Fantasy Fine Art Photographer Cheryl Walsh

Cheryl Walsh

Brett Stanley: [00:00:00] Welcome back to the underwater podcast. This week, I’m talking to California based underwater portrait photographers, Cheryl Walsh. Cheryl’s fantasy work is a beautiful mix of traditional and surreal taking inspiration from the old world painters and combining it with photo realism of today’s technology.

She’s also a bit of a print guru learning, or she can about getting that digital photo out into the real world with large format printers and teaching others about the joy of inkjet printing. All right. Let’s dive in.  cheryl. Welcome to the podcast.

Cheryl Walsh: [00:00:34] Hey, thank you for having me.

Brett Stanley: [00:00:36] How’s it going there? You’re in California, in orange County. How are you doing with the whole isolation and quarantine? Anything?

Cheryl Walsh: [00:00:43] Well, you know, things have been better, but they certainly could be a whole lot worse. Um, I feel very fortunate to have a family and a home and, You know, have a place to be safe and have work to be doing in the meantime. So, just, you know, trying to do whatever I can on my, our part to stay home and be safe.

Brett Stanley: [00:01:03] Yeah. And, and are you finding. That your, like, has your routine changed a lot? I mean, you probably like a lot of us photographers work from home.

Cheryl Walsh: [00:01:11] yes.

Brett Stanley: [00:01:12] as there things that have kind of impacted that kind of work style with this whole quarantine.

Cheryl Walsh: [00:01:17] Um, you know, ironically, ironically as a introvert, I, um, this is kind of my life. I stay home a lot. I work from home a lot. I’m on my computer a lot. the nice thing is that my daughters have been available to spend time with me. They’re getting ready to graduate college.

In one month. So they’re taking classes from home in between classes.

We are, um, we’re hanging out, catching up on Netflix stuff. I never get to do

Brett Stanley: [00:01:45] Yeah, that’s it. I think we’ve got a lot of, a lot of time to kind of work on, you know, reading the internet and getting through the Netflix library. I saw a, a meme recently, which was, um, introverts check on your extrovert friends. They might not be coping so well.

Cheryl Walsh: [00:01:59] Yeah. Yeah, totally true. Yes. Very true.

Brett Stanley: [00:02:04] uh, are you still working? Um, and I’m assuming you’ve got kind of a catalog or a backlog of images that you are kind of working through, um, being a fine art photographer. You’ve probably got stuff that you’ve have you haven’t even kind of looked at yet,

or you kind of working through stuff or you have, you got an up to date.

Cheryl Walsh: [00:02:21] I mean, if you want to call some like a couple hundred thousand. Yeah. Yeah. I’ve got terabytes and terabytes and terabytes worth of, of shoots that, you know, maybe I, I edited one or two pictures from, so I’m going through kind of with a different mindset. I’ve been very focused on print competition for so many years.

That I often always just think about the rules, when I’m picking the images to edit. And so now I’m kind of giving myself permission to, Hey, maybe we don’t need to think about the rules so much.

Brett Stanley: [00:02:56] so what are those rules? What are the things you’re kind of, you’re kind of trained to keep in mind because of all these competitions

Cheryl Walsh: [00:03:03] um, the, the print competition that I’m in mostly involved in is a WPPI and that’s portrait photography. so the worlds of portraiture, just, you know, posing, uh, is the biggest thing hands. And in my case, feat, faces, uh, lines of the body, uh, lighting, all of that plays into the rules of portraiture.

And, you know, that’s kind of the whole point of print competition is to follow the rules and follow them to the letter of the rule. And yet still make something magical. You can make something really magical without following any rules. That’s easy. Try following all the rules and then make it really special and, and stand out, something that catches people’s attention or takes their breath away.

That’s really hard. So that is the, that is the point of print competition. It’s, um, it’s a way of trying to make us better photographers and I think it’s wonderful.

Brett Stanley: [00:04:08] I think that’s a great point. And I, and just from my own experience as a, you know, sort of being a photographer that I think a lot of us who haven’t done competitions before, think it’s just a case of picking your best image and, and submitting it and hoping that they like it and see what you see. But I think what you’re saying is that a lot of these print competitions have.

Kind of standards and kind of rules and levels and guidelines that they’re looking for to say, what is, you know, air quotes, a good image.

Cheryl Walsh: [00:04:37] Right, right. It’s not a popularity contest. It’s certainly not a, a, what image would sell? Well, that’s not the point at all. So, um, what I decided to do from the beginning was to pick one organization, one competition, and focus on that. Um, my goal is not to win a whole bunch of awards and have much of trophies.

And some people do that and that’s kinda their, their hobby and that’s fine. Um, but my goal was, is just very simple and that’s to get better. To be a better photographer. And how am I going to do that? You know, I can tell you, my mom thinks I’m a good photographer and my clients love the images I create for them, but that doesn’t help me get better.

So to get, um, to have very strict rules and a very narrow parameter, uh, to create images in. That’s um, that’s been great for me. Really good. And then, um, to stick with one organization, so I know the rules, I know the parameters and I know every year how to get better.

Brett Stanley: [00:05:45] Yeah. And it’s  that you’ve learnt their language of, of what they’re looking for. It’s, it’s,

Cheryl Walsh: [00:05:50] Yeah, yeah,

Brett Stanley: [00:05:52] and, and every competition has a different kind of language, right? Like they’re all a little bit different in terms of what they’re looking for.

Cheryl Walsh: [00:05:58] Oh, yeah. And I wanted something that was of the highest caliber as far as, um, you know, following the rules and yet, thinking outside of the box and it’s, it’s international. It’s truly international. It’s not, Oh, there’s a few people from overseas who turn in, you know, entries. No, it’s truly international.

a very high percentage of the judges are from countries outside of the United States. And so you get this wide ranging, opinion base, um, people, their experiences, their specialties. It’s really an amazing, Opportunity to, to get feedback from so many different people.

Brett Stanley: [00:06:42] you have to be there obviously at the WPO conference in Vegas too, to hear them sort of give the feedback, but they do the judging over, whereas like three or four days.

Cheryl Walsh: [00:06:52] Uh, it’s two full days, two very full, very long days. And I’ve been going for probably 15 years now, um, and sitting in the audience and just going from room to room cause there’s different categories in different rooms and listening to the judges, judge images and seeing images. I never would have had the opportunity to see.

I mean, the, the images that are entered aren’t anything that you’re just gonna find on social media. so to have the opportunity to, to see such a wide variety, thousands of images from around the world And to hear critiques from all these different judges in each room has seven, seven different judges, five are on at each time and they argue with each other and go back and forth and give different opinions.

And, and now I’m a print judge myself, and it’s really, truly an amazing experience.

Brett Stanley: [00:07:49] totally. And I think it’s, it’s that sort of thing where you’re hearing feedback, like you say on images that you would never have normally kind of gotten to see, but also you would never have gotten to hear the feedback or the criticism or the constructive kind of feedback on these images without having been at this, print judging.

Cheryl Walsh: [00:08:05] Yeah. And you don’t realize how narrow your own personal point of view is until you hear what other people have to say. And oftentimes the judges will have completely different opinions. and then it’s up to us to convince the others on the panel, to sort of see it the way we do.

Brett Stanley: [00:08:25] yeah. I mean, you’ve been doing it 15 years, so you’ve kind of gotten used to it. Maybe built up a bit of a thicker skin because of the

Cheryl Walsh: [00:08:31] yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. The first I didn’t enter right away. I mean, I sat in for years. Before, I even dreamed of entering. And when I did finally enter, I mean, I just wanted to stand up and scream at the judges. Hey, don’t, you know how hard it is to get a picture underwater. Uh, but that’s, that’s not the point I chose to take it underwater.

That was my choice. I chose to take on that challenge. So I’d better be up to the challenge and having them tell me, Oh, this is so pretty well, that doesn’t make me better. So the criticism I got was always very productive and, You know, to, to go back and to look at my work and say, Oh, you know what?

They’re right. or every once in a while it’s like, yeah. You know, I don’t agree with that. I don’t agree with that. And that’s fine too. But, um, but you know, it’s just hearing it.

Brett Stanley: [00:09:28] And you do have to kind of pick and choose the feedback that you, that you take on board, right? Like, I mean,

Cheryl Walsh: [00:09:32] Oh, absolutely.

Brett Stanley: [00:09:33] Otherwise you tie yourself up in knots.

Cheryl Walsh: [00:09:35] Yeah, absolutely. Um, you know, being on a panel of judges, there’s judges, I agree with and there’s judges I disagree with and we each come at it from a different perspective and that’s sort of the, the point of having so many different people from around the world.

Um, I mean, I’ve gotten advice on images. I’ve gotten criticism on images where the criticism, you know, was opposing issue. That was very deliberate. It was, you know, kind of the point of the image was that particular pose. That was a part of the entire story. Um, and that one person just didn’t get it and not everybody gets your, your image.

She gets your story. Um, and that’s okay. You know, that’s all right.

Brett Stanley: [00:10:21] Yeah. Do you think that you, you changed your work to kind of stop thinking it, you know, with a, with an image, especially when we’re shooting underwater there isn’t a kind of implied, this was hard or this is underwater, so, you know, kind of almost treat me special.

Cheryl Walsh: [00:10:39] Um, I S I thought that way at the beginning and over the years, I’ve learned absolutely not. If you’re going to take on a challenge like that, you’d better nail it. There’s no excuse for not nailing it. Your image may be lovely and sellable, but it’s not print competition material, so don’t enter it in print competition, expecting anything other than, um, feedback on how to do better if you know the rules and you know, it’s not perfect.

Brett Stanley: [00:11:11] we just portrait photography in this context is, is all the same. It’s just, you’ve chosen a harder way to do it, which doesn’t make you any, give you any exceptions or anything.

Cheryl Walsh: [00:11:21] Oh, you don’t get brownie points for T you know, picking a, an environment that’s harder to work with. That’s for sure. That’s not what it’s about. It’s you picked this environment. You need to be exceptional within the environment you chose.

Brett Stanley: [00:11:35] so why did you choose this environment?

Cheryl Walsh: [00:11:37] I started doing underwater photography was probably been close to 15 years ago. I mean, you know, why, you know what it’s like to sit on the bottom of a swimming pool and watch the world move in slow motion. And all the colors are so vibrant and it’s quiet and isolated. It’s just you and that one person that you’re photographing.

And, uh, it’s just such a, a beautiful. Surreal relaxing, magical world. So that’s why I do it. It’s not to get underwater pictures. It’s to be an environment that I appreciate being in.

Brett Stanley: [00:12:20] did you have a, like, did you have a background of loving the water before you

Cheryl Walsh: [00:12:24] No, no, no, I did not. In fact, I’m, you know, I was dreadfully sort of afraid of the water or afraid of drowning and it took me quite some time to get really comfortable, in that environment. But then once I did, it’s like, okay, there’s nowhere else. I’d rather be.

Brett Stanley: [00:12:43] so, so what was the impetus? You know, you’re a photographer before you shot it started shooting underwater.

Cheryl Walsh: [00:12:48] Yeah. Yeah. I had a, um,

Brett Stanley: [00:12:50] into the water?

Cheryl Walsh: [00:12:51] I had a high school, senior portrait photography, uh, business that, um, I’ve had for years has been very successful, but that was sort of half of the year and the other half of the year, it’s like, well, what do I do now? my high school senior work was completely a hundred percent.

About the seniors, um, whose photos I was taking. So I didn’t interject my own creativity in there. It was all about them. Um, so I needed a creative outlet and. Um, I did a shoot sort of as an experiment. I got a little Canon G nine point and shoots a digital camera back in the day. And, uh, and they offered an underwater housing for it.

So I bought that and did one shoot and that’s kind of all it took, you know, the very first shoot like, Oh no, this is going to be a problem.

Brett Stanley: [00:13:49] So, what was that first shoot? what was your test  subject?

Cheryl Walsh: [00:13:52] Um, it was a high school, senior girl in a prom dress I had seen. Um, and this is really terrible, but I had seen a, a guy who was a high school, senior photography educator, and he had done a video. And was showing off that, you know, he did an underwater shoot and he had this girl in the pool and he got this, you know, young teenage girl in a bikini and he kind of had this like me.

I’m so cool kind of thing. And it’s like, you, dude, you totally missed out on an amazing opportunity. she should have been in a prom dress. You should have taken advantage of her being in the water, in that environment instead of being a creep. So it’s like, okay, you know, if he’s going to do it, then I’m going to do it better.

So that was sort of my, um, okay, I’m going to do it better. And I’m going to pay respect to this girl in this prom dress and, and, yeah, that was the start.

Brett Stanley: [00:14:53] And how did you find that process? Were you, were you nervous going in like having a model under the water or was there

Cheryl Walsh: [00:15:01] Mmm.

Brett Stanley: [00:15:01] were they nervous?

Cheryl Walsh: [00:15:03] I was, you know, I’m in my own swimming pool. So it’s a very controlled environment. Very comfortable. Of course I had no idea what I was doing. Um, the video I saw of him working behind the scenes, he had no idea what he was doing. So there was no control of light. There was no control of buoyancy. It was just, Oh yeah, you just get a camera and you jump in the water and he takes some pictures and it’s so cool.

Well, you know, immediately it was like, okay, this is a lot harder than I think it is. and I’m gonna figure this out and it took me a while. I’m a slow learner. So it took me awhile to figure out the science of it.

Brett Stanley: [00:15:39] Right. Do you look back on those first images and think, yeah, these are good. Like, I like

Cheryl Walsh: [00:15:43] no, no, I mean, they were, they were something and the clients were really happy with them, but what I’m the work I’m doing now of course is completely different.

Brett Stanley: [00:15:53] Yeah. Did you have any lighting at all in that point or was it

Cheryl Walsh: [00:15:56] Oh, no, no, no, no. It was sunlight. Non modify. Yeah. Yeah.

Brett Stanley: [00:16:02] So how, did you go from there to kind of taking it to the next level? How did you, how did you progress? How did you kind of get better at it to the point where you were like, yeah, I’m going to invest some money in this.

Cheryl Walsh: [00:16:14] a little bit of, it was print competition. Once I got some images that were like, Hey, these are pretty good and entered them in print competition. Um, the critiques were about the, the lighting and, um, it’s like, Oh, okay. You know, I can work on that. That’s something I can, I didn’t really think about as much as I should have.

So I’m hearing the critiques year after year as I would. You know, improve on the lighting. Okay. Well the posing, okay, well now the color balance and all of that, um, over time. yeah, it was, yeah, it was, I think for me, the biggest thing was once I accepted that, you know, obviously photography is an art and a science.

But once I accepted that underwater photography as an art, a science and a science, and the science of working in a liquid environment had to be acknowledged and dealt with.

Brett Stanley: [00:17:08] Yeah.

Cheryl Walsh: [00:17:09] And once I did that, then it’s like, okay, now I get it.

Brett Stanley: [00:17:13] So once you kind of got that out of their way and kind of got that into your brain, then you could go back to being a, an artist, a photographer,

Cheryl Walsh: [00:17:19] Yeah. And then, um, For me, it’s best to work in my own studio. My own pool have complete control over my environment. And I’m at the point now where, you know, having done hundreds of shoots, is just, uh, you know, really it’s, it’s a scientific equation. What is the time of year? What is the time of day?

What’s the angle of the sun? How bright is the sun? Um, what’s the temperature of the air? What’s the temperature of the water, which the temperature of the ground. What kind of fabric are we working with? What’s the skin tone of the person I’m working with. Um, what’s their abilities, as far as their con controlling their buoyancy, what’s their natural points, you know, and it goes on and on and on.

Brett Stanley: [00:18:05] And is that a list of things that you will kind of mentally check off before you do every shoot?

Cheryl Walsh: [00:18:10] Yes. Yeah. So once I put all those variables into the equation, then I go in knowing exactly what my settings are on my camera and, uh, what my lights are going to be at. I know

Brett Stanley: [00:18:24] Yeah. How controlled is your, is your lighting setup now? I mean, you started with, with natural light. What was your next kind of progression? Did you start screaming the pool to using

Cheryl Walsh: [00:18:34] Yeah, yeah. Using the fusion, um, to, to modify the light, um, changing the position that we were in, in the pool to change how the light was affecting, you know, affecting my models and, and then working with, video lights, I never liked flash. I worked with flash once since like, Nope, I’m out. This is not for me.

This is not the look that I’m looking for. So,

Brett Stanley: [00:19:02] it was too harsh or

Cheryl Walsh: [00:19:03] yeah, I was too, it was too harsh. The look I’m going for is very flowy, very soft. yeah, it’s not a harsh light at all. Right, right. but then, you know, I needed extra light to fill in the face or hair light. So then I started working with video lights, constant lights.

Brett Stanley: [00:19:22] Right, which were waterproof or not.

Cheryl Walsh: [00:19:24] No, I tried a few different waterproof lights or flashlights. And none of that was enough because my preference, as far as working is, you know, noon when the sun is up high and as bright as possible. So, um, No. So I finally, um, found some, some video lights that worked really well.

Brett Stanley: [00:19:46] Yeah. And are you using those video lights in, um,

Cheryl Walsh: [00:19:50] Underwater, housings.

Brett Stanley: [00:19:53] so they’re okay. So they’re in housings.

Cheryl Walsh: [00:19:54] Yeah. They’re in housing.

Brett Stanley: [00:19:56] and are they all underwater or do you have some above the water?

Cheryl Walsh: [00:19:59] occasionally I work with them above the water. It sorta depends on the look I’m going for, if you think about studio portrait photography, you change the lighting dependent on the look that you’re going for. And so that’s what I do sometimes they’re above the water right above the surface. oftentimes now they’re in the water

Brett Stanley: [00:20:18] Right in the, in those housings.

Cheryl Walsh: [00:20:20] the housings.

Yeah. I even had custom custom housings made for them, so they’re completely, completely safe. Yeah.

Brett Stanley: [00:20:28] And I’m assuming they’re battery powered lights anyway.

Cheryl Walsh: [00:20:32] Yeah.

Brett Stanley: [00:20:33] Um, and are you using them in conjunction with the light you’re getting from the sun? So the sun is your fill diffused through whatever you’re putting over the pool.

Cheryl Walsh: [00:20:42] yes. Yeah. So it’s coming in from above diffused and then it’s coming in from behind me as more of a, sort of a, well. If I’m working with no light, then that’s my main light. If I, if I’m working with some light, then that’s just a different direction of filled light

Brett Stanley: [00:20:59] Is there a time when you’re not using your, your video lights at all? Are you

Cheryl Walsh: [00:21:03] yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. Oh definitely. It just depends on, you know, how many people am I working with? How controlled is the outfit that they’re. Wearing. And what kind of look do I want, do I want the emphasis to be on the face or on the outfit or on the hair?

Brett Stanley: [00:21:19] Yeah. And what I love about your work is that it is the lighting is so soft and it’s, so it doesn’t seem to be, I don’t know, that’s not obviously directional. you know, everything is evenly lit, but there’s still a drama in there. you know, it’s, it’s very across the board. So it’s interesting to hear that that sometimes you’re not even using the, uh, the artificial light

Cheryl Walsh: [00:21:39] Right. Right. And then it comes to posing making sure their chin is slightly up. Um, I love the way the light natural light accents. The face when the chin is lifted just slightly. It’s just a, you know, a beautiful look. and I’m, I’m all about printing. I print all of my work and with printing, I’m really interested in, um, in shadow detail.

So it, the lighting has to be right on to get any kind of shadow detail underwater.

Brett Stanley: [00:22:08] Yeah. And so, I mean, you’ve become over probably the last couple of years, quite a printing advocate. Especially cause it’s, I think, you know, people kind of don’t do it that much anymore because

Cheryl Walsh: [00:22:19] right.

Brett Stanley: [00:22:20] online. did your process change of how you shoot

Cheryl Walsh: [00:22:24] Yes. Yes, absolutely. you know, I talked about print competition, making you a better photographer, printing your own work will make you a better photographer. when we’re looking at a screen, it’s a low resolution device and a print is a high risk resolution. you see things in your print that you never see on a screen.

Even blowing things up, you really don’t see them on a screen like you do in a print. So, um, yeah, printing is, is really an art and a science, in and of itself, it’s, it’s different than photography. And, I learned I’ve been really searching to find a way to print or find someone to teach me how to print.

Since I started going to print competition. Um, so for all these years, um, I would go to print competition and see these beautiful, amazing prints and just stand there and stare at them. It’s like, how did they do that? How did they create something that’s so perfect and metaphorical at the same time. Well, unless you see them in person, I don’t think you can possibly understand the level of artistry that goes into the print.

Brett Stanley: [00:23:39] cause the print kind of brings it to life. Doesn’t it?

Cheryl Walsh: [00:23:42] it does, it really does. And when you print your own work and you have that, you know, heavy weight, fine art paper, and you hold it in your hands and you feel the weight of it and you see every little detail.

And in your entire vision become a, a physical thing. I mean, there’s just no understating how powerful and emotional that is.

Brett Stanley: [00:24:07] Absolutely. And a bit of a turning point in my kind of life was going to your gallery exhibition last year, where you had these huge prints of your work, which I love your work to start with. But then to see these prints, you know what I like, you know, three foot tall

Cheryl Walsh: [00:24:24] 40 by 60. Yeah. 40 by 60.

Brett Stanley: [00:24:28] Yeah. Um, and seeing them and, you know, I’ve never been, I kind of, yeah. Printed image. Yeah. You know, sometimes I look at it and go, Oh yeah, that’s pretty cool. Um, and usually it’s just the way it’s lit, but looking at your prints with no glass in front of them and just, you know, a real decision based process on the paper that was used, just blew me away. they were. Like painted portraits.

Cheryl Walsh: [00:24:55] Um, yeah, my, my objective with my work always was to create something, huge, large like that. And, have it be something people could walk up to really close. Look at and, um, just relax for a few minutes and not be sure, you know, is this a painting? Is this a photograph? What is it? But just enjoy it. And I, you can’t do that with a digital image.

It’s not the same. It’s not.

Brett Stanley: [00:25:22] No.

Cheryl Walsh: [00:25:23] I’m glad you enjoyed that part. Part of my objective with that, or a big part of my objective with that gallery show, was it for it to be educational. I printed on eight different kinds of paper. I had almost 80, over 80 large prints framed all of them framed.

So it was a big undertaking. I printed it all myself, mounted it all myself, um, picked out every frame. So it was, it was a huge undertaking, but I wanted to show people. what a photograph could look like when printed perfectly.

Brett Stanley: [00:25:54] W was there a point when you were printing those, you know, 80 arts of a works of art that you print one and then look at it and go, Oh, crap. I need to fix up that mosque. Or

was there, you know, when you kind of editing as you went.

Cheryl Walsh: [00:26:06] Yeah, because, the show was a retrospective of my work, going back to, you know, going back probably 10 years, at least 10 years. And, uh, so there was work that I did 10 years ago. That looks great on a screen. And then you print it. It’s like, Oh my goodness. Oh my, I didn’t notice that. Um, for me, the biggest thing was though, three years ago, four years ago, I had entered an image and print competition.

That was a composite. And, I didn’t print it myself. Someone else printed it for me. It was before I really got into printing and it didn’t do well. And I wasn’t in the room when it was judged. So I missed on hearing the feedback, but it didn’t do well. And was so disappointed that I just put the image away and never looked at it again.

Well for the show, I took it out and I looked at an onscreen, looked fine, decided, you know what, I’m gonna, I’m gonna blow it up. I like this image. So I printed it 40 by 60 and sure enough, on the bottom right hand corner, there’s this big old masking error. It didn’t do well in print competition because it had a huge error in it and it couldn’t, they couldn’t give it a good score because of that.

I never would have seen, never would have seen it. but I want to print. It’s like, Oh my goodness, this is huge. This is, you know, very noticeable.

Brett Stanley: [00:27:29] Yeah. So it’s kind of a Watson all kind of thing where you’re, you’re seeing everything.

Cheryl Walsh: [00:27:34] everything. Yeah. You see every little, little thing. Yeah.

Brett Stanley: [00:27:38] is there a difference between printing process, you know, kind of the technique of printing underwater photos as opposed to dry land photos?

Cheryl Walsh: [00:27:46] Ah, no, no printing is printing. Printing is printing it’s it’s getting ink on paper. It’s getting your vision on paper. yeah, it’s, it’s really a scientific technological process. Um, there’s an artistic component in that you create the image, you create this work of art, but then, um, and you pick the paper that you wanted on.

And we think jet printing, there’s over 200 different kinds of paper to choose from. So we have a wider variety of substrate to print on than any other kind of printing available. Which can be very confusing, but, um, Yeah. Once you get past that, then it’s all zeros and ones. It’s all a science, there’s nothing, um, creative about the printing process as far as getting a perfect print out of your printer.

Brett Stanley: [00:28:38] It’s more of a fact-based. There’s no kind of emotion involved. It’s it’s

Cheryl Walsh: [00:28:41] It is. Yeah. And, and I’m finding, you know, a big part of my focus has gone to, um, To educating photographers on how to print their own, uh, their own work. And I’m finding that a big barrier, huge barrier is that as photographers, our mindset and our mindset is that I have this piece of technology I camera.

And if I use it in a creative way, I’ll make something magical. So if I have a piece of technology, that’s a printer. If I use it in a creative way, I’ll make something magical. And, and realistically, neither of the statements are true. Um, I’ll give you the camera part of it. No matter how creative we are with our cameras, we’re still using them the way they’re intended to be used.

We’re just using them according to our own, you know what it is that we want to get out of it with a printer. There’s none of that. None zero. You need to, um, know this, the steps and the science behind the printing, follow the steps. You’ll get a perfect print

and that’s hard to accept it is. And, and people fight back against it.

I think not even realizing they’re doing that. because the end result, the print is so magical. It’s like, how can be, how can it be such a cold scientific process? You know what it is, it just is just accept it, make a beautiful print. It’s your work really? Think about the work. It’s the work that goes into it.

Brett Stanley: [00:30:15] Yeah. So how did you get into printing yourself? So, um, I know you said you were know we wanted to get education on it. Was there. did he go and do a course? Did you just kind of research online?

Cheryl Walsh: [00:30:27] So for 12 years, I searched for someone to teach me how to print and I searched the globe. Um, I, you know, invested a lot of time, a lot of money. I took courses in person. I took courses online. I’ve listened to a million hours of YouTube videos. And I will tell you the one consistent thing with printing education is not only the lack of consistency, but the lack of, um, the lack of, of really good solid information.

Brett Stanley: [00:31:02] Like a technical understanding of, of, of physically what happens in there.

Cheryl Walsh: [00:31:06] There is so much information out there and it seems to be almost, um, the more something is wrong. The more someone says it with great conviction and assurance like, yes, this is the way it is. And it’s like, no, but you’re wrong. You really, really, really wrong. and at this point I’ve only found.

You know, one, one person, one teacher who was able to teach me how to print in a way that is, um, fact base and repeatable

it’s and, and provable it’s like, okay, here’s the facts. It’s science. You can do this as an experiment over and over and over again and get the same results. And, um, and you can prove the different, um, the different sort of theories you can prove them.

And if it’s provable, I’m all about that.

Brett Stanley: [00:32:04] Right, exactly.

Cheryl Walsh: [00:32:05] I love science. Love me some science. Yeah.

Yeah. So four years ago, it’s like, I kind of fell into this world of, okay, now I know how to do this. Um, now I know that there’s answers and, um, I need to share this with my photographic community. I need to learn everything I can live and breathe this, and then get this information out there.

Uh, when I was searching for this information and looking for it, I’ll tell you, I, ed is not a very friendly, welcoming, easy part of photography at all. Um, Yeah, the printing world can be brutal, really brutal. It’s hard. Um, I have not particularly felt welcome. I have absolutely not been welcome, on a regular basis and I’ve just stuck with it and

Brett Stanley: [00:32:59] you’re a conceal new to the community or

Cheryl Walsh: [00:33:02] I’m new to the community.

I, I never did any significant amount of work in the dark room. I’m very enthusiastic about this and sharing it with my community of photographers, photographers, and not everybody wants that. it’s, it’s really strange people in this part of the industry.

Brett Stanley: [00:33:25] Is it like a bit of a club? Is that like where they’re, you know, they’re in the club they’ve been in there for, for years and decades probably.

Cheryl Walsh: [00:33:31] um,

Brett Stanley: [00:33:32] want to kind of keep it as small club.

Cheryl Walsh: [00:33:33] Ironically, I don’t even think it’s that. It’s very individualized. Um, it’s not a club like here, we’re over here. It’s, I’m, it’s all about me. It’s all about what I want or what I believe in. Um, so there really isn’t that teamwork kind of feel to it. Yeah, it’s definitely about individuals and individual egos.

Absolutely. And, um, you know, particularly, I’m one of the very few females I know in that world. and you know, we’re not always very welcome. you know, my favorite, I think the thing that got me motivated more than anything was having a guy say to me, Oh, honey, Don’t worry your little head about this, you know, link printing to the big boys.

You can’t, you can’t possibly do this. And it’s like, okay. Challenge accepted, challenge accepted. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, and then learning everything there is to learn there. Like I said, I found one person. Who seems to know everything. And then I found another person who, who’s also extremely knowledgeable, but comes, uh, uh, about this from a different direction.

comes about this from the direction of, um, Photoshop, where is I’m finding my preference is to, to approach it from the final print. So it’s not really about yes. Yeah. From,

Brett Stanley: [00:35:01] to the post production side.

Cheryl Walsh: [00:35:03] Right. It’s you know, you shouldn’t necessarily have to do a lot of work if much, if any, work on your image to get it printed.

Right. so approaching it from the Photoshop end is just not where, where my interest is.

Brett Stanley: [00:35:18] right. But they did the two piles that are successful.

Cheryl Walsh: [00:35:23] Yes, absolutely. Yes. It’s just a different process. That’s all.

Brett Stanley: [00:35:27] And so if someone wants to get into printing their own work and they don’t want to spend a lot of money, uh, I I’m assuming the printer that you’re using is, uh, you know, it’s a, it’s a big size printer. If it’s printing things that big,

Cheryl Walsh: [00:35:40] Oh, I got a big ass printer. Yeah. Yeah. I did the go big or go home kind of kind of thing. so when you, when you’re buying a printer, you always have to think about it this way. You’re not buying a printer. You’re buying ink, you’re buying ink. And the more ink you buy at one time, the lower, the cost of the ink per milliliter.

And really if you sit down and look at the cost of the printers and how much ink they come with, then the price jump up between one printer. And the next is often just the price of the ink. So then you need to look at, well, what are your wants needs and, um, limitations. Do you want to print big or not? do you need to print bigger or not?

And how much real estate do you have to put this printer? So when I, yeah, um, you know, after my first experience of having an image of mine printed. Perfectly and beautifully in a way I’ve never seen it before. There was no going back for me. It was okay. I need to learn how to do this and do it just like this.

And there’s no other options. and I didn’t have any money at all. So I did at Kickstarter to, um, be able to afford the printer. I made prints on my crappy old printer to be able to afford my big, beautiful printer. And I came home to my home office and I had built-ins in the closet is a bedroom and there were built ins in there and I took a hammer to him and took them out.

It’s like, my printer will fit right in here. It fits perfectly. It’s a 44 inch printer. It’s huge. but that was a priority.

Brett Stanley: [00:37:26] Yeah. And did you, when you got that printer, did you have to have space for storing the paper and extra ink and all that sort of stuff? So is it, is it more space than the actual size of the printer itself?

Cheryl Walsh: [00:37:36] Um, yeah, I’m looking around my office now. I got a fair amount of paper. I like paper. It’s a thing. So, um, but I have shelves in the paper fits on shelves. I’ve got rolls of paper that stands in their boxes in the corner. You know, it’s, it’s sort of a, a choice. There’s an apartment that I work out of in LA and there’s a printer, but no couch.

Yeah. No couch. Yeah. Priorities. So, yeah,

Brett Stanley: [00:38:06] So if people are going to start printing their own work and they’re not sure what sizes they want to print. I mean, obviously you want it to go big. Um, are there, is there a step down from that and what sort of size would that be?

Cheryl Walsh: [00:38:19] Oh, absolutely. So, um, the, desktop printers you can, um, get in with of, um, 13 or 17 inches. yeah, just yesterday I watched a, online, um, A program by a printer company. I’m not allowed to talk about it yet, but they have a new line of desktop printers coming out that, um, that look interesting. They really do so.

I can’t talk about it, but, but desktop printers, the only, you know, they’re, they’re wonderful. They create beautiful prints. The problem is they use more ink than the large format printers. So really, if you’re going to do any significant amount of printing, you know, definitely consider giving up the real estate in your office or home for a bigger printer.

so when a company sells a printer, they’re really not making much of any money. The money comes in the, the sale of the ink. And, um, a desktop printer is not a very expensive printer and the cartridges are very small. So that’s really where they make their money. When you buy your third set of ink, that’s where they start making their money.

And that can happen very quickly. you know, depending on how much printing you’re doing

or not doing, and people don’t realize either if you let a printer sit. It can use more ma it can use more ink than if you use it

Brett Stanley: [00:39:51] because it’s got to unclog and it’s got to calibrate itself again

Cheryl Walsh: [00:39:54] it’s got to clean itself. Yeah, yeah,

Brett Stanley: [00:39:57] So I had a situation where after seeing all your amazing print stuff, I was like, Ooh, printing. Okay. Let’s look into this. And I don’t get a lot of my clients asking for prints, but I’m not offering them. So yeah. So maybe not don’t ask, don’t give, but then I was thinking, well, maybe I will start doing that, but.

In my mind, it was to be honest, a lot of my clients are international, probably not going to want to pay shipping for me to print it at my home and then ship it to them in Europe or wherever. So the idea of investing in a printer, that’s probably going to sit there most of the time and then do a couple of prints investment for me.

Cheryl Walsh: [00:40:36] Yeah, it just depends on what you’re doing and what your needs are. Um, and then, you know, how motivated are you to sell prints? You know, you could probably sell more prints than you would be selling now, but that’s a different business model than being a photographer. And that’s hard for us to do.

Brett Stanley: [00:40:56] So did you, once you got your printer, did you then start building your business model around selling prints?

Cheryl Walsh: [00:41:03] Yes. Yes. Um, with my underwater shoots, I don’t offer a digital package. I, it comes with a, a print and, um, a 16 by 20 print. And that’s, that’s the only option is Prince. We can go up in size, we can go down in size, but, um, it’s all about the print, the printed image as a photographer, I create photographs and a photograph is a piece of paper. So

Brett Stanley: [00:41:31] So I remember you saying it’s it’s the, the photo, the photo finishes. Once it hits the Piper,

Cheryl Walsh: [00:41:36] Yes. Yeah. Which, you know, there’s definitely a place for digital images and I use them all the time. I use them on social media. Um, I have my watermark on them really large. And I get a fair amount of criticism for that, but you know, that’s not my final image.

Brett Stanley: [00:41:54] Yeah. That’s your way of controlling what the final image is, which

Cheryl Walsh: [00:41:58] Yeah, yeah.

Brett Stanley: [00:42:00] That’s great. I’d love that. You’ve got such a determined to goal that you’ve got such a roadmap for how you want to work. It’s very decisive.

Cheryl Walsh: [00:42:09] Yes. Yeah. Once, once I saw that image printed for the very first time, perfectly beautifully and held it in my hands. I just cried. I just sat there and cried all over my beautiful print. Um, I mean, just, there’s just no words to describe. I really thought, you know, what is this magical printer that has silver leaf in it?

Because it looked like silver leaf on the paper and it was just a printer,

Brett Stanley: [00:42:42] Yeah. And was silver leaf in your original image? Is that what you wanted to be in

Cheryl Walsh: [00:42:46] it was, there was fairy wings. And it, they looked like, you know, there were cellophane in person, but, um, on the image, it looked like a metallic leaf on the paper. And you know, I’d never seen anything like that before.

And even after going to print competition for all these years and seeing other people’s images, printed, beautifully, seeing my own work like that. Was completely overwhelming.

Brett Stanley: [00:43:17] Yeah. Yeah. It’s, it’s incredible. I think it’s seeing this stuff in real life. Just gives you a sense of, of what’s possible from the screen to the paper.

Cheryl Walsh: [00:43:27] Yeah. Yeah. And then experimenting with different papers. That’s been really exciting because nothing changes in image more than the paper you choose.

Brett Stanley: [00:43:37] Yeah. So I was speaking to someone recently and they were saying that now that you know, now that they’ve got a knowledge of the papers, they think about what paper is going to be printed on as they’re shooting the image.

Cheryl Walsh: [00:43:49] Yes. Yes. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I, I have two favorite papers, a mat and, um, sort of a Lester finish. And so between those two papers, I pretty much know. What I’m going to print on. I have a few others, um, that are a little bit different or a little bit more particular with, how they handle an image. Um, so, so occasionally I’ll go with those, but only after printing on those first two papers that are sort of my, uh, my two go tos.

Yeah. Yeah. Um, but then now, like this coming week, I’m going to be printing on a bunch of our gummy paper, which is a Japanese paper company and they have a handmade, some handmade papers and it really changes how the image looks. Um, so I’m going to be experimenting with which one of my images I want on those papers.

Brett Stanley: [00:44:47] I think it’s, it’s such an interesting way of, of, of doing photography in these times, because for me, you know, photography is an art artwork, but I think when you’re looking at the types of paper, when you’re talking about Japanese handmade paper, it really brings it back to that kind of artwork, you know, traditional artwork.

Cheryl Walsh: [00:45:07] Yeah. It’s a piece of art. Yeah. Instead of just being art, it’s a piece of art. You’re holding it in your hands. You know, I go to a lot of, uh, gallery openings in LA. and I will tell you that a printed photograph, especially a group of them brings people together. It creates a sense of community.

Mmm. Whereas a digital image keeps us apart. We’re looking at them on our screens separately.

Brett Stanley: [00:45:36] Yeah, it’s a very solo way of, of solitary look way of looking at it. Yeah.

Cheryl Walsh: [00:45:41] Yeah. So the, the printed image absolutely brings us together.

Brett Stanley: [00:45:45] So your work is very, um, very, uh, theorial, it’s very, it’s very, very based in fantasy, um, with lots of kind of fantastical characters and, and outfits. Was that something that you had, uh, had liked yourself? How did you kind of end up with that style of work?

Cheryl Walsh: [00:46:05] Um, it’s something I really liked. I invested in some outfits early on. Mmm. Sort of I wanted to do storytelling and fashion photography in a way that wasn’t just fashion. Uh, wanted there to be more of a story to it. I’m a big fan of, you know, the master painters and, you know, look at the work that they did over the centuries.

So, I was really interested in that and um, how can I create that with a camera? Because I certainly don’t have the talent to do it with paint brush, and I don’t have the, the, um, patients. To do it with a paint brush. Yeah. So,

Brett Stanley: [00:46:46] Was that was that style of work. Was that something you were doing on above water as well, or was this all kind of came together when you

Cheryl Walsh: [00:46:56] I had done some above water. Yeah. I’d done some shoots in my studio and then composited them with backdrops, um, backgrounds of locations. Um, I had gone on some locations with models. I certainly went to a lot of workshops and, and, you just experimented with a lot of different kinds of photography, but really ultimately I found, I was just overwhelmed in the experience.

There were too many other people around when you’re doing a shoot like that. You’ve got stylists and hair and makeup people, and it was a, I just didn’t like it. And so getting under the water, it’s like, okay, this is the place for me to be. Yeah.

Brett Stanley: [00:47:35] to be quiet and to, to create within your own self. Yeah.

Cheryl Walsh: [00:47:39] right. Yeah.

Brett Stanley: [00:47:40] I think that being an underwater photographer sometimes appeals to introverts a lot more than

Cheryl Walsh: [00:47:47] Yes, definitely. Yeah. Definitely. it’s such an isolated world in a beautiful way. And, and for me, it’s allowed me to create something that, I certainly could not have enjoyed creating out of the water,

Brett Stanley: [00:48:02] Are there people that influence you, but other artists or, or kind of any other mediums that, that you take inspiration from to create your images?

Cheryl Walsh: [00:48:12] mostly paintings. You know, growing, uh, going to museums, we’ve got the Getty really close. Um, year before last, I went to Italy, Spain, and France, and, um, went to a fair number of museums and, and, um, I even have just bearers museum right down the street from me here. And, you know, really looking at a painting like that in person is not like looking at a di digital image.

You just stay there and look, and look, and look and find new things. And, it’s such an amazing experience.

Brett Stanley: [00:48:46] Yeah. I think with the, with the painting side of things, it’s like you say, you don’t have the patience for it. And I don’t have the patience for it either. Ben, it makes my brain explode

Cheryl Walsh: [00:48:55] Yeah.

Brett Stanley: [00:48:56] at a painting and I see every brush stroke. And every, you know, everything was done mindfully, but everything, you know, especially those paintings that from far away look amazing and they get it close to their, like, this is just a bunch of lines, all put together with a purpose that, that make this whole thing look amazing.

Cheryl Walsh: [00:49:13] Yeah. Yeah. Um, but I think studying those and studying the composition and color theory and, You know, really that sort of brought me to a different place mentally when I’m creating, what it is that I’m doing underwater. I’m really thinking about that final print, kind of like thinking about a final painting.

Brett Stanley: [00:49:33] So you’ve got that holistic view of, of the artwork from, from, from beginning to end.

Cheryl Walsh: [00:49:38] Yeah. And then, you know, of course there’s a lot of photographers whose work I really admire, but it’s very much theirs. It’s their own. you know, so, so what I really admire the most is it’s not just the work, it’s the dedication to it. photographers who are really in tune with their craft and, and create a lot.

Not just, Oh, I went on one shoot and I did this once. No, doing it over and over and over and over again.

Brett Stanley: [00:50:07] Yeah.  That is what inspires you with them is their dedication to it and their, persistence with it.

Cheryl Walsh: [00:50:14] Right, right. Taking this seriously as a, as a craft. Um, this isn’t just a way to get likes on Facebook. Uh, you know, it’s, it’s something you kind of have to live in breathe and, there’s so much more than that goes into it, um, that people don’t see, um, so many more hours that go, go into it and then just getting better all the time.

Um, it’s practice just like a musician would practice or a painter would practice. It’s kind of the same thing. Um, I find most of my inspiration though, really comes from the people that I work with. Um, I have a core group of models and you know, them all, um, they are very inspiring, just lovely people.

Brett Stanley: [00:51:00] and it’s quite collaborative with, with you and your kind of

Cheryl Walsh: [00:51:05] Yeah. Yeah. Very collaborative.

Brett Stanley: [00:51:07] Talk me through that, that, that kind of collaborative process is, is it you coming up with a concept and then going to them? Cause they’re, they’re kind of making the costumes and kind of putting these characters together. Is it based on something that you’ve come to them with? Or are you guys always talking about stuff and things come out of that?

Cheryl Walsh: [00:51:24] It’s both. It’s both. Sometimes I’ll have an idea. I’m actually right now, we’re supposed to be working on a big project. Um, that, you know, I came up with an idea. Um, someone sort of mentioned it offhandedly and it’s like, Hey, that’s a great idea. So I sat down and did a lot of research, came up with, very elaborate idea for, um, a lot of shoes, like over 20 shoots to go into the, into the grouping.

And, really started in January with, okay. You know, we’re going to start this in the spring and it’s going to go all summer long. And I gotta tell you, I just had this underlying feeling of there’s something wrong. I don’t want to schedule these shoots because there’s something wrong something’s going to happen.

And I’m not that kind of person. I’m not. Mystical or religious or anything, but I just sort of have this over overbearing feeling of don’t schedule these don’t do this because something’s going to happen. And, you know yeah. So, and, and maybe I was wrong to do that. Maybe right now it would be the time they could be working on their outfits.

but I just have this feeling of this. Isn’t the time to be doing this.

Brett Stanley: [00:52:37] Right because you, because you’re not sure how long we’re going to be distanced from each other and, and.

Cheryl Walsh: [00:52:44] And then, you know, what’s going to happen to all of us. I know for me, I’m not working. I had a lot of work scheduled, not just shoots, but, um, one on one workshops that I do, education for printing. you don’t Palm Springs photo festival.

Uh I’ve. I was accepted into the Laguna beach, um, festival of arts. And you know, that probably, maybe, I don’t know if it’s going to happen. They haven’t canceled it yet, but yeah, it’s not looking, it’s not looking good. July and August,

so, um, you know, So, so for me, it’s always been, you know, I have a house, I have a pretty good size house and, um, just keeping it up, paying for it, you know?

And, uh, my daughters are going to be graduating college and it’s, well, do I need this big house? You know, but the house has my pool and my pool is set up exactly how I want it. So, um, there’s a lot to consider.

Brett Stanley: [00:53:47] you would kind of lose your, your workspace.

Cheryl Walsh: [00:53:49] Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

Brett Stanley: [00:53:51] are there things that you are finding that you can do under these circumstances to keep creating and to maybe keep. Um, keep some money coming in.

Cheryl Walsh: [00:54:00] um, yeah, so I’m doing some work for pro EDU right now. Um, an online education resource for photographers. they’re great. They’re really. I think more for, um, intermediate to advance photographers, although there’s, there’s a few things on there that a beginner could appreciate, but, their production value is, is really high, which I like, very professional.

So, um, I’m writing content for them right now. Um, we were supposed to film, a class, you know, on printing for me to do for them.

Um, and as soon as we can get together in person, we’ll do that. But, um, You know, I could work on that every day for a year and still not be done.

Brett Stanley: [00:54:46] So there’s a lot of preproduction

for upcoming projects.

Cheryl Walsh: [00:54:50] Yeah. And then I’m helping work on a website right now. It’s called perfect print club.com and it will be a resource, a place, um, with answers, both artistic and technical, information for all things printing. Um, digital inkjet printing. Yeah. And that’s a huge undertaking, but it’s coming along. It’s really coming along nicely.

I’m I’m certainly not doing the bulk of it, but, um, I’m contributing

Brett Stanley: [00:55:18] Yeah. And that’ll be a resource for photographers or, or whoever wants to come in and

Cheryl Walsh: [00:55:23] anyone who’s interested. Yeah. Anyone who’s interested in digital inkjet printing, it is really it’s and it’s a step by step guide, but it’s also. There’s so much tough technical information involved, and it’s a way of making it human and relatable and easy to understand. and it is not sponsored by any of them manufacturers.

So there’s no bias. the articles we’re writing, there’s no bias towards one paper company over another, um, one printer company over another. It’s all based on real world world experiences. So.

Brett Stanley: [00:55:59] That’s great. Cause I think, cause you can kind of get caught up in that, in those partisan kind

Cheryl Walsh: [00:56:04] Oh yeah. Yeah. Well, I’m, I’m a, I’m an ambassador for cancer and infinity paper and I’m an ambassador for them for a reason. I they’re two of their papers that I use all the time. I truly believe are the best papers on the market. And believe me, I’ve tried. You know, all of them in that high fine art range.

Um, but they also understand that there are papers that other companies like our gummy makes that, that cancer and infinity doesn’t make. So, um, they’re perfectly fine with me. You know, talking about other papers, other paper companies using other papers. And, um, I really appreciate that. They put no pressure on me whatsoever.

They’re very authentic. Yeah. Yeah.

Brett Stanley: [00:56:52] quite rare in, in, in

Cheryl Walsh: [00:56:54] extremely rare. Yes. Yeah. I was just having a conversation with someone about absent because absent printers, you see all these photographers that are advertising for them. Well, you know, if you stop and think about it, if you’re, an ambassador for Nikon or Fuji or Panasonic or Sony or Leica, you’re not allowed by contract to use a Canon printer.

Yeah. So they’re kind of stuck. They kind of have to use that’s. The only other alternative is, you know, there’s CA Canon and Epson really. So, um, they’re kind of stuck. They have to use that brand and it’s like, God, that sucks. Yeah. Yeah. It really sucks. So,

Brett Stanley: [00:57:42] that’s incredible. Cheryl, thanks so much. This has been really cool. It’s nice to kind of sit down with you. And we’ve, we’ve kind of been like a ships in the night, a lot of the time over the years, seeing each other at events and stuff. So it’s been nice to sort of spend a solid hour with you and just kind of talk about these, these things and kind of listen to how you’ve created your, your own business and your own kind of ecosystem around the underwater and the printing as well, which I think is something that’s really inspiring.

Cheryl Walsh: [00:58:09] Well, thank you. Yeah, my, um, my interest really isn’t. Teaching people how to photograph underwater, you know, you learn how to do it. I learned how to do it. Anybody can learn how to do it. My interest really is in the printing. So I appreciate you letting me ramble on about that.

Brett Stanley: [00:58:26] Oh, of course it’s fascinating. And like, you know, it is something that I haven’t thought about in years because everything’s online. So being able to be, to have someone pull me back into that world and go, this is pretty awesome. You should check this out

Cheryl Walsh: [00:58:39] Yeah,

Yeah,

Brett Stanley: [00:58:42] So that’s great. Thanks, Cheryl.

Thanks for you. Thanks for coming on. And, um, hopefully we’ll catch up with you after we’re allowed outside.

Cheryl Walsh: [00:58:48] Yes, it’d be great to see you again. Thanks, bye.