Studio Sessions

Send us a message. We start with a night at the movies and end up talking about why some art grabs you and some doesn't. What makes a theater different from a screen at home, why certain films only land years later, and how much of the experience is the room you're in versus the thing you're watching. From there we get into horror and what it does that other genres can't, how a...

Send us a message. We open on what a trip does to you once you're home. Time away, then the return, where the familiar looks sharper and the work feels urgent again. That sets up the thread running through the whole episode: the difference between a trip planned down to the hour and one you make up as you go, and why the unplanned kind tends to leave the stronger memory. No itinerary, no book...

Send us a message. We open with Daniel Arnold's new book You Are What You Do from Loose Joints — the sequencing, the blank pages, the editor's role — and end up on a harder question: what happens when you spend a decade on something and the first question someone asks is "what's next?" We talk through Josh Safdie's account of finishing Uncut Gems and why that question...

Send us a message. Matt picks up a Cartier-Bresson book at the used bookstore and we read two passages from it — one on prowling the streets, one on primitivism and the hobbyist trap. The quotes pull us into a longer conversation about what it means to make work outside commercial pressure, and whether the thrill of hunting for things to sell has become a structural parallel to street photography:...

Send us a message. We open with a letter — Rilke's first letter to a young poet, written in 1903 — and the question at the center of it: must I write? Not do I want to, not is it going well, but must I. We talk about what it means to look outward for reassurance while making something, how that search for validation reshapes work before it's even finished, and what happens when you'...

Send us a message. We open with a 93-year-old woman who ran an oil pump valve repair business and a boutique until she was nearly 100, and what her life says about the post-WWII metrics we've organized our sense of security around — the 401k, the house, the college fund, the car in the driveway. We dig into EM Forster's observation that the novel is sogged with humanity, and what happens...

Send us a message. We spend a lot of time thinking about what we make, and not enough thinking about what we take in. What we listen to, what we read, what we let interrupt us, what we hand our attention to without really deciding to — all of it shapes the output, whether we're conscious of it or not. This episode starts there. From that we get into the systems designed to keep you feeding th...

Send us a message. This week we got into something we'd been circling for a while: what happens to the work when the work and the content share the same camera, the same hours, the same brain. We used the image of food coloring dropped into water — once it's in, you can't pull it back out — and followed that wherever it went. Which turned out to be pretty far: the scarcity feeling t...

Send us a message. We started this one talking about whether building a content ecosystem around photography risks turning the work into content, and how the pressure to produce on a content timeline can collapse the space that photographs actually need. When you're operating from scarcity, you grab the recognizable brand for cheap instead of holding out for the thing that represents what you...

Send us a message. More of a fun for us one here. What started as a pretty standard phone call turned into one of the most unexpected camera days we've had. Matt found a Leica M11 and Q2 listed on Facebook Marketplace by a woman selling her dad's collection to cover nursing care costs — and after some back-and-forth, both cameras came home with us. We talk through the full story, the leg...

Send us a message. We catch up on the gallery space that didn't come together — not because of conflict, but because the arrangement shifted enough that the original vision no longer fit. What stings isn't the logistics, it's the built-in community that came with that particular spot, and the version of things we'd already started imagining. From there the conversation turns in...

Send us a message. WE STILL HAVE NO NAME... We spend most of this episode wrestling with what to name our new gallery space. The conversation moves through dozens of possibilities—from "Synchronicity" to "Room" to "Keyframe"—trying to find something that isn't pretentious, that wears well over time, and that captures the intersection between a photography gallery...

Send us a message. We talk through the unexpected opportunity to create a photography exhibition space in Omaha's Old Market. The conversation covers how a casual connection through vintage reselling led to subletting a space for three months—low financial risk, no formal contracts, just the chance to experiment. We discuss rejecting the traditional gallery model entirely: no price tags, no s...

Send us a message. We sit down for our annual year-end conversation, reflecting on 2025 and mapping out intentions for 2026. The discussion moves between practical revenue planning and deeper questions about identity, authenticity, and what it means to build a creative life without losing yourself in the process. We explore the tension between chasing grandiose visions of success and learning to b...

Send us a message. We stumble into uncomfortable territory when Matt shares a YouTube channel that initially captivated him—a series of video essays about art and commerce, aesthetically compelling and philosophically engaged. But when Alex identifies the footage as a filmmaker's documentary work, used without direct credit, we're forced to examine our own assumptions about appropriation...

Send us a message. We explore the vintage clothing and collectibles scene in Omaha, examining the intersection of genuine appreciation, social signaling, and dopamine-driven consumerism. The conversation ranges from Matt's solo trip to a vintage event at A Priori (complete with Polaroid gift-giving) to broader questions about why we acquire things—whether it's a 1940s bomber jacket, rare...

Send us a message. We spend most of this episode exploring James Carse's "Finite and Infinite Games," working through the distinction between societies that defend boundaries and cultures that exist on horizons. Alex reads passages from the book about how patriotism requires enemies to function, why authentic movements like the Renaissance don't oppose anyone, and how any finit...

Send us a message. On one side, there’s the protected solitude every creator needs: the quiet pass where you can be wrong in private, find the frame, and follow intuition without a chorus in your ear. On the other side, there’s the charge you only get in a room full of capable people. Being back on a large production rekindled that feeling—clear roles, shared language, and the thrill of adding a s...

Send us a message. We establish guardrails for the podcast after recognizing we've been on autopilot for months, using this as a state of the union where we commit to actual accountability instead of vague intentions. Matthew discusses diversifying revenue streams to reduce dependence on sponsorships that feel like selling rather than curating, while trying to build financial stability that a...

Send us a message. We explore the tension between private creative work and public output—why some projects stay hidden in desk drawers, what gets lost when we don't capture ideas in the moment, and how the act of recording thoughts (whether on paper, voice memo, or typewriter) shapes what eventually gets made. The conversation moves through the craft of writing, from Dostoevsky dictating nov...

Send us a message. We examine the tension between artistic evolution and audience expectations, using examples from Mac Miller to Paul Thomas Anderson to explore what happens when creators follow their interests rather than trying to replicate past successes. The conversation moves through Matthew's strategy of operating multiple YouTube channels as both creative experimentation and financial...

Send us a message. We explore the philosophy behind building personal websites and using intentionally limited computing as creative practice. The conversation examines why modern computers feel "too dangerous"—offering infinite possibilities that paradoxically constrain focus—and how deliberately choosing simpler tools can restore agency over our attention and creative output. Through d...

Send us a message. We examine how digital culture's promise of frictionless perfection has created unrealistic expectations that we unconsciously apply to relationships, creativity, and life itself. The conversation explores the psychological residue of living in an attention economy—how algorithmic thinking shapes our behavior even when we consciously reject it, and why we find ourselves rea...

Send us a message. We look at  David Foster Wallace's "This is Water" commencement speech, examining its central themes of awareness, ego death, and the daily struggle against our "default settings." What starts as a discussion of the speech evolves into a broader exploration of how we navigate modern life—from the challenge of maintaining consciousness in consumer culture...

Send us a message. Part two of two.  We explored the cultural tension between our fascination with the past and uncertainty about the future, using the metaphor of returning to an earlier video game save point when the current level feels impossible to beat. The conversation examined how platforms like YouTube are becoming flooded with AI-generated content, creating what we called a "cobra ef...