Why Most Photographers Never Begin - Wesley Verhoeve, E107
1/7/20261 hr 6 min
In this episode of The MOOD Podcast, I sit down with photographer, writer, and mentor Wesley Verhoeve for a grounded conversation about photography process, confidence, and learning how to make meaningful work without waiting for permission.
We talk about why so many photographers struggle with self-doubt, why overthinking stalls creative progress, and how showing your work and sharing your process can demystify photography and make growth feel possible again. Wesley reflects on his approach to learning photography through participation, not perfection, and explains how confidence is built by doing, not by being 'ready'.
We also ex...
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First 90 secondsMatt Jacob· Host0:00
Welcome to the Moo Podcast, uncovering the art of conversation through the lens of photography and creativity, one frame at a time. I'm your host, Matt Jacob. Thanks so much for joining me again, and my guest today is Wesley Verhoeven, a photographer, writer, mentor, and improvisational comedy performer whose work is grounded in attention, curiosity, and process. Wesley's practice resists speed and spectacle, instead favoring noticing, returning, and allowing ideas to unfold over time. Alongside his photographic work, he writes extensively once per week on Substack about process, always sharing his own thoughts as well as others' on how to improve people's processes and craft. He focuses on discussions surrounding creativity, learning, and the lived realities of making work, and has guided countless photographers through mentorship with an emphasis on clarity, patience, process, of course, and self-trust. In my chat with him, we talk about process as a way of thinking rather than a system to optimize, about writing and publishing as extensions of photographic seeing, and about his books, Notice and Notice Journal 1, as quiet, deliberate counterpoints to trend-driven culture. We explore ADHD and time blindness as creative conditions rather than limitations, the difference between starting and beginning, one of my favorite topics, how improvisational comedy has reshaped his relationship to uncertainty,