EP115 Lessons from 500+ Photographers with Andrew Hellmich of PhotoBizX

[00:00:24] Speaker A: Well, good morning everybody and welcome back to the Camera Live podcast. It is 11th September, 2025 and this is episode 115 of the camera Life podcast, proudly brought to you by Lucky straps. Head to Luckystraps.com if you're looking for a premium handcrafted Australian made leather camera strap made in Bendigo, Victoria by, by the. By the team from Lucky Straps. So yeah, check it out. And also remember that we run two shows a week. We run our Thursday morning show, so welcome. But we also have our random photography show every Monday evening at 7.30pm Australian Eastern Standard Time, so make sure you stick around for that too. Joined today by probably podcast royalty, I'd have to say Andrew Helmich, who is the, who runs the, the number one photography business podcast and it's called Photo Biz X. And Andrew's already up to about 633 podcast episodes. He is putting us to shame. Granted, he's been at it a lot longer than we have, but. Andrew, welcome to the Camera Live podcast. It's great to have you on. [00:01:32] Speaker B: Thanks, Greg. I'm looking forward to being on the, on the other side of the questions for a change. And a camera and live. And I can't believe you guys have put yourself through the stress of doing this live. So I never have to do that. So yeah, fingers crossed. I can be as professional as you guys. [00:01:50] Speaker A: Well, you can be as professional as us. That's a pretty low standard. [00:01:54] Speaker B: That's true. [00:01:55] Speaker C: And the reason we go live is then we don't have to do any editing. It's like the show's over. Yeah, we're lazy, actually. [00:02:01] Speaker A: Lazy. Neither of us know how to use a camera or a computer, but, but of course, Andrew's much more than just the host of a very popular business photography podcast. Andrew has a lot going on. He, he also runs Is it Impact Images. Impact Images with your partner. And you've also got a team of other photographers and you shoot weddings and events through Impact Images. But looking at your Instagram, you're also traveling, you're cycling, you're skiing, you never seem to be at home yet. I don't know how you've still managed to pull off 633 podcasts, so well done you. [00:02:42] Speaker B: Thank you. Thank you. I mean, look, the podcasts are the, the, I don't want to say the easy part of the formula as far as traveling goes because I can do that anywhere, but. And I've got to say, like, I'm, I'm doing less and less shooting these days, but Impact Images is still running, but I'm not shooting weddings like I was. But yeah, I'm happy to dive into all that. [00:03:00] Speaker A: And, yeah, yeah, we'll certainly get into that. But just before we do, just maybe give us your. In your own words, you know, who you are, what you shoot when you can, and what are you known for? [00:03:12] Speaker B: Well, well, I think. Well, I'm based in Australia, just north of Sydney on the central coast. I was been shooting for 25, 30 years now, and I started the podcast about 15 years ago only because I was looking for something that I wanted to listen to and I couldn't find it. So I created this and I guess that's probably what I'm known for these days in my local area. It's more for the photography. In the beginning, it was mainly wedding photography and that branched out into portrait photography and a little bit of commercial work as well, because I've been shooting for so long and. Yeah, so everything sort of has sprouted through photography and. Yeah. And I mean, I guess that all grew from a passion of fishing. That's how I got into photography. But photography sort of led me to where I am today. [00:04:00] Speaker A: Great. Now, just before we jump to the chat, you've got a question, haven't you, Justin? [00:04:04] Speaker C: I do, I do. I'm going to save it. I'm going to talk to the chat first. I've got a question to jump things off with that's sure to fire everybody up. But first, it's good to see everyone in the chat. Rodney Nicholson, Good morning. Philip Johnson, Good morning. John Pickett is here. Jim's here. Jim's. Jim's the other half of Justin and Jim photography, which was my wedding business for 10 years. But he said, morning. Sorry, can't be on today. Really looking forward to chatting with Andrew. Yes, Jim, you're missing out. Ask your questions in the chat. Jim's actually in the process of trying to grow a boudoir brand separate to the wedding business. So he'll probably have a million questions for you about that because you've interviewed 10 tons of boudoir photographers. Good morning, Paul. You might be able to catch the first part without having to pretend you're sick at work. [00:04:55] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:04:55] Speaker C: Brett Wooderson, good morning. [00:04:57] Speaker B: Hey, Brett. [00:04:58] Speaker C: First morning session you've been able to attend live. Looks like a great one. It is. This is a. This is a great episode that if you're trying to start or grow a business in the world of photography, you can basically funnel all of the information from. From 630 podcasts just straight out through. Through Andrew with your questions. [00:05:19] Speaker A: No pressure, Andrew. [00:05:20] Speaker C: It's all in his brain. [00:05:21] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:05:24] Speaker C: Katie Phillips. Good morning, ltk. Good morning. Stuart Lyle. [00:05:28] Speaker B: Morning. [00:05:29] Speaker C: Looking forward to hearing Andrew on the other side of the mic. Exactly. Me too. Ian Thompson. Good morning. Rodney Nicholson. Oh, you're already there. These boys are experts. We are not. All right. [00:05:41] Speaker A: He didn't say what at, though. Justin. He didn't say what we were experts. [00:05:44] Speaker B: At, so let's be fair. [00:05:47] Speaker C: First question. Is it true in your professional career as a photographer that you have never shot raw, you're a JPEG only shooter? Is this true? [00:06:02] Speaker B: Almost. I. I did try raw, but I think it was for one or two sessions and then straight back to jpeg. So, yeah, and I'm. I'm still. I'm. I mean, even when I'm shooting for myself or professionally, it's still jpeg, really. [00:06:17] Speaker C: No safety net, just wild. [00:06:22] Speaker A: Yeah. Can we ask why? Why you went down that path when probably every one of your peers was telling you you were doing it wrong? [00:06:28] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. Look, I think if I was starting today, I'd probably take a different route because, look, I totally understand how far you can push a RAW file compared to a JPEG file. I get that. Yeah. But, I mean, when I first started photography, I was shooting film, and I was shooting slide film in the very beginning because I was photographing for fishing magazines, and there was no. There was no leeway. So you had to get your exposures correct, otherwise it was throwing money out the door. So, I mean, and then I started shooting JPEG and I got used to working with JPEGs. And what happened? Even in the early days, I mean, the cameras were getting better quickly, the files were getting larger, and I felt like I was just chasing my tail. I was adding memory all the time. I needed bigger and faster computers every time I wanted to, you know, shoot larger files. And then the jump to RAW would just exacerbate that totally. And then when I did try raw, because everyone was telling me that I had to, all I was trying to do was make them look like my JPEGs. I'm like, what am I doing? I've just added an extra day's work for nothing. So, yeah, I went back to shooting jpeg. [00:07:34] Speaker C: And, I mean, your images look amazing. So it's not like it was any issue in terms of the output quality. I really think it would have only been a choice of, like, well, if I got this shot wrong, I might have been able to save it, or something like that, as opposed to trying to enhance the look of the images for the final output. [00:07:55] Speaker B: That's right. I think it does depend a little bit on your style. But you're right. I mean, if your photos, if my photos, if I'm happy with the way they look and my clients are happy with them, then there was no reason to make a bigger file and work to make it look like my jpeg. And funnily enough, I mean, it does bring me to a point where when I first went digital, there was a big push against digital from the film photographers. So this is going back a little bit now. And they used to that the film studies used to say, don't go with these young guys because they're shooting digital. We don't know. It's nowhere near as good. And I, back in the day it was a Nikon D1X. I would shoot a 2 or 2.3 meg file. That's what I was getting from the camera. And what I did in the studio was I created and I blew up an image to, I think it was 2 meters or 2 meters, something wide from that 2.3 meg file just to show clients when they came in, because they were asking, you know, are you shooting digital? Is that any good? And I said, you know that the photo you're looking at on the wall, that was shot with my camera. So you've got nothing to worry about. [00:08:58] Speaker A: Yeah, that's a great way to do it. I'm always surprised. Mean, I shouldn't be. I was classically trained as well and I shoot Fujifilm, so I love the, the whole, you know, JPEG files that they can put out. I still shoot a backup raw, but, you know, we talked with Andrew Hall a couple of months ago. He's a Fujifilm X ambassador. He's a motorsport photographer. Hell of a nice guy. One of the most generous people I've ever met in terms of sharing knowledge. And that's part of who he is. But yeah, he shoots all of his stuff in JPEG as well. Like, you know, he flies around the world to every, like to Le Mans and to the events in like the race events in Tokyo. And it's just, it's all jpeg, it's all jp. [00:09:37] Speaker B: Did he say why. Why did he shoot jp? [00:09:39] Speaker A: Similar kind of thing. I'm pretty sure Andrew was classically trained as well, but he just loves the, the look, the feel and the, the color of the Fujifilm JPEGs. And you know, I have to agree there. I'm sure paid A$20 every time I mentioned Fujifilm. Apparently But I get to receive a check. [00:09:59] Speaker C: Yeah. Greg's a Fujifilm fiend. I'm pretty sure. He also just mentioned, yes, speed of post production workflow, you know, shooting tons of images and he loves the way they look and he's just like, there's no point looking around. [00:10:12] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:10:12] Speaker C: Just gets the job done. [00:10:14] Speaker A: And you're right, Andrew, it all comes back to getting it right in camera. Not relying on that, that fallback safety net position that I can fix it later in post. [00:10:23] Speaker B: You know, it makes you more of. [00:10:25] Speaker A: A master of your skill to focus purely on what you're doing with the camera and not thinking about the afterwards, which I like. [00:10:33] Speaker B: Yeah, I. Look, I agree, I agree with that. I mean, I don't like to say get it right in camera because I think there's a lot of pushback from people that are shooting raw because I'm sure if you, if you're shooting raw, you're still trying to get it right in camera. And, and if you do, then you've got more leeway again to push the file around. But yeah, look, shooting jpeg, you definitely can't say, well, I'll fix it later, or maybe not as much. No. [00:10:55] Speaker C: Yeah, no. White balance is probably the other thing with weddings and stuff like that. You've got to be on top of your game when it comes to white balance. If you're not shooting raw, you got to at least be aware of the situation and what you're doing because trying to fix that can look pretty ugly if you. [00:11:10] Speaker B: 100%. Yeah, yeah. So if I, when I'm shooting with two bodies, which I often was, then in, in that case, then you don't want to, you can't rely on auto white balance. You got to have the same white balance on both bodies. Otherwise that is a nightmare in post. That's, that's when you're converting one body to black and white and keeping other one in color. [00:11:28] Speaker C: Yeah, for creative. Yeah, exactly. [00:11:31] Speaker B: 100%. 100%, yeah. [00:11:33] Speaker C: Nice, nice. [00:11:35] Speaker B: All right, let's. [00:11:38] Speaker A: Here on the Camera Life podcast, we like to roll back the clock a little. I always love understanding a little bit about a person's early inspirations into being a photographer, whether it be, you know, whether you're raised by a business minded family and that's where your, you know, your business drive came from, or was it a creative family? Were there people along the way so that, that inspired you and, and supported you? So let's go back to your earliest inspiration. Can you recall the first time you thought that photography was A was something that you wanted to be involved in. [00:12:10] Speaker B: Yeah, look, excuse me, I wasn't that young because I was, I was madly into fishing like I mentioned earlier. Yeah. And I had a couple of mates that were photograph. Photographing and getting published in fishing magazines and, and it was a great way to earn some extra pocket money. So I thought, you know, I want to do that too. And I bought my first camera and had to shoot slide film. And I don't know if you or the viewer has shot slide film, but you have to get your exposures correct so you learn how to shoot pretty quickly because it's expensive. Back, especially back then. And I got published in the magazines that I wanted to and I fell in love with the photography side. I didn't have any trouble writing the articles, but you needed to, to send in with the actual copy and yeah, I fell in love with that. A mate of mine was shooting weddings. He was also a school teacher and I played soccer with him or football. And I said, listen, can I come out to a wedding and just see what it's all about? And he said, yeah, yeah, come on, carry the bags. And I did that for a few weddings. He let me shoot a little bit over his shoulder and I, I saw a pathway. I thought, I can do this, this is, this is for me, I want to shoot weddings. And I was still working full time. And then I, I started the wedding photography business and we, we just sort of grew from there. Yeah. [00:13:28] Speaker A: And can I ask, what were you doing full time? What was your career like before you realized that you can make money photographing fish? [00:13:38] Speaker B: So the fishing was only ever a hobby as far as a money earner. So that sort of paid for the fishing gear and the boat and stuff like that. So my, my main job, I was, I'm an electrician by trade. Back in the, back in the, in the day I worked for Optus, a telecommunication company as well. [00:13:53] Speaker A: Hey, I did too. [00:13:55] Speaker B: Did you really? [00:13:56] Speaker A: Yeah, for 13 years. [00:13:57] Speaker B: Yeah. Okay. So I was an install. I was working out in the field and working on the power poles and up, up the, on the lines. [00:14:04] Speaker C: Oh my God. [00:14:04] Speaker A: I was just telling. Because we've. Sorry, let me, let me just sidetrack us here for a moment. So we're in the middle of renovations and I had a TV guy out to install our new television and sound bar the other day and I was chatting to him about, you know, what he was doing before he was working for Ms. It was Mr. Antenna. They still exist. I had no idea. Mr. Antenna is still around, but I remember them from being a kid. Anyway, got sidetracked again. So the Mr. Antenna guy, he used to work for Foxtel. And we started talking about. Because when I trained in customer service at Optus, part of the training was we went out in the field a couple of days with installers like yourself. And the first, the very first install I went on, there was like three of us trainees and the installer guy, and he'd asked me to move his van because it was blocking the customer. So I'm in his van, I'm. I'm like doing a three point turnout in the street to move his van. He comes running out of the customer's house completely drenched and in doing his install, he was drilling a hole in the floor to pass a cable underneath to the telly, put a socket in and he hit a water pipe. And this customer's lounge room, just like, it was like a fountain, like a, like a, like a, like, you know, like a full geyser coming out of the middle of the ride up under the television. So that was quite. [00:15:20] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:15:20] Speaker A: So anyway, I can't say anything about anything that bad. No, no, you were careful. Yeah, yeah, but, but, yeah, so sorry we got sidetracked there. [00:15:33] Speaker C: So you were doing installs like that. That was your. [00:15:35] Speaker B: Yeah, I managed a fishing t. I was an electrician. I mean, I've done, I've done quite a few things. So whatever I, I think whatever I enjoyed doing, I tried trying to find a, a way to make money and that was with sort of the fishing and then the photography and. Yeah, so I try and try and do things that I like to do and, and get paid for it if I can. [00:15:53] Speaker C: And even your, even your podcast actually had to go back and just check that first episode, just out of interest. And so, and, and even because I wasn't, I couldn't quite remember. But your podcast, even from the very first episode, you had the ability for people, if they wanted to, to join the premium version of the podcast and get extra insights. [00:16:15] Speaker B: Yes. [00:16:16] Speaker C: For anyone that hasn't ever, ever listened to PhotoBizX, basically there's, there's a free episode every week, but then often Andrew and the guest will dig in deeper, particularly into like, the nuts and bolts of business, like, what are you charging for your shoots? And, and, you know, how do you, how do you use this particular marketing strategy to attract your clients or whatever they'll. I wouldn't talk about a lot of that in the free version, but the real nuts and bolts get saved for the Premium stuff. And that was available from the very first episode. Well, maybe not the first episode, but that next week, the second episode. Yeah. Which is, I think is really cool because a lot of people would be worried about. I wouldn't be able to charge for this until I've done a thousand podcasts and there's enough in the back catalog or whatever. But I remember it was, it wasn't expensive either. It was 10. [00:17:11] Speaker B: $10 a month? [00:17:12] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, $10 a month. And it was. I was planning to get this later in the show, but it, it essentially like almost all of the good ideas that we implemented when I first started shooting weddings. And then when, when Jim, who's listening, he wanted to quit his job as a full time photojournalist and, and just become. He was shooting with me a bit and he's like, I just want to, you know, do my own thing. So we decided to do it together. And yeah, all the marketing ideas, all that sort of stuff, it all come from episodes of the premium episodes of Photo Bizx. [00:17:49] Speaker A: Wow, that's so cool. [00:17:51] Speaker B: That is awesome. [00:17:52] Speaker A: And look at us now. You've come full circle. That's right. [00:17:55] Speaker B: Yeah, that's right. [00:17:56] Speaker C: This podcast is free. We get nothing. [00:18:01] Speaker A: We get a warm glow. We get a warm glow in our hearts. [00:18:03] Speaker B: That's. [00:18:05] Speaker C: Yeah, it's just like the, the. It's obvious that, yeah, whatever it is that you put your mind to, you look for a way to make it sustain itself rather than it being, I guess, just something that you put money into. And then, I don't know, eventually it burns out or whatever. Because it's not. Not sustaining itself. [00:18:25] Speaker B: Yeah, that was, that was partly because of my wife and also my wife Linda, and also the business itself, because I'm. Back then, 14 or 15 years ago, when the PODC started, the photography business was, it was full ball. Like we, I mean, I was shooting a ton of weddings. We had, we had associate shooters, we had a studio, we had staff. So it didn't make sense to take a day off a week to do a podcast, you know, because essentially that's what it was going to be. It was going to be. You had to put a time away to book the interview, to do the interview, to edit the interview, to do the show notes, all these. And the same other moving parts, as you guys know, that for me to take a day out of the week, if that didn't, if there was no financial reward at all, like, why do it? Like, it was just. I might as well keep shooting for that extra day. [00:19:16] Speaker C: Well, that's it. I mean we're jumping all around, all over the place. But I want to ask this question. So why then like what. So your business was roughly ballpark. Like how many weddings would impact images have been doing in 2012? No, 2013 when you launched the. [00:19:34] Speaker B: Yeah. Probably I want to say 60 to 80. [00:19:37] Speaker C: Okay. So it was, it was a solid wedding business. [00:19:40] Speaker B: And then, and then portraits during the week and commercial work. [00:19:43] Speaker A: Is that 60 to 80 a year weddings? [00:19:45] Speaker B: Yes. [00:19:46] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:19:46] Speaker A: Wow. That's awesome. [00:19:47] Speaker C: That's legit. [00:19:50] Speaker B: I do think things have changed a little bit now. I think there's more photographers doing less weddings charging more than what I was. But that was the business model that was working for us back then. Yeah, yeah. [00:20:02] Speaker C: Do you remember what was what, what you were charging for a wedding back then? Ballpark like it's just a middle of the road kind of. [00:20:08] Speaker B: Yeah. I think packing prices were still, still on the website but I think sort of that was 22425, something like that. But what we did a big album up sale to nearly, I want to say 80 of our clients. [00:20:21] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:20:22] Speaker B: And it was, they went into it with their eyes open. We made it very clear that that was potentially going to happen and it was a very, I don't want to say it wasn't a hard sell but it wasn't a super soft seller. We made it like a no brainer for them to invest another one to two to three thousand dollars after the wedding. So that two and a half thousand dollar wedding could easily lead to a five thousand dollars wedding. [00:20:45] Speaker C: But that was optional though. Fully optional. They could just look it was. [00:20:51] Speaker B: But so we always did packages. So for example, let's say the starter package was $2,000 and that gets like a 20 sided album. But then I would tell them right from the very start that I'm going to shoot the hell out of your day. I'm going to make the most amazing photos that I can and you guys are going to have the best time. I'm going to. When you come back, I'm going to show you all the photos that I've shot. I'm going to design the best album that I can design. It's going to have more than 20 sides. It's probably going to have 50 or 60 sides and you have to help me get it back to 20 if that's all you want to spend and I'll help you do that. But if you love what you see, you can pay a bit more and have the extra pages. [00:21:34] Speaker C: Right. [00:21:35] Speaker A: That's Clever. [00:21:36] Speaker C: Okay. [00:21:36] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:21:37] Speaker C: And, and so was there no digital files with those packages back then? [00:21:42] Speaker B: So that changed. So when. And I guess the market forced us to change. So in the beginning there was no digital files. Yeah, you. And we had good. Excuse me. After wedding Prince aisles. I have to cough. Hang on, guys. Sorry. [00:21:56] Speaker C: That's okay. [00:21:57] Speaker A: No, you're okay. [00:22:00] Speaker C: While he's doing that, Dennis Smith popped in for a quick in and out. Legends. Good to see you, Dennis. [00:22:08] Speaker B: Sorry my voice is going all weird. So. Yeah, so we, in the beginning it was no digital files. We had good. After wedding print sales. That was a huge thing when we were shooting film and that sort of continued on early in the digital days, but, but then more and more photographers started including the digital files. Those print sales dropped and we got to a point where we said, well, we just got to include these things because too many people are asking for them and not booking us because they're not getting them. So. But we continue to sell additional album sides all the way through. [00:22:40] Speaker C: Yeah, okay. Anyway, so my main, my main point there that I wanted to dig into was that the fact that you, you had a very successful business when you started the podcast and it, it's, you obviously wanted a dedicated day a week to it, which is why you, you created the idea of having premium memberships and that kind of thing. But I'm really interested as to why, like, why the podcast in the first place when you've got this sort of business that sounds like it was demanding a fair bit of your time as it was, you know, shooting weddings on the weekends and portraits through the week and stuff like that. What, what was the theory behind starting a photography business podcast? [00:23:23] Speaker B: Yeah, I'll tell you that in one thing. Just, just remind me, guys, for the wedding photographers that are watching to ask me about how to do the extra album up sales, because that's. People who want to know that. [00:23:34] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. I'm curious. [00:23:36] Speaker B: So, so with the, I guess with the actual podcast, I was listening to a lot of podcasts. I mean, I, I was, I was doing a lot of driving because I, I was also an electrical safety trainer after I was doing the Optus stuff. So I used to drive around and spend a lot of time in the car driving to do these training sessions. And so I, and I, I wanted a podcast about photography business and honestly there wasn't one. And I'd been to a lot of AIPP conferences and things like that. There wasn't that much online at that point. You know, sort of zoom hadn't taken off it was sort of quite a while, like I said, 13, 14, 15 years ago. And so the very first podcast I started was called the Wedding Podcast, and that was my wedding photography business, just to see if I could actually do it. And that was fun. I was interviewing vendors, which was, again, that was a. That was a massive help to my photography business, doing the interviews with the vendors because I got known even more in my local area. And then I. And then I said, okay, I want to do a photography business podcast. And I didn't know if it was going to work. And this is what I said to Linda, that, like, it has to pay for itself, otherwise it's not worth it. And I've been to a lot of conferences, so I knew the kind of things I wanted answers to, and I was guessing that other photographers wanted the same thing we did. I asked a couple of photographer buddies if they would come on and be guinea pigs. They said yes. And so I recorded the first few interviews with mates and they were great. They were well received. I got my first subscriber after the first interview and I thought, okay, this is. This could work. That was $10 in the bank. And. [00:25:14] Speaker C: It'S worked out about 50 cents. [00:25:16] Speaker A: An hour for episode two. [00:25:18] Speaker B: Probably less, probably less. But it was proof of concept. And then I remember I wanted to reach out to Ian Wilkinson, who's a fantastically talented, successful photographer in Queensland. And he was my. He was my, my big gun, like, famous photographer. I just want to get one of these guys on to see if this, if those guys are interested in coming on as well, not just my mates and Ian, to his credit, he was so generous, and he said, absolutely. What do you want me to do? How do I do it? What's the go? And I said, mate, just answer the questions and we'll be good. And he was fantastic. He was so good. And I thought, okay, if he said yes, then this thing has potential. I don't only have to approach my. My mates, my peers that I, that I know personally. And then I started reaching out to other photographers around the world and it went from there. And I. Basically, the whole premise is I was asking questions that I wanted to know the answers to, and I still do that today. I just ask the questions that I want to know the answers to. And it turns out most of the listeners are thinking and wanting answers to the same questions. [00:26:25] Speaker C: Exactly, exactly. That, that, that was always the case. Listening along. It was all, you're always sitting there, you're like that. You know, they would talk about something like, you Just mentioned before, like, about album sales and stuff, and you're like, how did you do that? Ask him, ask him how, how they did that or what they charged for that or how. Where do they get the albums from? Or any of that stuff. [00:26:43] Speaker B: Yeah, yes. Yeah, yeah. [00:26:45] Speaker C: And it, it all come in like. I remember the. What did we. What did I. What. What things for our wedding business did we get from the podcast? I'm sure we got sneak peeks on social media like Facebook, because back then if you posted, you know, 12 photos on Facebook the day after the wedding and tagged the couple in it, it just went crazy for engagement. You'd end up with 100 comments on them, everyone tagging everybody and just saying how beautiful they looked and all that sort of stuff. So that, that quick turnaround that wasn't being done in our area at all. Now it's like the default. Everyone does it basically at the wedding. [00:27:27] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:27:28] Speaker C: In 2014, it was new in Bendigo where, where we are. No one was doing one on. On the Sunday or the Monday. And that's what we. We just implemented that as a rule, every single wedding, you know, Sunday or Monday, sneak peek on Facebook. And then we started doing. I reckon it was. I'm sure it was someone that you had on as well, making little albums. [00:27:55] Speaker B: Yes. I've got the same thing written down on the night. Yes. [00:28:00] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:28:00] Speaker B: Did you do it? [00:28:02] Speaker C: We did. We did that because it was so we. We only did it when we were both shooting together because if you're there by yourself, it was very, very tricky. So with both of us shooting, when you get to that lull, when people are eating or whatever, one of us could sneak away and try and pull together a little album we print on the Canon selfie printers. We had these handmade leather bound albums with their initials embossed in the leather and all that stuff. And then. Yeah, we did that for quite a long time and it was a. Yeah, that was a huge hit with cupcakes. [00:28:32] Speaker B: So I did exactly the same thing. And because, I mean, I was getting an idea from the podcast too, because I, I was shooting as much as I was recording. And that says I did though I did the albums. I also did the same night or same day slideshow at the reception. [00:28:48] Speaker C: Ah, yeah. And we never tried that. [00:28:51] Speaker B: Yes. I was still thinking which one was better. I think the, the slideshow was more bang for buck as far as getting repeat bookings, particularly from the bridal party. And because the whole reception saw the photos. Yes, the album was a really nice little holy Crap, I can't believe you did that sort of thing. But it was more just for the couple. So if I, if I was, again, if I was shooting, if I, if I was mentoring a photographer now, I would do the same day slideshow first and then if you can do the album, add that on as well. [00:29:25] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:29:25] Speaker B: Wow. [00:29:26] Speaker A: And can I see a question, Andrew? Sorry, Jay, do you want to go. [00:29:30] Speaker C: I was just going to say another plus for if you're only shooting jpeg, doing a same day album becomes even easier and faster. [00:29:37] Speaker B: You got the guys. Were you shooting Raw? You guys, are you shooting just raw? [00:29:42] Speaker C: Just Raw. But the way that we shoot Raw was, you know, close enough that basically you throw a preset on it in Lightroom and it's, it's within. [00:29:52] Speaker B: Right. [00:29:53] Speaker C: You know, close enough to a JPEG sort of. There was very little editing going on. Yeah, that's for sure. But yeah, we were shooting Raw only because we shoot raw to two cards. So shooting JPEG as well just slowed the process down too much. [00:30:07] Speaker A: Anyway, sorry, can I ask you. No, you're right. I was just going to ask. Where did your, where do you think your business sense came from? You know, you're running a highly successful photography business podcast. Was it just from, from learning the ropes or did you, you know, did you do business courses in school or where did that side of it come from? [00:30:26] Speaker B: It was all from the AIPP when it existed back in the day. And that's why, I mean, and that sort of disappeared. But that's why I was so passionate and confident that the podcast would work because I wanted to deliver the same content, because I wanted to interview the same speakers and get the same info, but just share it with everyone around the world rather than having to pay to go to a conference on site, say in the Hunter Valley or down in Barrel in Australia. You know, we cost you a, I don't know, a thousand dollars for the weekend, you know, to get. Which was amazing. I mean, they were the best things ever. And you got to network with your peers and, and see these speakers and actually talk to them. And I mean, I didn't even talk. I was so scared to talk to them because they're like, they're like the holy grail of these guys and girls. But that's where the ideas came from and that's where I learned business. And I can. When I started shooting weddings, I offered like a 20 sided album and I thought, I didn't know you could upsell extra album pages so I could easily fit my weddings. That I was shooting at the time into a 20 sided album and make it a pretty nice album. But what happened was I got booked by a couple down in Sydney and I would describe them as high end. They lived in a million dollar apartment back then and way, way out of my league. And my level from where I was at at the time, I don't even know why they picked me to shoot their wedding, but I did anyway. This wedding was next level for me. It was incredible. And I'm trying to fit this incredible wedding that I shot and I shot the crap out of it trying to fit it into a 20 sided album. And then. And they were happy with it and that's what they got. 20 side album. Anyway, I go to an AIPP conference and I think it was Jerry Gahones. I think it was him at the time. He basically said if you offer a 20 sided album, you can still sell a 60 sided after the wedding. I'm like holy crap, I didn't even know that you could do that. I thought I had to sell them what they actually purchased. I couldn't do an upsell afterwards. And I was like, oh my God. Now I think about that couple and their wedding and how it all fits into a 20 sided album. It should be a 60 sided album. That thing, it was incredible. But yeah, so that, that was a big. And that changed my business overnight because it went from a $2,000 wedding to a $5,000 wedding, you know, for the same couple. [00:32:52] Speaker C: All right, let's, let's, you know, Jim wants to, we talked about before. Yeah, we're going to dig into all this stuff later on the episode, but let's just go straight forward. So Jim wants to know about album upsell. So Jim shoots weddings, but he's also now trying to grow his boudoir business which that is very much an album focused kind of a business as well. From what I can tell from other boudoir photographers. It's a common product that's offered as part of a boudoir package. So tell us everything you know about album up sales. Particularly in, in the context of like what's work? What would be working today? What advice would you have for people today where obviously as you say now digital files are, you know, customers really don't accept the whole. You don't get any digital files anymore as much. It's very difficult to try and you have to be, you have to be probably a very sought after photographer to be able to say that's what you do. So how does it work now? This kind of thing. [00:33:53] Speaker B: I think the very first step, you have to have albums on display. So when couples come to see you or you go to see couples, generally I would have them come to me, my studio. Whether that's a home based studio or a street frontage. Albums have to be the hero. Yes, you need to have images on the wall, but I'd have mostly. I know I had a mixture of weddings and portraits on my walls. But the wedding albums were the only things we focused on when we're talking with the couples, you know, we talk about a location. I grab an album. So have you seen this? This is where we did that. Or you talk about a certain car that they're getting. Okay, I've got some photos of those cars and I'll be grab a different album or a dress design. Have a look at this, what this bride was wearing. Is this the kind of thing you're thinking of? Whatever it is, the album is the feature of the day. That's. That's what they're going home with and that's. And they're all big albums. I did have one 20 sided album just to show them what a 20 sided album looks like. But then most of the albums were 50, 60 sides. So these were big heavy albums. And then I also. We went through this bill earlier that, you know, I told them I'm going to give them the best experience that I can. I'm going to photograph the most amazing photos and as many as I possibly can. And they probably won't fit nicely into a 20 sided album, but that's a really cool problem to have. And I'll help you get back to 20 sides if you want to. But I just want you to be aware when you do come in after your honeymoon, I'm going to show you probably a 50 or 60 side albums like the ones you're looking at here. And you can help me get it back down if you want to or you can pay a little bit extra for the larger album. So that was sort of all the setup. Even on the, on the wedding day I'd show them the occasional photo on the back of the camera and I say, oh my God, I don't know how you guys are going to fit these in the album because there are so many. You guys look amazing. This is the best wedding. So you're saying things like this as we all do during the day. Yeah. And then we would do our best to get the couples in after the honeymoon but before they go back to work. We found that was a prime Time to actually get in and talk to them because they're super excited and they want to come in and see their photos. They come in, we would show them a slideshow of every photo on our big screen. That would be too fast. Quick music, one second per file, even less. So I was going quickly because it's showing around 600 photos most of the time. [00:36:24] Speaker C: Okay. So it would be the full, the full slideshow but just no stopping, just let it roll. [00:36:30] Speaker B: And this is, this is. We get them a drink, we turn the lights down, we start the music and they're just ripping through and they're laughing, they're crying, they're like, stop, don't talk. They want to watch. And so you got to watch it. Otherwise if you talk to each other, they miss something. Which is fine. Yeah. Because they're going to get all those photos anyway on their, on their usb. So we would tell them that these days we probably do a file transfer, but they're going to get all the photos on a usb. Then once they've seen the photos, lights come back on. What did you think? Oh, wow, they're amazing. All those kinds of things. We make sure they got a drink and then I show them the album. Or one of our staff would show them the album that we've designed. And not always, but often say, let's say Tenille or Crystal were doing the album sale. They would say, look, Andrew loves your wedding so much. We're looking at using this album as a display album or we're going to feature it on the website or something like that because we want them to know that we're as impressed as they are with the photos. And then we show them the album. So they booked a 20 sided album and I designed a 50 sided album. So. And they, they see the album, they love it. So this is now we're sitting usually around the computer screens. They're sitting with Crystal or Tenille or one of the girls and going through the album. And so they see the full album. They love it. Is there anything you want to change? Is there anything that stands out that you didn't like? So for the sake of this argument, no, no, we loved everything. Maybe we want to change one photo. So we go back and have a look at that and we say then, so you have a 20 sided album in your package that's included. This is a 50 sided album. So this is going to be $100 per page or per side extra. So this is another $3,000 if you want this as is now to make it easier for you because we know that's a lot. We're going to throw in 10 sides for free. So you only have to pay $2,000 and you can have the full 30 sides. You get the 50 sided album. Okay, if. If you're happy with that, we'll ask them, what do you guys want to do? Are you happy with that? And let them decide. Do you guys need some time? I'll go and get a drink. You guys have a chat about it and often they'll say, we love it, but can we just change one or two photos and that's it, it's done. So that's the sale. That's a $2,000 upsell. If they say no, look, it's too much. We want to take some sides out. So that's fine. You've got to take out the 10 free ones first before you save any money. So let's do that. Let's just get rid of the 10 sides that are for free, because I'm giving those for free. And then we'll start getting it down. So then usually what happens is they start to take out the 10 sides and you get down to eight or nine sides out. And then you start to wreck the look of the album. Like you're starting to make compromises. It's getting more and more difficult. And then I'll. And I'll help Tenille or one of the girls will help them and we'll say, okay, now we've got 10 sides gone. So now you're at your $2,000. Anything else you take out now you're saving a hundred dollars a side and you've got to take out two sides because that's the way the album works. And then it's getting pretty difficult. So do you guys want to chat about this a bit more? Because I mean, you guys know this doesn't look as good as what it did earlier. I'm happy to make it look as good as we can, but do you guys want to have a chat about it? And then we let them talk and like just put it back the way it was or if, if they're really, I mean ahering, the girls will say, look, let me go and check with Linda or Andrea. Let me see if I can do something else here. And if we think it's close, then we'll throw in a look. Let's just throw in a couple of extra sides, include those or an extra enlargement and just sweeten the deal and just make it a little bit nicer for them. Yeah. So they don't have to stress or they feel like they're getting another. Another win if. If they're like, no, look, really, we've got nothing. We need to get this back to $2,000, what we paid. That's when we'll rip in and we'll just make the best album we can for 20s at 20 sides. And we'll help them get it down to that. Yeah. But we tell them you can only have a maximum four photos to a page, except for if we do a collage for the reception, things like that. And they were fine with that. So that. That's pretty much the premise of how it works. And the sequence. Does that make sense to you guys? [00:41:05] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. [00:41:07] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:41:07] Speaker A: No. [00:41:07] Speaker B: Does it feel high pressure or does it feel like you could do it? [00:41:11] Speaker C: I think it all depends on how you communicate. I think the customer, the clients could feel pressured if you haven't communicated everything to them 100% or if. If they can tell that you're genuine. If you. If they can tell you that you're trying to extract money from them as opposed to, this is the service we offer and we're happy to do whatever you want. [00:41:34] Speaker B: 100. And that's the way you take it. [00:41:37] Speaker C: If you start trying to push back on them, saying, look, we really just wanted the 20, you know, the 20 side album. If you're like, oh, well, you know, the guys have spent a lot of time making this 50s, you know, if you start trying to. Yes, yeah, make them feel bad or anything like that, I think it could really leave a bad taste in people's mouth. But on the other hand, if it's all. And I did. I actually did a Jerry Jonas workshop years ago, and he said something similar to what you said about telling them that, like, my job as a photographer is to create the most amazing wedding album you could ever imagine. Your job is going to be to try and resist buying every single page. And he tell them that in the first meeting. So it's like if you set that expectation. Yeah, it's. It's very different to if you sort of, you know, you hear about these portrait studios and stuff that used to do the family portraits and which. I know you've got some family portrait marketing techniques and stuff like that that involve free sessions and things, but there was ones that would always exist where it's like, it's a free session straight into pretty high pressure sales with the thread of deleting the photos. And I've got some friends of mine that come out of that feeling like they felt pretty bad about the whole thing. And they actually end up spending fifteen hundred dollars because they didn't want the photos to get deleted. But they were like, but felt really wrong kind of thing. [00:43:17] Speaker B: So it's like they would look at those photos and, and have bad taste in their mouth. They wouldn't even enjoy looking at the photos. [00:43:23] Speaker C: Yeah, that's right. And it's like, so it's, it's all about. And when the. Exactly the same thing might have happened with a free session and then fifteen hundred dollars of sales and they might walk away telling everyone, this is the most amazing photographer, you should go there with your family, look at these photos like. And it's the same money's transpired, maybe even the same photos have been taken. But it's all about how you spoke to them and treating people, how you'd want to be treated. No one wants to get pushed into one of those situations where you feel. [00:43:52] Speaker A: We feel like you're being blackmailed over your memories. [00:43:54] Speaker C: Exactly. [00:43:55] Speaker A: You know, yes, that was my wedding. That's, that was, that was my day and you're holding me to ransom 100. [00:44:03] Speaker B: And we would say things like, look, whatever, you don't get, whatever's not in the album, it's on. You've got the usb, you've got the digital file. Yeah, don't stress. But the album is what you're going to be showing your friends and family and what you're going to be looking at. So yeah, you know, and we'd show them, like I said, because we had so many albums in the studio, we'd say, look, this is what this other couple got. Here's your 20 sided album. So you can see what people have purchased in the past. These are just normal, actual real people like you guys. So yeah, you're exactly right, Justin. It's all down to setting the expectations from the, from that very, very first moment and explaining how the, how the process works. Because I mean if I was to, at that time, if I was to advertise my services as, you know, say a $5,000 to book the wedding, that's a hell of a lot more than 2,000 because they haven't actually experienced what you do yet. It's the same as what portrait photographers are facing today. I mean there's fewer and fewer photographers that are charging an upfront fee for a family portrait session because the family hasn't experienced what you can do yet. So that's why I think this idea of giving away free sessions and even a print credit or a 14 by 11 or a 5 by 7. It works so well because there's no risk for the family, but then you can over deliver every step of the way and give them the most amazing experience where they think holy crap, yeah, we want to spend $5,000 on these photos because this is amazing. [00:45:36] Speaker C: So would you say what you've interviewed some photographers have been twice on PhotobizX, so you've interviewed well over 500 photographers I would imagine that have a brand successful businesses based on all of that, would you say that Even now in 2025 that you should, if you're just doing sort of single session fee, all included with digital files, no sales afterwards or very few sales afterwards, that you should seriously consider looking at your pricing and seeing how you could potentially flip it around to a very low session fee. But with the intention of we want you to walk away from this with something not just with digital files or if it's just digital files, we want you to have a very low risk session price. And then if you love it, this is what it would cost as opposed to you just paying that up front and not knowing what the photos are going to look like. Is that what you mean? [00:46:43] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean you said a lot of things there. So I really think it depends on, I think it depends on the. Well said, Andrew. [00:46:49] Speaker C: Well said, I gotta remember that one. [00:46:53] Speaker B: I think it depends on the genre and I think it also depends on where the photographer is. So let's say. So Nick Peel is a photographer I interviewed quite a few years ago and he, he also delivered a course on this topic. But he, he had a full time job, he's got I think four kids, I think, and from memory and he only wanted to offer digital files but it still had to be profitable enough to make sense. So for him it doesn't make sense to do in person sales, have the clients come back and do a big production. So what he did, he designed a system where it was a no brainer to spend $1,000 on the digital files. So that made sense for him and I think that makes sense for a lot of photographers that are say getting into photography as a business. So let's say I have, I'm working at Optus full time or I have a full time job and I want to dabble in photography, then digital files make total sense. But then when you get past that and you quit the job at Optus and you want to go full time with your photography, then you know you really have to be making more than a thousand Dollars on a session. Because everyone knows once you pay your expenses, your equipment, your tax, whatever else comes out of that, there's not $1,000 left. And so you got it. You got to be making more than that or you have to be shooting enough to support a thousand dollar session where that makes sense. So that might be, you know, five, six, seven sessions a week. Can you do that? Yeah, yeah. [00:48:21] Speaker A: So can you sustain it? [00:48:24] Speaker B: That's true. Yeah. You might be able to do in the beginning, but maybe not sustain it. That's right, yeah. [00:48:27] Speaker C: Yeah. So, okay, to break down some of all of my words. If it's digital files only. So for him, for example, or anyone else, would you try and structure the digital files in a way where it's still the session isn't, you know, a thousand dollars up front, you know, the sessions, $100 free, $200, whatever it may be, but then, then you sort of clearly present, and then this is what you would have to spend to, to get all the digital files or five digital files, or is that, Is that how he set it up? And a few different tiers. [00:49:02] Speaker B: Yeah. So what you want to do is. So photographers tend to think analytically, sometimes too much when it comes to pricing. So the way Nick did it was. Was ingenious, really, because what he did was one digital file, for example, was $400. Five digital files was $800. All the digital files were $1,200. Yeah. So you don't have to say, well, hang on, that doesn't make sense. Because if four, if one is only 400, if one costs 400, why does all of them cost 1200? Well, it's my business. I can do what I want. I can price things how I want to price them. [00:49:43] Speaker C: And it's actually really unlocked because I've heard, I've listened to all these podcasts before. I've heard all this before, but that really unlocks something you said before about saying if you said to someone, I really need to get $1200 per session to run my business. But this way you don't have to pay that unless you love the photos. That's. That's kind of the difference. Otherwise, if. If you wanted me to not charge $400 for one image, my package would just be $1200 up front. We do the shoot, you get all the photos. But this way you, you know, you have options after the shoot. [00:50:20] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:50:21] Speaker C: And you can choose what you want. And it's not that $1,200 for all the photos is me ripping you off or $400 for one photo is me ripping you off. It's just me saying, we can go and do the shoot, have a great time. I'll show you great photos, and if you love them, you can buy them. [00:50:38] Speaker B: How much easier is that? Rather than me trying to get $1,200 out of you before you even. So, I mean, I guess a practical example would be if Linda, my wife, came to me and said, I'm gonna, we're gonna book a family session. Yep, I'm all for that. It's gonna cost twelve hundred dollars. Not. Whoa, hang on. Whoa. Twelve hundred bucks? I haven't even seen anything yet. [00:50:59] Speaker C: Show me their Instagram. Let's. Let's judge this photographer a little bit Raw. [00:51:08] Speaker B: Yeah. Whereas if she said to me, if she said to me, look, we're gonna. I've booked a family session. It's free. They're gonna include a credit or a print, but we can buy more after if we want to. I'm way more open to that because I feel like it's no risk. And I know, I know there's going to be an upsell on the back end, but at least I've been through the experience. I can see the photos. Yeah. [00:51:30] Speaker C: So do you make or would you recommend people making the pricing that they're going to get presented with after the shoot, available up front when the shoot is booked, and if so, how do you go about that discussion? [00:51:47] Speaker B: So we're talking portraits, are we Pick whatever you like. [00:51:50] Speaker C: But yeah, let's go with portraits. Yeah. [00:51:53] Speaker B: So with portraits, I mean, first you need to give the. If you're inquiring with me, I'm giving you a ballpark figure right from the start. So let's say you came in on a free session and I'm going to include a 8 by 10 print as well. That's free. And you're like, what's the catch? I'm like, there's no cash. But what I'm going to do, I'm going to give you guys the most amazing experience. Same, same spiel. The most amazing experience. I'm going to find out about you and your family, what's important to you, which location you want to shoot at. If I'm a location shooter, can you tell me about any special bonds between you and your daughter or your husband and your daughter? Husband and your son, whatever. I'm looking for little things. I'm going to be photo. I want her to explain to me what she's looking to get out of this session, and then I might Even ask, you know, if, if you walk away from what with this, from this session with one amazing photo that's going to go on your wall in the home. Where in the home would it go? I'm thinking in the, in the dining room. And we're in the dining room above the, above the, the settee. And. Okay, and if you're looking at that every day, like, what do you want it to be? Laughing, fun, everyone looking at the camera, like walking down the beach, holding hands, like, what do you see for that? I'd love one. All of us walking down the beach. We always get down the beach. So she's told me already what she wants for her wall and she hasn't paid a cent. And then I'm going to talk to her about the process. And then what most families do when they come in and see the photos, they fall in love with everything. I want to buy everything, but you don't need to. But what happens is most couples or most families spend between 2 and $3,000 when they see their photos. Is that something you're comfortable with? And then I just shut up. You got to let them, you have to let that sit and let them respond. If I hear a. Oh, that's, that's, that's more. We, we thought we're just gonna get the free one. [00:53:53] Speaker C: Did you say thousand, two and three thousand? [00:53:56] Speaker B: That's right. So. And then it's up then, it's up to me then to decide whether. Because what happens is if we're doing a lead generation campaign, I'm picking the families that I want to be photographing. So there's two ways to think about this. I can try and qualify that. That woman in this case, and if I think that she's not nowhere, there's no chance she's spending anything, then I'm going to say, look, I'm going to come back to you if you're successful and you win one of the sessions. But if this isn't a good fit right now, if you feel like this is going to be really uncomfortable because you see all the photos and you want them and you're not in a position to buy them, why don't we schedule something for six months time or why don't you contact me down the line when you're in a position where it's more comfortable for you? So I want to let her down easily and give her a way out. And she says, yeah, yeah, I don't want to spend a thousand dollars. We don't have that. So that's Fine, I'll talk to you later. But if she's like, oh no, that's amazing, that's fine, that's great. Okay, let's go, let's keep, keep working through the process and we get them booked in. Sorry, did I answer your question then, Justin? [00:55:06] Speaker C: I'm not even sure 100%. No, that, that's exactly what I was sort of getting at is like, how, how much do they know? How much do you set expectations beforehand so that you don't get to that sales session and have them feel blindsided or. [00:55:19] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:55:19] Speaker C: Pressured without knowing what they were walking into? Because some people might have, they might have, you know, friends have shot, gone on photography sessions or whatever and maybe they've booked in this free session and then chatted to their friend and their friends like, oh Yeah, I spent 500 doll photos and I got all the images and they're like, in their head they're like, okay, I'm ready for that. I'm mentally prepared for 500. And then you sit them down and present them with, you know, 1500 to $3000 of options and they're like, whoa, I wasn't ready, you know, 100%. [00:55:49] Speaker A: Andrew, can I ask you just a follow up question on that? How do you manage clients who say, why is it so expensive? Why is it costing me that much money? It's just photos. [00:56:01] Speaker B: I'm going to answer you in one second. I just want, I just didn't say, I didn't add on one thing that I should have earlier. Except that was with the pre qualifying that I talked about earlier was, you know, setting the expectations. What some photographers are doing today very, very, very successfully is not doing any pre qualification. They're letting clients know or leads know what they might spend. But even if they get the feeling they're not going to spend it, they'll still book them in for the session because. And they're playing the numbers game and they're relying on the fact that they can deliver a. And that family will be emotionally enough connected to the photos that they will find the funds to pay for the images that they want. So even if you get a feeling that maybe they don't want to spend on the phone, once they see the way you shoot, experience your photography and the session that you create, then they see the photos and they think we need to find the money for these. So there's two you can pre qualify more or you can do less pre qualification depends on your business model. And if you're prepared to have a few more no sales. So there's two ways to go about that. As far as why does it cost so much? I can't say I got asked that. I get asked that too much. [00:57:20] Speaker A: Well, what's your advice for people who get thrown that. [00:57:24] Speaker B: Yeah, if, if their website and their work looks amazing, I think you're less likely to get asked that. I think if someone really wants to know the answer to that, you can say, have you seen my photography compared to other photographers? And if they can't see the difference, I'm quite happy to say, listen, maybe I'm not the photographer for you. Maybe come call Lisa down the road because you've talked about her work a little bit. She sounds like she'll be a better fit. I don't feel like I need to justify, justify my prices to my clients. I. I don't think I've ever really been in that position. I've had that conversation with a couple of dads of brides. [00:58:13] Speaker C: On the wedding night. [00:58:14] Speaker A: Well, you're really enjoying that chicken there, aren't you? [00:58:17] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:58:17] Speaker A: When are you going to take some more photos? [00:58:20] Speaker B: I've had two, two uncomfortable calls from, from dads in, in 20 years of shooting or more, because the dads were. These dads in particular, they were paying for the wedding photography and they were unhappy about paying up front before they saw anything. And I understood that because we just talked about that with portrait sessions. Like, why are we asking a family to pay $1,000 for something they haven't seen yet or experienced? That's a pretty big risk for them. So here I am, this photographer that they've never heard of, and this dad's got to send me two grand before the wedding. And he's probably already been putting his hand in his pocket for the last six months. He's like, this is the final straw. Like I'm. This is. I'm ringing this guy. Yeah. And he wants to see if I'm going to even be there. Like, what's to say you're going to turn up? And they were genuine concerns. So with these two different dads, I said to them, listen, if you, if you feel uncomfortable, don't pay me till after the wedding and you've seen me shoot. Or you can even wait till the couple comes in, your daughter comes in and sees the photos, but they're not getting anything until it's paid in full. And they were happy with that, and I was happy with that. And the daughters are usually embarrassed, but I can understand where the dad's coming from. So that's totally fine. So I've never really had to justify why my prices are what they are. I think that would be an uncomfortable. There's probably some really good answers that I've heard in the past to this, but I can't think of one at the moment. So. Have you been asked that, Greg? [00:59:49] Speaker A: Yeah, I had a. I didn't do a lot of paid gigs, big pay gigs. A lot of my stuff was for friends, family of friends, that sort of thing. But you know, every now and then I'd get, I'd get asked for a quote for, you know, a 21st or an engagement or something. And I say, okay, well here's my rates and this is what you get. And, and I was doing photo books with Instax Live, you know, and people could take the photo and sign in the book, you know, a message to the birthday boy and that sort of thing and all of that sort of value add stuff. But I remember one person wanted me to set up like a photo booth and they said, oh look, I think I'll just do it on my mobile phone. I said, well look, that's fine, but as long as you know what you're getting into. This is the quality of phones versus you know, but not, not so much a direct challenge as to why I quoted what I quoted, but more that whole oh, I think I could just do it better myself kind of argument that I didn't really want to get into because. Okay, well that's what you think that I'm probably not going to change your mind. [01:00:47] Speaker B: You know, I'm the same. Yeah. If you think that, that's fine. Yep. Have a great time. If I can help you with anything along the way, give me a yo. Yeah, yeah, exactly. [01:00:55] Speaker C: So I think it sounds interesting in, in our town here in Bendigo, it's, it's a regional town city. 100000 people big enough that you can run a successful business here for sure. There's quite a few photographers in town and I think there's a fairly standard pricing set that most of them use and most of it's session based. A lot of them do mini sessions and there's not a ton of upsells afterwards. And I think that's the thing. If someone was comparing your prices to everyone else like you said, and you might have to say, hey, this was. I'm probably not the photographer for you, but if you're, if you're the only outlier, your work really has to stand out to try and make that happen. And, and so a Question I have that's kind of related to that is if you went down the free session route yet you're trying to potentially charge more than anyone else in town after the fact that does. How do you, how do you kind of match free sessions with the perception that you are a very high end, high valued photographer? Because often, you know, photographers value, you know, their time a lot, they're charging a lot, but you're also on the other end, you're doing these free sessions. That sounds I guess more low value. Does that make sense? I don't know what I'm trying to ask. [01:02:31] Speaker B: It does, it does. I know what you mean. I think as long as the client is aware of your prices and what they might potentially spend, I don't think it matters too much how they come in the door, you know, through whatever lead generation process you have. But the time to show that you're high end or demonstrate that is, I guess it starts with your website, with the quality of images, the copy, the way your website looks, how easy is to navigate. And then when they come to see you, I'm guessing if you're saying high end, I mean it could still be a home based studio, might be a street frontage, but like I know that when I had my street frontage studio, this was normal. People would open the door and go, oh wow. Like that was, and that was like. You don't get that when you walk into, you know, Jim's studio in his, in his garage down the road. [01:03:25] Speaker A: Which Jim are we talking about? [01:03:27] Speaker C: I was going to say that's actually very funny. Jim will know why that's funny. [01:03:33] Speaker B: I'm sorry, Tim, if you run a studio out of your garage. But you know, but a caveat to that is, I mean I, I ran my studio from the, the room under my house which was off my garage and we had to actually walk through the garage to get in there. If we didn't want to bring them through the house where the kids were. Yeah. Then Jim commenting in there, watch it. Yeah, but when, so, so I would. And this was a bugbear of mine. So we, Linda and I, we talked about setting up a, or building a purpose built hallway into the downstairs room so you didn't have to walk past the car and the garage and the bikes hanging up and things like that. And it was going to be expensive to do it. And we thought well let's just. Because we're moving the studio from the street front back to home because the kids were old enough for us to move it back Home. But then we, when we set up the room, we decked it out like a showroom. So you walked in and there was damp spotlights, there was beautiful artwork. There was a, you know, the sofa bed was. Sorry, the sofa was set up, the lounge with the chair. Like everything looked top notch. There was a desk on one side with three monitors, another desk with another monitor. And this is all in one room. So you can do this in one room. But people walked in and went, oh, wow, you know, and they still had that same response to when we had the studio. So you can set up a garage to be as impressive as a studio. But I think as soon as they walk in, the client needs to be wowed. If you want to say you're high end and then you want to have. I guess I don't say the wrong thing here, but I guess even the look of the people on your website, the look of the people in your portfolio, I mean, they just look high end. Sometimes the places that you're photographing, what your clients are wearing, I think all those things sort of say high end. And then your price list, your brochures, all those things say hi. And the way you talk to your clients, I think that all adds to that high end feeling. [01:05:41] Speaker C: Yeah. And it's not so much to only attract a certain demographic of client or anything like that, but it's, it's more just putting that perception out there that, that you are a valuable photographer, that, that an in demand photographer, despite the fact that you are offering this session at a low or no cost, that's something that just, it's sort of of, to me feels at odds. But I know it can work and I know you've seen it work. It's just, it feels those ideas feel at odds to me. [01:06:15] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, look, you can certainly charge a session fee. I mean, there's a lot of photographers out there that charge say a $500 session fee and that comes off the cost of whatever you book, whatever you order. Sorry, you can do that for thousand dollars too. I mean, so still, there's still no risk to the client. And if you want to do that, then you know that they've got some skin in the game right from the start. So there's nothing. If you really are high end and you really are the best photographer in your area and you want to be charging more, then, yeah, go ahead and test it. [01:06:46] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's true. [01:06:48] Speaker B: Yeah. Yep. [01:06:50] Speaker A: Justin, can we just jump to a couple of comments? David's made about 3 comments just recently about his experience. First of all, let me just grab it. This is from David Mascara. He's in the Bay Area of San Francisco. Long time viewer shooting weddings gave me, I guess, the confidence to shoot street and street portraits. That's really interesting. [01:07:13] Speaker C: I mean, you got, you've got to be able to approach. Yeah. At a wedding you've got to be able to, yeah, approach people, handle tricky situations, handle high stress situations. And drunk, you know, I mean, drunk. [01:07:24] Speaker A: Drunk dads. [01:07:26] Speaker C: Drunk dads are easy. Drunk dads just tell you how great of a job you've done, even though you haven't done anything yet other than shoot, you know, like they haven't seen anything, but they're just. You're so good. No, it's the most, some of the most stressful situations in weddings are when it's going to rain. Everyone knows it's going to rain. But, but the couple, one of the, the couple or both of them are dead set stuck to their guns in that when it's not going to rain, we don't have a backup plan for rain. And I'm going to be absolutely shattered if it rains. And whenever that's the case, I'm like, it's going to rain 100% if you've got no backup plan. And you're also going to hate life if it rains. It is going to rain. [01:08:13] Speaker A: Just a couple more quickly. You have to talk to people, which is what you guys have been saying this whole way about building that customer expectation, about, you know, making sure that their experience is amazing. Regardless of what's going to happen afterwards, the experience is really important. David also says this is with his weddings. I used to tell them time your wedding ceremony may be 30 minutes and reception four hours. But it's the before, during and after for me that obviously, you know, time is money. And there's also that whole side of things that I think people lose sight of that. You know, you've invested time in your education as a photographer, you've invested in gear, which is, let's face it, it's not a cheap, it's not a cheap thing to set up, you know, and, and if you are going to the point where you're having like a separate studio, you've converted your garage or a room into something, all of those things cost money. And I think a lot of the time clients don't see that side of it. They don't see the. They just see you on the floor with a camera and think, oh, well, that looks easy. But, you know, as we all Know, it's, it's far from it. [01:09:18] Speaker C: Yeah, Matt, Matt from Alpine Light Gallery in Bright. I don't know if you've ever heard of Matt, Andrew. He's Matt Palmer operating. [01:09:27] Speaker B: Yes. I see his stuff pop up on Facebook of all places. Quite a bit. [01:09:32] Speaker C: Yeah. Successfully operating one of the most difficult businesses on the planet. A in person landscape photography gallery. And I didn't know you shoot weddings, Matt. He says a full wedding for me is 80 to 120 hours depending on how long I'm there on the day. Everything on the day is amplified through additional preparation and editing and then also a chiropractor the next week. Matt, if you shoot JPEG, you could cut that 80 to 120 hours down by quite a bit. Yeah, I've heard. [01:10:03] Speaker A: Be brave. [01:10:03] Speaker B: Go on. [01:10:04] Speaker C: He doesn't shoot them anymore. Anymore. [01:10:05] Speaker B: Okay. [01:10:07] Speaker C: And Richard Grenfell says hi, Andrew. [01:10:10] Speaker B: This, this got. Richard is a character. He's, he'd be a great guest on the show. He's. [01:10:14] Speaker C: Oh really? [01:10:15] Speaker B: Yeah, he, he's shooting boudoir very successfully. He's the consummate salesman. And yeah, he's, and he, he runs a lot of these sort of promos. You know, we attracting clients but for no fee and then delivering an amazing experience and, and having really good, large successful album sales. [01:10:37] Speaker C: Okay. I think, I reckon I sent that to Jim yesterday. I'm pretty sure you won't be able to see this, but. Yeah, because of the. But that's, I said this is a message to Jim, right, that says, you know, listen to this podcast because yeah, he's, he's trying to grow his boudoir at the moment as well. So yeah, we'll have to try and get, get Richard on. Maybe we can get Rich and Jim on the same time and they can just talk. Talk. [01:11:05] Speaker A: Yeah, we can take the day off, Justin. [01:11:07] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. [01:11:08] Speaker A: That'd be great because I feel like we've been podcasting every day for about a month. [01:11:12] Speaker C: It's been crazy. [01:11:13] Speaker A: It feels like it has been crazy. It has. Let me just take a moment just to insert a little ad break here guys, but you are listening or watching the Camera Life podcast proudly brought to you by Lucky Straps. Head to Lucky Straps straps.com we make premium Aussie made handmade leather camera straps that will live longer than you, I guarantee it. Well, I won't guarantee it. Justin will, but you get the, you get the picture. And if you want a healthy discount, use code Greg at the checkout and get yourself 15. No, Greg, it's Greg. But look if, if you are new to the channel, if you're watching along and this is your first time here, welcome. [01:11:51] Speaker B: Thank you. [01:11:51] Speaker A: We do this every week. Every Thursday morning 9am Australian Eastern Standard Time and then every Monday evening we have the random photography show which is at 7:30pm Australian Eastern Standard Time. If you give us a like, we'll love you for it. But if you hit subscribe and you hit the bell for notifications all then you'll get notifications in your time zone. As to when our podcast is coming up. We are always live because we'd like to involve you guys in the conversation. So yeah, thanks for joining on with the show. [01:12:24] Speaker C: Richard Grenfell says I can talk under wet cement. [01:12:27] Speaker B: I would love that, Richard. We love that. [01:12:29] Speaker A: I'll be in touch. [01:12:30] Speaker C: We will be in touch. [01:12:31] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:12:34] Speaker C: Actually, before we, we get back into business, stuff from earlier on. LTK photo wanted to know what was your first camera? You said you bought a camera to shoot. [01:12:42] Speaker B: Yeah, it was a. It was a Nikon F601 film camera. F601. [01:12:50] Speaker C: Was that the, the last of the film, like was that. That was the proper high end. [01:12:56] Speaker B: It wasn't a proper pro spec camera. So from there I bought two F90X's and now and they had like the vertical. That's when I felt like a proper pro because they had the vertical grips. It's like, oh yeah, this is it. This I made it now. So that was pretty cool. But it was, the F601 was no pretty basic camera camera and that. It worked great. [01:13:14] Speaker A: And so it literally just started off with you wanting to take photos of you and your mates while you're out fishing so you could make some cash published. [01:13:21] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. [01:13:22] Speaker A: That's incredible. [01:13:23] Speaker B: Yeah. And then, and you know the. I'm sure I've told this story before, but the very first wedding I photographed was one of my fishing buddies. Wow. His what? His sister. And, and she was, she was a larger girl, larger woman and she was marrying a larger guy. And this is my first very full wedding from on my own. And so. And it was free. I didn't charge him anything. I just got to cover film costs and for double prints because I was going to make a. An album as a display album because it's my first one. Anyway, so we had a great time and I learned a lot and it was a great wedding. But I went to the very first expo, the wedding expo that I went to with my wife Life. And this was the only full wedding I had was of this larger couple. I Booked. I think we booked something like, like without a word of a lie, like 30 weddings at this expo. And I think 25 of them were larger couples. And all because I was the only photographer that had a larger couple on display in their album. And it blew me away. It's. But you got to remember too, I didn't have any other weddings book, so anyone that inquired, we had Linda's like, I'll just check the calendar. And she goes, oh, no, that's free. You're lucky. [01:14:41] Speaker A: Yeah, well, just squeeze you in. [01:14:42] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, you're so lucky. We're free. [01:14:47] Speaker A: And so Linda's obviously a photographer as well. [01:14:50] Speaker B: No, no, no, she's not. No. [01:14:52] Speaker A: Oh, she's not. I thought she was. Sorry. [01:14:54] Speaker B: Purely admin. And yeah, back in the day when I was shooting film, I would allow six rolls of color film, one extra and a black and white roll. And Linda's first question, anytime I walked in after a wedding that doesn't matter what time on Saturday night was, how many roles did you shoot? That was a very. That's all she cared about because every role was 50 bucks. [01:15:17] Speaker C: The maths. That's awesome. Nice. [01:15:19] Speaker B: Oh, wow, great admin. [01:15:20] Speaker A: That's for sure. [01:15:22] Speaker C: So, so how long has Linda always worked with you in the business and on the business? [01:15:31] Speaker B: Yeah, because when I went sort of, when I went part time with photography because I had a full time job, Linda would be, she's doing all the admin, the accounts. She'd be sticking the photos into the albums, which is what we used to do back in the day, or the album assembly. She'd look after the clients when they needed phone calls and things like that if I couldn't, if I wasn't there to take the call. So yeah, she was all admin. [01:15:54] Speaker C: Okay. [01:15:55] Speaker B: And. [01:15:55] Speaker C: And so has. Has photography and now photography and the podcast and. And the way it's evolved, has that been able to support both of you financially and your lifestyle since all the way. [01:16:08] Speaker B: All the way along until, I want to say, two or three years ago, Linda took on. She had a bit more time, so she took on because I'm doing less shooting more of the podcast, which. So I'm doing nearly all of that. She does a little bit of the admin. So she took on a part time job with the music booking agency. And the rest of our time is between Impact Images and Photo Biz X. Okay. [01:16:28] Speaker C: Wow. [01:16:29] Speaker B: Very cool. [01:16:30] Speaker A: Hey, I've got a question about PhotoBizX or more importantly, the early days of podcasting. Obviously we're still we're just out of the virgin stage of being a podcast. We're at 115 episodes. We're going for. Been going for almost two years all up. What was the landscape like back then for podcasts? [01:16:50] Speaker B: Well, it's pretty new, so there was still. There's a lot of. I mean, I was listening to a lot of podcasts, so I just assumed that everyone was. But like, you know, my parents didn't know what a podcast was. You know, my uncles and auntie didn't know. [01:17:02] Speaker A: My parents still don't know. [01:17:04] Speaker C: On your episode one blog post kind of thing on. On the photobizx website, I was looking because I was wanted to have a listen to it down the bottom of that. It's got like an FAQ and one of the FAQs is what is a podcast exactly? The world was different in 2012, you know, it was. [01:17:24] Speaker B: It was. Yeah. [01:17:26] Speaker A: So, yeah, like promoting that and getting it out and getting people to actually understand what it was that you were. [01:17:32] Speaker B: Doing, I guess probably relied heavily on itunes back then. The iTunes, Apple, iTunes catalog you sort of. It was pretty easy to jump up and get in the featured area or be one of the recommended topics. Top podcast. So that was a big help. SEO pretty quickly, I think people. And then I. I mean, I did Facebook. I tried a few different marketing things for the podcast, but I think over time, word of mouth, SEO, Facebook groups, people talking, that sort of thing. [01:18:03] Speaker C: Yeah, just. Just deli. Consistently delivering value. [01:18:06] Speaker B: That's the thing. I think if you like you guys are doing. Putting out at the same time every week. Yeah. And then you're not missing weeks and having a month off here and coming back. [01:18:17] Speaker A: Justin takes a month off, but I still carry on. [01:18:19] Speaker C: Yeah. I just spent 3.3weeks in New Zealand and Greg just. Just ran the podcast while I was gone. It was great. [01:18:26] Speaker B: Good to have a partner like that. [01:18:28] Speaker A: Well, I don't know. Never once did I get the audio correct. [01:18:31] Speaker C: But the music is out of the show every time. [01:18:35] Speaker A: Our viewers came to expect it, so it became a bit of a thing. [01:18:38] Speaker C: So, yeah, it was a race. [01:18:39] Speaker A: It wasn't our. It was one of our points of differentiation, which I want to talk to you about, because, you know, for us, we think the. We believe and we love what we do, the going live thing and having immediate feedback from our. Our viewers and making the. The interview less structured, more of an organic conversation. We'd like to believe that that's our point of differentiation in the podcast world. What advice do you have for other people that are Looking at maybe, you know, exploring podcast photography, podcasts to expand their. Their reach and maybe even, you know, potential client awareness. [01:19:19] Speaker B: I think, first of all, you have to. Today's market. Sorry, sorry. In today's market. [01:19:23] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [01:19:25] Speaker B: You mean how to get found or how to produce a good show? [01:19:28] Speaker A: Maybe more. How. What are your tips on how to get found? [01:19:33] Speaker B: Well, I mean, you got to get. You got to get in all the aggregators, so you have to be in Apple, itunes, Spotify, you know, any aggregators out there. You want to have your site showing up there. So when people search for their podcast, wherever they listen, it shows up. You want to have your description well laid out with keywords so that if they're looking for something about photography that yours shows up. You want to be producing consistently and then also creating a blog post to go to accompany each. Each episode. So you're, you know, you're building that SEO naturally, because every time you create a new blog post, a new episode, then that's going to help. Your SEO shows that you're current, you're still running, and you're also adding keywords every time you do. I would ask my guests to promote my podcast that you have on. That doesn't work anywhere near as good as I thought it would. I thought when I get the big names on, I thought they were going to shout about it to their audience, but that doesn't happen. The only exception to that for me was Sue Bryce. When I interviewed her back in the day, she broke. She broke the server. The way my podcast was hosted, that was pretty cool. So that was pretty. Yeah, she shared it and everyone jumped on. So that was really nice. But that was also stressful because people were trying to get. And I was getting all these emails saying, can't get your podcast. So that was awful and good at the same time. What else? I think they're the main. They're the main ways, I think. And then. And then, I mean, you could have a Facebook group and try. Encourage people into there and talk photography. Yeah, I mean, Facebook, you could try Facebook ads, but to me, you got to get a return on that. So it's a lot of testing first. So you need to have some money behind you to do the test to see if that works. Yeah. Whereas all the other ways are all pretty much organic. The other way then is to you guys already on YouTube, which is fantastic. So you'll have links from your YouTube channel back to your actual website. It's going to help you with your SEO. [01:21:36] Speaker C: The website's the problem. We don't, we don't have one of those. Okay, we do, yeah. We're using temporary website at the moment but, but we'll probably make a camera podcast website that, where it can sort of sit in its own world and we can start to grow that out over time. [01:21:55] Speaker B: That's going to help the SEO. And, and I would also then go to say ChatGPT, ask them, does it know the Camera Life podcast? How do people find it? What can I do to help people find it more easily? And it will give you a bunch of ideas. [01:22:10] Speaker C: I love that you mentioned that because I've got written down here to ask you like, are you using AI. [01:22:17] Speaker B: Now? [01:22:17] Speaker C: Like and what for anything from day to day life stuff to helping run your business to, to things like this where you're checking if other people can find your podcast through AI like Chat GPT or AI. Yeah. Tell us about your involvement with AI. At the moment. [01:22:32] Speaker B: It's look nowhere near as, as involved as probably what some people are. I think there's probably more photographers using it now for editing and things like that than, than what I am. I mean I'm using it for, for more for text copy based type stuff. So if I write an email to do a quick check, a spell check, my show notes, I'll get them to double check that. But I think one of the big things that I, that I'm happy that I did and I did it early on was to upload hundreds of emails that I'd sent out or written into ChatGPT. So it learned how I speak and the words that I use, the words that I don't use. So when I ask it to fix something or write something, write it in my brand voice so it sounds like me when it. So it's not using words that I don't use. It uses punctuation like I use it. So I use a lot of dashes instead of commas. It now uses dashes instead of commas. It's just little things like that. So if I do send an email, it's, it's still written by me. Other than that, I mean, look, I have a tab open permanently with Chat GPT, but I don't, I don't live in there. [01:23:41] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, but you are, you are dedicating a bit of time to it just to, to understand how it works and also see where it can I guess save you time on stuff that isn't the core of, of what you do. You know, you're not using it to, to record your podcasts. You're not, you're not replacing yourself with an, with an AI version of you. [01:24:02] Speaker B: No. So I, I've got a, I have a, I have a VA in the Philippines to help me with my editing and writing of the actual show notes. But then I will rewrite the things that she doesn't get right. But she does do all the actual audio editing. So I can see a time a day when AI will do the audio editing. Like it's doing image editing these days. So. But you know, instead of me replacing her, I would encourage, I would teach her how to use AI to do the editing. Yeah. Because I mean there's no use bringing the extra job back to me. I'd rather just make her life easier. So yeah, I don't see it as a loss of a job for someone. I see it making her life easier to do other stuff than for me on the business. The other thing is so with my email. So I write an email pretty much every week about the recent episode. So I used to have to send that to Linda to proofread because there's always mistakes. But now I just get ChatGPT to do the proofreading. So that kind of thing I find it really useful for. [01:24:59] Speaker A: Yeah, it just takes, you know, minutes and hours off. Off a week that's already busy. So. [01:25:05] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. [01:25:06] Speaker A: Just a couple of follow up comments just quickly. So David just followed up to say that he stopped doing weddings years ago. Majority of them are divorced now. I had one couple divorce right after. [01:25:19] Speaker B: Their honeymoon just, just on that. So we were talking about album up sales earlier. I've had a couple of brides maybe I'd say a few that after they, we've done the sale, the album sales process, they've cut it back down, the couple have walked out and then the next day or that night that the bride is called and said can you just do the full album and I'll fix it up. [01:25:44] Speaker C: Really? [01:25:45] Speaker B: Yes. Yep. And I'm thinking that's not a good way to start a marriage. But yep, sure thing. On. [01:25:51] Speaker C: Yeah, don't tell anyone. [01:25:55] Speaker B: And this week, just this week. Oh, sorry, it's. Sorry. Last week, late last week, a past bribe phoned up and asked if I'd come and shoot her wedding. She's getting remarried. So that's happened a couple of times too. [01:26:06] Speaker C: Well, Jim's, Jim's done a couple of those. A couple of. [01:26:10] Speaker B: They're a bit weird. [01:26:12] Speaker C: I. I don't know if I'm remembering this correctly. I don't know if Jim's still listening Jim, if you're listening, can pop it in the comments. I have a feeling Jim had shot both the previous weddings of a new couple. [01:26:25] Speaker B: That's pretty cool. I've never done that. [01:26:27] Speaker C: Yeah, I, I can't remember if I'm remembering that right, Jim. Hopefully he's still listening, otherwise I'll ask him. And update is on Monday's show. But I'm pretty sure that happened, which. That, that's pretty wild. [01:26:38] Speaker B: That is. That is. Yeah. [01:26:40] Speaker C: So. And it does. It happens more than we want, unfortunately. You know, we do get. Obviously every now and then we'll get contacted by bride or, you know, someone from the couple to say, hey, do you mind taking these off the website or social media or whatever. And obviously we always do. And it's a bit sad because, you know, we remember the day that they had. They had a great day. The photos are amazing. We love showing people the photos that, you know, if, especially if there's something special that we did on that night. But it's, it's the reality and it does happen. [01:27:12] Speaker B: Yeah, of course. [01:27:13] Speaker C: Here we go. Groom from wedding. One is living with bride from wedding too. Oh, okay. So they're not, they haven't got married yet. [01:27:22] Speaker A: It's working on it. He's working on it. He says nothing foul. Just both split. [01:27:29] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. It didn't happen. Didn't happen at the weddings or something? No, it wasn't. [01:27:34] Speaker A: Although that has probably happened, I'm sure. I just want to go back to another question the LTK LTK photos has for us. What was the transition from shooting film to digital? When people know the cost of film versus how it is now with digital. [01:27:50] Speaker C: It'S a good question. Like, how did you approach that with clients? [01:27:55] Speaker B: It wasn't the big thing with clients back then for me was that they were worried about the quality of digital because it was so new. They were scared to take a chance because I, again, I was the only digital shooter in my area at the time when I, when I bought that first digital as a D. D1X. D1X, I think it was. That was eleven and a half thousand dollars for the body back then. Back then, that was just the body. I still remember that. [01:28:20] Speaker C: $11,300,000 today. [01:28:23] Speaker B: Yeah. And memory, Memory was a dollar a megabyte. So just wrap your head around that. A dollar a megabyte. So a 256 meg card was 200. So it was a big investment. [01:28:36] Speaker C: It's probably a dollar a gigabyte now. [01:28:41] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:28:41] Speaker C: Like, I think my 512 gig cards were 500ish dollars or something. [01:28:46] Speaker B: Yeah, there you go. Yeah. [01:28:47] Speaker C: Wow. [01:28:48] Speaker B: So. So it was. Yeah, it was, it was a massive investment. And again, I had to get that past Linda. But I, I mean, I just thought it was going to be the way and. And it was. So that was the biggest transition worry was the clients. And that's why we did that big, big photo in the studio. Nearly two meters wide. So that was, that was good. But then, you know, I was only shooting with one body for a long time, changing lenses all day, but freedom. [01:29:17] Speaker C: A backup then. Were you running a film camera as a backup camera? [01:29:20] Speaker B: Yeah, F90X's as backups. And I had, I had a real. I don't know if you want to hear horror stories, but I've had a couple of those. [01:29:27] Speaker A: Yeah, please go through it. It's always fun. [01:29:31] Speaker B: I'll tell you one first. The, the. With the Nikon, the. My digital. I only had the one digital body and I was. No, I didn't. I had two. Two digital bodies. Anyway, what happened was the body, it wasn't working correctly. I was getting three quarters of the frame just wasn't exposed correctly. But only the bottom quarter was. You can literally put it like a cross in it. [01:29:53] Speaker C: It. [01:29:54] Speaker B: And so I kept. And every third, every third shot would be okay, but the, the two after or before it were just rubbish. There's only one quarter. So then I'm thinking, I'm at the bride's house and I'm thinking, okay, do I frame I near the one body there? Do I just frame up in the bottom quarter and then crop it later? Or do I just shoot the crap out of it and use every third photo? And I had an assistant with me and I said, get on. Can you ring these people, these photographers I know, see if I can get a spare camera? And she's ringing around and I'm shooting the crap out of this. They're wondering, what is he doing? He's shooting like a thousand photos just at our house. And you can't let on what's going on. And so I should say so I did have a backup camera. I had a backup camera and I had three batteries for it. None of the batteries would hold a charge because I wasn't using that camera regularly. I was charging the batteries, but the batteries wouldn't stay charged, so I had to use the one that was not working, the. The camera. So I did, I did have a backup camera, a digital camera, but it wouldn't. The batteries wouldn't hold a charge. I mean, I Was freaking out. Anyway, so I'm a Nikon shooter. And she ended up. Alicia ended up getting onto Corey, who used to shoot for us as well. Still shoots for us. And he shoots Cannon. Anyway, he meets me on location. So I've shot the ceremony, the bride and the groom already with this camera that's half broken. Turns out that the shutter had gone and it was only working every third shot. So anyway, he turns up. I've got to go from Nikon to Canon. I've never shot Canon in my life. He's using back button focus. At the time I wasn't. [01:31:36] Speaker C: Oh, that's all right. That throws you instantly if you're the first time. I got handed a camera and they said, okay, have a play with this. See what you think. It was like a really. I think it was a Canon 1D. Anyway, high end Canon digital camera. Have a play with it. And I'm like with this pro photographer and I'm still learning and I couldn't figure out how to get to focus. I had no idea what back button focus was. I didn't want to look stupid. I was trying to press every button to see what was happening. I was like, I don't know what to do. [01:32:06] Speaker B: And you go to zoom in with a nick on your zoom. One way to zoom in. Yep. And then it's back to front. [01:32:10] Speaker A: Oh, it's the other way. Yep. [01:32:11] Speaker B: Yeah, it's like it. And nothing. Anyway, so again, I'm still. At least the camera's working. I'm sitting shooting the crap out of the. The bridal party. One of the groomsman says, mate, you think this was his first wedding? Look how much he's shooting. I'm like, mate, you knew. So, yeah, that was an absolute nightmare of a day. But got through it and had enough images. Couple didn't know any better. And yeah, scary, scary stuff it is. [01:32:39] Speaker C: Because you have to keep it all bottled up inside. And because you know how bad it could go if, you know, like what, any second this shutter might just stop completely or whatever. You know, all this stuff's running through your head. [01:32:50] Speaker B: And not to mention you're trying to work with a cup with a groomed. So with the bridal party, you're thinking about lighting, shutter speeds, aperture, I mean, and I'm shooting jpeg. I've got no leeway. [01:33:02] Speaker A: There's no cropping. There's not much cropping. [01:33:07] Speaker B: Yeah. So that was a. That was probably my worst day. Or second worst day. Second. [01:33:12] Speaker C: Well, then we. [01:33:12] Speaker A: Before you jump into the worst, we. [01:33:14] Speaker C: Need the worst. [01:33:18] Speaker A: J.S. honey, I have a Canon One DS that I bought for 150 bucks. Well done. A year or so back. It came with the Original receipt from 2002 ish and it was 12,000Australian dollars. [01:33:28] Speaker B: There you go. There you go. [01:33:31] Speaker C: That's crazy. [01:33:33] Speaker B: That's about the same time that that. [01:33:35] Speaker A: In a Photoshop subscription. And you know, it's a new mortgage back then. [01:33:39] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, back then though you bought Photoshop was. Well, Photoshop was okay because you buy it once and that was it. You had to upgrade when they bought a new version up front. [01:33:48] Speaker A: Was crazy. [01:33:49] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:33:50] Speaker C: It was still 1500 or something. [01:33:51] Speaker B: That probably was a lot. [01:33:53] Speaker A: Yeah, it was a huge amount. [01:33:56] Speaker C: So the worst. Yeah, let's stay. [01:33:59] Speaker B: Really? [01:34:00] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [01:34:03] Speaker B: Well, it was. I almost gave up photography after this was very early on. I was shooting film and what was. I was shooting two bodies, the F90X's and I was shooting fishing on the, on the, you know, during the week or the weekends. I wasn't shooting weddings. So I was pretty new. So because the slide film was so expensive, what we would do would set our cameras to not roll the film all the way back. It'd leave the tongue out. Do you know what I mean? So let's say I shot 15 frames on the slide film at the fishing on the weekend. Rewind the film, take it out and then when I'd go to put it back in, you just cover the, COVID the viewfinder and the lens with the lens cap and then fast forward, you know, takes enough shots to get to shot number 21 and then keep shooting. Oh, do you know what I mean? So you see, because you still got 15 or 16 frames left because you paid for the, the for it to be exposed already when you buy the film. So it was expensive. So it was a money saving exercise at the time. [01:35:00] Speaker C: Okay. [01:35:01] Speaker B: So that was at the. For the fishing film. So at my weddings, anytime I popped a film out, you've got to roll the leader back in so you know that it's finished. You know where this is going? Yeah. [01:35:14] Speaker C: Yes, I do. [01:35:15] Speaker B: So I'd shot 36 frames at the wedding. Took the film out and someone's distracted me and I've not wound the leader back in. And then I put the same film back into one of the cameras and I've re exposed. So I've lost 72 shots. Were any of them like creative that. [01:35:36] Speaker C: You get beautiful double exposures? No. [01:35:38] Speaker A: Well, Joel does that sometimes. Joel Elston, a friend of ours, he's been on the show. He Shoots film at weddings still. And he does double exposure stuff. [01:35:46] Speaker B: Yeah, right. I mean, it's probably. [01:35:48] Speaker C: But he knows he's definitely exposed for it. So back then, 72 shots. [01:35:56] Speaker B: What? [01:35:56] Speaker C: Back then, how many shots? [01:35:58] Speaker B: I was shooting six rolls plus one. So this was two rolls out of the six third of the wedding. So the lab rang me and they said, Andrew, there's a problem here with one of these roles. And at first I think, okay, it's one roll, it's not too bad. But it turns out it's two rolls because I've double exposed two separate roles, so. Oh my God. And then the only, the only savior was I had the black and white camera with black and white film. So I'd shot snippets with that. But I was, I mean, I was devastated. I was ready to give up weddings then and there, and I had to call bride. The worst phone call I've ever made in my life now. Like, it's, it's hard to even talk about now. Like, she's probably moved. She might even be divorced. I don't know. Yeah. Oh, no. But, yeah, absolutely devastating. That was the worst, worst day. Day of my life as a photographer. [01:36:53] Speaker A: I'll go on. Sorry, Andrew. [01:36:55] Speaker C: Yeah. I just. I just want to know how you handled the, how you handled the, that phone call, the situation. Did you. [01:37:03] Speaker B: I just did it. Just pick up the phone and do it. [01:37:05] Speaker C: But then, like, do you offer something? Do you try to make it right? [01:37:09] Speaker B: Yeah, everything for free. [01:37:11] Speaker C: Just everything for free. Yeah, that's. [01:37:13] Speaker B: Just move on. Yeah, just. And then, and then do I ring up and cancel all my weddings that are booked? Like, that's how I felt. Okay. That's, that's how, that's how bad it was. And I, I had a bunch booked because like I said earlier, we book so many straight away. Yeah. And so I was gonna say. I know, I know. [01:37:29] Speaker A: Joel, up front. Sorry I spoke over you, Andrew. I know when we spoke to Joel, he would, he would make it a really clear expectation of his clients up front that I am shooting film. You know, film is for, you know, film can be fragile, film can be destroyed in the blink of an eye. You know, all your shots can disappear. Like, you know, he'd really set the stage for. Yeah, happy to shoot film. But just know. [01:37:54] Speaker C: Which I guess that's different now because now it's, it's. It's a weird thing to, to have at a wedding, you know, to have a full analog wedding photographer or whatever. So he can kind of do that. Whereas back then that's not really how you wanted your wedding meetings to go to be like, hey, just so you know, everything. [01:38:11] Speaker B: But that was all in the contract. I mean, we did still have those things, but it still doesn't help you when you've got to call them and not when you're new. [01:38:18] Speaker A: Because you, you know, you. You don't want this word of mouth to get around that you screwed up two rolls of film and you didn't catch the kiss or the ring or. [01:38:25] Speaker B: Yeah, and that was. That was the one. One. I don't want to say savior, but the one sort of nice thing was that she lived eight hours from where I. She. She was coming to the Central coast for her wedding, then going back home. [01:38:37] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:38:38] Speaker B: Because I think if she was local, that would have been. That could have been the end of me. I don't know. Yeah. Wow. [01:38:43] Speaker C: Well, I'm glad with it. [01:38:45] Speaker B: But surely you guys have had corrupted digital files. I mean, I've had that too, over the years. [01:38:51] Speaker A: Never, never had an SD card go wrong. [01:38:54] Speaker B: So I was using compact flashback then, but I definitely. And only one card in the early days, these. So I definitely had corrupted cards. And you have to try and get them, save the data and things like that. [01:39:04] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, we had corrupted cards, but we always shot to two. But particularly for a little while with sds, we had a run where. Where we would get errors and stuff like that and. And fully corrupted cards, and we just had to pop the card and keep shooting. But because we always. From day one, we always shot raw to both cards. [01:39:26] Speaker B: Right. [01:39:26] Speaker C: And we knew that, like. But it still made you nervous shooting to just one. But that's obviously way better than having your single card corrupted. But we just started at an era where, you know, my first wedding. I think I wrote this down somewhere here. My first wedding was in 2013, which was a very, very cheap job for an ex girlfriend. Yep, you heard that right. And then the first wedding I shot with Jim was in 2014. March or maybe April 2014 or something like that. And so it was at that point where getting a camera with dual card slots wasn't insane. You know, and then they became more and more accessible. So we kind of made the commitment from day one, we always shoot to two cards. [01:40:19] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:40:20] Speaker C: Whereas. Yeah, I think it wouldn't have been that many years before that to where dual card slots and shooting to two cards was. Yeah, it was. It was brand new. [01:40:30] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. [01:40:31] Speaker C: So we kind of started at a. Yeah, I guess a fortunate time where we could make that commitment. Just be like Every camera we buy, we buy dual card slots and then we buy enough cards that we never have to worry about it. And. Yeah, so. So we've been pretty lucky because of that. [01:40:48] Speaker B: Yeah. Do you want one more horror story or you want to do something? Yeah, these are great. Really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You just reminded me of one. Like it's an absolute horror. Like, yeah, this might challenge the other one, but we, we, you know, I had our associate shooters and this, this particular shooter was going to go and shoot a school formal for us and in Sydney we used to do a lot of school formals and she, she went to Sydney to shoot the formal and she came back. She was meant to just go home. She doesn't have to do anything with the cards, but she thought she was going to go above and beyond and come into the studio. She had a key and, and upload the files. So they're there for us in the morning. She never meant to do that. Anyway, I get a phone call from her at 2am she's in tears, bawling. Linda answered the phone and she'd formatted three of our hard drives by accident. Oh. So the main drive, the backup and the backup of the backup. Oh, how exactly? I mean, I went through the process. She had to not read anything on the screen multiple, multiple times. So we had three formatted hard drives with everything. This had everything. I'm talking like 10 years of weddings, you know, and portraits. And so we had to go and get them. The rescued. We took one of the drives in. They could recover every photo on the drive. But what happens is, I don't know if you know this, but I don't know if it's different now, but back then, the file, there wasn't just one file. There was a tiny little thumbnail. There's a medium thumbnail, a large thumbnail. There's the full size photo. And they're not named what they were when they were when we renamed them. So there's like 2 million photos of all different scenarios. Oh, no. [01:42:44] Speaker A: And out of which any of them attached to like, you don't. [01:42:47] Speaker B: No. [01:42:47] Speaker A: No folders, just. [01:42:49] Speaker B: No. So I had to, I put them in order of size, deleted all the small ones, kept only the large ones that sort of got it down. And then I was able to do something with the dates to start putting them in some kind of date order. But man, what a. What an absolute nightmare. Wow. [01:43:03] Speaker C: Oh, no, that is, I don't think, like, I know, I know a little bit about computers and I think if someone said all Right. I want you to sneak into this photographer's office and wipe all their hard drives. I, like, I would, I, I'd get it done, but I wouldn't be confident that I'd get it done. Like, I think it. [01:43:22] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a talent. [01:43:24] Speaker C: That's a, a. That's a special talent. [01:43:27] Speaker B: Yeah. Wow. [01:43:28] Speaker C: Especially the backup and stuff too. Oh, my God. [01:43:31] Speaker B: Thanks for bringing up the good memories, fellas. [01:43:34] Speaker C: Look. Lt cases are here. This stuff makes every photographer feel not alone. So we really appreciate it and. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. I wasn't expecting that. I wasn't expecting that at all. I thought she was going to like. Oh, she formatted the card or she did like everything. [01:43:49] Speaker B: Everything. And I'm like, thing. [01:43:52] Speaker C: Did you write a policy and procedure document after that for how to take a key away files or something? [01:44:01] Speaker B: That was the last. That was the last we saw of her. Oh, man. [01:44:05] Speaker C: That's a pretty wild one. [01:44:06] Speaker B: Yeah. Do you want a good tip? [01:44:11] Speaker A: Yeah, come on. Let's do something good. Come on, flip it around. [01:44:17] Speaker B: I, I heard this from an interview guest and I, I've got a. I had it where I have an issue of forgetting couples names. Sometimes when I'm photographing or families or family members, I get them mixed up. You guys experience that? [01:44:27] Speaker C: Yeah. Really bad. Yeah. [01:44:29] Speaker B: So this photographer interview she had. She had. I think it was a she. She had an amazing idea. You format your card before you start your shoot and you write down the names of the couple or the family on a piece of paper and you take a photo of it. And now it's your first frame on both cameras or camera every time. So now you just go to play on the back of your camera, scroll to the first photo because it's just one click and you got their names. [01:44:54] Speaker C: I love that. [01:44:55] Speaker A: Lifesaver Simple. [01:44:57] Speaker C: I love that. Because you can always go back to the first one with one click the other way. [01:45:00] Speaker B: Exactly. Yeah. [01:45:01] Speaker C: I love that idea. That's a good. And you could do. You could do anything with that. You could. [01:45:05] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:45:05] Speaker C: You could put the parents names on it too, if you wanted to remember those or anything. Yeah, yeah. That's a great idea. She's a genius. [01:45:15] Speaker B: She is. Yeah. I wish I could credit to someone. I can't remember who it was, but I love that little idea. [01:45:19] Speaker C: I wish I'd heard that in 2014 before. I had so many moments where I was like. [01:45:27] Speaker B: Jennifer. Especially when you're photographing the wedding as a couple that you photographed before and they're getting remarried, you still, still don't. [01:45:36] Speaker C: Remember well, you call one of them. [01:45:38] Speaker B: Exactly. Calling the groom the old groom. [01:45:40] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, not good at all. So what's on the cards for a couple of questions for you, Andrew. What's on the cards for you? What's coming up in the future for you? What, you know, are you looking at any new initiatives with, with either, you know, your, the work that you're doing professionally or with the podcast? Is there, is there stuff that we can look forward to? [01:46:07] Speaker B: I want to say more of the same. So look, it's just looking, sourcing great interview guests and keep digging as deep as I can. The thing is with the guests is, you know, one week I might interview someone that has a revenue of $50,000, you know, which is amazing. Say for someone that's starting out or a mum working from home or a dad doing it part time and the next week you could be talking to someone that's turning over 500,000. So there's this, there's different guests that suit different listeners. So it's just making sure there's a good mixture and then again the different genres as well. So making sure that I'm looking after everyone that's listening as best I can and then partnering with other photographers or business mentors to present a couple of courses. So that's, that's probably for the near future. [01:46:54] Speaker A: So you're looking at running workshops. [01:46:57] Speaker B: Yeah. So generally with. On photobee's X I partner. So let's say I interviewed Justin. He shares some incredible marketing tactics that's working for him. We get into it a little bit in the interview, then I would ask him back to, to come and present an actual masterclass on that topic where we really dive in deep. And obviously he would get paid for doing that presentation and that would be. [01:47:20] Speaker A: For the podcast or as an actual sort of in person event or a webinar kind of thing. [01:47:25] Speaker B: So usually both. So we usually deliver it live. So Justin, if it was Justin, was staying with this example, he would deliver it live on Zoom to the people that paid for that course and then we would record it and then offer it at a slightly higher price if you weren't there for the live course to purchase afterwards. [01:47:41] Speaker C: Yeah. And so these, these courses, because these are all just anyone that's listening, just go to photobizx.com that's where you can sign up for the premium podcast. But don't, you don't have to sign up. You can always just listen to the free version. But I'm pretty sure there's a very cheap like one month free anyway. [01:47:58] Speaker B: Yeah, one. $1 for 30 days. [01:48:00] Speaker C: And, and if I'm correct, there's no limit to how many episodes you can listen to in that 30 days. [01:48:05] Speaker B: So if you want your life, the. [01:48:07] Speaker C: Cheapest education, 633 cheapest education you could possibly get in the business of photography is $1. And it takes. Take a full month off your job or whatever you're doing at the moment. Listen to everything single episode of this podcast and for $1, that is the most education you could get for $1 guaranteed. [01:48:31] Speaker B: I would suggest instead of following Justin's idea, pay a dollar, listen to one one episode that gets your attention and implement what you learn. And that will, that will more than pay for your membership. [01:48:44] Speaker C: That's also good advice. Yeah, I like my idea. Okay. But so the, the courses though, those are over and above, so they're not included with the premium membership. They're things that you can pick and choose and they've got different prices and stuff like that. [01:48:57] Speaker B: And they're also on the website, members pay less than everyone else. But yeah, they're there. There's. So there's like on Facebook ads, there's three different courses, you know, using expos as a lead generation source is one how to get into pet photography. So yeah, you get the idea. They're pretty specialized. Yep. [01:49:14] Speaker C: Love it. [01:49:14] Speaker A: So it's handy to be able to pick and choose as well. [01:49:17] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:49:18] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:49:19] Speaker C: I have a few questions about. Just so I want to get to the future of photography and in the business sense, like 2025, 2026 and beyond, starting or running a profitable business. I want to talk about that, but before we do, I want to talk about any trends that you've spotted over over 12 years of interviewing photographers, businesses, whether it's your experience in business or just what you've heard. How has the landscape of making a living from photography changed in 12 years? [01:49:56] Speaker B: Wow. Would it be really sad to hear? I don't think it's changed that much. [01:50:02] Speaker C: No, no, that's. I think that's probably potentially what people need to hear because. Okay, so the reason I'm asking this is, is when I started in. I guess the ideas and stuff really come about in 2013, which is right when you started the podcast and then the business. I went, I went full time. I wrote this down. I went full time in November 2014. I'd booked weddings for that sort of summer. And so I waited until I'd shot three or four weddings and need to start editing them. And then, you know, that's when my job wrapped up and I was full time on it. But at that time we were getting told by all of the professional photographers in our area that the age of being able to make a living from photography was over. Cameras, digital photography was making it too easy for people to just pop in and undercut everybody. Everyone was charging too little and it was now no longer a thing that a professional could do. That's what was happening then. And I kind of feel like that there's that same narrative now. Would you agree? [01:51:09] Speaker B: Yeah, I would, I would, but I, I mean, there's still just as many successful, maybe even more photographers now as there ever has been. So, I mean, if you want to succeed today. Is that, is that the question? If you want to succeed today or into the future? Yeah. [01:51:23] Speaker C: Well, I wanted to see if you had any thoughts about what has changed. And you sort of said, well, not, not, not much, much really in the terms of the business world. [01:51:31] Speaker B: I mean, look, you've gotta, you've gotta, you've gotta be generating leads, you need inquiries, you need to convert those inquiries. So you need people in front of your camera. And then you need to have a pricing structure and offers that make it profitable enough for you to survive, you know, or prosper, not just survive. Otherwise, go and get a job and do photography for fun. I mean, and that's not a bad option either. Like, that's not a bad option. Yeah, yeah. [01:51:59] Speaker C: You don't have to make a living from this. But, but if you want to. Yes, you think, you believe it's still very possible in 20, 25. [01:52:08] Speaker B: 100%. Yeah, 100%. I mean, everything that the really successful, profitable photographers are doing is available to the new photographer. It looks unattainable in the beginning because you're looking at the whole thing. You think, oh my God, how am I ever going to get there? But you just got to look at where you want to get to and then the steps to get there and start doing the steps, you know, but it all starts with generating some leads, converting those leads. So you actually photograph. You need to be photographing some something people in our case. And then you need to be able to sell them, whether it's digital files or printed products in a way that makes sense, that allows you to keep doing it. I mean, that's, I mean, that part has, is the same, I would say, when I started and maybe when you did too. Justin. I think weddings seem to be the sort of the attractive way in because it was a big ticket item. You could do them on the weekends while you have your full time job. So you could sort of build it up that way. I think profitability wise, portraits make more sense because they have a quicker turnaround. There's a great profit margin. You can shoot every day of the week. You don't need to rely on when they book that, when the couple books their weddings. You can do multiple shoots on a day if you want to. You don't have to. You can shoot indoors, you can shoot in a studio. I mean, you can, you can really dictate how the business runs if you're a portrait shooter, whereas if you're a wedding shooter, you know, you're restricted to the dates that you're booked, how far you can travel. Although, I mean, there's so many other different things that go into it. So. Yeah, I think, and I think you can combine both beautifully if you, if you want to shoot weddings, if you're purely about profit, I think portraits are probably the way to go. Yeah. Okay. [01:53:56] Speaker C: If you. All right, following on from that, this is probably a question you've been asked before maybe, or it's, it's the cliche podcast question. But if you were starting again today with all of the knowledge you've got, but no, you don't have photo biz X, you don't have a platform, you don't have impact images or no, nothing. You're in a fresh location somewhere. But just starting from, from day one, what, yeah, what genre would you pick? [01:54:26] Speaker B: Are we, are we in Australia? [01:54:29] Speaker C: Let's say we're in Australia. [01:54:35] Speaker B: Look, if I was, if I was younger and starting out and, and know what? I know now, I do family portraits or pet photography, I reckon I'm very. [01:54:43] Speaker C: I like the idea of pet photography. There's no one in our town doing it. This is the other thing I want to ask you about is, is a, what do you call it, like a bricks and mortar, like a street location. No one. There's people around town that do great job just with, with, you know, going to people's houses and parks and stuff like that. But no one's doing that kind of lit studio style pet photography, which I, I think is really fun. And, and I, yeah. I'm wondering whether you've interviewed anyone recently that's running businesses like that that are profitable. [01:55:16] Speaker B: Yeah, 100%. Yeah. I mean, there's a guy in the UK, John Mills, I interviewed him a couple of weeks ago. He's doing £200,000 British pounds, so that's close to 400,000 Aussie dollars on his Own. I think he's got one helper, but he's doing all the shooting, all the marketing and stuff. So incredibly successful business and he's built that up in less than two years. [01:55:37] Speaker C: Wow. That's revenue or profit now? [01:55:40] Speaker B: That's revenue. [01:55:41] Speaker C: Revenue, yeah. Yeah, that'd be wonderful. [01:55:44] Speaker B: Well even, well, even 200k if he's taking home 200, 000 Aussie dollars, that's amazing. What a business. [01:55:50] Speaker C: Absolutely. [01:55:51] Speaker A: That's only a couple of years in. [01:55:53] Speaker B: That's awesome. [01:55:54] Speaker C: Okay, so pet photography's something that would be on your list along with family photography, or potentially both of those things, I guess could exist in one business. [01:56:03] Speaker B: I think it's. I think it is easier to specialize, particularly because then you talk into one particular audience. You have one website. I mean, so I think that's easier. See, I interviewed Kirsty McConnell just the other day. It's going live next week and she's gone from pets or dogs to families and she thinks families are easier and I don't know any other photographers that have done that. And she thinks because there's a lot bigger audience because 90% of all families have kids, don't they? Whereas not everyone has a dog and everyone wants photos of their kids and their families together. So that was her reasoning. I still like the idea of specializing a bit more, but yeah, I think if you, if you're looking to make a profitable business fast, I think families would be the way to go. [01:56:57] Speaker C: I love it. And, and what are your thoughts on the potential for bricks and mortar locations these days? Is it too risky? Is it a big expense you don't need to have. You're better off doing it at home. What are your thoughts? [01:57:12] Speaker B: I think, I think like if you're talking specifically business or particularly business wise, I think it makes sense as long as the numbers make sense. Because I like the idea of having a studio like you mentioned, because you're not dictated to by the weather, which would affect you guys down there as much as it does me here on the coast, maybe more with the cooler temperatures. So if you've got a nice warm studio, you control the lighting, control the background, control the temperature. You can shoot five days a week if you want to shoot five days a week, have your weekends off and be generating, generating a great income. So. But you know, if you're starting out, do you want to take on, you know, $500 a week lease? Not really. Not unless you've got the runs on the board and you know you can do it. So in that Case, you know, for me, when I move my studio back from the street frontage to home, I would go and lease the lows, sorry, hire the local community or scout halls to do any of my commercial shoots. And no one ever, no one was ever like turning their nose down at that. I'd have all my, my lighting, my backgrounds, everything set up there. There's usually aircon, there's toilets, there's a bathroom. So they didn't care. If anything it was impressive when they walked in, same old thing like what are we doing in a scout hall? And you walk in and go, oh, look at this. Looks pretty professional because all the lines are set. [01:58:31] Speaker A: It's the experience you created. [01:58:33] Speaker B: Exactly. So I would do that if I was starting out before I committed because I want to know that I can book three, four, five sessions a week with my lead generation tactics and then I can make sales enough to confidently take on a lease. Because that's, that's pretty scary. Taking on a lease. [01:58:51] Speaker C: Yeah, for sure. All right, final kind of, final question, following on, would you. What about commercial photography? You know, that's what you just mentioned. You've obviously done a fair bit of that over your career. [01:59:08] Speaker B: How. [01:59:09] Speaker C: Have you interviewed many commercial photographers, photographers lately and where's that kind of sitting? [01:59:15] Speaker B: Yes, I guess when I say commercial photography, mine was, I don't want to say mine was pretty, very domestic. It wasn't. I'm not shooting for annual reports and for BHP and things like that. I'm doing like the local real estate agents headshots shots. I'm doing product shots for someone who's come up with an idea or they've got some new packaging. I'm doing the local radio station personality headshots for the buses. So that, that's, I was doing more, I guess more headshots and a bit of product photography. So. And my focus with PhotoBizX is mainly weddings and portraits with a little bit of headshot and personal branding. So I have interviewed a few commercial photographers. Those guys and girls are a totally different breed. You know, they're doing 30 to $60,000 sessions. So that's, I don't, Yeah, I don't really understand that market, that world so much. It's always really inspiring and interesting to talk to them. But they, they have the same stresses that we do. You know, they do a sixty thousand dollar shoot this week and they've got a hell of a lot that goes into it and then they got nothing for a few months and they're stressing. So yeah, it swings and ran. I mean I would feel me personally a lot happier in a smaller town shooting families in my studio than having to go and do these sixty thousand dollar sessions. [02:00:28] Speaker C: Yeah high stress. We've actually got a guest coming on next week, Chris Benny, he's a photographer I've followed for years. Does high end photography for Audi and Kia and all that. Shot Daniel Ricardo driving a Red Bull F1 car in the dirt in Australia whenever that wasn't 12 months ago or something like that. So he's, he's very, very much in that world and I, yeah, I don't understand it at all. I'm interested to ask him all those kind of questions about just yeah the reality of life but so for him. [02:01:00] Speaker B: He would laugh at me saying and us talking about doing family portraits you know in, in Geelong in a little studio like what are you guys talking about? You know I'm shooting Red Bull in the desert. [02:01:11] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah he might not. I'm excited to see what he thinks. I'm sure it comes with its own. Yeah, yeah its own different set of, of issues and stresses and I don't know. Yeah maybe the idea of him just you know coming to a little seaside town and shooting family portraits is very, very. [02:01:32] Speaker A: That might be a nice, yeah it might be a nice sort of easing out of it kind of approach. [02:01:37] Speaker C: Live the dream. [02:01:39] Speaker B: So just, just quickly one of the, you just reminded me like when I, I used to hear Peter Eastway and Dave David Oliver talking back in the day and they said something too that stuck with me was that you know, it's difficult to get rich in air quotes from photography so you have to use your photography income to buy other investments or live within your means so that you can afford other investments to have a good life because it's going to run out. Like it's not, you can't, you don't like I think Greg, did you say you had the sore back or was it you Justin? Sore back with shooting multiple cameras and. [02:02:13] Speaker C: Waiting things and yeah I had some major back issues back in the day. I've sorted it all out now but yeah I was doing no physical training and, and shooting back like double header weddings every weekend. Yeah and yeah it got tough. [02:02:29] Speaker B: Yeah so you know those guys, they're all about the, the business side and you know and taking it even a step further and you know they were talking about buying real estate and things like that so using the money that you make from your income that you make from your photography rather than buying a fancy car straight away now maybe invest in your future and, and create a good life for yourself through your photography. Not just the immediately, the immediate returns. [02:02:52] Speaker C: Yeah, that's great advice. There's, there's a word for the car. That type of car on the Internet is called an entrepreneur mobile and it's the cheapest possible car that you can own and you don't upgrade it it. You just hope that it keeps running. And that is the key to setting yourself up for a successful future in the long term. It's not getting a really expensive car as soon as you can afford it. It's stick with the entrepreneur mobile as long as you can. [02:03:22] Speaker B: Yeah, I do like that. But, you know, and then the only, the really annoying thing is in, I think back in the day it was, it was a Danny Decker, he was an amazing photographer down in Dramoine in Sydney. He'd turn up to his weddings in a Porsche and he, and he's. I guess, yeah, his thing was you got to look like you can afford the kind of people you want to service. So I love the idea of the entrepreneur mobile, but I don't want to turn up in a. In my mini moke to the wedding either. Yeah. [02:03:53] Speaker C: There is, there is a balance. You're right. Especially for weddings. It has to be reliable for weddings. I would say that you can't have an unreliable car if you're shooting weddings, you're setting yourself, yourself up for the. [02:04:01] Speaker A: Especially in a regional area. You can't afford to. There's no alternative. [02:04:05] Speaker C: Yeah, that is, that is true. But you certainly don't need the newest, you know, a nice used Mazda 6. No one ever turns their nose up at that. No one ever questions how much the wedding photography costs. But they do if you rock up in a Porsche. But I think that can definitely work if you're positioning yourself as the guy. And you know, it's, you know, sometimes like we had, we had this different thing, but we had Jeff Cable on a few weeks ago who's a Olympic Games photographer eight times. [02:04:39] Speaker A: What's the Team USA works for? [02:04:41] Speaker C: Team USA shoots for Canon, fully endorsed, all that sort of stuff. But his, his main business other than running photography workshops and tours is actually shooting bar mitzvahs in, in San Francisco area. He's like the bar mitzvah guy. And I think people love being able to say that guy's an Olympic Games photographer. That guy that's shooting, you know, our kids. Yeah. So. And that kind of, I guess works too when it's like the guy rolls in in his Porsche and they're like that's our wedding photographer. He's the shit. And so yeah, it can work both ways. [02:05:17] Speaker B: 100%. [02:05:18] Speaker A: Yeah, most definitely. Should we just jump to a couple of comments? [02:05:22] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. Before we wrap this thing up, there's a couple of good ones here before about. Oh, here we go. Katie. [02:05:28] Speaker B: Whoop. [02:05:29] Speaker C: Hang on. [02:05:30] Speaker B: That's Katie from down near the snowy mountains. [02:05:32] Speaker C: Katie Phillips says Photo Biz X premium subscription is just part of my cost of business. Now it's deductible. Richard Grenfell says photography is the best kept business secret ever. That's probably true because it definitely gets, gets talked about as if it's like basically a hobby to your own. You know, you can make a living from it, but it's not a real business. But people have built real businesses with photography. If they set them up like that, they're businesses that can be sold. [02:06:04] Speaker A: But well, there's enough businesses out there to, to do 633 podcasts about it. [02:06:09] Speaker C: That's right. So you know, that's exactly right. [02:06:12] Speaker A: Is proof. [02:06:14] Speaker C: Rodney Nicholson says you need to rock their socks off. Which is true. Yeah, you can't, can't do any of this stuff if you have very average photos, I think. [02:06:22] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:06:25] Speaker C: Absolutely. Yeah. Matt Palmer, Alpine Light Photography in Bright says you have to agree in terms of profit, portraits can be much more lucrative than weddings, even at high price points for weddings. And also much better and more, more flexible lifestyle. [02:06:42] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:06:43] Speaker C: Oh, question. Jason Hannigan, Jay Shannon. Is it a fair comment that photography education is growing more than the actual paid photography? Feels like workshops are a huge thing now. That's a good question. I don't know, is that more of a, like. Yeah, more of an industry than photography itself. [02:07:02] Speaker B: I think Covid probably pushed a little things things a little that way where people, you know, we all got, got told we've got to diversify our income. So you know, whether you open up and shoot different genres, you start teaching or people are selling preset packs courses, I think, I think, yeah, there's probably is a lot more education than there ever has been and I guess I'm part of that as well. I started well before COVID but yeah, look there is and I think, look, if you're going to take training or equipment course from a photographer, I, I like the idea that they've actually done it or doing it still rather than just teaching it and, and know they've got some runs on the board. [02:07:48] Speaker C: Completely agree with that. [02:07:50] Speaker B: Yeah. That's one thing I would look at. [02:07:52] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. Be careful who you Learn from. Well, I mean if it's free, just listen to it and see what you think. But if it's, if it's paid. Yeah. Make sure they've. They've built that business or whatever it is that you want to learn. [02:08:05] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:08:05] Speaker C: 100%. [02:08:06] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:08:10] Speaker C: Matt says if you want to talk to a great pet photographer, you should talk to Ken and Beck that ran Zoo Studios in Brisbane. Over 1 million revenue revenue a year. Then retired to Tassie. Everyone goes to Tassie. Probably doing landscape photography tours down there. Yeah, it's all the rage. Richard says Lorraine owns Zoo now. I have to try and we'll do some research on. That'd be fun to get someone that's ran a big studio on. [02:08:36] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:08:37] Speaker C: Big studio like that pet studio. Jason says I try to get 20 years from all my cars. Lol. Not sure it makes me an entrepreneur, but maybe just tight. Same same practical is a better word. Entrepreneur car is like the Fuji for vehicles. [02:08:54] Speaker A: You take that back call I know where you live. All right. [02:09:00] Speaker C: Katie Phillips says. Hey. Hey, Katie and ltk. Has boudoir grown since the growth of the Internet? I mean. Yes, I guess so. [02:09:08] Speaker B: Yeah. Is like one of those growing. It seems anytime I interview a boudoir photography, they always seem to be super profitable. So I know they all aren't, but it's a massive growth genre. Like, you know, it's probably always been there. It was also called glamour photography back in the day, you know, when we were younger. So it's always been there. Has it grown more? Probably, probably. [02:09:32] Speaker A: And often we. We only find out now that that sort of genre existed. You know, 80, 90, 100 years ago, the people were doing boudoir photography, people were shooting nudes, but it was just never made public knowledge. It was never talked about, it was never shown. It was always kept sort of secret. And you see exhibitions from time to time where these, you know, amazing photos from, from, you know, the 20s and the 30s come out. [02:09:56] Speaker B: Yes. [02:09:57] Speaker A: But yeah, it is interesting and you know, having given how much we know of Jim and Jim's growing his boudoir photography, it is interesting to learn about the genre from him and from others that talk about it. It's a really fascinating kind of approach to photography. [02:10:13] Speaker C: It's uniquely tricky too, in the sense that a lot of your clients aren't super excited about their photos being posted on social media because they are, you know, I think the very, the real sort of meaning of boudoir is that their photos just for you or just for you and your partner. They're not so much supposed to be, you know, advertised to the world, so to speak. So you've kind of got a mix, a variety of shoots. And every. I think, in general, often every shoot Jim does, he offers someone who's willing to. To have their photos shown to come and participate in the session for free in return for him to use those for advertising. [02:10:54] Speaker B: Okay. [02:10:54] Speaker C: Because say if he does three or four, he might correct me if I'm wrong, but if he's doing three or four shoots on a planned shoot day, where they hire a space and get a makeup person into all that stuff, you know, three out of the four people might not want their photos shown, which makes it hard to advertise. So then you've got to get someone in who's like, yeah, great. I'd love free photos, more than happy for you to shoot. Show the ones I approve or whatever. And then. [02:11:16] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [02:11:17] Speaker C: So it has, yeah, some tricky elements to it. [02:11:20] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:11:22] Speaker C: All right. I'm mindful of time because it's over two hours now. You've been absolutely amazing. I can't believe you're on our podcast, Podcast Royalty. [02:11:29] Speaker B: It's quite a pleasure. [02:11:32] Speaker C: I feel like I'm just listening to the episode, but I'm actually on the episode. [02:11:38] Speaker A: Fanboying over himself now. [02:11:42] Speaker C: I'm just checking my notes. I have a lot of notes. I'm just checking where. [02:11:45] Speaker B: Nice. I do the same. I do the same. [02:11:48] Speaker C: Scribble them all out. I just want to see if there's. I'll kick myself if we stop this. And I'm like, I didn't ask him that. What have I got here? This is a quick one. If you're going to go yes or no, do Facebook ads still work for photographers? [02:12:02] Speaker B: 100%. Yes. Yes. They're still. They're probably. There are one of the easiest major ways to bring in leads. [02:12:10] Speaker C: 100% still in 2020. [02:12:12] Speaker B: Yeah, 100%. And even if you're advertising on Facebook and Instagram, which are both run by meta, most of the leads are coming from Facebook. [02:12:21] Speaker A: Is that demographic? Is that a demographic thing? [02:12:24] Speaker B: Well, I keep waiting for it to change, but it just. It doesn't. You know, the people. [02:12:31] Speaker A: Facebook feels like an older generation are still clinging to that one. Like me and you, you know, and more younger people are flocking to things like Instagram. [02:12:41] Speaker B: Yes, I agree. Yeah. My kids. My kids in their 20s. I don't use Facebook, but, no, they. [02:12:48] Speaker A: Laugh at me about it. [02:12:49] Speaker B: Yeah. It's still working incredibly well. [02:12:54] Speaker A: They call me a boomer. I'm having therapy. It's okay. How you doing there, boss? Have you gone through checking with 20? [02:13:02] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:13:02] Speaker C: We've talked about which genres have solid business opportunities. Marketing 20, 25, if you were starting again. Most profitable genre or business model seems to be in that kind of portrait pet. Kind of. [02:13:15] Speaker B: Yeah. Look, you know what? I know some, like, I think of Elle Payne. She shoots newborns down in. In Melbourne. Super successful. It can be any genre, as long as you can bring in the leads, do the conversions, deliver a great experience, and make sales. Yeah. [02:13:36] Speaker A: Yeah. [02:13:37] Speaker B: So. And I don't think it needs to be one genre like you talked about where you live, Justin. I think you said 100,000 people, so, you know, you could specialize if you live in a smaller area. You might have to shoot a couple of genres to make it viable. It just depends on where you are and where you can attract your clients from. [02:13:55] Speaker A: That's great advice. [02:13:56] Speaker C: All right, final. Final question then. Let's. Let's jump to do you shoot. So you don't really shoot much professionally anymore, by the sounds of it. [02:14:05] Speaker B: Not a lot. Not a bit of commercial stuff. [02:14:07] Speaker C: A little bit of commercial stuff. Do you shoot personally much on your travels or anything like that? [02:14:13] Speaker B: Yes. [02:14:14] Speaker C: Yeah. What. What sort of camera you rocking around when you. When you're cycling around Europe or. Yeah, I haven't even talked about Japan. I go. I go to Japan quite a bit, snowboarding and stuff. I just did Halle in New Zealand while I was over there. Have you ever done that? [02:14:30] Speaker B: Not heli. No. It looks amazing. [02:14:32] Speaker C: Highly recommend. Go to Methven and do Hali in Methvin. It's the. It's the best spot. It's amazing. Anyway, Derailed you. What. What camera do you take on your adventures? [02:14:42] Speaker B: This is. This is really, really mostly sad. Most. When I'm cycling because that's. Most of my holidays are on my bike. Like, it's my phone, which is really sad. It doesn't make sense to carry anything heavier because we're climbing up mountains most of the time. But I'm also shooting with a Leica M10P. Okay, that's the fun camera. So look, it doesn't get. Doesn't get used as much as what it was, but I still love it. And like, I know it's. It cost a chunk of money. And Linda. Linda's the first say she'd sell that camera occasionally, but, like. And I. Because I had it. I had another leica before another M10. I had it and then sold it because it wasn't easy enough and I thought. And I regretted it as soon as I sold it, so I bought another one. I'm just. I'm keeping it. Yeah. What. [02:15:30] Speaker C: What lens have you got multiple lenses or you just got one that you stick on it all the time? [02:15:35] Speaker B: Got the 35 mil on there all the time. I had a 50 mil, but I'm just using the 35. [02:15:41] Speaker C: Okay, here's a weird question. Did. Did you buy it new or. Or did you know, there's a guy in. There's a guy in Sydney who sells just tons. Was it off him? [02:15:52] Speaker B: No. So I've bought both mine. Secondhand. One was from this. A pastor in the U.S. really? Yeah. I'm thinking, why is a pastor got a liker anyway? [02:16:05] Speaker C: Wow. Churches, you know. [02:16:06] Speaker B: Yeah. No tax. [02:16:09] Speaker C: Tax deductible. Yeah. [02:16:11] Speaker B: So that was. That come from the States, and then this one I bought from Australia. Secondhand. [02:16:15] Speaker A: Okay. [02:16:16] Speaker B: Yeah, I did buy secondhand. Yeah. [02:16:18] Speaker C: There's a guy that has this. This sort of wild collection. Amazing cameras. Is it. I think his name's Peter Rambo or something. He's on. [02:16:26] Speaker B: Yes, that's it all the time. [02:16:28] Speaker C: He's got Leicas and Hasselblads and. And all this insane collection. And he's obviously like a used camera dealer, and he's been doing it for ages. We are desperate to get him on the podcast. [02:16:40] Speaker B: He'd be a good interview. He's. [02:16:42] Speaker C: He's on my list. And you know who you might remember this guy. He's on my list is. Do you remember Ken Rockwell? Like, did you ever go looking for, like. [02:16:49] Speaker B: I've seen. I've seen his verses. Yes. Yes. [02:16:52] Speaker C: It's been around forever. [02:16:54] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. [02:16:55] Speaker C: And I'm like, I want to interview this guy. [02:16:58] Speaker B: Is he still doing it? [02:16:59] Speaker C: Yeah, he still puts out, like, the. The same article, exactly the same format that he's been doing since I first started photography. [02:17:07] Speaker A: Very detailed. [02:17:08] Speaker C: Very detailed. [02:17:09] Speaker B: I've read a lot of his articles. His lenses and things. [02:17:12] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. [02:17:14] Speaker B: We all have. [02:17:14] Speaker C: And I'm like, we need to figure out, like, how did you start doing this anyway? All right, well, we normally ask every guest just quickly if it was. If it was the end of the world and you were riding away from a zombie apocalypse on your cycle, and you had to take one camera and one lens to document the end of the world. You can bring your podcast set up too. But what would you. What would you choose and why? [02:17:45] Speaker B: Stuff that I've got that I use. [02:17:46] Speaker C: Anything you want. You can pick a new. A brand new camera, something had your eye on you. Could just take your phone if you. If you want to stay light while you're trying to get away. [02:17:55] Speaker B: If it's what I. What I have, I'd probably grab the Leica and you're good for fending people off as well because it's like a bloody brick. If I was able to choose anything, I'd probably. I haven't shot with one, one of the new ones, but probably one of the new Sonys. I reckon they got your eye. Yeah, just with the eye focusing and they just. They sound like they're amazing. I haven't shot with one. I've only shot with the older A7, so, yeah, probably one of those. [02:18:25] Speaker A: But you're still a Nikon shooter for your nick on. [02:18:27] Speaker B: For my professional, yeah. This is a bit sad for you, Greg. I did go Fuji and I came back to Nikon. I went Fuji Fuji again and then came back to Nikon again. [02:18:40] Speaker A: Really? [02:18:40] Speaker C: You swapped two times? [02:18:42] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. [02:18:43] Speaker C: Wow. Was that just trying to go lighter and. Yeah, that is a costly mistake. Were you just trying to like lighten the load for weddings and stuff? [02:18:52] Speaker B: Same thing with the, with the back and. And I did like the Fuji. I like that, that street sort of feel the light gear. But then it was just. I just found that. [02:19:04] Speaker A: Whatever. [02:19:06] Speaker C: Jim's a nick on shooter, so any chance. [02:19:09] Speaker B: Yeah, I just. I just didn't feel like it was there for me the first time. Then I gave it another go and I just felt like I was just trying to make it work. Worked too hard. Particularly at the receptions when I was shooting weddings and working with flash, I thought this is just. Yeah, the Nikon's. Just then I was taking the Nick on just to shoot my receptions. I was like, this is dumb. What am I doing? I'm trying to make these Fujis work two systems. We should have been talking camera brands the whole time. [02:19:38] Speaker C: No, David's also a nick on shooter. That's the problem with these shows. We make them. We make them two hours. We really need only four hours. David's a nick on shooter from San Francisco as well and he's. He's got like 13 or 14 Nikons from like film F2s that he shoots street with around San Francisco. Street photos are amazing. Ltk. Want to know what Fuji I had the. [02:20:02] Speaker B: I've had a couple of X1 hundreds different models. I've had the X Pro 2, the XP2. I think they're the main ones I was using. [02:20:12] Speaker C: That's right, Greg. And now he's got a Leica and. [02:20:14] Speaker B: That'S That's I think, I think, I think the XT1, the next Pro one, when that was the first iteration and went the second and. [02:20:21] Speaker A: Yeah, and the focus, Focus performance wasn't up there back then. [02:20:25] Speaker B: Not, not the early ones. It was getting better, but still wasn't as good as. [02:20:30] Speaker C: Yeah, there was a few photographers that, that dabbled in them early on and went back for weddings and stuff. I remember there was a few wedding photographers that sort of went heavy into Fuji but then end up going back to full frame. And then there were people that didn't, you know, there's Russell Ord, who was one of the best surf photographers in the world. He went Fuji and just, just was like, I can make this work. [02:20:51] Speaker B: Yes. [02:20:52] Speaker C: Never went back, just stuck. [02:20:54] Speaker A: And Matt Brummonds, who, good friend of the show who is part of the team that runs the Bright Festival of Photography, he's just picked up a G. Like he just went and got a complete GFX kit for tours and stuff and he still shoots Sony for his pro work, so. [02:21:13] Speaker B: Wow. [02:21:13] Speaker C: Yeah, a full medium format Fuji system and a full Sony system. [02:21:20] Speaker B: Who said there's no money in photography? [02:21:24] Speaker C: He works his ass off though. He runs a photography festival. He does photo workshops and photo tours and he does very serious, like commercial photography business as well. I don't know when he sleeps, he probably never does, but he's in. [02:21:38] Speaker B: Is he in Bright? [02:21:39] Speaker C: No, he's in Melbourne. [02:21:41] Speaker A: Yeah. [02:21:42] Speaker C: But they, they run. Him and Nick run the Bright Festival of Photography, which is in its ninth year, which is quite an amazing festival in itself. It's. It's capped at about 540 people people. They bring 40 instructors over three days and there's all these sessions. You can book the most broad range of sessions. [02:22:01] Speaker A: They've got like 3, 200 seats the. [02:22:04] Speaker C: Workshop across all the different workshops, everyone from award winning photojournalists and conflict photographers and stuff, all the way through to macro shooting horses and. And there'll be like some sort of. I mean, not boudoirish, but kind of like going that direction with, with sort of. [02:22:23] Speaker A: Last year they did Shibari. [02:22:24] Speaker C: Shibari stuff. All very much more hobby focused than business focused. Yeah, passion focused, but yeah, it's a wild festival. [02:22:34] Speaker B: What time of year is this on? [02:22:35] Speaker C: It's on in four weeks, I think. [02:22:37] Speaker B: October. October. [02:22:38] Speaker A: Every October. [02:22:38] Speaker C: Every October, yeah. [02:22:40] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:22:40] Speaker A: You should check it out. [02:22:41] Speaker B: It's. [02:22:41] Speaker A: It's. [02:22:43] Speaker B: Really much. [02:22:45] Speaker C: Oh, dang. [02:22:46] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [02:22:48] Speaker A: Well, look, I think, I think that's a good place to park. [02:22:51] Speaker B: What do you think? [02:22:52] Speaker A: What do you Call it entrepreneur. I can't even say it. Entrepreneur. [02:22:56] Speaker B: Car. [02:22:57] Speaker C: Entrepreneur. Mobile. [02:22:58] Speaker A: Mobile. [02:22:59] Speaker B: Sorry, it's gonna be. [02:23:00] Speaker A: Yeah, could have two or four wheels or a bus. [02:23:03] Speaker C: Doesn't matter, as long as it's cheap. I'll run through some comments once we wrap this thing up. The last couple of comments, so. Yeah, all right. [02:23:12] Speaker A: Just before we get to that, I just want to read something out from. From Photo God. I've lost all my words. We passed the two hour mark. Yeah, we must be. I can't speak anymore. From Andrew's bio on the Photo Biz X website. I just want to read this sentence because I think it's really relevant to what we've experienced here today. There's no way you can listen without feeling motivated to implement the ideas you hear to grow your own photography business. And I think that's been very true of your time with us here today, Andrew. Just listening to you has made me even just reevaluate how I ran my very, very primitive photography business back in the day. And hearing you and Justin riff on, you know, the challenges and the successes and the ideas has been incredibly inspirational. And I'm sure that our viewers feel exactly the same. So look, on behalf of the Camera Life podcast, Justin and I and everyone who's going to experience this video, thank you so much for your invaluable time and your wisdom today. It's been remarkable just to hear a completely. You know, we often hear about the art and the creativity and we, we glaze over the business sometimes, but just to spend a good two hours talking about the business of what we call photography has been incredibly inspirational and motivational and, and very insightful. So thank you. Thank you very much. [02:24:33] Speaker B: That's. Yeah, that's wonderful. Really nice words, mate. And it's been an absolute, absolute pleasure to talk to both you and Justin. So thanks for making me feel so welcome and it's. I might walk away with some shell shock after reliving some of those bad moments. Overall, it's been good. So thank you guys so much. [02:24:47] Speaker A: Yeah, we offer therapy in the green room, so you'll be fine. [02:24:50] Speaker C: That's right. [02:24:51] Speaker A: Don't you worry about that. [02:24:52] Speaker C: We do really appreciate you. You coming on. You are, you are on my list of, of dream guests that I gave to Greg. As I said, you've been in my earbuds for hours. Hours and hours and hours while building my years, for years building my wedding photography business and invaluable help. Yeah, it's crazy. [02:25:11] Speaker B: So that's nice to be very. Thank you so much. That's awesome to hear. [02:25:15] Speaker C: Thank you. [02:25:16] Speaker A: But, but so where's the best people, best place for people to find you? [02:25:21] Speaker B: The website is easiest photobizx.com and if they listen to any kind of podcasts, they can just search for Photo Biz X or photography business exposed in their podcast app and they'll find it. [02:25:32] Speaker A: Great. And we'll pop some links in the show notes and, and also everybody just please remember that on currently on the Lucky Straps website, we have a blog for every interview that we do. And so Andrew's. Andrew's blog talking about this interview, but more importantly talking about Andrew and his work will appear within the next week or two. So stay tuned for that. Any finishing or final thoughts or words there, Justin? [02:25:58] Speaker C: I think that's about it. I'll roll the music and just go through these last few comments and we'll. [02:26:02] Speaker B: Get out of here. [02:26:03] Speaker A: All right, well, thanks again, everybody. Please make sure you give us a like. It helps a lot. It lets other people find us. And please subscribe to the camera live podcast. Two shows every week live in your earbuds or your iBuds. And yeah, we'll go from there. [02:26:19] Speaker C: Tony, thank you for the 299 again. Nearly missed it, but you made it, so thank you. [02:26:24] Speaker A: We must be up to like 17 now. [02:26:26] Speaker C: LTK says apparently only fans is doubling boudoir photography businesses. So that's, that's a plus. Philip Johnson, thanks as always. Jim loves the Nikon LTK and David mascara. Andrew is the man. See Craig once he says Nick on, you're out. And Jim, thank you. Yes, thanks everybody. Thanks. Thanks, everyone for joining us. Katie and Jason and Matt and Richard. Richard, we're going to try and get you on the podcast, please. And yeah, we'll catch you all. Oh, you too, Rodney. We'll catch you on the next one. [02:26:58] Speaker B: Yeah, see you guys. [02:27:00] Speaker C: Bye.