EP 70 Dean Cooper | Landscape Photography & Running Workshops

[00:00:08] Speaker A: Good morning. It's very soulful. [00:00:13] Speaker B: It, isn't it? You've got the radio voice on, Greg. [00:00:16] Speaker A: I've got my Barry White voice on today. I've got a bit of a croaky voice. Welcome, everybody, to the Camera Life podcast. This is episode 70 of the camera Life podcast and it's. What is it? It's Thursday the 17th of April. We're a stone's throw away from Easter. Hope everyone's getting to have at least a day off. Extra. But we're joined today by professional landscape photographer, Australian landscape photographer extraordinaire, Dan Cooper. How are you? [00:00:49] Speaker C: Good, how are you? Thanks for having me on the show. [00:00:52] Speaker A: Thank you very much. [00:00:53] Speaker B: Great to have you here. [00:00:54] Speaker A: It's very great to have you here. You were recommended to us by friend of the show, was it Levin, you sent through? Yeah, I think Levin recommended that you should come on and tell your tale. [00:01:05] Speaker C: Yeah. Yep. Been on a few of my workshops in the past. [00:01:10] Speaker A: So, yeah, he's a. [00:01:11] Speaker C: He's a great guy. [00:01:12] Speaker A: Co hosted work. We'll get into that. We'll get into that, yeah. We're also joined today by founder of Lucky Straps and the Camera Life podcast, Justin. Hey, Justin. [00:01:23] Speaker B: Morning. [00:01:24] Speaker A: How you guys look? [00:01:27] Speaker B: I am. I am awesome. I'm really good. Yeah. It's a bright sunny day outside. The autumn leaves are falling. I was telling the guys the. The lawns filling up with leaves faster than I can blow them off. And I love that time of year. So, yeah, things are good. [00:01:43] Speaker A: Nice, nice. In today's. In today's podcast, we're gonna, we're gonna deep dive into. Into Dean's story, Dean's inspirations, Dean's work. And. And also we're going to have a really close look at Dean's website because I think it's one of the most comprehensive photography websites I've ever seen from a solo photographer. But we're going to uncover more about that later, so stick around for that. It's certainly worth a look. And it's an interesting, I guess, observation of how photographers can be multifaceted in how they generate income. It doesn't always just have to be about the selling of prints or the meeting a client's brief. There are other ways that we can achieve those things. Justin, of course, uses OnlyFans, but Dean's gone a more traditional approach. So we're going to uncover that in a little bit. But just to get us rolling, get us into the mood, Dean, tell us a little bit, just very briefly, who are you and what do you do? [00:02:38] Speaker C: Yep. So I've been a professional landscape photographer since the year 2000. So coming up for 25 years, I was an amateur photographer before that and the dream was always for this to be my, my professional, to make a living from it. So in the year 2000, I was pretty unhappy where I was working, so I took the deep dive and, and quit my job and then just started doing this. I've only ever really liked shooting landscapes. I'm, I, I don't like shooting people or anything else. Nothing else sort of floats my boat. So it always sort of had to be, had to be that, but that seems sort of pretty difficult. So things sort of, they just evolved, I guess. I, I started by selling prints at markets and that sort of things. Things evolve from there. So currently I said I run a lot of workshops. So that's probably the bulk of, of my business is running workshops, day workshops and also sort of extended multi day workshops. But I also have a souvenir range which a lot of people that know me don't realize that I do. So I've got a range of postcards and stuff that I wholesale to resellers and also sell a lot of camera gear. So that sort of evolved as sort of things that come along. So. [00:04:08] Speaker A: Yeah. All right, so we're going to basically. Yeah, look, I think you're very industrious and I think we kind of deep dive into some of those things because I think, you know, talking to. One of the things that we want to do here on the show is to share stories that are in support of the broader photographic community. People like ourselves, people that are experienced. Camera case just fell on my foot. People that are experienced, people that are new to the craft, you know, who maybe want to make some money off their prints, they think they've got something worth selling. And, and I think by sharing other people's stories here on this show, you know, we can, we can support the community just with advice and information and. Yeah, and, and I think, you know, Justin and I have often said that if, if we inspire one person to pick up a camera and get out and shoot, well, then, you know, we've kind of done our job. And, and I think there's a lot on offer from, from your site. So we're gonna, we're gonna get to that. But let's roll back before we get into the business talk, which, you know, makes Justin very hot under the collar. He loves business talk. Let's jump to some comments. [00:05:12] Speaker B: Yeah, I did. I'm, I'm very excited to talk about that. So I'm excited for two reasons about this episode. Because obviously I love, you know, making money with a camera was something that got me super excited to, to even learn more about the craft, whenever that was 12 years ago or something and turn it into a business. So there's that side of it which I'm super interested in, especially since landscape photography is, I'm thinking probably one of the hardest genres to do full time and make a living from. So we'll definitely dig into that. But I'm also excited to learn more just about how to improve my own landscape photography because it's not something I'm very good at. [00:05:54] Speaker A: No pressure, Dean. No pressure at all. [00:05:56] Speaker B: So no pressure. So this is yet another one of those, it's yet another one of those episodes that's basically self serving so that I can, I can enjoy and improve my own skills. [00:06:08] Speaker A: I don't think we have enough Internet to get through that lesson just. [00:06:12] Speaker B: But also we've got some cool people in the chat this morning. Morning, Dave. Digifrog. Morning, Daisy, he said getting in first this morning. And David Mascaro from the other side of the planet in San Francisco Bay Area. Good to see you. David, Ian Thompson's here. Morning, Ian. And Philip Johnson is here. Dave, want to know, is that Barry White, Greg and. [00:06:36] Speaker C: Yes. [00:06:37] Speaker B: Yeah, it is, baby. So, yeah, good to see you all. If you just joining us, get in the chat, ask questions, we'll throw them at Dean as the show rolls on or otherwise just. Yeah, let us know what you've been up to. It's good to see you. [00:06:51] Speaker A: Yeah. All right, let's get started on the early days. Dean, talk to us a little bit maybe first about your earliest inspiration into photography. You know, was it family, was it a teacher in, in high school or college? Was it a, was there some sort of catalyst that made you pick up a camera and tell us about that? What was that story for you? [00:07:18] Speaker C: Yeah, so it was high school. It's quite funny because sometimes I wonder if this never happened, whether I would actually be a photographer now. So I think it was year 10 and I had an option of either doing metal work or photography. And I knew nothing about photography, but I hated metal work. I knew I did not want to do the mental work, so I chose photography. And I still remember the first day. It was, it was pretty silly, but we just got a piece of paper and we put nuts and bolts and objects on it. You exposed it and then, you know, we put it through the chemicals and it came out as a silhouette. Sort of thing. That was the first thing. And then we were given cameras and we went out and took photos and just that whole thing of being in the dark room and producing a print for me then it wasn't the aesthetic side of it, it was, it was sort of like just the technical side of, of this actually happening. It was like magic. And I just, I was just hooked. I just loved it. Yeah. So I think I was 15. My parents were going overseas. So back in those days we had the good old duty free. I had a part time job, so I had about 300 bucks. So they bought me, I got them to buy. It was a Minolta xgm which I still have, still use. [00:08:41] Speaker A: Wow. [00:08:42] Speaker C: And a couple of lenses. And then I just, it just started from there. So while I was still at school, photography was just a hobby and I had a mate that was into it and we built dark rooms. We had several. We had a dark room at his place and then one at my place for a while and it just progressed from there. [00:09:04] Speaker A: I think it's a, it's, it's, it's, it's a story that we're hearing more and more. Your, your story almost mimics mine. I was, a little bit later, I was in art school. So I was about 18 when I first stepped into a dark room. But we weren't allowed in the dark room until yes, we'd done the box, the, the pinhole camera experiment. We'd worked with the chemicals to understand them. Then we were allowed in the dark room. Very similar story. And we hear this more and more. These, you know, I like to call them the gray beard guests such as yourself and myself, you know, who, who started off in a dark room or started off with a, you know, mum and dad's camera that they weren't using anymore. For me, it was my nan who inspired me I think early I didn't. I, I've only just come to realize this more recently. But yeah, I think, you know, she, she inspired me because she was always taking photos. She was always chopping everyone's heads off. But she loved taking photos. She loved documents in the family. So yeah, it's, it's a really, I think it's, it's kind of, it's got this romantic element of, you know, studying or learning photography in a, in a, in a dark room with a bunch of mates in high school and you know, you just. Kids bumping into each other, you know, stuffing around. But yeah, there's something about it that grabs you. So it's, it's a lovely story to hear. [00:10:22] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:10:22] Speaker A: And so from high school, what was next for you? [00:10:27] Speaker B: So. [00:10:30] Speaker C: When I. When I sort of started my younger years, I sort of photographed anything and everything I didn't really like. It wasn't landscapes. I photographed my brothers and sisters. I was into cars, so I'd go to the drag racing and photograph drag cars and whatever. And then in my early 20s, I grew up in Perth, so I was in Perth and I traveled, traveled around Australia. So I lived in an old bus headed off for what was going to be maybe one or two years that turned into 10 years. So that's where the love of landscapes came in. Because for the next 10 years, basically, or didn't have a TV, so never watched any. Any television and just lived in a lot of sort of remote places, visited, you know, lots of national parks, spent a lot of time out in nature. Ended up doing about three trips around Australia. Three laps around Australia. I think that sounds terrible. Yeah, it was. So that was from about 85 to 95 and then. [00:11:45] Speaker A: So you're still shooting film at this stage? [00:11:47] Speaker C: I shoot some film, yeah. Just. [00:11:49] Speaker A: No, no, I mean, when you were in the. When you. Oh, yeah, Journey, you're still. It was still film days. [00:11:54] Speaker C: We were. [00:11:54] Speaker A: You said till 95. Digitals were only just a. Yeah. You know, a technician's dream. [00:12:01] Speaker C: Yeah. So when I started career in 2000, I was shooting film then. [00:12:07] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:12:08] Speaker C: Digital wasn't there. It was too expensive. [00:12:10] Speaker A: Yeah. And a lot of. I mean, we've spoken to guests on here who. Who were early adopters of digital but went straight back to film because the resolution just wasn't there. Yeah, they found it really disappointing. And Jason Lau talked to us. We talked to Jason Lau, whose age is impossible to identify, but he studied film like us, and he said that, yeah, he jumped really early to digital, but he went straight back because he just was so unhappy with the professional outcomes. Yeah. I want to go back to your days in the bus because Justin and I have often talked, probably more so off camera about. I've got this fascination with tiny living. I don't think I could ever really do it, but I have too much stuff. But. But, you know, that whole kind of van life movement. Justin himself has got a van with a bed in it and the fridge and all that sort of. He. He often travels with his van, which is great. [00:13:01] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:13:02] Speaker A: What. How were you managing your photography? Because obviously today, if you disappear or like what Justin does, you know, he takes his Starlink and he's got his, you know, he's got a full electric setup in the van, he's got his laptop and, you know, he even ran a podcast from there a couple of weeks ago. So, you know, very spoiled, Very spoiled. But back then we didn't have those modern commodities, we didn't have those modern conveniences. How, how are you managing your film processing, printing, all of that during those years? [00:13:33] Speaker C: Just trying to think back. So the, the sad part is that it was, you know, it was really expensive to shoot in those days and I was living on a shoestring. So, you know, I think back then a roll of film, the time you process it and purchased it and whatever was about 35 bucks or something, which was a lot of money then. So I guess that taught. It was good in a way too because it taught me to be frugal, which meant that I shot, you know, a lot more economically rather than just bang, bang, bang. But I would just, I mean, I wasn't making a living from it then, so it was just purely a hobby. And I sort of went from negatives to transparencies pretty quickly. So everything was shot on, on Tranny and wherever I was, I would just post it off to, to whoever was. Whatever part of Australia I was in or I hold on to rolls of film to come into a town that could sort of process it and then I, I'd sort of do that. [00:14:36] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:14:38] Speaker B: What, what sort of gear were you using back in those days? Do you recall the camera system you were using for the film photography while you were traveling? [00:14:47] Speaker C: Yeah. So the first camera bought was a Minolta XGM and then I upgraded to a Minolta X700 with a motor drive. [00:14:58] Speaker B: Which is pretty fancy. [00:14:59] Speaker C: Nice. I don't know why, didn't really need it. [00:15:02] Speaker B: But I was going to say for landscapes, not, not critical, but at least you can rest your thumb in between shots. [00:15:09] Speaker C: You don't use the wine and look more impressive. Yeah. So it was really only those two cameras. And then I, I did actually at the very end of shooting film was before, before I moved professionally, I actually bought some Nikon gear. So I had a Nikon film camera with a couple of lenses. And then when I decided to do what I'm doing now, which was in 2000, I went and bought a medium for. I moved to medium format film. So that was a Bronica. The first one was a Bronica 645. And then I had that for a couple of years and then I sold that and I bought a Mameya 7 which I wish I still had. [00:15:59] Speaker B: I was gonna say, so you still have it? [00:16:02] Speaker C: Damn it cost. I think I spent 20 grand on that camera. Like the camera and three lenses. Like back in 2000. 2000. Yeah, would have been 2002. It was close to 20, 000 bucks. And I sold it. Years later, I sold it when digital started improving. So I. I kept shooting on that camera until. Until I felt digital was worth, like ditching medium form the film because I could see the way the whole industry was going. It was going to move to digital. So I was shooting on a 5D. And then I think when the 5D Mark 2 came out, I sort of went, this is getting pretty close. I can't run two camera systems. @ the time, film cameras were a dime a dozen. Like, they were hard to get rid of because nobody wanted them. So I managed to sell that whole kit for, I think it was like 14,000 bucks. [00:17:01] Speaker B: Whoa. [00:17:02] Speaker C: So I sold. I was pretty happy when I sold it, but my God, now I wish I still had it. I was reading a. I was looking at film cameras the other day, and I was reading one of Ken Rockwell's things, and it was on a certain camera when I was on a lens, actually, because I'm looking at buying an old Pentax lens that'll go on my gfx that I can also buy a tilt shift adapter. So anyway, I'd gone down that rabbit hole. And anyway, you should talk to our. [00:17:33] Speaker A: Good friend Greg Carrick. He adapts lenses to his gfx. [00:17:37] Speaker C: Oh, yeah, yeah. [00:17:38] Speaker A: He even gets. I think he's got a family member who does 3D printed mounts even for like old cinema projector lenses. And you should check out some of his stuff. I'll. [00:17:47] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway, Ken. Ken Rockwell had. He had a review on this lens and then he sort of mentioned the Mameya 7, the 43 mil lens. He said, oh, no, that's the best lens in the whole world. And of course, I had one of those. But in saying that, you know, I look at my old film stuff, the medium format, and even for a, like a camera system that is so good, it's just, it's different to digital. It's like a lot softer. It's like a completely different feel. And sometimes I look at old files and I go, wow, that's really sharp. You know, like I've got a print in my hallway shot in fog, and it's like a 50 inch pano and the detail is beautiful. But then other shots I'll look at and go, wow, it's so different to what I shoot on the GFX now. The GFX is like everything crisp. And so I think that's. [00:18:42] Speaker A: It's an interesting topic that you bring up because, you know, and we are seeing more and more people going back to film now, which we're seeing another renaissance at the moment. A lot of guests we've had on the show and even people in the chat like David in San Fran, you know, he. He shoots on film. There's a. Is it another David in America who shoots weddings on film? [00:19:06] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, The Drum. [00:19:09] Speaker A: A friend of the show, Joel Alston. Alston. He shoots. He shoots weddings on film. He also has some digital gear, but he mostly does loves film. We see a lot of people moving back to it and as a result, you know, we're seeing lab services become more available once again. [00:19:25] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:19:26] Speaker A: And the fortunate thing is this time it's not hipster driven. It's actually mostly being driven by photographers, which is lovely to see because the renaissance kind of about 10, 15 years ago a film was more around hipsters wanting to have a cool looking camera hanging off there. [00:19:39] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:19:40] Speaker A: People like me with big long beards and you know. [00:19:42] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:19:42] Speaker A: South era cafe dwellers. [00:19:44] Speaker B: Whereas now the hipsters are buying either X1/ hundreds or point and shoot. Point and shoot digital cameras. So Greg's squarely in that camp now. [00:19:54] Speaker A: I am. But there is something about that, you know, that softness. [00:20:01] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:20:01] Speaker A: And the graininess of film that even people will now apply presets in lightroom to gain a film look. You know, Fujifilm, obviously we've got your film simulation colors and I've just gotten a lone XN5 off Fujifilm. I don't know if you guys can see it, but there's a film simulation dial on the top of it that allows you just to quickly cycle, if you're shooting JPEG cycle through your film simulations at a glance, you know. But there is something very special and about film. And we often talk about, you know, like iPhone photography is great, but it's almost too good now. It's almost too crisp, too real, too ultra, you know, high definition because it's all being enhanced. And I just want to make one point very clear on the show for our, for our viewers at home who often give me. For being a Fujifilm fanboy. I did not know that Dean was a Fujifilm photographer before coming on this show. [00:21:00] Speaker C: I was ecstatic when I saw you shot Fuji thought, oh, I thought I was the only one. [00:21:04] Speaker B: No, no, I need to make it, Sally. It's most of Our guests. Currently, I'm very much on the outside. [00:21:14] Speaker C: I. [00:21:15] Speaker B: Somehow I don't think we've had a single Canon photographer on the show. [00:21:20] Speaker A: In the early days of the podcast, when I first started, Justin asked me to find a bunch of photographers to build to rebuild the podcast. Let's get some guests on. And being a Fujifilm person, I only knew Fujifilm shooters, you know. [00:21:32] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:21:32] Speaker A: And so I just invited a bunch of Fujifilm guests and I'm getting for it because Justin realizing that maybe Canon doesn't. Isn't living up to standard and that maybe he should move to Fujifilm. [00:21:45] Speaker B: Please. Now, hang on. Speaking of guests, you mentioned a very interesting name. A very interesting name before Ken Rockwell. What a. I'm sure a lot of the listeners know that name. That website is iconic in. I've been reading stuff on that website since I started photography, which admittedly wasn't that long ago. But when I started it was an. It was an old website like an. Like, you know, it had a. Just a lot of information. The. The design doesn't really get updated. It's just like, it just keeps doing his thing. [00:22:21] Speaker C: I've written. [00:22:21] Speaker B: I've just written down Greg on our potential guest list, our dream guest list. The name Ken Rockwell. We are going to get him on the podcast and find out his life story because don't you reckon he's a. He is an interesting character in the world of photography? [00:22:38] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah. [00:22:39] Speaker B: So we're gonna try and get him on. [00:22:41] Speaker C: He's pretty on the ball too, like, on the money. I think the first. The first thing that drew me to him was he had a. It was probably a blog back in those days. It was like, you know, JPEG is just as good as tiff. Like, why, like, don't bother shooting tips. And like, I'm going, yeah, wow, this guy's an idiot. You know? And then when you actually read everything that he says, you go, okay. And then you go and test it yourself. I mean, early jpegs were pretty rubbish, but jpegs nowadays, I'm not saying I shoot jpegs, but my God, you know, jpegs are pretty good these days. [00:23:14] Speaker B: Sorry, going. [00:23:15] Speaker A: I was just gonna say we caught up with Andrew hall, who's a Fujifilm X photographer, is also works for Fujifilm, but he's also a motorsports photographer and he shoots Motorsports purely in JPEG with GFX and XH2S's. He doesn't use RAW, not, not as. [00:23:31] Speaker B: Much DFX for his motorsport. He said it's mainly the X series. For money. [00:23:35] Speaker A: He has, he has used it because he's also supports Fujifilm by testing and providing feedback on potential new gear and stuff. So, but, but yeah, he, he shoots jpeg. He just, he thinks the file quality is beautiful enough to. [00:23:49] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:23:49] Speaker A: To do the job. And, and he's right. And he's, you know, it depends on the, on who you're delivering them to obviously. But, and I think there's, you know, there's that beautiful film like mindfulness to shooting JPEGs as well, where you know that you can't rely heavily on editing to fix this later. It's not a spray and paste, a spray and pray situation. It's more of a thoughtful, mindful. I've got to get these shots right in camera. They've got to be straight, they've got to be perfectly exposed. No, I can't, I can't pull out that detail later if I wanted to. Yeah. And I think there's, there's something really lovely about that. And you know, I've written articles for other sites and, and for lucky straps about, you know, straight out of camera challenges. Like, it's a good way to learn about photography. Don't bother with, with editing software, like just get it right in camera. [00:24:41] Speaker C: Yep. And that's one of the good things coming from a film background is that you have that discipline that, you know, you have to. With film, you had to get it right. You were careful, you knew your settings. And I know from teaching workshops, when you get people that are purely digital that had no film background, they've got a totally different approach. This just, it's just shoot and then work it out later, which is sort of so wrong, you know, and they're not sort of like going back to basics and just learning exposure triangle and simple stuff like that. They just think that they just shoot and we'll learn how to fix it in Photoshop sort of thing. [00:25:25] Speaker A: Well, the other thing too is with, with computational photography. So I'm talking about like what we can achieve with our phones and even, you know, more kind of youth focused camera systems that, you know, they, they take a lot of the thought work out of it. [00:25:41] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:25:41] Speaker A: Because you can point your iPhone at almost any lighting situation and it will just work it out for you. And I know you can do that with digital cameras by setting it to auto or setting it to, you know, various pro priorities. But, you know, it does strip us of those basic. [00:25:56] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:25:57] Speaker A: Skills around composition and yeah, you know, exposure triangle and, and those sorts of things. So it's. Yeah, it's interesting times and I think, I don't think that iPhone photography or smartphone photography in general can go a lot further. [00:26:12] Speaker C: No, the next step is going to. [00:26:14] Speaker A: Be AI, much more heavy AI, I guess involvement in that kind of computational side of things. But we are seeing, you know, and brands are starting to do this. They're pushing more and more photographers from. They're trying to push photographers from entry level, sorry, from smartphones to entry level cameras. They're trying to find a bridge to get people to keep their phone in their pocket and actually pick up a real camera. And it's a challenge because iPhone cameras are really good, you know. Yeah. [00:26:42] Speaker C: All the time. [00:26:44] Speaker A: So let's talk more about you. Yep. So what made you stop the bus trip? What, what was going on there? What? You have spent a decade traveling the country. [00:26:58] Speaker C: After 10 years, I think it was sort of time to stop, just to have a home base, I think. And I was at the age where thinking maybe whether to have kids or not. So I was with my first wife then. So she was from Victoria, I was from Perth. So we decided to, to settle in Victoria. We'd also met a couple of really good friends. I was or still am right into wind surfing as well. So where, where we moved to in Victoria Point Monsale, Ocean Grove area, there's really good windsurfing. So that sort of came into the fold as well. But I mean life on the road is, you know, it's fantastic but you can't do it forever. So I think 10 years, it was probably maybe five years too long. Too much. You long for the things that you don't have. And then when you live in a house, then you're long for the stuff that you, you had when you lived in the bus. [00:28:08] Speaker A: Grass is greener thing, isn't it? [00:28:09] Speaker C: Yeah. And just possession wise was a big thing. Like bought a house, took possession of it, parked the bus on the, on the front lawn, took all of our possessions out of the bus and it fitted in one bedroom. Yeah. And that was it. That's. That's all, that's all we had. Yeah. So it was a, it was a really sort of simple life. [00:28:35] Speaker B: Do you look back on it pretty fondly though? [00:28:38] Speaker C: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean just traveling Australia and seeing all the different parts of Australia that I saw and I think that time frame of doing it, you know, it was in the, in the 80s and, and 90s. It was a good time to do it. Now it's a lot busier so, you know, some of the more remote Sort of places that I saw were really nice and quiet, whereas now they're just sort of like overrun with people. They're not so remote. So, yeah, it was good. [00:29:11] Speaker B: This might. This might test your memory, but if you're thinking back, is there one crazy experience or memory that stands out? Something that happened on the road that was pretty, pretty out there? [00:29:25] Speaker C: Yeah, there was one. There was one thing. I can't remember where we were. It was during that time where all the backpackers were being murdered. [00:29:36] Speaker B: Oh, no. Yeah, the Ivan. Ivan Malat. Yeah, yeah, stuff. [00:29:41] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:29:41] Speaker C: I can't remember that town. And outback Queensland. Anyway, it was all while that was happening and so pulled into this fuel station to get some diesel, got some diesel, was sort of on dusk, so it was getting dark and then took off and we sort of rode off. The sun said it got dark and we're just looking for somewhere to pull up on the side of the road to camp sort of thing. And anyway, the bus started sort of chugging and playing up and my wife was certain that the guy at the service station was. Was gonna, you know, follow us. He's. He's given us dirty fuel, we're gonna break down and he's going to come and murder us. [00:30:26] Speaker A: Wolf Creek. [00:30:27] Speaker B: I mean. Yeah, that I was gonna say. It literally sounds like the start of a horror movie. [00:30:31] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:30:32] Speaker A: So we. [00:30:33] Speaker C: So we didn't sleep on the side of the road. We drove and drove and drove and got to this caravan park. Booked into this caravan park. And then the caravan park manager says something like, oh, welcome to whatever. You know, it's a great place to. To murder and bury someone if you're into that sort of thing. [00:31:00] Speaker B: Wow. [00:31:01] Speaker C: Really not gonna sleep. [00:31:04] Speaker B: So did you stay there or did you keep on trucking? [00:31:06] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:31:07] Speaker B: Oh, my gosh. [00:31:08] Speaker C: Yeah. And then I sorted the bus out before. I was a motor mechanic by trade, so it just. The fuel filter was just a bit blocked. [00:31:18] Speaker B: Wasn't. Wasn't an evil plug. If you. If you're listening. If you're joining us either live or later on. Actually, it's a good time to plug. If you are listening later on, you can join us live on YouTube, but otherwise watch us and our entire back catalog. Sorry, listen to us on Spotify or Apple podcasts. We put all the episodes on there afterwards. So. [00:31:37] Speaker A: Perfect for a road trip. [00:31:39] Speaker B: Perfect for a road trip where you're trying not to get killed. What was I gonna say? I've lost my train of thought now. The. If you're joining us from the us and you haven't seen the movie Wolf Creek. Find it on a streaming service or something and watch that. It's a movie about these murders loosely dramatized in Outback Australia. And it's terrifying. [00:32:03] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:32:04] Speaker B: And it's very Australian. Haven't you if you watch it. No, but what's interesting. You've been too close. [00:32:12] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:32:12] Speaker A: Was it isn't the lead character. I can't remember his name. Is it John Williams? [00:32:17] Speaker B: I think. [00:32:18] Speaker A: Remember his name. I grew up with. I'm sure it was him. I grew up with him on Play School. I'm sure it was him. [00:32:23] Speaker B: Yeah, it was. Oh, now it's not showing up. John Jarrett. John Jarrett. [00:32:29] Speaker A: John Jarrett. Maybe it wasn't him. He was married to Noni Hazelhurst, I thought. And she was on Play School. I thought they were both. Anyway, I digress. Sorry, everybody got way off track there. [00:32:39] Speaker B: Way off track. But still watch the movie. Great, great Australian cinema. Don't watch it alone in the dark. And. And if you're planning on coming, a trip, a trip to the middle of Australia. Like some sort of, you know, trip of a lifetime or something from the States. Don't watch it before that. Watch it afterwards. [00:32:55] Speaker A: Yeah. Wait till you get home. It's fine. We're all like that. We're not all like that. So, Dean, back to you. So if you settled down, you've picked up foolishly, you've picked up a Canon digital camera. 5D2, you said? [00:33:13] Speaker C: Yeah, I had. Actually, the first digital camera I had, would you believe was a Fujifilm S2. Do you know what that is? [00:33:24] Speaker B: It sounds terrible. [00:33:25] Speaker A: No, no, it was a really early. [00:33:27] Speaker C: It was. What was the. There was a Kodak. Kodak bought out a digital camera. They were like $35,000 or something stupid. And they took Nikon lenses. So this Fuji, There was an S1 and S2 and an S3. They're a. A DSLR. And they took Nikon lenses. So because I had Nikon film cameras at the time, I could just use my Nikon lenses. So I shot on those. They were really good cameras. But the color was terrible for landscapes for some reason. I don't know why. They were more suited to skin tones. And then I bought a. I bought a Canon 20D. [00:34:12] Speaker B: Was this the Fuji film? Is that what it looks like? [00:34:15] Speaker C: Yeah, that's the S3. [00:34:20] Speaker B: Oh, sorry. Which one did you have? The S1. [00:34:22] Speaker C: Two. S2? Yeah, there's an S1. There's an S2. That's the one. They just look like a. Like a. Like a modern camera now. [00:34:35] Speaker B: Really oh, look at the screen on the back. It's huge. [00:34:38] Speaker C: Yeah. But they were quite unique because like in the day you could only get a 6 megapixel camera unless you spent an absolute fortune. And these were 12 megapixel. But how I did it was I had they, they took square pixels and they converted it to honeycomb pixels, honeycomb shaped. And when they did that, they turned a 6 megapixel camera into a 12 megapixel camera. So that was draw cards with it. And I, I paid like, I had two of these and I paid like $6,000 each for them. And so then I went to a Canon 20D and I was still shooting. I was just using it for other stuff. Like my main landscapes was still always shot on the Mameya 7. And then I bought a 5D and that was like a bit of a turning point. And then when I got the 5D mark too, then it was like, okay, I need to let go of all of this, this film stuff. [00:35:49] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:35:50] Speaker C: And I did. Yeah. [00:35:52] Speaker A: So you've got yourself established, you've got some gear. At what point did you then decide what, what was the, I guess the, the germination, the idea around, maybe I can make some money out of this. Was it an organic, this started happening or was it, I'm going to start a business. [00:36:15] Speaker C: So when, when I was traveling, I met a couple and spent a bit of time with them. They became really good friends and he was a, he was a, like a semi professional photographer suppose and he sort of really motivated me. And so I'd settled in Point Lonsdale. I've been working in spare parts in, in Geelong for two years, I think. And then since I'd met him, he'd gone, gone back to New South Wales where he lived. Him and his wife had two kids and then they did a trip around Australia with their kids and called in and saw me and stayed with me for a couple of weeks. And he really put the bomb under me. Like he said, mate, just bloody do it, stop stuffing around. He said, you're in a job that you hate, just do it. So I had no kids at the time, so my wife was working. We're in a pretty good financial position to be able to do it, so I did that. So I quit my job in August and then I just started doing craft markets. There were a couple of local markets. I just framed up some stuff, took it to craft markets and started selling it. And I never forget the first market I ever did. I had a picture that was a 16 by 20 that was framed and I had $350 on it. And the lady next door to me was selling plants and she leans over and says, lovely shot, son, but you're at a market, nobody pays that sort of money. And then anyway, bugging me, someone come and bloody bought it. You know, I built myself up, printed all the stuff, framed it, made this display. And then she leans over and tells me that I'm wasting my time. And then someone came and bought it. So I was like, yes, for the next five years, my God, I sold a lot of, a lot of wall art. It was, I don't know, it was just easy to sell. And I, I went back a couple of years ago, I had another crack at selling wall art, thinking it is so much easier now than when I used to do it. When I used to do was really hard to post anything because I'd send it via a courier and it cost a hundred dollars to package it up and, and send it. So it was incredibly hard. I was doing all my own framing where, you know, now I just, I print myself. So I send the print to the framer, the framer frames it. She uses acrylic instead of glass. She packages it up and she sends it off. It's, it's dead easy. Yeah, but it's, it's. I don't know, I don't know whether it's just me, but it's so hard to sell wall art these days. [00:39:17] Speaker B: Is, is it possibly because it's that much easier now? A lot more photographers have entered that market and it's kind of, I guess, saturated or people see it as, maybe not as valuable as it once was because it's coming at them from every angle, you know, like, oh, everyone frame prints or something. [00:39:38] Speaker C: I think it's, I, I think it's sort of multiple factors. I don't think it's one particular thing. I think, yeah, for sure the market's saturated. I mean, you know, you can, you can have a look online and all these people or places come up. You know, it's so easy to build a website to sell wall art without actually having to do anything. You know, you don't have to go. [00:40:01] Speaker A: You don't even have to build a website. You can just do drop shipping via, you know, a third party site that sells your art for you. You don't even have to. Yeah, all you have to do is upload files. [00:40:13] Speaker C: Yep. So I think that that's changed. I think back when I did was probably more desirable to have that type of thing in your house. I think nowadays maybe people are looking for stuff that's really different. When I was selling it, it was very location orientated. So they bought something because it was talking or because it was Anglesey. They would come and say, you know, what have you got of Queenscliff Harbor? You know, I. No, I've had people. It's ridiculous. Like, what have you got of Ocean Grove from the lookout. Yep. Send five photos and then they go. Have you got anything taken from. A little bit more to the left. [00:41:03] Speaker A: I can. It's going to cost you. [00:41:05] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. So I, I don't know. I, I was a bit dumbfounded in that it, it was this hard to sell wall art. I think. Yeah, there's probably, probably multiple factors and, and I'm not sure what they all. [00:41:23] Speaker B: Are, but this might be. [00:41:26] Speaker A: Oh, go on, Joe. [00:41:27] Speaker B: I was just going to say this might be jumping ahead a little bit, but I'm, I'm curious just because a few people on and we've got more people coming on. Have you ever considered opening a gallery space or something like that? And is that, is that sort of the only way to really cut through all of the noise that's online with photography and cut through direct to people and sort of say, hey, this is high quality work. It's high enough quality that I've taken the risk on a physical space and sort of put this work out there. Have you ever thought about it? [00:42:00] Speaker C: Oh, absolutely. Especially in my earlier days that, I mean I had a home based gallery so I converted my home into a gallery and then I would sort of use the markets to funnel people back. And that worked really well. But I was so desperate to have a, like a shop front gallery. And I still thought about it recently when I was selling wall art, you know, two years ago when we were living in Bunnyong, there was, you know, a couple of spaces that came up. I thought, wow, that'd make a really good, you know, gallery. And I think, I think you're right, Justin. I think that is the only way you would do it is to actually set up a really nice space and you know, then I think you can display your work, your, your style of work rather than being at a market where somebody wants something of, you know, specific area or whatever. But I've always shied away from it because I don't want to sit in a gallery and run a gallery. So the, if you do the numbers like it's a huge amount of money to set up a gallery. If you still want to be photographing and doing other stuff, which you really have to be. So that's, you know, I've never taken, I've never taken that plunge. [00:43:16] Speaker A: Taken that. Yeah, it is a big leap. [00:43:19] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:43:19] Speaker A: We've spoken with guests in the past, Mika Boynton. Boynton and Matt Palmer, who run the Alpine Light Photo Gallery in Bright. I mean, they have a. Another interesting story around that in that they found that Bright wasn't big enough for two photographers to run a gallery each. So they kind of merged. Fortunately, they made a, you know, a relationship out of it as well. But they, you know, that helps. Yeah, but you know, that. And so I guess for them, they, they can't afford to staff it. [00:43:56] Speaker C: No, that's right. [00:43:57] Speaker A: Wasn't it, Justin? She was talking about how they, they have to manage it, but they give, they give each other days off to go and do shoots. [00:44:03] Speaker C: Yes. [00:44:05] Speaker A: Sometimes I'll just shut down to go away, you know. [00:44:07] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, they shut down if they go away together. Otherwise they, they try and schedule in each other to have time to go and specifically keep making work. Because otherwise, like you say, then you're in a spiral of, you know, it might be all right for a little while, but eventually that new work in your gallery, obviously sales will start to drop and also you'll probably get sort of fed up with, with just sitting in a. In a room and. [00:44:29] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:44:29] Speaker B: Hoping. [00:44:30] Speaker A: Yeah. Landscape photographers don't cope well just being locked away, hoping for things to work out. So, okay, so you're selling prints at the market. Okay, you're in down coastal way in Victoria. What was the next kind of step or stage in the business plan for you that that evolved? [00:44:54] Speaker C: So the postcards happened next. So that happened in 2003. So that happened. I mean, I shot extensively on the Great Ocean Road. I lived near the Great Ocean Road. So I was down there at one point and just, you know, walking through some souvenir shops or whatever and I thought all of these postcards, all these souvenirs, they're all a company. Like it's. There were three big companies that did souvenirs. I thought there's no actual. There's no photographer, there's no, there's nothing here. There's no work here being presented by a photographer. And it was all just cheap rubbish. So I thought, well, what if I produce like a, like a really high quality product that has an actual name on it so people can look at it and buy something that that is sort of like comes from a person, not, not from a. From a company that's then you know, printed in China. So I just sort of bit the bullet and created a range of postcards. Initially, Initially it was the Great Ocean Road and then I also incorporated the area that I lived, so Point Lonsdale, Queens, Cliff, Ocean Grove, smaller areas. I did postcards for them and then it evolved into greeting cards and then magnets and it, and it, it just grew. And it was incredibly hard at the start because I had to cold call. And this is, this is a hard thing when you're a small business and if you're a photographer doing your own thing, you've got to do multiple things. And I'm not a good salesman. That's my downforce. I'm not a natural, you know, hardcore salesman. So I hated like cold calling into shops and then trying to sell a product. But luckily it was sort of. Brendan, Brendan from Ocean Grove. Hello. [00:47:06] Speaker B: Oh yeah, yeah, Brendan. Brendan from Cameron photo in Ocean Grove and also famous podcaster from down south photo show. He says an easy way to make a million dollars from a photographic gallery, start with 2 million. Yeah, yeah, very inspiring, Brendan. [00:47:26] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. So anyway, I just bit the bullet, not really knowing what was going to happen, produced all this stuff and then just went and took it to shops. And luckily, luckily they sort of almost in a way welcomed me with open arms and said, geez, no, we've been hanging out for this sort of stuff. And it was, it was a little bit hard at the time because I was selling a postcard or they were retailing back then for a dollar fifty. And you know, most postcards sold for like 90 cents or no, two for a dollar or something. So I was up against that. But it just, yeah, it just sort of worked. And then that whole thing that, that grew. So then I went to Melbourne and, and picked up some Melbourne outlets. So I created a Melbourne range. I was doing a lot of stuff in the high country of Victoria, so I created, I worked on Mount Buller for a little bit. So I created a range for, for Mount Silver. Mount Buller. [00:48:31] Speaker A: So, and so what is the, what is the postcard business like these days with, with declining traditional mail? [00:48:40] Speaker C: Yeah, well, this is really interesting because. Okay, so I started doing postcards in 2000, 2003. So that was over 20 years ago. And so back then it was, yeah, it was pretty easy. Everyone bought postcards, magnets, whatever. And then as we entered this digital age, I started getting worried. Like in the last, it was probably 10 years ago, you know, all this digital stuff started happening. Social media, phones with cameras that people would, you Know, send their friends if they're away, whatever. So I was starting to think, I don't think people are going to buy postcards anymore. These are going to die. And I was pretty heavily invested into it. So I asked every retailer and I think at the time I had about 50 outlets that were selling my stuff. I asked everybody, give me a demographic, you know, who buys these? Are they still, are the numbers still good? Is it only old people that are buying them that, you know, still write letters? And they all said the same thing, they said, no, everybody buys postcards, from bloody 8 year old kids to grandmothers, they all still buy them and they still do. So that's one. [00:50:03] Speaker A: So what do you, what do you. I've got my theories, but what do you think that is? Why are they still selling? [00:50:14] Speaker C: I think, well, postcards are different to magnets. I think magnets are like a little souvenir that you take home as a memory. You chuck it on the fridge. So magnets are really big postcards. I don't know, people maybe just still want to actually send them. But I know a lot of postcards are sold and they never get sent. They, people actually take them home as a, as a memory. And it's sort of like, well, I visited all these places, I couldn't get, you know, the beautiful light, you know that, yeah, this area sort of displays and so they, they take it as a memory. [00:50:55] Speaker A: I think that, I think, yeah, I, I agree. I think there's something very nostalgic about postcards still because it doesn't matter what culture you came from, postcards were a thing. Unless, you know, obviously you came from a, a much poorer country. But you know, we all grew up with postcards. But even younger generation, I know, you know, I take my kids to the ngv, the National Gallery of Victoria here in Melbourne. Beautiful, huge gallery. And often at the end of the, when we, you know, hit the, the, the gallery shop, the first thing they, they gravitate towards and these are younger kids and young adults, they'll, they'll go straight to the postcard wall and they'll buy a couple of postcards of pieces of art that they think look beautiful. And I think in a way it's kind of, it's, it's that, that moment or that, that image called to me in some way and I want to have a piece of it. I want to have, I want to have that. I want to be able to recapture that feeling about looking at that on the wall and now I can put it on my desk. Or I can put it in my laptop bag, or I can. You know, and I. And I. You know, the. The kids in this house, anyway, they. They plaster their walls with postcards and stickers and, you know, prints of. Of their favorite artists and song lyrics. And, you know, it's like a. It's like a collage or we call it storytelling. We let the kids put whatever they want on the walls because it's them telling their story. [00:52:16] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:52:16] Speaker A: And often postcards feature in that. And I think there's something about that, you know, and it's like we. We've often talked here on the show about printing images, and we're going to get to your. Your print. Your print. [00:52:27] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:52:27] Speaker A: What do you call it? Club? The print. We'll get to that in a moment. But, you know, it's that whole thing, encourage people to print images, even if they just get some Little postcard size 5, 10 of their favorite shots from the last month or the last year or whatever it may be, and just print them out and just. Just tangibly hold them and. And put them in different light. You know, I think there's something really important about that in a visual craft. [00:52:50] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:52:51] Speaker A: And I think postcards provide people with a really affordable, easy way to obtain a piece of art. Yeah, that's my view. Anyway. [00:53:00] Speaker B: I'm gonna have to just go and try and close some doors off because the leaf blowing has begun at my house. [00:53:08] Speaker A: Your garden stuff out of control the whole time. This is where the kitchen team. [00:53:15] Speaker B: Is banging the pots and pans. A couple of quick comments before I do go from Rodney Nicholson. He says, I've had two galleries over different decades and had an amazing photographic lifestyle. 1987 to 1993 and then 2000 to 2006. Very rewarding time. You lived, ate, drank, and slept photography. [00:53:37] Speaker C: Yeah. So Rodney. Yeah, so Rodney was in the same town I lived in, so when I moved there. Yeah, he was quite inspirational. He. His work was amazing, and he was lucky enough. Yeah. He opened. He had a couple of galleries there. Yeah. So it was pretty incredible. [00:53:58] Speaker A: Welcome to the show, Rodney. [00:54:00] Speaker B: Yeah. Would you like to come and join us on an episode one day? Rodney, we'd love to talk. [00:54:05] Speaker C: Yeah. Gallery history, real character, and he's got a lot of stories. [00:54:10] Speaker B: Perfect. All right, I'll be back in two minutes. You guys can. [00:54:12] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:54:13] Speaker B: Without me. [00:54:14] Speaker A: Okay. We'll be fine. I don't know what to say. No, I'm joking. I think it's, you know, it's. It's. I've lost my train of thought. Rodney says hi, Dean Rodney. All right, so let's talk about the Print Club. On your site, there's a page dedicated to the Print Club. Yep. And there's even. Oops, that's got a login. I can't get into that because that's members only. But you offer printing service. You've also got a blog. Talk to us about the Print Club. What's the Print Club about? [00:54:53] Speaker C: Okay, so what, what happens? Doing lots of workshops. When I do workshops, part of the multi day workshop is print critique. So I tell people to bring five prints along and we do a group critique session during the workshop. And these critique workshops, these critiques are amazing. And I've actually created a day workshop from that. But what I, what I found was like, I always offered to print. I'll print your images if you don't have a printer. Okay. And so then during these workshops, people will come along, people that, you know, some people have got me to do their print, so I'll do them. Other people have, you know, they bring their prints out and go, well, where did you get this printer? And I say, oh, Harvey Norman. And, you know, half the problem is it's bloody awful because of the printing. Yeah. The other thing I realized was, like, so many people, I would say, you know, or people would say to me, I've never actually printed anything. I think it's like, it's horrendous how many people in these days, well, in this digital world are shooting and doing photography but never printing anything. I think it was crazy. Like, that's actually the end process of the whole process is to actually, you know, you take the shot, you process it, and then you print it. That's. That's what we do, basically. [00:56:33] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:56:34] Speaker C: So I thought, okay, well, I can see why, like, printing is a bit of a nightmare. It's. And I had these issues when I started professionally. I was using labs and, you know, you'd get. Even using a professional lab, you'd get one thing printed, you know, here, and then you get it printed, you know, two weeks later with the same image, and they'd come back different. So there are all these variables. And with printing these days, there's. There's so many variables and things that can go wrong. I can see why people opt not to print. So I thought, okay, well, I'm going to create a club. I'm going to do all of these video tutorials. So there's about eight video tutorials that you get a lifetime access to, and it covers the whole color management system. So how to capture your files, like monitor calibration, just different types of monitors. How to prepare your files for printing, how to check, you know, luminosity. Because that's the other thing is I get people send me files to print and. And I'll open it up in Photoshop and I'll go, this is way too dark to print. Like, my. It looks fantastic on their screen. I've edited it, you know, to a point where it looks bloody awesome. But everything's. All the blacks are all clipped, and so if I print it, I'll send it to them again. Oh, that was pretty awful. Looks nothing like what's on the screen. So it sort of. So this club gives them all of. All of that information that they can just go through and learn bit by bit at their own pace. And then the other really good thing with it is you get 10 print coupons. So I basically do 10 prints for you that's included in the. As part of the club. And so every month, I print once a month, and every month I pick a different paper. So we just recently printed on a metallic paper. The month before that was a burrito, which is perfect for black and whites. [00:58:50] Speaker B: And so that paper. That's. That's such a nice. I. That was my favorite. When we were doing weddings, I. We would only shoot. Sorry. Only provide prints on that burrito. Yeah, we used Canson Burrito. Yeah, it was beautiful. [00:59:05] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah. I use Canson Burrito for black and whites and. And Canson Platoon for color. But I actually prefer. The burrito is really interesting because it has a surface texture that looks like a darker imprint, and that's why it's so good for black and whites. So. So as part of the club, you know, you get to print on all these different papers, and that's really important for printing because you can, you know, different images look better on different styles of paper. Yeah. And it's funny, I initially set this up for people that don't have a printer and. And people that don't print. But so many of the people that have joined up actually have printers, and they just want to learn how to print properly. And, you know, the other good thing with it is that, like, I'm there to help them through. So, like, I just had a guy that had trouble calibrating his screen, so we sorted that out. And so it just gives them a place where they can learn how to print properly, have the experience of having their images printed, and just have a bit of backup. Like, there's so many labs now, or Everything's so programmed that, you know, you just. You send your files off. They don't even look at it. They just print it if it's wrong. [01:00:31] Speaker A: And you don't need to talk to someone about it. [01:00:33] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, it's. [01:00:34] Speaker A: It's all very transactional and. [01:00:36] Speaker C: Yeah, I don't want to talk to them. Talk about. So that's. So that's the print. [01:00:42] Speaker A: Can I ask you a couple of questions on that? [01:00:44] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:00:44] Speaker A: On the Print Club. So can anyone join the Print Club? Anyone within Australia and anyone within Australia? And so you post. Yeah, you post the. The final prints out to the club members once the prince run run's done, and you provide critique on the images as well. [01:01:03] Speaker C: No, so they get one of these boxes. So the other thing with print, people say, I don't. I don't print anything because I. I don't have any wall space to hang anything. Yeah, we don't have to. You just keep your prints in a beautiful box and people. Yeah, come. You can open the box, show them prints. [01:01:19] Speaker A: Yeah, that's lovely. Can. Just a couple of gear questions. Actually, just before I jump into those, I just want to remind everyone that this is the Camera Life podcast, proudly brought to you by Lucky Straps, makers of premium leather camera straps Aussie, made from Bendigo, Victoria, in Australia. [01:01:40] Speaker B: But we ship all over the world. [01:01:42] Speaker A: We do. Yeah, we do. But you're in Australia. [01:01:44] Speaker B: That's right. But we ship all over. [01:01:47] Speaker A: We do ship all over the world. [01:01:48] Speaker B: Anywhere you want. [01:01:50] Speaker A: Head to Luckystraps.com. choose yourself a strap. Enter code Greg. G R, e G for a 10. [01:01:56] Speaker B: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Code, Justin, Code. [01:01:59] Speaker A: No, no. Greg, Craig, I need that end of your bonus. Speak of the devil. Jim has joined us. Hi, Jim. Morning. [01:02:08] Speaker B: Don't enter Jim. If you scan the QR code next to Dean's head. If you're watching on YouTube, that will automatically put the code. Justin. [01:02:18] Speaker A: Oh, that's rigged. [01:02:20] Speaker B: Yeah, I know. I said I set the show up, so that's how. Because if you're wondering, if you're wondering what is going on right now, we're having a bit of a competition to see who can get their code used the most. And at the moment, I think Jim's winning and he's the. He's the. The host that's on the show the least. Somehow I think it's because we've. We've decided it's because it's only three letters, Jim. It's the quickest code to enter. [01:02:48] Speaker A: Anyway. [01:02:48] Speaker B: Anyway. Anyway, back to it, if you are. [01:02:50] Speaker A: Watching along and you're new to the channel or you're new to the show, please hit the like if you want. I think, yeah, more than anything just. [01:02:58] Speaker B: We hit a thousand subscribers. [01:03:00] Speaker A: Yeah, it's pretty cool. I'm telling them, keep subscribing. Yeah, it helps, it helps do what we do. [01:03:06] Speaker B: Exactly. [01:03:06] Speaker A: So let's talk gear. Just very quickly about printing because it's, it's not something that I, I don't do a lot of printing every now and then when I come back from a holiday or a trip or I might, you know, print a handful sort of larger images. But I, I will be the first to admit that I'm a, I'm terrible at understanding printing. Obviously I did it in the film lab days but digital, I just haven't. Mostly because of cost. But you know, so I, I, I have had some stuff printed at Big W. I will admit that Big W was like the Walmart for our American friends. [01:03:39] Speaker B: Anyway, that's exactly what it is. [01:03:44] Speaker C: For you. [01:03:45] Speaker A: I think I might, I think, I think you've inspired me. Two questions. Calibrated monitors. Is there a, do you use a specific monitor branded model that's pre calibrated, what they claim is pre calibrated in factory or do you use a, an attachable calibration tool? [01:04:06] Speaker C: Calibration tool. I'm like my mon. My monitor is an NEC and it's actually nearly 15 years old. So normally they say a screen won't last that long and like nowadays you'd buy probably an EIZO which are sort of self calibrated and a lot of screens nowadays you don't have to have a calibration tool. They'll have like presets. So if you were doing video work you would pick video. If you're doing web work you pick web. If you're printing, you pick print. And then that would sort of emulate the screen for that situation. So it's pretty easy. But as I said my screen is quite, it's quite old but it's obviously a bloody good one and I've just never replaced it because it still calibrates perfectly. But I do use, it's actually sitting right here. I use a calibrate one of these tools. [01:05:11] Speaker A: And do you sell them on your website? [01:05:12] Speaker B: Oh no. Is that an X right? [01:05:16] Speaker C: Yeah, it's, it's just changed names. It was X. Right. Gray tag. Macbeth before that? I think so. Display Pro. So it comes with its own software or if you're using a better screen like my nec it, it has its own software, but you'll need this device to actually, to calibrate it. And so what I do is because I print on different papers, different papers have a different feel and a different look. So an art paper is quite different, quite, quite different output to say, Canson Burrito. So you can actually create a monitor profile to emulate a paper, which is what I do. [01:06:03] Speaker A: Oh, wow. [01:06:04] Speaker C: Because I have a printing service. So, you know, the thing is that when you're editing an image, you're looking at it on your screen. Well, if you then go and print it, you know, your screen has to look how it's going to print. And this is, this is a big issue with printing that people get disappointed. And you know, 99 times out of 100, the fault is the screen, you know, the monitor is wrong. And I know when I print here, I'm printing on custom profiles, I know everything's exactly right. The printer doesn't lie, it's the monitor that lies. So it's really, really important if you're, if, if you're doing any really, really any sort of photography work that you have a, you know, a good calibrated monitor because if you're not, you're looking at a false picture, you know, you're editing an image incorrectly because that's not how it actually looks. [01:06:55] Speaker B: You know, you want to have some interesting anecdotal evidence over the years about calibrating monitors and stuff like that. We used to do it a lot because, so Jim and I had a, well, we still have a wedding business together. Jim does almost all of the weddings now. I do almost none of them. But when we were doing it sort of side by side, both full time, we printed our own set of 15 A4 prints for every couple because we, we wanted people to see things in person and, and in a size, we found a 4 was big enough to really appreciate the image. Whereas a lot of photographers sort of gave six by four fours, which I think, yeah, are good, good to kind of like a little handout or something. But it's not as big enough to really appreciate the sort of, the quality of the image and the quality of the printing. And we, we had many, many, many fights with our Epson 3880 that, that often decided to print the wrong size on the wrong size paper and all sorts of silly things like that. I bet you I'd love to hear some of your printing horror stories. But we used to calibrate our monitors to start with fairly religiously. But what I found over the years and tell me if you've had any experience like this. Mac monitors are very close and stay very close compared to other monitors. So at the moment I've got my MacBook Pro and prior to that we had imacs pretty much the whole time and they would very rarely waver out of like we'd calibrate them and then they'd stay pretty close and even I think Jim got one one year and he just didn't calibrate it and we printed off it and it was spot on. And as opposed to I've got a second monitor and because I'm not a billionaire, I couldn't afford max external monitor. Whatever that thing costs. It's like seven grand or something. It's so beautiful. It is so. It is beautiful. I bought a BenQ. It's like a calibre graded wide gamut but not, not in the cap, not in the caliber of like Ezo or whatever. But it was supposed to be, you know, a graphic design, video editing or photography monitor. Much dearer than your average monitor but not, not close to like your, what you would call professional grade. And it changes all the time. It changes all the time. I can't keep it calibrated very easily. And then I throw something over onto my MacBook Pro screen and it, and it's, it looks correct. So I don't know. Have you had any experience with different monitor brands and, and also the monitor that comes with a Mac? [01:09:29] Speaker C: I haven't had a lot of monitors, to be honest. Like I said, this one I've had for 15 years. So I actually recently bought a BenQ, probably the same one you have as a second monitor. And it's really interesting like calibrating the two. I can't get the two exactly the same. [01:09:50] Speaker B: Yeah, same. I can't, I can't get these two the same. [01:09:54] Speaker C: So it's a, it's a bit of a trap. Like you sort of say, well, which one's right, which one's wrong? I think the NEC is actually right and I think the, the BENQ is slightly off. [01:10:09] Speaker B: I think we'll be getting a BENQ sponsorship. Greg. [01:10:15] Speaker A: I don't think it was on the cards anyway. Justin. So he went on. [01:10:20] Speaker C: And it is still really close but there's just, it'll be some colors, some particular colors. If you get them up on both screens you go, well that one's slightly off. But then it also, in saying that that nec, I'm calibrating for a specific thing. So I've got like Five different monitor profiles. One's for a certain paper. You know, with BenQ it's just a straight out basic calibration, just a standard sort of calibration to sort of like one calibration fits all sort of thing. [01:10:52] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:10:53] Speaker C: But generally a screen, they don't, they don't waver much, they don't vary much like over time. Like one of the biggest questions I get asked is how often should I calibrate my screen? Well, I do mine every sort of three to six months and it's just for the sake of doing it. I don't do it because I think, oh, it's looking a bit wrong. [01:11:14] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. We found ours like when we were running off the IMAX once a year was. [01:11:21] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:11:22] Speaker B: Check it. And it was usually didn't really change much, you know. [01:11:26] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. But in saying that out of the box, the calibration out of the box compared to the calibrated profile is quite different. So if I just bought it out of the box and not put the calibration tool on it, then it's quite different to when it's calibrated. [01:11:52] Speaker A: Yeah. Which is interesting because they, you know, I remember in the past writing product descriptions for BENQ monitors to appear on camera store websites and, and they were all promising a pre calibrated set and. [01:12:04] Speaker B: Forget mine, mine came with a certificate of calibration. [01:12:08] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [01:12:09] Speaker B: From the factory. [01:12:10] Speaker A: Yeah, they often flogged that and it's, it's a, it's a, it's a bit of a trick. It's a, it's a bit of. Maybe it's better than a slight deceit. [01:12:19] Speaker B: Maybe it's better than your average. Yeah, your average three or 400 monitors, you know, from a computer shop. But yeah, it definitely wasn't. Just plug it in and you could do an end to end print. [01:12:30] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:12:31] Speaker B: You might workflow with without having color issues, that's for sure. [01:12:34] Speaker A: Yeah, it's a, it's a dangly, shiny thing to distract you from the price that you're spending on the manager on the monitor. My second, my second tech question. Yeah, sorry Justin. [01:12:45] Speaker B: No, I think I reckon you're going to ask what I was going to ask. I think maybe what printed do you use? [01:12:49] Speaker C: Yeah, well, so I've got an Epson at the moment and I had a Canon before that. So 24 inch, you can see it just behind me there. Yeah, 24 inch roll printer. So the Canon A2. Yeah, A2, I think. Yeah. I don't know. [01:13:16] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:13:17] Speaker C: After A3 I'm lost. So I had Canon for a long time and oh, look, they, they're both a love and hate relationship. They both do some good things and they both do some absolutely bloody stupid things. You know. [01:13:36] Speaker A: Why is that? Like, it's. Even if you're just buying crappy office printer, it doesn't matter the quality of the printer, you know, and even office machines, you know, I worked corporate for a couple of decades and, and it just, it baffles me. The interface between a computer and a printer should be simple and yet you just can't get it right. [01:13:55] Speaker C: I know, Yeah. I could talk for two hours on the stupid things that, that printers do. And I don't, I mean, the thing is that the output is incredible. And even the older the Canon printer I had, I think how old that was. It got to a point where, you know, like you update your computer. I went, I had an old Mac and then I went to a Mac studio which was running the latest software and now it's like, don't really like that printed driver anymore. And then, so, yeah, I had huge issues trying to connect it. I was on the phone to Canon for two hours. At one stage I had a tech guy come out and he couldn't, he couldn't get it working. And then I was on the phone to them for two hours and she ended up saying, oh, well, you know, your printer is 15 years old. We don't, we don't make a driver, you know, that, that suits your software anymore. So the only way I could run it would be to connect an old, an old computer. [01:15:04] Speaker B: Computer. [01:15:05] Speaker C: And it was at the point where it had, it had sort of served its time. So. Yeah. [01:15:10] Speaker A: How many prints do you think you're off the thing on average? [01:15:14] Speaker C: Oh, I don't know. They do actually have a feature in there where you can go and it tells you how many, how many meters you've printed. I would have, I would have printed thousands on that because one of the main things it did was I was making magnets and it was actually I was making the magnets myself and, and I still do now on this one. So, I mean I was selling at the time about 8,000 magnets a year. So it was. [01:15:45] Speaker A: And so it will take like a magnetic sheet and print onto the sheet I'd print on. [01:15:51] Speaker C: I got hold of this a three plus sheet that was super cheap and I'd print on that and then I'd run it through a, I had a roll laminating machine. It would run through that. [01:16:03] Speaker A: Oh yeah. [01:16:03] Speaker C: And then I was buying Magnet material that was on a big roll so then it'd be stuck onto that. And then I had a, I had a, like a machine made a stamper that cut them out. It had a template with, with like four, four ganged up or six ganged up and then I cut them out. It was quite, quite manually challenging. [01:16:29] Speaker B: Labor intensive. [01:16:31] Speaker C: Labor intensive. But it was better than any of the magnets I could go and get produced somewhere. So yeah, especially when you're talking stuff like. [01:16:44] Speaker A: Well, you want more control over it again, don't you? Yeah, there's no point trying to sell magnets if the print quality is crap. That's, you know, to fix the purpose quickly to your website, not quickly. I want to spend some time on this. That's okay with you guys? [01:16:58] Speaker B: Just, just. Well, before you pull it up, Greg, I had one final printer question that I don't know if you'll be able to answer, Dean, or not, but it depends on whether you keep up with it. Obviously you've got like a mega printer behind you that's probably out of, out of reach for us mere mortals, as Greg would often put it. Do you have in your print club, is there a printer that you recommend these days for home printing? A photographic printer that's of decent quality that say a four size or something? Thereabouts. Yeah, that, that works well. [01:17:32] Speaker C: Yeah, there will be. I don't at the moment, but I'm doing like several blog posts on stuff like that. So I'm going to do one on monitors pretty shortly. So just guiding people, you know. Okay, if you want to buy a monitor, you know, here's two options, you know, $800 option or a two and a half thousand dollars option. And then I'll do the same with, with, with printing because it's really good. [01:17:58] Speaker B: Yeah, keep an eye out for that because I've been looking as well because you know, we've had that 3880 for a long time. Jim's got it now in his home office and I'm glad to be rid of it, frankly. It caused me. I actually. Have you guys seen the movie Office Space? Older movie. Anyway, they smash up a photocopier in that and that's. I was very close to that many times with that 30. [01:18:29] Speaker A: Anyway, you're not a man prone to violence. [01:18:32] Speaker B: No, it pushed me to my breaking point. Anyway, I've been thinking about getting like a home, you know, a four size printer just to be able to print my own phone photos. And I've been keeping a close eye on the on the tank. Ones that have been coming out can and Epson and a few other companies have been doing that. The ink's a bit cheaper and that kind of stuff. So I'm interested to see which of those models would be appropriate for high quality photo printing without going full on. Yeah, yeah, yeah. [01:19:07] Speaker C: Because one of the biggest problems with a big printer like this one behind me is that they have to self clean themselves. Helps. And you know that thing will use 500 worth of ink a year. I've actually calculated it. It is, it's about 500 bucks a year just in cleaning. [01:19:22] Speaker B: Yeah, we have a lot of clogged nozzles on the. [01:19:27] Speaker A: Lost ink from cleaning. [01:19:28] Speaker C: That's what I think. [01:19:30] Speaker B: Yeah, it's got to blast through the clogs and stuff. Yeah, yeah. [01:19:34] Speaker C: Because I just naturally happen. So if you're using it all the time, it's, it's better because the ink doesn't sit, you know, over a period of time. The Canon was fantastic in that it had built into the machine and you couldn't turn it off. It just self cleaned itself. You couldn't control it. It would just actually go into a cleaning phase. And with it I never ever had a block nozzle consequently. But my God, it, you know, did quite a bit of ink wastage and this one doesn't. But you know, I, I run a print, like a print nozzle check, you know, every Monday morning and you know, I've had a lot of block nozzles on this that you know, you've then got to put it through a heavy. [01:20:22] Speaker B: Clean and just, and, and that's usually after you've burnt some really expensive paper to find out. [01:20:29] Speaker C: Yeah, this is blocked. Yeah, yeah. [01:20:33] Speaker B: Springing back memories. [01:20:35] Speaker A: So I guess, I guess. Oh, you want to jump to that. [01:20:37] Speaker B: Comment Just, yeah, just quickly before we, before we move on to it. Paul Henderson's just joined the chat and he says, I love my current monitor but I don't think it can be calibrated. And prints always come out darker on my Canon 6 in 6 ink printer. Is that true? Are some monitors not able to be calibrated? [01:20:55] Speaker C: No, you can calibrate any monitor. So because the software that's using doesn't, it doesn't matter on the monitor. The monitor, when you calibrate it, the only, the only two things you change is you set the white point and you set the luminosity. So with pause, if your prints are too dark. Well, the first thing I'd be doing is turning the luminosity of your monitor down but with, with this machine, you can, you can calibrate any screen because it just uses its own software. The thing is that, you know, it still doesn't do magic. It can only do what the monitor is capable of. So it doesn't mean that, you know, you just go and calibrate it and it's going to be perfect. Because if it's not capable of getting to that point, it never will be. [01:21:48] Speaker B: To clarify it, it's not your monitor settings that, that are able to be calibrated or not calibrated. It's a. It's a program that comes with that monitor calibration tool that runs in the background on your computer and tells the monitor what to display, essentially. [01:22:06] Speaker C: Yeah, it creates a lot. So it's just think of it as color correction. You know, it throws up, you know, like 500 colors and it reads that color. And so it throws up a blue and it'll go, well, that's not the right blue. We'll try and make a correction for it, bring it back to where it should be. [01:22:28] Speaker A: Okay. [01:22:28] Speaker B: And Matt's just throwing a comment. Matt Palmer in the chat. Good to see you. [01:22:33] Speaker A: Hey, Matt. [01:22:34] Speaker B: He says generally, and he's put generally in asterisks. I'm going to do this. Generally, a print will appear a little darker than a screen because screens have the lighting coming through it, whereas paper doesn't emit light. It relies on the light in the space, like reflective light, I guess, versus backlit. So, yeah, good tips, I think, just. [01:22:55] Speaker A: To tie a little, a little bow in this section of our discussion, I think, you know, like, like us, we've talked about it a lot on the show. The beauty of printing and just the difference it makes you. The difference that it creates for you in how you observe your own images. You know, we can look at it on a screen. And we've talked about who do we take photos for. We've talked about that a lot in the past. And what do we take photos for? You know, and I think there's a. Like you said, there's kind of a. There's often a missing step in the, in the, in the chain or the process where people take the shots, they edit them, and then they go into a hard drive and we all do it. I'm just as responsible and guilty of that as anyone. But, you know, being able to select the odd print that you're really proud of that you find is special for you and printing it. And, you know, I would much rather have that box of prints that, that you Supply. And yes, it's in a box. It's not necessarily on the wall. And a lot of people can't put art on the wall that it's sitting somewhere in a hard drive or. Or existing in social media space. But also, I think, you know, a service like what you're offering, you know, the Print Club and you also, obviously you offer just general print services as well. It's a very appealing and attractive option for people like us, who. Or me especially. I. I can't afford to buy a nice printer. I've obviously made the mistake of printing a big W in the past and being incredibly dissatisfied. I remember getting even just a bunch of kind of, you know, slightly larger prints done after a trip from Japan. And the guy. I mean, this is my own fault for going there, but the guy at the service counter handed them over and every single print had like a scratch line through it. So there was something lodged in the printer and he thought that was fine. And when I asked if he could reprint them, he kind of got angry at me. So, you know, avoid those situations and look for a service like Dean's Print Club. Because I think that there's still inherent value in printing your images from time to time. It will teach you more about your photography. It'll help you appreciate what you actually have actually created. I think that's really important and special. [01:25:06] Speaker C: It's just part of the whole process too, isn't it? Like, yeah, even if you don't. You know, we, as photographers, we learn so many things like whether be technical or aesthetic. And then the whole printing thing, even if you don't print a lot, it's just, I think, interesting to have that knowledge and to know that. How that process works. And the exciting thing, I think, for me in my career when I look back, is that when I started I was shooting film, everything was being sent to a lab. It was being processed analog. So through an enlarger and then wet, wet printed. Then it moved to, you know, the trainings were scanned and then printed through a wet process and then it went full digital. And now it's to the point now where I have. I have full control myself. I can sit here and stuff comes out here. It's bloody amazing. It's incredible that we can now actually do that. Whereas that was just a pipe dream in the early days. It was impossible. [01:26:19] Speaker A: Yeah, it was, yeah. [01:26:20] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:26:20] Speaker A: I remember how delighted I was finding an old. For our. My friend and I built a dark room like you. I've talked about this on the show before in One of his parents bathrooms and, and, and how delighted we were to find a cheap second hand enlarger. [01:26:35] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:26:36] Speaker A: You know, because they were so expensive to buy brand new. Yeah. And I mean you know, granted this was in the very early kind of 90s so. Yeah. But still, you know, being able to print your stuff, I think, you know, it's pretty, it teaches you a lot like I've said. [01:26:53] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:26:54] Speaker A: Moving forward, I want to bring up your website just to talk about the next section. I'm really keen to understand. I'm sure a lot of people are as well listening along and watching along. You've got a section. So this is Dean's website for everyone. Check it out. The links are in the, in the description and Justin's also dropped a link in the chat. Chat for the print club. Suggest you look it up. [01:27:16] Speaker C: Thank you. [01:27:16] Speaker A: But you know we've got the calendars, we've got the gift cards, your souvenir range, so the magnets and, and the stickers and the like. But you've also got a shop photo gear section which is very comprehensive. You have on there a bunch of second hand gear but you're selling a whole range of stuff from lenses to straps. Oh, might have to do something about that. [01:27:42] Speaker B: I don't know about that. [01:27:43] Speaker A: Might have to change that for you there. Discussion about that one. We'll skip over the straps for the moment folks. You know like you sell these Novo Flex products. [01:27:59] Speaker C: Yep. [01:28:00] Speaker B: Yeah. How did this, how did this begin? When, when was the first sort of thing that popped up that you were like okay, there's this product that, that I use or whatever. Yeah. How did, how did you get started selling? [01:28:11] Speaker A: And just on that, just quickly. So we've had guests in the past who do sell gear but more often than not it's a specific piece of equipment like a star tracker. And they work with that brand because they're professional astrophotographers. So they sell the star trackers on behalf of the brand. You've got a whole range of stuff on here. [01:28:28] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. [01:28:29] Speaker A: Like Justin said, how did that, how did that begin? [01:28:32] Speaker C: So it started with I used to use Lee filters, which are an English made filter, like an ND filter system. And so I used to use, use those and then I'd go and I'd run workshops and everybody would want to know how do I buy these, where do I buy them from? So you, you couldn't really buy them very well in Australia. And so I would give, I created this whole link for BH and say, here's the links. Just buy it out of the U.S. anyway, I was running a workshop and I told this guy that. He turned around and said to me, he said, that's ridiculous. He said, you should sell them. He said, you're using them. Why aren't you selling them? And I went, it's a good question. Maybe I should. So I contacted Lee Filters in the UK and they weren't interested. And. But they put me on that. They said, we've got three distributors in Australia. So long story short, it was a freaking nightmare working with all of these three distributors. Absolute waste of time. It's just ridiculous. Like, unbelievable. And anyway, I was still doing it, so I was buying stuff and selling. I had to keep like this ridiculous amount of stock to be able to sell them. And then there was no. [01:30:02] Speaker B: So you were, you were physically stocking them. You would, you would order a box and. Yeah, I'm sitting at your place. [01:30:09] Speaker C: Yeah, I had to buy $10,000 worth. What was it, 10,000. I had to purchase $10,000 worth every two months or something. And I couldn't put an order in less than $2,000. So if somebody wanted one specific, you know, like a red filter for black and white or whatever, well, I can't order it until I'm ready to order two brands. [01:30:31] Speaker B: Bloody stupid, you know, that is stupid. [01:30:33] Speaker C: So anyway, I was using them and then NISSI filters came into Australia. And the biggest. The biggest problem with the Lee filter system was was that they didn't have a very good polarizer set up. The polarizer went on the front of the holder and it was like a $500 filter. And then it sat out the front, which meant that it vignetted. You couldn't shoot wide angle all the rest of it. I actually built and created a polarizer to fit this system. And so NISSI filters come along and they had a system and. And their polarizer was built into the, like the back end of the filter system near, near the lens. And they claimed that there was no vignetting. So I was really intrigued. So I just contacted them and said, oh, look, I'm selling Lee filters, blah, blah, blah. This is what I do. Can I buy a set of filters off you? I said, I'm really keen to sort of see how they work. So I bought a set, got them and went, oh my God, you know, why haven't Lee done this? This is bloody ridiculous. Yeah, the other stupid thing was that Lee filters didn't have any coatings on their filters. So the 10 stop. You know, you shoot with a 10 stop, everything goes blue because there's no coatings to cover, cut out the infrared or the UV light. Whereas the Missy filters had coatings on it. So you got really nice color. So at the time NISSI filters were very new in Australia and what they were doing is the only way they were selling was through professional photographers that use the gear. That's how they started. They didn't take anything to camera stores. It was really clever and smart the way they did it. So they said to me, do you want to become a reseller? And they said, and I said yeah, okay. And like I didn't have to carry any stock, it's just drop ship. And so that's how it started. I started selling NISSI filters. That company now is a distributor for all those other products that you see. So they. [01:32:44] Speaker A: Oh wow. Okay. [01:32:45] Speaker C: So no, you know, NovaFlex, Summit Creator, Atoll, Visible Dust, all of those products all come under the, the, the guys that run NISSI Australia. [01:33:02] Speaker B: Right, okay. [01:33:06] Speaker C: So they had Surui tripods, I've just dropped them. And they now have now the distributors for Leo Photo. So these guys are absolutely amazing. They're brilliant to work with that really supported. They've supported me incredibly I think how long I've been with them, probably nearly 10 years now maybe. I don't know how long it's been family run business. It's two, two brothers that run it. So luckily they have just taken on all these other brands which has allowed me to, to be able to on sell their product. So Hoodman Loops are the only ones that they don't have that I sell. So the loops I, I was using, I've always used Hoodman Loops. And again people wanted to know where can, where can I buy these? And like no one in Australia sold them. There would be a couple of places that would list them but they never had stock. So I just contacted Hoodman in the US and said this is what I want to do. They were really good. I, I'd done a couple of YouTube videos on it and they, they wanted to use those and we sort of collaborated on that. Yeah. And then now I just buy them direct out of the us. [01:34:28] Speaker A: I just want to highlight. [01:34:29] Speaker B: I used to have one of those on my Canon 60D when I was trying to film video on it. Yeah, the Hoodman it was, it was those that it magneted on to the LCD screen. [01:34:39] Speaker C: Oh yeah, yeah. Pretty clever. [01:34:41] Speaker A: Yeah. Just to, just to give everyone that's watching along an example. For those of you listening along or those that don't have time to have it, have a squeeze, check it out later. But this is just for the Hoodman loop, which is one of many. If you have a look at the photo gear, there's so many products on here. Well worth a look. But it's, it's. It's like a retail site. It's very well balanced. It's got, you know, rotating carousel here of images. You've got specs, you've got the product that you can add to cart, you've got videos to show you how it works. It's really comprehensive, Dana. It's quite impressive. [01:35:22] Speaker C: Yeah. It sort of just started with products that I use, especially tripods and stuff like. So it started with that and then stuff that I would review. So obviously this company sent me a lot of stuff to. To do reviews on, and I sort of found that, you know, I sell a lot of gear because people know that I use it and I sort of. I endorse it, I guess you would say. And I think for a lot of, you know, a lot of photographers, that's what they want. They need that advice. And they need advice from someone that's actually using this gear rather than going, you know, into, you know, Harvey Norman's or wherever or JB hi Fi and just being sold something. Yeah, yeah, stuff like that. [01:36:19] Speaker A: Live in a world of knockoff products, you know, with incredibly, you know, cheap product alternatives. And sometimes you just need to cut through the noise to find something good. And it's good to have someone who physically uses them, has actually got videos on their YouTube channel of them using it, telling others how to use it. I think it's huge value. Add what a traditional retailer offers. [01:36:42] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. So talk to us. All right, you've got. You've got a shop on here. I can see workshops, I can see a calendar. I can see the Print Club souvenirs, tons of wall art. Talk to us about making a living as a landscape photographer and maybe if you're comfortable, like what, roughly how much, what percentage of your income comes from various streams that you've set up over the years? [01:37:18] Speaker C: Okay, so first, it's bloody hard. It's not easy. I think you have to diversify. So I've sort of been aware of that right from the start. And you have to. You've got to go with the times and the flow, what people want. So I've been through periods where wall art was really big, so it was really easy to sell. And then that sort of, you know, when that dies and stops, then you've got to have a backup, you've got to reinvent yourself, basically. So I think if you just relied on one thing, it's too hard, especially things like Covid. So when. If I only did workshops, then, you know, I would have died. During COVID I would have gone broke because I would have had, you know, no income stream at all, because all your eggs are in one basket. So for me, with it, you know, I basically got three income streams. So I've got workshops, I've got camera gear that I sell, that I make a commission on, and then I've got the souvenir range. So, like during COVID those three things. Two of them. Two of them died in the ass. Like, you know, obviously no one did workshops and nobody bought souvenirs because there were no tourists. So luckily, you know, I still had the camera gear. Like, a lot of people bought camera gear during COVID because they had nothing to do. So they went through all the gear and went, oh, I don't. That tripod's rubbish. I need to get a new one. So that sort of kept me going. I think from a, say, a percentage split, then it's probably. Probably like 60 workshops at the moment, 20% souvenirs and 20 camera gear that. That sort of split. It just depends on where you want to put your energy. Like, you know, I could put all my energy into souvenirs if I wanted and get another 50 outlets and really push that. But it's just what you're comfortable doing and what you want to do. I suppose I don't want to do that because, as I said earlier, I'm not a natural salesman. I'm not a. I'm not a really good, sort of savvy business person as such. I prefer, you know, I really love the teaching side at the moment. So that's why most of my income is coming from workshops, because I just love teaching. Can I ask you a question? [01:39:52] Speaker A: In that Dean, with the. You haven't. You've mentioned sort of you've got the three core revenue streams. You haven't mentioned the printing service or the print club. Is that. Because that runs pretty tight. You don't make much money off printing. [01:40:09] Speaker C: Yeah, I don't. The printing service just came up when I bought this printer. It was sort of like, okay, well, I might as well offer a printing service. I used to do a bit of printing for some wedding photographers and whatever. So it was just sort of like the print is sitting there. Why not, you know, offer a service? So that's fairly new. And then the print Club. I'm, I'm really hoping to, to build the whole printing side of it because I sort of, you know, I really love printing and I think it's, it's even just the printing service. Like I offer two services, a standard service and a premium service. And like the premium service, you can't get anywhere else, not that I know of, where I'll actually like go through with you on a zoom call and actually re edit your photo to a point where we're happy with it. And that's going to print really nicely. That's huge. And yeah, yeah, like, I mean, why not? If you go, if you got this, you know, fantastic photo that you want to print large to put on your wall, well, you want the absolute best print that you can get. And you know, it's disappointing when you get a print done. It's happened to me in the past, you know, through my career where you've, you know, had amazing images and you get it printed and it comes back pretty shabby because of the way it's been printed. And even just with my standard service, like if there's any red flag, you know, I contact the client and say, hey, this is not exactly an 8 by 10. You know, you're aware of that. That's one of the biggest things that happens. People Send me an 8 by 12 to be printed. They've exported it out of Lightroom and it's not an 8 by 12, it's no 8 by 10.5 because I've cropped a piece off. But Lightroom doesn't value that. It's 8 by 10.5. You've just told it to export an 8 by 12. So you think it's 8 by 12 12. So there's stuff like that. And that's really important because if that person wants to put that, if they've got a frame set aside, that's 8 by 12, you know, and they want to put it in that. Well, now it's not going to fit. Yeah, things like, you know, you get sent so many black and whites to print that are just way too dark and you know, a normal printing service, they just go ahead and print it. You get your print back and it's like, that's not very good. So I'm pretty passionate about the whole, the whole printing side of it. And I do, I run printing workshops here as well. I'm lucky enough that we've moved to this house in, in Adelaide in this room. I've converted this room into like a studio where I can run Workshops. So that's all pretty exciting. [01:42:59] Speaker B: That's awesome. And the workshops are something I wanted to dig into before we. Before we run out of time. We're already at sneaking up on two hours. This is going. We'll just have to keep you on here all day because you obviously love teaching landscape photography and we haven't even dug into that side of your workshops. And things give us an idea of what your workshops are like, who are they for and what is it that you try to. What sort of knowledge do you try to impart on landscape photographers that come on your workshops? [01:43:34] Speaker C: Yeah, so there's. I've always sort of felt that there is. There's two parts to more any sort of photography. One is the technical side and then one is the aesthetic side. And we. We focus very heavily these days on the. On the technical side. And I find, you know, a lot of people that come on workshops just want to. They want to learn all the technical side, but they. They sort of forget about the aesthetic side. So all of my workshops, because they're small groups of people, I sort of. I try and sum them up and work out where they want to hit. Do you just want to learn more technical stuff or do you want to learn more aesthetic stuff? And I actually really prefer teaching the aesthetic side. So I think, you know, composition is such a. Such a big thing. And, you know, when I went through my photography journey, that was the hardest part because it didn't come naturally. And I actually thought that it was impossible to learn or. No, I thought it was impossible to teach it. I thought, well, how the hell do you teach that? And for a long time I thought that it wasn't possible, but now I know that it is. And I have. It's a bit of an unorthodox technique the way I teach it, but it's. That sort of breaks it down to a very simple process that I find people, they really catch on really quick. And there's a lot of light bulb moments where they go, oh, of course, you know, yeah, that makes. It all makes sense now. So I really love teaching more. More the aesthetic side and sort of teaching people how to see, basically, because I figure a lot of the technical stuff, you can. You can learn that as you go along. You can learn it through YouTube, you can. You can learn it through online courses or whatever, but to actually spend time with someone in the field that can teach you how to see and how to look at a scene and how to break down a scene and analyze it and then how to compose an image and bring all of the elements in so that they work in a nice way. I find that really incredible. And that's sort of what I love doing. [01:46:02] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:46:02] Speaker B: Is there a. Is there a concept, you know, with, with learning how to see scenes in different ways? Is there a concept that you commonly teach, that you could impart on the, on the podcast, sort of a piece of advice you could give to landscape photographers to help elevate their images? [01:46:25] Speaker C: Yep. I think that the first. The first thing I really hammer into people is know what your subject is. So when you think about it, we all. We all approach a scene, we set up our camera, we're going to take a shot. We don't just place it anywhere or point it any random way, do we? There's always something that has attracted us. So if I'm working with a client and they've got their tripod set up, they're taking a shot and I'm looking at the scene, and the first thing I'll say to them, okay, so what's the subject? What's attracted you to this scene? And they'll say, oh, the big rock out there. And I go, okay, so the most important thing when you're constructing an image or making an image is to never forget that first initial contact with the scene of what your subject is. Because what happens is people, they find the subject and then they'll take the picture and then I'll look at it and analyze it and I'll go, well, what about all this stuff down here that's, that's taking away from this, from your subject, where you're trying to send the viewer. So then we work on things, okay, well, that's our subject now. We've got to take all these other elements and we've got to build them into the scene, into the frame is so that your subject is very obvious and it stands out. So it all sounds pretty simple, but you can say it over and over and over. Just remember what your subject is and stay true to your subject. [01:48:02] Speaker B: I haven't, I haven't heard it explained like that before. I, I've always thought of landscape photography as a scene as opposed to a. A subject. And yeah, that makes a lot of sense as to, to, you know, what are you including, what are you excluding, and is it helping or hurting how you want to portray that subject? That makes total sense. It's great. [01:48:21] Speaker C: Just hang on one sec. I've got the postie here. [01:48:25] Speaker B: Yeah. What do you reckon? Great. I reckon that's a very. Have you ever thought about landscape photography in that way? [01:48:32] Speaker A: Not so much landscape. No. I mean, I'm more of an aesthetic photographer, you know, having. Think about what Dean said. I'm more aesthetic than technical. You're a very technical photographer, I think. But, you know, I guess when I do street, I look for the. I look for the light and then I look for the, the composition and then I wait for the subject to enter scenes. So it's a little bit different, I guess, for me. [01:48:59] Speaker B: Different process as a big tree or a rock or a river or something. Yeah, it's not going anywhere. And you have time to sort of really think about that subject. [01:49:10] Speaker A: I think it is a good way to look at it because it's a great way to look at it. I'm sorry. Because, you know, that becomes your anchor. And, and often we've heard other people like Leon, when he was saying, you know, when, when he went up on that trip with Pinky Spencer to New Zealand and they landed on the glacier and, you know, I don't know if it was before or after the shot, but he just made everyone put their cameras down and just said, just, just stop. Just look, don't. Don't think about the photograph. Don't think about the print. Don't think about the shutter speed or the. Just, just look at the scene and look for what grabs you. And I think there's a, you know, there's a lot of wisdom in that. [01:49:49] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:49:50] Speaker A: In that approach too. [01:49:52] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:49:52] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:49:53] Speaker C: And some people, like, some people fail to see and it's like they have to do exactly what you just said or they think that, you know, landscape photography is all about the scene, like the, you know, the vast, wide landscape. And, you know, it's funny because when I first started shooting, I shot everything on a wide angle lens. Everything was on a 15 mil lens. And I'd try and get the whole beach in the whole, the whole scene. And then actually I was in Tassie and I saw a exhibition of Peter Dombroski's work. And that was just an absolute light bulb moment for me. All of, all of his images were all about what was at his feet, but it was, he was a landscape photographer, so it wasn't what's way, way out there, it's what's right in front of you. And my, you know, I shoot my seascapes like that now. Like, I don't, I don't really care for what's out in the ocean. I'm looking down at my feet and what's, you know, all the interesting patterns and the rock pools and you know, making an image out of, you know, that rather than the actual scene. [01:51:07] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:51:08] Speaker C: So it's just a way of, it's just a way of looking at things, I guess. Yeah. [01:51:16] Speaker B: Concept. [01:51:19] Speaker A: A couple of comments. [01:51:20] Speaker B: Yeah. Marie Phillip in the, in the chat says any chance of Dean making an appearance at bfop, which is the bright festival of photography? Any chance? [01:51:31] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:51:35] Speaker B: I don't know. I actually don't know how they get, how they get speakers and stuff over there. It's a mystery. But you know people, we know people well. Yeah, we'll see. [01:51:48] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:51:48] Speaker B: Whether they're trying to expand their lineup or if they've got tons of people or not. But yeah, we're going to be making an appearance over there this year. Hopefully we are. No, we, we should say we're going, but we won't be teaching anyone even. [01:52:00] Speaker A: If we just lurk in the background because they'll, you know, they ban us or something. [01:52:03] Speaker B: That's what we, that's what we paint. [01:52:04] Speaker A: The van black and we'll go stealth. [01:52:06] Speaker B: That's right. Undercover. [01:52:09] Speaker A: Undercover. [01:52:10] Speaker B: Now there was a few, I don't know, I don't know, we're all over the place. But there's a couple. There's a few comments from before from, from both Nev Clark and Matt Palmer, both friends of the show. Great interviews, multiple appearances and, and both sort of echoing the same sentiments that it is difficult to survive as a landscape photographer. Diversifying is important to have different streams of income and that it's very challenging. Yeah. Matt says can confirm it's bloody hard, especially when people are experiencing rising living costs. I'm going to throw you a question, Dean. Yeah, two questions. One, is it possible for someone starting in 2025 to make a full time living as a landscape photographer? And two, sorry I had to do it. And two, one, is it possible in 2025? And two, what advice would you give them? How should they go about it? [01:53:11] Speaker C: Yeah, no pressure. Oh look, it's, of course it's possible. I think anything's possible. It's bloody hard. My, my advice is if, if you're going to enter into this as a, you know, a full time business or full time income, then you have to be a business person. Like you've obviously got to be a good photographer but if you don't like business and you don't have a business head, you'll, you'll never make it. You'll never survive because you won't survive on, you know, how good your, your photos are. It really Takes. It's. Unfortunately, it's probably, you know, 90% business, 10% photography. [01:54:06] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:54:07] Speaker C: So I think, you know, the ones that do really well out of it financially are the ones that are bloody good in business. I mean, they would have made. They make money out of whatever they do. It doesn't matter what they do. Yeah. So it's really hard because it's, you know, like I, I do this because I'm so passionate about it, you know, and I have made a living from it for the last 25 years, which is all great and I've had a great lifestyle, but it's been bloody hard. And, you know, if I was much better at business, I would probably be better off financially. But then is. Is that what it's about? Is it? You're sort of gauged on the financial side, like, I don't know how you gauge success. Yeah, it's bloody hard. [01:55:04] Speaker B: Are there any lessons, Are there any lessons you've learned about business in the last 20 years or so? Is there, is there any lessons you've learned that you wish you knew when you started? [01:55:18] Speaker C: No, probably not. Not that I can think of. No. I don't. I don't think so. I think times change. Not probably not from a business side. There's certainly, there's certainly things that I've. That I've learned. You know, the main thing is just things change, things evolve. Things are continually changing. And if you don't, if you don't change, then you really get sort of lost. You know, you'll fall way behind and you'll never catch up. It's a bit like, you know, selling wall art. You know, like, I tried it two years ago and I was highly successful with it 20 years ago, but two years ago, it's just like, I've tried everything. It's just not, you know, it's not sustainable for the amount of effort I'm putting in. So you go, okay, well, I'm not going to do that anymore. I'm going to put more energy into doing something else. Yeah. And that's really from, from a small business point of view, that's sort of what this is. Like, you've only got. You've only got so much energy, so you got to be very careful where you place it and, and what you do. Yeah. And unfortunately, sometimes you've. You've got to choose not what you want. Like you've got to choose what you think pays the bills. [01:56:43] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:56:44] Speaker C: So it's hard. [01:56:47] Speaker A: I think what I kind of picked out of that advice is you know, and we've seen it from other guests. You know, diversify, learn how to pivot and be flexible. [01:56:59] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:56:59] Speaker A: And if there are business skills that you're lacking, we'll invest in that. [01:57:03] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:57:03] Speaker A: If you've already nailed the photography skills or invest in the business skills. Yeah. You know, and we've spoken to other people that have run successful photography businesses. Obviously, Justin and Jim. With Justin and Jim weddings in Bendigo, you know, you guys have run a business successfully for a decade. Survived Covid. Yep. You know, and that. That in itself is big. You know, I mean, and you had it. You had an alternative revenue stream. You had lucky straps. And even though Covid throttled that a little, you know, you had the diversity. And we talked to Mika Boynton, who has that business head because she grew up on a family winery. On Boynton's Winery, she grew up with a family that was running a small business. The food on the table was reliant on the family pulling together and doing what needed to be done for the business. So you're spot on. There is that element. Business is something that I never understood, and it's something that I never really invested in. And as a result, whenever I tried to move into a, you know, a higher level of professional photography, I struggled immensely because I just had no background in business or where to start. And so I think. I think the lesson, the big lesson for me there, out of. Especially out of today's chat, is, you know, invest in those skills. If, you know, you're already a great photographer and you're nailing photos, and then invest in other skills to make that photo that creative, or the aesthetic. As you say, shine, shine through. So great advice there, Dean. I am Chris Conscious of Time. We've just hit 11 o'clock and you are listening to the Camera Life podcast, episode 70, if you can believe that, we're on the brink of Easter. And so I hope that all of you have some plans. Even if you're spending time with family, make sure you take a camera, document those moments, because they'll never happen again. Justin, is there anything you want to wrap up on while we've got Dean in the hot seat? [01:59:06] Speaker B: There's so many things on my list. I feel like we probably have to do a part two to this or something like that. I've got Dean's Instagram up if you. If you guys want to head over there. Like, we didn't get a chance to dig through any of Dean's images and. And sort of look at the different. [01:59:21] Speaker A: Styles we don't know. [01:59:25] Speaker B: Different. Yeah, no, they're not chopping himself up. [01:59:28] Speaker A: For two hours and they're, they're most. [01:59:30] Speaker B: Certainly not like there's a million things I could have asked. I wanted to ask about filters. I wanted to ask about like post processing for black and white landscapes and stuff like that. There's probably hours longer that we could keep going. [01:59:46] Speaker A: That's a roundabout way of saying we're going to have you back, Dean. [01:59:49] Speaker B: I think if it's okay, we might do a part two. Question is probably. Dean, is there anything that you want to bring up or chat about or promote, any workshops that are coming up, any other services or products that you've been offering or going to be offering in the coming few months here? What's happening with you? [02:00:09] Speaker C: So just say if you're interested, just head to my website and have a look. If you're based in Adelaide, then I obviously do some, some day workshops here. I do workshops on long exposure photography. I've got a printing workshop here. I've started a new one called the Art of Critique where I created critique three of your images and then longer workshops. I've got Flinders island, it's a five day workshop later on in the year in September and then I've got New Zealand next year. I'll probably have more later, some more longer workshops for next year. I'm not quite sure yet what I'm doing other than New Zealand and, and probably Flinders island again. And then if you, yeah, if you have any printing that you want done, then obviously I've got a printing service if you want to have a look at the print Club. Because I'm just, I'm just really excited about the, the carbon being able to, you know, get, get people into the, into the printing sort of scene and, and, and understanding it. And then obviously I've got like a lot of gear there if you, if you want any gear that I'm always here to, you know, ask questions and give advice. All right. [02:01:28] Speaker B: Love it. [02:01:29] Speaker C: Yeah. [02:01:30] Speaker A: Complete package. Dan, you are the complete package of landscape photography, I've got to say. [02:01:35] Speaker B: Brendan. Brendan Waite says, great chat guys. Dean is a very talented photographer who has great advice and even so he does. [02:01:44] Speaker A: Thanks Brendan. Good to see you, mate. [02:01:46] Speaker B: And Nev. Nev was in here talking about diversifying his landscape photography with weddings he's been playing with as well. And he also really liked your, your approach to landscape photography. Sounds like a mindfulness based approach. [02:02:05] Speaker A: And Nevs has been an. Obviously we've had Nev on the show a number of times and we've. He's a regular contributor to our chat. You know, Nev's growth as a landscape photographer has been in part sustained by diversifying and moving into, you know, he's doing weddings, he does works. He does photography for his day job working with youth services and drug and alcohol counseling. You know, he works with school. So he's diversifying and building a, I guess a skill set or a skill tree. Yeah, yeah. Of options so that, you know, if, if the, if the landscape scene isn't working for him at the moment, he's still generating that income through other channels. Much like you yourself there, Dean. I think we will wrap for the day. This has been a phenomenal discussion and for anyone that's been watching along or listening along, please make sure that you. That you like the chat, let us know that you like this sort of content. Subscribe, add some comments. We're going to be more mindful about getting to past comments in future episodes. So state. We'll probably cover that on a Monday night. But. But look, above all else. [02:03:16] Speaker B: Can I do one? Can I do one more? Can I do one more? [02:03:18] Speaker A: Yeah, one more what? [02:03:21] Speaker B: We haven't even talked about Dean's gear at all. We don't have time to now. [02:03:24] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Do your question. Do your question. [02:03:26] Speaker B: We try. We're going to avoid it because it's just more Fuji gear, but I thought I better ask. All right, so you love it. Zombie apocalypse, Dean. End of the world, it's all over. You're running out the door to get in your bus, that still sitting there that you Never sold from 10 years of travels and just head off into the wilderness and try and hide from the zombies. You can only grab one camera, one lens. One camera, one lens to document the end of the world zombie apocalypse. [02:03:56] Speaker A: What. [02:03:56] Speaker B: What do you take? [02:03:57] Speaker C: That's easy. I've got a XT3 that's converted to infrared. [02:04:03] Speaker B: Oh, interesting. [02:04:05] Speaker C: Infrared. We haven't spoken about that. Like. [02:04:08] Speaker A: No, I don't. [02:04:09] Speaker B: There's so many. I was actually looking at your Instagram and. And there's a shot from New Zealand that's infrared. [02:04:14] Speaker C: But yeah, I, I ended up getting a camera converted to infrared and I'm absolutely bloody hooked on it. It's so much. [02:04:21] Speaker A: The XG3 proved to be a popular conversion camera. In fact, for a while there, B and H in, in America even sold them right from their shop front. Yeah, already converted. Already converted. Yeah, they got a first party to do it and sold it on. So. [02:04:37] Speaker B: So, Dean, tell me why, why infrared for the end of the world. [02:04:43] Speaker C: In. [02:04:44] Speaker B: Stand out. Stand out in a crowded marketplace. [02:04:47] Speaker C: I think the black and white look is, is pretty cool for that sort of thing anyway. And yeah, I know infrared is just. It's a completely different tonal range. It's like you, you don't really know what you're going to get. In a way, it's, it's not the same tonal range as black and white. A lot of people think it's just black and white, but if the light hits green, leaves, they go white. Well, it's not. It's completely different tonal range. [02:05:15] Speaker B: How much, how much did it cost to get it converted? [02:05:18] Speaker C: About 600 bucks. [02:05:20] Speaker B: 600 bucks. Okay. Yeah, it's doable. [02:05:23] Speaker A: It's definitely doable. [02:05:25] Speaker B: Yeah, it's very interesting. [02:05:26] Speaker A: And people do it for a whole range of different brands. I mean, you can get people that can make you. Well, I know you can get this done for Fujifilms. You can get. So they just put in, they strip the color sensors off. [02:05:37] Speaker C: Yeah. [02:05:38] Speaker A: The laminations off the sensor and just make it purely a monochrome sensor. Get that done. You can get all sorts of stuff done if you've got the money and the time. Yeah. Interesting. [02:05:49] Speaker B: Interesting. Yeah, we'll have to definitely. We're going to hit you up to get you back on for a part two for sure. Because that's, that's interesting topic as well. [02:05:57] Speaker C: I'd love to talk more about infrared. [02:05:59] Speaker A: Oh, and Fujifilm. Let's talk more about Fujifilm. We don't do nearly. [02:06:02] Speaker C: No, no, no, no, no, no, no. [02:06:04] Speaker B: No, no, no, no. Okay, so, all right, so XT3 infrared for documenting the end of the world. Just very quickly because people are probably wondering what is your main system that you're shooting landscapes with when it's not infrared. [02:06:17] Speaker C: Yep. So I shoot on a Fuji GFX 50s, which is a medium format camera, 50 megapixel, which is not huge these days. It's not. I mean, I would love the 100 megapixel one, but I don't, I don't have one. And would you believe I only actually have one lens? [02:06:38] Speaker A: Really? [02:06:40] Speaker B: What is it? [02:06:41] Speaker C: It's a 30 mil, which is equivalent to 24, and that's it. Every other camera system I've had, I've always shot predominantly on a 24 mil prime lens. So the Canon system I had, I had a. At a 25 mil Zeiss and I just love that focal length. So when I bought this camera, you know, I had an option of the 32 to 64 or the 30 mil. And I thought, I'll just get the 30 mil, because I know that's all I'm going to shoot. And so I've had that camera for three years, I think. So if you have a look at my Instagram, most stuff on there, the recent stuff is all shot on the GFX and it's all shot on the 30 mil. And I don't even really long for another lens because that's the way my brain sees everything. And I. And I sort of really like. I like that focal length. It's not too wide where it distorts everything and it's. But it's wide enough to take a scene in and make a person feel like they're actually sort of standing in the scene. Nice. [02:07:50] Speaker B: That's. [02:07:51] Speaker C: So that's it. [02:07:52] Speaker B: One camera, one lens. That's what a. Yeah. There's no choices to be made. You just. You grab that, walk out the door, and when you get to the scene, that's what you shoot with. I love it. That's very cool. [02:08:03] Speaker C: But I did say earlier I'm looking at buying a. It's an old Pentax lens off a Pentax 67. And then you can adapt that with a tilt shift. Because I really want to get into a bit more tilt shift stuff. I think that on that lens I can shift it to make sort of panos and then I can sort of tilt to get a bit more depth of field and have a bit of a play with that. [02:08:31] Speaker B: So that. [02:08:32] Speaker C: That might happen in the future. [02:08:35] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, we had Sam Olson on a week or so ago and. And she was. She was a very pro tilt shift in her landscape kit. Despite the weight and the size, she. She couldn't stop bragging about them. Fascinating discussion, Dean. So much more that we want to dig into. We will get you back for a part two, if that's okay for you. I'm sure everyone that's been watching along and listening along and those that are yet to watch this episode will agree that Dean has a huge amount to offer our community. And we appreciate the time that you spent today sharing that with us. You know, you've been a very open book, which has been wonderful, especially on the business side of things, because a lot of people do guard their. Their business process because it is a competitive industry. But what. What I think has stood out for me anyway is that it's just how open you are about sharing your knowledge, regardless of whether it be about photography, printing, you know, gear. [02:09:34] Speaker C: Yeah. [02:09:34] Speaker A: Or running a photography business successfully. So we really appreciate that. And on behalf of everyone that's part of our community, thank you for joining the Camera Life podcast. [02:09:45] Speaker C: Thank you. [02:09:45] Speaker A: Any, any, any closing comments there, Justin? [02:09:48] Speaker B: Yeah, I just want to say thanks to everyone. Thanks. Philip Johnson. In the chat, Nev Clark says the 1/ hundreds is phenomenal with love heart eyes. The 100 to 200 lens is now my favorite. So he's trying to convince you to upgrade. Thanks Ned for being in the chat. Thanks Brendan, Matt Palmer, everybody. Marie, Phillip, everybody, Dave Digifrog, the whole crew. Thanks everyone for joining us this morning and everyone that. [02:10:19] Speaker C: Everyone that tuned in. [02:10:21] Speaker A: Yeah, it's awesome. [02:10:22] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, appreciate it. [02:10:23] Speaker A: And otherwise, this has been the Camera Life podcast, proudly brought to you by Lucky Straps make refined leather camera straps out of Bendigo Victoria. They're Aussie made. Quick release. Hey, quick release premium leather. It'll last you a lifetime. [02:10:38] Speaker B: Packed by Jim. [02:10:39] Speaker A: Packed by Jim. But on that note, we're gonna wrap, we're gonna play a little music for you all and stay tuned because there will be a part two. And yeah, thanks once again to Dean Cooper for joining us today. [02:10:53] Speaker B: Don't forget about our Monday night shows that are a bit more random. 7:30. Yeah, Australian, Australia. [02:11:00] Speaker A: We do have a bunch of guests coming up in the coming weeks. We've actually got some guests on the Monday just because of timing for people but we've got Chris Hopkins. Yeah, Chris Hopkins. We've got. Who else? Tom Putt is joining us. Jesse Hisco who I met at befop. Wonderful elopement wedding photographer. Oh yes, obviously. Just had Dean got Nick Duncan joining us from the States, friend of Andrew Hall's motorsport and automotive photographer and Bruce Moyle is on the on the list too. So stay tuned guys. There's a lot going on. We're getting busy. [02:11:35] Speaker B: We're getting busy. Few final comments. Paul Henderson says thanks and Rodney Nicholson gives us the whatever this sign is. The okay sign. Good to see you, Rodney. We will try and get you on the show to hear about your interesting life of photography. And with that, let's do it.