Say hello via text message and join in the conversation!
In this week's episode of The MOOD Podcast, I jumped online with Casey Fatchett.
For more than 20 years, people have been paying him to chase the love of photography. In that time, he's photographed more than 700 weddings, thousands of portrait sessions. worked with big brands, A-list celebrities, as well as many small businesses and regular folks.
His rather playful title as a 'love documentarian' doesn't just embody his work; it narrates the stories of relationships he's framed, from the quiet affections of a golden anniversary to the lively chaos of wedding day bliss. In my conversation with him, we journey through the trials, tribulations, and triumphs of a photographer deeply rooted in the business of capturing, well, love.
Casey doesn't just stop at the click of the shutter; his wealth of knowledge extends to the crucial entrepreneurial spirit needed to navigate the competitive photography scene. For those with a camera in hand and dreams of making it their livelihood, this episode is a goldmine of wisdom, from setting rates to handling the unexpected. We also wade into the deeper waters of social media's impact on our mental health, unpacking strategies to harness these powerful platforms for good, without letting them dictate our self-worth.
Stress, boundaries, and the courage to utter a clear "no" are lifelines in the high-stakes game of professional photography. As creatives, we often blur the lines between work and passion, but as Casey shares, managing anxiety and setting non-negotiable limits is what keeps the love for the craft burning bright.
Check our Casey's work, including his 'Nerdy Photographer' Podcast, at the links below:
Website: https://nerdyphotographer.com
Instagram: @caseyfphoto / @thenerdyphoto
_________________________________________________
Thank you for listening and for being a part of this incredible community. You can also watch this episode on my YouTube channel (link below) where I also share insights, photography tips and behind-the-scenes content on my channel as well as my social media, so make sure to follow me on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and TikTok or check out my website for my complete portfolio of work.
yoreh.
www.yoreh.co
discount code: moodpdcst.23
My FREE eBook:
www.form.jotform.com/240303428580046
My FREE Lighting Tutorial:
www.mattjacobphotography.com/free-tutorial-sign-up
YouTube:
www.youtube.com/@mattyj_ay
Website:
www.mattjacobphotography.com
Socials:
IG @mattyj_ay | X @mattyj_ay | YouTube @mattyj_ay | TikTok @mattyj_ay
Say hello via text message and join in the conversation!
In this week's episode of The MOOD Podcast, I jumped online with Casey Fatchett.
For more than 20 years, people have been paying him to chase the love of photography. In that time, he's photographed more than 700 weddings, thousands of portrait sessions. worked with big brands, A-list celebrities, as well as many small businesses and regular folks.
His rather playful title as a 'love documentarian' doesn't just embody his work; it narrates the stories of relationships he's framed, from the quiet affections of a golden anniversary to the lively chaos of wedding day bliss. In my conversation with him, we journey through the trials, tribulations, and triumphs of a photographer deeply rooted in the business of capturing, well, love.
Casey doesn't just stop at the click of the shutter; his wealth of knowledge extends to the crucial entrepreneurial spirit needed to navigate the competitive photography scene. For those with a camera in hand and dreams of making it their livelihood, this episode is a goldmine of wisdom, from setting rates to handling the unexpected. We also wade into the deeper waters of social media's impact on our mental health, unpacking strategies to harness these powerful platforms for good, without letting them dictate our self-worth.
Stress, boundaries, and the courage to utter a clear "no" are lifelines in the high-stakes game of professional photography. As creatives, we often blur the lines between work and passion, but as Casey shares, managing anxiety and setting non-negotiable limits is what keeps the love for the craft burning bright.
Check our Casey's work, including his 'Nerdy Photographer' Podcast, at the links below:
Website: https://nerdyphotographer.com
Instagram: @caseyfphoto / @thenerdyphoto
_________________________________________________
Thank you for listening and for being a part of this incredible community. You can also watch this episode on my YouTube channel (link below) where I also share insights, photography tips and behind-the-scenes content on my channel as well as my social media, so make sure to follow me on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and TikTok or check out my website for my complete portfolio of work.
yoreh.
www.yoreh.co
discount code: moodpdcst.23
My FREE eBook:
www.form.jotform.com/240303428580046
My FREE Lighting Tutorial:
www.mattjacobphotography.com/free-tutorial-sign-up
YouTube:
www.youtube.com/@mattyj_ay
Website:
www.mattjacobphotography.com
Socials:
IG @mattyj_ay | X @mattyj_ay | YouTube @mattyj_ay | TikTok @mattyj_ay
I found myself getting burnt out. Every five years. I was struggling mentally with my anxiety about legacy. I talked to a therapist. I know that that can seem like a daunting task.
Speaker 2:You see mental health in photography.
Speaker 1:It can be a very solitary endeavor, even when you're running your own business. You have to find your ways to step away from the work of a perfectionist and like nothing can be done to my standard, it's such an individual pursuit.
Speaker 2:A lot of the time you're often on your own. You're the only one that's pressing that shutter button.
Speaker 1:At that time, the people who are really good at marketing themselves tend to be the most successful in this business. There's this feeling that you need to be constantly creating content. 99% of Instagram posts don't get more than five likes 99%. I remember when I was starting out and feeling really scared about raising my rates.
Speaker 2:That's a really important topic.
Speaker 1:Oh, nobody's going to hire me.
Speaker 2:Would you recommend people to try or go into wedding photography?
Speaker 1:Oh God, this is the first piece of advice I'd give to anybody who wants to get into photography is Mr Casey Fatchett, welcome to the Moo Podcast.
Speaker 2:Great to have you.
Speaker 1:Thank you for having me. I appreciate you having me on.
Speaker 2:We spoke a few weeks ago in your podcast and we'll get to the Nerdy Photographer podcast, probably a bit later, which was a very enjoyable conversation. Thanks for having me on and I'm glad I can return the favor, and I thought we'd just start by I as something I noticed on your profile actually, I think this was even before we spoke last time because I generally look at people's instagram. Yeah, we're all full foul of looking at people's instagram first, probably to kind of make a judgment on who they are, and we're going to talk.
Speaker 1:We'll talk about that later a little, a little stalking yeah yes, what I noticed on there was um.
Speaker 2:In your bio you said love documentarian. Can you explain what that means?
Speaker 1:uh documenting, loving a wedding, like I get tired of saying wedding photographer, because I mean it's uh, it's not just weddings, it's, you know, I do anniversaries and uh engagements and proposals and all that stuff, and it's just like for me, even in portraits or whatever I'm doing, and I was actually thinking about this when you had uh right before uh. We started talking now about a photo I took of my parents um, for their 50th wedding anniversary. I did a, a little portrait of them. You can see the love between them.
Speaker 1:Documenting that love is a big cornerstone of what I do. I'm very much about emotional content, the emotional weight of the images that I create, and I feel that love is one of the most spectacular things in the world that we get to experience. And finding that in all of its different forms whether it's, you know, love between two partners, whether it's love between parents and children, friends, whatever shape it takes uh I like to like, I like to be there to uh capture that so that it can be remembered and you've been doing this now for a couple of decades.
Speaker 2:Let's not give away your age, but let's assume you started extremely young yeah, um what? Tell us a little bit about your history without giving us a full life story, but give us an introduction as to how you got into photography. But, more importantly, why the? Why such interest in, in capturing love between humans and weddings and and kind of human interest?
Speaker 1:uh, I originally moved to new y York city to be an actor and when I arrived here, you got to have like a dozen day jobs to pay your bills, uh, so one of my day jobs was, you know, doing photography, because I I had always had a, I've been a hobby of mine for a very long time and I had a little bit of training in college and like journalism and you know, but not a lot of formal training, and so I was doing headshots for other actors and band photos and live band shots. And then, you know, friends of mine started getting married and I would go and I, you know, when all this started, I was shooting actually on this camera right here.
Speaker 1:Uh, this is a minolta, uh, xg one and I had a couple of film cameras that, uh, I would, you know, go to the wedding and shoot a roll of film or two rolls of film, pick my favorite two shots out of you know those rolls, blow it up, send it as like an extra gift and my friends would say like, oh, this is better than the guy we hired to do this. Um, which is fine, because there's one picture. I mean, I think back, I'm like I focused it all into one photo, um, and so I was like, oh well, maybe I should look into that. And I did my first wedding and it really resonated with me, um, on a lot of different levels, both as like the sort of there's a performance aspect. That spoke to me as, you know, an actor and performer, that is just like you know, you prepare and you get yourself super prepared, but there's no do-overs, you just have to improvise your way out if anything happens or anything goes wrong, which, in the 700 plus weddings that I've done, like there are plenty of things have gone wrong and I've had to, you know, like, roll with punches, I've sewn people into dresses, you know, used the stain stick, you know stuff, and you know your therapist, your comedian, all these different things and that really, you know, kind of stuck with me.
Speaker 1:And then, as I started to I don't know get more introspective as to why I enjoyed these things, was to then go into it and like, oh, what speaks to me? And it was like that those emotions of the wedding day and the love and all around um, or what really like, sunk into me and felt like, yeah, this is what I need, like I'm I'm tend to be, I'm an extroverted introvert, um, I can have my, my social battery can get worn out, but I find that doing weddings actually like charges me up, um, even when I'm around, uh, around you know, hundreds of people and like it's just, there's just so much you know, love in the room and energy and positivity and whatever, even though it can be a stressful situation, it just like it, it powers me and I'll be up for, I mean, like I can come back home at you know, after a 16 hour day and I'll still be like wired just to you know, like, and my wife will be like I'm glad you made a home, I'm going to bed I know you're going to be up for another two hours, um, because I'm just like, so it's so exciting for me. Um, so yeah, that's why I've continued to do it after all these years.
Speaker 1:And I was just having a conversation with someone today who was having a little bit of a I don't know crisis of whether they still wanted to. They've been doing wedding photography for 10 years and they're just wondering if they wanted to keep doing it. I probably, every five years I've had like a I have a talk with myself Do you still enjoy this? Is this still what you want to do? Is this what you want to focus your energies on? And I always kind of come back to that Like the thing that I love the most are the getting to meet new people who are in love and get to know their story and to document that and to be there with them on that journey and to help them as much as I can. I'm a helper.
Speaker 2:I love to help, not just taking photos, but, like you know, I just, I just like to help people come and help my audience would you, uh, would you recommend people to try or go into wedding photography, because the you know the I I'm very ignorant of it. I've never done it. Um, it's never you know been.
Speaker 2:You know, it's never been something that's I've been drawn to. So I I don't know much about it other than getting married once myself, hopefully the only time and, uh, and just seeing these guys work so hard, but having such amazing passion for at least showing, showing that and I, you know, obviously see a lot of wedding photographers around and about and on online and stuff, and they're you know what you're saying that passion for being part of a special day, sharing that day with people how not just, you know, wearing a camera. Right, you're wearing so many other different hats. Would you still like, after so, after all of your experience, would you still sit across from a 25 year old looking to go into and say, yes, do it, it's worth it?
Speaker 1:um, I, what I will say is and it's funny because I just posted an area like a little while ago, posted a humorous reel about this um, yeah, it's worth it if you're strong enough. Um, it's not easy and that's the thing it's. It's it's tougher than I think people going into it at first realize there's a lot of. I mean, as with any photography business, if you're doing running a business, there's a lot of busy work behind the scenes. It doesn't involve photography at all. That's non-creative work that can be very draining. Um, my recommendations to people would be do you really want to do this? Do you want to give up your weekends because a lot of weddings are on the weekends? Um, and uh, luckily, I got started in this before I had a family, before I was married, and you know like they had a lot of um, other obligations of any kind and, um, yeah, I was just like, you know, whatever weekends don't matter to me. I mean like it was that was part of my like stupid actor brain, was like back then was like oh, you know, I can this on the weekend and then I can still do my rehearsals during the week and that's all there is to it and not realizing how much business stuff went into it. So, yeah, I'd say A, take a business class if you're going to do it. Learn how to run a business, learn about marketing yourself. It's not going to be easy. They're going to be really long days it's going to be. There are going to be times when you get really tired, um, and I would suggest, if you're thinking about doing wedding photography, by all means feel free to do that. Um, I would suggest working with another photographer as a second photographer, um, as like an assistant, to get a sense of what it's actually like before you go fully into it. Um, because I dove fully into it and had no idea what I was doing.
Speaker 1:Um, and I made a lot of mistakes early on, I'd say the first five years as a wedding photographer. I made silly mistakes here and there, like my contracts, left things out of contracts that would have helped me in the long run. I would have, you know, like, done certain things differently. I would have advertised or marketed myself in different ways. Yeah, I think that the main thing would be like, try it out, see if you actually like it, because once you're actually there and you're spending like eight to ten hours around people who are partying and you know you're it affects different people differently.
Speaker 1:Um, for me it's like you know, I can be the fly on the wall and walk around the party and feel fine about the other people that I have been around in the industry like to kind of make themselves part of the event. That's not my vibe. They like they. They kind of like want to be like attention on them and you know, like teach their own. But that's just, that's just not my style. But I'd say, like, try it out, see if you really like it. And you know, I see a lot of people in this industry now, younger folks, um, who do it for like five years and then they're like I don't want to do it anymore, I want to do something else. That's fine, you don't have to say stick with it for the rest of your photography career.
Speaker 1:I am finding myself to be one of the outliers in that sense, as people who I started, who started around the same time as I did, in my circle of photography, friends and weddings 90% of them, maybe more, have decided that they move into different types of photography. Um, like I said, teach their own. Uh. But yeah, if you were starting out and thinking about doing it.
Speaker 1:It's not easy. Uh, you have to kind of know you. You have to do different kinds of photography. Um, you're doing still lifes, you're doing portraits, you're doing event stuff like people moving around and dancing. Um, you have to be, you have to be able to do a lot of different things. Um, so it's not just like, oh, you know, we're gonna get these pictures of you know, these lovely pictures of people you know standing all posed. Uh, it's not all, all there is to it and it's, like I said, all the work behind the scenes that goes into it can be, can, I think, is the one thing that I know consistently gives people a bad taste in their mouth for wedding industry stuff I think I I find that with all photographers in in general, I mean, I can imagine the, the work involved with wedding photography and, like you said, you have to, you have to be good at so many.
Speaker 2:We think of wedding. Well, we, as in the ignorant people who don't do it, think of wedding photography as a genre in itself, but actually it's multiple genres packed into kind of one craft, as it were. But I think the the majority of newer photographers or should I say like people just getting into it and I was like this when I started as well you don't quite realize the admin and business skills, the entrepreneurial skills, the marketing skills, the sales skills, like all of these things that really you should have a degree for you know to cover all of these skill sets that you spend. And, yeah, you learn along the way, but you also waste a lot of time you might waste, you know, you might devalue your brand, you might waste connections, networks, reputation. So I don't, I think people don't quite realize, as a photographer, whatever genre, whatever part of photography you go into, I think the business and marketing skills, really if you want to do it full time, that is, if you want to make a living out of it. That has to come first.
Speaker 2:And because you, you know, you, you see the most successful. You know, I've met many photographers who are earning really good income from their photography. And they're not the best photographers, right, but they are the. They are very, very good at marketing, sales, business, now, just general entrepreneurship, networking, all this kind of stuff, and I just it is something that I didn't realize when I first started. Oh yeah, it's photography, it's cool. Yeah, just pick up a camera, go and take shots, go and do cool projects.
Speaker 1:No, like, that's like 10 of it right right, yeah, if you're, if you're lucky, it's more than 10 percent um for a job. When it's when you're running your own business, that's another thing. It's like you have to decide, like, especially in like wedding world, like you could go and work for somebody else's studio and not have to worry about all of that stuff. So that's another thing to consider. Um, but a lot of people want to run their own ship. You know they want to be the, the captain. That's how I am.
Speaker 1:I didn't like I left, uh, like my other jobs that I had when I like the other like side gigs that I had when I was acting, because I was making money for other people and I was kind of like, I'm tired of making money for other people, I want to make money for me. Um, and, yeah, it's the, the people who are really good at marketing themselves tend to be the most successful in this business. Um, I've had the conversation many times where it's like you know, like skill and the best photographer, like he you may not you may have never seen some of the best photographers in the world yeah and and, honestly, we look at the past and we, like you know some of these people that we think are some of the best photographers of their genre.
Speaker 1:Nobody saw their photos until after they were dead because, like you know, they just they, just you know worked in obscurity for their entire lives, um, until somebody like found their, all their negatives and were like let's take a look at these. And people were like holy shit, they were really good. Um, yeah, it's, it's interesting how much that plays a part. So, yeah, I would suggest. It's funny.
Speaker 1:I went to a school that had a really great business program and my mother said, like you should take some business classes. And I was like sure, I'll take some business classes. And I didn't. I took a lot of art classes. I took like one business class. There were all these like prerequisites you had to do before you got to like the interesting stuff, like marketing, um, and so I was like whatever. And then, after running my own business for a couple of years, she'd be like how, how, how's that going for you? Like, I wish I took some of those business classes. Um, yeah, I would recommend, if you're planning to get into any form of photography or running your own business. Take, take some business classes, find like a wherever you are, find some sort of continuing education program or whatever is nearby you and just get a taste and couple it with real life experience.
Speaker 2:So be that assistant and just work, just, even if it's just for a year. Be the dog's body, be that humble person and just learn from, even if it's someone who you don't necessarily think is amazing or but that that's any. Any photographer who's who has a sustainable and ongoing consistent business is doing something right. So you can learn so much from these people and I wish I did that I. I had the kind of the business side of it, but I didn't kind of. I was desperate for a mentor and I think that the word mentor is a little bit of a dirty word these days but I would say more of an advisor or coach, someone that you can just watch and learn right, not necessarily have a structured course or structured meetings.
Speaker 2:Just be that assistant, maybe even just once a week or in your spare time, and just go and watch and learn, and there's so much you can gain from that before you have to make a decision which way you're going and in the meantime you can learn, you can do homework, you can do online courses in your spare time. You don't have to do an official structured program like at university or anything. But so yeah, I totally agree with you and I think I think that's a you know, it's just, it just doesn't exist so much anymore that kind of apprenticeship approach. It just doesn't. You know, people want it now, people want people want to be famous on social media, people want, people want everything.
Speaker 1:Now, right, it's like, oh, just give me, I want to, I want to be, yeah, yeah, they don't want to be patient yeah I, I I would say I'm very lucky.
Speaker 1:Uh, I mentioned before like about the first five manager for a very like active studio, so I would go in two, three days a week and work there and I got to see how they ran the business and I got to learn like what I would do, like, like what I thought, okay, that's, that's something I should be doing. Um, and this is something I should be doing differently than what they do, how they do, cause I saw them like a not treating their clients so well and I was like that can't do that, like that's not how I want to. Like I got to make focus on, you know, better client service there. And then other things were like you know how they did the books and like how they all those things that I really wasn't that familiar with. I got to go walk in and like see their system for doing things and seeing like, okay, this is how you know I could adapt that to work for me in some way and have have a better sense of, you know, the business side of it.
Speaker 1:I think it's great but, like you said, I think that there's a, there's a rush. People have a rush. They want to like jump into it and be, you know, I don't know. I think that our industry uh, it just, it just clicked in my head was the like there's always like 30 under 30s and like those things, those sorts of things like rising stars, of whatever, those like magazine feature things, like people. Everybody was like, oh, I want to be one of those and they don't want to take the time. I'm like where's the? You know, like I'm not gonna say how old I am, but like awards for consistency over a long period of time, like that's the? You know, like that's something I think would be equally, as you know, celebratory, as celebrated, as you know, like oh, you're been really awesome for two years and you're a rising star, um, but it's not sexy. It's just not sexy.
Speaker 2:It doesn't sell. No, and the biggest problem with that is the definition of, of people's you mentioned on 30s. It is, it is pervasive in that generation and I don't want to be generationist if that's the word, but yeah, it's the definition of success. Usually, in my experience now talking to so many of these people falls in one of two categories One is having hundreds of thousands of followers on social media and the other one is making six figure income like ASAP. Right, those are the two definitions of success.
Speaker 2:As a, as a creator, photographer, film, whatever, whatever kind of visual arts medium you want to pick and you know there's a whole host of issues with that. Right, where is the definition of success that says I just the pursuit of this over over many, many years. I want to perfect the craft. Whatever comes of that, great, like, like, wow, if that brings me six figures income, wonderful, if people recognize the quality of my work and want to pay for that, fantastic. But again, it's the intent behind that. There's 10 000 hours. That's a cliche, but it's fucking true, right, you, you, why? Why are people not going into it? Wanting to master it? Like to?
Speaker 2:To master anything, you have to put the time in, you have to be patient, anything, you have to put the time in. You have to be patient and consistent. You have to have the patience to be consistent right, so you can look back on the body of work and go okay, well, I evolved over time. I impacted a lot of people's lives. I hopefully inspired other people and in the meantime I, you know, earned myself an income through just hard work, dedication, learning all the time and hopefully just providing a, you know, a near perfect or a good enough output that I am. I'm happy with, whatever anyone else thinks, however many followers I've got Right. So I think this intent is completely misplaced these days and it's driven by the face that people put on it, the face that people want to want other people to see them for right so yeah, I know intent is a big part of your kind of it is.
Speaker 1:I mean, I think there's that that you know, like, there's this facade that people put up, like because they're just looking for, um, they're looking for likes and shares and comments and followers. And you know, I've always been someone who focuses on the quality of connections as opposed to the quantity of things. And yeah, it's sort of this like rush dig to, like you said, got to get to six figures or a hundred thousand followers or whatever the, the goal is, um, and there's little thought about putting the work into the craft of what you're doing. And there's a lot of this like, oh, what were your settings? What gear did you use? Like, like, thinking I can replicate this photo. I want to. I want to replicate what, the, what you did in this photo. Just all I need to know where the settings and the gear that you used and I can make that picture. No, you know, you think I will.
Speaker 1:This is the first piece of advice I'd give to anybody who wants to get into photography is learn your fundamentals, learn the exposure triangle. Man, once you nail the exposure triangle, life gets way easier. Uh, and that's again how, like the shooting film, live bands, you learn the exposure. Like, I've got two camera bodies. I had two camera bodies at that point. You can't switch ISO, you can't switcho, you can't switch, it's in, it's locked in the camera and you know you have a limited array of things and you have to learn like, okay, let's just got real bright. I gotta change my settings real fast, uh, and adjust to to all of that.
Speaker 1:But, yeah, intention is something I find being lost as well. To trend, it's this like in the sort of uh, the environment of you know, instagram, reels and tiktok, and like trending things on social media, people are going for trends to get more exposure in the algorithm, so they'll reach more people, so they'll get more likes and they'll get more comments and they'll get more followers, and you know the cycle continues instead of saying, like this is the type of image or art or whatever it is that I want to make in finding something. And you know, if you're constantly imitating other people, you're not creating something for yourself. There's also, when it comes to like we've talked about off recording, like intention is uh is important for me because you'll see these trends Like uh, there's the blurry photo trend that was like last year.
Speaker 1:It kind of blew up for a while and I think it's still kind of going on. Um, I don't know if you've seen this, uh, but it's like totally out of focus images and I I was thinking about it, going like why is this a thing? And you know, I was asking questions and younger, younger, millennial and Gen Z and alpha, uh, folks were saying like well, it's just sort of nostalgic for, like you know, when you know, like, looking at old pictures, you know film from like film, you know, like whether in the out of focus, I was like you're being nostalgic for something that didn't exist. It's not like people were going like I want to shoot this out of focus. You know it's that you didn't have an auto focus and you know you didn't couldn't change your film speed and like there's things that went into it and like the yes, sometimes it didn't come out and I am like I'm saying the emotional weight of something is more important than the technical perfection of it. So if something's a little bit out of focus, that's fine with me, but it's that you were more concerned, like your intent was on capturing something else and not like my intent is not. I'm just going to take a out of focus picture, because out of focus is trending right now and that's going to get me attention on social media. It's you know, I, my intent is to capture what is happening here and you know that might mean that some there's some motion blur or that you know I can't track it as fast as possible to have it be sharply in focus. I find that that's less important than getting the shot. That's my intent is to get the photo.
Speaker 1:But when your intent becomes to just follow a trend, like I said, you're just imitating other people and you're not like thinking about what you want to create, what it is inside of you as an artist, what is your voice? That you're, what are you trying to say about what you're creating? Um, I think you lose a lot of that to trends. Um, my wife has always said that I am anti-trend to the point of, uh, being detrimental to my career.
Speaker 1:Um, but I would say that's not true because I, I would, I, I will say one of the things about that I like most about my work is that it's timeless. There's no point where you're looking at it going like, oh, that's definitely from 2010, or that's definitely from 2005 or 2018 or whatever, because this was such a big trend at that point you can go back and I can post photos that I took 15, 18 years ago and people will still think that I took it, you know, last month, because, apart from some fashion, uh, differences, you know that it's it's, the look is very timeless I think that's important for for photographers to.
Speaker 2:I don't, it is for me. I think in 10 years time, you know all of these people that post because it's chasing a trend, and the trend could be social media, right, we don't know where social media is going in the next five, 10 years. I doubt it's going to look like it does today, that's for sure, right? So you know, people chasing those trends are always going to be chasing the trends. They're always going to be chasing the algorithm and we all, we all fall foul to it in some respect. We you and I both use instagram and we use it for very specific purposes. But the difference is the intent, right? What are we using as a tool for? And we're certainly not creating photos to get the most amount of reach on Instagram or whatever TikTok or whatever stupid platform it is. So I think I'm fairly confident that those people will be left behind, and I think it's really important. If you want to, I just did a video about this, released it last night, and it was a bit of a hate on the influencer, content creator kind of generation, which is kind of what we're talking about. You know, people who call themselves artists, who call themselves this, they label themselves that and they can take a photo that looks like everyone else's because it's cool and it's trendy. They're not going to last. Going to last and I think the true, the true artists and the real, the real photographers not only do it in the dark, do it in behind whatever facade these kind of uh, these platforms create. Um, they do it. They do it behind closed doors. They don't give a fuck what other people think or say. They don't have to do it for ego. They don't have to do it for ego, they don't have to do it for status. But, more importantly, they do it like you do it, you know, they do it like I'm trying to do it, and do it over numerous years, with cohesiveness, with consistency, with a story behind it, with experience behind it, and so that I can look back on my body of work and hopefully other people can look back on my body of work in 10, 20, 30 years time and see a consistent style, a consistent story, a cohesive kind of nature of work and almost like a legacy. Right, that's a bit of a cliche, but you know, look back and go. Well, this is what I contributed to the world and I guarantee, like those people that you're talking about, they won't be able to do that, what you're going to look back on your IG page in 10 years time and go, wow, look at this slow shutter photo I took. There is a place for that.
Speaker 2:I love, I love all types of photography and those kinds of images are cool, and even I've done stuff like that before I've posted them. But I enjoy experimenting, playing around with different techniques and, like you said, sometimes I'm just a shit photographer and I get something like that by accident. Well, actually, that's quite cool, yeah, but that's fine, like so I, you know, I, yeah, I don't know, I don't know what you think about it. I mean, it all comes down to our the abundance that we have today. You know, everyone has a camera, right, and so this is both a good thing and a bad thing.
Speaker 2:The negative side of it is people aren't that creative. You know, not everyone is really creative. So not everyone has this in a, and I'm one of those guys. I have to work hard at it. I have to sit down and have a kind of focus session about okay, what, what do I want to do? What do I want to say? What's my next project? How am I going to create things around that? Some people and I've met just they just exude that creativeness, right, they're just, they've just got it in their blood. Some people just want to kind of fit into, just fit into something, right, and they have the fear of being left behind because now that they've they've had this thing thrust into them, it's like, oh well, yeah, I see all these other people as kind of social media photographers and I want to do that and it's easy because I just buy a digital camera, get it all done for me, stick it in auto mode and watch a YouTube video for 10 minutes and post chase the algorithm.
Speaker 2:Yeah, now I'm an expert, it's like, okay, but don't call yourself an artist or a photographer. You're not, you're just a digital image poster, I guess I. Just the problem is, everyone has it, and so the fear of getting left behind means that they will chase these trends and they want to fit in, and then they don't. They're not brave enough to do something themselves and to put themselves out there like as an authentic version of themselves. Go right, this is me.
Speaker 1:you either like it or you don't yeah, I think there's uh, listen, it's not generationally like. There are people my age who are still chasing the algorithm and trying to get likes and follows and will do anything to increase that reach instead of being and it's like to thine own self be true. It's like, if you need to be and you had mentioned, like you know, having a cohesive style and whatever like I don't want people who are listening to this to think that you have to start knowing exactly what your style is. You don't have to. And it's not like you can't evolve over time. It's not that it can't change, you're not. You know you're not failing if you decide like, oh, I want to go in a different direction. We all grow. Artists grow over time and change.
Speaker 1:Look at Picasso he learned the techniques well before he ever, you know, decided to.
Speaker 1:You know, like, I'm going to do something completely different in at a solid basis and all of the lots of different painting techniques, and I think that that's I would recommend. Like people get in there like, dip your toes and things, do different stuff and kind of like find, be willing, be courageous enough to make mistakes, because if you never make mistakes, you're not taking chances, you're not doing anything original. You're never going to make anything original If you know, like all you're doing is imitating what other people do. Um, so if you're just in it for attention and you know getting you want to be, you know internet famous, for you know whatever that means, then you know that's, that's, you know, okay, uh, but like you said, it's like in the long run you're gonna, you're gonna be remembered and have a legacy and like there's a part of me, like for a while, like I was, I was struggling emotion, not emotionally, mentally, like with my like anxiety about like legacy, like I guess, just as, uh, you know, do I need to do something different?
Speaker 1:do I need to um, like, uh, what impact have I had? And my wife was like you have impacted, like thousands of people at their, you know, like, the weddings, weddings, like these photos of people with family members that you know past, soon afterwards, or whatever there's like, the impact that those images have is just a spider web you know out into the world and you know that that is an impact, that is a that is a legacy of you know, like, and I I opened my eyes to that and I was, you know, far more comfortable in my own skin and my own thoughts about my work because of that. You know, it's not like you don't ever have a crisis of faith. You know, if you do this for a long time and I don't want people to think that that's that you're going to jump into it and like you're going to be, like you're going to do everything exactly right and get a, you know, internship with somebody else and like, and that somehow everything's always going to fall into place it's not. Yeah, there's, there's going to be ups and downs, but you have to be willing to make those mistakes instead of just like chasing trends. Um, yeah, I bad for people who do that.
Speaker 1:I've also been around long enough that I've seen all of these iterations of how people show their work. When I started, everybody had a physically printed portfolio. You had a book that you would show people in person. And then websites became a thing and they weren't great. The original, the first websites, could not handle images, especially not video. So, like you kind of like, gave people a sense like hey, I've been doing this and I'm kind of good at it.
Speaker 1:Here's a couple. Here's a couple of photos. Come see me in person and see the print. Then broadband came in and we were able to put more higher quality images out there. And then social media comes into play. There's this just constant barrage of visual media and it's interesting. There's one of the big pitfalls I see people falling into I think it plays in the connects to what we're just saying is that there's this feeling that you need to be constantly creating content. There's just like I had to be posting three times a week and I just got off the phone with Meta and I don't know if you've seen all these posts on like I just got off the phone with.
Speaker 1:Meta, and this is what they said.
Speaker 2:We need to be doing. It's just basically like calling up customer service or just getting on chat. Yeah, also, what do you?
Speaker 1:think they're going to say? What do you think that is going to say?
Speaker 2:They're going to say keep posting.
Speaker 1:Keep creating content on our platform.
Speaker 2:But that's why people do keep posting, because they know that if they stop posting, they will. If you don't post for a couple of weeks, you're just not gonna have the same traction. You know that the whole, the whole system is built purposefully for people to use, right? So, uh, you know, and this is the fear, is that the, the, the intent changes, the intent set and we're talking I'm talking just specifically photography here like we talk about other social media uses all day long. You know, know, there's some, there are some great uses of social media. I'm not completely and I never do it's. You know, we all use social media, but it's how you use it.
Speaker 2:I think as photographers, it's the intent can change so quickly behind. I would like to share my work with people because I put a lot of work into it. Maybe I want some feedback or some constructive criticism. Maybe this is my way to just share things with the world. Right, quickly, that becomes okay. Well, I need more people to see my work. Okay, then that becomes well, I need to do anything to get more people to do my work.
Speaker 2:Therefore, I'm just going to post whatever the content might be, and I might be rushing an edit. I might be rushing, I might be doing photos I don't really want to do just so I can get content. I might now be doing some shit reels that don't really promote anything and that just detract from the whole artistry I'm trying to create. And you know, before you know it, you are just a sellout. Essentially. So the is, and I don't blame the individuals, I blame the system, I blame these big platforms, um, albeit, we've kind of created these platforms, so I don't know. I I think that the, the intent is everything, and I totally agree with you, of course. Uh, just to go back to our point a few minutes ago, everyone should I'm, I still try different styles, right, I'm just I love photography, so I want to try everything um it.
Speaker 2:But again, there's the reason to do that once you start putting your work out there, you have to be sure about an identity of some sorts, and that identity really should and has to be authentic. So if it's not authentic, then you will be found out, either by yourself or by other people, and that is a fact, and it might take three months, it might take 30 years, but you will be caught out, and not caught out like I'm in trouble, it's just your reputation will will change you. You. You know you. Things will happen and you'll start questioning yourself about am I gonna, am I doing this right? What you? Things will happen and you'll start questioning yourself about am I gonna, am I doing this right? What do I want to do? You'll become confused, you'll lack clarity and it's it's just not a good, it's not just conducive to a good outcome.
Speaker 1:It's not beneficial I've seen, I've, I mean I'm I'm not gonna name the names because there's a few of them and like it's not like one in particular, but but I've seen several well-known photographers. Their entire world came crashing down because they got caught plagiarizing other people's stuff on social media. Like like, completely lifting somebody else's captions, like in just like in postman music, they were funny or whatever.
Speaker 1:Like, here's my little jokey thing that I said that you know, but now I'm, I've got 50,000 or a hundred thousand followers, so now a whole bunch of other people are going to see it Like, and they found that, like the people, people start to notice after a while. They're like wait, this is the exact like, this is what somebody else said like two weeks before. And now, like you just like copying and pasting other people's tweets and you know, like in Instagram captions and stuff, just to like, keep up and try to like, try to stay on top all the time and you lose. What got you there in the first place, probably, um, and I mean, if it was up to me, I mean, like nerdy photographer is just my place to like, joke about photography a lot of the time and I just like, yeah, having fun, and it's like I want to make people laugh. And it's not about, like, if people get the joke and they find one great. If they don't, whatever, I don't care.
Speaker 1:Like this is like you know, they used to do stand-up man. That's like if it, if it doesn't land, it doesn't land, you just kind of move on to the next thing. Um, and that's what I try to take that into account with my like my photography socials as well is that you know, like sometimes the best the the photo you're like this is amazing. This is a fantastic shot. I'm going to craft the best caption ever, and then you send it out there and like five people see it and that's like. You're like oh God, here's the thing. The thing about like. I can't remember when this was a while ago, but there was a thing that said like. You know, 99% of Facebook or Instagram hosts don't get more than five likes 99%.
Speaker 2:Oh, wow.
Speaker 1:Don't get more than five likes. Don't get more than five likes. Um, and these, like, I've seen it happen over and over again with social media platforms where it's like, there's this big like, everybody's getting a lot of engagement and then suddenly they throttle it. They throttle the engagement. So, like, try to get you to boost stuff. It's a thing on tiktok yeah, like, oh, you know, because that's how they make money. The folks like you, you are the con, you are creating the content, you're the product. And it's like on instagram when people get so mad because like or you know, was facebook and now people have written off facebook. But, um, if you're on instagram, like, I have 10,000 followers, but only 200 of them ever see my posts. Like, yeah, they want you to pay to boost your post so that your people who follow you see it. Um, yeah, like, I don't know, I I've.
Speaker 1:I try not to put too much faith in those sorts of things, those sorts of interactions, because, like, you know, know, like, they can take it away whenever they feel like it. They can, they can throttle what engagement you get. They can change the algorithm like, you don't want to be a, I don't want to be a slave to the algorithm. I'm going to be consistent and post the things on you. You know my different platforms that I think are appropriate for that platform If it. If it hits, it hits. If not, okay. Usually most of the time for me, instagram for my like photography business is a place for people to go and like see my most recent stuff. They've gone to my website and I say like hey, go over and you want to see my most recent stuff? Head over to instagram. Um, that's the most up-to-date things.
Speaker 2:So one thing I'm starting to find instagram extremely useful for is um is broadcast broadcast lists, um subscription list, newsletter. You know, just a real audience, and I get exactly what you're saying. But think about it like this If you put a post on and you get five likes, imagine sharing those photos or that photo in a room with five people. Right, it's, I fucking love that, right. I would be grateful to have five people actually sit here and look, even for 10 minutes. Look at some of my photos. Brilliant. But we don't think about it like that. We just think about it purely as digits or robots or whatever you know.
Speaker 2:But people, if five likes means people have seen that photo, they've comprehended that photo and they've gone, I really like that. There you go, and then a comment is kind of the next day. So I mean, people just don't think like that really. But I think, um, of course I agree with you in the the. You are powerless Once. Once you put those photos on. If we're just talking photos, let's put those photos on you. It's hit and miss and I think most photographers now realize. So you understand that system, you can make peace with it. It fine, this is. This is again. It's the intense like I'm going to put this photo on because I'm going to have it as part of my portfolio or something, some kind of grid where people can come on to and just see my most recent work, you know yeah, which is a great use of it.
Speaker 2:It's where you get, like a broadcast list or, if you want, um, an audience, a real audience. That's where it can be quite good, because you can directly reach people. People have a clear choice as to whether they're going to be part of that list or not. You can share, you can just talk to them, right. It's a big DM group. I find that really really great. It's like having a big WhatsApp group or your email list. So that's really where the audience connection can come from in the digital space, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, where the audience connection can come from in the digital space, right, yeah, and I think that it's like it wants you. It's a lot healthier mentally to get to that place where you're like, oh, this is not something I can just, you know, expect to like, you know, get consistently, you know, a thousand likes or whatever it is like you like. I've seen people who have 50, 100 000 followers on instagram, like, post stuff and it's like it only got like 150 likes. I'm like what can I tell you? Like it, like don't put the, don't put yourself in, like you're saying they, it's the abstractness of nothing like, oh, 150 people saw that and and liked it, it really enjoyed it, or whatever. They just like. The abstraction has become like, oh, it's gotta be.
Speaker 1:You know, a certain percentage of my followers and you know of my followers and you know it's got to be this, not like oh, I connected with 150 people like honestly, like I. The thing that gets me is as, as a professional photographer, if you were using that to as an extension of your business, you should stop, like, trying to make everybody like you yeah the best marketing advice I ever got was you shouldn't be trying to get the.
Speaker 1:Here's always the people. You only need two percent of the crowd or whatever to you know. Have a successful business. So people like you only need two percent of people like buying your product. And but the best advice I ever got as far as marketing was you shouldn't be trying to get two percent of the hundred percent. You should be trying to to get two percent of the hundred percent. You should be trying to get a hundred percent of the two percent right that that's the thing you need to like aim at.
Speaker 1:So, when you start thinking about like oh, I need to like get everybody who's following me to like love what I do and like if they don't, then I'm going to be depressed. Like think about who's. How many people do you need to like buy your product? You don't need like every single person who sees the thing to you know become a buyer. You need, you know it, even a small group of people. Well, you can. You can run a very successful business. Uh, so that's like you know like trying to get out of the mindset of like I need a certain percentage of my followership to you know, love every single thing that I do. Um can be very healthy for you to like understand that that's not going to be helpful speaking of health, how, how do you see mental health in photography?
Speaker 2:I mean mean, I think one thing is completely underrated is the value of well, I guess, the detriment of individuality. I mean, it's such an individual pursuit A lot of the time you're often on your own, you're the only one that's pressing that shutter button at that time, and the responsibility, especially if you're leading a team of assistants and stuff. But generally speaking, you are. You know you're leading a team of assistants and stuff, but generally speaking, you are. You know you're by yourself. You're forging this path through the industry on your own most of the time. How have you dealt with that over you know, the few decades that you've been in it and talk to us a little bit about your ups and downs and in terms of mental health uh, yeah, I, uh, I mean I, it could be very solitary and it could be a very solitary endeavor.
Speaker 1:Um, I think that I mean for me, when I started out, I was all probably attention deficit, hyper focused, uh, on, you know, like job, and I would stay up until like two or 3 AM editing. You know, I was always like, oh, I got to do the. You know, I got to perfect the website and I got to do like this thing and, like, I got to, you know, there was always a job to do and I didn't balance work-life balance. Um, it's true, even when you're running your own business, you have to find your ways to step away from the work. Um, I found myself getting burnt out like every, you know I said like every five years it was like, yeah, I just feel like, oh man, what am I doing? What's going on? And now I've scheduled it with myself that I need to have check-ins and say how are you feeling? What's going on? How do you feel about your work? How do you feel about your work, what you're actually putting out there, how do you feel about the business side of it? Like, what's going on? Like, do I need to delegate something? Because that's the thing that I am terrible. I am fucking awful at delegating anything, because it's like I have a perfectionist and like nothing can be done to my standard.
Speaker 1:But you know, in the late teens I was getting so wound up about the stuff. I had a couple of panic attacks. Um, I was so anxious about, like everything that was going on with the business I was getting ready for, uh, a wedding. I had two weddings in a row. I had one Friday night and one Saturday, and it was Thursday night and I was like getting my equipment together for the next day on Thursday, and a piece of equipment broke and I just like I started weeping uncontrollably. Um, and my wife was like, are you having a heart attack? Um, cause I was breathing hurt and I was like, nope, I think this is, I'm pretty sure this is a panic attack. Um, and you know I wasn't gonna help. Uh, I talked to my doctor. Uh, you know I talked to a therapist. Uh, you know I I know that that can seem like a daunting task for anybody out there if you're having those sorts of issues, but like for me it, you know that was, it was necessary. Um, because I was just too caught up in the race and like to to stop and think about myself and what I needed, and since then it's taken a lot of work. I've worked very hard at it.
Speaker 1:Uh, when there have been other ups and downs that went through, like in 2020, both my parents passed away, uh, from cancer within two weeks of each other and, um, yeah, and then I was their executor. So I spent like two years like trying to like figure there's a lot of pressure on top of like running the business and dealing with the pandemic and then in grieving and then all this other stuff on top of that. So, like it was good to have at that point I had like some base like of how to deal with the stress, um, which for me, was, you know, taking a break, taking like scheduling breaks. Um, I think that it's one thing, especially when you're young in this business, in photography, like we said, it's very solitary first of all, but it's very easy to get caught up and just spend like all of your time working um, and I see it with like younger photographers, that that I know and I'll be like, oh, I was up until like 3 30 editing this shoot because I was just so excited about it. I'm like and you need to go to bed, you need to go to bed at a reasonable time, like if you don't sleep. That is like one of the biggest things to like for your mental health is is getting regular sleep and I'm not saying you absolutely have to get eight hours a night even though you should but like getting consistent sleep is like one of the best things you can do for your mental health. Um, and it was also like for me.
Speaker 1:I have a very active dog, um, so I would schedule like times during the day, like this is what I'm going to take the dog for a walk. This is what I'm going to do training with the dog. Like it's not a long period of time. Like I'm going to schedule a time where I get up from my desk and I am not doing work for 10 minutes. I'm just going to train my dog. We're going to do stuff and it's fun for me because I love playing with my dog. Um, dog loves it. Like, but I'm stepping away from the work. Um.
Speaker 1:The other thing that really helped was setting specific end times for when clients can contact me and for when I am going to stop doing work. Um and having limits. I always tell, because you know Weddings can be Very emotional. There can be a lot of like you know, last minute stuff. I always tell people like, the week of the wedding you can call me whenever, anytime, night or day, you can call me. But apart from that, after 6.30 at night I'm not answering the phone. It's going to go to voicemail. I'm going to pick it up at 8 o'clock in the morning and I will get that.
Speaker 1:I'm not going to chase it, because I used to have people calling me at 11 o'clock at night and I'd be like, yeah, I'm not going to chase it, because I used to have people calling me at 11 o'clock at night and I'd be like why are you calling me? Like I'm not going to do this, like right now, I'm not going to like you know they're like oh well, you know the wedding was six months away and I'm like, okay, I'm not falling into this trap, I'm not. So that was about setting boundaries with clients. But you need, I'm not falling into this trap. That was about setting boundaries with clients. You need to set boundaries yourself as well. I'm not going to stay up Sometimes. Yes, you need to stay up, get the editing done. You might have a deadline, whatever. It happens occasionally, but you shouldn't consistently be up until 3 o'clock, 4 o'clock in the morning. It's not good for you. It's not good for you. You need to set boundaries for yourself, otherwise you burn out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I mean I get the going back to what you originally said about delegation and being professional Again, because it's a visual art form and you have your brain in those photos, right, or how those photos are delivered or how they're managed or how a client's managed or whatever it is. It's your name on the line and it's so difficult as you have to put your entrepreneur hat on, not your artist hat on right, whereas you have to be able, if you're going to scale it a bit right and you're not going to get burnt out. It's very, very difficult and there's no easy way to just do it and there's no course in really learning how to do it, because everyone's different and whoever you might be delegating to is different, with different skill sets, different experiences, and it's just, again, it's a human relationship that somehow you have to garner if you're delegating to people. But, yeah, I think what hearing you talk about that and having empathy, because I've kind of been there myself as well and as long as I think you're able to do two things or learn from, learn from your experiences, what's happening and sounds like you did perfectly and I kind of went through something similar and, you know, got help, was willing to kind of put my ego aside, and I didn't for many years. No, I could do this. You know I'm. You know I'm strong enough to get through this myself. I don't need any help. Everyone can fuck off, right, but we all know that that just doesn't work.
Speaker 2:Having the humility to be able to go and be vulnerable with a stranger, or even not a stranger, and start talking about it, and and then putting some discipline in place, right, whether it's with, like you said, with with clients, or with people you're working with, like why are you calling me 11, but why are you allowing them to call you at 11, right? So it's kind of like having that self-discipline as well and setting those boundaries so really difficult. When it comes to that, though, I think you know you just want to make everything work, because it's your income, it's your, it's your rent, it's your food. It's like you've just got, I've got to make it work, and I don't know how long this is going to last, for you could be like swamped in a project and then another client comes in going I want to work with you, and you just oh, I've got to say yes.
Speaker 2:The power of saying no is sometimes so liberating and so good for you, so that you don't end up in those situations A, you don't dilute your product and you don't dilute the quality of your work, but you also don't get burnt out, Right? So I think that's really important. On the back of that, I wanted to ask you how really now, because you've been doing this for so long and you know I'm I have so much respect for you for, for you know, just doing what you love for so long and making a success out of it. So kudos to you for that. But I do want to know what you would be doing if money was no object, right? If you didn't, if you didn't have to get money from photography, what would you be doing? If you know, if you had all the money in the world, what would you do?
Speaker 2:hip-hop dancer a beer what?
Speaker 1:sorry, a pop dance, hip-hop, hip-hop dance hip-hop dance come on, show us some moves.
Speaker 1:No, um, I'm I'm an enthusiastic dancer, but no, like, terrible. Um, what would I be doing? I, I, I don't know? Like, there there are things that I I'm an enthusiastic dancer, but no, like, terrible, um, what would I be doing I, I, I don't know? Like, there there are things that I, I, if money was no object, I was actually.
Speaker 1:I think I was thinking about this today. There was some things that there are, things that I love to do. Um, I love to garden. I'm to grow things. I spend more time in my garden, I spend more time with my dog. I, you know, go travel with my wife.
Speaker 1:Um, it's uh, you know, those are like what I refer to as like simple joys. They're, like it's always going to be something that I love doing. Um, I also love making people laugh, which is the entire reason I started. The nerdy photographer was like I'm not saying as a joke, but like to like get people to laugh about this business. It's, you know, like we're silly people and then, and like the way that we, we take ourselves very, very seriously in a lot of ways. Um, and there's just a lot of common experiences that people have. And you know. Yeah, I just like I'd like to make people laugh and, you know, hang out with my dog and curtain those are, you know yeah I mean, I think that those are like the main things I would enjoy doing, um, but I was gonna say you were.
Speaker 1:You were talking about like having the, the courage to like talk to somebody. Um, I want to kind of go back to that for a second Like you having the courage in a lot of different ways um talking to a stranger, or talking to friends, or like, if you're feeling you're having problems, like talk to somebody. But another place that courage takes place in in when it comes to growth, uh, in the business side of things, is the courage to say no to jobs, as you're talking about like oh, you're worried, like oh, where's the next job going to come from? And somebody asked me recently, like well, how do you get higher paying jobs? It was on Reddit, because they were like I feel like I'm stuck here, I'm afraid to raise my rates. Well, you're going to have to say no to some people. You're going to have to say no in order to establish that you need to be paid a higher rate.
Speaker 1:I recently got a job offer from a huge company like billions and billions of dollars company to create images for them, whatever, and they told me what their budget was. And I was like, well, it's kind of low. They said we want a full buyout of all the images and I was just like that's way way, your budget is way, way, way too low because that's very expensive. Because they were talking about using it for advertising. And when you're talking about a billion dollar company using your images for advertising, that's a lot of money, um, for licensing those images. And what I said to them was okay, here's my counter offer instead of all the photos, now it's probably going to like create like hundreds of images in the course of doing this project. I said how about you choose 10 and I will give you a license to use those internally in editorial stuff, whatever, blah, blah, blah. Uh, for two years, that's in. That is well within your budget. What you're talking about, like what budget we discussed and you know you're not going to want to use a hundred images anyway. Like that's the thing that, like most people, like on the other side, when they're planning, they go like we want to have them all. Um, like you're not going to use them all. Uh, the chances are you're not going to, especially in the, depending on the project. Like they're not going to use 150 or 200 photos. They're going to pick a select few that they're going to use. And I said, and then we can come back to it if you want to use it for advertising, back to it if you want to use it for advertising. And, uh, we can discuss, like, what market you're using, because there's a lot of things that go into that, into licensing your photos.
Speaker 1:Photographers, if somebody wants to use your picture for you know, advertising, you have to consider the market that it is. Is it tv, is it online? You know, like, is it just? Is it all over the world? Is it just in one country? Blah, blah, blah. Figure out the pricing for that. They came back to me.
Speaker 1:There was a lot of back and forth for a month. Then they came back and said we hired somebody else who wasn't going to limit the number of photos or the usage. I was like, okay, I don't feel like there was a time when I got really upset about that. I would have been mad. I'm like, oh, that job got away. And I'm like, no, I'm fine with that job not coming away because it wasn't going to treat me.
Speaker 1:People are like, oh, you're leaving money on the table. I'm like, no, I'm keeping somebody taking money on the table. I'm like, no, I'm keeping somebody taking money off the table for me, uh, because they'd be taking advantage of me. And you know, like, you're talking tens of thousands of dollars that you know in licensing fees that, uh, they're not giving to the person that they hired. So, so, like you have to be willing to say no if you want to get, if you want to advance and like, charge people more money, um, as a photographer, you need to be able to. It is scary, it's really scary.
Speaker 1:I remember when I was starting out and feeling really scared about raising my rates, I was like, oh, nobody's going to hire me. What I didn't realize was you needed to raise them gradually, like 5% a year or 10% a year, so that it's incremental over time, so that when people refer you to somebody else, your rate hasn't gone up a dramatic amount. Like if you wait five years and then all of a sudden raise it like 20%. Um, that's like you know, suddenly you're losing all of this like crop of referrals, of people going like well, why are you so much more expensive than when so-and-so hired you? Um, yeah, like that. That. That that's my advice is, like you know, stick to your guns as far as raising your rates and do it incrementally over time. Sorry, I kind of like went off there for a while.
Speaker 2:No, it's a really important topic because this is not helping the industry at all If people keep. You know, so many people do free jobs and I get it. Especially when you're starting out you kind of need a quid pro quo kind of arrangement with maybe smaller brands and just as you learn. I kind of get that sometimes. But it doesn't help when you just get undercut all the time and, uh, you know we're going back to original, one of our original topics of conversation, where you know the, the abundance.
Speaker 2:You know we're in a we're in a buyer's market when it comes to brands and photographers. Like brands can just take their pick. You know they can pitch to 10 000 photographers and they'll find someone that does it within their crappy little budget. And I'm seeing this more and more with friends, with associates and just photographers everywhere. They're just having trouble getting jobs for the rate that they normally charge, let alone any kind of real increased value rates, because for some reason, huge brands keep tightening their budgets for photography and content and videos, whatever it might be, and I don't know why, I don't know when they they are kind of seeing this in the market that they can do, that they can charge for less or they can get free content, or if it's. You know, there are some effects of ai maybe in there with image generation or or, or you know um, artificial graphic creation.
Speaker 2:I don't, I don't know. I don't know about that world enough. But yeah, I, I see this all the time. So it's really it's easy for us to say I just know it's uh, I know you, you do it, you walk the talk and I, I say no way, more than I say yes, just because there are very few jobs that come along anyway that I want to do. So, yeah, I mean, I value my time. It's valuing your time. It's not necessarily your work, right, it's the time that you and if you're prepared to over-deliver as well, you know you're going to be spending a little bit more time than what it might be on paper. So at what rate do you put your time? And when you think about how much time you have on this planet, then you better value that rate pretty highly, um, and have some kind of respect for yourself.
Speaker 1:But that's here's the thing that I I commonly like see that I don't fault people who are starting out for charging less money. That's fine. I think that you should be educated to know there are certain aspects of licensing because you should be aware of, because you're leaving money on the table if you don't charge for those things. But I get that less experienced people are going to charge less money. In my personal experience, having worked with corporations and brands, is that they yeah, they will try to go cheaply sometimes and they'll be like oh, you know, like I'm um, I'm just going to like go for the the least expensive person out there. That's usually when there's a change in um change in management uh, somebody who doesn't quite understand what's going on, especially on the corporate side of things. If you're doing, you know, like corporate headshots or whatever, like they'll come in, like somebody new will come in and like, oh, we got to get a new photographer, we're gonna get like the cheapest person we can find and then let that person comes in and doesn't have any idea what they're doing and like takes pictures using like the natural lighting and a fluorescent. You know like, this is a true story. I got hired for the job because, and they were like um, so how are you gonna combat the fluorescent lighting in the in the room that we're gonna take the pictures in? And I was like, uh, excuse me, uh, I bring in my own lights, I have flash, you don't have to worry about that, they're going to take the pictures in. And I was like, uh, excuse me, uh, I bring in my own lights, I have flash, you don't have to worry about that. And they're like oh, cause the last person we we hired like just shot with like available light in, like fluorescent lighting in there. I was like, okay, well, you may have to pay me more than you paid them. Um will be the first, you know, step of that. But like what I have found over a long period of time when it comes to like corporations, like this company who didn't hire me because I, you know, asked them. They're gonna do that probably a couple of times and then they're gonna realize that the quality of the work that they're getting is not what they're hoping for, especially if they're trying to use it for advertising eventually, and they might not come all the way to where I would need them to be, but they're definitely going to trend upwards.
Speaker 1:Corporations want people who can deliver, you talked about. You don't have to be the best photographer, you just have to be the best marketer. What, like, corporate clients and brands want is consistency and, like you know, you create a consistent product with your images and that they that you deliver on time. Um, I know photographers who make we're definitely in that six plus figure area uh, who are they the most skilled photographers in the world? Probably not, but, like they, they create the quality of images that, like these clients want, they do it on a consistent basis.
Speaker 1:They, you know, like, and that's what they're learning for, um, and it's funny because, um, in some cases, uh, like their, their photos never really like are seen by the public, like their images are.
Speaker 1:Like you know, like you know, you're doing a annual report photography for some you know fortune 500 corporation. Like you know, it's like most people aren't seeing any of those photos. Um, and it's, uh, it's hard for some people to grasp that that that's the case, but, like you know, like on people to grasp that that that's the case. But like you, like I said, you create, if you create a consistent product. This is any any genre of photography, a where you want people to hire you. People want to see consistency, um, and that's what's going to help you raise your rates, um, besides just saying I've been doing this for five years or 10 years or whatever, they want to see that quality is like consistent, if not increasing over time, and that's what's going to like out there, that only people who know the technical side of photography and have a solid basis in the you know the fundamentals are going to be able to do, and that's why they're going to get hired interesting.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I. I don't know if that's applicable to the people coming up through the ranks, but I think it is.
Speaker 1:I think it's, you know, like that they're going to. They have to like, if you have a solid basis of what you like we said before, like on fundamentals, you're going to open up doorways along the way that people who don't want to if he had said at the beginning they're not interested in learning, they just want to do the trendy thing or whatever. Like, I'm just going to try to recreate this image that I saw you know online or whatever, instead of knowing how and having a broader knowledge and skill, like, you're going to open more doors for yourself, for higher paying work along the way. Are there any skills that?
Speaker 2:you have picked up, like really recently, that you kind of wish you'd learned a long time ago, always business stuff, I don't know.
Speaker 1:I'm always trying to learn new techniques, like whether it's lighting or you know, just like seeing this. This is something that I've gotten better at in the last, I'd say, five or six years, so I'll say I'll call that recent um at seeing the how I want to light, something like really just visualizing and pre-visualizing where I'm going to set my lights. That's a that. I think that before that I was just kind of like fly by the seat of my pants and like set things up and be like, okay, well, this looks good, um. Whereas like using um, thinking about it ahead of time has makes that moment of when you're there to do the job that much easier and faster, um and less stressful If you've really like pictured it in your head beforehand, like what you want to capture, whether it's whether you're doing fashion, whether you're doing portraits's, whether you're doing fashion, whether you're doing portraits, whether you're doing like products, whatever, like before you get in there, before you've got the camera in your hand, before you're setting up the lights, whatever it is you're doing.
Speaker 1:Like just thinking about the images you want to take ahead of time makes life much easier and less stressful, because then, when you get there, you're like oh yeah, I know what, what I want to get, and something else may present it to you and you improvise something new, like something pops up.
Speaker 1:You can always be flexible and go with something new, but you have a basis to work off of instead of like showing up and going, oh shit, what am I supposed to do? What am what was I going to try to accomplish? Oh, yeah, like okay, and when that can. Like takes, yeah, whether you're. I started off talking about like lighting setups, but it's not necessarily just lighting setups.
Speaker 1:If I was going out to do street photography, I would do a certain amount of like okay, what am I really looking for out of this session? Like I'm going to go out for two hours or whatever. What are the things that I want to try to accomplish while I'm out there? And that might do a lot of more logistics involved in like uh, you know some of my favorite street photographers. They have like black books about like when the light is good in certain parts of the city that they work in, like I. That never blew my mind and I was like oh, yeah, it makes sense. Like they, they've done the work ahead of time, so they know. Like okay, you really can only go to this area these two weeks of the year, because that's when the light's really good there. Um, like that sort of thing ahead of time, like you save yourself time and stress. You're not just like showing up, being like why can't I get the shot that I want.
Speaker 2:Um, you think about it ahead of time yeah, but if I talk about mindful photography quite a lot a it just helps you on the day.
Speaker 2:You know any day that you go out deliberately whether it's a paid job or just a personal thing being comfortable in your brain with what a general idea of what you're going for, whether it's a combination of inspirations or a new idea or a new technique.
Speaker 2:And when I first started learning and I went on my first workshop back in the day, the pro that was leading the workshop just said you know, just just just go out and shoot things that have the color red in, or go out and shoot things with just one person in it, or go and shoot moving subject or just like focus on one thing, especially when you're learning, you can just try and you know perfect that area, right.
Speaker 2:So, but it goes with everything if you're doing I mean I'm going to ask you about your, your process in a minute but you know, if you're doing a uh, any project having, I mean I don't really like mood boards, but having a rough idea and plan or brief or just general concept in your head, like well, I'm going to try these three setups or I'm going to try these three techniques or something and, like you said, there will always be something on the day, right, that you have to adjust, but then you have that space, you have that mental space to be able to deal with that and improvise and be creative, right, and that that's so liberating.
Speaker 1:I think that there's. There's a big problem for people who are just starting out, who are obsessed with gear and they're like, oh, I got to have the latest camera and I got to have the latest thing. Like, learn, learn on whatever you've got. You know, like sometimes limitations are the best things for you, like I, I've recently, like started a new project uh, I can't remember if we talked about this before like where I found all this film expired from in the early 2000s in my parents house. They're, like you know, dozens of rolls of film that had never been used.
Speaker 1:And, um, I decided to like pick up my old film cameras and I'm taking like a roll of film with me on walks that I go on with my dog and like photographing my dog with this old expired film. And each time I just take I only take one lens with me, one camera, one lens. I switch up the lenses, okay, like you know, each time, you know I've got a 135, a 50 and a 28 and you know I'll go out there and like and and shoot that roll of film and like I limit myself to that 24 or 36, sometimes 10 exposures. I've got some 10 exposure rolls of film that I have to be so intentional and mindful of what I'm doing because I only have a limited number of exposures. You think about it ahead of time. What do I want to get out of this? It's weirdly liberating to like know that I don't have to sit there and go like, oh, I'm gonna have to switch, oh, I need to switch lenses, or oh, I need to like do this. Like having those restrictions is like like takes things out of you, like the.
Speaker 1:The taking the options away is here's a little. If you're doing anything with in your photography business where you've got a price list, your price list shouldn't have too many options on it, because people get confused with too many options. It's the same for you as a photographer. I've got to choose between like 10 different lenses and a whole bunch of other things. Like you know, I'm going to be stuck thinking about, oh, which lens should I use? So you learn on what you've got or you work with what you have, and you'll be surprised Like as a, like a thought exercise, and you know, I think like as like training yourself with what it would be you have.
Speaker 1:You know, when you're starting out like, work with what you got, you don't need to have the you know the latest and greatest camera and lens to make good photos, like we all like to say, like, oh, gear doesn't matter. There are times when gear matters, like there are certain things you can't do without. You can't shoot macro photography without a macro lens. For the most part, you can do lots of stuff with limited equipment. Honestly, you tend to be more creative when you don't.
Speaker 1:I know that one of the things I struggle against is getting too comfortable and getting in a rut and just like doing the same shots over and over again. Uh, I I think about like, okay, you know, I gotta, I gotta like spice things up and do something a little bit different. Um, you know so that I don't like just keep taking the same pictures over and over again. But when you're young and you're starting out and you've got all those things, you can try all sorts of things to get a sense of what your style is. You don't have to be stuck in one particular style.
Speaker 2:I've just built a whole online course around the fact that equipment is a tiny portion of you know making great photographs, because you know, like you, 90 of questions or comments I get is what, what camera do you use, what lens is this taken on, etc. Which is which is fine. Look, I've been there, um, and I just feel like there needs to be more education surrounding this, certainly in in our industry, where it's like, yeah, of course, gear matters, like if you, if you can afford to have a better camera, then by all means go and get a better camera. But if you're just starting out and you're not quite sure and you don't know the basics, uh, just try and resist that temptation, right, it's so I, like you said, limitations just breed creativity and breed learning and breed education, and that's, if you can start from those fundamentals, then you're going to be way ahead of most people in in the field. But, yeah, interesting, interesting that you mentioned that now, um, we're getting close to your bedtime, so I, I'm I'm sorry for keeping you so late.
Speaker 2:I just, um, I wanted to touch on a kind of few more light-hearted notes. We've been we've been going pretty, pretty deep into subjects which I love, but, as as a comedian yourself, I'm sure you kind of want to liven up a bit. Um, tell us, you mentioned street photography. Now, I know you, you, you get out there and do the living in New York. It's, it's, uh, you know, such a such a wonderful oasis of of opportunities to do some cool street stuff. Do you? Do you kind of see your biggest inspirations in in in street photography? And when you, when you talk about wanting to, like I, you know I've been doing this similar photo so long how do you change that up? Do you get inspirations from other photographers and then kind of mold their new ideas into your work?
Speaker 1:And, if so, who? I look at all the genres. I love street photography. For one thing Recently I've really been loving the work of Phil Penman. Uh he's fantastic. I fucking hate how good he is. Yeah, Um, it's just like it makes me sick.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:God damn it, um, because there's like, there's something about like the way he captures New York, um, and living here, like it's just such a character in the photos and I've had the pleasure of talking to him about it. I just look at that and I go there are things that I recognize like his techniques, that I'm like I know how to do that and that is certainly a thing that I like to do.
Speaker 1:I'm like, oh, I might incorporate that into some things that I do, whether it's street photography or something else, Just because I'm like seeing how it really like plays out and find that inspiring. There are other photographers like. Johnny Edward is another guy who just like blows my mind. He's a fashion and portrait photographer and he's just like he's a. He's a fashion and portrait photographer and he's just like. He's just brilliant, uh, like, and just like. His lighting, his use of color palettes is just like it is blows me away, like how insanely creative he is and you know those sorts of things and I I look into all sorts I've got it's can't see because it's very dark in my office, um, but I've got like a whole like shelf full of photography books, like coffee table books, of things like. There's like dance and like.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there was a long period of time where I like movement. I love movement of like capturing movement. That's a big part of my job as a wedding photographer. So I like look at like dance photos and like you know, like, and find inspiration there and how, like you know, people captured, you know the human body moving, um, there's so much out there to like, get inspired by Um. Also, I'm lucky to live in a place where there's a ton of museums, um, and you can just go and like. But one of the things that I find really helpful is just sitting and watching people, and especially new york is good for that too. Like people watching is real easy here. Um, go out there, watch people. It become a student of you, know like how people interact with one another especially for my job, uh, it's it's. It's helpful to like see like the patterns and how people interact cool.
Speaker 2:I thought we'd end with um, not necessarily a question, but more of an experience from your side. I mean, doing 20 years of wedding photography must have given you some funny stories. Can you kind of think about one that you might be able to share with us? That is kind of an interesting or funny experience that you've had shooting a wedding.
Speaker 1:I once had a groom threaten to kill me after the wedding. He was going to have me assassinated because he was just trying to get free shit. It was weird in the sense that we got to the, I did the wedding, I kind of gave them a break on pricing because it was out of season. It was weird in the sense that we got to the, I did the wedding, I kind of gave them a break on pricing because it was out of season. So it was already kind of like something I shouldn't have done to begin with and went to the wedding. He was partaking in some illicit substances when I arrived at the wedding and I didn't take any photos of that. I didn't want to be involved in providing evidence for anything.
Speaker 1:But we get to the end of the night and I couldn't find the bride and groom. So I was like, oh, what's you know? I looked around it was like 15 minutes after I was supposed to leave and I said I told the maitre d I'm like do you know where they are? And he was like I don't know where they are. And I'm like, well, tell him. I said goodbye, but you know I'm past my, I'm past my time to leave, so you know I'm heading out. I delivered the images to them and then the bride came back to me and she's like these are terrible, very awful photos. Um, we want these 45 8x10 prints for free, plus an album that has another 40 8x10 prints in it for free because the photos are so awful.
Speaker 1:If they're so awful yeah, why do you say, why do you want so many of them printed? And, um, yeah, the uh. She's like oh, so they're so bad. And you left early. And I was like, you might not realize this, but there's a time stamp in the digital file and you can actually see that I showed up early and stayed late. Uh, by the time that stamped into the photos. Uh, so that's actually not true.
Speaker 1:And so then I didn't hear anything from her and the groom called me up and he said listen, you can keep $150 for yourself. And the groom called me up and he said listen, you can keep $150 for yourself for your time. I was like, oh, wow, for my time, $150. Wow, that's great. Uh, he's like, but you're going to give us this album and you're gonna give us all these prints, you know, or I'm going to come up there and take care of you, cause they lived in Floridaida and miami and um, I was like, oh, because I'm a smart ass. I was like, take care of me, you're gonna tuck me in at night you're gonna make me chicken soup when I'm not feeling so good.
Speaker 1:And he's like, no, I'm gonna fucking kill you. And I was like I'm glad that you've made it very clear.
Speaker 2:I was gonna say what you're writing what your intentions are.
Speaker 1:Um, the and uh, you will never be hearing from me again unless I get a written apology. And, um, even then, you know you're not. You're certainly not getting anything from me. Um, and I've, like, sent an email off to the bride, said like hey, just want to let you know your husband threatened to kill me and you won't be getting, you won't be hearing from me unless it's through a lawyer. Um, yeah, that was kind of funny did you get paid? Uh, yeah, they had already paid me, but they had already paid me.
Speaker 1:They wanted a refund because my photos were so awful that they wanted a giant deluxe album full of them as well as a bunch of prints. I was like, yeah, it's really surprising that the photos are so terrible that you want so many of them printed.
Speaker 2:So what happened? Did they contact you back and say we're sorry, we want them?
Speaker 1:so they didn't get the photos. No, no, yeah, sorry, I don't know what to tell you, but you threatened to kill me. I'm certainly not putting up with that. That is, that is, that is like you know, that is, uh, that is what all the all the doors go up at that point once you, you cross that line um well, that's hilarious now, but I imagine in the moment it's a little bit alarming I don't know.
Speaker 1:I mean, I like I said I'm a smart ass, so I was just sort of like, yeah, yeah, my dad was a cop and you know, I knew a lot of guys when who had mob connections where I went to school, and so there's like, yeah, I don't know, there was a certain sense of me. I was like, okay, you know, you're really buddy yeah this is this.
Speaker 1:This is you're really gonna try to like have me killed over your wedding photos, are you trying to get? I don't know. I guess it is certainly a possibility. But my immediate reaction was like right, you're not going to go through the effort of paying for photos, but you're going to pay somebody to off me. This is not good, doesn't make good business sense.
Speaker 2:Yes, um well, I'd love to end a podcast on a murder threat, but uh, it's. It's been a pleasure to talk to you. Thanks so much for your time and, um, some really interesting topics conversation. I guess watch this space. But, uh, keep going with what you're doing. It's it's certainly appreciated. I love your nerdy photographer instagram page, so keep keep people laughing, um, because it's neat.
Speaker 1:It's needed in this world. Yeah, for sure thank you, man, I appreciate it all right, take care, casey, cheers, cheers. Cheers.