're hard. I shot them with four x five camera with Polaroid film getting under the dark room and dark thing and shit, as you can imagine. And the problem with the portrait shooting, I realized about myself, aside from the saturated market, is I like to shoot people. How they feel. When you're in Los Angeles and you're shooting actors and whatnot, and performers, they want to look spiffy and amazing and strong, and oftentimes some weak, crazy like person would come in, and that's what I'm drawn to shoot. Now, could I make them look like they wanted? Yes but it really took something out of me, and it wasn't what I felt my calling was. And Photoshop was just taking off, and I was really good at Photoshop because my fine art photography was a lot about layering transparency, slides and making new prints, kind of Jerry Elsman style, so it lended itself. And I just was lucky enough that I was running a motion picture and still photography rental house. That was my side gig while I was shooting, so I could get free rental, as you can imagine.

[00:14:54.270] - Lisa Carney
And next door was a company that actually did movie posters. They did finishing. It was called the finishing house. It's called Metaphor. And they use quantail paint boxes and Shima Seiki giant million dollar computers. So I just went in there and said, hey, I would love to work here, because I knew I needed to pivot.

[00:15:13.850] - Jesus Ramirez
Literally, you just walk in the building and said, hey, who do I talk to? I need a job.

[00:15:17.860] - Lisa Carney
Yeah.

[00:15:18.410] - Jesus Ramirez
And what do they say?

[00:15:19.940] - Lisa Carney
Yeah. So here's the thing. First, I knew them because we were called we were neighbors. Like, our companies were literally right next to each other. And I'm perky patty. So I'm saying hi to everybody, and I did what's called the informational interview. And I was like, hey, I would love to do this for a living. What would it take? And as I said, Photoshop was just starting to come out. It did have layers of masking at that point. And they said, Great, we need a prep artist. Okay, so on a small Macintosh like an LC, if you could mask out the people, we would hire you. So I went away, learned how to mask. Came back about six months later, nine months later, and they gave me a try. I'll never forget this. My first job was a Barbie job. So when you get Barbie doll prototypes, they have pins in them and their arms are stuck in with pins, and they have seams all down the side. They sat me down at this giant computer with a huge Wacom tablet. I'd never seen a tablet my whole life. And I went in at night, they came back the next morning to see how I did. Like, they left me overnight at the shop, and I passed and they hired me.

[00:16:20.160] - Jesus Ramirez
Wow. How old were you at the time?

[00:16:22.410] - Lisa Carney
26. 27.

[00:16:24.650] - Jesus Ramirez
So you were young, but not just out of high school or anything that you had some experience under your belt?

[00:16:28.320] - Lisa Carney
Yeah.

[00:16:28.960] - Jesus Ramirez
Wow.

[00:16:29.420] - Lisa Carney
Yeah. Two college degrees. I lived in Italy. I definitely had some experience. Yeah.

[00:16:34.480] - Jesus Ramirez
What was it inside of you that made you think, I need to pivot? Why even have that initial thought? It sounds like you did have a career in photography. Why make that pivot?

[00:16:46.830] - Lisa Carney
I'll just say. Truth. Fear. It was obvious I was never going to pay that student loan off. I'd never be able to buy a house. How was I going to survive? Fear, first of all, fear was the main driver. I'll call spade a spade there and then secondary is creatively. This is a really good question. Jesus. Creatively. Shooting people the way they wanted to look. Shooting weddings was not filling my soul. So what I ended up doing is pivoting to Photoshop, which I could do. You want someone with bigger boobs, blonde hair, black hair? You want someone skinnier? Do you want someone's skin? Cleaned up is no soul killer for me. So what I ended up doing is shifting to Photoshop for my work, and then my photography became my personal work, and I didn't answer to anybody.

[00:17:29.310] - Jesus Ramirez
Yeah.

[00:17:29.630] - Lisa Carney
If that makes sense.

[00:17:30.290] - Jesus Ramirez
No, that makes 100% sense. If we could travel to an alternate universe where it's 2023 and Lisa is 26 again, how would you go about getting into this industry today, would you still walk into a finishing house like you did? How could you get to where you are now if you were starting today in 2023?

[00:17:52.100] - Lisa Carney
I teach a lot, so I talk to up and comers all the time. Yeah, you do an informational interview. You go on impawards.com if movie posters are your thing, you look at every agency, you see who's got the work you like, and you go, hey, hi, I would like to work here. What would it take? What would I need to know? And then you make up some pieces to show to demonstrate you understand the visual language of movie posters. And yeah, Bob's your uncle.

[00:18:18.470] - Jesus Ramirez
There you go. It's weird because now that I've been doing this type of work with you, and 100% because of you, you're the one who brought me into this line of work, so I have to thank you for that. People ask me, like, how do I get into it? I'm like, I don't know. I went in such a weird route that my route is definitely not the easiest and what I mean by that is I already had a career. I was already teaching, I was already doing a whole bunch of other different things where I had the skill set, but I didn't have to start from the ground floor, so to speak. I skipped a few steps. So that's why I wanted to ask you that question, because I know that a lot of people listening want to do movie poster stuff. I don't know if I told you this story specifically, Lisa, but movie posters is something that I always wanted to work on, not only because they're cool, and I'm a big movie fan. I'm a big fan of storytelling. I like the artwork, all that, of course. But there is a thing that happened to me when I was very young, and I don't know if I ever told you the story, but like most of us, we lived when our parents were very young.

[00:19:18.680] - Jesus Ramirez
And I was probably, like, I don't know, 19 at the time, out of high school for sure and the movie Spiderman Two came out with Toby McGuire, and the movie poster for that was Toby McGuire's character Spiderman standing on top of a building in New York City. It was a bright, golden hour type of shot. It looked really cool.

[00:19:38.650] - Lisa Carney
I know exactly the piece. We did it at BLT.

[00:19:41.520] - Jesus Ramirez
Do you work on that one?

[00:19:43.080] - Lisa Carney
No, but I know the piece.

[00:19:44.880] - Jesus Ramirez
Okay, cool. So that became my background wallpaper on the computer, and it was a family computer, which was in the living room, and it was really my computer because nobody else in my family cared about computers. But it was a family computer, so I was the one using it all the time. So it had my wallpaper in the background. And one of my mom's friends came over, and she looks over at the screen and sees the wallpaper. Now, I wasn't in the room, but I was in the room next to the living room so I could hear the conversation. And the woman asked my mom, oh, what is that? And my mom said something like, oh, I don't know. Jesus probably made it. He does a lot of artwork or whatever and the lady looks at it and she goes, nah, that's too good, I don't think you can do that. And that pissed me off so much. I was so upset, and in my mind, I was like, I'm going to make movie posters one day. I'm going to make a movie poster and this woman will never remember that. It was just like something she said, but it got stuck in the back of my head that someone would say that I couldn't do something, and that really upsets me.

[00:20:47.810] - Jesus Ramirez
So I always wanted to do it. So when I got that opportunity to start working with you on some projects, that was like the first thing I thought about, like the 20 year old me wanting to do that.

[00:20:59.380] - Lisa Carney
It's interesting because I think not enough credence is given to the motivating factor of being pissed off, told you can't, or fear. Yeah, fear drove me. I moved out in high school. I hand tool insecurity. I had physical insecurity. And boy, that really got me an engine that I can now access. And I think it's amazing. I think it's very helpful to get a hair up your ass, if you will, and maybe that do you know what I mean? And that's what drives you, I think rock on. Because look at you now.

[00:21:33.250] - Jesus Ramirez
Look at me now. Thank you.

[00:21:35.090] - Lisa Carney
I appreciate that.

[00:21:36.340] - Jesus Ramirez
Yeah, I really appreciate that. I call it the eye of the tiger, like the old Rocky movie, the eye of the tiger. And that's something that got into my lexicon early on, where I started realizing that people who I considered successful, whatever success means to me, I noticed that they had the eye of the tiger. It didn't matter where they grew up. It didn't matter how much money their family had or didn't have. Nothing matter. I started realizing that people who have what I consider the eye of the tiger were successful in their chosen professions or whatever goals they had in life, not necessarily just work. I also started realizing that people who I consider not successful, again, whatever success means to me, didn't really have that eye of the tiger. So I do think there is a lot of value in I hate to say it, but almost getting knocked down because it gives you that anger, and it gives you that, oh, I'm going to prove this person wrong.

[00:22:31.760] - Lisa Carney
Yeah. Whatever it takes. Whatever that is. Yeah.

[00:22:34.370] - Jesus Ramirez
And I grew up as an athlete. My personality is very calm and easy going, which may not be the best for athletics. You got to be rougher and I remember that if I got angry during a game, I would actually play better because I had that eye of the time. Now I'm upset, now I'm going to have to really do well. So I think that for me, at least, it's a motivator rather than something that drags me down and makes me go into my room and cry.

[00:23:05.350] - Lisa Carney
Yeah. And also, it's interesting you say that, because I think that's a choice. I think the choice to have gumption and grit, you can choose like my son, I can remember watching him play soccer. You know how when you have soccer and the ball gets the other direction and players need to move? He ran every time he would run down the field. He didn't walk and go, okay, we're switching sides or whatever, he ran. And that's a choice. So whether it's anger, pissed offness, fear, or joy, you can make that choice to really work hard. I work like a motherfucker. I work a ton. But I love it.

[00:23:41.340] - Jesus Ramirez
Right?

[00:23:41.720] - Lisa Carney
I love what I do.

[00:23:42.870] - Jesus Ramirez
Yeah. And I know you do, and I do as well. One of the things that I wanted to ask you is in an industry that often portrays unrealistic beauty standards, how do you approach retouching while maintaining authenticity and promoting a positive body image? With the caveat that a lot of times a client says, and you mentioned it earlier, I want bigger boobs or skinnier waist or whatever, but if you had total control, how would you address those issues?

[00:24:11.790] - Lisa Carney
Yeah, it's really interesting you ask that. I absolutely have zero control, and I am super clear about that. And I know that I am providing a service for a client, so this is not my art. This is me providing a service for someone else. So I'm not the decider. And it's interesting because I'm known in the industry as a beauty retoucher, and I think why I'm known as a beauty retoucher is because I do less. They have to ask me to do more to push it. I am definitely one who's going to hold back. Recently, I was working on comps for the new Sex in the City series. I'm forgetting the name. All of us are all in. I'm so sorry. I'm terrible at the names, and I think one of the reasons they choose me is I don't over retouch.

[00:24:53.510] - Jesus Ramirez
Yeah.

[00:24:54.910] - Lisa Carney
That being said, how many times does Job come back and they say, yes, take 15 years off, and I have to do it for sure, but that will not be the first pass I send.

[00:25:03.360] - Jesus Ramirez
Yeah, no, 100%. And actually, that's how I work. I don't think I've actually talked to you about this, but if I'm making the decision as to how much retouching there is, what I usually do is basically I'm done retouching, and then I'll scale it back to 75%. Like, literally change 75% Opacity or something, just to get some detail back. So it's not completely blown out but I'm also the type of person that doesn't push it too far. And also I don't like to remove or cover anything that belongs to that person. If they have a pimple, of course, that'll be gone in a week and that's it.

[00:25:36.510] - Lisa Carney
There's an interesting argument, if you don't mind me saying, please, real quick, about if you're doing advertising and a model is in service of a product, that is a different job than this is an actor and you're actually showing them, or a family portrait wedding. And it's those people. And I think folks who work in retouching don't make that distinction that you talked about. So if you were going to do me, look, I've got these wrinkles, you leave them if I'm selling a T-shirt or if I'm selling a sports bra or sports drink. No, this you do not need to have because it's not me. You are selling the product and that should inform how you retouch.

[00:26:16.090] - Jesus Ramirez
Yeah, no, for sure. I completely agree. And talking about Retouching, as technology is advancing now, there's a lot of AI is becoming prevalent. How do you think this will affect the future of Retouching and the skills that are required to work in this industry?

[00:26:32.030] - Lisa Carney
Yeah, so it's a really good question. The problem with AI retouching, of which there is a ton, and I've talked about this, it doesn't always work. So if you build your chops off of using AI, and let's say you have a person who shot  from the side and the AI won't work, how are you going to deliver your product? And if you rely on that AI all the time, what happens when you cannot reproduce the work? Also, changing the work? So let's say the AI goes too far and you have to pull it back. Can you?

[00:27:01.940] - Jesus Ramirez
Right.

[00:27:02.360] - Lisa Carney
Especially with some of the face tuning stuff, all kinds of warpage happens.

[00:27:06.300] - Jesus Ramirez
Sure.

[00:27:06.630] - Lisa Carney
You can't put that on 50% capacity if it's been worked, sure. So it's problematic, I think, for the consumer market, heckfire, whatever happens. But for the pro market, it's a useful addition, but you have to keep your chops.

[00:27:21.490] - Jesus Ramirez
No, for sure. And I actually think that's the real key with a lot of these technologies that are emerging, that there's absolutely nothing wrong with using a neurofilter in Photoshop to create whatever lighting shadow and all that. But as you say, if you need to customize it, that becomes really challenging if you don't know how you got there, if all you did is push a button and it made it for you. And then your boss, art director, whoever, says, hey, I like it, but you're screwed when following that but on that sentence because you wouldn't know how to fine tune it so I think that it's very important to learn how everything works, at least that's my opinion, how things work. And then you can fine tune things accordingly because trust me, there's nothing that makes me happier than pushing one button and things are done. But I've also been on the side of the situation where it looks great, but we need you to do X, Y and Z and then it becomes more challenging if you don't know what you're doing.

[00:28:19.540] - Lisa Carney
Yeah, so I'll tell you, one of the workarounds I have for this is, yeah, I do use some AI technology for doing some of my work, and then I'll have jobs where they're not so hot and I'll do it totally old school by hand, everything to keep my chops up. Because also imagine you get that, like, I've got the Mac studio. What happens when the newest version comes out and all those plugins I bought don't work anymore? Am I screwed? Am I not going to be working? And how fast can I make it up?

[00:28:46.920] - Jesus Ramirez
Sure.

[00:28:47.190] - Lisa Carney
So it's like planning ahead. It's like exercise, isn't it? You can't stop doing your warm up, exercising, and then expect you can be, even concert people who do that every day, they do warm up.

[00:28:58.080] - Jesus Ramirez
100%. It's funny that you mentioned exercising because I compare at least my work, I was going to say the industry, but just in my head, at least, the type of work that I do is very reminiscent to sports. Maybe because I was an athlete my entire life and I put everything through that same lens. And I do believe in repetition, practicing. I do believe that you may be an expert in something, but then if you stop doing it for a while, it doesn't matter how good you were, it will take a little bit of a warm up to get back into it. So if all you're doing is hitting a button, AI fixes it for you. And then maybe a year down the line, somebody says, hey, you need to fix this. You're probably still going to know how to do it, of course, but it's going to take you some time to get back into it. You need to quote, unquote, warm up. And if you've never warmed up, if you've never practiced even, you've only done it automatically. That's where you're going to have some challenges. At least that's how I feel about it.

[00:29:51.880] - Lisa Carney
Yeah. I'll tell you, I can't even tell you how many people I've tried to hire to assist me to do my job. And their books look beautiful, and then they can't reproduce what? They can't do the work in a timely fashion or especially beauty work. When you get these older women who they've got that fur along their what do you do? Do you even know to look for the fur? How do you get the fur out? That's not AI, that's cloning or heel tool or something. You got to be careful with the AI.

[00:30:18.590] - Jesus Ramirez
That's something I wanted to talk to you about. You mentioned something important that I did want to bring up in today's conversation, which is finding help. You've mentioned to me privately, and you've briefly mentioned it now, about finding help, the right kind of help to help. They can do the work. If we could create a magic machine that will 3D print your perfect assistant for finishing, what skills would they have to make it a perfect assistant for you? Maybe it's going to 3D print like a 19 year old student.

[00:30:48.690] - Lisa Carney
Yeah. So that's interesting. So I will say the first request I would have is someone who doesn't think they're done the minute they turn a job in. Biggest issue, number one issue I have is someone will give me a job finish and they should be looking at that piece going, crap, am I really done? I really need to look people who rush too much, bane in my existence or I want someone takes their time and really knows how to see logistically, they got to know Photoshop. Masking, masking. Color labeling. Oh, my sweet Jesus, Mary, mother of God, could people just label a layer, right? And communication, it's so funny. It's things that you wouldn't think for me, that are just Photoshop. In fact, most of the problem is not Photoshop. It's how do they communicate? Are they looking at the piece? Do they ask questions? Do they ask questions during the job? Don't give me the job back and go, oh, I wasn't sure about that so I just did X, because by then I'm like now I'm screwed.

[00:31:44.610] - Jesus Ramirez
I didn't understand why you had a lot of issues finding somebody that could help you, because we've had this conversation in the past until I started working with you and I realized, oh, I see. I can now see why this is so difficult. It's not just you're good at Photoshop or you're good at masking. It's a lot of other things. And one of the things in you and I have discussed in the past is a lot of the ego that comes with a lot of artists that you can't tell them, hey, you know what? The masking is great, but you didn't do this thing that was required in the job, so can you change that? And now you're having a debate on why you should keep their work, even though that was never part of the plan. So it's really interesting how all these artists that are technically very good might not go very far because they don't have all these other skills. Sending an email, for example. A lot of people don't know how to send emails. And yeah, sure, they know how to send you an email, but the content and how it's delivered is sometimes not the best.

[00:32:43.940] - Jesus Ramirez
And I would rather work with somebody who has those skills. And maybe their Photoshop skills are like 20% less.

[00:32:50.310] - Lisa Carney
Yeah, 100%, because that other stuff you can't teach. And also, I can't even tell you the tap dancing enough to do on egos to ask for a change. If I ask for a change, I'm not saying you're a shitty artist, I'm not saying you suck. I'm saying I just need a change. For example, I had a guy who worked with we were partners, and we were doing an ADC job. Now, I worked on ADC for, Jesus, 15 years, 17 years. I know the client. And I remember I asked to make the sky less magenta, more blue, and he lost his shit. And he was like, oh, are you questioning me as an artist? I'm like, no, I know the client. Who cares what color the sky is? I'm not debating your validity as an artist.

[00:33:29.070] - Jesus Ramirez
No, 100%. And you mentioned it earlier, and there's a lot of reasons why you're very successful in one of the world's best at what you do. But one of those things is something you mentioned earlier, which is the client is paying you to do something that's not your art, that's not where your soul and passion is. You have other stuff for that. And I think people don't differentiate that. We're technicians. We're just like an electrician, essentially. The lights go out, they hire an electrician to come and fix the lights. And that's our job, fix the lights. That's it. It's not to say, hey, you know what? We're going to put in different lights here, led and blue light here, yellow light. None of that. No, they're here to fix the lights. And that's what we need to think about that. We're here to fix their lights. And if they ask us, sure, we can do more. But I don't know. I just think the ego is really strong in some people in our industry, unfortunately.

[00:34:16.200] - Lisa Carney
I'm sorry. I just want to say one my absolute favorite thing about working, collaborating with you. My favorite thing is I have never felt like if I say, hey, you can't change this or do this, that you think I'm insulting you.

[00:34:28.300] - Jesus Ramirez
Never. No.

[00:34:28.680] - Lisa Carney
 I know. So I can freely say, oh, we did the job. I can't remember which client it was. I'm guessing it might be CBS. And you changed a background that was inside the time frame and I was like, it's awesome. Don't ever do that again. You can't do that. You didn't hear. Oh, hey, Jesus, you shouldn't feel bad. But you didn't make me think that you felt bad.

[00:34:50.410] - Jesus Ramirez
Yeah, I kept you safe. But it was one of the first projects we worked on together, and if I remember correctly, it was the show The Neighbors or something like that. Is that the name of the show? It doesn't matter.

[00:35:00.740] - Lisa Carney
Yes, you're right.

[00:35:02.670] - Jesus Ramirez
And it's almost what I was talking about earlier. You even said what you did is technically good, but that's not what the client wanted. So, yes, even though this might be technically better and the layers are better organized and all that stuff, it doesn't matter because the client didn't want that. They wanted this. And I felt so bad because I thought I was doing like, oh, I'm going to make this even better.

[00:35:27.320] - Lisa Carney
So this is a great, really super great point. So when it was a street and it was a perspective and you fixed the perspective, you made the street totally accurate to what it should have been. Yes, but what you don't know, because you haven't been doing this for 35 years, is they had 17 different layouts and the type had to read. So while the perspective was off behind the characters, it was off on purpose because they had to type. You wouldn't know that, right? Because you don't do those 17 layouts. You do the ones.

[00:35:54.210] - Jesus Ramirez
 I think you and I were talking about this off the air where I think it was my maybe second or third project that I worked on with you. And I was like, trying to do such a good always tried a good job, but I was trying to do even a better job. And I thought, oh, I'm going to fix the layers, I'm going to fix the perspective. I'm going to fix this, I'm going to fix that, and ended up being more work at the end. So that's why I felt bad because I realized that needed to look at the job and what the job required and then not worry about all these other things that I saw were in my eye wrong. But I just needed to pay attention to you because you're the one with the experience. And we often have this conversation where I like, when you look at my work because you have this incredible eye, and it's so funny because you'll open up a file and be like, oh, sweetie. And then you'll say, right here, you see this?

[00:36:42.190] - Lisa Carney
You're missing this.

[00:36:42.830] - Jesus Ramirez
I'm like, how the hell? First of all, how did I miss that? And second of all, how did you see it in 2 seconds? There's actually a hair on the camera, sweetie. And I'm like, Wait, where? And I'm like, oh my God. First of all, it's super obvious when I see it, but how did I miss it? And second of all, how did you see it so fast?

[00:37:02.070] - Lisa Carney
Yeah, 35 years of doing this. That's all it's time in, honey. That's all.

[00:37:06.200] - Jesus Ramirez
That actually is going to lead to my next question. You've been doing it for so many years. Can you share a project or an experience that you had working in this industry that presented a particularly strong challenge in the creative perspective and how you pushed through it and found a solution?

[00:37:22.630] - Lisa Carney
Okay, so there's a few things that come to mind, and some of them are bad, like no solution. The solution was no solution. Okay? And this is an important thing to talk about in the entertainment, especially if it's a film versus streaming, although those lines are getting very blurry now in film. So many people sign off on a project that when you get a project and someone's arm is actually wrong, like not in the right position or too short, 17,000 people signed off on it. They don't want you to fix it. Just do your job and do it. And that was really hard to swallow, that I would have to turn something in that was wrong because no one wanted it corrected for a variety of reasons that we don't need to go into. But it's a lot of political stuff and job security and fear based industry and that kind of thing. And then there's other times where I really love coming up with really problematic solutions of, what are you going to do? So Desperate Housewives is a show I worked on for years, and that's older women, there's, what, five of them.

[00:38:23.920] - Lisa Carney
And it can be very problematic when you're shooting and still designing and still finishing, because television was working very fast back then, and they shot them in these pastel dresses and they wanted to figure out if they wanted white dresses or black dresses or kind of chartreuse dresses with the tap of the highlight. And I was able to figure out the hue saturation tool in such a way that you could change it like that. You want white, you want black in 30 seconds. And I really love coming up with those kind of solutions, like a technical solution to a rather challenging visual problem.

[00:38:58.270] - Jesus Ramirez
Yeah. And this is one of the reasons why I like working with you and other clients with finishing, because it works out a muscle that I don't usually work out with training. And you do get those challenging problems, and you feel so good when you figure it out, too. And it might not even make a good tutorial, right? Because it might be a specific problem to that project and maybe nothing else. But you feel amazing when you solve issues like that. I enjoy those type of challenges.

[00:39:27.470] - Lisa Carney
Right? Because it's like invention, like frequency separation. The day I discovered that I could put skin patterns or pattern textures inside frequency separation, I was like, wow. Yeah.

[00:39:39.390] - Jesus Ramirez
So talking about all these different clients and expectations and all of that, I know that you have a million projects going on at the same time. I think I'm working with one or two projects with you at the moment. I don't know, one or two projects with me? And then you have one or two on your own, you have your training and you have all of that. When you're facing all these tight deadlines or challenging client expectations, how do you manage stress and maintain a very high level of quality in your work?

[00:40:06.470] - Lisa Carney
So that's a good question. I thrive in stressful situations, so my personality works well, first of all, thank goodness for that, because otherwise, hell no. Two, I utilize downtime to sort through problems. So I will ask folks to send me jobs. I will look at them. So I will be working on job A, but in the back of my head, I'm calculating, how am I going to solve that particular problem for job B or job C? Does that make sense?

[00:40:31.530] - Jesus Ramirez
Yes.

[00:40:32.490] - Lisa Carney
I always want the job early, and my subconscious mind is really kind to me. I'll wake up at three in the morning, I'm like, Bingo, I know how to do it.

[00:40:40.280] - Jesus Ramirez
I'm looking at the time. And I do want to spend some time talking about your passions, because so far we've only discussed your work. And correct me if I'm wrong with this statement, but we've talked about work that you enjoy and you are very proud of, but that's how you put money on the table. But you have a new passion. Or maybe it's not so new, but you do have a passion. And I want you to talk a little bit about what that passion is.

[00:41:03.170] - Lisa Carney
Yeah, I'm lucky enough in my career that I'm far enough along that I don't have to hunt for work and I get paid well. I'm at the top of the food chain. Paid wise.

[00:41:11.580] - Jesus Ramirez
I taught you on your word. Remember what that word was?

[00:41:13.900] - Lisa Carney
Food chain? No.

[00:41:14.860] - Jesus Ramirez
Bougie. You're very bougie now.

[00:41:16.390] - Lisa Carney
Bougie. Am I Bougie?

[00:41:19.110] - Jesus Ramirez
With all this money you make? Lisa, you're so bougie.

[00:41:21.590] - Lisa Carney
Remember single mom putting the kids through college. You know exactly where that money is going.

[00:41:25.070] - Jesus Ramirez
I know, exactly.

[00:41:25.740] - Lisa Carney
But yes, as you well know. And the dogs.

[00:41:28.950] - Jesus Ramirez
And the dogs.

[00:41:29.680] - Lisa Carney
So I will say my career has now afforded me the opportunity to go back to photography, which is 100% my passion and my love. And I am 1000% all about mobile photography. And I feel like you brought this up earlier, that sea change when digital first and Photoshop first came out, and that sea change in the industry. I'm 1000% certain that is the sea change we are now having with this. And I treat this. I want to be the world's leading expert in iPhone photography. I just do.

[00:41:59.990] - Jesus Ramirez
Okay.

[00:42:00.380] - Lisa Carney
I love it. I love it. I work on it all the time. It's like a dark room. So I have my heavy editing I like to do because I do Photoshop. How do I do that here? And I just love it. Three in the morning, I wake up and I'm like, I want to try something. Yeah. So that is my absolute love right now, is shooting.

[00:42:18.810] - Jesus Ramirez
How do you stay motivated or what inspires you when it comes to your personal pieces?

[00:42:26.910] - Lisa Carney
That's a good question. I think of myself as a visual storyteller, and it just comes to me. You know me super well. I've got some issues with my parents going on right now, aging parents, my son's struggling a bit in school. A few years back, I went through a pretty nasty breakup, and that's what fuels me, it's that need to express something generally emotional that's going on. And my life is. There's no shortage, inspiration, if that's what I'm talking about.

[00:42:54.180] - Jesus Ramirez
I flew down to LA for your art show with that.

[00:42:58.180] - Lisa Carney
Yeah. You're so kind.

[00:42:59.300] - Jesus Ramirez
That was the oh, my God, I'm so sorry. I cannot remember the name. Was it the grief?

[00:43:03.220] - Lisa Carney
Grief Series.

[00:43:03.940] - Jesus Ramirez
Grief Series, yeah.

[00:43:06.010] - Lisa Carney
That meant a lot to me that you came down for that. Thank you.

[00:43:08.480] - Jesus Ramirez
Yeah, no, you're welcome. I told you I wouldn't miss it. And it was a wonderful show and you had a lot of people there. I don't remember the exact number, but it felt like over 100 people at the show. And it was really incredible. A lot of people from our industry and people just in the photography photoshop world in general. So it was a wonderful piece. Can people look at that online? Is it online anywhere?

[00:43:29.270] - Lisa Carney
Yeah, it's on my website. I have a section on lisacarney.com under Musings and I talk about the Grief Series and what it was about and why I did it. And I think that's as artists, what we do, we're telling our stories, aren't we?

[00:43:44.100] - Jesus Ramirez
100%. And by the way, I want to have a link to that in the show notes. So I'll find the link, I'll post it up there, make sure you check it out. It's a wonderful series and very personal, and I'll let people go through that. I don't know if you have the same descriptions for each photo on the website like you did at the show, but some of these descriptions, my God, I had tears coming down my eyes. It was some very emotional stuff.

[00:44:08.510] - Lisa Carney
Yeah, thanks. Yeah. I think as artists, at least, the work that I look at, that I respond to someone was laying something bare. And art for me is more interesting when we're courageous that way, say stuff that's hard. These are not pretty pictures. They're not about a pretty thing at all.

[00:44:27.020] - Jesus Ramirez
Going back to mobile photography, how do you handle a conversation with someone that says things like, mobile photography is not real photography, or a mobile phone is not a real camera? And those type of people. 

[00:44:40.680] - Lisa Carney
First of all, I don't think it's my job to convince them they're wrong, but I don't need to convince anybody. Sure. And in fact, I'll tell you this. Years ago, it was probably like four or five years ago, I got interviewed for Black and White magazine and the guy who was doing the article is a former instructor of mine. And he kept saying Mobile photography. And I said to him, I said, hey, hon, do you say Hasselblad photography? Do you say Nikon Photography? Do you say Canon? No, you don't. You just talk about the work.

[00:45:07.540] - Jesus Ramirez
Right?

[00:45:07.940] - Lisa Carney
Can we just talk about the work? But do you remember earlier we talked about or I was mentioning how photographers are so attached to the tool.

[00:45:14.580] - Jesus Ramirez
Yes.

[00:45:15.260] - Lisa Carney
Who gives us shift, what the wand is, what's the wizard doing? Does it look good? Are you telling your story in an effective way and anymore, this device is great. And I do professional shooting with this. I do paid jobs with this device, and it holds up. Yeah.

[00:45:31.520] - Jesus Ramirez
I don't know if this is true, but a lot of the finishing work seems like it was shot on a very old, bad mobile phone when you first get the files.

[00:45:42.520] - Lisa Carney
I'm going to tell you, Jesus, honey, there are shots that I could do way better with my iPhone than what I'm given to work with. It's staggeringly shocking. Yeah. You've seen them, you've worked on them.

[00:45:53.230] - Jesus Ramirez
Yes. And we go back to the beginning of the conversation when I said that you were showing me some tips and tricks on how to make a photo more detailed to create the illusion of more detail, create the illusion of it being more high end. And I'm assuming you working with these type of photos allowed you to develop those skills, because I couldn't believe the state of some of these photos that were given to you. And now to me doing this type of work and where they're going to be displayed in the final look. It's incredible the amount of photoshop that goes into some of these images.

[00:46:25.200] - Lisa Carney
Baby, I'm going to tell you, from the beginning of my career, we've had shitty images from the beginning. Because just because you have a big camera doesn't mean it's in focus, doesn't mean that the glass, the lens was good and there's fidelity to it and a lot of entertainment movie posters are done with unit shots, small, little 35 millimeter shots. So it's not mobile that's made me figure this out. It's my entire career. It's garbage in, garbage out kind of thing.

[00:46:50.420] - Jesus Ramirez
So let's talk a little bit about the hardware they use now for photography in the mobile phone. You're an iPhone user, correct? I think we had this conversation.

[00:46:58.210] - Lisa Carney
Yeah.

[00:46:58.980] - Jesus Ramirez
What apps do you recommend people to use when it comes to shooting and editing on their phone?

[00:47:04.300] - Lisa Carney
Yeah. So Lightroom, I'm a huge Lightroom mobile user. And one of the things I love about Lightroom is it puts you in this ecosystem of work. So I can work on the phone, go to my laptop or iPad if I need to, or go to my big station and work on a huge system. And it avails me of all that AI masking. Speaking of AI earlier, which showing Lightroom mobile. Amazing. And in fact, there's an iPhone conference coming up, but I don't know if this will be out in time. I have some tutorials where I actually show the AI mask from Lightroom and then the AI mask from Photoshop, and they're totally different. Isn't that interesting?

[00:47:38.960] - Jesus Ramirez
Yeah, that's crazy. You recently presented at WPPI. I was also there presenting. I remember I flew in to Las Vegas and got in a cabin, raced to the hotel so that I could see your presentation. I arrived as you were giving your presentation. So I only caught maybe the last 30 minutes. But that's one of the things that I did see you speak about. And if I remember correctly, you had screenshots of both Photoshop and Lightroom and how the masking was different on both, which I found very interesting.

[00:48:07.290] - Lisa Carney
Yeah. And I would argue on that demo, the masking on Lightroom was sharper than the masking on Photoshop. Now, sharper may or may not be better. It depends on what you're trying to achieve. But yeah, technology is amazing, what you can use. So if anyone getting started Lightroom would probably be- because it's a dark room in your hand, it's amazing. It really is.

[00:48:27.060] - Jesus Ramirez
How important is the balance between artistic intuition and technical knowledge in Retouching?

[00:48:32.620] - Lisa Carney
You think, oh, so that's a really good question. How would I answer that? I think it's the eye that's the most important thing. The tools, obviously you need to know your tools. But if you can't see what you need to do or the mistake you made, how do you fix it? So, for example, the biggest mistake most folks make is their mask is too hard. So one of the things I learned really early in Photoshop is you want to look at an interior line, like somewhere here, figure out the softness of the mask, not just cookie cutter masking. Okay, so that's really important. And then over retouching. So is it a tool issue? No, I think it's an eye issue. Does that make sense? Yeah, it's seen, it's not the hand.

[00:49:16.830] - Jesus Ramirez
How would you advise someone to develop their eye?

[00:49:19.770] - Lisa Carney
I think what's really important is look at work. Like evaluate work. I have to tell you, I look at everything that's out there, magazines or posters. I'm like, does that look good to me or does that look bad? Does that look overdone? Or what would I do? And not just because it's out in the universe, don't presume it's good.

[00:49:36.900] - Jesus Ramirez
Right.

[00:49:37.660] - Lisa Carney
Do you understand what I'm saying? Just because it's printed or out there doesn't mean it's good work. So it's looking and looking critically.

[00:49:44.570] - Jesus Ramirez
For someone who's listening and wants to get into mobile photography. I presume that everyone, if not most people listening to this have a smartphone that could potentially be used for mobile photography. What are some of the hardware or apps that you recommend them getting? I know that you have lenses that you can attach to phones and I know you use many different apps besides Lightroom because I know you already mentioned Lightroom.

[00:50:09.150] - Lisa Carney
Yeah, I would say right now with the iPhone you don't need any secondary apps. Lenses. Pardon me.

[00:50:15.250] - Jesus Ramirez
Okay.

[00:50:15.490] - Lisa Carney
I do use Moment Lens for macro, but for most, your average bear, the one that comes to bone is probably fine. I do love Lens distortion app is a really great app. What else do I like? Mixtures. I love mixtures for apple. The thing is, honestly, Jesus. I think the key is to shoot. I literally shoot a picture every single day. It's part of my work. And what would probably behoove people less than which app do I get? Is to start projects, start doing a story. Come on. Do you want to do a thing about grief? Do you want to do a thing about joy, happiness, struggle, anxiety, depression? And make a photo essay on that and give yourself the privilege of shooting every single day something. And that's how they're going to get good. It's time in.

[00:51:04.290] - Jesus Ramirez
It goes back to what I was talking about earlier, repetition. And I mentioned in the podcast so many times I'm going to sound like a broken record, but I think that you only get good at something by doing it over and over and over again. And the second part to that is having someone who is just maybe even one or two steps ahead of you look at your work and give you some thoughts on how you can improve. The way that I like to compare this, I don't know where the science falls behind this, but I do believe in the 10,000 hours rule, which basically means if you do 10,000 hours of something, you'll probably be an expert on it. But the caveat I like to add to that is not just doing something over and over again for 10,000 hours or whatever the number is a bunch of times, but it's also getting someone that can help you see your mistakes so that you can improve on your mistakes on the next repetition. Almost like a coach. Again, going back to the sports analogy, because the way that I see it is we've all been driving since we were 16 or whatever, but we're all not professional drivers.

[00:52:04.250] - Jesus Ramirez
Why? Because we always just go in that same mode. We're not trying to do crazy car maneuvers or crazy parking jobs or anything like that. We just stay on that same lane, so to speak, and we don't improve past that level. So if you do something so many times you need somebody to tell you, great, you're here, but you haven't done this or you haven't noticed that, you might want to try this and the next time you try it, it might get you just a little bit better. And then it's all about incremental improvements and then eventually you look back and you're much, much better than you were a year or two ago.

[00:52:39.120] - Lisa Carney
Yeah, it's like the old salons they had in Paris with the artists, right? Everyone got together and showed their work. So I would say, show your work. Get into an art show, join a camera club, join a photography club. Because you were talking earlier about the retouching, and I get the piece from you, and I look and I go, oh, you missed A, B, and C. If you join a club or join a society or community college or anything, someone will look at it and go, oh, that's great. But did you notice X or Y or oh, this might read better if you did X or Y.

[00:53:08.680] - Jesus Ramirez
Right.

[00:53:08.970] - Lisa Carney
So I think sharing your work and putting yourself out there is paramount.

[00:53:10.300] - Jesus Ramirez
Going forward, mobile phones are just going to get better and better every year. The newer phone is better than the one last year. In terms of cameras. What opportunities do you think this creates for the retouching industry, if any?

[00:53:27.680] - Lisa Carney
For the retouching industry? Interesting.

[00:53:29.670] - Jesus Ramirez
Yeah.

[00:53:30.230] - Lisa Carney
No, I don't think it's any different, and forgive my pausing on it, but I'm the enormous stuff that the Dwayne Johnson stuff that I did a lot of work on, those were all shot DSLR and they were crappy shots, really crappy shots. Mobile would have been better, frankly. I'm quite sure of it. The thing about mobile is of the expediency of it, so you can get the work out and edited and distributed so quickly, and that's really helpful. Also, models don't mind so much. People are used to seeing these, so you don't get quite that scared. Look, you put a big old lens in front of someone's face.

[00:54:08.000] - Jesus Ramirez
I've wanted to be the person that would carry their giant camera everywhere, taking cool pictures, and this is going to get me the best raw photos. And I have this cool, super crazy lens that I paid God knows how much money for, and it's going to be amazing. And, like, after three days, I'm like, I can't carry this stupid thing everywhere I go. And that went away.

[00:54:25.410] - Lisa Carney
I went to Cuba with Kenna on a photography excursion. So we're in Havana. We get to Havana, it's a small group of us. I borrowed a big fancy fuck off camera to take with me. That thing was locked in the suitcase after the first hour. It was so heavy and so cumbersome. And again, like I said, interfered with me, with my subjects. And Kevin and I talked about this at Creative Live, where I was posting, editing and sending. I'm standing there on the promenade and everyone else had to go back to their hotels, download off a chip, maybe up in Photoshop. Oh, it's midnight now, they're tired. Maybe never even got back to those images. And I'm doing it all right then and there.

[00:55:05.620] - Jesus Ramirez
And big shout outs to our friend Kenna Klosterman, by the way.

[00:55:09.410] - Lisa Carney
Yeah. Kenna, we love you.

[00:55:11.140] - Jesus Ramirez
Yeah, formerly from- 

[00:55:13.280] - Lisa Carney
Sorry for this. Is this vulgar?

[00:55:14.350] - Jesus Ramirez
I don't know, I may have to pixelate that out. I don't know.

[00:55:17.750] - Lisa Carney
Yeah, it's a money thing. I don't know.

[00:55:22.310] - Jesus Ramirez
It's totally fine. One of the things that I wanted to talk to you about, Lisa, is we're friends on Facebook and I often see you posting pictures of your dogs, Bear. I don't see too many photos of Jack, though. But I do see a lot of photos of Bear. And you live by a lake and they're beautiful photos. I see you taking pictures of your son. And a lot of these photos are more than just here's a picture of the dog, or here's a picture of my boy. There's almost a story behind it. You might not even tell us what the story is, but clearly there's a story behind the photo. Besides it being just a pretty picture. Do you have any specific principles, techniques that mobile photographers should keep in mind to create compelling and visually stunning images?

[00:56:06.300] - Lisa Carney
God, really glad you asked me this question. First of all, I think the key for me is to think about what am I trying to say at this moment? So there's some recent pictures of Bear. We've been snowed in like crazy. So I want to say, oh give you the feeling like we're like, jesus god it is so cold and it keeps snowing. And that's very hard to capture on an iPhone. But with the developing apps, I can enhance the image so you can feel what I feel. And I try to be very conscious. The images I post, I'm getting you to feel what I feel, not what I see. And that's the difference, I think that's the difference between a snapshot is I'm actually trying to tell a story.

[00:56:45.750] - Jesus Ramirez
So talking about storytelling in mobile photography, what types of things should people be thinking about in creating unique and engaging narratives? Not necessarily so much the technical aspect. I think we covered that. But is there anything in specific that you might think about when you're creating your images that somebody could keep in mind when they want to create unique and engaging narratives with their photos?

[00:57:12.240] - Lisa Carney
Yeah, that's a really great question. So the first thing I will say is stop doing this. Stop doing the head height photos. Get low, get down. Get a device where you can change up your angles because the story might not be right here.

[00:57:26.320] - Jesus Ramirez
Right.

[00:57:26.910] - Lisa Carney
And then the other thing, don't be afraid of the dark. Don't be afraid of shooting things in the dark and have just a little bit of light showing. What else could I say? Flares, back lit. Maybe the picture is not here. Maybe the picture is here. Turn around. There's a pretty famous photographer, Gregory Heisler used to do a lot of time magazines and that kind of stuff. He came to Art Center when I was going to school there to give the graduate speak, speech or one of the sessions there. And you know what he used to always do? He said he'd do a shot, big set up, big photo. Before he left, he turned the camera around and took a shot from the other direction. And what I recall him saying is, I cannot even tell you how many times it was that last shot that ended up being the shot.

[00:58:11.860] - Jesus Ramirez
Right.

[00:58:12.370] - Lisa Carney
So it's just a matter of turning your perspective around. And that's what I'd suggest.

[00:58:16.870] - Jesus Ramirez
A really long time ago, I heard someone, and I wish I could credit the person because I thought it was a very good piece of advice. I just can't remember who said it. And I watch a lot of stuff related to photography and all this kind of stuff, and it was a photographer talking about how, in his opinion, he believes that the reason that a photo is telling a good story, at least one of the reasons, is access. And the way that he described it is everybody's taking a picture of the Golden Gate Bridge, right? But he had a picture from a completely different angle that not a lot of people had access to. And I interpret that whole conversation as, yes, we all don't have access to shoot the Golden Gate from the top, right? Like, we can't physically get up there, but if every photo of the Golden Gate is shot from this particular angle, the way I interpret it access is I'm going to access a different area that might not have been shot as much before, whether it's the angle, the perspective, whatever. And I think that really helped me when I take pictures, because if I'm out with friends, this always happens, right?

[00:59:20.310] - Jesus Ramirez
Everybody, let's get together and take a picture. And of course we'll do the selfie or whatever, and that's totally cool, but sometimes I might say something like, oh, wait, let me put the camera here on the table. Or wait. Everybody stay here. I'm going to run behind this tree or something. Just try to get a different access. And a lot of times those photos are much, at the very least, much more intriguing than the selfie with everybody.

[00:59:38.300] - Lisa Carney
In the group, or to have someone stand up on a chair and do some Dave Williams who does Do North, he's got a book he put out, and I'm sure you put it in the show notes, because I don't remember what it's called, but it's all about not taking the same shot of the- the Eiffel Tower syndrome.

[00:59:53.170] - Jesus Ramirez
Interesting.

[00:59:54.190] - Lisa Carney
And it's this whole conversation about do it differently, be different, don't do the same, think differently.

[01:00:00.260] - Jesus Ramirez
Definitely. Now, Lisa, I want to be respectful with your time. I think we're past the hour now. And as I mentioned to you earlier, before we started recording, I like to end the show with a few lightning round questions. These questions can be short, they can have a long answer, they can lead to a conversation, or you can say skip if you don't want to talk about them. So whatever goes. Nothing too scary, nothing too difficult. The first question is tell us a shocking fact about yourself.

[01:00:32.570] - Lisa Carney
I think most people would not know that I'm actually really shy.

[01:00:35.870] - Jesus Ramirez
That I cannot believe. And I've known you for years. Yeah, to be fair, I think that's also I would probably say that about myself. A lot of people assume that I'm super outgoing and always talking to people, and that couldn't be further from the truth. In my normal life. Funny story, you had left Las Vegas, but the day after you left and WPPI, we had an event for speakers and vendors and stuff like that. So it was a smaller, WPPI, private event. And my natural self, like, I wasn't thinking my natural self was I walked up to the bar, got myself a glass of wine, and then I literally walked to the very back of the room and got to the corner of the room as furthest away from everybody, and I was drinking my wine. And then somebody made a comment. They're like, what are you doing? Like, hiding in the corner? And I'm like, oh, my God, I didn't even think about it. It's just like what I did naturally. So I completely understand.

[01:01:31.500] - Lisa Carney
Yeah, that would be me standing next to you, going Augh!

[01:01:34.490] - Jesus Ramirez
What is the most interesting thing you've learned in the last six months? It could be about work, about life, anything you want.

[01:01:41.400] - Lisa Carney
You know, it's so interesting. A lot of stuff that's running through my mind is totally private and I would not share. So I'm like, oh, I learned this. Oh, I learned that.

[01:01:48.200] - Jesus Ramirez
All right, so you have to tell me first.

[01:01:49.420] - Lisa Carney
But no, I do have one thing. Okay, yeah, I will tell you. I learned that I could be alone. I'm living alone for the first time in my life.

[01:01:55.980] - Jesus Ramirez
Wow.

[01:01:56.230] - Lisa Carney
I've always had either roommates, partners, kid, and I'm living alone and I like it.

[01:02:02.650] - Jesus Ramirez
Wow, that's new. Yeah, I've only lived alone for about four no, not even four, maybe three years. And it wasn't that long ago. It was recent. And I stopped living alone last October when I moved in with my fiance, which she'll be at my wedding. Thank you for attending.

[01:02:22.270] - Lisa Carney
Wouldn't miss it, actually.

[01:02:23.840] - Jesus Ramirez
Side story. So Lisa Carney rented an Airbnb. We're going to get married in Kansas City, Missouri. And this house I'm so jealous of, I almost don't want to stay. I want to stay in your house because you're going to have Bert Monroy maybe in that house photoshop Master that you and I both admire, our good friend Mark Heaps, who was in the podcast, episode one, Christina Shirk, portrait photographer. And who am I, oh, Colin Smith from Photoshop Cafe. You guys will be staying in that one house.

[01:02:55.350] - Lisa Carney
So it'll be the Photoshop heavy hitters.

[01:02:57.610] - Jesus Ramirez
Yeah, it'll be the most creative house in that state. So I'm pretty jealous and I knew I was going to say something else and I already forgot. So sorry about that, guys, but we're going to move on to the next question.

[01:03:09.130] - Lisa Carney
You have a stroke. It's all right.

[01:03:10.590] - Jesus Ramirez
Yeah, that's true. I did have a stroke. So my brain is not what it used to be. Why is mobile photography so important to you?

[01:03:18.610] - Lisa Carney
Why it's so important to me is it's a great equalizer, what I love? So I'll tell you a fast story. When I moved home from France. I was bankrupt. I was with my kid. I was 48. Poor doesn't even begin to cover it. Scared and came back to America, my little boy with me. We had to start all over again. And my camera was broken. The DSLR camera I had is the shutter was broken, and I couldn't afford to fix it. And photography is a way I often get into my environment. So moving back to Los Angeles after five years in rural France, I had to reacquaint myself to LA and get there, like, emotionally get there, and how I do that is I shoot. And I was shooting with my little iPhone six or whatever the hell it was back then, and I realized, oh, my God, this is amazing. I don't need a big tool. So anybody everyone's already got these. And I don't care if you have a one, a two, a five, an eight. It doesn't matter. The wind, as I like to say. So that's why it's so important, because everyone could do this.

[01:04:17.010] - Jesus Ramirez
I like that. The great equalizer. That's a very good phrase. I like it.

[01:04:19.830] - Lisa Carney
Yeah.

[01:04:20.690] - Jesus Ramirez
When was the last time you felt proud of yourself?

[01:04:25.510] - Lisa Carney
This winter. I'm very fucking proud of myself. Most people don't know this. There's a wall of ice right there.

[01:04:30.940] - Jesus Ramirez
I'm completely in the house.

[01:04:33.420] - Lisa Carney
Yeah. And it's even worse. Well, it's even worse now. And managing and pivoting. Like, what do I do if there's no power? I'm in an element where I'm not used to it being snowed in. The streets are covered with snow. How am I going to survive and keep working and maintain my sanity? And I'm really proud of how I've managed to pivot to this new environment.

[01:04:56.440] - Jesus Ramirez
Interesting. Okay, good. I'm glad you have recently felt proud of yourself. The next question is, what are some important life lessons you learned because of your career and how have they influenced your personal growth?

[01:05:10.670] - Lisa Carney
That's a really good question. I learned that everyone's scared. Everyone thinks that they're not good enough, that there's impostor syndrome. And that was a big one because I thought it was just me. And if I'm scared or nervous or questioning my skills, then I must suck. And now, especially for a lot of creatives, we work in a vacuum. And I can remember. So you don't know how good you are. You don't know how to compare yourself to other people who are out there, and it's scary.

[01:05:36.210] - Jesus Ramirez
Yes.

[01:05:36.620] - Lisa Carney
I can remember I went on a job, and I was working next to some people, and I'd been in France for five years, so I'd really been removed from people. I was still working, but just removed. And I can remember watching some people do some kind of shitty work and some really bad work habits and some definitely organizational trouble and very bad communication. And I sat there and I was like, hey, I don't suck. And that was really helpful for me to learn that I don't suck.

[01:06:03.150] - Jesus Ramirez
Yeah. No, 100%. And it's weird because I'm a combination of two extremes. I'm a combination of there is nobody better than me ever, and I am the best at everything I do. And the other extreme of I suck. Nobody likes me. This is the last time I'm going to do this. They'll never hire me again. And it's a constant battle between there is no middle, it's either or, and you've seen me in both situations. And it's so funny that and I know I'm self aware enough to know that the reality is somewhere in the middle. Right, of course. But at the time, I either have one or the other feelings. It's never yeah, I can remember the first time.

[01:06:48.850] - Lisa Carney
I think it was the first time I spoke at Comic Con. I think it was Comic Con. Or it might have been Adobe Max, San Diego. It was definitely San Diego. And it was probably the biggest room to date. I had done there might have been 500 to 700 people there. And I mistakenly walked through the back. So I had to walk all the way through the whole crowd and I was like, Holy shit, look at all these people. Total imposter syndrome. Like, I have no business being up here. And then something, some miraculous thing happened, like about 25% into the thing, I was like, oh, wait, I do know what I'm talking about. Yeah, wait a minute. I can be here. And those moments are rare when you get that for me, I'm not like you. I don't ever think I'm the best ever for me. But it's nice to no, i don't mean that derogatorily,

[01:07:37.570] - Jesus Ramirez
No, I know what you mean.

[01:07:39.090] - Lisa Carney
Yeah. And so it's just nice every once in a while to get those moments. Yeah, wait, I do belong.

[01:07:46.190] - Jesus Ramirez
Yeah, and you know what's funny about that? Just going back to so people be clear, I feel like I am the worst at the times where I should feel that I am the best. In other words, if I'm at a conference, I'm like, oh, God, people are going to hate this class. And then a week later, whatever, we get our reviews back and it was like a perfect score or close to it, whatever. The rating system is very close to perfect. And I'm like, oh, so it turns out it was a great class, but in the meantime so you left, WPPI, a couple of weeks or a month ago or whatever it was, the next day I presented or two days later, whatever it was, because the event is several days long. You were there for the first half of the show, and I was there for the second half of the show, and we intersected for a day. But after you left, I did my presentation, and we usually get to go into the room 30 minutes before the show starts or whatever, and I get so, I don't know, nervous? Yes. But this negative emotion of me being there.

[01:08:43.380] - Jesus Ramirez
So I have to leave the room, so I cannot be in the room. So everybody's in the room except for me. And then I think of like, all right, I look so weird staying outside, so I'm just going to walk somewhere. So I'm like, okay, there's a bathroom way the hell over there, so I'm just going to walk. So I started walking, but I had already taken off my badge because I was going to present and you don't present. So they wouldn't allow me back in. And the only reason the person believed that I was there for the event is because I already have my mic and I was hooked up and I was ready to go, and I was like, look, my picture is there. That's my name. I got to get back. So then I come running back and it's time. So I run up and then start talking, and it went great, but I just get in my head, oh, my God, this is so bad. And I see your sessions, I'm like, oh, my God, Lisa did so well. And I'm glad you did. Obviously, I want you to do very well.

[01:09:26.260] - Jesus Ramirez
But then I'm like, oh, my God, mine's not going to be good enough. And so and so did better, and then we get the reviews and now you did really good as well. So it always happens and it's something that I can't control.

[01:09:35.840] - Lisa Carney
Yeah. I think Mark Heaps, it might have been Mark Heaps who said, the day that you start thinking you're not worried about it is the day you should suck. Maybe because for me, it's what keeps us on. We want to do a good job. I agonize the morning of I'm always like, oh, my God, why am I here? I suck. I suck. But it's why we keep doing the best we can, too, because we're trying to do good.

[01:09:58.300] - Jesus Ramirez
You're a successful retoucher educator, successful at a lot of things that you do. What advice would you offer to others about finding a fulfilling and purposeful career?

[01:10:09.070] - Lisa Carney
Yeah, I think the key is it ain't about the money. It really isn't. Because I don't know about you. I do know about you. A ten hour day is nothing. That's pretty standard. You better love it. You better love it. If you don't love it, oh, my God save you. So that's the key thing. And I know that's so cliche, but I think it's true. It's fine what you love. So, for example, I love photography. Right? I love photography. Could not make a living at it. When I was starting that was going to be good enough. I had to pivot. But I pivoted in such a way that I was still in the imaging world and then was able to get back to it. So even though I shifted, I stayed within my realm of something I love, which is movie posters, because I love movie posters.

[01:10:56.590] - Jesus Ramirez
Absolutely. What is the best compliment you ever received?

[01:11:00.610] - Lisa Carney
I've had people say that I've changed their lives, never through a movie poster, but by teaching and given some people help. And that's probably the best compliment I could have.

[01:11:09.260] - Jesus Ramirez
That's a great answer. Have you had an I made it moment?

[01:11:13.270] - Lisa Carney
Yeah. That time I was walking up at Comic Con, walking through that because you know how it is. We geek out, we see our heroes up there, and then suddenly I'm wearing a badge, and I'm standing right next to him.

[01:11:23.310] - Jesus Ramirez
Yeah, you're at the same dinner, Russell.

[01:11:25.150] - Lisa Carney
Like, when I was at Russell Brown's conference for the first time, I feel like Russell Brown got me started in Photoshop. He doesn't know this, of course, because it was all through printing and books and whatnot. And to be standing next to him on stage. Holy crap.

[01:11:39.940] - Jesus Ramirez
Yeah, it's insane. And we were just talking about it. At my wedding, I'm going to have people that I looked up to, including yourself, and even crazier is people that I've looked up to since I was a kid. I used to buy Bert Monroy's books. The very first Amazon purchase I've ever made was a book from Bert Monroy, and he'll be there. And I used to go into Photoshop Cafe with Colin Smith when I was a kid in school, and he'll be there. And then Mark is not only a great friend, but somebody that I also look up to. It's insane that a lot of the people that I look up to are going to be there as my guests and my peers and my friends.

[01:12:25.950] - Lisa Carney
At your wedding, you're at a conference together in your life. I want to tell a little story. When the first time you brought Bert Monroy to my house for an Adobe dinner? I was like, oh, my God, Bert Monroy is in my house, and Bert looks like Stanley. Right. And my son was like, mom, why are you freaking out? Because I was freaking out in the best way. And I'm like, what would you do if Stanley just walked into your house? That's what just happened.

[01:12:51.450] - Jesus Ramirez
Yeah. It's so funny because that day, I remember I texted you, and you were having a party at your house, and it's a large party. I don't know how many people, 50 more people. And I texted you, and I said, hey, is it cool if I bring my friend? But I didn't say who my friend was. And then we were going to your place, and I thought, oh, man, we can't show up empty handed. We got to go get, like, a bottle of wine or something. We were in LA for a conference, so we didn't have cars. So we were getting around with an Uber, and my phone was dying. So my phone died, of course. And I didn't have your, I didn't memorize it. Bert's phone was working, but he didn't know your number, and he didn't know your address.

[01:13:32.080] - Lisa Carney
No.

[01:13:32.370] - Jesus Ramirez
So on his phone, I had to figure out where your house was, and we managed to get there, but we almost didn't get there because my phone died. I didn't remember the address or your number off the top of my head. But I remember walking in, and we're like, hey, Lisa, this is my friend Bret Monroy. And you're like, oh, my God. And I remember you being super excited.

[01:13:50.230] - Lisa Carney
Yeah.

[01:13:50.620] - Jesus Ramirez
That, to me, is the weirdest thing that people that I looked up to are my friends now. Not only my friends, but, like, I feel and you've done this so many times with me. I feel that you've mentioned things or said things or maybe not directly, but you speak to me like a peer, and Bert has done that, and they're not looking down on me, or they're not, oh, one day you'll be at my level. When you get older, you could be like me. It's always been, like, at the same level, which it's crazy. It's crazy to think about.

[01:14:24.210] - Lisa Carney
Yeah. We are peers, and it's a beautiful group. Yeah.

[01:14:27.670] - Jesus Ramirez
But like you were talking about earlier, you don't feel that in your head. You don't know how other people see you. And when you have that realization of other people look up to you or other people consider you a peer. I mentioned this in a podcast, I think, once before, but one of my biggest I made it moments was nobody saw, and it was something very small. Bert Monroy texted me asking me a Photohop question. He's like, hey, do you have a minute? I'm like, yeah, what's up? And he had a Photoshop question say in Photoshop, how do you do this? And I was like, oh, my God. Bert Monroy is asking for my help in Photoshop. That's incredible. Oh, my God. That, to me, was an I made it moment.

[01:14:59.690] - Lisa Carney
It reminds me of probably even a bigger I made it moment was this is before I moved up here in a truckee. But I went into an agency to do some in house work agency called the Refinery. And this guy came up, and he said, oh, Professor Carney. Hi. And he was one of my students at UCLA Extension. Like, I can't even tell you how long ago. And he was the creative director.

[01:15:21.740] - Jesus Ramirez
Wow.

[01:15:22.650] - Lisa Carney
And I'm like, because he took it for me to get in here. And here was a young man, and I was like I was so proud of him and proud of myself that I could facilitate and help someone achieve their dream. 

[01:15:37.380] - Jesus Ramirez
For sure.

[01:15:38.560] - Lisa Carney
And that's what an honor to be able to do.

[01:15:41.160] - Jesus Ramirez
There's nothing better than that feeling. That's incredible.

[01:15:43.510] - Lisa Carney
Yeah.

[01:15:44.430] - Jesus Ramirez
What is something people often get wrong about you, Lisa? What are any misconceptions about Lisa Carney?

[01:15:51.470] - Lisa Carney
That I have it all together. I think people. Think because I'm pretty high up in my industry that I've got this huge machine and I've got it all together and all sorted. Oh, hell to the no. Yeah.

[01:16:03.280] - Jesus Ramirez
I feel like I would answer something similar if somebody were to ask me that question. What would you like to be remembered for? What mark do you want to leave in the world?

[01:16:12.310] - Lisa Carney
I would like to I would hope that when I leave this world, that people will think of me as having been generous. Like, that I lived a generous life. That I wasn't stingy with myself or my skills or my money or anything, but that I was generous. That's what I would hope for.

[01:16:29.690] - Jesus Ramirez
Today's creator was Lisa Carney. Lisa, my friend, thank you so much for being on the show.