Stop Chasing The Perfect Histogram

One 30-second Instagram Reel sparks a full-blown photography debate, and it starts with a phrase designed to annoy the internet: “Da Vinci Got It Wrong.” We break down why the “perfect bell-shaped histogram” advice is so sticky, why it’s often wrong, and what the histogram is actually good for when you’re trying to nail exposure. We talk dynamic range, highlight clipping you can’t recover, why crushed blacks are sometimes fine, and how bracketing and blending in Lightroom can solve scenes your camera simply can’t hold. If you’ve ever searched “how to read a histogram” and still felt unsure, this will make it click.

Then we’re joined by Matt Hodgkin, a half-Brazilian, half-English photographer who spent years shooting stills on film sets and in theatres before stepping into UX product design and eventually committing fully back to photography. Matt shares what pulls him toward wedding photography, how he thinks about the balance of creativity and business, and what mentorship and accountability change when you’re building a wedding photography brand from scratch.

Matt also tells the story of shooting a three-day wedding in Brazil as both family and an additional photographer alongside the hired team. We dig into kit choices for travel, how to stay respectful without shrinking yourself, and why client experience matters as much as the photos. 

We even detour into Singapore’s Leica gallery and Betty Goh’s powerful work, plus a ChatGPT experiment that proves a big point: presets aren’t a substitute for light, timing, and intention.

If this helped, subscribe, share the episode with a photographer friend, and leave us a review on Apple or Spotify.

Matt Hodgkin on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hodgkin_studio/

Betty Goh on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/betty_goh_photography/

Transcript

Steve Vaughan (00:00)
So Nick Church, not only are you an acclaimed wedding photographer, educator, musician, all around superstar, you're now an Instagram influencer it seems as well. Tell the listener what you've been up to.

Nick Church (00:11)
I am now Insta Famous and yeah, so the brands are breaking down, so I've got to start doing things like, know, sort of like an influencer do. There's Wavy Can, which actually I was shooting these cans today for a client of mine. I think my product, you've to test the products while you're shooting them. No, it was, I was at the photography show last weekend. I'm sure some of the listeners were there as well.

Steve Vaughan (00:14)
Yeah, we're not worthy.

For the audio list, that's Nick waving a can of beer around.

OK, OK.

Of you have, yes.

Okay.

Nick Church (00:40)
well, fact, I know a few of them works. saw them and I did a talk on the histogram. I can't say that in a minute. So it's talking histogram and it's just completely blown up. So I did a little edit of it. So I stuck the Osmo pocket, my DJ Osmo pocket on that, ⁓ tripod thing I've got, which is just so light and brilliant. It's like a plastic tripod. Yeah. Yeah, exactly that exactly the same sort. ⁓ and, ⁓ it's so light stuck that there.

Steve Vaughan (00:47)
Mmm.

Yeah.

It's like a stand with a bass thing. I've got one as well. Yeah. Made by Yelansy or somebody, aren't they? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Nick Church (01:09)
Use the DJI mic to just plug that in. And so I thought I'll record it as well. And, um, yeah. And then so I just edited a short 30 second clip of it and it's just absolutely blown up on it. It's like had more engagement that one real than all of my others put together forever. It's just been crazy. So is it, is it something like 110,000 views and

Steve Vaughan (01:24)
Wow.

Good grief.

I know nothing about reels and things really because I'm way too old to understand this stuff. Did he do any particular special tags or anything? Or did he share it anywhere? Or is it just...

Nick Church (01:37)
Now, no, but

I'm pretty sure I know what it is. That's, and there's like, you know, 1100 likes on it and like, you know, a hundred comments. It's like completely. So I think so that the, the talk was about the histogram, but I it's, it was called, um, DaVinci got it wrong. So the idea of the, the idea of the talk, yeah, the idea of the talk is that we all get told when we're learning photography and still on loads of online resources.

Steve Vaughan (01:41)
That's right.

Tell us your secret, please.

Mm-hmm.

okay. Nice and provocative, yeah.

Nick Church (02:04)
that we want a nice bell shaped histogram, which is absolute nonsense. so to, show, to show, to show why it's nonsense, I decided to use loads of famous artworks like last supper Mona Lisa, and put those into Lightroom and, and copy the screenshot histogram and show that they, according to these online references would be really underexposed or really overexposed. So just showing how, how ridiculous it is. And

Steve Vaughan (02:08)
⁓ controversial. Come on to that in a minute then. Okay.

Whoa.

Nick Church (02:31)
So I chopped it up a little bit and made it, there's one bit that got a pretty decent laugh, I won't lie. So I put that in there. And I think it's because it's quite an irreverent topic. It's a little bit, I don't know, bit...

Steve Vaughan (02:48)
So your premise

was raised basically that Leonardo da Vinci, mean, did you mean Leonardo da Vinci, not Blackmagic software, Leonardo da Vinci got the whole premise of having a histogram bell-shaped wrong. He obviously went to go to photography school, did he? No, no, no.

Nick Church (02:54)
Yes. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And I go through like load of quotes and there's quite

a good, there's quite a good bit where I go, I put up some quotes from, resources that say that this, should have a nice bell shape. One of, one of which being Canon. And so I put on this, I said, I, going to obviously not mention, I said, I'm not going to mention what the brand is because that would be really rude and put up Canon with a red line through it, which you clearly see was Canon. So it's just little things like that. But I think the reason it was really successful as a real is short.

Steve Vaughan (03:09)
Hmm. Yeah.

Okay, no offense, Canon.

Nick Church (03:27)
It was a bit humorous. was images that people recognize. It's a topic that people can understand fairly comfortably. And it's a little bit controversial in the angle, know, because plenty of people disagree with it with my position on it. And I think it's all of those things that just really make that something that people are engaging with. And of course, whether people are actually engaging with it or not, you don't know. All you know is that the algorithm sent that reel to people.

Steve Vaughan (03:37)
Absolutely, yeah.

Nick Church (03:56)
and a subset of those.

Steve Vaughan (03:56)
It's fascinating, isn't it? I

have no understanding about how these things work at all here, but it's absolutely fascinating the way that it worked. I want to explore more about your talk in a moment, Nick, but let's start the show up.

Nick Church (04:07)
Sure. Okay. Well, let's get straight on to our guest for this week. We've got, I mean, it's one of my clients. So it's all about me. It's all about me today, which is, which I think is actually the way that it should be. And I think this is a pattern of that we should just continue. So it's, this is Matt Hodgkin. Matt's one of the, so the Nick Church Creative Academy has a program of mentorship. So it's called the hero tier and Matt.

Steve Vaughan (04:15)
isn't it always?

Nick Church (04:36)
is working through that. And so I'm working closely with Matt on that. And he's also a hero. So it's Matt Hodgkin. He's from Brazil, from Brazil with the most un-Brazilian name. And we're going to find out where his name came from shortly because it doesn't sound like a Brazilian name. But Matt's just come back from shooting a wedding in Brazil, both as a guest and a sort of additional photographer. So it's like the biggest deep end you could get, like literally, think, as he'll talk to us about that. Yeah, how are you doing, Matt?

Steve Vaughan (04:47)
You

Wow. wow. Wow. Okay. Hey, Matt. Welcome to the show.

Matt (05:03)
Hi, hello guys, how are you?

Steve Vaughan (05:05)
Yeah, good, good,

good. Looking forward to hearing more about your experience of shooting a wedding and being a guest at the same time. Wow, wow. I bet, yeah.

Matt (05:10)
Yeah, yeah definitely it was an interesting experience.

Nick Church (05:15)
Matt's

a canon shooter as well, so I've already annoyed one of our guests, which is not quite unusual to be this early on for me to annoy them. Yeah, exactly. Matt, thanks for giving a bit of a evening to ⁓ chat to us on the pod today. Do you want to give us a bit of sort of potted history of Matt Hodgkin, not from kindergarten and stuff, but from photography onwards?

Steve Vaughan (05:24)
Normally at least 10 minutes in before we irritate the guest.

Matt (05:26)
Ha ha.

Thank you.

Steve Vaughan (05:39)
Ha ha ha.

Matt (05:40)
Yeah, for sure.

First question, actually. I'm half Brazilian, half English. So hence why I am, as I said, the most English name for a Brazilian guy, so Matt Hodgkin. So it's funny, photography always been around my life. Since teenage, one of my best friends was a photographer. So naturally, every time I hang with him, he always had other photographers.

Nick Church (05:46)
There we go.

Steve Vaughan (05:46)
Okay.

Nick Church (05:50)
Okay.

Matt (06:06)
So was really lucky of always being around photographers. And already answer your question. So they all Canon shooters. So when I decided to buy my camera, I thought it was going to be a clever decision to buy the same camera because then I could borrow the expensive gear and use on my cheap camera. So that was the reason which, no, I...

Steve Vaughan (06:09)
show.

genius idea.

Nick Church (06:27)
I don't know,

that's about as good a reason to choose any particular brand over another that I've ever heard of because they're all as good as each other, aren't they?

Matt (06:31)
Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (06:31)
Of it is,

yeah.

Yeah, Corsale. Corsale.

Matt (06:34)
Yeah, exactly.

So naturally because being with them, I did a photography course back in the old days. I look much younger than I am. But I always considered photography as a hobby until I moved to the UK where naturally I started photographing. It's kind of like I always came here, but as a foreigner, I started doing tons of,

Nick Church (06:45)
Same, same.

Matt (06:58)
walks and any parade, anything that I could do, would just take photos. And my brother is a sound designer and composer for the film industry. So again, I started meeting a lot of people in the film industry. And thanks to my brother, one day they were going, he was going to work in a second world war kind of like drama feature film, and they needed a photographer. And they asked if I wanted to try to give a go.

Steve Vaughan (07:01)
Sure. Yeah.

wow.

Matt (07:21)
went to the set and actually there was tanks reenactors. So you're kind of like, okay, I really, I really like this. I really, know, I can see myself doing that, which kind of led to me focusing more in film sets and theaters and headshots because you start meeting lots of actors. And I did that for 10, 12 years, more or less. And just before the pandemic, I think I need to say, it's a thing, film sets sounds really fun and glamorous.

Nick Church (07:25)
Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (07:27)
Ha ha ha ha.

Mm.

Matt (07:50)
but is a crazy lifestyle. And I think at the time I was contemplating a bit my life balance decisions and then the pandemic happened, which I thought would be a great opportunity to give a go in something else. So I shifted to UX, product design. I did that for nearly three years. And fun enough, last year, I started teaching Adobe skills through the...

Steve Vaughan (07:57)
show.

Matt (08:18)
school that I learned UX and product design. And kind of like photography, after these two years break, started coming back to my life.

Steve Vaughan (08:27)
Just for sort of older people like me, just explain UX. I think I know what you mean, but just perhaps just expand that slightly.

Matt (08:31)
Yeah,

it's called either UX or product design. So I design the look and feel of apps and websites, but in my case, mainly apps. So naturally, when you're using anything with a screen, where is going to be everything is designed by someone. I did not do the coding, I just did the cool side of it, if I can say that.

Steve Vaughan (08:35)
Okay.

the nice looking part of it.

And that's all we did in an Adobe world, did you say? Was that like an Adobe? Yeah, yeah. ⁓ all right.

Matt (08:58)
So, no, so that was product design, but

⁓ actually being a photographer, the school, they doing a partnership with Adobe and they're going to teach new people using Illustrator, Photoshop and Firefox. So, yeah, so I got the opportunity and decided to do that.

Steve Vaughan (09:09)
Got you.

Got you. Yeah.

Fascinating. So how did that change? Yeah. Yeah.

Nick Church (09:23)
And so what, what, what made you say, you you've

Matt (09:23)
Yeah.

Nick Church (09:26)
moves out of the UX world or, or is that still ongoing when you still.

Matt (09:32)
Yes and no. Naturally, the end of the year, because photography was coming stronger to my life and I always kept photographing, I still always did still life. Sorry, I did fine art reproduction because my grandfather is a painter and I always was photographing artwork and this always kind of kept to my life. ⁓ But this year I realized that ⁓ photography is...

Nick Church (09:51)
Mm-hmm.

Matt (09:55)
It's always been in my life, it's a passion of mine. So I decided to fully commit back to ⁓ photography. So now I'm full-time, hopefully, full-time photographer.

Nick Church (10:05)
I mean, congratulations,

Joe, I think it's such a brave thing to do when, when we have these passions and we want to follow them and see where they go. it's just, I will say to all of my clients that that's almost, you're almost halfway there to achieving where you're going. Once you've made that decision, that that's what you want to do, because it's so easy to get into the treadmill of just doing the same thing again and again, because it's secure and you know, it's not risky. there's no anxiety there.

Steve Vaughan (10:09)
Absolutely.

absolutely.

Nick Church (10:32)
So I think that's ⁓ fantastic you've done that. What made you look at weddings in particular?

Steve Vaughan (10:35)
Mmm, clearly.

Matt (10:39)
That's a great question. When I decided to go back to photography, I loved film sets, but I was like, I'm not sure I want to go back to that crazy lifestyle. That was the reason I actually needed that break. So ⁓ I thought, looking kind of like all the photography genres and stuff, I thought weddings could give me the most...

kind of the most pleasure in the sense that I will still be able to do a lot of the creative stuff that I loved on film sets. So yes, as you know, you have some parts that you need to do more like a registering and the basic bread and butter, as you call, but still have plenty of opportunities. And for instance, it was a great experience in Brazil because I did manage to do some things that remind me, you like why I always love photography and...

Steve Vaughan (11:05)
Mm-hmm. Yep.

Yeah.

Matt (11:28)
You see the photo back in your camera and like, yeah, you know, like there was a really great photo. Like I'm so proud of it.

Steve Vaughan (11:34)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Nick Church (11:35)
Well, I think that's

why weddings are such a great genre apart from the kind of nuts and bolts of it that they do. That is where most of the money in photography is likely to be. But apart from that, I think it is such a flexible genre that you can bring in so many external influences, whether it's street photography, landscape photography, documentary photography. There's a place for all of those genres in around weddings.

Steve Vaughan (11:57)
So this was your first ever wedding that you photographed.

Matt (11:59)
No, so the first one was during the pandemic, my brother got married and actually being a pandemic, was a minimum amount of people you allowed. in our case, we allowed only eight. So naturally, I was the best man plus photographer. So that was great because actually, yeah, and I took some

Steve Vaughan (12:00)
Okay.

⁓ wow.

Yeah, seven or 15 or something, wasn't it? Yeah.

Gosh.

Cabaret.

Matt (12:25)
one flashlight, which was really happy and Nick, and I have one of the photos that I'm really proud that I love. So, yeah, so it was a good, and that kind of like triggered my side of like maybe, you know, wedding photography, because interesting thing, when I was working film sets, I was invited, I was invited to ask to be a wedding photographer a few times. And I always until then said no, because I always wanted to

Steve Vaughan (12:32)
Wow. Yeah.

Yeah.

Matt (12:53)
be with my friends, enjoy and when you go as a photographer, you're not kind of enjoying, right? You are fully committed to taking photos. So, yeah, so fun enough. Yeah, my brother and then actually Brazil, which was, if you want, it's a funny story how I ended up being there as a photographer.

Steve Vaughan (12:56)
Yeah.

He should be, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, tell us. Yeah.

Nick Church (13:12)
Well, that was one of my next questions is how

did you go from what you're in? South West London is all right Yeah, no, yeah Yeah, so How did you go from how did you go from? Being London based to you know, jumping into a wedding in Brazil

Matt (13:20)
Where I'm based. Sorry. Yeah, I live. Yeah, yeah. I live in Putney.

Okay, so it was my cousin who was going to get married. Fun enough, last year, he actually called me and said that they were going to get married. I think I was one of the first people to find out. And they did ask me to photograph their wedding. And actually, my first reply was no, for the same reason I just gave it. I like, I want to know. If I'm going to Brazil for a wedding, I want to know. Have a drink, know, see my family and not photograph.

Steve Vaughan (13:51)
Ha ha ha.

Nick Church (13:54)
Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (13:54)
I want to get drunk instead, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, of course.

Matt (14:01)
And at the time I wasn't yet, it was mid of the year, so I wasn't yet contemplating going back to photography. And in the end of the year, they came to stay a few days in my place. That was the first time in the UK. And funnily enough, they asked again, I was like, listen, we have a photographer we hired, but we still like, we love your photos, we still like you to take photos of our wedding, but you don't have the pressure of being the main photographer.

Steve Vaughan (14:27)
Right.

All right.

Matt (14:29)
you are free to do whatever you want. And it when I was starting to talk to Nick about the Academy and decided that I was going to the full way, full path of ⁓ becoming a wedging photographer. So when they did ⁓ invite again, asked again, I was like, okay, actually, that works really well in my favor. So yeah, why not?

Steve Vaughan (14:48)
Ha ha ha ha ha.

Nick Church (14:49)
And I basically said to Matt,

if you, if you say, no, I'm never going to speak to you again. I didn't say that. What, what kit did you take, Matt? When you went to go to Brazil, how did you sort of pare down your, your main camera bag into something that you could carry on a plane?

Steve Vaughan (14:54)
So I'm gonna ask that question.

Matt (14:52)
Yeah, true.

That was really the first thing I need to say. I play beach volleyball, which is a totally random thing to play in the UK. And ⁓ three weeks before going to Brazil, I tore the ligament of my little finger playing beach volleyball. So that actually helped me influence of how much gear I would take because naturally one hand being my left hand, know, like the weight of your camera sits here. So that would affect how much I could carry.

Nick Church (15:09)
You

Steve Vaughan (15:16)
⁓ wow.

Nick Church (15:28)
Mm-hmm.

Steve Vaughan (15:31)
course yeah.

Matt (15:31)
and

I decided to go bare minimum. So I took my 24-70 and that was it, plus a Insta360, which I could attach on top of my camera. So literally that was it and yeah, I'm really happy.

Steve Vaughan (15:39)
What?

Nick Church (15:46)
Still quite

heavy though, 24-70.

Matt (15:50)
It was. The Canon compared to you guys, Nikon, sorry, Sony's, are really... Sorry, sorry, sorry.

Steve Vaughan (15:54)
⁓ careful.

We're only kidding, we love all camera brands really.

Matt (16:00)
Yeah, I know, but it feels like

Nick Church (16:00)
That's your face, Bonserous.

Matt (16:01)
the Canon is bit heavier than some of the brands. that was especially the first day. To be honest, the three days I felt a lot in my hand. So 90 % of the weight, I did the strap in the hand of my camera so I could hold most of the camera in one hand. But three days photographing, was part of the day that it was really tiring.

Steve Vaughan (16:04)
I think they are. Yeah.

Nick Church (16:04)
Mm-hmm.

Steve Vaughan (16:11)
Mm.

Nick Church (16:17)
Not a idea.

Steve Vaughan (16:24)
Yeah.

Nick Church (16:25)
Talk to us about how a wedding works. I'm just going to share some of your photos from that wedding. Hold on.

Steve Vaughan (16:29)
Mmm.

Matt (16:30)
So,

yeah, so interesting fact. So ⁓ my family is from São Paulo ⁓ and the wedding was north of Brazil in Alagoas. So ⁓ everybody, most of the people going to the wedding, we needed to take a plane and go in all. So it was a massive ⁓ organization. It's a proper trip. So they rented or they got to this amazing villa where most of the

Nick Church (16:36)
Mm-hmm.

Matt (16:59)
party ⁓ people could stay in the villa. So it was a three days wedding, which was really interesting because the first day was the religious part. ⁓ And then in the afternoon it was kind of a Brazilian music called somebody, you know, everybody dressed in white. Yes, Brazil, ⁓ most people are Catholics. ⁓ Then the second day we had the...

Nick Church (17:10)
Mm-hmm. Okay.

So is that a Catholic wedding then? Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (17:20)
Mm.

Matt (17:25)
crazy thing called Jeangade, which is a boat raft that they took us to the middle of the ocean where the water, like a pool, like pool style, you like the water is just hitting your knee while you're drinking. They had a DJ, a bar, everything over there. And the third day was the proper ceremony, as you could say.

Nick Church (17:44)
Mm hmm. I mean, because these faces, I mean, for the listener, can't see these, but they will be on the YouTube channel as well. And I don't even mention the name of the other company, the other photographers, we'll talk to you how you got on with them. Because I think that's a really useful bit of information. their photos and looking at these, but I think yours stack really nicely together with those. They're as good, I think, other than the fact that they had

Steve Vaughan (17:46)
Love that.

Matt (18:10)
Thank you.

Nick Church (18:12)
the prime spot in some shots, which you'd expect because they're the official photographer. Some of these shots are absolutely fantastic. think you did an amazing job.

Steve Vaughan (18:18)
I agree, yeah, I agree.

Yeah, great job.

Matt (18:20)
Thank you.

So there was two guys, and I'll be honest, I did message them prior to going, actually, though my cousins told they talked to the photographers. I think it's always... I needed to make an introduction and say hi. ⁓ And ⁓ when they arrived there, they were really nice to me. I must say that ⁓ they were the nicest guys I could ever dream of working side next to them.

Nick Church (18:35)
Yeah.

Matt (18:48)
So, and the first day was the religious one, which was really interesting. It's a tiny church, like, I don't know, 30 people, 40, and the villa, just in the villa, there was 80 guests. So if it was a cartoon, I think if it was a bird, no, laying on top of the church, they would just fall. So, you know, like, a speck of people. Yeah.

Nick Church (18:54)
Right.

Steve Vaughan (18:56)
gosh, wow.

Nick Church (19:08)
I've seen a few shots from inside the church. It is

Steve Vaughan (19:08)
Ha

Nick Church (19:12)
really crammed. I've been in some tiny churches and you know, especially with three photographers effectively except for the video guy.

Steve Vaughan (19:18)
Yeah.

Matt (19:19)
Yes,

so it was really challenging. Again, they really nice. Naturally, I always let them have, shall we say, the prime position. But they were really nice. Sometimes they even offered if I wanted to go in front of them, but I thought especially the first day, I'll definitely let them do their job. So they were really nice. I had a great experience, really tough photographing a tiny church when you have everywhere you look, there's a cover up pointing somewhere.

Steve Vaughan (19:25)
Of course, yeah.

Hmm.

Yeah, tell me about it. Yeah.

Matt (19:48)
But I think that my film set background also helped because film sets are packed in tiny places. So that was really helpful to me.

Steve Vaughan (19:52)
Yes, yes.

I think we've photographed weddings where there's been a family member that's either learning photography or has been asked to do some things. And we've always tried to accommodate it because that's what the bride and groom wants, you know, and ultimately they're the customer really, you know, and there's no reason for them, and I'm glad they weren't, but there's no reason for them to have been awkward or difficult about it in any way because, you know, you've been asked to do something by the customer. So, glad to hear that you got that. Yeah.

Nick Church (20:10)
Yeah, of course.

And I think if you,

if you reach out like Matt did and you just say, Hey, you know, you, make contact and I think that that goes such a long way. And if you, if you're chilled out when you get there and you're respectful that they're there to do a job, which Matt did, I think then opens up loads of opportunities that you got by them then offering positions and getting things like that. I see quite a lot in Facebook groups of a lot of photographers saying that what most photographers won't allow, won't allow a second. I think that's nonsense. think loads of loads of people will.

Steve Vaughan (20:30)
I think that's right.

Agree.

Nick Church (20:50)
I think if it's a surprise on the day and there's somebody there that's getting in your way, then sure, it's a bit frustrating, but it's nothing that is short.

Steve Vaughan (20:58)
Well, there is the

patronising term, Bob, isn't there? That Uncle Bob turns up with his camera, you know, and gets in the way. But yeah, Uncle Bob's a member of the family. And who are we to tell him that he can't take pictures of his nephews or nieces getting married? Yeah, exactly.

Nick Church (21:01)
Yeah, sure.

Matt (21:02)
Yeah.

Nick Church (21:06)
Well yeah.

Exactly. And like I will say,

if, if you let's say there was an uncle Bob or a cousin Steve or whatever, they want to take some photos and you were really annoyed about it and made a bit of a scene about how frustrating that was. You can go, that's the one thing they can remember from your delivery of a service and you want them to have a nice time in that. And even if you're not fussed about that, you surely want referrals and everything else. And that's what they're going to remember.

Steve Vaughan (21:26)
Exactly right. Exactly right. Yeah.

There's a great quote that I often use in my my sales training is by ⁓ a lady called Maya Angelou, who was a poet and a playwright long ago now. And the quote is, people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but they'll never forget how you made them feel. And it's so true in that example earlier, you know, if you're a bit of a, know, plonker, if one's better word, they'll remember it, you know, no how good your images are. So I've got a question for May, and please, Nick, don't take this the wrong way, but

Nick Church (21:48)
Yeah, they're quite, yeah. Yep.

Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (22:00)
I'm curious, so somebody that's an experienced film set photographer, in your case, Matt, and you're pivoting into weddings now, what was it that what Nick offers in his academy that you thought would be able to add to your experiences? what did Nick give you? And this isn't meant to be an advert for Nick, although Nick, I'm sure you'll take it. But what is it that Nick provided that helped you make that pivot?

Matt (22:23)
I think that's a great question. And I think that in any person's journey, or especially as a photographer, you always need to have a mentor or someone that you aspire to be. So ⁓ I'm lucky that since I started photography, even in the UX, I always was surrounded by great people. And when you're surrounded by great people, you push yourself to be better.

Steve Vaughan (22:33)
That's so true.

Matt (22:46)
So when I decided to go back to photography and decided wedding, naturally I started looking, as we all do on the internet, looking for podcasts. And funnily enough, then your podcast was one of the first things that I found because... Yeah, it's true because I love podcasts and I love going every day for a walk. I think that's a good way, especially, you know, like if you're sitting the whole day in the computer. So I found your podcast and went for a walk.

Steve Vaughan (23:11)
I'll tell me, yeah.

Nick Church (23:11)
Mm.

Matt (23:15)
And naturally, as soon as I came back, I looked to your both websites, and I must say you both are great photographers. But the reason, for instance, I decided to contact Nick because when I saw his material, especially, I related to it. So I saw some of his work and I was like, okay, I feel like I can do that. I relate to his work. So I will try to reach to Nick and see, you know...

Steve Vaughan (23:22)
Thank you.

Matt (23:41)
and naturally he told about, I heard on the podcast about the KADV, so I thought it would be a great opportunity to do. And as we all do, sometimes we get too stuck to something. So for instance, me going back to photography, it's hard for me to think of how I'm going to brand myself, how I'm going to position, how my style of photography will be able to, I can use my style of photography.

Steve Vaughan (23:46)
You

Yeah.

Matt (24:08)
for weddings and so many specs. As I said, photographer in weddings is 80 % business, unfortunately. And right now, to me, it like it's 100 % admin besides the photo in Brazil. So it's good to have someone that gives you to do things and you can, like, OK, I need to do this because Nick is giving his time to me. So I need also to do, you know,

Steve Vaughan (24:15)
That's exactly right. Yeah.

Hahaha.

Absolutely.

It's

kind of like what we call an accountability part though. It's like if you're, yeah, yeah. If you want to lose weight or you want to pack up smoking, somebody is going to hold you accountable to it. And isn't necessarily somebody that you know very well or obviously you know Nick well now, but yeah, great to hear. Yeah, good.

Nick Church (24:40)
Yeah, exactly.

Matt (24:40)
Exactly. That's the word I was

trying to find. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Nick Church (24:52)
Yeah, fantastic to hear that. And that's exactly it.

Matt (24:54)
And there wasn't paid, like I

Steve Vaughan (24:56)
Sponsored by Matter.

Nick Church (24:58)
Because it's absolutely right, it? The photography aspect, you whatever genre you're going into for a business that the photography part of that is a relatively small chunk of skills that most people that I work with have got those already. It's the everything else that either people need a bit of support on that stuff, bit of guidance, and not just saying this is how you should do it. It's like, let's find out what makes you tick and how do we use that to leverage it and make that your thing.

Steve Vaughan (25:07)
It is.

Mm. Yeah.

Nick Church (25:27)
But some people want to want to do it more quickly. You know, we're, we're, all short short of time. And so if you want to get through things quickly, then that's another reason that, that people do do a similar route to Matt is, is work with me to, to speed the whole process up, which, know, is obviously beneficial.

Steve Vaughan (25:34)
Yeah. Yeah.

So what's the future for you, Matt? Where do you see yourself? I always ask this question, where do you see yourself in five years?

Matt (25:47)
That's a really great question. So this year, hopefully, I've managed to finish everything and actually start properly say that I'm a wedding photographer. I still feel like I'm walking my way up the ladder. But in five years time, I would love to be able to produce the photography that I really want, that I aspire to.

improve because I think we are always working and improving. There's so many things in my photography, especially now going to a wedding, that I'm trying to understand how I'm going to do and how I'm going to produce. Again, going back to Brazil, there were some great photos that I didn't manage to do exactly what I wanted, but there were several times that naturally, because my first big wedding was nearly 110 people in the last day, but there were several scenarios that I was...

Steve Vaughan (26:11)
Yeah.

Matt (26:37)
kind of nearly there or you know wasn't sure how to solve so yeah I feel be more confident in my trade and hopefully be doing amazing weddings like the one I was I just did in Brazil I was happy to you know to take photos

Nick Church (26:52)
It's a really healthy,

Steve Vaughan (26:52)
Amazing.

Nick Church (26:54)
such a healthy attitude that

this idea that I will sort of teach about this relentless improvement, that we're always trying to do better, push us to better get every shoot, we get stuff that our clients or in your case, your family love, and loads of ideas that we're going to do better next time and that always goes, you know, so when you get to the point where you're doing the images that you say you want to, that you're destined to take, you'll then have another hurdle because you'll want to do

Steve Vaughan (27:10)
Yeah.

Hmm.

Nick Church (27:19)
even more, even more variety, more style, you know, that, and that just keeps you getting better and better and better forever. And more important, I suppose, keeps you engaged and fascinated and in like passionate about what you're doing.

Steve Vaughan (27:27)
Super point.

And I think also being willing to, particularly early on to take feedback. A lot of people think feedback is criticism, but it's not. I'm full of cliches today, but another business quote, feedback is the breakfast of champions. You know, be able to willingly consider to take feedback on how we can improve, how we can do things better, you know, in everything that we do, not just in weather photography. I think it's really important, particularly early on in a new craze, being willing to take that feedback. Some people don't think it's...

criticism, it's not criticism, it's how do we get better. It's a really important point.

Matt (27:59)
True.

And if even I can add something, like as I said, I've always been surrounded by great photographers. And my Brazilian friend, when I was learning how to take photos, I always showed my photos and he, at the time, I felt he was always ruthless because whenever I showed the photo, he asked that question like, why you didn't do X, Y and Z? And then I tried to give him a reason why and he was, I don't want to know the reasons, you I want the results.

And in a way, was like, ⁓ why is he being so rude? But now looking back, you know, and until one day I took a photo and he did ask this question. I was like, no, no, no, I did this photo because I wanted this. This was the plan. And after that, he never asked the question because I think, you know, like I realized that, you know, like I wasn't trying to copy something. I was going with a clear mind what I was trying to achieve. And I think that was the jump of, okay, no, like, yeah.

Nick Church (28:27)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (28:31)
Yeah, so put.

Nick Church (28:48)
Exactly.

Steve Vaughan (28:53)
Hmm, interesting.

Nick Church (28:53)
As

soon as you, as soon as you, you're, we're, shooting with intention and the photo comes out as we intended. No one can criticize that because that becomes a subjective thing. So you could say, you know, wanted to get the sun doing this and it's a bit overexposed. They then sure there's areas to improve, but if, if it was an angle that you really like, that's what you went for. Someone could say, well, I don't think that's the best angle. That's fine. That's up to them, isn't it? But then it's more subjective rather than qualitative.

Steve Vaughan (29:05)
Correct.

Matt (29:06)
Exactly.

Steve Vaughan (29:17)
That's a yeah, it's yeah,

is exactly. Yeah, exactly. Great stuff. Yeah.

Nick Church (29:22)
Matt, just one more thing. How did you, I don't think we touched enough on this about how did you address the balance between being a guest? you, were you able to have a good time for those two days?

Matt (29:30)
Yes,

so my decision or my approach was naturally because I also started wedding, I need the material, I need some great shots and some things that I can show my work. So the daytime ceremonies where, know, like the religious, the wedding ceremony itself, I was full-time working as a photographer. I was with the bride and groom since preparation.

And then the party I did the first half an hour until a cousin or friend came with a drink. Then I was like, okay, time to shift gears.

Nick Church (30:03)
Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (30:03)
Screw the camera, where's the drink?

Nick Church (30:06)
There we go. Now

we're seeing the real Matt Hodgkin.

Matt (30:09)
Hahaha

Steve Vaughan (30:11)
It was the same for me. My son got married last September and we recommended a whole load of photographers, including Nick. in the end they went with a photographer friend of ours called Emily Rainier, who's a fantastic documentary photographer. I did take a camera and I did take a few pictures, but it was great to be able to say, actually, you know what? I'm going to get trollied now. You know, because I'm the father of the group. I'm allowed to do it.

Matt (30:13)
Yeah.

Nick Church (30:24)
Boo.

Quite right.

I'm

Steve Vaughan (30:38)
Hey, it's been great finding out more about your journey, you know, and please stick around while we just chat through a few of the topics. I'm chipping as you see fit, but great to hear from you, get to meet you on the pod. Thanks for coming on.

Matt (30:49)
Thank

you very much. Thanks for the opportunity.

Nick Church (30:50)
Yeah, thanks a lot,

Steve Vaughan (30:52)
Yeah, brilliant stuff.

Nick Church (30:52)
Pleasure.

Steve Vaughan (30:53)
So I want to hear more about the photography show because I couldn't get there this year. mean, last year we had a couple of the organizers, if you remember, on from the show when it was being... Yeah, we did when they was being in London for the first time. So it was back in Birmingham.

Nick Church (31:00)
Mm hmm. Yeah, and Hazel and Ruth, didn't we?

Back in Birmingham,

and it was, I always think about the photography show. It's just, it is a very welcoming, open, friendly place. I think it has a really nice vibe to it. And I, I don't quite know how they achieve that. I don't think there's anything even particularly like put the finger on why that is, but having been to a few other shows this year, that there's, that is definitely isn't the case in a lot of them. Others feel kind of quite cliquey in some way and you definitely don't get anything like that. Um, the, um, but so it was.

Steve Vaughan (31:16)
In my experience, yeah.

That's exactly right. I can name them. Yes.

Nick Church (31:38)
I would say a little bit smaller than the two years before at the OEC. the are it still in.

Steve Vaughan (31:42)
Right. But how is it

compared to the London one? Was it bigger? Okay. Okay.

Nick Church (31:46)
About the same, would say, about

the same, slightly busier maybe on what, certainly on the Saturday I was a busier, but like the, around the edges of that main hall where it is hall five, it the NEC, there was quite a big gap from the walls to the first, to to the rear of the, but you know, it was, everyone was there, you know, I I'm sure there's obviously plenty that weren't there, or it would have been even busier, but I couldn't think of any brands that I would be looking at that weren't there. And yeah, it was really good.

Steve Vaughan (31:50)
Hmm. Yeah.

Usually, yeah.

That's interesting.

you

Yeah, yeah. Sure.

Nick Church (32:14)
the already sort of putting my hat in the ring for next year. I'm doing some work with digital camera magazine as well. I was in the digital camera magazine, obviously that's Future that do those magazines who run the show as well. the Academy was featured in this month's episode, not episode, what's it called? What's it called? A release, an issue of a magazine. I keep thinking about podcasts. What do call it?

Steve Vaughan (32:25)
Yes. Yeah.

Fantastic.

Issue,

Nick Church (32:38)
Yeah, issue, not episode, but magazine. And that there's,

Steve Vaughan (32:40)
Episode. Installment. Any of those would do.

Nick Church (32:44)
that they do a, you know, they do a, an apprentice, it's called the apprentice, I think it's a, it's the set of articles where they get a reader that comes in and they want to do a certain type of photography and they pay you up at the professional. So I'll be the professional in one of those in the next couple of months. So looking forward to that. So that might be good. ⁓ Yeah, the talks went really well and they, the histogram went well.

Steve Vaughan (32:47)
Hmm. OK.

Interesting. Yeah. Yeah, good. Yeah.

Nick Church (33:04)
I did the nail your exposure talk the day before. That was really busy. That was 500, I reckon it's 150 people.

Steve Vaughan (33:09)
Mm-hmm.

Wow.

So what did you do differently in that one? The other one was why the histogram doesn't have to be bell shaped. What was the nail you exposure then?

Nick Church (33:20)
Now your exposure was about the process that I teach in the photographer unleashed course about how to very quickly get to, so it's the idea that you can't ever get a single set of settings for any, any particular scenario. And if you, if somebody says what setting, you know, one of the biggest tells for a beginner is likely to be somebody saying what settings did you use for that shot? Because there's this idea they're not interested really in the, in what the, in what the photographer's vision was they're interested in.

Steve Vaughan (33:24)
Okay.

Nick Church (33:46)
Maybe if I get those settings, can somehow improve my photography. But of course, every scene is different because every movement is different. Every light is different. Even the same scene on different days is different. And so it goes through my process of so you can't use the same settings, but you can use the same process for every handheld scenario. So I talk through that. So that went well. Yeah. And the histogram one was good because it was pretty kind of irreverent and made it relatively lighthearted and amusing in places.

Steve Vaughan (33:55)
Hmm.

Absolutely. Interesting. Yeah, good. Good.

Yeah.

Nick Church (34:12)
And, but, but it means you can then go into the idea of, right. So what is the histogram used for, but it's useful for dynamic range is useful to be able to see. You know, that, cause the dynamic range in a histogram is our cameras, dynamic range and what the peaks are is where the light sits in it. And if they're, if they're touching the edge, then you know, you've clipped your highlights. So I go through an example of clipped highlights and show that you can't ever bring them back. Once they're clipped, you've had it. Um, how you clip darks doesn't really matter so much. If you clipped your blacks, it doesn't really matter because they're darker or eyes aren't really drawn to them as such.

Steve Vaughan (34:26)
Correct?

No. Nope. Absolutely right. Yeah.

Mm. Correct,

yeah.

Nick Church (34:42)
And that leads that led me nicely onto. So if you've got a dynamic range, it's too wide for your camera, then what do you do? And then we talk about bracketing. So I'll do a few examples of where we bracket for real estate type photos or landscape photos and combine them in Lightroom and create this high definition results. So yeah, it was really good. All of those 110,000 people that have seen the...

Steve Vaughan (34:57)
Interesting. Yeah. ⁓

10,000. Oh, I you meant at the NEC. I was

going to say, where are you doing the talk at Webley?

Nick Church (35:09)
That would have been good.

Yeah, people like it's like the Oasis reunion. It was as busy as that. And, but there's I did it today. Actually, I edited the full the full talk. that is going to be on the Academy website. So if people do are interested to see that full talk, then silence the Academy and you'll better get a link to go and watch watch the whole thing.

Steve Vaughan (35:15)
Ha ha ha.

Excellent.

So the

reason I couldn't get to the ABC was I was in the air on way back from Singapore. I went to Singapore. Yeah. I couldn't know. mean, I was probably somewhere over Azerbaijan. I made the mistake of watching a YouTube show episode. Here we go again, about what's happening right now with all the flights going from Europe to Asia and to Australia because of Russia and Ukraine, Iran, all that. So right now the planes

Nick Church (35:34)
You were literally, yeah, literally couldn't make it because you were, no.

Steve Vaughan (35:58)
can't go over Russia, they can't go over Iran, they can't go over, they weren't going over the Middle East. So they're flying over this narrow little corridor over Azerbaijan and Georgia and like 150 planes a day were going through there. So I was trying not to think about that on the way back, the 48 hour flight back that we had. But what I did do on the last day, I did a lot of walking because I was killing time for very late flight. So I managed to get rid of the bags and I walked about 30,000 steps across Singapore.

Nick Church (36:11)
yeah, yeah, I could have mentioned.

Mm-hmm.

Well.

Steve Vaughan (36:26)
And

as you do, I ended up in Singapore's or Leica's Singapore headquarters. And you've never seen anything like this. This was like a two-story outdoor building, of, you know, probably 1930s kind of thing. It had got a cafe, the Leica cafe. So I had a Leica coffee and a Leica cake, which was really nice.

Nick Church (36:32)
Mm-hmm.

Steve Vaughan (36:47)
And what was really in all seriousness was really great. There was an exhibition there by a lady called Betty Goh, G-O-H, and I will link to her photography in the show. And I don't know if you've been to Singapore, but it's very sort of shiny and pristine and very modern and everything else. And what her exhibition was about was the other side of Singapore, you know, sort of the darker side. I don't mean necessarily dark as in sinister, but you know,

people struggling with mental health issues or people finding it just challenging. And her images are extraordinary really. There's a mix, I can't be into how she's taken it, there's a mix of, you know, there's some drag shutter, there's some slow motion, some double exposures. You have to look at the work really, but it was exceptional. Yeah, Betty Goh, G-O-H her name is. And I think the exhibition she's doing...

Nick Church (37:17)
Mm-hmm.

⁓ can't wait. Yeah. Do share that. Let's see. I'll see if I can see if I get on the pod.

Steve Vaughan (37:37)
Yeah, well, that was exactly my thought. The exhibition, think, is touring, so it's not just in Singapore, certainly. So hopefully she's going to move around. Just going back to your bit about exposure and light and style and all those things, I had a bit of a mess around because I'm getting more and more into using Chachi Pt. Obviously, we talked the whole last episode about using Chachi Pt to come up with some ideas.

And I was flicking through Instagram and I saw some great images, but a very different style to the way that we photograph a wedding. So very much what they call the light and airy editorial kind of imagery, which is not how we photograph a wedding typically. So I just thought I'd say, Chad GPT, can you tell me how to take one of my images and make it look like this person's photo? Do you think he did? No, he didn't. No, ⁓ and I was really pleased he didn't.

Nick Church (38:05)
Mm hmm. Yep.

No. No.

Steve Vaughan (38:28)
Because what he did do, gave me, I mean, impressively, he gave me about five downloadable Lightroom presets designed for me. Yep. Absolutely as zip files that I could upload and put them into Lightroom, you know, with adjustments to all the key settings, including the calibrations, which is the difficult bit. But what it proved absolutely is that...

Nick Church (38:35)
All right, really?

Yeah.

Mm.

Steve Vaughan (38:53)
buying funky presets isn't the answer to taking great photos. It's back to the bits you were talking about. It's exposure, it's moment, it's light, it's composition, all of that stuff. And slapping funky presets on, there's expression about turds and whatever, isn't there? I must say my photo was a turd, of course, but it was a different style of photo. And no matter how much you try to sort of apply post-editing, you never make it look like that particularly, because it was took in a different way.

Nick Church (39:09)
polishing.

Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (39:22)
And that just re-emphasizes the point that you made, think, earlier about the importance of exposure.

Nick Church (39:26)
because that when you shoot like an area, did this, kind of editorial style, then you, are kind of really pushing everything right. You know, you really shoot to the right tiny completes the right. And, ⁓ no, no, I did, but then you protect, know, you, and I think this is another area where we sometimes think, ⁓ that's underexposed. But if you're, if there's a little bit of highlight, like in, like in my photos, for example, where there might be a little puddle of light and there's someone like, like quite a, you know, oil painting type thing.

Steve Vaughan (39:36)
You're exposing to the right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which we don't. Typically unduexposed, if anything. Yes, yeah.

Nick Church (39:56)
then if there's a highlight that is just drifting to the edge of the histogram and just ends before the end, it isn't underexposed because if any more exposure in that shot, it would have clipped to that particular highlight. And if that's the most important bit of the shot, then completely screwed it.

Steve Vaughan (40:05)
Correct.

In the

film world, Matt, how did you approach the exposure then? you operating in very controlled environments or were you just having to work with what the light was really?

Matt (40:16)
So,

I was a stills photographer, so just make it clear. So, I was taking just stills. It's funny because films are little much darker for our cameras. So, when they're setting lights for filming, they are, oh, this is amazing. And then you look at your camera and I was like, I need three or four stops to make it work the same way. So...

Steve Vaughan (40:19)
Sure. Yeah.

As hill as I think.

Nick Church (40:36)
Mm.

Steve Vaughan (40:37)
Interesting. So you're having to work with the light that they'd set up for the

filming and you're taking photos. Okay, it's interesting. Yeah, okay.

Matt (40:42)
Most of the time, yes. So most of the time you are

on set. your camera cannot make a noise. So nowadays it's easy with hybrid, but at the time you needed to have a special housing for our camera. So it makes no sound. Yes. And you need to work with ⁓ what you have. Hence why, for instance, zoom lasers are great in film sets because sometimes you're stuck in a corner and you cannot move until the shot is done.

Steve Vaughan (40:49)
Yeah.

Nick Church (40:53)
If you're TSLR.

Steve Vaughan (40:55)
Yeah, kachonk kachonk, yeah.

Yeah, of course.

Matt (41:07)
So it's all about trying to do the best with the...

Nick Church (41:09)
You do see,

like if you're watching, you know, watch a lot of Netflix or films and things, and you see a shot and it's fascinating because I always used to think that film cinematographers would have a similar view on photography as a stills photographer. And it's completely different. There'll be a brilliant scene that's just beautifully composed with a real strong back like.

Steve Vaughan (41:27)
some learning here.

Nick Church (41:32)
the main subject completely in shadow, which you'd never take a single shot of, as soon as there's, because it's moving, it becomes even more dramatic. You can see enough when there's movement and it draws you in. It is really ⁓ dark and moody. I think it's really interesting.

Steve Vaughan (41:41)
Yeah, fascinating. Yeah.

Hmm, interesting. Yeah, so challenging. I'm glad I don't have to do that. I'm sure, yeah.

Matt (41:51)
It's a really fun experience, but it's

challenging. And again, it depends if you are there just to register or you're creating posters behind the scenes. Again, film sets, there is tons of things that you might be doing as a photographer. And sometimes they want similar photos to what they're filming. And these are challenging because again, we are three or four stops darker than the film cameras.

Steve Vaughan (42:01)
Right.

Mmm... Mmm.

I'm sure, yeah. Yeah.

Nick Church (42:17)
It's

just given me a good idea. Actually, what I might do is a new article or a new talk on color grading, taking some scenes that are really dark, like, you know, the very dark and dramatic scenes and I'll grade them to be what, what I would do as a photographer and we'll see how terrible they look. And I bet it just looks completely horrible and just got none of the, none of the atmosphere of the original.

Steve Vaughan (42:37)
That be interesting. Yeah. Yeah.

Matt (42:39)
Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (42:40)
Yeah. Were they in this day and age, and we're leaping all over the place here, but in this day and age with high resolution cameras and stuff, would they just grab stills from the video now? Or is that still? Okay.

Matt (42:50)
Sometimes, sometimes,

but ⁓ ideally always with the biggest thing you need to remember. ⁓ In film sets, normally you have only one photographer. No one else is allowed in a way to take photos. So for instance, I always had a free pass to go anywhere in the film set. So you need behind the scenes of makeup, of costumes. So you can photograph a bit of everything, which is the really cool part. And the film sets also.

Steve Vaughan (42:59)
Right. Yeah.

Oh, of course, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, interesting. Yeah.

Nick Church (43:17)
The problem

also with taking still is usually when I've done it for various weddings or commercial stuff, because your shutter speed is so slow for a film to make sure it's twice the expected frame rate, then often if there's any movement there's a bit of blur in there, which is intentional for film, but you don't want it as a still. It doesn't work.

Steve Vaughan (43:31)
The 180 degree rule, yeah.

That's a good point. That's a good

point. Yeah, yeah, just think.

Matt (43:40)
But it was hard

with high SOs, some scenes, especially in the old DSLRs, you're creeping to the 10,000 and you are like, oh my God, this going to be so grainy.

Steve Vaughan (43:50)
Wow, golf ball green. ⁓

What else have been up to Nick over the last couple of weeks? It's a couple of weeks since we've done a show, what else have you been doing?

Nick Church (43:58)
Yeah, well,

I'm still moving, still moving house. So that's going on today. I was, I was, I've, I've shown to the camera. that's, um, um, a really nice, it's a set of, um, locally low intervention cider that, um, a client might run a corner runs a vineyard here for apples and they do wine as well. But that was great. I love the branding on that. It's really cool. Isn't it? Like, uh, know, um,

Steve Vaughan (44:01)
Hmm?

is cool, yeah. Yeah. I think you'd

send these made up a few cans up to Oxfordshire as well just to partake, wouldn't you? But still, never mind, you know. Go on, go on, Matt. Go on, Matt, say it.

Nick Church (44:28)
⁓ yeah, yeah. So, ⁓ I'll ⁓ call that one stock, stock damage. I'll call that one that I've opened because he'll want the respect.

Matt (44:29)
I think we're... Sorry.

I was just going to complain. I think we all should have the beer next to us, right?

Steve Vaughan (44:41)
Yeah, yeah,

absolutely. Years back when I first started selling scientific equipment, I had to do a job with Bournemouth cider in Holyford once. Now I'm going to be very nerdy for a second. If you look at your can there, for a second, there'll be a volume or a weight sign on it. What does it say? 300 mils? Is there any symbol after it? Okay, there used to be when we were the European Union. So what...

Matt (44:45)
Ha ha ha.

Nick Church (45:00)
Yep.

440.

does not.

Steve Vaughan (45:10)
When you fill containers like beer or food, you're allowed to have a certain amount below the average weight, the target weight and a certain amount above the target weight. And obviously what if you're manufacturing, you don't want to have too much going into the kind of giving product away. yeah, yeah. So it's basically standard deviations around. So if it was a 500 gram, you were allowed to have a certain number below, certain number above really.

Nick Church (45:18)
Mm-hmm.

Sure. So you would, you would get into the, the minimum that you're allowed to basically.

Steve Vaughan (45:37)
So the company I used to work for used to sell the systems that did that. And you could either weigh every one, every can, which is expensive, or you take a random sample. So that's what we we were saying, this is like going back 30 years, Crockett, where's this coming from? But I, they, like you, they had to take a can off the line and then they had a tray of 24 cans of cider with one can being removed. So I drove home that night with about 120 cans of cider. And I wouldn't be allowed to.

Nick Church (45:41)
right. Yeah.

Okay.

What could you do? What

else could you do? What reasonable other option would there be but to take them drink it?

Steve Vaughan (46:06)
Well, exactly. mean, I mean,

you won't be allowed to do it these days, you know, with compliance and everything, but I had a Citroen with self-leveled the suspension, but it was still pointed like that when I drove up the motorway, which I was like, yeah, yeah, they'll be ex estate. They used to go up and down. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, then with the days.

Matt (46:15)
you

Nick Church (46:16)
Well, the Citroens used to have the air suspension. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it's a bit, it's bit like when

you go to a, when people go to a housing estate and go to the show home and that there's like a 10 % deviation between, between that, house, house sizes. So they make the show and write that 10 % plus, and then all the rest just 10 % under.

Steve Vaughan (46:31)
That's exactly it. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

You'll be looking at food containers now and looking at the way I guarantee it for now on. Yeah, yeah. How sad is that? Yeah, yeah. So you've been doing some product photography. yeah.

Nick Church (46:43)
You

So I've been doing product

for that. That was to car. This side is nice. I slurred that entire sentence. Yeah. So I'll be doing that today. And, it's, it's funny. The it's interesting because the, I did, I did two types of shots. I did one where it was, cause they, they want a pure white background. So I use a fairly simple lighting. I lit.

Steve Vaughan (46:51)
Stop rubbing it in. I've got a cup of tea here and Matt's got nothing. So stop rubbing it in.

Nick Church (47:10)
the like a scrim behind. So to get some nice backlight, because otherwise a bottle just goes completely black almost even if it's filled with light liquid. So you want a bit of light coming through and then some a key light. And then I use my use my what's the lightsaber ice light. I use ice light to just create a bit of a highlight on the side of the bottle. So, they're all fine, but not particularly that they need to be fairly, you know,

Steve Vaughan (47:12)
Okay.

Yeah.

yeah.

Nick Church (47:35)
that they need to be, that they need to work. know, it's function over form for those really, just make sure they're nicely lit for a fresh shop and online store. But I did a load also, one advantage is my studio has got these slatted blinds and the sun comes down. So it does create really lovely light patterns. So I planted a few of these in the sun and had my guitar behind it. And so it really well. So I created some, a bit more artsy ones, which I know they wanted as well for the website.

Steve Vaughan (47:51)
I'll be honest, yeah.

Did you use any of the things

that Carl told us at time? We had Carl on the, and he had a of a glass of Guinness, do remember? Yeah, I'll link to that in the show notes. But did you use any of his tips at all?

Nick Church (48:08)
Yeah, that's right. Yeah.

I did. Yeah. A

couple where there was one of the problems with doing bottles. I'm sure if anywhere, any product product photographers will know that they, they, they specular highlights just a real killer. So I did do more because I've, I've, did a set for them before this time. I made sure I took more images to make sure I could Photoshop different, you know, so was just, took some without the key light on so I could get rid of that specular highlight and have, a source image that didn't have those things equivalent to taking a headshot without someone's glasses on. So you can, you know, paint the eyes back. Yeah.

Steve Vaughan (48:19)
Yeah, yeah.

Got ya.

I've got glasses on my, light

has come off the glasses right now, yeah. I need a softbox. Yeah, yeah. ⁓ interesting, yeah.

Nick Church (48:42)
Yeah. So yeah, yeah, but

I've looked at the excite saw one of Carl's videos recently, actually on YouTube and, and what his approach is, is just really fascinating because he'll spend half an hour setting up just one single shot. So this was more of a, what, how many I had like sort of 50 different things. I, and some of them had different permutations of like cases of six cases, you know, so I had to just rip through them all and

Steve Vaughan (48:57)
That's what he told us. Yeah.

Nick Church (49:09)
I imagine if you've got a real nice bottle of whiskey and you're going for that one hero shot, that must be a really rewarding process to get all those different bits of lighting. Absolutely, absolutely banging.

Steve Vaughan (49:16)
We will link to that. It Carl Taylor, course, we linked to that episode. I really enjoyed that particular talk, certainly. so we've got weddings coming out. So we're about to get into wedding season. So we've got one Sunday, then we've got two next week, and then two the week after. So we're certainly about to go into full on wedding season. This is our last, as I keep saying, it's our last full on year. So looking forward to really getting back into the saddle with weddings. You got many coming up?

Nick Church (49:18)
Yes, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, they start in there's been a long time without wedding this year for some reason, but I've got one in two weeks time and then it's yeah, it's kind of then pretty packed in for a while. So that we just I suspect as we need to start moving. So we tried to plan the move for it was in the early spring, but that hasn't worked out. So that's going to be fun.

Steve Vaughan (49:47)
That's where you go sometimes, yeah.

Yeah, good stuff.

You have to buy an editing

caravan you can tow around. Well, look, thanks again, Matt, for coming on. It's been great having you on the show. Do come back and tell us again, you know, in a few months time, how you're getting on. yeah, it's been great finding out more about yourself and about your work as well. So we'll be back again in a couple of weeks time, dear listener. Don't forget if you like what we do, don't forget to give us a

Nick Church (50:02)
I might need it. I might need that, yeah.

Matt (50:12)
for sure. Thank you very much for inviting. I appreciate the opportunity.

Thank you.

Steve Vaughan (50:27)
review on Apple or Spotify, preferably a five-star review. It just helps in lots of weird and wonderful ways as well. Don't forget the Facebook group called, surprisingly, the Photography Pod, where you can ask questions, just interact with other members of the group there as well. Nick, course, has been talking extensively about his academy. So Nick, where is the best place for people to come and find out more about your academy and your training?

Nick Church (50:49)
just go straight to either at Nick Church for Nick Church Creative Academy on Instagram or the nickchurchcreativeacademy.com website. So that'd be great, yeah, to do get in touch there. And we've got a new email address. So we've shared our old email address. And the reasons why that old email address isn't any longer is a bit boring. But if anyone's ever got their stuff from GoDaddy, they'll know why it is. It's because they wanted like 130 quid to keep it going.

Steve Vaughan (51:05)
okay.

Nick Church (51:17)
So we are now at come on, come on brain, cognitive cognitive decline is the photography pod studio at gmail.com. So the photography pod studio at gmail.com. so you can always get in touch with us there, but the Facebook group is a great place to do that also.

Steve Vaughan (51:21)
Hahaha

Great, thank you for that Nick. Don't forget to join us again in a couple of weeks time, dear Lister, and also do check out the YouTube channel where the shows are coming on as we get a chance to update them. So don't forget to go look at the YouTube and you can see some of Matt's great photography as well as all our other great guests over the last couple of years as well. In the meantime, happy shooting out there and we'll talk to you soon. Goodbye now.

Nick Church (51:49)
Absolutely.

Goodbye.