Finding Your Client
Rachel Stephens
Lessons
Empower Your Client, Empower Yourself
35:00 2Creating a Nuturing Experience for Your Clients
17:16 3Demo Shoot with a Client
45:14 4Shoot: Implied Nude
15:41 5Shoot: Maintaining a Connection with Your Client
29:03 6Retouching with Actions: Focus on Skin & Curves Part 1
38:19 7Retouching
19:24Retouching Using Photoshop Actions: Recap
25:03 9The Intimate Business of an Intimate Business
26:56 10Finding Your Client
34:14 11Why to Lose the Pre-Shoot Consultation
14:02 12Shoot: Shooting with a Vulnerable Client
44:04 13Shoot: Stripping Down Client Defenses
37:20 14Shoot: Posing and Mixed Lighting
47:57 15Retouching: Longhand vs Actions Part 1
28:19 16Retouching: Longhand vs Actions Part 2
19:57 17Retouching: Longhand vs Actions Part 3
23:49 18Retouching: Longhand vs Actions Part 4
20:25 19Tips for Male Boudoir Photographers
09:37 20Shoot: Creative Posing with Couples Part 1
24:00 21Shoot: Creative Posing with Couples Part 2
17:10 22Marketing: From Prospect to Client
39:42 23Business Practices: How We Do It
48:43 24Size Shaming & Pin Up Shoot
35:51 25Shoot: French Postcard
25:37 26Retouching: Pinup - Longhand vs Actions
34:16 27Retouching: French Postcard - Longhand vs Actions
41:01 28The Value of Failure
27:34Lesson Info
Finding Your Client
so this I'm just I've got our pe ru Earl. If I had a front slash would see where it's going to, um, I'd go. I build our landing pages to go to each city that she's going to go to, all right. So if it's if you're not traveling, it could be each county in your state or each suburb or each zip code. Or if you're marketing your, ah, uh, wedding photographer and you're thinking, Oh, summer's coming up It could be two people who have been engaged for the last six months in your city. You know, you can go right to him. You can't do that with bridle type magazines. I mean, you could, but you're That would be a lot of money. That's several $1000 as opposed to 25 which I would rather spend that and get a couple of email addresses and have a nice, glossy picture and get nothing, right. So I'm all I've done is taking some screen grabs so we can scroll down a little to see what it is that that you confined custom audience. That is something that's a little more technically involved. It involves dro...
pping what they call a pixel. We can get into that again in a different time when we're actually getting into the sausage making of it. But locations I can add any city, state or country if I'm trying. Teoh, I've advertised. Rachel's Pose book, which is on Amazon, is $5.99 and I've advertised it all around the world for a very small amount of money. You know, you get it in Australia or England or or whether I can really find people who are interested in people who are and want to learn more about it. Ages. I can specific Go to your insights page and find out who's on your fan page is the most Well, that's who. Your market too, right? I mind usually in our industry at the moment. Um, mid thirties, mid forties. That's where my my curve is. Tapers and tapers on each end is like it's like a bell curve. Um, so that's where I'll I'll focus my images, which let me go back real quick, and I'm gonna walk up to the screen. I don't know if I'm allowed to do it. I'm doing it anyway. Just did it here. I'm doing it right here. These little empty boxes here, here, here, in here. That's where I would now drag or upload images that I'm going to use in my advertisement. Um, as you build an advertising basis, you'll have a library of images that you can pick and choose that you don't have to continually upload all the time. Um, which the beauty of that is is. Now, I've got a six advertisements, but I'm only making one, but I'm changing the images on all of them. I So it's only gonna take me 5 10 minutes to to get this one done right, moving forward again. And then again Sorry. And I'll tell you how big to make him. They even tell you how big to make it this is. So it'll fit in the news feed and then it sizes down for the right hand column questions. Am I going too fast? Do I have any anybody? We have plenty of questions coming in. People are loving what you're doing here. Um, so one of things that you said was not to send people directly to their websites. Western waste money, not to send people directly your pit. Where do you send people then? Okay, so I'm gonna shit, let me get down to it real quick. We can jump around him, which that says that we're gonna go back to that. Uh, we're gonna go back. So where? I said, you know what to it. I'd say, Let's just keep going. I'll just answer the question. I send him to a specific landing page within my website. Um, we developed landing pages. It's in a sub domain. Like, if it'll be FB for facebook dot Rachel stevens photography dot com front slash and then usually the city or city hyphen. Boudoir photographer. So it'll it'll show up nicely and Google as well. Um, so each city has its own page. Each advertisement will go to the city that I want Now, right here. This is putting in cities in the United States. In this, I just put Fort Lauderdale plus 25 miles so I can search within 25 miles, and I'm gonna That's moving my target closer. Right. I've got Fort Lauderdale, but now I want you within 25 miles. I don't want you in the greater huge Fort Lauderdale, um, area but I could make it 50 miles if I don't get enough. If I don't get enough potential prospects. So just looking at this this is I put this the other Fort Lauderdale 25 miles women because this is boudoir. Also, though, I found when we were, um, when we were working with teens and infants that moms make the decisions. It's just how it is. Um, they make the at least the initial contact with our industry. I have found I don't know. Do you guys find that as well? When it comes to Children or weddings or it's it's the it's the female in the relationship. That's what I've found. That's what my business tells me. So I'm gonna look a year olds. No maximum age Fort Lauderdale, Um, and their parents. This is their parents with Children aged 13 to and that shows up 24,000 people within 24 miles. Women who have these air senior clients and I'm not sure boudoir would be, uh, women. And then what were their interests? Maybe yoga. Zumba. I can look up. I can look. And in the bonus materials I have ah Ah, 1/2 hour of how to do it, step by step by step where we break down, I think Honolulu. And it shows Djemba meditation and just different things that I found that our clients tend to do so. If our clients already do that, I would imagine our perspective. Clients might might possibly do that as well. Um, so that's where I start moving my target forward. On my audience definition, you see the number of 24,000. If I had just had the United States and women, it would be probably like 100 million. It's a little too much to market to, so you really want to pare it down, pare it down, pare it down. I don't like to when this, even for me is a little broad. I don't like to go over 30, for a specific ad, Um, and if that's not bringing in enough engagement or or information coming to me, then I probably targeted it wrong. It's not the amount of people it's who this is presenting to, so I want toe. I want to go back and adjusted, and I could go back and just pause this ad and then just create a whole new one. Same images, same Burbage, but just changed the change. The target of who is going to what sort of information then is on the landing page that you do send them to. Okay, um So is that what we're gonna cover later? You know what? Let's go. Let's go find it. And I I like jumping around anyway, but no. Yeah. So 11 main thing and we've been talking about it is let's stop selling. Let's start Stop giving away too much. Everybody want always wants. And I'll do this. And we do this and we do this and you know that it's for this and and you're gonna get this this this and this or these are all the things that I dio If you send him to a landing page about boudoir, stay about boudoir. Don't talk about kids. Don't talk about weddings. Don't talk about anything else. If you send him to a landing page, that's weddings. Talk about weddings. You don't wanna I don't want to go to a general practitioner. Um, if I need a neurologist, so I'm not changing. I'm not. I want to exchange the correct information. Not all the information that I can give you in the whole world. Um, and it's all about exchanging information between us. That's the main thing. Lose customers, gain clients. And again, I think this comes back to the stop selling. Ah, customer wants to buy something from you for a price. That's fine. But then we're not having a conversation. We're talking about a price. We're gonna talk about a price on every single thing. Well, what do I get for the $300 for the session, or how much are the images? And can I get a discount? Where can I get a So if it's starting to be a financial transaction, we're at a point now where I really try and change the conversation, and I and I'm happy to go over numbers. I kind of do a broad brush and average client will invest between, you know, 915 100 on their images. A lot. Stay in your order minimums a lot go way over. That's when my averages and now it change the conversation away from money and away from specific nickel and dime ing and getting away from what it is that Rachel does. I don't want it. We have to do business. But I think we can do it by giving enough information. Not too much, but I don't hide prices. I just don't like talking about it. So that's how we I've developed our system and not everybody does things The way we do is you've kind of seen. We just do things differently and it's worked for us. And I think part of it has worked for us because we're passionate about what it is we do, and we just keep working at it and have developed a system on how to do it. Stop chasing the clients. You know that you'll you'll get the exchange of information and then you're Well, I sent him an email. Why are they not getting back to me? I gave them this. Why? They're not getting Let him go. Let him go. It's OK. You know. Not every client is your client Develop. Who's your client? Who do you want to shoot? Who do you want to experience what it is you have to offer your valuable? You don't have toe chase somebody to show that you're valuable you already are. So be that person and is you've, I think, soft from this morning. That's how Rachel stands. And that's I think, what makes her vocation so such a good fit for her. Bring them in for a landing. This is the let's talk about the landing pages Just little bit. Um, so you've got your target. It's like chasing after somebody they turned around. They say, Okay, you got me. Well, now what? And then that's what you gotta figure as we is. We've taught. Let's forget about our websites. I'm gonna tell you a secret, and it's only between us. We change our website and maybe once a year, maybe we change our facebook every day. If people want to have a deeper photographic experience, then they can go to a website. Look at that gallery with the beautiful music and the That's awesome. But I don't have enough time to constantly update a website that nobody's going to because they're all on Facebook, right? How many people when they introduced Bill, they might sometimes say, Find me on Facebook at Rachel. See this photography dot com races. He was photography, right? And they they're starting to remember the u R l was ubiquitous, but I remember it was 2.5 years ago. It was a car dealership. And it was the Facebook. You are l It wasn't. It wasn't their website anymore. They drove everything straight to Facebook and from Facebook. You can obviously get your websites any questions. I really love questions. Uh, I'm thorough. Like that Peak. Don't blather. Anybody know what the word blather means? No. So my mother's from Scotland, and she's a lovely we woman. And when I was little, you say, showing you an awful blended which means I talked too much I would give to I would say too much all the time. So as a little homage to Mom, we want to pique interest in our advertising. We especially want to pique interest in our landing pages on my landing page, and you're going to see it in a second. There's no pricing. There's no there's very little information because what I want on your email address, I want to send you so much stuff you're gonna be Oh, my God! Stop it. Because that's what I'm going to do As soon as I have your email address then Then the conversation really begins. Then we really start getting into it and I'm gonna show you that that will be And it's all automated. It's beautiful. As soon as I get the email address, I have other software that takes care of the multitudes, not multitudes. Four separate emails. I'm going to send out to you over a period of time. I don't even have to worry about it. So by the time you've contacted me back from receiving all these emails over not all but several emails over three weeks, you're You're a client. You are no longer a prospect. You are going to shoot. Maybe not in Atlanta this time, but maybe at the end of the year when she's back. Right? So that's part of my letting go of the chase. I let software chase a little, not chase, but continue to give information. I don't have time. I've got kids that I want to spend time with. I've got a wife I want to spend time with. I don't wanna Okay, let's answer this specific question again. Um, we don't answer a lot of questions. It's all we know. What All the questions are, most of them are. How much does it cost? When is it? Do you supply the outfits? What do I get for this amount of money? We know all these questions. It's the same question all the time. And it is, I'm sure, in your business, whatever part of the business it is. Eventually it's always the same questions, and it's usually five or six separate ones, so you could answer them all within a story within the email. When I speak to somebody on the phone and we're going to the contract, I say the same thing every single time because I you know what the questions are gonna be. So I want to answer them before we even talk about it. So I'm going straight to the contract. So when I'm done with my script, then I'm saying Rachel's got time it 10 in the morning or two in the afternoon. Which would you prefer? I'd like to a clock. That's great. I can do it, too. How do I spell your name when I'm writing a contract out and then we're doing the transaction right? It's all all nice, warm and friendly reason. I do business that the front is because Rachel is going to shoot them. She doesn't need to be bogged down by that. She wants the fresh experience for the client. You know, it's a big day. It's a big it's a big deal, and so we won't take care of that on the side. Still make it nice and friendly, but let's just take care of it quickly, All right. Here's landing page, right to Stevens brings her Sirens Boudoir photography event to the Honolulu area February 22nd 23rd which is now sold out. There's the beautiful creative live video from the two clients that she had shot the creative life to such a beautiful job. And then I want to know more not. Do you want to know more? It's not a question. It's a statement you already know. Your client wants to know more potential client. Why? Because they're there already clicked through. So you're standing saying I up. I want to know more. That's great. Two things they can do. They can play the video well, they can put their email address in once they're at this page, they've gotta hit their back button or shut the browser shut that part of the browser, okay, and that may seem that it's not fair. But again, I've spent money for you to get here. I've given you a little bit of information. This is an exchange. It's still a business. Um, and here's the top part. We've got a nice little banner. And then there's the bottom part, little bit of more information and a tiny little pieces of information. It's not the full picture. It's a puzzle. This is just a piece in that puzzle. And is anybody ever had a puzzle and you couldn't find that one other piece and you kept looking for it? Well, you've got to send me your email address and I'll send you the piece of that puzzle, and then we're good to go. I'm gonna go right since we we jumped. I'm gonna go back to a tiny little bit. Excuse me. So we were right here when, when we went over to landing pages, creating a custom audience website custom audiences huge coming from Facebook. It's huge, It's huge, it's huge. I'm going to be able, and it's in your power editor, which is a several hour class, it's This is your basic Facebook ad editor, and they've come out with a power editor, which you have toe open up most of time in Google Chrome. It won't work in Explorer, and Safari has problems with it. It'll work sometimes and safari. If you tried power editor in the back and tried it, no so definite. Chrome will work with it all the time. It started out originally as a chrome extension, and then I think Google said, Hey, this is a great idea and took and incorporated it It's It's part of retargeting, which is the next mark My words. It's the next big thing, and not only in Internet marketing. It's been a huge thing for larger companies, but it's the next big thing for us. For us to be able to do it, it's it's phenomenally huge because you're now gonna be able to market to people. You and I are gonna be able to market to people who visited your landing page but didn't give you the email address by pushing advertisements into their feeds or into wherever. Let's say they're on Ah large news website, which I won't name any news websites that has ads in the well now you're at will show up for a very small amount of money. So it's just keeping your name fresh in front of them. Oh, yeah, and it's worked. I've been testing it and I'll come back with some real numbers in the next, hopefully several months, because it's huge. I feel like you ever see that movie? 2000 and 10. What's gonna happen? How something wonderful. So as we go down into our basic editor, we've got our locations in our ages. Um, here you can see where it says interests and that I've played with a lot. That's great. And you should try it. And why do I do that? Because I want to know what people are interested in. So I'll type in, say, a very popular um, show on on home box office that happens to have a season in it. That's cold. So I don't want to say the tagline, Um, and I'll show me how many people like that show or a radio personality. How many people like that radio personality? Is that my client? Do they like him or, um, a lingerie line? Who likes that lingerie line, and they live within 25 miles of Fort Lauderdale. I should really market to them, right? So think of the things that you know, your clients like, think of the things that you like, and then just you just go in and you start playing with it. You don't even have toe at this point. You don't even have to book the ad. Just get an idea on the numbers of what it is that you can do and how you can start opening those conversations that you wanna have, right? These are conversations that we traditionally have not been ableto have with our perspective clients because it's been in a magazine or it's been, um, through not targeted Internet advertisement. And even though there are large search engines that have ads, I can't specifically target you. I can't target you Here. I got you. I got you, got you got you. You, you and you've got them. And you've got some because we're all on there all the time. I can't hammer that enough. That's where that's where your clients are every day. I would I would hazard to guess that on your mobile devices at least three of you checked Facebook today or all of you check Facebook. Right? Because we want to know what our friends doing. What are friends doing? Our friends like Rachel Stevens attire free for women. I should go check that out quick. So you're built. You can build engagement through your friend's engagement, right? And then if we went down that rabbit hole, if you were wedding photographer, that's another engagement, right? Um so interests just think of things. You can find it again on your insights. Learn about insights. Not only on your facebook page, but learn about it in advertising. Look at the numbers. Download into spreadsheets. These air all bigger, bigger, bigger, bigger, bigger. The purview of this class cannot possibly touch. It's all information that's free to find. I found it. You can find it. You can find it. You know, they're people who have gone in multiple directions on Hey, did you know you could do this? And nobody did. I don't even think the software designers knew that he can do it just like with Photoshopped. Wow, You can do that. Even things were designed for one thing and the designer never thought that it could do something else. And this is what's happening. And it's just it's just fantastic that we can now really reach people. Um, so more demographics that would be. Were they married? Um, the divorced things like that I don't ever worry about. That I worry about is women in their ages. I don't care if you're married, don't care who you're married to. Um, not how many kids you have. I I just marketing specifically to this age group, and then I'll in the interests all. I'll take it down a little more than then under more categories. Just like I showed you before. I'm looking at parents with Children. You can you see right at the bottom hearing in a point again. Sorry. Right here. Politics, liberal or conservative. You can look it up within 25 miles of Fort Lauderdale. So who's your market? Are there more liberal or more conservative? You can look it up. That way you can look Do they like to ski? Do you like to surf Physical fitness, every single aspect of life that you live that we all live? We've all told Facebook that we do it, that we love it. And we did it for free. And we always complain about. Or privacy. Well, you just told them what you like. Of course, there gonna market. That's how they make their money. That's why it's always gonna be free. Facebook's never gonna charge money. So whenever you hear that, please don't repost it. Stop it in my feet. They're never going to do it because that's where that's not their business model. That's not how they feed their kids. Okay. All right. So this part actually goes right below where the images were Two slides back. Now, this is our client and pinup model Dana Deluxe. Um, here is the 90. The 1st 90 from 90 plus 90 equals. Engagement on the 2nd 90 would go right under here in your feed, right on the right column. If I click there, all that would show would be this 1st This is not an actual advertisement. I write better than that on 90 letters. This is a testimonial, which is fantastically beautiful. And so this doesn't give it any justice. Always put a call to action. If you just said, Hey, I'm, uh if I said Rachel Stevens in Honolulu February 22nd 23rd. Good for you. Are you gonna click it? Even at the image, I probably wouldn't get more info. Would you maybe click that? Oh, it's gonna be here. I have always wanted do that, but so it's always a little call to action. Has to be in there and for me, get more info whose work. So however you say that because that's what you want to do is open the conversation. That's the That's the key to get them to go to the landing page, and then the landing page that you put together is gonna There's a lot of different things you need to know. The tech need to know some of it. If you know your camera, you should also know some of your software and had a how to work. How toe work a little bit in HTML and in what we use into the dark room. It's there's a tiny learning curve on the front once, you know it's easy, and it's easy to set all this kind of stuff up. Landing pages. Um, there are companies out there that you can just I've been landing pages and they have preset stuff and you just got to figure out how it is. You're gonna build it, how you're gonna put it into your site. It's what it was. Key to our business. It's without landing pages. We would not be here today about Facebook. We wouldn't be here without landing pages. We wouldn't be her. It doesn't matter if she's from. We just wouldn't have had the reach. We wouldn't have been able to build what we've built without these tools that we now have, and they're basically free. You saw my ad buy for last year. That is $11,000 might buy me a page in one month issue of a national bridal magazine. It might is probably a little too little. I would think that sounds that sounds about right. I expect him out before, right? So that's the entire year. And it's just day by day. Yes. Question collect. Do you use them for email advertising? Good question, and we're gonna go into that Saturday morning and yes, and I'll give you a little preview then. So it's all the system. It all has to work together, just like anything it's got. It's got gears, it moves. And if one is not working, you gotta figure out where it is without without the mark. The email marketing. Yes, and what the email marketing is is the information that's the exchange on. There are great companies out there. My landing pages is entered. My landing pages are integrated into my email marketing software. So when you put in that email address that just goes to the software and then that kicks out an opt in responder, which then kicks out the big, informational email that starts the story that starts a conversation. So it's you gotta put some systems in in place. Teoh make your life a lot easier, you know, and then give you the opportunity toe. Once you get a system that works, it's it's amazing. It's eye opening and you always wanna watch it. It's like a little It's like a little kid. You're always you're OK, right? You're fine, right? So when I when I heard Oh, Facebook is going to explode? No, I can't explosive. I need that. But then when I really looked into the number of this is the news saying, because teenagers are leaving it well, OK, Well, I'm not marketing to them, so I'm not worried about it. And then anyway, if they'll be back their whole life, is there? No, no, They're from seventh grade. Even earlier. Is there is always gonna be there, you know, you can now make if my father passed away, you could make his page of memorial now. So they've inter weaved into the fabric of who we are as people, and they figured it out better than their predecessors. And I think the technology got better to be quite honest than with the earlier social media questions I'm about done. Let me just go down a little. This is stuff that we've covered, but I can answer question while I'm clicking. Great. Really? So we're looking for tactics here. Robbins says people just starting out that don't maybe have $11,000 to spend on advertising. So what do you suggest? Just run smaller ads on a shorter basis. Well, I don't. You Rob. That was for all of last year, okay? That was a client. A higher year. Was that so? Last week was maybe I probably in a small business sense, I do a little more because of where what we've built start with a $10 ad and a $10 ad. My only reached 25 clicks, and from that 25 clicks, you might only get two email addresses, maybe even one, sometimes none. But when you get one, it's worth let's say you got one for $15 then that becomes a client who then spends $2200. Was that worth it? I think so. Or they don't become a client that week. But you now might have a new friend or somebody whose interest or a fan who then becomes, you know, it just grows. That's, I think, why they call it social marketing. Um, so don't worry. In the long run, it all works out. If you watch it in the short run, it's like watching somebody bounce a ball and it'll drive you a little bit crazy. It works. It's worked for us. It works every single day. I've got ads running today for Atlanta on. I know that I've gotten seven e mails already off of $12. That's good. That is really good, because I checked Facebook on my phone. 01 other thing. When you do set up an ad if you haven't purchased the course, want one little sidebar? If you set up an ad, always make sure one of their interests or one of the selections is a smartphone or tablet user. Because if my understanding and I don't work for If you don't, then it's just gonna show up on desktops. And you don't want that because if I'm you know, sitting on the bus or whatever, I want my ad to be able to push where it's going. Wanted Teoh. Check in with our studio audience here and see if any of you have questions for Show a lot of nodding his way. We're talking at break and they say that, you know, we asked them for questions and then as soon as we move on, that's when the question comes to mind. So moving on all of it all right, s so I'll ask one really quick. We have one from Medrano who says, Do you choose your AdWords to be a specific as possible, or do you use a more broad sense, especially when you're dealing with a specific location? Well, I want people to know where she's gonna be eso. An ad might look like an ad. The 1st 90 the extra 90 and 90 plus 90. The extra 90 is just gravy. The first part is Rachel Stevens, America's premier boudoir photographer. Atlanta, February, March 15 and 16. Get more info so I'll be specific of where I'm marketing to. And if let's say you're a, um uh, wedding photographer, Summer wedding question Mark. Oh, yeah, I'm getting married in the summer, you know, just think of different things of and play with it. Eventually, you're gonna find one that hits. It's like fishing. You're gonna find one that hits. And then that's the one you stay with for a while until that pond dried up.
Class Materials
Ratings and Reviews
a Creativelive Student
Let me first start off by saying that Rachel puts her subject first. She has a passion for empowering the everyday woman, showing them that Boudoir photography by no means only belongs to the "supermodels". She shows them that they're amazing and beautiful, and it was so comforting and heartwarming to see this in action in her Creative Live course! When Rachel's shooting with a client it's almost like no-one's in the room but the two of them. Rachel gives her undivided attention to the client's safety and well-being and general comfort. I was so glad I tuned in for the course as I learnt countless tips and techniques about lighting, angles, posing, different settings for the different types of shots you'd want to grab. Another reason that watching the class was such a pleasure for me is that Rachel comes across as that awesome, down to earth, lovely friend you might have in your life, who just happens to be one of the BEST Boudoir photogs on the planet! This was an excellent workshop, top to bottom, and I'd recommend purchasing it to anyone who wants to learn everything about this type of photography, including the business side of things which her husband, Sean, explained thoroughly. I have absolutely no idea what a couple reviewers were "disappointed with" but take it from me - this is a STELLAR course and if you're looking to get into the business, or just even honing your skills on photographing the ladies, this is most definitely the course for you! Tons of info - great guidelines on how to handle your models, great info on lighting, lenses and settings! Rachel will make you fall in love with Boudoir photography like your life depended on it! She's just THAT good! So go on, purchase the course and have her invaluable instruction at your fingertips whenever you need it!
SunSoBright
I mainly photograph landscapes but I'm interested in learning other types of photography. Being introverted it's a challenge for me to photograph people but I it's a barrier I want to get over. I purchased this course and some others on portraiture and boudoir photography. While Rachel and her husband aren't polished speakers I thought they were honest and straightforward. The "clients" being photographed seemed a bit nervous but I imagine that had a lot to do with the fact they were doing the boudoir session live in front of thousands if not millions of viewers. Rachel also had to keep in mind she was tethered and the recording of the session while photographing her client so I don't think this was optimal and Rachel's back began to bother her so I'm sure she was in some physical pain. Regardless, the resulting pictures were beautiful so Rachel was able to make her clients feel "safe" enough to get through the session. Also it seems part of the audience were women who had been photographed by Rachael so it says something that they came to learn from and support Rachel. I appreciated Rachel was photographing real women, not models. What I liked most about this course is it made me feel like little 'ol ordinary me could be a boudoir photographer too If I am ever inclined to do so. Her style of photography isn't quite mine, but the session was still useful and instructive especially with regard to her lighting set up. I wish Rachel had talked a bit more about setting up the support team that goes around with her like her make up and hair artists, how she finds and decides on houses to rent and what cities she goes to, etc. but I guess you can't go over every single thing in a single course or maybe that can be a future course. Rachel and her husband seemed like a nice down to earth couple who put their family first and they were quite honest about some of the difficulties and their concerns over safety for themselves and their clients. I was touched that Rachel photographs women who have gone through cancer treatment for free as I do volunteer work in a hospital. I thought the bonus and included materials which had Rachel's Lightroom presets and her client info packet was very generous. Some of the other photographers charge for getting a copy of their client documents and presets. I purchased Rachel's eBook off Amazon and wanted to purchase Rachel's Photoshop actions but in searching for the purchase links I read Rachel is going through some health issues, I think it was spinal fusion, and it seems has suspended her business until she recovers. It looks like she plans to still make her "return" sessions starting with Hawaii during April 2017. I wish her and her family the best and will say a prayer for her quick and complete recovery. Thank you Rachel and Sean for coming to Creative Live and I hope you will teach another class or at least participate in a critique of boudoir photographs.
WellsWells
Warning: You are about to encounter a large number of exclamation points. ;-) This was such a great course! It was great to learn boudoir with such a caring, generous, and knowledgeable pair! Rachel really brought it with her posing, shooting, and building rapport with her clients. She even kept going while in intense pain! Also, the sections on retouching were EXCELLENT! I had trouble following the first retouching segment where she used her actions, but then she came back to retouching later and showed us how to do each step "longhand". Knowing what each action is designed for makes such a difference! I feel like Rachel read the audience and saw that we were floundering, and tailored her presentation to just what we needed! Sean was also very thorough in his presentation of the "business" side. It is hard, as an artist, for me to run my business like a business. Sean showed how it can be done. He also showed the need for a strong "why" to focus on when telling others about policies. "It's a business. I need to feed my kids." I need to reach down and find my "why" that will keep me strong enough to stand behind my policies and pricing. I haven't gotten a chance to sit down and go through all of the bonus materials yet, but I am so excited to see what's in there! I saw that Rachel had posted a longhand version of the "little hug," and I watched it, and I have been trying it out on some of my older images. Just that one little tweak makes such a difference! Thank you, Rachel and Sean, for giving us SO MUCH usable content! I'm so glad I decided to watch and then purchase this course! And I can't wait to see the two of you again for your next creativeLIVE!
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