Why Interior Designers Choose This Photographer’s Work (George Diebold)
In this captivating episode, Gail Doby sits down with fine art photographer and interior design graduate George Diebold. Gail shares her personal journey as a collector of George’s work, highlighting how consistent weekly email marketing over several years eventually led her to select two major pieces for her new home. George reflects on opening his commercial studio in 1978 and building a reputation with Fortune 500 companies in New Jersey before earning his interior design degree at age 50. He discusses why interior designers are sometimes hesitant to specify photography over traditional paintings and breaks down the technical nuances of dye sublimation (metal printing), which offers extreme archival durability and vibrant color depth. George also shares the stories behind his Hawaiian landscapes and floating plumeria shots, while offering a critique of AI’s impact on the authenticity of the photographic medium. Photo used with permission. © GEORGE DIEBOLD In this episode, Gail and George discuss: Long-Term Nurturing via Email: How Gail followed George’s weekly emails for 6–7 years before purchasing art for her new office space. Going Back to School at 50: Why a home renovation project on Kauai inspired George to enroll in an interior design program alongside 20-year-olds. Why Designers Hesitate on Photography: Overcoming the myth of photography’s “reproducibility” and avoiding the trap of generic, copycat imagery. The Backstory Behind the Art: Why telling the harrowing story of long-exposure lava captures or aquarium-shot floating plumeria helps designers sell photography to clients. The AI Debate: Why altering real-world moments with artificial intelligence contradicts the foundational purpose of recording a genuine moment in time. To browse George’s works yourself, visit his website https://www.georgediebold.com If you’re listening on your favorite podcast platform, view the full show notes here: https://thepearlcollective.com/s15e5-shownotes https://youtu.be/qR2WcsTLR_o Episode Transcript Note: Transcript is created automatically and may contain errors. Click to show transcript GAIL DOBY Well welcome to the Creative Genius Podcast, George. GEORGE DIEBOLD Thank you very much, Gail. GAIL DOBY Well, it’ll be fun to have this conversation. I have ⁓ I’ve followed you for a very, very long time. I think I started looking at your photography. I bet it’s been six or seven years ago. And yeah, and I was thinking about it and every time I would get one of your emails, don’t know how I got on your email list, but I would look at your work and I would browse through all those things thinking, I really want one of your pieces. And then when we finally bought this new house, and you can see the picture behind me. That was the one that I bought from you earlier this year. And I just bought a second one from you this year. And I ⁓ am really happy to have those pieces because they’re really interesting and of course beautiful, beautifully shot. So thank you. That’s how I got to know you. GEORGE DIEBOLD Thank you. ⁓ yeah, you you were on my constant conta I do a weekly email ⁓ image ⁓ mailing ⁓ primarily to designers and collectors. And ⁓ I guess that’s initially how you found me. Yeah. GAIL DOBY Right. Right. And so it does work to do email marketing because it did take a long time. I just didn’t have a spot to put things in my other house, but when we built this house, it’s larger, so I had the space to do it. So I finally have my own office, which is great. Perfect. ⁓ yeah. So absolutely. And I’m enjoying these a lot. I look at them every day and just admire them. So and I get to see them in my background all the time. ⁓ Yeah. So let’s talk about your background because you actually are a photographer and you have an interior design degree. And it was kind of later in life that you did that. So talk to me about what came first and ⁓ what brought you to interior design. GEORGE DIEBOLD I opened my studio, my photography studio in 1978. ⁓ a bit after college. I graduated in 75. ⁓ I got my design degree when I was 50. And how that happened was we would spend ⁓ a big block of the summer, ⁓ my wife and my son and I ⁓ vacationing and me shooting in Hawaii. And ⁓ I I found after a while that it really didn’t matter that I was back in my studio, that I was still able to run my business from Hawaii. So we decided that we would buy a home out there and we decided on the island of Kauai, bought a home, ⁓ and I made plans to bring it down to the studs and renovate it and then turn the garage into a studio. So I could go back and forth between Hawaii and the East Coast. So I did some rough sketches and I made some detailed notes. I got turned on to an architect. And when she saw them, she said, you should consider studying design. That’s really as far as it went. when I returned back to the East Coast, I just said, you know, all right, I’ll do that. So I enrolled in Keene University’s design ⁓ program. ⁓ So for about two years I was running my studio, then I would jump in the car ⁓ almost every day, drive to ⁓ Union, New Jersey, where the campus was, have two or three classes. Every night I was doing homework and then plus coordinating the rebuilding of the house in Hawaii. So ⁓ it was a bit of a crazy time, but I had a I had a lot of fun and I was definitely the oldest person in the class, that’s for sure. ⁓ I ⁓ you know, I was just surrounded by all these kids, which they thought it was kind of funny. So yeah, it was a good time. GAIL DOBY Did you ever do interior design for clients? GEORGE DIEBOLD I the only thing I ever did interior design for was ⁓ it helping me specifying stuff with people like yourself and doing homes that I owned. ⁓ after it seemed like after I finished my design degree, ⁓ then my business got my photography business got extremely busy again. And ⁓ I was doing a lot of shooting in Hawaii. I picked up a lot of clients in Hawaii. So ⁓ the the short answer is ⁓ no. ⁓ I have a degree in design and ⁓ really I just used it to to help me better explain myself to designers and present myself to your community. GAIL DOBY Mm, interesting. Well, and I would have to say that in all the work I’ve done, yes, I’ve selected artwork or I’ve selected photography for clients, but it’s never been one of the dominant things I’ve selected for clients. So I don’t know that we as a trade are hesitant about specifying photography, but maybe we’re just not thinking about that as one of the things that we’re planning our designs around. So why do you think designers don’t think about photography very much? GEORGE DIEBOLD I think th there are a couple of reasons. I think designers are hesitant to ⁓ for one thing because they’re hung up on the premise that a painting there’s only one painting and a photograph can be reproduced multiple times, which there’s really no denying that. But ⁓ oddly ⁓ I can ⁓ really not even remember a time, even though my editions are extremely small. I c I ⁓ Designers never ask me how many of these are you making? So it doesn’t really seem to be ⁓ a b a big problem for them. ⁓ I I think also, you know, a f a painter gets a canvas and ⁓ you know, it’s like he’s got he’s now he’s creating this thing on the you know, and it’s just like so just a it’s an original thought and and it’s just like his. putting his soul on the canvas and but I think you have to realize for a photographer, especially somebody working ⁓ professionally like I do, it’s so involved, not only from a monetary standpoint, the the investment, I mean, just even like the picture behind you. I mean obviously I had to get to Hawaii. I spent six weeks in Hawaii, which you can imagine what that cost, ⁓ making the prints. ⁓ All of that ⁓ goes into it. So it sort of balances out. ⁓ I I think. But I I think ⁓ really the core thing is that design designers just think that there can be like so many copies of the photograph. ⁓ One of the big problems is that I think a lot of photographers who are trying to get somewhere copy what other successful photographers do. So the result of that is that. Designers ⁓ tend to look at photography and say, another another picture of the Grand Canyon. another picture of this Japanese maple tree in the garden in this exact same. It’s almost like the photographers go and they put the tripod in the exact same spot that somebody successful did. So ⁓ not trying to ⁓ toot my own horn, but I find when people a lot of times the first comment people make about my work is. GEORGE DIEBOLD They say, it’s different. I I’ve never seen that. Or and I think that’s also partially because I do location work as well as studio work. ⁓ And ⁓ and ⁓ I think that helps me a lot because I have a very wide ranging portfolio. GAIL DOBY Mm-hmm. GAIL DOBY Mm-hmm. And you do advertising photography too, right? GEORGE DIEBOLD Yeah, not to the extent that I ⁓ once did. I mean, that’s really ⁓ when I opened my business, that’s primarily what I did. I did annual report work ⁓ and ⁓ advertising work for like Fortune five hundred company of companies, which I was in that sense I was very lucky to be ⁓ in New Jersey. When I started my business, ⁓ the the the thought was, you know, if you’re gonna be a big time professional photographer, you had to be in New York City. ⁓ anywhere else was just ⁓ it was like Deadsville. But what nobody realized was that most of the major corporations in America had their world headquarters in New Jersey. And I knew New Jersey. So I was able to get in my car almost every day and drive to a meeting with ATT or Sony or any of the pharmaceutical companies. So ⁓ I I was known in New Jersey simply because everybody would see me there. So that’s really how I built my reputation ⁓ in the advertising business. GAIL DOBY Interesting. Well, let’s talk a little bit about specifying photography instead of other forms of artwork. Wha how what’s different about that? And what are some of the things that you would recommend to designers to think about when they’re considering photography? GEORGE DIEBOLD I guess the biggest difference in specifying photography is that there’s a lot of trust. ⁓ even though you followed me for like six or seven years, ⁓ you ordered a print ⁓ without seeing it. ⁓ which is very different than seeing a a finished canvas and saying, like, yeah, I want to, you know, if you go to an art show and you see the canvas and say, Yeah, I want to buy that, I’ll take it. So there’s a certain amount of trust that has to take place with the client and they have to research, you know, the photographer’s reputation, which is that’s not too hard to do. ⁓ what I try to do to minimize this gray area is ⁓ for for ⁓ it wasn’t really a your situation because you seem to know exactly what you wanted. But sometimes I’ll make smaller scale prints and send them to a client so they can see, you know, they can physically hold in their hand a print and see, ⁓ you know, ⁓ what it’s going to be like, except that it’s going to be bigger. ⁓ I can also send ⁓ samples of the medium, you know, whether it’s going to be metal or a fiber print or stuff. I can send that to them. ⁓ I can send them ⁓ samples of frames if they do in fact, you know, put a frame around the piece. So I think the more you just try to give the designer information, I think it increases the comfort level and and and they see that, you know, obviously you’ve done this before, so you wouldn’t have much there wouldn’t be much benefit in me trying to get over on you. I mean, I’m my my I my plan is to is just to sell pictures. So I’m not trying to ruin my reputation by trying to scam people. So GAIL DOBY ⁓ yeah. Well you were very helpful. I know that when we were talking about it, I knew that ⁓ I knew the scale I wanted for ⁓ the piece. Well for both pieces. And so ⁓ you were able to guide me and say, yes, I can do that scale, I can do that that proportion. ⁓ And ⁓ and then we talked about what the ⁓ what the format was in terms of doing it on the metal and GEORGE DIEBOLD Mm-hmm. GAIL DOBY Maybe just talk about that because I’d never heard of printing on metal ⁓ and you’d mentioned that that it was a lot ⁓ probably more stable. So talk talk about the difference between the backgrounds that you can print on. GEORGE DIEBOLD Yes. GEORGE DIEBOLD Printing on metal, which is also called dye sublimation, ⁓ without getting overly technical about it, which, you know, I can’t get that overly technical because I’m not, you know, it’s it’s very complicated, but it’s basically infusing the metal ⁓ with the dyes. So the dyes, I think through extreme heat, are actually like saturated into the metal and become part of the metal. What this does is it results in it’s extremely archival and it’s very durable. For many years I was a big fan of laminating the images I delivered ⁓ under plexiglass, which is it looks very cool. ⁓ And as long as it’s lit well, you know, you don’t get reflections in it and stuff. But it’s fragile. ⁓ in fact If somebody if if the delivery was anywhere like in the tri-state area, I would almost always insist on me hanging it because I was always ner you know, if you bump the corner putting it up, you could fracture the plexi. ⁓ also the plexiglass has to be ⁓ We we recommend cleaning it with rubber cement thinner and like a hundred percent cotton rag. So you have to be because you know you get that swirl effect on plastic if you cleaned it with a paper towel or something. ⁓ the dye sublimation, the metal, ⁓ I mean, you could literally like take a a ⁓ you know, I mean you should be a little bit more careful than a paper towel, but you could take a paper towel with like Windex and just clean it. So In that sense, it’s ⁓ very, ⁓ very durable. ⁓ as far as the range of colors that it’s available, it’s it’s ⁓ extremely wide. ⁓ and for clients that also want a traditional presentation, I can also deliver ⁓ prints on all kinds of different materials, canvases and fine art papers and stuff like that, where if they’re looking to have something matted and framed under glass. GEORGE DIEBOLD But even when you go to museums now and you see photography exhibits, there’s there’s a wide range ⁓ of ⁓ ways they’re presented and metal is one of them ⁓ now. I think people have realized how good it is. So ⁓ yeah. I I r I really like it. I mean I think it’s you know. And it also ⁓ they have about five or six different ⁓ levels ⁓ of reflection. You can get it super high gloss. I think the print behind you is one step down from that. I think that’s what we decided on. And then you can go all the way to like, you know, very luster like Matt, which ⁓ I don’t want to do because it’s a little bit flatter. But ⁓ it’s it’s a really great medium. And I don’t know who came up with it, but GAIL DOBY They were very smart to do that. GEORGE DIEBOLD Yeah. GAIL DOBY Yeah, so I I ⁓ I really love the piece and ⁓ why don’t you talk about that? How long did it take you to set up for that and take this photograph? GEORGE DIEBOLD I ⁓ I ⁓ I went to the big island. ⁓ I guess this was two years ago. The big island is the island that’s called Hawaii. They actually don’t technically call it the Big Island anymore. They call it Hawaii, which makes it even more confusing for people because the chain of islands is called Hawaii. And now they want to call just the one island Hawaii. It’s where the volcano is and it’s been erupting. ⁓ I specifically went there. Not to photograph the volcano, although that would have been cool, but I wanted to photograph the lava patterns in Volcanoes National Park, which was my primary goal. And that’s what I spent most of my time doing, just doing close-ups of how the lava cooled and the shapes it made. ⁓ And in addition to that, I would travel around the island, which is no small feat, because that’s it’s definitely the big island. I think that’s ⁓ a mistake a lot of tourists make when they go there. They get up in the morning and they they tell the ⁓ the ⁓ guys at the front desk, we’re gonna take a ride around the island today, you know, and then like midnight they get back and they’re just like, God almighty, you know, like ⁓ it’s it’s huge. I mean it’s it’s really big. So this particular location behind you was about an hour ⁓ ride. from the condo I had rented, ⁓ and ⁓ really, really scary roads where the roads are very narrow, there’s no lighting. A lot of times it’s pouring rain, there’s trucks coming at you. So I would drive to this location, I would shoot, ⁓ and the in the case of your picture, it’s almost dark. ⁓ and that’s ⁓ so the camera ⁓ is it’s a very long exposure, which is allowing the water to turn into that silky ⁓ look. And then like in the pitch dark, I would, you know, load up all my equipment and then get in the car and then have this terrifying ride back to my condo. ⁓ which I i every time I was doing it, I was just saying like, you know, ⁓ what am I doing? You know, if really this is just kind of stupid. I mean the odds of like something going wrong. GEORGE DIEBOLD w were a little scary. But ⁓ so th I would hop around to different beaches, which on the big island, the other cool thing you get is you get the black sand beaches. It’s the only ⁓ island that still has the black sand. They also have red sand and green sand, which is r really quite amazing to see. But ⁓ in this case of the picture behind you, that’s just, you know, an example of where ⁓ I don’t know how many years ago, but that’s where the volcano happened to flow down to ⁓ and all those boulders or lava that hit the ocean and cooled and so you get all these fantastic shapes. ⁓ and ⁓ that’s I I I’ve returned there in the sixth I mean I I don’t know, twenty times probably, ⁓ back and forth just going there. ⁓ I would shoot splashing waves during the day. ⁓ And then as night started to fall, I would do these time exposure pictures. So ⁓ and that’s another thing I think that ⁓ just to go back to one of the previous questions, I think clients also like to hear the backstory ⁓ like what I’m telling you now, that gives them like a feeling of ⁓ you know, when they look at it, they can imagine. GAIL DOBY Mm-hmm. GEORGE DIEBOLD you know, the the situation when it was done. That’s a little bit different than, you know, a painting. So I think that’s important for clients. If an interior designer is trying to sell a client on a photographer’s work, ⁓ I think it probably helps if they, you know, make it sound like, yeah, get, you know, you gotta get to know this guy and you gotta hear some of the stories he tells about some of the things he did and stuff. So GAIL DOBY Well, I I don’t have a way to show you the other photo that I purchased from you, but ⁓ the floating plumeria, which I really kept coming back to and kept thinking, I I think I have to have that. ⁓ And ⁓ and I did ultimately get that, but talk about how you did that. GEORGE DIEBOLD That’s another ⁓ yeah, I have a story for everything. So that that’s another ⁓ the last thing in the world anybody needs to see is another flower picture. I mean, because that’s just what I mean, it doesn’t matter if t if today is the first day you got a camera or you’ve been doing it for fifty years. ⁓ There’s just so many flower pictures that it’s unbearable. But ⁓ I was standing in back of our house one day during this incredible rainstorm and ⁓ when after it would rain for a couple hours, ⁓ it was almost like a river would form ⁓ down the walkway behind our house. And so all this crap was floating, you know, pieces of fence and f ⁓ palm fronds and ⁓ f flowers and all this stuff. And I saw how the flowers were floating down the water. And I said, you know what, that that would be different. If there would be some way I could capture that. ⁓ and I decided that the best way to do it and make the flower look the way I wanted it to look was I bought a big aquarium, big tank, ⁓ and dropped the flowers in the aquarium and shot through the glass so I would get the edge of the water. So that’s where you see that’s the the the Blumaria is floating on the surface, but you also see what’s going on under the surface. ⁓ So I was I was very happy with the way that turned out. I think it really shows the flower ⁓ in a unique way. ⁓ so that’s that story. GAIL DOBY Yeah. Well, ⁓ I’m enjoying both of those pieces and I look at them every day and just smile every day as I walk through the room. So that’s always good. GEORGE DIEBOLD ⁓ time to go to Hawaii. ⁓ GAIL DOBY ⁓ Yeah, I don’t have to. You’ve done it for me. ⁓ Well, what’s a story that a designer can tell about exclusivity, scarcity? ⁓ How would you describe to the client or how would she ⁓ or he describe to the client what it’s about in terms of investing in photography? GEORGE DIEBOLD Okay. GEORGE DIEBOLD ⁓ I would have to be brutally honest, and it’s probably true about any kind of artwork. ⁓ the concept of investing in artwork ⁓ is ⁓ I I don’t know if that’s something that anybody should really use as criteria when they’re getting something. Because the chances of you buying ⁓ a piece ⁓ and then thinking that like in a year I’m gonna sell it for more money. You’re probab you know, it’s probably unlikely that you’re gonna be able to sell it for what you paid for it. ⁓ for me, I try to keep the editions very small, eight to twelve pieces. I find it kind of amazing that there’s a lot of photographers now who reproduce images in the hundreds of copies and they call them limited edition. ⁓ It’s almost like it’s a poster. So ⁓ again, I think that ⁓ with any artwork but and photography, it’s gotta be something that you just fall in love with and you’re and you really want it. I mean, I don’t know if you should buy you know, if you if you buy a car, if you buy a fancy car, you’re buying the car because you like the car, not because you’re thinking, I’ll drive it for five years and then I’ll make money on it. That’s probably not gonna happen. ⁓ So ⁓ I think it’s it’s ⁓ I think if a designer is honest with a client and tell them, you know, that that’s really the criteria that they should use, that they should just really pick things that they like instead of thinking of them as an investment. If it goes up in value, that’s great. ⁓ but I don’t know if you can do that with art. It’s pretty tough. GAIL DOBY Yeah. Well, here’s a question for you that you and I chatted about this when we were prepping for this and talking about AI. And that is such a huge, huge conversation these days. ⁓ And it’s impacting people’s trust in ⁓ the images that they’re purchasing, because who knows if it’s been altered by AI. So talk to me about your thoughts about AI. ⁓ GEORGE DIEBOLD I think that, you know, for most people, AI is the terminator and you know, they think it won’t be long before, you know, the we’re all dead and and robots are ruling the world. ⁓ All AI is, ⁓ is ⁓ just super powerful computing, which allows ⁓ just ⁓ many different sources to come together to solve a problem. So GAIL DOBY Ha ha. GEORGE DIEBOLD I think AI has the potential to destroy the very nature of what the photographic process is. Because for someone who’s interested in the true photographic process, now all of a sudden, and it’s happened almost overnight, now they have to consider which you just mentioned, does the situation even exist? Did it ever even happen? ⁓ And that’s fundamentally ⁓ contradictory ⁓ to ⁓ what photography is. I’m not saying that, you know, you have to live in the past and you can’t enjoy advancements, but ⁓ it’s added a whole nother ⁓ issue, something another thing to consider. ⁓ so I don’t necessarily think it’s good. I think what AI is great at is ⁓ I know my daughter in law, like, you know, she’ll look at a building and say, like, I wonder what it would look like in the Ardeco style. And it’s incredible. I mean, she can change the building to, you know, ⁓ Art Deco style, or let me see what it looks like mid century modern. So in that sense, it’s ⁓ really amazing. And ⁓ I I mean, I I guess my it’s a big issue for my grandchildren in school because they’re told, ⁓ you know, to really avoid, you know, when they’re doing reports and stuff like that to avoid it because obviously it makes homework a lot easier. ⁓ GAIL DOBY It does, but you can tell if it’s AI. I know that even though I use it to maybe draft something, I have to be ⁓ careful and I have to retrain it all the time with even though it has somewhat of my voice, it still does some very odd things that they just don’t they don’t sound like me. So I have to make it sound like me. GEORGE DIEBOLD Yeah. ⁓ and I noticed that too. A lot of I don’t know what it would be, but there’s certain word you can just tell when you’re listening to like an AI voice, every once in a while, I can’t give an example, but it’ll say a word not quite correctly, like it’ll say it like phonetically or I I don’t really know how to d ⁓ describe what I’m saying, but yeah, you can say, Well, wait a minute, but like that sounds like a machine was saying it, you know. So ⁓ So I think based on my notes, I think your next question was to how do I use AI? And and that this is the shortest answer I had for you, which was ⁓ I don’t use it. ⁓ GAIL DOBY Okay. ⁓ Well that’s good to know. Well you’re a little bit on the I and don’t take this word or the phrase the wrong way, but it’s more of the old school, which I think is it’s a lost art to ⁓ do what you do ⁓ anymore. It really is. GEORGE DIEBOLD Yeah. ⁓ here’s how I, you know, thought about it w when I was thinking of how to answer your question. Photography was invented to record an exact moment in time and preserve an event or a person or a place that existed so you could see it. ⁓ the whole point of taking a picture of your kid when they’re born was 20 years from now, you can look at the picture and say that’s what Mary looked like when she was. three months old. ⁓ if you didn’t like the way Mary looked exactly and you altered it to make her look like the most beautiful baby, well then what’s really the point? You know, it’s no longer recording that it that event. So ⁓ For a lot of people, AI is ⁓ they they, you know, the younger generation considers it, well, it’s just another tool and an arsenal of ⁓ options like Photoshop or something to create or manipulate an image. But it’s much more than that because, like you said, I’m from a generation where, you know, you shot film, you went in a dark room, and then all of a sudden in this tray you see this thing appear ⁓ and it it was incredible. I mean, you know, it’s just like, my God, you know, e every time, you know, you would be in the dark room. It’s just like, it’s pretty amazing. Look, look, there’s the picture. ⁓ And ⁓ then when computing came along, I mean, it was very exciting, but a little too simple. ⁓ And ⁓ I got into digital photography and Photoshop ⁓ very, very early on. I think I was probably one of the first people who bought a digital back in New Jersey. ⁓ GEORGE DIEBOLD So I was into it way before ⁓ a lot of my competition were into it. ⁓ I mean within a year my the la I used to spend, I don’t even remember how much, but you know, maybe ten or twenty thousand dollars a month on film and processing. ⁓ And within a year, maybe year and a half, the lab ⁓ that ⁓ I would go to was going out of business. ⁓ because people just weren’t doing it that way anymore. I mean, it was just instead of me shooting a picture and then sending my assistant to the lab and then having him hang around the lab or go get lunch or something, then drive the film back to me, look at the picture, say, okay, we got to make this correction, make this correction, send the assistant back to the lab, hang out, kill some more time, get the film, bring it back. Now you just you push the shutter and you looked at the screen and you said, There’s the picture. So it made it ⁓ so easy, and I don’t know if that’s necessarily good. ⁓ sometimes things can be too easy. ⁓ and it takes ⁓ it takes that creative process away of thinking about. conceptualizing and coming up with ideas and stuff. So ⁓ and that’s not to say that I don’t use Photoshop. I like to clean images up. I balance the color. ⁓ like in the picture behind you, obviously if there was a ⁓ if I couldn’t walk out there on the rocks and let’s say that there was a ⁓ you know an a a tin can laying there, ⁓ obviously I’m gonna retouch out the tin can. But that’s not the same as me GAIL DOBY Yeah. GEORGE DIEBOLD putting a zebra ⁓ standing in the water and saying you can’t even believe what I what this picture that I shot in Hawaii. I don’t know how the zebra got there, but there was a zebra standing in the water. So ⁓ that’s that’s the distinction. ⁓ I I would like to see ⁓ that it was there’s photography and then there’s AI photography. I would like it to be very clearly ⁓ understood by people that there’s two different things. Because what’s happened is ⁓ in a very short amount of time, ⁓ and I’m not the only one who feels this way. Every photographer, my my IT person, ⁓ everybody I talk to, they don’t believe anything. Every they just assume everything they see on Instagram is fake, which to be honest with you, ⁓ it it probably is 90% of it. It’s all it’s it’s happened so quickly. ⁓ it’s just it’s amazing how f how quickly it just grabbed grabbed hold and you know, like like a lot of things in society, it’s just like it’s the next new thing, you know. So GAIL DOBY Right. Where do you think photography’s going with AI? GEORGE DIEBOLD No no place good. ⁓ well, I don’t know I don’t know because in other words, ⁓ you know, if you go and you shoot a picture, ⁓ you and I talked the other day the w up there I it’s i I think it’s by Aspen, right? Maroon Bells or Yes. I mean if you went if you made a point to go all the way up there and shot a picture and then the day you got there the sky was cloudy or it wasn’t very interesting. GAIL DOBY Mm-hmm. GEORGE DIEBOLD So then you just put in, you know, like an amazing sky and you made that sky reflect in the water and stuff. I mean, at the end of the day, it may end up being a lot cooler picture than the picture that I shot. But my way of dealing with things is I would just throw the picture away. I’m the most brutal person ⁓ on my images of anybody. If you’re seeing one of my pictures. I’ve already trashed so many pictures ⁓ and been so hard on myself. ⁓ that ⁓ not only is that what I want you to see, but I went through the effort of making it at that level. But if you can just shoot something and say, I don’t care if the, you know, who cares if there’s, you know, the the sky’s I’ll fix it in the, you know, I’ll fix it later on or You know, I see this picture the other day on Instagram, and it’s a it’s a bison attacking a school bus in in in I think it was in Yellowstone. And like ⁓ A, I’ve been to Yellowstone a million times. I don’t know if there’s any school buses that drive around Yellowstone, but it’s but it’s just like I’m sure there’s a lot of people that see that and they’re just like, my god, can you believe that? Like, look at look at the bison rammed the school bus and like almost knocked it over. And so ⁓ I I I I guess the only thing I could say about it is I do hope that ⁓ there is sort of an appreciation for old school ⁓ and and then there is I guess you can’t stop technology. I do think it’s funny that the college, Montclair University, which was ⁓ by my studio, ⁓ I I noticed that they the ⁓ photography and art students now have to get a film camera and learn how to develop film. ⁓ Which I think is good. Yeah. Because even a lot of the terms in photo not a lot of the terms, all of the terms in Photoshop are terms that, you know, dodge and burn, ⁓ masking, all those terms are things that ⁓ I did in the darkroom. Those are all darkroom terms. And the they were terms from GEORGE DIEBOLD the nineteen twenties, the nineteen thirties. So I think it’s good that at least now kids understand like where these n these words came from and maybe it’ll make them think about, you know, this. And and some of them will, you know, say, you know what, this is much cooler than faking it. And ⁓ so a couple will carry on the tradition. That’s usually what happens. GAIL DOBY Hm. Well, we we’ll see what happens, right? GEORGE DIEBOLD Yeah. ⁓ GAIL DOBY Well, ⁓ a couple more questions for you. ⁓ One is just talk about the difference between fine art photography and advertising photography. Two different types of work that you do. GEORGE DIEBOLD This ⁓ fine i i I don’t know if any a lot of people will agree with me. Fine art is a term, a marketing term that artists came up with to separate themselves from the competition. ⁓ sometimes I’m almost hesitant to use the term fine art because ⁓ it sounds ⁓ like a little too pompous. ⁓ and some i some of the greatest Fine art pieces or pieces that came from advertising campaigns. ⁓ And some of the greatest advertising campaigns were eventually, you know, by some of the great Map and Phot Photography Masters ⁓ were pictures that became prints that you see in a museum. So I did a bunch of video YouTube videos, and one of my YouTube videos was titled Personal versus Commercial Work. And I Point out in that video that I always thought it was funny when I would make an appointment with an art director or a creative director, and they would tell me, bring both your portfolios, your commercial portfolio and your personal work. ⁓ And I never made that distinction for a number of reasons. ⁓ one was because I felt when I looked at famous photographers when I was starting out, I I saw that they Created a look. No matter what they did, you could sort of tell it was one of their pictures, whether they were working or if they just went out on the street and took a picture. If ⁓ I ⁓ bring the art director two books, I’m all now I’m asking him to remember two people. He’s already got enough stuff on his mind. So the chances of him after I leave. He’s kind of it’s it’s just adding to the confusion. It’s better that ⁓ that after the meeting he would say, Well, I don’t know if George Diebel’s gonna be the best person to shoot fashion or food, but he’s definitely the guy we’re gonna want when we have ⁓ a conceptual ⁓ con a conceptual client that we really don’t know how to picture what they do, but this guy’s got t his book had tons of GEORGE DIEBOLD cool ideas and stuff. So he’ll definitely be able to come up with something. So ⁓ I I again th I guess the short answer is I didn’t or at least for me, I didn’t want to make a big distinction between fine art and commercial work. GAIL DOBY Mm. Okay. Fair enough. Well, we’d like to end with three different takeaways that you might share with our listeners, things that you would like them to remember from today’s session, ⁓ or things that you’d like to share about photography in general. I’ll leave it to you. GEORGE DIEBOLD Thank you. ⁓ People who take an interest in my work, I’d like them to appreciate the journey that brought me to this point. ⁓ I started out as a ⁓ student actually studying painting. I ⁓ I in high school, even though I was a disastrous student, I was introduced to a ⁓ Life magazine illustrator, and I studied with him. So when I went away to college, I actually went away to college as a I’m gonna use the term, but as a fine art major. So I actually started out as a painter. ⁓ I switched to photography just ⁓ just because I decided, you know, what how am I ever gonna make a living doing painting? ⁓ and then I transitioned from that into owning a commercial studio for over four decades and then ⁓ earning a degree in interior design. So that’s important to me that, you know, people see that I’ve alwa always tried to keep moving forward and ⁓ and not just reinventing myself, but ⁓ doing different stuff, ⁓ all ⁓ with a creative mindset. ⁓ I pride myself on being able to explore just about any situation that pops into my head. ⁓ I love working on location, but ⁓ but it’s been a big advantage to me that I had all this studio training because that’s allowed me to ⁓ do a lot of very interesting still life work and also use that knowledge, ⁓ you know, just about lighting and composition and e and and all that, everything that photography entails. ⁓ GEORGE DIEBOLD I never left my still life roots behind. And I think when you look at my website, ⁓ it is different in that there there are photographers who they just shoot the ocean, or they just shoot, you know, women, or they just shoot food and stuff like that. You look at my website, I got pictures of of you know splashing liquids, and then I got pictures of ⁓ you know, the coastline and Hawaii and stuff. So I hope it’s not confusing. I hope it’s more fun and unique to get on my website and explore and look at all the different things I do. ⁓ the last takeaway I would say is as an interior designer who is specifying artwork, ⁓ the choices are mind-boggling. And I would encourage people to present photography. as an exciting option. It’s it’s it’s another option to consider. I don’t think my work or ⁓ necessarily any photography is perfect for every architectural style, but I think in the right environment ⁓ photography can work. ⁓ And and in certain environments my my photography is is perfect for that. ⁓ I think also photographers have to remember and maybe this is what’s come with my interior design training is sometimes photographers are a little too pompous and think too much of themselves and and ⁓ and they have to realize that ⁓ their picture is a part of the big overall project. ⁓ And that’s a good way to think. They’re just another component. I don’t want to belittle it and say you’re no different than a table or a couch, but at the end of the day I mean, if you’re specifying artwork, I mean, ⁓ you know, it’s not supposed to become problem for you. It’s just supposed to be another aspect of the finished overall design project that you’re involved in. So ⁓ I guess that would be my three takeaways. GAIL DOBY All right. Well, thank you so much for being on our podcast. And we will share in the show notes the link to your website so people can go and take a look at some of your photography and hopefully purchase some too. GEORGE DIEBOLD Thank you very much. It was a pleasure and ⁓ thank you so much for enjoying my work and purchasing my work and I hope we keep in touch. GAIL DOBY We will. Thank you so much. ⁓ GEORGE DIEBOLD Thank you, Gail.
