EP33 Underwater Boudoir Photography with Natalia Naa

[00:00:07] Speaker A: Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. Welcome to the Camera Life podcast, brought to you by Lucky Straps out of Bendigo, Victoria. It's already the 10 October 2024. This is episode 33 of the Camera Life podcast and you'll notice that we've got a pretty full show today where rejoined by one of the original founders of the podcast, Jim. Jim's been recovering from some problems that he's had. Welcome back, Jim. Good to have you back on the show. [00:00:41] Speaker B: Yeah, thank you. [00:00:43] Speaker C: Some problems, some problems. [00:00:44] Speaker A: I don't want to go into details. It's not my story. They're not my problems. Good to have you back, mate. Good to see you upright. How have you been? [00:00:54] Speaker B: Yeah, not too bad, too bad. Just getting around. [00:00:59] Speaker A: We've got something to have. [00:01:00] Speaker C: Audio problems. [00:01:01] Speaker A: Yeah, that's one problem. [00:01:03] Speaker C: We're loopy. Looping. Let me fix this. [00:01:05] Speaker A: All right. And obviously we're joined by Justin. Good morning, Justin. [00:01:08] Speaker C: Good morning. [00:01:10] Speaker A: Hey, liking Bendigo today, boys. Is it sunny? It's sunny. It's just gone overcast. And of course, today we have a special guest. We are joined by Natalia Naar. Is that the correct pronunciation of your surname? Naa? Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure, Natalia. We'll call you Natalia from here on. Welcome to the show. Thank you for joining us. Great to have you on board. We're going to dive deep into your story and learn a lot more about you and your photography and your current projects. And for those of you listening along at home, yes, this is another episode of the Fujifilm camera life. Because Natalia is a Fujifilm photographer. I've known Natalia for a number of years. We on and off have both been admins of the australian Fujifilm Facebook group Fuji X Oz, keeping everyone there in line. And yeah, it's great to have you on the show, kido. [00:02:09] Speaker D: Amazing. Thanks for having me again. And hello. [00:02:12] Speaker A: Good morning. Good morning. I think anyone watching along, we should have a vote of who has the best, who has the best backdrop, kind of. Natalia is getting my vote at the moment for that kind of aesthetic. [00:02:27] Speaker C: I like the aesthetic, but I have to give it to Jim. I don't know how he's painted his walls in that purple color. It looks like. I don't even know what it looks like. Looks like. Well, Greg was saying that you. Looks like you've been playing games or something. You've been gaming. [00:02:43] Speaker B: They're my God. Slice. [00:02:45] Speaker C: Oh, what is happening with your microphone? Hang on, let me. Let me sort this out. [00:02:51] Speaker A: No, maybe just. [00:02:53] Speaker C: Hey, Jim, maybe just change it to your computer microphone. We'll just ditch that thing altogether. Stick with this team. [00:03:06] Speaker A: Yelena has said that. [00:03:11] Speaker B: How's that? [00:03:12] Speaker A: That is a fake background. He's actually in bed, eyes green. Screening it. [00:03:16] Speaker C: It could be. [00:03:17] Speaker B: Can you hear me? [00:03:19] Speaker C: That's a bit better. [00:03:20] Speaker B: Is that better? That's just the MacBook one. [00:03:23] Speaker C: Yeah, that's way better than that expensive microphone we bought you, actually, maybe it's the cord. [00:03:29] Speaker A: Maybe try another cordental. [00:03:30] Speaker C: Yeah, I'm just gonna. I'll boost you up a little bit. Just say something, Jim. Say something inspiring to the. To the whole crowd out there. [00:03:37] Speaker B: I don't have much to say. [00:03:42] Speaker C: I think that'll boost me up. That should work very well. Yeah, you boosted. [00:03:49] Speaker A: So, for those of you watching at home, we're coming to you live from Jim and Justin in Bendigo. Victoria and I, Natalia and I are both in Melbourne. You're in Melbourne at the moment, aren't you? [00:04:01] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:04:01] Speaker A: You are. [00:04:04] Speaker C: Melbourne. [00:04:06] Speaker A: So we've got a lot to get through. Let's. Let's. Let's dive straight in. Natalia, welcome to the show. We want to hear a lot about your story, but first of all, I want to talk to you or hear from you about your. What were your earliest motivations to. To take up photography? What was it that. What was that little spark that. That motivated you to try camera photography in general? [00:04:30] Speaker D: Yeah, the very, very first, I guess, no pun intended, but exposure to photography was in high school because I was in, like, a yearbook class. So if anyone's not familiar with what a yearbook class is, so it's a class in high school. So we are divided into different teams, and some of us, we're in charge of taking photos of what's happening around the school, school events, students activities, and whatnot. And then at the end of the year, we'll have, like, a physical book that we can. Yeah. Just, like, look back and get people to sign when we graduate and when the year ends. Yeah. So that was the very first photography thing that I was into. And then I got into food photography because I like to go out and eat pretty food. I like brunching. Well, I used to. Pretty food got me. And then. Yeah. And then that is the turning point where I thought, wait, photography is actually fun, because during that time, as well, when I was doing food photography or brunch photography, I was also a little bit more in the Instagram game, like, social media. A bit more. Yeah, more active in the Instagram side of things. So I get to build a community. I'm like, oh, I can get a. You know, like, a cute little food photographer community. So that, that, I thought, was quite fun. And, yeah, long story short, still here doing photography. [00:06:11] Speaker A: Okay, that's really cool. So basically, you, you wanted to be a digital influencer. That's what I hear. That's the, that's the underline there. But going back to your time, working on that, the school annual, do you remember what sort of camera you were shooting with? Was it just. Was it film? Was it digital? [00:06:32] Speaker D: It was digital. It was Nikon. And it was. The quality wasn't there back then. So I thought, okay. Oh, that was hard with great stuff and just learning about all the different photography triangle, all the rules, all the whatnot. I'm like, oh, this is, this is not as fun as I thought. And then I got my first fujifilm, and then it was a game changer. [00:06:59] Speaker A: I am not lads. Fujifilm was the game changer. [00:07:03] Speaker C: I heard. [00:07:05] Speaker A: I heard she ditched the nick on. [00:07:09] Speaker C: I don't know if. I actually don't know if Jim can hear us. He's having some. He's having some major problems. Hey, Jim, if you're. If you're being taken hostage, blink twice. What's. [00:07:20] Speaker A: That, two? Is that just one? [00:07:23] Speaker C: I think all of his stuff's got problems. I'll sort that out with him in the chat on the side. [00:07:29] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay, cool. So you considered doing food photography where you were doing food photography or brunching, basically, with a camera? And what did that teach you about your craft? What did those early experiences show you that you really needed to focus on? Pardon the pun? [00:07:53] Speaker D: I think just creating for myself, I know it's not so cliche, but then when I go out, I get to explore, you know, the angles and what background and, you know, all the nitty gritty stuff versus, oh, you have to shoot at this shutter speed for an event at school, so it's a little bit more fun to do. And that was the, also the time when I'm pretty sure I got the 56 1.2. And I'm really, really loving that bokeh. Like the background. Oh, creamy. Yeah. So that really helped with the. With the whole experience, just creating pretty photos. [00:08:31] Speaker A: Yep. Okay. That 5612 is an exceptional lens. They've made four different versions of it so far. I think four or three, maybe three different versions. There was the original 56 1.2, and then eight months later, they released the 56 1.2 APD, which has the extra apodization filtering thingy for extra bokeh, extra creamy. That's the cappuccino version. And then they've recently. Well, in the last couple of years, they rebuilt, remodeled the original 5612. I recently reviewed that and it's such a gorgeous lens. [00:09:10] Speaker C: So do they sell them alongside each other now, two models or. [00:09:14] Speaker A: Yeah, they do have, they always have. [00:09:16] Speaker C: Extra creamy version and yeah, the new. [00:09:18] Speaker A: Version, the x, the Cappuccino one is much more expensive. Like it's several hundred bucks more. [00:09:23] Speaker C: Is it? [00:09:24] Speaker A: Yeah, for that. [00:09:25] Speaker C: Have you tested that one? [00:09:28] Speaker A: I've shot with it. I haven't reviewed it, but I've shot with it. [00:09:31] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:09:33] Speaker A: I don't know. Not a huge difference. I mean, the 56 1.2 is renowned as one of the best Fuji lenses, Fuji primes especially. And it's fast, it's wide aperture and it delivers exceptionally nice creamy bouquet. So the APD, whenever I write about it, I always say that releasing the APD with it within the same year just didn't make sense. Like they should have just waited and done it once. But it is a much more expensive lens. So. Yeah. Trip down memory lane. Down Fuji Lane. So Natalia, you moved to, you decided to pick up a fujifilm. Made the wise choice, obviously. What was your first Fujifilm camera that you picked up? [00:10:17] Speaker D: It was the Fujifilm XM one. I only bought it purely for the aesthetics because they have a tan version of it and I thought, that is so cute. I'm so basic, but I thought I'd just get it. [00:10:34] Speaker A: You're all about the aesthetics. I love it. [00:10:36] Speaker D: I am, I am, I'm a girl. [00:10:39] Speaker C: What? Whatever inspires you to pick the camera up, I guess it's like, yeah, yeah. And if you're going to get an expensive camera, you might as well like the way it looks. [00:10:46] Speaker D: Yeah. It's like, oh, this makes me look cute when I'm out brunching, so why not? [00:10:54] Speaker A: Yeah, it's that influencer in you. So the XM, now, they were very much like those Olympus OMDs, the pens, you could get the pens with different wraps, couldn't you as well? They were kind of a bit competing at the time. I don't think the Olympus pens are still a thing. [00:11:16] Speaker D: Maybe past a few years ago. Yeah, but not right now, I don't think. [00:11:20] Speaker A: But I remember seeing advertising for the Olympus and it was all about how it looks in your hand. [00:11:27] Speaker D: Yeah, the cuter, the smaller. Yeah, the cuter it is. Yep, yep, yep. [00:11:32] Speaker C: Speaking of cuter, I'm just going to try and bring, bring Jim back in. [00:11:36] Speaker A: Oh. Oh, no, no. Kicking out again. [00:11:39] Speaker C: Hang on, hang on. What was that? [00:11:41] Speaker A: What happened? Jim. Maybe he should dish, the headphones and just go with his computer audio. [00:11:47] Speaker C: That's what I said. Just go. Just go. All. I don't know if he can hear us, but just go all MacBook audio speakers, MacBook mic. Get rid of all of those other things and we'll bring you back in. Jimbo. We'll get you here. We're going to do it. [00:12:00] Speaker A: Yeah? Yeah. [00:12:04] Speaker C: No, no, sorry. Sorry. He's still not ready. [00:12:09] Speaker A: Maybe he needs to shut everything, quit and restart. [00:12:12] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, we'll, uh. We'll sort him out anyway. [00:12:16] Speaker A: All right, onwards. Um, so the. The XM. What was it? The XM. [00:12:21] Speaker D: XM one. [00:12:22] Speaker A: Oh, that's another Fuji range that, uh, Yelena's just said in the chat. Thanks, Yelena. Um, sounds like Greg just wishes he wasn't. I am an influencer. He is a title. Building communities, that's my influence. That's about the only influence I've got. Certainly don't have any influence over my children or my cats. Natalia. Sorry for that, Segway. So XM one, that was another one of those ranges like the Xa. I think they got up to, like, xa five with the Fuji. And they were entry level. They were entry level. And the XM one, that would have been like, a 16 megapixel sensor. [00:13:08] Speaker D: I have no idea. Honestly, even up until now, the technical side of things loses me every time. I'm like, as long as it looks good, it gets me what I want to create. That's all I need. [00:13:20] Speaker A: And so what are you photographing with now? What camera and lens system are you using at the moment? [00:13:26] Speaker D: My main workhorse online is the XT three with the 23 mil 1.4. [00:13:34] Speaker A: I like how you said on land. [00:13:36] Speaker D: Yeah, on land. On water is the XH two, only because when I wanted to get an underwater housing, they don't have one for the XC five yet. So I thought, okay, I'll just get the XH two instead of the XT five. [00:13:52] Speaker A: And the XH two is still a great camera. It's 40 megapixel. [00:13:56] Speaker C: Yeah, that's what I was gonna say. So why would you use the x T three still on land when you've got that beautiful xh two? Why not use it on land as well? [00:14:06] Speaker D: I'm just used to it. [00:14:08] Speaker C: You prefer the feel, the form factor of the XT series? [00:14:13] Speaker D: Yeah, I like the flippy screen. [00:14:15] Speaker C: Oh, the XHD doesn't have a flippy screen. [00:14:18] Speaker D: It flips sideways, not upwards. I don't know if that makes sense. [00:14:23] Speaker A: But you can't flip it in a housing, can you? [00:14:25] Speaker D: No, but, yeah. [00:14:27] Speaker C: So does it must flip the same way? Like a cannon flips, where it flips out to the side? Yeah, that is. That is probably one of the things I least like about cannons, the way that they're flippy works. I mean, it's fine, but it's not as nice as just being able to just tilt it out. [00:14:42] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I. Hence why the XT series instead of the x age. But I love the group on the x age. [00:14:50] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's true. Much deeper. Um, so that's a perfect segue. I do like segues. Um, I can give on one of. [00:15:00] Speaker C: Those segways riding around Melbourne, you know? You couldn't. No, you couldn't. No, no. [00:15:05] Speaker A: I've been watching, um, Instagram reels of people having crashes on scooters. And, you know those one wheel, they kind of. You wedge it between your knees and. [00:15:13] Speaker C: It'S just one wheel that goes forwards. Really? [00:15:16] Speaker A: Yeah, just go. Yeah, and they kind of lean to steer. I've been seeing some of those crash. I don't know why I'm watching these things, but, you know, late night scrolling. It is fun watching other people hurt themselves. [00:15:28] Speaker C: Hang on, I'm bringing him back in. We're going to do this again. Sorry, people, if this hurts your ears. Oh, I think we've done it. Are you there, Jim? [00:15:36] Speaker B: I can hear you now. Hey, can you hear me? [00:15:38] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sound good? [00:15:41] Speaker B: Yeah. Nice. All right. [00:15:43] Speaker C: Okay. [00:15:43] Speaker B: I don't know why that expensive mic isn't working. [00:15:46] Speaker A: Ladies, round of applause for Jim. Welcome back to the show. [00:15:49] Speaker C: Hang on, this one. [00:15:52] Speaker B: Which one? [00:15:53] Speaker C: No, it's not the right one. No, that's not got a label. That's not it. No. [00:15:59] Speaker A: Oh, don't. Please don't do that, mate. Paul Henderson. G'day, Paul. Where are you? Where are you sending us messages from? Please let us know in the. In the comments. Might be time to change the channel title to the Fuji life podcast. It's my end goal, Paul. It's my kind of ultimate plan. [00:16:27] Speaker C: Once a Fuji executive arrives at my front door with bags and bags of money will change it to whatever they want. [00:16:34] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:16:34] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:16:36] Speaker A: Round of applause for that. [00:16:37] Speaker C: Yeah, exactly. It's all about the money. We can be bored. We will be bored. [00:16:42] Speaker A: Paul's in Bendigo as well. [00:16:44] Speaker C: Hey, Paul. [00:16:45] Speaker B: Hey, Paul. [00:16:45] Speaker A: I believe Paul is a boudoir photographer, which is why he's watching the show. Correct me if I'm wrong, Paul, your name rings a bell. All right, we got very sidetracked there. [00:17:00] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:17:01] Speaker A: Segways. [00:17:01] Speaker C: Let's try and bring this bus back onto the road. [00:17:04] Speaker A: Sorry. So, Natalia, you mentioned that you use an xt three with a 23 mil on land, but on water or in water, you use an xh two in an underwater housing. Your photography, at the moment, you're working, you're not doing food so much anymore, but you're photographing boudoir as well as intimate portraiture, floral shibari, and underwater portraiture and boudoir. What on earth. What drove you into the water to photograph mostly, primarily the female form? [00:17:46] Speaker C: Before you answer that, hang on to that question. Before you answer it, I want to know, because when we promoted this episode, there were people that thought it was a clickbait headline and it was supposed to be underwater comma, boudoir photographer. Like, they're two completely separate things. And I was like, no, no, no. This is a real thing. This is happening. So it's. Yeah, I've never seen it before, so, yeah. Very excited to hear about how it come about. [00:18:12] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:18:13] Speaker D: I mean, on the very basis of things, it's just more skin underwater. [00:18:20] Speaker A: More skin underwater. [00:18:22] Speaker D: Yeah. But back to your question, Greg. I think it was also because I get a little bit bored of doing land stuff, and I thought I wanted to do something different. And I've always wanted to try underwater photography since, like, years ago. So I thought, well, this is the perfect time to. Yeah. To try something new. And I've been doing the land style for pretty much since I started photography. And then delving into the water stuff, I thought, okay, let me just try this. If I like it, I'll stick on it. Like, stick, stick to it. But if I don't, then I'll stick to land. And being able to breathe properly while shooting, that would be nice. But I got cool and still doing underwater stuff now and invested in more fun toys. [00:19:17] Speaker C: Did you. You bought a housing to try specifically underwater boudoir, or had you tried other styles? Like, were you sort of, I'll do some underwater, just, I don't know, taking photos of fish or something? Or was it specifically the first thing you wanted to try underwater? Was people like boudoir or just people underwater? [00:19:40] Speaker D: It was straight on people. I'm not very interested in fish. Yes. Not a smaller fish. The bigger ones I'm very interested in. But humans, especially in the female form, all that curves and photographing that online and also in water. It's what I'm always been into. [00:20:03] Speaker C: That's so cool. [00:20:04] Speaker A: Now, in. In past episodes, we've had Matt Crummons who is a yemenite. He's actually one of the co directors of the bright vessel photography. And we'll get to that later. But he has also been a Fujifilm ambassador. And Russell Ord, who he had not last week, the week before, who's another Fuji, more Fujifilm photographer. It's interesting, another Fuji ambassador, both of which do ocean photography. Matt, kind of his side hustle. His hobby is to actually do ocean photography of in black and white. I remember him showing us those images. An amazing way to capture. You don't often see underwater photography in black and white of the ocean because often people are trying to exemplify the colour and the variety and how the species look. And then obviously Russell does a lot of surf stuff. He does deep wave stuff. They're both really strong swimmers. Have you always been a strong swimmer? Or is it more of a kind of just trying to stay alive down there? [00:21:16] Speaker D: I can swim and I'll do my best to stay alive. [00:21:20] Speaker A: Right. Okay. That's probably the first line in the brief. [00:21:25] Speaker B: And so, Jim, sorry, I was going to say, like, when you're underwater, are you sort of like quite committed to the shot in that you'll sometimes say stay under longer than what you would if you were just, I guess, swimming around with kind of no purpose. [00:21:42] Speaker C: Are you holding your breath for a long time to try and get the photo? [00:21:47] Speaker D: I try to, or whenever, however long that my clients underwater, I try to get in before them and a little bit after them. And it's a good practice for me as well because I'm also practicing for, while training in the, in the free diving space. So that would help with my. [00:22:05] Speaker A: Oh, wow. So you don't use any, you don't use a snorkel or a tank? Do you, do you have, obviously you wear glasses? Do you wear a diving mask or. Okay, and is that, how does that work when you, you're looking through a mask to see a screen that's behind a waterproof housing? How do you find that? [00:22:29] Speaker D: It was okay. It wasn't too bad. I guess the more stable I get, the easier I get to see what the, what the subject or the client is doing underwater. So then when they're moving, I'll be moving slash swimming with them and then just taking the shots as I go. [00:22:46] Speaker A: Cool. I'm going to bring up your website, if you don't mind, if that's okay with you. I want to share some of these images while we talk because they're quite phenomenal. [00:22:58] Speaker C: Just bear with me while you're doing that, Greg? I just wanted to ask Natalia, like, when did you. So when did you start charging for boudoir photography? How long has it been a business for you? [00:23:09] Speaker D: Four years? Three. Four years. It was. I started. I made a decision to do and commit to the boudoir fantasy side during COVID lockdown. [00:23:21] Speaker C: Okay. Yeah. And how, like, is it. Is it your full time gig? Is it a part time thing? Like, what. What is your business for you at the moment? [00:23:32] Speaker D: I get this question a lot, and I don't know where. How to answer it from. You know, like, from what perspective? [00:23:40] Speaker C: Because just a dollar figure of your annual income. No, I'm kidding. [00:23:45] Speaker A: Profit and loss statement would be great. [00:23:47] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tax return, whatever. [00:23:49] Speaker D: If it's on the income, then it would be way more than what the conventional, normal job is, your day job. [00:24:00] Speaker A: So you've got a day job? [00:24:01] Speaker D: Sort of. Yeah. [00:24:03] Speaker A: Okay. [00:24:04] Speaker D: Yeah, it's on. [00:24:07] Speaker A: You don't have to worry. [00:24:09] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:24:10] Speaker D: Yes. Almost like half. Half, which allows me to do a lot of different things. But, yeah, I guess in terms of the. The dollar signs, this would be a little bit more. More in taxes as well. But in terms of the hours, it just fluctuates. Just really depends on what I want to do or what I'm focusing on at that time, at that, you know, whatever specific time. [00:24:37] Speaker C: I guess a better question might be, could it. Could it support you full time if you wanted to? Do you think? [00:24:44] Speaker D: 100%. I've got many of my friends telling, oh, why don't you just, you know, do. Do this full time, make it your one and only thing. But I decided not to because if I did, then I will treat it as work. Work, and then that's my number. Like, that's. That would be the only thing that I'm working on. And I think that would drive me crazy, because I need different things to focus on and not just have the one thing. [00:25:10] Speaker A: Yeah, I should have warned people before I brought this up, but there are. There are naked forms. Is that going to get us in trouble with YouTube, Justin? [00:25:17] Speaker C: You know what? Probably. I actually have no idea. [00:25:21] Speaker A: Let's go to that. [00:25:23] Speaker C: I guess we should roll the dice. Let's try and. Let's try and stick. If we are going to look more specifically to images, we'll try and stick with the ones that are a little more covered up. [00:25:32] Speaker A: Let me jump to. Let me jump to. [00:25:33] Speaker C: Natalia's Instagram actually hadn't thought about that at all. [00:25:36] Speaker A: I had. Neither. [00:25:36] Speaker D: Instagram would be safer because Instagram. [00:25:41] Speaker C: So if it's okay. On Instagram. It would probably be okay on YouTube. That's actually. [00:25:46] Speaker A: Oh, let me share the other screen. Share this. [00:25:48] Speaker B: Have you had any, I guess, issues with Instagram, with any of the. Of your work that you've shared there? [00:25:56] Speaker D: Some. Some that would flag me for the silliest reasons, but I managed to get it up. The biggest one that I would flag would be the Shibari ones, actually. [00:26:10] Speaker A: Oh, wow. [00:26:12] Speaker C: Really? [00:26:12] Speaker D: Yeah. Because they flag it under self harm or something. It was something silly. [00:26:18] Speaker A: Oh, wow. And is that people reporting it? Sorry. [00:26:23] Speaker D: I don't think it's people reporting it. I think it's just Instagram thinking, oh, there's rope on someone's body. Let's just flag this. [00:26:33] Speaker C: Yeah. And for those of you that are similar to me and that you don't, well, didn't know what Shibari is until very recently, or don't know what it is, we might. We'll go through that a little bit later because we just learned what it is as well. [00:26:46] Speaker A: Tony's just left a comment. Good morning, Tony. Of course, the lumberjack makes an appearance on this episode because Jim's very interested in learning more about his photography. [00:26:58] Speaker C: He disappears. But then when it's an interesting topic, he's like, hello. Apparently he's good. [00:27:03] Speaker A: He's off work, sick. [00:27:04] Speaker B: So I was asked to come back. [00:27:07] Speaker A: You were? [00:27:07] Speaker C: I did. I did. I said it would be a great episode for you to be on. [00:27:11] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:27:11] Speaker C: But then he's rocked up with no flannel, so it's also. [00:27:13] Speaker A: No. I know. I'm really shocked. But he does have a lucky straps t shirt on. [00:27:17] Speaker C: Yeah, that's true. [00:27:18] Speaker A: I'm not wearing mine. I'm wearing an astro boy shirt, which is my usual go to because all my lucky shirts are in the suitcase, ready for bright, because, you know. So let's talk about this shot here. While we're on the subject of your underwater photography. We'll get to your intimate portraits and your. Is it fantasy, fairy boudoir or fairy fan? Yeah, we'll get to it with your water shots. Where are you taking these? Are these in a pool? In a lake? Where are you when you're taking these shots? [00:27:54] Speaker D: That one was in a pool. [00:27:56] Speaker A: And so do you primarily shoot in. [00:27:58] Speaker D: A pool at the moment? Yes. Not the most ideal just because I want to do more open water, but Melbourne being Melbourne is a little bit too cold for open water ocean shoots. [00:28:15] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:28:15] Speaker C: So I was going to ask about the dark background. So you've lit them from above with a flash. So you're in a pool lit them from above with a flash. But you've also draped, I think it looked like there was a. A dark backdrop drape. [00:28:30] Speaker D: Yeah, it was just a dark piece of, well, black cloth backdrop. But that was the only one time that was the shot that I used the lights with. And then the other ones, all the other ones, like that one and that one. They're all natural light. [00:28:46] Speaker C: Okay. Do you prefer using flash or natural light? [00:28:49] Speaker D: Natural light. It gets. I like not to have. No, not to bring a lot of stuff to sets or to shoots. [00:28:58] Speaker A: And so when you are shooting in a pool, whose pool is it? Are you booking out, like, a pool at a gym or a hydrotherapy pool? How are you finding these spaces? [00:29:12] Speaker D: I book random people's pools. [00:29:15] Speaker A: You just show up at someone's house with an inflatable tube and a yemenite and a lady wanting some pretty photos. [00:29:22] Speaker D: Yeah. I'm like, oh, I just need to use the pool. And I do a little bit of photography. They're like, okay, cool. [00:29:29] Speaker C: Wow, awesome. [00:29:30] Speaker B: So are you through Airbnb or something like that? Or is it, like, people, you know, people. [00:29:36] Speaker D: I know Airbnb. And also there's this website called swimpley. It's. I think it's swim simply or, I don't know, swimpley, where people get to list their pools like they would listing, you know, on their property on Airbnb. And. Yeah. And then you can just book the pool for 2 hours. Yeah. Have a little swim during the summer months. Then you can do that. If you don't have a pool at home, you can just head to someone's home and swim and use it. [00:30:10] Speaker C: Wow. That they've got. There's a bloody Airbnb for everything you could think of these days, isn't there? There's always someone that's like, I'm gonna make the Airbnb of pools, and I'm gonna call it swimpley. [00:30:24] Speaker D: Yes. Thank you for whoever started that, because I need more pools listed on that. So if anyone does have a pool around Melbourne or surround bathtub, list your. [00:30:36] Speaker A: Pool, is there, like, a bathtub site, what would that be called? Bartley? You know, could rent a bath. Look, there's not even has a bath. [00:30:45] Speaker B: Rent a bath, actually. [00:30:47] Speaker A: What's that, Jim? [00:30:49] Speaker B: Rent a bath. [00:30:50] Speaker A: Yeah, rent a bath. [00:30:51] Speaker B: Simple. [00:30:52] Speaker A: Sorry, Natalia, I cut you off there. [00:30:55] Speaker D: Now, if you have that idea to, like, rent out baths. [00:30:59] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:30:59] Speaker D: Then please do, because I charge a. [00:31:01] Speaker A: Little extra for the ones with the. [00:31:04] Speaker C: Cloth lands and boudoir stuff. You could use baths. Would you use a bath as a, like. As a backdrop area, like bathroom with a cool bath and that kind of stuff. For land, boudoir. [00:31:16] Speaker D: Yeah, I do milk bath, floral photography. [00:31:21] Speaker A: Wow. [00:31:21] Speaker C: How did you learn all these different styles of photography? This is great. [00:31:25] Speaker D: I just got bored, honestly. I just like, okay, let's try this. Let's try that. Let's try this other thing. [00:31:32] Speaker A: So here's a shot here where you've got some foliage. I think that is a pool. And you've just brought. Have you gone to a florist? You've bought some props, and you're just experimenting with how that flows with the water and against the shape of the body. [00:31:49] Speaker D: That was actually taken in Perth. I attended an underwater workshop there with a different photographer, and she brought in the plants and the flowers or the foliage and, yeah, we just played around with that, with the model, with the shots, and we got that gorgeous lighting that day. [00:32:12] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, it's amazing. And the way that the models obviously exhaled and all of those. The way that the bubbles are. Paul said, I've got a pool, but I couldn't imagine renting it out, having all these strange people rocking up because it's hard to pee in the pool. [00:32:29] Speaker C: Like, that's true. [00:32:30] Speaker A: Some people just have no manners. [00:32:32] Speaker C: I was going to say, if it's hard to imagine, Paul, you're in Bendigo. I can get a group of strange people, and we can rock up so that you don't have to imagine. You can. You can see what it's really like. [00:32:43] Speaker D: The more the merrier. [00:32:45] Speaker A: Yeah. Let's go to Paul's for a pool party, everyone. [00:32:48] Speaker C: Yeah. Bring your cameras. [00:32:49] Speaker A: Yeah. If you're listening in. Yeah, bring your cameras. Yeah. Justin's got a model for us. [00:32:56] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:32:57] Speaker A: These are amazing. These are absolutely stunning. There's just something really ethereal about them. [00:33:02] Speaker C: That's the word I was trying to think of, the soft, like pastel. [00:33:05] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:33:07] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:33:08] Speaker A: So on a typical shoot, you know, how many times are you bobbing in and out of the Water to catch your breath and go back under? How long does a Typical Water Shoot last? [00:33:19] Speaker D: About an hour and a half, 2 hours. The most, I think, will be two and a half, but that was very tiring. [00:33:27] Speaker A: Yeah. You must be exhausted. You must have great lungs. [00:33:31] Speaker D: I just wanted to be alive. I'm keeping it real here, guys. [00:33:37] Speaker A: Fair enough. Yeah, no, that's good. We appreciate that. [00:33:41] Speaker B: In that sort of 2 hours, like, what are you, I guess, aiming photo wise to get out of that? Like, are you looking for just a couple of images? Do you normally come away with, like, 50 that you're, you know, really happy with. How does that sort of. [00:33:58] Speaker C: What are you delivering to the flow? [00:34:01] Speaker D: Go with the flow and hope for the best? Yeah, that's always my. Sorry, my, my main goal is one, to have the client having an enjoyable experience that is always number one. And then once they're comfortable in water, then we get to create more fun stuff. So then it was, it's always, when it comes to a client shoot, it's always like a collaborative experience for both me and the client. So I would ask them, oh, is there any specific kind of, like, shots that you're wanting to try or wanting to aim for? And then we'll aim for that. But then it was always in the lead up of getting that shot that we get the shot. So, yeah, it's just a lot of different things, and then whatever comes out of it comes out of it. [00:34:54] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:34:55] Speaker C: So you. You don't have a package. So say when someone books, you don't have a package where they're getting a certain expectation of. Of a number of images or an album of images or anything like that. When they, when they book you in, it's more of a. We book in a session and then we see what comes of it is. [00:35:13] Speaker D: That I, I do have the numbers and they can prepay for whatever package or, you know, whatever number of images to say. If they want ten, then I'm like, okay, to get two, then ten images, final images, then I would have to shoot at least, you know, this many, or I don't give. I would just maximize my. [00:35:38] Speaker A: Yeah, I. Yep. And in terms of your camera settings, so you've got your xh two in a housing. What sort of settings are you using on a, on a, you know, on one of the, one of these shots, let's say the. The top right hand corner, one of the woman in the blue dress. That's underwater, isn't it? My eyesight's not great at the moment. Yeah. So this one here, what, what settings are you using? [00:36:04] Speaker D: I was definitely not manual. So tinker around with the, with the ISO, just really depending on how brighten the lighting is, like how strong the lighting is, and then just tweaking that underwater, because once you're in an outdoor pool, you'll be playing around wall. You have to work with the clouds as well. So then if it gets a little bit cloudy, then you have to amp up the ISO or the shutter speed, like making it a little bit broader, a little bit tiny bit underexposed. And. Yeah, and just go from there. So it's whatever I see on the screen, and then it also goes with the gut feel of what would look good in the, in the raw format. [00:36:50] Speaker A: Okay. And so you're going with a fairly wide aperture, like a traditional portrait shoot. [00:36:55] Speaker D: No, less of the lower aperture. So it's more of, like, I think I would always aim it for at least f four foreign up because I don't need, you know, too much of the, of the bokeh underwater. This. There's no bokeh to be made. [00:37:15] Speaker A: And I guess with flowing fabric, you don't want an ultra fine field of view, do you? You want to be able to get everything in focus. [00:37:22] Speaker D: Yeah. Yeah. So that's the main thing with underwater photography, is just really nailing the, the focus, because what happens is that once you're underwater, no matter how clean the pool is or this is even, I guess, in a way. Quote, quote. Worse in ocean or in the lake, is that you and the subject, there's always going to be particles and things floating and a little bit that can get focused on by the camera. So then just really making sure that the, the model, the subject, the client is in focus. That is the number one thing that I aim for, for underwater. For. [00:38:03] Speaker A: And so when you are working. Excuse me, when you're working out the brief with your client, you know, she's approached you. She wants these underwater shots. Do you ever come across clients that are scared of swimming or don't know how to swim or intimidate, intimidated by getting into the water? [00:38:21] Speaker D: I always, I would always ask them, how comfortable are you in, in water? And most people who walk there would be at least on the comfortable side on, you know, on, you know, being in water. I don't expect them to know how to swim because then if you can feel comfortable with bobbing up and down, that's enough. Like, I don't expect them to be like a, you know, like a super strong swimmer. If they are, sure, that's great. That makes it a little bit easier in terms of getting all the more complicated poses. But besides that, it's. Yeah, as long as they feel comfortable, that's the bare minimum of what I, um. What I would want them to be. Because if you're very stiff and you're very nervous, you're very scared being in water, it would make very, very hard, um, yeah, for, for them and also for, for the shoot as well. And just really nailing the shoot. [00:39:20] Speaker A: Yeah. And so, yeah, go for it, mate. [00:39:22] Speaker C: Sorry, I was just going to ask just on that. What percentage of your clients come for underwater specifically, compared to the other styles of photography that you do? Like, how many is underwater the major draw card of your boudoir photography business? Or is that some of the other styles more popular? And underwater is a little bit less popular because people need to feel comfortable in the water and that kind of thing. How does it split up? [00:39:51] Speaker D: Um, underwater is the newest edition. It's the, the latest one, um, that I'm wanting to do and been been doing. So the majority is still on the boudoir side of things, and then followed by more of the, the fantasy side. And then sort of like an equal mix of, like, you know, Shibari underwater, um, milk bath. But then milk bath is also within that boudoir slash fantasy photography. It's just really depending on what, what my clients want. So I go by, you tell me what you want, and it will make it happen. [00:40:30] Speaker C: Very cool. [00:40:31] Speaker B: Natalia, with the, the milk bath, are you like, is that a bath full of milk? Is it a. Do you use something else to. [00:40:41] Speaker A: What'S your recipe? [00:40:42] Speaker C: Or do you prefer oat milk or. [00:40:45] Speaker D: No, I use bath bombs. [00:40:49] Speaker C: Okay, cool. [00:40:50] Speaker D: Bath bombs. Not my favorite because they're quite bubbly. But the colors are nice if the bubbles are not there. But I use, for the majority of it, I would use like a, like a japanese salt bath powder that is. That happens to be colored, and that just eliminates the bubbliness of it. But then lush bath bombs are pretty easy to get. So no milk. I don't like wasting food. And a lot of my clients are, you know, vegans, or they just don't want to be in the bath. [00:41:24] Speaker A: That's fair. [00:41:27] Speaker B: That's what I was thinking. I think it would be very nice. [00:41:29] Speaker C: Slowly warms up and. [00:41:31] Speaker A: Oh, oh. And you'll be smelling. You'll be smelling milk when you have a nap, shower, or bath for the rest of your life. So, Natalia, just before we jump into some of the fantasy boudoir shots that you do, just with the, with the underwater photography, it's not just you that's spending an hour and a half, you know, up to 2 hours in the pool. Your model is also bobbing up and down for air and direction from you. How does that, you know, do you work out some hand signals, do you? Or is it just you? Both naturally will come back up because you're going to have to breathe. [00:42:08] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:42:09] Speaker A: Stay alive, as you say. [00:42:10] Speaker D: Yeah. So we'd always see what the model or the subject or the client are doing in the water. And then if I feel like, okay, they're, they're going to go up pretty soon, then that means that, you know, we can, we can take a break, take a rest, and then I can direct them in terms of posing or, hey, let's try this, or let's try that the next time that we go into the water. Or if they feel, if I can see or sense that they're very, very comfortable, they're normally, you know, they would normally stay underwater for quite some time. [00:42:44] Speaker A: I think it's fascinating, really, when you think of, you know, people that are trying to master even just portrait photography and having the confidence, you know, we talked a couple of weeks ago about being introverts when it comes to directing people on shoots, but you are juggling so many different things because there's the whole element of a, staying alive, b, trying to get nail the shot, as you said, whilst operating a camera with a mask inside a housing. But then you're also having direct someone in a really unnatural. Not unnatural, but a really challenging setting. And I think it's. I think it's fascinating. I think that's part of what makes the images so mesmerizing, especially for a visual creative like us, is that you, you start to unpack. How has that shot been taken? You know, we often see amazing, like drone shots or, you know, other, other interesting shots, and you can almost pick straight away, oh, that must be a drone. That's not helicopter or, you know, whatever it may be. But with looking at your work, it's. Yes, it's underwater. We know that. Obviously you got into somebody of water, but there's a whole bunch of challenges between you and getting that end shot. And I think it's amazing. I think you should, you should feel really proud of the output. And, you know, just that how well, it's also representing the female form. And I'm sure that your clients are very pleased with the outcomes. What, what do you think has been the most challenging underwater shoot that you've ever done. [00:44:25] Speaker D: In terms of the experience or all in all? [00:44:29] Speaker A: Yeah. Like you maybe say it's, you know, you, you achieve the outcome, you, you love the shots, the client's happy, but for you, it was, it was a tough slog. It was a hard, hard shoot to. [00:44:39] Speaker D: Complete when it's cold. Yeah. Yeah. [00:44:45] Speaker C: So you shoot your shooting cold pools? [00:44:48] Speaker D: I try not to. There was one shoot that online, it was a nice 23, 24 degrees, and then in water it was solar powered and it was about like 1314 degrees. So that was probably the hardest one. [00:45:06] Speaker C: I was shivering from wetsuit or anything. [00:45:10] Speaker D: Nope, it was just me and my. And my swimsuit. [00:45:13] Speaker C: Oh, no. [00:45:13] Speaker D: I learned the hard way. [00:45:15] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:45:16] Speaker A: Do you have a wetsuit now or you just stick with bathers? [00:45:21] Speaker D: I have. I have more. More fun toys. I told you, it's like, oh, now I want to get this. Now I want to get this very cute wetsuit. I am shopping for a spring suit, so. Yeah. [00:45:34] Speaker A: But it's got to be cute. It's got to be aesthetically pleasing, obviously. [00:45:38] Speaker C: Yes. [00:45:38] Speaker A: Given that you're an influencer, Paul Henderson, I wonder, be interested to know if Paul has a heated pool or if it's just. If it's just a natural temperature for when we show up for our pool party. Paul, let us know in the comments. Natalia, let's jump to one of your other many genres of photography. This is your goddess and fantasy portrait sections. I'm going to bring it up on the screen for people to see. From what I can see so far, there are no exposed parts. Let me just bear with me a sec. Okay. So this is a page from Natalia's website. And this is your goddess and fantasy portraits. You know, thinking about the setup for a pool shot is one thing. As your. As one of your, you know, genres that you focus on when it comes to photographing female forms. This is a whole nother level of preparedness. Can you talk to us about the sort of steps or things that you have to tick off your list before you can show up to a shoot day to organize, you know, any of these shoots, any of these images? What are you booking? What are you planning? Yeah. [00:46:55] Speaker D: Again, so back to what I said a little bit earlier about having this as a collaborative experience between me and the client. So they always tell me what they want. I'm like, okay, some of them, or a lot of them that would say, Natalia, I'm just here for the vibes you do, whatever. So they. They would actually give me full reign, full creative control in terms of, like, what I want to do and what they're open to. I'm like, okay, that is great. So communication, vision boarding, or vision planning, and then just getting, you know, the props and achieving that vibe that what they want. I would always ask clients, like, how do you want to feel? Or what is the angle? Like, what is important to you? Like, why are you doing this? Because everyone's reasons would be different. And then after we had that chat, we'll plan for the outfits, the props, the wings, the crowns, the whatnot, and then love it. Once they. They said okay, I like this. This, this. Or if I think. Okay, based on the mood board that they sent this specific dress or prop or, you know, whatever would suit the look very much. So then I will just bring it on the day. I'll let them choose. What do you think of this? What do you think of that? And then, yeah, we'll just do a little bit of everything and try everything. [00:48:20] Speaker A: So you're hiring dresses? I like a lot of dresses. [00:48:27] Speaker D: Most of them are mine. [00:48:29] Speaker B: Yeah. Wow, that's awesome. [00:48:32] Speaker C: Wow, great. What about, like. So I was. I'm. I'm drawn to the. Greg, do you double tap, and it zooms in on your computer if you, like, not double click, but, like, double light tap on your. On your. [00:48:44] Speaker A: Hang on. I'll have to do it on my. Which one? [00:48:46] Speaker C: Oh, so the bottom. Bottom row, second from the left. [00:48:51] Speaker A: This one? No, left here? [00:48:52] Speaker C: Yeah, your other left. Yeah, that one. So the crown there, it looks like is in some other shots, maybe or whatever. Is it, like, something like that? So that's one of. Yeah. Is that one of yours as well? [00:49:08] Speaker D: Yeah, I mean, that's just zip ties. [00:49:10] Speaker C: You what? [00:49:14] Speaker A: Zip ties and gold paint. You're a champion. [00:49:17] Speaker C: And what about. Is it, like, fur or something? Or, like, faux fur or something? Like the. You know, is everything in that shot, you've found everything, whether you own it or you've hired it or whatever. Like, she's rocked up with just her own normal clothes and you've dressed from the start. Or is it a bit of a mixture? How does that work when it comes. [00:49:39] Speaker D: To the fancier stuff? When I say fancy, it's the kind of pieces that you wouldn't normally have in your wardrobe. So when it comes to, like, a fantasy shoot or, like, a boudoir slash fantasy shoot, all I ask them is to bring themselves and the outfits that they want. So, like, lingerie or dresses that they might want to try to shoot in, and then all the extra fancier stuff, they're all mine. [00:50:06] Speaker C: Right, so the wings. [00:50:07] Speaker A: Are the wings yours? Yeah, they are. Do you ever just wear them around the house? Like, I. I'd kind of be tempted just to. You do. I knew it. I knew it. [00:50:17] Speaker C: You get bored on a Sunday and you just, like, get. [00:50:20] Speaker D: Yeah, take some selfies. You know, I'm just like, oh, yes. [00:50:24] Speaker C: Now, do you do multiple, or is this a different, like, different packages or. Depends on the client. But you. Would you do multiple costume changes in a session and if so, how many different. [00:50:37] Speaker D: Yeah, multiples. Um, as many as they. They want. Honestly, I've got people rocking up with big ass luggages sometimes. [00:50:47] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:50:49] Speaker D: Or they would just bring, like, heaps of, like, options, which I very much encourage, because then you never know until you try shooting in specific pieces if you like it or not. [00:50:59] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:51:00] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:51:01] Speaker C: Oh, I have a question. Another one. This is. It's all starting to pop into my head. Do you shoot tethered to anything during sessions like this? Obviously not underwater, but, like, are the clients reviewing the images with you for you to hone the outfits and that kind of thing? Or do you try and avoid showing them the camera during the session? [00:51:21] Speaker D: I don't tether. [00:51:23] Speaker C: Yeah. You don't tether to a big screen or anything like that? [00:51:26] Speaker D: No. [00:51:26] Speaker C: Okay. [00:51:27] Speaker A: And so these are all being shot with your. Sorry, Jim. You go, mate. [00:51:31] Speaker B: No, I was just going to say, do you find that showing them throughout the shoot kind of gives them a bit of a boost of. Because it's often, I guess, people don't know, maybe how they look or especially in settings like this, that, you know, they look amazing, but they might not fully see it yet when they're, you know, maybe you've just started shooting type thing. [00:51:51] Speaker D: Yep, all the time. So when I. When I give them, I would. I would always tell them at the start that the poses are very unnatural. It would feel very weird, but it will look great on camera. And then they'll be like, okay, I trust you. And then when I take the shots, testing the lighting, the posing, the whatnot, I'll show them. And then they're like, oh, my gosh, is that me? I look great. And then it helps them to feel that the weirdness is normal, if that makes sense. [00:52:27] Speaker C: This. [00:52:27] Speaker D: This would feel very weird. But I'm gonna trust her anyways to get the shots right. [00:52:34] Speaker C: Okay. So it's all about sort of building that. The confidence, their confidence in you, I guess, and in themselves through the session, that it's working the way they want it to work. Yeah. [00:52:48] Speaker D: Yeah. For me, the reason why I do this is because I want more women to feel one comfortable in their bodies and more confident in their bodies. That's always been the aim of why I'm a photographer. I don't really, you know, like, I don't really focus on what they, you know, do for me, per se, but it's more like, okay, here is what I can do for you. And I want more women to feel great about their bodies so then they can just share that confidence with the people, with the women around them, and also to the next generations, because, say, if one of these women has a daughter or two or three, and then they get, you know, have a. If they have a very healthy self esteem about their body image and, like, whatnot, then that's it. Like, that's. That's a. Well, that's a job well done for me. I get the satisfaction from that, from. [00:53:46] Speaker C: Knowing that, have you ever had a client where at the start of the session, it's been quite tough to get them to relax and I guess, feel confident in themselves that the photos are going to turn out well? And if so, what other techniques other than kind of showing them the camera, have you got any other techniques that you use to help build their confidence through the shoot to get the results that you guys are both trying to get? [00:54:17] Speaker D: The majority of my clients come into the shoot very, very nervous. All of them, 99% of them. And then it was a lot of, you know, coaching and, okay, let's try this. Let's try that. And just really guiding them step by step. So then it's not something that it's, you know, I would consider super major, but it's like, okay, let's try this. See how you feel in this. And then once they feel a little bit more comfortable, then we'll go into, like, the more, you know, fun shots or a little bit more challenging kind of, like poses, which I feel, okay, I can do this. So it's just coaching them to know that you're in good hands. You're gonna be okay. We're gonna get the shots. I've got people saying, like, oh, and the majority of my clients, I would say I'm very unphotogenic. I don't know how to take. You know, I never had, like, good photos in. In my life, or they would say, I'm very hard to photograph. I've never had, like, a photo that I love, and I'm like, okay, bit challenge accepted. And, yeah, and then at the end, I would have people saying, oh, this is such, you know, like, a great experience. And I. Yeah, they just felt like they can take on the world almost with the confidence, with the newfound confidence that they get within that two hour shoot, for example. So that's always the. The fun part of doing this. [00:55:48] Speaker A: Yeah. So, Jim, has that been your experience as you've kind of explored boudoir photography, that your clients are coming to you feeling those nerves and that apprehension and that kind of self doubt? [00:56:03] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. I don't shoot underwater, but I guess on. I guess probably that first set of photos that we do is generally not ever picked when we come back to do, like, a reveal, just because they haven't, I guess, relaxed into it, and then everything after that is, I guess, generally a lot easier. You've put, like, a bit of rapport shooting and talking and, yeah, everyone's a bit more relaxed. [00:56:32] Speaker C: So have you found it hard, Jim, to, like to, you know, like, when we, when we would shoot weddings, it's obviously very different situation because the bride's usually fully clothed, obviously is quite different, and they're usually surrounded by. At the start anyway. Yeah, they're usually surrounded by a lot of friends and stuff like that. So their confidence is going to be higher, but you still need to. They've sometimes still got a little bit of apprehension because of those things that you said, natalia, like, oh, you know, I never take a good photo. I hate my smile, or, you know, I try and smile without their teeth, and you're like, that's, you know, and takes a while to, I guess, break down those barriers and let them, I guess, maybe even forget that they're getting a photographed, which is probably not going to happen in a boudoir session because it's all about them. But, yeah. What have you started doing, Jim, because you're fairly new. Like, how many sessions have you done roughly with boudoir now? [00:57:35] Speaker B: Maybe like, 1010 or so. Yeah. [00:57:40] Speaker C: What techniques have you developed so far to kind of, I guess, get things flowing and moving in the right direction? [00:57:48] Speaker B: It's probably, like the pre shoot, like, chats and info and also, I guess, not treating it, like, too differently to any other shoot, like trying to not make it, not making it awkward, not making it weird, like, just talking as you would in any other conversation. Like, you, your, I guess, photo brain just kind of is looking around, trying to, like, working out the light and that sort of thing and. Yeah, I don't know, it seems to disarm people a little bit that you're just so focused on the creativity and stuff like that. That. [00:58:29] Speaker C: Yeah. So you fight, like, just getting into the shoot and just starting to make photos with the client is, is the best way to work through that. That period of the, of things where they're sort of maybe a little bit apprehensive and stuff like that. Just taking some photos, showing them the back of the camera, getting everything, the ball rolling, essentially. [00:58:49] Speaker B: Yeah. I guess you're both kind of warming up together. Yeah, at the start, I guess. [00:58:58] Speaker A: Interesting. Natalia, just before we jump to the next chapter of your folio of work, again, when you're doing the fantasy portraits, are you booking locations, you looking. You scrolling through Airbnb, looking for places with the right sort of character. Talk to us about that process. [00:59:21] Speaker D: So a lot of the prep work comes after my client sends her mood board or their mood board. And then I want to have. So the approach that I take with this is when a client entrusted me with their vision. I want to honor it, and I want to honor it well. So then I would be finding, you know, locations, props, wardrobe, outfits, pretty much everything that I can to make this happen of what they want to do or what they want to achieve. And then in terms of locations, anything that it's similar to the vibe that we're going for, I would give them a list of options. Hey, I reckon all these options work great. Do you have a favorite? And then we'll go from there. [01:00:12] Speaker B: Yep. And are you passing, like, those Airbnb costs or the pool costs onto the client as well? [01:00:19] Speaker D: Yeah, different places have different hire rates. So I did tell them, if you want this, this is how much it would be. You want it, you want to find alternative, and. [01:00:31] Speaker A: Yeah, that's what I book an Airbnb. Do you just end up staying there the night because you've paid for a night? [01:00:37] Speaker D: No, four Airbnbs. I tell them to book it, so then they get to enjoy it. [01:00:41] Speaker A: Ah, okay. Yep. Sorry, Justin, you're gonna. [01:00:45] Speaker C: Well, that's that. Yeah, but. Well, not exactly that, but yeah, essentially. So the client is booking the thing. That's what I was going to ask. Or you're booking it on their behalf and passing the cost on, but you just get them to book it? [01:00:56] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah. For Airbnbs and hotels, I would just give them to book it. And then I tell them, well, you can have a little cute staycation, have a little, like, you know, chill time. And then they're like, yeah, that sounds like a great idea. And then they. They would book the place and then I would just rock up. [01:01:15] Speaker A: I guess that also adds to the. To the experience for the client that, yeah, you know, they're on a little break. They're going to do something they've never done before. They're going to get these fantasy shots and they've got this location that they can enjoy. And it's not like you're having to rush out of a studio or usher them out of your own home or have them at their home where they're, you know, their partner and their kids might show up. And I think it's a wonderful way to approach it. Before we jump into your intimate portraits, I just want to remind our viewers that you are watching the camera Life podcast brought to you by Fujifilm Australia. And lucky camera straps. The Fujifilm Australia bit. That's a lie. Not yet. [01:01:54] Speaker C: Not yet. [01:01:56] Speaker D: One day. [01:01:58] Speaker A: Yeah. I keep pushing. I keep pushing. Episode 33 it's Thursday the 10 October and we're coming to you live. Please, for those of you watching along, feel free to add comments. Don't forget that our podcast is available on all the best audio podcast channels or will be later when we're finished. And you can also watch, like subscribe and tickle the bell button on the youtubes. And we're coming to you from sunny Australia today. Natalia, your intimate portrait work, let me just bring up. You're very talented. There's a lot of facets to your creative capabilities. And here's yet another one with which you can see that the influences from both your boudoir and your fantasy portraits coming into these. Talk to me about what clients are asking you when they want this sort of photo. What are they appealing? What are they, you know, wanting to. [01:03:00] Speaker D: Get out of it in almost all of the. I love the. You know, like, when. When it comes to having this, everyone has their own reasons. The biggest reason is just to celebrate themselves and to honor their life stories. That's what I always push for. It's not so much like a bridal kind of boudoir. I do get requests for that. That is for a wedding surprise, but it's always hand in hand with. I want to do this anyways to celebrate me. I've got a client or two who pretty much told me at the start when we're planning, she wanted to gift the photos as, like, a birthday present thing for her partner. And then after she got the photo, she was like, you know what? Actually, I'm gonna keep these photos to myself. He can have, like, all the little stuff. I'm gonna keep the main, like, album stuff, like the prettier ball. And then. Yeah. And then she's like, yeah, actually, this is why I'm doing this. [01:04:09] Speaker A: That must be very rewarding for you, given that that's your ethos for doing this in the first place. [01:04:13] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah. Birthdays 30. The big 30. That's another big reason why people do this. I've got people just wanting to honor themselves and, like, what they've been through. I've got people going through very serious, traumatic life stuff that they've, you know, came out of and survived, and they're like, you know what? That is part of my story. I'm gonna do that. Version of me, you know, I'm just gonna honor that version of me and not see it as something that is, you know, shameful or anything like that, or like what the brain or the society tells them of. Oh, a woman shouldn't be like this, shouldn't be like that. Ought to be like this, ought to be like that. So it's pretty much breaking that norm of what a girl or a woman or someone in a female prom should be look like. Yeah. [01:05:14] Speaker C: Can I ask a dumb, maybe dumb question? [01:05:18] Speaker D: No. [01:05:19] Speaker C: I have a bit of an idea. [01:05:20] Speaker A: No, wait for it. [01:05:22] Speaker C: I have a few ideas on what the answer is, but I'd like you to answer it. Um, because I don't think I know exactly what's the difference between an intimate portrait and. And a boudoir photo. Like, what's. What's the difference between those sessions? [01:05:37] Speaker D: You can probably tell with the more intimate portraits, there is less skin. With the boudoir side is just more skin. [01:05:45] Speaker C: Okay. So it's really just. It's. It's sort of. And you might get a little bit of this kind of stuff in a boudoir shoot, and it might cross over a little bit, but it's kind of just. It's kind of directing the session in one way or another where it's like, we won't be doing as much of that, or. Yeah, okay. [01:06:03] Speaker D: Yeah. For standard boudoir shoot, it's. We'll always start with more clothes, outfit options, and then we'll just shed the outfits. Whereas for intimate portraits, some of my clients, they just want their portraits done. They're not very into, like, the. The lingerie kind of, like, look. They just want to have, you know, be in a nice dress and then have really nice photographs with it. [01:06:32] Speaker B: Okay, Natalia, do you find that, like, are you getting people that are wanting, say, like, they look at your website, and then they kind of go, like, I want it all? [01:06:41] Speaker C: Yeah. I was going to ask the same thing. I was like, do people want underwater and goddess and. But not a goddess underwater? So I want to do this and that and that? Yeah. Does that happen? [01:06:51] Speaker D: Yeah. Yeah. A lot of times, that's pretty much the majority of my clients that would do a little bit of everything. The biggest one that I've done and was quite a long shoot, was portrait, like, you know, more of, like, the normal ish, dressier kind of, like, look. And this is also within all in one session. And then boudoir fantasy with all the wings and the crowns and the whatnot. And then we did a shabari set and then a milk bath set. It was a very. [01:07:25] Speaker C: So, okay, that would have. [01:07:26] Speaker B: So what would that 7 hours? [01:07:29] Speaker D: No, it was half a day. It was like 4 hours. [01:07:32] Speaker B: Can you say that's a quite efficient. [01:07:35] Speaker C: Approximately what that would cost? [01:07:40] Speaker D: It's in a five digits. [01:07:42] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:07:43] Speaker A: Okay. [01:07:44] Speaker C: But not six? [01:07:46] Speaker D: No, not for that one. [01:07:49] Speaker A: Not yet. It's only been a few years time. That's amazing. Natalia, these are your land shots, as you call them. You're shooting these with a x t three, primarily. [01:08:00] Speaker D: Yep. Yep. Which is a 23 mil and the. [01:08:04] Speaker A: 23 millimeter f 14 or the f two one four. [01:08:09] Speaker D: I don't have that. [01:08:13] Speaker A: So you're using a, you know, a 26 megapixel image sensor camera. It's not the latest flagship Fuji, but it's. It was a flagship a few years back, and these images have got a beautiful, almost film like quality. And I know there's obviously post production, but what. What lighting are you using with these sorts of shots that we're looking at here? Like, are you predominantly relying on natural light? In some. They're sitting near windows. Talk to us about your lighting kit. [01:08:45] Speaker D: The sun. [01:08:49] Speaker A: Wow. You would dig. [01:08:50] Speaker C: Do you only use off camera lighting for the pool, the underwater shots, or do you sometimes use it in these shoots or the boudoir shoots and. [01:08:59] Speaker D: No. So with all the land stuff is all natural light for 99.9% of the underwater self is also natural light. It was only that one shoot that I tried to use, like, constant lighting. [01:09:12] Speaker C: Oh, it was constant lighting. It wasn't even. You didn't use flash? [01:09:15] Speaker D: No. [01:09:18] Speaker A: That's incredible. [01:09:19] Speaker C: Yeah, I saw you pull this up, Greg. I'll bring it up. But this is, this is our friend Tony, and he's saying re, which is his wife gave him an album for his ten year anniversary and he loved it. Yeah. [01:09:31] Speaker A: Oh, lovely. [01:09:32] Speaker D: I mean, which husband doesn't like spicy photos of their partner, you know? [01:09:36] Speaker C: Exactly. [01:09:37] Speaker A: I don't. No, I'm joking. Now, that's just one of the many, many facets of your work. I want to have a look at the. Let's go to the classic boudoir stuff. Let me just first check that it's appropriate for screen sharing. And there's some milk bath shots in here, too. Okay, let me just share this screen with everyone watching along. Tell us about what clients are specifically asking you when they're saying, oh, I want to get some boudoir shots. Are you, first of all, do clients have a misconception about what boudoir photography is? [01:10:22] Speaker D: Not really. I think they know that it's more skin lingerie. But when I started photography or boudoir photography, a lot of the styles are very spicy, and it's something that I wanted. I wanted to offer something different. So it's more so catering towards the. The female gaze instead of, like the. The typical. More traditional. Quote, quote, traditional look of what a boudoir shoot looks like, if that makes sense. [01:10:58] Speaker A: Is that traditional look more based on what a man would like to see? [01:11:02] Speaker D: Yeah, because the. Well, the industry was dominated by, like, more male photographers when I started. So then, like, offering something a little bit different, my clients were like, oh, wow, this is not like what I've seen before, but there are other clients who want, like, the super spicy stuff. [01:11:21] Speaker C: And so maybe it appeals to the client themselves a little bit more, being catered to their female gaze more so, because obviously they're females. The clients themselves. I was actually going to ask that exact question. Is it a more. Are there more male boudoir photographers or. [01:11:39] Speaker D: Female boudoir photographers now or back then? [01:11:43] Speaker C: Well, I guess both. Yeah. [01:11:46] Speaker D: I feel like with what I've seen would still be a lot more male, because then when you think about boudoir photography, what comes up? Majority would be lighting black and white in the studio, high heels in lingerie. And I thought, well, if I can do that. But then I. I don't want my work to be very similar to everyone else's because there's, you know, just a few ways that you can deal with, with the lighting side of things or the posing in the studio. So I'm like, okay, you know what? That would drive me to boredom very, very quick. So let me just incorporate what I like doing. And one of the things that I really like doing was set building, so getting all the props, making stuff, and then okay. Happens to be that people also like it. And I prefer things that is a little bit more on the vanilla side of things. I do have requests for, yeah. The. The more sensual looks. But majority of my work would be based on their old, kind of, like, renaissance paintings or poses, like, the olden work so far. And that really drew me, like, the greek goddess statues. Yes. Chef's kiss. That's like, a huge major for me. [01:13:07] Speaker A: Yeah. And this is what we see, like, with this one here in the middle, it's got that, that kind of statuesque goddess kind of look. [01:13:18] Speaker D: Yeah. And the lower image on, like, the. The couch or. [01:13:22] Speaker C: I spotted that one. [01:13:24] Speaker A: Yeah, it's almost painterly, isn't it? [01:13:25] Speaker C: Yeah. So is that something they requested or is that an idea that you had or did it just evolve through the shoot? It just sort of come about more naturally? Or did you go into that shoot looking for that to create that photo? [01:13:39] Speaker D: Yeah, all of the above. So if that is what I want and also what the client wants or the client says, do whatever. I'm like, okay, I will do what you said. Let's just try all the things. And then if they like it, great. If they don't, then we'll just tweak it with something. But most of the people who almost. I don't think I've ever had any. If they say, yep, I give you full creative control. They're very much down to whatever I get them to do. [01:14:09] Speaker A: Yeah, wonderful. I'm just going to jump to the next section. I might just stop sharing so I can make sure that it's. If anyone's watching this at work, keep a close eye over your shoulder. Um, let's jump to your floral shabari. Now, we mentioned earlier when we were. Before we started the show that, um, Justin and I are going to the bright photography bright festival of photography tomorrow morning. And one of the most popular workshops there, which everybody has raved about is the Shibari workshop. I think they only do it two nights from memory and it sells out pretty much instantly. But a lot of people that have held it in past years and a lot of people that have done the Shibari experience at bright has said that they've walked out of that workshop in tears. That it was so moving and so powerful. Natalia, before we bring up any of your images, can you talk to us about that. That genre that you pursue with Shibari? Where does it stem from for a woman wanting to have those sorts of shots? What is the experience for them? [01:15:24] Speaker D: The very. The reason why I started is actually because of a client. She requested that look. But when she wanted, you know, like the roped or the Shibari sets she requested Amand to make it very florally, very feminine, very on the cutesy side. Um, and I said, okay, let's do that. I'll get you, like. I'll find you, like a rigger. And then we'll just, you know, experiment with. With the flowers and. [01:15:58] Speaker A: I'm sorry, what's the rigger? [01:16:00] Speaker D: So it's the. The professional who do the tying. I don't do the tying because I'm not trained to do that. But I. Yeah, a professional rigger. They're trained. They. They're really, really good in making art but also giving that full Shibari experience. Now, the approach that I do in my shoots is more on the. On the decorative side of Shibari instead of the more experiential side. [01:16:25] Speaker A: Right. [01:16:25] Speaker D: So that's what looks good in the camera. Not so much of, you know, focusing on the Shibari itself, if that makes sense, more so on the aesthetics. Yeah. And based on that shoot. So the client who got me into this whole. The client who got all these. Who started this whole thing, she's the one in the first. In the first image there. And when I started sharing these, a lot of people really liked it, so I thought, oh, okay, let's offer it to. To the masses. If that's what they want, then we'll just do it. And. [01:17:05] Speaker A: And then people still, I've noticed here this. This. Sorry, Natalia. This lady here in the blue with the tattoo, she was in some of the fantasy shots as well. So I think. Is that an example where someone has gone, I want to have a whole range of style shot, all the. [01:17:21] Speaker D: All the good stuff. [01:17:23] Speaker A: And so how long, say, for example, you know, you get to a shoot, you've got your rigor. How long does it take a rigor to say, this lady here with the floral arrangement between her arms on the left, and she's got the knots. Sorry, the ropes. How long does it take a rigger to actually complete the setup? [01:17:44] Speaker D: Five, say around five ish. Five minutes. [01:17:48] Speaker A: Oh, wow. [01:17:49] Speaker D: We'll get them into position, and then I'll shoot for, like, 10 seconds, because there's nothing that they. There's not a lot of things that my client can do when they're tied up. [01:18:01] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:18:02] Speaker D: The majority of the time would be in the tying and in figuring out, you know, what they want and how complicated the rope is and finding, you know, what's the best kind of look for the vibe they're wanting for. [01:18:16] Speaker A: Yep. And I have to ask the question. How much is your annual floral budget? [01:18:25] Speaker D: I try to be good. I try. I really, really try. The flowers that I've got, they're actually fake flowers, most of them. [01:18:34] Speaker A: Okay. [01:18:35] Speaker D: I only use fresh for the bath tub photography, like the floral bath shots. But for all of these, they're fake ones. And I am pretty good at spending money at thrift shops. And if there's any, I've got a huge, huge bulk of fake flowers from a set decorator or, like, an event decorator. And she was just, you know, destashing her. Her flowers. So I just got, like, boxes and boxes of them. So not. Not a lot. Probably, like. Yeah, a few hundred. [01:19:16] Speaker A: Okay, fair enough. Now, you talked about, you know, acquiring props. I've known you for a number of years, and obviously we follow each other on socials often I see you selling props that you no longer want on Facebook marketplace. So it must be a pretty constant trade for you. [01:19:34] Speaker D: Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. If I feel like the prop isn't serving the loops anymore, then I'm like, okay, it's time to let it go. Get something new. Get something new. Because then the longer, or if I feel like this is just me, the way that I think is that if I have the same thing over and over and over again, I would be impacted, like, in terms of my work as a creative, it would be the same standard kind of, like shots. [01:20:03] Speaker A: I guess your client doesn't want to see their setup appear in someone else's photos either. [01:20:09] Speaker D: Yeah, I mean, some of them, they're fine. They were like, oh, I really want that specific kind of a rope, for example. Like, you still have it. And I'm glad that people still do ask, like, do you still have it? Because they. They know that I do cycle through the stuff that I've got. And if I say no, then I'm like, okay, that is fine. Do you have anything similar? I'm like, yeah, I actually do. So then it's giving them know, different. Like, then on the set, I can tell them, oh, you're actually the first one who, like, wear this. And then they'll be like, oh, my gosh, that is so cool. [01:20:44] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:20:44] Speaker D: And, yeah, that helps as well for. For me in terms of, like, giving or offering different kind of looks and also for more. So for me to get more stuff. [01:20:56] Speaker A: So you must have a pretty healthy budget at bunnings in the rope section, too. [01:21:00] Speaker D: I imagine bunnings is a very exciting place to be. I love bunnings. [01:21:05] Speaker A: I agree. [01:21:08] Speaker D: It's great. Yeah. A lot of the. Of the stuff that I get from bunnings, I get to use them, like, at set, like, in the sets that I create as well. So that's always fun. [01:21:21] Speaker C: Have you got any ideas of new things you're thinking of tackling beyond the underwater? You seem like you're always on, you know, got something on the horizon of a new style or something like that. Is there anything you've seen or thought about that is you're just waiting for the right client to test it with? [01:21:42] Speaker D: Probably not the right client, but more so the right timing. And I want to do more of the ocean photography, like portrait slash mermaid up in the. In the ocean instead of a pool. [01:22:00] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:22:03] Speaker A: Have you got a mermaid tail? Yet? [01:22:06] Speaker D: No, I'm trying not to get. To get them because the good ones, they are made to size, then they need to fit. And I like to get things that can fit in lots of, like, a range of different sizes. That's one of my requirements when building my client wardrobe is that multiple people can wear this, no problem. Instead of getting, like a. Like a set, because I know, like, when it comes to a woman's body, you're like, bodies in general. The top might be a size ten, the bottom might be a size 14. So then, like, how do you get, you know, balancing that with a. Yeah, kind of like fashion, because everything's made to, like, a very specific size, and I don't like that about the fashion industry. So, yeah, so I'll stick to, like, the props and the robes. They're safe bets. [01:22:59] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:23:01] Speaker D: Keeps me in check with my. With my wallet. If I started seeing mermaid tails. That's it. Game over. [01:23:09] Speaker C: Sounds like we have problems with buying camera gear, but you have problems with buying costumes and props and all that kind of stuff. [01:23:18] Speaker D: I don't really have a problem with. With gauss or with buying gear because I thought if I get the gear that I need to run a business, then that's it. Like, I don't need, you know, like, I'm all about, like, the ROI and, like, the cost of use and the whatnot. So why spend ten grand on my gear when you can just spend a couple grand and you make the same amount of money? So I'm like, I get more of the share instead of the camera brands or, like, companies. [01:23:49] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:23:49] Speaker C: Especially with. With underwater. That certainly slows down acquiring new gear because you'll need a new housing or at a minimum, a new back for the new camera and stuff like that. So it certainly makes you go, you know what? I'm going to keep this for a while. [01:24:03] Speaker D: Like, yeah, but it doesn't help when they have a lot of different accessories, like, oh, the different rings and the different attachments. Oh, and the lights and all the things. [01:24:14] Speaker A: So your camera bag is fairly minimal. Really? [01:24:17] Speaker D: Yeah. [01:24:18] Speaker A: You're showing up with. With a camera body, maybe two lenses and working with natural light. [01:24:24] Speaker D: Yep. I am quite fun size, so I can't bring a lot of stuff anyways. [01:24:30] Speaker A: That's adorable. [01:24:32] Speaker C: That's funny. Yeah. Right. Two lenses. That's it. Just two? [01:24:37] Speaker D: Yeah, just two. I've got my, um. The. The 23 is always on the XT three, and then I would have a, um, the. The 56 there as a backup, and then that's. That's pretty much it, yeah. [01:24:52] Speaker C: That's cool. [01:24:53] Speaker D: I used to have a 1655, but I let that go because it's too big and I started getting wrist pains. [01:24:59] Speaker A: It's heavy, isn't it? [01:25:00] Speaker D: Yeah. It's a 2.8. Yeah, the 2.8, but it's huge. And it's a little bit heavy on the underwear. [01:25:09] Speaker C: The better front heavy as well. That's the, that is unfortunately the issue with some Fuji stuff and even some other mirrorless brands. The lenses can still be quite heavy, which then makes the whole setup quite front heavy. And it puts a lot of pressure on the wrist. [01:25:24] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [01:25:26] Speaker B: Is the X t three, like a micro, four thirds or AP's? [01:25:30] Speaker C: Apsc. [01:25:31] Speaker B: No. [01:25:32] Speaker C: Yeah, just a crop. Yeah. [01:25:35] Speaker B: Yeah. So what's like, is 23 equivalent to like 35? Okay. Yeah, yeah. [01:25:41] Speaker A: It's a 1.5 crop. [01:25:42] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:25:43] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:25:44] Speaker C: So, yeah. Twenty three s. One of Fuji's pretty standard lenses. [01:25:48] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:25:49] Speaker B: So then the 56 is what, like 75? [01:25:51] Speaker A: Yeah. 80. Yep. [01:25:53] Speaker C: 80 ish. Yeah. [01:25:54] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Nice. [01:25:57] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:25:58] Speaker C: What, what lenses do you use mostly, Jim? For boudoir on land, you know. [01:26:04] Speaker A: Pretty. [01:26:05] Speaker B: Much everything at 50. Yeah. I do have a 28 that I do use as well. Like depending if the room's a bit smaller, I need something a bit wider and very occasionally will use like, the 105. But I found that most of my spaces haven't been that big, so using the 105, it's just too tight. [01:26:28] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:26:28] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:26:29] Speaker C: Do you, do you rent spaces as well or use the clients homes or. [01:26:35] Speaker B: Yeah, both. Yeah. So, yeah, sometimes the client's home, sometimes their friends home or. Yeah, they'll. They'll rent it like an Airbnb. [01:26:44] Speaker A: So I think, Jim, you need to stop buying flannel shirts and start stocking up on beautiful gowns. [01:26:50] Speaker C: I think so, yeah. That's what's holding you back. [01:26:52] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:26:53] Speaker C: Actually, you know what you could do? Has anyone done flannel food? [01:27:01] Speaker A: Ah, there's a. There's an angle, you know, put your. [01:27:05] Speaker C: Own spin on it. [01:27:06] Speaker B: Yeah. I often wear a flannel shirt, so this is probably not it. [01:27:12] Speaker C: Every show except for this one, every shirt has been a different flannel shirt. [01:27:18] Speaker A: Yeah, this is. [01:27:19] Speaker C: This is a very. This is a big moment. Yeah. [01:27:25] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [01:27:26] Speaker C: He says he doesn't have many, but I'm pretty sure he's got over ten of exactly the same flannels in different colors. [01:27:32] Speaker B: Yeah, I think it's. It's probably close to ten. [01:27:35] Speaker C: Yeah, it is. [01:27:37] Speaker B: That's not many. [01:27:38] Speaker A: Don't stop. Just keep. Just do it. You love me. No one's gonna judge you. [01:27:41] Speaker C: For a while, he was programming his background lights in his office, the purple ones, to match the flannel that he was wearing that day. [01:27:48] Speaker D: Oh, pretty cool. [01:27:53] Speaker C: You're not wearing a flannel. [01:27:54] Speaker B: No. Look at the lights around the window. They're gold, like the lucky. [01:27:58] Speaker C: Oh, you can't see that. Oh, they are too. I thought that was the light coming through the blinds. [01:28:04] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, the blinds around the window. We can't see the bottom one. And then I've just got the purple. [01:28:11] Speaker C: You really do look like a streamer. Like a gamer. If you had a. The headsets or whatever, you could be on twitch. You don't have any games, do you? Do. [01:28:27] Speaker A: I need to up my lighting game? [01:28:30] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:28:33] Speaker A: Very, very interesting work. [01:28:36] Speaker C: Yeah. So cool. It's so awesome that you've been able to build a business around stuff that you're genuinely passionate about each little niche. You can tell that you've got a strong passion and your own direction. You're not just sort of going, oh, you know, I've heard it's popular to do underwater boudoir photography, you know, so I'm going to add that onto my business or whatever. It's all naturally evolved. I think that's really, really cool. [01:29:01] Speaker D: When I started offering the more fantasy side, I don't think at that time anyone else is offering that. And I was second guessing myself, like, should I, would people like this? And. And I thought, you know what? Everyone's in lockdown. Like, let me just try, you know, do it and then see if I like it. And then I liked it. People liked it. I'm like, oh, okay, let's do more of this. [01:29:29] Speaker C: Were you able to do it through lockdown? Through for any of you that weren't in Victoria for a little while, we weren't able to do a lot, but there were little while. [01:29:43] Speaker A: 280 days, I think. [01:29:45] Speaker B: I think they had a little bit worse than us, Justin. [01:29:48] Speaker C: I mean, oh, yeah. But, yeah, we were pretty close, but we never had the curfew. And I think that would have been the most demoral. Not demoralizing like that would have felt. [01:29:56] Speaker A: It was pretty weird. It was like living in a, like everyone even taking the bins out. Like, if you forgot. Yeah, and I take the bins out and I'd kind of feel like it, you know, am I doing the right stealthy? Yeah, it was like, you know, and they were sorry to digress, but they were. I remember some points because you had to have permits to travel to work. [01:30:17] Speaker C: Yeah, that was weird. [01:30:18] Speaker A: Like, that was really. Yeah, that was really strange. But they were setting up roadblocks at big intersections and checking people's per. Like, it was like a police state. It was, yeah. How did you. [01:30:29] Speaker C: Well, yeah, yeah, that's. That's what I was gonna ask. Did you so would. Did you have to just kind of wait for. Because I remember, I can't remember all the different rules because they changed, I think, 900 times. But I'm pretty sure at one point it sort of went to where you could have, say, two people in a. You could meet up with two people or whatever. So was it those times when you were able to say, okay, I can do. I can do a shoot now, and. Yeah. How did it unfold? [01:30:56] Speaker D: Yeah, just pretty much working within the restrictions and in between. So we had, like, breaks before. They're like, whoa, no, bad decision. Let's put them all back home again. So it would be during one of those in between lockdowns and also within a restriction of, like, oh, if you have five people at home or if you're allowed. [01:31:17] Speaker A: That's right. [01:31:18] Speaker C: Yeah. And you could have buddies and stuff and all. Yeah. [01:31:22] Speaker B: Okay. [01:31:23] Speaker D: Yeah. [01:31:24] Speaker C: So you were. And did you find people were hungry to do something, and that's why this was maybe a good time to start doing the fantasy shoots, because they were, like, we weren't allowed to do much. So this was something that people could actually go and do and come away with some, obviously some great images, but also a nice experience. Do you think that helped grow it a little bit? [01:31:51] Speaker D: A little bit. The main reason for me was when we were locked down and having to be at home, I thought to myself, well, I don't. This would be the only time in my life that I can afford all these time to do what I want without people saying, oh, you should do this or you should do that, because, well, everyone else is at home. And I vividly remember that I probably wouldn't be able to have this experience again, ever in my life of having this time to myself do whatever I want, and then everyone else can't really say anything about it because everyone else is also on the same boat. So I thought, okay, then, this is perfect. I can do what I want to, always wanted to do. If it works, it. It works. Um, I got all the time in the world because what. What else am I gonna do? Right? Um, yeah. So that really, really helped, like, having that mindset. And then also because everyone is in lockdown, they're bored to death, and then they're more keen to create and. And do things, because once you make people stay at home, they're like, no, I want to go out. And then once we open, like, we'll stay home. [01:33:11] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:33:12] Speaker A: It was a bit weird and wacky for a while there, wasn't it? [01:33:15] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:33:15] Speaker B: So, Natalia, before you, like, before you launched or started doing it, like, were you shooting other things before? I guess, like, you started doing this. [01:33:27] Speaker D: Kind of genre before the lockdown, I was doing a little bit more. Well, more. So events, like smaller weddings, elopements, events in general, bit of fashion here and there. But then I thought, well, wedding is not my forte because I have low blood pressure. So it's just like 810 plus hours of not being able to eat or being on my feet. The whole day is just a little bit too much. Um, and then, yeah. And I thought, well, but then this was. Well, that was my bread and butter. And then, my God, I've always wanted to, like, do more and just specialize in the portrait side of things. And then when lockdown happened, I'm like, well, no events, so that's perfect. I get to do what I want. And it's almost like, well, it is a blessing in disguise. Looking back, it wasn't easy being cooped up at home, being away from, like, friends and family, but it did allow me to venture into. Into different things, which I'm very grateful for. [01:34:37] Speaker A: Speaking of different things, Tony has left a comment saying, I've been in his wardrobe. We're talking about Jim's wardrobe, and it's. About half of his wardrobe is obviously flannies. Is that true, Jim? Justin, have you been in Jim's wardrobe? [01:34:52] Speaker B: The other one, you just. Black t shirts. [01:34:54] Speaker C: Yeah, I haven't been his wardrobe, but it would have to be half. I don't. Yeah, it would have to be. Before I forget, I remember as well, when I was looking on your website, Natalia, I saw a category for couples boudoir, and I hadn't really seen that before. Is that a new thing that you're trying to do? Is it common? Was that a one off shoot that you thought, I'll put it up on the website and see if it. If anyone else is interested. Yeah, I'd like. Is that a thing? [01:35:24] Speaker D: Yes, yes and no. That was also requested by one of my clients. I don't normally offer that, but then, because she's like, yeah, I'm gonna do my own thing and then have my partner towards the end to join me at the shoot, I'm like, okay, yeah, we can do that. And then I just put it up. If that's something that people are interested in. But then after, the images are great, really good feedback. But then in terms of my style, it would be something that, you know, it's. It's not my main thing to. To focus on. Like, I'm still very into, like, the wings, the water, the prettier stuff. I mean, not to say that, like, couple photography isn't pretty. It's just a different dynamic, because then I have to expend my attention to, like, two people instead of giving my client, like, one on one, kind of, like, 100% attention, which I'm very much used to and what I'm really good at. [01:36:23] Speaker A: And I know, like, it's a different dynamic, isn't it? Directing a man and even just the energy in the room when you have a couple that are posing intimately or, you know. [01:36:33] Speaker D: Yeah, it's fun because then, like, you get more interaction, you get to do a lot more different things, different kind of, like images, but it's just in terms of. Of energy, kind of, like, attention expenditure that I would need a little bit more on that than, like, a standard kind of one on one sessions. [01:36:54] Speaker C: What about, has anyone ever played with the idea of a couple's fantasy shoot? [01:37:00] Speaker D: Yep. Yep. [01:37:01] Speaker C: So where the guy gets dressed up as well, and it's. Yeah. [01:37:05] Speaker D: Haven't actually done that. The. Usually when it comes to, like, a male female relationship is usually the female who wants it, and then usually the. The male partner will be like, uh, I don't know. [01:37:19] Speaker C: What wings are we putting on me? [01:37:21] Speaker A: I'm wearing wings. What's taffeta? [01:37:25] Speaker D: Um, yeah, not yet. I did have that in my list to try, but I just. [01:37:30] Speaker C: Yeah, it'd be cool to see how it goes when you get a chance to try it. [01:37:34] Speaker D: Put wings on everyone. [01:37:36] Speaker C: Exactly. [01:37:36] Speaker A: Just wing it up. [01:37:39] Speaker B: Natalia. So I had a look on your website, and you're offering some mentoring as well. [01:37:47] Speaker A: Here we go. [01:37:47] Speaker B: Pretty cool. How's that been going? [01:37:51] Speaker D: So that has been very, very fun. Like, I love talking to people. I'm much of a yapper. And when I have other photographers wanting to do well in their business, I'm all for it. I believe that there's space for, like, everyone. There's money around. There's money for everyone. So then, like, if they succeed, then, yeah, even better. So then, you know, we get to be in this industry together, where if the rate that I'm charging is considered normal, if other people are charging, you know, the same. Yeah. So then it just raises the client expectation of what is involved or, you know, the level of like investment when it comes to like a specialized, like specialized sessions like that and, yeah, and then, you know, like if I'm empowering my clients, I can empower other photographers to like live the creative life that they want and not have that starving artists kind of label on. [01:38:57] Speaker A: So you are an influencer. [01:39:00] Speaker D: I don't like that word, though. [01:39:02] Speaker A: I mean it with all due respect, you're the best kind of influencer. You're someone who wants to do it without expecting anything in return. You're just wanting to help other people achieve what they want to achieve. And if you've got knowledge or wisdom to impart, then I think that's a wonderful thing. I think all photographers should do that. But unfortunately you come across photographers that are very guarded about their, I, their style, their technique, their approach. But I think it's wonderful. I think it's, yeah, I think it's a great, it's a great initiative. So well done. [01:39:34] Speaker D: I mean, like if they win, I win. If they can make a living for, you know, to support their family, then who am I to, you know, to stop them from doing that? Yeah. [01:39:45] Speaker C: So how does it work if someone reached out like Jim? If Jim was like, hey, I've started this new sort of boudoir photography element to my brand. What sort of things do you focus on? Like do you help them with the creative side? Is it mainly the business side? Is it marketing or is it a bit of everything? Do you look at the whole business and figure out where they're kind of where they could do with the most help? Like how do you approach it? [01:40:13] Speaker D: Whatever Jim wants. [01:40:16] Speaker A: There you go. [01:40:19] Speaker D: So I have different, you know, photographers or I guess, well, not mentees, but like, you know, people who does the mentoring, they would be in different stages of their business. So then if they have a very specific kind of question or, hey, I have an issue with this, what do you think? And then we'll just run through that. I've got people who are wanting to get into the boudoir space or like the fantasy space, and then they would tell me, oh, how do I get started? Because I wouldn't jump into like the business marketing side of things when you're starting out. Like that would come a little bit after you would have a portfolio, some, you know, photos to show your clients of your style or what you're offering, and then we can talk about like the money side and, yeah, so then it's whatever they want to know and also which stage of the business that they're in. [01:41:18] Speaker C: Do you think there's an element of the overall sort of photography and business world that's your. Your strength, your superpower that you can help people with the most. [01:41:31] Speaker D: Mindset, mental blocks around money. I love talking about, like, you know, the business side of things and, yeah, I mean, we are running a business. Business needs. Requires money, cash flow to run. If not, then, yeah, if you want to keep it as a hobby, that's a hobby. But then if you're looking into, like, the business side of things, a lot of photographers, they're great in terms of making photos or creating art, but then the art of selling is nothing. You know, it's something to be learned or can be learned or needs to be learned by a lot of people. And then not to say, you know, well, to add to that, it's the mindset around money. [01:42:20] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:42:21] Speaker D: That needs to be addressed when it comes to doing a business. [01:42:26] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah, we might. We might have to do a pricing and business mega episode one day, Greg, with a few of our. Yeah, a bit of a. Yeah, I think. [01:42:35] Speaker A: I think that'd be a good idea. Just to chat about what's involved and the realities, the harsh realities and the truths and the opportunities. And the opportunities, too. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. Jason Lau. Who? Nadia. Nadia. Natalia. Sorry. We had on our show a couple of weeks back. He's a Melbourne based photographer and commercial photographer, and he has a really amazing business sense when it comes to running a photography business. So we might invite you back on in the near future to talk shop and to address some of those challenging questions, but also look at the pathways to opportunity and success. And of course, Jim and Justin will be on hand because they've run successful photography businesses themselves. Natalia. I'm just conscious of time, lads, did you have any other questions for Natalia before we head to the news? [01:43:31] Speaker B: I was just going to ask Natalia if you're able to share, like, do you have. Do you know, like, what your average spend would be from, like, a boudoir session or I guess, any of the mix of kind of different sessions that you do. [01:43:46] Speaker D: The last time, well, it's been a while. I haven't. Haven't averaged out the newest kind of, like, number, but the last time that I was doing the math, it was about ten k ish. [01:44:01] Speaker B: That's amazing. [01:44:02] Speaker C: Well done. Cool. [01:44:03] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:44:04] Speaker C: Wow. [01:44:05] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:44:06] Speaker B: Like, that's really good. [01:44:09] Speaker D: So, yeah, more photographers need to be charging that. So then, like, when people say, oh, we need this, I'm like, yep, that is how much you would get regardless who you go with. [01:44:19] Speaker A: Yeah, it's tricky to navigate, isn't it? [01:44:23] Speaker C: Yeah. Wow, that's very cool. [01:44:25] Speaker A: Well done. It's impressive. [01:44:27] Speaker C: Is that a mixture of physical product that make up that most, most of that money in a client's sort of idea of what the value of what they're paying for is. Often a lot of it to do with wall art or books or. [01:44:43] Speaker D: Yeah, when people book me, they come in with the, with the knowledge that I am a huge champion of existing imprints. Yeah, that's my thing. So if you want, like, two photos, two digitals. I'm not the photographer for you. I want you to like, you know, have beautiful, kind of like heirloom albums, wall art that you get to like, wake up every day, then you're like, damn, she's hot. You know, and just reminded of that day today and seeing that, instead of seeing the, you know, like the digitals in their phone and how often do you scroll up your phone, you know, instead of having, seeing something on the wall and then like, nah, I might have a crappy day, but that is also her on the wall that I'm very proud of. So I want them to see themselves as art and not just as, like, you know, oh, yeah, cute photos. You know, I do have, like, so with me, you get the best of both worlds. You get the digitals because I know people like to, like, share their stuff online and then also with the, with the prints, I always tell them, hey, you gotta exist in prints because I love the experience of just flicking through old photo albums of, like, photo albums or like, heirloom albums. Like, how cool would that be if I had, you know, maybe in like, a different alternative parallel universe that I get to flick through an album of my grandma or my great grandma. I'm like, damn, this is grandma that is always mine. [01:46:28] Speaker A: I think that word heirloom is a perfect word. So, you know, encouraging people to, to actually showcase who they are and inside. [01:46:40] Speaker C: And out and something that, yeah, because we all know how, like, everything's going into the cloud and the metaverse and whatever, but you can always open a book. You've always been able to. Whereas now if you had, if you had images saved on a floppy disk or even now, you know, I mean, everything was on, on cd or dvd with a photography for a long time, that was the professional standard of how to deliver digital images from weddings and things like that not that long ago. And I don't know, my last three computers have not had disk drives. You know, there would be no way to, like, I know, we can still buy them, but it's not easy, you know, so keeping moving your digital archive across a lifetime, things are going to get lost, whereas a book is, you know, as long as the house doesn't burn down, a book's going to be there forever. [01:47:36] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:47:36] Speaker D: Yeah. [01:47:37] Speaker A: And I think it's that challenge that we have with all kind of creative media, from music to photography, where in our generation, in our lifetime, we've had to go from analog stuff like vinyl and cassettes to cds, DVD's, then we've had to move everything from our cds and our dvd's to our computers to hard drives and into mp3 players. And now it's all just successful. We don't. We don't own any of this stuff anymore, really, you know, unless you. Unless you've kept all of that old technology to use it. And, you know, I've got hard drives, old hard drives that have really weird USB connections that, you know, I don't have a computer that they pair with anymore, you know, and I probably can't remember what's on most of them, and they're, you know, and so that heirloom quality has been lost, whereas in a book or a print, you're pretty much guaranteed that it's always gonna last as long as you look after it and you know where it is. You know, you know where your photo albums are. We're trained to. If there's a. If there's, you know, especially in rural areas, if there's a house fire, grab your photo albums and your pets and get out. [01:48:44] Speaker C: You know, maybe the kids, too, if you got them. [01:48:47] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, I forgot about the kids. I've got. There's too many of them. [01:48:51] Speaker C: Grab the cat. [01:48:53] Speaker A: Five. Five kids. Five cats and two dogs. I mean, I have to make choices. [01:48:57] Speaker C: Yeah. Which cat? Which cat do you grab? [01:49:01] Speaker A: I'll grab at least two. Just stuff them in a pillowcase and. [01:49:06] Speaker C: Run stuff into your beard and get out. [01:49:08] Speaker A: Yeah. Um, Natalia, thank you so much for sharing your story. We're not done yet. We're just going to jump into a news section, which. Just to cover what's going on in the industry. It hasn't been a lot of news. There's a couple of things happening next week, but at the moment. We talked last week about Hasselblad releasing a remodel or a revised version of one of their popular cameras. Was it Hasselblad? [01:49:38] Speaker C: Hasselblad, yep. [01:49:40] Speaker A: And they did like a. Yeah, they did a kind of rip off of a. Like a color, um, for outdoor adventurers, and, uh, yeah, it's got a special green. Oh, yeah, it looks gorgeous. Special branding? [01:49:53] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:49:54] Speaker A: Uh, well, the people at phase one. Not done. [01:49:59] Speaker C: That's not green as well, is it? [01:50:01] Speaker A: Uh, we'll have a look. [01:50:03] Speaker C: Hang on. [01:50:03] Speaker A: Let me just find the page. Phase one. Our news today is brought to you by Shopkit. Um, phase one introduces a. A pricey new XC 40 travel friendly camera. So they haven't said that it's a, you know, it's a mountaineers kind of buddy, because phase ones are still pretty massive, but travel friendly for. That's what I was wondering. If you've got a roller bag. Yeah, sure. [01:50:30] Speaker C: 150 megapixel. [01:50:32] Speaker A: It's 150 megapixels. [01:50:34] Speaker C: Now we're talking. [01:50:35] Speaker A: It's a. It's got the iq four digital back, which is the phase one, the back half of the camera, and the front is the lens, which is a 40 mm rodentstock lens. 26, full frame. 26 millimeter. Full frame f four or a full frame f 2.6. I just. This is their idea of travel friendly from phase one. It's got that obvious, that beautiful timber, molded grip. [01:51:06] Speaker C: Match the same sizes as 645 film. Is that the 150 megapixel digital battery? [01:51:14] Speaker A: Yeah, but it's not all about megapixels. Mega pickles, as Natalia has proven. I know you need it. There's Natalia's proven working off a five year old fujifilm crop sensor. [01:51:28] Speaker C: How much that cost? [01:51:30] Speaker A: 20. What have we got? [01:51:34] Speaker C: Holy. [01:51:37] Speaker B: Is that us dollars, too? [01:51:38] Speaker A: This is us, by the way. So the. The full body is 62,000 because it's kind of two parts with the 40 millimeter lens. So it's a lot of money. It's. It's a luxury car in America, by comparison, the GFX 100s, which is fairly new, is around $5,000 or 8000 for the flagship GFX 102. [01:52:07] Speaker C: So I guess it's a good chance to role play some mentoring with Natalia. Natalia. For my new boudoir business, I want to get the new phase one for 62,000 US. And I've done the figures on it, and I think it really helped. The clients will probably book me, because if I put on my website that I shoot with that, they'll probably book me over other photographers because of this camera that I've bought. Do you think it's a good investment for my business? [01:52:35] Speaker D: If you like it, get it. [01:52:39] Speaker A: We like you. [01:52:41] Speaker C: I love it. Got a very. [01:52:44] Speaker A: No, he will take it literally. [01:52:46] Speaker C: Wooden handle. It's got a very cute wooden handle. [01:52:48] Speaker A: It would look good with a leather lucky strap on it with that wooden handle? Yeah, because it's a mix of old and new, but yeah, that's a. That's a crazy camera. [01:52:56] Speaker C: That is crazy, isn't it? Yeah. I don't even know who's shooting with. I guess. Is it studio, like, fashion studio? Commercial photography only these days. Like what? Who's shooting with phase one? [01:53:08] Speaker A: Fine art, mostly. Fine art. [01:53:10] Speaker C: Nice to be. [01:53:11] Speaker D: I think I only know one photographer in Melbourne who shoots with a face. One. [01:53:15] Speaker A: What do they shoot? [01:53:17] Speaker D: Fine art. [01:53:20] Speaker C: Yeah. Interesting. [01:53:23] Speaker A: That's a crazy amount of money. [01:53:26] Speaker D: You claim it on tax? [01:53:28] Speaker A: Ah, yeah, we like you just write it off. [01:53:32] Speaker C: You got to earn the money. [01:53:36] Speaker A: The only other bit of news that I came across is that there's another Fujifilm X Global X summit taking place on Monday the 14 October. I don't know if that's Monday, australian time or Japan. They've got a presentation. They've got a whole bunch of stuff happening. There's rumors that they're launching some new products, some new updates to firmware and systems, and that is usually what takes place in a Fujifilm X summit. Natalia, you're a Fuji shooter. Do you. Do you stay up late in the night or watch them in the middle of the night? Or do you like me? Or do you watch them the next day or do you watch them at all? You don't watch them? No, that's fine. That's fine. I get it. [01:54:21] Speaker C: She doesn't care. [01:54:23] Speaker D: I won my xi three. I don't need more. I don't need to be tempted by more. [01:54:27] Speaker A: No, we appreciate. [01:54:28] Speaker B: That's the way to do it out until you're ready. [01:54:31] Speaker C: In all serious, though, Natalia, have you ever been tempted by the Fuji G effect system, the medium format? Does that entice you at all, or you just. No. Don't care. [01:54:41] Speaker D: No, don't care. Clients don't care what camera I shoot with. As long as they feel great. That's all they care about. [01:54:48] Speaker C: Yeah, that's very true. And you find that the quality and everything, when you're doing prints and stuff, you never look at it and think, I should. The camera's holding me back or whatever. Anything that you print for clients, you're totally happy with the. [01:55:00] Speaker D: Yeah. I mean, it's not blurry. Unless I make it blurry during the shooting process. [01:55:06] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:55:06] Speaker D: But never in print. Print has been okay. [01:55:10] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Nice. [01:55:12] Speaker A: That's a great attitude. The only other bit of news I've got to share is, and I need to issue an apology to Yelena, who is Justin's partner, and Sasha, who's my partner. But Justin and I are running away for a weekend together tomorrow. Yeah, we're heading to the announcement. [01:55:31] Speaker B: Are you telling them? [01:55:32] Speaker A: Yeah, we're coming out on the. [01:55:34] Speaker B: On the stream. That you're going away? [01:55:36] Speaker A: Yeah, but I don't think Sasha watches my stream and I'm pretty sure Yolanda's at work. [01:55:41] Speaker C: Wait till you see our fantasy shoot. [01:55:44] Speaker A: Yeah. Wings gonna in. Tan's gonna dress us up in cosplay. [01:55:50] Speaker C: That would be fun, actually. [01:55:52] Speaker A: Yeah, that would be fun. So, yeah, we're off to the bright festival of photography tomorrow, befop, as they've been calling it. It's a four day festival. Four day? Three day officially. Three day officially. But there's an extra day at the end for influencers like us. And it's held in bright in. What is that? It's near Mount Buller, isn't it? Yeah, it's north and east near Mount Hotham. Hotham, sorry. [01:56:24] Speaker C: And Buffalo. [01:56:25] Speaker A: So. That's right. So it's a three day event and it's everything you could possibly imagine to do with photography. There's a big headquarters set up at a community center. They'll have representatives from Fuji, Nick on Sony, Canon, Om Systems, a whole bunch of third party brands, product support, accessory makers. So that's just that part of it. But then they have ongoing workshops throughout the three days where we've already booked. And if you watched our livestream a couple of weeks ago, we booked our. Justin and I booked our workshops live. You can watch that. It's on the channel. And yeah, we're heading off to do some workshops, meet some photographers, talk a little bit about lucky straps and make some connections. Justin, what are you. What are you looking forward to the most? [01:57:21] Speaker C: The connections, actually. Well, we also made a ton of custom camera straps for people that wanted their own befop bright festival of photography logo camera strap. And we've got them in a heap of different colors that people have selected, so I'm excited to see them out and about around the festival of all. I was actually thinking we should try and run a photo competition of whoever gets the best photo of someone with their befop camera strap to be giveaway or something. But mainly I'm excited to just meet a ton of photographers and the workshop presenters. There's so many of them, like, you go through the list, there's heaps of photographers up there. So I want to find people that we can have on the podcast and just talk to people and roam around. I had a few workshops booked that are mainly story based stuff because that's kind of the focus that I'm leaning into at the moment, which actually, because you'll probably ask me at some stage about what photography I'm doing this weekend, which is bright stuff. This is my news for the week. [01:58:25] Speaker A: What did you buy? [01:58:29] Speaker C: I bought books. I went on a little photo book buying spree. I bought Magnum contact sheets. If no one's ever seen this, it's the contact sheets, 139 contact sheets representing 69 magnum photographers. And it shows the roll that they shot. Let's see if we can get a good example, the role that they shot and then the selects from that shoot from quite famous photos and some of the stories behind them as well. So you can. So it's not just the great photos, but you're seeing what they. How they work to get those shots, which I think is pretty cool. It's a massive book. I feel like it's worth the money. It's heavy. I bought Ansel Adams 400 photographs. [01:59:18] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, I've seen that. [01:59:21] Speaker C: I bought Steve McCurry a life in pictures. And then this one, which is quite topical for this weekend, which just arrived. It's got a little post it note on it. [01:59:37] Speaker A: Previous guest this is ASMR, by the way. For those listening, we're doing bubble wrap. [01:59:46] Speaker C: Previous guest of the podcast, Matt Palmer, who co owns the alpine light studio in Bright, who unfortunately won't be there this weekend because he's on his honeymoon, did a kickstarter for this book, Icelandic Echoes, which I backed a little while ago and it arrived yesterday. [02:00:06] Speaker A: Oh, wow. [02:00:07] Speaker C: I'm keen to. Oh, it's signed. Thanks, Matt. Um, yeah, keen to get through that. It's like abandoned locations in Iceland. So I'm on the. I'm on the photo book train at the moment because things are better printed. [02:00:21] Speaker D: That's it. [02:00:22] Speaker C: So my recommendation to anyone is don't buy any gear today, but maybe jump on a website. These books, other than. Other than Matt's book, all of these are on sale on booktopia. I think they were all like, didn't. [02:00:37] Speaker A: They shut or something? [02:00:38] Speaker C: I thought they got bought by Digi direct, actually. [02:00:41] Speaker A: Oh. [02:00:42] Speaker C: So anyway, it was still going. I did. They took. They took like two weeks to arrive, but they were all on stock. [02:00:48] Speaker A: Did you direct? [02:00:50] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. Not in stock. Never in stock. [02:00:55] Speaker A: So we've got them. [02:00:56] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. They'll tell you it's in stock, but yeah, I'd say go grab a photo book. And these are. These are massive. There's so many photos in them. They were all about $50.50, $60 like that, which is reasonable, I thought, for such big books. Yeah, that's my thing this week. [02:01:14] Speaker A: Nice job, Jim. What have you got on this week? [02:01:20] Speaker B: Me? [02:01:20] Speaker A: Not much. [02:01:21] Speaker B: I'm rehabbing an injury at the moment, so I'm laying low. [02:01:26] Speaker C: Yep, laying low. [02:01:27] Speaker B: Just gym, swimming, and that's about it. No, no work at the moment. [02:01:33] Speaker A: Yeah. [02:01:33] Speaker C: How's that been? Not doing any work? [02:01:36] Speaker B: It's been weird. [02:01:38] Speaker C: We get in, you could be, you know. Do you want to be doing stuff? Do you want to be shooting you? Where's your head at? [02:01:47] Speaker B: I would. I want to be shooting. [02:01:48] Speaker A: Are you okay? [02:01:50] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm okay. I just. I want to be well enough to shoot, I think is. [02:01:54] Speaker A: Yeah. [02:01:55] Speaker C: Yeah. [02:01:55] Speaker B: The current thing. [02:01:56] Speaker A: You don't want to get wiped out. [02:01:58] Speaker B: No. [02:02:00] Speaker A: All right, well, we wish you a speedy recovery, and it's good to see you back, mate. [02:02:03] Speaker C: Yeah. [02:02:04] Speaker B: Thank you. [02:02:04] Speaker A: Looking forward to getting you back on again. More. More consistency. Natalia, what have you got on this, this week or weekend? You got any shoots planned, any events? [02:02:15] Speaker D: Not this weekend. I have a couple underwater shoots coming up. Decline shoots. We're gonna take the weekend off just to chill. [02:02:28] Speaker A: Yeah. [02:02:28] Speaker D: And read books. [02:02:30] Speaker C: Read books. [02:02:31] Speaker A: Very good. [02:02:32] Speaker D: I've got a whole stack of books that I want to get through before the year ends. [02:02:37] Speaker A: I haven't picked up a book to read in. It has to be years. I found that because I write a lot, obviously, and I read a lot of my work and other people's work as part of my job. I've just found reading, I can't engage my brain. I've used all my word skills in the. In the earning of money business. Yeah, sorry. [02:03:00] Speaker D: That's still a good skill regardless. [02:03:02] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, I'm still reading, but I often try to pick up. I remember when I, in my previous life, before I was a photographer, I worked in a corporate setting, and even back then, I found it really tricky to get into those sort of corporate management leadership kind of text that they give us to read. Yeah, big time. But I've always loved science fiction. I just haven't picked up a science fiction book for a very long time. As for photography plans, as we said, we're going to bright. I'm just looking forward to Justin and my elopement, for one. But I've got a couple of lenses that have been lent to me by Fujifilm Australia, so I'm looking forward to testing those with the view of reviewing them as part of my, my other gig. I got sent the Fujifilm XF 70 to 300, which is often not spoken about very much. And it's optically, it doesn't have stabilization, but it's got a good range. So it's 70 to 300, which is what one? It's like 105 to 450 plus. They sent me a 1.4 teleconverter, so I've got a pretty decent zoom in that. That pairing. And the other thing that was sent to me is. Yeah, just take. Shoot right from here. I got sent by this brand. I don't know if that's thigh Poc or Taipok. I'm not sure how you pronounce it, but it's a. It's all metal build. It's a manual 28 1.4. It's got a groovy square lens cap, and it's. I don't know if that's going to focus the taipok. They do two ranges. One's eureka, the other is Samira. This is a Samira 28, one, four. And it's made for Fuji Mount, but it's made for Canon, RF, Leica, M, Nikon, Sony. All of them. Even the lens cap at the back. The back cap is machined, probably aluminum. Aluminium, how do we say it? [02:05:11] Speaker C: Aluminum, mate. [02:05:12] Speaker A: Yeah, mate. So I'm going to be trying that. It's a manual focus. So being given that, I mostly shoot street photography for fun, I use quick, snappy autofocus. So it's going to be a really nice challenge for me to get out with a manual focus lens and slow down a bit and think about what I'm actually focusing on, which will be interesting. So, yeah, we've got the. Got the. The festival next week on the show. We don't have a guest planned because we're going to do a bit of a beefop unpack and talk about our experiences and, you know, the workshops and what we did. And then we'll return to having a guest the following week. Any final words? [02:06:01] Speaker C: Tony says, more importantly, it's Bathurst weekend. What's Bathurst, Tony? Is that a different photography festival or something? I haven't heard of it. Sounds interesting. It does. He also said, jim hasn't worked for six years, so. Yeah. [02:06:13] Speaker A: Brutal. For a man that's been in your closet, he's being very harsh. Well, the man that came out of your closet, is that. No. Natalia, huge thanks to you. Thank you so much for joining us today and being a part of the Camera Life podcast. Welcome to the alumni. We'd love to have you back in the future to talk shop, for sure. And yeah, we'll run a special episode about running a photography business. Yeah. On behalf of the team. Your work is absolutely gorgeous. Easier to see why you attract clients not just through the images that you produce, but through your whole approach and attitude and ethos towards celebrating the feminine form and making women feel strong and proud and independent about who they are and how they look. So congratulations. Your work is absolutely stunning. And having known you for a while, I can honestly say I'm proud of you. The journey that you've made and how far you've come, you know, from the plucky little influencer loving taking brunch photography to someone who's mastering a genre well and truly and broadening the scope of that genre beyond its typical expectations. So well done and thank you. [02:07:35] Speaker D: Thank you. It's been an adventure for sure. And yeah, thank you for having me on this podcast. [02:07:40] Speaker A: No worries. [02:07:41] Speaker B: Thanks for coming on. [02:07:43] Speaker A: So, for those of you watching along at home, that brings us to the end of today's episode 33. It is Thursday the 10 October. We're only like nine weeks away from Christmas, I think. Make sure you get your. Your wish list fulfilled. Buy people books. [02:07:59] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, Christmas. [02:08:01] Speaker A: Buy books. [02:08:04] Speaker D: Your listen. [02:08:05] Speaker A: No. Imagine. Imagine handling 150 megapixel files. Thank you once again for watching along. Please feel free to leave comments. We try to review comments and get back to them when we can. This episode will be available on the channel, as will the audio podcast. Just search for the camera life podcast on your preferred listening device. And yeah, until then, get out and shoot. Doesn't matter what camera you've got, doesn't matter how many mega pickles you have, whether it's 26 or 150. Get out there and chase the light and, you know, make some images. On behalf of the team, this is Greg signing off. Thank you, Jim, Justin and Natalia. Any closing words? Boss? [02:08:52] Speaker C: Me? [02:08:53] Speaker A: Yeah, you're the boss now. [02:08:57] Speaker C: That's all grand. All right, you guys have a good weekend. [02:09:00] Speaker B: Use it twice. [02:09:02] Speaker A: I know. No, I don't. It's just wrong. See you next week, guys. Have a great one. [02:09:10] Speaker B: Thank you. [02:09:12] Speaker A: Bye.