In this captivating episode, Gail Doby sits down with fine art photographer and interior design graduate George Diebold. Gail shares her personal journey as a collector of George’s work, highlighting how consistent weekly email marketing over several years eventually led her to select two major pieces for her new home.

George reflects on opening his commercial studio in 1978 and building a reputation with Fortune 500 companies in New Jersey before earning his interior design degree at age 50. He discusses why interior designers are sometimes hesitant to specify photography over traditional paintings and breaks down the technical nuances of dye sublimation (metal printing), which offers extreme archival durability and vibrant color depth. George also shares the stories behind his Hawaiian landscapes and floating plumeria shots, while offering a critique of AI’s impact on the authenticity of the photographic medium.

Photo used with permission. © GEORGE DIEBOLD

In this episode, Gail and George discuss:

Long-Term Nurturing via Email: How Gail followed George’s weekly emails for 6–7 years before purchasing art for her new office space.
Going Back to School at 50: Why a home renovation project on Kauai inspired George to enroll in an interior design program alongside 20-year-olds.
Why Designers Hesitate on Photography: Overcoming the myth of photography’s “reproducibility” and avoiding the trap of generic, copycat imagery.
The Backstory Behind the Art: Why telling the harrowing story of long-exposure lava captures or aquarium-shot floating plumeria helps designers sell photography to clients.
The AI Debate: Why altering real-world moments with artificial intelligence contradicts the foundational purpose of recording a genuine moment in time.

To browse George’s works yourself, visit his website https://www.georgediebold.com

If you’re listening on your favorite podcast platform, view the full show notes here: https://thepearlcollective.com/s15e5-shownotes

https://youtu.be/qR2WcsTLR_o

Episode Transcript

Note: Transcript is created automatically and may contain errors.

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GAIL DOBY
Well welcome to the Creative Genius Podcast, George.

GEORGE DIEBOLD
Thank you very much, Gail.

GAIL DOBY
Well, it’ll be fun to have this conversation. I have ⁓ I’ve followed you for a very, very long time. I think I started looking at your photography. I bet it’s been six or seven years ago. And yeah, and I was thinking about it and every time I would get one of your emails, don’t know how I got on your email list, but I would look at your work and I would browse through all those things thinking, I really want one of your

pieces. And then when we finally bought this new house, and you can see the picture behind me. That was the one that I bought from you earlier this year. And I just bought a second one from you this year. And I ⁓ am really happy to have those pieces because they’re really interesting and of course beautiful, beautifully shot. So thank you. That’s how I got to know you.

GEORGE DIEBOLD
Thank you. ⁓ yeah, you you were on my constant conta I do a weekly email ⁓ image ⁓ mailing ⁓ primarily to designers and collectors. And ⁓ I guess that’s initially how you found me. Yeah.

GAIL DOBY
Right. Right. And so it does work to do email marketing because it did take a long time. I just didn’t have a spot to put things in my other house, but when we built this house, it’s larger, so I had the space to do it. So I finally have my own office, which is great. Perfect. ⁓ yeah. So absolutely. And I’m enjoying these a lot. I look at them every day and just admire them. So and I get to see them in my background all the time. ⁓

Yeah. So let’s talk about your background because you actually are a photographer and you have an interior design degree. And it was kind of later in life that you did that. So talk to me about what came first and ⁓ what brought you to interior design.

GEORGE DIEBOLD
I opened my studio, my photography studio in 1978. ⁓ a bit after college. I graduated in 75. ⁓ I got my design degree when I was 50. And how that happened was we would spend ⁓ a big block of the summer, ⁓ my wife and my son and I ⁓ vacationing and me shooting in Hawaii.

And ⁓ I I found after a while that it really didn’t matter that I was back in my studio, that I was still able to run my business from Hawaii. So we decided that we would buy a home out there and we decided on the island of Kauai, bought a home, ⁓ and I made plans to bring it down to the studs and renovate it and then turn the garage into a studio.

So I could go back and forth between Hawaii and the East Coast. So I did some rough sketches and I made some detailed notes. I got turned on to an architect. And when she saw them, she said, you should consider studying design. That’s really as far as it went. when I returned back to the East Coast, I just said, you know, all right, I’ll do that. So I enrolled in Keene University’s design ⁓ program. ⁓

So for about two years I was running my studio, then I would jump in the car ⁓ almost every day, drive to ⁓ Union, New Jersey, where the campus was, have two or three classes. Every night I was doing homework and then plus coordinating the rebuilding of the house in Hawaii. So ⁓ it was a bit of a crazy time, but

I had a I had a lot of fun and I was definitely the oldest person in the class, that’s for sure. ⁓ I ⁓ you know, I was just surrounded by all these kids, which they thought it was kind of funny. So yeah, it was a good time.

GAIL DOBY
Did you ever do interior design for clients?

GEORGE DIEBOLD
I the only thing I ever did interior design for was ⁓ it helping me specifying stuff with people like yourself and doing homes that I owned. ⁓ after it seemed like after I finished my design degree, ⁓ then my business got my photography business got extremely busy again.

And ⁓ I was doing a lot of shooting in Hawaii. I picked up a lot of clients in Hawaii. So ⁓ the the short answer is ⁓ no. ⁓ I have a degree in design and ⁓ really I just used it to to help me better explain myself to designers and present myself to your community.

GAIL DOBY
Mm, interesting. Well, and I would have to say that in all the work I’ve done, yes, I’ve selected artwork or I’ve selected photography for clients, but it’s never been one of the dominant things I’ve selected for clients. So I don’t know that we as a trade are hesitant about specifying photography, but maybe we’re just not thinking about that as one of the things that we’re

planning our designs around. So why do you think designers don’t think about photography very much?

GEORGE DIEBOLD
I think th there are a couple of reasons. I think designers are hesitant to ⁓ for one thing because they’re hung up on the premise that a painting there’s only one painting and a photograph can be reproduced multiple times, which there’s really no denying that. But ⁓ oddly ⁓ I can ⁓ really not even remember a time, even though my editions are extremely small. I c I ⁓

Designers never ask me how many of these are you making? So it doesn’t really seem to be ⁓ a b a big problem for them. ⁓ I I think also, you know, a f a painter gets a canvas and ⁓ you know, it’s like he’s got he’s now he’s creating this thing on the you know, and it’s just like so just a it’s an original thought and and it’s just like his.

putting his soul on the canvas and but I think you have to realize for a photographer, espec...