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Month 3, Week 2 - "Office Hours" Checkin

Hi, everybody. Welcome again to our office hours. Um, I am in my own house this time, um, sitting by the front window, um, with miles of laundry and dirty things in the background. Which is why the background is not well lit. It's Thanksgiving week, um, for my US based photographer friends. And that means that we are rolling right into the holiday season. Um, which means that we are all tired. I think I got about four hours of sleep last night, But it's okay because eventually I will get to take a vacation eventually. Just not this week. I also launched a new website this morning that I've been working on for a really long time called The Dynamic Range. And it's the dynamic range dot com, and it's the educational site that I sort of been alluding Teoh, um, sort of throughout the mentorship. And so that's done. And that's up. And I am learning an awful lot about the blogging world, which is very interesting. Um, and as far as what? L Clouzot, um, I was showing the creativelive guys when...

you're testing Skype. Before that, I just got the world's most interesting package on Amazon involving, um, clamps and body glitter and four huge things of gold glitter and about six things of tool. So no, we're not having a party at my house this weekend. I'm doing a huge bridal shoot in the studio this weekend. I have a bride coming in and three of her bridesmaids or coming with her, And it's rounding out my portrait portfolio so that I can get it online so that I can finally, finally, finally, in the start of the new year start marketing portrait. So that's what I'm up to, Um, and we're gonna go ahead and jump right into the questions, see what everybody else is up to. So the first question is some. It's really long. It's been have to summarize. Basically, what it is is someone sent in an email that a that a client of theirs sent to them and their response. And unfortunately, it's one of those emails that you never want to actually receive. It would actually be helpful if I read some of it. So question one. Hello. I recently shot a wedding that I was really excited about the D I Y country in a barn wedding the decor was adorable. The bride was adorable. And the whole thing was different from anything I've been to before. I posted my blawg with my favorite highlights. And this was the email that I received from the bride. Thank you for the wonderful right about the wedding. It was very nice. I appreciate it a lot. I also wanted to thank you for being so patient with me during the wedding and all of the chaos. It was so stressful. And I appreciate you coaching me through it. I'm really sorry. You're not going to be so happy to be. You're going to be so happy to be finished with my weddings. You don't have to deal with me anymore. I'm just not crazy happy with a lot of photos on the block and I'm really bummed out by them. I'm wondering if you can change and remove some of the photos on so particular about photos. And I feel like there were some editor cropping to make the photos when more flattering. I'm just so upset with the way I look and Justin isn't one of the photos and pick with my brother is so bizarre. I feel like cropping can be a girl's best friend, and certain picks could be so beautiful, minus the direct shots of back fatter big, huge Arms I Love My Dad stays in the picture of us dancing, but I feel like the photo could be cropped to not be so unflattering. I love most of the photos and with minor tweaks to hide sins and largeness. They would be perfect, the ones of us cutting the cake or really hard for me to look at, and they bring tears to my eyes every time I've looked at them. I don't know what to say, and I don't want to be insulting, but I realized that that's the way I am. But some of the pictures I literally look £300 just from the angle of the photo. I'm asking you to please help me be excited about my wedding photos. I mean, listen like this email started off being like Thank you so much for the right up and it's really awesome and you're really awesome and everything's really awesome. And then she was like, You know, I'm not 100% thrilled with my pictures and then by the time she was done. She's like sobbing in agony over her pictures. So, you know, to quote one of my favorite movies that escalated really quickly. It's that's kind of crazy. And nobody likes getting an email like that. Also, partly because no matter how much you do your best to flatter your clients, you are going to every once in all run into someone who hates the way they look in photographs. No matter what. No matter what you do, they're not gonna be happy with you. And that is a really sort of very frustrating, very difficult thing to get around. I've had girls that are like a size double zero. They're about the size of my 13 year old daughter. Say I look like such a cow in my pictures, and you just wanted reach the computer screen and smack them and say, No, you don't. But obviously you can't do that. So the photographer wrote back and said, I'm disappointed to hear that you're so unhappy with the images I post posted. I've removed long. My website will not put anything further. As I continue to finish your gallery, I will keep your concerns in mind I will do my best to crop most flatteringly possible and be sure to dodge and burn accordingly. Once you're galleries finished, you'll get instructions on how to request specific retouching on images you will want for your album or the hang. Those requests are limited to cropping exposure and getting rid of distracting elements from the background. Any other retouching, including skin softening teeth whitening, will be an extra charge due to the time involved. I promise to work diligently for you to make sure that the images are as beautiful as your day. Waas. I did my best to capture your day that happened. I try to expose and edit in such a way as to make it appear exactly as the two of you remember it. It was not my intent to bring on the unhappy tears you shed over these images. Please let me know if you have any further concerns or questions. I will do my best to address them again. I apologize for any distress the Block West cost you. It's very well written. The only thing that I would advise in a situation like this is to not apologize so much, because by overly apologizing and sort of pandering to her kind of hysterical email. It's kind of starting the sound a little bit like you think that you've done something wrong? Um, you know, I apologize for the distress the ball close caused you. Unless you truly went out of your way to incredibly make this woman look terrible. You haven't done anything wrong here. And the emotion of the photographer is clearly coming through. You can tell that you care about what's going on. You can tell that you care about the fact that the client is not happy, but the over apologizing. It sort of patting her on the back and saying Yes. Yes, you're right. You're right to be so upset, you know, validating her feelings. You know, I born in the South. I prefer the generic passive aggressive response of I'm so sorry to hear that you're upset. I haven't done anything wrong. I didn't admit to doing anything wrong, but I'm sorry that you are upset. Um, and then you just have to be careful to not over explain. You know, I promised work diligently to make sure that the images are as beautiful as your day. Waas stop. You don't have to say anything other than that. You don't have to say I tried my best actually on I would strike anything that says I tried or I did my best because what that's going to result in is a client coming back and saying, Well, you should have tried harder or will Your best wasn't good enough. So just I know that we're getting email like this. Your first response is going to be to apologize and to justify and to try to explain. But I find that the first email back is usually the shortest. Like if you can write it short and quick and convey that you're caring without getting to induct, Um, sometimes that's all that's needed. I'm not gonna get into explaining. I'm not gonna get into justifying. And I'm not gonna get into talking it situation by situation unless the contact keeps going and she keeps writing back and being like. But this but that. But you did this then. Sometimes you do have to step in and be like listen, but I don't think you're there yet. I do think that that's nit pick. What I'm doing is nitpicking a really beautiful email that you wrote back, and that kind of stinks. And you know, the only thing that you can really do hear the photographer finished up here by saying so now, of course, I'm worried their self image issues. We're going to cause me to be sued or give me a bad reputation because about a review for the images and question. Some of them were shot straight on. I didn't have a whole lot of options and cramped quarters. I'm only five to, so I'm usually shooting under people I level. The picture mentioned about her brother was a shot of him laughing while cutting the cake, which I thought was cute. And the shot of her and her dad will lose the whole look of the photo outcropping of their faces. This email made me extremely upset and does even over the course of three weeks ago. I'm sad that she wasn't so unhappy, but I really believe that it is her self image over the actual photos. Listen, 99%. It is absolutely herself image over the photos, and the thing is, you've got to not let this eat you up like this you know, I had a guest at a wedding, Get in my face and scream at me at a wedding this year, and it upset me for about I don't know, like, six seconds. And it's not because I'm heartless. It's just because I have learned to sort of deal with these things a little bit better over the years. And don't worry that it's gonna cause you to be sued. And don't worry that it's gonna cause you to, you know, get a bad review. What's she going to write? You know, my family church on my wedding and they did a really good job. But like I feel really fat and, you know that's not about review. Anybody who would read a review like that would be like, OK, she's probably kind of not, um, so I just would not let you just please don't let this email eat you alive. Otherwise it will just consume kind of your every waking thought, and it will make it really difficult for you to move on from it. So your email was great. Keep on keeping on Get her gallery out to her. It's gonna be beautiful, but don't kill yourself when you're editing to be like, Oh, God, is she getting, um I'm gonna think she's fat. And this is she gonna hate this picture. Just read it like you normally would give a little extra care, and you will probably be completely fine. All right, next question. This isn't actually a question. Okay? I just watched last week's video, and I saw that you had a d 7 50 in your hands on Facebook. I can't wait to see what you think about it. So what's really interesting is I posted about a week ago because they had the 7 50 for about a week. And I said, I'm gonna shoot this camera, and I'm gonna review it. And people are starting to get actually kind of irritated with me because I haven't posted a review yet. I'm not I don't mean you guys. I just mean some kind of weirdos on Facebook in general and again, not you guys. You are my favorite weirdos on Facebook. Um, but somebody actually posted on my facebook. They're like you said you were going to review this. Where's your review? I've shot it at one portrait session in one wedding like, I really feel like I can't right a full review on it until I have delved into it and actually shot it for a while. Because otherwise it would just be speculation after having shot at one time, I can tell you that having shot it at this one portrait session and shot at this one wedding, I'm blown away by it like it is. I mean, it's like a D 700 a d for s had a baby a really, really, really cheap baby, because it is a very kind of pro sumer level cost wise camera. I love that it has two cards. Lots. You know, that's one thing I never liked about the D 700 is that it only had one card slot, so it wasn't able to back up as I was shooting. It has two card slots. Yes, the buffers a little bit slow. You know, all of the things that you would expect from a pro Sumer camera, right? Like the buffer on the D for s still blows it away. Um, but one thing that I noticed I'm going to test this a little more extensively because I just don't see how it could be true. It seems like the G 7 50 actually focuses better in low light in the G four s, the D A. 10 struggles a little bit to focus in low light, but the D 7 I actually took my 72 200 off of my d four s, put it on my d 7 50 was able to focus after at a reception. So I'm going to explore that a little bit more. Um, and hopefully by the end of next week, I should have more of a handle on exactly how it performs. And then I can write a big review. But honestly, so far, I'm super impressed with it. Um, way more that I actually expected to be it. And it weighs nothing. It feels like a toy camera. So so far, so good. And I promise to report back more. All right, Next question. Question three. When you call them on the image holder when you call down the images, is it a duplicate copy of that raw file that you put in the production folder? So I downloaded my photos to my hard drive to named wedding folder and I want the coal and put in the production folder is the one that plans on editing. Is this a copy or a My moving them? Um, you know, this is either way you go about doing it is perfectly fine. I know people who do it both ways. I prefer to move them. Um, the reason being is, if I move them that I know that everything that is in my original folder is an out take, it's not a duplicate. Um, I moved them and then I rename them, so that's what I do. Um, also, if you copy it over again, you know it's storage, It just takes up more space and especially using this d a 10. These files are monstrous on, but I mean that in the best way possible. But I usually poppy them. I usually move them instead of copy that. Okay, Next question. More than half of my wedding couples travel to my area for weddings, and many of them I only see on the wedding day my packages include albums that obviously the couple isn't going to be choosing covers at that point. Because of this, I only offer photo wrapped covers right now, but I'd like to offer choices or even album upgrade options. I'm not sure how to make this work, though. How do you deal with album sales? Toe Long distance client? You know, I feel like I keep getting asked about album sales, and it is the one place where I admit that I could be doing a lot better. I know how to sell albums. I do. I just I just end up not prioritizing it, which is a really terrible thing. But the question here it's It's not so much album sales. It's the album process, too. Long distance clients. I put everything online. I've extensively photographed all of my books. I have pictures of all of the leather and linen swatches. I have pictures of what all of the covers look like. I have pictures what all of the imprinting looks like. I actually have photographs of the album's, and sometimes I'll even show them to them oversight, right? Like I will. I don't have one in here, but I'll actually take an album and be like this is an album and then I'll open it up and I'll be like these are the pages. Eso It is something that you can do online. It just means you have to put a little bit more effort into it, and it's a lot harder than actually just sitting down in front of somebody and showing it to them. But I also will offer I actually, because I have You know, I probably have about a dozen sample albums by now. And somebody's really stuck on what it's gonna look like all offer to send a sample album. You know, I get your credit card, and just in case you decide to never give it back to me, but ship it out to them, they ship it back to me. I'll say, you know what? I'll ship you an album. As long as you will pay to ship it out to you, you pay to ship it back to me. If you want to touch it and feel it, great, I will send one to you. Um, otherwise, I have, um you can actually buy swatches from Madeira, so I actually just send out a packet of leather and linens, watches and let them touch them. Sometimes people just want to see it in person, and so you know it's not. It's not that often, really, but its size toe have that as an option, if that's something that someone really wants. All right, next question. Um, based on your experience so far, how close to the D seven? 50 Come to the autofocus capabilities of a D 800 or D four in low light when using the F assist of on camera flash just for the F assist. Which one would be your choice if not wanting to have any flash on camera? Um, once you've got a F assist on the camera, I would say it goes in order of D for us slash d for UM de 7 50 then d a. 10. The D A. 10 is a little slower. Not that ally. It's a little slower to focus its a little, you know, it's just a little I can't even think of the right word. It's not slow. It thinks harder is probably the nice way to put it. But which one would be my choice if not wanting to have any flash on camera? It kind of depends on what I'm shooting, you know, in a dark church. My DeForest is still what I'm going to reach for because it is the workhorse that I rely on now. That's not saying that, You know, one day the 7 50 might supplant that or the D 8 10 The D A 10 just can't handle low light as well as the D. For us, however, the D 7 50 seems to be performing really well, but I need to test it a little bit more in order to give a really fully accurate response. So I will continue to report back every single week as I shoot it more. All right, next question. I would like to begin vendor relationships, but I haven't yet had a chance to work with any planners. What is the most successful way to introduce yourself to a wedding planner? Have you ever attempted to take someone out to eat? Or is that a waste of most people time? What is your preferred method of reaching out to professionals in the wedding industry? You know, it's kind of different now. Um, I was that I spoke at a convention in Mexico, which was really cool, and I got there on the day of and is before had spoken before anybody. And I didn't before anybody had had a chance to sort of hear me speak and sort of verifying my credibility that way. And I met a wedding planner from New York there, and I was like, Oh, I know you and she was like, Oh, I know you two But I was like, Why? We don't work together? So as you're in it longer, like you'll recognize their name, you'll recognize your name and you'll be like, always, totally do something together. But when I was brand new and even still with a lot of the vendors and trying to network here, sometimes it's just showing up to networking events, right? Like I think about how I made friends with photographers, right? Like my best friends who are photographers. It was because I would go to WPP and I would run into them, and I'd be like, OK, it's you. And then I would have related to them again the next year, and I'm like, Oh my gosh, it to you In the next year, I would be like, Hey, we should really grab coffee like we keep running into each other here, that sort of thing. So I think about it exactly as if I was trying to date or start up a friendship with somebody. Um, I get out there and I'd start going to networking events and putting your hand out and shaking, you know, shaking hands with people and then follow up with them. Drop the mini Melanie like, hey was really great to meet you. Hopefully our paths will cross again and the back off because just like dating, you don't want to come on too strong, too fast or you could burn out the relationship before it even starts. So startling is networking events. Start meeting people start shaking hands, keep showing up and eventually you'll be like, you know, hey, Bob, the coordinator. You know, it's nice to meet you on Susan and he'll say, Oh my God, Yeah, I remember you And then you're building an actual relationship. If you're just going after the vendors to try to get something out of them, they're going to see that coming a mile away, and they have that happen to them all the time. So my best advice would be to just start not working like crazy going to networking events of all kinds. All right, Next question. What is this? Software for cooling and ranking images and my ideal world. I would have called my images before importing the mental light room. Is there a simple way to do that and then import selected raw files into light room? Absolutely. It's called photo Mechanic. Um, you could take almost all of my programs away from me, and I would still make you leave me with photo mechanic. Photo mechanic is what I used to call every single wedding. I come home a download, I back up, I take the images and I put them in to photo mechanic and I sort by date and then I go through and I start my keepers. It started with a one. If I'm going to keep it, it started with the two. If I'm going to keep it and when to block it when I'm done. Everything that has starred one gets moved to a separate folder and sent off decide car, post everything that it started to gets moved to a separate folder and that stays with me. I blogged those images. I process those J pegs on. And then when sidecar is done with everything and they deliver everything to media's in Folio, then I take the images that I blawg and put them right in that same polio gallery. So everything is all together, um, calling in light room light rooms. Just not meant for calling. Photo Mechanic is the hard core industry standard. Totally awesome calling program that everyone should have. So I love it. I've been using it seriously for 14 years. All right, next question in reception, shooting specifically first dances. Um, assuming conditions are exactly what you would like. What are you most likely to choose is for a shooting distance and limbs Choice based on what you would like to achieve in these images. I'm sorry if this has been asked before. Um, assuming conditions are exactly what I would like. I would like to be using my 72 200 at 200 as far back as I can. All right, Next question. Do you know anything about B hands and how to leverage it in a second? How to leverage it as a wedding photographer? Hum be hands if no idea what that iss I realize this makes me sound, um, kind of ignorant, But I have absolutely no idea what the chances whatsoever. And I could tell you that the second we're done with this office hours, that is what I'm going to be Googling. I don't know what it is. All right. Next question. Oh, turnover there questions you guys. There are no other questions. You know what? While I sit and wait to see if questions come in, I want to step back and talk about something. Was talking about calling and ranking images and then talking about moving images give you a quick kind of overview on how I do it, and it's in 30 days. In my three days, um, you'll do more time. Just so you know, it's kind of, ah, fine tuning your workflow can honestly, for maybe one of the most frustrating parts off wedding photography because it's it's always changing. Technology is always changing. Programs are always changing. Light room seems to be updating like every other day, and it's sort of hard to stay on top of what is the fastest way to do it. So what I do is I download everything to, um download everything to my computer. It goes into a folder like Let's just use my wedding as a date and a name. It's gonna go into a folder labeled Oh, Floor 1713 which is April 17th 2013. That's the wedding date. So for 1713 underscore Stripling. So it's underscore the bride's last name. It's always the bride's last name. Um, so the folders literally labeled 041713 underscore stripling done inside that folder. There's a hierarchy of folders and let me tell you what they are because they're right here in front of me. Um, so when everything is brought into my folder, they're put in a in this stripling folder. There's a folder called Draws and Out Takes. So when I download, I'm downloading to the raws and out takes folder. Then I look at that Ross and Out takes folder in photo mechanic and everything that I choose to keep that goes to sidecar. Post moves over to a folder called Raw Keepers. Everything that I'm keeping the Blawg myself moves over full to a folder called Ross Toe Blawg. So now I have three full folders. When I'm done calling the out takes the ones I'm sending the sidecar and the ones I'm keeping myself in blogging. So from there there's a folder called Blawg J pegs. I mean, that's pretty obvious. After work on those images, and I blogged them, they go into blogged J pegs. Um, after I make them small put on the block, there's a folder called Small Blood, so those are things that go on Facebook will go on Google. Plus, you know anything that I'm doing with social media, that's where those go. There's a folder called Teachable Moments. So anything that I'm possibly going to talk about at a convention or write about in a book or show behind the scenes image, those kind of get put over in there. And then there's a folder called Final J Pegs. So everything just moves chronologically through this folder structure so that nothing ever gets overridden. You know, there is never any question about what is in that roster Blawg folder. It's always the images that I'm keeping myself to block. There is no question whatsoever about what is in the sidecar post folder. Those are the keepers that go to sidecar post and once you have a workflow folder system. And that's one of the things you wanted you guys to sort of explore how you wanted to do that this month. Once you have this folder system, it's literally moving things all around in a clockwork form for every single wedding. So I know they start to this folder, they go to these folders, they go to these folders. That way, everything stay separated. You're never gonna right over anything somebody says, Why would you not call Enbridge? Sorry if you have answered that before on the same reason I wouldn't call in light room. It's just clunky and it's it's slow and photo Mechanic is so incredibly fast. It is the fastest that I have found. Um, somebody wrote back and said Be Hance is the adobe website that you get with Sisi. I mean, the question was, do you know anything about the hands and how to leverage it as a wedding photographer? I still don't know anything about I still don't know anything about it or how to leverage it. Now, I just kind of know what it is, but I don't know what it would. You know what I mean? I don't I don't know what it would do for me. I would have to do a lot of research into it first. All right, Next question. Um, why do you not allow your clients to choose which images they want? Edit it? I started creating proofing albums and giving my clients the chance to choose the images that I edit. Each package comes with a select number of edited images. Do you see any problems with us? Um I mean, yeah, you're showing your clients and edited images, and I don't ever want to do that. I'm calling down to my keepers somewhere between 100 usually. And then we're editing those. And Jen from sidecar can get through a wedding in a day, maybe a day and 1/2. I can do it myself in about the same amount of time. Um, I would never want to put a bunch of edited images out there and say, Tell me which ones you want edited because clients don't know any better. They don't know. They don't really know the difference between an edited and unedited image. And they're not photographers. so they can't look at that unedited image and see where it's going. So I mean, it would. To me, it would be like inviting someone into my kitchen and opening up the refrigerator and saying What you want to make you for dinner? I mean, I don't I don't know. I can't cook. So, you know, I I wouldn't, um the way that I run my business, I wouldn't feel comfortable selling a package like that if you could make it work for you. That's great. But yeah, I you know, a select number of edited images. Maybe if you put the gallery out there and then you say, you know, pick 50 to be retouched further. Maybe, but I would just I just wouldn't ever show unedited images to my clients. I'm not because they're terrible. That because, you know, why would I want anything less than my best to go out the door? Okay, next question. Um, would you post the same pictures that you post in your blog's onto your face football? Yeah, I would, but I don't. One thing that I've learned is that putting the entire blawg post on Facebook means that nobody has any reason to come visit my website, and I want people to come to my website. So when I go to Facebook and I put pictures on my wall, I'm teasing out of Log post. So I'll put you know, let's have 25 pictures and blawg Post. I'll put one picture a day or one picture every other day for maybe a week. Are we gonna half or I'll just post my absolute favorites and then I'll safer more. Please come over to the Blawg. I'm a little behind on blogging on my side of things. I'm getting images, you know? I'm getting out things out to the clients perfectly on time. Nothing's late or delayed or anything like that. But it's faras. Blogging goes. I'm a couple weddings behind because they're trying to eat this one side, um, launched. And so if you watch my Facebook page, you'll see in coming weeks. This exact thing happening here is one image from this amazing wedding that I shot at this amazing location. And then the next day here's another images I shot from this amazing wedding, and it keeps letting you reach out over and over again to people on Facebook. Get them to engage with you. And then at the end of each one of those picture post you say to view more, come to my blog's Here's the link and then that incites people to come over and actually go to your website, which is where you want them to be anyhow, So I got a notification that there were no more questions this week. Hopefully, it means that everybody is doing really well with workflow. I'm really looking forward to seeing everybody's edited images. Um, in the week following Thanksgiving, we're gonna start downloading the things that everyone is sent in and sending out confirmation emails. I'm in a post on Facebook when I am sending out confirmation emails, so you know when to look for them, because I want to make sure that we don't have any problems with people sending things in and them not reaching me. So in any time, you know, for us based photographers, I hope you have a good things getting weak for everybody else. Have a good week can I will see you all back here next week. Bye, guys,