Amy Toensing, National Geographic Photographer: When the Work Keeps Getting Harder to Fund

Making a living as a documentary photographer has never been easy — but right now, it's a different kind of hard. National Geographic contributor Amy Toensing has spent over two decades doing the work anyway, and this conversation is about what that actually costs, and why she keeps doing it.Today, Piper and David sit down with Amy Toensing — award-winning documentary photographer, visual journalist, and longtime National Geographic contributor whose work has taken her from Indigenous communities in Australia to opioid-ravaged towns in rural Ohio. Amy co-directed INHERITANCE (2024), a vérité documentary 11 years in the making that premiered at Slamdance and toured communities across the country.Amy didn't pick up a camera because she wanted a career — she picked it up because it made the world feel more legible. What followed was two decades of fieldwork, a creative partnership with her filmmaker husband Matt, a production company, a kid, and an 11-year film nobody was really paying them to make. The industry she built that life inside of has been quietly contracting ever since. This is a conversation about what staying in it actually looks like.Piper and David are surprised to hear why Amy's most meaningful image isn't from Papua New Guinea or Uganda — it's from a quiet lakeside campsite in the AdirondacksHear what happens when an industry that trained you to hide behind the camera suddenly tells you to put yourself in front of itSit with the question Amy and her husband revisit almost every week — and why there's no clean answerUnpack what it actually takes to follow one family for 11 years when documentary funding only goes to celebrity stories and true crimeHear about the easier path that would have required her to stop creating entirely — and what she did with itSend this one to the creative person in your life who's been quietly wondering if staying scrappy is still a valid plan.LINKS:INHERITANCE (2024): https://www.inheritancethemovie.comAmy Toensing: https://www.amytoensing.comInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/amytoensingIf this one resonated, our conversation with Keenan Newman— a documentary filmmaker who made peace with using commercial work to fund the stories that actually matter — covers similar territory from a different angle. And our episode with Kim Manfredi, painter and yoga studio founder, gets into what creative reinvention actually looks like when you're doing it midlife without a roadmap.Connect with Absolutely Sure, No Idea: Podcast Instagram: http://instagram.com/absolutelysurenoideaCo-Host David Richardson: https://www.davomakes.com/ on IG: https://www.instagram.com/davo_makes/Co-Host Piper Watson: https://www.piperwatson.com/ on IG: https://www.instagram.com/__piperwatson/Season Two Coming - Subscribe wherever you listen