Lessons

Lesson Info

9:00 am - Why Does this Class Matter?

it is my pleasure to introduce to the Creative Live Studios for the first time. Kirk McLean, who is a wonderful, wonderful, inspiring photographer. He purchased his very first camera when he was actually eight years old because he cut off all the box tops of a popular breakfast cereal. And that's how he actually got his first camera. He photographed his first wedding at the age of 15 which is absolutely phenomenal. And he learns all the techniques, trade and marketing experience through a working at Amazing Camera Store. He is one of the most sought after instructors in all of the United States and is just a pleasure to have him at the Creative Live studios. Welcome. Thank you. I appreciate it. Appreciate you. Thank you very much. Take it away. Thank you. So, first of all, yes, thank you very very much for having me. I am most humbled to be here as part of the whole creativelive crew. Thanks to all the cruise to the audience and most of all, this whole Internet world for being there. I...

am so humbled to be here to get an idea how humbled I am to be here was interesting that this week, as I was going along, someone contacted us at the studio and said I was passing by the studio and, you know, I've been from home in my entire life my entire life from home and they said I saw the sign card vocal ing and I said, That's the guy that's gonna be on great of live this week I thought, Wow, I mean, all the way Toe Homa, Louisiana. So that's that's how excited I am to be here. I'm so humbled to be here, and I'm so excited to hopefully give you guys here locally across the world, a bit of information that hopefully will benefit you guys. So to get right into it, I mean, why does this class matter? What's the big deal with this class? Well, let's see to me when it comes to Senior Portrait's, it's all about profit. It's about making money because, let's face it, what we do as as professional photography is just that it's about making money. If you're not making money as a professional photographer will, then it's a hobby and that's OK. It's nothing wrong with it being it's a great hobby to have. But if you're not making money, you're not really a professional photographer. So turn a profit. It's OK to make a profit at what we do. It's what this this whole country was built on, making a profit. So if you'd make money at professional photography, pull your chest. I'll be happy. I did. You are a professional photographer. It's fun. It's a whole lot of fun to do what we do. It's it's It's incredible fun. The especially high school senior portrait sits. This sort of anything goes mentality when it comes to what what they want. I mean, I think about like wedding photography. I love wedding photography, but you know, there's a certain line that seems to always be there. Well, you know, I'm in my wedding dress, you know, baby photography, you know. I mean, who's gonna wanna hang the baby by his toes upside down? No, it's not gonna happen again. There's always that line that exists. Would see your portrait. You know, it's all about different. It's all about being radically off. The wall is different and is crazy. And as radical as you can be, that's that's the best way to be So that's another thing as to why this class matters. You get to photograph people at their very, very best. Let's face it, your photograph in 17 year old people. And when you're 17 18 year old, you people who out in the Internet world and people in the studio I did. You remember. Remember how good you felt? You remember how your knees worked? Really, Really wonderful. Remember how you could do just about anything? That's the type of people you photograph your skin. Perfect, perfect skin. OK, so all of those things, you photographing people at their very, very best. Now, how much better is that than anything else? I mean, so that's another reason why Senior Portrait's and why. To me, this class matters. The marketing is easy now. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that you can do this with no marketing. That's not what I'm saying. But the marketing is easy. If you produce awesome results, people see those awesome results. They want with you what you're doing. So it is easy is it is. It isn't without effort. No, it's not without effort, but it is. It's fun marketing. It's exciting and I'm hopefully going to show you all some stuff that will help you and get you going on somewhat of a limited budget. Or, if you have a big budget, that's great to all. These things are as to why it matters. And, of course, always learning. Learning is a good thing. If you can learn something, improve yourself. That's always fantastic. So who is this class for? If you are an experienced photographer, if you are an established photographer who is already doing high school Senior portrait this classes for you because you're gonna learn some cool tricks, some different ways of marketing, different ways of approaching things, all from my perspective. So it's for you if you are a photographer whose wanting to learn high school senior portrait. This, of course, is a class for you. If you are a beginner, I'm just getting started. I just got my camera fantastic. This class again is for you. Why? Because it's gonna give you a little bit of a focus is going to give you a little bit of a specialty that you can work with. So it's for you. If you're someone who's just thinking, you don't even have a camera yet? Your just thinking I Maybe I want to do this. I don't know. Well, then I think this classes for you because it'll again. It will show you the ends outs, What has to happen? The thinking process behind it all. So this class for you. So when I say it's almost for anyone, I literally mean that. I mean, if you are exclusively a wedding photographer, for example, you're gonna see some posing. You're gonna see some lighting. You're gonna see some marketing things that you think I could do, that it would work with brides. If you do babies, families, and the list goes on and on the same thing, it's it's all people or people. And it's getting those people into your studio. And that's what and who this classes for. Okay, What do you want to get from this class? What are you going to get from this class? Well, I have been photographing high school seniors since I was a high school senior. So you're gonna get absolutely some real world experience when it comes to me. You're gonna hear some stories and some crazy things that happened to me over the years. I'm hoping my chat world, my Internet world in my chat host can absolutely send me some awesome questions that people want to know because, you know, there isn't a question you can ask me that I'm not ready to answer. So that is what I mean about riel world experience. You're gonna hear some marketing tips and tricks for people like I said on a on a good budget on a bad budget. Hopefully, I'll give you all sorts of ideas, pricing concepts because I do have a bit of a radical pricing concept. It's not just the traditional sitting fee packages and those types of things and what it does, is it? It's all everything is designed to create a higher profit. We're gonna do some studio lighting, So if you're uncomfortable with studio lighting, hopefully this will ease that comfort level. We're gonna do some outside or location or natural light or whatever you wanna call it. Like type lighting we're going to do. We're gonna talk about cameras, lenses, equipment problem. We're gonna go workflow and hope point of the workflow that I'm gonna try to express is to get you home. I tell you. I'm going to say it. I I seriously think that when this thing's all over with somebody out there on the Internet world's going to send me an email and say Kark all those workflow things you showed us. He got me home quicker and it saved my marriage. And I'm telling you, I want to know if that happens, because it is. I hear the opposite of that all the time when it comes to photographers. So getting the divorce, it just hurts my feelings. Some of these tricks, some of these things that's gonna get you home, get you faster and get you back to what you doing it all far, which is family. That's what it's all about. And we're gonna show you some Photoshopped tricks that absolutely fun to do, and it makes you images pop. I'll use the picture that's on the screen right now. The girl in the water. That's not what this looks like straight out the camera. It's not what it looks like, but when you get done doing all the fancy magic to it would photo shop, you're gonna say, Oh, wow, that is cool. Okay, so that some of the things as far as what you're gonna get from this class. Now, who is hard low? Klein? She told a little bit of my story. I'm gonna tell you the rest of the story, but just start with this whole thing. I'm show you a little movie. This is ah, senior high school senior, and I purposely picked ah, high school senior boy, because when talking with people, I hear that the thing we struggle with the most carcass photographing boys are photographing people who are overweight. Those are the two most difficulty that I hear from people is to having problems so on purpose. This is not an overweight boy, but it is a boy and also on purpose did not pick Oh, the best of this session. In the best of that session and best of this section, I put them all together and you know, a lot of people do that. They put it all together and go, This is what I do, and it is what they do. But what I did is this is just one session once in your boy photographed him last year. So it's it's absolutely current as in 2013 senior, and it's every image I shot of him. And so let me show you that I'm not gonna talk during the thing, but we'll let the thing run, and then we'll talk about a little afterwards way. Okay, So did you notice the vast amount of variety in that little video? Did you notice some images that the more malls they're gonna want? That's for the Louisiana Peeps, the grandmothers. Excuse me? The the antenna, Nunes and the Uncle Joe's and all those the moms, the dads, the girlfriend, maybe even the teacher at school. And the list of list goes on. That's the purpose. All that variety, all that variety creates excitement. All that variety creates fun, all ever I d all ultimately boils down the process, and that's what it does for you. So I wanted you to see what it is, what ah, riel example of what I do. And that's a real session. That's that's what I do every day I do about two sessions a day. That's it. Um, I worked Tuesday through Friday, and sometimes on Friday I go playoff, but but that's that's all I do. I do around 100 seniors a year, and that's it. And we'll talk more about that as we go. So who is card vocal? Well, she told a little bit of my story, which is awesome and that when I Yes, so I was eight years old. I was about to go to school. I'm reading the back of the Kellogg's Corn Flakes box and it said, Save up you box tops and get a camera And I was like, Oh, man, that's cool camera. I want that. So I had Mom save him up, you know? And I got me a camera. It was a little Kodak 1 26 cartridge droppin type thing always bugged me about that camera is I don't have one to show you, But you know how on SLR you know that does the whole U look through and there's the whole that takes the picture and it's like the same hole. Okay, well, on on that 1 26 Carter's type camera two holes is the hole that they took the picture. And then there was the whole that you would look through, and I just thought that's how cameras worked. You know, I don't know about parallax correction and all that fancy stuff. And I thought, though I thought to myself, Man, we can put a man on the moon But we can't make it a camera that has just one hole in the front of it. And I think I was probably, I don't know, maybe 10 or 11 years old or something like that. And I was working sort of with my dad, and it was a painter's. They was Brad. I don't remember these things. Well, Brad was doing some painting for my dad, and in his truck was this camera looked. It looked like this. And I thought that camera only has one hole on Lee one. It's our ask Brad. I'm like Brad. What's the deal here? And he took the lens off and he said, Look, you know, he showed me the mirror and told me about the prism and explained the whole thing. Tell me and he says, This is an S on SL Lahore. What does that mean? He's a single lens reflex. Wow, What does that mean? He says the whole that you looked through is the same hope that takes the jar. And I said, Oh, my God, they make such a thing. I mean, the like clouds parted in, the angels started singing. I have to have one of those. So I go to my father. I looked it up. It costs $200. May I borrow $200? Yeah. Yeah. I got this speech about how hard I work and blah, but you know what you gotta do to make $200. But I tell you what. If you work for me, I'll pay you What a concept. You work and make money. I'm like, you got yourself a deal. Little did I know he was only give me a buck in our but a deal. Now, Anyone here locally? Anybody removed a mobile home? I'm a go with No, I bet in the Internet world there's someone who's going to say which is awesome. You know, what I'm about to tell you is true. Moving a mobile home is this. That's what my dad does for living. Well, he he did. And and so you have to know how to walk on your stomach to move mobile homes. Okay? You have to be out of lay down on your stomach. and you have to be able to carry a a hydraulic jack in one hand and you have to be out of pool. Ah, cinder block in the other hand, and you have to be a crawl underneath the floor underneath the trailer. Okay? And you have to put the thing underneath the trailer and you have to Jack and Jack and Jack and Jackie, Jackie and Jack and Jack and Jack. And you get so tired and it's cold and it's hot and it grows in his smells grossness. And you get to do all of that and make a dollar an hour. And I thought to myself, There's got to be There's got to be a better way to make a living And that's when prob que my own painting. And I'm like, I want to do that. I want to be a professional professional photographer. So ask the dead for the money. No. Okay. What can I do? How can I get my hands on $200? All I need my whole life will be happy. If I could just have $200. So I got a paper out. Work six months, throw in newspapers and rain and heat and all that other good stuff. I saved up $200. I went to J. C. Penney's and I got a Minolta SRT to a one with a millimeters 1.8 lens. I still have it. In case you're wondering, it sits on my shelf. I look at it every day because I always like to be reminded of how bad I wanted it. I mean, do you want Do you want it that bad? I mean, that's how bad I was willing to do anything to get that money to be able to get into that business. I mean, no camera, no photography, right? I mean, you gotta have a camera. Well, that's how bad I wanted. I was willing to do whatever he took. I remember at JC Penney's saying, I want that one and putting my $200 on the counter and the lady says That'll be $210. I said, No, no, In fact, you owe me money. It's 99 95 You owe me a nickel. And she says, No, sir, There's tax. What the heck is tax life Lesson number two money for working pay taxes. OK, so I turned to my father. Father, May I? May I please borrow $10? So, yeah, he loaned me 10 bucks, by the way. I still owe him that 10 bucks? Uh huh. He says that's gonna be his retirement. Okay, wait. Did he finds out on paid it back? A dollar a day? Okay. Anyway, the point is, I got this camera. I remember literally sleeping with this camera about 13 14 years old at this point in time And at church, there was this guy who see saw that I had this camera. He said, Would you take pictures of my wedding? Wow, What a concept I could make money at at what I love more than anything else. Money for Patrick, money for pictures. And I said, No way am I doing that? No way. Because I'm gonna be in front all those people and, you know, bubble blower, please. He would say blah, blah, blah, back and forth, back and forth. No, not gonna happen. So he bugged me so much So much that I said to myself, There's got to be a way that I can tell this guy? No. And he will understand no means no. So it hit me one day. I'm gonna tell him, Yes. What do you think? What's the first question someone would say If I say yes, I'll do your wedding was first question. How much, exactly how much. And then I'm gonna give him a price that's so high that so astronomical, that so far out into the universe that there's no way he would say yes. So the next time he says, car commuting, What? Winning? I said Yes. He said, How much? I said $ He said, Okay, now think about that. Let's talk about that for just half a second. It took me six months to make $200. It took me three hours to make $100. You could say that I made a lot of money in a relatively short period of time. Army. From my perspective, as a 15 year old, that was a lot of money for May. Now, does that translate? Does that translate into, say, someone who's 20 years old, someone who's 30 years old, someone who's been in the business for 25 years? Absolutely. It translates It's all relative as to what is considered a lot of money and what is considered a relatively short period of time. That's that's mostly gonna be determined by your scenario in your situation. But in my situation, man, I was static When I say I remember being at the wedding, my dad had to drive me to the wedding because I mean, I didn't have a driver's license to get around. And I remember eat the meatball at the reception, drinking a beer. We start young in Louisiana, right? 15 years old, and I remember thinking to myself, I just made $100 doing what I love more than anything else. $100 now that a lot of money. But for a 15 year old back then, man, I was loaded, loaded, You hear me? I took the money, would bought a flash, and then the next time I did a wedding, I was even better and then even better and even better. And that has been the story of my entire photography career, of how that happened. Now fast forward. I was like I was in high school. Maybe you have 16 inch something like that I could see the handwriting on the wall that I was gonna need education with this stuff. And I thought to myself, The best way to do that is by getting a job, if possible, at the local camera store. So I did. I walked in, chest, poking out, 16 years old. Let me tell you what I can do for you. I'll clean your toilets. Oh, I wash your windows. I'll sweep your parking lot. I don't care what it takes, but I want to be here. Whatever it takes. I want to be here in the diehard me. And what time I was out of high school 17. I was the manager of the camera store and I was literally doing high school. Senior portrait. It's now fast, far, but several years from that point, I fall in love with my lovely wife, Tammy. She's starting to come around to 345 times. We go to lunch, that kind of stuff. My boss says, Hey, that Tammy check. Um, how serious are you? I said, Oh, we get married. People married. Yeah, he said. How married? I said, Married, married, And he said, Do get him office right now. Little did I know he had already filed for bankruptcy and was going out of business. So what is the point of all of that? There's always obstacles that are going to be thrown at you throughout your entire career. There's gonna be problems, situations, issues, sicknesses and the list goes on and on that you're gonna run into, by all means, don't give up because it's life. It's what Life? ISS. It's real life. So here I find myself in a situation where I thought I had this great job making enough money to get married. Now I don't. So now I have no job. I'm on unemployment. I'm scheduled to be married in less than a month. I need a place to live, and I'm gonna be a professional photographer. I ain't got no money. Non zip, nothing. $200 if I recall, because I remember I took that out to go on a honeymoon with in the bank with a zero bank account when I got home. And so being like, I needed a place to live being my dad was in the mobile home business, okay? And being the early eighties excuse me, mid eighties that it waas being That was around the time when the oil field and for you guys from Louisiana, You know what I'm talking about? The oilfield tanks, everything tanks. And in the middle late eighties, like 87 ish, the oilfield had tanked. Interest rates had shot up like crazy banks will repossession mode, mobile homes all over the place, and they needed a place to stick them. So my dad had a lot. They started putting these mobile homes on him on his lot and paying him $6 a day to store them. So I would look at him. I found the best one, and I went to Mr Dan. How? Don't remember these things, Mr Dan at the bank. And I said, Mr Dan, I want to buy that Hilton House 1980 model. He goes, Okay, card. No problem. What do you have for collateral? Uh um Well, well oh, what's what's collateral? He says claro is something of equal or greater value to the thing you wanted to buy. Dude, if I had that, I wouldn't need you. And he said Okay, okay. Okay. So what? How much money are you gonna put down nothing. I got no money. I'm just thinking, maybe like I could get it and then start paying you back cause I'm a professional photographer. No. Here's how it works. Kirk. You have to show the bank that you're able to pay it back. Oh, okay. He says, Well, let me ask you this. Um, Let's see. What could we Dio? How about this? What, are you working? I said, I'm not. I'm on unemployment. Dude. That's not hard work, man. You have to show the bank that you even able to pay it back. You gotta have a job. I said, Mr Dan, let me tell you how it works right now. You are paying me $6 a day to park your trailer on my property. I'm not gonna move it. I'm a block it, anchor it, make it legal, put insurance on it and start living in it. And then I'm gonna start paying you $6 a day. Okay, Now, if I default on the loan, quit pay in the note. Here's what you can do. You can start paying me $6 a day again. How does that sound? And he goes Okay, Let's do it now. Would that work today? I doubt it. Too many government regulations and stuff like that. That's a whole other conversation. But did it work? Absolutely. You want to see it? Here we go. There it ISS. Okay. 1982 tone orange Hilton House. Okay. And I cut that tree down myself right there. I was so proud because I was, you know, got me a place to live. I'm a home owner, owning my own home. Okay, Right here. This is Main Street home. It is the front low room right there. That main street home. Okay, So I started thinking of myself. Then this could work. I could be a professional. Started, but I cut that window. I'll make a door, but it's a bit 11 by on the walk with desk. I mean, I could do this. I could be, Ah, professional. A professional photographer. That's like I could tuck, take that closet out. I could put me like, some prints around. Maybe little ways. Goat man is to be awesome, be a professional photographer in my trailer. Right? And then I started thinking there's two bathrooms in that thing. I mean, What's the odds of my wife and I haven't go in the same time. Right? I'm gonna take that toilet. I don't think that sink out of a ah shelf right there. Put a cash register frames on the walls. This could work, man. I could be I could be, Ah, professional. I'm professional photographer in my own, my own studio. And there it iss No, If you're not killing yourself, laughing on the internet world right now, Okay. Something wrong with you? Because in that sign, it says senior portrait with a touch of class. Okay, that's right. That gives you just a tiny bit of insight into my personality. Okay. You want to come to the Colossi place? Yeah. Yeah, that's the dude in the two phone Orange Mobile. Okay, but my point is do you see that my personality is such that my glass is always half full is never half empty. Okay. Why? I walk around like that. Negative down. It ain't gonna work because it won't work. You got us Make a commitment to yourself right now. Here at 9 38 14 seconds. Creativelive time that you are going to make this work and you gotta believe it, man. You gotta believe it. If not, it ain't. It absolutely will not work. OK, so didn't stay looking like that. No, I discovered things like paint, Okay, skirting and all sorts of other things to make it look a little bit better. Okay, from there inside this is that the little living room area. And the point of this? The reason I put this slide in is just to give you an idea. What? I mean when I say that you can really make a miracle out of nothing. Do you notice how I have, like, one print primarily in the main viewing area, which is like, over the sofa, one print on the wall. It's sized properly. It's framed, it's lit. The point is, it's what? It isn't overkilled. Okay? And I don't know if you ever do that at your studio where you go pitcher, pitcher, pitcher, pitcher, pitcher, pitcher, pitcher, pitcher, pitcher, pitcher, pitcher, pitcher. It's overkill. It's too much information. He's a crazy, radical idea. It doesn't cost anything to try my theory. Take it all down. Put one image properly framed lit at the right size at the right haIf and see if it doesn't create mawr excitement. When people come in, you will. You'll find it creates absolutely more excitement. Here's another crazy radical thing I do is part of then and now is I tried to touch every emotion that's out there. Okay, we've got site down. Okay? Right. Because what do you do? You don't eat pictures. You look at pictures, so we we've got the sense of sight nailed. Okay, what's another sense smell? Okay, do it. I mean, is there smell o vision now? So how could we? How can we incorporate the sense of smell into our imagery and to create what I like to call? Ah, buying environment? Well, this is what my reasoning. Crazy reasoning is. I started thinking to myself, What is the time of year when people spend more money than any other time of year? Christmas? Very good. The whole Internet. We heard you calm it down, though. They're way too loud. Okay, Christmas. Exactly. So you walk through the mall. What do you smell? Pine? All of that is all of that is correct. And in your area, and maybe more pine in your area and maybe more apples in your area and maybe more cinnamon. And that's fine. But whatever it is, put that smell in your studio because it assoc people associate that smell what's been money. Okay, so that's how you can incorporate the sense of smell into your world to create a buying environment. Okay, so we got smell. We've got site covered taste man, if you have a lick, the print I mean, come, just do not like your pictures, OK? Especially anyway, do not do it. But in mind, in the big time home of there's all sorts of restaurants in places that always have these little men's, I think about, I think about this this one seafood restaurant and if all the home of people, you probably know right off the bat what I'm talking about. Big giant pile, Big giant pile off of peppermints, always by the door, always always by the door. I mean, you walk in, you grab a government, you walk out, grab peppermint and what do you do in a big town? Homo Homa for fun? Eat. I mean, that's what we do know. We professional eat. Look at this. I did not. This is not just happen by accident. We eat. So when you associate having fun, would people come over eat When you let's go, Let's go out. We're going to eat It's E Okay, so I reason. And again maybe this is a stretch. But I thought to myself, Well, when you go to this particular seafood restaurant, everybody loves it to get this big pile of candy right there. I want the same thing. So I do have Candies. Also have various chocolates and things like that that are available. Always give my high school seniors a bag full of stuff. There's, like, you know, water and candy and all kinds of little goodies in there and they love it. It goes, creates again a all the look what they did for me. In fact, Creativelive did it for me. I show up to my room yesterday, bucket of stuff, chips and waters and all. And you get this warm, fuzzy feeling and gives you that warm, fuzzy on so nice. And what does that translate to profit man profit. It's very subtle, very subtle, But all these little things add up, and that's what you gonna learn about me. I'm not about the one big thing, but I am about a bunch of little small steps, little small building platforms that eventually equate to profit. So okay, so we talked about taste. We talked about smell. We talked about the site, sound so with high school seniors. They all had their music on their phone. Okay, so if you're if you don't have some kind of way of playing that music could be you missing the boat, so make sure you have some kind of way of playing that in the studio. I mean, nowadays, with all the fancy Bluetooth and a little almost brought mine the little small. It's a little bitty tiny brick that you can you know, it'll Bluetooth to the phone. I mean, you can have that in your pocket while shooting outside, but they love that kind of stuff toe where you're playing their music. So that's just a way. The way to incorporate the sound of all that into it. Okay, So what's one more touch? Don't know. People seem to forget about it. Well, the point of touch is I want stuff to feel expensive. I want stuff to feel pricey and canvas prints is one of the most expensive products that we sell, and it feels expensive. But who who touches pictures, right? I mean, you don't. I mean, people tend to hold him up by the edges and right, so I want to force someone into a way off, forcing them to touch a picture. So I have these loose campuses. You can kind of see it laying on the coffee table in the screen. See that? So I have these loose campuses, and I purposely put them in places like in chairs, on coffee tables, in places where people have to grab it and move it. And I'm forcing them to touch canvas prints and all this stuff. A lot of times, people don't even realize what I'm doing to them. But I'm building, ah, buying environment, and that's what it's all about to me, building a buying environment. You put all those pieces together, and you how have a a buying environment where money magically floats from their pockets through the air and into my bucket. And that's what it's all about, that if you want to be a professional photographer, that's what it's all about. Cool, Moving on So this is that same exact front room that I showed you earlier. Remember? I said, this is Main Street Homa. You could see that I did it. I cut that window out. I made a door. Look, I got a big 11 before teens on the wall. I got a door that leads into the studio right there. I literally built that studio on the side myself. I have a little desk, so I did. It is a perfect know it a perfect, but is the absolute best It could have been for the what I had to work with, and that's what that studio looked like.