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Cost Effective Ways to Save Money

Three cost effective approaches three ways to save money I also have other classes I get into this more in depth about bartering and trading. I did one last year, I believe on photo week, about the business of fashion, photography and kind of how it all works and who pays for what and things like that and go really in depth into bartering trading. But the incident three cost effective approaches I wanted to start with for this class first one's barter next one is keeping it simple, and the third one is do it yourself and we're going to put these into practice in case you didn't notice behind me on the table, I've got all my little price is right kind of things going on here, so I I have lots of do it yourself and inexpensive things that we will use, so we're goingto put these into practice is a well, all right, so let's, look at the first one. My recommendation to have cost effective creative shoots is too remember to barter, and the most important thing that photographers get forget i...

s this next point everyone needs photos. Every single business means photography badly in the days of social media, they need great photos for their website, they need great photos for instagram. They need great photos for promotion for I mean, they need photos all the time, especially with instagram, where if they for example, that's a social network that they were trying to harness, you need good photos a lot, and so what I remember is my images have value and people need them, so I barter and trade anything and everything, and I nowadays I'm aiken barter and trade for amazing hair and makeup because they need images for their portfolio and they need images for their social media. Or maybe I want to shoot in a beautiful location. That location probably wants the update brides are booking for their venues for next year. Maybe they need more photos for social media, increase engagement or maybe they need a headshot maybe it's the company that they say they don't need any photos for social media, but everyone needs a headshot, so maybe I asked the owner of this company that I want to borrow maybe I want to borrow a car and they don't want to they don't wantto don't want trade for photos, but they probably need a portrait of themselves or their kid or something like that. So my approaches I know everyone needs photos always my task to figure out who to ask and to figure out what photos they need, and so I very seldom pay for much stuff anymore now. People when I started, I didn't pay for anything I just wasn't a good stuff, so you just get a little bit better a little bit better and people always ask me how what was your big break into photography? Fashion photography? I'm like nothing like it's all like tiny little steps a little bit better model I get better photos with my better photos, they get a little bit better hair and makeup and then with that, I get a little bit better models and then we've got to get a little bit better magazine. So is the same thing with creativity, building your networks and connections with people. So I just want to show you a couple examples of things that I've done recently this photo, for example, that dress I got for barter, which sounds like okay, well, yeah, that's easy for you. This was a student this's, a student at a university and this was there portfolio piece, toe exit university and so students need pictures of their clothing because they're going to need it to approach, you know, design houses that they might want to work for on their web site and social media. So maybe if you were interested in fashion photography or wanted something cooler clothes, maybe you reach out to the local university and see if their students there or go to your local fashion week most cities have some sort of fashion week and see if there's somebody there that needs photos in exchange for letting you borrow pieces so you got a kind of change your minds little bit and the other thing that I've really learned between this bartering and trading thing is you build an awesome network people that you do them favors they do you favors and it works out awesome the floral headpieces that I have a couple pictures of I have a florist that once she did me a favor I did her a favor it goes back and forth she recommends me for a big job now I recommend her she build me a headpiece I'll take a photo of her event and so it's a mutually beneficial relationship and we get each other leads that we would have never have had otherwise but we barter and trade all the time and so here's an example is well this is a newer shot that I did recently I found this brand well actually a friend of mine at len's prote ago he had worked with thiss headpiece designer she just started thinks she designed like three or four pieces before he's like I have this friend you know she's looking to maybe enter into this field why don't you hook up with her and so I said I want a big head piece full of butterflies and she made me a big head piece full of butterflies, but you never know who that person is going to be that you build a relationship with and so now I shoot her stuff she builds headpieces and awesome because I'll send her an inspiration she'll give me something that takes it to a completely different level, so I recommend that you are my second tip for cost effective shooting is keep it simple there's a fashion photographer that is incredible is name is david last appel if you look at david last oppose work it's not simple at all there's nothing simple about it bright colors, huge sets like just massive productions chances are if you try to do a shot that looks like david last appel on a ten dollar budget when he had a sixty thousand dollar budget, you'll be able to tell if there's going to be a clear difference, so I recommend keeping it simple. You don't need to have a big production have a beautiful shoot and that's what I should do those images in the begin they were really simple but really effective really creative and just as much impact is a really complicated shoot and chances are I'm more likely to actually pull it off especially if it's simple and I'm just starting off so I recommend when you first start pick concepts that are easier like concept around color or just flowers or fabric? Nothing. Nothing overly complicated like this is some life like this is my first shoots when I moved to new york and I just bought a red wig and made her skin white, but in a whole bunch of different ways, the wiggles like twenty dollars, and so basically, the concept was she had a red wig and white clothes, you can do a red wig and wait close relatively simply, and it was the idea behind it that made it more interesting, or we're going to do a couple concepts over things around flowers today, but flowers are an easy it inspiration that especially if you do portrait it's going to be applicable to a lot of subject. So my third tip here is do it yourself projects get crafty, here's the thing I'm not crafty at all. I mean that sincerely I don't make stuff, I'm not good at it, this's so many levels I can really I'm like, really not good at this. So when I say get crafty, I look at other people can do these giant headpiece is or make dresses. I mean, I made the skirt where we tied a piece of fabric than the stuff more fabric and all that matters it looks good in the photo it doesn't actually have to hold together it doesn't actually look decent on the back half it could look terrible you just photograph the front half it doesn't matter if you glue it together a pendant together if it on ly holds together for the one one twenty fifth of a second you need to get that shot so I'm really not crafty but you can be and in fact on creative live think chemical botha has a class on like making your own light lot of fires and mr bryce makes a bunch of stuff in her shoot so if you have the more crafty gene in you they're endless tutorials out there for you however that's not me so everything I'm going to show you is stuff that I like pick up or like put in front of the camera or like throw on my model because that's my level of craftiness so don't be discouraged if you're not talented in that way so yeah you really could do all of this stuff but one of my favorites and I do have here is holi powder and if you guys seen the powder runs where people run and they throw powder at them I mean color runs you know they they throw powder at people you can order online in these pouches and this entire thing was under twenty dollars and it makes really cool textures the one on the left was shot with a macro lens. I could get all this beautiful detail, the one on the right of I found out after this photo that the red stains your skin I mean, not for long, but just as a heads up like the pink and red don't wash office quickly and if your subjects blonde, their hair will change colors I'm just I'm imparting this knowledge, teo as you get creative, but it's twenty dollars I have had so many cool shirts, I've had shoots where we throw the powder and it flies everywhere and shoots where it will be, the models holding still and we drink the powder down the face and just the powder's moving and close that macro shots and close ups on the lips and it's just fun and she's cool. So this is my type of crafty that's about the extent that I could get or another one that I really like is if you have no professional lights, you could use a flashlight. Like I said in my example, I've used tiki torches and I have used pen lights and I've used flashlights and I've used there's, one of me favorite fashion photographers, and I'm totally going to test this technique he just didn't editorial with, you know those things from disney with like the the fiber optics and the kids like I don't know they look like little fiber optic things together my parents for sweet I bought them from aunt is so I know that they exist he just did a shoot with him cause I could tell there streaks of white wrapping around the subject and he's one of solving sons but one of the best fashion photographers out there and those things are like ten bucks so it's on my list before example paint with light is an awesome way to get creative. This next shot for example, is lit with just pen lights like led pen lights and it's a forty two second exposure had one green eye and one blue and the reason that she's in focuses because with this long exposure I just have her hold still ok I had sitting in a chair so she could hold still and as long as I on ly trace over each part of her face once it won't get blurry but there's no more light on it if she moves and I go over her face again that I'm in trouble but I went nice and slowly over whole face and you can see what overlaps in the hair a little bit that it's not chris but you don't care about that and this is one of my favorite shoes like I had so much fun with this and it was little pen lights or this these shots I just did like a couple maybe a month and a half ago and she's lit with tiki torches so actually in my parents garage this let's talk about creative problem solving um I was supposed to shoot outdoors and there was a torrential downpour like instead there was no way we could go outside and shoot and so I decided hey mom and dad you know those tiki torches you have can I borrow them it's like five dollar tiki torches and then I convinced them to let me shoot with fire in their garage which is also very nice of them I didn't I almost caught something on fire but it was ok but he didn't actually happen and so it's on a tripod long exposures and I'm tracing the model with a tiki torch and moving it around now it gives the fire pattern and so she's lived with you know dollar store walmart tiki torch and it makes for a really cool and interesting shots that was my creative problem solving so sometimes not having the solutions available to you that you would like actually gives you better results let's not inexpensive props this is this is the story of my entire beginning of my portfolio this is the shot that I was talking about before with the spirals in the eyes and one of my very first fashion portfolio shots and I found these glasses on ebay for seventeen ninety nine you know and then there's things like etc etc has everything you can imagine from everything like like dog hats and stuff it's awesome but they've got, uh glasses another sites like deviant art which there's artists on and there's so many different places so many different artists creating things so going back to mind to see, you know my creative process here's how my brain works schooling through ebay even even though these air cool glasses okay he's glasses what I like about them all right, I like the color and the graphic pattern. Ok, so if I play up the color and the graphic pattern to keep a graphic I'm getting tight and the kid put the color I'm going to make the skin white and the lips red like I try to figure out what I like about something and build a shoot around what I like that's what it is what my creative process is. So in this next example these are from a trimming shop. They're actually for prom dresses. You wear them like around the waist as design so each one of them was twelve dollars and what we did is we took a safety pin pin one behind her neck and we superglued another onto a cheap pair of glasses but I think it looks like fashion and high end and so is the same thing you know, walking through michael's, or trimming shop. Who these air sparkly. I want to do a shot where the models skin looks sparkly, and we painted her and made her skin match that texture. So your process is totally different than mine. But that's kind of how minus. I start with something, a theme or something at michael's, or something I see on ebay, and I start with that one thing, and I say, how would I photographed this? Why do I like this? What would be the best photo of why? Like that? So I wanted to go sparkly on that one.