New Gear does NOT make you BETTER! - the Visual Historian - "a Photographer's Journey"

This video is about New gear never makes you a better photographer. 

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SPEAKER_00 0:04

Oh there it is. I'm gonna need you around. Let this get you up, let it wake you up. Let that positive energy just take over your body. Oh my goodness. Welcome back to another edition of the Visual Historian, a Photographer's Journey. I am your host, GK, owner of GK Photography here in New Orleans. I've been in this beautiful industry for over 31 years. And man, do I have so much to share with you. Today I wanted to um share with you something that happened with me since yesterday. Um, yesterday I had a theater down the road that I photographed with. My uh friend of ours runs Rivertown Theaters, and Legally Blonde is coming out, I believe, tomorrow. And um it's it's an awesome performance. Seeing how much work, how many moving parts that goes into a theater performance, a show, from the music to the lighting, to the choreograph, to the outfits, to the colors, to the set design, to the managers, to oh my gosh, like like there's a hundred different things that that goes on. And to see the uh two days before rehearsal and uh have the honor to go photograph that for their marketing was really, really cool. But um, as I'm speaking to you, if you are a photographer, if you are a working photographer, then you'll understand if you work events, if you work commercial events, seminars, um, speaking things when they have LED screens in the background, maybe it's just a screen projection, it doesn't matter. Sometimes it is lighting, LED lighting, the bulbs, the LCD, uh the the QLED, like whatever kind of screens you're working with. If you have ever photographed these events, I'm gonna drop some knowledge on you if you don't notice already. When I'm taking pictures and they're moving, and I can't use flash, right? So here we are theater, dark stage, background lights are happening, these walls, they're very cool. Um, neat colors. And I'm taking pictures, and sure enough, I'm starting to see the background colors have these crazy blacked-out designs or black lines or areas. You know, it's got like what the heck, what the heck's going on? Oh my goodness, I don't understand what's happening with my equipment. Well, I do know what's happening to the equipment. I just wanted to explain that to you real quick. If you have that visual, because if you've done these kinds of jobs, I've no you've been in this scenario before, and you're like, oh dear lord in heaven, how can I have a faster shutter speed to stop the action that's happening? But those lights in the background are acting all weird, they're looking weird. Okay, this is the first thing you're gonna do. I'm gonna drop some knowledge on you. Go to audio and visual booth when you first walk in, when you see those kinds of big screens, and you say, Hey boys and girls, what is the refresh rate of those screens? A lot of times they know, sometimes they don't. There's always somebody who knows, though. There's always a guy in charge, and he's like 60 hertz. I said, Okay, thank you so much. 60 hertz means 60th of a second for your shutter speed. Doesn't matter what ISO you're doing, does not matter what f-stop. That refresh rate has everything to do with your shutter only. Okay, so here's the issue. Knock it down to 60. Now it doesn't sometimes you're you're nailing it at 60th of a second, and it's like, okay, background's great. And then you got people, you know, if they're just if you're just doing a speaking engagement seminar thingy on stage, you know, you're fine. They're not jumping, they're not tumbling, they're not doing that, they're not doing those kinds of things. Um, my talent last night were doing those kinds of things. And 60th of a second is not stopping action. But the background looks great. So when do you sacrifice the background for stopping the action? Well, I I don't know. That's personal preference, if you ask me. Um, but I do know blurry images aren't usable, period. So that's just a little knowledge drop for you if you are a working photographer in these kinds of situations. Um, and no, there is no way around it, by the way. There's no let me shoot faster and raise my ISO, none of that matters. Matching the refresh rate of those lights is your shutter speed. Period. That's about it. So, look, so this morning I wanted something in the background while I was editing these images, actually, and uh they look great. I use my Fuji XH2S with my 70 to 200 lens and my Sony A7R5. Love the quality in that camera, love the focusing on that camera. Both cameras performed great. If you were to ask me, hey, which camera you know gave you the best results. I have to be honest, if I showed you two images side by side, you probably couldn't tell the difference without enlarging it, you know, to kind of pixel peep at the file. But just looking at that image on the screen, I had to keep going to the meta to see which camera it was. But you know, I'm I was a Fuji guy for six years. I'm still a Fuji guy. I mean, I still own a Fuji. Um, I added the Sony to the mix for the autofocusing features, and that 60 meg file is beautiful. It it really is. It gives me so much leverage. Um, but it's not the R5 was not designed to be a fast camera, meaning able to shoot sports, you know, quick shutters, you know, um, that quick shutters, uh, the drives and uh the car, it's keeping up. I'm shooting type express A. And uh this thing still has a writing to card thing that happens, and it's not even shooting a lot. I took like four pictures last night, and it was like writing. I'm like, what are you doing? I took four pictures, dude. Um so needless to say, as I photograph action, um, you know, that continuous low, I think it's eight frames or seven frames per second. That's all I need. Um, by the intermission, that thing was warm, like literally warm in my hands. Uh the food, nope. Rockstar, man. It's like, let's go, daddy. Let's go, let's work. I love that food. The colors are amazing. Um, that 24 megapixel file definitely helps with the um noise just because it's it's a smaller file. So whenever you have a larger file, you can see everything better, and that includes the noise. And I was um only needing to be at 1600 ISO. I didn't have to be crazy high on the ISO because the spotlights on the talent were fine. So, anyway, I was editing this morning, and I um I'm on Netflix, I'm like, what could just be in the background? And I and apparently Smokey and the Bandit. If you're in my age range-ish, uh, you everybody knows Smokey and the Bandit. All you um younger kids have no idea what the heck I'm talking about, but it's an old movie. Uh, it's it's a fun movie, it's funny. Uh God, it's when Sally Fields is like one of her first few movies, is one of the ones that actually sh catapulted her um in this genre, and Burt Reynolds was in it, and Jerry Reed, and oh my god, it's it's a bunch of people that are neoclassics. Anyway, this old movie was still good. I mean, I was still laughing, all the cuts. They were doing stunt stuff back then that they would not be doing now for safety reasons. I mean, you know, smoking the bandit, he's in that transam, fire that, you know, firebird transam, and he's just zipping along. He's jumping bridges. It's it's awesome, dude. And the comedy is amazing. Um, Jerry Reed with that 18 wheeler, you know, at the end, he's coming through uh the the finish, and you know, some people are in the foreground and they're on this wooden fence and they're facing the camera, so the truck's in the background. Um, I mean, last second, they literally run out of the way at the right time for the truck to crash through the gate. They would never do that these days. They would never, they would never wait on somebody to say, go, you know, and then they just quickly peel off left and right so the truck can come through. They would never do that these days. There's too much liability involved. Anyway, my point is as I'm watching this, it's dawning on me that this is old film being used to record it. You know, it's it's grainy, the aspect ratio isn't perfectly correct to my big screen TV these days, but it's still a good movie, you know, and I was still intrigued and I was still laughing and I was still appreciating the the actors and the lighting that they were doing, and it was it was just good. There's a reason why it was good. The reason why I'm telling you this is because I cannot stress enough how important it is for you to learn your craft and not just worry about your gear. The newer gear absolutely helps me compared to my Canon Mark III from back in the day. You know, the focusing, the quickness, the quality of of the image is a little better. It's it's like that movie. It's like just because it was older doesn't mean it's bad. Does it look a certain way? Sure. But that's what you're respecting, right? So if you have a digital camera in the last eight years that you bought one, okay, anything in the last eight years is gonna look great. It just is. Because comparing gear from you know before the Canon Mark III days to where we are now, or even in the last six, eight years, um, there's big advancements. However, it doesn't mean your work is better, it just means the capabilities of what you can deliver, it's there, it's waiting for you. It's like, all right, I got you focusing bad to the bone. You're gonna find the eyes every damn time. Um, you're not gonna miss a shot if you're holding that shutter down because I can shoot fast. I'm gonna give you great colors, you can shoot raw. Any of these images you can print, uh 10 foot by 10 foot print on the wall if you're shooting like me with the 60 megs, and you can still be creating not a great looking image, you know? So that's just very important that uh I wanted to share with you because everybody's so worried about gear. What is the latest and greatest? Now, if you're getting into this industry and you're getting gear for the first time, man, just get something within the last three years and you're fine. You're fine, go work. Like, stop thinking you can do better if you had better. No, it's the other way around. Somebody can give me a film camera right now, and I can go take the same kind of pictures I'm doing right now on my Sony and my Fuge. 100%. Because skill always outperforms gear. Okay? Now, if somebody is yelling at me right now, bursting their bubble because they're excited to go on, they're on Amazon, they're in the shopping cart, and they've got six thousand dollars worth of gear, they're ready to go, they're ready to rock. And they they just realized that uh man, I could save a couple thousand dollars if I just get a little bit older camera. It's not in high demand, it'll still produce great imagery. It's the same lenses, usually, you know. So, anyway, hit me up in the uh messages somewhere in the comments wherever you're hearing this podcast. I know there's ways that you can you can talk to me. Let me know if I'm if I'm getting you. Am I hitting a nerve? Do you agree? Do you disagree? Um, would you like to come on the podcast? It's just a phone call. I'll tag you into uh the recording here and we can chat, man. Um you know, I love talking to working photographers because the understanding of conditions that we're dealing with, people can relate better than somebody who's not, you know, doing these kinds of events all the time. You know, somebody who's doing landscape photography, which is one of my favorite things to do, by the way. You put a camera in my hands, drop me off in the country somewhere, and let me just go. Let me go roam around, find and pay attention and just be appreciative of all of God's creation. And the reason why landscape photographers and wildlife photographers love to go out there and photograph is because we're showing you basically imagery from what we were seeing and appreciating in the moment. We want to share it with you, you know. Some guys, there's a certain image that they're just dying to get. They want to get that eagle taking off from a tree. Or one of my favorites is when they come down to the water with their claws and they come out the water and the fish is in their claws. I've seen many of images like that, and even I am like, oh, that would be a dream. That would be so badass. Now, here's the thing it's been done before. You can you can go find those images right now. Why is it so important that we enjoy doing it? That's a conversation I need to have with somebody on here, honestly. I can only give you my side, you know. Um, I captured one of my all-time greatest images ever. And let me let me set this up for you. We're at the beach, late July, like we're getting ready to do in a couple of weeks. Where um we love to be six floors or higher. So when you're on the balcony, you can overlook everything. It's really cool. It's nighttime, everybody's inside for dinner. We're in the back, we're in the the back balcony overlooking the water. It's nighttime. Wife and I have a glass of wine, we're just chit-chatting, and these clouds are you can see the clouds coming in, and from a distance, you can see some heat lightning. And you know, that's neat. And then it heat lightning kind of burst a little more, a little brighter, a little bigger, a little wider. The storm was moving like towards us, and her and I are talking, and then out the corner of my eye, this lightning bolt. I was like, okay, that was cool. Then another one, and then one that kind of branched across the sky, Caraca-Laco, like six seconds later. I'm like, this is awesome, and it's beautiful because the lightning is hitting the water in the distance. And I was like, I have my tripod, I'm going to get my tripod. I said, babe, I'll be right back. And this is exactly why I brought the tripod. Sorry, I'm gonna drop a little knowledge on you. If you've never captured lightning before in your life, if you've never dabbled into long exposure, this is gonna change your whole world of creativity. If go learn long exposure, go practice it. I mean, look watch videos, go do it. It needs to make sense to you. Basically, what happens is you put your camera in a tripod, you aim it at that dark area, and that's the key. You have to be aware of how much ambient light is around you. So if you have, like I turned my light off on the balcony that I was on, so it wouldn't, you know, contaminate my image. I wanted my camera to look into the darkness. You set your camera, whatever settings you want to do, and no, there is no one setting, by the way. It's different for everybody, every instance. Um, how close is the lightning, how bright is it, how far away? It's like, you know, what is your ambient light around you? That kind of stuff. You need to just go do it and see it. Because when you see it, after you do it and you're aggravated, then you pay attention to it in the future, or you just go run outside real quick and do it again. Go practice. But how it works, cameras aiming at the darkness. I set it for 30-second exposure, self-timer, three seconds, go. So I'm not touching it. Cameras open when the eye is open. Anything that lights up flashes, like a car who streaks by, a plane across the sky, the moon, it doesn't matter. Anything that is light that you see, that means the light came all the way to you and refracted off of your iris. Okay. And that's what the camera does. So if you're seeing the light, that's hitting you, right? Okay. So whatever happens in the frame within the 30 seconds is what gets printed on your frame. Check this out. So we're watching heat lightning, lightning to the right. So we aim the camera to the right, and we do the 30 seconds. We miss it. We do another 30 seconds, we get something, but it's just the heat lightning. We miss the strike. And it's all a sense of timing. Like you just need to be in tune with what's going on. And uh, it is guesswork. But you know, you hear that thunder clap, you see the lightning, and then you hear the thunder, so you count. So it's like, okay, how far? How what is the timing? What's going on here? And usually it's all over the place. Usually you'll get crack a lacca and it's like nothing for the longest time. It's like, ugh, this is a waste of freaking time. But this night, it was happening often. It was it was like the good lord was telling me, Tonight's your night, dude. Like, do what you do, get in the moment, get your groove on. Um, my son Jack, I forget how old he was when he was over there. Uh I really don't know. Eight, ten, around there. Um, I was like, Jack, come here, I'm gonna show you how to do this. So he was with me. So I would let him press the shutter. We're counting to 30, and right when the thing closes, crack a lacka. And he's like, Oh, I'm like, Yeah, we we missed that. I'm like, damn it. Like, come on, Lord. And the quality in these digital cameras, you know, and you're sitting there going, well, where in the hell do you focus if it's all dark? You find your focus. Just put it on manual focus, put on infinity, let it go. The guy was rocking F-16. Um, you know, at 30 seconds, it's open, it's just waiting. We finally get the shot, dude. He he presses the shutter, we're counting a 30. I'm talking on 29 and a half crack a lack of three bolts separately. And then the camera closes. And I'm like, did we just get this? Did we just get this? I'm like, Lord, did we? Did we? Yeah, yeah, I got it. I got all three strikes in the same frame. It is the coolest lightning shot I've always wanted to get, but you have to be in the right spot at the right time with the right talent. And the good lord lined it all up. I did he knew it was gonna happen, that's why he told me to bring the tripod, apparently. It's like you have to be able and prepared to get these kinds of shots. Um, I know a lot of guys who just get lucky, just straight up lucky, and it's like, wow, that's you're ridiculous. Like, handheld, you got that? Of course you did. You know, I've seen that too. But you have to be prepared for these kinds of scenarios. It doesn't matter what kind of job you're doing, you just need to be prepared in general. So When something comes up or the format changes, or you see something different and you don't have the right tools in the bag because you didn't think you would need them, bring them, bring all of them, bring more. If you're doing a seminar and you were not told that you were going to be doing a group shot and you did not bring extra lights for the stand, I'm telling you right now, put two AD 200s in your bag. Always have two small stands that can go nice and high. Just, you know, bring them, dude. Bring them. Because they've had those moments before where it was like, hey GK, now the seminar's over. Can we get a picture of like 40 of the people that are involved? From the CEO to the CFO down to middle management? I'm like, yeah, sure. That'd be fantastic. I'm like, I didn't bring my lights because I wanted a lighter bag. How stupid am I? So since that day, many, many, many, many years ago, those lights are always in my bag. Um, so anyway, that lightning shot I have on my Instagram page. You may you have to scroll down a little bit. It happened a few years ago. You'll find it. You won't you won't miss it. You'll see the three lightning bolts, the purple sky over the water. It's amazing. It's a hundred percent amazing. And one of my proudest moments, and that was in uh two camera models ago. I think I I got that shot with my Fuji XT3. That's exactly what I was shooting, and it looks so good. So good. I printed it on metallic paper, and it looks so sharp. It it looks so darn good at my studio. Um, yeah, man. So the reason why I'm I'm sharing this story with you is because it's not the gear, it's definitely your talent, it's definitely your experience, it's definitely your your drive. You know, when you want something bad enough, you figure out a way to make it happen. Something's too expensive, you really want it. Like I want a Leica Q3 or whatever. I would love a Leica camera in general. I don't, I would like one. I don't like, oh my god, I have to have a Leica. If I felt that way, then I would figure out how to save over time to afford a Leica camera. But I just don't, I don't know. I've never worked with one before, therefore I don't have the urge. You know, it's kind of like if you uh never drive a race car, you'll never understand how that feels. What is the exhilaration? Why are people doing it? Why are people loving this so much? Well, if you never do it, you never have the urge because you don't know what the heck the experience is. I think that's the same thing with any desire. You know, if you don't dabble in it, you don't miss it because you have no idea. What's all this fuss about with a $12,000 camera body? What's the deal? Oh my goodness. So listen, today when you're out and about doing your things, um, like Smokey and the Bandit, I still appreciate the talent that goes into creating these legendary things. And there's a reason why I call myself the visual historian to my clients. I'm well aware of the importance of what is happening in real time right now. When they hire me, I am responsible for capturing this so they can show it off later. Maybe it's a family portrait, they're gonna look at that on their wall for decades to come. You know, your senior grad pictures, it's it's it's the last thing you're doing before college. Those images will be forever in your photo books or wherever you have these things printed and they're shared with your friends and family. It's a big deal. It's a very big deal. And I want you to also ignore a lot of things on Instagram when you're browsing. Um, just because I perfectly understand how it's easy to kind of get inspired, and then the longer you're on this and you're browsing around, and then you kind of get a little envious, and then some shots are like, oh, why didn't I think of that? Maybe I'm not that good. Like that starts creeping into your head. Um so tell yourself shorter time span on scrolling, get your inspiration and get off. Get off, you know. You might go see my lightning shot and be, oh my god, I've been trying to get this. And he did. How come I can't do it? Like he's you know, 50 something years old. But I understand 31 years, but geez, I mean, I've been trying, I get it. I get it. Just stop. The good Lord is gonna bless you with your own story, your own blessings. When somebody says, hey, GK, if I was starting a business now, if you were starting a business now, what would you do to get started? Like, how would you get out there? How would you market? How would you, what should I be photographing? What makes the most money? And I have to be honest, man. Um, I don't know what to tell you. I really don't. And if I was starting right now, I would probably do the same thing I did before. But you have to understand something. Timing and placement, just like that lightning, is everything. You know? Um, I would do what I did before, which is I did a lot for free for family, friends, anybody I could. I mean, I used to see good-looking dudes or pretty girls and say, hey, I do some modeling work. Um, you can I help you with your portfolio? I get a little experience. Just talk about me. I did that. And in the very beginning, I learned how important it was. I'm going on a tangent here, but just follow me. Um, I learned how important word of mouth was. And I learned how important it was to value, put a value on what you're doing for your own sanity, believe it or not. You know? So if you're a working photographer, you have a business, you have a business line, you know, your cell number, your heart, your landline, whatever it is. I'm sure you're getting charities hitting you up for covering some events. Um, it's a charity, so a lot of times they're gonna say, we can't pay you. We'd love to, you know, give you exposure, though. And sometimes, you know, like I just can't always do it because I need to pay real bills. You know, these days, I mean, come on, I got three kids, insurance, house notes, liability, you name it. It's harder for me to do free now. But in the beginning, when you're trying, how much do you love what you're doing? Then go do it. Just go do it. Uh, two things. First of all, look at the value that you're doing and consider that your marketing budget. You know, if you were to pay for an ad, the difference is paying for an ad, whether you're a wedding photographer and you're on the knot, which I do not advise, um, whatever, whatever online thingy is that you're paying for, you don't know where your exposure is. All you know is from the actual leads coming in, and you may or may not, you know, book something. But when you work these kinds of events, that whole room or the people that you're photographing, for every person you're photographing, tell yourself they know 50. 5-0, they know 50 people that they can slip my name into a conversation when somebody says, Oh, my kid's graduating. You're going, you know what? The guy I just worked with, man, he's he's good. He's a nice, he's a nice kid, he does good work, he's new right now, so he's he's affordable. Let me give you his card. By the way, go make your business cards, like real paper cards of double thickness. Just do it. Stop with the digital business card.

unknown 30:22

I did that.

SPEAKER_00 30:23

It doesn't work.

unknown 30:24

It doesn't work.

SPEAKER_00 30:26

Okay, we're back. That is so important. So, you know, this is a great industry. I love every aspect. I did so many things complimentary in the beginning days. I took a lot of my own time to go practice and practice and practice. I would have never came out the gate charging what the guys above me were charging because I knew my I knew what I was worth, and that's okay. It don't feel weird. You just know your bracket that you're in. You know, you're not coming down the mountain on the rapid river right now. You're you're in a lazy river, you know, around the pool, and it's okay. There's a lot of people in that lazy river, man. Those are your clients, they're gonna help pay your bills too. So stop thinking, you know, if I'm not doing these big badass jobs, I'm nothing. Stop. Just stop. Go do you, boo. Do what you love, do some things for free. Practice a lot. That camera should always be on you. And notice everything, pay attention to everything. Look at the light, look at how it's hitting. You know, it's it's so cool, I think, in the first 10 years that you're learning this craft as a business or not. It's it's okay if you're just learning. The coolest thing is getting those aha moments. I kind of miss them. You know, sometimes I miss them, sometimes it's just work for me. And I inspiring yourself is very difficult because you're very picky on what you know you like, and you know, we we have so many tools that now that can help you, whether it's YouTube videos that I'm producing, um, maybe it's a preset that'll help you get to a look a little quicker, and then tweak it to where your liking is. And then that's how you kind of find your your look. But your style, I'm gonna end on this. Your style has nothing to do with the preset. Your style is how you captured the image to get to that final product. To me, that's your style. If you think your style is a preset, then you're really boxing yourself in. I mean, you're gonna do that pre- you're gonna do that preset look forever. Like that people say your name, they're gonna think of that look, that one look. So you can't go to light and airy, or you can't go to you know, bold and vibrant, crisp. Like you can't change because you have to be known for your quote unquote style. That's not your style, dude. Your style is how you do what you do to get the shot you have. What you present to people is an end product of those efforts. Okay. My image, whether I click a preset to do my black and whites, to do this funky cool color, to do, you know, maybe the light and airy, the shot itself is still my style. It's not the preset. The preset is just the final bow. You know, but getting the image takes time. And you have to work a lot. A lot. Like you have to eat and breathe this thing. You have to be like tired of taking pictures almost. Because when you're not, when that camera's not in your hands, you're still being a photographer. You're becoming a visual historian. This is your photographer's journey. The photographer inside of you, that goal that you want to get to as an artist, as a creator, it's in there. But but you gotta you gotta keep going at it. You gotta motivate it and cultivate it and learn. Fail. Fail some more. Failure is not always bad. Now, you don't want to screw up somebody's job. That's not what I'm talking about. What I'm talking about is you go try something, it didn't work out, then go figure out why it didn't work out, then go do it again, and then you succeed. No, you cut away the failure in your head, and you only do the good. That, my friend, is creativity. It's you learning how to be better, how to grow, how to deliver the final product, even if it's just for yourself, you know. If you're a wildlife photographer, I know darn well when you look at other people's work and they just got better looking stuff than what you're getting. And you you're like, oh my god, I got the same A1 Sony, I have the same lens. How come my stuff doesn't look like his or hers? That's because their style is not yours. You know? I got you there, didn't I? I got you. You're like, oh, you got me, GK. You got me. I need to go find my style. And the only way you're gonna do that is to go do it, man. You know? That was a little abrupt. Alright, you guys, listen. Um go be creative, go do your thing, never stop learning. Please stay focused on your dreams. If you know what that means, that means every single day that you move one inch closer to your goals. You're doing it. You're in the path. All right, go be a visual historian, become your own everything. Alright, you guys, I am out of here. See you in the next one. Peace and love. Later.