There’s a version of David Hendley’s story that sounds like a clean, inspirational arc: NFL player becomes corporate executive, then walks away from it all to document the natural world. Inspiring, sure. But in our conversation on the Nerdy Photographer Podcast, what came through was something more specific — and more useful — than a simple pivot story.
What came through was a philosophy.
David Hendley didn’t find photography by accident, and he didn’t build his vision by following advice. He built it by going to the ocean at 5 o’clock in the morning before work, shooting seascapes in changing light until he understood his camera without thinking. He built it by following his own feelings, ignoring other people’s suggestions about what he should photograph, and learning — slowly, deliberately — what it actually felt like to be emotionally moved by an image.
And he built it by failing. A lot.
National Geographic Was Always There
Before the NFL, before the boardroom, there were two magazines: Sports Illustrated and National Geographic. Hendley grew up poring over both, but it was National Geographic’s photographs that stayed with him — not because he imagined taking those pictures, but because he imagined being there.
“I looked at those pictures constantly and just imagined being in those locations,” he told us. “I had those images always in my mind from when I was seven, eight, nine years old.”
When he eventually picked up a camera seriously — around 2018, after 25 years with the same company and more stress than he wanted — those images were still there. Nature photography wasn’t a new direction so much as a return to something that had been waiting.
The Athletic Approach to Learning
What Hendley brought to photography from his athletic career wasn’t gear knowledge or compositional theory. It was discipline and a willingness to get his reps in.
Every morning before work, he drove to the California coast at 5 a.m. and spent an hour shooting seascapes, learning the camera by feel — drilling himself until he knew where every dial was without looking. He even practiced in bed, running through his settings in the dark, mentally rehearsing for the moment when the light would change and he’d have seconds to react.
“I can remember just laying down and having the camera in my hand and going through the motions,” he said. “I need this ISO, I need this f-stop — being able to do that quickly enough.”
He also deliberately imposed constraints on himself. He’d go on outings and allow himself only five exposures. “If I’m taking seascapes, five shots means two or three of them have to be excellent,” he said. “You better have the composition right. The light has to be right. And you’ve got to be disciplined enough to live by that.”
It’s a discipline rooted in intention — the opposite of spray-and-pray — and it’s something he carries from how he approached every competitive environment he’s ever been in.
What Vision Actually Looks Like
Hendley’s photographic vision didn’t arrive as a revelation. It crept up on him.
He started out shooting big, sprawling landscape photographs. Gradually, he found himself doing something different: peeling the scene back. Asking himself what, within this enormous view, was actually catching his eye. Shrinking it down until what remained was only what moved him.
Today, he looks for three things in every image: balance, mood, and simplicity. “I’ve got to have that simplicity — no distractions within the photo that are going to take your eye wandering,” he said. “I don’t know how I learned any of that. That’s just what feels emotional to me.”
That word — emotional — is the thread running through everything Hendley says about his work. It’s not a vague sentiment. It’s a rigorous filter. If he’s not emotionally connected to a scene, there’s no photograph. Not because he can’t press the shutter, but because he’s learned that the disconnection shows.
“If I’m taking a photograph and I’m not emotionally tied to it, others will feel it,” he said plainly.
Vision Takes Time — And You Can’t Force It
When asked what he’d tell a photographer trying to intentionally develop their vision, Hendley’s answer was both simple and counterintuitive: let it come naturally.
“Don’t fall down the rabbit hole of doing things that somebody else wants you to do,” he said. “Follow your own feelings — what you are passionate about, what your vision sees.”
He talked about walking past a lake near his home 30 or 40 times, knowing something was there, not being able to see it — and then one day, the light was right, and there it was. Vision, he suggests, is partly about patience and trust. You can’t force the image, and you can’t force the clarity. But if you keep showing up, it reveals itself.
He also talked about the way his vision opens and closes depending on the day. Sometimes he goes out with no particular subject in mind and something catches his eye completely unexpectedly. Other times, he’s been to the same location 10 or 20 times waiting for the conditions to align with the image he already knows he wants. Both modes are valid. Both produce work he’s proud of.
On Failure, and Why It’s the Point
Some of the most resonant moments in our conversation came when Hendley talked about failure — not as a detour from the path, but as the path itself.
“Failure is the best teaching tool you have,” he said. “I used to tell people at work: we’re not learning, we’re not getting better unless we’re failing. And that is exactly what you could ask any athlete.”
He was refreshingly candid about how bad his early photography was — and how unbothered he was by that. Because he was already fluent in the language of failure as a growth mechanism. In football, you study the tape. In the boardroom, you debrief and adjust. In photography, you look at what didn’t work and you try again.
“It wasn’t a big deal for me to fail,” he said. “It was a big deal for me to go: okay, how do I fix it? How do I get better?”
Staying True to Yourself When the Stakes Are Higher
One of the sharpest moments of the episode came when we pressed Hendley on the tension between personal vision and commercial viability. His answer was unequivocal: he has never once taken a photograph thinking about whether it would sell.
“I’ve never set out to say, ‘I’m going to take this photo because I think it’s going to sell great,'” he said. “That has never come into my mind at all. If I’m emotionally tied to it, then I’m being true to myself. If it doesn’t touch me in some certain way, there’s no photo.”
He was quick to acknowledge that this is easier when you don’t need the photography to pay the bills — and his long corporate career afforded him that cushion. But his point stands: the discipline of staying true to yourself, of not letting other people’s preferences dictate your creative decisions, is the same discipline that made him a successful athlete and executive. It just shows up differently behind a camera.
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About My Guest
“An ex professional football player. spent 28 Years in the Corporate world corporate with the last 12 at the executive level. Found photography very late in life. however, was always attracted to the outdoors and the natural world. totally self Taught – lots of trial and error learnings. immediately found that for my connection to photography, vision and emotion are the critical pieces of fulfillment.”
You can find David’s work at davidspursuit.com, or follow him on Instagram at @davidspursuit.
