EP128 Creative Portrait Photography with Julie Powell

[00:00:14] Speaker A: Crank it up a bit. [00:00:23] Speaker B: Click, click. [00:00:24] Speaker C: Moments breathe time captured in the breeze. The camera light, the flashing ignite. [00:00:42] Speaker A: Well, good morning image makers and welcome back to the Camera Life podcast. It is 30th October 2025. It's top is already done. It's gone. You know, we're only a handful of weeks till Christmas if that's, if that's your jam. But this is episode 128 of the camera Life podcast, Chris, proudly bought to you by the team at Lucky Straps. That's us. Head to Luckystraps.com if you're. If you're looking for a premium handmade Aussie made leather camera strap, we do a whole bunch of different styles, sizes, but we also do belts for pants. Do we say pants? Is that still a thing? But pant belts, Trousers. Oh, slacks. [00:01:19] Speaker B: We do trouser belts. [00:01:21] Speaker A: We do trouser belts, pant belts and slack belts. We do merch, even shorts. [00:01:28] Speaker B: Our belts will work with shorts too. Yeah. Yeah, they will. [00:01:31] Speaker A: Okay, fair enough. Well, that's good to know. Thanks, mate. And as you heard, we are joined today by. By the boss, Justin. [00:01:39] Speaker C: G'. [00:01:40] Speaker A: Day. How are you, sir? [00:01:41] Speaker B: Howdy. I'm good. I'm great. I've got a coffee and a half ready for my show. Elaine has caffeinated me, so we're ready to go. [00:01:50] Speaker A: Lovely. Good to hear that you've got a pa. Um, but of course, being a Thursday morning here in. Here in Australia, we have a guest with us. And today we have portrait and still life photographer and macro and product and headshot photographer and Santa. You do Christmas photos too? Julie Powell's in the room, everybody. G', day, Julie. [00:02:13] Speaker C: Hi. Hi, guys. [00:02:15] Speaker B: How are you? [00:02:16] Speaker C: Morning. Yeah, good. Beautiful, beautiful sunny Melbourne day. Yay. [00:02:21] Speaker A: I'm in a basement, so I wouldn't know. I'm not allowed out yet. [00:02:25] Speaker B: Where in Melbourne are you? Where? [00:02:27] Speaker C: Where? I'm in the southeast suburbs, so. Nar. Warren. [00:02:31] Speaker B: Oh, nice. [00:02:31] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. Okay. [00:02:33] Speaker C: The extended suburbs of Melbourne. [00:02:35] Speaker B: Extended? [00:02:36] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:02:37] Speaker B: Only an hour and a half from the city. It's nice. It's a good spot. [00:02:41] Speaker C: Used to be considered country, but not anymore. Country's like another half an hour past us. Yeah. [00:02:49] Speaker A: Speed of progress, Julie. Just before we get into. Before we say good morning to everyone in the chat because we love to do that so much. Just give us a quick 60 second version of who you are and what you're known for and what you shoot. [00:03:05] Speaker C: So look, already know I'm in southeast Melbourne. I am a creative portrait photographer, but as Greg said, I also do still life and macro product headshot, stuff like that. The main part of what I do is in education, so running workshops, online classes. I do creative coaching, so one on one mentoring, stuff like that. I just love to get creative and, and I really enjoy educating people and helping them get the shots that they're trying to get. So I found when I was coming up through the ranks that people weren't necessarily sharing and giving knowledge as much as I think they should have. So that's something. Definitely one of my mantras is I enjoy just helping people learn about the craft. [00:04:02] Speaker A: Wow, that's quite, that's quite a beautiful life mission. I like that. I like that a lot. Well, thanks for that. We're going to roll back the clock in a little bit and get, get to know where it all began for you. But before we do, Justin, do you want to say good morning to some peeps? [00:04:15] Speaker B: I do because I've been trying to read this word that Philip Johnson said. I don't know if I'll be able to pronounce it. Philip Johnson says, greetings and felicitations. [00:04:23] Speaker C: Felicitations. [00:04:24] Speaker B: Felicitations. What does that mean? I don't know. Morning, Philip. Morning, Paul. Morning, Lucinda. Good to see you. Rodney Nicholson, ltk, says good afternoon because he's not in this country. Lisa Leach, good morning. And Rodney Nicholson says, is it you or me? It's you. I don't know what that means, but it's you. It could be. [00:04:51] Speaker A: So I don't know. I found a definition for felicitations. I've put it in the chat. Words expressing praise for an achievement or good wishes on a special occasion. That's a lovely word, Philip. [00:05:02] Speaker B: Thanks, Philip. I appreciate it. Stuart Lyle, good morning. Good to have you around. And dictionary time. Yeah, exactly. [00:05:10] Speaker A: Yeah. I found it. [00:05:11] Speaker C: I found it. Don't you just love Google? [00:05:14] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. It's so quick and easy. Um, good morning, everybody, and thanks for joining us. And please don't forget that if you're new to the channel, either way, give us a like right now. Cost you nothing. And hit the subscribe button. But also hit the notification bell because sometimes we throw in cheeky little episodes. And if you're in a different time zone to us, it also works out the time zone for you. So it tells you exactly when we will go live. But of course you can always watch it back. Yeah. [00:05:39] Speaker B: Something fun you can do if you go to our channel. I've put a poll up. I'm just playing around with something from the Monday show. I've put a poll up about what lenses you'd like to see developed from your camera brand. So go over. I think it's. You get to it. I mean it should just pop up in your feed, but if it doesn't, you just go to our. [00:05:59] Speaker A: Go to. [00:06:00] Speaker B: Our channel and hit community or posts or something like that on YouTube. I don't know how it works but anyway, there's a poll. You can click on it. I want to hear what you think about what camera brands should be developing because I don't know if they know what we want. I think they just make what they think we'll buy. So let's. [00:06:18] Speaker A: I think they're trying to figure it out. [00:06:21] Speaker B: Yeah. What have they got laying around in the warehouse anyway? [00:06:25] Speaker A: Smack that EF mount off the lens and just put an RF mount on it with a bit of super glue and call it a day. [00:06:30] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. [00:06:31] Speaker A: What Canon does. Not fish. [00:06:34] Speaker B: Let's. We won't jump too far ahead, Julie, but what, what cameras, what camera brand are you shooting with? [00:06:40] Speaker C: I'm a Sony girl. [00:06:42] Speaker B: Interesting. [00:06:43] Speaker A: Nice. [00:06:44] Speaker B: Gosh, we don't get a lot of those on the podcast. [00:06:46] Speaker A: No, we don't, no. [00:06:48] Speaker B: Which is odd because they're extremely popular. Well, we'll dig into that later on. We'll find out about all the use and what you like and maybe we'll talk about what you would like to see Sony or anyone developing. [00:06:59] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [00:07:01] Speaker C: All right. [00:07:02] Speaker A: Well, dig in. So Julie, as I alluded to in, in the intro, you know you're, you wear a lot of hats and, and obviously you, you love the process of education. You were at BFOP this year for the first time as an instructor, but you have been to BEFOP before as a. Oh yeah, as a punter. So we'll get to that experience before we get to those, you know, current, present day experiences. Let's roll back the clock a little bit and find out a bit about where you're creative journey, your photography journey began. Maybe it didn't start with photography, maybe it started with another art form that melded into photography. But if you can roll back the clock to the early days, where do you think you got on the path to photography? [00:07:45] Speaker C: It's been a bit of a mixed bag for me. I, when I was in high school, so back when, you know, the dinosaurs were roaming the earth, I saw them too. [00:07:55] Speaker A: Don't worry, I saw them too. [00:07:58] Speaker C: I, I took a class in photography and fell in love with it and we, we were very, very lucky. We had everything. We had a dark room, an incredible instructor and we had to like even roll our own film. We developed it, we did, we did everything and I took me two years but I saved up and I bought my own oly. So I was an Olympus girl back then and I just loved photography. But when I left school I lost the dark room and I sort of left all that behind and went on to create, went on to do other creative pursuits. So I've sort of had a mixed bag in, in my journey. I predominantly have always been very creative. So I used to teach art, I used to do painting, I was working prior to getting into digital photography, I was working as a graphic designer. So I was sort of already in the, the artsy creative stuff doing all that. So 11 years ago I had a bit of a hit a crossroads and without going too deep into it and I decided that if I was going to get past that I needed. I was very bored with where I was, I hated what I was doing and I wanted to get back into something creative and I thought I loved photography and I really, really wanted to pick up a camera and get back into it. So I ended up going and buying my first digital SLR and, and I thought how hard could it be? I'd forgotten everything. I couldn't, I had to do, I had to learn everything again from f stops to ISO to everything. I knew nothing. I thought oh you know, flick it onto manual and take some photos and they were either completely blown out or black or whatever. So yeah, so I had to learn how to do take photos again. So that was a bit of a creative journey for me. So like everything I do, I take it, I'll try to keep it nice. I, I just dive into everything with enthusiasm. So yeah, it became very quickly part of my life and I think I shot every genre there is including I did weddings. Hate weddings with a passion. [00:10:47] Speaker A: So much happiness. [00:10:48] Speaker C: No, but it's so stressful. Oh my God. Hats off to the guys who do weddings. I mean it's like a 12 hour. [00:10:55] Speaker B: Shoot and it's just like how, how early into. So 11 years ago you bought, you decided to dive back into this. How soon after that did you shoot a wedding? Like how many we do like was it five years after you did it? [00:11:13] Speaker C: No, it was probably about, probably about two, three years. [00:11:16] Speaker B: Two, three years, yeah. So it was still when you were like I'm getting comfortable but, but I'm. [00:11:22] Speaker A: Not like could still this up at any moment. [00:11:25] Speaker B: Yeah, whereas I'm sure now. I'm sure now. Yeah, it's stressful but you could roll into a wedding and you'd be like, I'm, I'm cool. I can do all this. These photos. [00:11:32] Speaker C: Oh yeah, I do. It's just a stress, stress part of it. [00:11:34] Speaker A: I'm like, it's a long day. I just wanted to check there just for a moment. Julie, it's interesting that point you made about how people started in film. I had a very similar trajectory to you loved film photography in art school and then got into industrial design, not graphic. I wanted to be a graphic designer but I got into industrial. And then photography kind of faded from my life because I didn't have access to a dark room anymore. I didn't have the money to set up my own. And publicly accessible dark rooms were disappearing faster than milk does, you know, and it's really. And I wonder how many other people have that similar journey where they started in film and then the ability to shoot film just became, you know, non sustainable and then they've picked up photography again in later life. If that sounds like you guys out there, let us know in the chat. [00:12:25] Speaker B: Yeah. Or in the comments. If you're listening later, let us know. [00:12:28] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [00:12:31] Speaker C: Digital. I mean that digital cameras were expensive. I mean they still are now, really, but I mean they, when they become more readily available to everybody, it opened up a whole world to people. So I mean, digital's cheap. You know, you can. Those who spray and pray and, and take 1500 shots and then get two out of it. [00:12:57] Speaker B: I was like, who would do that? Who would do something. [00:13:01] Speaker C: That used to be me too? Oh my gosh. Not long after I got my first camera, so I got a Nikon D5300, I think it was. So I've moved around camera brand. Yeah, we part of my, my thing, this crossroads that I hit. I promised myself I was just going to say yes. And I guess this is where it's gotten me to where I am now. I've said yes to opportunities that I probably wouldn't have 15 years ago. And it's taken me on journeys that I didn't expect and I've ended up in places that I wouldn't have thought I would be comfortable in. And yeah, just I've lost my train of thought. What was I saying? [00:13:50] Speaker A: Well, you were talking about like from New Zealand. [00:13:54] Speaker C: Yeah. And. And I said, we need to travel, need to travel more. We spend every weekend just sitting on the couch watching tv and I'm like, I, I can't do this anymore. And we went to New Zealand and my hubby, who's into photography now, wasn't then and he was just my backpack carrying, you know, cutting everything around for me. But I was going nuts when I was in New Zealand with a brand new digital camera and doing like I was filling an SD card a day and then I had to come home and go, oh, now I've got to do something with them. So yeah, but, yeah, so no, I used to be like that, but now I'm like, no, no, not more selective. Yeah, yeah, a bit more selective. [00:14:35] Speaker B: So, yeah, so I just, I just wanna. You mentioned that you made this decision to start saying yes to things. Is there anything else you can think of around that time? You know, 11, 10 years ago, things that you were sorts of things that you were saying yes to? Were there other trips that you went on? Were there. Did you join a camera club? Was there anything that you, you were presented with as an opportunity when you were like, yep, doing it there? [00:15:06] Speaker C: Yeah, there was a couple, a couple of things. One, I don't know still to this day, don't know how it ended up. So I got sent an email by like the CSIRO and they were, there was this planned trip into Alice Springs, not Alice Springs, Uluru. And there were cheap flights, cheap accommodation. They had all these things set up. They had the guys from like the space observatory, there was astronomy guys, there was the, is it the Micklem array which is now set up in wa. They had a demo of that before it had sort of set up. So I got invited to this thing, I have no idea why. And we went, why not? And we jumped on a flight, went over there, we went to all these lectures and that. My husband, he's pretty clue, he is, he's, I guess you call him a geek, but even he's sitting there scratching his head going, I don't know what these scientists are all talking about. We had no idea. Everything was like straight over the top of our head. But we would go out. So there's the observatory and stuff like that that's up there. What's the mob? It escapes me at the moment, but we go out and they'd have the big telescopes and they're putting the cameras on the telescopes and getting night sky photography. And that was sort of like our first foray into astrophotography. By that stage, my husband had actually picked up a camera and we were both just like, oh wow, this is so cool. So, you know, we're getting dragged out for sunrises, sunsets at Ulur and you know, the whole lot. It was just amazing. We're only there for four days. Five days, whatever it was. Still have no idea how I ended up with the invite, but I went, yeah, hell, we'll go do that. [00:17:04] Speaker B: That is awesome. It was just the wrong address or something. And you were like, yep. Someone else was like, I never got my email. [00:17:11] Speaker A: Maybe it was meant for Julie Bell, not Pal. [00:17:13] Speaker B: Yeah, it could be. [00:17:14] Speaker C: Do you know, seriously, there's more Julie Powers on this planet than any other name. It's ridiculous. It's. I. I get stuff for Julie Powell Photography all the time. For somebody wanting somebody in America, somebody wanting somebody in the uk, Europe, you name it. They're like, oh, Julie Power Photography. It's weird. Absolutely. [00:17:37] Speaker A: When I was researching you for the show, I came across a couple of. I thought, oh, no, hang on, that's not Julie's work. That's not what she does. [00:17:44] Speaker B: Oh, we should have. We should have tried to get them all on the show at the same time. Like, six Julie Pal photograph is. And just be like, all right, let's figure out who you. Who are you all? [00:17:53] Speaker C: Who are we all? And then. And then there's Julia. So you know that movie, Julie and Julia, that's a Julie Pal as well. So there's a writer who. There's several writers who were Julie Pal. So, yeah, a million years ago, when I used to teach art, I had a business name and I sometimes wonder if I should have brought that over as well instead of just using my name. But it was just organic, as it happened. But, yeah, yeah, we. Yeah, it's always, do you have. Do you have a name name or do you use your own name for a business name and you're just like, yeah, yeah. What do you do? [00:18:30] Speaker B: Yeah, I. I think we actually went through that. Jim and I went through that. Rick Nelson. Good comment. Will the real Julie Pal please stand up? Like a great Eminem reference. The. So Jim and I, I was shooting weddings as Justin Castle's photography or whatever, and Jim was shooting some weddings and other stuff that he did as Jim Aldersey imagery or something like that. And we're going to join forces and sort of create a new brand. And we tossed around all these different ideas and the general consensus in the industry is, you know, have a brand that's not your name because then you're building a business you can sell or blah, blah, blah. And we were like, look, we're probably never. We're never going to, like, hire other photographers to do what we do and try and sell the business or something. Like, it's just not what we were trying to do. It wasn't that kind of business. So we're like, let's put that aside. And then we're also like, the problem with names, and we've been through it before, people don't remember the business name. They remember the name of the person that they spent 12 hours with on the day. [00:19:37] Speaker C: Exactly. [00:19:38] Speaker B: We were like, we don't want people to. Who shot your wedding? Oh, I can't remember. It's like wedding something or something something. But the guy's name was Jim anyway, and he was really nice, you know, like. [00:19:50] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:19:50] Speaker B: So we just, we decided to just call it Justin and Jim. Yeah, it's like simple and it worked well. So I think the name, the name ones. It's tricky if you've got the same names as other people, but I think people get to know you and then. Yeah, then you're trying to build two brands. [00:20:08] Speaker C: Hopefully I've done a good enough job with SEO that at least I pop up, so. [00:20:12] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. [00:20:13] Speaker A: You do indeed. You're on page one. Don't worry, don't worry. [00:20:16] Speaker B: Here we go. Glenn's in the chat. Jim's photography. No one has thought of that. Don't worry. [00:20:23] Speaker C: Does everything, doesn't it? [00:20:26] Speaker B: On this podcast, he does Jim's boudoir. Jim's portrait painting. [00:20:33] Speaker A: I just want to go back to a couple of earlier comments, one that Lucinda raised, which is a fair point. The canon slander is early today. It is indeed great to have you with us. David Mascara has also joined us. He says hi. All just in from City Photo Walk. So David's in the Bay Area of San Francisco and is a street shooter and shoots to film. [00:20:54] Speaker B: He sent through some photos for next week's show too, that are. That's great. [00:20:59] Speaker A: And just very quickly going back to our discussion a little a few minutes ago about that cycle of, you know, we learned in the film days and then we kind of walked away from photography or stepped away from it and then came back later and it seems like a cycle. Digital started expensive to buy, then got cheap, and it's now getting expensive again. It is indeed. [00:21:20] Speaker B: I think it's. I think that, I mean, this is completely off topic from Julie and her life, but I think, you know, technology obviously always starts out expensive when it's pushing the limit. And that's what Those, you know, 4 megapixel, Kodak enabled digital Nikons or whatever they were come out and they were, they were probably all $10,000 and, and $10,000 back then was probably like 20. [00:21:43] Speaker A: Now really, I think you'll find the first digital camera was Fujifilm there, Justin. [00:21:48] Speaker B: Anyway, anyway, sorry, carry on. Okay, I'm kidding. [00:21:51] Speaker C: I thought the best one was a Kodak. [00:21:52] Speaker B: I thought it was Kodak too. Nick, on with the Kodak brain. I can't remember someone smarter than us will jump into the chat. [00:22:01] Speaker A: So sick of you underestimating the power of Fujifilm, Justin. I've had a gut full. [00:22:05] Speaker B: I thought they were a makeup brand now anyway. But so obviously then, then as things, as technology gets adopted it drives the price down and, and we, we got down to that point where you know, kit lent every, every family had a twin lens kit, dslr, like entry level DSLR and they were reasonably affordable and all of that sort of stuff. And then obviously the problem is smartphones then cut out a massive chunk of that broad market appeal and now we're going back to it being more of a specialist tool. Even though we've got the benefit of years of technology evolution and things should be getting cheaper. We don't have that broad market appeal anymore. And it would almost be like if you cut away 80% of the iPhone market, you might find iPhones get quite a bit more expensive. You know, it's a volume thing to what's keeping things anyway, that's what I think. And oh yeah, Glenn's probably even right. Yeah, more like 50k now. So it's like the digital cameras when they come out were probably an investment closer to what would be. Yeah, 30, 40, 50,000 as opposed to now. That's quite remarkable that like a pro level body. Unless you go into medium format, a pro level body sits still at around that $10,000 mark. It kind of has for 20 years. [00:23:31] Speaker A: It's like the one DX and the. [00:23:33] Speaker B: Yeah, they've always been around 10,000 despite the fact that 10,000 back then bought you, you know, a nice compact car, whereas now it buys you a latte and some, some what's it called? Avocado Toast. [00:23:49] Speaker C: Yeah, it's really scary when you think about it. I mean we've got like say both me and my husband shoot and we go out and we've got you know, all the camera gear, you know, camera bodies, the lenses of this or that. We go out for a day trip and you've probably got more money sitting in the back seat than you have in the car. [00:24:08] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You're more worried about the bag. The bag in the back from the car. [00:24:15] Speaker C: Exactly. And you're just like, wow, that's. Yeah, yeah, scary. Scary. Scary. [00:24:21] Speaker B: Do you guys use, do you guys use the same. Both use Sony? [00:24:25] Speaker C: No. [00:24:26] Speaker B: Oh, no. Talk about that later. Okay. [00:24:31] Speaker C: No, we, we. I won't say we have an argument, but we just each other all the time. But yeah, it's. Yeah, no, we don't shoot the same. [00:24:42] Speaker A: Now I've got, I've got an artsy question for you. Justin's not very art minded, so I cover all the artsy stuff. [00:24:49] Speaker C: Cool. [00:24:50] Speaker A: But how much did your early days as an artist and you moved into graphic design and graphic design is all about composition and where you want to lead the eye and all those sorts of things. How much have you found that that has played a part in your current practice? Like, do you often. And I know also you make a lot of props for your, for some of your still life and portrait work. Does that all sort of stem from those early inspirations to be creative that, you know, you can now, you can now use your creativity in so many different ways? Is that what you found? [00:25:25] Speaker C: Definitely. It's, it's kind of interesting. So one part of what I do is a lot of digital art, which I, I tend to keep away from my main photography channel now. So I wear, I wear different hats and take them on, take them off. But I started, I was doing a lot of digital art and I was using stock images to create digital art. So that was another aspect that I started getting into portraits so that I could get the photos that I wanted to create. The digital art that I was wanting to create. [00:26:02] Speaker A: Yep. [00:26:03] Speaker C: So a lot of the portraits that I was taking were even in the early days, more creative stuff than just headshots or, or whatever because I was after specific, you know, outfits or specific poses for stuff that I wanted to do. So it sort of evolved. It got to a point that I was taking the photos to make digital art. And then I'm like, I can actually take that a step further and start making the photos themselves. The art. [00:26:40] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:26:40] Speaker C: And that's where we started coming in with more, you know, the, the backdrops and the, the setting, the scene and the props and the costumes and the makeup. And so it got to the point where all of my creativity was going into the photos and not in the digital art. So I rarely actually even do digital art these days. I still every now and again go in and paint something, but a lot of it, I've thrown the creativity back into the photography. So I'm all. Whereas before I was like, I'll fix it and post. Whereas now is like, no, I wanna, I wanna Nail it in the photo. So I've gone from being somebody who just close enough to somebody who it's. It's becoming more of a purist thing to get it in shot. [00:27:39] Speaker A: Yeah. Like film, like shooting with film. [00:27:41] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:27:44] Speaker A: We might bring up some of your images because I do want to talk about your still life work. Let me just bring up that screen. If you'll excuse me for a moment. [00:27:52] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:27:52] Speaker A: Instagram. [00:27:57] Speaker C: Depending on which Instagram you bring up, you might not find a lot. [00:28:01] Speaker A: Well, I want to talk about shots. I mean, we'll get to your BFOP stuff a little later. I. I won't open this one because it's a little disturbing, but I don't know if we can see these. So, you know, you've got a lot going on. It's not your everyday hair and makeup. [00:28:16] Speaker C: No, no. [00:28:17] Speaker A: And so when you have a model come in, into your studio to do it, to do shots like this, are you doing the hair and makeup or if you. Are you getting someone in to do that or does the model do it themselves, what happens there? [00:28:31] Speaker C: It's a bit of a mix, depending on what it is I usually have. So for this one, for instance, I had hair and makeup was done by. Well, the makeup was done by a professional makeup artist. So those who were at bfop, this is Nicola. We don't even recognize her. So this was Halloween last year. So, yeah, if it depends, really depends on the shoot. So sometimes they will do their own hair and makeup, but if it's something very, very specific, then I will definitely get makeup artists involved and hair stylist involved. I work with various different costume makers and designers and things like that. So some stuff I will make myself and other stuff that I absolutely hopeless at and I will get a professional to come and do it. So I've been very blessed in working with some incredibly talented people who have trusted my vision and go, hey, I want to do this. And. And we all pull it together. So, yeah, I, I tend to do stuff that's a little bit out of the norm, I guess. So everybody loves getting involved because it's just so much fun to create something that is just. Yeah. So totally different. [00:29:59] Speaker A: It is, it is incredibly unique. And so for a shoot, say like this shoot that we're looking at now, I'll just. I'll just remove it for the moment so that we can all chat together. Boss, can you fix that? Because I always get it wrong. Thank you. So, Julie, what was going to say what the planning process for this, it's not that you. You have a model show up, sits in a hair and makeup chair for half an hour, and then steps onto the. You know, steps in front of the backdrop, and you take the shots, and off they go. There's a. There's a huge amount of prep. I imagine, going into these. What is. What is that like? [00:30:30] Speaker C: For some of these shoots, I. I'm a very organized person. I tend to be a bit of a planner. So I have. I have more of what I want to create than there is physically time to shoot. And I journal, so I have books that I write down, you know, little stick figure drawings and ideas and all the rest of it, and I flesh them out, and then when I'm looking for something to do for whatever. So that. That shot that you had up there, so that was for Halloween last year, and I wanted to do Screaming Banshee. And I usually am inspired by something I've watched or a movie or I've read or whatever, and I go, hey, I want to do whatever. And so then it's a matter of I'm looking around, I'm coming up with ideas, I'm sketching, drawing stuff, then trying to find costumes, coming up with ideas for makeup, coming ideas for props and all the rest of it. And then once I've sort of got all that in mind, then I'm usually approaching whoever and going, hey, I've got this idea. How do you feel about, you know, like, Nicola? I'm like, how do you feel about being a Screaming Banshee? I said, you can sit there or stand there for two hours and scream at photographers. And she's like, oh, that sounds like fun. [00:31:57] Speaker A: Every model's dream. [00:31:58] Speaker C: Yeah. So, yeah. And then, you know, the makeup artists, because a lot of the makeup artists I work with, their day job, I guess, is usually doing, like, weddings, proms, things like that. So to be able for them to get creative as well. So everybody gets to do something that they don't normally do, whether it's hair stylists, makeup artists, you know, other photographers, they get to come in and get really creative and play with stuff. So, I mean, sometimes it's two, three, four hours or more in hair and makeup, and, yeah, couple hours to shoot, and then, yeah, it's all done. [00:32:40] Speaker A: I really love that concept that, you know, everyone gets the chance. Everyone that works on the shoot with you, from the model through to, you know, hair and makeup people. And you said earlier that, you know, every now and then you might forget someone who's a specialist to make a certain prop I love the idea that, you know, it's almost like that. That takes a community to raise a child. It takes a community to take a photo in. With some of these works that you're doing, you're bringing everybody on board, relying on their expertise, but also giving them creative freedom to follow a brief. But, you know, really have fun with it, lean into it. I love that. [00:33:14] Speaker C: I mean, even, even the headpiece for that one. I said I, I wanted something that says screaming banshee with horns. And, and, and I said that to Beck from Vanessa Fairy and I said, just come up with something. And she said, oh, she said, I've got these little crow skulls and I've got this and I've got that and, and she just custom made for that. So she custom makes stuff for me, you know, frequently. [00:33:41] Speaker A: But I don't know what's more impressive, the, the creativity or the fact that she already had crow skulls on hand. Not sure how I feel about that. [00:33:50] Speaker C: Well, I met you, they weren't real, they were so, yeah, plastic molds for everything. Yeah. [00:33:57] Speaker B: I want to ask you about the creative process. So you do you journal every morning or just when you. Or every day at some point, or is it like a process or is it just when you feel the need to journal your journal? [00:34:11] Speaker C: Basically when I feel I need to journal, then I will. Sometimes I wake up and I've had, you know, a very vivid dream. Sometimes I have the same dream that keeps occurring. So I had that many years ago. One of my very, very, very first conceptual creative shoots started off as a reoccurring dream that I had. And I went, I have to get this out, I have to get this done. So. And at the time I had no real idea of how to do what I wanted to do. So that was, that was a very, very large creative journey. That was part of, biggest part of my learning curve, I think, for photography, creativity, digital art and blending everything together. And yeah, so I, I spent a great deal of time journaling on that, just trying to, to figure out how to do things. I mean, there was one bit I was shooting, you know, inside a forest. I didn't have a studio back then and I was shooting inside a forest. And how do you lighten a forest at, you know, like 6 o' clock in the morning, in the middle of winter? Things like that. I, I had no idea. No idea. [00:35:40] Speaker A: Smith for that. Sorry, you need Dennis Smith for that. [00:35:46] Speaker C: So, yeah, it just, things just, it was a case of I want to do this, how do I get to that? So I had to teach myself whether it was, you know, flash photography or what. I had to teach myself how to do so many different elements. So. [00:36:05] Speaker A: Yeah, and I love, but I love that, that that seed was planted by your subconscious mind and that it kept telling you. This is something that you're. Obviously your brain is fixated on when you're asleep. I think it's beautiful. Creative story that this literally came from a dream. Yeah, that I had to try this. I had to, I had to work out how to make it work. I had no idea how to make. You know, that's really inspirational stuff for people to hear that you can. A small seed of an idea. You, you just expand it and, and unwrap it and understand it, which is great. Sorry, I've got something in my eye. [00:36:39] Speaker C: But I'm not crying. [00:36:40] Speaker B: You're crying. [00:36:42] Speaker A: You shut up. [00:36:45] Speaker B: So how many of your ideas come from crazy dreams? And then, and then where do the other ones come from? [00:36:55] Speaker C: I, I couldn't even sit there and say 50, 50. I have no idea. So I, it's something I have been blessed with. People always say, oh, how do you come up with creative ideas? And, and look, I do have creative or, or inspirational exercises that I do to come up with things which I often teach people how to do it and it, it gives them access to that sort of thing. But sometimes it is just a dream. But sometimes I, I read a lot of fantasy books as well, so I love fantasy books and fantasy. I was watching. I don't know if you've seen the Sandman. [00:37:39] Speaker A: No, not yet. It's on the list. [00:37:41] Speaker C: It's on the list? Yeah. There's always a list, isn't there? So I was watching the Sandman and I ended up doing. There was. I can't even think of the. There was a character in the Sandman and I went, oh, I really need to, to do something with that. So oops, hit my mic. So I ended up get. She was a fairy and a fairy princess and I ended up getting somebody into the studio and we did this whole thing and it was sort of. It was just loosely inspired by that. You know, I'll be reading something and it comes up. But yeah, sometimes I will have a dream for, for just doing, you know, whatever. So, I mean, the dapper rabbit was probably the, the, the biggest one that changed, I guess the, the, the direction of, of stuff that I was doing with creative photography and all the rest of it. So I wasn't, wasn't. I mean, I still do headshots and product Shots and stuff like that, but it's not. It's not a huge part of what I do these days. [00:38:50] Speaker A: Yep. No, that's fair. Curious to know what. What. Who are some of your favorite authors in the fantasy genre? [00:38:57] Speaker C: David Eddings. [00:38:59] Speaker A: Yes. [00:38:59] Speaker C: Robin Hobb. Oh. [00:39:01] Speaker A: Liveship trilogy. [00:39:03] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:39:03] Speaker A: Changed my world. [00:39:04] Speaker C: I'm still. I. I'm reading like, it goes continuous, continues on. So, you know, the 20 man and all the rest of it. So, yeah, I'm still. I'm still reading Robin Hob at the moment. [00:39:18] Speaker A: Beautifully written books. Amazing. [00:39:20] Speaker C: Yeah. There's Anthony. No, I can't think of his name. There's an Australian writer as well. Yeah. But no, lots. Lots of Terry Brooks. [00:39:35] Speaker A: Yeah. Yep. [00:39:37] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:39:38] Speaker A: I mean, nice. [00:39:39] Speaker C: Tolkien. Yeah. You know. Yeah. All the classics. Yeah. So. Yeah. So many. [00:39:45] Speaker A: I love that. And if anyone's wondering why Justin just went blank, it's because he can't read, so he can't relate to us. [00:39:53] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, I'm more of a picture book memoir. [00:40:00] Speaker C: Sorry, Justin, that was really mean. [00:40:05] Speaker A: I wouldn't even go that low. [00:40:06] Speaker B: I used to like. I used to like Grog. Greg was a good series for anyone that. Anyone that's my age that went to primary school in Australia will know Grugg. No, I'm more of a. I'm not really a fantasy book person. I'm more of a. I like books about people's lives or. [00:40:24] Speaker C: Autobiographies. [00:40:25] Speaker B: Yeah, autobiographies and stuff. That's. That's kind of my jam. And I usually listen to them rather than reading them because I just like to have them go into my brain while I'm doing other things. [00:40:36] Speaker C: I. I find that, like, I'm okay listening to a podcast in a car, but I can't listen to an audiobook because I get so lost in the book that I'm not concentrating on what I'm doing. So I won't. I won't listen to audiobooks in the car. I. I just can't do it. Podcast isn't so bad because you're not going off into a story. You're just. [00:40:59] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. And I don't know. [00:41:02] Speaker C: Yeah. So I can't get into audiobooks. [00:41:04] Speaker A: The. [00:41:04] Speaker B: The fantasy side, I definitely can't get into. I tried, and it just. The. The. The way they're read and the characters. I know some people love it and. But it just doesn't. I think if it's a fantasy book, I would have to read it myself and let my brain do the interpreting. Definitely. Whereas. Yeah. Whereas when it's A. I really like an audiobook that's read by the author. If it's. If it's. Yeah, that's like a. An audio about their life and that they read the actual book. [00:41:32] Speaker C: That's. [00:41:32] Speaker B: That's always very cool. [00:41:34] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:41:35] Speaker B: I wanted to ask. Okay. This might be. I don't know if you'll be able to do this, but I'm gonna ask anyway. So you said you have some exercises that you sometimes take people through or teach them how to be more creative. Is there, like a mini one that you can do to us right now? [00:41:49] Speaker C: Yep, sure. Can. [00:41:51] Speaker B: Can we do one live on the air? [00:41:53] Speaker C: Yeah, go for it. [00:41:54] Speaker B: Okay. [00:41:54] Speaker C: Okay. [00:41:55] Speaker B: Yep. Let's do it. [00:41:56] Speaker C: So think of a character. So actually it doesn't ignore the character that takes it on a whole other level. Think of a color, think of a mood, think of a place, right? So if you say a yellow sun hat sitting on a chair at the beach that's going to be happy, you're going to think of, you know, like, summer, something like that. Right. But if you were to then turn around and make that hat, instead of being yellow, you turn it into, say, a black top hat, and it's in a dark forest at night, then you are changing the whole thing. So if you write down props, color, a location, and a theme or a mood, you've almost written the whole thing itself. So if I was to say, even say, like a cat sitting on a mat in a house in front of a fire, then you could take that onto so many different levels. And I mean, we literally did that with the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland. So, I mean, any of these things, you can then take it a step further. I did. I did a series on. We called. I called it the Master's Chair. And it was through covert, so I had no access to models. And I ended up bringing. You probably see my. My dog Dexter, who became my. My. He was a. A covert puppy, and he became my. [00:43:50] Speaker A: My main puppy. I love that. [00:43:52] Speaker C: Oh, he. He's a superstar in front of the camera, I tell you. But I mean, he. I would have just a chair, and I decked. Decked a whole chair out and all the rest of it. And we'd have different lighting, different mooding. He would be on the chair or next to the chair. You know, it. Or I staged it so that it looked like somebody had just got up and left the room. So. And that was always, you know, a case of, okay, so I've got a chair. I've got books, I've got a Dog. What can I do? What can I do to change it up? What can I do to make them look different? So it was. Yeah, just going back to that. You know, pick a color, pick a prop, pick a mood, and write it all down. And then you. You start. Once you sort of got that, then you go, oh, I could do this, or I could do this. Make something into something else. So you've got a cardboard box. Cardboard box could be anything. You could turn, you know, a cardboard box into a boat or a car or, you know, a treasure box, or you could turn that into just about anything. So, yeah, playing around with those creative exercises and just writing it down, you know, you just start. Start on one idea, and then it goes into another and another and another and another. And all of sudden a. A sudden you've got, you know, 10 things or more that you could go and shoot. [00:45:11] Speaker A: Yep. [00:45:13] Speaker C: A person into that, and then it takes it onto a whole other level. [00:45:17] Speaker A: Yeah, right. [00:45:18] Speaker B: Do you ever. So say you come up with a theme like that? Do you ever change elements out? So I had written down. I missed my character, so I still needed a character to put into this, but I'd written down Green Lake angry. [00:45:30] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:45:30] Speaker B: Which. And then say we had a character there. So it was Greg. And Greg's at a green lake, and he's angry. [00:45:36] Speaker C: Yep. [00:45:37] Speaker B: And that's. That's my concept for the shoot. Do you. [00:45:40] Speaker C: My brain instantly goes to Creature from the Black Lagoon. Oh, come on. [00:45:45] Speaker B: Take that. [00:45:46] Speaker A: Rough. That's rough. [00:45:48] Speaker C: No, not necessarily for Greg, but the. [00:45:50] Speaker A: Whole damage is done. [00:45:53] Speaker B: Too late. Yeah, it's. It's interesting. [00:45:56] Speaker A: We need to vet these guests better. Justin. [00:46:00] Speaker B: No, I love it. I've never done anything like that before. But it's interesting that even without a. Even without a character in there, I could immediately picture the scene almost in a cinematic sort of style of, like, what color the water would be, obviously, because it had this green theme that it would have, like, a bit of a color grade across it, like, and. And angry. The lake could be angry. The weather could be angry. Like, would. There'd be, like. The wind would be blowing, and then the character would be kind of. Yeah. Whether they're at the edge of the lake and they're doing so it did. It conjured up images in my head that. That didn't exist 60 seconds before. [00:46:37] Speaker A: That turns on that half your brain, doesn't it? [00:46:41] Speaker C: You start writing stuff like that down and you start. And this is. I do this in my journal. You know, I. I sometimes just have, you know, really basic Things written down and I flesh them out as I go. But you go, oh, yeah, okay. So the wind could be blowing up and like you said, with the color and, and all of a sudden you've already got the image there in your brain. You just have to capture it. [00:47:07] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:47:08] Speaker C: That then becomes the hard part is then that sometimes you go, oh, well, how the hell am I going to capture that? But you have already started that whole process and you go, well, I can't necessarily do that, but I could do something else. So, you know what I mean? But it's, it's a really good little, you know, thing to do to, to spark the inspiration and get things going. And when you do, I find once you tend to go on a bit of a, you know, a rabbit hole thing. So you start on one thing and then you go into something else and you go, oh, I could do this or, oh, I could do this or I could do this. So, yeah. [00:47:53] Speaker A: Yep, that's really cool. I love it. Just very quickly, Matt talks photography. G', day, Matt. Thanks for joining us. You're both getting roasted today. Yes, we are. Paul has said, now I have an image. And then he's followed up with now I have an image in my head of Greg emerging from the depths. Sorry, Greg. [00:48:13] Speaker B: You're not sorry at all, Paul, but. [00:48:15] Speaker A: Apparently it's Justin's fault, so. Yeah, I like that bit. I think you're right. It is his fault. [00:48:19] Speaker B: Matt from Alpine Light Gallery, most recent member of the Camera Life podcast, memberships on YouTube, which we do have, if you want to support the show. I think it's 2 to $2.99 to help keep the lights on. So if you do want to do that, Matt's doing that. Thank you very much, Matt. We appreciate it. Yeah, and we appreciate you listening too. I'm sure you're very busy over at the Alpine Light Gallery in Bright. I want to bring this up quickly. I don't know if it'll work because they're showing very small. Let's just see what happens happens when I share this. Whether you guys can see it, I don't know why. Is this the Dapper Rabbit? [00:48:55] Speaker C: Yes. [00:48:55] Speaker B: Yeah. So this is, this was a huge. [00:48:58] Speaker C: Huge turning point in my life. Yep. The images a bit small because people were stealing them. [00:49:07] Speaker B: I wondered that. I was like, is it my computer? Whatever. Yeah, so they're, they're a little bit low res guys, but you can, you can always go and check them out yourself. [00:49:15] Speaker C: So that first, that first image that you had up of him in the Forest. So, yeah, I had this. This thing. So this is like Jack the Ripper meets Jekyll and Hyde. It looks all cute and fluffy and all the rest of it, but it takes a very dark turn. So it was this sort of English gentleman and it's got called the. The Dapper Rabbit. He's. His real name's Edward Hyde. And it was originally the Tales of Edward Hyde, but he. It was sort of a conceptual shoot on all sorts of things. Drinking, gambling, you know, infidelity. There was murder, mayhem, the whole lot. So it's. He was. He was forced or he ended up marrying this child bride and it all went downhill. So it's really kind of. It's a very bizarre series that I did. Took me about two and a half years to create it. [00:50:30] Speaker A: Oh, wow. [00:50:30] Speaker C: My husband's actually the rabbit. [00:50:33] Speaker B: Oh, okay. [00:50:36] Speaker C: So everything. There's so many things. So there's. We had. I love the details. So the head. The rabbit head, which is actually a mask, that was the hardest part, is trying to find this goddamn rabbit head. [00:50:48] Speaker B: It's terrifying. Just quietly. That is very scary. [00:50:54] Speaker C: Can you imagine coming across this? So in that. [00:50:57] Speaker A: Was this one from a dream? Was this from a dream? [00:50:59] Speaker C: Sorry. Yeah. [00:51:00] Speaker B: Oh, man, your dreams are scary. [00:51:04] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. I mean, even the. The walking stick that he's got, like the walking cane, that's got a carved rabbit head on the top of it. I mean, you know, the suit, everything. So this is sort of like his. His portrait. But when. When I started this, I thought. Oh, people thought I was. Was kind of. I thought people would think I was kind of nuts trying to. To get this across. And the more people saw Dapper, the more people got involved. And it really kind of blew my mind that people were like, oh, wow, this is. I mean, you know, this is the. The Child Bride. So I actually had a couple of different people playing the bride. But I mean, you know, we had access to things that I didn't think I was going to be able to have access to. And these were all. All pretty much shot as they were. So we were in front of this church. Another bit that we had, which really sort of started to bring Dapper to life was with a camera group that we were with. We went up to Beechworth and I had access to the asylum there. We were shooting stuff for Dapper in the asylum. We had access to the whole place and so many people got involved. And I'm like, this is. This is crazy. I. I couldn't. I couldn't believe that initially that so many people Wanted to get involved. I mean, these. These two models here, you know, I'm like, odd is literally, you know, gambling. There are a couple of prostitutes. It gets really quite dark. He ended up murdering the prostitutes, as you can see here. So I'm like. And I literally, like, it was really kind of bizarre to shoot. I'm like, oh, can you tell him, my husband, to strangle this girl on a billiard table? I mean, it. And the. The model in the background. So it's all really kind of just bizarre. But everybody got so involved in it. And at the end, when I killed him off, people were horrified that I'd killed him off. It's sort of like, you're a monster. Yeah. I don't know if you've ever seen that show Dexter. [00:53:34] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:53:36] Speaker C: He's. He's. I mean, he's a. He's a mass murderer. He's, you know, homicidal maniac, but everybody loves him. Yeah, kind of. And. And Dexter came around at about the same time as we were doing this as well. So people are like, oh, okay. Yeah. But, yeah, it took. It was just a lot of really dark, sort of twisted things. This is my daughter who agreed to play, you know, the body and her cat, who just decided to walk across her in the middle of the studio. And I went, that works. Yeah. So, yeah, again, my husband, you know, in the background. So, I mean, there was quite a few. A lot of people that got involved in it who just went, hey, yeah, because it was just. It was fun as. As creepy as it was at the time. But everybody, yeah, loved getting involved into it. So, yeah, dragging the body off the cat, again, I think he was obsessed. We use barbecue sauce for the blood, and I think the cat was. Yeah, this. This is probably one of my favorite photos. We found this house, and there was this window, and it's all broken glass and all the rest of it. And so hubby's inside. He can't hear a thing when the mask is on. And I'm outside getting cut to ribbons, trying to climb through BlackBerry bushes to get the shot. But it was just. So He's. He's hiding from the. His. His wife's called the cops at this point. He's hiding out. [00:55:19] Speaker B: Hey, wouldn't that be you, his wife? [00:55:21] Speaker C: No, no, I wasn't his bride, but, yeah. So she ended up. She ended up. If you jump. If you jump ahead. See, they're all. I think they're all out of. Yeah. So this is at Beechworth. So she actually. She calls him in and she cuts off his head and kills him. And then she's in the pits of despair. So that's where his head all chopped off. She's in the pits of despair. So she ends up killing herself as well. And then. [00:55:56] Speaker B: Creepy. [00:55:59] Speaker A: So good though. [00:56:00] Speaker B: Oh, I'm glad that's not a close up would be. That's creepy. [00:56:05] Speaker C: It is, it is. So this is where she's going nuts, you know, and they both end up as, as ghosts at the end. So yeah. So he's headless, a ghost walking through the. The halls of, of Beechworth Asylum. But he ended up. It's really funny. I, I had a private. Like a solo exhibit at Montserrat with this. So there's, there's, I think there's 15 images in total. And we had them on, you know, blown up at Montserrat and they had a PG warning on the doors not to let, you know, little kids in. And in the end they gave up and let the kids in because it was the kids who actually got it. [00:56:56] Speaker B: The story, understood the story. Yeah. So imagination is a bit better with following like. [00:57:03] Speaker C: Yeah. And they're gone. Oh, he, he was a very bad man who did very bad things and he got in trouble for it, which is essentially how. But we had. There was. [00:57:13] Speaker B: The adults were probably trying to look too deep and they're like, ah, it's reflective of our life as a. Something. A crazy. He's a crazy rabbit. [00:57:23] Speaker C: Yeah, he's a crazy rabbit. Who. And this. And this was the thing I was. I was dealing with some very, very difficult topics at the time. But having this rabbit character as scary as he is, made it almost like cartoony. So, you know, alcoholism, gambling, you know, lot of social constructs that were thrown into this. [00:57:46] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:57:46] Speaker C: Were sort of turned into like a cartoon type thing because I mean, it's, you know, this stupid Victorian rabbit. But it's creepy. As creepy as. But everybody loved Dapper. It was, it was huge. But yeah, no, it was, it was lots of fun. But this was such a huge journey for me and the photos. That was the other thing. I think the photos started looking one way when I started two and a half years later when I actually had learned a lot more about photography. They ended up looking very different. So then I had to try and gel them all together into a series. So yeah, it was a huge turning point for me. It also made me. It sensed you. I felt like a photographer. So you. [00:58:38] Speaker B: You felt like you'd. You had made it. Made it to being a real photographer. [00:58:44] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:58:44] Speaker B: Kind of thing. Yeah. Even though you obviously already were. But this, this was. The work was reflecting that. [00:58:51] Speaker C: Yes. Yeah. And you know, and you get a lot of, you know, peer review and stuff like that. And, and you're like, oh, wow. Yeah, actually I, I can do this. So. Yeah. But I also. Yeah. From here I thought, God, I've never taken on a project that big again. [00:59:09] Speaker B: That is a big one. Two and a half years. [00:59:12] Speaker C: It was huge. Huge. [00:59:13] Speaker B: That's very cool. It's getting a lot of love. Getting a lot of love in the chat. Wookie says Silent Hill vibes. Absolutely love the rabbit image. Yeah. Hey, Shane. Rodney Nicholson is just terrified. Matt Palmer says asleep paralysis demon. It could be. [00:59:33] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:59:34] Speaker B: Just, just in Infiltrating your brain. Pete Mallows. Hey, Pete. What's up? First impressions belie the darkness within. You must be fun at parties. [00:59:48] Speaker C: Hi everyone. [00:59:48] Speaker A: I'm Julie. Let me tell you. [00:59:51] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Look at my rabbit. My headless rabbit. [00:59:55] Speaker C: You know what's really funny? People assume that I love horror movies, horror stories, etc. I don't. What I'm, I'm. [01:00:05] Speaker A: Well, I can see why you've got enough of them going around. [01:00:08] Speaker C: I'm the one watching the Disney kids movies. [01:00:11] Speaker B: That's even creepier. Yeah. [01:00:15] Speaker C: Oh, no, I mean we, we got one of the. Thanks, Jim. One of the things like I said before earlier, you know, I, we were saying yes to a lot of things. I got asked to go and do the behind the scenes photos for a zombie apocalypse movie. [01:00:36] Speaker A: Oh, I love it. Oh, wow. [01:00:38] Speaker B: I would do that in a heartbeat. [01:00:40] Speaker C: And I'm like, my, my, my brain was saying, what do you want to do that for? And then I'm going, why not? And it was amazing. They had tanks like, they had the, the Australian Cosplay Military association and they had real tanks and guns and, and the, the makeup and everything. We had amazing makeup artists doing all the zombies and, and my hubby and I are running around jumping in and out of cars on tanks and all sorts of things, catching all the behind the scenes stuff of them shooting the movie. And I probably would never sit down and watch the movie, but it was the most amazing experience. I've never done anything like it. It was just incredible. Incredible. So, yeah, sometimes you've just got to say yes. And I made, I didn't make any money out of it, but I made some amazing connections out of it and we had a fabulous weekend. So, yeah, I mean in, they, they invited us back to where they had the tanks and they did a, a Barbie car Tank crush. So they had a real, like, car and they ran over it with the tank and I mean. [01:01:56] Speaker A: I mean, crazy good. [01:01:57] Speaker C: Where do you, where do you see this sort of thing? You just can't. So, yeah, no, amazing, amazing stuff. [01:02:03] Speaker B: Sounds so good. Just quickly, Jim says, how do I become a member? You go on the YouTube page. Jim, I'm pretty sure you can do it off your phone or the thing. YouTube. You just go on there and just. [01:02:11] Speaker A: Send me a credit card number. I'll do it for you. [01:02:13] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Give it straight to Greg. It'll. Don't use the lucky credit card. It'll say join. Just hit join. [01:02:19] Speaker A: He's got a lucky credit card. I don't have a lucky credit card card. [01:02:22] Speaker B: Jim's. Jim's got. He's got special privileges. Yeah, it's usually, I think it's where the subscribe button is. The subscribe button might turn into a join button. I don't know. You'll figure it out. It's. It's actually that's part of the thing is you can't be a member unless you are smart enough to figure out how to be a member. It's part of the challenge. It's like an entry test. [01:02:43] Speaker C: Iq, iq. Sort of cut off point. [01:02:45] Speaker B: Exactly. Now I want to. Oh, sorry. I was going to. Can I. Can I derail it a little bit, Greg? It's kind of along the same lines as the zombie thing. [01:02:55] Speaker C: Yep. [01:02:56] Speaker B: I was going to save this for a Monday night show, but I think Julie's the perfect person to talk about with. So I was at the Bendigo show with my nephew and have you guys seen the people that dress up as, like, knights and stuff and, and do the battle reenactments in the full armor? [01:03:14] Speaker A: What are they, lappers? [01:03:17] Speaker B: Yeah. Yep. All right. So I saw a few of these guys walking around full outfits. It was actually full outfits but no helmets on because they were like eating a, you know, a Pluto pup or something from the, from the show, you know, those things. So it was like those, those classic things where it's like, yeah, that they're fully dressed up but not quite and they're just eating modern food, which is always fun. But then as we were about to leave, I saw they were like, getting ready to do another, you know, role play. And I was like, all right, let's go and. Let's go and watch this. I thought my nephew would be into it. And we go over there and it turns out there's a different sport other than the role playing where they literally Beat the. Out of each other. [01:04:02] Speaker A: Yeah, I've seen this. Yeah. [01:04:04] Speaker B: And actual medieval combat with axes and swords and stuff. They don't stab. There's no stabbing. It's hitting them and getting them to the ground. And they'll do like one on ones or three on threes, depending on the size of the arena and stuff like that. And it's, it's full like hard hitting combat. [01:04:27] Speaker C: Have you been to Cryo Castle? [01:04:29] Speaker B: No, but the guy was saying that. So the guy that owns Cryle Castle, because I got chatting to him, because I'm thinking there's a photography project in this, like a documentary photography project on these people that sort of, you know, like a bit of the combat stuff, but then a bit of them because I went back to where they were all like relaxing after they just beat the shit out of each other and they're all just like, you know, like, it's like after. It's like halftime at basketball. You know, they're all sitting on the benches and they got their helmets off and they're eating Snickers bars and talking about what happened in the fight. And it was very. Yeah, it was very interesting. But he mentioned the guy that runs it in Bendy on Ballarat was saying that the guy from Kyle Castle is quite good at it. I think he compares. [01:05:10] Speaker C: They also have. So I've got a bit of an. In there. But. So they do the, the jousting and stuff at Cry Castle. And. [01:05:23] Speaker B: And it's real jousting. [01:05:24] Speaker C: Yes, it is real jousting. And I know, I know a few of the people doing it. So one of my good friends, her daughter is one of the Lady Jade. So she's one of the knights. So she got knighted last year and her wife is her squire. I've also. So. And I've. [01:05:47] Speaker A: I love that. [01:05:48] Speaker C: Yeah, I photographed both of them. I've also photographed so the Australian jousting champion, which is Lady Renee. I always say it wrong. Marissa. Marissa, Lady. Anyway, Lady Renee and her husband is Sir Cliff, who I think he's now retired. But Lady Renee is the Australian champion. No, the world champion. Just not just women and men, but like total. And I shot her in full armor as a nod to Joan of Arc. [01:06:27] Speaker B: Oh, nice. [01:06:29] Speaker C: Yeah, so, yeah, so I've photographed both of them. But yeah, no, I've. I've gone and I've photographed the jousting and all the rest of it. So I was at Lady Jade. I was at her wedding last year and they had full jousting at the wedding and oh, that is, we went to it. It was a medieval wedding. It was the only wedding. I photographed it. I didn't go. [01:06:51] Speaker B: Yeah, I was about to. I was about to say I would shoot that wedding for free. That's a wedding. [01:06:56] Speaker C: Totally. We would guess. It wasn't. It wasn't a case of. We were official photographers. We were just guests that had cameras. But yeah, she. So she got married in full armor and they all rode in on the horses. It was just the most. That's crazy. Medieval. And we were all dressed up, so my husband and I were in full steam punk. Everybody else was in all sorts of other stuff, but it was the most amazing night. It was incredible. So, yeah, again, the things you get to say yes to. [01:07:26] Speaker B: Right, okay, so you've done this. You've already. You've. You've done this sort of stuff. [01:07:33] Speaker C: Yeah, it is, but it's kind of at the same time, you're sort of like. I mean, even the bride and her bridesmaid. Sorry, the groom, I guess, I don't know, what do you call it? I don't know. But. So the group, she was in full armor and the bridesmaid were going head to head jousting, and the bridesmaid was pulling the punches and her husband's going, now you can't pull the punches. You just got to go for it. So First Blood was drawn on the battlefield on her wedding night. [01:08:03] Speaker B: Oh, that's awesome. [01:08:05] Speaker C: It was just insane. But, yeah, no, sometimes it's really hard to watch, but there's incredible amount of skill involved. It's. [01:08:11] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. [01:08:12] Speaker C: And the training that they go through is incredible. But yeah, no, we've. We've dealt with some lapas before. I. Not as much as I probably would have liked. There's a group that we sort of started working with before COVID and then Covert happened and we just haven't got back to it. [01:08:30] Speaker A: But yeah, yeah, I remember going to Cryo Castle as a kid. And for. For those of you that don't know or didn't grow up in Victoria, Cryo Castle is a. It's a real castle. It's sitting on a hill in back of Back of Smash. Is it? [01:08:45] Speaker C: It's just outside of Ballarat. It's between. Between B. Marsh and Ballarat. [01:08:50] Speaker A: So, yeah, yeah, I think I'm getting confused with the old B. Marsh Line park. [01:08:55] Speaker C: So that was amazing. Anyway. [01:08:57] Speaker A: Yeah, I know. Sad. But yeah, I remember going and just being fascinated, like, what is going on? And then I remember over the years, you sort of see it pop up in the News that it had to be sold or they turned it into a nightclub or a rave destination for a while. And like it's just had. It's had these kind of reemerging stories pop up about it. The other thing that I just want to point out, Julie, we. I've been talking and thinking and even writing a lot lately about the experience of photographers. Not the experience in terms of do you have what it takes to be a photographer? But the experience of what it takes to get to the point where you press the shutter button. You know, often people that see images don't consider what the photographer went through to get that spot. And I think for me that stood out a lot. When I went to Alpine Light Gallery and I saw Mika and Matt's work in the gallery and Mika was there and she was talking about the hike they had to do to get to this spot at five in the morning and, and not leave lot not leave their first. Like they were the first people in the snow, not leave their footprints in the snow. And all that experience and then feeling the sun coming up behind you on the horizon and all of a sudden you know, just that experience. And I think listening to you talk about from. From conception through to when you press the shutter button, your experience in, in taking that photo is quite significant. You know, not only is there a lot of thought and emotion and planning that goes into it, but all of the practicalities of fulfilling those, those plans must be huge. And I think it's more important than ever that, especially with the rise of AI, that we talk about authenticity of image making where we are experiencing several steps and stages before we press that shutter button. And that's what makes photography genuine, in my opinion. [01:10:51] Speaker C: I think it is, I guess, in some regards for some people, photography. And maybe I'll get Lynch for this. Some people think photography is the be all and end all of it. The photography in some aspect is a tool for creative storytelling. So I, I use the camera to create the story that I want to tell. So I'm not, I'm not really a technical photographer. I'm not really. I mean, I go out and I shoot landscapes and stuff like that every now and again. But I'm not, not really that kind of photographer. I'm more about using tools to help me to create this whole imagery as opposed to just, you know, a single shot or, or whatever. [01:11:43] Speaker B: So yeah, I think it becomes so much more evident with the types of work that you create. And I'm sure we could say that about any type of photography. When you look at a, A masterful photographer doing it. But, but, you know, when we're looking at the Dapper Rabbit, despite the fact that I'm a big proponent of making sure that your gear is as good as you can have it and being technically great, and why wouldn't you try and push the limits of your gear and buy new gear when you need it? But no one was looking at the Dapper Rabbit series and being like, oh, what camera did you shoot that on? How many megapixels was it? It's irrelevant because there's so much more to the images than that. You know? You know what I mean? As in, as in there's so much more in. Yeah. The work put into those images was so much more beyond the click of the shutter and what settings you used and what camera it was. It was the construction of the entire storyline, the characters, the scene, the lighting, everything else was more important than that final thing of just like, okay, camera settings, here we go. [01:12:50] Speaker C: And I, I think, like Greg was saying, I think when you look at some truly inspiring master photographers, it's. It is about the journey to get that shot. Regardless of what genre they're shooting, the ones that really make you stop and go, wow, there is a journey to get before they hit that shutter button. Yeah, yeah, no, no, I'm not going to say never. But I, I rarely doubt that. Most of the most amazing photos that you've seen as somebody just went, oh, there's a great shot. Click. [01:13:29] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [01:13:31] Speaker C: It never happens that way. It never happens that way. I mean, every now and again you might, you know, something will just happen that you didn't expect and makes for an amazing photo. But I think as a general rule, there's always a journey to get to where you, you're saying, you know, m getting up at, you know, 5:00am and going on that hike, and God forbid, I'd never do it, but I would be dead before I got halfway through. But, yeah, I mean, there's always, there's always a story to tell behind the photos. And I find that is a fascinating part of the craft, is what everybody goes through to get to that point. [01:14:11] Speaker B: Speaking of truly inspiring, masterful photographers, Nick Fletcher's here and he says I'm late. Well, hopefully not too late. Nick, it's good to see you. Good to see you, mate. You truly inspiring, masterful photographer, you. What was I gonna say? So the obviously, the thing with that, the whole lead up to the photo on the journey thing is, and even if you, if a photographer created A great image and said, oh, they just happened upon it. I bet you there's still. They would. They might say, I just happened upon it. But they happened upon it because they had committed to some project years before that. And then while they were on the project, they ended up in this other town. And then they happened upon this scene and it wasn't, you know, even though maybe it wasn't what they set out to create, they still put a lot of work in to end up happening upon that scene. You know what I mean? It's like, yeah, so I know exactly what you mean. It's like even. Even when someone says, oh, it's just right place, right time, good luck, it usually isn't. [01:15:20] Speaker C: Sometimes. Sometimes that does come into it. I'm not saying these were the most amazing photos that I had, but with a group of us went up to Craig's Hut, you know, Mount Sterling. Yep, yep. And so we went up there and we camped up there for a couple of nights and, you know, wanting to get Sunrise, sunset, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And we're there shooting, waiting for sunset, and we're all just talking. And I turned to my husband and I said, what is that? And he said, what are you talking about? And I said, you can't hear that? And then everybody else started going, what is that? This helicopter flew over, landed, dropped a bride, a groom and a photographer at Craig's Hut and took off. And there was about 30 of us, all with cameras in hand. You don't think we weren't going to take our photo? So here's this photographer trying to take photos of the bride and groom at Craig's heart, and there's 30 photographers all standing there taking photos of them. And she ended up using us. So she turned us into paparazzi. And she was getting photos of us, like, chasing the bride and groom, like they were someone famous, you know, getting photos. But I mean, who. Who plans for that? [01:16:39] Speaker B: Yeah, that's right. [01:16:40] Speaker C: And I mean, it was over and done within like 20 minutes. And the helicopter picked them up and they were gone. And we're like, okay, well, now we're gonna go shoot Sunrise, Sunset. [01:16:47] Speaker A: But we're like, that sounds like a. Sounds like a Jesse Hisco wedding, to be honest. Yeah. [01:16:51] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:16:54] Speaker C: But I'm like, do you believe that just happened? [01:16:56] Speaker B: That. [01:16:56] Speaker C: What? Who? [01:16:57] Speaker A: What? [01:16:58] Speaker C: Yeah, it was just. [01:16:59] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:16:59] Speaker C: Weird. But yeah, that was a whole journey to get there. I mean. Yeah, bet. [01:17:05] Speaker A: Jul, I want. I want to ask you about your workshops a bit. Yeah, obviously. You said you used to be an Art teacher and, and obviously, you know, you have the gift of the gab, which is wonderful. And I always celebrate people with that. A natural storyteller. When did you realize that you could actually start teaching people about photography and talking about your processes and how to elevate other people's crafts? When did that sort of come in for you? [01:17:31] Speaker C: Yeah, that was a bit of a long, drawn out process. So I was very much into still life photography and doing the creative portrait sort of on the side type thing. And people started asking me to teach them how to do product photography and still life photography. And I went, yeah, I could teach a couple of people. And so I started off just running a couple of small workshops and then a couple more workshops. And then I started opening it up to. I was in a couple of different sort of camera groups and I said, hey, you know, I'll run these little classes. And they were filled out again and again and again and again and again. And I was really enjoying doing it and I thought, oh, I could do more. And so started just doing that. So I was just running workshops teaching product photography and still life photography. And then I think that went on for about a year, maybe two years. And then somebody said, have you ever thought about teaching your creative portraits? And I went, so much goes into it. I don't know how much that would translate. But then I went, yeah, I could do it. So they didn't necessarily get all the before stuff, but they got the, the in studio stuff. So we started just running a couple of small, you know, only a few people with creative portraits. And then I kept getting asked to do more and to do more and to do more. And then just before the world all fell apart in 2020, I was running a lot of workshops. So there was one workshop in particular that I think I ran the same thing about eight times. And I'm like, this is insane. It has to be. I need to do, do it to sort of more people or whatever. So. But yeah, so we just started running sort of more and more of, of those and then the world all fell apart. And when you can't run workshops and you can't get people in the studio, yeah, you sit there and you go, well, what the hell am I going to do now? So that's when I decided to start taking everything online. So I started running online workshops and online classes and people started saying, hey, you're actually really good at editing. Can you run a class on that? You're really good at this. Can you run a class on that? So I started running online classes, whether live or. I think I've actually got like 25 self paced online classes now for everything from still life, food, photography, macro photography, portrait editing. There's a whole heap of stuff, stuff in there I couldn't believe. [01:20:59] Speaker B: When I, when I was having a look, I was like, wow, there is a massive library, more than I thought. [01:21:06] Speaker C: And I've taken a lot down because they were like really, really old and really bad. So another learning curve. Yeah. How do, how do you put together an online class? Where do you start? Where do you go? Yeah, I mean I had, I, I started one which isn't even up there now, which was a 12 week class that we did live. And I would go through and I would teach them how to do something, whether it was, you know, a flat lay or rule of thirds or side lighting or something. And then their challenge for that week was to go off and do it. And then we'd come back a week later and we'd have a look at what everyone did and you know, we'd sort of critique it and all the rest of it. And from that the classes then started blossoming out of that. So that really sort of had my interest through, through those years. And then when we were able to get back into, I had so many ideas that I had written down and fleshed out. I had fully fledged creative shoots ready to go right down to. I had the costumes, I had everything I wanted, I knew what lighting I wanted and they were all ready to go because I had spent, you know, four years or whatever it was, writing everything down. So when we did start coming out of lockdown, I went, hey, you know what, I want to start running more creative workshops. And that's what we, we launched into. And I've been doing it ever since. So it, sometimes they're quite small. We have very small hands on workshops and then we have larger events or photo shoots and things like that. So one of the big ones coming out of COVID we did Marie Antoinette. My hair stylist had spent three years making the most incredible bouffant hair thing. It had a boat in it, the whole lot. [01:23:14] Speaker B: We had an actual boat, like a real boat, like a toy boat. [01:23:20] Speaker C: A toy boat. [01:23:22] Speaker B: That would be impressive, but it would be. [01:23:25] Speaker C: This thing weighed like two and a half kilos. The poor model, she had to spend most of the time sitting to have the hair support and moved around. She'd have to have people like holding it. So the poor girl ended up needing a chiropractor the next day. But we had, we had. So we had two models. So we had, you know, in, in full, you know, rococo baroque dresses, the head, you know, the hair done, the whole lot we hired at a venue and I think we had about 20 photographers and, and we literally just went nuts for a whole afternoon in this incredible, incredible location with these models. But I mean, that was. There was two years that we'd been like hanging out to do this because we hadn't been able to do anything and we just kept going from there. So. [01:24:21] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think I read in your bio at some point you turned your home into a studio. [01:24:28] Speaker C: Yeah. So we converted the garage to a studio at the front of the house. House. It's small, being a. I mean, it's a double garage, but it's still small. It's not like a huge studio. So when I run really small, very hands on classes, we tend to run it from there only because I have access to everything there. So we just did, on the weekend, we did a Day of the Dead. So all the makeup and the big head pieces and all the rest of it, but I've got access to all my props there. So I'm like, oh, grab this, this. I'll grab this or grab this or grab this. When I go to other studios, which I use all the time, I don't necessarily have access to, to having all the props and that there. So. But sometimes I need more room to have more people in, whereas other times. [01:25:22] Speaker B: I missed this comment earlier from David Mascara in San Francisco. He says Julie would love. Is it Dear dimurtas, Day of the Dead? [01:25:33] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:25:34] Speaker B: Okay. Yeah. In the Mission District, you won't need a makeup artist. Yeah, I bet, I bet. It's crazy. [01:25:41] Speaker C: I, I love, Yeah, I love that whole thing. So we do it every year. I don't necessarily. So. Yeah, so that's last year's shoot. We didn't do that as a workshop last year. We decided to do something else as a Halloween workshop. But we still did the, the shoot because my makeup artist was hanging out to, to get all creative on that one. [01:26:07] Speaker B: So. [01:26:07] Speaker A: That's so cool. [01:26:11] Speaker C: Yeah, we just love it. Absolutely love it. So. [01:26:17] Speaker B: All right. [01:26:17] Speaker A: It's kind of a seasonal event for you, isn't it? You're waiting for this to come around. This is like, you know, like, like a kid waiting for Easter. You're waiting for Day of the Dead. [01:26:26] Speaker C: We, we, we've been a bit slack this year, but in past years we've actually started shooting all our Halloween stuff in like July. [01:26:35] Speaker A: Wow. [01:26:36] Speaker C: So we're doing July, August. I did. Did do a few. We went completely different this year, which I'm just sort of putting up now. We did a Goodbye Earl shooting and our show Girls. So I've got a couple of burlesque dancers who I work with quite often, and we just did something really silly. So they're dressed up in their showgirls costumes, but with sheets over them. So like ghosts, just to be really stupid. And the other one, which we did. I've been wanting to do this for years is Goodbye Earl. So there's a song by the Dixie Chicks, or the. What I think they're just called. I don't know, whatever they're called nowadays, but it's Goodbye Earl. And, yeah, they basically kill off this Earl, who's not a good guy, and. And go around and bury his body. So we did that with the. The girls as well. So that was loads of fun. [01:27:34] Speaker A: But she flipped from macabre to happiness in, like, fraction of a second. [01:27:39] Speaker B: I need to. I need to bring this up. [01:27:41] Speaker A: It's so fun to see this guy getting buried. [01:27:44] Speaker C: Well, I mean, it's. It's. We had an audience, too, so. Yeah, so that's the. The show girl ghouls. So that was so silly. I mean, that was just shot in. In somebody's backyard. You can see all the power lines and that. I even left them in. But the. The Goodbye Earl, it was. I mean, it's just literally, you know. [01:28:05] Speaker B: Right, right, right. [01:28:06] Speaker C: Or die. So the girls. The girls made up this body, and we were dragging it around. And this is in a. A parkland opposite one of the girl's houses. And we had all these people walking past watching us. And I'm like. I mean, we had pickaxes and shovels and, you know, dead bodies and beers and all the rest of it. But all these people are like, is this. Is this, like, real? I'm like, yeah, sure. They've killed a guy. They're burying him in a public park, and they have a photographer. Yeah, sure, this is real. [01:28:40] Speaker B: But, yeah, I mean, it sounds like the perfect cover to me. That's how you get away with it. It's like, oh, of course you wouldn't. Who would do this? And then it turns out, like a week later, they're like, well, it was real. Everyone just kept walking. [01:28:55] Speaker C: But it was just. It was just one of those silly things. But it just was photographed really, really well, and the girls had loads of fun doing it. That's a lot of the things I do are more often pretty Then they are ghoulish. But, yeah. [01:29:15] Speaker B: We haven't seen any of these. [01:29:18] Speaker C: Oh, come on. Bring up the Instagram. I do a lot of cinematic portrait. That's. That's where I love. I'm settling in at the moment, is if you get past all the Halloween stuff. But so the. The film noir, the Gatsby, all of that. That cinematic black and white. I just love the purest photography in this. There's no. There's no AI, there's no Photoshop. There's nothing. There is you and your connection with another human being and beautiful lighting, beautiful styling and staging and just. Yeah. Making magic. And I just love doing it. So. [01:30:13] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:30:14] Speaker C: And I mean, we've. We run workshops which are purely this. Yeah, the. I mean, the Halloween and all the rest of it with all the, you know, the smoke machines and, you know, all of that. Yeah, that. That's. That's loads of fun too. And I love doing it, but this purist. And it was something that I got a real kick out of at bfop. I. Sometimes when I'm running these events, people are coming in. [01:30:44] Speaker B: I've got to. [01:30:44] Speaker C: I've got access to things that people don't have access to. And these photographers that I need, my help, they don't need to learn how to do anything. They come in, they just want the access to the models, the makeup, the costumes, the staging, the start that they want. The experience. [01:31:03] Speaker A: Yep. [01:31:04] Speaker C: They don't want learning and. Which. It's fun. I. I enjoy doing that. But I got such a kick out of Beef Up. I was teaching again and I. I was literally, you know, getting people who had never shot portraits in their life. And when. When, you know, I get them getting those shots and they're so excited. [01:31:31] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:31:32] Speaker C: That they've got those shots. That's. That's a real kick for me. I love it when, you know, I have people. I have them turn up all the time, you know, to workshops or whatever, and go, I don't really know what I'm doing. Yes. Thank you. Come with me, come with me, come with me. Those others, let them go. Ignore them. They're just here to get the shots. [01:31:51] Speaker B: My answer to that would be, if I was an instructor, I'd say, neither do I, but we'll figure it out. Let's go. [01:31:56] Speaker A: Yeah, it's fine. [01:31:58] Speaker B: Don't tell anyone. I have no idea what I'm doing. [01:32:00] Speaker C: I love the wristband that we had at bepop for the instructors. Yeah. Ask me anything, but if I don't know the answer, please don't tell. [01:32:08] Speaker B: Yeah, don't tell anyone else. Let's just all. Yeah, keep it, keep it on the down low. [01:32:13] Speaker C: Yeah. But I get, I get such a kick. So I sort of, I do have these big, you know, elaborate things that we go and do, but I also love having, you know, the smaller classes and, and that's where I guess I get a real kick out of the creative coaching or mentoring or whatever people want to call it. You know, I have people who come in and you can't, you can't get that level of instruction in a workshop. And you can come away from a workshop learning, you know, one or two things or getting inspired or whatever, but if you really want to dig deep and if there's something particular you want to learn, then that's when you really, really need, you know, that one on one. And I wish it was something I had access to when I was learning because I felt like I had to do everything the hard way and I think I did everything wrong before I figured out how to do everything right. And I wish there had been people around and there were a few people online who were very generous with what they were teaching, but I felt that there wasn't really many in the community that I was in in the early days. There wasn't as many people willing to, to, you know, give over. [01:33:30] Speaker A: Yeah. Share the craft. [01:33:32] Speaker B: Completely unrelated, but kind of related. Did you, when you. So 11 years ago, when you were sort of diving back into this, did you ever go on websites like Creative Live and. Yeah. Did you. Did you know that shutting down. Yeah, literally shutting down end of this year because it got bought out by whomever and they couldn't figure out how to run it and make a profit. Like, I watched a lot of courses on that. [01:33:59] Speaker C: Yeah, me too. [01:34:00] Speaker B: Yeah, tons. And it, and it's literally just all of the, all of those workshops are just disappearing. I think at the end of this year maybe or something like, unless you. [01:34:09] Speaker C: Yeah, I got an email. Yeah, I got an email to say go and download them. And I think I have downloaded all of them, but I've got to go back and double check. But I mean, I, I was inspired by so many people through Creative Live that I, I, at the time I didn't even know existed. So I guess my inspiration for what I do, I mean, people throw all these photographer names at me and I'm like, I don't know who that is. I don't know who that is. I don't know who that is. But, you know, and then I. They oh, who are your inspiration? And I start throwing up people's names and they go, I don't know who that is. I don't know who that is. Yeah. So I guess. Yeah. But yeah, Creative Live was, was incredible. [01:35:00] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:35:01] Speaker C: I learned a lot through that. And not just, I guess, the beauty of creative life. It wasn't just photography that I learned. You could learn any genre, but I also learned business. [01:35:14] Speaker B: Yep. [01:35:14] Speaker C: And that was something that business and marketing and stuff like that, which is, is a whole other kettle of fish. And it's, it's really hard to wrap your head around. But. Yeah. So no, I'm. It's a shame that it's disappearing, but it really is. [01:35:32] Speaker B: And I feel like. I don't know, I feel like there'll be an opening for someone to maybe pick that up and do it again. I think because Chase Jarvis was the founder of that. He's like famous photographer that. I don't know what he does now. [01:35:47] Speaker A: I don't know who that is. [01:35:48] Speaker B: You never heard of Chase Jarvis? I'm an idiot. It's too. I haven't had enough coffee yet. I've only had one and a half. Yeah. So Chase Jarvis like founded it and, and then I, I didn't realize. I was naive. I sort of thought I was like, wow, this Chase Jarvis guy's really built this, this crazy website. So impressive. And it is impressive, don't get me wrong. But turns out, like, I think they had $6 million of investment funding or something to. To grow that website. So it was a big operation and that's obviously how they got big photographers to film these classes. [01:36:26] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [01:36:28] Speaker B: But he. They sold it to. The name still alludes me to someone, you know, someone like Adobe or someone. It's not Adobe, but it's someone like. [01:36:38] Speaker C: That, like big, I think wasn't Sue Bryce education something to do with. With taking it over or running it. [01:36:45] Speaker B: Or maybe running it, but not Creative Live Cells. Who was it by? By Fiverr. Fiverr bought it. [01:36:56] Speaker C: Oh, that's right. [01:36:57] Speaker B: Yeah. So, so five. [01:36:58] Speaker A: So obscure, isn't it? [01:37:00] Speaker B: Yeah, well, I think they were going to turn it into an education platform for their Fiverr people. So, you know, like the people that. What do you call them, the providers on Fiverr, the people selling their service, graphic designers and all that kind of stuff. And so then I think Fiverr just didn't know how to run it and decided to no longer invest in it. They offered over 2, 000 classes and new. New registration stopped as of May 2025. And its content catalog will be lost after December 31, 2025, which is absolutely insane. The people should be. There's so much gold on there still. Like, yeah, the tech. The tech side of photography moves fast and some of that won't be relevant, but the creative side of it, even foundational side of it is still all the same. It's all the same stuff. [01:37:51] Speaker A: There's still value in learning the way things used to be as a physical. And it's, you know, and all of that content is evergreen. It doesn't. For the majority of it, never will change. Yeah, the importance and the value of it. It's crazy. [01:38:05] Speaker B: Anyway, I think I was reading a Petapixel article or something like that, and. And people were saying, yep, you know, like, there's no money in this anymore. You can get it all on YouTube, this stuff for free these days, or whatever, which is a little bit true, but it's not the same as a curated course delivered by a professional and edited by professionals and a. In a course structure. Not the same as a YouTube video. [01:38:29] Speaker C: Yeah, I think, I mean, as. As somebody who runs courses online as well as I'm a YouTuber as well, so. But you. I mean, most. What most people don't realize is, yeah, I'm putting stuff out on YouTube all the time, but that's sort of like a funnel for other things. You know, it's sort of saying, I'm here. This is what I do. This is my knowledge base. Go check out my workshops or go check out my online classes, or go check out whatever. So. And I mean, the, the. Yeah, there is a lot of stuff. And you go, oh, how do I do this on YouTube? You can go find it. But it's. It's usually a funnel to sort of go off into anything else. But if you want to learn something, I think regardless of what it is that you want to do, I think an online class is a really good way to deep dive into something, especially if it's just one thing, you know, whether it's a Joel Grimes or, you know, whatever. [01:39:35] Speaker B: Yeah, there was all those guys. Yeah, Joel Grimes, like. Yeah, they were so good. [01:39:42] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:39:42] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:39:42] Speaker C: And. And I think I've got every class he ever owned. But. Yeah, so you can, you know, go and do a deep dive into something, whether it's, you know, a lighting aspect or an editing aspect or whatever that you want to cover. But I think the sad thing is the world has changed in 2025 to what it was in 2020. And we all did what we had to do to deal with that. And everybody, I mean, everybody went nuts. You know, everyone did online classes or everybody did this or whatever. The online world became everything. And now everyone's like, no, no, we want to go back to real world. We want in real life stuff again. Yeah. So I can sort of see where creative live is coming from, that the numbers have dropped significantly. [01:40:34] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:40:36] Speaker B: Like, there's one thing to. Anyway, actually I forgot. So Chase Jarvis, someone said, yeah, you can't do this anymore in 2025. And Chase Jarvis says, yeah, this was in a comment, I think on a Petapixel article or something. And it's the real Chase Jarvis, which is kind of cool. He's like, yep. Because I think someone said chase Jarvis still runs it. And he was like, no, I haven't ran it since 2023 or something like that. Like, I guess Fiverr bought it, he ran it for a little while and then they took it over completely. [01:41:06] Speaker C: Yep. [01:41:06] Speaker B: And he said, you could absolutely still run this in 2025, but not the way Fiverr wanted to do it. And you would have to do it in a. In a lean and. And you know. Yeah, you can't just throw money around, but you could definitely do this. Someone could do this. And it's crazy that they're not gonna. God, even just the back catalog, just. Just keep it all available and make it. Make it get 15 bucks a month. Yeah. [01:41:33] Speaker A: Well, Matt has just said, what a waste of education. Imagine the goodwill for their brand if they hosted and gave it away for free, if they aren't going to support it. [01:41:42] Speaker B: Yeah. Or even. Yeah, just make it 10 bucks a month. Like, like no downloads, just like Netflix. Like you can just stream it or whatever. [01:41:49] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. But once. Once the stuff has been made, it's there. Nothing. [01:41:58] Speaker B: Well, hosting, I'm guessing there's issues. There might be issues with that old website. They might have multiple techs and stuff supporting, I think because they had a picture. [01:42:07] Speaker C: Yeah, they had so much. [01:42:11] Speaker B: But there's platforms now like Circle and School with K and stuff to basically host communities and online learning on. You know, you could migrate it all across to one of these other hosted solutions if the other thing's too big and cumbersome and old to keep running. You know, they'd probably a dev team keeping that website alive. So just move it over to something simple or. Yeah, like, I mean, gosh, yeah. Upload everything onto a free YouTube channel and just, you know, like park it there forever. Just park it there and let it buy views and advertising or whatever. Like there's so many things they could do. I, I mean maybe it was, will be like, was it DP review that got shut down and then, and then it got brought like someone was like, no, Amazon bought them. Yeah, yeah. So who knows? Maybe someone's talking to Fiverr and they're like, we'll take it off your hands for next to nothing. Don't just, don't just. [01:43:05] Speaker C: I'll give him 10 bucks. I'll give him. [01:43:08] Speaker B: Hey, I'll give 10 too. That's 20. [01:43:09] Speaker C: You either. [01:43:10] Speaker A: I'm in for 10. [01:43:11] Speaker B: Okay. [01:43:12] Speaker A: Put Jim down for 20. [01:43:14] Speaker C: 30 bucks and yeah, fiverr. Yep. [01:43:18] Speaker B: Maybe even up to 50 Australian dollars. Not US dollars. [01:43:22] Speaker C: Oh yeah, make that, make that well known. [01:43:25] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Not US dollars. Yeah, it's rough. [01:43:28] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. [01:43:29] Speaker B: Matt's here for 10. Yeah, I think we could, we could crowdfund at least a hundred Australian dollars and buy creative lives. [01:43:36] Speaker C: Really surprised that they don't have more like crowdfunding for stuff like that because surely, surely, I mean I, I know so many people who, you know, have got stuff from creative life, so. [01:43:52] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But anyway, peak design. No, is it peak design? They do they still use crowdfunding? Yeah, crowdfunding to do stuff, which is interesting. They probably don't need to, but they still do. [01:44:07] Speaker C: What is it? Not go family. [01:44:10] Speaker B: Kickstarter. [01:44:11] Speaker C: Kickstarter. That's it. Yeah. [01:44:13] Speaker B: Because that's where they started. They're a Kickstarter success. [01:44:16] Speaker C: Yeah. And they still, still regularly have stuff on Kickstarter but they don't need it. But I think people the, God forbid me saying this, the geeks love getting in at grand level and being able to have input into it. So. [01:44:29] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And invest in the business in a roundabout way. [01:44:33] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. [01:44:35] Speaker A: And I think there's a lot of appeal for that. [01:44:37] Speaker C: Yeah. But I mean that's always fun playing with, you know, getting in and playing with the tech and, and having, having feedback and stuff like that with these guys. But yeah, yeah, yeah. [01:44:48] Speaker B: Speak. Well, before we talk about your camera gear and why you and your husbands shoot on different systems and have a, an in house rivalry, do you have any advice for photographers that have thought, oh, I'd love to run a workshop or something, but I just don't think I know enough, you know, I don't think I have anything to offer or if all the other instructors are better than me, so why would I do it kind of thing. Do you have any advice for people that are in that kind of mindset around maybe trying to run their first Little workshop. [01:45:23] Speaker C: Just do it. I've been there. [01:45:25] Speaker B: I. [01:45:26] Speaker C: What do I have to offer? What, what, what could I possibly share with these other photographers? Some that are better than me. I've had, you know, award winning, like multi international award winning, like landscape photographers come to my classes and I'm like, oh, that's really scary. But they don't know. They don't know what I know, if that makes sense. But yeah, no, just do it. Start small. You. My biggest learning curve was when I started teaching. And when you teach, you have to be one step ahead of what you're teaching. So if not, two steps ahead. So I, I would have to learn more and learn more and learn more so that I could teach more. But I start off small, start off with, you know, two, three people. And don't, don't make it about how much money you can make or, or whatever. Do it for the reasons that you want to get in, because you want to teach, you want to show, you want to share, you want to inspire. You know, you feel like you have something to offer. Even if you, you think that perhaps you're not the best photographer or the best editor or, or whatever, there's always going to be somebody better than you. There's somebody better than me always. And, but they're not, they're not you. If you've got something to say, then people will come to you and, and don't try and baffle them with. Because people always see through that if, if you don't know something. And I get asked all the time, you know, oh, what about? Whatever? And I go, you know what? I don't know, but I will find out and I'll get back to you. So, yeah, and I mean, that's how it started. And I mean, I started off with, you know, a few people teaching them how to do stuff. And the more I taught, the more I realized I knew. And even now it's still, and I don't want to sound like I'm blowing my own horn, but I, I. People rock up into my workshops and they go, oh, how do I do this on my camera? And it's a brand I've never used. And I'll go, yep, okay, let's just click, click, click, click, click. Yeah, we'll do this. So I can always figure out. And that still blows my mind. I can pick up a Canon or whatever and I can figure out how to do something. And I've never shot with Canon in my life. Life. [01:48:11] Speaker B: That's because Canon's menus are supreme. Architecture, one of the easiest. Menu. No, I'm kidding. No. Compared to Sony? Are you kidding me? [01:48:22] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh. [01:48:25] Speaker C: You know what bugs me about Sony? [01:48:28] Speaker B: Tell us. [01:48:31] Speaker C: Okay. And I strike this all the time. I have quite a few students who are Sony and they will have exactly the same camera as mine. And the menus are all different. Everything's in a different spot. And I'm like, seriously? Seriously. And then I probably struggle with that more than anything else because they are so customizable. They're too customizable, I think. And, and every can, every camera is set up completely different. And I've got to sit there scrolling and scrolling and scrolling, trying to find stuff. It amazes me. I don't know. Don't know how we, we all seem to set it up completely different, but yeah, but no. So I. I sometimes feel like I amaze myself with what I know. I don't know where I get it from, but yeah, I guess because I've just learned a lot of stuff. I guess the other hat that I wear, which is I do a lot of writing and reviews, I've had to learn to be more technical than I probably would have been 10 years ago. So. [01:49:35] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, no, I get that. I'm curious to know, Julie, about your, Your BEFOP experience. Now, obviously we chatted to you in the lead up to befop. We recorded an audio podcast of you talking about your workshop. So you ran two workshops. The Roaring Twenties and Fabulous, fabulous, fabulous Steampunk. [01:49:54] Speaker C: Yep. [01:49:55] Speaker A: And. But this was your first time at BEFOP as an instructor, actually educating other people. Prior to that, you'd been to BEEF at what, two or three times before? [01:50:05] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:50:07] Speaker A: How was that transition like for you? And how were you approached? Or did you campaign to, to Matt and Nick to be an instructor or did they come to you? How did that unfold? [01:50:17] Speaker C: Well, I. I had. I had a few people who, over the last couple of years who were saying to me, oh, you really should be running workshops, not. Not doing workshops. And. And I said, yeah, but I was going to be for, for fun, for me and to get out of my comfort zone and do stuff, not to work. And then it sort of come to a head last year where quite a few people were saying to me, oh, you know, you really should have a chat to, to Nick and Matt. And so I reached out to them and I said, hey, look, look, I would be interested in having a chat to you guys about maybe coming on AS instructor in 2025. And I said, I've probably got Something a little sort of unique to offer that hasn't been sort of offered really before. So we had a bit of a chat about what we could do. And I mean I, I could have gone into different areas. I could have done macro, but there was already macro there. I could have done, you know, still life, which hasn't really been done up there before. But I really do love teaching portraits. And that's what I said, I said, well, you know, I can do portraits. And they said, oh yeah, we've, we've got portraits. And I said, yeah, but have you got, you know, something like this? So, yeah, so we just had the, the few chats about, you know, what I could bring to the, the party. And they said, well, yeah, okay, let's, let's bring you on board. So, yeah, and it went from there. [01:51:58] Speaker A: Because like you, I, I went to befop. Well, this year I went to befop to have fun, yet I was worked like a dog. That's right, five days. [01:52:09] Speaker B: He tried to get away from the stand a couple of times and I literally, I made a lasso out of camera straps and just dragged him back in. Don't you go and learn anything, Greg, get back here. [01:52:21] Speaker C: Yeah, so, no, so it was, it was great. So it's a different learning environment or a different teaching environment to what I usually have set up. But at the same time, you know, I, I, I'm quite happy to, to jump onto a challenge. So, but I mean I, I've sort of taught some larger classes before, so I knew it was something I could do. And yeah, I guess my biggest thing was coming up against some of the other names. I thought, oh, you know, am I, yeah, am I good enough to kick it with some of the other names that were there? [01:53:03] Speaker B: So. [01:53:03] Speaker C: But as it turned out, yeah, pretty much most of my classes were well booked out, if not fully booked out. [01:53:11] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And going through the, everyone's obviously been putting up their images on the, the Beef Up Groupies Facebook page. And for those of you that may be listening that don't know, Beef up is the bright festival of photography. We were there a couple of weeks ago. Huge photography festival that is already sold out. You won't be able to go next year. I'm sorry. [01:53:31] Speaker C: Too bad. So sad. [01:53:33] Speaker A: You sold out. What was it, nine days it was gone. It was done. [01:53:37] Speaker B: No. [01:53:38] Speaker A: Based on the feedback, everyone really loved your workshops and I've seen a lot of photos, especially of the, the twenties, the Roaring twenties, Gatsby themed shoot. Lots of those are popping up all over the groupies page. And I think that's a testament that people came away with images and an experience that they felt confident enough to share. And I think that. Well, I would like to think that that that tells you you've done a good job when. When people are excited to reveal their. Their images. [01:54:04] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. And. And the feedback that, you know, I've been getting and, and people, you know, like when I had somebody who had never shot portraits before and she was so excited to see what she was getting on the back of her camera, she'd booked into one of my workshops before she'd even gone home. [01:54:24] Speaker A: Lovely. Yeah. [01:54:27] Speaker C: So. And. And she came along on the weekend and she was just. Just like blown away. So gone from. And I mean, that's the thing with. With beef up. And I do tell people, you know, and I said to them, with their requirement list, I guess for. What they need is bring a sense of humor and a little bit of patience because these are large groups of people and, you know, you're trying to work with. With 19 or 20 other people. And yeah, it can be difficult. So being able to. To get some really good photos in that environment to then being able to come to something like, you know, one of my workshops, which is much smaller, you know, it's. It's a very different feel. But yeah, no, I. I loved it. And like I said, I was teaching because I had a lot of people who have no idea, you know, how to pose or, you know, what composition or, you know, we got into. We get into discussions too. So I'm. I'm not there to shoot. I get a few photos, but I'm not there to shoot. I'm sort of like a facilitator to allow them to get the shots. But, you know, we have these ongoing conversations and we had one, you know, especially with like, the Gatsby and that we were talking about, you know, with composition and back in the day, especially the 20s, the 30s, the 40s, you know, the. The way that you would shoot a man's portrait as to. Opposed to how you should shoot a woman's portrait, you know, you always would shoot down on a woman, especially in the 40s, you would always shoot down. And the men, you know, had the. The hero shot where you were shooting up. And we got into this whole conversation, I think it was on the Friday night, about, you know, the good, the bad, the different, you know, and. And so then people were then jumping in and going, oh, well, I'm going to mix it up. And I'm Going to shoot, you know, do the hero shot on. On the model that was a woman, you know, and, and. And do stuff like that. And it was. I encourage people to jump in and, and explore and learn how things were done, but then pull it all apart and give it a new twist on it and. And put a new take on it. So, yeah, people were jumping and doing that. I had another lady. I tend to shoot at a higher ISO, and there's a reason for that, is because I'm doing sort of more vintage looks. I want a little bit of grain in my photos so that they're not so perfect. And, you know, people were absolutely freaking out at shooting at, you know, ISO 640 or even 800. And I'm going, that's nothing. [01:57:05] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:57:06] Speaker C: And then, you know, people go, oh, my God, look, look. Look at the photos that I'm getting. Oh, wow, okay. Yeah, I don't have to be scared of ISO anymore. [01:57:14] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:57:15] Speaker C: So, yeah, so a lot of things were coming out of it. It's always really fun when, when people are getting inspired and they're walking away going, oh, I need to do whatever. [01:57:26] Speaker A: And so based on that, that experience that obviously was fulfilling for you just as much as it was for your participants. [01:57:33] Speaker B: What. [01:57:35] Speaker A: Where does that place you for beef up next year? Is it something you want to return to do, or has it inspired you to change your own offerings of workshops? In some ways. [01:57:45] Speaker C: I definitely up for. For BFOP next year. So, yeah, we've already had. Well, my team have already had that conversation, so. And I guess that was the other thing. My model. So I brought my own model, Nicola along and, um, she had just as much fun as I did. So, um, I said, oh, we. I think we took about 24 hours to get over BFOB. And then we went, yeah, hell yeah, we're going in for. Again for next year. So in regards to my own workshops, yeah, I, I would like to do more and get in front of more. More people, not necessarily larger workshops. Most of mine are fairly small anyway. Although in saying that, I mean, running with 20 people was, was. Was fun, but you have to be a little more flexible, I guess, when you've got that many people. But yeah, I'd love to run more events as well. So. Yeah, big events. So, you know, I tell you. [01:58:57] Speaker A: Yeah, okay. [01:58:58] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:58:58] Speaker A: I tell you what would be a good racket is you mentioned earlier about how people, you know, didn't know how to engage with and poser model, and I'm no expert in it myself in any way whatsoever. I watched Justin work at BEFOP on the. On the pajama party night, and quite inspirational. I told him that, but he was very drunk and he was wearing an alien mask, so he probably didn't hear me. But we'll get to that later. Another day. Another day. But, yeah, that whole thing about posing people, you know, I've done a lot of street walks with. With camera stores where they'll, you know, touch and try, eventually come and they're launching some new camera and they'll take you on a street walk around Melbourne and they'll have a couple of models and a couple of lights, and they'll go to interesting locations and the model will kind of assume some of their poses. But then you've got 20 or 30 photographers standing there absolutely silent, and the model's kind of like, just doing what they think they should do, which is wonderful that they've got those skills. But no one knew how to engage the model. And so I would make some suggestions and, you know, tell them, lift your chin to, you know, and. But yeah, it's a real skill that, that. And I think that. Because there's also that. That barrier of having to interact with another person. You know, there's almost an intimidation there when you're photographing a model and when. [02:00:17] Speaker B: You'Re surrounded by other photographers and you're trying to figure out your camera settings and all this sort of stuff, and you just. Yeah. You don't have the confidence to just say, oh, could you. You know, I really want you over here a little bit because there's a poll coming out of your head or whatever, and it's just, I guess, breaking that barrier for people. Like, it's okay, you can say something. It doesn't matter. Like, just, you know. [02:00:39] Speaker C: Yeah, well, I. I always, you know, encourage people to jump in and direct. I mean, there's. There's a fine line. You don't want people, you know, jumping in and invading the model's personal space and grabbing them and stuff. Because, I mean, can you imagine, you know, 20 people going in and grabbing you and you're just like, wow. [02:00:59] Speaker B: I mean, yeah, that's even 20 people. Even 20 people from a distance. But if. If you're getting mixed messages from a model, that would be, you know, like, you're like, hey, one at a time, please. Like, you know, because if everyone starts shouting out, I'll move your hand, move your head, or twist this way, or whatever. [02:01:15] Speaker C: Well, yeah, so that. That was the other thing that I did, and I had a lot of feedback I've done it because I've done big groups before and I had a lot of feedback. So I split. So I had like 20 people in a class. I would split them into four groups instead of 20 people all shooting at once and getting shots. I had, you know, four people or five people going up, shooting, you know, two or three at a time, getting really good shots, getting one on one with the model. It's easier for the model. She knows exactly who she's looking at and who she's talking to. And they would get a few shots and then, I mean, it all happens quite quickly and they go through and they get their shots and then they go and then the next group move up. The other additional bonus to that was people got to watch and observe what other people are doing, whether it's me, the model, the other photographers. So they actually got to observe not just this frenetic panic of trying to get the shots. There was also social time, so people got to talk. And that was another thing that I found really difficult is trying to. And, and this is not a bad thing at Beef Opera. It's just you so busy shooting and doing the workshops and trying to get as much out of it that unless you go to like the Friday night, the Saturday night and stuff like that, you don't necessarily get to socialize with people unless they're in that group. So. And I mean, let's face it, the Saturday night was hysterical. [02:02:51] Speaker A: Yeah. [02:02:54] Speaker C: But I mean, even I got. I got to enjoy that as an instructor this time because usually I'm off shooting. [02:03:02] Speaker A: Yeah. [02:03:03] Speaker C: I. I'd never. And as shocking as some people found, I'd never been to a shenanigans before because I was always at a shoot. [02:03:11] Speaker B: Really. [02:03:12] Speaker C: Yeah. And even I didn't get to think. [02:03:14] Speaker A: About Baptism by Fire. Yeah. [02:03:18] Speaker C: I didn't even. I didn't get to do the Friday night stuff because I was teaching and that didn't finish. By the time we packed up and all the rest of it, it was like 10 o' clock and it was pretty. Pretty much over. And I had no idea where Dennis and the river was. So by that stage, all I wanted was dinner and bed. But. Yeah, so, I mean, not having to race around and. And shoot, you know, like three, four workshops a day or whatever. Yeah. So I got to enjoy that. But yeah, it's just a different sort of situation. [02:03:50] Speaker A: But yeah, let's talk gear. [02:03:54] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, because it's. We're two hours in. We. We should wrap this thing up soon. But first. Yeah, okay. Yeah, that's true. So you shoot Sony, what. What body or bodies are you using at the moment? [02:04:08] Speaker C: I've currently got an A7R III and an A7R V. Yeah. Predominantly shooting with the 5, the high res. [02:04:19] Speaker B: Yeah, you. So you. For what you do, you love the extra resolution of those. Our bodies. Like just being able to see every little. Every little thing and crop in and do whatever you want. [02:04:31] Speaker C: Yeah. And then. And then add grain over the top so it smooths out the photos. [02:04:35] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. All that detail later, all that sharpness. Yeah, yeah. [02:04:39] Speaker C: I'm like, why do I. Why do I. Yeah, yeah. Why do I. I need all the sharpness. I don't really, but it is nice to have it. But then you're like, oh, okay. But, yeah, so I. I shoot with predominantly the five. I've got the three as a backup. So I had the. I've actually got two threes. One's got the most ridiculous shutter can on it. That it's having a few little issues. And somebody said to me, yeah. And somebody said, I think that's tired. You need a new camera. So. Yeah, but I. I started off with the A7 2. Oh, yeah, it was the A7 I. And then I went to the A7 2. Yeah. So I've been. I've been around Sony for a while. Haven't always been a Sony girl. So when I first got into digital photography, like I said, I had a nick on and I would go out and shoot and my husband would trail along, carry stuff around. It wasn't cheating, wasn't shooting at all. And we went out this one particular day and I wanted a photo under a pier. We're at the beach. I wanted a photo under the. Under a pier. And I said to him, I said, if I put it on order, you just jump under and grab the photo. And I went to hand him the camera and I had the. The good old neck strap, right. And I was leaning over the side of the pier and he was on the sand and I gave it to him and it slipped right between his hands. Oh. And landed on the sand. And I went. Picked it. Yeah. At the time, I was like, oh, my God, that was my baby. I think I paid like, you know, $900 or something for it. It was like so expensive. And I was freaking out. And I picked it up and I'm like, oh, hey, you know what? It's actually okay. And then I was doing something a couple of days later and the focus was off. Everything was off. And I'm like, oh, you have Actually killed my camera. [02:07:00] Speaker A: Yep. [02:07:00] Speaker C: And I had to. Actually, it was probably only about a year, maybe two years after I got into it, probably not even that long. That's when I did my first wedding. So this camera got dropped just before that first wedding. I went to go and do. Oh, I had to send it off to get it repaired and it was going to take longer than what I had for this wedding. And my hubby felt really, really bad. So I went out and I got my second camera. [02:07:37] Speaker A: Nice. Well played. [02:07:40] Speaker C: So I. Yeah, it was a dog of a thing. But anyway, so I shot with that and then the original camera come back and I don't know what they did to it, but it was the best camera. The focus must have been just off a little bit. And by the time these guys had fixed the camera, fixed the lens, it was like the best thing on the planet. And my husband's going, well, you've got two cameras, maybe I'll learn how to do it too. So he then became my first student, essentially. So I was teaching him. I was teaching him what I knew and we were going through that way. So then he got into photography as well. So he does very different stuff to me. He's a beautiful landscape photographer. He has such an eye for landscapes. And he takes them and they sit on the SD card and that's about it. He. He puts them on the computer and edits a couple, puts them on Facebook, Instagram. He has a digital thing on his computer that puts up all his photos. But that's all we ever see, really. Yeah, I keep bugging him. You've got to get him printed. We've got a few large ones that we've had printed up on the wall, but he doesn't do much. But yeah, so that, that was sort of his journey into it. So I then wrecked my shoulder and ended up having to have shoulder reconstruction surgery. And I was looking for something lighter. By this stage, I was. Was a big clunky nick on with a huge piece of glass. I couldn't hold the damn thing. I really couldn't. I wanted something light. I wanted to venture into the mirrorless world. And when back in those days, you're talking mirrorless, you're talking portraits, you're talking high resolution, you had no option but to go to Sony. Yeah, so I went to Sony and I'm still with Sony and I've put everything into Sony, so I'm still into Sony, hubby's still into Nikon. We used to share everything. So we had one macro lens. We had one wide angle, we had one super zoom and we had our basic, you know, 24 to 70 each that we had on our cameras and everything else we shared. So now he's got everything but he's. He's gone over to mirrorless now, but. [02:10:13] Speaker B: So he's got like a Z7 or eight or something or. [02:10:18] Speaker C: Yeah, something like that. [02:10:19] Speaker B: Something like that. [02:10:20] Speaker C: Six Z6. [02:10:21] Speaker B: Z6. Yep. [02:10:23] Speaker C: Three something. I don't know. I don't know. Julie and the gang sold him a whole heap of shit at befop last year and cost me a fortune. [02:10:31] Speaker B: Good work, Julie. Nice one. And Nickos. Nick on Ross. Shout out to Nick on Ross. All right, so you're still on the dark. You're on the dark side of Sony. What? [02:10:39] Speaker C: Yes, we have all the cookies. [02:10:45] Speaker B: What, what lenses are you using? [02:10:49] Speaker C: Primarily a 50 mil. I, I like my prime. So 50 mil in the studio, if I've got a bigger studio. 85 mil. That's a. The GM, like 1.4. [02:11:03] Speaker B: The good ones, the, the fancy ones. [02:11:05] Speaker C: Yeah, my workhorse is. Most of my lenses are actually Tamron, so my workhorse is a 24 to 75 2.8. And yeah, Tamara love it all the time. My other lens that I use for portraits is the 60 to 182.8 Tamron as well. So yeah, I've got. Most of my lenses are actually Tamron, so my primes are Sony. So my, my 50, my 85 and my macro are Sony, but everything else is. Is Tamron. I've got a few other brands thrown in as well, Viltrox and whatever. But yeah, it just depends on. On what gets thrown at me at. [02:11:51] Speaker B: The time and what lighting brand are you using for your home studio and location and stuff like that? What do you. [02:12:02] Speaker C: Okay, so for quite a long time. Time in the early days it was Bowens. Then I moved over to Godox and I've been using Godox for quite a long time. These days I'm getting into a fair bit of newer. [02:12:22] Speaker B: Oh yeah? [02:12:23] Speaker A: Yep. [02:12:24] Speaker B: For what reason? [02:12:30] Speaker A: Gas gear acquisition. [02:12:33] Speaker C: Gear acquisition. So I do, I, I do a lot of, like I said, review and technical writing. So a lot of this gear comes at me and I've been finding that a lot of the newer stuff that's coming through has been absolutely incredible. So. [02:12:57] Speaker B: Illuminated by one of their, um, LCL LCD LED panels as we speak actually is a. It's a. I call them Niwa. I don't know if it's just. If I made that up in my head, do you know, is that, like, how are you supposed to pronounce it? [02:13:11] Speaker C: I don't know. I call them newer, newer, maybe older. [02:13:15] Speaker B: And older and newer. [02:13:16] Speaker C: Older and newer. Yeah. So they'll say, I've got new, new, newer gear. [02:13:20] Speaker B: My gear is newer than yours. [02:13:22] Speaker C: Yeah, but yeah, so I've been, I've been a big fan in, in depending on. I mean, sometimes I will shoot constant light. Sometimes I'm shooting strobe. If, if I'm shooting movement or anything like that, I've got to go for strobe because constants just suck at movement. Yeah, yeah, that's changing. But if you've got static shots especially, you know, like the, the drawing twenties or whatever, you're not having lots of movement. You know, somebody's sitting there posing, then the constant lights are good. The constant lights are easier for people to learn with. The constant lights are easier to teach. And, and I've been using, using the newer or Niwa or whatever they want to call themselves. I've been using them for quite a while and I'm a huge fan of their RGB stuff because it's got the. [02:14:18] Speaker B: Inbuilt gels and, and yeah, your creative stuff. Yeah, that would just make it so much faster to like, I'm going to throw red over here instead of being like, oh yeah, I'll cut a gel sheet out and stick it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. [02:14:31] Speaker C: And there, I mean, yeah, they can be a pain, but having the, the RGB lights and you just, you know, you just punch in a couple of buttons and everyone was going nuts at the, the didn't so much with the, the steam with the Gatsby, but with the steampunk. We had a lot of newer strip lights and the long light sticks and stuff like that. And we were going through and, and we were playing with different. Yeah, Philip was there. We were playing with different gels and that. And I'm going, what color do you want people to go? Red, Green. I'm going at punches. Punch this, punch this. And we were having a lot of fun just playing around with that and we had, you know, lots of really cool stuff just playing around with, with different colors and gels. But I have been testing out their new strobe lights and I've got to say they're blowing me away. Absolutely amazing. [02:15:21] Speaker B: Battery strobes or are they 240 volt ones? [02:15:25] Speaker A: Both. [02:15:26] Speaker B: Oh, nice. Yeah, I think I've seen some popping up on. They're more of a square shape. Yeah. Interesting. [02:15:34] Speaker C: The Q6. The Q6 is a 600 watt and it's small. So I, I have, you know like the, the Godox 8002 hundreds and the Godox 8004 hundreds. But the four hundreds are so big and so heavy that I rarely use them these days I'm only using the 200s. But yeah, being able to have 600 watts in this tiny little thing. Yeah. Is just incredible. Absolutely. And you can chuck a battery in and go out for, you know, three hours or whatever and shoot on it. Fantastic. [02:16:05] Speaker B: Where do you publish these, these articles that you do on, on the newer gear that, that comes out, the newer gear. [02:16:14] Speaker C: So I have my own blog site that I put them on and I put stuff on YouTube. I've also been, well, was for quite a, quite a few years heavily involved in an American company called Photo Focus. Yeah. So I was the associate editor for quite a few years. So I've written over a thousand articles for them on different products and stuff like that. [02:16:39] Speaker A: So that's cool. [02:16:41] Speaker C: So I kind of, I kind of know my. [02:16:43] Speaker B: I guess kinda sounds like you kind of do. [02:16:48] Speaker C: But I'm not, I'm. I mean people sometimes love it or hate it, people sometimes will write, oh, but you're not really technical. I'm not, I, I write articles for the average photographer. So how do you do this? How do you do that? What do you set up? What's so good about this? What can I actually do with this product? Not so much. Yeah, I write technical reviews and it's got this and it's got this and you know, whatever and I put all the text in it, but then I turn around and I also write, you know, what you can actually do with it. So, you know, how, how do you, you know, set up a, you know, 1920s inspired lighting system using this particular light or how do you do this using this particular lens or, you know, how do you, you do whatever. So yeah, so it's not just a case of technical. It's. It's real world, real use articles on how to write all this stuff. So I still write for Photo Focus. I've written for a couple of other companies as well. I'd love to sort of reach out and, and write for a few other companies as well. So that's something else I'd like to, to do more of. I've written stuff for, you know, I've had stuff up on Tamron or, or, you know, various other places. So yeah, love to do more of that. [02:18:06] Speaker B: Amazing. Yeah, maybe we'll be in touch. We want to get some more articles out, don't we? [02:18:12] Speaker A: Greg, we certainly do. [02:18:14] Speaker B: Yeah, we're working on it. [02:18:17] Speaker C: Love to, love to do all that. So I guess that that becomes a creative thing as well. But yeah, sometimes it gets ridiculous. I've, I've just, I just cleared out a whole heap of stuff that I had to write reviews about and then got eight boxes delivered yesterday. [02:18:33] Speaker A: Yeah, I used to write for shot kit and every now and then I'd get sent a batch of bags and it would be three or four massive cardboard boxes just packed with camera bags. Yeah, I do miss those days. [02:18:47] Speaker C: Yeah, you get, I mean, I've got, I've got piles of stuff here. So. Yeah, I work for a couple of different companies doing product reviews and stuff like that and Pete and beta testing as well. So I might come back to him and go, hey, did you know that? So we all, I don't know if you've seen all these little mini flashes that are coming out nowadays. [02:19:10] Speaker A: Yes, yeah. [02:19:11] Speaker C: And, and I went through a stage where I was testing so many of them and I went back to one of the companies and I said, hey, they work really good. But if you've got, you know, like my husband, he's got his Nick on and he's 24 to 70 is like 82 mil diameter or whatever it is. All you're doing, the flash is hitting the, the edge of it and getting shadow. I said, you need to, because it's so small, you need to put a riser in it and pop it up. So one company then went, hey, that's a really good idea. So they, they, they brought out this riser. They've never sent me one. Thanks guys. But yeah, so yeah, that was, that was a real world use, you know, that was a real problem with it. Yeah, it was great if you were dealing with, you know, a little micro 3/4 or even. I mean, most of the Tamron lenses I use are all 67 mil. Doesn't matter what lens it is, it's all 67 mil. And these were all shooting straight over the top beautifully. But yeah, you put a big hunking piece of glass on it and they all fell over. [02:20:20] Speaker A: Yeah, interesting. [02:20:24] Speaker B: Anything else, Greg? I think that's most of the stuff I had in my notes. [02:20:28] Speaker A: Well, I mean, normally you would ask the question about what camera you would hang on what camera you, you would want to use for a zombie apocalypse. But I feel like Julie's already shot a zombie apocalypse. [02:20:37] Speaker B: Yeah, but it wasn't, it wasn't real though. So let's say you're on the movie set and Then all of a sudden all the, all the fake zombies actually are real zombies because I don't know, something happened. [02:20:49] Speaker C: They come to life. [02:20:50] Speaker B: They come to life as real zombies and you can only grab one camera and one lens to document those crazy zombies. [02:20:56] Speaker C: Is it ones that I've got or ones that I wish I had? [02:20:59] Speaker B: Anything you want in the world and. [02:21:02] Speaker C: Why I, I would love to dump what I've got and pick up something really small. [02:21:09] Speaker A: Ah, Fujifilm. [02:21:12] Speaker C: So I, I switched over to Sony because I wanted something light and small. And now that I've gone into the R5, I've gotten big and chunky again. I, I sometimes think that it'd be really cool to have something, you know, really point in a little point and shoot, but with quality. What's not like, not like a little, you know, Kodak Instamatic or whatever. [02:21:35] Speaker B: But no, is. Is there any models that you've been sort of eyeing off that you're like. [02:21:41] Speaker C: There is a couple of. So there's Nikon. I've got some small sort of point and shoot type thing that look pretty good. I've sort of toyed with, you know, Olympic going back to Olympus from time to time. [02:21:52] Speaker B: I was wondering OM system that go back to the, the original. Yeah, yeah. [02:21:58] Speaker C: But yeah, I mean even Sony have got some, some smaller cameras that point shoot you like. They're little sporty cameras. I sometimes think it'd be nice to have one of those for traveling and stuff like that. So something you could just grab and run with in a zombie apocalypse instead of, you know, worrying about which lens to put on would be really handy. [02:22:17] Speaker A: The Rico GR tough cameras are pretty good too because they, you can actually use them to, to smash in a zombie's brains. [02:22:24] Speaker C: Yeah, yep, yep, yep. Yeah. Something tough. [02:22:26] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, something stuff. [02:22:28] Speaker B: But okay, what, what sort of focal length would you like to have on this dream camera? Would you just want it with a fixed, a fixed something or do you, would you like a little zoom on? [02:22:39] Speaker C: I think something, something like a 24 to. To 300 would be. [02:22:44] Speaker B: Oh, you just want. [02:22:48] Speaker A: What's that? Sony. Is it the R100 series now? What? Yeah, the little seventh version. [02:22:53] Speaker B: Yeah, they had like a. I think they had a few different iterations but they had something that was equivalent to. Depending on the version was like 24. I think the shortest was like a 24 to 70ish and then the longest ended up at equivalent to almost 200. Yeah. And they, they sort of played around with different zoom ranges. [02:23:11] Speaker C: Yeah. [02:23:11] Speaker B: And then they just stopped making them and then they brought out the RX13. [02:23:16] Speaker C: But is there, I mean, is there a perfect camera? I mean I actually. [02:23:21] Speaker A: Yes. [02:23:22] Speaker B: No, it is not great. [02:23:23] Speaker A: It's right here. Fujifilm XC5. This one, this is what you need. This is a perfect camera. [02:23:30] Speaker B: I mean it is small. It is pretty small and it's hefty. It's, it's, it's got good, you know, like 40 megapixels, good image quality. It's, it's a nice camera. Wookie. [02:23:43] Speaker A: Wookie's with me. He's got an XC4. He knows if, if they'd like to. [02:23:47] Speaker C: Throw one at me, I'll happily try it. [02:23:49] Speaker A: All right, we'll see what we can do. [02:23:50] Speaker B: Fujifilm mirror review. Oh, I was actually wondering, Greg, should we try and. Should we try and do a bit? Because I know you've already reviewed the XC5 basically like you, but, but should we try and do a bigger review of that before it gets too long into its model life? And maybe we should see if we can crowdsource a bit of information from a few extra people. I wonder if. Do you reckon we could hit up Fujifilm because you've got one, but if we could hit them up for a second, a test one that we could send to a couple of people as well as the long term review that you've done with your own personal one. [02:24:26] Speaker A: Yep. [02:24:27] Speaker B: And sort of pull together like a. Something. I don't know. Yeah, we tried to do it with the OM3 and I dropped the ball on it because it got. [02:24:38] Speaker A: It was all you. [02:24:39] Speaker B: But I need to figure out how to make it easier and I think the podcast is the way to do it. [02:24:43] Speaker A: Yeah. [02:24:43] Speaker C: Yeah, why not? [02:24:45] Speaker B: Yeah, we could get. Julie could play with it and then we get like, get end up getting like three or four or five people on a podcast and, and you kind of lead it with the detail review. [02:24:54] Speaker A: But. [02:24:55] Speaker B: But then everyone can throw in their two cents of what they thought. [02:24:58] Speaker C: Yeah. [02:25:00] Speaker B: I don't know. [02:25:00] Speaker A: Something in that, boss. [02:25:01] Speaker B: I think so. It's a cool little camera. Oh yeah, tempting. [02:25:07] Speaker A: Yeah. I love it. It is, it is. I was talking to Glenn yesterday on, on Facebook and because I posted a couple of photos that I shot with it and he, he's very keen. [02:25:20] Speaker C: I think a lot of people, once they start spending the money on a particular brand or whatever, they tend to. You tend to be indebted to what you spent your money on. So I mean, you know, I, I've got every. Everything I own is set up pretty much for, for Sony. So, you know, if I was to go and buy another camera, I would probably my first look would be to go and go for another Sony but, you know, only because I already own everything. But then you're like, well, what else is out there? [02:25:58] Speaker A: The ride is the spice of life. [02:26:01] Speaker C: This is true. But then you're like, oh, then I've got to try and go through and it's a lot. [02:26:06] Speaker A: Yeah. And you know, and Justin's, Justin's jumped brand ship more times than anyone can count. It is, it is a big financial investment because like you said, you know, you're invested in glass and, and even the jump from, you know, we just spoke last week to Louise Sedgman and she's only just picked up a Nikon Z8. She's been shooting DSLR still, although she knows she, she's very business savvy, so she knows how to extract every cent out of gear. But you know, she's only just made the jump and that must be quite intimidating. Yes. Granted you can, you can get an adapter and, and keep your old lenses. [02:26:40] Speaker C: But at some stage, yeah, hubby went through all that. He, he went and got a nick on Mirrorless because he had all nick on but then he's replaced all his class anyway because he hated using it with the adapter. [02:26:51] Speaker B: The adapters suck. I mean, it's a good way to bridge across where you like, you're like, I don't want to swap all my lenses at once. So it's a good way to do that. But I don't know many people that have gone to Mirrorless and just like, oh, just, I'll just forever keep these. Everyone's always like, I've got a plan to swap and I've swapped one. My main lens I've swapped and I'll slowly do the others and whatever. But that's why, although it hurts to rip the band aid off and swap systems, if you're going to do it, if it, it's the moment when you swap to mirrorless whole hog because you're essentially are swapping systems anyway. So it's like if you're going, if you were gonna, you know, swap from Nikon DSLR to Mirrorless, for example, that's the time to at least weigh you your other options up. And I think a smart thing to do is look at the lenses that you want that you'd like to have in your dream kit, throw them all into a, just a pretend shopping basket on your favorite camera store's website or whatever, or ring Brendan from Cameron photo and Ocean Grove and just. And price up the system that you would ideally want, even though you might not get it all at once because sometimes the difference in all the lens prices might be so. In the lenses you want might be so different that it's almost worth looking at another brand sometimes when you're doing the big switch from DSLR to mirrorless perspective as well. Yeah. But on the other hand, cameras are cameras and you can make great art with anything. So don't get too good. [02:28:21] Speaker C: Well, yeah, I'm always getting asked, oh, you know, if I was to go and get a camera, what would I get? And I go, you can't really go wrong with any of the modern cameras. [02:28:30] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, exactly. [02:28:32] Speaker C: It doesn't matter whether, you know, you go Canon, Nikon, Sony, Fuji, Olympus, Panasonic, if you can afford Leica, go for it. But yeah, I mean, they're all good. It's, it's. Yeah, you know, I reckon I could. [02:28:47] Speaker A: And the other. [02:28:49] Speaker C: Out of really old cameras. [02:28:51] Speaker B: You absolutely could. Yeah. [02:28:53] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think the other thing that people don't think about with a, with a system swap, even moving from say, you know, DSLR to mirrorless or moving from an APSC mirrorless to a full frame mirrorless is that often it's all the other stuff. It's, it's, it's the battery, grip and all the batteries. Like you might have bought four batteries for your Canon R5 Mark II. What's that going to cost you, Justin? About 5, 600 bucks? [02:29:14] Speaker B: No, no, no, Greg, you might have bought five batteries for your Canon R5 Mark 1 and then they bring out a same, but different battery for the R5 Mark I. And even though your Mark 1 batteries go in the R5 Mark II, a little warning pops up and says, oh, you won't be able to use some video modes with this battery and some of your frame per second rates will be slightly different with this battery. And you go, well, thanks a lot. Fucking Canon. You couldn't just, you couldn't just keep the batteries the same and figure it out, Figure out a way. [02:29:42] Speaker C: Been there, done that with Sony. Although I think, yeah, all of my stuff's all got the same stuff. But yeah, it's, it triggers for. Yeah, triggers and, and so much stuff. [02:29:54] Speaker A: Yeah. [02:29:54] Speaker C: That you end up with. Yeah. I mean, you know what? [02:29:58] Speaker A: One thing will never change is if you have a lucky strap, leather camera strap. Oh, that can go on any camera, Greg. [02:30:04] Speaker B: Hey, smooth transition there. Yeah. That is, you just swap that from camera to camera. Don't Matter, doesn't matter what camera you've got, doesn't matter. Your new camera from your new system will feel like an old friend. When you swapped your leather camera strap across from your old body and then you just throw that old piece of junk on Marketplace, the old camera and just send it off. [02:30:26] Speaker C: I still am amazed at the people who run around with the horrible like the neck strap. [02:30:34] Speaker A: Kit strap. [02:30:34] Speaker C: Yeah, the kit strap. And I'm like, you are putting yourself in a whole world of pain just from hanging a big ass camera off your neck. Don't get yourself a really good camera strap. [02:30:48] Speaker B: That's right. It doesn't have to be one of ours, but at least go and find something that's comfortable from somewhere. There's like, we know ours are on the expensive side because they're Australian made in leather. But you can go into a camera store and, and if you're trying to find something, there'll be something there for 50 bucks probably that, that is way more comfortable than the ones that come in the box. Go and try a few on and find something that's longer and goes across your body and, or whatever. [02:31:13] Speaker C: And, and then they amaze me is you go the other length. People who hate the neck straps that don't have a strap on their camera at least put a wrist strap on guys. Yeah. [02:31:22] Speaker A: Makes me so nervous. Yeah. [02:31:24] Speaker C: If you stumble or anything like that. I don't know how many people I've seen who have, yeah, dropped, dropped cameras. [02:31:30] Speaker A: I, I dropped mine. [02:31:31] Speaker C: Not that I haven't, but demonstrating how. [02:31:33] Speaker A: Safe our straps are. I dropped my camera as soon as I took the strap off. It just fell through my hands. I went, oh wow. [02:31:40] Speaker B: It was the perfect advertising, the perfect ad. [02:31:45] Speaker A: Like when I bought this XE5 credit to Fujifilm, they have stepped up their strap game with, with, with some of their sort of more premium cameras. But it's still just, you know, I'm a big guy and it's still just too short. And I actually got interviewed or not interview but I got sent a bunch of questions by, by Fujifilm Australia about, you know, how did you find the strap that came in the box and said well look, you know, full declaration and, and transparency. I work with lucky straps so you know, I have access to straps. But having said that, I like the new straps but it's not adjustable and, or it was far too short and it just felt uncomfortable and so I instantly, you know, and that's, that's something that they've paid for and it's becoming landfill now. [02:32:27] Speaker C: Like yeah, Exactly. [02:32:30] Speaker A: Don't bother, you know. [02:32:31] Speaker C: Yeah. And this, they're either too long or so, you know, you get a lot of guys who are really tall or, or big guys and they're too short. I find a lot of the camera straps are too short for me. But there's also a lot of little women and I mean, there's little guys too, where they're too bloody long. Yeah. So, yeah, they need to be adjustable if nothing else. But yeah, hanging them off. [02:32:56] Speaker A: And that was something I found at bfa. People are unsure, but as soon as I sort of said, oh, here's mine. This is the long length of strap. Pop that on and see how you feel, I said, I'm a big guy and I like this. And fitting it, it's almost like, you know, old school trying on a garment in a store with a, with a, you know, shopping assistant. Instant to make sure it works, make sure it fits, make sure it feels comfortable, go for a walk with it, you know, but, but above all else, throw out that kit strap because it will just ruin your joy of photography. [02:33:21] Speaker C: Oh, yeah, definitely. Definitely. [02:33:24] Speaker B: I think that's a good note to leave the episode on. [02:33:27] Speaker A: That's a great note. Fancy. We started talking about camera straps. Who would have thought? Who would have thought? [02:33:33] Speaker C: But no money exchanged hands. [02:33:36] Speaker A: No, no, not at all. How many times did I mention. I think I just about 100 bucks during this episode. So that's nice. I get commission. But, but look on, on that note, on behalf of all of us here at the Camera Life, thank you so much for your time today. Julie, it's been an absolute pleasure to hear you unpack how you got to where you are and, and the, the unique paths that you took, which I think should be celebrated at every opportunity. And, and obviously, like we said, you know, your feedback from the B workshop that are popping up and the images and the confidence with, with which people are sharing those images now is testament to your, to your qualities as an educator and as an image maker. So thank you so much for joining us. It's been an absolute pleasure. [02:34:20] Speaker C: It's been great. Thank you. A load of fun. Yeah. Yeah, terrific. [02:34:24] Speaker A: Lovely. But on that note, we will wrap. But don't forget everybody, we will be back on Monday evening, 7.30pm Australian Eastern Daylight Time. If you hit subscribe on our channel and tickle the the bell icon so you get all notifications, you'll get notified in your time zone of when we're going live. And of course, every Thursday morning, 9am Australian Eastern Daylight Time. For now, we have an interview with an amazing photographer just like you have witnessed this morning. Any. Anything else you want to add, boss? [02:34:58] Speaker B: No, nothing. Just go and check out Julie's stuff. Go to the website. They're all. It's all linked below or. Yeah, just Google Julie Power photography and, and sift through the six or seven results that come up and you'll find her eventually. [02:35:10] Speaker A: You'll find the right email. [02:35:13] Speaker C: They've got the little mushy character. [02:35:15] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, exactly. You'll. You'll track it down. But no, the. In the links. Go and subscribe to her YouTube channel. I'm going to attempt to do the YouTube collaboration thing with you. We've never done it before. Have you seen that? Where. Where it like. So this video will then pop up on your page. Okay, we'll try it. We'll see what happens. [02:35:34] Speaker C: Okay, cool. Yep, yep, yep. [02:35:35] Speaker B: We'll give it a whirl. But anyway. But if you're listening, go, go and subscribe to @JuliePower Photos on YouTube. Follow her on Instagram, do all that stuff. [02:35:44] Speaker C: I'm everywhere. [02:35:45] Speaker B: She's everywhere. And otherwise we'll read out some comments as we play our amazing reggae music. [02:35:54] Speaker A: Cool. [02:35:56] Speaker B: Philip Johnson. Thank you. Thanks for listening. [02:35:58] Speaker A: Thanks, Philip. [02:35:59] Speaker B: Rodney Nicholson. I'm waiting for Kodak to bring out a new box brownie. Oh, my God. A digital box brownie would sell so many. That would be insane. [02:36:09] Speaker C: It would be fun. [02:36:10] Speaker B: It would be genius if it was like 200 bucks. But it was cool. A fun digital. It would sell like crazy. [02:36:16] Speaker C: There's a Kodak Instamatic Digital digital one, but it's a crap. [02:36:21] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not the same. Wookie says hold fast. Dual camera harnesses are excellent. Lucky straps are even better. No, no. He said something like that, but no. For a leather dual camera harness that actually exists, hold fast are probably your best option. Unfortunately, ours are still in production. Elena says perfect is subjective. That's true. You're perfect though. To me. What else? [02:36:47] Speaker A: You're crying. [02:36:50] Speaker B: Matt Palmer, good to see you. Everyone else that was in here, Nick Fletcher, who was here and then gone. Jim, Pete, everybody, we'll see you on the next one. [02:36:58] Speaker A: Thanks, everyone. Be safe.