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Lesson Info

Costs for a Creative Shoot

We're going to talk a little bit more about counting the cost because this is something that is just so important for photographers in the last couple of days we've created a variety of different kinds of environments and garments for our models we've photographed lots of interesting people and what I wanted you to see now was what it actually cost me to create the look to create the environment and so forth so that you might I think you could actually see that you could do this too so let's go forward okay to create this beautiful gown that this young lady war which is a window screen this is what it actually cost me to create I needed ten yards of white sheer fabric for the drapery behind it's just that the sheer drapes that you'll see that are hanging in the studio in addition to that that cost twelve dollars and ninety cents I needed a six foot length of window screen, which was fourteen dollars from ace hardware or our aims hardware. I bought mine at a boutique hardware store, so ...

I probably paid a little bit more but it's a local supplier what can I say? And then I needed ten yards of gray tulle purchased online for fifty cents a yard and so as you can see it, actually my math was wrong, so fifty cents a yard times ten is guess what five box so how much do we get so it's actually less than thirty six dollars it's thirty one dollars and ninety cents right? So what? I hope that that shows you is that you know, sometimes it seems very overwhelming you know, people oh my gosh this is so elaborate and what you're doing but it doesn't have to be as you saw in what way I showed you earlier with the girls from from lloret design make friends start collaborating with people and and work with them help them and have them help you you see, no man is an island you know? Somebody said on friday there sing well, baby, what if I don't have an assistant? You know, I really feel sad if you don't because what that what does that say? Because there's always somebody that can help you do a better job, whether it be someone that can that can help you that's a hairstylist that can do a great design for you there or that could be a makeup artist and come in and do make up for you maybe it's your wife or your girlfriend or your your boyfriend it could be over riding different people but it's it's important for all of us not to think negatively but to think positive okay, well, what can I do with what I have not concentrate and focus your attentions on what you don't have, I think that's the difference between those that are successful and those that are not is that those that are successful, they don't look at the road blocks is a road block they just got up that's there, so let's just go this way, they don't ever go observe from my hands up and not do anything, and I think especially for us is photographers it's so important for us to develop that idea that of course we can do it. Of course we can't it is inconceivable that we can maybe we can't do it the way we originally wanted to, but you know what? That wasn't gonna be any fun anyway. The new way that we're going to do it now is better, and I really believe that, and I know that's why I'm still around, because when I started in photography almost thirty years ago, there were like five women in photography there were none of us, and I have to tell you it was not easy being a woman and being in this male dominated industry, and I'm not male bashing, and I'm not that kind of person, but my point was is that it was a very logical endeavor at the time it was very much on industry that was based on, um, how many eight by tens you gave a client versus how many? Five by sevens and I remember the gentleman who trained me and photography I remember him saying to me so many times I say, well, don, why can't we give somebody you know, thirty two eight but why do we have to you know, why don't you? So somebody else's giving them less let's list let's offer less than them? See they were always like, oh, we have to give mohr and not charge more. Do you understand what I'm saying by that instead of thinking about what's on the paper that counts? And so I really believe that if you give people a reason to come to you based upon your your your created your creativity, that they won't even be thinking about the logic. So you know, not that we don't think about numbers, but you have to think about the artistry first, and then of course, support yourself financially. In fact, that's the reason that the job that trained me is no longer in business because he didn't understand who his client wass he thought it was on ly about the eight by tens and five by sevens, and that if he gave thirty to five by sevens and somebody else gave forty two, it was going to make him in trouble, and so it was a logic driven decision, but that's because mineralogical thinkers and we're not. And so I want you gentlemen to think, like, women think like women and that's going to really benefit you for this look that we created for for the young lady here, the pink flowers that are on her face. We're a dollar fifty from michael's. I want you to know michaels is a great place to go to michael's the craft store it's a fantastic place to go to right after christmas. I want you know, I literally felt like I found the holy grail because everything I found in there was like like like, it was eighty percent off, so this garment was the total look was four dollars and fifty cents. You see, you could do this, you can completely reinvent yourself and that, you know, I really feel that I believe in recycling, reinvention and rejuvenation, and I really that all of us need to do those three things in order to survive. There are times when you're doing reinventing, and I do that constantly as a mature woman. I have to continue to reinvent myself otherwise guess what? All these young, fresh kids that have all this great energy in these amazing ideas, and they don't know they haven't learned that you know all those mistakes that kind of way you down on your back they they just go blindly forward I think that's a good thing it's a good thing to a point and so I love that and so I know that if I don't continue to reinvent myself I'm gonna be sitting with my little walker and I am not gonna let that happen I don't want to be one of those people I cannot think of retirement people ask me what you do in your retire but uh what you do now because I really love what I do but I'm well compensated for it and so I think that that reinvention is really important and I think that's something that all of us need to do we all need to repurpose things and I think in these tough economic times you need to think of ways to recycle and re purpose so that you know what you use one thing for now that maybe you can use it for something else in the future. I love that that's actually my hobby is repurpose ing things and but it's not necessarily just a tangible thing it could be something justin, my mental state that I'm repurpose ing and twisting around maybe the verb ege or something that I do want a brochure or it's a thought process so it doesn't have to be something that's completely tangible the six yards of pink tulle again I found that online if you just if you just google tool there's hundreds of literally of places that sell fabric online and it's just literally a no brainer and they'll sell it in thirty yards at a time it's it's just silly, silly silly you want the wide tool so you want to think it's like fifty four inches wide? You want the the fairly wide tool and I prefer the tool that's a bit stiffer. It comes in different degrees of stiffness and I preferred a lit bit stiff because it has more body. Okay, now, what about this? Look, this looks six yards of black tool to wrap her body in. I think in this way we bought a black slip from t j maxx is just one of those spanx slips it's like it's, not the brand spanx, but just a cheap, you know, one of those cheap slips that's kind of like a spank slip that had little straps. And then we wrap the tool around it and said the total lock law of the total cost of this was fifteen dollars, fifteen dollars. In this case, this is probably the most expensive props was that old door I've had that door for probably five years, so actually by now I think it's probably free, wouldn't you say what how did I get it done well I went down to my dear friend carrie clayton who's in my building and say hey carrie I really want to chalk paint this door could you help me with it did she charge me no so there's lots of people that are willing to be helpful to us we have to be willing to ask however we can be a leech and a mooch off them okay so we need to make sure we reciprocate there's a gentleman in my building his name is kim and he makes a fine soap she makes handmade soaps and handmade lotions and such and we collaborate constantly in fact now he just gave me a whole bunch of beautiful new lotions that are very expensive and very exclusive in a store and then in return what do I do well all create his beautiful marketing pieces for his online's his online store so there's always somebody that you can cross market with that can benefit you so I'd love for you my homework assignment for all of you is to go home after this program and I want you to write down the five things that you're going to implement five things right him down and I want you to take one of them at a time the most important one right circle the one that's the most important and I want you to do nothing else until you do that job just concentrate on that one thing see, the thing about us is that as soon as you lied many of you even on the internet you after this program you'll go home and you'll you'll have time with your family it's a sunday evening maybe you'll go watch a football game or something and then tomorrow morning you'll go back to doing your daily routine in your normal life. So I really want you to take just give yourself two days, give yourself permission to change and to grow its okay, you could do that. Okay. Okay. So the door was seventy five dollars. Now one of the things I want, I brought this photograph up for one more reason, and that is to show you that you can also use. You know, I talked a little bit too about texture in the background stuff and how you can create mood with the way that light falls on a building. I think I showed you a couple of images like that. This is the, as I told you, is the one window in my studio that I left the blinds in intact. In other words, the rest of the studio, we took them all down because they're really, really ugly and so, on a bright, sunny day, I routinely at least do one or two photographs where I want that bit of sunlight to stream through in race I think it gives your imagery a really unique look I think it's I think it's very it's very moving it can really create some great drama and as you can see with our our subject here one of the important things that you want to do is first of all you take a meter a light meter reading on the bright spot. Okay, the second thing is I kind of like to have the eyes illuminated by that those bars coming through so I find myself that it just makes sense to me to have a little bit of light coming in those eyes so they don't go dead. Does that make sense? And the other thing that's really cool too is you notice how the light falling across her gown because the light's coming from that forty five degree angle it just skims across that dress and it gives it that beautiful iridescence in and makes it look very three dimensional. Okay, what about the mesh to create this look, this entire look was fifty cents I mean, think about it fifty cents again this came from michael's I literally walked in that store and I felt like I hit the holy the holy grail is just so amazing and I saw they had this really thick ribbon and that's what that is is just a tick ribbon it's in the section of the store that has wedding things and, you know all kinds of wedding church keys little things that they self toe brides that air looking toe create wedding favors well, that's where I got it and I love the body, it had a really wonderful texture to it, so I just bought a full of it. It comes in a roll and I think it was six dollars for the role, but this little tiny piece of it you know less than that much was about fifty cents, so you can create a variety of looks and what I hope that you've seen from this segment already is do you really? We're not even at fifty bucks shit if you can't if you take the door out of it, we're not at fifty dollars. So do you see how much variety in those two days I gave you for your homework assignment that you could really create and reinvent the look some and spiced up what you're currently doing in two days on a very tight budget? I mean that's, not even a meal if you go out to dinner that's not even a good meal for two people, right? Maybe you could you could feed three at the golden arches, but not maybe more than that the shamrock hat was two dollars and fifty cents the striped tights that we put on the arms and cut a hole for the head for her face where two dollars and twenty five cents the pink tutu worth was three dollars total investment seven dollars and seventy five cents and the potential exposure you can't beat that obviously hair salons in fact I was already talking with the stylist who's here with us this afternoon um and she's very excited so we're going to create for her for her salon big big poster with this image on it that will go great in the salon talk about a great ad can you imagine the changes still on seeing this the same while this would make a great ad what about for what is it the holiday for shamrock day? What is that? Thank you say father state I started in a little bit a long day so can you wouldn't be great to do a nad for for st patrick's day for your for your hair salon and have I think this would be so cute how about bringing your little kids into the salon for st patrick's day be kind of fun hanging in a boutique of children's boutique create a play date for your clients and say you know we want to just do something kind of fun we want to say thank you for being our clients and we want to make maybe it's a saturday that you do and you dedicate it to just bringing in a hairstylist and makeup artist, saying, we're going to let your kids, we're going, we're gonna have a fantasy day, and we're going to make it just really a lot of fun. Can you imagine how much fun that would be for the children as well as the parents? And I like doing things on non holidays because everybody does a holiday. I mean, think about it. O when you get a gift for your birthday or for christmas, right? Well, I just think you just take a day and you say, I'm just going to do it because it's just a day, and I think that actually will have more meaning to your clients. I think it's a really fun thing to do, so I hope that that will expand your mind to do something like that, and a smile from this child. Would you not agree, is absolutely priceless?