Lessons

Lesson Info

Photo Review With Client

So let's do this we did we did the shoot you do you feel like you've got an idea of what happens beforehand in this specific case I'm gonna bring and emily on who I photographed her and her two daughters the other day because obviously is different we did not have the same length of time for the shoot and we did not get a chance to give her a slide show two days ago because we didn't even do the shoot to face ago I'm going to mix it up a little bit, but I want to make sure you're aware that normally she's coming in having seen the slide show a couple days ago and she's already coming in from a place of like way just loved it you know? I mean we just sat there and just played it over and over again I was crying in the grocery aisle on my phone just looking like an idiot but I love them you know, it's that that that really sweet feel that is the whole reason we're doing this in the first place, you know? So we ready air coming in with this feel and again the timing of this matters by hav...

ing this meeting so close to this shoot so close to the relationship you've built so close to that and there was just I can't I mean I don't in any way think that that is covered enough like it's not just a relationship but it's an affinity that you've developed for each other you have affection you built a trust you you kind of want to hang out you want to spend time together and there's often a time line around that not that you don't feel that way later but it's more fresh right when you've kind of built something together like the shoot so having that happen right away I think is really important for photographers to you as well ok, so two days later she's seen the slide show although I'm actually the show those simple now and they come in hi how are you going todo not give it in what just happened there that's a great example do that again you get me a handshake this's a tone of it like if this happens I tio hand shake hands all right and the attic and I would go you know like something like that like I would just do that obviously that's not your style don't back because it might be but something to convey like we just hug and had fun. All right, so come on in oh my gosh what have you just come from? Oh my goodness we just I just had a younger class pick my kids up from their friend's house while I taught the class I'm happy to be sitting down why you picked up while you were teaching yes how do you do that? And I taught the class and then I went downward dog there's a video called angry yoga no, I have a chance to google that just literally type in anger yoga they have the whole thing this woman's teaching this class and every post he moves into his teeth deep breath not that you can use the rain forces being destroyed hoping goes like like something I would enjoy it's really funny can I get you something to drink or snack on or I'm really good they're going ashore to get quite a variety of products okay, yeah, I'm good we'll let you know I mean any range of products is what I'm saying ok like a glass of what exactly? And that that is actually a normal exchange I don't say which like a glass of wine because you never know people are like trying to not three google but I'll say enraged by I mean anything you know, like kind of just teasingly but there's many people who at three in the afternoon like, you know, wade got s o but normally, you know simply just off the water and snacks and such and conversation for probably just a comfort like five, ten minutes like just come out of my goal here is to connect with you and see how you're doing anyway but also to come just calm us down because I typically just come back from something or you will have as nobody's just sitting around waiting for a sale session right? You're like racing from things to things so you did not have the benefit in real in real life now you did not have the benefit of seeing the slide show I put together a sample this actually actually say I put together sir, I reached out to my studio director this morning and said I forgot to do an animal sideshow can you really quickly put one together and so she did and send it to me but this is this is probably about a minute it's a quick sampling of what you'd see in a full animal of sideshow but if you go teo it's an emotive dot com I think it's an emotive slash tamara and mother dot com such tamara you'll see a sample that much larger slide shows and most this slide shows will send a client's most of the shoots like I said or two a half hours, maybe even three hours and so you're going to get back like sixty, seventy images and they're put together and about a four minute slideshow that's about right? So you're going to get that as a link but this is about a minute and moving a little bit we want to just do something under a minute to show you an idea that so if you look at the top I want you to see the title of this I downloaded this so we wouldn't have any wifi issues but it says the peterson family two thousand fifteen dot move that is not unusual we would usually do something where we maybe we'll add in a couple different dates so maybe make it a little more complex so it's not easy for anybody else to find but the way people get their link is it goes to tamara lackey dot com ford slashed the peterson family two thousand fifteen dot move so that is how somebody is getting their web show and that's important for a few reasons one of the big reasons of course is it's constant branding and people are always seeing my website everywhere it goes s o I want I want that to happen but number two is we get to control it when we say we give it to them for two days that's that's what we mean on dh does everybody know how to put a slideshow on your own site? You guys don't get it ok the s o the nice thing there is that you control when you put it on and when you take it down and um and then you can always have these as marketing videos you know what we do in our portrait contract is we have everybody sign off on the fact that we can use these images on our blawg for marketing etcetera and I think we've had right four people ever say no thank you and then they mark it out and we completely respect that but if somebody wants to see for instance an image done at the er was place where at georgetown ballroom then we can say we've got some images shot of the georgetown ballroom on and you can save them and have them is really nice quick marketing images to show which can be really helpful based on what your genre of photography is so this is this is made I think sarah said that it was super quick to make because you literally just upload them she's a song maybe star few and export it downloaded and you're done s o this minute long slide show from an emoto probably took her four minutes to make and normally I would never leave my client this long hi how you doing? I'm even busy busy you can say that again I thought so all right, we'll just relax yeah racing this side show when I said it two before but take a quick look at what I'm normal sideshow might be yeah that's that's like a minute but it's so nice to sink into those so nice to sink into those I'm going to read you one for you and stretched out make it longer just for you to have for later, but the slide shows we often find well, we'll set the mood and instead of feel and if you saw they were all branded, did you notice that so every images branded so that when you come in to meet with you, you can say, you know what? My daughter ray told me? She wants twenty one in a room as a poster, you know, it could be all set. This explains your posture. The yoga makes sense to me now, eh? So she did issue would have seen the full length, one that with it has emotion. It's got music and she can see it on our devices and she's ready shared it with friends and family, often on dh, then so you'd come in having already had that experience, and we'd start from there. So let me just show you I'm pulling up pro select, which is the tool we've been using to do our sales for quite some time on basically, every image in there from the shoot is in there, and there are at this point, I think that might be my favorite one from that whole series, by the way, I love that, but the every image from the shoot is in there and, uh we're going to basically step through them one by one and talk about adjustments we make changes on the fly if we're in there and you tell me I love everything about it, I just I just wish that her toe had not been fists or whatever or I wish I didn't have that hair across my face. I can show you real time how we shift that and that's something that completely goes away when you don't have in person sales, you do not have the ability to on the fly in that moment of initial objection saying I love that image, but that's, the way the hair goes across my I just really excellent makes my eye looking like it's breaking up or something. I just don't like that what you normally get if you just have somebody look at their images and then send you something is a yes or no and she's going to say no because I don't like the way that hair's going, where is we're in person? We can talk about what she loves and what she doesn't love and fix it right there, and I will go into photo shop in real time show her to make a quick adjustment on a lot of times clients as much they know there is a lot student photos show shop they don't necessary know all the things you khun d'oh or sometimes anything you could do everything but so in this image we're just going to stay with all of them and go through them one by one so they put the first image and all we're going to do is tell me if you love it or like it or you don't want to do anything with it right now and that's all we have to d'oh and as we're stepping through them if there's little things that you see that you'd like to shift or a just just let me know so hard with your own children because I know I know although I'm totally ok with that, by the way okay? I really love this picture because it looks very candid and um just really not not opposed to necessarily and I love it good we love it yeah, this is a slight variation, right? So they're taking around the same time that we've got a little bit of a different expression and we've got some, um a little bit more of a dramatic take on a little more dramatic and I believe even with the black and white shift that color variation it makes it even more drank and it looks a little more um postured I would say so I like it like it all right perfect what I'm not doing right there is giving her five images that are all pretty close I'm giving her two images that are relatively close there's a little difference in the processing or maybe a hint of something that's different but I'm not giving her an overwhelming amount of things to decide between because when you're overwhelmed we usually choose no and I wanted to be really simple and really straightforward in that exact situation I clicked about five times if she said I would have loved it just maybe I just a hint this I you know I in the back of my mind that that might be something I even have I don't usually offer that so I don't open up that whole can of worms but what will happen is if I have just a black and white I have shot everything in color so she likes the color image it's near it but she likes the expression in the black and white just once it in color that is not a problem to d'oh all right so then we have this is what we got the wind do you remember how hot this why I was so is still hot air the kids were fading yeah it's really great when the fan came out yes exactly on dso in a normal situation when there's something that's stressing the shoot like the unbelievable heat of that moment if you watch that video you can see the kids just like that's a really challenge and something you've got to overcome and and we had to hit the sparks of expression because most expressions were like I'm so going to pass out and so we were able to show the ones we have but your job on the shoot is to be able to do whatever it takes to get those microseconds and then later you can connect about them so yes, we have this image I believe this image really shows the relief of this yeah so it's it's I think I feel very true about this I loved mccain amaze expression and of course there's things about my image that I'd changed because I'm a woman and tell me I'm coming ok, so I of course I think and as you know, these are all proof finished yeah, so anything that's printed we're going to make it so anything that you're saying that you'd love to change we'll happily do for print finish ok, so my fly away crazy hair I live with every day I would say I would love to smooth that out a little bit just because I totally agree gap has very simple to do I think posture lies it's good I'm glad you're rocking it you are e I think lily looks I like this this look on her she's just turning eleven so she's very kind of working their way to the young lady so I think that that's nice posture if she looks comfortable and I would say I like this photograph okay, good thank you and then what I can do and and the whole time I had to grab one the whole time I have a note pad next to me a little note pad with a pen on by making those little notes as she goes what I'm not doing even though I have the capability with the software to flip over and track and online order and make any additional notes I am not going to do that because what I found happened every time I did that is we went out of the moment into a whole different part of our brain and it really killed the feel of a sale the feel of this is I say they feel assail because that's how we're categorizing this thing but the feel of this is let's look at each other let's like appreciate each other let's really love this and just like I tell you that I get so lost in the shoots I get really lost in this part because we're just we're examining things I love photography I've already fall in love with our clients when I've done the shoot like to me this is the very enjoyable part which is another aspect when people avoid doing meetings like this I think oh gosh, you're missing out on such a really beautiful part of it yes, so a question can you just remind us? I know you said use a pen a paper, but are you doing something in a pro select to remember which one she loves on likes so right? A pair of the top there's a smiley face, a media face and as frowny face and they say you by selecting when she said, I like that I love that so the first one she loved right now everything starts out in the love pile it's a very optimistic program and then we have the likes so these air, the likes ones and the ones she you know she doesn't want anything with right now and I've used that exact term forever because I hate it or I don't like it I don't want that to come into play I don't put that out there as a term we want to use because I would have never given it to her if I hated it. One more question are you showing all of the images that will be purchase a bowl, if you will? So if it's sixty to seventy images is they're all being shown for one of our product that she might yes and and this is a really important part, you know, she's noting her fly away hair if this were obviously I turn this around in eight seconds but if in an image like this, I felt like it was so distracting, I'm going to go that extra length and dampen it down a little bit by just doing some focus cloning in photo shop, or I would I would ask photo fava who does my editing? I would put additional note on a couple images I'm saying, can you please clear this up for me in this case? Specifically when we go to print? If you hear me, I'm telling her when she says I'd like to control, it'll fly away hair. I completely agree with her. I see that exactly. I would not want this to be a print on the wall because the flyaway hairs would drive me crazy. I I would want to clean it up anyway, eh? So I'm going to offer it as a service we do, knowing that it's going to be something that I'm going to pay to get done for me because it's more efficient that way for me on don't want to sit there and clone everything. Thank you so and I have this, you know, those cute little journals that you could buy, I have those, and I'll just stacking up andi moved to that after having these because, you know, two weeks after sale of like, where did that piece of paper go? So I just have him all my my folder and I'll just stay like this am I really pretty looking journal and keep the notes all right so we have that and then if I have images that you know also look at them separately but as we're looking at one if I think one's really similar I still want to take them one by one but I feel like something's pretty close but she might see just a little bit of a difference I may hold them up together so I'll say I love this one I just everything about the way you guys are together this week that we got this great moment on then just a hair later we went a little closer in so we can look at these together I simply selecting both were on a on a large screen tv here in our studio we do it on a projector andi I used to do everything on a large screen tv with really good picture quality but what I found was gonna move to the projector on the what's one of things protect against what's the large screen screen a large screen you feel like there should be a better word for it um the projector screen that you were able to see exactly what a thirty by forty looks like and hold a frame up to the corner of it and really get a feel for it so but anyway that's just a little note about presentation so the there's two things about these two images is you can also tell there's a little bit of a different hit to the styling of it in terms of contrast, one's got a little bit of a deeper contrast once a lighter contrast and there might be one that you prefer over the other as well and either one can be delivered me to style you asking e way being so incredible about this because you're just like and I'm going back here in here in here and you're just picking up as you go you're you're just great fight of this woman you're being that wonderful I think because he loved my photography especially my children at ease so I would go with the site of the one on the right yes I feel almost like it's just more natural yeah loser loser and that's how we roll yeah cedar singles yeah that's perfect. Ok, excellent. And then you know right when I go teo because again we knew we were under strenuous situations there right before I go to deliver anything, we're going to make sure we do just talked about him a lovely retouch so everything is as it should have been um this one's very fun the one thing I note here is that when you look at this image we may want to prop in a little tighter because there were arms are way may or may not but I want to show that sometimes like there's things that like here's the thing I think all the time by the way dad holding his kid and then the hands right there between the legs holding him and then that times now he captured imposing all the time I always stop and say all right, just move around a little bit but forever you pull image up thing and we're gonna crap here here you know, sometimes you might say that it's kind of like middle and love that that's beautiful you americans are ridiculous, you know, like ok, but from a cropping perspective we have options that we can should do if you'd like to see see different ways we can look at this right? But because I can see where the hands my you know, be in the wrong fish if it's on the wall. So you actually think tio just keep in mind is that obviously we have a significant amount of cropping options to we don't have to keep to any sort of like eight by ten and then like that on dh in fact, if you look around at my studio wall right now you'll see on, you know, a number of kind of odd sizes in terms of their not the norm and yet they present so much cooler on I kind of love that so I would pull this out distractions out yeah people distractions out and soften them up on ben again we'll do kind of a little retouch I see like on the end here there's a little bit of a distraction I can show you how I would pull that out and just soften it up even things like the hat with the hair right? I can give you a quick idea of what I would do with that just so you can see if that would be helpful andan again here somebody might say yes would be very helpful in someone else might be sick would say no, no, no, just fine. I know you could get so it's going to be completely based on your preference I think we're right here after this one s o I just open this up normally again before a sale session. I've got everything ready to go in press elect and I've got the al don't get up and photo shop so there's not hunting so here, like one of the things I noticed is with these hair like this is just just to show you what I mean when I say how simple it is, I'm removing it like that it's not so it's, not local yeah it's really easy to kind of make sure that's kind of cleaned up and you can remove my wrinkles too and then stopping everything we all want that you know what I mean? Do you want to give you the gift I give myself lovely retouching um worth every penny worth every penny so yeah, I just feel like we've just do that, you know? And then we could make all those little clean changes and then crop to something but I want to give you a feel for just how quickly and easily you could do that death I see are you noticing by the way, how this is just a conversation there's no agenda we're walking through the show everything aiken dio what do you think? What do you think? Let's move on, there's nothing regimented it's meant to be easy there, I think there's a lot of buildup about what it means to have a sale session on dh there's a lot of stress put on it and all of that is going to just these kids basic counterintuitive to how the process can go and and actually khun sabotage the feel of the shoot. Okay, so we're back teo the imagery and so we like it with this kind of orientation. Yeah, I like it that I do like the cropped alright, excellent um yeah, when they were at this one so this we'd already moved locations and we'd shifted to a different spot and I love how the little girls or holding hands I don't think I even asked for that no that's really did that love that's the type of photographic pull out when they're fighting? Yeah, like you teach other you'll love each other yes, I love that picture I love that too this would also be a nice image to look at as a as a potential square, as you can see right there on the wall, but that is that is the benefit, of course, of having a space where everything's done, but you don't need to have that space you can obviously bring things and we were gonna have selections to show similar tip. I brought them into u s so you can do that in a square kind of thing just to see how that could maybe change the orientation that better and then other options would include I can just go in here and look att you know, if you want to see something in black and wait this's tense city kind of gray or black and white that the system gives you I just just as a comparison, it would have more of this kind of toning where they may just a little bit more impact and color toning to it, but just to say that these air, you know, options, tio partly why I'm giving her a lot of options to show you the power of this software I'm in normally we were choosing and moving on if she has questions will go in and show her again the idea of keeping it simple and then let's go back teo the regular option okay on dh then we have this one which is kind of a we've got a few of the different suitcases and props um this is basically really close to where this was um a cz you can see these air about a hair away from each other I don't love the one on the left yeah, we have a don't love I actually really appreciate it when somebody calls out of don't love because if they love everything then their own overwhelmed with what to do later so you know it's way on dh that's actually quite helpful so this is actually a really important point right here sometimes when you're meeting with a client and she says I don't love that or one of the languages some people can feel like oh right way ever had that I've had associates so we've have social doctors would come through and on dh we watched new sales sessions and sometimes you get so rattled especially if there's a funeral they don't like no thank you I don't love that one that's not really let's see what else you have people could get released lights out and if you can look at this a cz the kind of idea of what we're focusing on what you love and that's what I want you to have anyway and we can put the things you like together too, but that doesn't make sense you have things that you don't love a really just keep your mindset there, you're going to stay up and you're going to stay comfortable on this is going to go a lot smoother and it's going to feel like something that's really honoring her choices versus you just kind of feeling beat up and like something's not right about you, I think that's actually probably even though it seems like a little point it's probably one of the bigger point you could take away from this is understanding that deciding against images in no way a rejection of the artist it's just not like we could both the exact same division have a whole different feel we're standing in front of gallery and we both looked at a world class piece of art and you could love it and I could be like it doesn't nothing for me and me saying that does not take away from the beauty of the art for you or for anybody else in the world, you know, it's like going to a store and try to decide between green and blue when you're picking a shirt like blue doesn't stock because you didn't choose it, you know, to be ableto really adopt that as your mindset we'll make this such a more comfortable easy process and it will impact your sales for the better if you can separate yourself from a perceived rejection, your sales will go up because you're but you're to be an easier person to have this process with. Okay okay, so what about this one with a close friend and the more the black and white and like like it perfect and everything she's saying she's liking is good for me because I want to be able to assemble an album later and I usually go to like, pile I love this photo looking the wrong way I love this one I love this photograph just so you know what I would want to do right before we print is just remove this little distraction here hey tone this down and then just calm down some of the distractions there because this is where it's all at, you know? And of course we'll do the same sort of thing I've talked about the whole way through from talked about the fine art retouch so when it's delivered its like that but everything else in the frame I really love you know, I just think it speaks speaks love, yeah, yeah, well, that that doesn't mean that they say that you can still go inside because you can, um all right, we got more love this isn't a little bit of a different style to than the other one I do love this photograph I wish her nose wasn't pushing squishy square yeah, but I really maybe somebody else's but I don't know what to do about that so maybe we make this alike about because sometimes I couldnt squash this you probably can't I don't know I think the question now is I don't know that I'm really but in the like I'm like yeah I love the photograph yeah before that but we can do is soften the effect of make her a little bit more soft focus ok, I love this one I love this photograph I mean her face I mean that's a real smile with no what mom like on biggest how she looks right like you look so then and like, beautiful and wisdom and then she goes right our daughter I just love this picture of mckenna me? Yeah, yeah and I love how you look like you've got this parent thing going on okay get strong beautiful tonight I feel like this I love this yeah, I love this too and I would love this as just I just feel like this this one really stands out is just it's got a whole field of the energy that's really pop it out there really is a feel to this love that uh freak you know I love her bare feet huh? That was the there are like see this on dh then in this case so she didn't say a directive like love but I can feel like it's a like and I'm just click like and keep going on and and I also think that these two are really strong and the couple things I'm thinking right when I like when I look at these is I love the expression like the field we've got two different toning styles here and I want you to know that the image of the right number sixteen we're going to adjust your hair so doesn't feel like it's popping a pill okay? So just if you didn't need to see that I love the one on the right and I like the one on the left I would say I love it but I know there's others that I've loved so I'm almost hesitant to love everything you know and that's fair so tell me just for my own purposes what if there were no other images? What would make you love that image more the one on the left if there was no others to choose from yeah, it wasn't the problem wasn't that you have a large selection if just I mean I love I love it to be frank I if I had to choose between the two I would go with the right especially you could fix my hair yeah I really I I look marty's on the left I think ok and my cash that's her I loved her little spunky smile right there so I mean I would say I love that photograph I I go for any of them very happily okay okay did you just say what happened so I truly wanted to know in this exact situation that was perfect that was so real and authentic and I hear that kind of exact walk for all the time in sales sessions so someone will say I do love it but so what you can experience right there is the power of silence just sit for a second and often especially that if people weren't here and you would have kept going problems you probably feel like we're jumping around so much you're trying to be respectful of this situation but what I hear often people say eleven but and then I'll just sit there and wait so the thing about it is and then I get I mean, but how in comfort was that silence was now for some of you but it allows the space this quiet space like I'm more like I really want to hear and I'm not and I'm not gonna corrupt you and I'd love to hear jeb to say, and what I usually get next is one of two directions. I love it, but there's something in what about the way my arm is just like it just feels like if you could just maybe crop it right there, I would love it love love it. But since it's kind of I don't like the way it's held or something oh, I can absolutely crop it right there hear the pop this in. Okay, do you love that? I love that done or I hear what just happened here. I love it, but and then she looks at it more and she moved in closer and she exams it more because now I love it. I love it putting look out, it will go one of two ways. What happens if it doesn't go one of the two ways if she says I love it but and I say all of course, no problem and I clicked it and then just like pilot keep living on is that anything she could have experienced? I just took away because he went to quickly. Yeah, and probably because I was sitting there feeling like you don't like it. I just heard you say you don't like it, okay? That's not what you said it's not what I said, but that's what I heard. Yeah, I can see that idea into the more I look at this image I almost love love the one on the left more than the right. And the reason why is because I love her smile better in the left. Yeah, just looks a little more like authentic. Yeah, so see, how does this is? But you are not granting your client the luxury of is truly enjoying their images when they can't have an opportunity to slowly and methodically moved through them, and we enabled her to do that by saying, you know, that's less than distractions if you don't mind coming by yourself, obviously wanna make sure decisionmakers air here, but the other big component of that course is let's think into these let's remove the cell phone and this and that and just let's look at it because here's what I experienced most of my daily life and I know I'm not alone in this. There are times where I could be standing in front of those incredible thing ever the most incredible person or experience, and I am so lost in the noise in my head that I can't even I can't even see outside of it and there's like pressure and the stress and my one of my big goals is to take that away from her so that she can actually sit there and sink into these images and there's no opportunity to do that if I if I cut her off if I move through if I just a send the order we lose that that whole opportunity not only for the order to purchase for toe have it but for the experience to occur which which connects us more for future sessions that makes sense you all right? So we'll love this image on the left and we like damage on the right though, right? Yeah yeah all right with the hair and I would make that note yeah, I know it was really a few images here on dh then these two were taken right next to each other and it's just a little shift in her head and the way she's holding her mouth um I don't want together right? I'm I'm definitely favor the one on the right because of the way lily's holding her mouth yes, I would agree with you I liked both um but I like on the other right better make sure I put that in a pile um and then we have this is the guns so this to me was she is I would not expect a client to get this as a giant print on her wall especially the way your hair's falling for your face I want to see your face but it could be a cute little snippet in an album yeah I just to give a feel yeah uh like and then way have this one and of course they're both shot in color but to give you an idea of the both styles um this in this and again this to me could it could be a standalone print but it also were really cool spread an album to pretty funny yeah I didn't know what was going on behind me your pasta and your roster by the way is amazing now you better know I didn't know your yoga instructor uh that's sweet it really captures what goes on my daily eye it's a good snapshot of how yeah all right, so we're gonna love it, okay? And I like this one okay little less robot maybe the less robot all right? And then just so you know, for future reference if there's something where you like an aspect of it like no offense because we know we love her and we got great images of her and she's gorgeous and will love her forever but we're going proper out right now yeah how are you? Uh you know this this might be an image that could be a little more fun for you as well and shooting with the high resolution cameras and stuff, and being able to have that luxury is I could say, what do you think of just that as an image like that is maybe a stand alone. I could go for that as a stand alone, all right, on by here, that is like, I see, I see, you know, I mean at my shirt, and I'm like, I wish I had pulled that down a little magic question. If these ruffles were smoothed out, so it looks news all the way down, and actually, would you like it, I would like it more perfect, okay, and again, I am outsourcing my editing, so I'm making these notes. I'm taking requests, there's, small fees, being fate paid, but then I'm getting everything everyone's happy.