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Tales, techniques, tricks and tantrums from one of the UK’s top portrait photographers. Never just about photography but always about things that excite - or annoy - me as a full-time professional photographer, from histograms to history, from apertures to apathy, or motivation to megapixels. Essentially, anything and everything about the art, creativity and business of portrait photography. With some off-the-wall interviews thrown in for good measure!
Episodes
Wednesday Apr 03, 2024
EP150 Sign Your Work | Your Signature Is Your Certificate Of Quality
Wednesday Apr 03, 2024
Wednesday Apr 03, 2024
Ever wondered why you should sign your work? Well, in this, our 150th episode, we have chat about it.
But before that, a quick catchup with Charlie Kaufman of Click Group at The Photography Show - head to https://www.clickliveexpo.co.uk/ to see details of one of the most exciting events in years!
There is also news of the PMI Smoke Genie / Smoke Ninja competition - a fantastic opportunity to get creative and win some hefty prizes. I'll share the link for this as soon as I have it.
If you're interested in any of our workshops or masterclasses, you can find them at https://www.paulwilkinsonphotography.co.uk/photography-workshops-and-training/
Enjoy (and sign your work!)
Cheers
P.
If you enjoy this podcast, please head over to Mastering Portrait Photography, for more articles and videos about this beautiful industry. You can also read a full transcript of this episode.
PLEASE also subscribe and leave us a review - we'd love to hear what you think!
If there are any topics, you would like to hear, have questions we could answer or would like to come and be interviewed on the podcast, please contact me at paul@paulwilkinsonphotography.co.uk.
Transcript
[00:00:00] OK there are one or two fruity words in this episode. If you're offended by swearing then I do apologise!
[00:00:05] So I'm here at the photography show up in the NEC in Birmingham, have just bumped in to one of the big characters in the industry. So tell me a little bit about who you are. So, Charlie Kaufman, Honorary Fellow of the Societies, uh, been in the business for 35 years, professional, and I've run the Click Group for 30 years.
[00:00:27] Started in 1994. And you've got several other letters after your name. I thought it was KFA, but you said it was No, it wasn't KFA. FKA, as my mum always says, fucking know all, uh, excuse my language, but no, a fellow of the societies, I was the youngest, uh, BIPP licensorship and MPA, uh, licentiate when I was just 17 years old, so two years into the industry, I'm also the CEO of Click Backdrops and Click Live, a new expo launching at Stoney Park, Coventry, this June. Tell me why you've come to the photography show. So it's all about brand awareness. Clip Backdrops, uh, exhibits at all of the major trade shows in the, in the world.
[00:01:04] We do about 100, 000 miles with my partner in crime, Gary Hill. He's got more letters after his name than the alphabet, and Gary and I love doing the trade shows because it gets our British made, award winning product in the hands of creative photographers, so they can see the difference of why they're investing in a quality product.
[00:01:23] Why do you love this photography industry of ours so much? I love it because it's changing. I love being in an industry where we make money from giving people creative memories for people, creating art. I love the fact that being the owner of a company, I'm in control and I can pivot in a heartbeat in which direction I want to take my company.
[00:01:44] And that's one of the problems that a lot of British photographers don't do is pivot enough and change quickly enough. But being a small company, we're very quick at changing. We can actually have an idea to marketplace sometimes within a week.
[00:01:57] And if there's one thing you could change about the photography industry that we know so well, what would it be?
[00:02:03] Well, I'm going to hone in on the British photography industry, and what we need to change is we need to get British photographers getting more educated. Uh, as Big Dog Damien once said, the better, the easiest way to make more money as a photographer is to be a better photographer. I completely agree with that. Visiting ten U. S. expos a year, these expos sometimes start at 7am and these photographers are in classes and learning till midnight every single day. And that's one of the reasons that my team and I have launched Click Live, a brand new, uh, educational expo launching Stony Park, Coventry this June, where we've brought in the biggest educators from around the world. I mean, we've got Lindsay Adler, we've got Chris Knight, but we've also got other educators that have never even taught before in Europe, like Kimberly Smith, one of the world's best digital artists. So we want to give British photographers and European photographers, the opportunity to learn, hone in their craft and get better. Because the better you are, the more money you should make out of photography. It's as simple as that.
[00:03:04] Brilliant. And I have to say, it's an honour and a privilege to be a very small part of that operation. I'm very...
[00:03:09] ...an important part of that. Not a small part, an important Don't sell yourself short, Paul. You're an important part as we launch Clickmasters, a digital and print competition. And the nice thing about our print competition? Our educators at the show are not allowed to enter. So they're there to mentor and help and, and train, but they can't enter this year's competition.
[00:03:33] Excellent. Well, I'll tell you what, I'm beyond excited about it.
[00:03:36] Thanks for talking to me, Charlie. See you I'm Paul. And this is the mastering portrait photography podcast.
[00:03:43] Can you believe it? 150. Episodes honestly. I never really thought about it when I set this thing going about six years ago and here we are. 150 episodes later. I thought, I think I thought it would just be somewhere where I could get things off my chest -a sort of passive therapist, I suppose, and let's face it, we all need one of those mine, well, mine, just happens to be a microphone.
[00:04:29] Since then I've muttered about, oh, so many things, have interviewed all sorts of people and received well, many and varied emails. I've also been told I do have a face for radio, and that even happened again, today.
[00:04:46] But I'll take those little wins when people tell me they find the podcast either interesting or at the very least, something that passes time on a journey. Anyway, that interview was with the wonderful Charlie Koufman, who not only is the owner of Click Backdrops, which are brilliant and British. I will put the link in the show notes, but it's also the inspiration behind the upcoming Click Live convention, Which you will all be hearing about. In the coming months and I cannot wait to see you there.
[00:05:16] So here we are, it's April. And how are you? Did you have a good weekend? I hope you did. Sarah and I went down to Plymouth in Devon, Southern England. As well more almost as far south as you can get. In the UK with Harriet, our daughter and had a wonderful weekend with my in-laws.
[00:05:36] We drank a little beer. We ate a little chocolate, actually, we ate a lot of chocolates. We bought some Devon fudge and we painted some pottery. Yep. You heard that right. We went pottery painting. It was Sarah's idea. She wanted to do something that was a little different, maybe a little creative pass a couple of hours.
[00:05:55] The weather wasn't predictable. It wasn't bad. It wasn't good. It was just well crazy. And so we headed inside to do a little pottery painting. And apart from a very slight mismatch in how things were explained to us,- it turns out, I guess I've got a face that looks like a primary school child, as the explanations were to put it mildly a little basic, but I guess in the end, the heart and soul were very much where they should be.
[00:06:26] And we had a blast.
[00:06:29] Well, at least we did, as long as we dab-dab-dabbed, and we didn't wipe-wipe-wipe because if we were caught wipe-wipe-wiping There would be ter-ouble. We would be shown the error of our ways and instructed to get back to that dab-dab-dabbing. Anyway, it turns out I'm pretty good at dab-dab-dabbidy-dab-dabbing.
[00:06:48] And I spent nearly two hours, literally dubbing black glaze onto a pot, on which I could then paint a wintery woods, kinda scene.
[00:06:58] Harriet and Sarah. Well, they're a little more subtle with their craft with gentle blues and teals, little tiny flowers and spots of detail. Subtle understated, gloriously sophisticated. While mine was anything but that, but Hey, I need a new pen pot. As I have knocked my tin mug off the desk, yet again, today. And I really do need something that is seriously heavy, preferably black and well, it'd be nice if it was something that was a little unique. I'll get no points for subtlety, but I'll get plenty for the drama.
[00:07:32] And since it's been a long, long bank holiday weekend, there isn't too much to report on the diary of a working pro front, at least not in terms of shoots because we took the weekend away, took the time off. And so we haven't been shooting that much.
[00:07:48] We have had a couple of portrait sessions Hearing Dogs, just Hearing Dogs, brilliant, fun as always. And a one-to-one workshop here at our studio. And I love. Workshops. And I love this one in particular. A guy called Dave came down. And we spent the day creating, I think, well, I think. I think some magic, two of my clients now for models, we always use our clients. We don't usually use professional models because at the end of the day training photographers with models sets the sets an expectation that it's always going to be that easy.
[00:08:24] And of course it's never that easy. So Charlene and Katie came in as our models for the day. And while they may not be professional models , they are both just splendidly, photogenic, and more importantly, incredible people to spend time, laughing with working with and playing with light around.
[00:08:42] And I love, I do genuinely love these one to ones. Because they are entirely bespoke, they're entirely creative. We have the time to sit and answer any questions. We can explore ideas and let, well, let the client just guide us, which is exactly what we did. And the images that we finished up with well, everything I ever set out to do. Had such a blast. Dave was brilliant and I hope he went away with the same amount of energy that I've come away with. Just that idea that tomorrow, well tomorrow, we're going to create some magic. And as low, we haven't shot that much in the studio this week, well, next week is a whole different story. And there is going to be well busy, but while we haven't shot much this week, there is still a ton going on.
[00:09:32] Today in particular had my kitlist through from Elinchrom, which is really exciting. I'm still sort of working out what we really need, but it looks like we have it almost nailed down. The big decision is around the Elinchrom Threes. Now I've sorted out the Fives, we're going to get four of those and they will be almost permanently in studio I think. But the Threes are really quite exciting though. There, there are about 250 Watt seconds, so about half that just a little over half that of the fives. But I think they'll be massively useful when I'm out on location. They are big enough to do some serious work and small enough that I can pop them in a bag and have them with me.
[00:10:15] So.
[00:10:15] I'll let you know, as soon as that kicks in, I'm sure there will be videos, a little bits and pieces going on and I can't wait to do it.
[00:10:21] Another email that came in this morning. And it's one. I reacted to really quickly. Practical Magic and Innovations emailed in. Now you'll probably know them is P M I. And they're the guys who make the incredible Smoke Ninja and Smoke Genie smoke machines. The fog machines they've been in touch. And wanted us to help them get the word out about a competition they're running and I'll put the links to the competition in the show notes again. But basically it's an international competition, a photographic competition, but it must feature the use of either the Smoke Ninja. Oh, the Smoke Genie.
[00:10:59] Now I'm already a fan, of course of the Smoke Ninja is the one that I bought as part of the Kickstarter agreement, so I'm already a big fan and I've spoken about this on the podcast before. I love the thing, I think it's genius. It should be called the Smoke Genius, but it's great. And I know one or two of you have already bought one of these based on my recommendation. It's great fun to play with.
[00:11:21] It's not that expensive. The fog that it gives out is hugely controllable and incredibly photogenic. So given there's a few of you with these things, of course, I have agreed, to put the word out about the competition. Once again, show notes will be the place to go, but I'm going to even, I'm going to enter it this time.
[00:11:38] You have to create some images and also show some behind the scenes. I'm guessing it's a great opportunity, for them to get both the finished pictures and pictures of their Smoke Genie or Smoked Ninja in use price is pretty big. There's about $10,000 of them and some big names involved. So why not head to them?
[00:11:57] I'll put the link up why not head to them and have a look?
[00:12:00] Not only that, but I got an email this morning. From data color, who've shipped some kit for me to review. That'll come up in some future episodes, our to use the Datacolor photo Checkr, which is brilliant.
[00:12:12] It's part of our workflow anyway, but they're going to send me the updated version as well as the cube, which looks like to me, I haven't used this thing yet. I'll let you know once I actually use it properly, but it looks to me like it allows for backlight to be measured to white balance of backlight to be measured as well. Which looks like good, fun. Because we use a lot of mixed lighting. But not only that they are going to send me the video checker as well. Which allows us to color calibrate as part of our video workflow.
[00:12:39] Now I'm not big in video yet, but we are having to learn how to do it, and one of the things that constantly frustrates me is I can't seem to get the colors, as I want them a lot of homework to do. I need to understand video color spaces air slog, and the like, but I'll have the video color checker from Datacolor in the toolkit, and that hopefully will be a small part of the puzzle. I've not only understanding but controlling it. The color. These, I think these products will appear properly in a future podcast once I've had a chance to play with them and understand, I understand quite what I'm talking about. Cause I'm not a video guy. I need to go and ask some video guys about the best way of using it. A quick update on ACDSee, just again, a reminder. I am not paid by any of these people ACDSee sent me a license to have a play with and I've kept my word.
[00:13:32] I've used it. I still use it. I love it. I absolutely love it. I guess I'm not paid, but they have given me a license for. I think the license for the Apple. For the Mac, that is about 60, 70, quid. The speed of ACDSee is absolutely blistering and I love working with it. Haven't quite worked out how to get the very best out of it.
[00:13:50] As it turns out 300,000 images with the facial recognition turned on, maybe pushing the upper limits of our network and my machine. But I still love having it there alongside everything else I do in Lightroom. It's so quick. It's so handy. I love the way it just works or interacts in with the file system, which means I can always have, I've always got access to files, to drag and drop, throw them up onto Facebook, throw them up onto Instagram, put them into designs.
[00:14:18] It's just really useful. It's the kind of software you feel almost. Should be built into the operating system, but isn't, it's just so natural to use. Absolutely love it again. As I get my head around that I'll give you more, more updates.
[00:14:31] Right. So where are we? Let's have a think about my thought for today. Now this one. Is about signing your work or singeing your work. As it was the first three times I wrote it down, signing, not singeing.
[00:14:47] Don't singe your work. That is no good to anybody signing your work. I heard someone say a while ago this couple of years ago. That signing your work is pretentious.
[00:15:00] And all I can say is what utter, utter, bullshit.
[00:15:06] Sorry. I'm sorry. I know, I know. I shouldn't be emphatic in such a way. Everyone's got their own way of doing things and each to their own. But just occasionally something pops up that is purely, and simply, bullshit. This is one of them.
[00:15:24] Sign your work.
[00:15:26] If I could write a song called cite your work. It sounded a bit like Sunscreen. Maybe I should figure that out. Sign your work.
[00:15:34] My dad taught me many years ago. That you should sign everything. Now my Dad was a wise guy is so many ways an idiot. It's so many others, but a wonderful human being. And this was one where I think he was absolutely right. He said, sign it. And when I said, why well he said, firstly, well, why not? But he also said you do it because you never quite know who might see it, in the future. Isn't that the truth.
[00:16:03] So I was working at British Steel, in my early twenties as a work placement, my dad was working there. As well, he ran all of the competing and I got a work placement in their design office. And as part of that, they asked me to create some huge 3d visuals of the galvanizing plants that shot and steelworks British steel.
[00:16:24] And there's this, they have these coatings lines where they take a coil of steel and they'd run it through the line and coat it with either a plastic coat or some paint coat, but the line I was really interested in coated it. With zinc. It was the hot dip galvanizing line. And this line was around about three quarters of a mile long.
[00:16:43] It was huge.
[00:16:45] And they wanted me to create some 3d drawings of it. Now this is going back before we would simply have done all of it in 3d CAD and rendered it. They wanted 3d drawings. But they were then going to go off to an airbrusher to go into British Steel's brochures. So my job was to create the line work, the art, the sort of the technical drawing work.
[00:17:08] But the best way of doing that was is it happened to create a 3d model of it. But back then, we're talking about really early versions of AutoCAD and the output of AutoCAD. Wasn't very controllable and it certainly didn't create appealing visuals. What it did do though, is give me these huge, A0 printouts that I could then place a piece of tracing paper over the top and much the same way as a comic artist inks in over the pencil. From the original illustrator I then inked it. And that created these really beautiful.
[00:17:40] I thought they were beautiful anyway - these really beautiful. Inked drawings of these vast lines that could be annotated and airbrushed by a graphic design team. And I signed them. And I signed him just in case somebody else saw them. Somebody did, and I got more work from it. I've got a lot of plaudits for my work as well, all because they saw my signature and asked who Paul was.
[00:18:07] Now it doesn't work for everybody, I guess. But here at the studio we sign every frame and every album that goes out, it's got our brand on it. That signature. Is our brand just like Apple or Jaguar or Pepsi, Tiffany, Nikon or even the guys I worked with a little bit more regularly, like Elinchrom, or even PMI who've emailed today. It's their logo and that represents their brand.
[00:18:38] Now, if you're putting work out there without your logo or your signature on it, not only are you missing an important opportunity, an important opportunity that might just lead to more work might just lead to a brand recognition, like we've built . But I also think you're quietly saying you're not really proud of what you do. The signature we put on our work says I am proud of it. Really proud of it. Every time. Every time we create something here. We ask ourselves the question. Are we happy to put the Paul Wilkinson photography signature -my signature. On it. And if the answer to that is not clear.
[00:19:21] Cut. Yes, of course. Then that piece of work never goes near a client. Ever. The brand custodian side of our business is all about that signature and being proud. To put it on our work, being proud to say, yep, I've seen that. But at work. I think that warrants a signature and I'm very happy for other people to see it too.
[00:19:42] Now is that pretentious? Well, I suppose you could argue it is, but I don't think it is. I think what it's saying is I'm really proud of what we've done. I'm really proud of the effort we've put into it. And I don't think that's pretentious. Pretentions come from almost the opposite from trying to be something you're not, that's not what your signature is, your signature or your logo represent you and they represent your values and they represent your brand. They're everything you stand by and you stand for. Now, if you think your logo screams pretentions, then, well, maybe you need to adjust quite what you believe in and what your brand stands for, but from where I'm sat. I think you should sign every single bit of your work.
[00:20:32] Anyway, I'll get down off my soap box. Sorry about that just sometimes, you know, just sometimes there are things I think we have to just get off our chest. And when it comes to your signature sign, your work, people sign your work.
[00:20:45] Don't listen to what anybody else says. Get that signature on there. You never know who might be watching. Anyway. 150 episodes. One or two of you have listened to all of them. One or two of you have listened to all of them in the past 60 days. I did have an email from someone this week. And it said they've been working their way through them at a rate of a little over two episodes a day. And they are 50 something days in and heading towards catching up.
[00:21:15] I think that's absolutely, hilarious. Flattering and lovely, but well, slightly hilarious. Thank you for listening. Thank you for listening to the end of this particular episode. I hope as always there's something of use or if nothing else. It's got you to work in your car and you can now switch the radio off and go face the day knowing there are other people out there feeling and thinking the same things as you. Uh, if you'd like to hear more of these episodes, please do subscribe wherever it is that you get your podcasts.
[00:21:49] Please hit that subscribe button. And then every time I hit publish, you get to hear it, which I think is a marvelous thing. Please do also. If you would like to leave us a review. And a five-star rating somewhere, wherever it is. You consume your podcasts, please. Do we love it when you do? And of course it helps get the word out there.
[00:22:07] It helps get the podcast out there. It helps make some of this stuff possible. Also if you have any questions, please do email paul@paulwilkinsonphotography.co.uk, that's paul@paulwilkinsonphotography.co.uk If you're interested in our workshops or indeed one of our, one to one masterclasses, then please do head over to Paul Wilkinson Photography and look for the coaching section of the website.
[00:22:33] Alternatively, just stick paulwilkinsonphotography.co.uk workshops into your Google-y Browsery thing and you will find us.
[00:22:41] And if you fancy more content, that's all about the joy, the brands, the business, the creativity, of portrait photography, then why not head over to masteringportraitphotography.com, which is not only a vast resource of portrait photography stuff, but is also the spiritual home of this 'ere podcast.
[00:23:01] But whatever else. whatever else. Until next time. Be kind to yourself. and stick yer signature on things. Take care.
[00:23:14]
Tuesday Feb 13, 2024
EP146 The Art Of Contentment
Tuesday Feb 13, 2024
Tuesday Feb 13, 2024
Suddenly it washed over me - that odd euphoric sensation of contentment. No idea what triggers it, but it's well worth holding onto!
Also in this episode, a quick review of ACDSee 10 (the Mac version). If you'd like to try it yourself, please use this link (there is no kickback or finance attached, but it does let the guys at ACDSee know that the referral has come from me and the Mastering Portrait Photography Podcast!)
Enjoy!
Cheers
P.
If you enjoy this podcast, please head over to Mastering Portrait Photography, for more articles and videos about this beautiful industry. You can also read a full transcript of this episode.
PLEASE also subscribe and leave us a review - we'd love to hear what you think!
If there are any topics, you would like to hear, have questions we could answer or would like to come and be interviewed on the podcast, please contact me at paul@paulwilkinsonphotography.co.uk.
Full Transcript:
EP146 On Being Content
[00:00:00] Introduction and Studio Update
[00:00:00] So in an effort to keep up my weekly episodes , I am recording this mid afternoon on a Tuesday, which normally would be fairly busy here in the studio, but given I've got two people who are off sick, with both Michelle and Sarah coughing and spluttering and generally not feeling very well.
[00:00:16] So with a degree of persuasion, managed to get both of them to go home. I'm assuming they are now wrapped up in duvets drinking brandy or whiskey or possibly just Lemsip. And so I suddenly found myself with some time in the studio during normal working hours. So this is episode 146 being recorded when, well, I could be doing a million other things.
[00:00:41] I'm Paul and this is a very distracted Mastering Portrait Photography podcast.
[00:01:03] Now if you look at the list of things I should be doing, it's long, it's complicated, there's a lot to do in the studio just now, but I quite like recording the podcast, and so I am somewhat using it as a distraction. Displacement, I think is what it's called, and I'm going to record this episode.
[00:01:22] Mastering Dogs and Their Owners Portraiture Photography Workshop
[00:01:22] It's not that long since the last episode, so it's not like I've done a million different things, but yesterday we ran a Mastering Dogs and Their Owners Portraiture Photography, I can't remember the title, ah, uh, workshop, which essentially is a Photographing dogs with their owners.
[00:01:37] Had the most incredible bunch of people as delegates and also as models. One of the great things about running these workshops, of course, is that we can bring in models who are regular clients. Steve and Ambra and their dog Luna, and then Gemma who came in the afternoon with her dogs Luke, and, archie.
[00:01:58] It was just brilliant. Spent the whole day laughing, the whole day answering questions and discussing things about photography, not just how to take these pictures, but why we take these pictures. And certainly from the point of view of running a business. The weather held, it was gorgeous and sunny, a little too sunny, with that low raking February sunshine that we don't get enough of, and when we do get it, of course, as a photographer, I moaned that it was too harsh, uh, for some of what we were doing, particularly when we were trying to photograph in an alley where I needed both walls to have the same light, more or less, and of course the sun sort of threw that out the window, but hey, you know, what can you do when you get those days?
[00:02:39] It was a fantastic day, and loved every second of it, I've created some images that I really like, and more importantly, I think our delegates went away with ideas and enthusiasm and determination and confidence, possibly more than they did when they arrived, which is the right way around, and if you ever give when we're delivering workshops, the great thing is not It's not about technical stuff really, it's about having the confidence to go and do it, because without that, it doesn't matter how good you are with a camera, or how good you are with Photoshop, you're not going to run any kind of business.
[00:03:14] You'll never produce anything. You need the confidence to do it in the first place. So a big shout out to all the guys that came on the workshop yesterday, and a huge thank you to my clients.
[00:03:22] ACDSee Software Review
[00:03:22] Uh, before I get into the nuts and bolts of the podcast I want to give a quick shout out to the guys at ACDSee.
[00:03:30] That's letter A, letter C, letter D, and the word 'See' S E E. A brilliant bit of software. It's a bit of software that I first used, I was trying to remember when they asked me to get involved. I was trying to remember when I last used it. I think I used version 1. I think it came free on the front of a magazine.
[00:03:49] It was I think, recalling it was shareware back then. Shareware is not really such a common model, but back then, I'm guessing 15 or 16, maybe even longer years ago. Um, and it was an amazing piece of software primarily because it was super fast and It has the ability to preview files and organize files for you in an incredibly quick way.
[00:04:13] And anyway, the guys at ACDSee asked me if I'd review it and then talk about it. So, cards on the table here. I have been given a free copy of ACDSee to see what I think. I'm on version 10, it's the MacStudio version. And so I've been bunged a free license, which I've been using for the past couple of months.
[00:04:34] So it's not really, this isn't a paid commercial. Genuinely, I'm using the software and I said I would talk about it if I liked it. But I'd hate anyone to think that I wasn't being straight up and honest when I'm talking about it. And clearly I've been given a free license. But of course, here's the but in all of this stuff is I will never talk about anything on this podcast that I haven't had first hand experience of.
[00:04:58] Somebody did ask me, there is someone has asked me to review like an energy drink from the US to use it for a while and then talk about what I think. Sadly though you can't get it in the UK so I had to go back to them and say I can't do that until you've got a supply chain or an importer over here.
[00:05:15] And then of course I will try it and let you know what I think. So I won't talk about anything that I don't have first hand experience of there are many reasons for doing this podcast but being able to be authentic in the middle of it is the bit that under pins it. So what are my thoughts on this version of ACDSee?
[00:05:31] So this is version 10, the Mac version. Um, so okay, straight up, slightly mixed bag, but don't I don't take that as anything other than there's just one little bit that I'm not happy about. So when they approached me, so when ACDSee approached me, I was beyond excited to do it. Firstly, I got to play with a bit of software that I used an awful lot back in the day.
[00:05:57] And it was wonderful to be using the same software again. There's a degree of nostalgia, I suppose, about that. And it's always good to see a great piece of software, as it was, not only survive, but expand and become even more useful. The second reason I was excited about it, so I went and did a quick hunt around before I committed to giving it a go, is everything I read talked about the new AI keywording tools, and they looked incredible. It would help me enormously if using a bit of AI inside the software that I have on my computer, as opposed to going online and doing round tripping and all of those things, if I had some AI software that would help me identify with some very simple keywords. I'm not after that. Detailed keywords, but very simple keywords that would let me find, for instance, like a low key studio portrait, or a high key dog image, you know those, I'm talking really quite basic stuff.
[00:06:50] Now we manage our catalogue really well, but stuff slips through, and with keywording, you know what it's like, you get one folder, I've got to archive it, I've run out of disk space, I need to move some stuff today, do I keyword it now? No, I'll do it later, and of course by do it later, what I actually mean is, it doesn't get done.
[00:07:07] So, that was What I was looking forward to the the speed and the simplicity of this piece of software as it used to be, but also with some of the new AI stuff in particular, the keywording. And so I suppose the question is how did it do? Brilliantly, I think, is the word I'd use. It is still blazingly quick.
[00:07:27] It's an unbelievable piece of software from that point of view. It's faster than using the Finder on the Mac or Pathfinder I also use. It's incredibly fast. Now, let me just clarify how I've used it or how I'm using it right now. Lightroom is at the heart of our workflow. All of our live catalogues. All of our live RAW files, all of our live PSDs are in Adobe Lightroom .
[00:07:52] And what do I mean by live? Live just means the job is not yet archived. I looked earlier and there's about 75, 000 assets in Lightroom at any one point. That includes all of our live jobs but also our portfolio, our portfolio of heroes. Now, I've configured Lightroom in a very particular way so when I run an export of JPEGs that are going to go to the client, they're going to go into album designs anything that's flagged with five stars, the little bit of code in the background that I've written spits those out into a series of Dropbox folders that are organized in line with the jobs.
[00:08:27] So, let's say there's a Le Manoir wedding Tom and Amy get married at Le Manoir on a date. When I spit those files out, there'll be an equivalent Dropbox folder that contains anything that was ranked with five stars. So it allows me to have these heroes in Dropbox. And we've been doing that for about eight years.
[00:08:45] So you can imagine just how many images and folders we have in Dropbox running that little bit of the catalogue. But when I archive the folder away, when it's done, the job's finished, Tom and Amy have got their wedding album, then we remove all of the files off our live drives, remove the catalog components from Lightroom, and obviously new stuff has come in.
[00:09:07] Those heroes, though, still need to be active, and they stay active in Dropbox, a series of Dropbox folders that I have. And it's always a little bit of a pain trawling up and down them. Well, ACDSee solves that, because once I visited a folder with this software, All of the thumbnails stay in its catalogue.
[00:09:24] So it's as if I can browse things that go across folders. There's this thing called the Image Well, which is brilliant. I can find things by flags. I can find things by colour labels. It's absolutely phenomenal. So at the moment, I've got about a quarter of a million. There's about 250, 000 JPEGs in ACDSee.
[00:09:47] It's really, really fast. And one of the things I really have liked about it, which is useful for me, is, and this is the bit of the AI that is working, is the facial recognition. Now, no Lightroom has facial recognition, but of course, in the end I don't use Lightroom for longer than the job is live for any folder.
[00:10:05] Whereas this is folders that go back historically. And I'm not really that worried about identifying every face. What I am interested in is having the faces all looking at me in a series of thumbnails that I can scroll through and go, Do you know what, I remember that shoot or I remember that image.
[00:10:22] That's what I'm looking for. Then I can find the shoot and then I can expand that to all of the other images. And on top of that, slightly weirdly, Hehe. I found myself just smiling this morning as I was trawling through this big page of thumbnails of my clients. It's all my clients faces looking back at me and smiling.
[00:10:39] And it was really nice. It was a bit of a trip down memory lane, I think, for many of these. And I know that's not its intended purpose, but if you ever want a pick me up It's simply look in this folder on ACDSee of faces looking back at you, of all these clients, and of course the memories that go with it.
[00:10:57] And it is rapid, I mean it's unbelievably quick in the way it does it. And it's really useful to have that. Now on the indexing side, it's a little bit, you have to get your head around it a little bit. It indexes any folder you've visited. Browsed. However, there is also a behind the scenes index that you can get ticking over, which will run whenever you're not using your computer and ACDSee is open.
[00:11:20] So gradually over time, it picks up the files and it pops them pops all the thumbnails together and categorizes them for you. So it's really really useful. On top of that, a nice little touch that I've only really discovered this morning is that your license includes the use of a thing called SendPix.
[00:11:38] This won't be useful to everybody, but it's quite a nice little bit of software. So it's, if you can imagine I suppose a hybrid version of something like Zenfolio which is a catalogue system for images for your clients and WeTransfer which is a way of sending files to your clients. It's sort of in between the two.
[00:11:58] What it allows you to do is select a load of images, send them to someone but instead of sending them directly it creates a short lived online gallery. It's there for a couple of weeks, I think, looking at the dates it gave me. And that allows your client, or whoever you're sending them to, to log in, see the images, and download what they need.
[00:12:15] So in a sense, it's like WeTransfer, but with an interactive component. And it's equally, it's a little bit like Zenfolio, but with a gallery that only lasts for a couple of weeks. So you don't have to worry about taking them up and taking them down, and all that kind of thing. It's only there for the time you need it.
[00:12:30] And, surprisingly It's actually really useful, which I hadn't seen coming. It wasn't a bit of the software. I certainly didn't pick that up when I said yes to reviewing ACDSee, but it's incredibly useful. Now, sadly, the software doesn't integrate with Dropbox properly. There is no integration with Dropbox, which is a shame.
[00:12:47] It would have been really nice. It does have an integration with iCloud, but I don't use that, so I can't comment on that part of it. But it would have been quite nice. It's no big deal. Doesn't really change my usage of it. And all in all, there are just dozens of little functions that make finding and retrieving files that you have on your folders and drives really easy.
[00:13:09] It makes it fast, it makes it visually interesting. I haven't used the editing tools because for us, everything we do is edited in Lightroom on the RAW files and the PSDs. I suppose it could be useful if I do pick up a file, I just think, you know what? I wish that was slightly brighter, I wish that was slightly darker, or something like that.
[00:13:26] I know there are some quite sophisticated tools in there, but that's not the part of the puzzle I've been interested in. And I think the license for the Mac version is about 99, and it's absolutely worth it.
[00:13:38] Sadly, the AI keywording is in the Windows version but not the Mac, but still
[00:13:42] I think it's absolutely worth it. Anyway, now whether that fits into your workflow is entirely down to you.
[00:13:49] Only you can answer that question. Now bear with me, I'll come back in a minute.
[00:13:53] Reflections on Happiness and Contentment
[00:13:53] I've got a phone call to answer.
[00:13:55] So sorry about that, I had to answer the phone. It was the editor, it was Terry, the editor of Professional Photo Magazine, who we regularly write for calling about the next edition, which is very exciting, as always. I've no idea, I've no idea in the final edit where I'll leave that cut in, or whether I'll just gloss over it.
[00:14:15] Either way, as I was trundling in this morning, I don't know whether this happens to you, but it happens to me occasionally, where It's just this, it's almost a feeling of euphoria, and it's happened to me a couple of times today, whether it's just chemistry, whether it's just, I don't know, I've no idea. But today, I felt like everything was good in the world.
[00:14:37] And, it's a real sort of skill, I suppose, in being completely comfortable with where you are. We had a text this morning. Someone was asking, how are things out in the industry? And I can only answer from our experience. And right now, we're doing well . Everything is busy phone's ringing, even this morning.
[00:14:56] We had an enquiry for a wedding just come through. We've got enquiries for headshots and commercial. Portraiture feels maybe a little bit squidgier than it has been on the economy. But all in all, our business is running really well and I'm really happy.
[00:15:07] I'm very satisfied with my lot. Now, I don't mean to be self satisfied, that's not what I'm saying, but I think the art of being content with your lot is a tricky one. Now don't get me wrong, I'm incredibly ambitious and driven and impatient. I want everything to happen and I want it all to happen now, but the reality of course is things are slower.
[00:15:27] So I get frustrated with it, of course I do. But trying to find the space in my head to be content is a skill that I am still learning, I guess. It's really easy not to be happy. Even this morning, Sarah had the radio on, and the news came on, and I could feel myself just getting wound up. The state of our economy, we have a particularly crappy government at the moment, and I'd like to say that's specific to the UK.
[00:15:57] I've got friends all over the world, and I keep, as best I can, I keep abreast of world news, and I think it might just be a global phenomenon. The kinds of people who you'd really want to lead you are not the kinds of people who we have leading us, I don't think. So it's easy to feel down, the weather's pretty rubbish, it's that time of year, you know, it's grey.
[00:16:18] Yesterday we had this phenomenal day of beautiful weather, but today, well, it's back to normal, it's chucking it down. But yet, even though it was cold and dark, I still found myself skipping into work this morning. Life is okay. And being happy with yourself is not that straightforward, I don't think. Jake, our son, was asking me if I liked myself and I thought that's an interesting question and I don't really have a satisfactory answer.
[00:16:45] Some days I like bits of me, some days I feel dreadfully insecure, but I'm always confident that on balance I'm alright. I feel alright, I'm on the whole nice to people, I try really hard not to be nasty to anybody. There are people I like more than others, of course there are. You know, you marry the one you like the most, right?
[00:17:09] And she's incredible. So being happy with your lot. I think is something you can do and it just washed over me this morning, maybe it's the fact that we ran the workshop yesterday and I was around people who I liked
[00:17:23] And even writing up the notes on ACDSee, it still feels really strange saying ACDSee, when I grew up in the 70s and the 80s, when ACDC was a band for those about to rock and all of that stuff. So it sounds really weird when I say it, but writing my notes on ACDSee I had to look through thousands of images that had dropped into our Heroes folders, which reminded me of the things we do.
[00:17:46] And on top of that, of course, I put the facial recognition on, and that reminded me of all of the incredible people we do it for. And if it wasn't enough that I came in skipping down the road as an image, right? What we do for a living, the things we create, and the people we create these things for, what an honour.
[00:18:05] not only ACDSee, but Sarah spent the past couple of days designing the most incredible book. A Tramontino book is the range from Graphistudio. And it's full of the same pictures, these pictures that we took in the past 12 months. It's a collection of some of our Favourite moments, I guess, out of 2023. A mix of clients and some dogs, all sorts of bits and pieces.
[00:18:31] One or two award winning images. But mostly, it's just a celebration of the people we work with. And I can't wait for that to come, for Sarah to get it made, uh, and Graphistudio to get it, to get it made.
[00:18:47] The Joy of Photography
[00:18:47] It'll be beautiful, I know that. But more importantly, it will sit on our coffee table, and every time I feel flat, or I feel like, Oh, do you know what? I'm not sure how I feel about all of this. I can go down and have a look at it, just as I do with one or two other bits down there.
[00:19:00] And it reminds me, just What a lovely job this is, and I can't wait to have that actually on our coffee table, not just as an advert for the product, and of course it is a great advert for the product, a Graphistudio product I may have mentioned we're ambassadors for Graphistudio, so there's my cards on the table again, but in the end, I am really lucky, and we are really lucky, to have a skill that allows me to create the pictures that we do, for the people that we do, the moments that we get to enjoy, the places that we get to visit, and the joy, that we get.
[00:19:36] It's easy to get distracted by life, but sometimes it's worth focusing on what it is I do. And for whatever reason that happened subconsciously this morning, but I probably should make it happen more of a deliberate thing as I go.
[00:19:52] Still ambitious, still competitive, still driven, still want it all to happen today. But maybe it just takes a little bit of time. .
[00:19:59] Conclusion and Workshop Information
[00:19:59] And on that happy note, I'm going to wrap up. If you're curious about our workshops, please do head over to Paul Wilkinson Photography and look for the coaching and workshops section. Eventually we're going to move all of those across into Mastering Portrait Photography, but for now they're all still on my normal website.
[00:20:19] I'll put a link if you're curious about ACDSee and want to download a copy to have a play. I recommend you do actually, I've really I've grown to love it. I have two screens on my Mac, two huge 27 inch monitors, and ACDSee sits permanently on my right hand monitor whenever I'm doing any design work or doing anything for the websites.
[00:20:39] It's there because I have easy and straightforward access to all of our hero images, all of my favourite images. It's incredible as a tool like that. It slots in alongside Lightroom for me. At least it won't replace it, though I'm sure the guys at ACDSee would love it too. That's not, for me, the function that it serves, but does that make it still worthwhile?
[00:21:00] I think it does, and I, for one, will renew my license when the time comes up. So I shall put a link down in the show notes for you to head across. It does have my name in it. I don't get a kickback from it. I think it just allows the guys at ACDSee to see that it came through me. And I'll also put it on our Facebook group for all of the people that have been on our workshop community.
[00:21:19] But All in all, I highly recommend it.
[00:21:23] In the meantime, I hope the weather is a little nicer where you are. I hope it's more like yesterday than today. But whatever else, keep skipping, keep smiling, remember that what we do is an incredible job. I'm Paul, and whatever else, be kind to yourself.
[00:21:38] Take care.
Monday Jan 29, 2024
EP144 Your Words May Trigger A Thousand Pictures
Monday Jan 29, 2024
Monday Jan 29, 2024
I am recording this having just spent the day running one of our workshops with some of the nicest people imaginable. A top day (though I am now shattered!) at the end of a top month (January has been amazing) and who knows? Maybe it's the start of a top year. Don't want to tempt fate though...
This episode was triggered by a shoot I did last week, when just a few words seemed to change the course of a shoot.
Enjoy!
Cheers
P.
If you enjoy this podcast, please head over to Mastering Portrait Photography, for more articles and videos about this beautiful industry. You can also read a full transcript of this episode.
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If there are any topics, you would like to hear, have questions we could answer or would like to come and be interviewed on the podcast, please contact me at paul@paulwilkinsonphotography.co.uk.
Full Transcript:
[00:00:00] Can you believe it? January has nearly gone. We are almost into February, the second month of only 12 in a year, and this has already been one of the best starts we've ever had to any year. I'm Paul, and this is a very optimistic Mastering Portrait Photography Podcast. Well, I'll be honest, I did not see that coming.
[00:00:39] I think when we got to the end of last year, exhaustion took over, I crashed into Christmas, came out of it the other side, went into the convention, we're having a ball, but I think I don't know why I wasn't expecting this year to be quite as lively as it has been, but it does seem to be that there is a ton of energy out there.
[00:00:59] Maybe, maybe I was expecting the general election to be early in the year, and so things tend to get a little bit quieter around elections or around referenda. But the phone is ringing like crazy, emails are coming in. This week we've had a handful of reveals and they've all been brilliant. The clients have loved the images, everything's gone well.
[00:01:23] My bit of the puzzle is to create images, create an experience, send them away with memories and make sure they know what to expect when they come back for the sales, for the reveals. And they've gone really smoothly, which means I've done my bit properly, which makes me very happy because as you all know, a little bit chaotic at the best of times, uh, but it looks like my debriefs are working.
[00:01:43] I'm getting the point across to the client. We're creating pictures that people love and I am having a ball. I did think I might feel a little flat after the success of the Society's convention. It was such a good week. I know I spoke about it in the last podcast, but I'm still smiling at just how much fun we had, just how many people I met.
[00:02:06] The workshops were full. I spend a lot of time chatting photography, having interesting conversations, meeting interesting and funny people, and I think, I suppose, last week, I thought I might feel a little flat about it all, but that could not be further from the truth. If anything, I'm more energetic now than I have been for a long time, ignoring the fact that I'm also pretty exhausted and my eyes. I don't know why, but my eyes have been tired today. You know, you get those days when I put my glasses on and within three minutes, I've got to take them off, even though everything is just slightly blurry because I don't know why, it just makes my, it's just been making my eyes tired today.
[00:02:46] Maybe I just need to go and get them sorted, but this has been the most successful January we've ever had. And sometimes everything goes like that. It's just hectic, it's full of stuff, all unexpected, but being busy is a good thing. I think? Isn't it? Uh, I don't know. Anyway, today we've just finished the first of this year's workshops.
[00:03:11] This particular workshop was our From Shutter to Print workshop, uh, which steps through everything from picking up your camera all the way through to prepping your images ready for print. It's a huge, if you think about it, that's a huge field to cover. And of course, we try really hard to To tune it, we ask all of the delegates coming, we ask questions on what they're looking for.
[00:03:35] So we try to make sure that everything we're delivering is in line with what would be useful for them. And at this point of the day, it's quarter to eight in the evening. I don't know, a couple of hours ago when they left But they all look just slightly shattered, whether that's just because I've thrown so much information at them, whether it's just because it's a Monday, a dark Monday in January, or a combination of the two, I've no idea.
[00:03:59] Of course, I'm always slightly nervous of whether I've done a good job of delivering the information that would be useful for them, but it certainly has been a blast. And it was Loretta today. I don't know if I've ever talked about Loretta. Loretta was one of my clients. I photographed her wedding. Oh, it must be 10 years ago now.
[00:04:17] Um, and we've been friends ever since. She is a ball of energy and I absolutely love it when she's in the studio because there is not a dull moment. There's never a flat. Easy, calm couple of minutes. It's just 100 miles an hour from when she arrives to when she goes. So today has been one of those days.
[00:04:39] So thank you to everybody who came on the workshop. And obviously, thank you to Loretta for modeling. And once again, best lunch. ever. The guys, there's a delicatessen in our local town of Thame called What's Cooking. I don't know if a shout out to a small company in Thame is any good to them on a podcast that has photographers all over the world, but I'm going to give them a big shout because every time they do the food for us, it is a highlight of the day.
[00:05:06] I like to think the pictures I've created might be the highlight of the day. But no, no, I'm absolutely convinced that as everybody's driving away, they'll have been thinking that was a great lunch. We had beautiful food full of flavor, not your sandwich, not your average sandwiches that you get in packets or bowls of crisps.
[00:05:26] No, no, no. These are. Big plates of really beautiful vegetables and salads and a quiche and chicken and scotch eggs. It was absolutely incredible. So thank you to What's Cooking in Tame for yet again. They're our regular, they cater to our workshops all the time. I, when I set out with this thing. I wanted to deliver something that's genuinely useful, but also something that people will enjoy coming to.
[00:05:52] And lunch, for me at least, is a big part of that. I'm always disappointed when I go somewhere and it's a crappy lunch. You know, the edges of the sandwiches are curled. It's like tea in Tearns. Those annoyingly sweet biscuits that you get. None of that. Mid afternoon, so the first part of the day, the first half of the day is all photography.
[00:06:13] And the second half of the day is all Uh, techniques and things in Photoshop and Lightroom. And midway through that, Sarah arrives with Millionaire's Shortbread and tea and coffee and just lovely. And it just picks everybody up long enough for them to survive, survive me rabbiting on about Photoshop and Lightroom and retouching and layers and masks and curves and color profiles and LUTs and all of the things that are part of this thing.
[00:06:43] The mid afternoon snack is my highlight. I actually look forward to it. So I had this brilliant lunch. We've had beautiful people around, created amazing pictures, had a lot of fun. And mid afternoon, in comes a millionaire's shortbread. Oh my days. Yes, please. Thank you very much. Uh, anyway, what did I actually learn today?
[00:07:00] One of the things that came up in the editing section , someone asked me, Um, why I choose the order that I do for making my edits. And I've never really thought about why in anything other than, well I, you know, the background I'll do, I'll do this, then I'll do that, then I'll get all the way up to the front layers, then I'll do the retouching on skin, etc, etc, and any, you know, liquefying things.
[00:07:24] And actually when I thought about it, I stopped dead and I thought about it. I edit in the order of certainty that I won't need to go back to it. Now, I've never really thought about it logically like that till today. Maybe I should have. I've done it instinctively.
[00:07:42] So there's a thing called a desire line, or desire lines, and these are those paths that when you look at like a park, uh, like a park, particularly in a town, like a big expanse of green, or maybe in our village here we have, um, walk into the station, you go along the path, and the path dips into each of the cul de sacs.
[00:08:04] So the designers, the architects, or the town planners expect you to walk round the corner by about 20 feet, cross the road, Inside the cul de sac, and then come back out on the path, and on the corners of each of those cul de sacs, there's green, there's grass. But if you actually look, the grass is worn down because people have gone sod that and walking in a straight line.
[00:08:22] Similarly in a park, you'll see where the planners and the architects and the designers wanted you to go, and then you'll see where people actually go, and it's never the same place. Well, there's a name for it, they're called desire lines. And the same is true in how you develop processes in your business.
[00:08:39] I've talked about this before, and the trick really is to do the same thing over and over and over and find your own desire line. So much as you sit and plan things, much as you sit and analyse and decide to do this after that and that before this, in the end, you'll do what comes naturally. You'll go and basically The straightest line you can, the path of least resistance.
[00:09:00] It's called a desire line, it has a proper name. So when I was thinking about it today, because one of the delegates asked, why do I do it in this order? And, what I actually do, is I start with the background. So I've got my background layer that's come in from the raw file. I'll duplicate that, because then I've always got an original, uh, layer to go back to.
[00:09:19] Then I usually clean up, so if it's a studio shot, I'll clean up the background. I'll sort out anything to do with the background, because that isn't going to change. It, there's no real decisions to make there. I'm just going to do it, because Once it's done, it's done. I'll never need to go back to it. Then, I might work on, uh, all of the elements of the image that, although they might be quite intensive Photoshopping, they definitely need to be done.
[00:09:45] So, for instance, if someone's wearing a black outfit, as they were today, And there's lots of little hairs and flecks of dust and things. They're gonna need to be cleaned off. There's no ifs, no buts, no wherefores, no decisions to be made. I'm just going to clean it. I'll never need to go back to it because once it's clean, it's clean.
[00:10:03] And I can move on to the next stages. Then I've got a couple of decisions to make. Um, probably what I'm gonna do is do my skin work. So if it's a face, I'm a portrait photographer, there's nearly always a face. I'll do some skin work. I might Photoshop around the edges of the hair, any stray hairs. And I might do things like, um, frequency separation and some retouching with some dodging and burning.
[00:10:27] Then once I've got clear of that, probably what I might think about doing is maybe putting in a texture on top of a background layer. But things like that I might change my mind about, so they're right at the top of the stack. Um, then when I've got there If I need to do any liquefying or any puppet warping, this is the moment.
[00:10:44] It's really late in the stages of photography. Why? Because I'm not certain at this stage, or I'm not 100 percent ever at this stage, quite what would be the right amount of that kind of work. Of all the things we do, I think it's probably the most contentious. Changing someone's body shape because I've posed them badly.
[00:11:07] It's still an area where it's a little bit vague as to how much is the right amount to do, particularly as someone who photographs all sorts of walks of life, all sorts of ages. I don't want to be in that realm of, you know, everybody has to look a certain way. But equally, if I've posed someone not as optimally as I should have, maybe I'll just fix that.
[00:11:27] But it's going to happen really late in the edit. If later on, I'm really close to finishing an image at this point, so if I decide, well, I don't know, maybe I shouldn't have done that, I can go back and I don't have to undo any of the rest of it. And then the final tiny little bit, probably to put a vignette on top, uh, if I, if I want to, and then maybe finish off with a black and white conversion, or something like Nik Color FX.
[00:11:52] So basically what I'm doing is I'm working all the way up from the bottom with all of the things that really, really, really, uh, are definitely going to be done no matter what, all the way to the things actually if I change my mind tomorrow, I won't have to start again at the bottom of the layer stack.
[00:12:07] And I've never really thought about it like that. Um, so many of the processes in our studio are my own desire lines, but I've never thought about that one. So it's kind of cool that at the end of a workshop I've learned something really good as well. So thank you to everyone who came. Really excited about this year's workshops.
[00:12:24] All of them. They're going to be brilliant. Particularly if they go like today. But the one, if I'm honest, that I am most looking forward to is the one we're running on the 18th. So, uh, I've got about six, what's that, six, eight weeks, uh, to think about it. Uh, it's called at the moment, Ordinary to Extraordinary Studio Photography, probably because we were hunting around for a title for it.
[00:12:46] Sounds alarmingly like some of Gerry Guionis titles. Uh, but it could also have been called, I don't know, the Storeroom Studio or Lighting Up in the Lounge. No, no, not lighting up. That makes it sounds like you're smoking lighting in the lounge or maybe the basement backdrop. I don't know, but whatever it is titled, it's all about creating magic in small, awkward, tricky spaces, which is something I've had to do a lot of when I'm working in office buildings.
[00:13:17] When I'm working in other people's homes, you never quite know what you're going to get. And this whole workshop is dedicated to things like basements. Boardrooms, cellars, lounges, hallways, corridors, even store cupboards. I kid you not, I did a shoot the other week in a store cupboard. A big store cupboard, but a store cupboard.
[00:13:40] So at the moment I am coming up with ways to mimic what it's like to work in these little spaces that are awkward, but still create gorgeous images. Now I'm really excited about it because one of the things about smaller spaces is you tend to get, assuming you can get your kit. In there, you tend to get lower contrast because the light pings around a little bit and you can get some really beautiful, gentle, effortless setups.
[00:14:06] Uh, so that is going to be an absolute blast. Cannot wait, uh, for that. Uh, how am I doing? What did I say I was doing last week? Oh yes, the MPP website. Still rebuilding it. It's a long process. We are getting there, slowly but surely, we are getting there and it is taking shape. The content is nearly over. But I've still got to reorganise it all.
[00:14:29] And in the process of doing it, we're reading everything. I'm reading every article, double checking to see if it's still relevant. One or two of the things we've ported over that came from the book, and then went to the Mastering Portrait Photography website. Well, of course, the book was published in 2014.
[00:14:43] It's 10 years old this year. And some of the information in there is now, frankly, outdated. Anything to do with cameras and lighting, things have moved on. Probably also the Photoshopping, although luckily, the small bits of Photoshopping I put in were basically about principles, not about specifics. So, you know, generative AI hadn't even been thought of at that stage, nor had things like the removal tool, nor had actually quite a lot of the tooling in Photoshop or Lightroom.
[00:15:12] It just, the latest versions are worlds apart from what was going on in 2014, but equally, an awful lot of what's on there is Totally relevant, totally pertinent, uh, to, uh, what's going on. So, um, we are working on it. We will get there, trust me. When it's done, we will sing it from the rooftops. Uh, but I'll keep you up to date with how that is all going, uh, including my excitement, uh, for it.
[00:15:39] Um, this week's Thought of the Week. And it's a simple one. Well, they're always simple ones. I mean, I'm not a complicated guy, not really. This week's Thought of the Week is that you genuinely You genuinely have the power to make people feel amazing with words, just as you do with pictures, if not more so.
[00:15:59] Why do I say that? Well, two different clients this week, one in particular, he came, he was just a lovely guy. Uh, he made the claim right at the beginning of the session that he hadn't really ever had a picture that he really liked of himself. And I'm looking at him thinking, I'm not quite sure why. I can't see it visually, but maybe it's the way he reacted to being in front of the camera.
[00:16:24] We've got shooting and all was going reasonably well, and then suddenly. Something about the way he looked and the way he moved reminded me of Vernon Kay. He's from a different area of the country, one's from the North, Vernon Kay's from Bolton, I think, and my client's from the South. Different heights, I think Vernon Kay's about 6 foot 8 or something, ridiculous, 6 foot 2, I've no idea.
[00:16:46] But he's tall and he was a model, my client, anything but. But, there were definitely similarities in the mannerisms, in the haircut, and if I got the light in a certain position and the angle was right, In the way he, it lit his face. And I've said this, and I'm laughing. And he didn't know who Vernon Kaye was, which is a little bit sobering.
[00:17:08] Obviously, people who are younger, uh, maybe Vernon Kaye's not on their radar just yet. But. As I talked it through, visibly, the guy grew in confidence. You could see his body language change, you could see him just come out of himself a little bit, and of course as he's doing that, I'm getting better pictures because his confidence has grown.
[00:17:30] It's paying dividends just having someone in front of me who feels better about themselves. Now don't get me wrong, you cannot tell someone they look like Robert Redford if they don't. That's not what I'm saying. But in finding really good positives Things about someone, not only that you like, but things that you can verbalize, whether it's something to do with a glint in their eye, whether it's something to do with their clothing.
[00:17:54] In this instance, it was someone he looks a little bit like. And with a shoot, particularly with headshots where it could be corporate, it could be an author, it could be a musician or an artist, I don't necessarily know who's coming in or how confident they are. or what we're going to do. Sometimes I do, but not that often.
[00:18:16] And so I will nearly always in my head figure out an actor or a public figure who has a media presence. Obviously not, hopefully someone who's nice, not a Donald Trump or a Liz Truss. Uh, to, to, and what I'll do is it's with that personality is I'll figure out what would their agent have asked of them for photos.
[00:18:40] What would be in their portfolio, their lookbook? What would be on the inside sleeve of an author's bio? If they were in a BBC or an ITV or a Netflix drama, what would the cover shot look like? Because the thing about actors, in particular, the thing about actors, is they reflect Every day Life.. So you get actors from all sorts of backgrounds and skill sets.
[00:19:06] You get every ethnicity, you get every gender, you get every identity, you get attitudes, you get heights, you get everything. Because actors have to represent the world in which we're all familiar. So you get as many different types of actor. As you do people on the planet. And if you can find an actor that is close enough, close enough to the person you have in front of you, and then work out in your head quickly, what might the film they're in be?
[00:19:37] What might a book they've published be? What would a cover look like? What would the poster image on Netflix or Amazon or Maybe in an agent book or maybe on a, on a music album cover. I don't know. I'm making this up as I go along, but if you can picture it, if you can find it, if you can drag it out of your imagination and your history, two things.
[00:20:01] Firstly, you can say to the client, Oh man, you remind me of X. And that's a very helpful thing to do because the client will grow in confidence, but secondly , so do you. Because you're now shooting with something in mind that you might not have had when the shoot started. You might have, but you might not have.
[00:20:21] For me, I love that moment when I open the door and suddenly I've got to figure out what shots are going to look good. How am I going to do this? What's I'm going to look at their clothing, get them to talk me through their clothing and step through all of the things we're going to do with that. I love that energy and that positivity as we drive the shoot forward.
[00:20:39] And I'm not kidding, not only did my client feel better, but so did I because I was now producing better pictures because my client was reacting to the camera in a way that could really only result in beautiful images.
[00:20:54] Please do, when you're working, think of ways of making your client feel a million bucks. And language is every bit as important as what you do with your lights and your camera with Photoshop. Now that's a proper time to know, a proper point to end. As always, if you're interested in our workshops, just Google Paul Wilkinson Photography Workshops, or head over to Paul Wilkinson Photography and look for the coaching section.
[00:21:20] Please do give us a like, a wave, a review. Uh, some five stars maybe that'd be really nice, uh, on iTunes or wherever you get your podcast. If you wanna subscribe to the podcast, please do so on your, on your, uh, podcast Player of Choice so that every time I record one, it'll drop as if by magic, straight into the list of things to listen.
[00:21:41] Like I said last week, I'm gonna try and keep this as a weekly podcast, this time round. Shorter episodes, but far more. Of them. As always, if you have, uh, any questions at all, you can reach me onPaul@paulwilkinsonphotography.co.uk. We've had some really lovely emails this week from people. Thank you to everyone who's emailed in, uh, to say they're enjoying the podcast.
[00:22:03] Uh, so you can reach me atPaul@paulwilkinsonphotography.co.uk. And until next time, however your week is going, however, your January is ending, your February starting, or if you're just listening to the back catalog, whatever it is you're up to, whatever else. Be kind to yourself. Take care.
Monday Jan 08, 2024
EP141 New Year, New Adventures | Our Thoughts On The Year Ahead
Monday Jan 08, 2024
Monday Jan 08, 2024
So we're kicking off 2024 with a slightly random podcast from the cab of my Land Rover (thank you Craig from New Zealand for telling me he quite likes the rawness - pretty much gave me permission to once again strap on my Madonna-esque headset mic and ad-lib my way through the first episode of the year!)
This episode is a blend of a summary of 2023 and some ideas for 2024. If anyone is curious, the lighting I mention is the Aputure LS60x and LS60d (tunable, focussable LED spotlights), the Aputure Accent B7c and the Phottix TR200R RGB Tube Lights. All brilliant.
The Superclass and Masterclass we will be running at the Societies Convention 2024 can be found at https://thesocieties.net/convention/speakers/paul-wilkinson/ and we would love to see you there - either at the workshops or just for a well-deserved pint!
Finally, all of our workshops at our studio can be found at https://www.paulwilkinsonphotography.co.uk/photography-workshops-and-training/
Enjoy!
Cheers
P.
If you enjoy this podcast, please head over to Mastering Portrait Photography, for more articles and videos about this beautiful industry. You can also read a full transcript of this episode.
PLEASE also subscribe and leave us a review - we'd love to hear what you think!
If there are any topics, you would like to hear, have questions we could answer or would like to come and be interviewed on the podcast, please contact me at paul@paulwilkinsonphotography.co.uk.
Full Transcript:
[00:00:00] I wasn't intending to do too many more podcasts on the Land Rover. Um, however, However a nice guy called Craig from New Zealand emailed me over the Christmas period to say how much he enjoyed the podcast, how much he enjoyed Mastering Portrait Photography the website, and most importantly, at least from the perspective of this particular episode. How much he liked the ones from the Land Rover.
To use his words, they feel a little bit more raw, and I don't know what that means. Whether it means unscripted, or whether the sounds of a rattling Land Rover as I travel from point A to point B is somehow an interesting soundbed. I've no idea, he doesn't elaborate. However, thanks Craig partly because it's always nice to know that what you're doing doesn't just disappear into the ether, and I think as photographers we would All appreciate that sensation but also that even when I'm recording things literally in the last few minutes I have between jobs, because that's all the [00:01:00] time I'm managing to find, then even those episodes have their value.
So one way or another. A very happy new year. Please forgive the sound quality. I'm Paul, and this is the Mastering Portrait Photography Podcast.
Do you know one of the things you're meant to do as a sound engineer if you're recording for either, I guess, a podcast or radio or for video, is to record a sound bed, to record the ambient noise. So, forgive me while I record little bits like this. Yes, just, I suppose in theory it should be silence, but in a Land Rover nothing is silent.
But I'm going to need lots of little bits of the audio if I have to do any corrections. I'm off to another shoot. I'm working with the Hearing Dogs [00:02:00] today, just a few miles down the road, in the UK, a typically average journey, I suppose, half an hour or so. Uh, half an hour out, half an hour back.
If you live in the US, that's literally like tripping over your own doorstep because it's a journey under two hours. But here in the UK, we're used to slightly shorter journeys. The year has already got off to a ridiculous start. Uh, I actually thought, and every year I think this, that December will quieten down, I'll have a great break over Christmas, January will be quiet until it ramps up.
And actually all that happens is I tear through the whole of the holiday period at a hundred miles an hour, hoping I can get a breather. December was really busy, which was good. 2023 however wasn't the year that I'd like to relive. It hasn't been a bad year, but we've had to fight every inch of the way.
Nothing has ever landed in our lap. Both Sarah and I and Michelle. are grafters, [00:03:00] all of us work, and work hard for our living. But, last year really was a little bit of a brutal year. Um, just felt like the atmosphere out there in the marketplace wasn't everything it could have been.
Um, we've got very, or have had, very high inflation in the UK, certainly for this country. Now, if you're listening to us in Venezuela or somewhere, possibly not quite the same thing. But with inflation rates kicking up, uh, touching out somewhere near 10 percent and then obviously hikes in interest rates by the Bank of England to bring that back down, essentially what you've got is the perfect storm for people like us who work in the service sector, because our costs of production have gone up in line with inflation. At the same time, the costs of living for our clients have gone up by the same amount, and so the battle for us to be one of their priority spends is that little bit more tricky. However, we've [00:04:00] done it, we had a really good year in the end, but like I said, we have fought tooth and nail, uh, to do it, and I think that's the making of a business. I've said over the years, and I think it's probably out there on a podcast, I'd be surprised if it wasn't, that being a successful business when things are going well is actually really easy. There's not an awful lot to it.
You do your job, you create what you create, you sell it, you move on to the next one. Don't get me wrong, I know it's much more nuanced than that, I live this world. But broadly speaking, when things are going right, this job isn't that hard. It's when things are tough, that they show your real character.
So, I've spoken about customer service, it's when it goes wrong, really, that you show the true Skillset, the true worth in everything that you do. When things are a little bit tougher, that's when you have to dig deep. It's when you have to show what you are made of.
And we've done that over the past 12 months, and we ended December with some beautiful shoots, some lovely clients, [00:05:00] one or two unexpected sales that came in from jobs that I guess there was at least one that I had mothballed, to the point of it being in the archive when the orders eventually came in.
Didn't expect to hear from them, hadn't heard from them in 18 months. So for a business like ours, where we are very much about a personal service, it's in person sales, it's an in-person experience, it's about memories, it's about laughter, it's about feeling valued. Wherever possible, we do not do remote sales.
I don't do remote sales for precisely the reason that it's taken 18 months for one of our clients to come back and order their pictures. And that's in spite of us doing all the usual stuff, we've emailed them, we've called them. Not to be, not to hassle them. Just to see if there's anything we can do to help.
But the problem with non in person sales, online sales is of course. You have very few levers you can pull, and there's not a lot you can do. You can [00:06:00] say you're going to take the album down, which we did. In fact, the album was dormant for probably two thirds of that time. We'd just changed the password so that no one could log in. But of course, when they emailed and said, Oh, I've just noticed I can't log in, we opened it back up. So it's not a real lever, it's just A way of us knowing that they're looking at the album again. And the order came through, and it was a beautiful order.
So it's great. It's a proper Christmas bonus. Unexpected. Out of the blue. Beautiful album. Beautiful Graphistudio album. Beautiful frames. Big frames. And the whole thing, in the end, closed out at a really nice value sale.
So there's a lesson in there somewhere, which is, you know, don't ever write anything off. And we don't write anything off. I didn't know what the title of this podcast would be. Maybe that's what it should be. It's, you know, don't write any job off. But actually, this is one of those unscripted podcasts where I haven't really got a clue exactly what it was I was going to talk about. So I have this kind of list of things in my head, but who knows whether I'll get to the bottom of [00:07:00] it.
Uh, on this year, on the title or on the topic of it being a New Year, of course everybody sits down and makes their list of New Year's resolutions, which actually I don't. I've never been a believer, and I think, I thought that's what the title of this podcast was going to be. I've never been a believer in New Year's resolutions.
I don't know why, I just think if you want to do something, do it. Make, make every day the opportunity for a resolution. That's not to say that I'm really good at doing that. That's not to say that every time I've thought, you know what, I'm going to make that happen this year. I'm going to lose three stone and get fit, for instance.
You know, doesn't happen. I'm going to stop drinking, doesn't happen. I'm going to become a vegetarian like my daughter, doesn't happen. There are plenty of things that I'd like to do that just Do you know what? They haven't happened. But Equally, I don't wait till New Year to change the big stuff.
But, and there is a but, is that New Year does mark a [00:08:00] natural transition, certainly when it comes to reporting your successes as a photography business. We actually don't report our profits December to December. our accounting period is September to September. But we do Internally, track it in standard calendar years.
Why? Well, actually because for social photographers there is a natural hiatus around about the end of December. People will have rollover jobs, we will very often have jobs in the diary. In the gap between Christmas and New Year simply because they book in for those. So it's not a perfectly clean break where , it stops, it starts.
But there's definitely a feeling in the marketplace that, oh, let's wait till next year. If somebody rings us and says, I want to do a shoot for my family, and if it's any time around November, the chances are they're gonna say, oh, do you know what, let's push that into next year. Let's see what next year brings.
There's a lot of that. And so it's [00:09:00] good for us to have a data point that I can compare year on year, decade, on decade these days, . And of course, covid sort of flung that up in the air, uh, three or two and a bit years of not really being able to rely on anything.
Our data is absolutely shot: the trajectories, the averages, our historical patterns have somewhat collapsed. We are getting back, I'll be honest about that, things are beginning to look a little bit more familiar, the end of last year, or the bulk of last year, it was definitely starting to feel that way. However, things that we are looking forward to doing, so some of this stuff kicked off last year, and some of it is things we're gonna do this year.
So last year was a big sort of step up in us building our workshops and our workshop community. Lots to do on that front, we're not by any means in the position we are with our photography. Photography was a solid vision [00:10:00] for us. We can take a picture, we've worked out that the quality was good, we have fab suppliers, we have solid workflows, efficient practices, we knew our way around the marketing.
Over a few years we built the business reasonably sure footedly. Obviously, we've tripped over some things like all businesses do. Not gonna say for a minute we got it all perfect. But it was something we could get our arms around and could understand. And the minute I knew we had a good product then I knew we could build a business around it.
And I knew we had a good product because I've been taking pictures since I was a kid. I've been creating images and portraits since I was 10 years old, so I knew I could take a picture in the end, ignoring the whole kind of self confidence or insecurity bits and the imposter syndromes and all of the rest of the stuff we talk about all the time.
I knew I could take a picture.
Training courses and workshops are slightly different. I still know I can take a picture, but whether or not we could run good workshops, whether or not we could supply great materials, [00:11:00] these were questions that we still had in our heads.
So, for instance, one of the things I was curious about was whether it would be a good idea to set the context of each workshop with a little presentation. I'm, I'm not a fan. When I go on a training course, I really, really, really want to see or want to understand how the person giving a workshop does what they do.
Whatever it's in, whether it's marketing, sales, Photoshopping 3D, visuals. Customer relationships, I don't know, many, many different aspects to this business. But if I want to go and learn from someone, I want them to hit the road sorry, hit, yeah, no, hit the road quick and get into the nitty gritty. I'm not a big fan of spending hours in a preamble.
However, one of the things I did pick up on is that you do need to be organized in your approach. And whether I like it or not, and whether I'm comfortable with it or not, I'm not that guy. I'm not the guy that thinks in a linear fashion. I can [00:12:00] when I have to. You know, I spent 10 years working as a manager in IT.
Trust me, I can when I have to. But that's not my natural skill set. I'm not linear. And I can, if I could see Sarah's face when she listens to this podcast, she'd be like, yeah, no shit, Sherlock. You are not linear. Because Sarah's very organized, very drilled, very Put together, and I'm so not those things.
I wish I was, sometimes, but out of the same chaos comes the imagery and the ideas that we have. So, I can't turn it off. I don't want to turn it off. If anything, being slightly chaotic is my superpower, because it brings ideas, and it brings energy, and it brings drive. But, equally, it brings inconsistency.
It brings me being really easily distracted. Distracted by breathing, you know? It's just ridiculous. So, some of the things we did last year were to [00:13:00] try and see if there are ways in which I can help myself and help the delegates on our workshops not suffer at the hands of my own chaos. And one of them is we do a quick presentation, half an hour, forty minutes.
If I get that right, of course that becomes a piece of collateral that we can send out to you if you come on one of our workshops. It becomes a series of ideas and diagrams that maybe I can use for training videos. It becomes some words that maybe I can re craft into maybe a podcast or for when I'm writing with NPhoto magazine or whether I'm writing for Professional Photographer.
So these are just parts of the puzzle. And we got that together last year and the feedback we're getting from our workshops is just phenomenal. It's absolutely brilliant that people have come on it. They seem to enjoy it. They come back. So to all of those people who are multiple offenders, thank you. It's so lovely to see you all. It feels [00:14:00] like we're beginning to build a little community. So now I know I've got the product right or we're in the, we're going in the right direction with the product. Now we can really start to focus on it. Forgive the pun. We can really start to drive that home just like we did with the core photography business.
And that's the target of this year. Mostly is to drive the training. Drive The platforms, the videos, all of the stuff that goes around that. The podcast is a big part of that. But finding the time when I'm on my own To sit and record is or has proven tricky over the past month or two. So, Christmas and New Year were lovely.
I digress here a little bit, but there's a slight point to it. Christmas and New Year were lovely. So, we stopped, we shut the studio down. Day before or two days before Christmas Eve I went shopping with my boy to do some mop up. Spent a really, just had a really lovely day the day before Christmas Eve.
Christmas Eve onwards up until, really up [00:15:00] until New Year's Day was spent with family and friends. And I really do mean pretty much every waking minute was with people I love. And now I'm an extrovert. In theory, as an extrovert, every one of those moments with family and friends is a moment to recharge.
It's a moment for me to really feel energised. Yeah, that's, that's an extravert I love being around people. But I tell you what, when I got to New Year's Day, all I really wanted to do was just find myself in a dark room. And switch the social side of my brain off and do something much less much less social I suppose is the only word I can think of.
I've had a couple of days of that and I'm beginning to get myself back together. And then, uh, last or two nights ago straight back out photographing the Christmas party for the Le Manoir chefs. And the staff, [00:16:00] which is riotous. Now those guys, Le Manoir is two Michelin starred hotel and restaurant, or restaurant with rooms, I think is how they like to call it.
It's an amazing place, beautiful food, voted one of the top hotels in the world. It's in the top 50 every year, I think it was in the top 10 this year. Absolutely phenomenal place, and they work hours that make mine look kind of shabby, I think. They work long hours, it's hard graft, they love it, they're brilliant.
But when you're thrown into their Christmas party, they don't half let off a little bit of steam, and it is great. So it was really nice to have a couple of quieter days, and then the Christmas party at La Manoire with my friends who are chefs, front of house gardeners, housekeeping you name it, the management team, marketing, sales, the HR team who asked me to do it.
They're just brilliant, and I've come away from it buzzing and energized all over again. So I cannot wait for the year. [00:17:00] And on that, we are building the workshops up.
On that note, we have a couple actually, I'm going to be at the convention, the Societies of Photographers convention in January, I'm hoping there's some structure to this podcast by the way I'm gonna have to finish in about 5 to 10 minutes because I'll arrive at my client and I'll pick it up again, but I'll let you bet I'll repeat a bit because I won't remember where I got to, and I don't want to have to spend hours in edit, I don't have time to spend hours in the edit, so this is gonna be one of those podcasts That is pretty raw, it's gonna come out of the recording unit as it is, and it's gonna go straight out.
As you're hearing it, I don't think there'll have been very much editing except to stick in some music underneath it, and just to check the sound quality's alright. So, forgive me for that. But it's gonna be well I'm at the convention, 17th, I'm at the whole of the convention, but I'm doing two workshops, I'm doing a super class on the 17th.
And a Masterclass on the 18th. The Superclass you have to book in advance. I think there's one place left. That's all. If anybody fancies [00:18:00] it, head over to the Society's Convention and look for the Superclasses. We're gonna spend the whole of that three, three and a half hours. Creating headshots and personal branding images.
I've never met the couple who are my models. I'm looking forward to meeting them. They sound really cool. But we're going to explore lighting, how you interact. We're going to talk about whatever people want to talk about. Whether it's the marketing side of it, whether it's the business side of it.
Whether it's how you tell a story through the photos. It's whether, how you weave the story of the shoot. Because I think that's an underrepresented part of social photography is how you thread your way in a meaningful fashion through the shoots. That's the superclass. That's on the 17th.
On the 18th, I'm doing a masterclass, you don't need to book for that, but I'd love to see you. It's free if you have a ticket to the event. Come along and we're going to be talking about specifically ten lighting patterns. I'm going to put together ten easy lighting patterns that you can replicate. One of the things I'm acutely aware of is, [00:19:00] I find much of taking a portrait second nature to me.
I do it Automatically, I can see light, I can feel it, I can almost smell it out. anD I, I don't know why or how that should be, but it is. So when I'm positioning lights, I know exactly what I'm doing, because I'm simply looking at what's in front of me. But, I've had to critique a few images some people have been on a workshop, some people have simply have asked me for some mentoring, and reading light, it turns out, is not the most natural thing in the world, and I, I assumed it was.
So I've clearly misunderstood some aspects of what, how we can teach this, so part of the Masterclass really, or part of the idea behind the Masterclass really, is to see if we can nail down ten lighting patterns with two lights, so we use one light, we'll use two lights, we'll create some drama, we'll create some theatre, we'll create some very basic stuff, [00:20:00] But the idea is we're going to hand over some real examples done live in front of the audience as to how you can do this with basic equipment.
We're going to do it in a normal room. It's just one of the meeting rooms in a hotel. We're going to do it with normal kit. I will have two lights I will, I think, have a pop up backdrop, which I'll bring in, just so I've got a plain backdrop, because I can't guarantee it. And we're going to go through some of the ideas.
And that's kind of where we're taking all of our workshops now, is to give our delegates things they can take away with them. Proper, right, okay, if you do this, that will work. One of the things I've always fought against, the reason we haven't really gone down that road up until now, is I've Rebelled a lot against people telling me how I should do it.
And I never ever, still don't, want to be the guy that says this is how you should do it. And I try really hard to remember at the beginning of every workshop, every presentation I [00:21:00] ever do. I did one the other day, we did a webinar, and I started by telling everybody on it. It's very personal to me. My eyes, my clients, my lights, my camera, my style. All of it is about me and what I like. It might not work for everybody. So I can give you insights into the thought process and this is what I thought we would do.
We'll give insights, we'll give ideas, we'll give inspiration, we'll energize. And all of that works. But the problem is if you don't understand the fundamentals or can't read it like some photographers can, then it becomes slightly trickier. So the masterclass, the second of the two classes, the masterclass at the convention on the 18th of January, it's gonna be much to do with that.
So if you're round the convention, you're a loose end. I think it's 11 till one 30 on the 18th. So it's a mid-morning slot. You'll finish your breakfast, you'll have had a couple of cups of coffee. You'll be thinking, what the hell am I gonna do today? Why not stick your head in and come and have a play?[00:22:00]
So that's what we're going to do. And at that stage, I'm going to break off here now, because as I turn this left hand bend on a very wet road. Here we go. I'm just going to arrive at my client, which is great. I'm photographing for the Hearing Dogs this afternoon. I'm photographing a re a recipient, so a partnership, a hearing dog and a a deaf person whose story is both heartbreaking and inspirational in equal measure.
So I'm looking forward to that. It's going to be a lovely shoot. I will pick up again when I've broken off and let you know how that went. and finish off this podcast. Once again. Craig, thank you very much for telling me that I can, if I wish to record podcasts in the car,
So just to pick up where I left off, just come to the end of a lovely shoot. Sorry, also weaving, or trying to weave through traffic in a very small Buckinghamshire town. Wilmslow, it turns out, is full of tiny little [00:23:00] streets. Many of which I'm navigating a large Land Rover through.
It's not easy and speaking at the same time. Apparently, it turns out, I can just about walk and chew gum at the same time, but cannot talk and drive a Land Rover at the same time. too: must be two different bits of my brain. Okay. And a nice person's let me out, and another person has refused to let me out.
And there's a motorbike, and I've just landed into school traffic. In Bucks, which means that no one's paying attention at all to anyone except their own journey home and trying to get back for our, I'm assuming, a cup of tea and to get the kids a sandwich. Where are we? So yes, I just finished a really beautiful shoot with a really lovely person who she lost her hearing.
Well, she had an illness, went into a coma, came out of the coma, and discovered that she had lost her hearing, one heck of a shock. And so she now has a Hearing Dog, but she's profoundly [00:24:00] deaf, has absolutely no hearing at all.
And the hearing dog provides all of the support that she needs. So if the doorbell goes, the phone goes. Smoke alarms, obviously. Every minutiae of life that we take for granted, the hearing dog supports them. A hearing dog. A beautiful spaniel. I'm not going to give any names away, because that's not my place to.
But an absolutely wonderful shoot. And I read in the notes that she wasn't particularly keen on being photographed. Not someone who's used to being photographed, not someone who enjoys being photographed. And you read these notes and I would say 80 percent of my clients sit in that bracket. Um, there are days, there are days when I wake up and wished everybody I photographed really, really, really wanted to be photographed.
Models and the like. Because man, wouldn't that be just glorious? Really easy too. It'd be wonderful that every person in [00:25:00] front of the camera wanted to show off, and they just loved it, and they were confident, and knew how beautiful they were. But that's just not my world. So the lady, really super smart lawyer didn't really want to be, well my note said that she didn't really feel comfortable being photographed, but it turns out, uh, She could not have been lovelier.
Did I just say that right? Lovelier, lovelier. She could not have I'm concentrating on driving. Lovelier. And the shoot has just been absolutely beautiful. The dog was stunning. The light has been really nice. We're under a rain warning at the moment. We're about to get some really heavy rain, but it held off long enough that we've done the whole shoot in the dry. Well, in the dry, but not on the dry. Everywhere. I don't know what it's like where you are around the world, but in Britain, just at the moment, we've had back to back rainstorms of one sort or another. Some of them big enough to be given names.
And we've got another tranche of it coming in in about an hour. Oh, half an hour, about half an hour. [00:26:00] I don't know why that matters. I'm one of those people that have to suddenly get to detail. I don't know why. I apologize. Anyway, it's been a brilliant afternoon, and it's these kinds of shoots that remind me why I do what I do.
Because just having people like the lady I've just photographed in front of the camera who full of energy, and smart, and laughter. She can hear nothing. Everything is being done through lip reading, which is, for me, is not I mean, I'm used to working around the deaf community, but I'm one of those people that spends a lot of time looking to the sides to see where the next shot's coming from.
So, mid sentence, I'll suddenly find myself looking away. And, until working with the Hearing Dogs For Deaf People, I didn't even know I did it. And, of course, it becomes a profound challenge that I need to concentrate and I've spent the afternoon concentrating on making sure no matter who I'm talking to or what I'm thinking for the next shot I must always [00:27:00] have eye contact with the person, the hearing dog recipient because They're relying on seeing my lip movements to be able to understand what's going on.
And it, you become acutely aware of it. but equally, she said, it's really bad when people try to talk slowly because that changes her understanding of the words. Because she's lip, because she's lip reading, if you speak slowly, actually that makes it harder to understand the wording. So all in all something I need to continue to work on and get better at.
At least I'm aware of it, and I try, I try pretty hard, but the photos we've got are absolutely beautiful. So where were we, where were we? Oh, I think we'd come to a bit, some of that training, I've no idea, I told you I'd lose track. podcast part two, I'm Paul, and this is still the Mastering Portrait Photography Podcast.
As I wind my way through the lanes. Other things that are happening in the studio. Obviously we're working on the setup of our training and our workshops. I'm about to re [00:28:00] platform all of our websites onto a new platform. Not quite sure which one it's going to be just yet.
But one of the challenges I guess all of us have is our web presence is really important, and so I built all my own websites built it all on WordPress. So all hosted it's all currently hosted on Siteground but over the years, a combination of price walking, which simply means every year it's got more and more expensive. You can get a good deal to start with, but gradually, I mean, we pay now.
For two, the two main of our websites, I think the basic hosting is about 1200 quid a year for the two. And on top of that are all the little plug ins that we've had to buy and put in to run things like the shop, to run things like the automated side of it, the emails, to do certain things like display the images the way I want them.
All of these bits of software are licensed. [00:29:00] Which is fine, but if you added all of that in to get in as well, rather, I think you get up into the region of sort of 1, 500 quid a year, 1, 600 pounds a year, somewhere around there for the two websites. Now that's fine, we're a big business. We work really hard at what we do, and we can justify paying properly, and paying, well pay our licenses anyway, but we can justify all of the expense of the website simply because it's a part of our turnover.
However, what irks me is firstly how difficult it is to keep on top of all of the updates of all of the component bits of software and also just how expensive it is when it doesn't need to be. It's not about the fact that I have to invest in it, it's about the fact that I don't think I need to do, I need to invest the time and the finances to the level we are.
So I'm hunting around at the moment. I think I know what we're gonna do, and I think I know how I'm gonna do it. It'll take time, which is [00:30:00] something I don't have a lot of, but it's still got to be done. But if I can get all of the websites into one place, simplify them down, they don't need to be as comp, I'm really proud of our websites, but they do not need to be as complicated as they have evolved to be. And it's not that I set out to make them complicated, or I set out to do stuff that's particularly difficult. It's just that, year on year on year, as you add functionality, as you try to do new things, as you get on top of SEO, and structuring, and then keeping a track of 301s and 404s, and then you've got to have, like, an SEO tool to help you make sure your SEO's alright.
And then you've got albums and portfolio bits of kit. You've got sliders. Oh man, there's so many bits of software. All of which is necessary to do what I have in my head. So what I've got to do first is figure out what's the bare minimum I can get away with. And then secondly, re platform all of that. So the websites will still be [00:31:00] beautiful.
But if I can get it all under one roof, it'll be much easier to manage. And I don't have the time, to manage everything anymore, I simply don't. So that's, that's on the list for this year. And the other thing we're gonna do this year, or I've already started doing, is gradually pushing more into continuous lighting and away from strobes.
Now, this is one which I don't yet know quite where the journey's gonna take me, but the foray that we've had into it so far has been incredibly rewarding. LED technology now with high CRI LEDs is at the standard where the quality is nearly as good as strobes. It's not, I still love the light you get off a Zenon strobe.
There's something really beautiful about the quality of light, and of course, massively punchy. You get a huge amount of light, [00:32:00] a huge amount of kick. out of pretty much any strobe compared to an LED. If you had LEDs as bright as the strobe, as bright as the instantaneous flash of a strobe, people wouldn't be able to see.
It's, you know, so bright, there's so much energy in that tiny fraction of a second, that, I don't know, thousandths of a second of light burst. But working with LED makes it easier to do video and you really can see What you're gonna get. And my logic is a very simple one. If it's good enough for the film industry, and the TV industry, Netflix and the like, then it's good enough for photography.
Yes, alright, there are some things I'm gonna have to learn how to do differently. But I love doing that anyway. I'm a quick learner on most things. And so, I'm really excited about it. We've started I bought I've got a couple of Aputure Lightstorm Focusable, so these have got focusing lenses on the front focusable spots, and [00:33:00] they've got the old Bowens S type mounts on them, so we can mount pretty much anything.
I use Profoto strobes in the studio but I've got these Aperture Lightstorm tunable lights, which are absolutely phenomenal. Really bright when you want them to be. If you turn them right down, they'll last for hours on a single charge. Also I've got a couple of, they were just cheap. I was working in the flash centre doing judging for the BIPP.
And it was the flash centre in Birmingham were hosting us. And they had these light strips, just light rods. LED, Phottix. I think they were 40 quid each. I mean, they're really pennies. You know, a tank of fuel in this Land Rover is about 80 quid, so for the price of a tank of fuel, I can get two highly tunable, full spectrum lights that will do any color on the color wheel.
As well as doing normal presets. They also do some clever things with, you can make, turn them into police lights and all the rest of it. They're quite cool. [00:34:00] So I got those working in the studio, but one of the challenges when you're working with Available light is the camera is going to capture everything it sees.
With strobes, I don't worry about the lighting in the studio because the strobe overpowers it. Doesn't really matter. But with LED, you have to get the lighting, the whole lighting, exactly as you want it. And it caught us out a little bit when we were recording a video recently, and the video is simply too dark because I've lit my subject perfectly.
But I haven't lit the rest of the studio because it never really occurred to me, and I need to do it, and it's fine. Everything's okay, and certainly the subject looks incredible, but when you look at the footage of me talking to camera, for instance, I'm in the gloom somewhere. And although we tried to sort it out a little bit, we haven't quite got there.
So I've now retrofitted all of the lighting in the studio, so all of our normal overheads, office lighting if you like, in the studio, with, again, made by Aputure. They are, I can't, I think they're called [00:35:00] B7Cs or BL7Cs, which are, they look like a fat light bulb with an Edison screw thread, so they'll fit pretty much any light fitting from 100 volts up to about 250 volts.
You screw them into a light fitting, and in normal mode, they just behave like normal light bulbs, except that you can hook them up to the same app I use for the Aputure Lightstorms, and you can control them completely from the phone. So I can control how strong they are. I can also control, again, like the Phottix, light sticks, I can control exactly what color they are.
So these things, they're only about 50 quid each, but they are fully tunable. Any color I like and some special effects, if ever I did video that needed to feature, I don't know, police, car or fireworks or firelight, , it does all of those, that's of almost no interest to me. It's quite a cool thing to do, but.
Not really for what I do. But I can control their light to be any colour [00:36:00] temperature and any power. On top of that, if you unscrew the light, it becomes a battery powered light. It simply can sit in someone's hand, or you can put it into any light fitting, even if it's not plugged in, and it will work exactly the same.
It doesn't really make any difference. It'll last for about seven hours off the battery. These are really cool. So, we've started to experiment. A little way to go. I need some slightly, some LED panels. I've got a couple of bits. I do have some LED panels, but they're slightly older and the high CRI on the newer LEDs, you can really see the difference when you're illuminating skin.
But it's a whole new adventure and it does change the way you shoot. So at the moment when I'm shooting, particularly when I'm doing headshots, I'll use, I'll do some with strobes because you get that glorious, clean light. With really deep depths of field. And obviously, ProPhoto units that modifies everything is absolutely stunning.
So that's not something I'm gonna [00:37:00] completely get rid of anytime soon because I'm addicted to the quality of the light. But in the second half of the shoot, or maybe for certain shots, I'll bring out some LED lighting, maybe with a soft box or maybe LED, the strips and. You then get this beautiful thing where you can have much shallower depths of field.
So, and total control, you can see exactly how the light's going to play. You can change the colours of the lights as if I was gelling the strobes, but it's so much easier. Literally, I can just dial it in to the app and change the colour of the lights. It's opening up new avenues to explore where we can play with colour because it's quicker.
We can play with really shallow depths of field. I'm unlikely to ever be able to light, a family easily, because the power you'd need to get the depth of field you need, at least with the ISOs that we're still using at the moment, is possibly a bit too bright. But, [00:38:00] ISOs are becoming normal.
The party I shot for the hotel I shot nearly all of it. Our ISO 10,000, ISO 10 K. That's just ridiculous in terms of sensitivity. But I wanted to capture the colors of the party. I wanted to capture the candlelight. I wanted to capture the sort of fairy lights and effects lights that the events company had put on.
I wanted all of that, and I didn't wanna bounce, flash in and kill it. I did, obviously, when they're doing their awards. I used a flash gun. I used a, a speedlight on the camera because. Me being creative with the lighting is really not part of that puzzle. They need to be well lit, they need to be clear, they want to be able to celebrate the awards they've won.
But, when it comes to the event side of it, the party side of it, I shot nearly all of it at ISO 10, 000 and then simply ran it through, for this particular run, I ran it through Adobe Lightroom, the AI noise reducer. I didn't turn the noise [00:39:00] reduction up very much, 20%? Tiny. But it has a really profound quality to it now.
So you can run at ISO 10, 000 and still get pretty clean images. You lose a little bit of detail, it can get a little bit mushy. But it's a 50 megapixel camera, the Z9. And these pictures are not going to be used anywhere bigger, I'm going to guess, than 7x5. That's it. They're not hero pictures, they're not going out as posters.
So, I've got a huge amount of latitude. And to be fair, I probably didn't even need to put the noise reducer on it, but I did just because, it's like somebody's going to zoom in and go, that's a bit grainy. Why do you need high ISOs, or clean high ISOs with LED? Well, think about it. Let's say I want to get to f8, right?
Let's say I want to photograph a group of four or five people, and I'm going to need f8. To get the front to back bite in the image. So that the person at the front of the shot is nice and sharp, the person at the back of the shot is nice and sharp. Now, with a strobe, [00:40:00] that's really easy. With a strobe, I can turn the power wherever I like it, it won't make an awful lot of difference to the people in the shot, it's just a bright flash, and it's done.
And I can set the camera at ISO 100, F8, F11, F16, whatever. Doesn't matter. It'll override all the light in the room, and I've got plenty of depth of field. Really easy. Now. If I turned my LEDs, and I'd need a few more than I own, up to get ISO 100, 100th of a second, f11, that is bright sunlight. That's effectively daylight, but on a sunny day.
So, that's not really practical in a studio if I don't want people to be squinting. I could turn the power of the lights down, and use less power on the lights, but then of course I'm going to need to use slower shutter speeds, wider apertures, or higher ISOs. And now, with the ability to clean up even high ISO, [00:41:00] I'm starting to teeter on the edge of being able to do practically what you can do with strobes, with LEDs instead.
Not there yet, but we're heading In the right direction. So that's on my list. That's part of this year. I'm gonna re-platform, the websites we're gonna switch over to LED. And we're gonna just see whether, for instance, we can create better videos, more videos, so it in, in the end. This year, it is all about making the changes we need to the business that we are looking forwards to.
More about training, more about workshops, more about creating videos, about creating educational materials. Who knows, who knows, one day I might even get around to writing a second book to go with the very successful Mastering Portrait Photography. Mastering Portrait Photography Part 2, the sequel.
This time it's personal. Mastering Portrait Photography Armageddon. I don't know, maybe I'll do it like Fast and Furious. We'll just do two, then three, then four, then [00:42:00] five, and then twenty eight. Who knows. But at the moment I haven't got that in me. The problem is always, of course, like all of us, our real clients, the clients that pay our everyday bills, the portrait clients, the wedding clients, the commercial clients I'm gonna have to service those guys first.
And that's always the kicker, is how do I manage to keep the revenue coming in just as we need it, while still effectively building an entire add on or new business. It's a new business. So that's the puzzle. I will get to the bottom of it. I will figure it out. I'm enjoying the process very much.
And so that, for us, is the year ahead. As I drive through, the rain has just arrived. It's dark and gloomy. My windscreen wipers are now squeaking in the background. I'm sure you can hear that on the recording. I'm driving through a very beautiful bit of the country. I'm running along one of the ridges in the Ridgeway.
That's the Chiltern Hills. Just driving along and in spite of it being gloomy and dramatic, there's [00:43:00] fields full of sheep, there's just past an old farm, it's actually one of my clients here, and it's beautiful I'm guessing that is a medieval farmhouse, that is well old, that's got to be, and you're looking at the roof line, it's all sagged and these tiny little bricks and the road dips and drives around into the distance, it's Quite beautiful in spite of the rain.
So there you have it. Please do head over to Mastering Portrait Photography. Also have a look if you're interested in the workshops that we're running this year. They're all out all up. The first six, at least, are up. The first few sold out literally within a day or so. Which is really flattering, but then gives me the problem of having to immediately schedule in new ones.
There are a few spaces on some of the others though, so if you fancy coming and having an absolute blast about portrait photography in particular, whether it's you want to talk about the business side, the photoshopping side, or camera craft [00:44:00] or studio lighting, then please do head over to Paul Wilkinson Photography and look for the section on workshops.
You can just google Paul Wilkinson Photography workshops. And you'll find them pretty quick. Whatever else happens, I hope your holiday season was peaceful. I hope you had a lovely, restful one. If not, I hope you're having an absolute party. And so, here's to 2024. Let's hope that it's Well, let's hope that it's a nicer year than it seems to have been in the first few days.
There's nothing in the news that fills me with very much joy. So I'm just ignoring the news. I'm not paying any attention to it. I'm not getting involved. It just upsets me. I'm going to continue to do what I do and enjoy spending time with my clients, enjoy spending time with other photographers.
Basically, I'm just going to make the most of my time on the planet. Here's to 2024 and whatever else, remember, be kind to yourself. Take care. [00:45:00]
Tuesday Nov 21, 2023
EP140 Perfection Is A Luxury You (And Your Clients) Can Ill Afford
Tuesday Nov 21, 2023
Tuesday Nov 21, 2023
At this time of year, more than any other, I find myself chasing my tail to complete everything I need to get done before the seasonal deadlines (otherwise our clients will be disappointed!) Of course, I want everything I do to be perfect but, as I have learned time and again, perfection is something that is unattainable and it is bad business too - finding the sweet spot balancing quality and time is the trick here. In the end, if you spend limitless hours reaching for something that cannot be reached, it would be tough to find clients who could afford it!
I mention an EP that a friend of ours recorded and created a vinyl record as well as uploaded to Spotfy. The EP can be found here on Spotify.
I only played on "I Think We're Alone Now" and "Teenage Dirtbag" but let me know what you think!
The Superclass and Masterclass we will be running at the Societies Convention 2024 can be found at https://thesocieties.net/convention/speakers/paul-wilkinson/ and we would love to see you there - either at the workshops or just for a well-deserved pint!
Finally, all of our workshops at our studio can be found at https://www.paulwilkinsonphotography.co.uk/photography-workshops-and-training/
Enjoy!
Cheers
P.
If you enjoy this podcast, please head over to Mastering Portrait Photography, for more articles and videos about this beautiful industry. You can also read a full transcript of this episode.
PLEASE also subscribe and leave us a review - we'd love to hear what you think!
If there are any topics, you would like to hear, have questions we could answer or would like to come and be interviewed on the podcast, please contact me at paul@paulwilkinsonphotography.co.uk.
Monday Oct 02, 2023
EP139 The Judging Is Done (And So What Have I Learned?)
Monday Oct 02, 2023
Monday Oct 02, 2023
The judging for the BIPP 2023/2024 International Print Awards is done and dusted and there some simply stunning images have been on the lightbox.
The results come out later in the year, but I thought I'd muse on some of the things I learned along the way by listening to the judges as well as some observations of my own. Some of these you've heard me mention before, but one or two may be new to you (and to me for that matter - who knew that all judges have the same problem when it comes to picking out their own competition images?!) but all of them are useful.
Enjoy!
Cheers
P.
If you enjoy this podcast, please head over to Mastering Portrait Photography, for more articles and videos about this beautiful industry. You can also read a full transcript of this episode.
PLEASE also subscribe and leave us a review - we'd love to hear what you think!
If there are any topics, you would like to hear, have questions we could answer or would like to come and be interviewed on the podcast, please contact me at paul@paulwilkinsonphotography.co.uk.
Monday Feb 27, 2023
EP134 The Power Of Thank You!
Monday Feb 27, 2023
Monday Feb 27, 2023
Photographers are supremely visual, right? Of course. But have you ever wondered about the power of words? Two words, in particular, can have a bigger impact than any image ever can (and I am speaking as someone whose entire life is living and breathing pictures). The words? "Thank You". These two words, when given or received, can bring a huge amount of joy. Trust me.
In the podcast, I mention the dates of our upcoming workshops:
- 6th March, Mastering Essential Studio Lighting
- 20th March, Mastering Available Light
- 3rd April, Mastering Headshot Photography
- 17th April, Mastering Your Creative Workflow From Shutter To Print
- 15th May, Mastering Advanced Studio Lighting
- 5th June, Mastering Available Light On Location In Oxford
These can all be found on our website.
Every workshop is limited to six delegates so we can fine-tune the content for the attendees. They're an absolute blast! If you're a portrait photographer, whether a pro or looking to break into the industry, these workshops are perfect for you. We also provide a delicious lunch! Never underestimate the need for good food! haha.
Enjoy!
Cheers
P.
If you enjoy this podcast, please head over to Mastering Portrait Photography, for more articles and videos about this beautiful industry. You can also read a full transcript of this episode.
PLEASE also subscribe and leave us a review - we'd love to hear what you think!
If there are any topics, you would like to hear, have questions we could answer or would like to come and be interviewed on the podcast, please contact me at paul@paulwilkinsonphotography.co.uk.
Friday Oct 28, 2022
EP130 Invest In Things That Benefit Your Client
Friday Oct 28, 2022
Friday Oct 28, 2022
I recorded this podcast at 7am while sat in the studio, waiting for a new TV to be delivered. Luckily it actually arrived when they said it would! The TV is for our Client Reveal Room as we want our customers to have the best possible experience when they come back to see their pictures.
But exactly how do you figure out where to spend your limited budget? On things that benefit your client, that's where!
In this episode, I mention a couple of different things. Firstly, a reminder of the colour correction tool I love: Imagen AI If you use this link: https://www.imagen-ai.com/start?ref=paulwilkinson the lovely guys at Imagen AI will give you 1500 free (yes 1500 FREE) file corrections. I get some as well, so feel free to use the link, and we BOTH get a freebie!
We have just announced a brand new workshop: Mastering The Essentials Of Studio Lighting.. This workshop is very anyone who is venturing into studio lighting and wants to get to grips with creating stunning images with simple techniques and easily available kit. We'll go through everything you need to know, from setting up the camera to getting the best out of your space. Details can be found at https://www.paulwilkinsonphotography.co.uk/store/workshops/mastering-essential-studio-lighting-21st-november-2022/ As always with our workshops, the number of attendees is strictly limited to 6 (or half a dozen if you prefer it in words) so everyone gets plenty of time to try things out and ask questions.
At the mentioned workshop, we'll be serving a delicious lunch care of the guys at What's Cooking. Admittedly this link is a little geo-restrictive (I doubt it's much use to listeners more than a few miles away!), but the lunch was sooooo good at the last workshop that I felt we just had to give a quick link!
Enjoy!
Cheers
P.
If you enjoy this podcast, please head over to Mastering Portrait Photography, for more articles and videos about this beautiful industry. You can also read a full transcript of this episode.
PLEASE also subscribe and leave us a review - we'd love to hear what you think!
If there are any topics, you would like to hear, have questions we could answer or would like to come and be interviewed on the podcast, please contact me at paul@paulwilkinsonphotography.co.uk.
Sunday Oct 09, 2022
EP129 - What Is Your Inner Energy Source?
Sunday Oct 09, 2022
Sunday Oct 09, 2022
At the end of a long week, the exhaustion can creep up on you. Fatigue is not an unusual feeling for a professional photographer. But finding your source of energy, whether it's your work, your clients, your colleagues or just some time out with family, is crucial.
For me? Well, for me it's always been about people in one form or another!
The details of the Photo Hubs Oxford workshop mentioned in this episode can be found at:
https://photohubs.co.uk/product/oxford-light/
This is a hands-on, three-hour workshop for no more than ten people and is all about the thing that I love doing most: finding and using available light for fantastic portraits!
Would love to see you there!
Cheers
P.
If you enjoy this podcast, please head over to Mastering Portrait Photography, for more articles and videos about this beautiful industry. You can also read a full transcript of this episode.
PLEASE also subscribe and leave us a review - we'd love to hear what you think!
If there are any topics, you would like to hear, have questions we could answer or would like to come and be interviewed on the podcast, please contact me at paul@paulwilkinsonphotography.co.uk.
Tuesday Apr 21, 2020
Ep.74 Get Your Portfolio Sorted (Now Is A Good Time!)
Tuesday Apr 21, 2020
Tuesday Apr 21, 2020
Still here, still in lockdown, still working like crazy to make sure we're ready for when things eventually open up again, as they must, inevitably do.
Right now, things are busy: we're re-designing our website and rebuilding a platform for our portfolio - a wonderful opportunity to go through images old and new and to decide which images we'll use for the next year or two in all of our literature and articles. It's great fun but hard work!
This podcast is all about that task.
Enjoy!
If you enjoy this podcast, please head over to Mastering Portrait Photography where there are articles and videos about this wonderful industry.
PLEASE also subscribe and leave us a review - we'd love to hear what you think!
If there are any topics you would like to hear, have questions we could answer or would simply like to come and be interviewed on the podcast, please contact me at paul@paulwilkinsonphotography.co.uk