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Interview with Andrew Scrivani

We are going to go ahead and bring on the man himself. We're going to get our skype interview up with our first instructor of the day, mr andrus cavani. Andrew, how are you doing today? I'm good how's everybody doing they are all fantastic. We are all fantastic. Excited to see your hq course. So what was it that you taught during photo? It give us a little bit of a description of that? Well, I talked to classes, but the one that you are intruding here is the editorial food photography class, where mainly what I went over was different styles of never narrowed storytelling with pictures. So we went from a single image to multiple images to like a slide show presentation and how all those air a little bit different in how you tell stories visually fantastic, very excited to see it because I didn't actually get to watch it because I didn't host for you that weak, so I personally am excited to watch it now you have been on creative live a couple of times since then to do full workshop let'...

s talk briefly about those as well. First of all, your food photography one was huge, a lot of people love that one let's talk about that what what were some of your your memories of that your favorite moments well, I mean, it was interesting because we had such a great studio audience and the and the internet audience was also just terrific the questions coming in on we covered so much material from the actual photography itself to the styling and propping and I had such a great set behind me and it was sort of it I was in a real comfort zone because when I turned around to look for things the way I do in my own studio, everything was there for me, so it'll be a fun kind of look into what it's like to work in this kind of an environment and there's so much material that hopefully will be glued to your screen for that because it's about what, sixteen hours of material and we just we were we went at it for three days so it was great that's awesome. I love that I love that it was so interactive because you did you got your your studio audience really involved in that one? What was your what was your thinking along that? Because sometimes our instructors like to get our studio audience involved sometimes it's more of like a teaching directly to what was why was it important for youto have the studio audience involved like that? Well, I spent a good portion of my life as a teacher on a coach and I think a lot of people learn by watching, but I think there's a good portion of people who like a tactile experience when it comes to learning, so I know I'm that way, and if I do something, I'll remember it, and I'd like to include students and people who are there to learn from me in in my physical experience as well. So I think that's a big part of it, as friend hast again, I think that's a big part because a lot of what we encourage people to do is to watch what they see on creative live and then go out and do it because that's the part that we, you know, we can give you all the content in the world, but if you don't actually go out and do anything with it, then it's just sitting in there, and so I love that you were able to actually get people excited and started working in the class itself. What was your what was kind of the biggest thing that you wanted people to take away from that course? What was the major lesson you want people to learn? Don't be afraid. I mean, just get in and do it because quite honestly, you can't be afraid to make mistakes failure is always an option, and you always I have to be aware that what crew, your failures, you learn more success, so you can't be if and I think a lot of times people fear that they're going to make a mistake and there are no mistakes there, just learning opportunity, and I think that's what with creative live in particular, gives people a lot of opportunity to figure it out on their own, make mistakes and understand that's going to be okay. I love that that's kind of a theme that I'm trying to embrace right now in my own life. So let's, talk about your table top photo workshop as well. We you learned all types of different lighting techniques for table top, from daylight to strobes to h m eyes, too hot lights d I y stuff that you could pick up the hardware store all the way up to high, high end movie lighting. So we did both still and video presentation for table top and wait and really got in elbows deep, and I actually had the studio audience really even more active in that one. They were kind of had challenges that they had to kind of want to take with and without my health, so it was on and we had all sorts of products to shoot. A wide range of kind of problems to solve and I think for the most part, if you have any interest in tabletop photography, if you have any application, you'll find something in there that's great, I think that's one of those interesting things where you know within when you're shooting people it's like you've got a range of skin tones and maybe like glasses or no glasses and hair or no hair like you in may, but other than that it's a pretty standard set of what you're dealing with, whereas with tabletop photography, the textures, the colors, the reflectiveness like everything changes every single shoot you d'oh and so having that wide variety of options and tools at your disposal think that's huge I mean, is that your experience? Yeah, I mean it's ah, there are so many different problems to tackle when you deal with shooting different products like you said textures and shine and all these other things but it's also about understanding basics of lighting in that you can solve those problems with pretty much whatever tools you have now whether or not that's going to be applicable to whatever your client wants or whatever your objective is that's another story, but if you understand the basic principles of lighting for table top, you'll come away with a leaked the basic skills to shoot what you need to shoot that's fantastic. I love it. Okay, so I want to hear we've got a little bit of time left. I want to hear some of the biggest questions that you get from people about your work in general or the things you're teaching or one of the questions I've been getting since the beginning of this was is the food riel and it's a fun question, because everyone who works with me will attest to the fact that not only is it really, but we try to make it isha's well, and that way everybody has ah, good experience, and they're well said by the time they go home, I'm so, you know, encourages people to work quickly, so it doesn't cool off, you know, so you could enjoy it. Yes, sure, I love it and let's talk also about kind of getting started. We've got a lot of people who watch something like photo week in order to see different types of photography and decide things new things they want to try or different subjects they want to explore. So what is something that you wish you had known when you first started as a professional photographer? Well, I think part of it is I think we go into artistic forms as artists first. And what we realized is that it's a business more so than an artform. I mean, if you talk about a percentage, I've heard people say as much as it's eighty percent business in twenty percent art, and I think that the at going into it understanding that really helps you as, ah, somebody who might want to become a professional because the professional part of it there are a lot of people who make really pretty pictures and post them online and put them on instagram and social media, but that is a big difference between being able to make a pretty picture once in a while and doing it every day and doing it every time in any circumstance. And I think sites like creative live are hopefully people feel that they come and they get a range of, um, a range of information that helps them both creatively and a za person who's, potentially going to take it in tow in the business world. I think somebody in fact, that explain that to me going in, I wouldn't have been as disillusioned in the beginning of my career going I'm an artist, I want to create things and you're fighting with art directors about you know the way things have to be presented so you have to understand those things and be versatile and that's the business part of it is that you can have your creative vision but you have to be versatile and accessible and easy to get along with and somebody who understands how to negotiate all of those things you're a big part of our business I love that that's something that we've been that I hear a lot here and whenever people asked what courses they should check out, I always tell them if you want to be a professional photographer, check out the business courses because those are the ones that are really going to help you actually make it happen so I love to hear that from you as well I mean it's uh when you're dealing with like people who are just getting started and who have that artistic goal in mind they want to do that it is really hard to think of it as well I actually need toe support myself with this and so approaching it as a business from the beginning doesn't mean you can't be artistic it just means I actually like what you said where you have to do it all the time because I heard somebody say that you know the difference between a professional artists and I forget the other term was basically that you don't get to wait for your muse you know, you don't get to sit and wait. You have to be able to create on demand. So any thoughts on just creating on demand? Yeah, I mean, I think that is it definitely a challenge? Because there are days when I wake up and I go to the studio and it all just flows because I'm feeling creative that day. But then there's other days where you have to rely on your experience and your knowledge and the things that you know worked in the past where it maybe you're not finding new inspiration, but, you know you can rely on your chops, the things that you have developed over time, that that will rescue you when you're not feeling particularly creative. Yeah, absolutely. Well, thank you so much for taking time out of your day to today to join us. Andrew, we really appreciate it. We've loved having you on creative life and especially here during photo week. So thank you again for joining us. I love it. I can't wait to come back, and I hope everyone enjoys the course.