Lessons

Lesson Info

A Conversation with Chase

I'm super excited because we're going to take a short detour um what we're talking about is uh marketing and branding using your website now I'm super fortunate tio have my great friend and uh somebody that I look up to you very much chief service join us for a short conversation chase please come in totally on the spot and I was just like hey I totally know you're swamped with work but if you get five or ten minutes coming hang out and he was wonderful in seoul I'm really happy to have you here prior to us getting into questions the goal for this conversation is validation that's really what's going down too the subscribing for the same ideology a person that I look to you when I got into wedding photography because I started when I got to that point and I talked about how I looked at the images and felt I needed to change I started looking in different genres of photography one of the people that stood out in the commercial world was chase and what he was doing and what made him diff...

erent all about the idea of being different was that he was sharing information freely posting these rad video is one of the first years I saw him he was in hawaii talking to his computer talking about the shoot that he did he was raw, unedited and I was like you could do unsure and showers no no thank you smell in the internet yeah no so when I saw him doing that I look to him and I felt there somebody who's giving me permission to be me raw and edited and to share when people might not share so if you want to speak a little bit into that or what I liked a lot of the things I've been watching when I've been able to this morning paying attention a little bit and I had a wireless signal up at the in the mountains for about at the lodge for about forty five minutes yesterday so I was able to catch a little he was gonna shoot yesterday um and I've liked several things one of things that I think it may be appropriate cause we're both here in the same room is talk about the to dispel the idea that photographer's hate one another and to dispel the idea that they're well that the idea of keeping secrets is still alive I believe were deteriorating that that horrible I don't know that that old understanding of what it meant to be a photographer were eroding the the negative aspects of protecting information on dh have an open conversation and like what you're doing with branding and all that stuff is very very important differentiation I'm happy to talk about any of that stuff girlfriend this is you you know I'm I'm here what you want to talk about um well basically it was just teo use other people who might not be because clearly I know like uh, who you represent in your in your industry for people who are watching it's a wedding conversation and I know that the the audience is waiting primarily wedding in portrait photographers and for other people to expose you to a new audience and if you had a piece of advice for people who are sure mean one in three years and you're saying what to this different new set of groups of people saying well, I think that the opportunity for differentiation is many and myriad and I believe that the industry or the people that are participating an industry that especially ones that are newer to arrive they believe that it's more and more difficult to differentiate yourself that in under a common set of circumstances or under a common wisdom I believe that would be the case however what we have now more than ever before is tools and opportunities to differentiate ourselves. We have our own platforms we're talking about you know, she's talking about her blog's site here and you can talk about the ways to express yourself your twitter the fact that you can create something and share without permission for anybody is like that in and of itself is a platform for differentiation that hasn't existed before and more than more than anything I think that is how to stand out in a crowd is by one your work needs to differentiate, but also your marketing mechanisms and the irony I think people think I'm a good good at getting my stuff out there. My marketing message, I'm actually I don't I don't think of myself necessarily has a good market or because I don't do anything that is traditional. I don't do direct mailers, I don't, and this is again don't take this is advice I'm not way doing, but I don't do any of those or I do very, very few of those traditional mechanisms. What I hope that means because I have been able to create a large collection alleged community online, is that I'm an example of being different actually working, and when you know when, when I think about being different, there's a million ways to do it, one is and you do it so well, I'm actually I'm now the student again, and what you've done is is let your personality shine through. I talked about making pictures that no one else in the world can make besides you being able to like if there's a picture that anyone could walk down the street and take than it probably shouldn't be in your book and the same thing like if that is a mechanism for different chain in your work. Why not use that or apply that to your marketing principles like you have to be saying and doing things that nobody else in the world could say or do? And since we're all unique people, he realized then that that means that the primary source of that is what's in here and ain't nobody doing it better than she is right now, especially in your space. So I I am I have to say that it's uh it's what like a rain effect or what did they call it a snowball effect? So what you gave me permission to do was be myself in my area, but I'll never forget a few months ago you haven't posted a block post about ah print campaign you did for lulu lemon and you give people the option between picture a picture be strongly backlit and less less backward, and you've dissected both images what the client shows, what you would have chosen that breakdown, that dissemination of knowledge, the free nature of things, this how I do it this is how I roll you like it, you don't like it. This is the client like this is what I liked and everybody had an opinion about it that forum is setting a new standard in the industry, we think that we're both saying the same thing is being different is is far better than being the best yeah, and then look like what I was actually doing is talking. This is what I mean about your own experiences as an opportunity for differentiation, because there wasn't any other photographer in the world shooting that little lemon campaign, it was me and I had permission from the client to talk about it and talked about the actual decisions that were going on and it's not necessary, whether or not the minutia or the details were important, it's the fact that I was able to have a conversation that has never happened before, this is like that we wrestled for days and days on to differentiate the two pictures, which one was going to be a part of campaign, which wasn't, and there's a million of those things, and that is an opportunity, for that was an opportunity for me to share something and to get traction into share of voice, and also to learn a whole bunch from the myriad of voices that came in and essentially trying. You said giving permission is not the right thing, because that sounds like I'm the permission giver, but that I'm willing to put it out there and take the heat if it goes poorly with first time around two things, I think there's two sub stories to what? Just what chase said, so what I was talking about as readers, so I'm not necessarily a client of chase, but my interaction in the dynamic on his log, he talks about a lot of different shoots. Why did the lululemon shoot resonate with me if you follow my boss? I'm a customer, I love it, I like to chase more because he shot the clothes I wear. What can we do in a fight in our market? What can we put out of ourselves to educate clients to make him feel an affinity for us? We'll talk about repelling or connecting he's, giving people the opportunity to, like more like him less, and he doesn't give a rip that's great. Another name teo that those are things that I'm actually interested in, things that I actually care about, and one of the struggles that I have with our industry if if I am going to try and identify them, is everybody looking at everybody else trying to do what they're doing right? Rather than looking at what it is that interests them and that's, I'm dumb enough to not look left and right, and just to look at the things that are motivating me on a regular basis and things that I feel like our legitimate challenges, that I have legitimate struggles and legitimate things that are exciting to me. Okay, speaking of things that exciting to him, we just have a few more minutes because I can't get too far off track, but we could talk all day way, just like chatted on up. Okay, but one thing, teo again, this idea and chase doesn't call it giving permission. Maybe I am like a fan of authority. Oh, he's, give me permission. I call it giving person because there's somebody who is in a different industry who was a larger network has a larger umbrella is saying and doing something recently he shot a campaign. If I'm not mistaken for ari, I and you guys were in colorado. Yeah, that was just two weeks ago, two weeks ago. But what he did was he posted a daily diary six days of the things that went right, his planning, the things that went wrong, what they ate for dinner, what they drank, I am not a commercial photographer, and yet I was intrigued. It was intrigued because the two elements I love reality television, and there he was, pictures of what he drank out. I don't think I'll ever get into the industry, but what did I do with that and said, how can I do that in my industry because there's so much more planning for his shoes than what we do for our shoots because that responsibility is broken up into a myriad of people he becomes the executed the doer, the end product finisher, the whole thing I then after seeing state I followed a one two and three and then fold later but after stay three unlike how can I do this in my in my industry? And then I wrote a blob post called the anatomy of a wedding day where it talks about what I planned out the night before and what our planning looked at the date of totally not happy is cool and like drinking in the elves but you know he's like I met the most expensive city in the world today and I'm like I'm in my house packing up my bag but not as cool but it was applicable to my lord it was me, it was me and I am the cool city in the world and you are way think you're point is a valid one and and if I'm going teo, I want toe touch one more playing here here yeah on your permission thing again, I don't feel like I'm I think I'm trying to inspire, but not for trying, not for the sake of trying to inspire I'm trying to shake things up for myself and even you look a tw what I was trying to do with mobile photography is I took pictures with my iphone long before it was cool to do so it was two megapixels known it's like about the camera, but it gave me freedom. I like that I didn't care that the press was trashing the xylophone cameras, and I started thinking, wait a minute, what if we get five billion cellphones? What if everyone started thinking of them as a camera? What interesting world would be? And just I I went very much against what the industry and the standard wass and said, you know, I don't carry one says, I don't like this, I can take a picture of the cookies won't wait in line for my coffee, and I feel like I'm engaged like I'm being creative by putting out the first book of iphone pictures, what I what I didn't, what I wasn't doing was trying to make make some grandiose statement I was doing something think this changed me. What it did do is put a stake in the ground. There was a validator for mobile photography, and it was one of the prime movers I think that helped help that get going. The point is that it was it started and was important to me and what you do when you're sitting at home talking about the anatomy wedding shoot is that's what you wake up thinking about and all you're doing is sharing a part of you, and when you think about who you are and who your brand is, those things should be like this. And what I see out there too much is this. This is what I eat for breakfast, and this is what I want to pretend I am. And, like the closer you could move those two things together, the stronger your brand will be in the more that more connections that I believe you built to make in in business and in life. So we're officially done, okay, I thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. Last year, I really appreciate it. I really, really can't give her wait.