A Professional Photographer on How Smartphones Killed His Industry and Why He Became a Cycling Coach

Eric Frazier [00:00:00] You know, I do like a, a bunch of pharmaceutical jobs, you know, pharmaceutical ads where it's like the old people like riding their bike or

Vance Crowe [00:00:06] Something like that, you know, because

Eric Frazier [00:00:08] They're not like, you know, bleeding out of their ears anymore because some new, some new drug, you know? And so it's like, yeah. So it's like stuff like that they're gonna need professionals for. And a professional brings a lot. This is the Vance Crow podcast.

Vance Crowe [00:00:24] Welcome back to the podcast. I'm glad you're here. On Wednesdays, I sit down with an expert to discover how did you learn everything that you needed to learn to become an expert in your field? What was the discipline and the habits that you had to develop to make your expertise possible? And this week I'm speaking to perhaps the most modest guest I've ever had on the show, an international photographer and cycling coach, Eric Frazier. Now, it's difficult to describe photography just over the airwaves. So if you're really interested and you're enjoying the conversation, I recommend you flip over to the YouTube channel because I will have posted some of the photography that Eric has put forward. And it's only then that you can really see that he is truly an expert at his craft. The entire conversation was really fun, but I found myself having to pull Eric back to describing his expertise because he's so modest that he'd rather talk about his stories working for a numbers keeper on a horse track race, or how he enjoys mountain biking and is comfortable going down the downhills. But it is very clear when you go visit his website or if you see the photographs that we put up on this episode, that Eric is a true expert and it was an honor to have him on. I am excited about you listening to this because I get to ask questions like, what does it take to become faster? And his answer is so surprising that I found myself being completely mesmerized by what he had to say.

Vance Crowe [00:01:56] Now we're gonna get to the interview in just a second, but I was invited by a man named Chris Lane to come up to aggravation and put on a live taping of the podcast. But Chris Lane, who is the CEO of aggravation, never does anything like a normal person. He always goes bigger and better than whatever you would expect. So Chris, when he invited me, also suggested that I bring along two other people, Jared McDaniel, host of the wildly popular Ag podcast called Ag Uncensored, and Dwayne Faber, who is a former guest of the podcast, a comedian and a full-time dairy farmer in Washington state. The three of us are gonna come up and put on a podcast taped live in the Livestock Show. We're pretty excited about this. It's gonna happen on November 26th. In the afternoon, we'll put more things out in social media about the exact details, but we hope you come. We hope that you sit in on our taping and you get to hear the comedy of Dwayne, but also take in all the sight and sounds of aggravation. It is Canada's largest livestock show, but it's also one of the largest beef auctions in the entire continent. So this is a pretty exciting moment. I take it as incredibly humbling that Chris would invite us up there to do something new and different. And it is going to challenge Jared and my ability to record in a completely different new medium. So in a couple of weeks I'll be back and sharing the video and audio from that interview.

Vance Crowe [00:03:30] And I hope that it is something really interesting and special. I hope you'll stay tuned for more details. But if you are anywhere near Saskatchewan, Canada, why don't you head up on November 26th and check out Ion 'cause we'll be there putting on a show and we'd love to say hi and meet up with you. So without further ado, I'm gonna head to the interview with Eric Frazier. Thank you so much for stopping by and buckle in 'cause this is a very interesting interview. Eric Frazier, welcome to the podcast. Thank

Eric Frazier [00:04:00] You. It's good to be here.

Vance Crowe [00:04:01] So Eric, you are the first person that I have ever met that is a professional coach. You are deriving your income from doing the, I mean, you know, high school football or basketball or something like that. But like

Eric Frazier [00:04:13] You're

Vance Crowe [00:04:14] Making a living out of taking people that have dreams of being incredible cyclists and helping them make it happen.

Eric Frazier [00:04:21] Thanks. I not, I'm not making a living quite yet 'cause I'm starting, my company's still pretty small. I'm just starting out, I'm still making the majority of my income from photography.

Vance Crowe [00:04:32] But when did you decide you wanted to start transitioning over to doing cycling?

Eric Frazier [00:04:36] Last year, 2018.

Vance Crowe [00:04:38] So really pretty new.

Eric Frazier [00:04:39] Yeah. Yeah. I, I mean, I've been a cyclist, I've raced bikes for 25 years, so I've, I've got a lot of history in it. And you know, from that I've always kind of been interested in training and, and things related to getting better performance for racing. And so over the years I've just, you know, with, just had a lot of experience and gained a lot of knowledge from it. And so I always had that kind of going for me and just an interest in it in general. And so I guess I started thinking the last couple years I was sort of thinking about getting outta the photography business and moving into something else. And it just seemed like a pretty natural fit. Although,

Vance Crowe [00:05:27] I mean, I think a lot of people would hear somebody saying, I wanna get out of the photography business, but you are like, at the top of your game in the photography world. This is not like, I don't want to go shoot weddings anymore. You're shooting like legit photography.

Eric Frazier [00:05:39] Yeah. Thanks. I, you know, I, I have been pretty lucky. I've been very fortunate and then I've, I've been able to do it for so long and got a lot of great opportunities and, and shot a lot of great jobs for sure. And have, you know, have a lot of great clients, you know, really topnotch clients and stuff. So it's been,

Vance Crowe [00:05:58] Who are your clients? Who have you done photography with?

Eric Frazier [00:06:02] I mean, the list is pretty long. Probably most of the companies no one's heard of. But I mean, I've shot for Apple, mostly video for Apple, but stills for Toyota and Chrysler and other car companies, Salesforce, Google, you know, like quite a few major companies for sure. So it's,

Vance Crowe [00:06:20] So this is what sounds astounding to me. I mean, that is the top of the world that that's, I mean, as far as like, as far as high, as high up on the mountain, as I can see,

Eric Frazier [00:06:29] That's

Vance Crowe [00:06:29] Where you're at and you're deciding, I'm gonna jump out of this plane and try and jump into another or build another one.

Eric Frazier [00:06:36] Yeah, yeah. I mean, it does sort of sound kind of crazy. And you know, when people kind of, when you tell 'em what you do for a living and you know, your photographer, of course, like people immediately kind of say, oh, do you shoot weddings? You know, my cousin, like, they're, they're getting married soon, and stuff like that. And I sort of have to be like, no, I, I don't really do that. You know, I, I used to years and years ago, but I'm a conver commercial photographer. I'm mostly shooting advertising and some editorial. And so then they're sort of, you know, their eyes get big and they're like, oh, oh wow. You know, and then they, you know, you're not really sort of sure immediately like what they're, kind of, what they're thinking, like, 'cause how much do they know about it? What's, you know, sort of their knowledge of that world. And then if they ever go to your website, they're sort of like, oh, wow. Like, he seems kind of legit, you know?

Vance Crowe [00:07:23] Oh, I mean, and that's actually legitimately what happened to me. Okay.

Eric Frazier [00:07:27] 'cause

Vance Crowe [00:07:27] You, you were the one that shot the photography for my wife, so, right. My wife Ann Crow was actually just on the podcast a couple weeks ago.

Eric Frazier [00:07:33] Oh, was she cool.

Vance Crowe [00:07:34] And she's launching her own company, and you guys worked out a deal where she was doing the photography. And I remember when she said like, oh, we have this photographer. And I kind of blew it off until the night before. And then I was like, Annie, do you know who this guy is?

Eric Frazier [00:07:49] Thanks. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's, it, it is a nice feeling when people sort of like realize, you know, but you know, that being said, I mean, there's a lot of guys out there that are a lot better than me, and they do a lot bigger jobs, and they're a lot more successful than I am. I mean, I'm sort of, I'm kind of in the like, you know, I wouldn't say like, I'm rich, but I'm like upper, upper middle class maybe when it comes to the, the world of photography, I would say in terms of like the commercial world goes, one of the, because I've had some great, some great jobs. One

Vance Crowe [00:08:22] Of the metaphors that I have started using, I, I, so I started doing Brazilian Juujitsu in the last six months. And are you, are you familiar with it all?

Eric Frazier [00:08:30] Oh yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:08:31] So the belt system to me makes a lot of sense. You know, you have the white belt, which is just like a total beginner. That's where I'm at with this podcast. You know, you just figuring things out. You don't, there's so much going on that just showing up is good enough. And then you get up to Blue Belt, and Blue Belt is, you're capable to defend yourself against most people. You're gonna be just fine. And then the gradations that happen between Blue to Black, you couldn't understand those unless you're in the game. And then black Belt, everybody just knows that's an expert. But for a, for an outsider like me, all I can say is he's a black belt. I don't know, I can't tell who he's the greatest black belt or he's just a new black belt.

Eric Frazier [00:09:09] Right. Yeah, I mean that's, that's a pretty good analogy actually, because, you know, there's, there's lots of black belts out there, but you as you know, like there's certain black belts that are better than other black belts. I mean, there's definitely sort of gradations in there. And that's, it's similar in the cycling world as well, in the racing world, because you've got a pretty big range of, you know, of professional cyclists that are, you know, the differences between sort of a, a lower level professional cyclist and a top level professional cyclist. You know, somebody that raises the tour of France or something. The differences between them are narrow compared to a recreational rider and a professional cyclist. Right. The differences as you go up, they're smaller and smaller differences. And it's the same in the photography business.

Vance Crowe [00:10:01] It feels like the belt system or photography or chess or any of these things, each one of these belts is a standard deviation of how many people are there. Right. It's the, it's the amount of progress that you have. And then it's also way fewer numbers each time you go up in the, in the belt.

Eric Frazier [00:10:20] Right.

Vance Crowe [00:10:20] When, when you're, when you were imagining, Hey, I'm gonna do photography, did you have any idea how this belt system would work, so to speak? Like, did you know, Hey, I'm shooting for black belt, which means I'm gonna get to do video for Apple and I'm gonna do Toyota commercials and,

Eric Frazier [00:10:37] You know, I always sort of had am I mean, I've always sort of been ambitious, so I sort of always had ambitions to be, you know, when I was in college, I went to Webster University here in St. Louis.

Vance Crowe [00:10:48] Oh, no kidding.

Eric Frazier [00:10:49] Yeah. Yeah. And so, and I, and I figured out I wanted to be a photographer when I was in college. So I was pretty lucky because I, you know, I didn't sort of graduate with a kind of a regular degree. Mine was really focused on photography. It was actually, the degree is media communications with an emphasis in photography. So I was pretty clear on what I wanted to do. And so I always kind of imagined like, you know, or, or always sort of dreamed of like being the National Geographic photographer, you know, like I wasn't sort of thinking about like, I wanna be, you know, the next Richard Avedon or something, you know, a fashion guy. I wanted to be like the National Geographic guy that's out going out into the, you know, foreign lands and, and capturing people and things. And ironically, I, I didn't really focus that was sort of like this, this pie in the sky dream, but I didn't really focus on sort of doing that because what happened was is I, I graduated and immediately moved to Colorado 'cause I, I was always into the outdoors and so I wanted to live out west. And so I immediately moved to Colorado and wa was very distracted quickly

Vance Crowe [00:11:58] By you and everybody else that goes

Eric Frazier [00:12:01] There, skiing and biking and climbing

Vance Crowe [00:12:02] The flat irons. Yeah.

Eric Frazier [00:12:03] Right. So I was definitely like very distracted by that. And so I ended up, you know, when I got there, I, I, I did some photo assisting jobs and, and kind of funny things. Like I don't, have you ever heard of Party Pics where it's basically, I was hired by a company. I would go into fraternity and sorority parties and just take pictures of people like having fun. And you know, party pics are like, where, you know, it's like two people or three people

Vance Crowe [00:12:30] Smiling.

Eric Frazier [00:12:30] It's just like a shot, you know, it's like, but back then it was shooting on film, so I would get paid per role, a film that I shot. So, and they encouraged me to, you know, shoot as much as possible. And so, yeah, I would just go to these like frat parties and, and take photos. And

Vance Crowe [00:12:46] I bet at first that was like, that had to have seemed like the dream job that had to

Eric Frazier [00:12:51] Have, it seemed pretty cool. I mean, definitely it was like, it was a pretty good gig, I would say. And, you know, the funny thing was is, you know, I mean, I was like, gosh, I mean, I was like 23 maybe or something like that. And just having fun out there. And of course like, you know, you would take, take some photos of the kids and everything like that. And then, you know, you, you sort of are exploring the house and you end up in some random room where they're like smoking big bongs or something like that, and they're, you are doing shots or whatever, and they're just like, Hey, you want some, it's like, well, okay. You know? So I was like, ended up haring with them a little bit, which, you know, I totally shouldn't have, but, you know. Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:13:30] When you 23 young,

Eric Frazier [00:13:31] What does that mean? You know, come on. Exactly.

Vance Crowe [00:13:33] You don't get to do that when you're the 40-year-old photographer. No, but it's okay when you're in your twenties.

Eric Frazier [00:13:36] Exactly. Because it's not like my clients were there, they were like, not present. So anyway, I, yeah, so I did that, but I also like worked at REI and like, you know, was in the outdoor industry and kind of just was not really like doing a lot of shooting otherwise, my own shooting, I wasn't like super focused on photography. I was kind of just trying to, I was having fun out there, kind of trying to figure out what I was gonna do. And when you first,

Vance Crowe [00:14:01] Either, maybe when you're at Webster or you're out in Colorado, you have enough skill to know, you know, what good photography is or framing. Are you just constantly looking at other people's photography or, or do you not care that much? Is it like the writer that has to read thousands of books to be good at writing or something else? You

Eric Frazier [00:14:19] Know, the funny thing is, is I was never, I mean, I know photo, I'm friends with a lot of photographers, obviously very good photographers, and they're sort of like that quintessential, like they were obsessed, you know, they, they were taking photos in high school and they've always been obsessed and they're super knowledgeable about history of photography and super knowledgeable about other photographers, and they always have a camera on them, and they're sort of always ready, you know? And I was never, and I used to kind of feel guilty about this 'cause I felt like, you know, if I worked harder I would do that. But I was never sort of that guy. I was a little sort of too, like distracted I guess. And so I just wasn't like that focused on it. And so I wasn't enough of a student of it. It wasn't until like years later that I started to really, when I kind of buckled down and became a lot more focused on, on the job and getting somewhere on the job, that's, that's kind of when I started to, to just focus more on, on. Was

Vance Crowe [00:15:17] That when you were tired of being poor?

Eric Frazier [00:15:19] Yeah, that was a lot of it actually. I, I, well, I actually, you know, I, I met a woman in New York City, I lived there for a few years and she was my first wife and we're still good friends. I love her to death. But she was one of the first people that really kind of, that I really spent a lot of time with that sort of had this crazy work ethic, you know, just like she was focused, you know, and she worked in, in production, she worked in, like, she worked on TV commercials and, and films and stuff like that. She was more on the motion side. And so she, yeah, she just, I, I really kind of rubbed off on me, just like her work ethic, I would say. And so I started like focus a little bit better that way and, you know, yeah. And then I started sort of realizing like, you know, I wouldn't even say it was the money at that point, and Milat, it was just like wanting to get better, wanting to really get the big jobs, to get the big clients. You know, I just became, my ambition kind of came back a little bit more. Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:16:26] I mean, I, I find that too, like when I look back on my life, most of my twenties was spent searching. Like I was just exploring. I was, I was bouncing around from here to there, and when you're exploring the thing that you're giving up is depth and, and I didn't have a dream that I could be trying to work towards. Yeah.

Eric Frazier [00:16:44] So

Vance Crowe [00:16:44] I was just really, really wide. And I completely agree. I mean, when I met Anne, I realized that, you know, I have a skill that is if I wanna learn something quick enough to be able to, you know, make it work, I can do that. I can spend a month and, and pound on something. But to watch Anne start to do something where she's like, I'm gonna do something for the next five years, then you start realizing, oh, that's the pace of a marathon runner.

Eric Frazier [00:17:10] And

Vance Crowe [00:17:11] They can get a lot, lot further than the Sprinter.

Eric Frazier [00:17:13] Yeah. Yeah. How long have you been married?

Vance Crowe [00:17:17] Let's see here. It's, it's eight years. No. Yeah.

Eric Frazier [00:17:19] Okay.

Vance Crowe [00:17:20] We dated for all of six months before I proposed to her. Oh,

Eric Frazier [00:17:23] No kidding. Well,

Vance Crowe [00:17:23] Yeah, well I met her and I was like, this is, this is a train not, not coming around again. Yeah,

Eric Frazier [00:17:28] Yeah, yeah. That's cool. Yeah, it definitely is. You're right. That's sort of what I was into. I was exploring and kind of just bouncing around and yeah, it wasn't until later on that I started to really focus a lot more.

Vance Crowe [00:17:42] What did buckling down look like for you?

Eric Frazier [00:17:45] Mm, I would say, I would say probably it, for me, it, as far as the photography goes, it really started, we, we had lived in New York City for a few years, and then we, we wanted to leave the city.

Vance Crowe [00:18:01] Where in New York were you living?

Eric Frazier [00:18:03] The last place we were living was in Murray, Murray Hill. That's like first Avenue 36th or first Oh yeah. First Avenue, 36th Street on the east side.

Vance Crowe [00:18:11] Yeah. Man, that's cool. Right?

Eric Frazier [00:18:12] Do you know, do you know New York?

Vance Crowe [00:18:13] Yeah, sure.

Eric Frazier [00:18:14] Yeah. So it, she, she had a great apartment. It was a beautiful apartment. It was like one of those just like modern, beautiful apartments and in a high rise, and it's right on top of the Midtown Tunnel and so, and so, it's like right at the river. And so basically the view was great because we were, you know, 'cause Empire State is on 34th. Yeah. So

Vance Crowe [00:18:39] It's

Eric Frazier [00:18:40] Because we're on the tunnel. There's not a lot of buildings like on top of the tunnel where the entrance is. Right. And so it was kind of clear. So the view of the Empire State was phenomenal. So it was just like this from the kitchen and the living room, it was totally, totally magical. It was a, it was a neat, neat place to live.

Vance Crowe [00:18:57] My mentor that I go visit, he's kinda like my adopted grandfather lives about 30 blocks north of that. And like

Eric Frazier [00:19:03] That,

Vance Crowe [00:19:03] Just seeing the river and, and being that, it's kind of an interesting thing in Manhattan, most of the time you're covered with buildings on all sides, but when you get to the river, you have this surreal experience of being on the edge of civilization where there's these giant, tall buildings, and then you've got these big open spaces. Right.

Eric Frazier [00:19:22] Yeah, I liked New York a lot. I I actually, I was gonna say the place, the place I lived right before I lived with her was sort of a funny, crazy situation. I had been living out in Queens, actually. My dad had like moved to, he was in, maybe it was in Q Gardens at the time. Yeah, I think it was Q Gardens. And, and so when I moved to New York, I, like, I just immediately like kind of moved in with him to just like, kind of settle and figure things out and stuff. And so I started like working as a photo assistant and a friend of mine who I kind of connected with, I made friends with her in New York, but I had, we had some connections through some other people in Switzerland, which is like a whole other story. But her grandfather had an apartment down in Fifth Avenue and 14th Street basically. But yeah, between 14th and 15th. And he was a retired like investment guy. And he was an old, real old guy. And he was a hand a horse handicapper. So he, seriously, so he would basically like handicap, which basically he handicapping horses. You, you're essentially raiding horse horses, race horses. And so he, he would put together all of these statistics to kind of come up with how the, how well the horses are gonna do. And horse, I don't know if you know anything about horse racing, but race horses tend to perform differently based on who they're racing against.

Eric Frazier [00:20:55] So whether their horses are in the race affects,

Vance Crowe [00:20:58] Oh, I didn't

Eric Frazier [00:20:59] Know that. How they perform. Okay.

Vance Crowe [00:21:00] Yeah.

Eric Frazier [00:21:00] I mean obviously like their fitness and everything matters, but who else is in the race? So he would keep these really di detailed records of what, how the race is performed against other horses. And he had this really complicated system, which I never completely figured out. But, but anyway, he had this apartment, a great apartment down in 15th Street and Fifth Avenue doorman building everything. And he only went into the city maybe like three times a week and to do his like, horse handicapping thing. And he wanted someone to live there and, and to, to live there, but also to like help him compile the horse race data. Right. So like, you'd get the race, like I would go pick up the racing form and then record in his books how the horses did, you know, what the results of the races were. And it's totally like a weird thing. But, but my friend Janelle, she, it was her grandfather and she's like, yeah, he is got this apartment. It's totally fat. You should, you know, totally take this deal. And so I go and meet with him and he's just like, this, this like really old like New York guy. And he's just like, yeah. He's like, all right, I need you to make the mocks for me. You're gonna make the mocks in the book from the form. You gotta go pick up the form down the street. This is where you go to get it. You bring it home, you make the mocks and my books of the, of the horses. And for that I'll charge you $50 a week in rent.

Vance Crowe [00:22:31] Whoa.

Eric Frazier [00:22:31] Right. Seriously,

Vance Crowe [00:22:33] I'll do whatever you need me to do. 50 50. I know,

Eric Frazier [00:22:35] That's the thing. It was like 50. That's just, I love that he put it that way. $50 a week. So yeah, so basically I lived for a whole year on Fifth Avenue for $200 a month. And, you know, I would like do these records for him or whatever, the books and, you know, that was it. So that was, that had like a crazy time living there.

Vance Crowe [00:22:55] Did you have a pull towards betting on the horses yourself?

Eric Frazier [00:22:59] You know, I never really like did it because like I'd have to go up to, well I guess I, you know, the closest horse race horse track was Saratoga. But I never went up there and I never like attempted to, 'cause basically like his, his data was not clear at all. I'm not even sure like where, how he like compiled it. 'cause I would like compile this data and it was just like random marks, you know? And I would like literally have to like type out this stuff, this stuff, the names of the horses. I mean, it was sort of like a complicated thing to keep records for. But

Vance Crowe [00:23:34] When would it have been? Would this have been before? The internet was like easily,

Eric Frazier [00:23:39] Oh yeah, this is like 98, 99. Yeah. Probably not 99.

Vance Crowe [00:23:47] So you're helping handicap horses. You're living in New York City, you're, you're starting to take photography more seriously at this point.

Eric Frazier [00:23:55] Okay. So yeah. So then, so my, my first wife, well she was my girlfriend at the time. We, we were kind of like ready to move outta New York. I sort of was, it was kind of wearing on me a little bit. I mean, I'm sort of just kind of an outdoor guy. So I, you know, it's very intense there. It's a very intense place. And I, I miss riding my bike. I risk, I missed mountain biking. I mean I had a road bike there, but you know, I really would just ride in Central Park and stuff. But I missed mountain biking and just camping and stuff and climbing. And so we were wanting to move west. And so we kind of could have gone anywhere really. 'cause as long as it was coastal for, for both of our jobs, that was the thing. And so we kind of made the decision to move to San Francisco. And so moved to San Francisco in 2001.

Vance Crowe [00:24:52] Man, what a time to be in San Francisco,

Eric Frazier [00:24:54] Right? Yeah. So I went first 'cause she had some work stuff to figure to finish up, right? So I went in like June of 2001 and she wasn't coming until like November maybe, or December of 2001. So she was there when the trade towers were hit. And it was the most surreal thing because I get up in the morning and, you know, she, she calls me and she's like, oh my God, you gotta turn on the tv. You know? So I turn on and I see the first tower in, in flames, you know, the smoke coming out. And like at that point we hadn't, like, we didn't, no one knew, you know? And then, yeah,

Vance Crowe [00:25:34] I was in my college, my sophomore college dorm watching this, right? Yeah. The same moment you're having, I'm having in my college dorm

Eric Frazier [00:25:40] Watching it live. Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:25:40] You're

Eric Frazier [00:25:41] Like, what is going on?

Vance Crowe [00:25:42] You

Eric Frazier [00:25:42] Know? Yeah. And then somebody on the news is like, they think it's some little plane like crashed in or something like that. Never even thought about terrorism. And then, and then the second plane hits and then a little bit after that they both come down and it was just, I mean, it was just terrifying. And, you know, it's, it's just a horrible, horrible thing. It, you know, even just talking about it kind of gets me a little bit. It's,

Vance Crowe [00:26:07] It was surreal. And then you're out in, in San Francisco at the time. Yeah.

Eric Frazier [00:26:10] And so I was, I was, I was concerned about, once they sort of were talking about the terrorism stuff, I was like concerned about my dad and he actually, he kind of beat me to the punch. He called me, he was just like, I'm downtown, I'm okay. 'cause he knew something bad was really happening. And, and then the lines basically, I, I think we had a brief conversation. He was okay. I didn't know anyone else that were, that was downtown. 'cause 'cause Lauren was uptown in Murray Hill, so she was fine, but he, you know, he was safe. And then after that the lines basically were super busy and just jammed up, you know? But, but she, she went to the roof of the bill of our building in New York and, you know, saw like the whole thing from there, basically.

Vance Crowe [00:27:01] Oh man. So

Eric Frazier [00:27:02] Yeah, she, she's from, her family's from New York. They're, they're pretty much all in Long Island and they, they were all, okay. Her uncle was, worked in one of the trade towers and worked in one of the whoa towers. And so he, crazy situation. He was supposed to be there that day, but was like late, running late or something. Caught in traffic on Long Island or something and, you know, wasn't able to get in and that's why he is alive. But his whole office gone.

Vance Crowe [00:27:36] That's one of the parts of that, that living in the Midwest and being in college, I had no connection with it. But to imagine that people didn't just lose the towers. There, there were people that lost their families, their, their, all of their, everybody that they worked with. Like, it's easy to forget that when you watch it from the Midwest, at least the way that it was for me. Yeah.

Eric Frazier [00:27:55] I mean I, you know, just the idea that like, you know, her uncle, everyone he worked with in his office just was gone. I mean, just, I can't even like wrap my head around it, you know? Yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:28:08] I mean, the only other time that something like that happens is like a plane crash where you happen to know everybody on the plane. Right. It just not, it just doesn't happen in regular life.

Eric Frazier [00:28:16] Right, right.

Vance Crowe [00:28:17] And so if you're in San Francisco in 2001, that's before Salesforce has built giant buildings. Oh yeah. That's, that's way before Facebook. And, and is is is building there?

Eric Frazier [00:28:28] It's, yeah, it's pretty early on. It was actually, you know, when we, when we were looking for our first apartment there, we, we had like an apartment broker or something taking us around and, and she was like, she's like, oh yeah, it's like really chilled in the city now because the.com bust had happened in like 99 or

Vance Crowe [00:28:47] Something like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And

Eric Frazier [00:28:49] So she's like, so many people like left and it's like fewer people in the city. It's super chilled right now, you know, it's really nice, you know, and so yeah, this was definitely like just the beginning of kind of Silicon Valley sort of coming back again. So

Vance Crowe [00:29:04] Any idea what your rent was in 2001? Where were you living? That's

Eric Frazier [00:29:08] A good question. The first place we lived was in Inner Richmond, which is like out Geary. I don't know if you're familiar with, yeah.

Vance Crowe [00:29:17] So what were you doing for work at that time?

Eric Frazier [00:29:20] I was trying to figure it out actually. 'cause when I was in New York, the last probably like year or so, I was there, I was doing a lot of location scouting. And so I was like scouting for TVs and movies and scouting locations. And so it was nice because it was like kind of a, I was taking photos. I mean, it wasn't like creative photos or anything like that, but I was taking photos and, you know, I would, I would, you know, talk to the producer or the director and say, okay, this is what we're looking for for this particular location. And I would go out and search for it and talk to doormen or put up flyers and stuff like that to try to find locations. And so

Vance Crowe [00:29:59] Were you good at it?

Eric Frazier [00:30:02] I mean, it didn't take a ton of skill. It mostly just took like, kind of persistence and just being like willing to like talk to anybody and ask anybody, you know, and just kinda what

Vance Crowe [00:30:12] Are you asking them?

Eric Frazier [00:30:13] You know, like if I'm, if, so for instance, one of the jobs I did, I worked on a Woody Allen movie, and so I was trying to get this particular location for Helen Hunt's character, which is sort of funny that I remember that. But it was like a very specific kind of thing that Woody wanted. It was like, he wanted a art deco really nice, fairly big. He likes stuff like on like second or third floor, so he doesn't, doesn't have to go up so high. Like, there were always sort of all these parameters that kind of didn't fit together. So it was sort of tough. So basically what I did is I went to Nice, I knew it had to be like a certain era of building. And so I would go around, you know, in nice neighborhoods. Like I, I, the one I found eventually that worked was, it was on Park Avenue, like park and like 34th or 35th or something. And I literally like went to the doorman and was like, was asking him, I was just like, Hey, you know, like I'm, the thing about it is, is when it comes to like movie stuff, if you can drop a name that somebody knows, oh my God, you're like 90% in the door. I mean you're, it just is like, opens up so many doors, it's amazing. And so, so Woody

Vance Crowe [00:31:28] Allen would be a, so

Eric Frazier [00:31:29] Yeah, that's easy, especially in New York, you know, like

Vance Crowe [00:31:32] Spielberg or something.

Eric Frazier [00:31:33] Exactly. So it's like, it's pretty easy. And, and so people suddenly like pay attention. They'll, they'll suddenly be like, want to help you, you know, if you're just like, oh yeah, I'm doing this like, show for so and so you never heard of, they just, you know, and especially in New York, like they don't, they're not impressed. So, but yeah, you drop what he's name and they're like, oh, okay, what are you, what are you looking for? And so I would ask the doorman like, you know, what, what do the units look like? Like I'm looking for this like art deco space and stuff like that. Do you have anybody that'd be interested in like, renting out their space? And so the, this particular building, the, the guy, the doorman was like, oh, the, that sounds like, like a good space would be the penthouse actually. And it's the guy that runs it, or the guy that owns it is actually the head of the, the board, like the HOA board. Right? So, so the thing about these buildings is like, you could get like a, somebody that owns a unit and they're like totally into it. But if the HOA, the homeowners association of the building is not down for it, then they will just shut it down. So they, it's like you have to get the approvals of these HOAs, which are often the bigger obstacle because honestly if they're smart, they don't want a movie going on in the

Vance Crowe [00:32:50] Building because that's a ton of wear and tear on the elevators. And people,

Eric Frazier [00:32:53] It's not even just the wear and tear, it's like just chaos. There's just equipment in and out all the time. A crew in and out all the time. I mean, a small movie crew is like 80 or a hundred people.

Vance Crowe [00:33:05] Oh really? Like

Eric Frazier [00:33:06] A small one. And so, so yeah, so it's like you could have just so many people constantly in and out. And so, and that could go on for weeks. So if you're like living there and your neighbor, they're making thousands of dollars a day renting out their apartment for some movie or, or commercial or whatever, and you're not making anything, but you still gotta deal with the inconvenience of the, the, the chaos, the people, the equipment, all that stuff. Then it's gonna suck for you. But this guy was, he had, he had a great apartment. It was a beautiful place and it, the style was right and everything and he was really into it. And that was that thing. It's like they're really into like getting a movie shot in their, their units. And plus we paid them like, you know, it's, it's was sort of normal rates. It was probably like 10, 10 grand a day or something. It was,

Vance Crowe [00:33:59] Oh my God. Yeah.

Eric Frazier [00:34:00] I mean it's totally insane. It sounds like a lot, but I mean it is a lot, but it's,

Vance Crowe [00:34:04] And then on top of that, you would have the cache of this Woody Allen movie was shot at this, at this apartment. Which well,

Eric Frazier [00:34:09] That's why's

Vance Crowe [00:34:10] Gotta bring the resale value. Well

Eric Frazier [00:34:11] That's the thing because like this unit, the guy that owned it, he was rich, you know, it's like 10, I mean it's like, it's real money, but it's not like what he cares about. It's not what the rich guy cares about. It's that he can tell his friends, yeah, so-and-so movie was shot in this in my old unit, you know, whatever. That's like what it's really about. And that's why they put up with it because you know, it's a hassle. What's, what happens is in that situation is Woody Will, or the production company will basically go in, move all of their stuff out. Like they'll take everything they own in the apartment, they'll move it out, they'll move it to storage and bring in their own furniture for the movie with. So it's like set furniture and, which is for two reasons. One, they want a particular style and two, they don't wanna like destroy the furniture that the people own. And so they basically move all their stuff out and then they'll put the owner up in like a hotel nearby or something for the whole time. So they're basically not, they don't have to deal with the owner there, they don't have to deal with the owner stuff there. It is just like the shell of the place that they're using. And so, so it's a hassle. I mean it's definitely like an inconvenience, but like I said, they're into it.

Vance Crowe [00:35:23] Did you like working on movies?

Eric Frazier [00:35:25] I did. I, I mostly worked on commercials just 'cause there were more commercials going on at the time. But yeah, I did like it. I mean, I liked working in production in general. It's sort of very, sort of controlled chaos in many ways. It's like an army, you know, they just, this is like, okay, time to time to move locations or time to wrap or time to set up or whatever. It's just like watching like, you know, 30 or 50 or 80 people or more on task getting something done. And they all know what they're supposed to do. Like every single person there has a job. They know what their job is and other people don't do their job. Like, especially like if it's some, some union guy, like if it's some like lighting guy or electric or grip or something and you try to pick up cables, they will shut you down so fast. Like they'll just, 'cause it's like that's their job and you're not authorized to do that job. So you have your job, you do your job. Even if you're sitting around doing nothing while they're really working hard, there's you, it's like, it's sort of frowned upon to like cross over. It's like, oh, you know, oh let me help you with that electrical. It's like, no, don't touch it. And so it's, it's just like organized chaos there. It is. Just, it's a pretty impressive thing to see actually. So it was pretty fun. And I did some pretty cool stuff and met some really interesting people,

Vance Crowe [00:36:44] Movies we would know.

Eric Frazier [00:36:46] So the Woody Allen movie was the only one, let me think. Probably the only one you'd know. And it wasn't one of his better ones Curse of the Jade Scorpion.

Vance Crowe [00:36:56] I didn't even know that.

Eric Frazier [00:36:57] Right. I know no one, no one saw it,

Vance Crowe [00:36:58] But now I'll go watch it.

Eric Frazier [00:37:00] Right. Well, don't blame me. It's not that great. But the, there was another movie I worked on, it was a, it was like a teen thriller. This, it was like something about swimming, I don't even remember, but I think it had like Julia Styles in it or something. It was like some up and coming like actress was in it. It was like one of those teen horror movies or something. And so I had to drive around Jersey for weeks looking for a school, like kind of a gothic looking school that would like fit the production designers.

Vance Crowe [00:37:34] Well, we'll see if any of the listeners can figure out what the, what the name of the movie is. Julia Styles with some kinda swimming,

Eric Frazier [00:37:40] I wanna say I think it's Julia Styles. Yeah, yeah. It's like something I know it's like Swim Fan or something. Something like that. Yeah, no, I probably should IMD it, but yeah,

Vance Crowe [00:37:53] But, and then when you, when you make the jump over to, or I guess the commercials, is this something that somebody just happened to see your work and they knew that, that somebody else needed work, needed your services? No. How does that get set up?

Eric Frazier [00:38:07] No, you don't really have work. I mean the per the, the photography that you're shooting is like real, it's, there's no art to it. It's basically like in those days it was film. So what we would do is, so let's say like I was scouting your house, right? And I would, I would say, okay, I wanna shoot this room. I would shoot panoramas of the room. So I would just go like shot, shot, shot, shot, shot. And then I'll go to the other side. Shot, shot, shot, shot. So it's like a giant panorama, right? Well like nowadays you just put it into like, you know, software and it will stitch it together. But back then it was, it was film. So there was a particular photo lab down on, it was like Houston and on the west side maybe like, I don't know, eighth Avid or something like that, but down near Houston. And it was this photo lab that was kind of, i I, I think it was probably mostly location scouts. Funny enough, like most of us were location scouts in there, we're getting film processed really quick, getting prints made. And then we would take the prints, you know, they're just four by sixes. And we would take 'em and put 'em together and tape and like actually have like scotch tape, which they had at this lab. Like they were set up for us. We'd have scotch tape and we put these prints out and we'd tape 'em together to where they were, you know, panoramas. But they'd be really huge. So you would fold them over and stuff and then put 'em inside of a manila folder. And so, and then you would write on manila folder like what it, where it was and everything and what it was for. And so you take that to the, to the producer or the production designer or something.

Eric Frazier [00:39:40] Or a lot of times, like on a movie like that, whether it's a big movie, you'll have a, like a head location manager and he would have several location scouts underneath him. And so I was just like one of probably like four or five or six scouts. And so I would bring them back to him and then he would take them to, to the director or the producer and stuff. And, and then they would decide. And then they would say, oh, this is, we're interested in this space. And sometimes like if you're experienced, the location manager might be like, okay, see what you can get it for, like see, negotiate with him, see what you get it for.

Vance Crowe [00:40:18] Oh wow.

Eric Frazier [00:40:18] Whereas like if it's like, if it's something small, he would do that. But in this case, like, like for the big apartment, I found like he would negotiate the location manager himself would do the negoti, the negotiating. But like sometimes like on a job like where it was like a just a TV commercial or something, I would be the location manager. Like I would be hired as either like, you know, the head scout or the location manager. And so I would do all the negotiating, you know, and try to get it for whatever price we had and so forth. And so, and so, yeah, it was all very analog back then. So the photo, the photography was not really like an issue. It was more of just like word of mouth. And back then, like business was booming. It was pretty easy to get jobs. I definitely like got some jobs I probably didn't deserve that I did not do great on, you know, but, but they were just like, they needed people, you know. And so, but it was definitely like word of mouth, you know, some producers looking for a scout and then somebody gets your name or something like that.

Vance Crowe [00:41:23] So what was the transition like as you are making your career in photography and it's all print and then digital comes about and you're living in Silicon Valley?

Eric Frazier [00:41:34] So I would say my career probably didn't really get going until after digital was really viable, I would say. I mean, I had shot plenty of film for jobs, but in terms of like doing like bigger commercial jobs, which is what I was after, didn't really come until digital was more just more viable. When I say viable, I mean that the professional digital cameras were, you know, high enough resolution and good enough quality that you could use them for the job. I mean there was definitely a time when like you could get a Cannon or a Nikon or even Kodak. Kodak partnered with Nikon for a long time, but, but basically you could get these big giant digital DSLRs with like, geez, I don't know, five megapixels or eight megapixels, but the cameras would be like $8,000.

Vance Crowe [00:42:33] Wow. And

Eric Frazier [00:42:33] So they were like very expensive, not great at that point in terms of like resolution and color. And so,

Vance Crowe [00:42:39] And then the computer processing had to be really expensive to even be able to look at 'em, let alone edit.

Eric Frazier [00:42:44] Yeah, I mean the computer part there wasn't like, it wasn't quite as, you know, Photoshop these days, the things you can do is pretty phenomenal. Back then we were just kind of limited to like cleaning 'em up, you know, dust and scratches and stuff like that. It wasn't like doing a lot of compositing and stuff like we can do today. You know, back then you just didn't have the processing power for it. And you know, for the higher end work during that time, the higher end work was still film, you know, they were still shooting on like 35 millimeter medium format or large format film because the quality was just still way better. And so it probably wasn't until, you know, maybe like early two thousands that you could rent a pretty good DSLR and use it for most, most things. Not everything, but most things. And so, and that, and so I rented for a while before I ever bothered buying one,

Vance Crowe [00:43:42] But probably because you were the age that you were, it was easier to adapt. You didn't have 20 years of film career to, to be letting go of in order to get into this new medium.

Eric Frazier [00:43:52] I mean, yeah, well it was much easier to adapt because partly just because of my interest in computers and, and my comfort with computers when I was at Webster. You know, like we had, I had a Photoshop class like early on and, and it was a pretty, I mean they were maybe like version Photoshop version two or three maybe or something. So it was a pretty limited software and the cameras were even more limited at that time. We were, you know, Photoshop was a little further along than the actual digital capture. And so, you know, the digital capture was like more rare. The, for the, for Photoshop, we were scanning film to put it into Photoshop. We weren't using digital native cameras. And so the, I mean, I remember like being at Webster and somebody, you know, coming in with a, just to like show us like what they had going on. And it was, I think it was with Nikon body, so imagine like a big Nikon DSLR or SLR at the time. And then Kodak had made a capture chip for it, but was essentially the software, the hardware for it was just this big, it looked like kind of a motor drive that would go on the bottom of the camera, like the old school style, but really tall, like real, maybe like that. And it was connected by a thick cable to like what looked like basically a VCR that would hang around your neck with a strap. And so that was the hard drive. That was what was capturing the actual, the actual photo.

Eric Frazier [00:45:26] So it wasn't like a little CF card, it was like this giant thing. So it was totally, and the only thing it was good for, it was such low resolution. I mean, seriously, it was probably like one or two megapixels maybe

Vance Crowe [00:45:38] It was. And to make a comparison, what is your, how many megapixels is in a photograph?

Eric Frazier [00:45:42] The camera I use now is usually about 50 megapixels. Okay. Yeah, I mean I use one that's also 24, but which 24 is still massive. That's big enough for almost anything. 50 just gives you a little more flexibility basically. But yeah, so very small, very, very sort of like cumbersome. And it, those cameras were really only for like photojournalist that really wanted to be able to transmit photography quickly, you know, back back. It wasn't about the quality, it was about just getting the image shot and then back to their, their magazine or newspaper quickly. And so, but it's, you know, it's continued to progress so it's much better.

Vance Crowe [00:46:27] So what was prompting you? What was making you get better when you were, when you're progressing along in your career

Eric Frazier [00:46:34] In terms of just,

Vance Crowe [00:46:35] I mean, you're clearly an expert at making, I, when I look at your photographs, I see not only composition, so, you know, we'll I'll throw up a, a link or, or show some of your photographs on the, on this. But there's a couple of things that go on with your photography as far as I can tell. One, you, you are very good with individuals specifically on bikes. I mean, which I don't think is a coincidence, but then, but then the environments that you're in, so you ca generally capture a lot of people in an environment. And then on top of that you're doing color grading that is better than real life. I mean, I look at some of your photographs and I think, which

Eric Frazier [00:47:13] Some people might not think is great too, you know, like sometimes I try to pull back a little bit on it, but 'cause there's a fine line between sort of two incredible and two, you know, and, and sort of like more flat. 'cause the di the the files that come outta the camera are very flat in general. And that's for a reason. It's, it gives you, you just get more information that way. But, but yeah, I, I tend, I like color a lot. I like, I like colors to be fairly saturated. That's sort of my, my aesthetic. Whereas some people, their aesthetic is more desaturated, you know, that's sort of been a popular thing in the last several years is sort of the more desaturated look and

Vance Crowe [00:47:53] Well, I'm learning all of this now just, just from the video of this podcast and, and other stuff that I do. And I feel like the amount that there is to know about not just color, you know, but also black and white and shadows and highlights and midtones. I feel as though I've been dropped out in the ocean and there's, and there's, you know, nothing to grab onto. You just have to keep flailing around. But the people that are truly good at it, like the things that you're capable of bringing out in a photograph, I, I don't have a problem in the world about it. You know, if somebody said, is this photograph look exactly like the scene that we were just in? Well that's just depends on how your eye works, right? It depends

Eric Frazier [00:48:32] On

Vance Crowe [00:48:33] How your, what what your, the aperture inside of your eye is, is giving your brain.

Eric Frazier [00:48:37] Right? Right. And, and it's not even a matter of like, you know, sort of trying to go for reality, whatever that is. It's, you know, there's a couple things about it. It's like one, it's like, you know, we're often trying to kind of create a particular mood with the photography and, and to evoke a particular emotion, which doesn't have, doesn't necessarily have anything to do with how it really was. You know. Whereas the other part of it too is like for what I do mostly is advertising. So advertising is not Yeah,

Vance Crowe [00:49:11] They don't care whether it,

Eric Frazier [00:49:13] Exactly. And so, you know, for instance, like the photography I did for your wife Anne, you know, we had the foggy morning that morning. It was, it was really great, but very flat. So the, the colors are muted and the colors are flatter and, and it's like, I like the fog, but at the same time I want the colors to come out a little bit more. And so I bring up the colors a little bit while still trying to retain kind of a little more of the haziness of the fog. 'cause you know, you see, you can kind of remove that if you want to to an extent. And so kind of getting that fine line between, you know, sort of that, that more moody, foggy look, but still have some like richness to the color, you know, it's, it's an aesthetic choice. It's, it's my aesthetic choice. It's not everyone's aesthetic choice. You know, you sort of, when you do this stuff, you kind of have to make decisions along the way and you know, sometimes those decisions are based on what the client's asking for, but a lot of times the client either doesn't have a preference or I

Vance Crowe [00:50:16] Think most of the time people don't even know

Eric Frazier [00:50:18] What they could want. Right. Yeah, that's, that's, that's a lot of it. I mean, it sort of depends like who your client is, you know, you know, a lot of times, most of the time I'm probably probably hired by ad agencies more than anybody else. And so I'm dealing with creative directors and art directors

Vance Crowe [00:50:32] And they do know Yeah,

Eric Frazier [00:50:32] They do know. Yeah. They're, that's they're trained in that, so they're more specific. But, but yeah, a lot of times it's like, you know, they're hiring me even ad agencies, like they're hiring me for my aesthetic. You know, that's sort of, that's sort of the goal of an artist in general is to make a living, creating their art. Right. That's sort of like the ultimate goal, which, which, you know, is not always the, it's, it change, it's different for every job. I mean, some jobs, it's like definitely that and other jobs, it's like less that. But as you get, as you sort of go through your career, if you're, if you're fortunate and lucky, like I've been to get to a point where you are hired for your aesthetic, for your creativity, then I mean, that's sort of the dream in a way because it's like, you know, you can create, you can be creative and create your art and still make a living in it, and people wanna pay for it. And so that's, you know, that's a pretty amazing thing. And that's why, that's why I say, you know, I'm very, I mean, I, I've worked hard, but I'm also very lucky and fortunate 'cause a lot of people have not been as fortunate and are, and are as good or better photographers than I am. You know, it takes a lot of, to sort of make it in this business, it's a, it's a, it's a very sort of unclear combination of skillset, right? It's not just about who takes the best photo, you know, there's marketing involved, there's personality involved.

Eric Frazier [00:52:03] It's like, how do you deal with clients? How do you deal with the business side? Are you really good with the numbers in the business side? Are you good with the budgets? Are you good at prepping for a big job? Are you good at post-production? You know, there's, there's all these like factors that play a role where if you're not great in one, maybe you can make up for it a little bit in the other, in other ways. That's

Vance Crowe [00:52:24] Which you can't be too far behind. I mean, so I had it right?

Eric Frazier [00:52:26] I mean, you have to, they all, all your skill sets has to be good.

Vance Crowe [00:52:30] I had this painter from here in St. Louis on a few months ago. Her name was Heather Hay Mart. And she has this, her painting is, is phenomenal because it's got so much texture that it actually comes off of the canvas. It's like three dimensional. And to me, I was looking at her art and thought, this must have just carried the day once you learned how to do this painting. And everybody saw it, you know, they must have just gone nuts over it. And she was like, no. Like what I should have learned in school was half art and half business, right? 'cause until you can find a way to sell your art, then, then you don't get to live on your art. That's so true. And that, and that was a big part of her saying that's, that's the reason I get to live my dream is that I didn't focus only on my dream. I had to learn all these other things.

Eric Frazier [00:53:16] That's actually a, a, a pretty big criticism of a lot of photo schools and art schools, is that they're very about much about the art. And my and Webster, like my instructors were, you know, mostly sort of come, they, their background wasn't from the art side. You know, their background was from a more fine art direction. And so that was a big influence. But, you know, I didn't have classes really about the business of photography. And a lot of art programs are criticized for that because, you know, these kids want to be able to make a living, creating their art. And they come at a school with the, a degree and a lot of, you know, skill and creativity, but not, does, don't really know how to like market their work. And, you know, and nowadays it's even more sort of complicated. You know, it's, it's more difficult now than it used to be, even though it's like you'd think with the web and everything, it's like easier. It's, well no, it's, in many ways, it's more, it's more difficult because you've got a lot more competition. The barrier to entry is so much lower that more people are just jumping in. It's like, oh, I, they can become Instagram stars just using their, their, you know, fam their phone cameras. And so

Vance Crowe [00:54:31] How do you feel about that? Like is it's gotta be a little bit like, ah,

Eric Frazier [00:54:35] Yeah, it's, I mean it's hard. It's, you know, it's like, I've sort of been dealing with it for many years now because I would say most of my career it's sort of like been in the digital age. And so we've been heading in this direction, you know, and it's sort of accelerated. I have mixed feelings about it. I mean, part of me feels like, you know, I really love that I can take pretty decent photos with my phone. You know, like, I like that, you know, and I've, I've gotten so much, so many great shots. 'cause I didn't have like, you know, my, my big camera with me. But I had my phone, you know, I always have my phone. And so like, especially like when I'm riding, you know, it's like some of my best photography, biking, photography tends to be phone photography, just 'cause it's the one that I've got, you know? And that's the best camera is the one that's in your hand, right? Yeah. So it's so in that way I, I like it. I mean, I, I'm, I'm into the technology in general. I've always been to the technology. I've always been in the computer side as well, which is helpful. But at the same time, the, the business is getting a lot harder for professionals. You know, companies just don't really want to pay as much as they used to. And they don't really have to, frankly, I mean, there's just so many sources for them to get photography for so much less. You know, like, you know, they can go, they can go on flicker and find some photo that works great for their ad or for, you know, their, their magazine story or something like that.

Eric Frazier [00:56:09] And, you know, they reach out to the, the artist and they say, you know, we'll give you 50 bucks or a hundred bucks for this photo to, to use it in our campaign.

Vance Crowe [00:56:18] And to them it was worth zero before. Yeah.

Eric Frazier [00:56:20] Well, exactly. And this is some guy, he's like, he's like an accountant or something. He is just like, I just took it on my vacation. You know, like, that's

Vance Crowe [00:56:27] Awesome. You

Eric Frazier [00:56:27] Know, I'm a public photographer, you know, it's like he's stoked, you know? And I, and I get it and it's like, so he wins, the company wins, but the professional that might have been able to charge that company a thousand dollars is not winning. You know? Right. That's like, that's like, that's like me and, and my peers is that those sort of markets are sort of going away. And so you, you do have to adapt in many ways and you kind of have to figure, okay, what's the type of photography that's always going to need someone gonna need a professional, you know? And it generally has to do with people, you know, people photography, whether it's everything from senior portraits and weddings all the way up to like, the stuff that I do, which is like, you know, I do like a, a bunch of pharmaceutical jobs, you know, pharmaceutical ads where it's like the old people like riding their bike or

Vance Crowe [00:57:18] Something like that, you know, because

Eric Frazier [00:57:20] They're not like, you know, bleeding out of their ears anymore because

Vance Crowe [00:57:24] Some

Eric Frazier [00:57:24] New, some new drug, you know? And so it's like, yeah. So it's like stuff like that they're gonna need professionals for. And a professional brings a lot to a, a big shoot that, you know, an amateur just couldn't, you know, there's just so much planning involved and casting and locations and there's just like a lot of moving parts. And so, and being able to run a set and everything. So there's still a role for us, you know, for sure. But there's just fewer ways for us to make money in general.

Vance Crowe [00:57:52] I'm struck by when, when you start to really learn about photography, you realize that the job of the photographer is, is a lonely one. Like the photographer that's good has to have the people skills that you're talking about. Because you have to, particularly if you're, if you're working with other people, you have to be able to engage with them. But you're behind a camera. You have to have all these thoughts, you have to have all these observations in a single moment to snap the shot. And then once you go back and you're sitting with your computer, you're also alone sitting and reviewing and reflective. It seems to me to be like, I don't know, like a memory painter or something. Like, it, it really is for somebody that has to be able to, the, I think the only way you could be truly good at what you're, you're good at is to enjoy being alone.

Eric Frazier [00:58:38] Yeah. It is, it is definitely a very sort of loner esque kind of profession in many ways. 'cause you are alone a lot of the times. And I, I talk about this with the other photographer friends. My good friend Jay is a great photographer and we've sort of tried to kind of get groups of photographers together regularly to just sort of meet and talk about photography and stuff. And, you know, it, it never really comes together just 'cause life and kids and whatever and, and time, but,

Vance Crowe [00:59:10] And photographers are loners. Right?

Eric Frazier [00:59:12] Exactly. Well, the funny thing is, it sort of depends on the photographer. Like the photographers we tend to hang out with and connect with are similar to us in that they, they like people, you know what? I like people. I like shooting people. I get a lot out of shooting people, but a lot of photographers, they don't, you know, and those guys, those are like architecture photographers, you know, they're product photographers. They're, they're by themselves all the time when they're shooting, they're by themselves. I mean, other than, and stuff. Whereas like, you know, most of my focus is shooting people. Like when I, you know, most of the jobs I get are about shooting people, you know, I shoot cars sometimes, but I used to shoot more cars. I don't shoot 'em as much as I used to, but I just have some old clients that I still shoot for. But the shooting people is really hard. Like getting great stuff out of people can be really difficult. It's the most difficult really, but I think it's the most rewarding in the long run. It's the, it's definitely the most like, exciting and sort of intense in general. So we do have to sort of have that, at least for my group, my, the people that I kind of like connect with, we, we have to be really great with people. We have to be comfortable with people and, you know, enjoy. But you can't really fake it. You have to like, kind of be into people to an extent and be able to be on set and just be like on, you know, it's like, you know what you want. You can communicate with people, you can get like little kids to like do what you want 'em to do and people who don't wanna be photographed, get 'em to do what you want 'em to do and, and get people to like bring, get the personality out and stuff like that. And it takes a lot of energy.

Eric Frazier [01:00:43] And, but then be able to do that comfortably and then be able to go sit at your computer for hours or days at a time retouching by yourself. And so it, it is sort of like this interesting combination of, of skills you have to have to be able to do that. Yeah.

Vance Crowe [01:01:01] Which actually seems remarkably similar to me to cycling, right? People get into cycling because their friend was into it or they went in a group. But when you start doing long rides,

Eric Frazier [01:01:13] Yeah,

Vance Crowe [01:01:13] You're out there by yourself or you don't have to be, but, but for the most part, like, so I did a few thousand miles in the, over the last couple of years and I, I found biking, cycling to be an incredibly lonely thing, and particularly if you're gonna be good. Yeah,

Eric Frazier [01:01:29] Yeah, that's very true. Sort of the better you get or the better you want to get at cycling, you sort of have to be willing to ride alone and train alone. It's a very, it is very lonely in that way, you know, when you're, when you're kind of a wreck rider and you know, you could just do like group rides all the time and that's, that's great. And you know, I really like riding with other people. I would prefer to ride with other people, but if I'm gonna get fit or any of my athletes are gonna get fit enough to race, they have to ride by themselves. And there's a couple of reasons. One is, you know, you can't, if you're trying to ride five, six days a week, you're not gonna be able to get people together

Vance Crowe [01:02:10] To ride. Right. Not many friends wanna do that. Yeah,

Eric Frazier [01:02:12] Well, exactly. And especially like when the weather's bad, you know, it's like that sort of, the number of people that are willing to, to ride with you outside kind of goes down as it gets cold outside. So that's one side of it. The other side of it is that, you know, to train properly, you know, you're doing intervals and stuff. You're doing stu you're very specific, like what you're doing. You're not just gonna go ride, going to ride, you're being very specific about the intensity and the length of your ride. And so, you know, that does, that's just not conducive to riding with somebody else. Nobody else wants to necessarily do the same intervals you're doing if they're not, at least if they're not raising or something. And so you have to just get used to just riding by yourself.

Vance Crowe [01:02:54] What makes a, what makes a cyclist fast?

Eric Frazier [01:02:58] That's a, a big question. Mostly desire.

Vance Crowe [01:03:05] Wow. I

Eric Frazier [01:03:06] Would say. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. I mean anybody can train and get fast, you know, it's like, does, you know, if your question is what makes a someone be able to win the Tour de France? Well that's like another question. Yeah. That's sort of another few answers because you know, anybody can get like fairly fast and fairly fit at cycling if they just want to, if they just have the desire to, you know, it's pretty simple. I mean, but if you want to get to be world class, if you want to get to be a pro or you know, any kind of, any level pro or even like, you know, just below a pro, but a, a strong amateur, you have to be able to put in the time. And I mean that comes with a desire, a great, a really good vo, O2 max is sort of key, you know, to be able to process oxygen fast. That's kind of the barrier for, you know, pros and top pros for sure is the physiological. Generally speaking, we, you know, this is sort of, numbers are sort of thrown around, but for the most part I think most coaches would kind of agree that's probably 50% genetic, 50% training is, is what makes a, a cyclist pro or top pro level.

Vance Crowe [01:04:25] And when you're talking about the, the training that people have to do, could you start in your twenties and still get to the pro level or do you have to have started cycling earlier than that?

Eric Frazier [01:04:35] Yeah, no, I mean you can start later. You know, it's, the genetics help a lot, you know, in that, in that at that point, because as you're getting older, you're, you're fighting time, right? So by the time you get to 30, your body tends to kind of start reversing. So now it's, it's no longer build, at least for men, it's no longer building muscle setting just trying to keep it from

Vance Crowe [01:05:03] Sedentary, right?

Eric Frazier [01:05:04] So you're losing it, right? So this is like, if you're sedentary 30-year-old male after 30, you're probably just gradually losing muscle, right? Women tend to peak a little earlier, so before that. But if you are fit and you're training, then you can slow or reverse that, that degradation I would say up to a certain point. You know, once you start getting to like, you know, it, it does sort of accelerate. So it's like forties, fifties, sixties, then you're sort of fighting the inevitability of it, I guess. But, but no, it's possible to start later and, and plenty of people have started later. You know, they, they discover cycling for various reasons. A lot of times it's from injury, you know, maybe they were world class in other sport, you know, a lot of times you'll come across people who are great runners or great swimmers and or cross country skier, you know, other endurance sports. And for whatever reason they can't do that sport anywhere anymore. So they, they start cycling a lot of times for rehab and they realize, oh, I'm like really good at this. And so they start training and so then they can, they can become world class for sure if they start late, you know, most people. And it also sort of depends too, you know, cycling, road cycling especially is very, it's very fitness based. You know, your success is much more fitness based than say mountain biking where technical skill plays a bigger role.

Eric Frazier [01:06:39] You still have to have the fitness of course. But you know, the technical skill, the neuromuscular action is something that benefits greatly from starting at a very young age. So, you know, if you're gonna be one of these guys that it's, you know, they're doing tricks and they're free riding and they're doing crank works and Red Bull rampage, you know, they're doing flips and stuff. They're doing a lot of like acrobatics on the bike. You know, these guys, you probably can't start when you're 20 just 'cause you just haven't built up the neuromuscular ability.

Vance Crowe [01:07:12] Can you do those tricks?

Eric Frazier [01:07:13] No, I cannot do those tricks. No. I can do a little bit of jumping and I'm trying to get better at it. And I do like jumping in general, but I came from more of a cross country mountain biking background, which was more about the fitness. I mean I'm pretty good technically like skills wise I'm decent, but that's 'cause I've just ridden for so long, you know, you just build a skill for it. But, but yeah, the more sort of skill based it is, the better off you are

Vance Crowe [01:07:41] Starting early, starting at a

Eric Frazier [01:07:42] Very young age. Yeah. Because you're building those neuromuscular path or those tho those yeah, neuromuscular pathways basically you're sort of training your body to do a certain thing and you have more body awareness and you know, just, you're just sort of constantly repetitive repeating it and repeating it, repeating it. And then it just gets to be, you know, when you're, when you have a complex skill that you're trying to learn, the more you practice, the more so many parts of that skill become not mindless, but they're, but they're just like

Vance Crowe [01:08:19] Ingrained so habitual.

Eric Frazier [01:08:20] They're ingrained, right? So they're, they're basically just, you don't have to think about doing them. Your body just knows how to do them. And so then at that point you can work on higher and higher level skills. So it's like, you know, you've practiced enough back flips now you can like practice double back flips, you know, it's like at that level that's kind of what those guys are dealing with. They're working on such high level tricks and stuff like that where, you know, I would never flip, but, you know, I would, I would like to get better at jumping and be able to do bigger jumps, but you know, and I'm sort of fighting time because I'm also, I'm getting older and so I don't want to get hurt either, right. It's like I got a family and I gotta work. And so

Vance Crowe [01:09:02] Yeah, taking the jump when you're in your twenties, there's those adventures are easier when you're not, when you don't have as much to risk. It's

Eric Frazier [01:09:06] So true. It's so true. And it's, you know, I, you know, my, my wife is pretty funny about it. She's also a cyclist and a mountain biker, so she gets it. But she, you know, I recently, not recently, it was probably about two years ago, I was riding in California Marin where I lived for a while and riding with some old friends that I used to ride and trails that I'd ridden for years. You know,

Vance Crowe [01:09:31] Lots of hills out there.

Eric Frazier [01:09:32] Yeah, there's a few hills out there for sure. And we were on a trail that I'd been done a bunch of times and it was on a Sunday and the next day, on a Monday for the next week, I had a job in Vegas or something I think. And so I, it was a, it was a long job so it was, it was good money and you know, I was like leaving the next morning and, and I crashed on the trail and it was just like a fluke, really weird fluke thing. And those are the ones that always do the, do the most, most damage, right? They're just like weird fluke things on trails that you know and are comfortable with. And I landed, I landed on my knee and normally like I would, you know, I've endo plenty of times that I went over the bars and wouldn't be a big deal, but my knee landed perfectly on a rock that was in the trail. Ah. So I tore, I didn't do any joint damage, but I tore basically the skin off of my kneecap, so it totally sucked. So, you know, I go to Marin General and they stitch me up and everything like that. And I'm basically like in this like boot, you know, where you have to keep your legs straight for probably at least like a week or two because the, I didn't wanna bust the stitches and, and I had to miss that job and it sucked. So I basically paid Marin General thousands of dollars and I have good insurance too, and I still had to pay them thousands of dollars for the bills. And then I lost thousands of dollars from missing the job and my wife was pretty annoyed and she's like, you're from now on, you're wearing knee pads.

Eric Frazier [01:11:05] And so she's right. I, from now on, I pretty much wear knee pads when I'm mountain bike except when I race. But, but yeah, I wear knee pads and so like now when I go and I'm gonna do some jumping or something, I've got like knee pads, I've got elbow pads. I think I might buy like a full face helmet eventually.

Vance Crowe [01:11:21] When I was in Kenya I had a buddy, we, we were told to be really careful riding bikes, but you, you know, you, there are two options there. Walk or ride a bike. And I had a buddy that took a spill on his bike and cracked his helmet all the way through, which it's actually how those helmets are designed to work is to crack. But I saw that, that helmet and I was like, I'm never getting on a bike without one of those. Yeah.

Eric Frazier [01:11:45] But

Vance Crowe [01:11:45] Then later I did fall and there's almost like A-P-T-S-D is too strong of a phrase, but it, like, after I fell then for the next, I don't know, two or 300 miles that I, that I rode, I was always nervous about falling. In fact, anytime I get on a bike now I have a lot more fear of it. When you're, you're in the coaching world, you've got people that are trying to go really, really fast once they wreck, is it like falling off a horse where you gotta, you gotta, hey, get right back on there. 'cause if you don't get back on, you won't get back. Or they, they have the desire strong enough that they don't have that problem.

Eric Frazier [01:12:21] Well, it depends on the situation. You know, concussions are really big deal and we take it very seriously, you know, sports contact, sports especially. And you know, cycling's not a contact sport really, but you

Vance Crowe [01:12:36] Better not be, I know, right? It's

Eric Frazier [01:12:37] Like you don't want it to be, but you know, traditionally, like they, you know, concussions were not taken very seriously. It was just like, oh, you just got your bell rung, you know, like go back out there, you know, especially in football and stuff. And so it's taken a lot more seriously now, even minor concussions. And so if, if somebody goes down, the first thing is is like, oh, did you hit your head? We look at the helmet. If the, if they, if they're like, no, I didn't hit my head, this is how I landed. You know, we checked the helmet, it looks totally clean everything so we can assume that they did not hit their head, get a concussion. Then we try to get 'em back out there as soon as possible. Yeah, you don't want 'em sort of obsessing about the, the crash. Now if it's a serious crash and they really hurt, then no, we wouldn't just push 'em out there. And most racers, you know, they're gonna be pretty, you know, most racers have crashed enough to where they're gonna get back on the bike and keep racing or keep going, keep riding if they, if they can, you know. But if there's any, any like concern whatsoever that there's a concussion, then, then they're, they're done for the day and then we sort of evaluate after that. And you know, the thing about the concussions is it's like, it just doesn't take much these days. And the more you have them, the worse they tend to be, you know, the, there I should say, the effects of them tend to be worse and

Vance Crowe [01:14:04] Worse. Yeah. They seem to compound by orders of magnitude, right?

Eric Frazier [01:14:07] Yeah, yeah, they do. I mean, I have an athlete that he, he had a pretty bad concussion a couple of years ago and he, he was out for a while, I mean weeks, maybe even months. He was out for a while and 'cause he had all the symptoms and everything and, and then this year he, you know, probably about three months ago I would say he was like getting out of his car or something and just hit the back of his head on the door jam, you know, of his car. Just like a stupid little thing, just kind of just like bumped it. But it was the back of his head, which where he had hit before where he had the concussion before, had the impact before and it took him out for, since then. I mean he, I would say he's only, he's not a hundred percent yet. I mean he's riding, but he's probably just getting back to like significant training this week. It took him that long and this is a fit, fit collegiate race. Oh.

Vance Crowe [01:15:04] And it, those are the people that when you're fit and then every single day you're not riding, you're like a border collie that didn't get jogged. And

Eric Frazier [01:15:11] I know it's so true. Plus he works at a bike shop as a mechanic, so he is like seeing everybody on bikes all the time. So it's, it's hard. And his and his girlfriend is a pro triathlete and you know, she's exercising and super fit too. So he's, oh, and the other thing too is he is like, he's a great cross racer and this is cyclecross season, so he's like missing a lot of the season. So

Vance Crowe [01:15:31] Do you, do you find that right now, because triathlons seem to be growing so rapidly that you find people that are saying, Hey, I I need to work on this, this bike section. 'cause I'm a, I, you know, like Anne, she was a swimmer, she knows how to run, but the bike is the chance you can either fall way behind or you can make up a bunch of ground

Eric Frazier [01:15:51] In terms of like triathletes or just like,

Vance Crowe [01:15:53] Are you, yeah. Are you training triathletes? Are you seeing

Eric Frazier [01:15:55] I don't have any triathletes. No. I, I, I run a little bit. I'm ju I'm sort of getting more into running than I used to in terms of like learning how to train it, swimming. Not at all. I just don't have the background in swimming. Swimming is a very difficult

Vance Crowe [01:16:11] Sport. No, but I meant do are people in the coming to you saying, well,

Eric Frazier [01:16:14] I was gonna say that's that I haven't had any triathletes coming to me for that because I don't advertise it for try. But I think if I had one coming to come to me, I would probably say I could train you on the bike, but I'll send you to somebody else for the swim or the run at this point.

Vance Crowe [01:16:29] What, what do people learn when a coach comes to teach 'em? I mean like I know how to ride a bike, I know how to make the pedals go round and round. Well,

Eric Frazier [01:16:36] You know, a lot of times most of the people that come to me, they sort of, they're looking for fitness and training, you know, training plans and specific workouts and everything like that. They're not always thinking about skills, you know, technical skills. And that's one thing that's really nice that I bring to the table is that, I mean I'm a cert certified mountain bike instructor, mountain bike skills instructor. And so I actually have training for that and I have a little bit of training for road skills, which I didn't use to think was like really a thing. But I was, I was getting some coaching certifications from USA cycling in Phoenix in J January actually of this year. And, and they, we, they took us through like a road skills clinic and it was great because it was like, oh yeah, 'cause I, you know, I'd just been riding for so long, I just didn't think about it. But there's so many things a, a roadie can learn on the road, you know, mountain biking is sort of obvious. It's like really rocky and rough and technical and difficult, but road, you wouldn't think about it. But there's so many things you can learn, whether it's like obstacles in the road or being able to like look behind you without like steering off course being comfortable kind of just in close quarters with people. A lot of people are not super comfortable in like, oh,

Vance Crowe [01:17:53] I hate it riding with

Eric Frazier [01:17:53] Groups.

Vance Crowe [01:17:53] I hate it. I, that's actually like, it is not fun for me to ride in groups. I like riding with my wife, my father-in-law, but that's it. So

Eric Frazier [01:18:01] That's what we do is when I, when I, I teach road clinics sometimes. And so when I teach the clinic, one of the things we do is we do some work in the grass where you're like banging up against people. You're like shoulder, shoulder bar to bar so that you can get comfortable. It's like if you fall over, you're just in grass. So it's not a big deal. And we do these exercises where we'll have like two people riding side by side to this big ground, big grid, right? Just around the edge of the grid with cones and stuff. And so the guy on the inside will have his, have his arm around the guy on the outside. And so we'll just ride one handed and then we will add somebody. So then they're both like holding, so, so it's three people, oh

Vance Crowe [01:18:39] My god. And

Eric Frazier [01:18:40] Then four people and then five people. And you can as many as you can like put on there, you can do it. But you imagine like the person on the outside, whether it's like the fifth or the eighth person, it's pretty comical actually. It's a pretty funny thing. But you know, they have to move on the outside much faster than the one on the inside. And so there's just a lot of like banging and people are sort of like bumping into each other. But it's a great drill because it sort of shows you that you can, you can bump shoulders with somebody and not fall over. You can bump bars with somebody and not fall over. It doesn't have to be like, you know, this kind of like very delicate sort of thing when you're in a riding in a group.

Vance Crowe [01:19:18] That would be really valuable for me because I, I would say like in a car, I don't have road rage. I'm like, yay, merge. I'll get up ahead. You know, I've driven east coast, west coast doesn't bother me, but I get into those groups and all I feel is rage around other people and it's probably more fear than anything else. And, and in particular like, you know, like I don't wanna be embarrassed by falling down. I don't wanna, I, I don't know. So if you can train that outta somebody, it'd be really, really healthy.

Eric Frazier [01:19:44] Yeah. I mean a lot of it's practice, but, but I, the, the stuff in the grass is really great because, you know, you're right people are sort of like, they're tense and that kind of exasperates the problem and so you just try to get 'em comfortable. It's like, listen, like I can like push on you on the bike and you're gonna be okay. I can like shoulder you and you're gonna be okay. You can like recover from that. And part of that also is just sort of practicing like what happens when you do get a little shoulder into you or bars into you, can you, can you sort of bounce off and recover from that, you know, that that takes skill and that's, that comes from practice. But doing that and then in the drill and the clinics will also teach like cornering skills and stuff like that. So you kind of, people can take turns better and, and just get used to kind of like difficult loose terrain. But the close quarters thing is a big deal. A lot of people that's like a lot of people's fear for sure. And when you start racing, that's, you have to sort of deal, deal with that because you're very tight and you're at high speeds. I mean, you're taking high speed corners and you're inches from people. Yeah.

Vance Crowe [01:20:44] What's the name of the St. Louis race? They do around here? It's in the summertime.

Eric Frazier [01:20:48] Well there's gateway cup.

Vance Crowe [01:20:49] Yeah,

Eric Frazier [01:20:50] Man.

Vance Crowe [01:20:50] Yeah, that's

Eric Frazier [01:20:51] In the fall. Well that's like, has

Vance Crowe [01:20:53] It already passed Labor

Eric Frazier [01:20:54] Day weekend?

Vance Crowe [01:20:54] Yeah,

Eric Frazier [01:20:55] Labor day weekend. Yeah. Yeah, that just happened.

Vance Crowe [01:20:57] That is fun to watch. I I I, I personally have no interest in doing that, but it like the sprint ones when they're coming around the corner. Yeah. I

Eric Frazier [01:21:04] Mean

Vance Crowe [01:21:04] That is as close to, I don't know, like controlled chaos is a phrase you used before. That's it's, yeah, that's what it is.

Eric Frazier [01:21:13] Yeah, it's, it is pretty like scary too. And then, you know, I've, I've raced a ton of crits and I've raced in the Gateway Cup plenty of times and it's, it's definitely

Vance Crowe [01:21:20] Oh, you've raced in that?

Eric Frazier [01:21:21] Oh yeah, yeah. There's, you know, there, there's, there's several categories. So there's like the pros and then all the way down categories. So you work your way up the categories as you get better and better.

Vance Crowe [01:21:33] And what category were you in?

Eric Frazier [01:21:34] I'm in Cat four actually, which is the lowest, the slowest category is cat five. So I'm in a fairly slow category. It's one of those things that's like, I've never really been that as into the crit racing as the mountain biking. And so I've definitely never, I, you know, I just kind of need to like really buckle down and focus on training to like get the points necessary to move up to cat three once you get up to like cat two and one. So it's basically like 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 and pros and ones are sort of pros is just above one. So it's like the pros and the ones raced together a lot. The pro one twos raced together a lot, but to really be a good cat one or cat two, you gotta dedicate a huge amount of time to it. Just a lot of ride time. And so I would be an okay probably cat three once I got up there, but you gotta build up points, so you gotta get podiums, you gotta wins and stuff like that. Year,

Vance Crowe [01:22:37] Year, it really is like the belt system. I mean, there's five, there's five there for

Eric Frazier [01:22:41] Sure. Yeah. Because you don't wanna, you know, you, you wanna race against people that are your same level more or less for sure.

Vance Crowe [01:22:46] But I, yeah, I, I, when I think about you describing mountain biking, to me the only experience that I have with that is when people put on their GoPros and they ride on the, on the terrain. And to me that's like taking my worst fear, just the fear of heights and then putting it on two wheels. Yeah. Are you out on terrain where you're, where there's an edge on the side and you can go down the side of the mountain?

Eric Frazier [01:23:11] Yeah, yeah, for sure. For sure. Yeah. I've been up some pretty gnarly trails before. Yeah. It's, you know, that's where sort of having been a mountain biker for so many years really helps me in that technical side. So like for instance, like I was saying, like the road is much more of a fitness based kind of endeavor as far as racing goes. And you need some technical skill, but you need more technical skill on mountain biking. So, so for instance, like, I mean it's also my preference mountain biking a little bit more. So I've worked harder at it. But in terms of, you know, in mountain biking, I'm a cat, I'm a cat one, so I'm at the top of the amateur

Vance Crowe [01:23:53] Cat. You're a black belt then. So you,

Eric Frazier [01:23:54] I'm a, I'm a black belt. I'm not a pro, I'll never be a pro, but I'm sort of near the top of the, the amateur rank or I'm at the top of the amateur ranks. Right. So, and it's not because of fitness, you know, I've never had like incredible fitness. It's really just because I've got a decent technical skill 'cause I've done it for so long. And also, you know, for, and the way that sort of translates into like doing well and races is like, let's say, you know, there's like uphills and downhills and the uphills, somebody who's super fit would beat me on the uphill. But when we get to the downhills or even some of the rolling terrain, I'm not only faster on that terrain, I can recover on that terrain. So when you get somebody, especially like a roadie or someone who doesn't really have a lot of mountain biking experience, but they're super fit, they'll get on a mountain bike and they'll be very strong on the uphills. But on the downhills, they're gripped, they're like white knuckled, you know, they're, they're not that fast, but they're also just, they're spending a lot of energy through

Vance Crowe [01:24:58] Fear. They're wast their energy. Yeah.

Eric Frazier [01:24:59] Right. So whether it's like fear or just like, they just don't know how to flow quite as well. They're not able to recover on the downs like I can, so, 'cause I can stay loose, catch my breath on the downhills and so that gives me a little bit more of advantage even than just the, a little bit extra speed on the downhill. So that's sort of where I've been able to make it work on the dirt, but the road, yeah. I'm just not a super like fit guy in general, you know, at least in that like world, I mean, compared to like,

Vance Crowe [01:25:29] Oh, I saw some photographs of you riding, you're jacked when you, when you wanna be. Yeah,

Eric Frazier [01:25:37] I, my wife would laugh if she heard you say that.

Vance Crowe [01:25:41] So when, when does somebody, at what point in their career did they start in their cycling career? Did they decide I'm gonna go out and get a coach?

Eric Frazier [01:25:51] If you're, if you're like pretty young and you're coming up and you're really focused, like if you're in like junior high or high school and you are fortunate enough to be in a town that has some racing or maybe your parents are into racing and you start getting into it and you start getting serious and you start doing well and you start having aspirations, then you might say to mom and dad, like, I'd really like to get a coach so I can like get better. You know, maybe even get like a scholarship to a, to a college that af that offers it for that has a cycling team. And that's sort of like one of the first places they'll start thinking about getting a coach. Especially if like, even if the parents, a lot of times the dads will be experienced mountain bikers and they can do a lot of like training and stuff and coaching, but there gets to be a point where you kind of need someone a little more objective and that

Vance Crowe [01:26:49] Benefits the race. Yeah, for sure. That's in everything, right?

Eric Frazier [01:26:51] Right, exactly. So, but but that's sometimes where it starts is that's when kids will, if they really have aspirations, they'll get a coach, then it's probably not that common after that until people are sort of getting to be like middle aged, like, well not even middle aged, maybe like late thirties or late forties where like maybe they have kids already and they, or the kids are getting older and they sort of have more time to train and then they start thinking like, I wanna, I wanna train harder, I wanna train better, I want to do better in the racing, the local racing scene and I need somebody to help me. And so, you know it, that being said, I mean I've got literally the range of athletes I have right now and I've got about 10, 10 athletes. The age range is literally 18 years old to 70 years old.

Vance Crowe [01:27:44] Oh wow.

Eric Frazier [01:27:45] Okay.

Vance Crowe [01:27:46] So

Eric Frazier [01:27:46] It's a pretty big range. Yeah. And the older gentlemen and a few other people, they're, they're just wanting to get fit again. You know, they're, they used to ride more or they, maybe they're just getting into riding and they just wanna get fit on the bike. And so they're kind of not interested in racing, they're just recreational riders. They just wanna get fit again. But they want someone to kind of help 'em get,

Vance Crowe [01:28:09] Have a plan to do it. Right.

Eric Frazier [01:28:10] Have a plan. Yeah. I mean actually the 70-year-old, he's, he's, he's really great. He's, he's got some ambitions. He wants to do some like big, big rides, big events, you know, at his age. So he's really into it. But,

Vance Crowe [01:28:25] And and what makes you a good coach? I mean, you, you, you're up at the top, you're black belt in the mountain bike racing, but, but you know, there's a big difference between the rider and the coach. Yeah. What

Eric Frazier [01:28:36] Makes

Vance Crowe [01:28:36] You a good coach?

Eric Frazier [01:28:37] Well, you know, that's a good question. I mean, I'm still pretty new at, you know, coaching in terms of like having like a lot of clients that I don't, you know, I wasn't friends with originally or something like that. And you know,

Vance Crowe [01:28:49] I think your sales game needs to go up on your

Eric Frazier [01:28:51] Coach. I know,

Vance Crowe [01:28:52] I know. You're so modest.

Eric Frazier [01:28:54] You know, it's, it's, it's one of those things where experience counts a lot in this business, you know, but I would say what my focus really is when it comes to coaching athletes is, you know, the training side of it and, and the workouts and everything and sort of the, the metrics of like power and heart rate and stuff like that. I mean, I, I take to that pretty easily. Like the technical stuff I take to pretty naturally and the analytics and stuff on the, on the computer. Like I, I I enjoy that. I get a lot outta the numbers.

Vance Crowe [01:29:23] You're so good at it from your horse handicapping days.

Eric Frazier [01:29:25] Right, exactly. Exactly. The horses. But that's, you know, a lot of that can be sort of like, that stuff can be learned and kind of practiced for sure. I think one of the things that really helps a coach be a really great coach is being really, really empathetic to their athletes and being and going out of their way to really kind of be in touch with like what's going on with them, you know, because it's kind of a real, I think to be a really good coach, you really have to listen to your athletes a lot and listen to them. Not just like what they're saying, but like what they're not saying. You know, kind of try to be in touch with like who they are, what their motivations are, you know, like do they sound kind of down, like what's going on with them? Like, you know, kind of trying to learn their personalities and figure out, you know, like is it, can I give him a hard workout? Like is he, is his head space right where I can give him some brutal intervals or does he just need a fun ride? Like, does he just need like, kind of to go out and just have fun and not be so regimented? You know? And kind of trying to be in touch with that I think is like super important. 'cause it's really easy to push people too hard, you know, to where they just get burnt out or something. You know? That's, that's like the thing I worry about the most is, is both over training, over training syndrome, but also just mentally wearing them down.

Eric Frazier [01:30:58] You know, it's really easy to assign. It's, it's unfortunately, it's really too easy to assign people

Vance Crowe [01:31:04] Really

Eric Frazier [01:31:05] Brutal workouts, you know, like really hard intervals that just wreck 'em. And some people can take to it. Some people sort of thrive on the challenge of it, but other people, you can't give them to them all the time or something. You've kind of gotta like think about when you're giving it to them. And so,

Vance Crowe [01:31:21] Yeah, I mean I completely appreciate the empathy part. And, and there's feels like there's something different with cycling. Cycling maybe and running because it's just so pure that it's just you, right? Like you, yeah, you're racing against other, other bikes and, and, but like your cadence is, you, you can look down at the numbers anytime you want, see your speed, you can see am I getting my 80 revolutions a minute? And then, you know, you know for a fact whether or not you're in a hard enough gear and, and you can always make it easy if you want. So the only way you get better is if you focus on suffering on purpose. Right.

Eric Frazier [01:32:00] And

Vance Crowe [01:32:00] I think that that's a, it's about, that's a real challenge.

Eric Frazier [01:32:02] It is about suffering. Yeah. And, and suffering takes practice. You know, suffering is not, you're sort of, you don't, you're not sort of like born with an ability to suffer. I mean, some people sort of have a genetic disposition that they actually can suffer more than other people. Like all things being equal. And I think a lot of pro cyclists top pros are sort of like that. But it also takes a lot of practice as well. You know, they've done tests actually on pro tour riders, you know, Europe, European top riders, racers. And they've determined from those, they they've sort of tested their ability to withstand pain, to withstand suffering. And usually it has to do with the, with the way they measure it is usually like hand and ice, cold water. Like how long can your hand, can you take it? You know, how long can you handle it? And that's like one of the things they'll do in a clinic, clinical clinical trial or clinical research setting or whatever study I guess. And they found that pro tour riders tend to have a higher pain threshold mid to late season, whereas compared to beginning of the season. And the reason is, is because mid to late season they've been suffering all year long they've been feeling the pain of racing, the pain of crashes, they felt the pain of intervals and more crashes. And whereas when they're coming out of the winter and they haven't been training as hard or racing as hard or anything like that, they just have not sort of practiced the suffering, feeling the pain.

Eric Frazier [01:33:37] They haven't felt the pain that they'll feel on a regular basis in July or August or something like that. And so it's because it takes practice so you've gotta get used to it. That

Vance Crowe [01:33:47] Seems like a message of hope to me. Yeah. 'cause it, it says like, Hey, the more that you can withstand, the more you'll be capable, you'll be strong enough to withstand in the future. It, it, it actually will become easier.

Eric Frazier [01:34:00] Absolutely. And that's how I create a lot of the workouts I give people or, or assign a lot of the workouts is I sort of try to think like, okay, what time, what's the time of year? Where are they in their sort of suffering of the, of the whole year and what, you know, technically, you know, it's like I could look at their, I could look at their numbers, their metrics and say, okay, they should be able to sustain 350 watts for a minute, right? The numbers say it, but on at the same time, I can look back and say, okay, well they haven't done that in probably a few weeks. They've either like had some injury or it's off season or for whatever reason. Or maybe they're just mental space has been like off or whatever. So maybe if I throw that at them, technically they should be able to do it, but it might just be too much. It might just really kind of wreck mentally or just 'cause the thing about it is, it's like you're also sort of balancing like their, their confidence, you know, their ego. It's like you want them to have confidence. So if you just like keep hammering them and they just, it's like they can't finish workouts or they can't finish intervals, they're gonna get really down. And so you need to give 'em stuff that's like hard and challenging but doable. You know, stuff that's like they can accomplish. I mean, once in a while it's like they won't hit the numbers and that's fine, but if it's like every time they just can't get it done, then you've gotta pull back and say, okay, I'm not gonna give 'em that three 50 for a minute. I'm gonna give 'em 300 for a minute and, and get 'em to do that.

Eric Frazier [01:35:31] And it's like, get 'em used to the pain again. Get 'em used to the intervals again. Get 'em some confidence back knowing that they can do that and they can feel good doing it. So that's, that's sort of a lot of the part of coaching that I think is, takes like a real, I think empathy is a big part of it. I I think that, you know, just really listening and paying attention to your athletes is huge, you know, 'cause anybody can assign workouts. I mean you can buy a training plan like it, you know, like they don't hire me really for the training plan necessarily. They might, in the beginning they might, 'cause they might think, oh, this is what I need, but in the end, you know, what they really need is they need to like be texting me like three times a week asking me questions or talking to me about their race coming up or something like that. You know, like that communication is like huge.

Vance Crowe [01:36:17] I never really thought about the power of observation and how important it would be for a coach. Oh yeah. 'cause it's, you can't really ask the student what is it that you need. I mean, they might know to some extent, but the real thing that they need is probably hidden from them. So it's kind of an interesting parallel between that and being the observer that can be a photographer.

Eric Frazier [01:36:37] Yeah, I, I, I think there's definitely some parallels and I don't think it's an accident that I, you know, I think I can do well in coaching because I think there, there are those parallels and sort of being more sensitive to other people and more sensitive to their, what's going on with them and their emotions. And a lot of that is just paying attention. I mean, a lot of it's just like taking the time to pay attention and listen. But I think if I was sort of, you know, too impatient or just, or I didn't like people or something or I was, you know, just people didn't interest me or something, I, I just don't think I would be as good, you know? 'cause it's like you can be a genius at the metrics and the numbers and there's, and you know, I've, I've, I've met coaches and I've, I've seen coaches that, you know, speak at conferences and stuff that when it comes to the numbers, they're geniuses. I mean, they just, they're really great with the software. They're great with the metrics, but they're not great communicators necessarily. And they're not very, you, they're almost like, you know, I sort of, I sort of use my wife as this, as this analogy sometimes. 'cause she is a, she works in the computer world, so she knows code and everything like that and various different codes and stuff like that. So she's very technical. She knows the technical side, but she's got a very, a great personality, very outgoing, very warm, very great communicator with people. And so her real skill is not coding is, you know, as a developer, her real skill is sort of translating the coding to regular people, you know, to clients.

Eric Frazier [01:38:19] So she's often been had jobs where she was sort of a go-between, between the developers who don't communicate very well with humans and people who are the, the customers or the clients or something like that, that are trying to get something done in the code. And so she has that ability and that personality to where she can communicate really well and, and work with, she works with people very, very well. And so that's where I sort of hope that I bring to the coaching is that ability to kind of cross over to like, understand the technical side of it and really like, get deep into the number part of it, but then also like kind of pull, be able to pull back and say, okay, what's, what's going on with them? Like, why are they not hitting these numbers? Like, you know, is it nutrition, is it lack of rest or is it, you know, they're stressed about their, their job, you know, it's like they're stressed about their wife or their girlfriend or something like that. You know? I mean that's, that's the other thing you sort of have to take into account when you're coaching cyclists or really like any athlete is that there's, there's, there's training stress, right? There's stress that you get from intervals or training long rides or whatever. It's the, it's the physical stress that causes the adaptation on your body, right? That makes you stronger as an athlete. And that's one kind of stress. And I think, I think coaches, some coaches will sort of only consider that kind of stress, but you can't, you have to consider all of the other life's stress. You have to consider, well, what's going on with their personal life? What's going on with their work life? What's going on with their kids?

Eric Frazier [01:39:50] What's going on with their dog? Like, what's going on with like all of these parts of their lives create stress and how can can cause stress. It's all the same. It's all stress and all has to be taken to account when it comes to the training. The training has to be adjusted to an extent based on the life stress, not just the training stress. Because it all plays a role.

Vance Crowe [01:40:12] And it seems like there's an interesting dichotomy there because many people exer, they, they became passionate about exercise when that gave them relief from their other stress. And then if you start competing now, this thing that was a relief for you now is the, the one of the things that's causing compounding stress. And then as we were talking about before, once you get outta your twenties, there's a whole lot more stresses on your life, right? That, that tear you in different ways. This is very interesting to think about a coach having, having to be so observant about stress. One of the things that happens when you're an athlete is that you can have dreams of wanting to win the Tour de France or, or being capable of, of doing a trick or being up on a mountain. But as a coach, your dreams are only manifest through your athletes. Yeah.

Eric Frazier [01:41:07] So

Vance Crowe [01:41:08] How do you calibrate your dreams in, in being a coach?

Eric Frazier [01:41:13] Well, I mean, that's one of the parts about being empathetic because when you can sort of connect with your athletes on an emotional level,

Vance Crowe [01:41:23] You

Eric Frazier [01:41:23] Get as, as much sometimes more joy out of them accomplishing their goals than if you accomplish your goals. And that sort of sounds like, like almost maybe cliche or something, but it really is true. I mean, I have say, it

Vance Crowe [01:41:37] Doesn't sound cliche to me at all.

Eric Frazier [01:41:39] Yeah. You know, because it's, I would say like when I've, I mean I've gotten on the podium, I've won races, I've, I've had some success on the bike, right? Like competing against other people and that always feels great. You know, it's, it definitely feels great. But I have to say, the times that I probably feel the most joy is when I've helped an athlete accomplish their goals. You know, there's something just a little more, I don't know, it's like a little bit bigger, it's a little bit wider. It's bigger than me. You know, it's like, it's like I'm a part of something that's a little bit bigger, even though it's just like me and one other person. Right. But it's just like, and having that joy of the, of the, of the goal met or the win or whatever, the podium. And it's also that somebody else is having the same joy, right? And so it's like that that communal joy is greater. The, the sum is sort of the, the communal joy is sort of greater than the sum of the two, right? It's like, it's just bigger.

Vance Crowe [01:42:47] I mean, I actually think you're describing, I have a good friend named Rob Long, he goes by Plantables on Twitter. He has this term that he uses called Intersubjectivity. And he talks about, I've talked about it before in the podcast, like that at its core is the meaning of life. It is, you're a primate. I'm a primate. We just experienced something together. Yeah.

Eric Frazier [01:43:10] And

Vance Crowe [01:43:10] That if I had only experienced it by myself, then I can only hold that experience with me. But the fact that we both had it and now we shared some, some level of, of seeing the world through each other's eyes, or feeling that conjoined joy, that therein lies one of the purposes or point of life on some level.

Eric Frazier [01:43:31] Yeah. Yeah, exactly. You know, and I'm sure there's like some scientists or anthropologists or something be like, yeah, no doubt. But you know, it's, it's, it's so true because I, it's just so much bigger when it's, you know, more than one person, I think, and the more people that are sort of a part of it makes it, you know, just bigger, I think, you know, and more and more satisfying in many ways, you know? Yeah. And that's, I honestly, like, I, I, and so it's not really a matter of like, oh, kind of like putting my, my goals or race goals on hold or something. I mean, I still race and compete, so I, I can still have my, my, my successes. But I mean, honestly since, since I started coaching, I've enjoyed the successes of my athletes more than my own, you know,

Vance Crowe [01:44:21] Man, what a great thing to say. What a, I mean, Mike, to, to have that experience. Yeah.

Eric Frazier [01:44:25] It, I, it's pretty cool. I mean, you know, like, I, I really, I, you know, I really try to, for the marketing, I try to be good with the social media and keep up with it and everything, but, you know, I always try to post when one of my guys like accomplishes their goal or gets on the podium or something. And I love that. I just, it's like, you know, it's, it's just great. You know, I have one guy, he's a, he's a cyclecross racer, so he didn't start racing this season until cross season began. And, you know, I only had a chance to probably train him for a couple of months leading up to cross season. And, and he does his first cross race and he just crushes it. He just, he was racing single speed too, so he is just a beast crushes, it just destroys everybody. And he was, he was so stoked, man. He like, he like crossed the finish line. I was just like, yeah. And he, you know, he gave me the biggest hug and he was just like so excited and so stoked because it just like all came together. He's like, it's like he knew he was fit. I mean, he knew he was like probably some of the fittest he's ever been. But having it sort of like all come together like that in the first race of the season, like yeah, that's like a great feeling, you

Vance Crowe [01:45:32] Know? Yeah. Shared joy over shared joy. Yeah. Over accomplishment that required suffering. Right? I mean, it's essentially, you know, I don't know how familiar you are with the hero's journey, like the, the Joseph Campbell kind of

Eric Frazier [01:45:43] Yeah, I haven't read it.

Vance Crowe [01:45:44] So it, the core of his philosophy is there is a character that is often overlooked in the hero's journey, and it's the mentor and all the stories that we care about. There's always the hero meets somebody that says, let me guide you on this path, and then I'm, I can only take you so far, right? And I can help try and get you to confront the thing that you want is always gonna come in conflict with what you need. And the mentors guiding words gets them to choose what they need as opposed to what they want at the, at the critical moment. And I mean, it sounds to me like that's what you're describing is that, is that you are helping people go on their hero's journey and coming out on the other side by, on their own strength, but through the, Hey, let me show you, you can do this. Let me help you get, get through these ordeals.

Eric Frazier [01:46:33] Yeah, yeah. Very, very, it's very true because there's, there's so, so often ordeals that don't have anything to do with cycling too. You know, like one of my guys, he's, he's really struggled this season to just get fit. And he's, you know, he is had some like other health issues that he is kind of been, every time he starts riding his bike, he has some other health issue. And so he is been really struggling, but he just, he keeps fighting, man. He just keeps like coming back and it's like trying to get back on the bike and, you know, I really admire him for it. And it's, you know, we just talk about, talk about that stuff and you know, what's going on with that stuff and everything. Like sort of, you know, not really even about cycling. I mean, it's just like the goal is like, get him back on the bike, but he's gotta get through these other things first. And so yeah, that sort of like whole, whole life part of the coaching, I, I didn't really like kind of realize like how much of that was involved until I really started coaching. I think because you just don't know when you're training yourself and you, it's like you learn the numbers and the metrics and everything and like puritization and all that business, it's like, it's great, it's super interesting, but it's not the, it's not the emotional connection with people. It's not the, the, the sort of bigger connection with people beyond the stuff. And plus I just love sports in general. So just like, if you kind of add kind of the athletics to it and the possibility to like compete and, you know, people competing and doing well and reaching their goals, that just like, this is sort of the cherry on top for me.

Vance Crowe [01:48:08] This is one of the most hopeful conversations. Like I'm now, I'm like super into hearing about your athletes. So if people wanted to follow along and, and either to find out more about your coaching, but really just to watch your people achieve their dreams. Where where is the place to watch what's going on?

Eric Frazier [01:48:27] So yeah, my website is full metal coaching, M-E-T-T-L-E Metal, like you've got some metal.

Vance Crowe [01:48:33] I thought that was clever by the way. I like that.

Eric Frazier [01:48:35] Is it? Yeah, I'm sort of, I've always, my wife kind of like, doesn't, I, I've always sort of been insecure, not insecure, but sort of like on the fence. Like, I don't know, is it, is it a

Vance Crowe [01:48:43] Good company? Company? Dude, it's super easy to find super because I was like, it's not metal, like the metal, right? It's metal. Like you're, you've got I think grit,

Eric Frazier [01:48:50] Think you've got some metal. Yeah,

Vance Crowe [01:48:51] You've got

Eric Frazier [01:48:51] Some grit. Exactly. That's, that's what was my intention for it. It's like, you nailed it, man. You've got some grits.

Vance Crowe [01:48:56] A hundred percent. And now that I'm, I'm hearing your philosophy on coaching, it seems to me to be like, th this is you, you're taking people on a hero's journey and giving them medal down at, down in, down in hell.

Eric Frazier [01:49:06] I'm trying, I want 'em to, I want to teach 'em how to get some grit and reach their goals. But

Vance Crowe [01:49:10] So your website, full metal

Eric Frazier [01:49:12] Com, so full metal coaching.com

Vance Crowe [01:49:14] Coaching do kind of thing.

Eric Frazier [01:49:14] And then Yeah, it's the same Instagram. Twitter might be full metal though. I mostly just Twitter stalk. I don't post that much.

Vance Crowe [01:49:23] I'll, I'll throw 'em up there. I, I mean, I wanna encourage people to go check out your Instagram account because I, I, I guess I hadn't noticed the, the celebrating your people, but I, I look at it and you have a style that it like speaks to me. I mean, I think the way that you color grade, I think the way that you bring out your subjects and things that, that it, it actually is just one of those things I found myself just looking at it and just being happy. So there's there no greater sign for somebody than, than to have people

Eric Frazier [01:49:55] Love it like that. Thank you. Yeah. I really like the, you know, I, I feel very pretty lucky that I can use the photography for the coaching too. You know, with the social media and stuff, I try to, you know, obviously my website is all my photography and so that was a huge advantage, you know, I mean as you know, with Anne, you know, she was struggling with trying to figure out where am I to get photography for the website, right. For her new company. It's like, yeah, that's a big problem. You know, it's like you can pay, you know, a lot to like do a photo shoot, but you know, who are you gonna get? Like, I don't know. And then, you know, are you gonna get stock photography or something like that? And it's just like gonna be kind of all over the place style wise. So yeah, it worked out, it worked out great between us to, to sort of work together so. Well

Vance Crowe [01:50:39] And having been one of your athletic models I am. Right?

Eric Frazier [01:50:43] I think you're a great tour, so I try to be nice to you.

Vance Crowe [01:50:46] I was sicker than a dog that day. Oh really? I, I, I was, I was knocked out for like five days after that.

Eric Frazier [01:50:51] Oh man. But

Vance Crowe [01:50:52] To close out, man, Eric, thank you so much for stopping by. Yeah, thank you. I'm, I'm a fan of full metal coaching, so let's hope you guys win everything and Right. Let's stay in touch, man. Thank you.

Eric Frazier [01:51:02] Yeah, thanks buddy. Appreciate it.

Vance Crowe [01:51:04] Great. Well that's gonna do it for this week's interview. I want to thank Eric Frazier for stopping by. Eric and I just got to know each other, but I have come to find out that he is a very clever, very kind and really interesting guy. So if you are into cycling or photography, definitely go check out his websites. Just another quick note, if you are anywhere near Saskatchewan Canada in the coming weeks on November 26th, I'm gonna be with Jared McDaniel and Dwayne Faber. And we're gonna put on the Three Brothers Roadshow at Canada's largest cattle auction ion. So thank you to Chris Lane for setting this up. We are really excited and we are gonna make it a show worth listening to. Thanks so much for stopping by. And we'll be back on Friday for another episode of As the Crow Flies. Ah, ah.