3hrs of Gold on Photography, Business and Life with Jerry Ghionis (EP198)

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign. [00:00:25] Speaker B: And welcome back to the Camera Live podcast. It is Thursday the 9th of July, if you can believe that we being a Thursday morning, obviously we are here to interview an amazing photographer on the Camera Life podcast. And today we have Aussie export, Jerry Gionis. [00:00:44] Speaker A: Is that right? [00:00:45] Speaker C: I got it wrong straight away. [00:00:46] Speaker B: I'm so sorry. I overthought it. Wow. [00:00:50] Speaker C: I'll get. Try it again. Let's, let's. I'm going to zap you with a Men in Black button. And go again. Go again. [00:00:59] Speaker B: So today we are joined by Jerry Jonas. [00:01:03] Speaker C: No, I got it wrong again. [00:01:06] Speaker B: Did you say it, Jay? I can't. [00:01:09] Speaker C: Jerry, I'm just going to give you a. An English lesson. A G and an H is a hard ghost. Ghana guy. [00:01:19] Speaker B: Yeah. Okay. [00:01:19] Speaker C: And being Australian, Greek, it's Gionis, but I'll let you say it the Anglo way. So gyonis. There you go. [00:01:25] Speaker B: Much appreciated. Yeah, I'm clearly having trouble now. Of course, Jerry is an infamous, I might say highly regarded wedding portrait fine art photographer. He also runs masterclass workshops. And there's so much more to unpack about about Jerry's story and his journey and the work that he produces these days. Justin, of course, is fanboying a little because Justin hasn't stopped talking about Jerry. And might I. Might I just add, Jerry, that Justin has been mispronouncing your name for what, 12 years now, Jay? [00:01:57] Speaker A: Yeah, 12 years. [00:01:59] Speaker B: So my little faux pas earlier is completely nothing compared to Justin's. So great to have you here, mate. [00:02:07] Speaker C: Thank you, thank you. I, I love hearing the Australian accent. I, I forget how thick our accent is when I speak to fellow Aussies, but here I sort of, yeah, I'm like, yeah, even my wife Melissa doesn't really hear my accent anymore until she goes back to Australia. I'm like, oh, yeah, that's right, you're an Aussie. [00:02:23] Speaker A: Have you had to sequester your accent a little bit so that people can understand you better in the States? I found I was in the States for three months and I even found that I was taming it down so that people could understand me when I was ordering food and stuff like that. [00:02:38] Speaker C: Well, that's the thing is that I, I mean, I'm Greek Australian, so I'm not your Aussie Aussie. I'm an Aussie, Right. But when I'm in Australia, I'm Greek. When I'm out of Australia, I'm Australian even though I've got an American passport. I'm like, I don't know, in the Olympics who should win? [00:02:53] Speaker A: I don't know what flag, to be honest. [00:02:56] Speaker C: It'd be Greek. Greece, number one. Australia, number two. America, number three. So there's my. You can sort of tell my. My. My alliance, my allegiances, of course. What was the question again? [00:03:08] Speaker B: It was just saying hello, but, you know, hey, Greg, I threw. [00:03:14] Speaker A: So obviously I've been a. A Jerry Gionis fan for a long time, but I threw his name into Claude to do some research for the podcast for fun, just because I always do that. And one of the lines. This is what it says. This is straight out of Claude. The awards list is absurd. That's what Claude said about you. I was like, that's about the best way to sum up your sort of awards part of your career, I think. [00:03:46] Speaker C: Take the win. [00:03:47] Speaker B: I don't think that answer is worthy of the amount of water that Claude is drinking right now. So that's pretty lazy for Claude. That's very. [00:03:55] Speaker A: There's a lot of other information, but it's lots of dates and years and things like that. And I was just like, no, that sums it up perfectly. [00:04:03] Speaker C: Well, now, I remembered your question before. How do I change my approach here, living in America, all that kind of stuff. Yeah. I mean, I'll tell you a couple. Like, when I'm. This is. No, I'm. I'm at a restaurant and I'll say, they'll ask, you know, what drink would you like? And I'm like, I have a diet coat. I say it like that. And you would assume that everyone would understand that perfectly. But because it's not pronounced the way they're expecting it to. To sound like, honestly, nine out of ten times. This is. No, it's. Excuse me. What. What would you like? What was it? And I'm like. And then I'll have to, like, may have a Diet Coke. Like, I say it. I almost tease the accent a little bit. And they don't know that I'm teasing them. They're just like, oh, you want a day Coke? I'm like, okay. If I say water, they're like, what? I'm like, can I have a water? [00:04:53] Speaker B: A water. [00:04:53] Speaker C: Like, you sort of got a. Because the Australian accent, let's face it, it's very, very lazy. It's a lazy accent. But yeah, it is. It is what it is. We are who. It's okay. [00:05:04] Speaker A: We are who we are. And this is a great place for us to all just enjoy our accent and just. We'll get no us business on this episode, but too bad. [00:05:11] Speaker B: Thank you, Jerry. If you Want to go full bogan? You just go full bogan. Truly. [00:05:15] Speaker A: That's right. [00:05:18] Speaker C: All right, let's, let's get. A lot of American people have no idea what the hell that means. No, they won't. [00:05:22] Speaker B: That's fine. I'll have to reach out. Jerry, you know, you are, you are in America. You've moved there some time ago. Can we have a little bit of an understanding as what prompted that move from here over to the States? And how, how do you think that that decision shaped you and your career? [00:05:45] Speaker C: Yeah, well, I mean, you know, I decided to move to America. It was around about 16 odd years ago and probably a decade before that. I was traveling to the states probably 10 times a year if I had to guess. And it was either for a teaching gig or a shooting gig. And, and sometimes it was America, sometimes it was Asia, sometimes it was Europe. I mean, it was a bit of everything. And I, I started looking at my hotel bill in la, which is like, was insane. Like even if I was there 10% of the year when I go to the States, I'd go to la, spend a couple days to acclimatize, do my internal trip, come back to LA for a couple days and then leave again. And I looked at it, I'm like, this is ridiculous. I go, I go, what if I just permanently rented a place and even if it was empty for 90 of the time, it was going to be cheaper than a hotel. Now at that time I had quite a few life changes. I fell in love with an American and you know, lo and behold, I'm, I'm living in America now. Was it for love? No, it's not Like Melissa, my wife, now 15 years, she didn't sort of say, no, we gotta live in the States because I live here. If anything, she was probably more, more prone to want to live in Australia. It was more for the fact that work took me here so many times and the pure abundance of America really prompted the move. I mean, in Australia, I don't know, we have what, 25 odd million people. I mean, they have that in California. I mean, 350 million people in, in the country and let alone it's closer to Europe, which I love to go to. And there's so, I mean, there's 50 states here in Australia, what the seven, plus Tasmania, I don't know, I don't even know anymore. Little triangle underneath the freaking country. And that's what prompted the move. You know, obviously I miss a lot of things about Australia. You know, the relaxed sensibility, you Know the, the healthcare system is a lot better. There's a lot of things that are better per se. But you know, the land of abundance and the opportunity here is, is, is big. So just the pure scale of it and the diversity in what you can do and everything was the attraction. So yeah, that's the simplest answer that I can give, I guess. [00:08:07] Speaker B: And how has that. Oh, go on Jay, you go next. [00:08:10] Speaker A: Well, I was just going to say I remember that the. So to catch everyone up, I did a workshop with Jerry in 2014, November 2014. A five day wedding photography workshop. That safe to say set me up for success for 10 years of wedding photography in business. Certainly didn't learn how to shoot like Jerry over those 10 years, but we were able to at least run a successful business and have many happy clients. But I think sometime around that time is that when you got that really cool rooftop studio in, in la. I remember seeing these amazing like stark high contrast images from, from an outdoor studio. Was that around that same time? [00:08:55] Speaker C: Yeah, man. I mean look, my biggest inspiration photography is her Brits or was her. Well, it still is her Brits but he's passed away. Of course anyone who doesn't know him, you should. And if you don't know him, you'll know his work after you do a bit of googling and stuff like that. So it was always my dream to shoot in the bright Californian sun like my hero, her Brits. Now I moved to Beverly Hills. That was my first home in, you know, in, in the US And I was living in an apartment building on the bottom floor. I didn't have a balcony, I didn't have place to shoot. I started to get into a lot more fashion photography other than weddings and portraits. So I needed a place to shoot. And so what I did was I moved two streets down, still in Beverly Hills. And then we had the penthouse apartment. Now penthouse apartment sounds like It's a big 40 story building. Whatever. Think of it like a five story building and it just happens to be one apartment on the roof. My backyard, if you open up the back sliding door was a section of the roof that was actually, you know, boarded off. So I had to, then I built, you know, I plastered the walls or in America they call it drywall. So we drywalled all the, the walls and I could shoot in the bright Californian sun. And I had a ball. I loved was just, it was just it helped of I guess redefine my style. Although I did a lot of that in wedding photography as well. But I Had a ball, man. And then I got to the point where I moved. Melissa and I, we moved to that main. You know, we were in. You know, you go to the master bedroom, right? And then you've got a spare bedroom and when guests are. And then as I started to shoot more and need some kind of shooting space, Melissa and I moved into the second bedroom. And the master bedroom was our office slash shooting space. Now, when I say master bedroom. Yeah, like, you know, like bigger than your average bedroom. And then at some times, I was shooting with a long lens through my ensuite bathroom to the studio. [00:10:56] Speaker B: Oh, wow. [00:10:56] Speaker C: And I'm. I'm. And I'm a tall guy. I'm six two, so I feel if I could go on my tippy toes, I could reach the ceiling. So. But I made it work. You know, I. I had a. I had a ball there. I just got to the point where I. I wanted a studio, as in a proper shooting space, and I wanted a pool and I wanted puppies. So then that's a fair list. [00:11:20] Speaker B: Yep. [00:11:20] Speaker C: Yeah. I mean, you know, I'm not being too greedy. And then sort of Vegas was on my radar for a long time because every year I'd go to WPPI and I'd understand Vegas. I mean, Vegas people, when people think of Las Vegas, they just think of debauchery, they think of orgies. And, I mean, that happens every Tuesday. [00:11:35] Speaker B: That's been my experience too. [00:11:39] Speaker C: So that's Tuesdays. I mean, it's just like every other American city. Like in. In the sense that there's suburbs, there's, you know. You know, if you want the excitement, it's there. I mean, and if you don't, you don't. But now it's become an incredible. I mean, it's become. It is the entertainment capital of the world. It's, it's. It's very close to being the sport capital of the world once we add one or two more sports. And it's. It ended up being one of the best moves we've ever made, going from, you know, from LA to Beverly Hill, from Beverly Hills to. To Las Vegas. And I remember one year when. It's funny, when I was there, I got a bit burnt out with teaching, burnt out with weddings, burnt out with a constant hustle. This was in 2016. And I, I said to Melissa, I go, look, July and August of this year, I said, no bookings. I don't care what we're offered. What teaching gig, what shooting gig? Nothing. I want to just photograph for myself. So sure enough, the calendar's free, right? There's nothing there for July and August and that's when we moved to the second bedroom and that's when the main bedroom became our shooting space. And I totally devoted my time and to my fashion photography and my sort of high end portraiture in case you want to bring it up. And it's not, it's by no means a ego thing, I'm not attached to that bullshit. But if, if you wanted to show some stuff, you got a Jerry Giornis photographer or if you're going from that link tree, look for, for fashion editorial. So what happened was I just shot for myself. There was no expectation I can play and I just had an absolute ball. So if you look at that for example, and you just sort of scroll down, you sort of get a sense very quickly of the kind of work that I was doing. Not to say that all that, that was done there, but I, I produced this huge body of work in two months and because of that it opened up a lot of doors for many things in, in what I shoot and how I shoot them. So there's a lot of the shots that you see on the white background in full sun, as you can see. And, and that's what happened. And I remember just as a symbol of my commitment, if you remember the aipp, the Australian Institute of Professional Photography, like I was heavy into the awards back then. I am now in a different capacity of course with the Icon Awards. But so it was the first year that I had ever entered a non wedding category. So I entered the fashion category and then I ended up winning the Australian Fashion Photographer of the Year. And I'm like, and this is not, this is not a way to just segue, to say, hey, I won this award. I'm just saying for me it was a commitment of my reinvention. [00:14:26] Speaker B: Yeah, that. [00:14:27] Speaker C: And I tell anyone watching this, it doesn't matter whether you shoot weddings or not. If you want to learn photography, carry the bags of an experience, a wedding photographer. And I'm telling you, you will learn everything because you, if she's got a veil on, it's a bride. If you crop her right here, it's a headshot. If you take the veil off, it's just a girl in a gown. If you take your clothes off, you're shooting boudoir. If she's pregnant, it's maternity. Well, because you're shooting, you know, pregnant people on a wedding. If you're photographing full length, close up, three quarter details, still life, landscapes, Fashion, streetscapes, events under time constraints, weather constraints, and you have to deliver rain, hail or shine. So I strongly believe it is the best training ground for any photographer. Because you do a wedding well with normal people, quote, unquote, you can do pretty much anything. [00:15:20] Speaker A: Yeah, a hundred percent. That is certainly been my experience and we've talked about a lot on the podcast that, yeah, you're shooting every style in a day and it prepares you to work fast and also have to please a client. So you can't just do what you want. You can try and be creative, but you can't just be like, oh, I'm not interested in shooting the first kiss. That's not my thing. Like you, you don't get that choice. Of course, I was, I was lucky enough to carry one wedding photographer's bags for one or two weddings, but I didn't have that opportunity to sort of work for someone for a year or two. But what I did extract a lot out of, and I'm not trying to pump up your tires here, was your Ice Society, it was called then, was one of the earliest ways to watch a wedding photographer work on a real full wedding. And I watched every single one of those. It was, I think, was it a subscription back then? I don't even remember what it was, what it cost, but it was. [00:16:20] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, man, I appreciate that. 2008 is when I started it and people often ask me, how did I start, I think one of, if not the first sort of training, online training programs for photographers. It's because I would go out and physically go to locations all around the world and teach workshops and seminars. So that happened. I went to, I don't know, I can't even tell you how many countries now. I think I've been to 50 plus countries, but I was doing the pubs and clubs and the big stadium, so to speak, in our industry, the smaller ones, like, there was a bit of everything. So. And then I was the guy that said, hey, if you got any questions, here's my email address. And then I just was answering emails full time because I am generous by nature. But I got to the point where I was like the Robin Hood of photography. I was just giving it away, giving it away, giving it away. And I'm like, I've got to set boundaries and. Because what got me into that position of call it leadership in the first place was running a very successful studio. So I'm like, well, so, like, well, a lot of people want to watch me shoot my, my thought process. Well, I'm not going to just show you the sexy couples, I'm not going to just show you the best weddings. I'll just show you everyday weddings. I'll you show. And so I started it and back then it was called the Ice Society. Ice as in inspire, challenge, educate. And then that's where the ice light came from. The, my, my invention. And then eventually my, my name sort of became a brand, although it's not a sexy name. So I, I said look, especially if you mispronounce it. Especially if you mispronounce it. Thank you very much. So I made it. Jerry Giones Photography Training. Now the acronym of that is jgpt. So now people say chat GPT and I'm like, are you saying JGPT or Chat GPT? Anyway, long story short, I, I did that for, I did that every month I released new content and sometimes every week up until around about 2000. So I was, if I did that on YouTube I would have been a billionaire by now. But that's another story and I know I, I was a bit ahead of my time so I did that and it was great, you know, as it was a great business independent of my already established photography business. And then I put a pause on it and the reason why I put a pause on it just before COVID Nothing had nothing to do with COVID was that I found that people, it was, there was too much content. So people wanted, I believe that they wanted curated digestible content. Whereas I'm saying no, no, but I've got an all you can eat buffet here. You've got everything wedding, portrait, fashion, boudoir, commercial, proposing lighting, business, branding, marketing, selling. And I'm like, it's. I, I can't even tell you in a sentence what it is because I, I'm releasing content every week and I'm reactive to what the audience wants. But for a new member it's like this is, it's just too much. It's too much. So then I focus on and I'm still doing that digestible curated content. But I think that the industry's turned around now. People want to see long form BTs of people working. So not to be opportunistic but I think it's worth having a look at. So if you go to gionis.com so G-H-I-O-N-I-S.com yeah, got it. So you'll see what it, what it's evolved to. So literally several months ago I just started it up again. As in it never got went away and we still had subscribers, but now I've taken away all the peripherals and it's basically become my virtual assistant. A front row seat to real portrait, wedding, fashion, boudoir, and, and photo walk shoots. 25 bucks a month, cancel any time. So if you go to Episodes, so if you scroll down, like they're the different channels, you can preview it for free, but you've got. Literally, if you want to see me shoot real shoots in real gigs, then you just click on it. So if you click on Wedding, for example, If you scroll down, you will be scrolling a lot. And if you. [00:20:29] Speaker A: I was, Yeah, I was just wondering, I'm like, will there be stuff on here that I would have watched still? [00:20:34] Speaker C: 100%. [00:20:34] Speaker A: Got the old stuff, the original stuff. [00:20:36] Speaker C: Oh yeah, there's stuff from 2008 there. [00:20:39] Speaker B: Wow, that's amazing. [00:20:41] Speaker C: So. And if you go to. I mean, I won't get you to go through it, but if you go to, you know, portraits, fashion, boudoir, whatever, you'll see a whole bunch of shoots now. So I'm releasing content every single month now again. And typically I release a product per month. So this is if you want to become my virtual assistant and if you actually want to learn from me, where I teach into the camera, it's different. So for those of you watching, by the way, I can give you a promo code. $1. The number. $1 with no space, number one, no space, and the word dollar, you can jump in there for 24 off. So $1, you can access the entire website. And I tell people there is a catch. The catch is if you love it, It'll renew at 25 if you don't cancel before it renews. And that's it. [00:21:30] Speaker A: Right, and that's, that's for this website and it get. And it's for all the different channels. [00:21:33] Speaker C: So wedding, you get every access, every single hour. There's 400 hours there. It's insane. So anyway, so there you go. And if, if for some reason that code expires, if you're listening to me right now or in the Future, just email infoerrygiones.com and I'll send you a promo code. Yeah, so $1. [00:21:50] Speaker A: So it's like that $1, right? [00:21:52] Speaker C: Yep. And you click apply and it'll take off. [00:21:57] Speaker A: Boom, there you go. I'll be doing that. [00:21:59] Speaker B: Amazing. [00:22:00] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:22:01] Speaker B: And then just lost Justin for a few weeks, so. [00:22:05] Speaker C: And what, what I basically did for the members, the, the members, the long established members that have like kept on their membership. But I, you know, very transparently said we're not going to renew any new content for a while. I basically said, hey guys, I've just uploaded one episode on every channel which happens. [00:22:24] Speaker B: So. [00:22:24] Speaker C: So every channel has a brand new episode and then some of them have multiple. As in so now I'll fill up the wedding cup, I'll fill up the portrait cup and I've taken away all the peripherals. So yeah, man, it's been really fun. And then now on, on jerrygionis.com that that's if you want curated content, that's one topic and you're going to learn one thing. Obviously many things, but a particular thing. And I was going to ask about [00:22:48] Speaker A: that because I wasn't sure what the. Yeah, I saw this and it was sort of more. Looks more like a. Hang on, I'll bring it up. Sorry everyone, that we're. We're just digging into different ways to learn stuff. We will talk about learning things on this podcast. [00:23:00] Speaker B: Oh, 100. [00:23:00] Speaker A: But yeah, I mean I was actually [00:23:02] Speaker C: part of the story so I don't normally do this by the way. It was just part of my story and the fact that you mentioned I [00:23:07] Speaker A: was, I was interested too because when I was looking at this and obviously my, my history with it was yeah, Ice Society. I understood that and what it was. And then I saw, and then I saw that it was back which was cool under, under the new brand or your, your name. But then I, I wasn't sure what the. So these are more like instead of a monthly, it's a one off price. [00:23:26] Speaker C: Is that one off? And you, once you buy it, you buy it forever. So if you click on that one spotlight one. So that I just released that, that was a homage to Liza Minnelli's cabaret. So it's one spotlight and I basically, you know, I take you through the whole journey. So if you sort of scroll, you'll basically see the different chapters that will be. And what I, what I created and you'll see how all these shots were created. And I talk into the camera and I'm teaching as I'm doing it. So all of these series of shots I teach. So yeah, and it's, it's ridiculously cheap too. So we're not trying to gouge anyone. We sort of say, you know what, this is important. Get, get the inspiration out there because there's just not many of us left teaching another generation of photographers on how to, how to shoot, you know. [00:24:11] Speaker B: Yep. [00:24:13] Speaker A: So anyway, so yeah, that, so that one's 27. Yeah. [00:24:16] Speaker C: Yeah. I mean it's and it's. I don't know how many. Yeah, I don't know how many hours it is, but it's, it's, it's crazy. But yeah, like I said, it was more nostalgic because you mentioned isocity and like a lot of people wouldn't know what that means. So. [00:24:26] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's good to get a picture of where it's at now. How's the. Actually, before I ask another question, I just want to say good morning to some of the people watch live because I, you know, we always do that. And Philip Johnson was here first and then Paul. As always, good morning to both of you. G', day, Philip. East coast photography. Good to see you. Says big. Hello, Jerry. David Leporardi is here. Bruce Moyle. Yeah, he said we're off to a brilliant start yet starting off. Started off well. Today we're getting everything wrong. Samantha Olson, David Moscaro from San Francisco. [00:24:56] Speaker C: A lot of familiar faces there. That's awesome. [00:24:58] Speaker A: Bruce Moyles said, because he's from Tassie. That must be why I said, I think Rodney Nicholson is here. And the drunk wedding photographer says Las Vegas will never be the same because they closed the Heart Attack Grill. [00:25:12] Speaker C: That's true. [00:25:13] Speaker A: Do you know what that is? [00:25:14] Speaker C: What is it on Fremont street, which is where the crazies are, where all the lights are. It's just, it's like Melbourne's version of St Kilda on steroids and lights. When you get the big sign, Fremont Street Experience, whatever. There's a massive, or there was a massive restaurant called, you know, Heart Attack Grill, tells you that our, our burgers will give you a heart attack. And you've. So it's advertised and sure enough, someone had a heart attack. Oh, no. Oh, wow. Now, whether it was related or not, I don't know. And I think they died. But that happened a couple of years ago, so they survived that. And I said, well, we advertise accordingly, so why should it be a problem? But maybe they just, maybe too many people are wary of their health now. They're a bit hypersensitive of all the health advice we get online now. [00:26:05] Speaker A: And so that could, that could scare people away. Oh, the other thing we got to do, Greg, I've got to do the ad read before we do do that. Do the next part, the next question. So the quick ad read, if you need a leather camera strap, we make them Luckystraps.com. that's us, me and Greg, you know, and a few other people made by photographers for photographers here In Australia. The finest leather camera straps you will find. And if you'd like one, they're quick release anti theft cut resistant webbing safety lock on the quick release system. And they're really beautiful. So check them out. [00:26:36] Speaker B: You can personalize them to make them yours. [00:26:38] Speaker A: You can, yeah, you can put a logo on your name. [00:26:41] Speaker C: Why, why did you not send me one that was already personalized? I think that would have been very, very thoughtful. [00:26:47] Speaker B: Well, we'll do that after the show. [00:26:49] Speaker A: We give you a gift after, after the show. We say, hey, here's a special. [00:26:52] Speaker B: You've got to earn it first, Jerry. You've got to earn it. [00:26:57] Speaker C: No, that looked great. It looked very cool. [00:26:58] Speaker A: I like it. Thank you. [00:26:59] Speaker B: We. [00:26:59] Speaker A: Well, we. It started in 2014 so basically not to, not to derail your interview with my life story, but in, in 2014 I started lucky straps and my photography business at the same time and built them up enough that I was able to quit my full time job in just before I attended your workshop in November. Your workshop was one of the first things that I did as a, well, you know, a work for yourself, a self employed person. Because it was midweek, it was Monday to Friday and I was like, wow, I'm really a photographer now. Like I'm doing it. I'm here learning midweek when I should be at work. [00:27:42] Speaker C: So yeah, that's fantastic. That's awesome. [00:27:45] Speaker A: Thank you. It's. Yeah, it's been very. [00:27:48] Speaker C: You totally derailed the interview. You totally. [00:27:54] Speaker A: What was I going to ask about? I had a, I had a good idea to talk about stuff. Oh yeah, well, your workshops, have they. So you still run the five day workshop, the same sort of thing that I attended. Has it changed much over the years, the content you teach? [00:28:08] Speaker C: I still do the five day workshop. I don't. I used to do sometimes 10 a year all around the world and now I'm sort of restricting it to sort of one once a year in Vegas because we can give people a good experience. Has it changed? It has evolved because I learn a lot of things. I as in the format of teaching how digestible the content is, how to, you know, and I don't know if you remember but it's underlyingly a personal development workshop at, you know, I, I make people believe in themselves because a lot of photography is more about just the fact that you're not right mentally, you know what I mean? Like you need to have a, have a bit more confidence in yourself and trust in yourself and everything like that. So a lot of those mental Hurdles is what stops people from being successful. But yes, you add the art and the craft and the business and the marketing and branding and selling all that, you know. Yes, it's similar philosophies, but it's, it's using the experience that I've had with every single year, every single gig that I do, every single person that I teach, and it evolves. Format is somewhat similar, but yeah, I fine tune it every single time. And it's right down to a fine art right now. So, yeah. [00:29:16] Speaker A: Do you still teach the, the five. What is it? Five steps or the five elements or whatever that, like how to, how to basically put a photo together as you walk into a new location or whatever with a couple on a wedding day or something, Is that still in there? [00:29:36] Speaker C: 100%. I mean, that. That has not changed. For those of you don't know, what we're talking about is people ask me, look, you know, how do you get a good photograph? Like, where do you start, where do you begin? And. And I just follow five steps every single time. And number one is lighting. I think a lot of people, what they do is when you start or you haven't been taught properly, you're always looking for a good location. Like, let me find a nice tree, a nice wall, a nice. Whatever it might be. I always look for light, direction of light, iridescent saturation, size, quantity, quality. I'm doing that first and then location. And the older I get, the wiser that I get, the less I care about locations. Because am I photographing people, am I photographing faces, or am I photographing places? Now, you can photograph a face in a place, but it depends on what your intent is. If you're photographing, you're a photojournalist, then, yes, that's important. If you're photographing something that's a location, that's meaningful. Yes, that's important. But ultimately, and among many things that I teach, is making something out of nothing. Being able to walk in any environment, any room, and understand how to bring out the best in it. So light number one, location number two, number three, I post people. I put them in a situation that's flattering and meaningful, purposeful. Number four is my technique, my, my, my camera settings, my lens choice, my cropping composition, all that stuff. And then number five is emotion, which implies the finesse of the pose, which adds to the emotion. And if appropriate, I elicit emotion. And, you know, you've seen it personally, where I can make people laugh or cry or hold their breath, depending on what I'm going for. [00:31:05] Speaker B: Yeah, I love that. [00:31:07] Speaker A: It was, it was, it's such a simple way to look at it. And, and often we always got things backwards and even, even, you know, the couple on a wedding day gets things backwards and they say, I want to get a photo in front of that tree and they're putting the location first before the light and then you've got a. As a photogr. Figure out how to wrangle that situation to get them what they want. But to be like, that's not going to work, you know, like what you want is going to look terrible. But you can't just say that bluntly. Well, you probably can, but I couldn't. [00:31:36] Speaker C: Well, I mean, you touch upon a very important point because it's all about educating your clients way before you even photograph them. So I might even say, here's like, whether, let's say it's a wedding or portrait for that matter. Is there a, you know, do you, what do you have in mind? Is it a studio? If it is a wedding? If, you know, I know weddings in Australia are a bit different to the, the US and other, other parts of the world, but in Australia, typically my normal day was going to a groom's home, driving to the bride's home, going, driving to a ceremony, driving to a location for portraits and maybe two or three and then going to the reception. Here in the States, it's, everything's in the one spot. You just, you go into a, you go to a hotel, photograph the bride, the groom, the venue, it's all usually in the same spot. So it's a little bit easier in that, in that respect. What I'm getting at is with, for weddings as an example, I would say, they would say, hey, we've got a, you know, a couple hours to photograph you. And if I said, hey, where do you want to go for locations? I'll say, I want to go to the beach, I want to go to the park and I want to go to a cafe. Okay, great. Yes, that's very different. Let's do that. Tongue in cheek, a little bit of cynicism there. But, you know, now I might say, you know, what's meaningful to you? Where, you know, is there any particular spot maybe where you propose, where you first kiss, where you see yourself? And then they might say, nothing comes to mind. I'll say, great. I go, do you trust me? Yes. I go, what kind of sensibility are you looking for in your photographs? What do you want to feel when you see your photographs, maybe on your first year anniversary. I just want to experience joy. I want to relive those beautiful moments and not only show what we look like, but who we are and more importantly, who we are to each other. Okay, perfect. Now I'm. I'm embellishing with the kind of words that I'm feeding them. And then all of a sudden, I'm. I'm giving permission for them to give me, you know, cut. Blanche, do what the hell, whatever you want. And then I'm like, great. And then some people, I'll go to a park, but make it not look like a park. And some people, I'll go to an industrial space. But it also depends on the person. If. Are they a corporate powerhouse, CEO couple? Are they emo? Are they bogans? Who are they? You know? And so every wedding will be attached a little bit differently. So, yeah, man. [00:33:50] Speaker B: Jerry, just for our American viewers, could you give us your definition of an Australian bogan and maybe relate it to an equivalent in the States, probably in a. [00:33:58] Speaker C: Probably an affectionate redneck? [00:34:01] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:34:02] Speaker C: I would say that redneck here can mean. You can mean it with affection. It could also be disrespectful, depending on how you address someone. In Australia, if you say bogan, usually it is an affectionate. Like, you're a dag. Like you're. It's a. It's a fun, playful way. You're not really disrespecting the human. You're just saying this. And. Yeah, and. But like I said, America has a different sensibility, you know? Yeah, it's. Everyone's a little bit different, but that's probably the best way I could put it without disrespecting anyone, hopefully. [00:34:35] Speaker B: So. Fair enough. Jerry, we want to unpack your whole story, but what we often like to do is roll back the clock a little bit and find out what your earliest inspirations were. You know, was it that you lived in a home that was a Nazi home? Did you have family members that were photographers? Was your family not creative at all? Where did it all begin for you? [00:34:57] Speaker C: Yeah, look, Photography began for me. My brother Nick. Nick Gionis, he gave me my first camera. He had a dark room in the back of his house. And I was just in awe of that image coming up through the chemicals. I just thought that was magic. And the fact that you could do it yourself was pretty amazing. My uncle was also a photographer, probably way before, like, I was born. So he wasn't an active photographer in my memory. My other uncle was an Air Force photographer and was always interested in Photography. So it. It was certainly in the. In the. In the blood, so to speak. But my brother Nick, who I wasn't still very close to, but back then I was. We were together sort of all the time. You know, he was 10 years older, so. So like an older brother, but somewhat a father figure as well in. In some ways back then. So, yeah, we just shot anything and everything and I had an absolute ball. But that's where it came from. We all came. All of our family were entrepreneurs in some way usually. And it's a Greek, Australian cliche that, you know, you own fish and chip shops and. Yes, it was true from our perspective as well. My dad had a fish and chip shop then that we went to, charcoal chickens and. [00:36:16] Speaker B: Really? [00:36:17] Speaker C: Yeah. And my brother Nick, who's still an acting photographer, but he runs a chicken shop now as we speak. My other brother has a Greek restaurant in Melbourne as well. My dad's retired, mum's passed, so we've all come from entrepreneurial backgrounds in this. In the sense that we do our own businesses. And yeah, I was sort of like the black sheep that I didn't go in the family food business where I just decided to run my, you know, run my own race and forge my own lane. And I was relentless and I still am. I'm obsessed. So, you know, there's a lot more to it after my. The first camera was given to me, but I'll let you ask the questions to get to those destinations. But, yeah, shooting professionally now since I was 20 and I'm. I just turned 53. So, yeah, 33 years in the business now. [00:37:03] Speaker B: Yeah. Wow. [00:37:04] Speaker A: How did you not, like, how did you survive having unlimited access to charcoal chicken? That's. [00:37:13] Speaker B: Oh, and just. I would just. So I was just gonna add, just for our friends out there who may not know, fish and chips is the main food source of the bogan. So there's a correlation there. [00:37:25] Speaker A: But charcoal chicken is one of my. Especially when it's good. It's so good. Oh, yeah. One of my favorite things, Charcoal chicken chips. Yeah. Yeah. Well, the. [00:37:34] Speaker C: Let me tell you a fascinating story. So, you know, I had. I mean, I'll get a little bit deep. Actually I'll probably get a lot deep today. If you know, if you know me, that's not uncommon. Although I can talk just like everybody else, too. But I had an incredible childhood. I gotta say. I had one of the best childhoods. I just have incredible memories of every week. We would have a party at our house. There was Greek dancing, there was food and Music and just fun. It was just full of, of lots of people at our house all the time. [00:38:07] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:38:07] Speaker C: And then my childhood was also just sports. Every single break, weekends, nights, a bunch of us from the neighborhood would get together and we would play sports and I, I have very good hand eye coordination so if any sport you can show me within 10 minutes I can be competitive. Really against someone? Yeah, against someone who's been doing it for years. I can always. [00:38:29] Speaker A: Even now, like now like you even now? [00:38:31] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:38:32] Speaker A: Pickleball or whatever. You know they play one of my [00:38:35] Speaker C: favorite sports right now. Is it? Yeah, I've played ping pong growing up. I have a ping pong table literally downstairs in my shooting space. So Melissa and I will play ping pong every couple hours just to reset the brain and all that stuff. So I play pickle ball sometimes at night time. I've played tennis, I played badminton, I played footy, I played basketball, soccer, anything with a ball. I'm really good at balancing stuff although I got decent balance but I'm, I couldn't, I couldn't and can't pick up surfing or skateboarding within 10 minutes. Yeah, yeah. So I quickly dismissed it because I couldn't pick it up as quickly as 90 of other sports that I've tried. [00:39:17] Speaker A: So like no, I'm not doing that. [00:39:20] Speaker C: No. So but, but anyway so that was my childhood then when I was got about to about 12 years of age our family was having money problems as a lot of Australians were back then. I remember my family going to like Mum going to Pakistan. She wasn't. She ended up going into the rag trade, fashion trading for those who don't know what that. But that means dad was in the food business, fish and chips, chicken. He was in Greece trying to make money. There's a whole bunch of stuff. But I remember being at home a lot on my own, especially when I got to about 15 and everything like that. So I meant, you know, I was in this beautiful home in 15 and then one day the lights turn off, electricity turns off, the gas turns off and then one day like the locks were changed so I'm on my own right now. [00:40:14] Speaker B: Oh wow. [00:40:15] Speaker C: And the bank took over the house. I'm a 19 and I knew that there was a window that they couldn't lock because I knew it doesn't lock from the inside so it wouldn't look from, you know. So I broke into it, broke into my own house, rented a place, rescued my parents belongings so that the bank would only take the house and not the possessions. But yeah, man, the recession hit. I mean, I think my dad said interest rates were like 28 or something. Ridiculous. [00:40:39] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:40:40] Speaker C: And a lot of people lost their home, so it was tough, man. And you know, back then, you know, I, I, after high school, I worked at a few camera stores, you know, just selling cameras. I then there was a four year photography course that I did. Well, I did the first year. And it, they were teaching me the algebra photography. Like I'm, I'm like, just show me how to take a pretty picture. Like they were trying to get all deep and introspective and I'm like the kind of lessons that you would learn later on in your career. But they were trying to do that too quickly, in my humble opinion. And they, and they didn't. And when I say algebra, you know what that metaphor is? That they're teaching me shit that I would never use in real life. [00:41:24] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:41:25] Speaker C: So I quit after a year. And then I just approached a popular studio at the time and in Lygon street for those of, you know, Melbourne, Lygon street being an Italian district. And there was a very, was a famous, a very well known studio next to an ice cream store on the corner. So people would often buy ice cream and then they would just, you know, go for their little stroll and they'll see the photographs going up and down and the transparencies that were shown in the studio window. So I knew this studio was always there. And then I ended up just walking in and saying, hey, I'm Jerry. I, I want to learn from you. Want to carry your bags? I don't want any money. And can I learn from you? And that's what happened. I assisted them for about three and a half years. Well, I assist, sorry. I worked there for three and a half years. I assisted for about a year and a half with no pay. Then I became their studio manager at a very early age. And then I got to the point where I wanted to start my own business. So I left that business, started my own. And this was during the recession. So my brothers opened up a charcoal chicken to go food store in the northern suburbs of Melbourne in Fairfield. And they had a separate door and a window. And I said, if I can build a wall in that little area, can I, you know, can I just pay you 100 bucks a week and we get going? And sure enough, my brother said, of course. And so I built a wall in their storeroom. I had a separate entrance and a door and a window the size of a bedroom. And then that year I shot 25 weddings, 50 weddings a year after, 100 weddings a year after. [00:42:54] Speaker A: Wow. [00:42:54] Speaker C: Then I convinced the overall building owner, the landlord, to build a second level. And then it took me a year to convince him a year to build. And then we built one of Australia's largest studios. There's a lot more information than that, but that's. I'm sure you would probably get to those questions, so I thought I'd just answer them for you. [00:43:13] Speaker A: Was that, Was that Excite? Was that, was it that name that was like, what was the original studio name that you started? [00:43:20] Speaker C: The original studio behind that chicken shop was called Photo Forte. So Photo Forte. And then I wanted to reinvent it because I just didn't see it being up in lights or having the longevity that I feel like it deserved. And then that's when I came up with Excite, spelled with an X, X, S, I, G, H, T. And you, you've been to my workshop. You know how quickly we grew and, and we created this incredible experience that people had never, never seen before. You know, red carpet, big screen, recliner chairs, all that kind of stuff. And it was, it was, it was great. It was great. [00:43:56] Speaker A: Gosh. [00:43:56] Speaker B: And is your brother still a photographer these days? [00:44:00] Speaker C: Yes. So Nick, Nick bought into the business Excite, and he still owns it. So he, he bought it and bought all of it. And although he pivoted, Covid obviously decimated our industry and he went back to Charcoal Chicken, although he still does weddings, so he's not actively promoting himself. But if the weddings come along, he'll book them and he'll do them like. I was in Australia only a couple weeks ago and did a big Lebanese wedding on that Saturday and all that kind of stuff. So, yeah, incredible photographer. Certainly very thankful for introducing me to photography and. Yeah, but he still shoots. [00:44:34] Speaker A: Still. [00:44:34] Speaker C: Still fantastic at what he does. Absolutely. [00:44:37] Speaker B: We were talking to Dennis Smith the other day. He mentioned that he'd met your brother at a beef up once at a bright festival of photography. [00:44:46] Speaker A: Bright festival. [00:44:46] Speaker C: Oh, really? [00:44:47] Speaker A: Yeah, that's right. [00:44:48] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. This chat walked up and wanted to know what was going on and it was, it was your brother. So, yeah. That he told. Yeah, small world, awesome. Big connections. [00:45:01] Speaker A: I want to find out the. So you started the, started the studio and [00:45:10] Speaker B: was your. [00:45:11] Speaker A: Did you have a pricing model then that you kind of based off the place that you were working with beforehand or did you come up with a new way, like in those early, those first 25 weddings? How did you go about starting your business off, you know, as a As a new business. [00:45:27] Speaker C: Yeah. Look, was my pricing or model somewhat based upon what we were doing at that studio? Yeah, of course it was. I, I think the blessing that I had was that I got to run a studio at a very early age but not be financially responsible for it. You know, my bosses at the time, when I want to, when I put that inverted commas, is it wasn't just the photographer that ended up assisting and they ended up hiring me, is also his partner who's a filmmaker. So basically I managed the studio that did photography and filmmaking. So think of it like during the week I was managing the studio, doing inquiries, doing sales, and the weekends I was shooting for the photographer. Specific. So when I started my own business, I tweaked a few things certainly. And I had I think like a three, well, four or five collection model. And I called them packages back then. And then I quickly went to three and I stopped calling them packages because a package implies it's complete, you don't need anymore and it's done, which is bad for business. So I called it a collection because a collection grows. And then when I was interested in more quantity because I literally was doing 100 weddings myself, and then I ended up getting someone who approached me just like I approached the photographer back then. And then I could do a second wedding. And then I was sick of saying, I'm already booked, I'm already booked, or my second photographer's already booked. And then it basically grew. What really, I wouldn't say put us on the map, among many things, but in terms of pricing, I came up with one collection. I'm like, we're getting so many inquiries. We're also competing. There's like 10 other studios that people see back then. Like, that's the way back then it works. Like now people don't even come to see you. They just look online or they look at your Instagram and they do a zoom call if you're lucky. And, and that's why that way they book you. Now it's just the world has changed. But back then you would physically go there. You would want to build trust, see the person's face and all that kind of stuff. And to this day, I remember the collection, it was 26 sides. So the coverage was back then. Okay, we didn't have same sex marriages. So let's respect the fact that most countries have same sex weddings that are legal now. But back then it was only hetero. So it'd be the groom's coverage for an hour, like an hour and a Half to a bride's coverage for two hours. There'd be the ceremony location portraits and up to the cutting of the cake at the reception, which would include the entrance, maybe the first dance, but even a pretend cutting of the cake sometimes back then there was a physical proof album and then your album was 26 sides. 26 sides. And that was for three and a half grand. And I found this magic formula on how to price extras that would usually guarantee that most people will end up spending six or seven. And that was like 25 years ago. [00:48:16] Speaker B: So. [00:48:17] Speaker C: And to this day the model is fantastic because there's a way to get your money up front. There's a way of, you know, and Justin, you may remembered my sales techniques and how do you upgrade how you price accordingly and how to handle objections. And there's like a whole methodology to it. Like it's not, it's not your normal. [00:48:35] Speaker A: I remember one specific line which was, my job is to create for you the most beautiful, biggest album I can. Something along these lines. And your job is to try and resist it. Is it something like that? [00:48:54] Speaker C: Yeah. No, no, you've, you remembered it pretty well. The way I say it now, even to this day with clients, my challenge is to take the most beautiful and meaningful photographs you can possibly imagine. Not only meet your expectations, but exceed them. Your challenge is to resist. And it's basically a nice way of saying the better I do, the more you'll spend. But now I've made it a good thing that they're going to spend more money. I go, would you like the problem of hating your photographs and not knowing where to start choosing photographs for your, for your album or your portrait session because you hate them or you love this, you love them so much where you don't know where to begin. I go, one problem I can give you reluctantly. One problem I can give you happily. But that means you love what I do. And that's the thing, the business sides of photography, especially domestic weddings and portraits, I think we over complicate it. At the end of the day you can ask someone, would you like a 16 by 20 print? Or how much value do you place on your family's legacy? I know one way you'll get a better result asking one way and a pretty shitty result asking the other way. Yeah. [00:50:04] Speaker A: Jim's just commented this. So Jim is basically, I, I, Jim and I had probably shot one wedding together when I did your workshop and then we ended up. He wanted to quit being a photojournalist for the Benio Advertiser and go full time into weddings because he'd been doing essentially my shooting weddings with me or even started doing some of the weddings that I had to, that I couldn't do. He started doing. But I didn't want to build a studio like you did because to me that sounds terrifying. The idea of having multiple photographers running around on a weekend that could call in sick or whatever and that falls on me was just terrifying. So we decided to go into partnership and we created a really super unique business name called Justin and Jim Photographers, which was quite memorable. Anyway, so Jim, Jim still shoots now weddings. I don't do weddings anymore. But he's obviously updating the website now because I think it is called packages. [00:51:07] Speaker B: Pretty sure it is, yeah. [00:51:08] Speaker A: So I think he's obviously changing that right now to collections. Great work, Jim. [00:51:14] Speaker C: Oh, that's so funny. [00:51:14] Speaker B: But it is interesting, isn't it? Just those small, you know, changes in, in how you deliver something can make all the difference to your sales success. [00:51:22] Speaker C: Dude, there's the. When I take people through the process, like on my five day workshop, the last two days are on business, branding, marketing, selling, and when I talk about the specifics of selling and pricing, structures and everything like that, I, I teach it all. And then I go back and say, here are 20 things that can negatively impact your sale. And then there are all these touching points. If you don't do one of these, it's going to negatively impact your sale. And then people freak out like, oh my God, shit, it's like 18 of those 20 things that I do now. Even things like doing your, like let's say you're doing your album order appointment, right? That's just it. If you call it an album viewing, then you're, you're not really even implying that they're going to order the album. So I call it an album order appointment. That's album sales appointment. Sounds weird. So album order, you're here to order the album. And when I go through the album, it's just, yeah, man, little things that you say. And, and it's all by mistakes, right? Like the good thing about the high volume shoe that I, that I, that I had was that if I wanted to test something, I'll test it for a month. But I would have had dozens and dozens and dozens of test cases so quickly I would say something, say something different and all of a sudden it's like, oh my God. There's this perfect little chemistry of combination of words or ways of working with clients that it's just boom. All these results Happen simply by doing your album order appointment during the day. If you did nothing different, gives you more sales, and you might say, why the hell is. Yeah, let me tell you. Put it this way, right? Let's say most people usually are working for someone else. And you could be a corporate. You know, in the corporate industry, you could be working at a cubicle for freaking 9 till 5. You've probably woke up on at 7. You've commuted from 8 till 9. You do your work, you're coming back. Can you imagine now doing an album order appointment After a full day of work, two hours, two and a half hours collectively in traffic, would you be inspired to spend more money than you originally invested in? No. The decision would be logical rather than emotional. When you wake up, the big problem that you had yesterday doesn't seem so big. So purely doing that album order appointment during the day is guaranteed more sales. Because you're in a broader disposition, you see things brighter. And that's what I'm saying. People like, if. If you do 50 weddings a year, and I just said to you, do the ALMA appointment during the day and talk to me, in a year, you would have added probably 10, 20% to your sales by doing nothing different. [00:54:01] Speaker A: Wow. It's a great point too, because it's. Even looking at it from. What do they call a decision fatigue. They sort of say that we only have the capacity to make so many decisions a day or in a given amount of time before we sort of get overwhelmed. And if you've already spent your entire day making decisions, what we do, when we're presented with a decision that we're not sure about, we shut down. And it's way easier to say no than. Than yes. So, you know, would you like. Would you like this, you know, this cover on your album or whatever? And if there's too many things and you've already had a day. Yeah, you're just going to close down. That's. That's great. [00:54:37] Speaker C: Yeah, man, Brilliant. [00:54:39] Speaker A: Change your. Change your meeting times too. Jim, [00:54:44] Speaker B: he's taking notes, I'm sure. [00:54:47] Speaker C: And Jim and Justin, I would tell you straight away, from a branding perspective, I would have called you J Squared. That would have been a lot more memorable than I think. [00:54:56] Speaker A: I think people called us that a bit. A lot of venue. I'm sure one of the venue guys used to call us the J Squared or the J's or whatever, but. Yeah, that's funny. Yeah, he's taking all the notes. That's good. So what about you? Do you. Okay, first of all, do you still shoot many weddings today? Are you. Do. Do you shoot weddings still? [00:55:24] Speaker C: Yes and no. So let me explain that if you were to inquire with me now, I would have to say no because of some health challenges that I've been going through. So assuming those health challenges weren't there, I would still do weddings. I just don't actively promote them. Yeah, okay. [00:55:45] Speaker A: So I thought, Yeah, I thought it would be very few, if any, just given how busy you are with, with, you know, gosh, Nikon and all sorts of stuff that you do, all of your various things. But what I want to know is you obviously talk to a lot of photographers and educate a lot of photographers. Do you have a bit of a feel of what it's like for wedding photographers getting started now and what the business model is like now? And do you see it as different or is it just the same? [00:56:13] Speaker C: It's a good question, man. I think there's a bit of a renaissance happening with wedding photography. I think that, you know, photography in general, the commercial side of photography, is somewhat being replaced and even threatened with every day with AI Right. If you can say, you can say a prompt and maybe even one of you can do it while I'm talking now. But if you can put into your favorite generated program and say something like Coca Cola can. Going off. Falling off Niagara Falls. Falling into. Yeah, falling into the bottom where there's 10 synchronized swimmers with a rainbow and some turtles watching from the shoreline, you would get something pretty. Pretty incredible. I'm just giving you just obviously a tongue in cheek, but, you know, I'd be surprised that it wouldn't be. That it would be. That it'd be pretty good. So the commercial industry is being threatened and, and is being decimated in some ways. But there is this need for a younger generation, especially those who are getting married. And I hear this word authenticity come up all the time. Yeah, I want authenticity. I want authenticity now. Ironically, these people who are craving authenticity will also put filters on their faces. They'll put their feet by the pool. They'll. A concert to preserve memories that never existed. Like, and I'm. I'm not. I'm not. I don't want to come across it from a cynical perspective. I just. I actually love the fact that there's a whole new generation that are in love with photography that didn't have the burdens that I had. You had growing up. I didn't have to worry about film. Although, ironically, there's so many people going to film now. I'm like what the hell? Why, why would you. Well, anyway, you can ask me, you can ask me about the letter, but, you know, so what I see is that a younger generation are fearless on social media. They're, they're, they love content, they're producing content like it's, you know, like their life depended on it, because it does. And it doesn't matter whether you're good as a photographer or not. Like any industry, any industry, there's good and there's bad, but mediocrity often will sell a lot more than expensive. So I guess what I'm getting at is ultimately the need is somewhat similar in the sense that people need this story told for weddings, right? I need my story told. I think the emphasis on story is not as important as the general vibe of a shoot because people are looking for trends. I just want on camera, off, off or on camera flash, no shadows. I just want to, you know, people want their five minutes of fame in a sense that, you know that the, the spectacle is still sometimes the biggest important thing in the wedding. And then as you get older, look, I'm at the stage where I've lost my mum, my dad has gone into a home, he's 85, 86. I'm losing my uncle's aunties, I'm losing friends even my age. Like you understand that you, you approach things a bit differently. You want more meaning in your life, you want more purpose. So those cheap tricks that you did in, in your camera, which I, I still do and I can do, are not as important as a meaningful moment, whether it's found or created. So I think the wedding industry is in good shape because, although, yes, I, you know, someone has, I've seen online where people created a whole wedding story made up of, of fictitious people, but you could literally put your own photograph in an AI model, put a whole bunch of family and friends in there and say, hey, come up with a story of a wedding and boom, there it is. Because people know that didn't happen. I don't think that's going to be crazy common. I think that there'll be people that, no different than a Louis Vuitton bag. They can buy it on the streets of New York for 10 bucks or they can buy the real thing for 2, 3, 4, $10,000. The need for authenticity, at least in your own story is going to be told. And the fact is that whereas a lot of photographers. [01:00:28] Speaker A: Is that what you were thinking? [01:00:30] Speaker C: Oh, my goodness, that's awesome. That's so good. One second, I'm gonna screen Grab that. That's so freaking funny. Holy. So good. But I mean, you know, if you were, you know, you were doing that shoot in real life, it would take you a long time to achieve anything close. Even though that's cheesy and a bit terrible for what we're doing, but, you know, tongue in cheek, it's pretty amazing. [01:00:53] Speaker A: What AI, it'd be an expensive production for Coke. If they wanted to do that traditionally with a, you know, a commercial photographer, it would be. [01:01:02] Speaker C: I mean, what I do miss though, I've got to say, I, like, I jazz one of my golden doodles, so. Or you guys call them groodles in Australia. Like, we, we, I go to the mall with him and he loves it. He's like, he's like the ambassador. Everyone loves him. We walk around the mall, or we call it shopping center in Australia, and it's fun. I just walk around. But then I'm looking at all the fashion stores. There's zero retouching, there's terrible photography, there's full flash, there's no shadows. And I'm like, you know what? I, I don't mind a bit of preservatives in my photography. Like, as in a little bit of retouching or a little bit of, like, I, I, how do I say, like, authenticity is important, certainly, but there's an aspirational quality that I also think we're missing. You know, I, I never see, you know, chubby dudes on in an advertisement that it's going to inspire me to buy clothes, you know, and when I say that I'm not, I'm not talking about, you know, demonizing the fact that like, women of all shapes and sizes are celebrated. I think that's brilliant. I think that's beautiful. But what I'm getting at is I just think that we're, we're dumbing down for a less sophisticated audience. And that being said, maybe we were that unsophisticated audience growing up and we didn't realize. So I guess we're all going through that. And I think the need for authenticity is important. But at the same time, I like the idea of something that's aspirational. That's, that's, you know, I guess it's a different industry. Domestic world is different to the commercial world. But, you know, you know, you know what I'm getting at, right? I get it. [01:02:43] Speaker A: And it feels like maybe it's an over correction. It's a, it's an over correction from the progression to like the ultimate highlight, fully filtered, curated Social media feed. [01:02:55] Speaker C: Yes. [01:02:55] Speaker A: To then people wanting to just see like something that actually looks like real life. [01:03:01] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:03:02] Speaker A: And that will, will probably not last. And it maybe it'll then settle back in the middle somewhere again where, you know, it was okay for a poster in the wall of a shop to have a, you know, professional photographer take the shot and put some work into it kind of thing. [01:03:16] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:03:16] Speaker A: If that's what you mean. [01:03:17] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, I mean, again, everyone's different. Right. So we can't say who's right or wrong. I just think everyone's different. I, I, in the last year or two, I've taught like a lot in person, probably since before COVID because Covid obviously screwed a lot of things up. So having met a lot of the new generation and I fully expect one day to go to WPPI or conference and no one shows up. [01:03:41] Speaker B: Right. [01:03:42] Speaker C: Like, you can't expect to be relevant for your entire life now. Am I going to try? Sure. Do I care? Not really. I could. I live a very beautiful life with my wife. And, you know, I'm not validation driven, so I'm not crippled by ego at all. I just love what I do. I'm obsessed with the creative process. But I love the fact that there's a whole new generation to teach and to shoot and because a lot of them, you know, I've met a lot of younger generation that somehow know me, which I don't know how or why, but I'll take the win and, But I've also realized that I have a lot to learn from them. That's a really important takeaway is that if you're watching this and you're, you know, you want to reminisce about the old days and which we have, of course, as part of the story, that's all fine, but, but don't get to the place where you say, get off my lawn. Why are you here? You're. Well, if you, you know, you know what I mean? Like, I, I just think we all have a lot to learn from each other and I think that everyone has a really good perspective and we were those people back then. And I, it's funny, we did an earlier podcast earlier today and I mentioned, you know, again, I'm 53, so let's say you're within 40 or, you know, 60 or whatever. But if, growing up in photography with film, the old adage or joke was that if you did a shit shot, you would make it. You would add grain. [01:05:03] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:05:04] Speaker C: Noise. You would add a vignette, make it black. And white. Now it's art. [01:05:09] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:05:10] Speaker C: So what we're seeing is the equivalent of that. In other words, you wake up and we all do this, whether it's TikTok, Facebook, Instagram or whatever. But Instagram is my favorite. So if you go on Instagram and you'll see people doing really mediocre shots, but if you put music on it and a bit of editing, somehow it just looks really freaking cool. But if you really break it down, it's really bad lighting, bad composition. Now, I could say, who are these young kids taking away my business? Or I could say, holy, that's freaking really cool the way you presented it. Because you also have no choice. In other words, if you're of a certain experience level or quality level and you don't know any different, then you're just presenting your work the way you see it and the way you believe it's good. And then you attract people who are happy for that, which is fine. So I just think it's good, man. I. I'm excited about the, The. The future. I know a lot of people are scared. I'm excited about it. I think there's always going to be a market for flattering and meaningful, purposeful photography. And the domestic industry is a lot safer than the commercial. That's all I'm saying. [01:06:13] Speaker B: Yeah, it's interesting. I've never really considered breaking that down so neatly into commercial and domestic. Because, you know, we often. We often think that AI or we hear or we talk or people comment that AI is coming for photography or it has come for photography, but there's very different branches of photography that it can and can't succeed in. [01:06:33] Speaker C: Exactly. [01:06:34] Speaker B: Like you said, I don't think AI created photo books without there ever actually being a set, you know, having been an official ceremony or, you know, a photo op. They're not going to survive. That's not gonna. That's not gonna be a trend for long. Yeah, people trying to do that. It's, you know. So, yeah, it is interesting. I'm curious about, you know, when. When you were kind of. Before you slowed down on the weddings, what was the mix of your working day in terms of, like, you know, let's. Let's look at percentages or buckets of time that you would spend working on shoots. So your weddings and your portraits and working on the online content that you were selling as an alternative revenue stream. Where was your time spent? And. And also on that. On that question, which was providing the greater stream for you of revenue? [01:07:27] Speaker C: I mean, photography has always Been the, the, the stronger income for a long time. So I would say it was, it got to the point where it was probably about 60, 40, as in 60 of me being a working professional photographer. And then, and then the 40 was made up of, you know, online education, in person, meet, you know, in person gigs, you know, ice light thing, you know, products and all that kind of stuff. I would say now, if you ask me as a stranger, Jerry, what do you do now? I say I shoot weddings, portrait, fashion, commercial, boudoir and a bit of filmmaking. So I do a little bit of everything and then sometimes I'll focus on one cup and then the other. Now education, sort of, it happens, it's hard to explain. It's not really a daily routine for me. Whereas, like I have to do this for education. My internal goal is I release one product a month. That's, that's a curated digestible product. So jerrygionis.com he is one product. But that will take a day of me filming. I give it to an editor, they give it back to me. I approve it or I change it. I write up the descriptions, I send it to my marketing team and I'm done. So that's one, one thing. Then I do one episode on JGPT, not chat GPT, JGPT or guy on us.com Jerry Gyana's photography training. So I do that now once a month. And then in between, like I'm, you know, I'm like, I've got a corporate gig in Wyoming coming up. I've got two, two, two, two trips I got to do to Wyoming and then I've got, I've got a gig in Greece, a seminar. I'm doing two days there and then holiday. In between that I'm doing a workshop in Italy and then I'm back and then I'm back for a conference in November, for example. Then I've got, I just scored a gig in Madrid and so on and so forth. So think of it like it's hard, you know, that that's the, that's the format. But every day there's a mix of everything that's sort of like whack a molecule. Yeah, yeah. But if, if I was to break it down now, revenue stream, I would, I would probably say in, well, in terms of work, work is probably 30, 33, 30. Still working professional. 30, 30 odd percent is going to be education and anything to do with, you know, that kind of stuff. And then I would say another 30 odd percent is going to be personal work, which I often Turn into, you know, some kind of educational perspective. So, yeah, I'd say that's probably what I, what I do now. I, I always want to. I continue wanted to be a working professional because I want to be relevant and understand the nuances when I teach. I mean, there's many people that will dismiss teachers of photography that have had a long established career and says, oh, you no longer shoot weddings or you no longer do this, and how relevant can you be? And I'm like, you tell me a surgeon that's worked for 30 years can't teach brain surgery. [01:10:47] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:10:48] Speaker C: Then you might say, well, what about the new technology? Well, okay, well, yes, there's a responsibility to understand all that stuff as well. But yeah, man, that's. But that's the approach. If you ask me what my favorite kind of photography is that I'm doing now is performers. By far, I'm obsessed with photographing performers. That is my happy place. Oh, man. You know, when you're growing up in photography, I think most guys think of, think like this. It's, I just want to shoot pretty girls. Right. And, you know, you shoot models in nice fashion and all that kind of stuff. And then I had opportunities to photograph performers from a personal perspective and a commercial perspective, as in, you know, being commission and non commission. And then I realized how incredible performers are because they perform. I don't, I don't have to struggle to get an emotion out or I'm not. It's not even a critique in the performer world. It's. They're called notes. So I could be photographing a ballerina and I'm looking at a shot that I think is incredible. And then she'll say, hey, do you see this? This is not right in our industry. So now I'm learning from them. And then now the next time I photograph a ballerina who's less experienced, I'm like, well, you know, shouldn't the hand be like this? Or whatever? And all of a sudden that would happen. So I think where my value system lies with performers is we're obsessed with the creative process. [01:12:10] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:12:11] Speaker C: The difference between a performer and myself is I'm not as much worried about the end result or the setting ovation. I'm just happy to create, which is my happy place. That's. That's where I thrive. Give me freedom and I'll create something incredible. [01:12:31] Speaker B: You know, you mentioned earlier about how, you know, sometimes your personal work will become part of your work work. Is there a personal genre or project that you are yet to tackle that is is on your horizon? [01:12:50] Speaker C: Well, let me tell you a recent project that I think is my best project I've ever done. [01:12:55] Speaker B: Yeah, please. [01:12:56] Speaker C: And then I will tell you what I'm working on now because that's part of the answer. But it's sort of like it's an ongoing process. So. So Dita Von Teese. And maybe you can google her and then just bring up images and then maybe share a screen because people, if you know, you know, if you don't know, you should. So Data Von Tees is the premier burlesque dancer in the world and has been for two to three decades. And I remember actually, you know, starting photography like, hey, she would be an incredible bucket list person to photograph and then lo and behold, you know, years later. So if, yeah, if you look at her like she's, she does the famous martini dance, Martini glass. She, you know, Taylor Swift. There you go, Taylor Swift. Her recent album was the Showgirl. And, and there was a music video that she did with her. Some people will say, oh, she's Marilyn Manson's ex. I'm like, that's so diminishing her talent and what she's done. She's the fashion icons, icon, if anyone who's an artist, a fashion designer has addressed her. And even on her day off, she looks better than anyone else's best day. So she's just, she's stunning and she's my age and I, you know, I won't say that out loud, but she's incredible. So I had the opportunity to actually photograph her recently, many, many times. Really. The, the, the, I shot a cover of a magazine here, I shot her event, her, her show. And I'm, I'm friends with now a lot of the performers. And so I'm like, how can I implement a lot of things that I've learned and simply have a vehicle for my creative process and she just happens to be the beneficiary of it. So let's take away the commission work from her. As I, it took me a year to come up the courage to basically pitch this idea and it'd be difficult for her to say no. But I basically said, do you trust me? Do you, Can I create something incredible? All it would mean is that I photograph your show about four or five times. And she says, of course, you know, we would, we would love it. And so what? And I sort of reserve this because I could show you a couple shots, but I'd rather, I'd like to leave that sacred for in person gigs unless something changes. But I'LL try to explain it for you. So what I ended up designing, or the white. What it was going to be is I was going to photograph and physically build a speakeasy dollhouse. What is a speakeasy? A speakeasy is, you know, back in prohibition days, there'd be a restaurant and then on a little side door, whatever, there's a little side door that's secret, and all of a sudden you can drink and have no problem. Now speakeasy is now for restaurants and bars. It's basically you're disguising something and you make it a little bit more exclusive. And you don't, you know, you're. You're making people feel special about the process. So imagine a dollhouse where every one of her iconic performances was a window into this dollhouse. And then literally working with figurines and photographs and building the set and the room so that you're looking at this dollhouse, and then you find these little trap doors that reveal an incredible album or a creation or something really cool. So that was the idea in the beginning. Then as I got to know her, I'm like, ah, I love this idea, but I don't think it's classy enough for her. I think it's the fine line between genius and cheesy and gimmicky. Because it can look really good. Because as I was explaining it to, you're getting sold, but you're like, as soon as I said cheesy, you're probably looking. Yeah, that be could look really, too. So I'm like, as I got to know her and understand even better her sophistication, because straight away, you, you know, you. [01:16:45] Speaker A: You. [01:16:45] Speaker C: You see that she wreaks sophistication in the way she presents herself and how much of a badass entrepreneur she is. Then I'm like, that doesn't work. Doesn't feel right. So then as I got to know her and understand her and. And photograph the event. So one night I photographed the event. Just, you know, let's say this is the only time I'm going to shoot it. So let me pretend that no other shoots exist. So I shot the event. The event, the. The show. Then I shot from a different angle. Then I spent one night filmmaking, so doing some films. Then I shot in 3D, so two cameras on a bracket. And then the last night, I filled in the gaps. So now I've got this incredible collateral. What do I do with it? Now I could just create an album and here's an album. But I'm like, what do you give someone that's got the best of everything? She's got the best photographers in the world. Everyone that we know has photographed her, right, living and. And or gone, you know, from Annie Lubowitz to Avedon, you name it, painters, everyone has, has, you know, depicted her. So I'm like, how do I create something that's. That she would never receive from anyone else? So what I did was. So I want you to imagine my phone as a slip case. So you know what a slip case is, right? It's like a. Basically a book where, you know, the album comes out. So what I did was I made three quarters of the. Of the slip case, her bodice. So think of it like a corset. So you've got her bust and then her waist. And then I. The slip case, we created a triangle, like a point that emulated basically a corset. And the book had her bust and the shape of her curves and the shadows of her bust coming out of it. So as you would take the album out, it's like a little peep show. So I took one of the photographs of her in action, puppeteered her arm, took out the background. Then that was the COVID of the slip case. Then the book came out. Then you open up. And then I created custom lining for her. And I'll explain that in more in a minute. But then I showed these beautiful photographs. Now, what else did I do? What's my unique selling proposition? Well, so what I did was the box was a beautiful turquoise sort of velvet. So think of it like even before the slip case, you see it, it's in this turquoise velvet box and it's her initials, DVT on there. So you take the lid off. The lid now has a lenticular print. Now, what is a lenticular print? If you ever had a ruler as a kid with a cheetah running like, you look and it's. It just runs. Or you go to a movie theater and you, as you walk past it, changes images. So I, I got one of her. [01:19:29] Speaker B: She. [01:19:30] Speaker C: There's basically like a. What do you call that, those bars, the saloons, where you've got the rocking cowboy thing. I think what they call them. [01:19:39] Speaker B: Oh, like with a ride on bull and. [01:19:42] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So she's basically on a mechanical. She's on a mechanical ball. And then there's streamers coming down. So I've got one with her Christian Louboutin shoes, where it's just her shoes, then her body and then her face like Leading up to the camera. So. So now you get this beautiful anticular print and then the confetti just shimmers as you move it around. Then what I did was. So then you've got the actual box, like the album in the box in the bottom of the velvet, you lift up the actual slip case and on the bottom is a ribbon. But there I've got a image of her in the martini glass that I made into a tattoo and then I made into line art and then we engraved that on the bottom of the box. So it ended up being awesome. Now, so then there's that. Then what I did was that particular graphic of her. You know, she's got like a strawberry cushion that she pours water all over herself. So we made that like a lining in the actual book. So when you open the book, it's a repeated pattern. So it looks very purposefully done. Then what I did is I've got an app on the app store called Jerry Guernas. It is very suited to my clients and or education, where I pair a photo with a video. So a QR code is basically. Think of a QR code that just goes to a website. We all know what that is. Well, think of this as I want this scan of this photograph to play this video without going to YouTube or anything like that. And that's what happened. So what I did was I made 8 millimeter videos of many of the images in the album. So you grab my phone and you scan the photographs and it looks like an 8 millimeter film of that particular scene. [01:21:35] Speaker B: Oh, wow. [01:21:37] Speaker C: So if that wasn't enough, then I thought, how cool would it be to actually create a 3D view master of some of her shots? Now, if you ever photographed in 3D, it's not very easy. Like, I photographed, I believe, to my knowledge, the. The world's first 3D wedding. I don't know, 20 years ago, 15 years ago, you. [01:21:56] Speaker A: You talked about that in the work Distinct. Because it must have been. [01:22:02] Speaker C: I have just done it. [01:22:03] Speaker A: Yeah, you'd recently done it and taken it to WPBI or wherever. And you were talking about sort of the process and. [01:22:11] Speaker C: Fantastic. [01:22:12] Speaker A: Yeah, the mixed. You know, it obviously got. Got a great response. But not every. Everyone was sort of. It was very different the first time. [01:22:20] Speaker C: Yeah, not everyone sort of got it. Yeah. So I took that experience. So the way I did the 3D back then was I had two compact cameras, fixed focal length, aperture, priority focus on a bracket, remote control, and I photographed, you know, a bunch of shots. And we created this really beautiful thing. So what I did now can you imagine though that's pretty easy. When I say easy, relatively. Now imagine getting a 100 to 400 millimeter lens on a bracket and you're one mil out, like. [01:22:51] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:22:51] Speaker C: And with moving subjects, pain the ass, very difficult. And then if I want to go closer in the dark, I've got to like, well, what's go to 150 mil? 150 mil. Ah, is that close enough? I don't know. And then boom, boom, boom. So all I needed was seven shots that were decent. Now in the end I think I got about 15 usable ones after photographing the whole night. And then I made a, a reel with a View Master. I found a mint condition 70 year old view Master and I also put that in a beautiful, beautiful box. And then I did an acrylic image. There's a whole bunch of other stuff, but what I'm saying is this project was probably still is the most beautiful thing I've ever created. She happened to be the beneficiary of my obsession with the creative process and now it's, it's led me to other commercial work. But my goal with that is, which is already in principle said, yes, I've got to go back. And because she didn't choose the photograph, she's very particular about what's in there and what's not. But hopefully we get to the point where I can refine it and then, you know, do one of a hundred and basically sell 100. [01:24:02] Speaker B: Make a product. [01:24:03] Speaker C: Yeah, maybe making it a product. Now my intention was not that from the beginning. I'm not stupid though. And I'm like, wait a second, if I can create something, that's what I say. One of a kind. 100 of a kind. [01:24:14] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:24:15] Speaker C: How cool would that be? Because if I, if I saw a photographer that I respect and admire create something so unique, I would want it and I would want their signature. So the idea is that it may never happen. It may happen, I don't know. But hopefully, you know, that works out as a, as a potential product. But it doesn't matter. I already won in a sense that my joy was the whole time I created it. And it wasn't even reliant on her liking it. Now that being said, I, you know, after a show, one, one night I went back, we, I showed her everything, we, we talked for a long time and she said, I will cherish this until the day I die. So her response was incredible. But I fully expected that she might say, oh, that's cute, you know, And I'm not diminishing her character. It's quite the opposite. It's more like, how do you impress someone that's been in everything and has got several incredible businesses and all that stuff? But she was very gracious, very sweet, but she's, you know, she knows her. She knows her body and knows her posing and knows her dancing and stuff. So, yeah, it was incredible. And because of that. Not because of that. In conjunction with that, now I. A couple of projects that I'm looking at doing is I'm. I'm doing a. I want to produce a book that is purely where the girls wear paper. So. So I'm doing that. So I literally just slice paper, and that's what they wear. So it's like, get your normal paper background, and I just slice it and show it. So I don't think I've got anything online at the moment, but I don't really want to spoil the surprise. And then I'm doing a whole bunch of images that are sort of vintage performer vibes where I. I want to go to the Las Vegas Tourism Commission, and I want to get a bit of a grant, and I want to focus on creating incredible portraits of performance, which I'm already doing. But to get a bit of budget and to get a bit of time and focus, that would be incredible. And then another dream would be to get a new hotel to feature all my images in their rooms and. [01:26:18] Speaker B: Oh, wow. Yeah. [01:26:19] Speaker C: And if it happens, great. But if not, I'll enjoy not getting there. [01:26:24] Speaker A: The journey. [01:26:26] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:26:28] Speaker A: So many. So many questions. But one that popped into my mind was, for those of us that haven't ever undertaken a creative process like that, where you're sort of taking an idea, idea and the. And the act of photography to another level, whether it be through creating something physical with that or displaying it somewhere or whatever. Like, do you have any advice for people on how to break out of just having photos on their computer or posting them on Instagram or maybe printing them now and again, but to take it to. To. To a finished product, I love. [01:27:04] Speaker C: I love that question. And the answer will be in the form of a quote of mine that came out in a seminar of some kind, and then people really resonated with it. So I want to tell that to you now. Creatives aren't short of ideas. The challenge is committing to one. Creators aren't short of ideas. A challenge is committing to one. So what I'm getting at is everyone says, oh, my God, I saw that. Movie, and it was amazing, and I was so inspired by it. Oh, I saw that. That. That exhibition. I was so inspired by it. Were you, though? [01:27:38] Speaker B: Like, [01:27:41] Speaker C: inspiration without execution is like, unexpressed love that the world would never see. [01:27:49] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:27:50] Speaker C: Like, so one of my superpowers is I commit to an idea and I execute. That's it. It's not that I'm better than anyone else. Not at all. It's. I don't care where I am in the pecking order, because it's all subjective anyway. I'm just saying is, have people do. Do photographers, working photographers have ideas for personal work that may attract a clientele that will pay for them for that work? Yes. Do they execute on it? No. Very few do because they've got daily hustle or the photography is their side gig, and they just don't go forward. For me, I think any. [01:28:29] Speaker B: Any. [01:28:30] Speaker C: Any skill in life, the way people succeed is they shorten the distance between idea and execution. That's it. So I say to people, well, all right, Jerry, I'm with you. I love you. Where do I start? Well, every month, shoot for yourself one day a month. Call it the First Sunday, the First Sunday Fun day. Pick an idea and go and play. Now, you might say, jerry, I'm really inspired by your project. Well, great. Go to a local ballet school and, you know, do a homage to Degas. You know, like, do something really cool. You might have to go to Amazon and buy a whole bunch of props and stuff, which will cost you next to nothing. And all of a sudden, you're. You're the lead photographer for those events, and people are hiring you for their portrait sessions, and you know what I mean? But again, people say, oh, no, this no work or whatever, and just go out there and do it. Just don't think. The more you think, the less you feel. So if you want to, like, just go in there and have some fun and enjoy the process and know that you'll screw up, but the great thing about screwing up is you'll learn more from those fatties than your successes. [01:29:33] Speaker B: Yeah. Yep. [01:29:34] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:29:35] Speaker B: I think it's great advice, too. I'm currently working on a bit of a project which we'll talk about in the coming weeks here on the podcast. But I. I have noticed that the longer I delay the execution, the greater the fears are that creep in, the anxieties, the worries, you know, and that negative. It starts to sort of play it down for yourself. Oh. You know, and, yeah, it's true. It's very true that the longer that Gap is that apprehension can be really toxic. [01:30:03] Speaker C: Yeah, man. I appreciate your vulnerability in sharing that. I think a lot of people feel the same way. But what are you to fear? You win or you learn. There's no failure. [01:30:12] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [01:30:13] Speaker C: And I, and I, I. If you're a Star wars fan, listen to Yoda. Do or do not. There is no try. Like, yeah, yeah, yeah, do it or don't do it. I just. Yeah, yeah. This is, this advice, life advice. [01:30:28] Speaker B: Yeah, of course. [01:30:31] Speaker C: And let me explain what I'm getting at is people look in the mirror and they see they're a little bit chubby. Or your, your, your back is bad, your knees are bad, which, all that kind of stuff can apply to a lot of us. And you say, I should go to the gym. I should go, I should go. I really need to. I really need to. And then it comes to the point where you're like, okay, there's Saturday night, you got a movie that you're playing. You're like, let me get those same boy freaking chips, salt and vinegar chips. And then you're like, yeah, Americans won't know what that means, but, well, maybe they do have same boys here. I don't know. I just, I mix the countries up sometimes. But anyway, so what you do is you, you don't buy the, you buy the chips and you may eat them and then you self deprecate, I shouldn't have eaten them, I feel like. Or oh my God, I'm, I'm fat, I'm chubby, whatever. And I'm, I'm like, eat the freaking chips and enjoy every bite and put it on the roof of your mouth and go slow and enjoy them and know that you'll be a little bit tubby for having them. That's fine. Or go to the gym, work out, but don't complain about that also. Or go to the gym so you can have the chips. What I'm getting at is, yeah, make your decision and don't second guess because we're always in this pocket of shoulda, woulda, coulda, it can always be better and I'll be happy when this happens. And yeah, this is where I want to go. Like, very few people can say I'm living a living my dream and 100 be confident that that's true. And I'm just saying, dude, eat the chips. Eat the chips. Drink that wine. Like, do what makes you happy and the rest will come. And why does that make a difference in a podcast about photography? It has everything to do with it. Because we often will judge ourselves before we even get out of bed against everybody else. So a lot of people will look at Instagram or TikTok or whatever your favorite platform is, and you're scrolling through images and wondering why everyone's got a better life than you or better photography than you. And I'm like, you'll never win by comparing yourself to anybody else. And so screw everybody else. Focus on yourself, like, in terms of your art and obviously your clients, and you focus on them. But, dude, like, yeah, fill your cup, man. Like, enjoy. Bring the joy back to, To. To your photography. Because a lot of people, they get into photography as a business because they love it as a hobby, but then they realize that the hustle is really a lot. It's a. It's a big hustle. Especially now in the ever changing landscape of obviously, everyone's a photographer, AI does what it does, but there is still a massive clientele to be served. So, yeah, man, there's such a. Such a. It's a beautiful industry. It's very challenging, but we have to get out of our own way. Get out of our own way. [01:33:15] Speaker B: Well said. [01:33:17] Speaker A: I think it's great advice coming from you, considering as well, you've. You've changed and reinvented, whether it's brands or whatever or what you're focused on at the moment, over decades. So it's not like you just picked one thing. Oh, yeah, weddings are good. And then you stuck with that first studio name in that first studio location for an entire career, and that was fine. You changed and pivoted and pushed constantly to keep reinventing, and that's how you survive in an industry. That can be tough. [01:33:46] Speaker C: 100%. Yeah, yeah. No doubt, no doubt. [01:33:51] Speaker B: Let's look at some comments. [01:33:52] Speaker A: Yeah, you read my mind, Greg, There's a couple of good comments here. J.C. orange says, Good morning, gentlemen. It's great to see Jerry on the show. I've been following his work for years from way back in the excite business days. [01:34:04] Speaker C: Fantastic. That's amazing. I love the way the branding was so good that, that he even wrote the capital excite lowercase I. That really makes you smile. That's awesome. [01:34:15] Speaker A: Attention to detail means you. You nailed the branding. Exactly. That's. It's perfect. [01:34:20] Speaker C: Thank you. Thank you, Jesse, for your support. Thank you, mate. [01:34:23] Speaker A: David Leporati says you never stop learning. Julie Powell says, I love working with burlesque performers. Such a dream. [01:34:30] Speaker B: Yep, Yep. [01:34:32] Speaker A: And Samantha Olson says, Jerry was the first photographer who truly inspired me. He inspired me to be a much better photographer to Work harder for both my clients, my business, and my photography skills. Thanks, Jerry. [01:34:43] Speaker B: Amazing. [01:34:43] Speaker C: Samantha's a badass. Yeah, I, I remember. I'm sure she did my workshop. Yeah, I picture her doing. Yeah, she's 100. Did my workshop. [01:34:50] Speaker A: Did. [01:34:51] Speaker B: Yep. [01:34:51] Speaker A: Hang on. I don't know if I've. Is my brain not working? Did she do the same one I did? [01:34:56] Speaker C: Samantha, tell us if I'm. I'm certain you've done the workshop and if you have, put it in the comments and tell us what year. [01:35:02] Speaker A: Yeah. Was it. Was it November 2014? Have we talked about this, Sam, or am I just going crazy right now? Anyway, let us know. Rodney Nicholson says, this is your reality. Love it. Change it or change it. Yeah. [01:35:15] Speaker B: Yep. Jerry, let's. Let's change gears a little bit. Oh, that was a terrible pun. Let's talk about gear. Disappointed myself with that one, by the way. [01:35:29] Speaker C: Tell me, Tell me if you want my answers to be briefer or, or tell me if I'm going off, because I know that. I know that podcasts can weave in stuff, but I get deep sometimes a bit too much. But. So I don't know what your. Your audience is used to or anything like that. Please. [01:35:43] Speaker B: This is, this is what they're used to. Yep. [01:35:45] Speaker C: Okay, great. [01:35:46] Speaker B: We just talk. Yeah, let's talk about gear. Now, Justin mentioned earlier about your relationship with Nikon. Talk to us about that. [01:35:55] Speaker A: He's in the U.S. sorry. [01:35:56] Speaker B: Nikon. [01:35:57] Speaker C: I say Nikon. I, I, I'm, I'm gonna, I'm gonna say that till the day I die. So screw them. [01:36:02] Speaker B: Good. Good man. Tell us. [01:36:05] Speaker A: I haven't tried to convert you. They haven't tried to, like, push back on that and be like, jerry, if this is relationship's going to continue, you're gonna say it. It's Nikon. [01:36:11] Speaker C: No, I say the opposite. I, I was literally. We had an ambassador summit a few years ago, so we had all the heavyweights, everyone, and we had the number two person in the world. And then I'm. They got me to inspire all the photographers, and there's like, 40 people from the Americas, and they, they tease me about the way I pronounce Nikon. And I'm like, excuse me. You know, I forget the gentleman's name. And I said, thank you so much for being here. It's an honor to be in your presence. While we're here, can you quash all the rumors, all the crap that I've been given? Tell me, how do you pronounce Nikon? He says Nikon. It's Nippon. Nippon is. Is Japan. And that is the way you pronounce it. So if you're working for a company that you don't even know how to pronounce, I'm like, I don't know, I'm even struggling to keep on being an ambassador for you, but that's fine. Anyway, anyway, I love them. Nick on Amazing. But it's a running joke, so I just wanted to explain that. [01:37:03] Speaker B: Running joke. [01:37:04] Speaker A: I love it. Yeah. [01:37:05] Speaker B: So. So did Nick, did Nikon approach you or was it ambassadorship something you sought out? [01:37:13] Speaker C: No, I never sorted it out. I was approached, I would say around about 2012, 13, give or take. I was sort of one of the original handful in the States of US Yeah, I, you know, I was on their radar for different reasons. Just, you know, obviously being out there and teaching and shooting and putting my work out there, articles, awards, all that kind of stuff. And yeah, I've been Nikon faithful, yeah, for a long time. [01:37:43] Speaker A: Never been tempted, never been tempted by a. Well, to be honest, more megapixel camera. [01:37:49] Speaker C: Well, well, let me, let me, let me tell you the history here. I. Mamiya RB67 was my first camera. I've literally got it over there. It's a massive camera. It takes 10 shots per roll of film and three actions to take one shot. So you click, cock the mirror, wind the film, shutter, click, boom. And if they blinked, you've lost 10 of your film. It's ridiculous. But then I ended up having multiple camera backs. You know, backs where you just change the film, but you don't have to change like within the camera. I would, I want, I had. So I had the big camera. I had like five backs. I had a 35 millimeter camera. Nikon FM2. I have that very camera right there. It's my first Nikon camera. And I also had an infrared camera for. Purely for infrared. And I had a pocket ricoh gr1. One of the best cameras ever made, in my opinion. For my black and white quick candids. Don't have to think so I was like Rambo. I had freaking gear. Like, it was just, you know, ridiculous. [01:38:52] Speaker A: Have you got any photos from back in that era, like kicking around? I don't know if I've ever seen. Have you ever like, has anyone? I have shot of you. [01:38:59] Speaker C: Yeah. I, I barely have a couple, so it's a bit of a regret, but I think I have a couple here and there, so maybe I can find it by the time I. We end up the conversation here. But, but long story short is So I shot with Nikon in terms of, you know, 35 mil. I. I also bought. That's also over there. I can't even believe I'm saying this. I. My first digital camera was the Kodak DCS 760, which was modeled after a Nikon camera. So Kodak and Nikon combined together. So. Yeah, have a look at that one. [01:39:27] Speaker B: Oh, that's right. [01:39:28] Speaker C: Kodak DCS 760. Back then. [01:39:32] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:39:32] Speaker C: Someone else, I think I paid $22,000 for it. And I'll be honest with you, I saved money that year because film and processing. That's why I'm like, why do people freaking shoot film? That's ridiculous. Yeah. Like, you see that? Look how big it is. It's ridiculous. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It has a brick of the bottom. That's it. That's the one, man. So that was my first digital camera. [01:39:55] Speaker A: It was on an F5. Is that. [01:39:58] Speaker C: Well, it was an F5 body, but it. Kodak came and put the technology into it as well. I think a year after or two years after, like, you can get a D100 or D1X. I forget what they call it, but you get them for, like, a few grand. And then there was a couple, and I'm like, what the hell? So I've got it sitting there. I couldn't even trade it in because it's, like, now it's a bit of a relic, but, you know, I have it there for posterity. Whatever. So then I shot Nikon, and then I was doing a fashion shoot where they said you have to have a certain amount of megapixels if you're shooting digital. Back then, my Nikon camera didn't do it. And I think back then, the only camera that did it was the 5D Mark 2 or Mach 1, whatever it was. So then I switched camera systems. Not because anyone paid me. No. No ambassadorship. It was purely. I wanted this gig. It was tens of thousands of dollars, and I was too. Too difficult to refuse. So then I, you know, shot with, you know, a name should not be mentioned. What. What's that movie from? I forget what that's from. Anyway, so then what happened was I shot. I. I was doing a shoot. I dropped one of those cameras. And I'm like. A year before that, I had won a European Photography of the Year competition where I won a Nikon D3s. And that was when the D3s was a landmark release from Nikon. So then it was just sitting in a box for a year. And then when I Dropped that camera. I'm like, okay, let me shoot with the D3s and you know, the Mark II, whatever it was. And then I'm like, oh, sheesh. The color is so much more realistic here. It's a lot warmer here. And the noise levels on this camera were so much better than this one. So then I just went back to Nikon and that was. Yeah, I think 2011, 10. So. And then, you know, people started to paying attention to my work and then Nikon came along and said, hey, I shoot Nikon. Yes, blah, blah. And then all of a sudden here we are. So. Yeah, yeah. [01:42:03] Speaker A: What do you, what do you shoot with? [01:42:04] Speaker C: Right now my go to camera is the Z8 or Z8 you guys would call it. So Z8 is sort of my go to the 6.3if I'm shooting an event where I'm getting a bit tired because I've got a bad back and all that kind of stuff. I've got the zf, which is I use for, you know, sometimes personal stuff or if I want to film grain because I got like a really good film grain emulation. I've also got the zr. So because I do a bit of filmmaking as well. So I'll use ZR mainly for. Predominantly for filmmaking and the 6:3 for that matter. But they're the main ones. They're the main cameras that I've got. [01:42:43] Speaker A: What about lenses these days? I distinctly remember you and I could be wrong because it's been a while talking about focal lengths and the mid range focal lengths. The normal links were kind of boring to you at that point. You tend to want to go wide or you wanted to go telephoto, go tight. Is that still the case or is that a volume evolved over the years? [01:43:05] Speaker C: Nah, man, still the case. Like, I'll be honest with you, man, I. I don't even own a 24 to 70. Like I don't own it. The, the closest that I've got to it is a 24 to 120F4. That's perfect for events because events you're not normally looking for a shallow depth of field. If it's a wedding, you can get the bride coming out of the, the car, a big wide shot close up of the groom. Like you, that's an easy event lens. I know some Systems have a 24 to 100 or something roughly equivalent, but I just have never needed it. With the way I shoot, I'd say 90% of my work is done on an 85 1.2 lens. A lot of it was done with the 70 to 200 just because of back issues. I've got a 70, 202.8. I've got the 70 to 182.8, but I hardly use them anymore. I have. I love the 105 Macro because you may remember my tight crops that I love to do. So I mean, literally, man, even on a wedding, I mean, yes, there's times you've got to go wide, but. And I have a 14 to 30, but I hardly touch it. I just wide distorts. Unless you're putting people in the center. 50 mil is roughly what we see or what we're used to with our own eyes. Maybe wider, forget about the peripheral, but just in terms of, you know, compression. So 85 is beautiful because it's sort of tight, but it just gives you that dreamy effect with the bokeh in the background and the, the milky background. I mean, you can literally be six inches away from a wall and it's completely out of focus and it looks incredible. So, yeah, you know, that's the. Yeah, but great memory, man. Great memory. [01:44:42] Speaker A: Yeah. I remember you saying like that normal is. Yeah, not. You don't like normal. You're like, that's, that's what we see. I want to do something that's no more special. Yeah, it's very interesting. Very, very interesting. There's a lot of stuff from that, from that workshop. So I want to, I wanted to mention this. And we get, you know, running out of time because we've almost been going for two hours. So I want to mention it because it might be useful to other people, other photographers. I chose your workshop obviously because you're an amazing photographer, but specifically your workshop because I was a. And, and still am very much a more documentary style photographer, more candid. And I never wanted to be the sort of photographer that did that because I didn't know how to do anything else. So I wasn't going to go and do a document, a workshop with a documentary wedding photographer. I wanted to go and do work on my weaknesses, which is why I chose yours. Posing more finesse. And while I didn't become a photographer that really posed people because I was not great at it, what it helped me with was seeing either before I take the photo or even while I'm going through images, we're seeing things that I never saw before, hand placement, all that sort of stuff. And I just wanted to mention that because it was. It's something that I think a lot of people fall into the trap of going to workshops of people that are the same style as them just to get a little bit better at that style rather than going to a workshop of something that you're weak at to open up a whole new element. Oh yeah, shooting. [01:46:26] Speaker B: Yep. [01:46:26] Speaker C: Yeah. No, I really appreciate that. Thank you, thank you for that. Comments. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. [01:46:32] Speaker B: It's something that we've been talking about this week a lot because we've been talking to a lot of the upcoming BFOP workshops instructors. We're actually interviewing all of them for the BFOP Australia website. And that came up quite a bit about we sort of would ask what advice would you give people going to be maybe for the first time. And it was don't choose a workshop that you think you'll like, go for something that you've never heard of before or go for something that you know is a weakness for you because that's when you'll learn the most. [01:47:02] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. I mean it's interesting because I do a lot of conferences and then they've got choices to, to, to learn from a lot of people or it's literally like I did a workshop recently in Tucson where everyone gets a chance to do every workshop, but rather than just do it once to the whole audience, you're doing the teacher just doing it four times in smaller groups, which is very effective. And so people get to sort of look at it and then all of a sudden like you get a newborn photographer all of a sudden wanting to shoot weddings or a newborn wanting to do performers or Yeah, I mean, you know, you bake a lasagna, great. How much better can you make it? Okay, 10% better, 5%? But those like, what happens if you can make a completely new, new dish? You might fall in love with that cuisine. And so with posing, people sometimes dismiss it because there's a, it's demonized, it's mechanical, it's orchestrated. And I'm like, well, I'm sorry, you're saying to me that this girl wants to look natural, that because that's what she says. No, she just spent two hours on hair and makeup. [01:48:04] Speaker B: Yeah, there's no natural anymore. [01:48:06] Speaker C: Yeah, like, I'm sorry. Like, okay, documentary news, you know, news related. But even new stuff, the way you crop and you compose, you're telling a different truth. Like, yeah, I remember Prince William. I I the classic example, there's a photograph of him where he's talking to someone, he's giving a gesture and saying, you know, there's three something like you could say, hey, I don't know I want three of this. Whatever. It doesn't really matter. Pick anything. So he's having a conversation. So one photograph was taken on this side doing this, and then one was this. [01:48:49] Speaker B: So, yeah. Yep. [01:48:50] Speaker C: What's true? One says, up yours, as we say in Australia, like, one is giving the bird and one is actually giving a gesture of three. So even. Even photojournalism, pure photojournalism, it's only a fraction of the truth. What truth are you saying it? Like, in America, we call it the Vietnam War. In Vietnam, it's the American war. Well, which is it? So, yeah, so what I'm getting at is the truth. And you may remember, Justin, in my. In my workshop, and I showed a bride who was. Who was plus size, very depressed. And she was literally like, jerry, you know, I'm overweight and depressed. Good luck today. And this is. If this is as good as I look, then hopefully you can come up with something. And I quickly changed the energy. I built trust. And it took me a while to take that first photograph, but it was actually really, really good. And what am I saying? Well, you shoot with a technique of a master, with the empathy of a saint. Or what does that mean, the technique of a master? You know, your stuff. You know, to pose, light composition, cropping, technical. All that stuff that the. The empathy of a saint means. See, if I say we're all children of God, you're all beautiful just the way you are. And yes, there's truth to that. But I'm sorry, we all want a skinny jean day. We all want a clean skin day. Like we. You know, most women will at least put some foundation and eyeliner on like this. There's just norms that we're used to. But I can't ignore someone telling me, jerry, I hate my nose. Don't shoot a profile. And then I say, what's wrong with your nose? It's beautiful. And I shoot profile shots all day. They're gonna hate my shots and themselves. [01:50:32] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:50:33] Speaker C: So that's what I'm saying is technique of a master, empathy of a saint. And when you're photographing people that, you know, empathy is. You're going to be your biggest asset. A better lens is not going to do anything. It might be fun, but, yeah, empathy is the most underrated asset you can have. And you can train yourself to be more empathetic. I know that sounds funny, but some people by nature are. But you can train yourself to be more empathetic. [01:50:57] Speaker B: So I think so. Yeah. So, Justin, that. That was more for you that the Next time you feel like buying yet another 50 millimeter lens, you should stop and practice your empathy. [01:51:08] Speaker A: That's the other funny thing. So I get go and do this workshop where the, the amazing photographer doesn't shoot with a 50 at all. And I think I own seven or eight 50 mil lenses right now. So, you know. [01:51:22] Speaker C: Well, to be fair, I have a 50 millimeter f 1.4, so. Oh, nice. For filmmaking you sort of need that range. Like, like sometimes I'll, if I'm doing filmmaking and I need a wide range, I might get the. I think it's a 28 to 135, like where there's an internal zoom, you know. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I never use it, but I don't own, you know, I don't just buy lenses for the sake of it. If I'm going to use them, great. If not, you know, and also when you're traveling, if you're getting primes, they're all heavier. So it's actually not in my interest to carry all those freaking big fat lenses because it's going to be tough, you know, like that. [01:51:58] Speaker A: Nick, the Nikon 51.2, that thing is a monster. [01:52:02] Speaker B: It's. [01:52:02] Speaker C: Oh, it's beautiful. [01:52:03] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:52:03] Speaker C: I mean I, I, I do love it and I do, I have shot quite a bit with it, but. Yeah, and I'll probably pull a trigger on that one day, but not just, you know, not at the moment. [01:52:12] Speaker B: Yeah. Just a quick comment here from Sam. Getting back to Jerry's workshop. Did Jerry's Melbourne workshop twice. Unfortunately, both times were after my tour, a trip to Afghanistan, which is actually a tour and the PTSD was really bad and so I have very little memory of who else was on the workshop. So. You're not very memorable, Justin. [01:52:31] Speaker A: I think I'll do some research. Samantha. I reckon, I reckon there's a chance we're on the same workshop. That'd be crazy. [01:52:36] Speaker B: Yeah. Wouldn't it? [01:52:37] Speaker A: Small. [01:52:38] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:52:40] Speaker A: What about tell. Can we, do we have time to talk about. [01:52:44] Speaker C: I got, I've got plenty of time. You guys go for your life. So if your audience will appreciate it value wise, let's go for it. Whatever you want to ask again, I'll, I'll try to not ramble. I apologize. [01:52:55] Speaker B: Please. [01:52:56] Speaker C: I'll be brief and to the point. [01:52:58] Speaker A: I want to know about how you got into entering for photographic awards and getting involved in that scene, whether it's through the aipp, WPPI and, and all of that throughout your career and how that Helped things. But also, where do you see that world now and what are you doing in that world now? [01:53:18] Speaker C: Yeah, very, very interesting. So, I mean, the aipp. So think of it for those in America, think of it like PPA or WPPI or in England, it's like swpp. It's a photo photography organization. Obviously it's a shell of what it was back when I was sort of growing up in the industry, but an industry or an organization committed to really elevating photographers, providing a platform. But ultimately a big part of it was having a state awards and then having national awards. And as I sort of got involved and everyone said, oh, you got to join the A P. So you, you develop your tribe and, you know, your network. And then I just started entering and I think my first entry was in 99. I want to say the first year I entered in my state awards, I think I got the highest scoring entries of a newcomer, so that I won the Ian Hawthorne Award. It was a specific award about the highest entry for a newcomer. And that just sort of started my journey. I sort of got addicted to the process. You know, the state awards would happen, national awards would happen, and I just kept on entering and sort of. You accumulate accreditation points for those who don't know what, what that means. It's. Think of it like you can enter four entries every year and you get certain scores which contribute points and then you grow in your accreditation. So you would become an associate, a master, and then a master with one gold bar, two, three. And then eventually you can become grandmaster. Then early in my career, my competition career, you want to call it, and my career for that matter, like there was this big organization that attracted 15, 20,000 photographers in America. I'm like, America just, you know, young, young Australian, Greek kid growing up in Melbourne. America was just so exotic to me, you know, like, oh my God, I see it in movies and whatever. And maybe you guys still do too, you know, even to me, a certain part of me drives past the Strip in Vegas here and I'm like, that's really freaking cool. So I entered WPPI for the first time. I think this is 2002. And I got a call from Mercury Megaludis. I don't know if you know him, but Mercury. And he says, jerry, your album just scored perfect 100. And I freaked out because I don't know, you know, you don't know where you stand in the, in the pecking order. And it doesn't mean that I'm. I was the best photographer of that Year, it just means on that day, judges judge this and whatever happened, in the end, I won the grand award, which is sort of like the best of the albums. Like, you win a first place in a category and then they go up against each other and then you have the grand. So then I won. And then the year after I showed up, you know, so I physically went to Las Vegas, I think, for the first time, and I got invited to speak, thinking that no one's going to show up. And that room was packed. It was a thousand people in the room. And I had a bit of a knack for public speaking and teaching and. And then my audience sort of grew. And then just that year when I went there for the second time, I won the grand award again. And then just every year, the goal was I need to get a trophy. It's not for the bragging rights or the ego. That was just the symbol of my commitment. So then, as you know, Justin, in my workshops, I sort of show my evolution of where I started and where I got to. Not so much for, here's what I want. An award. No, here's a landmark album that I did or a photograph that really helped evolve my journey. And yeah, man, that. That happened for many, many, many years. And there's a lot more to it. But I'll tell you the rest of the story. But if. Did you want to ask any questions before I go to that next part? Because. No, no, that. [01:56:56] Speaker A: That's probably the main thing. I want to find out what, what it. How it started. And then also. Yeah, it's great that you touched on the. I think it was wedding photography for me, it can get. While there's always something special happening on the day and putting my focus in that was always able to make me excited about capturing these people on this day. I think having I never entered any awards or anything, and it's a little bit of a regret and. Because I think it might have given me drive to push myself in. In new and different directions and that would stop feeling like it's kind of a little bit rinse and repeat, you know what I mean? Like where it's like, yep, I've been to this venue before. The people are different and I'll do a great job. But I'm not necessarily breaking new ground because, yeah, it's. [01:57:49] Speaker C: Well, let me, Let me. Let me touch upon it something. It's just really important that you sort of said that. See, if you're running your own business, which most photographers tend to want to do, and I don't know why. We're one of the industries where everyone wants to own their own business and very few want to actually just show up and work and get money and walk away. That's another podcast, I'm assuming. But what I'm getting at is we're very isolated. We don't, we're not really exposed to other things, other people, and you'll only grow so far. I can unequivocally say without a doubt that I would not be the photographer I am without competition. Is it because now you might say, jerry's easy for you because you want to lose wards? No, I, I felt this way in the beginning. [01:58:29] Speaker A: Why? [01:58:30] Speaker C: It became a symbol of my dedication and my commitment. And a date. There was a date in the calendar that I had to enter this by this date because I'm so driven. Not so much about being a world beater and being the best. No, it was, how good can I get? What's the, what's my best effort? How can I reinvent myself? So every year I would try something different and, and I say humbly, but I, I believe to be true, that I help popularize many ways of shooting, not just in the wedding industry, portraits and albums and, and stuff. But so imagine, like imagine now, for example, okay, Wimbledon's happening right now. You've got Djokovic, freak of nature, he's almost 40 and he's in his semi final now. Can you imagine what the world of tennis would have been if he was just a great tennis player but never decided to compete? Like, okay, you're a great player, well done, you're the best in our community. But what would tennis be like without the likes of him, Federer, Nadal? You know, there's a, it's a whole generation that have Learned from literally three or four guys in the past 20 odd years. Obviously the same with Serena Williams and many others. I'm just giving you sort of one example, but certainly want to be all inclusive. But so what I'm getting at is so for us, so what happened was that we were so involved in competition. So from an entrant, as a judge, as a chairperson, and then one year at wppi, wrong images got read out with wrong names like it was a shit show. Like imagine the Oscars now where three, there's three, four big mistakes rather than that one big mistake happened a few years ago. [02:00:12] Speaker A: Yeah. [02:00:12] Speaker B: Oh yeah. [02:00:14] Speaker C: And then I said to the director at the time, he'd looked like a burnt out rodeo clown. And I say that with respect, but he'd Looked after the awards night, he had his bow tie just off kilter. And he just looked beaten because he was savaged by everyone who he affected that night. And then I'm like, this needs to evolve. This competition needs to evolve. You need you. We, we need. Do you need my help? He says, yes. So stupid. Me and Melissa, we, like, I know how to reinvent wppi. We need to make the categories more relevant, expand the categories. We have to allow composites over here, non composites over here. We have to ask for a RAW file so we know you're not cheating. There's an in camera artistry award. So we literally judging the RAW file out of camera. There's something for everyone. So now the problem was back then too, their accreditation system. I remember the first year that they had WPPI had an accreditation system. This is no shit. Within one year, because I could afford to, and I was decent enough. I entered like 50, 60 images. 50 of them were awarded. I ended up becoming a master overnight at wppi. That was my goal. But then I said to myself, this is stupid. It was hollow. It was a hollow victory. I should not be a black belt in karate aft within a year. In like, ridiculous. So then I'm like, so what happened was just one day. They just stopped it because it was irrelevant. No one gave a. It was. It was just the accreditation wasn't part of it at all. So then I'm like, well, no, we need to have accreditation. And back then you could get as many images as you want. But I like the Australian model, where the top, you know, your four images get in there. What I didn't like about Australia is you can only enter four images. Well, what happens if I want to play the field and submit 10? So we said, yeah, the top four scoring images get contributing to your honors of excellence. We call it honors of excellence. So, so now we've got associate, we've got a master double, master triple, and then grandmaster. And so now it took us. This is no joke. It took us six months out of our life and our business to backdate everyone's points. So I'm like, okay, you've got to prove to me that you entered a certain number of images per year and tell me what score it got and prove it to me. Either it's by a book, email certificates, and then now, now we've got a working model. Now we know where everyone is at. You're a master, you're an associate, whatever. [02:02:41] Speaker A: Wow. [02:02:41] Speaker C: Long story short, we really, like, we maintained the it being The Oscars of. Of our industry. The wedding and portrait industry. And then, you know, the problem is that the conference of WPPI is made up of three things. Conference, trade show, competition. When one individual owned it, it was fine, because it doesn't matter where the money came from. It just came. The problem is that this competition would cost a couple hundred grand to run. 60 judges, eight rooms over two days. Av, sound, mics, people, hotels, whatever. And then it was just too expensive to run. So they literally, about four years ago, they canceled it. Now imagine if the Oscars just got canceled and no one took over it. Now we were managing it for no pay for 10 years. The prince would physically come to our home in Vegas. Oh, yeah. Oh, I didn't know. [02:03:36] Speaker A: That's crazy. [02:03:37] Speaker C: Yeah. Well. Yeah, 10. Well, the years that we're in Vegas because we said, why is everyone shipping to New York? And then, why is New York shipping to Vegas? We live here. Ship it to us. And again, a gift to the community. We didn't get paid for it. Then the competition canceled, and we're like, now what? And everyone looked at Melissa and I and said, what are you guys going to do about it? I need to think because, like, sometimes my genius is my curse. My empathy will screw me and has screwed me in the past. So. So then I'm like, well, I need a company that can outlast the organization. So this will be my business. Not that it makes a crazy amount of money, but this will be my business. Then I can make a decision. I don't have to ask anyone. And wppi, if you want to house it, let me know. Yes, Jerry, but it costs. Well, tell me what it costs and I'll get sponsors. And three years, you know, four years ago now, Melissa and I created the Icon Awards. So if you go to a website, Icon Awards, spelled correctly icon awards dot com. And we created the Icon Awards. So we are WPPI's premier competition and basically the top four scoring entries of your entries. So literally, we're about to launch August 1st for this year. So we're like, how do we succeed where WPPI had failed? Because everything was in print back then. So now what we do is it's digital first. You enter in August and September. You enter digitally first you get your scores. You can get critiques. You can. You. You get your emblems, your digital certificates. And then if you get top 10 of a category now, you're invited to enter the physical print competition, which is held at WPPI now because it's only 240 prints. It's done in one room over two days. And that means now we can broadcast live and that's what we've done. So now you could literally go back under. You know, I won't bore you with it now, but you can click on the resources and then you can click on live judging and awards night and then we literally will do an awards night like the Oscars. I have local performers. We have the Icon nations cup where we get 10 entrants submitting four images each from a country. Now you're eligible to be, you know, in, into the Icon Nations Cup. And you know, so we give trophies, we, we give incredible 50, $60,000 worth of prizes. We're producing a book of, of the, of the awards. As you can see right there. It's a big deal and it takes a lot of work. And that's another thing we're doing. It's, it's, it's very community driven. It's not self serving. I mean, I shouldn't be doing this, but I do, I could make a lot more money doing something else. But this is, it seemed like a gift that I have to give back to it, to an industry and, or you know, an organization that gave me so much and people die for this stuff, man. They enter and they wear their heart and their sleeve and you know, we just did a survey to our community just recently and say, how can we serve you better? What, how is there a way that we can make this better for you? And we've got some crazy awesome ideas and we're implementing them and we don't have to talk to anyone about it. Melissa, I have a conversation. Great, that sounds good. Let's do it. It the biggest part of this, and I know that you guys are all about teaching photographers. If you click on critiques, so the top menu bar, okay, you know, you know, you, there's certain organizations that you can get critique done right, where you pay for a critique and only the individuals that's paid for the critique gets the critique. And I'm like, that's stupid. Why wouldn't anyone be able to learn from this? So what we've done is you pay a certain amount of money, you get a critique, but it's public, your name's not attached to it. But everyone can learn from the critique. If you want it private, you're going to pay us $5 more. Literally right now there's 1400 images already critiqued. [02:07:36] Speaker A: So, so I can, I can look at any of these and. [02:07:39] Speaker C: Yep. And if I. [02:07:41] Speaker A: If I play one. [02:07:42] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, click. Click on anything. Go for it. [02:07:45] Speaker A: It won't like copyright strike me or anything on YouTube or something. Let's check this bad boy out. So I click on here. I don't know if the sound and stuff will work. We'll see. [02:07:56] Speaker C: That's okay. [02:07:57] Speaker A: Is that going to work? Tell me if you can hear it. [02:07:59] Speaker C: Thank you for submitting this image. [02:08:01] Speaker A: Cool guy with a passionate heart. [02:08:02] Speaker C: This image scored a 77, which is standard practice. Good saleable work consistent with standard professional practice. And I think overall there's some nice things happening. It's very solidly executed image. [02:08:12] Speaker A: We've got some nice color theory. [02:08:14] Speaker C: The cold and the warmth complement. I think it's very flattering image on the physique, which I think is very much its intention. But let's go ahead and jump into some areas of critique where I think we could potentially look at refining some things and making it have a little [02:08:28] Speaker A: bit more impact overall. [02:08:30] Speaker C: So as far as an overall flow of this image, I think what you have is kind of this, this V ish pull down here with the lines and then you have kind of a vertical line. So you see how there's annotations there. [02:08:45] Speaker A: Yeah. [02:08:45] Speaker C: Where the, the, the critique can actually leave like leave arrows cropped differently or like a little comet and can just, you know, annotate their fingers. And I'm so proud of this because it is. And I don't even ask for your email to get to. You know, this is not a clickbait thing. It's. Anyone can go on this website right now, go to their favorite instructor or their favorite genre and then literally watch three to five minute videos. So if you sort of look at the, look at the categories there, you can just click on a genre or even on there, you know, on there as a critique and it's fantastic, dude. So every year we do it and I think by next year we'll have 2,000 images in there critiqued. [02:09:28] Speaker B: So. [02:09:28] Speaker A: So cool. [02:09:30] Speaker B: Such a great resource for people because [02:09:33] Speaker A: I'm just so, so not busy and I've got so much time on my hands. I'm trying to start doing pet photography. I want to do like in studio. [02:09:42] Speaker C: Pet. Pet photography genre. Very lucrative. Absolutely. [02:09:45] Speaker A: And is it. Oh, I'll talk to you about that in a second. But yeah, this is, this is gold. So I can just like scroll through here and press play on any of these and hear what. That's awesome. How is it? How did I not know about this? [02:09:59] Speaker C: You know, you know, I, I don't know, I think you're too busy selling straps and you don't give a. [02:10:06] Speaker A: No, it's just, it's just because I'm so, I'm so detached from the. And since this podcast I'm getting much more into that world, but I'm so detached from the. What's it called? I'm sorry, they're mowing my community, the [02:10:19] Speaker C: industry and you know. [02:10:20] Speaker A: No, no, not that very much into the, the, the award side of things. I just never got into that world. So I sort of lost track of what was happening as the AIPP sort of tapered down. Lost track of what was going on there. And then. Yeah, just kind of went into a, went into a little bit of a dark hole for a few years where I was mainly focusing on, on Lucky and, and stuff like that. But then since this podcast, like the last few years. Yeah. Seeing what's out there and available is, is just been blowing my mind. And this is one of those things that's just blown my mind that you can just scroll through. [02:10:52] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:10:53] Speaker A: And just say, oh, what did they say about this image? How could it have been? What was it? What was good about it? And how could it be better in this person's opinion? Because it's. Obviously it's all opinion, but these are educated opinions. [02:11:04] Speaker C: Yeah, it's a, it's subjective, but you're getting someone who, who knows their, their stuff and they, and they're sharing their, their perspective. But any competition in the world is not worth anything without asking for a RAW file. We, we've been, we've insisted on that for literally 14 years now, way before AI and to be honest, like we still get some images and say how on earth, like how on earth was that credit on camera? And they show us the RAW file and then they'll show us sometimes behind the scenes or we even ask for hey guys, I believe you. But just so that some people, other people will question you, I want to be able to prove that this is actually done. You know, it was real. So I say give me three images that were shot before and after this image. So we want to know that when you're entering the right, you know, if you win, you deserve to win. The cream rises to the top. But the amount of people that create things in camera, because we literally have a composite non composite category and an in camera artistry award, people are going to extraordinary lengths to create things that they would never have have tried to achieve if the awards didn't exist. So it's literally pushing and lifting the industry in ways in the ripple effect that, you know, I humbly say, but very proudly say that, you know, the industry wouldn't be the same without organizations like ours or the influence of WPPPI and the AIPP, which was probably the gold standard, I think, in many ways. But I just grabbed the best of everything. I listened to the community. How can we make it better? And we're in that sort of slight reinvention stage right now. We're not going to change things drastically, but we have a really good formula and yeah, man, we're very proud of the work that we've done there. [02:12:46] Speaker B: Yeah, it's amazing. [02:12:48] Speaker A: That's so good. All right, just quickly, before we move on, one of my other topics. So you mentioned pet photography. You reckon it's quite lucrative. Why do you say that [02:13:00] Speaker C: name? Okay, so think of all your friends, all your family that have pets and let's call them, let's. Namely dogs, right, because that's where you're going to get the most, the easiest way of shooting. Because cats are hard to photograph and lizards are pretty boring. Most dog parents will do anything for their babies. I, I call them my babies. I don't have human kids. I have two golden doodles, 1 6, 1 7. They're a massive part of my life and I would spend more money on them than myself. In a sense, that, and a lot of people who do have, you know, like, also, they're not going to survive forever, right? Like, you're gonna, you are gonna witness the most beautiful joy and the most biggest heartbreak in your life with a pet. So people want to immortalize that. And there is so many people thriving on just photographing dogs full time, literally just doing nothing. But that's. And, and there's many ways of monetizing. And again, that's probably another podcast or a seminar or something like that, but just know that there's many people making a killing and, and yes, it's, it is a formula. And I mean, you've probably seen those dog treat catching images. People kill for that shit. And it's not that difficult. Put two lights on the side, one on the front. Throw a treat. How bad can it be? I mean, you know, even a shit shot of something that you love is still desirable. [02:14:24] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. [02:14:25] Speaker B: Very true. [02:14:27] Speaker A: Dispel my fear, if you can, that people will just take photos of their pets on their phone and AI will be able to then make it look like it was, you know, shot in studio by a professional. And they'll be like, oh, that's good. Enough. I'm not going to pay, you know, thousands of dollars for. [02:14:44] Speaker C: Yeah, but I mean, look, does that happen now? I mean, we've all seen those trends where, you know, you get. You can put your own face in there, and all of a sudden you're dancing in front of a crowd like, it's funny, it's gimmicky, but people will always come back to authenticity. I don't want to remember my dog is fake. My dog gives me joy, or my dogs give me joy all day. Every day in summer right now, for six months of the year, five months, I'm in the pool. Like, right after this call, I'm jumping in the pool with my. One of my babies. Dive bombs me. And it's a big dude. I've got the best video. I might even show you. Actually, it's the funniest thing. Oh, actually bring up. So just while I'm telling the story. So go to my. Go to my Instagram, so jerrygionis.com or instagram.com forward slash jerrygionis. And then before you even share it, like, don't. Just click on my story highlights and you'll see where it says my babies. Oh, yeah, click on it. And then just press pause. And then. Anyway, what I'm getting at is if you're a dog person, you're obsessed. If you're obsessed, if you had an incredible shot of your babies that you know that you're going to outlive, most likely, that's priceless. And there are so many communities that you. There's a whole culture that you don't know. Like, my wife is part of doodle groups in Las Vegas and she'll have doodle meetups. Yeah. So, yeah, this will be. [02:16:16] Speaker A: Were you originally worried when you first saw her on her phone doodle meetups. [02:16:19] Speaker C: And you're like, it does seem a little bit phallic and stuff like that. I totally get that. But. But. But what I'm saying is there's a massive culture. Like, they were going to a doodle meetup where they rent out a whole pool, and you've literally got a hundreds of dogs jumping in the pool and having fun dog trainers. It's massive. Like that. They will train 40 dogs a year. Press this. This is my life, by the way. This is my life in about. In about half an hour. So click on this one. Literally, I'm gonna re. I'm gonna recreate this in about 30 minutes. Watch. Oh, no way. [02:17:03] Speaker B: Yes. [02:17:04] Speaker A: That's so good. [02:17:06] Speaker C: That's gold. Yeah, man. So. And Then you'll see I've got, I've got other stuff there. But anyway, like I'm saying, it's massive. It's massive. You can make a kill. [02:17:19] Speaker A: Okay, well, that's, that's very encouraging because I, I, I'm going to do it anyway because I can do it. Sort of I'll set up a studio from home to do it. So it's not like I have to rent a big space and sort of for a big, you know, commitment to start. And I've already shot, done, done a few shoots. But every now and then that, that thought creeps into my mind where I'm like, oh, is this, are the days numbered of this kind of thing where people would invest in it and yeah, it's safe. [02:17:43] Speaker C: It's safe. Boudoir is the same. Boudoir is crazy comeback thriving right at the moment. Absolutely. [02:17:50] Speaker A: It's funny you say that, but Jim, the partner, my partner in the weddings, that's what he's launching at the moment. He spent the last year and a half, two years trying to grow a new brand for Boudoir specifically. And he's still in the finding. Like, he's done shoots and the shoots are looking great and everything, but finding his feet with regards to pricing models and things like that and attracting clients because it's not that well known. We're in bendigo, regional town, 100,000 people. So it's sort of, you don't have the pool of people that you've gotten a bigger metropolitan city. [02:18:26] Speaker C: Sure, sure. [02:18:27] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:18:27] Speaker C: But, but there'll be more than he thinks, though. Like, whatever you think. There's more than what you think. [02:18:33] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. [02:18:34] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:18:36] Speaker A: Okay, so speaking of life, what have you learned about. So you obviously do a lot of work with Melissa, your wife. Over the years, she's been very much involved in, I'm guessing, almost everything. That everything is a business. What, what, what have you learned about working with a partner in business and working together on projects? And [02:19:00] Speaker C: that's a great question. You have to, you can't force your personal life to cross over in your business life. I have so many people come up to me and say, oh, my God, I love the way you work with Melissa. I'm going to get my wife or my husband to quit their work and work with me full time. We fit like a glove. And I didn't even know how well we fit, even, like after we got married, in a sense that, yes, we fit like a glove. And you, you know, this is my life partner, blah, blah, blah, all that Kind of stuff and all the emotion. Yes, but in terms of business, the, the best thing that Melissa did say, it's hard to explain. So she came to my workshop as well. So we met at a seminar in 2006, and I ended up photographing her with her ex partner. And we all got to know each other. And I had an ex as well. I. I got married very, very young, made a mistake, all that kind of stuff. But I got. I was married for 16 years, Melissa was married for 11, but we literally broke up on the exact same day with no knowledge of each other having problems, let alone breaking up. Now, call that God, Karma, Buddha, whatever you want to call it. You know, there's a. That's a long story, but again, maybe not for another time. But she never did photography because she loved the art of it. She got into photography because her ex husband did, or husband at the time. And then she just said, let's just, you know, everyone's advertising a husband and wife couple. Let. Let me just do that. But she never really was obsessed with the creative process. And she's not, and I say this with respect to her, she's not creative at all. But she's an executor, like nobody's business. Like, she can type 120 words a minute. She can do several things at the same time. Most women can, obviously men can't. But she's a. She's a killer. She's incredible. But I come up with the ideas she executes. I'm not saying I'm not involved in the execution process, but we fit like a glove. But we are so in tune with what each other needs to get the job done and, or have a fruitful relationships. A relationship, whether it's, you know, life partner, business partner, lover, best friend, but we are all those things to each other. So I'm very, very, very grateful. And it's probably the only thing that I'm arrogant about. I have the best relationship that I know and have ever known. [02:21:33] Speaker B: So that's a lovely boast. That's a very lovely boast. Yeah. [02:21:37] Speaker C: Thank you. Yeah, yeah. So I literally raspberry. Like I'm in what we call the zoom room. And this is where I do zoom calls or I do inquiries, I do my talking head, you know, content and all that kind of stuff. But usually we're downstairs in one of the bedrooms in our house and we work together all day, every day. And then four, five o' clock comes, we are done. No more working weekends. We don't shoot weddings. We do not work. I don't care how much work we have on. And we protect it. We protect it with our life, like, and we will be each other's barometer. But to be honest, it's so organic now. Like, sometimes we'll, like, it's 4 o'. [02:22:18] Speaker A: Clock. [02:22:18] Speaker C: We're like, you done for the day? Yeah, I want to jump in the pool. Let's jump in the pool. Let's do it. Boom. And. And I'm just saying, man, you're not gonna, on your deathbed, you're not gonna say those emails that I answered, you know, or that problem that I had to solve, like, no, you know, we protect our peace with everything and we protect our happiness. And I, I live an incredible life and 95% of it's got to do with my life partner. The fact that I do what I love with photography and teach and I inspire people, then that's all incredible and a bonus. But also, we're doing it together. There's no what have I learned? What have I learned? Among many things, there's no you, me, there's us. There's no, you screwed up, I won, you lost. We either win together, we lose together. We both take, we take ownership for the wins and the losses. And I think too many people in this industry, they get obsessed with photography, then they turn into a business, and then they don't realize that they should be thinking like a business person in photography rather than a photographer in business. You know what I mean? Like, it's a different world and most people are always aiming for something. I'll be happy when I get that car, when I get that house, when I get that job, when I quit my full time job. I mean, I'm happy now. I'm like, I live my dream every day. Do I have bad days? Sure. Do I feel anxious at times? Here and there, sure. But are they limited? Yes. You know, I have health issues, which I'm sort of going through, but I'm trying to make a change. You know, I'm trying to, how do I make this better? Like, there's always things, but I think that progress is, that is the key to anything. And. But that's the same thing with relationships, is how do you work together, how do you grow together? And once you have it, I literally want it for everybody. Like, I want everyone to experience the same happiness that I've had in my lifetime. Yep. [02:24:12] Speaker B: It's a wonderful sentiment. Absolutely. [02:24:14] Speaker A: Yeah. [02:24:15] Speaker C: Thank you, mate. [02:24:16] Speaker A: Yeah. Amazing. I'm almost like, is that, should we, should we leave it there? And not, and not taint this podcast with any. That was, that was a great way to. A great topic to finish on. I'm trying to see on my notes if I've got other things that I. Well, there was lots of other stuff, but I don't know. [02:24:32] Speaker C: You can also rapid fire. You can limit me to like one sentence answers if you want to. If you want, you want to rapid. Like sometimes, sometimes in podcasts that there'll always be a rapid fight. I'm like, I'm happy to limit it to a phrase, but I do like to get deep because that's who I am. So I, I do believe [02:24:49] Speaker A: that's what we prefer. [02:24:50] Speaker C: We. [02:24:50] Speaker A: We. So we, we do these short interviews for the Bright festival of photography and we've got to keep them to like 15 to 20 minutes. And it's that we struggle so bad. We're just like, we, we just want every topic that comes up. We just like, oh, we could do a half an hour on that. [02:25:03] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:25:03] Speaker C: So it's fun. [02:25:05] Speaker A: It's how we like to do it so quickly. Talking about your, your inventions. The ice light, which has had what, three versions or something, which. [02:25:15] Speaker C: Yeah, we're on our third version now. [02:25:17] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:25:17] Speaker A: For the, for those people that don't know, it's like a video light that looks, looked like a lightsaber. It was to my knowledge, one of the first ones or the first one to come out that had that shape. [02:25:31] Speaker C: It was the first one. Yeah. I created the category. It was, you know, the Australians were among the first photographers to use continuous lighting on their shoots. Now, I'm not saying on the wedding shoots, I'm not saying. I mean, obviously you've got George Harrell, you got photographers from decades ago that have been shooting with hot lights. They call them concept lights. The difference was that in wedding photography, there was no off camera flash. If you did off camera flash, you would have a long chord. And that was just too much trouble. And no one did that. And then videographers would have their video lights. And I'm like, I'm sick of asking them for the light. Let me just buy my own. So we were, you know, there's a handful of us that were among the first in the world to use video lights and constant lights on a wedding. Then I thought, how cool would it be to have a light that's, you know, small cylindrical form factor that I can hold up to a person that can. Vertical can be a bit sharper and horizontal can be a little bit softer. I can have barn doors cutaway light. How cool would that be? So I'm like, okay, do I do this all myself? Get an engineer or go to China, do whatever I do? Or do I go to an established company and, you know, get a cut of it rather than the whole pie? And I'm like, well, the way I see it, a slice of a watermelon is still bigger than an orange. So I went to Westcott. Yeah, people too greedy. If you can share the love, you have more longevity. But anyway, I, I go to Westcott, who were leaders of fluorescent lighting at the time. You know, high quality fluorescent lights. Fluorescent lights back in the days, all green and. But they were doing that amongst other stuff. And I got them to sign an NDA. I had the idea and what do you think? No one did it. There was no light sources like it. Tube lights. So then I patented, patented the idea. We trademarked the ice light. And then I've got to say, man, we fought off many companies. And if I had to say, I probably spent a hundred thousand plus dollars fighting people off in the beginning, I [02:27:37] Speaker A: was going to ask what that process is like and is it even possible? Like, is it, is it. [02:27:42] Speaker C: It's. It's almost feasible. Okay, well, that's what I'm saying. It's only, it's only your patent is only as good as your willingness to fight for it. And you could patent something across the whole world. So when you go to a country or a region, it just costs exponentially more money, more money, more money. So let's say if I patented the, the concept, which I did in America, I think in Australia, I think in China, but who do I send the email to to fight it? Who do I. Who responds to it? How do I fight him? In which court, like, it becomes almost impossible. Now, where it became an issue is when they were importing it to the States, because that's one of the biggest, if not the biggest, market for that kind of stuff. And I did. I'm not going to mention the company's names, but I fought quite a few off and to the point where I was willing to fight even more. And then thankfully, they said, all right, well, Jerry, let's at least sell the stock and we'll stop it, we'll stop doing it, blah, blah, blah. And we became the name for that form factor. So if you're a Kleenex, people say, I want a Kleenex. It could be any brand of tissue, but that's the Kleenex. And now people see that cylindrical light of the tube light and that's the ice light. So we achieved that. I wanted to have longer lights and longer ones than I told Westcott, but it's easy me to say, it's hard to implement, but sure enough, now you see them everywhere. Like, it's still this day, the most copied light of the past 25 years. Not 25 years, but 15 years. Like you, I will go to every convention, every trade show, and they're everywhere. So we released one last year. [02:29:17] Speaker B: I. [02:29:18] Speaker C: We modified it, we refined it. I. And my. My adversement was, you know, the first of its kind and still the best, you know, so I spent my energy on promoting it rather than fighting it, because I'll only get so far. And that's what happened. And. Yeah, so the ice light came to be, and I'm very proud of it. I mean, some of my, you know, my incredible memories in my career was literally, I remember Sir. Sir David Attra. David Attber. Richard David. [02:29:50] Speaker B: David. David Atten. Brazer. [02:29:54] Speaker C: Yeah. So. So I remember seeing him. He's a knight, and he's in the Galapagos Islands, illuminating his path with my ice light. And then. [02:30:03] Speaker A: That's cool. [02:30:04] Speaker C: You know, Ed Sheeran would be on Jimmy Fallon's show, and the lights were featured in the show with the Roots, the. The band that plays. And then movies, TV shows, all that kind of stuff. Like, I would see it and then people would send me, oh, my God, have you seen this? Whatever. And. And it was. It was fantastic. So I'm. I'm very. I'm very, very, very proud of it, because it's sort of part of, you know, part of the culture. Like, and then I'll see people, or I'll do a shoot on a wedding or something, and people will have a knockoff. I'm like, hey, how about respecting the. The inventor? I said, what do you mean? I go, the ice light. The ice light. That's you. I said, here. And then my name's on it and they freak out. So, yeah, it's pretty cool. It's. It's. It's. It's pretty cool. I'm very proud of that. And, yeah, like, going to B and H and seeing it everywhere in the world, it's. It's. Yeah, it's. It's pretty cool. [02:30:56] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. I think that's a brag that you're allowed to have when you. When you revolutionize a part of an industry, a whole industry, with such an ingenious solution. I think it's something you can definitely carry with pride. Absolutely. [02:31:08] Speaker C: Yeah, mate, it's been great. And then the second invention is the Omega reflector. [02:31:12] Speaker A: I had one of those. I had one. [02:31:14] Speaker C: Yeah. And then you've. So you probably don't have the new one. The new one, it's. It's a few years old now, but the. So if you go to omega reflector.com we. We've sold out and we're waiting for a new shipment come from China. So if everyone. Anyone's watching, still watching after all this time or watching a rerun. If you're. If, yeah. So if you, if you scroll down, it's pretty insane. So you went round. Yeah. So basically, if you look at that shot, this is a gorgeous girl. She's a very close friend of mine here in Vegas. So if you look at the shot on the left hand side, that's out of camera, backlit in a pool, then the, you know, the genius behind this invention is that, you know, it's the world's first 15 in one reflector. Most people have a five in one. But why is it a 15 in one? Well, you put a hole in it. And the hole in the donut is also a mini reflector. So now you can use the mini reflectors independent of the main unit or you can Velcro. The, the, the. The reflector on the main unit now becomes the normal five in one. Or you can shoot through with the hole. Now what that does is you need one light source behind the subject hits the back of the subject, there's backlight, hits the front of the reflector. And then you get these incredible catch lights. So you get the luxury of a beauty dish and the catch lights of a ring light. So if you scroll down, you'll start to see these, you know, the different effects. So like, this is also. It's the only reflector in the world, to my knowledge, that has a strap on it, which is so stupid because everyone has a loop. But we've all carried a reflector and put it between our knees in mid shoot. [02:32:44] Speaker B: Yes. [02:32:44] Speaker C: And it's the only reflector in the world that has a luggage sleeve. [02:32:48] Speaker A: Yeah, that's a great idea too, the luggage sleeve. [02:32:50] Speaker C: And then it's the only reflector in the world. If you scroll down one more like. So now it also includes a suction cup, which basically means if you've got sunlight coming through a window and you want to have a beautiful softbox, you just suction cup it. And now you've got a diffuser. And then if you're a wedding photographer, guess where you can hang the dress? Where you don't know where to hang it from. You just suction cup it to a window, put the dress on the window and boom, you've got a place. So, so then we, I just show you all the, you know, all the way, all the 15 ways of using it. So you see an example of, you know, shoot through white, shoot through silver and so on and so forth. [02:33:27] Speaker A: Yeah, the shoot through thing was, was pretty mind blowing. When I first saw it, I was like, that's genius. It's like having like a large, a ring light with a, with a diffuser, a softbox on it. Yeah, but you can use natural light or I think we even played with flash behind it sometimes. Yeah, yeah. And then I used that at weddings multiple times back, like sort of before it became really quick and easy to set up multiple off camera flashes, you know, as triggers and stuff got way more common and cheaper and stuff like that. You could just use one off camera flash somewhere behind the subject, do some nice rim lighting or whatever, backlighting, and then have the reflector just right there. Beautiful. Yeah, it was, it was really clever. I remember the first time I saw it, I was like, I got. I need that. [02:34:17] Speaker C: No, thank you, mate. Yeah, look, yeah, look, I'm, I'm very proud of that too. It's a killer product and anyone like this is obviously using with a flash. So, you know, you get this incredible edge light from your backlight, you know, softbox, and then it, the light comes back. So it's got that perfect ratio, speed light, whatever it might be. But yeah, I love it, man. It's one of the first shots that I'll take of almost anyone, because girls love it. Because straight away in camera they look incredible. And this is, these are out of camera. Like, this is just one speed light. This is in Docklands in Melbourne. One speed light. Behind that subject, I've got the bokeh of the. The fairy lights or Christmas lights in the US we call them in the, in the window and then bang, you get that kind of quality. So people say, well, why can't I just, you know, I deliberately shot with a girl with freckles to emulate acne, but you can sort of see how softer her skin is with that, with that light. But what was I going to say? [02:35:16] Speaker A: Why can't they just cut a hole in a reflector? [02:35:18] Speaker C: Is that what you're gonna do? Yeah, so you can cut a hole in your own reflector and you get a similar result. The problem is it'll fray very quickly and another, another USP on the reflector is every reflector in the world. The five in one will never have what you use most on the opposing sides. So everyone who knows how to shoot will always use a. Knows how to shoot. Anyone who shoots will know that white and silver is what you use the most of the problem is white and silver aren't on the opposing sides. The material is not made that way. So it costs more to produce a reflector that has white on one side, silver on the other, rather than have the sizes that you don't need. So that's why the reflector is also good because it gives you those sides. So you sort of know, like you with the strap, you know, you know when a photographer or an active working professional has designed something, because five minutes in the field you'll know straight away whether that that works or not. [02:36:13] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. And that's the difference. Because you, yeah, you're like, why can't I just flip this over and use the three other side that I want? And then why would anyone not make it? And then you have to go through the process to realize, oh, because it costs more. But then it's worth it if you're using it on every shoot. [02:36:27] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:36:28] Speaker C: So, yeah. So literally at the moment, what, what we're doing is We've created a 30 inch smaller version, but a normal reflector. And then people say, well, Jerry, what is the 30 inch version? How is it different to my reflector? It has white and silver on the opposing sides and collapsed. It fits perfectly in your computer bag. So if you're a wedding portrait photographer on location and you're not carrying your computer around, you've got this perfect little gap in your bag that you can quickly just, you know, you, you unfold and then you've got beautiful lighting. Too many people just. [02:36:59] Speaker A: Yeah, you wouldn't even need to put it, you wouldn't even need to put it back in the, in the case. If you slide it into the computer bag, you would need it to put it back in the, the COVID because it would hold it in there and then you can just pull it straight out. That's. [02:37:11] Speaker C: Yeah, so, so what we're doing now is that we're waiting on stock of a new batch, but we ordered a whole bunch of smaller ones. So if someone buys a reflector until I run out of that smaller stock, you get both that second one for free. So you get the 40 inch shoot through 15 in one, but then in the box we're going to give you a 5 in 1 smaller that fits in your computer bag. So cool. It's awesome. [02:37:34] Speaker A: Yeah, I just, I loved when people bring products to a market that. That would purely born out of. Just. I wanted this. That's. That's my favorite. They're my favorite stories from any stuff, you know, whether it's outside the photography industry. I just love it when someone just got obsessed about something because they're like, why? Why does no one make this? I need this. And then they go ahead and make it. It's cool. [02:37:55] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's fun. [02:37:57] Speaker B: But that's like your story, Jay, with. With lucky straps, you know, you. Yeah, you wanted to see better straps in the industry. You wanted people to have greater comfort. You wanted. Because you wanted it. You didn't want to be cameras all day and, and feel about it. You wanted to actually feel supported. [02:38:12] Speaker A: I wanted to go to a wedding or an event and have people say, that's. That's cool. As opposed to, you just have a big, you know, whatever. Because a lot of the straps are more tactical. Looking back then if they were comfortable or it was just the Canon or Nikon or whatever strap. And I just wanted, I wanted to be able to roll into an event and have it fit, you know, have it sort of look like an upgrade to what you're wearing as opposed to a downgrade. [02:38:40] Speaker C: Yeah, it's awesome. [02:38:41] Speaker A: Anyway. And be comfortable. Anyway. Anyway. [02:38:46] Speaker C: What else? [02:38:47] Speaker A: Anything else? There's so many different things. [02:38:52] Speaker B: There is a lot. [02:38:53] Speaker A: One quick thing I want to talk about was. Was your, your way of cropping in your workshops? Do you still. I think in ours, you. You got us to send a heap of images in beforehand, I think, of our own work. [02:39:09] Speaker C: That's right. [02:39:10] Speaker A: And then we had a session where we all sat and watched you crop the. Out of them to show what you might have done if you were us. Obviously you couldn't move around in 3D space to change the photo, but you were just like, hey, what if you just cropped it like this or went in way closer or went vertical or whatever. That is something that I've. I still do to this day with my own work when I'm like, what should I have done here? Like, what. Why doesn't this look the way that I was hoping to. I think it's a great exercise. Can you explain? Maybe I'm not explaining it very well. Like, how could someone do that for their own work at home? [02:39:47] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. No, it's a great question. This is the thing. Cropping, which ultimately means a different kind of composition, is the easiest way to Stand out because you can just do it like that, like whether it's after the fact. I, I recommend doing it in camera, otherwise you just go safe and you'd never decide to crop aggressively afterwards. You know, I, I do crop aggressively. The idea is that I have certain rules that I have for myself that will never fail me. So I'll give you an example. So, of a face, where do I crop? Well, if I crop myself here, it feels like my head goes on forever or I'm balding or both. So I'll never crop myself here into the hairline. No problem. I'm adding a vignette to the face and to the frame. It's no problem. Do I crop on the eyebrow? No, I allow a bit of breathing space above the brow. Not too much and not to a point. Also, depending on the ear type, sometimes you can crop here on a person, but it crops the ears off. I never want to crop a facial feature. So the eye is in or out, lips are in or out. The. No, the only time that I crop a face is halfway maximum. I include the whole nose, but never the eye socket. And this is where I, I show it people. If I crop here, it's like a superhero, like you're wearing a mask. The nose and the lips look good. Without the nose, the lips look weird and so on and so forth. Now I literally created a product recently because people love the way I created crop and it's called Good Crop, Bad Crop. It's a, it's a 100 plus page PDF book. It's like seven bucks. It's on Jerry G dot com. You actually even saw you. [02:41:31] Speaker A: You brought it up before went past it. [02:41:34] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. It shows you. So basically I teach people where to crop and how to crop and why and you know, and I'm about to do a body version where to crop. You know, once you pass the head, where do you crop? And then how do you associate it with multiple people? Yeah, it's really cool. I'm very proud of that. It's a, it's a skill or a part of the craft that I've been honing in for, for my entire career. And I just, I just don't see many people at all now or in history that really go for it, you know, maybe in cinema. So, yeah, if you so see the way it's all cropped so see how above the brow but not the ear. I'm cropping one eye in, one eye out. It's just the lips, it's half the face. You know, scroll Down a bit more so you sort of see how all of those images. There is a science to it. And, yeah, sometimes that cropping rule is not just with your camera, it's with shadow, it's with a. An object, like in this case, a window frame or hair. So I. I not only show, here's a good crop, bad crop, but let me show you many examples of why. And. And let me prove what I'm saying to you. This is just a handful, but if you go into the booklet, it's crazy. It's. There's, like I said, 100 pages of it. [02:42:54] Speaker A: Yeah. And it was really this kind of. This kind of stuff that opened your eyes to the shots that you could have taken. Often when you, you know, because you often do have a fair bit of time, sometimes before a wedding or something like that, to make some extra images if things are still happening, if makeup's still happening or whatever. But don't just keep making the same image over and over again from a slightly different angle of a, you know, a headshot. Get in really close on the lips or on the. Yeah. And it was stuff like that that I had never even thought of. And then what are the rules that we're at? Because you would know things look weird when you looked at the photos, but you don't always know why. But yeah, when you're like, oh, when it's just lips and you're like, that looks weird. [02:43:40] Speaker C: Yeah. I mean, here's the thing, though, that people will look at my work and say, what's that? Like, if I did not do the safe shot for the client and just did these crops. Yeah, that would be weird. [02:43:53] Speaker A: Yes. [02:43:53] Speaker C: Now, whether it's a mom or grandma or even a current young bride or young mother, what doesn't matter. Like, if I started to do these aggressive crops and not have that safe, clean looking in the camera, smiling or whatever, then, yeah, that's a problem. So, you know, I do what I have to do, do what I want to do. And I'm not saying the have to is not what I want to do, but it's just not challenging. It's safe. But the easiest way that you can change the perception of a shot is to really say, what am I trying to save with this crop? Am I emphasizing something? Am I cutting out context? Am I cropping to sell? What am I doing this for? And your whole world opens up. Your whole world opens up. [02:44:37] Speaker A: Brilliant. [02:44:37] Speaker B: Yeah. It's interesting. I've never really considered why that. That makes so much sense, just hearing it about you Know, what am I trying to do by creating this crop? This is what I saw when I took the shot. Why am I now wanting to. What did I miss then? You know, it's. Yeah, it's a really unique way to look at it, which is wonderful. [02:44:55] Speaker C: Thank you, mate. [02:44:56] Speaker B: Very cool. I'm very conscious of time here. We're just rolling up three hours. Just on the. On the precipice of three hours. It does go quick. [02:45:07] Speaker C: Let's make it. Let's make it three hours. Let's. Ten minutes. That's it. [02:45:11] Speaker A: Let's do it. [02:45:11] Speaker B: That's a last question, Jay. [02:45:13] Speaker C: So you can. So you can say it's three. Like, we went three hours on the three hours. [02:45:17] Speaker A: Oh, that'd actually be great. Title Three hours of photography Business gold. Yeah, that'll do. I'm already titling this for YouTube. Okay, where to from here? What do you. I saw on one of these. There was a. On, I think on the. One of the websites, there was something about your photo walks. Like, what sort of photo walks are they? I don't know if I've seen any of that sort of content from you. Are you talking like street photography photo walks, or are you talking about like a photo walk with a model around, out, out and about? [02:45:57] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, you. You pretty much answering the question there, but you've experienced it. So, you know the day two and three of the workshop that you went to, you remember how we just walked out of the. I think it was Docklands back then. We just walked out and we just went for a walk. And I didn't hire the best models, the best location, or bring out this crazy lighting. It was, let me just find magic everywhere. And so the idea is that, you know, I even did a recent tour with the ice light where I did a seminar of like, 90 minutes of here's how he's a masterclass in lighting. If you buy an ice light, come for a free night photo walk with me. And so we would meet at 8 o' clock and just get the ice lights out and go play. So the idea is that I diagnose what I'm doing and why I'm doing it. I go through those five steps that we discussed earlier in the podcast, and then I prove it. And the difference, Justin, between now and back then is pretty crazy. I have this awesome way of showing what I teach. So what I do is I have what we call affectionately Jerry Vision. So think of it like a field monitor recorder. Like, think of it like an Atomos monitor recorder. So what I do is on my camera, I have a transmitter, hdmi. It transmits my EVF footage to a monitor recorder and I just simply put it, put it on the light stand. So back. Back then, I'm sure, Justin, when I was photographing, I'd show the back of the camera and say, hey, guys, what do you think? [02:47:25] Speaker A: I reckon. [02:47:26] Speaker C: Or you were one of the first ones to get that experience. [02:47:29] Speaker A: No. With an iPad, maybe. And the photos were coming up. [02:47:32] Speaker C: Oh, yes, yes. Sorry. [02:47:33] Speaker A: I did this transmitting, but it was quite new or something. It was actually crazy. Greggs. So, yeah, so we're rocking around and like Jerry's shooting a model and talking about like what's happening and stuff. But we could see the images coming up, you know, straight out of camera JPEGs, which. Yeah, you were shooting JPEG still. [02:47:52] Speaker C: I was shooting JPEG only for a very, very long time. [02:47:56] Speaker A: So you. You shoot RAW now? [02:47:58] Speaker C: I shoot RAW and jpeg. Do I need to. Probably not, but is there more quality and more file and more dynamic range? Of course. So, I mean, you know, I'm doing it for the right reasons, but do I need to do it? Probably not. [02:48:13] Speaker A: Yeah. [02:48:14] Speaker C: It was, it was you. You would only see the image on the iPad, but you wouldn't see what I'm seeing in the settings. So now literally my EVF is here and when you re. When I record, I'm recording BTS and I'm recording the screen and it ends up being an incredible learning experience. I mean, it's insane. So if you're interested, just for shits and giggles, if you go to my Instagrams, I had a long social media break, but I'm back at it now three days in a row. Can you believe that? It's funny because if I tried, I would have a million followers right now. But I literally have year long breaks because I just. I don't give a. You know, I as in I. I love teaching and inspiring, but I'm living my own life and I'm not validation driven and you know, I don't rely on my work. So if you go to, for example. Okay, perfect. So click on the. What did I do today? Click on that. That's black. Now I've got to change the. Some reason it didn't allow me to change the. The profile. Agree. But click on that one. There you go. Oh, no, that's an older one. Sorry. Click out of that. Yeah. Now click on the middle one. The shadow of the girl. It's like five seconds long or nine seconds long. So see how. [02:49:31] Speaker A: Yep. You can see this, the evf, where it's focusing, actually. [02:49:35] Speaker C: Yeah, you know what? So my editor cropped it out. Go back to the other one. Go back to this, the third one. That one. The third one up to the right. That one. That's it. There you go. So you see how now it's a photo walk at nighttime. So this was actually in the car park of a camera store. So I had a couple. This is a, this is a car from my assistant. So you'll see me in a minute where you'll see the camera footage. So boom. So you're seeing the exposure data, you're seeing the EXIF data, and then boom, it's there. So, yeah, that's cool. That's been massive. So when a lot of the classes, if not all of them on jerrygionis.com almost all of them, you all see the EVF footage. And then on gunas.com where you just, you know, not really teaching, but you're watching me do real shoots, it's hard to put it because I'm shooting real gigs. It's hard to often shoot, you know, with, you know, I can't take away from the experience, from the people that I'm photographing. So I can't make my life, you know, harder just for the sake of the shoot. So. But yeah, man, that's, there's a lot of. I mean, there's, there's so much stuff, man. I, I, we, yeah, there's so much stuff. [02:50:46] Speaker A: God, I don't know how you stay on top of everything. Keep all the balls in the. I feel like I've got a lot, a lot going on at the moment. My life's normally pretty. Greg could attest to this. It's normally pretty sedate. I keep everything very control, don't take on more than I can handle on purpose. But, yeah, at the moment it feels a little bit out of control. And I can only imagine what it would be like having so many irons in the fire all the time, getting [02:51:15] Speaker C: pulled in different directions. You get to sort of focus on one at a time. And like I said, am I the poster child for niching? Probably no, but, but if I had to give my elevator pitch, it's simply bringing out the best in people. [02:51:29] Speaker B: People. [02:51:30] Speaker C: Whether I'm photographing you, whether I'm teaching you, I want to bring out the best in you. That, that's really my pitch. So doesn't matter what I'm doing, whether it's competition, whether it's, you know, as in running the competition, whether it's ice light. Whether it's omega, whether it's a wedding, portrait, fashion, commercial, boudoir, whether it's teaching in person, online, it's all about that. And there's weeks where I spend on one things and other, but usually it's a bit of a blend. I, you know, you put out the fires, what's urgent, what's weekly, what's monthly, and then I just give myself grace. I didn't get to everything that I wanted, but that's fine, you know. [02:52:06] Speaker A: You know, what are your thoughts on, on you just, you know, you mentioned niching like what are your thoughts on photographers that are, that are not. It doesn't matter what level they're at right now, but they're not where they want to be. So they might be just starting and they want to build a business and at the moment they're, you know, they're just doing it part time. They want to quit their job and go full time, or maybe they're already full time, but they're not earning what they want or they don't have the work life balance that they want. What are your thoughts around niching versus going broad and things like that? Do you have any advice for people that are in that spot where they're a bit stuck and they want to progress? [02:52:44] Speaker C: Yeah, I think that's, I think you've touched upon a very important point. I think in life in general, if you're not growing, you're not happy. We all want to grow, get better in any kind of way. Niching down, I think in some instances is fantastic. Like you want to be a pet photographer, then be the king or the queen of that in your area. Great. Sometimes some industries or genres in photography are seasonal. So sometimes niching in wedding photography, where it snows, well, that's not a good thing either. Or when it gets crazy hot. No one wants to get married in 40 degree heat or 110 degree heat here in the states. So I always recommend, you know, one, one niche is bread and butter. One is your dream thing. So let's say you do headshots and they're not really challenging. You can do them with your, your eyes closed. It makes you good money, but it keeps the bills getting paid and you can, you know, you have your life paid for. Great. And then you want to do stylized portraiture, then okay, let this buy you some freedom here. And then you. But I believe you should at least do two. You should at least be capable of two. Now that being said, there were many people that will just do one and make millions. And there'll be people that just do volume photography, sports photography, you know, like children photography, and they're making millions. That's great if you, if you want to do that. So everything comes at a cost. What are you prepared to pay? Your time, your energy, your creativity? What are you, what are you looking for? And, and that's the thing, is that this is a lesson in life, let alone photography. But what you're not changing, you're choosing what you're not changing, you're choosing. So something in your life is pissing you off. Change it. Change. If not, you're choosing it. And then you might say, well, I'm not in control of it. Well, you are. Put a boundary up with family, with friends, with work, with time. Put your boundaries and let no one cross it. And then as you get older, you just, you're more abrupt about it. You know what I mean? Like, you're like, no, no, no, no, that's my boundary. And that's happened to me several times the last year. Especially, like, I've got a boundary and I'm setting it and I'm. Nothing's going to cross it. And it. You just, you're just happier, you know. [02:55:07] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:55:07] Speaker C: I've literally, you know, had friends that I was very close to and I'm like, can't be friends with you anymore. I, I need a break. I need a break. [02:55:16] Speaker A: Yeah. [02:55:17] Speaker C: And it doesn't matter what reasons, but, you know, and, but it is what it is. But I'm saying, but I'm, I'm. Peace of mind is so important. And people dismiss that phrase very quickly because it's so common. Flip the script, though. Peace of mind, your mind being at peace, that's more important. Think of it like that we are happy when we're at peace and we're growing and to grow we need peace. And so whatever your love language is, but also your language, your language, we all know what love language means and whatever, but a lot of us don't talk about the language of despair. When you're having a bad day, how do you want to be treated? You know what I mean? How do you treat others having a bad day? Like, there's so much to it. And for those of, you know, me and I know, Justin, we're on this call because of, you know, that maybe the depth that I have in many ways, but I, I like to, for me, it's important to tackle those personal things that we've discussed today because they affect your whole career. So when people come to workshop of mine, they. They come back and saying, you know what? I want to hug my partner closer. I want to respect myself even more. I want to create even more. I want to master this craft even more. And, and that's, and that's the gift, as in that, that someone. I don't want people to thank me. Your. Your way of thanking me is being better for yourself. I, you know, I don't need, I don't need the validation. I don't even need to thank you. I just wanted to make a difference, and I'm not even happy to. I don't even have to be revel in it. I'm just happy to plant the seeds. Doesn't matter whether I built a forest or a shrub. Doesn't matter as long as I'm growing. You're growing great. You know, that's the, that's the, that's the beauty in it. [02:57:04] Speaker B: I think that's a. That's a really neat, neat way to draw a bow in today's episode of the Camera Life podcast. And I'm not going to thank you because you have planted multiple seeds for not just Justin and I, but also for our viewers and for the greater lucky straps and camera life community. And for that. Well, we appreciate it. Let's just leave it at that, shall we? We just appreciate, we appreciate you, Jerry, but so much to unpack from everything we've covered today. And I think there's, you know, there's often I use this word prolific about different artists, and I think it's fair to say that you've proven to be a prolific image maker, not just in the quality of the final shot, but also in your mindset. Your attitude towards your craft and how we can all improve is absolutely massive. So we do thank you for your time today. I couldn't help but not say it. [02:57:57] Speaker C: So, yeah, thank you so much. [02:57:59] Speaker B: Oh, no, it's been our absolute pleasure. Absolutely. And I'm sure that plenty of folks will make the time to sit down and listen or watch this episode at least once, that's for sure. There's a lot of gold in there. [02:58:13] Speaker C: Thank you. [02:58:13] Speaker B: Oh, Jay, there is one. One quick little question you didn't ask. [02:58:16] Speaker A: Oh, well, yeah, it'd be interesting to see what Jerry says about this. [02:58:19] Speaker C: So we ask. [02:58:20] Speaker B: We ask every. [02:58:21] Speaker A: We. We ask every guest some sort of version of the question of, like the desert island or the zombie apocalypse camera. Whatever speaks to you the most. Do you. Are you more of a desert island person or a zombie. Zombie apocalypse person? You Know, imagine being in Vegas, all the crazy people just turned into zombies and you having to get away from there. If, if you found yourself in that situation and you had the ability to just grab one camera and one lens to document the end of the world, maybe do some nice portraits, you could grab an ice light if you need to do some portraits of the zombies or whatever you feel would be good. What lens and what camera would you grab from anything? If you could pick from anything across your whole career or even a camera you don't own? [02:59:08] Speaker C: Oh, that's a crazy question. I mean, there's the older saying that grab, you know, grab the camera that's available to you, right? Like use a camera that's there. If you're. If I was to be serious, man, the iPhone these days is so freaking stupid. Easy. You don't have to think. You just go, you run and gun, you're done. If you mentioned, okay, well, let's talk about a serious camera. It would probably be the Z8 with a 24 to 120 lens on there. You know, if I was being practical. If you want the romantic answer, any camera that will, it's in front of you. If you're talking about practical use, the iPhone. If you're talking about hardcore interchangeable Lens camera, Nikon Z8, 24 to 120. I've got wide, I got close. I don't care about the bokeh. When the. The world is ending, it's F4. Like, live with it. [02:59:55] Speaker B: That's good. I love that. [02:59:57] Speaker A: Yeah, live with it. They're three. They're three good answers. You are. You are a wizard. Because I don't know if any other guest has been able to get away with slipping three answers in for three different cameras and. But did it in such a way where I was like, I accept all those answers. [03:00:12] Speaker B: That's brilliant. Yeah, [03:00:15] Speaker C: I've got. I've got like, I've got like a. Like a. Like a graveyard of cameras just here. And I, I look at them and like, they're all very special in different ways. But yeah, man, I'm not. I get about people, not so much cameras. [03:00:27] Speaker B: So. [03:00:27] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, you're always pretty much. It's a tool and it's got to feel right in the hand and things. But it's not. Yeah, it's not. [03:00:36] Speaker C: That's a fun question. It's a fun question. Absolutely. [03:00:38] Speaker B: Yeah, we love it. And I have one cheeky bonus question, if you don't mind. Jerry, I'm so sorry. [03:00:42] Speaker A: Of course. [03:00:43] Speaker B: If you were to Recommend someone to appear next on the Camera Live podcast. Who would it be? [03:00:47] Speaker A: Yeah, good one. [03:00:52] Speaker C: Oh, wow. Okay. Gee, I know so many people. I would try to get Lindsay Adler on. On board. I. I think she's. She's incredible. Incredibly prolific. There's very few people in the industry that make me feel lazy. She's one of them. She's brilliant. I have so much respect for her in terms of what she's done, how she's evolved, how she carries herself, the education that she's done. I think she'd be brilliant. And her boyfriend, Chris Knight, is just a wealth of information. His. His style of portraiture, I mean, they are powerhouses individually and together, but I think Lindsay would be an incredible addition to your. To your thing. And also if. What guest number am I on your podcast here? [03:01:44] Speaker A: Guest number? I don't know. Your episode 198. [03:01:46] Speaker B: But. [03:01:46] Speaker A: But we do alternating shows with sort of new shows and stuff, so maybe like, close to 100 or something like that. [03:01:53] Speaker C: Well, Justin and Greg, let me just finish up by saying you're both, because you literally chose 99 people before I came on board. [03:02:03] Speaker B: Yeah. No, no, no. [03:02:04] Speaker A: Greg can defend me here. I made a list. I made a list, right? And I. I ranked our potential guests from, like, certain sort of, like, how amazing are they? How hard would they be to get their time? And then how, when. And specifically anyone that was in a sort of a certain category, I was like, can we just wait until we've got our shit together before we reach out to anyone on this list? And you were, all right, okay, so there's a very specific reason for this. [03:02:37] Speaker B: You were on a special guest list. [03:02:39] Speaker C: To be honest, you're still assholes. That's all. I'm. Yeah, we're Australian. You know, it's an affectionate term, right? People like, exactly saying, I can't believe it. They're nice guys. What are you saying? [03:02:49] Speaker A: I'm just. I'm just worried now. Our first 20 guests are going to be like, so what list was I on? You know, like, well, to be fair, [03:02:57] Speaker B: they were all Fuji shooters. They were just. They were just, you know, they were just happy to be recognized for the. For the most part. [03:03:03] Speaker A: There were some great ones early on, but it was more like if I. If I wasn't, you know, terrified. [03:03:08] Speaker C: All right, well, thank you for the opportunity, guys. And I hope. I hope you guys got something out of it. Those who are watching. But. And I'll finish off with just one phrase that is one of my favorites is, you don't have to be the best. You simply have to be better than last week. [03:03:22] Speaker B: Yep. [03:03:22] Speaker A: I love it. [03:03:23] Speaker B: Amazing. Let's make that into a T shirt. [03:03:27] Speaker A: All right. I'll play some music and read some comments. Make sure. Obviously, if you're listening, please subscribe to the Camera Life podcast. If you want to learn from Jerry. Probably the easiest way to find all of the stuff is jerryjerryjerry.com is a link tree that goes to all of Jerry's different websites. There's lots the. The one, obviously there. There's a ton of stuff. The one that I would recommend, because I've used it myself for many years, is what formerly was known as the Eye Society and now is Jerry Jonas for the photography training, which is the one where you can get the $1 discount code one and then the word dollar. So that'll give you basically a month for one US dollar, which is like 50 Australian dollars, I think, somewhere. So if you can afford that, I would highly recommend doing it at a minimum a month to see if you can get some value at it, because it's. Yeah, it was gold. So, yeah. [03:04:23] Speaker C: Thank you. [03:04:24] Speaker B: Amazing. And thank you for that generous offer, too. [03:04:27] Speaker C: No, no worries. You guys are awesome. Thank you so much for the opportunity. Have a good one, guys. [03:04:30] Speaker A: All right, thank you. Let's play some. [03:04:32] Speaker B: Let's roll it. [03:04:33] Speaker A: Where's my button? There it is. David Leporati says, click the like button. Yeah, that's a good idea. And he also says, thank you for another great, informative chat. Thanks, everybody. Rodney Nicholson. Wow, Love this show. Philip Johnson. Great, great show. Justin Craig. And special thanks to Jerry. Who else? Julie Powers here. Oh, east coast photography, said Jerry judge my first Silver Award winner. If only I'd printed it smaller, he said, it would have been gold. That's great. Yeah, it's a good feedback. Thanks. Everyone else that was here, the drunk wedding photographer, Jim. Everybody was popping in. If you're listening along later, don't forget, try and join us live by subscribing. Otherwise, we're on Apple podcasts and Spotify and everywhere, so. [03:05:15] Speaker B: And stay tuned for next week. We've got Steve Parish joining us. We'll see you then. [03:05:20] Speaker A: Yeah, thanks, Jerry. [03:05:22] Speaker C: Bye, guys. [03:05:23] Speaker A: Bye.