[00:00:03] Speaker A: Oh, Well, good morning or good evening everybody. Welcome back to the Camera Life podcast. It is 22nd January 2026 and of course being a Thursday morning, we are joined a special guest who we'll get to in just a moment.
But first of all, I just want to remind everyone if you're new here, we go live twice a week. Every Monday evening, 7.30pm Australian Eastern Daylight Time at the moment, or 9am every Thursday morning at Australian Eastern Daylight Time. I may have gotten that incorrect recently, but we'll talk about that later.
But of course, today we are joined by special guests, Dr. Dean Holland. Welcome, Dean. Great to have you on the show.
[00:01:02] Speaker B: Thank you so much. It's a pleasure to be here.
[00:01:05] Speaker A: Oh, no, look, the pleasure is all ours now. We're going to unpack your story today, Dean, and we'll certainly get to that in a minute. But you've got many branches of your craft, of your photography and we must admit Justin and I always like to do a lot of research on guests before they come on the show. And you're a bit of a dark horse. You don't have a huge social media presence and so we really want to lean into that question about how does a professional photographer. So you shoot a lot of corporate work at the moment, but also you've had a long and successful business with take better photos, supporting others in how to become great family photographers and how to elevate their craft. You're an educator, so there's many branches to what you do. But I think probably the.
Should we, should we dive into that now, Justin, or you want to say good morning to some people? Yeah, let's get into it.
[00:02:02] Speaker C: Yeah, I'll say good morning to the chat after this. I want to find out. Yeah, what's the deal? What's the deal with no social media?
[00:02:08] Speaker A: How does, how does a, a photographer with. With everything that you do, how do you survive in 2026 with limited social media activity?
[00:02:19] Speaker B: It comes down to luck and being almost magic recipe. No, sorry, it's largely luck. I was lucky enough to start the company in 2007 and that was when things were booming and we were teaching photography and camera sales were over 10 times what they were today. And we quickly accumulated so many clients. We've talked photography to over 10,000 people. Now I have 10,000 clients and I haven't needed social media. Social media came in after we started the company as a, as a business necessity and we've got such a base. We've taught over half a percent of Brisbane nearly 1%, depending on how you call it. I love to say 1% but it's not.
[00:03:07] Speaker C: Get around it.
[00:03:08] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
We've taught 1% of Brisbane and so I've got, I'm the photographer that people know and their company. Oh, when they need a photographer. Oh, I know.
[00:03:18] Speaker A: Who was that?
[00:03:18] Speaker B: Course you did. We've had so much physical exposure that we haven't needed it in the Brisbane market. And it's still my entry to most of my corporate clients. They've been on a course, I'm the guy they've met. So it was really just luck and timing and I couldn't do it now. In fact, I couldn't start the company now. It would be, it would just fall in a heap. With my business skills it would completely fall in a heap. But I just got on the right part of the curve at the right time and yeah, I just couldn't do it now.
[00:03:47] Speaker D: Wow.
[00:03:47] Speaker A: Yeah, look, that's fair.
[00:03:49] Speaker C: I bet you could.
[00:03:50] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:03:52] Speaker B: Thank you for your faith. But I'm also, as I said, almost a pathological introvert. So the concept of social media is. Oh, I just feel on edge all the time having to keep checking and I would, I know that I would be a slave to it. So it would be good for me to do it. It would help a lot for me to do it but I know that my personality type would not play well with it.
[00:04:17] Speaker A: Fair enough. A follow up question for you then. Given what you know about creating a business without social and given what you've seen in today's market, what photographers are having to do. Do you have a piece of advice for any photographer out there who maybe is starting on how to achieve a better balance between becoming a slave to social media and actually building your brand in a more connected way?
[00:04:42] Speaker B: Well, I still think it's about old fashioned connection. So it's connection with people. If you're doing corporate work, it's knowing the right people in the PR department of the company and it's building those connections. So physical face to face connections for me I can speak to and testify to as working.
As for how well social media would work, I, I can't say if, if your market is family photography, then through your family you already have a reasonable market just for your immediate contacts. I find that people can, if they wanted to do wedding photography, say you can relatively easily start a business that you know in your family you might have and your friends you might have about $20,000 worth of turnover available just through your networks. But then these days growth from There depends on your social media skills and your talent to get out there. It's a popularity contest more than it is a talent contest these days.
[00:05:37] Speaker A: Very well put.
[00:05:37] Speaker D: Oh, I would agree with that. Yeah.
[00:05:39] Speaker C: That we did find that, that in the early days we.
[00:05:43] Speaker D: When.
[00:05:44] Speaker C: So I had a wedding business for about 10 years and Jim, who was.
[00:05:49] Speaker D: My business partner in that, he still does weddings.
[00:05:51] Speaker C: And there was sort of a.
There was a period of time where our photography stood out and that would help get us bookings and the way that we worked with people and we were still doing social media and everything but.
And then there was sort of a period of time where the photography didn't.
[00:06:09] Speaker D: Seem to matter quite as much and it was. Who was more popular, was starting to.
[00:06:13] Speaker C: Get more of the bookings and not.
[00:06:16] Speaker D: Saying their photography wasn't as good, but we sort of put a lot of work into ours and it didn't. People didn't seem to care as much about that as they cared about like I don't know if that. Who they were exposed to more over and over again. Lots of followers and all that sort of stuff.
[00:06:32] Speaker A: I don't know.
[00:06:33] Speaker B: Yeah. And did you have like an angle? Did you have a niche? Did you have a thing that was yours? You said your photography. Sorry, I'm interviewing you now. No, you said your photography stood out.
How did it stand out? What was your angle?
[00:06:46] Speaker D: We, and I mean everyone can do this now, but we sort of.
[00:06:49] Speaker C: We were in the early days, I remember. So Jim came to a wedding once.
[00:06:54] Speaker D: We were shooting some together in the earlier days, the bigger weddings. And he brought his Alan Chrome studio lights or like remote battery operated lights. And this was before like Godox lights and stuff were a thing, cheaper lighting, big softbox and stuff.
[00:07:11] Speaker C: And we were like, let's do a sunset shot.
[00:07:13] Speaker D: And you know, we got these beautiful sunset colors. I'm booming the lighting over and Jim's taking photos and stuff and, and it was those kind of images that helped us stand out and we lent into that. So sunset became a thing that we tried to do for any client that wanted it and we would try and have. Get these great Sunset photos in 10 minutes kind of thing. So that didn't take too much away from their day.
And then, and then we, we sort of lent into those different angles where it was like, if it's raining we're doing rain photos where, you know, I, I've swam in dams to get to backlight a boat while the, while the bride and groom were out on a dam in a little boat and Jim was lighting it, but we need to backlight behind it and stuff like that.
[00:07:57] Speaker C: So just anything to kind of just.
[00:07:59] Speaker D: Take to get one or two really special photos from the day. And then other than that, it was all just based around work our asses off and have good word of mouth. Hopefully. You know what it's like when, you know, the parents of the bride or the groom come up to you at the end of the day and go, wow, you guys are so great. And you're like, you haven't even seen the photos. But. But just because they've seen us running around and doing stuff all day and working hard, they were already happy with what we've done kind of thing. So it was basically that. That was our angle.
[00:08:33] Speaker B: Yes, you get those couple of hero shots that become your marketing angle, but it's all about client service. Yeah, I know that kind of approach.
One thing that I've learned is that those marketing angles, as you say, are temporary. That you are the sunset photographer, but then within five years, everybody else is also a sunset photographer.
[00:08:52] Speaker C: Exactly.
[00:08:53] Speaker B: And all of those external gimmicks, been there, done that are temporary. I mean, the one thing. Oh, God, I feel I'm at an age where I can say, well, you young people at my age, what I've learned, ignore me, and all of that.
One thing I've found is that the.
It's when there's a thing that really resonates with you, when there's something that actually comes from you. Like, my catch line on the website is I take photographs to change how you see people. And since I've changed all my marketing to be around something that's about me and what I think I do well and what I'm passionate about. I've been attracting fewer clients, but the right kind, better clients, more aligned with what I want to do.
And that to me has been much more satisfying than sort of chasing the latest popular trend of, you know, trying to come up with something new.
I'm just focusing on the thing that I feel that I do well, that I get that good feedback from. From clients for doing.
[00:09:52] Speaker A: Yeah, love it. Yeah. It is interesting, though. And I.
I've been talking to people recently about social media because, well, to be honest, it's turned into a cesspit of garbage. What did someone call it the other night? Narcissistic. I think Paul called it narcissistic slope.
And I wonder how new and emerging photographers or even existing photographers are coping with the changing face of social media. You know, I look at my feed and I try to. I constantly have to retrain my algorithm to stay out of American politics and to stay out of AI and, you know, and I just wonder how tricky it is for business photographers, like people that are shooting for a living, to attract new clients through socials these days. You know, we've. We were kind of fed this, that especially Instagram and Facebook was an opportunity for you to market your photography business. And it, you know, it would showcase your images. That's what Instagram was all about in the early days. And now it just feels like it's just become that. That garbage pile of stuff. You don't even know if it's real anymore. And I say to people, you know, if it wasn't for the photography and connecting with my network and my friends, I would be done with social media.
It no longer serves me. I feel like we're talking about this the other night, actually, with Cam Blake. No longer serves us. You know, we're serving it.
[00:11:12] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:11:13] Speaker A: As photographers. So, you know, because they're harvesting our images and all that sort of stuff.
Oh, here we go. Paul's. Paul's chimed in. Good morning. Chimed in with that comment. It was assessed pit of AI generated sludge and performative narcissism.
[00:11:27] Speaker C: I love that.
[00:11:28] Speaker D: We should get that on a T shirt.
[00:11:30] Speaker A: We need that on a T shirt.
[00:11:32] Speaker C: Except not YouTube, because YouTube technically is social media and that doesn't count.
[00:11:36] Speaker D: YouTube's great.
[00:11:37] Speaker B: Just.
[00:11:38] Speaker D: I hope they don't down rank this.
[00:11:39] Speaker C: In the algorithm or something, actually. So let's. Let's quickly say hi to some people in the chat and then maybe we'll.
[00:11:46] Speaker D: We'll dig into.
Dig into Dan's story a little bit more.
Okay. So Paul is obviously in the chat.
[00:11:52] Speaker C: Says, good morning, Philip Johnson. Good morning, Tintype man. Good morning, Rodney Nicholson. Rodney actually said, down here, am I the only one that's froze? And I don't know, are you? Can anyone else.
[00:12:04] Speaker A: Your skin froze or is it cold down by the bay?
[00:12:06] Speaker D: It could be that.
[00:12:08] Speaker C: Speaking of bays, David Mascara from San Francisco.
[00:12:11] Speaker D: Good. Good afternoon.
[00:12:13] Speaker A: Hey, David.
[00:12:14] Speaker C: Who else?
Tin type man. Didn't get out for the Auroras. That's unfortunate.
Robert Varner. Hello. From cold New Jersey. Waiting for another snowstorm. Oh, chilly, yeah.
[00:12:24] Speaker D: Although that'd be cool for taking photos.
Very cool. Wandering around New Jersey in the snow.
[00:12:31] Speaker C: Tintype man says wife's just closed the door because it's cold here.
[00:12:34] Speaker D: 22 degrees C. Yeah.
[00:12:39] Speaker C: And then what else? Paul got out. Enjoyed some pink skies in Canberra on Tuesday night.
[00:12:44] Speaker D: Up until the cloud rolled in. Yeah. I also didn't get out but you know.
[00:12:50] Speaker C: Okay, all right, everyone's here, we're here, Dean's here.
Shall we, shall we dig in?
[00:12:57] Speaker A: Yeah, I just. Speaking of the Aurora Dean, before we went live I dropped a question in the, in the chat to say, you know, did anyone get out to shoot the Aurora Aurora the other night? Because fortunately my social media feed at the moment, especially on Instagram and Facebook is all Aurora shots from the other night. People getting out and capturing, you know, what was such a miraculous thing to see.
And I love that and I celebrate that for the people that got out there. Does that ever, that sort of genre ever tempt you to grab your camera and head out and, and do something like an Aurora shoot? Something rare.
[00:13:31] Speaker B: Used to. So it, I got into photography. I think of myself as a left brainer and so I got into photography through the technical side enjoying the technical challenge and yeah I was a bug photography and that sort of thing. So yeah I have gone out Aurora chasing and I was in Tasmania for one of the most amazing Aurora. You know the KP value is through the roof and it was completely overcast and I didn't see a thing but it was still, it's still fun to do the chasing and so yeah I do like that sort of technical photography but that was how I started. But I don't get as much back from it now. I focus mainly on people photography and I find the technical stuff to be more of like a, like a mental game for me rather than really satisfying these days. But that used to be how I got into it.
[00:14:21] Speaker A: Yeah. So you know, looking into your work, you know, you shoot obviously you've got take better photos which is very family friend orientated. It's about teaching people to become better photographers themselves which I think is wonderful and more people should do that sort of stuff. But you also do a lot of corporate stuff. You've done a range of genres in the past. What is there something that you shoot for fun these days?
[00:14:44] Speaker B: Oh yeah, people.
So I, I love just people photography. Like a personal project at the moment is called the stereotype project where I'm taking photos of people white background, out of context and they, they'll have something about them. They'll be a multi millionaire, they'll be homeless, they'll be and we put them up with.
And people have to guess which is which. So you have homeless millionaire, you have psychologist, school dropout and people have to guess from the pairs of photos who is who.
And it's that kind of thing that I Love, because when, when you see those pairs of photos, all you have to go on is your stereotypes, because you look. And obviously you can't tell when you take away the background, when you use that white background as a sort of democratizing thing and there's no context to go on, you can't tell at all. And so it means the only info you've got to go on are your own stereotypes.
And so I, I put up some of those at a conference, and it was a conference of psychologists, and it was psychologist, school dropout, who's who. And it, you have to think about it and it makes you confront your stereotypes.
That kind of thing is what I love doing.
It sounds like a social warrior stuff, but it's, it's, it's having an impact because for me, photography is not it. Photography is not the thing I do. I do other things from photography and video are how I do it.
So it's kind of the how rather than the what. If that makes sense.
[00:16:12] Speaker A: Yep, yep. And I think there's, I think that's an amazing social experiment, you know, because obviously bias comes into it very heavily. Your own biases about what a psychologist looks like. You know, those stereotypes that you talked about. I think that's, that's fascinating. That's really fascinating.
[00:16:30] Speaker C: It's even interesting from your perspective as.
[00:16:32] Speaker D: A photographer, do you have bias in the way that you're creating the images to try and stop people from being.
[00:16:39] Speaker C: Able to guess properly? Or, you know, like, do you have any, Is there any of that in it where you're like, oh, I need to make sure that this school dropout actually looks quite smart so that people think that they're the, you know, do you have any impact on that through your own biases? It's crazy.
[00:16:55] Speaker B: 1000% just in who you choose is the biggest bias.
You know, a homeless person, well, clearly they're worthy of inclusion because they're homeless. And I do a lot of work with disability organizations.
I'm doing, like an education course for builders at the moment, for disability access in buildings. And that's been my main product over the last couple of years. But in working with those groups, I've been asking, I suppose I've learned to ask people, how would you like to be shown? So that while the biases are there, they're not mine, they're theirs. So they kind of own their biases. And, you know, so a chat with cerebral palsy, you can't tell, but he was saying how he would like to be portrayed in the photo and So I found that honoring that is.
I've learned the hard way that that's a better way to do it than just. Just having my biases to include their biases too.
[00:17:48] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:17:49] Speaker C: Interesting, interesting. How many layers to be shown? I've never actually thought about that question before I photograph someone.
[00:17:56] Speaker D: How would you like to be shown?
[00:18:00] Speaker B: Before I was a photographer, I worked in sort of international development roles. So I lived in South America for a number of years and working with farmers in. In the Amazon basin, this sort of thing. And one thing I learned is hand over the camera. So back then, it's film, but if you get. If you help people to photograph their own reality, their own way of seeing things, it's completely different. And then when I came to Australia, one of my early pieces of work was working with an organization called Multicultural Development now called Multicultural Development Australia.
And I was photographing.
It was. Back then, it was Afghan refugees who were coming to Australia and photographing a project with them. And most of the work was handing over the camera and got them to photograph each other. And so that they showed how they want to be seen rather than how I see it, because I.
When you see an Afghan person, your bias says terrorist, because that's what we've been fed for so long. It's hard not to think that immediately. And you immediately shut it down. And you know that you can't say that, but it's still affecting the way you're seeing the person or what you're thinking or judging how they're moving. But when you hand over the camera and I got them to photograph each other, they were. They photographed each other cracking up. And so they're the most gorgeous laughing portraits of each other.
And. And that blew away my stereotype. And so now.
Yeah, and so it's.
We used to call it handing over the stick in development work, but handing over the camera, which is the power to let your biases show through. And they saw each other as fun, happy people, and that's what the camera can capture. Is that.
What do they call it? The other point of view gun? You know, the Douglas Adams at the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I don't know if you've got many sci fi fans here.
[00:19:48] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:19:50] Speaker B: Okay. The ultimate weapon in the universe was the other point of view gun, where you can shoot someone with it and they see the world from your point of view.
So when the invaders are coming over the horizon and trying to take over the earth, you shoot them with it. And the invaders go, ah. Actually, they've got a point. Yeah. Maybe we won't invade today. And this was the ultimate weapon in the universe, and they exist. They're made by Canon and Nikon, or mine are made by Fuji and Sony and all of this sort of thing represent. And.
And they let you see the world from somebody else's point of view. And that. That's what it's all about. And yeah, my work is kind of anything that uses that. So it. Be it with photo or video, where you're helping to see other people's point of view and change how you think about them. I am ranting on, aren't I? Sorry about that.
[00:20:37] Speaker A: No, no, no. It's fascination. Please.
[00:20:39] Speaker C: It's kind of what podcasts are for.
[00:20:41] Speaker A: Yeah.
That's why we love a good rant.
Open the floodgates.
[00:20:45] Speaker B: But that's what drives me. That's what I love being able to do. And because it challenges my stereotypes and I grow through it too.
[00:20:52] Speaker A: Yeah. And I love that because it's almost like holding up a mirror to yourself in how you see the world, you know, by letting other people see it for you.
Oh, that's goosebumpy. That's goosebumpy.
Before we. Before we dig into what you're up to now, we'd always like to roll back the clock a little bit and talk about earliest inspirations.
And so I guess. I guess the question that I want to ask. Before you became Dr. Dean Holland and, you know, before you worked in. In charity and humanitarian stuff, where did photography really begin for you? What was that first spark for you and when was it?
[00:21:29] Speaker B: Oh, gosh, I don't know.
[00:21:31] Speaker A: How.
[00:21:32] Speaker B: How honest can I be in a podcast?
[00:21:35] Speaker A: True.
[00:21:36] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:21:36] Speaker A: It's your show.
[00:21:39] Speaker B: Okay. So photography was an early thing, so my dad and I built a darkroom in the attic at home when I was like, 13 or so, you know, at school, and they had a dark room at school, I wanted to build a darkroom together. I'm so grateful for my dad for doing that and sort of culturing that spark, but my motivations were not great for doing that. I'm a pubescent boy. What do I want to photograph? What do I are all in all the photographic magazine I want to photograph ladies. Of course, you don't admit it to anyone, but that that was probably a motivation. Then. Then slightly more honorable goals started taking over and I started enjoying technical photography. And like, when I went to university, I was studying zoology was the main part of the degree. It's a natural sciences degree. So Zoology was the main part and There was about 120 people in the class. And we asked everyone, who is your main influence? And it was David Attenborough for well over half the class of why they were there. So an obvious influence in that stuff. But I like those sort of high speed macro shots. Stephen Dalton, Heather angel, you may not know them, but they're sort of UK photographers and they were involved in Oxford Scientific Films who did a lot of the filming for the David Attenborough series. The technical stuff like the secret life of plants, seeing those plants grow and having them come alive through stop motion photography. And I always. My career path at that time when I was at uni was either try to get a job at Oxford Scientific Films or become a primate behavioral ecologist. And.
I wouldn't take my advice on career paths. When I was like 19 or 20, it was, it was not a very broad basket that I was choosing from.
But yeah, all of those, those things that let you see the world in a different way, like that stop motion photography of plants. And I wanted to know how it was technically done. And that's what really got me into the technical side of photography. And from there on I've sort of built on more personal meaning in it.
[00:23:45] Speaker A: Wonderful. And. And I think I read some of your father, as you mentioned, helped you build that dark room. He was a photographer as well, wasn't he?
[00:23:52] Speaker B: No, no, sorry. It's a welder for 26 years just dedicated to his role and became an expert in his role in fixing agricultural machinery. So there's always that kind of agricultural background focus and hence working in those sort of agricultural development contexts later on.
[00:24:10] Speaker A: All right, very cool, very cool. And sorry, I got that wrong.
[00:24:16] Speaker C: That's one.
[00:24:17] Speaker A: Yeah.
There goes my bonus.
You know, you talked about how your early studies were, were looking at, apart from your desire to photograph girls and women, that your early studies. You know, I'm still struggling with it, don't worry.
But you know, there was a strong animal focus there. Is that something that you ever wanted to sort of branch off and, and do some wildlife and nature photography? I know that you've done collaborations with Steve Parrish, I believe, in the past. I know, I got that right. I read that several times.
You know, is that where you fulfill, when you do those sort of collaborations with, you know, one of Australia's greatest nature photographers is. Is that where you kind of scratch that itch still?
[00:25:06] Speaker B: Yeah, it was actually. I scratched it more professionally. So the work I was doing, I've lived and worked in the Philippines with agricultural research and rice research where I was looking at the pests on the rice. So for me that the thing was always that it had to be useful. So at that time I hadn't kind of appreciated the aesthetic value of photography. That's, that's been a more recent learning for me how the aesthetic value has value in and of itself.
Back then I was a nerd. I was too much of a nerd to appreciate that. So for me it was the technical value and the benefit that it did. So given the choice between photographing something incredibly beautiful and the most boring brown moth that's economically important for rice, I'll be give me a brown boring moth. And that's what turned me on, being able to capture something that then that photograph gets used to help educate people about these rice pests and. But these insects are friendly insects and it is that photography that had a purpose. That was what floated my technical boat. But the aesthetic sort of awakening has been much more recent and Steve Parish has been really influential in opening my eyes to the value of art for art's sake. Just the value that it has in itself carry carries weight as well.
[00:26:29] Speaker A: He is certainly a master of that, isn't he?
Out of curiosity, how did that relationship collaboration come about for you guys?
[00:26:39] Speaker B: Again, another lucky coincidence. It was 2012 and we were both sitting together at a Christmas lunch for a photography club.
And so we're starting to get and just got chatting and he was, because it was just after the floods where he'd lost most of his business.
You know, he had a terrible hit from the 2011 floods in Brisbane and so he was looking for other angles and teaching and training was one that he was considering. And I'd had a five year business running doing teaching and training and we, as we got chatting we realized that his knowledge of art and what you should be doing if you want to be an artist and my sort of more technical skills just meshed beautifully. And so we, we started, we just ran a workshop together to see how it went.
And he tells the story that I sat at the back of this notepad taking notes of all the things he was doing wrong is the way that he phrases it.
But then we ran one jointly where we design it together and it really went well. And so we've been collaborating since 2013.
Yeah, that's years now.
And just running workshops together because we're opposites. You know, he's an, I think of him as an amazing creative right brain thinker. He can we walk down the street together and he goes, you've missed it. I said, what? I said, look right there. There's art right there. And it will be the way a leaf is aligned with the pavement. And what? And he'll get out his camera and he'll take a photo of it. And I realized that he's got this mental horsepower to see art everywhere that I don't have that level because he's been doing it for six decades, I've only been doing it for four, so he's, his eye muscles are so much better.
[00:28:25] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:28:26] Speaker B: So, yeah, I've got a man crush on his eyeballs.
[00:28:28] Speaker A: Well, look, I think that's fair. You know, man crushes, you know, it's 20, 26. Man crushes are good.
And I think, you know, what you've just said really circles back to your earlier point about good old fashioned face to face networking where, you know, happenstance, you're sitting at a, at a, at a, at a, you know, at a table, sharing a meal with someone and created an opportunity not just for your business, but for your, but for your right brain as well, for your creative growth. I think that's really powerful.
[00:28:57] Speaker B: Yeah, I'd never thought of it like that, but yeah, absolutely.
[00:29:00] Speaker A: There you go. See, we deliver all the good stuff. And if you could put in a good word for us with Steve, that'd be great.
[00:29:08] Speaker B: If you would like him with a guest, I'll, I'll mention it.
[00:29:11] Speaker C: Absolutely.
[00:29:12] Speaker A: Of course, we would love him as a guest. He's an Australian photographic icon.
So let's go back again to, to that, you know, those early days of your photography. And, and at what point did you know, was the charity work that you, that you do a lot of, was that always a thread through your craft?
[00:29:35] Speaker B: Yeah, it's, it's been a focus, but it was, I suppose it was about six years ago, seven years ago that I realized that it needed to be my marketing focus, not just like a sideline. But I suppose I got confident enough in my business and my client base that I learned what to say no to. And so it's, it's always been there. But I let saying yes to so many other things get in the way of actually having that as the focus.
And it's been so productive to focus my marketing and say, this is what I love. This is what I think I do really well. You be the judge, look at the photos and put it out there for what I'm passionate about.
[00:30:16] Speaker C: Can you think of any examples of things that you needed to say no to that were. That was Things that were holding you back from making that shift that you.
[00:30:25] Speaker D: Had to let go.
[00:30:27] Speaker B: Yeah, I suppose I was starting off in photography, so 2007, and I'm insecure. I'm insecure about what I can do. Well, you've got imposter syndrome all the time because you don't know what you can do well and not do well when everything. You've only done a few of them, like commercial shoots and that sort of thing. And. And so one thing I've pulled right back from is wedding photography, which I did a bit of, but I was. I never focused on that. Then I'll do a bit family, friends and, you know, you get sort of pushed into that. But that's one thing I've pulled way back from. Just because you know how time consuming it is. And you're always trying to justify why you're not just rocking up for a few hours and pressing a button. And you're always having to explain that. Whereas with commercial clients, I find you're not having to explain that they understand a little bit better. You're not always having to justify your rate or your time frames and that sort of thing.
So, yeah, the wedding photography was a big one to pull back from, but also some of the commercial photography that I'm not so good at, just infrastructure and that sort of thing.
[00:31:33] Speaker C: Okay, so even within the commercial itself.
[00:31:37] Speaker D: There'S things that you'll say, hey, that's.
[00:31:39] Speaker C: Not really me, or would you still do it if it came to you and you just don't market it or you'll actually tell a client, hey, you.
[00:31:47] Speaker D: Might be better off using this person or whatever.
[00:31:50] Speaker B: Yeah, a mixture of all of the above, depending on how fun it sounds and how well I think that I can do it and be satisfied in doing it. But I do pass on a lot more stuff now to other photographers. And that's the advantage of being in a relatively small city with a. Haven't been there for a while, with a relatively large network, you know, people you can pass stuff onto and that what goes around comes around.
[00:32:12] Speaker D: Exactly.
[00:32:13] Speaker A: Yeah, that's very true.
[00:32:14] Speaker D: Yeah, a nice little network of people to refer.
[00:32:17] Speaker C: And that. That sort of stuff happened in the.
[00:32:19] Speaker D: Wedding industry as well.
Because the wedding industry, you're very. You're often booked, you know, when someone inquires, you're like, I'm sorry, I've already got a booking. As soon as you develop that little network of people that you know you can trust to do a good job.
[00:32:30] Speaker C: For someone that you pass on, they'll end up passing something back and it.
[00:32:34] Speaker D: All, you know, it all works around. So I didn't, Yeah, I hadn't thought about it that as much in the commercial world world, but I assume, yeah, it's exactly the same thing if you specialize in people and someone who, who loves doing architecture and hates talking to people is they're going to send the work to you, you know, if you send them work that way. Yeah.
[00:32:54] Speaker B: Okay. Because, because clients don't know the distinction among photographers. You know, bigger companies do, but smaller companies don't. They don't know that people photographers are not necessarily architect photographers. So being able to steer people appropriately helps.
[00:33:10] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[00:33:12] Speaker C: What does.
[00:33:13] Speaker D: This might be jumping around a little.
[00:33:15] Speaker C: Bit, but it's just on my mind. Like what does your commercial business look like these days in terms of are you mainly doing sort of more expensive shoots, like multi day or longer projects, things like that, with fewer clients, or do you, are you even doing, you.
[00:33:32] Speaker D: Know, does anyone call you and say, hey, we just need you for an hour or two hours? Things like that.
[00:33:37] Speaker C: Like what, what's, what does a commercial business look like?
[00:33:40] Speaker B: So it's a mixture of all of the above and the, the fitting them together is the fun bit. The jigsaw, you know, you always feel like you've got too much on or not enough on. You never feel that it's, it's perfect. But it's a mixture of all of those. So this week I was doing headshots. Yes. Day before yesterday.
I've got a video shoot this afternoon interviewing builders about installing accessible features in people's homes, mainly toilets. So I have, oh, I've done so much filming of toilets throughout Brisbane. That's, that's not a line to use at parties. But we, we consider ourselves Brisbane's premier toilet videographers with accessible toilets. So we continue that theme this afternoon. Next week I'm off to Queensland Parliament and I'm photographing the Sergeants at Arms. They've changed over, so I'm taking, I love the way they, they relate the job to me. They say, we'd like you to take the official portrait of, oh, my work. Great, fantastic. And then I say, actually it's the official cardboard cutout portrait. So I'm taking the official cardboard cutout photo for the Sergeant at Arms. And so that, that will be the shoot itself. You get 10 minutes with the person. So no more than that. Even that's pushing it. Sometimes it's just three minutes. But the shoot is a half day shoot, including all the setup and the teardown so that you can do it in the three to 10 minutes.
And then the day after that, I am filming grab rails exploding off walls in high speed again for this accessible thing to show how screws fail and things fall off. So sort of like a mythbusters shoot of things falling apart. And that's part of a big.
But that works for me because it's technical, but it's part of this big picture thing of helping people live in their homes for longer because it's this project of modifying homes for people with a disability and older people.
So a theme, pulling it all together. But actually, when I say it like that, it sounds like I'm all over the place, doesn't it?
[00:35:38] Speaker C: Well, so the, The.
The exploding handrails and that sort of stuff. Is that. So that's obviously a big project.
[00:35:47] Speaker B: Are you.
[00:35:48] Speaker C: What sort of piece do you fit in that? Are you the.
Someone like a creative director overseeing that and you're sort of figuring out how to.
[00:35:56] Speaker D: To capture it and show what they want to show?
[00:35:59] Speaker C: Like, what's your role in the whole piece?
[00:36:02] Speaker B: Yeah, that's. That's more the role. So my background is. Is adult education. So that's the sort of professional qualifications. And so I'm like the. Exactly as you say, like the creative, but also the technical director for the learning side. We're creating this into an online course and so I'm managing that part of it as much as possible. I outsource the filming to cameramen who are better than me. And it's.
I work with one of our staff members, Alicia Nilsson. She's unbelievable. And her ability to see things better and capture things better because I still think in a stills photographer sense. So I outsource as many of the roles as the project lets me afford and I retain that sort of technical coordination and it's less sort of creative. It's more a technical director role for the content, making sure it's aligning with the learning goals of the project.
[00:37:00] Speaker C: Okay, that's very interesting. Right, so hang on, you just said staff member. Then you have staff working underneath you in your business. How many?
[00:37:11] Speaker B: Yes. Yeah. So we've got a company and so we've got one now part since COVID All of the staff are casual since COVID but. So Alicia is our video guru. She is unbelievable. So 10 years experience in Australian drama. She was on sea patrol for so many seasons as a clapper loader and so involved with all of the.
The worst name, isn't it, for a role, but amazing skills. She's got she's worked on Hollywood productions and all sorts. So she is our video guru and she's essentially taught me how to include video into stuff. And we.
It's wonderful when you work with someone for so long and you kind of make up for each other's deficiencies.
[00:37:54] Speaker C: It.
[00:37:54] Speaker B: I always enjoy going on any kind of shoot, photo stills or video with Alicia because it's just fun. I just look forward to it because I know that I. I can just. She will tell by the way that I'm answering a question that I've forgotten the cable for the blah, blah.
Let's change that over. And when you get to that level where you feel someone's really got your back, it's just gorgeous. So, yeah, these heron boots. And my daughter has just graduated from QUT with film and media and she is awesome now at doing sounding. That's the thing that she loves. So she's going to be the soundie on this afternoon's interview.
[00:38:29] Speaker C: That's cool.
[00:38:30] Speaker A: That's very cool.
[00:38:32] Speaker B: Nepotism.
[00:38:34] Speaker A: Nepotism is fine. It's okay to look after your kids.
[00:38:36] Speaker C: Exactly.
[00:38:38] Speaker A: So that's the corporate kind of branch, as we talked about earlier. What about with take better photos? Is that. Do you have a team?
[00:38:45] Speaker C: Can I pull this up as a good way to lead into that, Greg?
[00:38:48] Speaker A: Oh, okay. Yeah. Is it. You know, you said that, you said to me in our conversations over the week that, you know, 90% of your work is probably leaning into the corporate with the other elements of your business. Are you outsourcing those to other photographers? How do you manage that?
[00:39:08] Speaker B: Yeah, so the training, we keep very much in house and we did try.
I had an inquiry from someone wanting to franchise the business, which was the original model in 2007. You start a business and you franchise it. And they wanted to do it in New Zealand and, you know, then maybe we'd franchise in the US and because photography was just like camera sales are going through the roof, that actually sounded feasible.
But he took one look at the business and I was most offended. But he was entirely right. He said, no, this business is you. It's you and your team. We can't franchise this because of the sort of knowledge that you have. You've had to develop of cameras, order to be able to teach the way you teach.
This is not a line that you want to repeat in public. But I've read 12.
Okay, 12. I've read 1200 camera manuals just to prove my nerd credentials.
In order. We produce notes for every camera for how they work. And that sort of thing. So they're included with the course tailored to everybody's camera and. But that side of the business is almost.
Since COVID that barely exists anymore. We just keep that ticking over. But 90% of our training business is now commercial. So we, we get the photography work in Parliament because we taught their marketing and PR people how to photograph things with their phones. And so we got a job doing that. And that is the majority of our business now. Working with small companies trying to put their products online.
Mining companies who have hundreds of staff out there but can't necessarily afford to fly a photographer out to blah, blah, to video. The installation of the world's largest mill, all this sort of thing. Energy companies, people with a lot of staff on the ground. That's. That's the majority of our training business.
[00:41:00] Speaker D: That's what I wanted to ask about.
[00:41:02] Speaker C: Because I haven't seen that advertised in.
[00:41:05] Speaker D: My area and I don't know if maybe I've just missed it because I'm.
[00:41:08] Speaker C: Not looking for it or whatever, but.
[00:41:10] Speaker D: I feel like that is a massive opportunity in my area. I work with some commercial clients and as much as I want to keep.
[00:41:19] Speaker C: Working with them, they, they can't take me everywhere.
[00:41:24] Speaker D: They don't have the budget to take me everywhere. I'm not available to go everywhere. They're in many, many places at once.
[00:41:30] Speaker C: And they've all got phones.
And I'm like, is this something I should be offering to people? Is like, hey, I can just. It wouldn't take long.
[00:41:39] Speaker D: I can, you know, a few hours or whatever or.
And you would at least have better images than what you're doing now on phones.
Much better. So.
[00:41:49] Speaker C: Right, so that, so that's still working.
[00:41:51] Speaker D: Really well for you guys that, that commercial training.
[00:41:55] Speaker B: Yeah. So post Covid, we made a deliberate shift to business, to business.
So our sort of family teaching, while it still exists, the, the commercial stuff has exploded. And I think it's driven more by the change in attitude to phones because we launched a phone photography course in 2012 and it was huge for a couple of years when it's like, you can take photos with a phone. But then from 2014 onwards it was like, of course you can take photos with a phone. And literally nobody was interested. Nobody came on the courses. Then physical phone started getting much better and much more complicated. And so now people are aware that they don't know how to use the phone. It's not just a button. They've actually got the feeling that they used to have 15 years ago when they bought their first SLR. I went, oh no.
People now have that with the camera of their phones and so they're aware that there's so much more to do and it has exploded and I predict it will not last long. I predict it'll only last another few years before Apple and Samsung make the phones easier to use again rather than harder.
But for a few years people are feeling, people in companies know that it can do the job for them. It can replace a lot of low level photography, it can feed the social media monster, but for now they don't feel confident to do it themselves.
[00:43:18] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, I think you're spot on with that.
[00:43:20] Speaker D: I think.
[00:43:20] Speaker C: And there'll be a bit of a.
[00:43:21] Speaker D: Learning curve which with, with phones and AI leveraging it to sort of get like you say, low level, like say product shots, sit it on a desk, grab a snap of it and then use AI to kind of make it look close enough to a product shot.
But not, not at a professional level.
But that stuff, as you say, that'll get easier. Apple will figure out there to just be a product button and then you just take a product, you know, like. Because that's how it always sort of works. Yeah, it's like, yeah, that's a bit tricky to start with. And then they, if it's, if there's a need, they'll make it easier and easier for people to be able to do it with one click or whatever. So.
[00:43:57] Speaker C: Yeah, okay, that's very, very interesting. Yeah, I think it's a, it's a brilliant idea. I think tons of businesses, because there's a lot of businesses, you know, you think of your, I think local businesses, smaller ones, like, I don't know what's a good example, maybe a florist.
[00:44:17] Speaker D: And it's like they've taken a lot of time to figure out how to use their phone in their space with a nice little setup to get cool shots for their social media. They're probably already doing it.
But yeah, an energy company with people running around all over the place.
They probably haven't, they don't, they don't.
[00:44:36] Speaker C: Care maybe as much.
[00:44:37] Speaker D: They haven't taken the time. They don't have a cute little window with some nice light where they put their flowers because it's an energy company, you know, so it's, they, they haven't developed those skills because it hasn't been a, a focus for them.
And then you.
[00:44:51] Speaker A: Well, it hasn't meant survival, has it?
[00:44:53] Speaker C: Exactly. Yeah.
[00:44:56] Speaker B: The key difference in the teaching is that the people don't want to learn photography. So those engineers that they want to engineer, they want to do their job and the PR department is onto that. Oh, you got to get photos of it. Oh, do we have to?
And I've got a room full of unwilling participants. And the, the cool. The, the thing I love about training is taking those unwilling people and making them apply it to their photography. And okay, so now think of what you can get with your family and that sort of thing so you can mesh it all together. Think how much time you can save with your reporting and you kind of slip it in under the radar and everybody wins. And it's that reputation that has lit, let it grow. I think that it, it works for the unwilling participants as well.
[00:45:41] Speaker A: Yeah, that's a, that's a good testament to, to your training ability when people that don't want to be in the room by the end of the year love being in the room.
[00:45:49] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
[00:45:51] Speaker C: It's no different to like, you go.
[00:45:52] Speaker D: And do a first aid course or something like that.
[00:45:54] Speaker C: It can either be an absolute drag or the trainer can make you feel.
[00:45:58] Speaker D: Like you one day might help save someone's life. And then, and then you're fully bought in, you know what I mean? And you have the best time with a good trainer.
[00:46:06] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, definitely. Just before we move forward with and look at comments, I just want to remind everyone we'll take a quick moment for an ad read. And before we went live, Dean admitted that he knew little about Lucky Straps. So here's the ad read. Dean.
This episode and every episode of the Camera Life podcast is proudly brought to you by Lucky Straps, which is also us.
But if you head to Luckystraps.comno.com.
gosh, I got that wrong.
[00:46:35] Speaker C: Anyway, I mean, they both work.
[00:46:37] Speaker A: They both work. That's right. Head to Lucky Straps if you're in the market for a handmade Aussie made premium leather camera strap made in Bendigo, Victoria. It's local and even comes a little Aussie made little, little green and gold label that cost Justin a fortune to be a part of. But you know, it's Aussie made, not.
[00:46:55] Speaker C: A fortune, but you know my standards.
[00:46:59] Speaker A: But we also make leather belts and we sell hoodies, we sell T shirts. So head to Luckystraps.com if you're looking for a camera strap for your new piece of gear so you can connect with your craft or perhaps you just want to look as cool as me, you know, and it's understandable that you'd want that, but that's it for the ad read. That was a terrible ad read, Greg.
[00:47:20] Speaker C: It was beautiful.
[00:47:21] Speaker D: It was.
[00:47:21] Speaker C: Well actually you forgot the fact that the camera straps actually have our own unique quick release system that we developed that you can put on and off your camera and then no dongle is left on there, which is pretty cool. Most of the other systems always leave.
[00:47:33] Speaker D: A little dangly dongle on there. Ours doesn't.
[00:47:35] Speaker C: It's really strong anti theft cut resistant webbing.
[00:47:40] Speaker D: It's great.
[00:47:40] Speaker C: Anyway, has Jen frozen for you or just for me?
[00:47:44] Speaker A: Are you still there, Dean?
[00:47:47] Speaker B: Still here? If you can hear me.
[00:47:49] Speaker C: Well, yes, I can hear you, but you're just frozen. Yeah, you're currently frozen.
[00:47:54] Speaker A: I thought you were dissatisfied with my ad read. You look grumpy.
[00:48:00] Speaker B: Gorgeous ad read. Let me work out how to turn off my camera and turn it on again and see if that helps.
[00:48:07] Speaker C: Hang on and I'll just try remove you out and then no back.
Yeah, back on.
[00:48:15] Speaker B: No, turn it off and turn it on again.
[00:48:18] Speaker C: Paul says Dean froze out when the ad started.
[00:48:20] Speaker B: Don't take that personally.
[00:48:23] Speaker C: His mate took a stand.
I don't know what's happened now. You're just. It's just dark.
[00:48:29] Speaker B: I'm going to restart the video mixer and see that the audio will cut out when I do that for a moment.
[00:48:35] Speaker C: All right, no stress, we'll be here.
Paul says that little green and gold triangle name means a lot and is.
[00:48:43] Speaker D: Definitely worth the investment.
[00:48:44] Speaker C: Okay, well it's good to know because sometimes I do wonder. I'm like, does anyone even notice that this. Or is it.
Does it not matter?
[00:48:50] Speaker D: I don't know.
[00:48:52] Speaker C: Okay, who else are we? Paul says at least the cardboard cutout will fully cooperate. Yeah, I assume. I don't even know if it's the cardboard.
If it's the cardboard cutout that he's photographing or is he taking a photo to be made into a cardboard cutout? That's.
[00:49:07] Speaker A: I think it's the latter.
[00:49:08] Speaker C: Yeah, that's what I thought. I was like, surely they're not like, hey, we can hire you for half a day to take a photo of a cardboard.
[00:49:15] Speaker A: Because we lost the original file of the cardboard cutout.
[00:49:17] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, we don't know how to. And we try to put it through the scanner and it's too big.
[00:49:21] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:49:22] Speaker A: Won't fit on the photocopier.
[00:49:23] Speaker C: Another one from Paul. Best part of the Aurora was going to a well known lookout chatting to people about a common interest. The resulting photo was blah, but didn't care.
[00:49:33] Speaker A: Very cool, very good attitude.
[00:49:35] Speaker C: Yeah, exactly.
[00:49:36] Speaker A: And I think Rodney made a comment about the Aurora as well.
Where was Rodney's comment?
[00:49:42] Speaker B: Oh yeah, yeah.
[00:49:43] Speaker A: I hesitated and lost it.
I hesitated and lost so we didn't get there. It's so crowded here. I'm going to do coffee and satay in the future.
I love your style, mate. Nothing like a good coffee and satay while you're photographing an Aurora. But yes, it is pretty awesome.
[00:50:02] Speaker C: What else? And then this one. I'm going to save this one to read out when Dean gets back.
[00:50:06] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:50:09] Speaker C: What did Glenn say?
Commonly used adage for togs is say yes and go figure out how to do it later. Dean has the right mindset of knowing.
[00:50:17] Speaker D: When to say no.
[00:50:19] Speaker C: No sometimes leads to far better career than poorly executed. Yes.
Yeah, I would agree. I mean it depends on what phase of your career you're in. You know, there is something to say of like learning, but if you're at a high end level, sometimes it's better.
[00:50:34] Speaker D: To just let someone who does that do it and you focus on what you're doing at a high level rather than.
[00:50:40] Speaker C: Whereas when you're learning and you're charging.
[00:50:41] Speaker D: Not much and someone says, hey, can you come and take photos of this?
[00:50:44] Speaker C: And you're like, I think I can do that.
[00:50:47] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:50:47] Speaker D: And you know, worst case, you just don't charge them for the shoot. As long as it's not something that's, you know, not repeatable or whatever.
That's how I learned a lot of things, was sort of saying yes to everything.
[00:50:58] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:50:58] Speaker D: Because then that's, that was the only chance I had to try and shoot something like that. And then I was like, well, that's probably not for me in the future.
[00:51:06] Speaker A: And there's also the economy side of the business of photography. You know, sometimes needs outweighs wants. You know, I only want to photograph this, but I also have, you know, credit card debt and bills and new camera gear to pay for. And sometimes when you're starting out.
[00:51:23] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:51:24] Speaker C: And that can be the trap that.
[00:51:25] Speaker D: You fall into though where you sort of start. You won't let go of the work because you're like, oh, that's a really, you know, that's. It's sort of an important thing.
[00:51:35] Speaker C: Dean's saying, any luck?
[00:51:38] Speaker D: Am I back? Let's see. Add to stage. I don't know.
[00:51:41] Speaker C: Are you back? I think you're still dark, still no video.
[00:51:44] Speaker A: Perhaps you have audio.
[00:51:46] Speaker C: We have the audio.
[00:51:49] Speaker B: I have a face for radio. I've been told.
I will, I will start connecting in. I'll start If I can restart the USB streams to see if that helps.
[00:52:00] Speaker D: You can also jump out of the studio, like, exit. There's like a red button down the bottom, it says leave studio. You can exit and still jump back in. And we can.
[00:52:08] Speaker B: That might help as well.
[00:52:10] Speaker A: Sometimes that helps. Yeah.
[00:52:13] Speaker B: See ya.
[00:52:13] Speaker A: Okay, for those of you watching along, whether it be now or a little bit later, we're sorry for this brief technical interruption, but it is a good opportunity to tell you that we've got some amazing guests coming up over the next few months. We're booked out until the start of. And I think I've even booked the first week of April. So we've got some very interesting people coming up. And yes, we will try and hold Dr. Dean to his word of making, giving us an introduction at least with Steve Parish. And we'll see if we can get Steve on the show because I think that would also be. I mean, every guest is fascinating and amazing, but that would also be a very fascinating interview to discover what makes him tick and how he made it so big in nature photography. It's amazing. And education.
But. But, yeah, but who have we got coming up?
Let me just check my schedule. So. Oh, it's a good time to tell everyone this coming Monday night is Australia Day. 26 January is Australia Day and we won't be going live for Australia Day.
We're gonna have a little break. Yeah, Day off. The whole country gets the day off. So, you know, why shouldn't we? It's not that we don't love you.
[00:53:24] Speaker C: I can't afford to pay Greg public holiday rates.
[00:53:27] Speaker D: So.
[00:53:27] Speaker C: No, no show.
[00:53:29] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, just.
[00:53:30] Speaker A: Just ghosted me on that one.
[00:53:32] Speaker D: Cancel it.
I'm the pro.
[00:53:34] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm the problem. Thanks.
[00:53:36] Speaker C: No, I'm gonna be. I'm gonna be up the river with some friends and I could probably make.
[00:53:40] Speaker D: It back in time, but it'll might add to the stress a little bit.
[00:53:43] Speaker C: So we'll push it. So any images and stuff. If you've taken Aurora images, we'll.
[00:53:48] Speaker D: We'll check them out the following week. Would love to see everyone's Aurora images because I didn't get one again.
[00:53:56] Speaker C: And so if you've got those, email.
[00:53:58] Speaker D: Them to
[email protected] and that will be Monday the 2nd.
Yes, Monday the 2nd will be the next random show.
[00:54:09] Speaker A: That will be the next random show.
And other guests we've got coming up, guys. We've got Richard Grenfell, we've got Bronwyn Kidd.
When's Richard Grenfell Richard is on the 19th of Feb. Bronwyn kids on the 12th.
On the 5th we've got Peter Colson, boudoir and fashion photographer. Cool.
29th we've got Matthew Garberg who we met up at Bright, which is next.
[00:54:36] Speaker C: Next week.
[00:54:37] Speaker A: Next week. He's going to be joining us next week and it's coming up.
[00:54:43] Speaker C: I don't know, but lucky, look who we've got back.
[00:54:46] Speaker A: Hey, patience.
[00:54:49] Speaker B: Sorry about that.
[00:54:50] Speaker C: No worries.
[00:54:51] Speaker A: No worries. You can hear us. Okay, perfect.
[00:54:54] Speaker B: All good. Thank you.
[00:54:55] Speaker C: Wonderful.
[00:54:56] Speaker A: Back in business, everyone.
[00:54:57] Speaker C: Tintyp man said, can't you just use.
[00:55:00] Speaker D: A cardboard cut out of Dean.
[00:55:06] Speaker A: Don't say that.
[00:55:07] Speaker C: All right, let's dive back into the training stuff a little bit because I just want to read this comment out.
[00:55:13] Speaker D: That I brought up before. I didn't actually get a chance to read it. From Catherine Gray, 4583.
[00:55:17] Speaker C: Hi, Dean, great to see you again. I'm one of those 10,000 people from Dean's workshops. He was recommended by a local camera store when I purchased my Fuji XT2 in 2018.
[00:55:28] Speaker D: Dean is a great teacher.
[00:55:31] Speaker B: Oh, thank you, Catherine. Brown paper bag coming your way. Awesome. Thank you for doing that. And that's not my mum, just so you know.
[00:55:41] Speaker C: Right, so of the, of, of the 10,000 people, if you had to take a guess, how many were roughly what percentage were of the family and that style and. And what percentage is commercial? I assume that's all added together like over the, over the years. Yeah. What roughly. What was that? What's that split, do you think?
[00:56:03] Speaker B: Now my heart sank when you said that. I thought you're gonna say who was the best or who was the worst.
[00:56:09] Speaker C: We'll get to that next.
[00:56:12] Speaker B: No, it was, it was nearly all. It was 99 domestic.
That was our marketing push and it's really. Since COVID we've totally flipped that.
That we've. We've pushed more the, the commercial side since COVID But all of those, it's actually up to 12, 000 now. My figures are a bit out, but it's. All of that was, was domestic and that set the base. Without that base, I couldn't have built what I've got.
[00:56:41] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:56:41] Speaker C: So have you got all those clients?
[00:56:43] Speaker D: I mean, or. Not all of them, but you know, a number of them on like an email list or something like that. You could, you could send an email out to or, or whatever.
[00:56:51] Speaker B: Yeah, it's the old email list or carrier pigeon or when you don't have Instagram, that's My fax and Raven, they're my main ways of getting in touch with the client base. Yeah, but there's, there's less reason to be in touch. You know, I'm just sort of updates on things I'm doing. But I used to, you know, follow all the latest cameras and know every setting of every latest camera and that was part of the marketing. I would be in line in the queue getting the very first iPhones when they came out back in the day when Australia used to get the first ones back in the iPhone.
Yeah, we'd get them 12 hours before the U.S. i'll be queuing overnight, which I have to say was actually a lot of fun. Get the phone, do the first review. It would go up on DP review and our website and that was our marketing done for the year. We had so much web juice from doing those.
Our website was at the top. And that lasted for years.
Hundreds and hundreds of inbound links. Back when that was the key thing for Google that floated the business doing those reviews just for two or three years when Australia got them first. And I've been dining out on that since. It's like I said, I was lucky to start at a time when you can do that.
[00:58:00] Speaker C: There's only a certain amount of times you can be lucky before. It's like maybe there was a little bit of, you know, hard work and.
[00:58:08] Speaker D: Planning and stuff involved as well. And good ideas.
[00:58:11] Speaker B: Well, what you're not hearing about are all the really crappy ideas.
Really, really bad. I just don't talk about the ones that fell over completely.
Yeah, I've. Oh, I've come up with some.
Okay, one of the examples.
[00:58:26] Speaker A: Yeah, let's hear about that. Okay.
[00:58:29] Speaker B: Terrible ideas. Beer and better photos. This was an actual course that we ran for like three times.
So we got in touch, we got in touch with local breweries and we do a brewery tour and photography. So we go in there, the, the local. There's all craft brewers, they come out and explain about hops and production and we'd sample the beers and we'd take. I mean, you can tell what's going to go wrong, can't you? This is not, this is not a. Well founded, this is a. Oh, here's an idea rather than a well founded business idea. I'm sure you can work out what went wrong with that course.
[00:59:03] Speaker C: Well, I can't. I'm like, I'm assuming people. I'm assuming, I'm assuming people got drunk maybe, or it's just. Was it just too distracting to keep Everyone focused on photography at all or just no one booked.
[00:59:19] Speaker B: No, no, but people books. But it was, it was all of those problems. And so trying to run a course when the trainer has had a couple of beers, all of the clients have had a couple of beers and it's like. And it's maintaining your professional reputation. It was a good idea. But no. And, and I've had many other ideas and I think one of the comments people put in there, you know, saying yes to things is a great way to grow and that has always been my philosophy. I'll kind of give anything a go once.
But you're learning what ideas to cut loose. And Alicia, my colleague, she is an outstanding black hat thinker and I've learned to do pre mortems on things. So when I have one of my inevitable daily stupid ideas just like no, we literally do a pre mortem we say this idea has failed completely. How did it fail? And she can come up with 500 reasons why it failed. And if you can address all of those, you might have a good idea. But I have to kill my ideas stillborn. Otherwise I'd just be off in all directions.
[01:00:19] Speaker C: Interesting.
Then that is, that is the issue. Too many ideas. But also if you don't. If you hadn't executed on some of the ideas that have turned into successful businesses for you, you might not have anything. So that you've got to. It's hard to figure out what, what.
[01:00:35] Speaker D: The right ones are and doing that without trying is, without giving them a.
[01:00:39] Speaker C: Test is pretty tricky. So yeah, that's the beers and that's. That's clever. And look at, look who it brought into the chat. The drunk wedding photographer. How convenient. Good to see you.
[01:00:52] Speaker B: I haven't seen you for a while.
[01:00:52] Speaker C: Who said drunk?
You might be able to run that in, in your area. Give it a go.
[01:00:58] Speaker B: Yeah, I want to know where he is now. He or she. I don't know where they are.
[01:01:01] Speaker C: He's south of LA and does film. Film Only wedding photography.
[01:01:09] Speaker D: Analog wedding photography with Nikon F5 and some stuff like that.
[01:01:13] Speaker C: So yeah, pretty, pretty interesting business and interesting marketing.
[01:01:18] Speaker D: Having that business name the drunk wedding photographer really puts, I think puts his.
You know, I'm not going to be a uptight perfectionist. We're going to have a good day. We're going to have fun. This is your wedding and. And then does it all analog. So yeah, pretty interesting.
[01:01:36] Speaker C: We get some weird, weird and interesting cats in our, in our comment section from all over the place.
[01:01:41] Speaker B: That's awesome.
[01:01:44] Speaker C: Okay. Where were We. What were we talking about?
Photography courses. You've done a lot of teaching. What's the can you remember? Was it. Did anyone rock up with a camera.
[01:01:54] Speaker D: Where you were just like I.
[01:01:57] Speaker C: No, like we're not stumped. We can't do this. This is not gonna work. I don't even know what this camera is. Like some, some Soviet era film camera.
[01:02:07] Speaker D: Or something, you know.
[01:02:08] Speaker C: Did anyone rock up with anything weird?
Yes.
[01:02:11] Speaker B: Yeah, we had like Indonesia made cameras for a while. There's a brand called Traveler and you know, you can't get the manuals online and that sort of thing and I've got no idea who actually made them, but it was an Indonesian Traveler brand. So if we couldn't get the manual beforehand because back in that sort of 2010 era there were. The companies were putting out dozens of cameras per year. They're all compact little cameras and I was counting up. It was like 150, 160 cameras a year was standard. So like a dozen cameras a month coming out and all tiny little brands from all over before things started collapsing and condensing into the main players.
So yeah, that's why I've read 1200 camera instruction manuals. So no, I've never had one that's taken me by surprise because I've been able to get the manual beforehand or it's clearly inside a Canon or something else. It was a. It was clearly another brand. So I've never been completely caught out.
I'm just trying to think of a more entertaining answer than that though, because it sounds. Yeah, it's more the study beforehand which is the boring bit.
[01:03:15] Speaker D: Yeah, I mean it does.
[01:03:16] Speaker C: I didn't realize that's how you would be doing it.
[01:03:18] Speaker D: Like I thought you would maybe.
[01:03:21] Speaker C: You.
[01:03:21] Speaker D: Know, access the manual if required.
[01:03:23] Speaker C: But doing that as pre. I can see why the business was.
[01:03:26] Speaker D: Successful if that was part of your like pre workshop planning was making sure that you had access to the, the manual for their camera. That's. That's a high touch service. That's pretty amazing.
[01:03:36] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And that's why we. Well, the. Because the intention. I've got any of those cards? No, I haven't got them to hand. The intention was to franchise it. So we try to collect the IP as much as possible into products and so that the product carried the weight. And it was a set of instruction cards, six rules. And this is how you implement each of those rules on your, your camera. This is how you do slow shutter speed waterfall photography for example, or fireworks photography. And press this button, turn that dog, watch out. If that's flashing, then watch out. And set this setting right because you know the way that Canon and Nikon all write their shutter speeds and then Olympus, they're all completely different. So yeah, we learn the things you need to teach people so they can just do it and then you can have a large class and everyone can participate at once. And we've kept that philosophy with our iPhone, corporate teaching. So we can have phones and cameras together now because of these kind of notes. But the whole franchise idea now that didn't fly.
[01:04:33] Speaker C: Yeah, I've got a question about people.
[01:04:35] Speaker D: Yeah, sorry. Go Greg.
[01:04:37] Speaker A: I've just got a question about, you know, given how much you studied up on, on products, on camera products to, you know, better support your clients.
You've got a huge knowledge base there and you. And then the opportunity to evaluate how those clients interact with their cameras. What, what were some of the biggest misconceptions or misunderstandings that you saw had people had between their craft and their camera?
[01:05:02] Speaker B: So most of the people that I was training in that big bulk era, you know, people trying to capture two main things that they wanted to other people to be impressed with their travel photos. They wanted to have travel photos that everyone would like.
So that was a big one. And capturing their family memories and kids growing up that they were the two things. So good travel photographers, photographs that you can share and their family growing up. So their goals were around those things and behaviors. So we structured the course around how to do those rather than around sort of camera settings. So we always tried to be like Apple, that interface between the complicated stuff and their goals. So we'd only teach them how to achieve the goals. So in our basic courses we wouldn't teach apertures because if you got a compact camera, it was irrelevant anyway because even the best compact cameras only had three apertures and some of them were done with ND filters anyway. So there's nothing to teach and you can't see a difference in three aperture settings. So we, we kind of collapsed it down so that as much as possible that was not an issue. That the differences between brands, those misconceptions didn't get in the way. We tried to structure that out. That makes sense.
[01:06:18] Speaker A: Yep, yep.
[01:06:20] Speaker D: Yeah.
[01:06:21] Speaker A: Okay.
[01:06:21] Speaker C: I have a similar question.
[01:06:23] Speaker D: Oh no, you keep.
My question is going to take us in a whole different direction.
[01:06:26] Speaker C: Direction.
[01:06:28] Speaker A: Maybe just the follow up question to that one, Dean, where did you see your students struggle the most? Like, what was the thing that they really had trouble grasping even. Even with more advanced teaching?
[01:06:43] Speaker B: Yeah, And I've got a fairly firm answer to that. But it took me a few years to realize it.
It's. It's kind of confidence to express themselves.
People being intimidated by. Intimidated by the camera, but also intimidated by what photography should be. And so we literally ban the words should or must and have to on our courses. So we, in the early days we had 1, 2, 3 trainers. And, you know, this is when we're having thousands of people a year coming through. We had a whole bunch of trainers and we had to help the trainers not use the word should or must have to. They were banned on the courses because photography is not about obligations. You know, you have to shoot in manual mode. You should shoot in aperture priority mode. You have to do it like this. You've got to stand up. We ban those words because they stop people from feeling confident about expressing themselves. And so the big thing is helping people to be confident about what the goals are. That people would often say to me that we do an activity and they say, is this a good photo now? How.
And you've got to turn it around and say, well, you tell me about the photo. Let's say which of these photos is the best photo. And they know already that they actually already know. And it's just helping them realize and be confident because they. They think it's a technical subject and it's not. It's about getting your vision out there, being able to say something with a camera. And I'd say that's. That's the biggest misconception, that photography is a technical subject instead of a way of expressing yourself.
[01:08:25] Speaker A: I love that answer.
[01:08:26] Speaker C: I think that's really powerful, especially since it follows your.
[01:08:31] Speaker D: Your arc going from technical to more creative and opening your eyes in. Into that world a bit more.
They're kind of experiencing that arc on a.
At a sort of a consumer amateur level in a very short amount of time in a course you're trying to take them from. How does this thing work and what are the right settings to.
You know, let's take something that looks great or feels great or, you know, says something. I love it.
[01:09:00] Speaker B: Yeah, maybe I'm just projecting in doing that. But if you'd have asked me that question to ten years ago, I don't think I've been able to articulate it like that. But yeah, certainly that does reflect my art. Absolutely, as you're saying. But I see it more and more now. Maybe I'm just looking at. For it more. And a lot of that is Steve Parish's influence because that's his focus on helping people to express their creativity and I've learned so much from that.
[01:09:24] Speaker A: Yep. Yeah, it's very powerful, that's for sure.
[01:09:28] Speaker C: Yeah, I think it's definitely somewhere I'm, I'm stuck currently.
[01:09:31] Speaker D: Is, is, is mate.
[01:09:33] Speaker C: I don't think I've, I've always been.
[01:09:34] Speaker D: More about the, the technical.
[01:09:39] Speaker C: Side of.
[01:09:40] Speaker D: Photography more so than the, I guess what you, what you would call the emotional or creative side or whatever. And I'm kind of trying to expand that at the moment over the last year or two. But yeah, it's sort of, it's, it's always mainly been driven by technology, technique or how could you capture that or.
As opposed to.
Yeah, moving a layer deeper. Exactly.
[01:10:05] Speaker A: Yeah. It's interesting Dean, we, we often joke about that, that Justin's very much the, the technical photographer and I'm very much the emotional photographer and never the twain shall meet. Except that on here twice a week live on YouTube.
[01:10:18] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:10:21] Speaker A: You had a question earlier Justin, you wanted to ask?
[01:10:23] Speaker C: I did. Okay. So given that you've read 1200 camera manuals, you've likely seen most cameras in action and understand them inside and out. I love that you probably have a really good knowledge of how a lot of the camera brands evolved over the years in the way of their product updates and, and things like that.
How did you end up shooting Fuji?
[01:10:48] Speaker A: Oh.
[01:10:51] Speaker B: Again more historical accidents and so you've got to wind back to so SLRs, SLRs and everything. Then Mirrorless is coming in and Canon and Nikon don't yet have a mirrorless system and so we're going back to I can't even remember 2014, something like that but Fuji come out with a pretty credible, competent system. And so at the time it was either Fuji or Sony if you're going middle mirrorless and inside they're very much the same. You know the Fuji sensors are made by Sony is, is what I what I've learned and so inside there's not that much difference. But outside at the time I could not get on with Sony cameras and their menus of that era nowadays wonderful. But of that era it was no choice. It was only really Fuji or the, you know, the tiny 1 inch sensor Nikons, the Nikon 1 system which I actually liked I lot.
And so it was more it was first cab off the rank and I bought into that and started buying some of their lenses and the thing that really sold me on Fuji was their ability to instantly shoot wirelessly to a printer. And it's not relevant to 90% of people, but it transformed what I could do in my people photography because I could take a picture and then within 20 seconds you're handing someone a credit card size print of that just out of the printer in your pocket. It's all wireless and it was delicious.
[01:12:16] Speaker A: You mean like the Instax? The Instax printing? Yep.
[01:12:18] Speaker B: And, and you can do. And it works internationally because I'll be doing work overseas and travel overseas and taking people pictures. If you hand someone this sort of credit card sizing and start shaking it, that is the international symbol of I'm handing you a Polaroid because otherwise it's just a blank piece of paper. They think, who is this nutter who is just handing me a blank card? You shake it and give it to them. And the beautiful thing about those Instax, I love it a bit because you watch it emerge over about 30, 40, 50 seconds, you start to sit and the grin on their face. So many of my clients I'd have language difficulties communicating with, because they're refugees or they've got cognitive issues or this sort of thing. This Instax system with the Fuji cameras gave me an ability to say, I am not just taking your photo, I'm giving, giving your photo as well. It completely flipped the dynamic and it instantly shows that you care about them and you give. So I. My wife took me on a 40th birthday holiday in Cambodia. It was amazing. And I took those.
I took the worst lens that you take on holiday, the 70 to 200 equivalents. And I went around Siem. I mean it's just like a bazooka. You feel like invading infantry with this thing. And we went to the most touristy place, like in Siem Reap and I photographed all the street vendors on the 7300 at night. But everyone, I'd take the picture, I'd hand them the print as well.
And as they watch it emerge, you see the smile emerge. They call all their friends over. Now all their friends want photos as well. And everyone's laughing and wanting pictures. And I'm in my happy place. This is the kind of photography I love doing. And I spent such a fun night. I've got such fond memories of just shooting those people in the slot. The next day I'm walking down the most touristy place on the planet, the main street of Siem Reap and everyone's calling out, hi, Dean, come in, have a cup of tea. And we're. And they're giving me free products from their stalls. We're Chatting about marriage and life and in the middle of the most touristy place on the planet. This little Fuji camera and Fuji printer have flipped the connection completely. And I'm having a moment that I've. I've cherished for life as that sort of genuine connection that a camera always gets in the way of that. But these helped it. So that's a really long answer to say why I stuck with Fuji. Until their latest firmware update that has broken the link between camera and printer. And I am fingers crossed that they're going to release a printer that brings it back.
But I'm staying on old firmware so I can still do that work because it is really such a biggie for me. It's transformed the way I can interact with people.
[01:14:53] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:14:54] Speaker D: Yeah.
[01:14:54] Speaker C: Well, firstly that's. That's probably the best answer we've had I think for choosing a.
A particular camera system and then. And why you stuck with it.
But so, okay, so what happened with the printer? Did they. Is it an older printer and it doesn't work with the new firmware or something like why is that stopped?
[01:15:12] Speaker B: I'm not. My understanding of it is that European regulations around security of WI fi have trickled across the world and so WI fi needs to be more secure and those older printers don't have that security.
I'm hoping they'll have a new printer.
[01:15:29] Speaker C: Someone could steal a Polar. That could be disastrous. If someone printed something, you know, without your knowledge, it could be life changing.
[01:15:38] Speaker B: Absolutely. I wouldn't want to cover agents stealing my photos.
[01:15:43] Speaker C: No.
[01:15:46] Speaker A: Doing the supplies job for them. Yeah.
[01:15:48] Speaker C: Hopefully they can figure that out. That's. That does sound very cool for. Especially if it works so seamlessly. Like not. Because that's the thing. My. But you know what is. I've got a. I've got a Leica.
[01:15:57] Speaker D: I'm actually lending it to someone today.
[01:16:00] Speaker C: And the. The best thing, even though it's an amazing camera, amazing lens, the image quality is insane.
It's a Q3. The actual best thing about it, the Leica app works really well.
And I haven't tried the Fujifilm app. I assume it's pretty good. But like the Canon ones and stuff, they. They're just like connecting and it's always like you press pair on here and then pair there and then is it working? And then what's it doing? And all that stuff.
[01:16:30] Speaker A: And I'm like the Fuji app has improved.
It went through a few years there where it was shocking and. And like Dean, I've done the shot straight from my what would I have been using? Probably one of my XT models straight to the Fuji printer at parties. And I would give. I would. I would take the photo and say, if you head over to that table, your photo will appear on that printer and there's a photo album and a pen. Stick it in the photo album and write a message to the birthday boy.
And it was such a hit. It was such a hit.
[01:16:59] Speaker C: Instead of people taking their own ones with the little Instax cameras, you were running around grabbing the shots and then they're just appearing next to the guest book. That's awesome.
[01:17:08] Speaker A: Actually, it's funny that we're talking about this now because that, that first time I used that was at a party nine years ago for a 21st, for a friend, a friend of the family. So I shot their son's 21st, and tomorrow night I've been invited back to shoot their 30th, nine years later. So that. Yeah.
[01:17:26] Speaker C: And now the printer doesn't work.
[01:17:28] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[01:17:29] Speaker A: I'm not doing the picture this time. It was a lot of work.
[01:17:31] Speaker C: It was a lot of work going.
[01:17:32] Speaker A: Over and changing and changing. Yeah. Anyway, but. But it was good because the client, my friend, still got a USB stick full of high quality, well, Fuji quality images.
And.
But the guests had this instantaneous response. And. And there's a. There's a guy I follow, a couple of guys I follow on Instagram. One of them's in Italy, and he goes around photographing because he's near the Vatican. There's all. Yeah. Because the Vatican has their own guards and police system and, you know, because they're kind of identified as a bit of a separate state. And they often wear uniforms that are centuries old. Like, century. The design is centuries old. And this photographer goes around photographing them without their knowledge, and then he'll print them on one of those Canon selfie printers. And he has a bag full of little black frames or white frames, puts them in and hands it over to the person.
And the reaction, the connection that they make in those. Those moments is just absolutely beautiful.
But, yeah, I have a question about gear, actually, Dean, if you. If you'll indulge me for a moment. Given how much you've seen about cameras and their evolution over the years, where do you see camera technology going next?
[01:18:50] Speaker B: Oh, my crystal ball isn't that good. I used to be better at that. I mean, I. I've got a better handle on where I think phones are going because I think.
Because that, you know, that's driving more of my business Camera. It sounds odd but I'm. I'm fairly satisfied with cameras now. I suppose it's because the first professional camera for me was a Nikon D200 then a Nikon D3 and that 12 megapixel full frame it, it's still. I, I did billboards with the thing and the modern cameras have so much more cropability, so much better focus but those are rarely the limits of the thing for me. I, I can still do a lot of work with an old Nikon D3 if I need to so I'm, I'm fairly satisfied. It's rare that I need something a lot bigger and the other advantage of Fuji is that their professional system is amazing. So Neil Pash of Fujifilm has been incredible with loans of Fuji GFX for when I need.
[01:19:51] Speaker A: We love Neil.
[01:19:52] Speaker B: Yeah, just amazing.
[01:19:53] Speaker A: Interesting.
[01:19:54] Speaker C: So they'll loan GFX's?
[01:19:56] Speaker A: No, not to you because you're a Canon shooter. They'll lend them to me.
[01:19:59] Speaker C: I know they have but I've had all of which I might switch.
I was actually going to ask you about before we get into where phones are going to go because I do want to hear that. I was going to ask you about like what gear you're shooting with for your commercial work with Fuji now and.
[01:20:17] Speaker D: Whether it was GFX or X series.
[01:20:20] Speaker C: Or so it sounds like it's. It's mainly X series but GFX when required.
[01:20:25] Speaker B: Yeah so I'm still running sort of three systems but Fuji is the main one so it's the, the Fuji X system. So XH2S is the main camera X T4, XT3X Pro as well so a range of cameras and the HH2s is so good at video so that, that would be the, the A cam for the video shoot this afternoon. It's just great. And HD4 is good as well. I still have a full frame Nikon system for when I need a little bit more resolution but it's largely gathering dust because even though the half frame the Fujis are, are pretty much there and it's really my Dumbo feather my, you know. Oh I feel like I ought to be doing full frame but rather than actually needing it because the Fuji are good enough for 90% of the work but then as a backup because I've got a lot of clients and a lot of contacts I tend to borrow medium format because you guys over in Melbourne and Sydney you can rent them easily over here. It's actually a pain there aren't good. It's not. Certainly not for Fuji. There aren't many rental systems for medium format. So Neil has been amazing at Fujifilm with. You know, I had a big shoot at Parliament, opening a parliament over a week and lent me a GFX system and a whole bunch of lenses for it and it was 100 megapixels of joy. It was just gorgeous.
[01:21:42] Speaker A: I just saw a rumor. One of our past guests and friends of the channel Nev.
Nev Clark, he shot me a rumor this morning that Fujifilm are developing 180 megapixel sensor for their future GFX.
[01:21:54] Speaker B: That's just overkill.
[01:21:56] Speaker C: Yeah. What are we doing?
[01:21:57] Speaker B: I know.
[01:21:59] Speaker A: Is that, that the new, the new race to see who can get as high as they can with megapixels, you know.
[01:22:05] Speaker C: Well I kind of hope they do. I think that would be amazing because then the hundred should be a little bit more affordable for me, you know. So if the hundred becomes their like base model and the other, the 180 becomes a new flagship then maybe, maybe.
[01:22:21] Speaker D: I could get a gfx.
[01:22:23] Speaker C: So yeah, do it Fujifilm.
[01:22:25] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:22:25] Speaker A: We dare you.
[01:22:26] Speaker C: Make it 180. I dare you.
[01:22:29] Speaker B: I'm happy with 101 hundreds is enough.
[01:22:31] Speaker C: Yeah, it would be.
[01:22:33] Speaker A: My computer can be. My new computer can barely handle the 100 files.
[01:22:37] Speaker C: It's.
I keep you. You're spot on with cameras being good enough. So I, I normally. I have a canon system, canon R5 Mark II and a canon R3 which are two high end canon cameras.
[01:22:51] Speaker D: The R5 Mark II is 45 megapixels.
[01:22:53] Speaker C: Amazing.
[01:22:54] Speaker D: Amazing in every way. Video, photo, everything.
[01:22:57] Speaker C: And then I recently got the R6.
[01:22:59] Speaker D: Mark III which just come out and I'll get rid of one of the.
[01:23:02] Speaker C: Other cameras and it's, it's more of a mid range.
[01:23:06] Speaker D: I don't know what you would call it.
[01:23:07] Speaker C: You know it's like the. I call it like the working photographer's camera. Like it's, it's everything you need and.
[01:23:15] Speaker D: It'S not the top of the range price point. And yeah, I've been shooting with it for some professional work over the last.
[01:23:21] Speaker C: Few days and it is, it's 33 megapixel or whatever it is. 32 and it is everything you need. The video is insane.
The autofocus is insane.
[01:23:31] Speaker D: It's. It's.
[01:23:32] Speaker C: It's like I don't know what you couldn't do with this other than yes.
[01:23:36] Speaker D: Super high end commercial where you need your medium format or super high end video where you're probably using cinema Cameras or super high end.
[01:23:46] Speaker C: Maybe sports where you want.
[01:23:48] Speaker D: Yeah, the flagship $12,000 sports camera. Canon R1 or whatever. Sony A, a 1 Mark II.
[01:23:55] Speaker C: But otherwise it's just like. I don't know what else you would want it to do.
[01:23:58] Speaker B: Yeah, I don't know.
That's. Yeah, that's exactly. And that I'm guessing that's a part of the reason why sales for SLRs now have a 10% of what they were 15 years ago in that people are satisfied and are now turning to the phone instead.
[01:24:15] Speaker D: Yeah.
[01:24:15] Speaker C: All right, so tell us about phones.
[01:24:17] Speaker A: Circle back. Yeah. Where do you think phones are heading? Phone cameras.
[01:24:22] Speaker B: Yeah.
What I'm realizing is that. So when I did the review of the iPhone 15, it doesn't have the same Google Juice impact as it used to, but testing it out, seeing how much AI is going into the photo editing and there's a.
I heard an analysis of what's going on, that there is a lot of AI processing going on. You can consider your photo that the phone takes as a seed for AI to improve it. So the issue going forward is not so much sharpness and quality as veracity. Truth.
And I did it.
I had straight after doing that, I had two forensic photographers coming on my iPhone course and they were wanting to see can phones or iPads be used to do forensic photos and you know, crime scene, that sort of thing. Most of it's a scan these days. But can you get the photos with just a phone or an iPad? Is it good enough? And technically, yes. But I did some tests and I've got the results up on the website. I photographed a fingerprint, not mine, after a fingerprint, didn't want mine on the web and found that there's a certain size in getting close to if it's sort of fairly low res, if the ridges and troughs of the fingerprint are similar to the sort of pixel pitch it invents. Different fingerprints each time was what I was finding. So you shoot it with an actual camera and you see a fingerprint with a veil of random noise across. Take 10 photos and you get random noise across it. Shoot it with a phone. And because there's some AI going on, and I don't pretend to understand all this, it looked a bit like different fingerprints in each time rather than one a static fingerprint with a veil of noise over the top. So I'm seeing it more as the photo you take is kind of like a seed for the AI which enhances it to make perfect sharpness and perfect everything. But you're losing the truth when it comes down to a certain degree of detail and it only affects the finest, finest detail on the picture.
But my interpretation was. I can't trust that because it's. It's different in each photo.
[01:26:39] Speaker C: That's a really interesting thing because. So I was doing some commercial photography.
[01:26:45] Speaker D: Editing yesterday and I needed to remove some stuff. Just some, like there were some wrinkles in the floor that they didn't want there. No problem. And. And like lightrooms AI remove stuff is so good now most of the time, sometimes it does silly things, but almost all the time it just saves a ton of time that you otherwise would have had to manually edit.
[01:27:10] Speaker C: And there was.
[01:27:11] Speaker D: I wish I could actually bring it up because it was quite, quite crazy.
[01:27:15] Speaker C: There was a reflection on a machine that had. Was like a control panel with six buttons.
[01:27:24] Speaker D: What the buttons did on a. Like this is like a compressor that would go in a mine. So it's quite like industrial big button, you know, lots of warnings and all this stuff on this panel. And then the panel had a.
A stark white light reflection just running through it that was distracting and I.
[01:27:42] Speaker C: Wanted to get rid of it.
[01:27:43] Speaker D: And I did not have the time to like, Photoshop it properly. I was like, it's not.
[01:27:49] Speaker C: Because it wasn't.
[01:27:49] Speaker D: They're throwing it in a tiny little PDF, it's not relevant for it to be perfect.
[01:27:54] Speaker C: And I just tried their AI remove and it did an amazing job.
One click thing went and it was running through the buttons and the words and everything.
[01:28:05] Speaker D: And the buttons were still in the.
[01:28:06] Speaker C: Same place, but like in one of.
[01:28:09] Speaker D: The generations, the button was red and in the other one it was green. And in one of the generations, and.
[01:28:16] Speaker C: In most of the generations, the word above the button was kind of nonsensical. It looked for the photo, it was.
[01:28:21] Speaker D: Fine, but you zoom into, you know, 100% and it didn't quite. You couldn't read it. It was just sort of like random lines that kind of look like a word.
[01:28:32] Speaker C: So, yeah, it's very interesting with stuff like that. It's like, that's cool if you're doing.
[01:28:37] Speaker D: It knowingly, but when that stuff's happening unknowingly.
[01:28:42] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:28:42] Speaker D: How far will we step away from reality at the push of a button on a phone photo? When you're just taking a photo of anything, you know.
[01:28:52] Speaker C: Yeah. That's very interesting that you noticed that.
[01:28:54] Speaker D: And tested it with fingerprints. That's really interesting.
[01:28:57] Speaker A: Yeah, it is very intrusive, isn't it, on smartphones? You know, like, I just Downloaded the latest because I've got the 17 Pro.
It's amazing if I, I'm trying to take my, my Fujifilm XT5 out as much as I can whenever I leave the house because I just love that, having that on me, on a lucky strap, by the way.
But when I don't want to carry a camera and I just want to have my phone in my pocket, they are amazing for capturing whatever you want.
But I downloaded the latest update yesterday and everything I've gone to do on my phone since has popped up with a prompt saying, hey, this is Apple's new intelligence AI.
We can do that for you. Faster and simpler. Basically, it's what it's saying and everything is coming up with this and it comes up on the screen with a little rainbow text to stand out from everything else. And it's just become so, it's become so intrusive in everything that I'm trying to achieve.
It's trying to take over. It's like, no, I still know how to write words and I don't need you to summarize my emails. I can actually read them. You know, I still have all those basic core human functions going on.
[01:30:02] Speaker C: You know, it's so funny. The first one I, the first time I ever read an AI summary was like two days ago because I got forwarded this insanely long email chain with no, you know what, has anyone ever forwarded you an email with no context? There's no like, yeah, hey, Dean, just a heads up below, here's the chain.
[01:30:20] Speaker D: Of blah, blah, blah.
[01:30:21] Speaker C: It's just the forward of like 30 emails. And I was like, what is this for? And then I read the summary and it's like, oh, so. And two weeks ago, so and so requested that this be delivered to this, but then it didn't, you know, and then I was like, oh, this is actually really. It's the first time I'm like, this is. Was really handy. But it taken me 10 minutes to read this stupid email chain.
[01:30:41] Speaker A: Oh, poor you.
[01:30:42] Speaker D: So I could have just replied and said, what is this?
[01:30:44] Speaker C: This?
[01:30:44] Speaker B: But anyway, it's actually, I'm yet to find it be useful. Mainly it's summarizing my spam for me. So it comes up with these gorgeous AI summaries of what the spammer wants me to learn and there's a special offer for you. It's like, oh, no, come on. But I am so with Greg on this.
But yes, is it, is it bad for me that I'm feeling personally insulted by that? It wants to do that for me.
So with you, Greg?
[01:31:09] Speaker A: Yeah, no, a little. Most definitely.
[01:31:12] Speaker C: Maybe it's okay.
[01:31:13] Speaker A: So.
[01:31:14] Speaker C: So what's your take on. Have you. Do you use AI at all in your business in any way at the moment? And what's your take on it and yeah, give me some thoughts.
[01:31:22] Speaker B: Yeah, I do. Obviously there's the AI replace things and you know being ethical about that where it's needed and that's something litter removal from photos and that kind of stuff. So all of that stuff in AI I do lean on chat GPT I call it my husband for solving technical issues. So when.
Don't rely on it for that but it's more like oh I. I can't connect my MacBook to the blah blah blah. Can you troubleshoot that for me? And it comes up with a beautiful. Oh I love it for that. So I rely on it as a husband. I'm writing a book at the moment about training and I use it for black hat thinking. So I'll put up an idea and I'd say pretend you're a. An academic critiquing this from a constructivist philosophy or some take some tone and critique it from that angle. Now critique it from that angle. And it is awesome. At Black Cat I love it for shooting down ideas. I don't like it for generating ideas because I find it's. It just regurgitates the common whatever's most commonly thought rather than necessarily having the nuance. But for shooting down and pretending to be a critic, it is awesome.
[01:32:37] Speaker C: Interesting. Okay.
[01:32:39] Speaker A: That's a good approach. I really like that.
[01:32:41] Speaker D: Yeah.
[01:32:41] Speaker C: The, the, you know, the other thing. So there was all this controversy about.
[01:32:45] Speaker D: AI editing about a week ago because.
[01:32:48] Speaker C: I think what's the big show that was just in the U.S. greg, do.
[01:32:51] Speaker D: You remember it's like imaging.
[01:32:53] Speaker C: Imaging something.
[01:32:54] Speaker D: I don't know, the big, big U.S.
trade show.
[01:32:57] Speaker A: Yeah. I can't remember what's called. Sorry.
[01:32:58] Speaker D: Just happened.
[01:32:58] Speaker C: I always.
[01:32:59] Speaker D: Oh hang on.
[01:33:00] Speaker C: It's right here it is Imaging USA 2026.
[01:33:04] Speaker A: So creative.
Yeah.
[01:33:07] Speaker B: So sorry.
[01:33:08] Speaker C: Now the. My bias is showing through the AI editing. There's an AI portrait and headshot kind of editing software called Evoto. I don't know if you've ever heard of it or used it it.
I hadn't really heard of it. Apparently it's quite a big thing and they got in trouble because they do they specialize in like if you're a say a portrait or headshot photographer, it's AI based tools to.
[01:33:35] Speaker D: To really quickly retouch at the level.
[01:33:39] Speaker C: Of Photoshop retouching but just with like.
[01:33:42] Speaker D: Click a button and then maybe tweak it afterwards. So it might be like skin and it breaks everything down.
[01:33:49] Speaker C: And like the stuff that's available in Lightroom, it's like that times 10 or.
[01:33:55] Speaker D: 100 or whatever in terms of how.
[01:33:57] Speaker C: Quick it is and how well it.
[01:33:59] Speaker D: Works for that sort of stuff like skin smoothing or like blemish removal from skin without just wrecking it and making it super soft or whatever.
[01:34:09] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:34:09] Speaker C: Anyway, they got in trouble because they released a tool that was basically like.
[01:34:18] Speaker D: Upload your photo and get an AI generated headshot, no need for a photographer now kind of tool.
And obviously all the commercial headshot photographers that pay them to use their software were like hey, what are you. You basically were you training your system on our images and now you're just kind of getting rid of the photographer completely.
And it went, it went pretty crazy. A lot of people, lots of comments online and all that sort of stuff. But it turns out, and this is just when marketing doesn't talk to anyone.
[01:34:55] Speaker C: Turns out this AI generation AI headshot.
[01:34:59] Speaker D: Generator tool was not even their system. It was a like a white label AI headshot generator tool.
[01:35:07] Speaker C: And they put it.
[01:35:09] Speaker D: Yeah. Off the shelf and they put it out as an SEO play because that's how you get SEO for, you know, being an AI editing company. By having a page where people can do free, like drop your headshot stuff. You know, it's like the free everything that you can get online. It's like I need to convert this to this and there's a free page for it or whatever. So it was an SEO play not related to their system.
Not. No images have been tra. Like nothing's been trained on any of their professional photographers images or anything like that. But by then it was. It's almost like the damage has been done.
[01:35:42] Speaker C: Anyway, long story short, to make this funny, I've now downloaded the software.
[01:35:46] Speaker D: I'd never heard of it before.
[01:35:47] Speaker C: It's amazing. So the.
I guess all publicity is good publicity because I'm actually wondering whether they will have seen a spike in users after this disaster. Cuz I hadn't heard of it. I downloaded. I've been trying to do some pet photography on like seamless colored backdrops.
One click. All pet hair on the backdrop gone.
[01:36:10] Speaker A: Hey, hey.
[01:36:11] Speaker C: Perfectly just gone.
[01:36:13] Speaker D: One click.
[01:36:13] Speaker C: I was like this is insane.
[01:36:15] Speaker D: Anyway, so I don't know.
[01:36:17] Speaker C: I don't know how to feel about AI. It's pretty amazing but it's also concerning.
[01:36:24] Speaker B: And are you Finding the pet photography to be going. Okay, I'm sorry, I'm curious now about. I reckon that's a, that's an exploding area is my impression.
[01:36:33] Speaker C: I really. It's, it's only just an initial start. I've got a plan to launch the business this year. I've done pet photography in the past.
[01:36:41] Speaker D: But it's always just been like, you know, while I was doing weddings someone was like hey can you take some photos of my pet? Or whatever or our family with our pet. Whereas this, I really want to have a particular brand and look which I've never done before and I think it will go well but it's. I've, I've literally done some, a test shoot and some other testing and I'm going to do another, going to do 10 test shoots and then launch the business and I'm getting some guidance from one of our podcast guests, Alex Kearns who's a very well known pet photographer in Perth and just Australia wide.
And so yeah that, that's the plan is to launch it. So I don't, I can't answer that yet.
[01:37:22] Speaker C: Hopefully I can answer that for you.
[01:37:24] Speaker D: By the middle of the year. As to whether it's going to be.
[01:37:27] Speaker C: Because it's going to be, I don't know, it's going to be tough.
The hardest thing for me is I.
[01:37:30] Speaker D: Don'T have a dedicated physical space that's really required to give that high end service of a, of a portrait studio style thing for, for dogs. So I'm actually contemplating a, contemplating a trailer like a mobile studio for dogs.
[01:37:49] Speaker C: But I don't know. Have you had any, is there anyone in your area that you know of that that is successful doing it or that you've come across?
[01:37:59] Speaker B: I'm seeing that it is a growing side of business. So people who approach me saying I would like to start a photography business, what should I do?
I've. One of the things I've been suggesting they look at is that. And now it's getting rarer that people just approach me with a. I just want to make money in photography, how do I do it? And that's not generally something I recommend people follow if that's their initial motivation. But pet photography I've been seeing as a bigger thing and I've worked with some animal handlers and for taking some photos of their animals and I took the approach of going out on site and bringing the lighting. So I took, I treated it as a portrait shoot. And then there's the problem of handling rather than the studio where it's more contained and more controlled. But I enjoy doing things on location and that was a shoot where I learned that you don't lie down in front of 30 dogs and that is a very bad thing to do.
But the photos were fun and some of them are in focus.
[01:39:01] Speaker C: Yeah, it is. It's very interesting that you just go.
[01:39:04] Speaker D: To that point of view. The dog doesn't know what is happening and doesn't care. They just want to get pets and.
[01:39:09] Speaker C: Treats or lay down and do whatever they want to do and you've just.
[01:39:12] Speaker D: Got to figure out how to work around it.
[01:39:14] Speaker C: It's kind of fun in that regard.
[01:39:16] Speaker D: I like it and I love dogs, so that's why it's sort of gone that way.
[01:39:19] Speaker C: But what I worry about with the AI side of things is, is there.
[01:39:24] Speaker D: Going to be a point where someone can take a photo of their pet on a phone and then it'll be. They can AI it to what would be the equivalent of a high end portrait studio shot of their dog. And, and what I always get back.
[01:39:39] Speaker C: To is, yes, it might be good enough for what they want, but it won't be the hair, won't the fur, won't be the fur of their dog.
[01:39:48] Speaker D: It will be what AI thinks the fur of their dog would look like if it was shot with 100 megapixel camera, which it wasn't.
[01:39:54] Speaker A: And studio lighting in studio lighting, which it wasn't.
[01:39:57] Speaker C: So while it could still be.
Yeah, it could still look great enough to put on your wall and close enough to your dog that you don't care, but it won't be exactly your.
[01:40:08] Speaker D: Dog shot by a professional photographer.
[01:40:11] Speaker C: What is that? Is that sort of where your thinking is?
[01:40:15] Speaker B: 100%. And I'm so keen to find out the answer to this because clearly the AI is going to get so that it can do that easily. I've got no idea what the time frame of it that is absolutely obviously going to come. And the answer is going to reflect my faith in humanity.
Is it that people want a photo? That's because everybody, all the visitors would go, oh, that's an amazing photo of the dog. And it, it will satisfy the. I can impress other people with the photo, but we know that it's not our cat. That is not my dog. That's not. And so whom are we putting it out there for? I think becomes one of the interesting questions.
And so if it is for yourself, then you need an actual photo. You. The AI stops it being authentic enough to be satisfied with it. So I so want to know the answer to that very question. And good luck with the business. I want to come back in six months and find out how it goes.
[01:41:09] Speaker C: It's, it's exciting. It is exciting. I love a new project.
Something to get distracted by that may.
[01:41:16] Speaker D: Or may not work.
[01:41:17] Speaker C: I'm sure you're at first familiar.
[01:41:21] Speaker B: Yeah, that's what I need. My black cat thinking.
[01:41:24] Speaker C: And, and don't, don't worry. That's why I, I, I get excited about something and then, and then my own. Yeah.
[01:41:30] Speaker D: Brain at a different point will be like, is this, is this just going to get taken over by, by AI.
[01:41:36] Speaker C: In a year anyway?
[01:41:38] Speaker D: Is it all a waste of time because no one will. Why would anyone spend the money on this when AI could just do it for free? Or yeah, I do. I do it to myself.
[01:41:47] Speaker B: Isn't that an ex.
Can't even say existential angst for all photographers though, because we, we know that's coming and we're staring down the barrel of so much of what has traditionally been photography going exactly the way you're talking about, the phone and the pet photography. And so it, I love that it distills it down to the essence of what's actually important.
So I'm, I'm concerned about it, but I'm not scared of it. I'm kind of enjoying the disruption that it creates in.
Because it's also democratizing. Anyone can take good photos now. And it just, I always think technology just amplifies whatever's inside of you and so it reveals what's inside you by what you choose to point the camera and what you choose to elevate and celebrate with that photo. So I'm actually quite enjoying the revolution.
Yeah, but it feels like a roller coaster, doesn't it?
[01:42:43] Speaker A: Yeah, it does. And I think, you know, it really, it really challenges authenticity. And I wonder whether we'll get to a point where it's not just about, hey, do you like my photo of my dog? But can you believe AI did that? Is the conversation point not the actual quality of the image or the, you know, there's my dog, let's celebrate my dog. It's more about, hey, yeah, see that photo? Yeah, I made that with AI like, it's almost a bragging, right, that I could get something so good by not actually doing anything myself, you know, and I think there's some things where I have, I don't know about you, Dean, but I have objections to about AI especially around, there's the harvesting of images and all of that. But when people use AI for nefarious image making, that impacts another person, you know, and we've seen that and I've talked about it in the past. In fact, you know, I. I left one of my clients because.
Because of that.
I'm a writer as well, and they wanted me to do articles about the glory of AI and how good it all is so they could sell ad space to just these sorts of software companies. And so I parted ways with them on moral and ethical reasons.
One of the softwares that they wanted to me review was one where you can take a selfie or a photo of someone and it's an app and you can put that, your face and likeness on anybody in any situation. And so here in Melbourne, we had some school kids who were creating fake porn for fellow female students and female teachers, and they were consequently punished and expelled or whatever it was that took place there. But it's that sort of stuff that worries me where we lose authenticity and authenticity is given up over shock value.
[01:44:29] Speaker C: You know, which it is the thing, though, because it's like we've all that's been able to be done in Photoshop.
[01:44:38] Speaker D: It's just the barrier, the barrier was higher, you know, like the kids are going to go and try and find the material, then they've got to try and make it look reasonable. Whereas AI and the Snap did it for them and they didn't.
[01:44:49] Speaker A: And Photoshop is a subscription. It costs money. Most of these apps are free because of advertising.
[01:44:53] Speaker C: There's free apps now that could do it, but it's more just the amount.
[01:44:57] Speaker D: Of effort that it would take. They might get distracted and be like, oh, maybe we're not going to do this, or maybe it's a bad idea, maybe we shouldn't do this. Whereas AI is kind of like.
Kind of like letting them carry around a loaded gun instead of just having to get angry at someone and try and have a fistfight and then realize it was a bad idea. You know, like in. In an instant they make a bad decision.
[01:45:21] Speaker A: So, yeah, yeah, it's very true.
[01:45:24] Speaker B: It just amplifies the consequences, doesn't it?
[01:45:28] Speaker A: Exactly, yeah, yeah, it does, it does. And, and yeah, and I also worry about client faith or, you know, customer faith in, in how we're handling their images.
Are we. Are they getting back these images? And I'm not actually not a good photographer. I'm just using AI to make them look good, you know, questioning our authenticity as well as creatives, you know, and it's kind of like another generation of that Whole thing. When smartphones came out, I remember people asking me for quotes to shoot parties and events. I used to love doing parties and events and when I'd get back the send back the quote, they'd say oh, you know, and I, and I heard this a couple of times. Oh look, do I think I'll just get my sister to use her phone, you know, is this another step in that. Oh, don't worry, I'll just get AI to make the photos because your quote is unreason. I think your quote's unreasonable.
[01:46:17] Speaker C: I think. Yeah, I think that will be the. One of the last things is like.
[01:46:22] Speaker D: Events, you know, like weddings.
[01:46:25] Speaker C: Wedding weddings aren't, you know, no one's.
[01:46:28] Speaker D: Going to want fake wedding photos. They might, you could maybe go to the point where a wedding photographer could do it on a phone and everything gets enhanced by AI maybe but like to the point where you don't have someone there to document it.
That's probably not going to happen. Sports photography, not going to happen. No one wants to see an AI rendition of, you know, the game winning goal.
Like. Yeah. So it's like there's things that are very, very safe.
[01:46:58] Speaker B: But.
[01:47:00] Speaker D: Yeah, it's probably more those like you know, headshots, an easy one.
A lot of people want a proper.
[01:47:07] Speaker C: Head shot but there'll be some people.
[01:47:08] Speaker D: That are like, it's just for a quick LinkedIn thing. It's going to be tiny. I don't care. I can do it on my phone and then press head shot and it, it's good enough, you know.
[01:47:17] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's when that authenticity is important.
Yeah. And I think there are some things that are immune to it. Headshots, especially for well known figures that you can't use AI on those of things.
But yeah, and events, I think you're going to be relatively immune. But most other things, I mean look at the value of stock photos. You know, when I was a teenager I would get friends used to send me the stock library book and it used to be a book and you'd leaf through all of these glorious, you know, tobacco filter sunsets. It was back then in the 80s and, and these photos were like 6, 800 pounds. It was, I was in the UK, 6, 800 pounds to license one of these images. Look how cheap it is now by comparison, you know, and look at how much those stock tones are AI generated because it's, it's a commodity as opposed to something that has an intrinsic value.
[01:48:09] Speaker A: Yep, yep, spot on.
Just before we move towards the end of Today's show, should we just jump into some comments? There's some comments about what we're about AI discussion.
[01:48:19] Speaker C: There was me Amuse says if you want to see the impact of AI, have a look at the comments on the Coca Cola holidays are coming YouTube video from this year.
[01:48:29] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:48:30] Speaker C: Did either of you see that?
[01:48:31] Speaker A: Yeah. Copped a lot of flack.
[01:48:34] Speaker D: Yes.
[01:48:35] Speaker A: Because it was atrocious.
Second year in a row they've done it. They got, they got just as much heat last year and they went into all the previous year and they've done it again.
[01:48:44] Speaker C: Yeah, it's funny, I, I googled it and it actually doesn't really, really even.
[01:48:50] Speaker D: Come up that easy.
[01:48:52] Speaker A: They might have tried to erase it.
[01:48:54] Speaker C: Like, did they try and get rid of it? Was this. Are they hiding it? Oh, yeah.
[01:48:59] Speaker A: Well, it's, you know, they're one of the, one of the most, you know, high value businesses on the planet and it would have been lovely to see them make something truly magical with that money in terms of advertising, if you're gonna, you know. But they went, they went the other way. They went for the like the cheap option. Yeah.
[01:49:18] Speaker C: And well, apparently it wasn't cheap. That was the way they defended it. They were like, you know, this took a lot of work and all this stuff and. Yeah, yeah, it's. I don't know that one of the big things, there's, there's trucks in it and the axles kept changing in the truck. On the trucks, like in different shots.
[01:49:39] Speaker D: There'D be three axles and then two axles or whatever.
[01:49:41] Speaker C: And this was, yeah, this was a big budget.
Hang on, let me just bring it.
[01:49:46] Speaker D: Up a little bit.
[01:49:48] Speaker C: Just flick through a couple of, a couple of shots. It was a big budget thing.
So like, I don't know where the axles change, but yeah, it was all AI, where they did this and then they turned into real trucks. And so I think that, yeah, that truck has a double axle, then a single axle and then there's polar bears and then here's some more trucks.
Surprised little animals, whatever those are.
And then.
Hang on. And then this one's got a triple axle and then no, nothing else, no rear axle. And then.
Hang on, this one's got.
That one went back to just a double axle at the back.
And yeah, I'm really surprised. And then these ones all have the single double. Yeah, single double.
[01:50:56] Speaker D: So yeah, single double.
[01:50:58] Speaker C: And then this one's got a double, double, double.
It, it's just, it's kind of crazy that no one caught that Then this one's got single. No. And then triple, I think. Yeah, it's double. Double.
It's like different teams worked on the trucks in different things or whatever. But yeah, it.
[01:51:26] Speaker B: Anyway, but look at the production value of that, isn't it?
It's like a KFC meal. It's got all the things you need. It's got cute animals, it's got eye contact, the colors, the composition.
It's scary how good it is, isn't it? As all AI generated and we have to look at the axles to find the problem with it.
[01:51:47] Speaker C: And that is true. That is true. If you look at it from that, it's a technological marvel.
[01:51:54] Speaker D: That AI created it.
[01:51:56] Speaker C: But it's. It's also weird that Coca Cola would. When they have such a big budget.
[01:52:03] Speaker D: And I think they spent quite a big budget on this.
[01:52:06] Speaker C: I assume they did it because to be able to say it was fully AI generated, they know probably will stir.
[01:52:13] Speaker D: Up enough word of mouth.
[01:52:17] Speaker A: People look at it anyway.
[01:52:18] Speaker D: People will look at it anyway and be like, oh, it was fully created with the AI look at the axles.
[01:52:22] Speaker C: Oh, they're wrong.
[01:52:22] Speaker D: And blah, blah, blah. And it's like all publicity is good publicity.
[01:52:25] Speaker C: Maybe, you know, it's got 11,600 comments.
[01:52:31] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:52:32] Speaker A: How many views does it say?
[01:52:34] Speaker C: 2.3 million.
[01:52:35] Speaker D: Which is like.
[01:52:36] Speaker C: Yeah, but like the. The unintended irony of using real magic.
[01:52:44] Speaker D: As the tagline is hilarious.
[01:52:46] Speaker C: That's a good comment.
[01:52:48] Speaker A: Yeah.
And Mia Muse said in the chat that the best comment I saw. Maybe your tagline shouldn't be always the real thing.
[01:52:58] Speaker C: True, true.
Then nothing says Christmas quite like dad got fired because AI replaced him to do animation.
[01:53:07] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:53:08] Speaker C: That's a good one.
Anyway, there's some good.
The most profitable commercial in Pepsi's history. Yeah, good one.
See, the thing with the Internet is even if AI ruins everything, the comments can still bring the joy for us.
[01:53:26] Speaker B: Bring the humanity back into it really does.
[01:53:32] Speaker C: Yeah. If 2.3 million people watch a video.
[01:53:36] Speaker D: Yeah.
[01:53:36] Speaker C: There's a small handful of them are.
[01:53:38] Speaker D: Going to be hilarious, hilarious characters.
[01:53:42] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:53:43] Speaker B: I actually had a question for Greg if. If you got time for it, because. Absolutely.
You say you write, and I've always wondered why we have wedding photographers but we don't have wedding poets.
Because we.
We say that we're trying to capture the essence of what you're doing and I don't know your type of writing and if you photograph weddings as well. But I've always wondered why we don't have wedding poets.
[01:54:06] Speaker A: Oh, gosh, that's I've never been. I've never been asked that question or considered is interesting. You know, at the end of last year, we held our. We held a competition, photo of the Year. And so we invited our viewers and subscribers and anyone that wanted to be involved to submit one photo, their best photo, what they thought was their best photo. But we also asked them to include context in writing, give us a little spiel about not just camera settings but, or where it was, but what was going on for you as the experience. And we've been leaning into that a lot on, on this, on this channel more recently about the experience.
And I think for me, I mean, the images were remarkable. It showed such a diverse array of talent and insight into our craft and, and how people view the world. But the words were the ones that really hit us emotionally. I mean, some of the images certainly did, but when you paired it with the words, that's when you got the, the goosebumps. And, you know, a couple of them I teared up over because they were so powerful.
And sometimes we don't see that, or we often don't see that, the context of a remarkable image, hearing the artist's statement about their experience in framing this, you know, and often we lose that. We just look purely at the 2D image and go, oh, well, that's good or that's bad or yeah, so what? It's a tree. But what if that tree was planted on your family property and it's been there for five generations and the story is that every generation built a tree house in that tree and, you know, like, you don't. You lose that, that art of describing what you're seeing, you know, and sometimes the picture speaks, you know, it's that whole thing. Picture, what is it tells a thousand words or speaks a thousand words. But I don't agree with that. Sometimes it needs to hear what the. What the photographer was experiencing. And we will lose that with AI because no one actually experienced was imagined by a computer. You know, yes, we gave it the seed, perhaps, but, you know, so, yeah, it's a good question. I don't know why people don't hire. Maybe because it's not the Middle Ages.
[01:56:09] Speaker B: But.
[01:56:11] Speaker C: There, there are some celebrants that do take their, their craft to a closer level to that. So some of the celebrants that I used to work with, they, they don't. Yeah, they don't sort of just do the cliche stuff. They do quite a bit of it.
[01:56:30] Speaker D: Like an interview with the bride and the groom and then write a bit of a. I guess a love story to talk about, especially in the non.
Like the less religious weddings. If it's a wedding with sort of zero religious stuff and it's all just about the ceremony itself, there are some celebrants that take quite a bit of pride in the way that they craft their story that they tell on the day as part of the ceremony.
[01:56:57] Speaker C: So that's probably the closest thing to.
[01:56:59] Speaker D: It that it ends up getting handled by the celebrant.
[01:57:03] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:57:03] Speaker D: For their words that they speak on the day.
[01:57:08] Speaker B: Now. Awesome. Thank you for that. I've always found it curious because we.
We mark it as if we're doing the same job, but I've always wondered why.
[01:57:15] Speaker A: Yeah. Perhaps telling stories about the day. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, Justin, the next time you or Jim do a wedding, could you. I'll tag along.
[01:57:23] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:57:23] Speaker D: Just write it. Write a poem.
[01:57:25] Speaker A: My quill and parchment.
[01:57:28] Speaker C: And you can scroll it at the end of the day and just be like, all right, everyone listen to this.
[01:57:34] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:57:35] Speaker D: They're all dancing on the dance floor.
[01:57:37] Speaker C: No one gives a shit.
[01:57:43] Speaker B: All right. Oh, yeah.
[01:57:44] Speaker C: It's all right.
[01:57:45] Speaker D: Yeah.
[01:57:45] Speaker C: Well, Dean, it's almost two hours. Is there anything else that we want to talk about? What's your favorite Fujifilm lens?
[01:57:54] Speaker B: Oh, please.
Yeah, it is the. Oh, I've got two now. The 70 to 200 equivalent.
[01:58:06] Speaker D: 40.
[01:58:06] Speaker B: Yeah, it's great. I've broken it so many times, literally. I think I've got a frequent repairer stamp on the thing now for the number of times I've broken the thing. But it's still the original lens. Well, part of it is, yeah, the real lens cap is original, but I love it. It's. It's sharp, it focuses close, focuses quickly, and it's much less back breaking than the. The full frame 70 to two hundreds. And so I just love that focal in more. And so that's a good lens. But I've also recently fallen in love with the Fuji 23. So a 35 millimeter equivalent.
Yeah. And I had.
[01:58:44] Speaker A: I'm about to buy that.
[01:58:47] Speaker B: It's been an eye opener for me because I've never understood the 35 millimeter focal length properly.
And what I realized is it's actually a 50 with context. So I'd always thought it's. I've thought of it as a wide angle and. And it's not you if you shoot it exactly like a 50, but have a bit more story around it, because 50 was what I grew up with, and I love. And so 50 has always been my natural and now 50 is way too tight for me.
The 35 tells enough story. It's exactly the same photo that I would have taken with the 50 but now it has enough context and that lens is so, so sharp focuses so quickly. If I had one lens it would be the 23 3.23 but the two together are the complements of each other. So I've got my people background destroying 7200 equivalent and the 23 which is just enough context and story. But that's actually a recent discovery in the last few years for me that the 35 is actually at 50 with context.
[01:59:48] Speaker A: Yeah, the, the 23 is, is my favorite favorite focal length with Fujifilm. I've been to Japan a couple of times actually regarding the 50 to 140 which is a constant F 2.8 for those of you playing along at home.
One drunken night in Kyoto I walked into Yodobashi camera and accidentally walked out with that lens.
I got back to my her tower room and went to do something with my credit card and it had been, it had been you know, cancelled by my bank because I thought it was a scam.
So then I had to try drunkenly work that out too. Anyway, I don't drink anymore for various reasons but. But that 23, it's. The original 23 was absolutely gorgeous. It was the first Fuji prime I bought because it had the, the manual focus clutch where you basically drop the focus ring and it would become the manual focus and then back up into auto. So beautiful. But yeah, I'm now looking at the 23:14 because I, I too love that focal length for those exact reasons. It's a 50 but with context. Yeah, love it.
[02:00:51] Speaker B: It's a delicious lens.
[02:00:53] Speaker C: Have you ever shot with a 28 Dean 28 equivalent lens?
[02:00:58] Speaker B: Yeah, and I have a 28 F2 and it's, it's an A Nikon aid lens which means it's one of the really old ones and they're flight bolted on something to link with the old and you know it's, it's an old lens. It's older than I am. That one, it's from the early, early 70s that one and I, I liked it but it was for me it was neither fish nor foul. And I like 21 and I like 35 in full frame equivalence. This is. And 28 is kind of two in the middle. It's not wide enough to be. I've never, never really enjoyed it enough. It's not interesting enough.
So that's My. I own it and I don't think I've touched it in years.
[02:01:44] Speaker C: Yep. Yeah. It's interesting because what you said about 35 being a 50 with context really makes sense. And I find that the 28 is a 35 with context.
It allows me to just step into the scene just a tiny bit more. It's a little bit less flat and there's a little bit more context around the scene.
So I've, Yeah, I've sort of tried to use 35 a lot and I've never quite gelled with it. But then 28 just.
[02:02:13] Speaker D: Yeah, seems to make sense.
[02:02:15] Speaker C: It's wide enough to get that little bit more of the scene, but not.
[02:02:19] Speaker D: Whereas like 24 and down make. I flip into, like wide angle mode and it's a different. A different feel.
[02:02:25] Speaker C: Whereas 28 still kind of.
[02:02:26] Speaker D: This is the right word, but like.
[02:02:27] Speaker C: Flip flat enough for it to be a scene. But, yeah, 35 was a little bit.
[02:02:34] Speaker D: Too tight for most things.
[02:02:35] Speaker C: Otherwise.
[02:02:35] Speaker D: Usually with the 35, I'm like, I might as well have a 50, whereas the 28 gives me enough context around it that I feel like it's a different enough focal length to the 50.
[02:02:43] Speaker C: So, anyway, very interesting.
[02:02:45] Speaker B: Do you find that people slide down the scale next year, if I come back, am I going to be saying, actually, I need a 15 now?
Is it like a drug stay up to a point?
[02:02:56] Speaker C: It wouldn't surprise me for depending what you're shooting with it. It wouldn't surprise me because I. I think that's what I've experienced is that, like, as the.
You sort of get bored with singling out subjects sometimes and.
[02:03:12] Speaker D: And then the wider you go, the harder it is to create the scene that you're looking for. Especially if you're doing like street photography or something like that or something. We have less control, the wide the lens is.
[02:03:24] Speaker C: Yeah. So that. That is what I've found.
[02:03:26] Speaker D: It's like, you know.
Yeah, a 28 is.
Is not something that a newer photographer will maybe like as much as, say, a 50. And then as time goes on, you're.
[02:03:37] Speaker C: Sort of like, oh, I kind of want a bit more in this.
[02:03:40] Speaker D: I want to find more of a story in this.
[02:03:41] Speaker C: And then maybe, I don't know, you'll let me know. Let me know if you end up being like, well, I'm gonna go wider.
More context, more context. Whereas, yeah, like, a 20 is pretty. Yeah, a 20 is fun, but it's definitely a little bit too wide for.
[02:03:58] Speaker D: Me to use as, like a general purpose. It's More of. Yeah, it starts to have a bit more specialty.
Yeah.
[02:04:06] Speaker C: Interesting.
[02:04:07] Speaker A: Yeah.
[02:04:07] Speaker B: Now I look back on my early work recently and. And I. I use the 7. I use the 7200 as a crutch for exactly the reasons that you've specified. You know, you. You're just isolating one side. It's easier. And I used to use it as a crutch. I now can use it better. But at first it was exactly that. My shots looked good because I was using that.
[02:04:27] Speaker A: Yeah, because you're removing everything else. It could be a problem in the frame.
[02:04:31] Speaker D: Yeah, exactly. It was. It was a tool, for sure. Like, when I first started shooting weddings, the 7200 was like that. That was the savior of, like, okay, I can just get in close.
[02:04:40] Speaker C: Everyone will be like, wow, that looks amazing.
[02:04:43] Speaker D: And. Yeah. Whereas as time went on, went from using a 70 to 200 to a 105.1.4 Nikon, which was amazing for a similar reason, but it had a bit more context around it, but you could still obliterate the background. And then.
Yeah, Jim and I both ended up shooting a ton of stuff on a 28 and a 50 and then used the 105 for, like, just to kind of punch in on stuff or when the background sucks. But 28 and 50 a lot through the day. And it was that evolution of sort of, I guess, getting better at what you do, putting yourself in better positions, understanding light more.
Yeah, just a natural thing.
[02:05:26] Speaker A: Interesting comment here from Mia Muse. Again, thanks for joining us today and thanks to everyone for tuning in. Whether you're live with us here today or you're watching this back or even listening to this back on a road trip, lots of people do that.
I find that the focal length changes, changes depending on the mood I'm in. Longer focal lengths naturally simplify scenes, and I think of anything at 50 and above as voyeuristic.
Interesting take on it.
[02:05:55] Speaker C: Yeah, that is true.
[02:05:56] Speaker D: Like, you feel a little bit disconnected from the scene at 50 and above.
[02:05:59] Speaker A: You're stepping away, but you.
You're really stepping in.
Just secretly.
[02:06:05] Speaker B: Yeah, I think that that's a sound comment.
[02:06:08] Speaker C: Yeah, I'd agree.
[02:06:09] Speaker D: I'd agree with that. Whereas it's hard to be voyeuristic with a 35 or a 28 or something. It's sort of like people are going to know you're there.
[02:06:16] Speaker C: You sort of.
[02:06:17] Speaker D: You're in it.
[02:06:17] Speaker C: You're in it, you're part of it.
[02:06:19] Speaker A: Yeah. It's obvious that you're pointing a camera at them.
[02:06:21] Speaker B: Yeah.
[02:06:24] Speaker C: Yeah.
[02:06:25] Speaker A: Well, I think that might be a natural place to. To tie a bow in this episode. What do you think, Jay?
[02:06:31] Speaker C: I think so. I mean, unless there's any. Is there anything else you want to talk about, Dean, or anything you've got coming up that we should keep an eye out, not on social media for.
[02:06:40] Speaker D: Keep it.
[02:06:41] Speaker B: Watch out for the Raven. Coming with the news of the latest product, I've been toying with the idea of developing a course for iPad editing and. Oh, I don't know what your thoughts are on whether that would work. Is that sort of traveling photographers thing? Because. Yes, you know, I've got a recent one and they're. They're actually quite good, but it's getting the stuff on and off it, I find, is that.
[02:07:02] Speaker A: Yeah, unless you've got the latest pro.
Yeah, it's very hard to work with.
[02:07:07] Speaker C: Are you talking about for like, Lightroom or for just general, like on the. In. In the app, like the what.
[02:07:12] Speaker D: What's it called? Like, the photos app or whatever?
[02:07:14] Speaker C: Or are you talking about like, using.
[02:07:16] Speaker B: Lightroom and using it as the traveling photographer's companion?
[02:07:20] Speaker C: Well, if you could make it so that I could understand how they work together, Lightroom Classic and lightroom the iPad one, so that I can figure out what the hell I'm doing with my different stuff. Because I want some of it on my iPad, but not all of it. And I'm trying to sync some of it and then I don't understand how presets work.
Yes, that would be amazing because I don't. I'm still, I'm like, I tried to tackle it one day. I'm like, I'm finally going to get everything synced up and sometimes I'll use my iPad, but it'll work and stuff.
[02:07:48] Speaker D: Couldn't figure it out.
[02:07:50] Speaker C: I watched a few videos and yeah.
[02:07:52] Speaker A: I think there's a market there for it because a lot of people as they. That I've noticed as they age, they move from taking photos and editing photos on their smartphone to working with an iPad because it's a bigger screen, it's better for their eyes. So there might be a market. I think there is a market there for maybe not younger people, but as the gray nomads start traveling more and not taking a camera but taking a smart device. Yeah, I, I definitely think there's a market there for it. And, you know, the editing on iOS is becoming so good. And again, partly thanks to AI, but I've been using my iPhone more and editing on my iPhone, and often people are saying, oh, did you take that with your Fuji? And I say, no, actually, that was just on the smartphone.
Edited. Like taken, edited, uploaded.
And I think there's a lot to lean into from a business point of view to help people do that better.
That's my idea.
[02:08:47] Speaker C: Yeah.
I definitely think there's something there for sure, because there's a. I'm sure there's people that have. I just couldn't find any useful information.
[02:08:55] Speaker D: For me that made sense to me, especially from a.
[02:08:58] Speaker C: What would really make sense to me is if you're a Lightroom classic desktop user, here's the course you need for iPad.
[02:09:07] Speaker D: Which is.
[02:09:08] Speaker C: Which is different to.
[02:09:10] Speaker D: You've never edited before.
Here's how you edit on your iPad course. And they're sort of two different things. And I think I was getting. I constantly ended up with the ones that were like, here's my iPad workflow. And I'm like, cool, I understand that side of it. How does it work with what I already do and my existing stuff? And that mindset of, like, you already know how the tools work, here's what's different, and here's how they sync together. Gosh.
[02:09:35] Speaker B: I would.
[02:09:36] Speaker D: I'd buy that in a second.
[02:09:37] Speaker B: Yeah. How to add the iPad into your existing workflow.
[02:09:41] Speaker A: Yes. Yes.
[02:09:42] Speaker D: So you can leave the desktop, like, leave the laptop at home, or if you've got a desktop or whatever, and just travel with your iPad.
[02:09:47] Speaker C: But then it all seamlessly. When you get home. Here's what you do when you get home. Press this button, do this, sync that, and they'll all be on your desktop.
[02:09:54] Speaker D: Or however that works.
[02:09:56] Speaker B: Yeah.
[02:09:57] Speaker D: Yes, please.
[02:09:59] Speaker B: Cool. Watch this face. Wait for the Raven.
[02:10:01] Speaker C: Wait for the Raven.
[02:10:02] Speaker A: Get you. We'll get you back and. Yeah, we'll wait for the Raven signals.
[02:10:06] Speaker C: No, instead of the Raven. If you could just email us when it's ready and we'll get you back on the show and then we'll just.
[02:10:12] Speaker D: Talk about it and know where to go. That'd be amazing.
[02:10:14] Speaker B: You're on.
Awesome. Thank you so much, guys. I've actually had a ball. Oh, good.
[02:10:20] Speaker C: Oh, good. Thank you. Thanks very much for coming on and sorry for the. The switcheroo on daylight savings time. We're going to talk to the Victorian.
[02:10:28] Speaker D: Government about abolishing it because I don't like daylight savings, personally.
[02:10:31] Speaker C: Everyone else loves it. All my friends love it. I'm, like, getting ready for bed and it's still light outside and I'm like, what are we doing?
Light at 9:20 and I'm tired. I want to go to bed.
[02:10:44] Speaker A: I think Sasha and I went to bed at that time last night. I was like, gosh, the sun's still.
[02:10:48] Speaker C: Light, the sun's still out. Why are we doing this?
[02:10:51] Speaker A: Might be an age seven again.
[02:10:54] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[02:10:55] Speaker C: Prime possums on tv. Go, guys. Time to go to bed.
[02:10:58] Speaker A: Going back to our middle medieval wedding poets. We're going to sleep with the sun and we're waking with the sun. That's the way it's meant to be. But look, on that note, I do want to thank you, Dean.
And please everyone in, in the chat who's watching now or later, please make sure you leave a comment of thanks to Dr. Dean Holland. I know I can't speak for everyone, but I know that my. My cup is certainly full of inspite insight, not spite insight and inspiration. Really got that terribly wrong.
So, yeah, thank you so much for joining us and certainly a lot to think about after our discussion today. And yes, we would love to have you back in the future if you want to come back and tell us what's happening and what offerings you've got going on. I'm sure folks would love to learn more about you and how you've mastered your craft and business for that matter.
Jay, do you want to say goodbye to some people?
[02:11:46] Speaker C: Yeah, I'll play some music on the way out, but otherwise we'll catch you guys not on Monday, but next Thursday for the next episode.
Thank you very much, Dean. You're amazing. Appreciate your time and keep on doing what you do.
[02:12:01] Speaker B: Yeah.
[02:12:01] Speaker D: And thanks.
[02:12:03] Speaker C: Thanks. The drunk wedding photographer. Good to see you again.
Mia Muse will have to go back and watch from the beginning.
[02:12:08] Speaker A: Yeah, do that.
[02:12:09] Speaker B: That would be good.
[02:12:10] Speaker C: And also says statistically there will. There are a lot more accidents caused by daylight savings. Exactly, exactly.
Robert Varner, good to see you.
Philip Johnson, Thanks, Justin.
[02:12:21] Speaker D: Thanks, Greg. And special thanks, Dean.
[02:12:23] Speaker C: Who else do we have?
[02:12:24] Speaker B: Oh, Paul.
[02:12:25] Speaker C: Paul said Coca Cola has poor quality control on the AI.
[02:12:29] Speaker D: I agree.
[02:12:30] Speaker C: Who else was here today? David Leferati was here. Good morning, everyone. Signed in late.
[02:12:34] Speaker D: We'll catch up later.
[02:12:35] Speaker C: Good to see you.
[02:12:36] Speaker A: Rodney Nicholson joined us.
[02:12:39] Speaker C: Tintype man. Oh, yeah. Lisa Leach. I spotted her before. Catherine, everybody. It was great to have you all here. And we'll see you all on the next one.
[02:12:48] Speaker A: And don't forget to like and subscribe. Helps a lot. Thanks, guys. Be safe.
[02:12:52] Speaker D: See ya.
