People's Choice Winner and 2026 Goals with Alex Cearns - Random Photography Show 148

[00:00:01] Speaker A: The camera light. The flash ignites. Frame the world. See it right. The camera. [00:00:18] Speaker B: Well, good evening everybody and welcome back to the Camera Life podcast. What is it? This is our second Monday night show for the year. It is 12th January, 2026 and the camera Life podcast is proudly brought to you by Lucky straps. Head to Luckystraps.com. if you're looking for a premium handcrafted Aussie made leather camera strap, or perhaps you want a belt or a hoodie or a T shirt, we do lots of stuff. Alex, are you wearing your belt? [00:00:46] Speaker A: No, I don't have any pants on. That's not true. I do. I actually do. I do. Because I was sitting down, I didn't wear my belt, but I wear it everywhere other than when I'm sitting at my desk. [00:00:58] Speaker C: Okay, fair enough. Fair enough. [00:00:59] Speaker B: Yeah. Still, Alex and I have a very special relationship. [00:01:07] Speaker A: I do now I feel like I do. It's credibility to be like, she's got no pants on. [00:01:11] Speaker C: That's a cool T shirt. What's, what's that T shirt all about? [00:01:13] Speaker A: Oh, thank you. This is, it's a T shirt I designed myself. [00:01:18] Speaker C: Really? [00:01:18] Speaker A: Yeah. Just random colored cameras. Yeah. Unfortunately, you can only see it if I show you that I have pants on because it's. The camera's cutting off. [00:01:25] Speaker B: It's a, it's an ensemble. I think it's a term. [00:01:27] Speaker A: Pretty much. Yes. Special preview only thing. Yep. [00:01:31] Speaker B: And in case you haven't picked up, we're joined by Alex Kearns. Hey, Alex. [00:01:35] Speaker A: Hello. Hi. And I have pants on. Just to be clear, to be very clear. [00:01:38] Speaker B: Are you wearing pants? Justin and the bosses here, of course, everybody shorts. [00:01:42] Speaker A: Shorts. [00:01:42] Speaker C: I guess. [00:01:44] Speaker A: Pants check. [00:01:46] Speaker B: Yeah. No pants on. Yeah, yeah. [00:01:48] Speaker A: We're all good then. We're good to go. [00:01:51] Speaker B: But yeah. Welcome, Alex. Great to have you here. We've got a bit to get through tonight. We've got some, some a prize to award. Boss, do you want to tell us a little bit about that? [00:02:01] Speaker C: Well, the People's choice award from the 2025 photo of the year competition that we ran last week. The people's choice votes are in. And so we'll be getting to that in the first segment after we say hi to the chat and chat to Alex and whatnot. But yeah, we'll be announcing the people choice winner. The people choice. I think we'll do, we'll do, you know, three, two, one. One, two, three. We'll do the top, the podium if you will. So thanks for everyone for voting. You guys were all in the comments. It was Great. It was good to see everyone. [00:02:29] Speaker B: Put a lot of work. [00:02:30] Speaker C: It really helped that Yelena went through and timestamped every single person's image so that you could bounce around and look and see. So that was. That was great. Thanks, Elena. [00:02:41] Speaker B: That was good egg. [00:02:42] Speaker C: Yeah, it took her a while. Great egg. Yep. Should we see who's in the chat? [00:02:48] Speaker B: Yeah, let's say hello to some people. [00:02:51] Speaker C: Guess who was first. Philip Johnson. Greetings all from Katoomba Hospital before the nurse turns the lights off. [00:02:58] Speaker A: What? [00:02:58] Speaker C: You in hospital? What's going on? Philip, what's going on? Hope you're okay. Speaking of which, crazy weekend in Victoria with the fire. So if anyone has been affected or knows someone that's been affected, has family or whatever. Yes, we're all thinking of it. It was. It was pretty close to home for Bendigo, even. And I know some people down in the Harcourt area where I mountain bike a lot, who. Yeah, were sort of. I don't know what you would call it, quite heavily affected. But they. They didn't lose the house or anything, but lots of sheds and even. I think they even lost a bobcat. So, like. Yeah, it got still pretty crazy down there. So everyone's doing it? No. Yeah. [00:03:39] Speaker B: Well, I checked in with some peeps over the weekend. I checked in with the folks in Bright because Bright wasn't directly affected, but they had lots going on around them. Yeah. And. And people in the Yarra Valley, like Greg Carrick, just checking in. [00:03:55] Speaker C: Yep. [00:03:56] Speaker B: Making sure everyone's okay. So touch wood, that stays that way. [00:04:01] Speaker C: Speaking of which, I know my phone's going crazy, actually, speaking of which, you can call in tonight. So if you have a question for Alex, you can throw it in the chat, but you could even just call us on the show and we'll see if it works. Let's get the live call in happening. Call it. You're on the air, so don't forget the numbers up on the screen, plus six one depending on where you are in the world. 48-5-512370. Call the show, ask your questions. You know, what are good questions, Alex, for people to ask you? [00:04:29] Speaker A: What. [00:04:30] Speaker C: What sort of things do you like to be asked? [00:04:33] Speaker A: I can tell you what I get asked a lot, which is, you know, how do you make a dog sit still and how do you take a photo of a pet? So you could probably just Google those to find out what I've said about 8 trillion times before. I love the stuff that makes me think, you know, I was on a interview once for Radio Live, abc Radio. And the lady said to me, do you think because you photograph in a studio. Excuse me. And you remove background from your images, you don't have any background, that you're minimizing the importance of environment in your photos? Which I thought was awesome because it made me think about the answer, which of course was, no. I don't think it minimizes environment. I think it actually just emphasizes the subject in its purest, most beautiful form and things like that. So I like quirky questions, but I'm an open book on anything. So if anyone wants anything from what lens did I use to do food photography? Right through to when you do wear pants, what belt do you wear to, you know, what film should I go? [00:05:29] Speaker B: Those are important questions. [00:05:31] Speaker A: Excuse me. They certainly are. I'll just have a drink because I'm joking. But, yeah, anything. I'm open to anything. So anything about photography, photo tours, wildlife photography, animals, travel photography kit, you know, airlines, anything. You name it, go for it. I'm open to it. [00:05:47] Speaker C: Love it. So call the show. Who else is here? Tintype Man. Good to see you. Rodney Nicholson. Good evening. Lisa Leach says. Good evening, everybody. Bruce Moyle and Greg Carrick is in the house. And yes, Tintype Man. Sorry, I actually. Tintype man tried to call me, which was lovely. I was up the river with little service and I got a voicemail. And then it was a very hectic weekend and I haven't had a chance to give you a call back, but thank you very much for the call. He's just mentioning that how we discussed his entry last week. He appreciated very much and it was well received in the People's Choice Awards. But we'll get to that soon. Ian Thompson. Good afternoon from the warm Pilbara. That's cool. Who else have we got? One Day at a Time Photography. Hey, Tweak Productions. What's up, party people? Everyone's in the house tonight. Brett Wooderson, Neil Robert Varner. Evening. It's early morning where I am. Yes, I know. I know. Which is New York. No, New Jersey. I always forget. No. Yes. I don't know. Julie Powell. Hey. Alex's Alex Kearns number one fan. [00:07:00] Speaker A: I know who that is. [00:07:01] Speaker C: Glad I made it. [00:07:04] Speaker A: Rhymes with Flynn. Yeah, he's great. I love that guy. It's better to have one a number one fan than none. I'll take. [00:07:19] Speaker C: That's true. That's true. Lucinda Paul, everybody. John Pickett. Tony. Good evening. Greg, can you please be on the left? Yeah. [00:07:29] Speaker B: There's an imbalance. [00:07:30] Speaker C: Done. [00:07:30] Speaker B: Nobody. Alex in the middle. Let's put Alex in the middle on a phone. [00:07:35] Speaker A: Small head and big background. [00:07:38] Speaker C: How's that, Tony? Who else? [00:07:44] Speaker A: It's frightened everyone. [00:07:46] Speaker C: Paul. I saw my name is number one on the list of images, then realized it wasn't a ranking. [00:07:54] Speaker B: Got your hopes up. [00:07:57] Speaker C: Who else? Kate's blow. Man, this is crazy. I can't keep up. Nick Fletcher. Sorry, team, I am late. Hi. Alex in the house. And Alex Kearns, number one fan, says, I think Alex should be in the middle and larger and maybe not have the other two. Oh, really? [00:08:14] Speaker A: Look, just advice. You don't have to take it. Good advice, but you don't have to take it. [00:08:19] Speaker C: Yeah, Rick Nelson. Jim is here. Says, hello, fam. It was Jim's birthday on the weekend, so if anyone wants to wish him a happy birthday. [00:08:26] Speaker A: Happy birthday, Jim. [00:08:27] Speaker C: Get on it. Happy birthday, Jim. [00:08:30] Speaker B: Hey, Alex, don't worry because Glenn's going to be joining us in a few weeks on a Monday night. You can get your own back. [00:08:36] Speaker A: Yeah, I'll come on as Alex Kern's number one fan. Just so you know, it's not me. [00:08:42] Speaker C: All right. And finally, Nick says, get Alex a taller chair. [00:08:46] Speaker A: Yeah, we'll get on, tell you about it. [00:08:48] Speaker C: Like, you might have to just, like, sit, stand just over. No, you don't. [00:08:53] Speaker A: You look. [00:08:54] Speaker C: It's fine. It's totally fine. [00:08:57] Speaker A: How's that? [00:08:57] Speaker C: That's great. [00:08:58] Speaker A: That's. [00:09:01] Speaker C: We'll all do this show like this. [00:09:06] Speaker A: So how to lose. We should do a book. How to lose viewers in eight seconds. [00:09:10] Speaker C: Hey, we've been doing that for 148 episodes. [00:09:15] Speaker B: We're not turning back now. [00:09:17] Speaker C: No. [00:09:17] Speaker B: All right, well, should we get started on the People's Choice award for our 2025 photo of the Year? Last week was an emotional roller coaster. Some incredible. Well, every entry was. Was amazing and it was a very, very tough choice to make, but Dennis did a good job, kept us in check and even gave away some prizes himself. [00:09:39] Speaker C: Let's just. Let me have a look in here. I just want to see some of the comments first. Let's get rid of that. This. Actually, you know what? Before, when we do this, before we do that, just reminded me of it. We had David Duchemin on on Thursday. Just looked up in the comments while I was looking at it. That was a great interview. Thank you very much, Glenn and everyone else that recommended having him on the show, first of all. And if you haven't listened to it, put that on your list to listen to sometime over the next week or two, because, my gosh, he's A bit of a wizard with words, obviously. An amazing photographer. And, yeah, I could listen to him all day. We basically just shut up and let him talk. And then every now and then, Greg. Greg and I would talk over each other trying to get a question in because we were like, it's gold. Yeah, exactly. He's spilling gold. We got a clip. Every part of this. Going to make 800 clips from this episode. So, yeah, see, look, one of your best interviews, other than that bloke Glenn. Yeah, I would agree with that. Yeah. Yeah. [00:10:45] Speaker B: David was. [00:10:46] Speaker C: David was great. [00:10:46] Speaker B: Nice little connection that was made. I introduced David to our good friend Matt Palmer. [00:10:51] Speaker C: Oh, yes. [00:10:52] Speaker B: And they're doing a book swap because they both admired each other's books on that during the episode and so they're organizing a book swap. That's pretty cool. [00:11:02] Speaker C: Very cool. [00:11:03] Speaker B: Alex just got a new book too. She is now a published author in the Czech Republic. Go on, hold it up. Alex. Just quickly. Go on, do it for the team. [00:11:11] Speaker A: I don't know what it says. I think it says. I think it says this, but I think it. I know that's me, but yeah, I don't know what that is, but yeah, no, it's great. I can't understand a word of it, but it has our pictures. 10 out of 10. Look at that. Amazing. Anyway, yeah, anyone wants to. Books like that that can understand it. [00:11:32] Speaker B: Time's up. [00:11:34] Speaker C: So hang on, we'll get to that later. We'll get to that. I'd like to find out how that all come about. All right, couple of quick comments while I'm here before we just get into the People's Choice Award winners. But yeah, it just. Everyone was loving David's interview. That's why there's so many comments here about that. But I'm scrolling through, scrolling through. What did we have here? Great episode commentary from Justin. Greg and Dennis was enjoyable, constructive and encouraging. And then they went through their votes. That was from my hall. And they wanted Vaughn to make a selection of images, but we didn't get around to that. Unfortunately. Vaughn's still coming up in the comments. If you guys missed him, too bad he's never coming on the show again. Can't be trusted. But yeah, there was lots of positive comments about doing this comp and the variety of entries that we had and the variety of stories, which is pretty crazy. Yeah, I was very proud of it. From macro to portraits to landscapes, everything. It was great. Yep, Yep. All right, we've dragged it out long enough. Should we do it? Should we start with the third place winner of the People's Choice Award. I don't even have a drum roll. [00:12:58] Speaker B: Do we have a drum roll still? What about just the danger zone one? [00:13:01] Speaker C: Yeah. I was gonna say I lost it to the danger zone. Unfortunately, it's gone. Nothing I can do about that. We had to prioritize our various sound effects. Yeah. No, it's gone. Sorry. No, drum roll number three was. Third place was image 14, Les Oakey hoped and falls. Hey, Les, shall I bring it up? Shall I bring it up? [00:13:26] Speaker B: Yeah, Quick look, just so we'll applause. You found that. That's good. [00:13:33] Speaker C: She says. APPLAUSE Go for a while. Yeah. What. What a classic waterfall landscape shot. Just beautiful. It's poppy. I think Les did get an honorable mention on the night. And now another honorable mention of third place. So amazing work, Liz. Well done. [00:13:49] Speaker B: Well done, mate. Excellent. [00:13:51] Speaker C: Second place, the very emotional image number. Whoop. Not that one. Image number 34, Winifred by Scott Longdon. Tintype man. So well done, Scott. [00:14:05] Speaker B: Congratulations. [00:14:05] Speaker C: Amazing work and thank you very much again for submitting that image and the beautiful words with it. Yeah. And I didn't really think this would happen, so I'm not sure what we're going to do about it, but the winner of the People's Choice Award was actually one of our other winners from last week and it's image number 29 from Jessica Tormey. Portrait of Julian Kingma. [00:14:38] Speaker B: Very cool. [00:14:39] Speaker C: Amazing work and a great photo. But I don't know what to do now with the prizes because Jessica always already won a prize, so we'll figure that out. Just leave it with me. I don't know. We'll make a plan. We'll do something. So congratulations and thanks very much for everyone for voting. I think in total, I don't know how many votes there were. Tons. [00:15:01] Speaker B: Lots. [00:15:02] Speaker C: Yeah. Lots and lots of votes. So thanks, everybody for taking the time to do it. I know it was a big effort and without you, we would not have a People's Choice Award. So, yeah, wonderful. [00:15:11] Speaker B: So, yeah, well done, guys. And a nice. A nice bow on the. On the 2025 Photo Awards. Stay tuned for next year. [00:15:21] Speaker C: I don't know if I've already. This year. I don't know. Yeah. I don't know if I've asked you this before, Alex. Have you judged awards? [00:15:33] Speaker A: Yes, judged. Quite a few. [00:15:35] Speaker C: Quite a few. Do you like doing that? [00:15:38] Speaker A: Yeah, I do a lot of camera club judging at clubs and I do a lot of online stuff as well. Some stuff for Australian Photography magazine and Capture magazine and a Few things like that. I think I probably. It's hard to judge because, you know, well, as a judge you have to be in the mind of the photographer to understand what their intent was sometimes in what they're doing. But I find it's very hard to give feedback when people are sitting in the room because always want to be kind and, you know, I think it's really brave to even put your photos up to be judged because you get judged and who wants that? So it's a really brave thing to even do it. So I'm pulling away a little bit from the live judging stuff and going more into the online stuff where I'd have to stand there and give feedback to the person who poured their heart and soul into this image and destroy someone in person. [00:16:21] Speaker B: You'd rather just do it from the safety? [00:16:23] Speaker A: Yeah, I'd rather do it behind a closed door. So. No, but I love judging. I think, yeah, it is really brave. And whenever I do do live camera club judging at a club, I do say thank you for submitting your images. Otherwise we'd all be standing here just, you know, having talked to each other, you know, it's not quite the same, but it is a really brave thing to do. So it's everyone who entered your comp, even your competition, you know that they obviously putting their picture in because they believe it's got that, that it factor and something in that that will resonate with judges. So I think that's even an achievement in itself, to be honest. So. [00:16:53] Speaker C: Yeah, exactly. [00:16:54] Speaker B: I agree. [00:16:54] Speaker A: I like, yeah, I like seeing what the mad talent like some of the comps I judge are amateur competitions, but the talent is mind blowing. You know, they can't be a pro level, but that, it's honestly amazing, especially some of the Australian comps. The talent we have in this country is incredible. [00:17:11] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. Okay, now we have a little bit of news to get through, don't we tonight, Craig? Just a couple. Yeah, just. [00:17:20] Speaker B: Just a couple of headlines, mate. [00:17:24] Speaker C: Let me, let me change my graphics. [00:17:26] Speaker B: Let's just jump to the news. [00:17:28] Speaker C: We won't, we won't linger on this stuff too much because there's nothing super exciting happening in the world of photography currently. [00:17:37] Speaker B: Although, no, it's a bit quiet. [00:17:38] Speaker C: Look, I added one. I added one. I don't know if you saw it, Greg. I added one there. Yeah. The bag. Alex, what kind of bags do you use? What, what brand of bags is your, your bat, your preferred bag of choice again, or Think Tank? [00:17:55] Speaker A: I have one of each at the Moment. Yeah. [00:17:57] Speaker C: Oh, interesting. [00:17:58] Speaker A: And I bought a new think tank when I was in Bright actually. But yeah, I've always used low Pro before that. But yeah. [00:18:03] Speaker C: Okay, so you've got a couple of different things. Yeah. Because Think tank released a really interesting one and I've never seen it before. Never seen the style. [00:18:11] Speaker B: Let's bring that up first then. [00:18:12] Speaker C: You want to start with that. [00:18:14] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, it's hot. [00:18:15] Speaker C: Well, it's hot. Where is it? So this thing they're saying, where is it? That's a stage. There we go. It's. It's modular with no dividers. So it's got pouches and like loops. I'm trying to find a better picture. So. So this is a shot of it just with like pouches for each. And then it's got these loops that hold your body against, I guess the back part of the. I've never seen this style. And it's, it's. Where are we? Side access and expandable. So it can be like thin. Yeah. The shape shifter reimagined. I know, it's. It's weird. I'm not sure how I feel about it yet. Hang on, let me zoom out. [00:19:16] Speaker B: Well, if you go to that photo where it shows the lenses in the straps, there's a couple of lenses on the right. Maybe go back up a bit. [00:19:25] Speaker C: Hang on. It's freezing. Hang on. This website's it's just trying to load every ad, even though I think I pay for the non ad version. Which one? This one. [00:19:37] Speaker B: Go down one more. [00:19:38] Speaker C: Okay, there. [00:19:40] Speaker B: A little bit further. Okay, so that one on the right. I don't know. That would be a pretty heavy kit and I worry. And it looks like that's on the lid side of it. Hard to tell. I would worry about the Velcro coming undone as you pull the lid of your camera case open. But you put your backpack down, you open up the lid to access all your gear. I would worry about those. [00:20:05] Speaker C: I don't know if that's how you're meant to access it or whether that just holds it in place and you can open it right up. But if you can just reach in the side and access it like that. Yeah. I do know one thing. Think tank make nice bags so that, you know, there's that. Yeah. I don't know. Anyway, I thought it was interesting. Never seen before. Yeah. So here's the. Like it expandy expands depending on how much kit you've got. [00:20:30] Speaker B: That's like a side view of me throughout the year. [00:20:33] Speaker C: Christmas leading into Christmas. [00:20:36] Speaker B: Back, back to Sort of, you know, end of summer. [00:20:39] Speaker C: There we go. Yep. Okay. What, what, what else did you have on your list? [00:20:47] Speaker B: Can we bring up the mini Evo cinema camera? The Instax. But before we do, I just want to tell two quick Fujifilm bits of news. One is that the Fujifilm X half, they've released a white edition. If you thought the black one wasn't enough for you, they've released a white one currently in Asia only. I think I've called it the Ghost edition because it just won't die. [00:21:08] Speaker A: The. [00:21:08] Speaker B: They need to get rid of it. But the other thing I saw is that some. There's a. I can't remember where it is and I didn't put it in here. But you can if you buy an XT5. Is it with B and H? It's with someone where you buy an XT5. So flagship body, you get an X half for free. [00:21:26] Speaker C: Really. [00:21:27] Speaker B: And I think that's kind of telling. [00:21:29] Speaker C: Yeah. That it's not doing. But you know what's so interesting. So I got a message this, this comes up over and over again. I got a message from a friend who actually helped me get started in wedding photography. Let me assist them on a shoot and like second shoot a little bit. Gave me some great advice back in the day. They were sort of a top level photographer when I first started and then have since kind of essentially stopped shooting altogether and now want to get back into it for personal sort of work and travel. And they messaged me and said, I know you do the podcast. What would your advice be for buying a camera that's basically a fixed lens, you know, small, enjoyable to shoot camera that's good quality and it's just, it's, it's so hard to recommend something and like this, this seems like there's a lot, a lot of options but there's not really that the X half is nowhere near it for someone who used to be a professional photographer and it's. [00:22:30] Speaker B: Not even worth what they're charging. [00:22:32] Speaker C: No, the X100 definitely is it but it's, it's, you know, pushing that price up three grand sort of up there. But, but it's probably really the one. It's really the only thing to, to recommend for people in a fixed lens. [00:22:48] Speaker B: But that's more point and shoot. [00:22:50] Speaker C: Well this is the thing. Everyone loves the Ricoh JR but no viewfinder. And for a photographer that shot primarily film and then DSLRs always. And the X100, it's got to be the X100. I don't know. There's just no one's putting out any other options anyway. [00:23:04] Speaker B: But having said that, one of the. One of the news articles that I looked at this morning in readiness for tonight was that the SEPA CIPA who reports on all the camera sales, I think just in Japan. Is that right? Was it global? No, SEPA's global. [00:23:19] Speaker C: I think it's global, but it's probably. [00:23:20] Speaker B: Based in Japan that there's been a big spike in fixed lens cameras. Camera sales over 20, 25 and particularly in the holiday season, Christmas and around there, Thanksgiving, like the sales of fixed lens cameras is just shot through the roof. So people are moving away from. Even though smartphone cameras are getting better, maybe they're just getting too good or maybe too clinical. And more and more people are getting back to photography. [00:23:48] Speaker C: Yep. [00:23:49] Speaker A: It's interesting. [00:23:50] Speaker C: Yelena's still searching for one. She wants one. We've been up, up the river and she said, I just want to have a camera that I can take around. That's not my phone, but just an easy to shoot with camera. And you know what I ended up. I've been looking at and we might end up getting it. The OM system. Tough waterproof camera. You know those red ones that were the compact. Yeah. It's got a zoom lens in it. [00:24:17] Speaker B: It's. [00:24:17] Speaker C: I didn't realize it had a zoom lens that's inside that camera that doesn't protrude and it's all waterproof. [00:24:23] Speaker B: And you can even buy additional housings for them and underwater lighting kits and a Mac Pro. [00:24:31] Speaker C: You can buy a macro ring light for it because it does macro. I'm like, this thing's pretty impressive. They're 550 bucks. I think I'm like, could be worth it. I know the image quality won't be great, but this is where it's hard, I think because it's 12 megapixel. I think when you compare it to a current pro iPhone, the iPhone in some cases will look better. The file is what I'm worried about. Yeah. Which is hard to justify, but also I guess iPhones five times the price. Anyway, we got off time. [00:25:02] Speaker B: That's just the file. You're not talking about the experience or. [00:25:05] Speaker C: Yeah, exactly. [00:25:06] Speaker B: You're not going to take your iPhone in with you when you do scuba diving. Are you in Bali? [00:25:11] Speaker C: No. No. Alex, do you do. Do you do like everyday carry kind of photo? Like do you ever just. If you're just cruising around, just living life. Not. Not. Yeah. IPhone. Yeah. [00:25:25] Speaker A: Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. I mean, what's that thing. The best camera you've. The best camera you've got someone you've got with you at the time or. Yeah. So if anything, that's not. That's just to record a moment or video. I use my phone. Just go to my phone. But I do have friends that take their camera everywhere and I absolutely admire that because they get all the good shots at good rest, but I just get the blurry iPhone photo. Yeah. [00:25:47] Speaker C: Yeah. I think I've found that I really struggle with the everyday carry style. Have your camera ready at a moment's notice because I. What I'm learning about myself is I'm either photographing what's happening or I'm participating in it. And I really struggle to do both. Yeah, I really struggle to switch gears like that and just be like, oh, yeah, I'll just have. If I brought my camera up the river again, didn't really use it much because I was doing so much stuff with the family that I didn't think to get it out. And I then end up just snapping stuff. On your iPhone. Yeah. Yeah. [00:26:27] Speaker A: So me too. If I. If I go kayaking and take my. My mirrorless kit or my DSLR kit, I spend so much time worrying I'm going to stack and tip it in the water that it's so much easier. Just have this, which is waterproof up to a certain distance. If you drop it in the pond, that I don't end up wanting to get it out and my hands are wet and like, you know, they're not really built necessarily for that sort of stuff. So. Yeah, it's just more convenient, I think. [00:26:51] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah. Here we go. Rick's onto it. The TG7 is great. My wife and I have one each. That's what I'm looking at. Rick, is. It is. Tell me, like, what's the. What is the quality? Like, am I going to be just really disappointed or can it actually take a nice photo? What does tweak say here? The only two cameras we have in our store for fixed lens point and shoot are the TZ99 and the TG7. Trying to get any of the Fujis in stock is a pain. Unless it's an X Huff. [00:27:23] Speaker A: Sorry. [00:27:23] Speaker B: Giving them away. All right, let's. Let's look at this new Fuji insects camera, which is pretty. What? [00:27:30] Speaker A: Why? [00:27:30] Speaker C: Are you kidding? I didn't even. I saw this and I was like, somehow it just snuck out. And I was like, is this real? [00:27:39] Speaker B: I thought it was fake when I first saw it. I thought, that's Dumb. That doesn't even look like a real camera. It turns out it was a real camera. But this is a new Fujifilm Instax. So basically the premise of it is that they've tried to replicate like a Super 8 style, you know, a little camera, a little video camera. But it's an Instax camera. I hear you say the beauty of this system is. That was a couple of things. One is the form factor. It's like nothing else on the market, which I think is pretty cool and brave of Fujifilm, I always do. But because it's an Instax, yes, it prints. You can print from it. The print pops out the top. But, but you can assign your print to have a QR code. And so what you do is you film up to a 15 second clip. Can only do 15 seconds and then you print. I think it's like the first part of the frame or the first image and then the QR code. So anyone can scan that QR code and then watch your 15 second video. So you could have them all over your fridge of memories, friends, family, whatever, and you can just scan it and watch the video that you shot with them at the time that you held this camera. [00:28:49] Speaker C: Does it go into like some sort of Fuji cloud or something? Like where does, where does. Yeah, I imagine so. I imagine that's a clever idea. [00:28:57] Speaker B: I haven't, I haven't looked at the full. I mean you can still do that at the moment with the, with some Fuji Instax printers. But the other thing it has is it has a, a dial for choosing a film SIM or a look that is from a particular decade over the last 90 years of Fujifilm history. So what they tried to replicate. Yeah, they've tried to represent the style and the color and you know, that's bizarre. It is very bizarre. [00:29:25] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:29:25] Speaker C: I was trying to read what was around that dial and it looked like years, like 1920, 1930, 1940. So what, you just pick a decade and it's like, all right, this should look like Stranger Things, 1980 done. Yeah, it's got the music and everything. Yeah. [00:29:40] Speaker B: So what they don't. I mean, the latest models of Fujifilm, insects digital, the hybrid digital slash analog cameras and their printers, you could already choose different styles. What they've done is they've just basically, you know, honed in on those, those styles and added a decade to it. So. Yeah, anyway, it's just interesting. It's brave. [00:30:06] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:30:06] Speaker B: It's obviously got it, you know, aimed at a particular market. [00:30:11] Speaker C: What's it Saying this camera will be available in Japan starting January 30, 2026. Pricing and international release windows were not revealed. Okay. So it's kind of like an early. [00:30:20] Speaker B: Yeah, I think they learned from the X half. If we're going to be brave, let's just go small market first and see what the uptake is. Yeah, that's how I see it. You know, and this is once again, it's an unusual product. It's being brave, it's thinking outside the box. [00:30:36] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:30:36] Speaker B: But they're being a little bit more cautious, which I think is sensible. [00:30:40] Speaker C: Yeah. And also it's in the Instax brand which is, that's the, that's where they can't. Where they should be playing. [00:30:45] Speaker B: I think that's the cash cow. [00:30:47] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:30:49] Speaker A: I, I want it to play with it and I know that I would play with it for a month and then probably be like, oh, I'll just use my phone. But I would, I still want it because it sounds fun and that little dial with the different vintages on there sound really cool. And I'd be, oh great. Then I'd be like, oh, it's too hard. I could just do on my phone and put it on Facebook. Make people go there instead having to. But I still want it. So. [00:31:09] Speaker C: So they've, they've got the. Yeah. Okay. So they've got the right sort of curiosity factor of. [00:31:16] Speaker B: Exactly. [00:31:17] Speaker C: So. [00:31:17] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. [00:31:18] Speaker C: That, that idea of committing to a 15 second clip and then having a physical print with a QR code. That is interesting. I do kind of like that. It's a, it's a way to capture a memory hand to someone, hand them something physical and then they can look at it later. They can look back at that clip anytime they want. That's, you know, they can have the print stuck on their fridge, but anytime they want they can watch the video from that. That's kind of cool. [00:31:44] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:31:46] Speaker A: There's probably a smart subscription like you mentioned, the cloud server. There's probably some smart $5 a month subscription service in there as well where you can re monetize it. Like. Yeah. [00:31:55] Speaker C: I'm like, where's this, where's this clip go? That's what I'm wondering. Yeah. Where does it live? [00:32:01] Speaker A: I was gonna say too, regarding the compact camera you were talking about, I think the image quality and output only matters a lot pending what you want to do with the photos. So if you want to just share them on socials and print them as five by sevens or you know, put them on the fridge and have memories. I don't think a 12 megapixel camera is a problem. If you want to print, you know, 20 by 30 canvases that are pin sharp, it might be a little bit different. But I think for, you know, most stuff I do on my phone, I just share on social media. So I don't need, you know, that camera. For me, if I was out and about, it'd be fine. Just, just like Justin something like to think about what you want to do with them. [00:32:38] Speaker C: That's right. [00:32:38] Speaker A: When you're shooting them. Yeah, yeah. [00:32:40] Speaker C: It's like, does it really matter? And that's where you sort of. You go up and down where it's like, if you're gonna bother carrying a decent camera, you want it to have great image quality compared to a phone. But Yelena's use case is very different in that she does not want to take the photos on her phone. She likes to leave her phone if we're going somewhere. You know, like she doesn't, she doesn't want to be interacting with people and having her phone in her hand. [00:33:02] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:33:03] Speaker C: It's just not. Not what she wants to do. [00:33:05] Speaker B: So the tough cameras. When I wrote for Shotkit, every year we'd do like, we'd update the best compact cameras. And it was always in the list. You know, it's drop proof that you can drop it from like 3 meters. It's crush proof, it's weather sealed, it's freeze proof, it's dust proof. You can. There's peripherals for it if you want to go further or deeper, so to speak. [00:33:29] Speaker C: And yeah. [00:33:29] Speaker B: You know, there's a very big difference in just shooting with a camera. Carrying a compact camera with you all the time, especially because you guys travel a lot. [00:33:39] Speaker C: Yes. [00:33:40] Speaker B: And you love your adventures. You know, you can do your Frisbee. What is that? Frisbee. You do the Frisbee thing. [00:33:45] Speaker C: You do disc golf. You've never called it disc golf. There's. There's an entire professional league, Greg, I'll have you know. [00:33:55] Speaker B: Disc golf. [00:33:56] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:33:56] Speaker B: And I was a professional ax roll. But yet here we are. [00:33:59] Speaker C: They make hundreds of thousands of dollars. Whatever. It's bizarre. Let's move on. Okay. Okay. [00:34:07] Speaker B: What else? A couple of quick little bits of news before we move on to the next bit. Canon eyes and RF50 to 150 F 2.8. [00:34:17] Speaker C: Yeah. Which has been rumored for a little while. And it's obviously it's something came out. [00:34:21] Speaker B: Start of the year. [00:34:23] Speaker C: Yeah. So now there's something sort of Burbling in the background, but still maybe a little while to go yet. It's an interesting focal length, though. [00:34:29] Speaker B: It is. Didn't Sony just do a 50 to 150 last year? The end of last year? [00:34:35] Speaker C: No, if they did. No, they. They did. They did that bananas, like, F2 thing, I think. I don't know. Yeah, they did something crazy. Yeah. So that was like big, heavy zoom. That's of prime, like, quality. So. Yeah, kind of. Whereas this, I think, is going to be more like cheap, lightweight, but still a 2.8. That's what's rumored anyway. But, yeah. [00:35:00] Speaker B: So we'll see what else. Nikon news. Nikon has actually just begun construction of a new building for lens manufacture. So that's a good sign. [00:35:10] Speaker C: Yeah, that is a good sign. Means they're going out of business. It's perfect. [00:35:14] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:35:16] Speaker B: And the final bit of Nikon news is that Nikon has announced a new 24 to 105 F4 to 7.1 standard zoom, full frame, mirrorless. I think there was rooms about that late last year. It kind of dropped without much fanfare. [00:35:32] Speaker C: Basically just a kit. A new kit lens. Yeah, yeah. [00:35:35] Speaker A: Boring. [00:35:36] Speaker C: I mean, no, Cool. We want the weird. We want the weird stuff. We want the cool stuff. [00:35:44] Speaker A: The tilt shift and the. [00:35:46] Speaker C: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. [00:35:48] Speaker A: The tweeze or when. [00:35:51] Speaker C: What's that zoom lens that Tamron released? That's like 20 something to 200 or whatever. That thing that just does the entire, you know, the one. [00:36:00] Speaker A: Oh, the whole range. Yeah. From like just out there. [00:36:04] Speaker C: Yeah, that. Yeah. [00:36:06] Speaker A: Isn't it? Yeah. And they've got a. Similar to that Nikon. They've got a 35 to 150F2 to 2.8, which has been out for a while. But I only bought that when I was over Eastern at the. In at Bright Festival. And it was. It's incredible. [00:36:20] Speaker B: Shopping at Bright, didn't you. You got a new belt, you've got. [00:36:22] Speaker A: A new bag, like. Yeah, I came home and couldn't pay the mortgage. I had. I had a good. You know, my pants didn't fall down. I had a new lens. So. Priorities. No, it was an expensive trip, but it was worth it. And it was investing in people who are investing in the event, which I like as well. Investing in the companies that support yourself. [00:36:42] Speaker C: You tell yourself. [00:36:43] Speaker A: Yeah, tell myself what I need to know to justify spending. That's right, that's right, that's right. [00:36:50] Speaker B: That's pretty much it for the news. But just before we. We jump into what Alex has been up to, two YouTube channels that I want to call out. The first is Pete Mellows. For those of you that are of a similar age to me, you may remember the Leyland brothers and Justin doesn't. He's too young. But Pete, Pete Mellows video style. Reminds me of the Leland brothers. So go and check that out. He's got some great stuff on his channel. And Julie Powell has been going like a nutter. She's been putting out a video every two or three days. Really Last few weeks. Yeah, she's crazy. The latest one is doing a comparison of noise removal functions in Lightroom versus Pure Raw versus Neo Topaz and other applications. So that's pretty cool. [00:37:36] Speaker C: Crazy. Yeah. She's killing it. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, let's go to our next segment that I've titled Alex Kearns. Oh, no. [00:37:55] Speaker A: What. [00:37:55] Speaker C: What you been up to? [00:37:58] Speaker A: Oh, well, where do I start? I actually had a good nine day break over the Christmas period, so I didn't do anything, which was probably the first time in about a decade I've had a big rest, so that's exciting. But I'm back shooting now in the studio, so back to work and yeah, just situation normal for me. It's doing my shoots, doing my business coaching and everything in between. Pretty much feels already like it's halfway through the year, doesn't it? Like it's. What is it? [00:38:26] Speaker C: That's. [00:38:26] Speaker A: That's XYZ of January. I know. It's just gone so quickly. So. Yeah, halfway through. Yeah, yeah. [00:38:32] Speaker B: Can I with. With your side? Hustle. How many movies have you watched during that break? Have you seen many or did you. [00:38:39] Speaker C: Take a break from. From movies too? [00:38:42] Speaker A: Not entirely. I didn't go to the cinema in the nine day break because I'd seen everything and it was just this time of year. Not a lot comes out. It kind of. There's stuff coming out, but it's a little bit more staggered than normal, so. But I did watch a lot of shows at home. Unfortunate thing about reviewing films is you watch everything and you watch all the stuff that's not good. And then your friends just come and say what was good and they just get to go and invest their time more wisely than you did. So they use me as like a sounding board for like, oh, I don't want to see all the rubbish ones. I'm like, well, I took one for the team and watched 47 Hours of Trash. So you can go and watch two good ones. [00:39:14] Speaker B: Maybe sneak in a stinker every now and then. Not tell them. Just, yeah, just give It a good scream yourself. [00:39:20] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:39:21] Speaker A: Do you know, last year, the film everyone wanted to talk about the most to me was the one I gave zero out of ten. It's all they want to talk about. It was. It was a. It was a streaming only film called War of the Worlds with Ice Cube. And it was dreadful. And so many people just wanted to message me and talk about it and it was just an ad for Amazon, basically. It was really bad. It was so bad. And yeah, so there's like, you know, so I guess, you know, 0 out of 10 or a 10 out of 10. It's creates controversy and people want gone. I bet I probably sent some people to watch it by giving it a zero, which is unfortunate. [00:39:52] Speaker C: Yep. [00:39:53] Speaker A: Wasn't my intention. [00:39:54] Speaker B: Character build. [00:39:56] Speaker C: Is there anything, anything of recent that you've seen that you think any fans of the podcast should go and check out? Any things that have popped on your radar that you think, wow, that was actually amazing. [00:40:09] Speaker A: Yeah. I watched two this week that were really good. Have to say there's a Sydney Sweeney film out called Christie She Plays. It's a biopic about a. The kind of first professional women's boxer. And it panned in the States because I think there's a big anti Sydney Sweeney kind of vibe. I would probably say I'm. I'm part of that vibe. I'm not a huge fan, but it was great. I can't judge the actress. Yeah, I had to judge the performance. [00:40:36] Speaker B: You hate that. It was great. [00:40:37] Speaker A: I can't know. I love that. It was great, but I had low expectations because I expected, you know, I'd be irked by Sydney Sweeney, but it was actually really good, so that was quite good. And the other one I watched just two nights ago was Song Sung Blue with Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson about a Neil diamond tribute band. And again, I'm probably gonna get struck down, but I'm not a huge, huge Hugh Jackman fan. I think he's a nice guy. [00:41:00] Speaker C: How could you? He's Wolverine. [00:41:04] Speaker A: I know, but. And he's a Perth guy. And like, I've got friends that used to work in the cafes, but I just, you know, I think he's a nice guy, but I've just across the board, not a huge fan of musicals. The film is doomed. I'm not, you know, and it was about. I didn't even know that Neil diamond sung like, you know, what's that? Sweet Caroline? Anyway, excuse my. Yeah, there you go. Yeah, so there you go. I have to feel quite so bad. But it was excellent and Hugh Jackman was great. I downloaded the soundtrack and now I'm playing Kate Hudson and Hugh Jackman versions of Neil diamond songs in my car 247 when I'm driving around. And yeah, I absolutely loved it. So song Sung Blue it's. It was excellent. Just quality story, quality acting and Christy good again stories that they're both based on a true story. But there's moments in both films where you're just your hands in your mouth and you're absolutely shocked by where it's gone. So don't look at what happens. Research what happens before you go and see it. Just go and see them blind. But yeah, wow. So, yeah, cool. Yeah, apart from that I did buy. I upgraded my camera to a Sony A1 or A12 and I bought a. After talking to you guys, I bought all the podcast gear to start a podcast and since then I've done nothing but I've got some time off in. In Feb. March I have having a minor surgery and I have some recovery time. So I'm going to plan the podcast stuff for February when I meant to be like recuperating and rest. That's pretty good resting for me. So. Yeah. So for films and for business coaching stuff, photography stuff and business coaching stuff. So yeah, so I got all the gear now. [00:42:32] Speaker C: So two separate. [00:42:33] Speaker A: I think so. Yeah. [00:42:35] Speaker C: Popcorn panel one specifically. Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:42:38] Speaker A: And unpopular business opinions, which I have a lot of things that I do that other people. Well, that generally are not, you know, don't shake every last cent from your client's pocket. I think that's ick. I don't think you have to do that. Some people would say that's unpopular. It's probably a bit of a play on words. I think they're things that you do where you. You run your business in an ethical way and you let your client buy what they'd like to choose. So it's all that sort of stuff. So special guests and as you can tell, that's as far as I've got with thinking about it. So I have to sit down in these few weeks off and plan it properly and think about what I'm going to talk about and have get, you know, business people come on and talk about their things that everyone said don't do that and they did it anyway and it worked. And, and just. Yeah, I'm just like real raw stuff about what people think of films when they come out of the movies. I kind of like that. In your face box pop stuff like what did you think you know, before they can change their mind anymore. [00:43:26] Speaker B: We don't see that sort of stuff. [00:43:28] Speaker A: I want it to be not polished because it's not me. I will go off the idea if it's too hard. And I bet there's a few people out there at home like yeah, if you make it too difficult for yourself. I don't do shoot video myself. I don't make video clips or anything. So to film myself on camera and be talking and make sure my eyebrow looks alright, I'm just gonna go, you know what, who cares? Just stand in the cinema, ask people what they thought, say what you thought. It might be a 15 minute thing seven times a week or something. That's my goal with that. Keep it simple so that I do it basically. [00:43:57] Speaker C: Yeah, exactly. You gotta make it repeatable and not too much post processing or all that sort of stuff. No one cares anymore anyway about. Unless you're trying to make a really polished fancy pants YouTube video or something. More worried about the content than any. [00:44:14] Speaker A: Anything else, like shooting to be honest. Like remember the good old days where you just took a photo and now like every single picture I take, I. I tweak and I fiddle with it and I edit it. And like I think that's probably why I like the phone always. Sometimes there's a bit of straightening, you know, because I won. Because you know, like just getting back I think in a. Especially now in a time where every. Everyone is craving authenticity, you know, like you, we've talked about this a bit before. You see a picture on the Internet and you're like, is that AI? I hate we even have to question that stuff, you know, is that fake? And so going back to grassroots stuff like you know, this is the photo or this is, this is me just talking at the cinema and the lighting's not very good but there's some audio content, you know, like that just raw, real. I feel like that's what I crave at the moment. And so that's what I want to put out a little bit more of. [00:44:59] Speaker B: Nice. [00:44:59] Speaker A: I still edit my photos though. Let's be real. Still gonna. [00:45:04] Speaker C: How much. So how much editing do you need to do on. On an image? I know that's how long is a piece of string but like for any random example. Is it like a huge big long process or is it mostly done in lightroom? Was it a bit of a mixture depending on what's involved? [00:45:26] Speaker A: Yeah. Two types of photography that I do mostly is obviously studios, the pets in the studio or any creatures in the studio. And I only shoot on a black background, so that's pretty easy to control because I can generally get the background reasonably dark. So it might just be a bit of, you know, checking to make sure that it's true black in the background and then just any bits of drool and fur and stuff on the couch, which is like cloning out or spot healing out, that sort of thing. Coloring in, sometimes coloring it out. So they're pretty simple. And crop. A simple crop. Outdoor stuff's pretty similar because I like minimalist blank backgrounds. So like just. I don't like lots of foliage unless it's blurred out and it's just an even pattern. I don't like branches. I'll try and move to where there's a space in the sky. You know, I don't quite a fan of just the people. Some people say they're boring, but just a white clean background, clean backgrounds. So for those it might just be a little tiny leaf that's dropping in or. I try and treat animals with the same courtesy in editing as I treat a person. So if it's an animal has a bit of goo coming out of its eye or something coming out of its nose or, you know, that a person wouldn't like, I fix that stuff yourself, Greg, I thought you just went like that. [00:46:32] Speaker B: No, it's definitely everyone just self conscious. [00:46:36] Speaker A: So it makes you. So I just, you know, little kind of courtesy. So if a dog has, you know, runny eye or something, I'll. I'll fix that. So it's very minimal. My, my. I guess time, attention and focus is not on the editing. They all get a little bit of a tweak, but it's too. If it's more than two minutes, I probably would wish I'd shot the photo better. I'll move on. I'm not really into compositing, swapping heads, any of that. I'm just like quick. Mostly my things are quick straighten, quick clone out, maybe a color adjustment job done. So I'm trying to get it as right in camera as I can while also shooting at a million miles a minute and moving around on a moving target at the same time. [00:47:19] Speaker C: Yep. Yeah. [00:47:20] Speaker A: Don't have the aptitude for the computer side of it. And I use Photoshop for my editing as well. Select the photos in Bridge and then I open them in a batch in Photoshop. [00:47:31] Speaker C: That's right. I remember you saying that you still don't do the lightroom thing. [00:47:36] Speaker A: I was doing a demo the other day for a camera club down south of How I edit. And someone said that's in Lightroom. And I was like, I trust you. I was like, can you do this? And then I was like, can you crop and do this? They're like, yes. I was like, wow, amazing. You know, but I create your habit, you know, I stick to what I know and what works for me. And I think that's the beauty of editing. There's no right or wrong in editing. You just edit whatever mechanism, whatever way, whatever format works for you to get the result you want. There's not, don't let anyone tell you, oh, you should be using this tool. Sure, if it saves you time, maybe check it out. But if you want to do it, color the whole background in black, go for it. There's no, don't have to mask it and all sorts of things. Yeah, self taught hack when it comes to editing. But it works for me. So yeah, just keep it simple. [00:48:23] Speaker C: Seems to be going pretty well for you. I mean you're now a published author in the Czech Republic. [00:48:31] Speaker B: Yeah, so I don't have a, I don't have a book in the Czech Republic. [00:48:34] Speaker C: So how, so how does that happen? Do you, do you make that happen or does someone come to you and say let's take this to the Czech Republic? [00:48:43] Speaker B: I can't imagine that conversation. [00:48:46] Speaker A: So I have, I'm with a great publisher in Australia who I've been with for a number of years called HarperCollins and they're global and so they have big book fairs where they take your books. They have big, just exactly what it says, like a camera fair, big tables full of books. And I'm assuming that the Czech Republic publisher, which is called AL Press that's on the side, must have come up and said, oh, we'll take that the right will, you know, buy into the rights of that one. Can we publish it? So that's kind of how it happens. So it kind of catches their eye. The publisher that I have is spruiking it as a product to countries that might like it. And then HarperCollins distributes it in a number of countries as well. America, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, England, UK. And they do that themselves through the HarperCollins offices in each country. So they just write to me saying, hey, the Czech Republic one, they were considering changing the COVID And fun fact, when you normally do a book of any type other than photography, you don't get a say on the COVID at all. If I wrote a novel, I don't want to get to prove approve a cover. I just get what I'M given. But because this is a photo book, I choose my heels to dine and that's one of them. I want the photo on there that I think will represent the book the best and make people pick it up in the shop. So there was a bit of back and forth about the COVID and in the end they put it back to what it was. So it's great. It matches exactly the English version but it's in Czechos. Czech language, which I think quite the. [00:50:09] Speaker B: Conversation style, isn't it? [00:50:11] Speaker A: Could say anything. Could say Alex Coons's pictures are trash. And I'm like, oh, it's so fun. Look at that. This photo is bad. Oh yeah. So cute. I don't know, I trust them. Bit of fun if it was, wouldn't it? That'd be great. [00:50:23] Speaker C: Even if they just did it as one. A one off prank and sent it to you and said, oh, here's a copy and just wait for someone to, you know. [00:50:32] Speaker A: Can you put it online in a video and show people the pages? Yeah, I love that I. Quite often I have Google alerts up for my name so I can see what's being said about me online. And I had one the other day and I just shared it on my business page and it was. I don't even know what language it was in. It might have been German and I could see Alex Kern's in there. So I was like, it's obviously about me but I don't know what it said. And everyone was like, oh, amazing. I thought maybe I should have Google translated that. I've had situations where I've had stuff written about me in China and I've googled, translated it and it's been shocking. It said things like Alex Kern's punched a baby seal. And I was like, no. In the actual translate, the thing I actually said was I took a picture of a baby seal at a beach and it the translations come up. I punched one and it was very bad. I had to do a 10 minute read it and do a 10 minute apology retraction video on what I actually said versus what was said on this translated thing that went back and forth from this interview I'd done. Yeah, oh my gosh. Yeah, good times. But. And I was a man in that one too. He. I was a he all the way through. He pun. A jerk. I hated him. Then I realized that I'd actually just taken this photo on a beach. It was fine. I was like, calm down. Yeah, it's funny. I mean I love when I'm the brunt of the joke. I can laugh at that stuff. I think a book with that would be great. If someone wants to make me a book, steal my pictures and put fun things on, I think it was great. Yeah. [00:51:52] Speaker C: Rick Nelson would like to know how was the process to publish a book? I guess it depends which book. Because I'm assuming, would it be true? The first book is always the hardest. Like getting in the door of that world. Is that the hardest one? [00:52:07] Speaker A: Yeah, probably. But to be honest, no. No previous book guarantees with a publisher a subsequent book. You can be dropped like a hot rock if your books aren't selling. So I was very, very lucky. I've just very business minded and I will always create opportunity or plant seeds for things without being pushy or anything like that. So I had a. Probably about over a decade ago now, a publisher came to me and said, actually a friend came to me and said, I want to. There's a book coming out on rescue dogs. I'd like to submit a story about my dog. Can I use one of the photos you took to go with it from our photo shoot that we had with you? There's no fee, no payment. I just said, sure. So I gave them the photo to use in the book. That book was. Did really well. It wasn't my book. It was just a general book of stories. Someone had an editor had kind of collated and it went out in the airport shop. So if you get a book in the airport stores, they sell like hotcakes because everyone's buying them before they travel. And they did a. About a year later they did another version of the book, a new version of the pet rescue book series. And this time they went to a friend of mine and said, we want your dog on the COVID And my friend said, well, Alex Kearns has taken this photo of my dog. Can you contact her to use that photo? So the publishers phoned me up, the editors phoned me up for the book and said, can we use your photo? We'll pay you for it. And I said, sure. Now imagine being a book editor every time you go to dinner with. Even with your friends, I'd be like, Sharon, now I've got this great book idea. One time when I was at school, the bus was late and poor Sharon just wants to have dinner. Everyone's probably trying to sell you, you know, their book concept. So I was very careful not to be another person that just piled on. Oh, you know, I take animal photos, you know. So I, I sold them the photo and then I had Another phone call with them, and they said, thank you for responding so quickly and being so easy. Easy to deal with, which was, you know, it's always intentional. And I said, that's great. I said, but just so you guys know, I have an image library of 4 million animal photos. If you ever want to do a book on anything to do with that, please keep me in mind. So it wasn't a yes or no question. It was just plant a seed. Thanks so much. And I hung up. And two weeks later, they phoned up and said, do you want to do a book? So I was very lucky. So that was my first book. It was called Mother Knows Best. It was really cute. Adult animals with babies, or baby animals and things your mum would say, like a rabbit eating some carrots with the green. Bit of green stuff on it saying, eat your greens. And, you know, so it was really sweet. So that sold really well. It came out around Mother's Day. And then from that, they came back to me and said, what would you like to do next? And I said, I'd like to do a book on animals with disabilities. And they said, you might be labeled as the disabled animal photographer. And I was like, as in, I'm disabled or they're. I didn't. I was like, well, I don't care either way, but if the shoe fits. I was like, that's fine. And I said. Then they said, but that's book five. And I was like, oh, is it? They said, yeah, we both. We think that idea. And I'd been planning this photo series of disabled animals, like, collecting images for about eight years at that point. And I was like, okay, that's book five. So book two was Joy A Celebration of the Animal Kingdom. And that came out, and that was just. It was little chapters on how animals make us happy. But when I look at it now, if you pick it up and flick through it in the store, there's like, a studio photo of a koala, then an outdoor photo of a lizard, and it doesn't feel cohesive, but that's because they're under a chapter of, like, animals at play. So when. And the animals playing in different lighting, you know, shot in different lighting setups. So I don't. That book did okay. And then I went to HarperCollins, New York, and they came and said, we want to do another. We want to do a book with you. Actually, I put a photo series out online of dogs with their eyes closed. I was taking photos of dogs accidentally blinking. And I put that online, and the Huffington Post phoned me up one night from New York and said, hey, we've seen your photo series online. It was went on this website called Bored Panda, which is a great place to put stuff. And it gets trolled by the media and they go in there and they pick out photo series to make people feel happy. And let's face it, right now we need more happy stuff. So animal stuff works really well on there. And so Huffington Post said, we saw your photo series go viral on board Panda. Can we put this in our wellbeing section tomorrow morning? Again, no payment. And I said, sure. And it was right before the 2016 US election. I'm not going to talk politics, but if you remember what was happening around then, people in the States particularly were quite stressed. So, so the book came out in America or the photo series came out. And the next day I had an email in my inbox from HarperCollins New York, saying, we saw your photo series in the Huffington Post. Do you want to do a book? So I went to went with Harper Collins New York. The book came out before the election and then I was with HarperCollins then. And then I did a book on greyhounds. And then finally I was up to book five and they said, right, do you want to do a book? And I said, yes, it's got to be this book, Perfect Imperfection on Animals with Disabilities. That was book five. Since then I've done one on Quokkas. I've done the Wisdom of Dogs one. I'm up to eight. I can't even remember what some of them are. But my point is, anytime you put something online, you never know who's looking at it. That sounds like a dream run to have been offered two books in a couple of different countries by publishers, but just by sometimes giving to get letting them use those photos for free to make people feel better about these dogs looking Zen with their eyes closed in the well being section. You know, struck a nerve with a publisher. And yeah, every time I do a book, I still have to submit, you know, a kind of precis of what the next book will be. But I have a direct contact with my, my editor who I can just phone up and say, how about this idea? Let's work on it and we brainstorm it and away we go, you know. So, yeah, I've got another one in the works. The Quokka one is the one that has sold the best, that's been out for five years now and it's still kicking goals and it went through the airport shops recently. I go to the airport and there's a book there. It's always a bit of a spin out. Have a selfie. I have a selfie with it and kind of feel embarrassed. People are looking. But yeah, but yeah, it is. And I thank them for how. Thank them for stocking it because like, thank you. And they're like, strange. Sure. But yeah, it was a dream run. But even your own, so even your own business Facebook pages, they are like public newspapers. We don't know right now who is looking at our business Facebook page and what we've got on there. And a lot of stuff comes from that is where people go right now for. To look for content. You know, sites like Board Panda and places like that. So yeah, I still continue to do that stuff just in case I happen to hit on that one person that wants to talk about it or publish it, make it a greeting card, Commercialize it somehow. [00:58:14] Speaker C: Yeah, that's so cool. What a run. Yeah, very cool. [00:58:19] Speaker A: It just seems pretty lucky. [00:58:20] Speaker B: How long. [00:58:21] Speaker C: So each book roughly, like from the time when they're like, yep, we want to do a book to. When it hits the shelves. Like, what's that timeline usually like. [00:58:32] Speaker A: Generally between 18 months and two years. To be honest, it's one book. Yeah. It's not a quick turnaround. Yeah. So. And the way publishers work is they offer you an advance, which is a sum of money, and you get that split over three payments. So yes, there's money in books, but it's really on you, you know. And then every book sale, you get a portion of those proceeds. So say, for example, you might be offered $10,000. You get $3,000 to sign on. You get $3,000 when you deliver the book content. And then you get $4,000 when the book's published. And you might get a dollar per book sale. And then because they've invested $10,000 in your book and in you, you have to sell 10,001 copies to make an extra dollar on top of that $10,000. You have to pay it back if the book flops. But that doesn't make you very viable. But you have to earn one more single dollar on top of your advance. You have to earn the advance out basically in book sales, if that makes sense. So yeah, the. Even the New York one. So when Harper Collins came to me in the States and said, do you want to do a book? I said yes. And we did a book. But it was about probably four or five months of me waking up three or four times a week at 3am which was 3pm the day before in New York to have conference calls and meetings. I had to justify what can I bring to a book reading audience, like what's my profile in America? And I had quite a big Facebook following and 50% of those people are in the States because I've always targeted Australia and the USA. So I had 60,000 Facebook followers in America and I was doing photography events in America and speaking at conferences and stuff. So I had a bit of an inroad there for that. But I had to prove all that and I had to show them statistics and how many people in America like my posts and comment on stuff. And just because the editor thought it was great. But you've got to get it past the sales team and everyone else. The sales team has to think it's a viable product to sell. If they don't think they can sell it, doesn't matter how great you and the editor think it is, it won't get anywhere. So there was a bit of a process to it, but it's always worth it. You forget about that when the book comes out. The. The Czech Republic one. I don't know if I've mentioned I have a book out in the Czech Republic. If anyone's going there, please try and find it in the one bookstore at the back shelf that it's being sold in. But this one just got done for me because the book already exists and it's just a translation of it in a different language. So that was an easy one. And yeah, I get a portion of sales and you know, HarperCollins take care of all that. They're awesome. Hopefully I'll stay with them forever because they're just good people. But I like book people. I like the editors. I like, you know, they're just the people that just love books. I don't have a Kindle. Love tech, but I love books. Yet to buy a Kindle. I just love reading books. Get annoyed when I take that many away on a trip, but love the feel of a book. Yeah. [01:01:12] Speaker C: Do you ever buy books at the airport? [01:01:15] Speaker A: Yes. I don't know if you can kind of see behind me there, it's blurry. But that is a whole bookshelf that covers the whole back wall. And most of those books were bought at airport bookshops. And I probably read 12% of them. [01:01:26] Speaker C: Nice. [01:01:27] Speaker A: Because I like to have them. And then I think I'll just put on the bookshelf because it looks nice and I go buy a new one. So I have that big pile of unread Books before I die, which if I started now, probably not enough life left to live to get through them. But everything is there, from business to inspiration to life stories to kids. Books when I was little. So if I do feel like something, but I normally just go and watch a movie instead, don't read the book and watch the movie. I just watch the movie and then, yeah, someone tell me there's a book of it. [01:01:55] Speaker C: Have the book on the shelf. [01:01:56] Speaker A: Yeah, pretty much. [01:01:57] Speaker C: Oh, I don't know if I asked you this when you, when we did your interview, but do you have a favorite business book that you've ever come across? I know you always say you're reading tons, like scanning business ebooks and things like that. Is there one that you recommend to everybody where you're like, hey, this is. This is the one. [01:02:18] Speaker A: No, not necessarily. I can't remember any. I'm looking at the shelf. There's a. That shelf there is full of business books. That one there, that blurry one. Take my word for it. I can see some names like Richard Branson popping out and stuff like that. I. What I try and get when I do read a book is just one thing because it can be overwhelming. You know, some book one. Some of the books here are like how to create habits. You know, like in, you know, three minute habits. Well, you know, it's like when we talk about goal setting in a second. Like, you know, you can be overwhelmed with all the things you think you've got to hold yourself to and do all the time. So if I read a book, I just want to get like one main thing from it. Same as if I go to a presentation, if I can pick up one main thing, that one thing could be enough to change your whole outlook and then therefore change the whole way you live your life or run your business. So just one thing. But there's one called the Art of. Oh, gosh, I can't remember what the end is. It's not the Art of War. It's the art of basically create, like creating stuff. Being a creative. I can't remember the title. [01:03:18] Speaker C: I'm sure someone like the War of Art by Stephen Presley. [01:03:20] Speaker A: That's it. That's it there that. I love that book, even though I don't know what it's called. It's a good book. But yeah, I just think, you know, I do read. I read a lot online, to be honest. I. Although I don't use a Kindle, I do read the news every day and I. I have an app on there that kind of summarizes. You can read a book in 10 minutes, kind of do a little bit of that stuff and always intend to have those trips where I'm going to sit around and read for hours on end and then end up taking photos or watching film or something instead have good intentions. [01:03:51] Speaker B: I'm like that. I used to travel a lot for work. Not a lot, but a bit. And every time I go to the airport, I'd always buy a novel, which is like that was my routine, you know, get there a little bit early. Well, very early, because I'm very anxious person. But I'd always then go to the bookstore and buy a book. But then, yeah, I would never read them because the snacks would show up and I'd be distracted. [01:04:13] Speaker A: You got shows that you can watch? [01:04:15] Speaker C: Yeah, the movies. [01:04:17] Speaker B: Now I just buy a magazine. I'll find a magazine about something and just. [01:04:22] Speaker A: I do. I buy stuff like New Scientist. I like to read those and I like to buy some of the. There's a magazine called Stuff, it's all about tech and of course Empire magazine, about films. Like I like those kind of techie camera magazines, Australian photography magazine, you know. Yeah. Or the Photo Review magazine, all those kind of mags. But you're right, for me, it's not just buying the book. It's part of the habit of going to the airport. And the airport bookstores, I've got to say, have books that I can't. I don't see. I guess they're carefully curated kind of collections of books. But I don't see them in an everyday bookstore. They. They have limited shelf space, so they really pick and choose what they have. And I think they really consider if their audience of travelers will like those books. So there's just books there that I'm like, wow, these 10 books I have to have so I can put them on the bookshelf and they die slow death when I read. [01:05:09] Speaker B: You go from like Melbourne to Sydney, the books are exactly the same. [01:05:12] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. It's the same everywhere. But I'm good. When I do read a book though, I like to pass it on and give it a new life. I don't have to necessarily keep it forever. And I. [01:05:26] Speaker C: A trophy. Some people like to ones they've read as a trophy of like, oh, I this, look what I've done. [01:05:31] Speaker A: Yeah. And I kind of feel like then it just like if I can share it with people, I'd like that. But the only genre I generally read scientific, natural books, naturalist books or biographies or autobiographies. But I do read Stephen King, Ray Bradbury and George Orwell. That's it. They're the only fiction. I don't know if some of those are bordering on non fiction books that I read. Everything else, if you pick up what I'm putting down, that everything else is, is, is, is generally non fiction. So yeah, I just really fussy. I like kind of stuff that is always someone's point of view but is factual or has some truth basis to it. [01:06:07] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. [01:06:07] Speaker A: To learn things. But yeah, but I think with anything, if you pick one thing up that you can carry with you, you know, that's. Yeah. How I basically changed my whole Life to watch six to 12 films a week at the cinema. You know, just something happened. I heard something and it clicked and I made that change. You know, amongst everything else. [01:06:24] Speaker C: I love that. How long ago did you start the popcorn panel? How many years? [01:06:29] Speaker A: Two. Two years ago. Sorry, Marshmallow, who is a dog, not a food is wants to exit the building. So I'm just going to let her out about two years ago. I've always loved writing and if I go back a really long way. I remember when I was 10, I won a, a double movie pass to see the Never Ending Story. I was like the best prize ever and it was my, my dad's second wedding. I had to go to that and I was really mad. I think I'm still mad. It's been like quite a number of decades later. So. I've always loved cinema, I've always loved the escapism of cinema and I love writing. So I just decided I love photography and you know, everything I've done around photography that I've achieved has. It's not been easy, but it's easy to do tours when you have a reputation for being a wildlife experience photographer. And it's easy to do business coaching when you have a very successful business. And it's easy to, you know, go on podcasts and talk about photography if you make an approach or you get invited when you've got a profile in film reviewing. No one cared that I was a photographer. So I had to start from. It was pure, just from a love of doing it. It wasn't to leverage off anything. It wasn't for a business purpose. It was just because I wanted to write about what I was watching, to remember it, because I can't remember stuff like titles and books. So I just started recording it and initially I just had an Instagram page and then I started mirroring that to Facebook and then I realized I had all my eggs in a meta basket that if I. That went down. So now I have a website where I just dump every. Every review I do just gets dumped on there just to record it in case, you know, something ever happens to social media. But yeah, there's probably about 600 reviews up there now. I review something literally every within 1.8 days or something, there's a review going live. It is like a part time job. Yeah, that's how I treat it. Some weeks I'll do 30 or 40 hours of review stuff. But I have to say I still run my full time photography business and I still do coaching full time. And I just realized the other day because I've been doing some mentoring from home and people have been coming to my house, they're like, well, your house is really tidy. Your garden's amazing. I'm like, yeah, it is. I still can make sure my house is clean and tidy. And I still, there's no leaves on my lawn because I'm a bit anal. If you haven't picked up on that bit, you know, like particular about things. And I'm like, wow. Because I'm just really, really good at time management. So I just make sure and without being overwhelmed. People say to me, do you ever sleep? And I'm like, actually I sleep really well and I can quite easily have a whole day off doing nothing. It's just how you manage your time, you know. So I pride myself on that because I wish more people would understand that they can do all the things they really want to do that makes them happy and brings them joy just by shifting around where their time's going and maybe who it's going to sometimes as well. Hi Marshmallow. [01:09:06] Speaker C: Is that a good moment for us to segue into a little bit of chat around setting goals at the start of a new year? [01:09:12] Speaker B: Perfect time. [01:09:14] Speaker C: Beautiful. No sound effect this time, just straight to the graphic. Okay, I have a question because something that I heard recently, which I think is true, and I don't know if you were hinting at that just then or the opposite, but I think I'm very guilty of not doing this. And that's if you want to do something new in the new year, whether it's something new like a new habit or whatever, different way of eating or something, or a new business idea or a new hobby or whatever, that if you're going to pick something up, you probably need to put something else down because it's unreasonable. You're setting yourself up for failure if you just add more to your plate and think, oh, I'm gonna start walking in the mornings, I'm gonna prepare my meals to take to work, and I'm gonna start this new podcast and I'm gonna get better at this. And it's like, you can't. You can't do all of that without putting some other things down. What are your thoughts on that? [01:10:12] Speaker A: Yeah, no, I think you're absolutely correct because it's just. You can become overwhelmed. It's like if I suddenly thought I had to do the most professional, polished podcast ever, I wouldn't even start it. Because all I need to do is start it and do the best I can and just do it because I'm enjoying it, not because I care about feedback and stuff like that. So we do only have 24 hours in a day. And I think with particularly the mentoring I do for people on time management, we look at what they want more of and what they want less of. Because there are things in both columns always. And I don't just work with photographers on that. I work with all sorts of small business owners working from people who run hair salons to other coaches to dog trainers, you name it. Like people in safety consultancy, all sorts of different facets of small business. And they all have. If they have a time overwhelm problem, it's because they don't have enough boundaries to say no to the things they don't want to do and they're doing too much, or they're not farming it out to someone else, or they're not priced correctly to be able to farm it out to someone else. There's all these different chain reactions to things, but I really do believe that you can find time. And just as a segue now, I saw something the day about New Year's resolutions. I haven't even done my end of year post about all the things I achieved last year. I do this post every year that's really overwhelming when people read it about all the things I did. And I'm doing it tomorrow because I was just like, you know what? It doesn't have to go out in the 1st of January or the 31st. It's okay. And I don't actually have any New Year's resolutions this year for the first time ever. Instead, what I did last year is I did two things for myself, and this year I'm doing two things for myself. So they're not resolutions, they're just two things I'm investing in to do with me. One of them is a tattoo. I'm getting removed. And one of them is the medical procedure, which is cosmetic, not medical, that I'm having done in a few weeks. Last year's thing was I lost some weight. So I put, I invested in my own health and I had this amazing hair straightening thing done. So I didn't have to. Don't have to style my hair anymore and stay straight. Like something so simple that for my whole life has bothered me and it just brought me great joy to go to this amazing hairdresser that straightens your hair. [01:12:15] Speaker C: You permanently straightened your hair. [01:12:17] Speaker A: It's a, it's a non, non chemical process. It lasts for 12 months and basically you can wash your hair and not dry it with a hair dryer. I know you're going to be blown away, Greg. Like it's going to go nuts for your beard and you just walk outside to let it dry and it's pretty much straight. The whole. It looks like this day and night, whether I've woken up, whether I've been washed for four years. No, it has. It just looks like this all the time. So instead of choosing to add, you know, I saw a post the other day, here's some New Year's resolutions. There were 40 things. [01:12:46] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. [01:12:47] Speaker A: Like who's going to do three things, let alone 40? So sometimes my resolution is a word. Calm. This year for me, it's calm. Don't. Don't try and kill people who talk in the movie. Be calm. And then it's a work in progress. I've only been to five films so far. I did okay for four of them. Story for another day. But also in that, you know, not trying to overwhelm myself with, I have to do this. It wasn't go and lose weight. It was, you know what? I don't like how I look. I don't like how I feel about myself. I'm going to use I. And I'm open about it. I used medicine, you know, injectable medicine to do that because it was a tool to help me get to where I want to be. And I lost 18 kilos doing that. And now I feel better about myself. You know, that was the, that's what I want to do moving forward as I get older. Resolutions that are just where I'm going to put energy and a small investment. And right now it's into myself. I have everything I need. I have, you know, all the things I want. If I feel better about myself, my whole life improves, you know, so they're just little things. But yeah, a list of 40 resolutions or even 5 to 10, it's too many. And I bet most people that have them have already given up. I just also think start anything anytime. But you do have to seriously look at, you know, where that time is factored in. It's like, I think it's great we have dog walkers as a business, but if you have legs and you are able bodied and you have a dog and you can't find time to walk it, you're not getting up early enough in the morning right now. There may be a reason why you're deciding to go to work, or you've got kids to deal with or whatever, but you can find time if you want to find time. But instead you might choose to pay someone for that. You know, there's a service that can take care of that. You can find time for the things you really want if you put yourself first, then you, you make it a priority, you know, and sometimes that means there has to be a readjustment for everything else. Family partners, kids, pets, lifestyle, hobbies, work, all the things, you know. Yeah, I'm not strung out. I literally live a zero stress life. Apart from the talking in the cinema thing, which clearly is one of my triggers. Apart from that I'm pretty stress free. [01:14:46] Speaker B: What about the leaves on the grass? [01:14:49] Speaker A: I just use a leaf blower. That's fine. It's really just when the lawnmower man comes, so doesn't chop them up up into a million bits. I can send you a photo. It's actually true. There are no leaves on the lawn. I like it to look immaculate. One of those like clean desk, minimalist kind of people. And so I. One of my, one of my like, like escapes, I guess. I love gardening. I just love been zoning out and pruning and growing stuff and having it look nice. And so I pride myself on which most people don't. They come here and they're like, did you do that garden? I'm like, yeah. And they're like, oh, where do you find the time? I'm like, lots of time. Because I choose to have lots of time because of where I put it. And do you want me to share with you what the catalyst was for when I decided to have more time? Did I tell you guys about that? It was about a film I watched. [01:15:33] Speaker C: I can't remember. [01:15:34] Speaker A: It was regalis in October 2024. I watched a film called Megalopolis. And it was Francis Ford Coppola's life's work, his dream film of 30 years. He'd been writing this film, Want us To get sued. But the film was right, it was very bad film. But there was a scene in it where there's a very wealthy architect and he's sitting in his office and the mayor of. It's set in Gotham, New York City, kind of. The mayor walks in and the architect's just sitting there. And the mayor says, what are you doing? And the architect says, nothing, just wasting time. And the mayor said, why are you doing that? And the architect says, because I can. And the mayor said, well, wouldn't too much time be a nice thing to have to waste? And something just clicked in my head and I went, well, there have been a. There was a decade where I worked 15, 15 hours a day. And I was like, wouldn't it be nice to have too much, so much time that I can waste it? And for me, going to the cinema is not a waste. But to some people, they're like what you go to. I average, on a slow week, six films a week. They'd be like, that's. You just go and lay around a movie. It's a great hobby. Just lay around and eat popcorn. It's awesome. Highly recommend it. It's very non strenuous. But yeah, just. And I came home and I was like, right, what needs to change? So I used to shoot, you know, two shoots a day, four days a week. Now I do eight shoots in one day a week. I just compartmentalized my photography to process those shoots. I process them all on Tuesdays, do all their purchase appointments. On Tuesdays I do one to two coaching calls for up to two hours each, three days a week, sometimes four. They have six to eight clients at any one time. So I could do a call from 7 to 9, then 9 to 11, and from 11 on, the whole day is free. Go to two or three films and I'm still got time to stay home, spend half an hour just making the bed, washing the dishes, playing with the dogs, cleaning the leaves off the lawn. You know, I get to spend every night watching TV with my partner. We have dinner together, every meal, like, you know, like it's got balance and structure. Do I enjoy doing eight shoots necessary a day in one day in a studio, every hour on the hour, back to back sometimes? No, but that is my consequence. One day of a busy kind of schedule in order to have the balance every other day of the week, you know, So I don't necessarily recommend doing that, but there's the. And I dropped other things. I only spend time with people that are kind and enrich my life. If they're not kind and then enrich my life, they don't get my time and I don't get theirs. You know, like, I kind of. Very careful about, you know, where I put time and energy, even socially, to be honest. You've got to. You can't be there for everyone, you know. Yeah. [01:18:04] Speaker C: Yep. [01:18:06] Speaker B: That's very cool. Very interesting. [01:18:07] Speaker C: It's great advice. It's a, It's. It's what? This time of the year is weird. I like how you said, like, you don't. Doesn't need to be exactly at the start of the year that you set goals or anything like that. But I did hear someone say the other day, it's a reasonable time to do it, and if you don't do it now, when are you going to do it? So if, if you shouldn't feel pressure to do anything at this time of year, but it's probably a good, it's a good time to take a bit, take stock and think, what, what am I trying to do? And, and where do I want to be putting my energy? And like you say, you know, what, what should I, what should I let go of so that I can get up earlier in the morning and walk my dog or whatever it is that you want to do more? [01:18:46] Speaker A: Yeah. So, yeah, I think, I think the best time to start is yesterday. That thing, you know, like. And you know, I'm not. I know what my strengths are and also know what my weaknesses are. Let's not talk about those. The leaf thing and the popcorn talking in a film might be on that list, but the anger I get when people do that. But, you know, I know what my strong suits are and obviously, clearly time management is one of them. But just, I know what happens if I get overwhelmed with too many tasks. And I know that if I have an idea about something and I can make it easy for myself, I'm more likely to do it, you know, so. And I've just told everyone on the chat that I bought this podcast gear. So by April, if there's no podcast, I expect to have people saying, where's the podcast? You know, So I post on social media that I'm going to do this stuff to hold myself accountable, and then I break it down into easy steps. But I think my heart breaks when people are too scared to even try something. Honestly, my podcast might be three sympathy listeners. It's, you know, my cousin, my auntie, and my friend is like, poor thing, that really sucks, but she's doing a good job. I don't Care. It's not about that. I'm not worrying about the outcome. I just want to do the things that make me happy. And I think that's important too. With the film reviewing. When I started reviewing the films, I, you know, I gave it a name. I was like, oh, the popcorn panel. And I made a logo. And my mate, one of my mates was teasing just in Jess with love, saying, oh, you've got a logo. It's just a hobby. He said, that's so you, that you have a lot. You have branding for your hobby. And I was like, yeah, because if you're going to do it, I'm going to do it right. And that, that gives me the feel and vibe of the. It's a popcorn tub logo that's kind of fun and light and, you know, it's the vibe of my reviews. And then, since then, I've worked so hard and consistently that that gets noticed, you know, And I got accepted into a film critics association that you have to be referred into. And I'm a member of Actor, where I get to vote on, you know, films and TV shows and been invited to conferences for, you know, film reviewers and mentorships, all expenses paid for film reviewers and to go to film festivals and vote in awards and just all these cool opportunities, let alone the amount of free films I now go and see. Because as a reviewer is this whole other world where you get invited to preview screenings for the whole outdoor cinema lineup or all the film festival films that are coming out in three months, you get to watch them in advance. And sometimes they're at private cinemas and sometimes they're on screen and links you watch on your computer. And then from that I get a lot of free tickets. So I have a movie club, so I give the movie club members free tickets. So I take people to the movies with me and I think they've seen like, we're up to about 550 films that the movie club people have seen in Perth since the end of March last year. They've gone to 550, 550 times. They've turned up. Sometimes I get 20 tickets to the same film and, you know, 15, 16 people come along with me. So I don't just want to take from the industry and get free tickets. It's not about free stuff. I still pay for stuff. I use reward programs and things like that. But I want to encourage people to get out and watch films because for me, films are artistic. There's cinematography, there's, there's visual aesthetics that I like. In my photography that I see in the movies, I get inspiration from. And one of the greatest gifts it gives me, apart from the joy of sharing cinema, is a film review is just an opinion. There aren't many areas of anything in the world right now where Justin can give a film a 10 and I can give it a three. And we laugh and we're still friends and there's no civil war happening. Everything is so divided right now in the world. I love that film reviews, the whole review community. If someone comes on my page and goes, well, I didn't like this, but I respect your opinion. That's kind of what it's like. And I'm like, wow, I'm not getting abused. Like, it's, you know, 20 film club people come to a film, we all score it at the end. And if someone hated it and I loved it, we just talk about why, in case we learn from each other. Where does that happen these days? It doesn't happen enough, you know, So I love that that's given me that gift of being more accepting of other people's opinions and, you know, sharing that and everyone's okay with it. I really like that. I value that a lot. It's a bit dnm, but it is a payoff that I didn't expect to get from it. [01:22:39] Speaker C: Yeah, it's very cool. A couple of good comments here, perhaps Providence. [01:22:45] Speaker A: I thought you had Tourette's. Sorry. Great. [01:22:51] Speaker C: Rick Nelson says I'm selfish with my podcast where I talk about creative issues that I have myself. [01:22:58] Speaker A: I love that. But I bet. I bet that Rick will find that a lot of other people have the same creative issues. They're either just not talking about it, or they don't know how to, or they didn't think anyone else did and they feel a connection to that. Of that. [01:23:09] Speaker C: Exactly. I think that's a great reason to start as well. Rather than trying to start and think, what does everyone want to hear from me? What will make this episode popular? Just do something that tickles your fancy and people will resonate with it. [01:23:23] Speaker A: That's real. That sounds real to me. That sounds like a real person talking about their real thoughts, feelings, and experiences, which, again, is what everyone. We're all just craving that right now. We just want, you know, and in photography, people are choosing us as much as they're choosing our photos. If they don't like you, doesn't matter how good your photos are, they're not going to hire you for the job. You know, if you don't connect with your audience in any, any job that you're doing. And so, you know, my, I'm just me. I sometimes a bit sweary, but I try and be kind. I'm not a bystander. If I see someone in trouble, I'll help. And I try and be bit, you know, bit cheeky. I get away with a little bit of this and that. But you know, I'm very loyal and I'll always do the best job for my clients and treat them like a friend, you know, like that's. But that's me being me. And I think, you know, you just got to just do you, you know, whatever you do, be honest. And I think that podcast sounds great because of that. [01:24:14] Speaker C: I think you're right too. Like with photographers choosing people choosing you as much as your images. It's interesting. I've been thinking about it a bit lately. We had a photographer by the name of Nick Carver on who's. Who's a pretty famous American landscape photographer, but more so famous for being on YouTube. He makes his wonderful YouTube videos using large format, medium format cameras, taking epic landscapes of the desert, but also old buildings. Like he's got a series of called previously Taco Bell where he takes photos of buildings that used to be Taco Bells that are now like an accounting office. Office or something like that. Anyway, very quirky. And he was talking about like that he sort of come to terms with the fact that his photography is mainly popular because of his videos. And I guess he's kind of wrestling with that in terms of, you know, comparing himself to other photographers that purely got known for their photography. But I was sort of thinking about, I'm like, it's all. It's almost more meaningful that he's got this following of people that love his images and know how they came about and watch his, you know, the whole story behind it and they're more connected to that image because of it. So I don't know, it's. Yeah, I think people are choosing him more than his images despite the fact that his images are amazing. [01:25:36] Speaker A: So. [01:25:36] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:25:37] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:25:37] Speaker B: Well, there's an authenticity to him, isn't there? [01:25:39] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. Is he showing you how he creates them? Is that what's on the video? Yeah, that's exactly. You hit on the head. [01:25:46] Speaker B: He's just talking while he's like, he just sets up the camera near where he's taking a shoot and sometimes you can't even see what he's photographing. And he's just talking. He's just talking. [01:25:57] Speaker C: Great comedic timing too. He's quite funny. Yeah, yeah. [01:26:01] Speaker A: It's real. And you said it's authenticity and it's sharing. Some people have this thing that if you share information, everyone's going to steal it from you. But the more you share, the more other people gather around to listen. You know what I mean? It's this weird thing that happens. The more you. Your experiences and talk about how I got this shot. Yeah. The more it's not like that person takes it, goes and makes their own video. I followed a guy on Instagram just yesterday. He. I'll bring it back to Film Review. I'm not sure if you've heard, but I review films. He basically, he only had like 200 followers, but I gave him a follow because he goes to cinemas in Melbourne, just a young guy and he watches different films. There's a picture of him out the front or a picture of the front of the building, picture of him with the whatever movie poster he's seeing in there. Picture of the carpet, kind of blurry, picture of the seats. And I was just like, that's cool. And he goes to as many different cinemas as he can. Who would have thought there were so many different theater experiences in Melbourne? It was really cool. It's just authentic. I wanted to see what carpet was in those cinemas. [01:26:57] Speaker C: Yeah, you can even. You can imagine that old cinema, you. [01:27:00] Speaker A: Know, blue and Yellow Swells and. [01:27:03] Speaker C: Yes. Yeah. [01:27:05] Speaker B: There's a documentary that Sash and I watched couple of months ago and I can't remember what it was called. It was something about Melbourne. It was about the past of Melbourne, like the glory days from an architectural point of view. But there was a section in it that was all about the iconic Melbourne cinemas from the 30s and 40s and 50s before they basically just destroyed everything in. In favor of new concrete buildings. And I'll try and find the details for you. I'll shoot it through to you because it was a. It was a fascinating look at Melbourne. But the, the cinema section in particular was really interesting because just the, you know, they were trying to emulate some Hollywood. They were trying to put in a bit of art deco here and there, like just the way that they, you know, really focused on that. It was really fascinating because, you know, now you go into a cinema and, well, this is how I feel anyway. You go into a lot more cinemas than I do, but it feels like you could be in any cinema. When you go to a cinema sometimes, you know, it's just a village or a Hoyt's. It's just the, the shopping center cinema but yeah, seeing some of those old ones just. I found it quite fascinating. [01:28:14] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean here we've got I think maybe three kind of art deco style. Two. One does just. Is it fairly new? It just does film, movies on film, roles of film and two other ones and about maybe three or four summer outdoor cinemas and then the multiplex kind of ones. And one of them is amazing. It has every type of cinema experience under one roof, which is the one I mostly go to. But you know, two kind of two to three art deco ones. But it looked like Melbourne had a lot still, even. Still running. Just small venues just running. Yeah, yeah, it was really cool. And I was like, well, even when I came to Bright for the first time last year, their little cinema in town that. [01:28:52] Speaker B: Yes. [01:28:53] Speaker A: I don't know. I was meant to be doing a recce down for my photo workshop at the river and instead of running the cinema, I was having a private tour. I did do the recce down by the river as well, but I was just. It was just gorgeous. And in. I love seeing small town cinemas. Just anything. It's like seeing a. It's like, you know, Matt's gallery. Anything. A gallery, anything that's art, artistic and cultural in a. In a rural environment, like support it. A museum, you know, anything like that, you know, just where that stuff, you know, if we don't get in there and look at it and you know, pay the fee and put bums on seats, the stuff's going to get taken away and it's just. You can't get it back once it's gone, you know. [01:29:25] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:29:26] Speaker A: Any of that sort of stuff. [01:29:27] Speaker B: Now back to goals. Justin, what about you? Have you. Have you set yourself some goals? You're often goal focused. [01:29:33] Speaker C: I have a couple. I have a couple. Quickly, before I tell you, I just want to read out Bruce's comment because it was kind of on the. On topic. I miss getting screeners, but I'm also glad the Japanese soft porn company out of New York finally stopped sending their films. Never asked for them, but they just turned up also. [01:29:51] Speaker A: Sure. [01:29:51] Speaker C: Bruce Tintypeman on time management says, I hear you. You can achieve lots if you're organized. I only get three to four hours per day to do things at the moment due to medication. The rest of the time is sleeping while I wait for an operation on Friday. [01:30:08] Speaker B: Friday. Wishing you all the best. [01:30:09] Speaker C: Friday. Yeah. [01:30:10] Speaker A: Yeah. Good luck. [01:30:11] Speaker C: Good luck. [01:30:13] Speaker A: Okay, Bruce, I can. I can get you back on that list. Bruce, I'm pretty sure. [01:30:17] Speaker C: Sign him up. [01:30:18] Speaker A: I know people. I'll get onto it for you. It's. [01:30:24] Speaker C: Still. I'm still working on my goals. They're slow. It's a slow and steady process. But I'm making, I'm getting clear. The problem is I. I start to do this thing where I want to bite off more than I can chew. But really, you know, like really, really one of them is. Is. Is most definitely the pet photography thing. And. But I'm chunking it down. I'm not making it too big than what is. The first goal is just is. Is photograph 10 dogs. And so far I've done one. Yep. [01:30:58] Speaker A: And better than none. [01:30:59] Speaker C: Better than none. So if you'd like to see a couple of those images, Alex, I could show you. [01:31:04] Speaker A: Yes, please. [01:31:05] Speaker B: May she rest in peace. [01:31:06] Speaker C: The podcast already saw a couple of them. The other. [01:31:08] Speaker B: I'm joking, Alex. [01:31:10] Speaker A: Me or the. I thought the doggy. [01:31:14] Speaker B: Done the one. Only the one. [01:31:16] Speaker A: Is she still alive? Yes, yes, yes, yes. [01:31:21] Speaker C: Okay. So that. So yeah. That I want to enter two photography competitions. I've talked about this before. Professional ones judged. I'm not sure what sort of work I'm going to enter yet, but potentially some of the dog photos that come from this stuff because I think maybe that'll push me to try and do something beyond just like commercially viable images, but also try and try and push even, even just one shoot to something a bit more a layer deeper, if that makes sense. [01:31:50] Speaker A: Yep. [01:31:52] Speaker C: And then from there it's really trying to figure out some travel. Travel opportunities. I want to go to India because everyone keeps coming on this podcast and talking about and showing photos of their travels in India and it just looks amazing. [01:32:08] Speaker A: So like Flynn. Flynn Flavander Flynn. Yeah. [01:32:13] Speaker C: And so then that gets me back thinking about how I need to revive the videos that I was doing. The Point of View style videos that I did when I did 30 of them in 30 days, but not trying to do a video a day and somehow figure out a more manageable way to do that. So I'm not sure about that goal, but I'm. That's kind of evolved into this thing where. And I'm going to put this out there into the world now. No one's heard it yet. I don't think I want to travel and visit photographers and spend a day with them doing whatever it is that they do and document it in a sort of just a vlog style video. And I want to put time and money and energy into doing that. And I just haven't figured out what my goal should be. Is it just to do one Do I try and do four? Four in a year, One a quarter, just to see something like that. But that's what I'm thinking. [01:33:12] Speaker B: Nice. I love that. [01:33:13] Speaker A: Yeah, that's great. I would start local. [01:33:16] Speaker C: I would start, like, with Greg. [01:33:19] Speaker B: No, Felicity, he's only around the corner. [01:33:21] Speaker C: Start even close to someone in Bendigo, like. [01:33:24] Speaker A: Yeah. Or even, like, interstate or, like, little, like, smaller trips, you know, like. Yeah, but then you could easily do four in a year if you did, you know? Yeah. [01:33:33] Speaker C: Yeah. Well, I imagine things like, you know, imagine if I could go and visit Bruce when he's doing a studio shoot or something in Tassie, or go and go and hunt Dennis down when he's out in the middle of a lake at night. Although I can't document him doing night pain. It'd be so hard filming him at nighttime. [01:33:51] Speaker A: He'd find a way. [01:33:52] Speaker C: Well, the problem is he already makes better videos than I could anyway, so that's, that's, that's what I'm thinking. I think that would be really cool to try and get some behind the scenes videos of people doing what they do, people that wouldn't normally do so. Because that's kind of why we started the podcast was that there's so many photographers out there doing great work, not making YouTube videos, so no one ever sees them and hears about their process. They just are busy working and we sort of get sucked into it. Well, I do anyway, you know, you watch YouTube and you sort of. You start thinking, oh, that's everyone that exists. But there's so many more people doing great work, not making videos about it because they don't have time or don't want to or whatever. So it's like, maybe I could do that. I don't know. [01:34:41] Speaker A: Yeah, I love that. [01:34:41] Speaker B: I think it's a great goal. Yeah, I think it's really worth exploring, for sure. And you've got such a natural knack with talking to people and bringing out who they are and their smiles and, you know, having watched you, you know, work at, especially at bfop, how you interacted with people doing the pajama party portraits, you know, it was fun. It was a silly thing, but you took it so seriously and you had such a good time and so did they. As a result, every one of those smiles was real. [01:35:09] Speaker C: I should have filmed that. Yeah, that would have been. That would have been. [01:35:13] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:35:16] Speaker C: Yeah. Should I show a couple of these quick dog photos so Alex can laugh at me before you talk about your goals? [01:35:24] Speaker A: Yes, please. [01:35:25] Speaker C: All right, I'll bring him up. So this, remember this was shoot number one. So, you know, go easy. This is a friend's dog called. Called Winnie. [01:35:44] Speaker A: Oh, cute. Frenchie. Yeah, it's gorgeous. [01:35:48] Speaker C: Very well behaved dog. Plenty of you need a real challenge. [01:35:54] Speaker B: I'm gonna bring my five cats over and the dog. [01:35:58] Speaker C: No, no, no. [01:36:00] Speaker A: Move a dress. That's gorgeous. Were you using gels on your background there or. [01:36:07] Speaker C: No, I. I actually bought paper rolls because I'm crazy. Different colors. Yeah, so I had a few different colors. Playing around with the yellow, you know. [01:36:17] Speaker A: It'S got such good attitude on that one. [01:36:19] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. Proud dog. And then, yeah, played around with the black, seamless and stuff. I haven't edited a lot of these, so they're still like dog hair on the ground. Some of them are edited, but was just a bit of a test to see, like, check out lighting. I was having trouble with catch lights and stuff at the start. I wasn't really happy with, like, the catch lights necessarily that I was getting. And obviously once you start doing movement, you know, you sort of got a. Your lighting changes a little bit. And it's just. I know it's tricky, and I enjoyed that part of it. And then. [01:37:03] Speaker A: Yeah, owners would love that one. I always love those ones. [01:37:06] Speaker C: These are tongues. [01:37:07] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [01:37:08] Speaker C: Tongues out. Yeah. And I think so, you know, so I think that's what I find missing from this shoot is I don't think I got the dog's personality in one image yet. You know, like, I didn't really get the. The what I think the shot was that I'm looking for. [01:37:24] Speaker A: So the dog, to me, looks like it's not one of those dogs that's puffing all the time. So it's not always super hot. But you. The subject can only give you their true self. Right. So if the dog comes across as. That's kind of serious, then that's the dog. If the dog comes across as timid, that's the dog. You know, you can't make them something they're not. So I think these are perfectly salable. And also great you didn't get it in one shot because now they can buy seven freely choosing, like, not shaking every last cent from their pocket, but for free choice, you know? But also, some dogs probably do have multiple sides to their personalities as well. Just like some people, you know, they're not. It might not be. I don't know. [01:38:02] Speaker C: That's true. [01:38:03] Speaker A: I can get a great breed shot in one shot, but can I get the absolute. All the assets aspects of a personality? Probably not to be honest, even after 15, I get. [01:38:11] Speaker C: I guess that's probably not what I meant as in all the aspects in one shot, but more like. Like. Like this one shot that I think to me is the. Is the hero shot that I was looking for, if that makes sense. But maybe that's like a shot with character. Yeah, yeah, like a. [01:38:27] Speaker B: Like a sort of dog's character. [01:38:29] Speaker C: Exactly. The one that I would imagine that would get printed big on the wall. Hopefully. I just don't know if I got it. But we did finish the shoot off with the fun blue background for the obligatory. Hang on, where do we get to the obligatory Christmas dress up? I love it. [01:38:50] Speaker A: Yeah, they're really good. I. I like the. The headshot at that. Very formal. Remember we talked about this conversation we had off podcast one time about. Yeah, just facial. Facial faces and the expression and that sort of thing like that absolute. Because eye contact is always hits in the heart. But yeah, no, I think that truly they are. They're very. That's a given. That's your first shoot. Studio shoot for a dog. That's a really. That's just really. They will. You could make money off those straight away. So. Nine more, please. [01:39:22] Speaker C: Well, that's nice to hear. Thank you. And yeah, that's exactly it. It's just like. Just go do nine more because that's the only way I'm going to figure out like where I'm at with it and where to go next is just to get some done. So. Yeah, but I've just been. I've given myself a break because we've been up the river with family and stuff a little bit and it's been so hot that the space I'm going to shoot in is too hot to have dogs there at the moment. So I've got to wait for a little bit of a break in the weather and then maybe I'll try and do a couple in an afternoon or something like that and trying to do two at a time or something. Yeah, I'm not going to do eight in a day. [01:39:55] Speaker A: I recommend. [01:39:57] Speaker C: All right, just before we go on to the your images section, Greg, have you thought more about your goals for. [01:40:02] Speaker B: I have indeed done a bit of soul searching, so some people may not know, but I am also a writer and a reviewer of things but not films. I review camera gear when someone bothers to send it to me. But I also do a lot of other writing. Obviously a lot of it's about photography. And the last probably two years I have my own blog site and I really neglected It I was very busy with ShotKit because I was doing a whole bunch of writing for ShotKit, especially in the last sort of six to 12 months where I was doing daily news sometimes six, seven days a week. I'd put out articles about the latest news. Then I'd do product reviews, I'd do software reviews. And they were all very time consuming because it wasn't just writing about something, it was actually testing, say, a piece of software, like an editing software, taking screenshots, editing those, all that sort of stuff. And so it wasn't really writing for me, but I had to let go. We talked earlier about letting something go to pick up something new. I had to let go of my personal writing because I found that by the time I'd done that stuff, plus the stuff for Lucky Strap Slash the camera life, that I just didn't have words. I felt like I'd already expressed all that part of me, but I still didn't feel like it was truly I was writing for me. And then partway through last year, I dropped Shot Kit and I've spoken that about on here before. Why I did that for ethical and moral reasons. And I gave myself a bit of space and just focused purely on Lucky Straps and the camera life. And obviously we had beef up and that was huge and took up a lot of our time, especially because Justin went on holiday for most of it. But I got to the end of this year and I realized that I hadn't been writing for me. But let me put some context around that. I still write for Lucky Straps. Justin affords me the luxury to write articles about our guests or about a pertinent photography topic, something that we come up with together. And when I write those blogs, I love writing the Lucky Straps blogs because Justin does give me free rein as to how I say the things that we want to say. But I'm also representing me and Justin and Jim and Yelena and I'm representing two brands. So it's different. It's not just me. I'm representing more than you know, what's that thing about the whole is greater than the sum of its parts? Is that the saying? [01:42:38] Speaker C: Yeah, synergy, yeah. [01:42:40] Speaker B: So I'm writing for the whole anyway. And I just completely neglected my blog. So my goal, short version of this is that I've decided to write more intentionally and more purposefully for me about the things that. That I love, about the things that I experience. And so in true Justin Castle's fashion, I actually went and bought a brand new notebook, a big large Nice notebook. [01:43:07] Speaker C: Only way it's the only way to achieve a goal, Greg, is to spend some money. [01:43:11] Speaker B: Had to be classy. Still had to be classy. Anyway, and so over the last sort of week and a bit, I've been mapping out articles that I want to write about things that have been either burning in me or things that I think are interesting or things that I've experienced. And so I've mapped out probably about the next three months of blog articles, looking at doing about one every one to two weeks. I don't want to put too much pressure on myself straight away and so far I'm loving the process. So I put out an article last week which was basically my year in review. The sort of things that I got up to, talking about my time with Lucky Straps with the, with the camera life detailed a little bit about stepping away from Shock Kit and why and just some of my other experiences as a creative. And so I found that really empowering. And you know, it's interesting, I don't do a lot of photography paid work. I did get asked to do a, an event that's coming up in January, which is pretty cool. But you know, most of my stuff is around the writing. The photography is more for me and maybe some sort of behind the scenes images for stuff or if I'm doing a product review, I'll do all my own photos over using stock images and that sort of thing or the ones that the camera brand supply. And I still want to do that stuff, but I really just want to explore who I am creatively and do that in words because I love writing like you, Alex, I just love putting stuff down and writing. It's, it's when I find my brain works the best. You know, I don't, I'm not an overly confident speaker despite working on a podcast, but I find that when I write I can really express myself. I can be my true, my true self. So, so yeah, so that's, that's the goal. And so the other, just quickly when I first started writing my personal blog, I was talking about my experiences with grief and loss as well as, you know, finding photography, traveling to Japan, all of those things sort of were at the start of my, my article writing journey. And that's what got me noticed by someone to start writing professionally. And so one of my other goals is to sort of expand my client base at some stage this year I want to pick up at least one or two more clients for writing purposes. And so I need to go back to basics. I need to Go back and rebuild myself and build that confidence in my. In my craft. So that's kind of the long way of saying I write words. [01:45:48] Speaker A: I love that. [01:45:49] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:45:50] Speaker C: Awesome. [01:45:50] Speaker B: That's me. [01:45:51] Speaker A: And we get to read more. Read more things that you create for us. I love that. [01:45:55] Speaker B: Yeah. Hold you to that. [01:46:01] Speaker C: Exactly. [01:46:02] Speaker A: It's fun though, isn't it? And isn't it fun to be at the start, to feel like that feeling you have when you're. You're laying it all out and you're planning it, but to feel excited and inspired by something, you know, like. [01:46:10] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. [01:46:11] Speaker A: You know, like. And the joy of, like, looking forward to doing it. I love that for you as well. [01:46:15] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, Definitely possibility that's there. [01:46:17] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. [01:46:18] Speaker B: And I just feel energized doing it, you know. [01:46:20] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:46:22] Speaker B: Which is good. So I'm going to. I'm going to lean into that. [01:46:24] Speaker A: As we say, you are a very good writer and I'm very excited that you're not letting that stagnate and, you know, develop, but developing it in the ways that you want to as well. Because, you know, I mean, you wrote a lovely article about me. It was really kind. But, you know, the fact that you're taking that even further, I love that and the goals in that. And again, without being like, I must write something every day, you're like, just, I want to just write more. So I'm going to lay out a structure and not have not be too stressy on it, just, you know, not overwhelmed. So it will get done. I think that's really important. [01:46:55] Speaker B: And I haven't set any. Any specific photography goals because often my writing influences and informs what I want to shoot. And often going out on a shoot influences and informs what I want to write about. So I'm just going to. I'm just going to let that cycle feed itself. [01:47:15] Speaker C: It's organic, it's cool. Yeah. [01:47:16] Speaker B: And it's very me. You know, I don't do well when I put pressure on myself to achieve goals, you know, and so I tend to shy away from that. And so I'm just going to let the process inform itself. So. Yeah. [01:47:31] Speaker A: Yeah. Fantastic. [01:47:33] Speaker C: Cool. [01:47:33] Speaker B: Here I am. [01:47:34] Speaker A: Love that. [01:47:36] Speaker B: Thanks. [01:47:37] Speaker C: Okay, shall we wrap the show up with some images? [01:47:40] Speaker B: Let's look at some images. [01:47:42] Speaker C: Look at some images quickly. Alex has probably got to get to bed. [01:47:45] Speaker B: Just a couple quick comments. [01:47:46] Speaker A: Yeah, no, it's like 6:30, my bedtime. [01:47:48] Speaker B: Oh my goodness. [01:47:49] Speaker C: Oh yeah, I forgot. [01:47:50] Speaker B: You're not even looks like a scribe from 1770. Thank you. [01:47:56] Speaker C: I appreciate that. [01:47:57] Speaker A: A great Compliment. [01:48:01] Speaker C: All right. Not many this week, which is probably good because this show's way over time already. Probably good. First, some images from David Mosquito Scaro that actually come in before, like three weeks ago, just before the comp got announced. So we've kind of been hanging on to them. [01:48:19] Speaker B: Nice. Glad we can get back to them. [01:48:21] Speaker C: That's right. That's a stage. More from the Street Portrait series, which I'm loving. And you need to do something with David because these are great. These are. He said these are all shot on HP5 film on an old Nikon film camera or various old Nikon film cameras except for one. One of them shot on an X100 I think. [01:48:46] Speaker B: Oh. [01:48:47] Speaker C: And he said Greg will be pleased but gosh, he's got away with it. They're. I think he said this was the one shot on the X100. I don't know if I would have picked it. [01:49:07] Speaker B: No, I wouldn't have. [01:49:11] Speaker C: Yeah. I think that I would have picked maybe this one. [01:49:16] Speaker B: I would have picked the first one. [01:49:18] Speaker C: This one. Yeah. Yeah. [01:49:23] Speaker B: This has a different character to the others and his usual film photography work, but it's. Yeah, still amazing. [01:49:31] Speaker C: Great work. David. I don't know what you. I'd love to know how many street portraits you've taken. I don't know if you can figure that out in your catalog somehow, but. [01:49:39] Speaker B: How many rolls have you shot? [01:49:41] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. I think it would be a lot. Yeah. Next we have some from. Where are we? Here we go. Some from Rick Nelson. I got to find this email and he says, hey Justin. Went out for a photo walk. The first, first photo walk of 2026 today. Didn't have any plans, just exploring. Took my S5.2 with the 24 to 105 F4. Did not expect to get drawn into macro today, but here I was at Mount Cooter Lookout with a view of Brisbane on this overcast rainy day. But I'm chasing bugs on a fence. Love it. The half macro isn't so bad with the 24 to 105. I did crop a little bit to get more of the macro effect. Where is it? I did take a shot of the view too but the bugs, the couple of detail shots really stole my attention today. Thank you guys for the great show and the community built. Means a lot to find like minded individuals that just want to do cool stuff. Thanks Rick. [01:50:48] Speaker B: We love you, Rick. [01:50:49] Speaker C: I love it too that it's not like you weren't like, well, I don't have my macro lens so I can't you know. Yeah, I can't, can't possibly do macro unless I have a macro lens. [01:50:59] Speaker A: Like. [01:51:00] Speaker C: Yeah. Just getting close and make it happen. Bugs crawling around on fences. [01:51:05] Speaker B: Alex, do you still shoot macro when you get a chance? [01:51:08] Speaker A: Yeah, I do. I. If I travel, I take a. The biggest zoom that I've got, which I think is a 150 to 500 and a 90 mil macro. And that's it pretty much. [01:51:16] Speaker B: Nice. [01:51:16] Speaker A: I like the long end, so I like the long end of the zoom and the up close of the macro. I like everything to be close. Yeah. Wow, that's gorgeous spot. [01:51:24] Speaker B: Oh, look at that view. [01:51:26] Speaker C: Yeah, cool view. [01:51:27] Speaker B: Wow. [01:51:28] Speaker C: He just popping up out of there. The. [01:51:30] Speaker B: I didn't realize. Is this in Brisbane? I didn't realize prison was so flat. Well, that part of it obviously. [01:51:38] Speaker C: That part of it, yeah. It's got sort of a few mountains on the, on the, in the distance from the, the center. Yeah, like that you can see from the high rises. But yeah. Great work, Rick. Now Greg, did you want to. We'll look through these images but do you want to do more of a. More of a. In depth rundown on this little thing in another show as well? [01:52:03] Speaker B: Well, I'm going to write a blog article about it. [01:52:05] Speaker C: Okay, cool. [01:52:07] Speaker B: But yeah, let's just skim through a couple, have a bit of a look. So some of you may recall a couple of weeks ago. No, last week we did it. I opened what's in my box and I had the new Kodak Chimera camera which is this tiny little. It's smaller. It's like half the size of a box of matches. Digital camera. Even has an LCD on the back. Even shoots video. Image quality isn't great, but it's the experience that matters. Oh, there's editor Seb. Yeah, I know it's really clipped those. Think about the Kodak Chimera. Should have had it with me. I didn't is that it hates low light and it hates bright light. So finding the middle ground is quite tricky. But I had a lot of fun. It was, it was a cool experience to go out with this dinky little keychain, literally keychain camera. And the way that I held it was I had the keychain loop I think through my thumb and then just held the camera. It was like a little mini lucky strap we had to make. We need to make those. And yeah, it was just fun. It was because no one really knew that I had a camera. No one was noticing. I was just kind of wandering around just pointing it at things and taking shots. [01:53:22] Speaker C: Look what it's done to the colors of coals and stuff. Like, it looks that. That looks like a older image than what it is. [01:53:31] Speaker B: Yeah. Especially the black and whites do. [01:53:35] Speaker A: So. [01:53:35] Speaker B: Yeah. Just got out and had a little bit of fun with that. I've only been out with it once and I'm going to do a little bit more with it. And I'm probably also going to organize a street walk. And the only camera that people are allowed to bring is one of those Kodak chimeras. [01:53:51] Speaker C: Interesting. [01:53:52] Speaker A: That'll help. [01:53:53] Speaker B: Got to collect. [01:53:54] Speaker C: You getting kickbacks or what's going on? [01:53:56] Speaker B: Working on it. [01:53:57] Speaker C: Okay, working on it. [01:54:00] Speaker B: But yeah, it was fun. And it, you know, it was very much about the experience of getting out and finding an opportunity to go outside and, you know, see real light and real people and. [01:54:11] Speaker C: Oh, look at that. [01:54:15] Speaker B: Don't. Don't go in too close. But like I said, it was fun. It was. It was an amazing experience just to have a completely piece of camera that didn't matter what. I didn't care what the images were going to look like. Wasn't about that. [01:54:32] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:54:32] Speaker B: It was about hunting light. It was about seeing the compositions. [01:54:35] Speaker C: And I thought, why you shot Fuji in the first place. [01:54:42] Speaker B: Gloves are off. [01:54:44] Speaker C: All right, awesome. I'm looking forward to seeing the full review. I am going to get one too, because I. Yeah, I think we should do a little bit of a challenge and a street walk would be awesome. Yeah. [01:54:53] Speaker B: 59 bucks at JB hi Fi. [01:54:55] Speaker C: Yep. Use code Greg65. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Alex, you sent some photos through. Did you want to look through those? Should we. Do you want to bring them up? [01:55:07] Speaker A: You've got time? [01:55:09] Speaker C: We have time. Do you have time? [01:55:11] Speaker A: Oh, I don't know what folder they're saved in. [01:55:15] Speaker C: No, no, sorry. I've got them. I. I've got them. [01:55:17] Speaker A: Okay, cool. [01:55:18] Speaker C: Sorry. I can pull them up. [01:55:21] Speaker A: I just wanted to mention that didn't actually take that photo. Okay, now there's a point to this one. Couple of things, I think as professional photographers or even as amateur hobbyist photographers, anyone that's wanting to do it as a business or is trying to sell images to clients every maybe a couple of years, be a client, be in front of the camera instead of behind it. Because then you know what your customers are experiencing when they wait for like a preview. You know, how other people. You see how other people work. You know, you can kind of pick up gaps in other people's systems or strengths in other people's systems that you can incorporate. So I had a photo shoot this year. This is a brand new cinema. It was a screen X cinema. It has the screen wraps around three walls, it's 54 meters long. And this was. It hadn't even opened and I had a photo shoot in there. You can imagine how excited I was because it smelled like brand new car. And yes, because I don't know if I've mentioned, but I review films so I wanted a picture of me in my branded clothing because I always have a logo in the cinema. So there were photos of me with my camera as well. But my lovely friend Erica Serena took this. I pay my professional friends their professional rates and it's just, you know, I was using a 7 or 8 year old. Awesome. But 7 or 8 year old profile picture which didn't really reflect how I look now. So it's just nice to have that refresh every now and then. So it's tapping. [01:56:35] Speaker C: It's very cool. [01:56:35] Speaker B: It's good advice too. Really good. [01:56:37] Speaker C: Great advice. [01:56:38] Speaker A: And it's. I just. And even though like I'm not comfortable in front of the camera but just to even learn, you know, I photograph dogs, you know, I don't even have to communicate with them verbally very much and squeak a toy, you know, a whole different thing. So just even learn if you do photograph people at all what they're experiencing and you know you can incorporate little things that you feel and experience into your own workflow kind of thing. Yeah, that's awesome advice and she takes great photos. So thank you. [01:57:06] Speaker C: Okay, onto a bat. [01:57:08] Speaker A: Is it a bat? I say, yeah, it's a, it's a flying fox. This is in Sri Lanka. I just, I, if you, if you photograph these guys with the sun behind them, it illuminates everything. They've become kind of translucent. And I like. I've got a friend who's an amazing bird photographer. She just won a huge award in London, one of the most prestigious wildlife photography competitions in the world. And she was like, she'd smack me if she saw I photographed against the white sky. But I just. Any clean background I can get because for me this is all about the subject and I didn't want the tree in the way. I don't mind if it's a white sky, blue sky, you know, block color. I just love this kind of feel. So yeah, I threw this in just to, you know, your own rules at the end of the day and what you like. I like clean, so I like it just to be about the subject. [01:57:52] Speaker C: Yep. [01:57:53] Speaker A: And same with this, we're on a little boat and I think the birds obviously thought we went, we're on a little tourist boat. But I think they thought we were fishermen and the turns were just following us. So I'm standing up on a moving boat, but they're just literally propping and gliding behind us. So again, just, you know, for me to get a white sky, I get really excited. Some people's eyes glaze over, like, yes, just simple shot. And I'm shooting on burst mode for these. This was a hotel in Sri Lanka. There was very big water monitors there. Some were so big that our people on our tour said to me, we saw a Komodo dragon. I was like, wrong country, but they're from Indonesia. But I was like, but, you know, I got. I saw one myself. I was like, yeah, I understand how you thought that this thing could literally eat a cat. It was huge. And there was a groundsman sitting there near this water monitor. And I said, is it like goanna in Australia where they run up you? And he went, no, run away. Oh, that was enough for me. So I laid down. I don't know if he understood, but he's like, ah, maybe. He said to me, run away. I misunderstood. So I laid down on the ground kind of probably about 30 meters from it. And as it kind of came past, it eventually came right past and it was just eating dirt and sticks from the ground. But, you know, just laid there still. And I thought, well, if it runs, I'll at me, I'll just get up whether I have a heart attack so it's over or I'll just get up my way. But. And he was watching kind of spotting for me, but yeah, kind of cool. But I love ground level shots. I like that one of your Frenchie shots on the blue paper. You are clearly at ground level. Just creates a different. You know, this lizard's head wasn't as big as it looks even on this screen. It was not massive. It was a big monitor, but wasn't Komodo dragon size. Yet here it looks like a dinosaur. You know, just the perspective. Yeah, yeah. [01:59:23] Speaker C: Yep. Very cool. [01:59:27] Speaker A: A few holiday snaps from the Sri Lanka tour. This was my favorite photo for 2024 5. I always pick every year. My favorite picture that I took. And it's usually something very obscure. Previously, it's been a blurry tree. I've had a reflection on a lake of a tin shed and a fireplace. Just a crackling fire. And this was just a train carriage, steam train carriage in the rain. I just Think I love the lines, the pattern, the colors, and it's weird, and it is not what I normally shoot. Just shot this because it was there, got back, and when. I like that sort of. Oh, no disrespect to all the beautiful animals I photographed. I just. My favorite photo of the year was just this quirky kind of parallel line, weird photo with. With kind of complementary colors that stand out. [02:00:13] Speaker C: It's definitely just. It's got something about it that, you know, it's. Yeah. I don't know if it's just the colors, the sh. The fact that it's. It's almost on. Seems kind of like there's some symmetry there. And then you look at it and you're like, no, no, nothing really lines up. Like, there's mismatched sort of. But it all works. And it's. Yeah. [02:00:31] Speaker A: I don't know. [02:00:32] Speaker C: It's great. Yeah. [02:00:33] Speaker B: It's very cinematic to me, kind of. [02:00:36] Speaker A: Yeah. I think it's just a psychologist's dream. [02:00:38] Speaker B: Like, expect. [02:00:39] Speaker C: Like you'd expect to see the shadow of a character walking through those windows in this shot. Is that what you mean, Greg? Like. Like if. [02:00:45] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. There's something about. Yeah, yeah. Maybe something a bit. Wes Anderson. There's that. [02:00:53] Speaker A: I do love his films. Yeah. It was just weird for me. Like. I mean, I have lovely. Like, I love the photo of the lizard, but I just like this because it's so outside my wheelhouse. And when I judge stuff, I like to see photos that I can't take or that I don't normally take, even in judging things. And this is just so random. And it just. It just appealed. Like. There's also a photo of a bridge, just a suspension bridge. I was like, that came out nice. I guess sometimes that's also the surprise I have, that I just try something random. Oh, thank you. The graphic design part. Yeah, I. I showed this at a camera club recently, and they went, oh, and a friend of mine there was an actual artist. And I said, what do you think? She'd love it. She just. It's just different. Like, you know. Yeah. Lines, colors, textures, you know, doesn't have any meaning. It just is. [02:01:31] Speaker C: Yeah. [02:01:32] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Probably looks like film windows. Did I mention. Did you know Bruce? He says he used to be, but he used to be. Still is. He's. Bruce is a film reviewer as well. [02:01:42] Speaker C: Yeah. [02:01:43] Speaker A: Apparently Japanese stuff. [02:01:48] Speaker C: There was a question to what camera and lens was being used for the photo of the monitor. Monitor lizard. [02:01:54] Speaker A: Oh, okay. So I had the Sony A1 original camera and I only take the 150-500 or a 90mm macro on my tour. So it would have been the 150 to 500 mil lens. So I was laying down on my stomach and I was on grass and it was just walking past. It was probably about. It got within about 3 meters of me. So I would have been zoomed in fairly close with that lens, but pulled back a bit to get a bit of the neck in there. Yeah. And I think this was the 90 mil macro here I had on. I just walked back until I got. It's. These are. You know, you could fit like two or three people's heads in those window spaces if there were people in those carriages. So in those. On the seats. So I was a fair way back to try and line it up and fit it in. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Very cool. And then this one, this was my other favorite photo from last year because again, it's just. It looks like a gift that's like frozen because your computer's clapped out. This was a very fancy hotel in Sri Lanka called the Grand Hotel. Probably one of the most deluxe hotels I've ever been to. It's not a deluxe price, but it's incredible. And unfortunately I had a bad manager, so it went downhill a bit and he's gone now. So they're trying to rebuild their branding and we stayed there and 90 mil macros just walking around the hotel. And the fire was on, so I stood a few meters back and it's just weird. It looks like a drawing or. I don't even know. You know, I just like stuff that is kind of very abstract and artistic when it. If it's stuff that has to appeal to my own personal sense of style. You know, I like the white background stuff, but I like kind of weird, quirky things. And so, yeah, this is my other favorite photo for the year. Strange. [02:03:19] Speaker B: Very cool. [02:03:20] Speaker A: Strange, but different. [02:03:21] Speaker C: Yeah, it is bizarre. [02:03:23] Speaker B: I love that. It's nothing like what you normally shoot. [02:03:26] Speaker A: No, it's. I just didn't do these for fun. I just like, normally I just shoot the hotel on my phone because it's just for like a little post with, you know, a template where I put a montage with four photos to show the hotel. And instead I just saw this and took it. And I must have been. Had a slightly slower shutter speed than expected. And the way the flames came out, like, if someone said, how did you do this? I'd say, I don't know. I don't even know. I just was like. Because I Was using a macro lens for a kind of a portrait shot, trying to freeze the motion. And it's just. It was one of those. I'm not sure if it was. It looks like a fake fire, but I actually think they might have had logs in it. It looks like the front is those fake coals. But yeah, the flames were real. But it came out just looks strange. I like that people would be like, what is that? Why did you even photograph that? I like that weird left of field stuff. Yeah, like David lynch movie kind of stuff. And this was a coffee shop in a little country town. I was doing a workshop and had a skylight, a half skylight in the roof of the coffee shop. And they had the door open so the little silver eyes and the blue wrens were coming in and out of the coffee shop. And so I was probably about 4 meters from the counter where you order and I just stood there and pointed my camera at the roof and had it on burst mode. And as the birds were just flying to the light, they're flying in and out without going to the light. I just kept shooting. And the weird looks I got like a lot I did not care. I'm not really someone that you can shame, thankfully, because I was like, you know what? And then I turn around my camera and I show them. They're all like, oh, wow. But I thought, yeah, I was, you know, because I'm just standing in there photographing the roof. But there were some really cool again, abstract things that came out of those pictures. So there are pictures everywhere. If you, you know, you have your eyes open to it and you don't worry about what other people think when you're shooting. As long as you're not doing something you shouldn't or in danger. Other people's opinions don't matter. They're like, what she photographing a sky. Because a lot of shots I missed the birds were coming and going. Just pictures of a skylight. Oh wow. Be next year's favorite shot. I'll pull it out and that's right. [02:05:13] Speaker C: It could be. [02:05:13] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. They need an explanation. [02:05:19] Speaker C: And last one. [02:05:21] Speaker A: Last year, this time last year actually I was on Cocos Island. Went to Cocos and Christmas island for two weeks for a holiday actually. And this is on Christmas Island. There's a national parks office there. They rehabilitate some of the birds. And when they let the birds go, the birds quite often come back and roost there. And this is a frigate bird. They can't land on the ground because their wingspan is too big. To have lift off they have to land on a tree branch. Or this guy was sitting on a piece of wire and just preening. And I'm not. I'm a portrait photographer first and foremost. Generally it's just, you know, you know it's they mostly headshots or the animals, you know, the motion is frozen. They're not catching a frog or doing anything specky. But the fact he was preening like the lizard's tongue out. You know, occasionally I'll get something where they're doing something. And this is just a kind of cool shot. A lot of like static shots even just sitting there. But I just love the way the colors on the feathers and these birds have like a 2 meter wingspan. They're like big pterodactyls. Coco's Christmas Island. You know, Perth is closer to Bali than Sydney. We all go to Bali. But if you can go to Cocos and Christmas Island, I highly recommend. They're Australian territories. They're absolutely very different. The plane does a loop, drops you off on one for a week, picks you up, takes you to the other one, comes back and gets you a week later. Fly to and from Perth. Absolutely incredible places. Bird life, crabs. And on Christmas and Cocas is just paradise. Sandy atolls, white beaches. Just absolutely hardly any people. Absolute magic. Coincidentally I'm doing a tour there in April 2027. But they're magic places. Just put them on your list. Because you know we all go to overseas and other places. But there's some places in our own backyard. Unfortunately they're not the cheapest places to get to. But definitely on a photographer's bucket list. They're incredible. Yeah. I've been to both of them about a dozen times. They're brilliant. [02:06:58] Speaker C: Wow. [02:06:59] Speaker A: Yeah. [02:06:59] Speaker C: To put them on the list. [02:07:01] Speaker A: Show you. Oh, you can meet this bird. [02:07:04] Speaker C: That exact bird. [02:07:06] Speaker A: They're probably. That I probably guarantee. [02:07:07] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:07:08] Speaker A: They've probably got like a 20 year lifespan or something. That exact bird will probably come back every night to the same spot. [02:07:13] Speaker C: Sounds like Paul's been there. Says Cocas and Christmas. [02:07:15] Speaker A: Yeah. [02:07:15] Speaker C: Awesome. [02:07:16] Speaker A: I'm with Paul. They're 10 out of 10. They're just brilliant. Brilliant. You'll just lose your mind for photographing stuff. Creatures. Who would think that crabs could be exciting? Man. Wait till you see these crabs. They're next level. Some of them are like massive big land crabs, red crabs, just blue crabs. Just unbelievable. Yeah. And bird life is off the charts. [02:07:32] Speaker C: Wow. [02:07:33] Speaker A: Yeah. Pretty cool. [02:07:34] Speaker B: Pretty cool. Very cool. [02:07:36] Speaker A: Thanks. [02:07:37] Speaker B: Thanks for sharing those, Alex. [02:07:38] Speaker C: Yeah, thank you. [02:07:39] Speaker A: Just picked A few travel shots there. [02:07:41] Speaker C: Yeah. Bit of fun. [02:07:43] Speaker A: Love it. Yeah. [02:07:44] Speaker C: Fun from 2025. [02:07:46] Speaker A: Yeah, for sure. [02:07:49] Speaker C: What else? [02:07:49] Speaker B: Should we, should we. Should we tie a bow in that one? [02:07:53] Speaker C: I think so. I know. Anything else you need the world to know, Alex? [02:07:58] Speaker A: I'm not sure if you knew. I do film reviews and I have a book out in the check room. I think we're good. We've covered that broken record. Yeah, no, we're good. No, but thank you for your time, guys. I always love talking to you. You're both, you know, friends of mine, mine as well. And you, you give a lot to the community. Someone said you create this platform to bring us all together and I greatly appreciate this and I greatly appreciate anyone that's started listening and who is still listening as well. Thank you. [02:08:20] Speaker C: Thank you once again. [02:08:23] Speaker A: Thanks so much. [02:08:24] Speaker C: We've gone 38 minutes longer than I had planned, but we're doing, we're slowly trimming these shows down. [02:08:29] Speaker B: It's better than last week. [02:08:30] Speaker C: And so obviously people can find you at Houndstooth Studio, all that sort of stuff. But your popcorn panel reviews, how do people find those if they've never come across them before? Where's the best place to go? [02:08:45] Speaker A: Probably if you're on Facebook or Instagram. The page is just called the Popcorn Panel. And I kind of, I kind of imagine most people watch, listening to the podcast are probably our age demographic pretty much, give or take, bit high, a bit lower. So I'm not reviewing stuff that like a 15 year old would watch. It's kind of adult, you know, mature, middle aged lady and man content. So it would appeal generally not so. [02:09:09] Speaker B: Adult to be Bruce's content. [02:09:10] Speaker A: No, not that sort of. Just adult is in like probably, you know, 35 to 90. Not. Yeah, Bruce's. Yeah. So yeah, the popcorn panel and any sort of coaching. Mentoring stuff is under the pet photography coach. That's a Facebook, that's a website. But I do coach any. Anyone in small business, if not pet photography branded. Yeah, I do all sorts of small business stuff. So yeah, check please. Check it out and follow along. I appreciate support for any of those endeavors. [02:09:37] Speaker C: Yeah, awesome. [02:09:38] Speaker B: Definitely worth looking into. Thanks, Alex, once again for your insight, your inspiration, your images and for just telling great stories. [02:09:48] Speaker A: So you're gonna say intellect. I was gonna say. [02:09:53] Speaker B: We are friends. Like I said. [02:09:57] Speaker A: What'S next? [02:09:58] Speaker B: But. But yeah, thank you so much for joining us tonight and, and sharing some of your time with us and. And yeah, we look forward to seeing everything that you achieve in the new year. And that goes for everyone out there, obviously, if you're. If you're working on stuff, if you've got some goals that you think you want to share, drop them in the chat, drop them in the comments, in the comments, after we've stopped being live and we'll get to them at some stage during the week and. Yeah, I think that's about all. [02:10:24] Speaker C: Okay, play some music and we'll head on out of here. Thank you. [02:10:28] Speaker A: Thank you so much. Nice to chat. [02:10:31] Speaker B: Be safe, everybody. [02:10:32] Speaker C: All right, good night. Greg Carrick. You're probably on the radio right now. This is good on you, Alex. Catch you next time. See Tweet Productions. Rick Nelson, as always, Tintype man. Good luck. Friday. Bruce Moyle, Rodney Nicholson, David Skinner. Les Okey, Paul, of course. Who else? I don't know, I've lost track of everyone. This was. I couldn't read this one. Katzenellenbogan, who else? [02:10:58] Speaker B: Classic. [02:10:59] Speaker C: I don't know, everybody was here tonight. Was great to see everyone. And we'll catch you all next week. Actually, no, on Thursday with what's his name. It's out of my head on Thursday. [02:11:10] Speaker B: Greg, who is it you talking about? [02:11:12] Speaker C: Ah, come on, who? [02:11:15] Speaker B: What? [02:11:15] Speaker C: This Thursday? [02:11:16] Speaker B: Sorry, I wasn't prepared. [02:11:17] Speaker C: This Thursday. This Thursday it is on Thursday. We have. [02:11:21] Speaker B: It's Adam Edwards. [02:11:22] Speaker C: Adam Edwards on Thursday. We'll see you there, 9am and we're so professional. Good night. See everybody.