Lessons

Lesson Info

Extraordinary Engagements Part 2

We want to start by showing the difference now between standard engagement and one that's a conceptual engagement that has more plan and I would say that there there are differences between the two, but the quality of the work is the same for both. So this is, you know, going above and beyond, we still want to create an extraordinary experience and create extraordinary images. The classic engagement is first one you talk about that, so a classic engagement for us is ninety minutes one to two changes one to two locations, and when we say one to two locations, that doesn't mean this wall and this wall, that means one to two locations that we may or may not drive in between, but at each location we're shooting multiple backgrounds, of course, because we're trying to deliver a large variety of images generally will pick two locations that are very near to each other, so we're not losing time driving, but it's a firm ninety minutes really cheesy phrase I have that I made up called hometown ...

heroes, and we encourage you guys to figure out where your hometown heroes are for us in los angeles, there's a way called east river it's not really an area called east river, but we've called comet, but that's one of our areas that will guide our couples to you're going to do your chute there we want all of our shoots when it's a classic engagement to be like within ten to fifteen miles of our house we don't want to be spending the whole day driving somewhere s so we'll have an urban location and will have a field e locate and some people might be saying, well, what if a couple doesn't want to shoot there they have their own idea we're going to talk about that because it's our job to help them make the right decision for themselves to guide them otherwise they will always make the wrong decision on where to shoot so we'll talk about that someone where tio do their shoot they always pick the worst please don't take a mermaid fountain like this is a beautiful structure that's take photos in front of it yes not a beautiful structure it's beautiful to look at maybe I've never seen a mermaid fountain like like the neptune thing with like the water spilling out moving on love that when you do s o the classic engagement session is yeah go for it go so this is a couple this is actually more like sixty minutes and to go against what I just said they actually said they didn't want to do that our location and they said, well, we have a couple ideas so we always empower our clients if they're going to do that they have to do the heavy lifting they have to find the spot elsewhere. It is that take photos of it to show us so that we can look at it. We're prepared. We thought this place is awesome once we got there, we got there an hour early and we scouted and figure out what we're going to do and we'll talk about that later. But scouting is a huge part of what we do. A classic engagement session by definition it's obviously shorter and it's it's just focusing on the couple it's just capturing the couple beautiful light, great location shoot as many images you possibly can. Which is why you want to go with a hometown hero because it's something you know, you know the lights going to be great s o the first shots we just showed you were catalog this would be more of the beauty type shot. This would be a beauty shot there. Video game nerds they met playing bingo self proclaimed geeks on dh. This was awesome for us because we got to do some pretty quirky, fun, interesting stuff. Uh, going back to this is a great example of this is them, but when you meet him it's not it's them behind closed doors yeah, but it's not them when we met, when we met them there, they could barely even talk, so by doing this it helped get them out of the car behind closed doors. If that makes any sense this is a great beauty foot shot for them. Sorry, go back ran sorry. Go back a couple sides. This is a great example of a beauty shot for them. Uh is that the classic shot the parents want? We took that too, but this is who they are. This is their beauty shot it's something a little edgier, a little quirkier it's still tight it's still pretty great light but this is more who they are and then the next shot we did that just for him that's his facebook profile it has been forever. He looks like a bad ass and it's a great photo nice beauty shop for them that's a great great example of slowing down and just connecting with them against the wall and to say hey, look down you know, giving mckay look down that's my soothing voice that I used teo, get to these moments light again that's pretty much the same thing. I just did that's a streetlamp shot like we did in the last segment where we have the light from above same exact thing picking awesome background this is your example of this cabin and epic fail, but it sort of works uh this is landscape slash fashion using light this is finding the light that's finding the light we love we love you so much because it goes away so fast. It's like five minutes and then it's gone um at sunset time, same thing so there's a huge variety. This is all done so fast. That was just part of the walls. There's humor. Hey, what looks like if you guys put your heads there and make silly faces, those actually made some of their facebook profile, so I would say for these guys, this is a classic session. We know we have to move quickly. We've put them to work to scout locations they wanted to shoot in their neighborhood in culver city. They found a couple different options. This was the one that we went with because there were so much opportunity all within literally one building here, one building here and we shot the crap out of it. This came from again that's, my favorite photo. This came from that shoot. That was the last set up of the entire day and we wanted deliver that art shot and we did super easy have them lay on the ground, put their feet up. Brian, help me light it and away we went so one thing about these shoots two there that's really cool is that that whole area is now gone so all that artwork is gone, and so one nice thing about shooting in urban areas and sometimes we get to record the city a a little bit kind of ah, conceptual shoot now and conceptual engagement will be two to three hours two to three outfits two to three locations, and it may have a theme to it, which we'll talk about how we figure that theme out and before you move forward because I see a lot of people writing this down it's important to write this down because we pressed them differently, right? You're giving something very different with both of these shoots. You are specialists at engagement photos, and you have this collection that cost this much the classic shoot, and you have another collection that cost this much. Regardless, the imagery is all going to be good if it's classic or conceptual, you're still gonna deliver the beauty, the catalogue, the fashion, the landscape with a conceptual shoot, there's a bit more thought involved. Oftentimes the couple want to go with a theme we have a shoot, we're going to show you in just a moment we had we had one couple, we don't have the images today, they're both animators again and nerds, and they're awesome they wanted to do a roger rabbit theme shoot. And that just requires more time we're telling a story we're using a lot of light they rented costumes for the whole thing and then in the end they animated in a bunch of characters into the photos it's on credible it's on our website it's also when it went on yahoo and I think having composed as well so if you I wanted to look it up that animated seemed engagement, you'll probably find it, but it was awesome to do I mean that that goes back to pricing I mean, if you have a client that comes to you that wants to do this, wouldn't you kind of do that for free? I mean, how awesome is that to be part of something like that's incredible? S so conceptual engagements you so through we use a questionnaire, so we're gonna get we're going to show you how we use the questionnaire, but with this questionnaire these two guys, they met it doing a musical in los angeles, so we suggested how about a musical themed kind of engagement? And so the idea here was singing in the rain, so this was shot in the summer in los angeles on this is just a great example of sort of what we have to do that teo go above and beyond we said, we think we've bought a whole bunch of jugs of water and just threw yeah, I think l a it never rains like we're in a restaurant, they're right now. It was probably a hundred degrees on this day, so we tried to water the crowd, which didn't really work. We put water on the umbrellas like we're throwing water at the umbrellas while they're spinning them, but, you know, that's all part of the story and the fun of the whole process, but a conceptual shoot like this really gives you an opportunity to be an artist. You're really taking your vision, collaborating with this client who has a strong vision as well in doing something awesome on dh you can see in the photos we've got, you know, the macro there's also see this sort of shots that we use the macro and the fashion and see how they're like this is a macro, but it's also a little fashion, so they do bleed into each other as well. Uh, one of the things that we love about the shoot, as well as another great lesson of right here, this door open while we were shooting and the manager of this theater, which normally rents for fifty thousand lady gaga, did a music video there like it, he took a liking to her, and he said we could use it for ten minutes, and I always bring too much gear thank god I did because I had light stands and I had my strobes and so we were able to go inside and do some stuff just actually holding one of a kind and I think I think that's important because people say gosh, you know your urine like there's times of places to shoot in l a you know you're still lucky where I live in wisconsin or whatever there's nothing l a is a very difficult place to shoot because it's where the entertainment businesses everybody knows they can charge for anywhere that you want to shoot there's nothing hold anything that is old and has character and is interesting you have to pay for it so sometimes again having that great personality and nothing afraid to ask hey, can we go in for a minute? Okay, sure you can come in for five minutes we were ready we had our gear, we had a couple that was welling and one of a kind photos. Nobody else has those images right? Here's their change? Yes. From doors of imagination photography says I live in the rockies where we have four seasons what your recommendations for very hot summer shoots and cold winter shoots do you have any thoughts on those and elena that is much but well with the heat we always shoot our engagements a knauer two hours before sunset so that's a much cooler part of the day you can also do indoor shoots and both of those environments you can do indoor stuff he lose a bit of the movement catalogue when you're doing that and you have to be a definite using light. Yeah, well, you know, going back to mystic when we talk at mystic earlier this year we had to actually photograph a couple in the snow, they were prepared for it and it was freezing, but we managed to get great images, I think that you just I mean, sometimes we wish god, I wish we had more seasons because then we could have more variety and the key the key with that is that we did short spurts, so we did ten minutes outside and then we'd come back in and warm up and then we go back out and do ten minutes and dry off. This is why it's important and again we'll get into this shortly. But to really know where you live to scout to know the places that will allow you to shoot without paying a fee or if there's a permit situation how how to go about getting that permit maybe can build up a relationship with someone at a hotel where they know that they're getting amazing images to use for marketing collateral so there are ways to be creative and think outside the box and that's actually, something we'll get into on the getting started. Yeah is partnering with venues here's their change? One thing that we didn't talk about, too is that we always try to do solos of people as well. So we'll do the solo solo shots of the bride and solar shots of the guy. Um, this is more of an editorial shot it's capturing a location it's, natural light. And then, of course, we have to do something with light always and something a little bit more editorial. So people thought the strobes did something a little bit sexier at the end of the day, and we could've very easily not done that. But it adds to the shoot and, well, you guys must be one more will show one more just to kind of show the variety. This is old school. Las vegas was there was there theme. So we're using light to kind of create this sort of very pretty. This is an example of us actually, this time, going above and beyond. We knew what a great opportunity this was to dio and awesome shoot like this. This is a dear friend of ours. Real couple on dh. We knew we were going to do it in vegas, but we didn't know where and no one lets you shoot anywhere, so we were able to make a million phone calls and finally get access to shoot and binion's casino because I know a guy that was awesome I play poker so it was even more awesome on dh it was it was incredible, you know? We had to go above and beyond in this case and do the work, but boy, was it worth it for these amazing, pretty much unprecedented access villa shoot in a casino? But this is also I wanted to show this to you guys because we empower our clients to do all the heavy lifting, but in this situation, I pull a string and get that, but the wardrobe they're in charge of, we're not in charge of, so they have to secure all the wardrobe they have to secure the props we empower them to do that. Otherwise we just don't have the time and just give you wanted how much do you help them? I mean, I sometimes I try to leave it to a client, but then I'm sadly disappointed. Yeah, so well, in this case, we left all of it to the client, and then at the last minute there wasn't a location we were told that we couldn't shoot outside in downtown vegas because they have security and you're not supposed to do any professional shoot there, so we had to step in and say, do we want this to be awesome or not? And we had to do a lot of work, and it was very stressful, but it was worth it. So the opportunity also we ask people to bring lots of wardrobe and then, well, I think we chose that jacket and her dress, but that was from a selection. It really depends on who the client is. Not necessarily the client is, but how much opportunity there is in the end for making great images. Uh, I feel like if it's worth it do the work, but there are lessons here because after this, we definitely started to empower clients even more to do for work. Another thing we learned about conceptual shoots is that sometimes people think they want a theme shoot, and they forget, maybe they're losing himself a little bit in it. So it is nice that the last fifteen minutes to change into some street clothes and just play and do some catalogue stuff for fifteen minutes. So you still deliver the photo that mom wants another great photo using light yet so you can see the difference between the classic session, which is just like regular clothes, then playing versus conceptual it's really a chance the concessions really neil who they are as a couple uh we just really enjoy doing them right we dio so uh pricing pricing how do we tackle this monster of pricing? I could talk about that. Yeah, well let me click the button perfect which will get us teo to the bullet point if I sit on a stool is this because it seems this is more business talk lou yes, things just got serious but it was the most interesting man in the world hello hello business I'm going to talk about this and I think this is important to know if you are in a team who is the person that should be asking for the money and in our business there's a very clear division that's not me it's not brian he would do everything for free and we would be very poor on we have children to support so if you are not good at it we're going teo arm you with tools today so that you will be better at it and not be afraid to ask. So how do you price it? Well, in the first segment we talked about the benefits right? There are obvious benefits to the clients to doing an engagement shoot they are getting these amazing photos they have the moment in time where they're feeling their sexiest and they're more in love than they'll ever be on their super last fall and you know all this sexiness happening it's it's not they've got the photos forever its price is um how about the value to you you've established a connection with them the wedding day is gonna be easier right off the bat you are a star and artist coming into the wedding done you've probably done some selling of products for the engagement shoot so already there's value before you even charge a penny right? So for those of you who aren't doing it already who aren't comfortable doing engagements you've never done it you thought you never could do it be the one person that does it for free for now you're the only person in your market who's doing it for free it's an ad on bonus in your collection okay people will feel indebted to you and they want to buy something that's the other thing for those of you have been doing it for a while. We say ten to twenty percent of what you charge for a wedding for those who shoot weddings what would you say? What do you guys charge? Yeah way for people to engagements. How do you how do you price it? Averages? I think the national average is about three hundred yeah three thousand for a wedding collection. So engagement would you know about three hundred for an engagement session which by the way is nothing we're so underpaid I fell for this experience, we are absolutely underpaid but were paid in other ways, right? Eso starting out ten to twenty percent is a good place to start um once you and then you can also include it. Once you get to the point where you're killing it, you're doing some of these special shoots. You're really you're not just taking portrait's of someone you're actually capturing emotion and memories and doing something that's so unique and so different like some of the chutes that we've shown you raise, the price is way up, but also say to there's, there's variables on pricing too, so if there's publication potential of the shoot, you may want to do it for free uh, you know you're gonna get good portfolio images out of it and you're motivated to do it then that might be another reason why to not charge a fact if that's an issue, I do feel like everyone should always be paid something for your time, but you know it's not always black and white, so keep that right and so you're saying this is a gray area, this is a gray area, this is a super gray area and I when I say agree, I'd like to kick my foot enough you guys saw that uh, so how do we sell it? Andi, I think this is something that a lot of people have a hard time with. If people are already stretching their budget toe, hurry for the wedding or people are working on a budget, how do you then sell the engagement? I feel like it sells itself when your images are on your website and, you know, I know when I send out our initial questionnaire, I have a link to view all of the engagements on our blogged people are clicking too that they want that it's already in their mind, they've already seen the photos it's selling itself the first email that goes out with the questionnaire has a link to view recent engagements on it, and then we have our block set up in a way that there is a menu item for recent engagements and they all populate his thumb now so they can quickly see the variety again if you're just starting that's, why you wanted to shoot couples, just build them the word that's, right? And you talk it up, you say, okay, well, you know, let's talk about our wedding collections, I'm so excited to do your engagement, this is going to be awesome. Well, we weren't really thinking it's in our budget to do an engagement oh that's so disappointing because we feel like for our process this is such an important part of getting to know you guys are how do you feel in front of the camera are you uncomfortable let's talk about that nine times out of ten people are going to say well I'm really uncomfortable or my fianc doesn't like having his picture taken he doesn't want his picture taken this is an awesome opportunity to turn that around well this is great because the engagement we're gonna work through all of that and you guys are gonna wind up with a major amazing photos so it's selling itself don't be afraid to talk about it in the first phone call it's gonna sell itself plain and simple well I think it would help uh teo we'll talk about the benefits that you can actually say on the phone but when we have that phone call one important note that we wantto get across is we always talk about them and we never talk about us so we're always asking them how did you guys meet where did you guys mean what was that like what do you guys want to do tell us about your wedding who are you as a couple how do you describe yourself as a couple are you snuggly or you sexy? Are you fun like tell us about you oh my god that's awesome! You guys are like you guys love going to concerts we should do like a music seemed engagement that would be so awesome, like no one else has done that wouldn't be so fun. Brian let's, let's talk about that. So you're finding a colonel already in that first phone call and you're putting the idea in their head. They didn't even know they had to have it, and they do have to have it. They do it in some ways, it's even more important than the wedding photos because it's really celebrating just the two of them it's often overlooked it's such a simple concept, but we hear it from couples all the time that you're the first vendor that asked about us. So it's, just a small little point I wanted to get across that has huge potential are huge benefits, so the benefits that we're going to talk to them about on the phone. So this is what we talked about on the phone when they say, I never thought about doing an engagement or I don't know how I feel about that. I don't know if it's in the budget, you know, these are things you want to write back right down and talk about, um, this is an opportunity, guys, to make art for you, right? You're commissioning us as an artist to make art, to hang on your walls, this is gonna be so awesome. Okay, uh, it's rehearsal for the wedding. I already mentioned that before we're going to work out the sil easy workout, the nerves by the time it's over your fiance is going to be, like performing for our camera, we tell him this is a great way for us to find your best side. Your best angle. Uh, people don't really know howto be themselves in front of the camera, right? They don't know how to be comfortable. They don't know what their best site is, that our job is photographers to figure that out. This is also very helpful, helpful for us to figure out where the light hits people's bones the best simple we can figure that out of the engagement oh, my gosh, I'm realizing every time I have her face to the left, she looks amazing from the right. It's better from the left, right. Ok, so we're going to keep that in mind for the wedding day. We'll tell the ladies it's a great place to do your makeup in here trial as well. And I think I heard seo on here last week. I was watching creative live and she said something about mentioning to them, this is like date night. Right you're getting your makeup in here try a ll getting sexy guys were making out the engagement shoot and then you're going out on the town and having a great night so again bring it back to the experience this is another amazing experience that they're having and sue was so right in what she said and we've touched on this to ease their nerves and we're going to start to build that trust and for us that friendship our style relies upon that I love the tie I wish our groom uh it was in here because I love the title rules of engagement which is another top gun term but uh this is what we tell people from the get go from the from the first time we talked to them we say you get one image one image these are the things to tell your client right otherwise they're going to expect you to do all the work for them so this is we state this very clearly at the beginning the rest of the images come with their wedding months after but I really want all the photos beforehand I really want all the images can I have a disc of the photos before the wedding we've done all this now we have learned this lesson the hard way with costco campus hank of our prints hanging out the weddings we have learned this lesson the hard way wanted maintain control of our art the entire process and it's yes, of course we want to make sure that there's revenue coming our way for what we're producing. More importantly, it's not fair to your clients to have these beautiful images in these horrible albums, they've spent twenty five dollars, on its just doesn't it that's not an heirloom for them to pass on it's not it's our job to be strong with our clients and to tell them we want you to have the best I will say get one shot at this, we want you to have a beautiful album that you'll pass down through your this is a gray area to especially when you're starting, because there's gonna be a lot of negotiation, and so in the beginning, we had to negotiate quite a bit of somebody one of the photos, but we've built our business to a point now where we're very firm, and we just tell them from the beginning, we weigh fully disclose our doing our business, and it works for us now, and one of the things that we do is that if if they do purchase, something threw us retouching is included, so everything that they're getting online, everything they'll eventually get on their final flash drive is color corrected, but any prints that they purchased through us if they want to do a large print to showcase that the wedding if they're doing a beautiful engagement album we'd include retouching in that for anything that's larger than a five by seven we also tell him the photo terms so if part of what we're going to dio everything is so negotiable right? If it's a great shoot then I'm gonna want to get those photos on facebook so I'm going to give them more than one photo but I'm going to give it to him as a digital non printable photo and we tell them what the terms are of the photos we say that if you're going to like if we put it on facebook, it has to say has to be water mark and it has tio go have a link back to our facebook page or our website can be cropped can't be altered and there's no if ands or buts about that and I was curious to see if people at home are people here what kind of road blocks they come up against? What kind of questions potential clients ask them? Yeah, one from britney siro is syratech photography says do you ever have potential clients? Contact you and just tell you that you're not in their budget if you could handle that? Yes, all the time we're very fortunate that we also have associates that work under our brand and they're a different pricing so we try really hard tio provide service to everyone who loves our work and assuming that they're fit for our style so absolutely if this this would come into play for someone if someone doesn't have quite the budget but they have a really awesome concept that's one of a kind I will say what's it worth I will see to that if someone is a super fan who says they've been following our work since they got married were motivated to work with the price quite a bit and if there's a special story because well, sometimes there may be a really touching special story on will be motivated to do the wedding for below our budget, so I hope that answers the question think so absolutely we've got one from dana attune s who says how do you deal with clients who asked for a lot from photographers for example asking the shoot of many locations? Great question how do you say no? And I like they have this without offending hurting the client relation that's a great question if they're offended by how honest I am, they're not the right client for us like, well, sick because everything that we do is for the client number one and that intention usually comes through I would say to on that note really quick I'm sure that people come across this to the pinterest bride who comes and has the fifty images like I wanted this image and I want this and this and this and my engagement were my wedding. You don't do that. Sorry, I want to hear your ideas. I want to see what your inspired by and well actually encourage them to go tio r blogged click on recent engagements, click through the engagements and reference to me which shoots or which images really speak to them that helps me gather information about who they are is a couple that said, I'm very clear we're not recreating that that happened organically for that couple. If we spend all day doing that, extrapolating on that or going from this location to this to this, to this, to this, to this where's, the art, you're losing the art that's then it becomes about the location and then it's, not about the client at all on locations, we tell them this is ninety minutes. So do you wanna spend on the car that's, right? Uh, and then also it's fully disclosing our process from the very beginning and managing the client's expectations that equals an amazing client experience. This is what we've learned, and so they would never ask that question because from the beginning we've said you have one to two changes. We're very tear occasions and we probably have lost a few clients that way to be honest people who've said I want to shoot at lacma and then I want to go shoot at the beach and then I want to go shoot it disney center and then I want to go shoot in calabasas okay uh first of all in los angeles especially with overhead bright light all day the best time of day is to shoot in the afternoon good luck traveling to all those places in traffic like that's just not gonna happen we're happy to do that shoot for you over five days and for ten thousand dollars we're happy to do that. That sounds awesome. Um but, you know, going back to full disclosure, we will send our clients for weddings to perspective clients the entire gallery of all five hundred images that the engagement that we shoot for an engagement they'll see them all and we say we don't need to go from this place to this place look at what we did in one location look at all this for how how did you do? Well because we picked a hometown hero we picked somewhere that we know is awesome there's thousands of colorful walls and textures the light is great, we literally walk a square block and were able to do one hundred sit ups and ninety minutes they're sold one of them that somebody says here I use several of my engagement photos on my wedding invitations have you ever run into that house it fit with the one photo rule? What do you do with people who want those multiple photo absolutely sze negotiable from from the get go we know one photographer in canada that says we'll make the save the date what's your busy to do that we don't do that way possible yeah, rare eah, yeah it's a gray area and just like every sorry just like every couple is unique, every contract with every couple is unique. We're also very organic with our contract it's not ironclad. We had a lot of attorneys have a lot of our clients, so they'll often come and say, can we change this? And as long as we're okay with it, we will yeah, but I mean, to really answer that question we've had people use our photos like on the cake, they'll make it part of the cake, they'll put it on the menu that that's fine, yeah, fine. They're not gonna put that cake in their house, right? We're gonna make sure that voters retouched and will often times say this would look so much better retire his photo was rough, but that was that was that was pretty rose yeah, I've never seen anything so awful in my life so now we have a no cake with our photo klaus im ing at some point it's their wedding we're talking more about things less about save the dates and things like that and more about things that will live forever in their house and then I think one of the kind of biggest blocks before we move on are people who are dealing with the issue and so many people commented on this that we have to talk about it basically people who either take the proofs and just post them on facebook right take images from facebook put him on instagram with teachers talk a little bit about like just digital images in the modern age and how you deal with those from you know, from sending proofs and all those sort of things so it's in our contract but you should stand at oh it is it better if I said I don't know I don't like energy's low right now I'd like to sit down right are all standard way. S o we're very clear in the contract about sharing the photos are the online gallery uh is it clicked non share a bally they can't share the photos from the online gallery they could do screen shots and they were like okay, and then well we make sure that in the gallery arlo goes there and we tell them in advance if you use these on facebook we're totally fine it's actually good for us because we want everybody to see the images are logo has to be president they cannot be cropped in any way generally they can't be can't added a filter filter but what happens is so so if somebody is goingto get post products, then we'll let him share the photos and do whatever they want to do with the photos if they don't want any products generally were pretty tight about sharing the photos because we know that they're trying they're going to go and print them somewhere and we want to be in control of that we've had people print campuses from a screenshot and then when we show up at the wedding terrible that's how our work is perceived and we just we want to prevent that yeah there was that high energy that was better she's louise tough crowd guys tough crowd yes you answered what I was going to ask but I was my second question in a situation like that let's see where you do show up what do you do in that event where they did let's a take a screenshot and then create something you just let it go situation because at that point it becomes it's about your client when it's not about you it happened all the time we've got it down now toe where it very rarely happens in yeah because we're very clear from the beginning that if they're going to show anything, it has to be through us yeah, way also don't overcharge. So we you know, the pricing on way don't the days of charging twenty dollars for a four by six we don't do that, we don't do that. We make it very affordable want himto well and we also want the image that's going to be blown up and displayed at their wedding. We want it to be perfect because that's selling us so we want to make sure it's retouched, priced, affordably enoughto where they don't need to go to costco to do that, right? Yeah, we make it very few make the money that we make is in the overall collection price. Yeah, anybody else? Great question here from summer gonzalez. I love shooting couples and would love to get into shooting engagement shoots, but I honestly have no desire to shoot weddings eyes it unlikely that a couple will hire a different photographer for their engagement shoot than for their wedding all the time, ten to twenty times a year. We do that, and I would say half the people wind up hiring us to shoot the wedding as well, they stretch their budget and they fly us to wherever it is. Ah, ah lot of times people want to do their engagement in a unique location that is away from where they're having their wedding or away from where they live, they wanted, you know, some of those with a pinterest brides were out there on the blog's, and they see all these awesome things you can do and now here, wherever so we get people like that all the time. And this is why, if you're not doing engagements, you should be it's crazy not to be eyes hear the person in boston who is doing awesome engagements. You're going to get calls from people all over the world to shoot their engagement. We get this all the time we get a couple that's going to get married in a way, but they live in new york, so we'll offer it will say, hey, we'll try to see if we have a destination wedding, we'll try to put it all together or we'll make it affordable or we'll say we won't charge you for it just pay for travel. We don't have much, but we try to make it so that we can do it. Maybe in new york, what a great contrast to the wedding in los angeles is to have the new york way what we actually we just had a client. Brian mentioned in the last segment he shot an engagement in vancouver by himself and that was really funny, right? Because you see I will use the lights so I had the light stand in the light by myself she's doing run toward the camera run away from the camera and it's just beautiful, beautiful work, but I feel like part of why we got that wedding they're getting married in palm springs was because we were willing to go do their engagement in vancouver, but yes, I feel as though you could certainly specialize in engagements and that's all you do also it's not limited teo an engaged couple it's any couple so they don't have to be engaged or getting married is any any two people? Yeah, absolutely, you know, I could be one we're married we could yeah, that would be should weigh don't have it would be all photos of brian and me in the background like this that's not true, you like eighty percent of our engagement questionnaire, which we're going to talk about next would be allison hates her picture taken allison will be hiding so engagement questionnaire this is how we figure out where we're going to shoot and this is leading into location and some of these other roadblocks that people have what do you do when someone wants to shoot up this place and they won't you know they won't waver, they want to shoot it this place. Well, we're gonna be armed with all this information about who they are is a couple and we're going teo give them a bunch of different, uh, options for where the where the engagement could be awesome. So here's a trick. One thing that we like to dio on this questionnaire is ask him what their wedding hashtag is, what their facebook names are on instagram names are so that when we go to and I'll show you how we released, we have a releasing strategy of the photos on well, get into something a little bit, but we start with a facebook sneak peek because everyone's on facebook it's very rare when they're not, and so we want to be able to tag in hashtag can I say crap the crap out of the photos so that they go viral through their network that's the key getting the photos to go viral through that person's network, so we'll ask that starts with that, and then we'll ask him questions like what's your most proud accomplishment of your fiance on one sentence. How did you meet all together? You could be anybody if you could be a superhero, who would you be? What your favorite movie and we have we have this questionnaire we've been building it over the course of the past six seven years it's on our website if you want to go take a look at all of that but we know who these people are between this and asking them to part of their homework when we send them a link to this questionnaire part of their homework is to go to our website look at the engagement's we've shot and tell us which of the engagement speak to them we know exactly who we're talking to your new just have him go on the internet and look for examples of things that they like yeah, they don't have to look at your stuff if you're new to this go go look, you know I go look up different engagement see what comes up reference photos and I always tell them look don't don't look too much of what people are wearing or what they look like. Of course that photo is going to be great if it's an attractive couple right it's easy to get lost in that pay attention to the locations that speaks to you and the type of connection with the couple do you like that photo because you like this this couple's photos because they're snuggling maybe that says you're pretty romantic do you like this particular shoot because they're ridiculous in every photo that gives us that powers us with a lot of information about this couple, so that when we get on the phone and do a phone consultation with them about the shoot, we know exactly already know what places we're going to recommend to them. So we are yes, so with these guys is questionnaire, we know that they wanted something sexy and something lit, so we know if it's just a standard shoot, we're gonna go out doors and do sexy stuff and maybe the second locations in a hotel, how? And they're also wrote that they like sherlock, they like they like sherlock holmes. So the new sherlock show so that's a night it really interesting that could be a conceptual shoot we've never done which now I'm expected to do with someone you know, it's kind of a sherlock holmes and maybe she's like a sexy, you know, person who done it, and by the way, that could be it doesn't have to be all the way just has to be inspired by that, right? We did a james bond one a couple at said that their hero, he always want to be james bond or something, and so all that was was a lot of movement, a lot of like, yeah, a shot of this, a lot of shadow play like finding them in the shadows and just making it kind of moody and fun we're talking for something to go on so there's a nugget there for a conceptual shoot which could be a possible up cell for you right so I see here you guys really like the sexy type of shoot you like sophisticated that's awesome here's where we recommend b we know this great place to you know shoot style goto our block and look at this shoot you can see the location you see but I also notice here that you guys really like sherlock holmes like how much do you like that because we could really play on this and do something super unique we're going to need more time to do it but this is one of a kind what else has ever done that how the client experience now is becoming extraordinary because we're investing this time we're taking this time to do this phone call we're talking about them and their likes and all these little nuggets that we're finding in here it's just a really really nuggets nuggets yes it's uh it's a good tell the airport's you're always laughed at my jokes I'm gonna take you with me everywhere that's nice for you in the funny one in our house not me but every time I crack a joke she's like this way had a questionnaire just real fast this is the sort of level of digging down they wanted to dio beach shoot most proud accomplishment was that he was getting his pilot's license so we said and then they lived abroad and and all this kind of stuff so he said, what about a travel shoot? And then we told him, you know, you should see if you can get access to the way had said let's talk let's maybe look at doing like an airplane graveyard this is some of this could be really cool and then like, do you know anywhere where you have special access? He said, well, actually I could get access to the airport and we can shoot with these old planes and be on the runway who has access to that no one and had we not done this questionnaire and we not had not dug deeper, they would have just done a shoot on the beach but the travel shoot really males who they are as a couple uh and so that's what we're looking for in the question there so we've read the questionnaire we've sent it out, we've gone through together, we found nuggets in there we call the client and a specific phone call just for the engagement, right? This is also a colonel that you put in your collection our collection comes with a price and pricing it comes with an engagement shoot, concert, phone consultation so where are starting to add all this value that's an added bonus I also put portraiture location scout on there because I am doing a location scout with every shoot we show up early we're scouting looking for places so that's something else they're getting no one else is doing that way use that questionnaire we've already gotten a few gems in there maybe we haven't maybe there's nothing maybe they're just normal boring people which is fine right often that guy's questionnaire will come back with blanks what what what are you most proud of in the earth? Your fiancee she's hot yeah what do you like doing together? Staying in bed yeah, we get a lot of get a lot of those so let's do a shoot way we go and that's happened a few times so we had that's right? So we have these colonels and we don't even let them say a word about where they want to shoot. We started and say we have these ideas were thinking you guys really like downtown you fell in love downtown let's go shoot downtown but I also notice on here you really like mad men that's like a show you guys watch and you know you're really into it and your house is decorated in that style what do you think about pushing this even further and doing a madman same shoot we could do something really special that no one else has done, and we've got some great ideas for location, so we're kind of we're already giving them our ideas and then the collaboration starts right? We're really not into doing themes like we like it, but I think we just want to keep it simple for the parents that's great, we're going to go more toward a classic write a classic engagement. This is where some of the questions come up. We really want to shoot at this place. We really want to shoot in front of this fountain we really recommend we don't shoot in front of that fountain. I'm gonna send you a link to view an engagement we just did and this was all shot in one square block in one hour. If we go to that house and I would say it's in your your home town, you also know where the duds are. Yeah, so when they would like for us it's, lackman and that's, the famous all the street lamps have probably seen people always want to photograph at lacma, and we're five thousand people milling around it's ridiculous even if he proposed that blackman we say no, we try to say no or we saved yet we'll start a black man, you just need more hours in your shoot that's fine but it's our job this is if I'm going to a dentist to get my teeth fixed I'm not going to tell him how to fix my teeth right people are hiring us as an artist as a photographer this's our job to know where these locations are to know where the light is best to know where the textures are this is our job and if you haven't done it take three weeks just couple brian and I mean he added it all up it's probably three weeks of work drive around see what's around there check it out every time you go get your kids from school wait fifteen minutes early and go down turn left instead of right the other day we just dropped her kids off at school at their new school and we were like oh it's down this road we hadn't been over there for we found these awesome train tracks we didn't even know were there so way had that part of our day were always aware absolutely says maya wears thing aware aware wear things like that in my mind in the shoulders hey fella so uh they will talk about the time of day time of day always in the late afternoon people well can't do without time well sorry we can't do it that time it has to again we have to tell them what's best for them that's our job uh wardrobe they mentioned wardrobe, I passed because I know nothing about that, but brian will help walk through what the best wardrobe is. Well, what? I'm not good at it either. I just say to bring a few out few outfits, I just tell guys it all depends I mean, we want to stay away from like jerseys, but we've done shoots with jersey's if that's like their thing we tried, we tried it, you know, have them select something more casual, which, if that was me would literally be jeans and flip flops probably not the best first shoot, but that's me right? Uh for the couple were photographing earlier that was their casual that's casual to them what is casual to you? The second look, we want something a little bit more dressed up a little bit sex here or a little bit more sophisticated? Well, we don't know what's good, we don't know bring six changes will help you that's the key shot camera ready and what you're most comfortable and which is the most important thing do not go out and buy something the day before the shoot you've never worn and it's too tight and your uncomfortable be comfortable bu even if we only shoot it for ten minutes, they're in what they're comfortable and they're going to get loose right on bring lots of changes you guys going to be so good? It's going to be great? We're gonna ease their fears will keep doing that. You guys gonna be awesome? We're going. We're going to do all the heavy lifting for you. We're gonna crack jokes. It's gonna be fun. I think one of our associates, lauren who's. Awesome. Hi, lauren. Uh, she's with her children today. She she says to me she had a call with a potential engagement. Someone that booked us booked her for an engagement in a wedding and they have a thousand questions. What kind of earrings shouldn't be this hearing or that? A ringer? That's nerves. That is nerves talking. They're just nervous. Don't be afraid of that. Don't take that on ease their fears. We don't talk about your earrings. This isn't about your earrings. This is about the two of you connecting with us and with each other in front of our camera cares about the hearings. But the practical part of that too is just bring it and we'll figure it out. We'll figure it out. We'll, uh but it's. Really not about the rings. They will talk about the wedding day. Art. Yeah, my question about that consultation, yes, at what point in the process is that consultation come up? We have f b seniors who says at what point do you give them your ideas for a shoot I've had someone go with someone cheaper and use the ideas that I gave them for the engagement yeah well they've already booked us yeah we don't know this's committed oh yeah this is discussed already but they absolutely we've gone through the questionnaire before so we'll take fifteen twenty minutes to go through the questionnaire research a little bit come up with the ideas before we make the film it's a great question you know in that first call that we get the first when they're an increase till I do talk about the engagement I don't dive I don't know who they are yet so I can't even begin to talk about ideas this happens after and unless they mentioned to me when they call I want to do this thing it has to be this I'm not gonna lie to them at that point I say we need three hours it's going to be more expensive otherwise a classic engagement is included we read the questionnaire we find out there's this awesome thing hey guys we need more time for this we're going it's going to cost this much more but it's smashed or special so you can display their wedding and how awesome would that be if we made this art gallery and all your guests had to go through this art gallery of you guys um yeah, which I think I would like to have an art gallery of myself at our house that I could walk through dear I'm just kidding I'm not if it was a go ahead police just a kind of a final question on this if a couple already has kids, do you incorporate them into engagement session? Absolutely if they want to a lot of the times we find that they don't want the kids that we get that his parents they want to break from their children sometimes people have dogs that they think are their children and they want incorporate the dogs they can come in at the end of the shoot you would discuss during absolutely of course if they want incorporate their kids yes, we've actually never had that happen way have had it happen on the wedding day where they're doing romantics and they want the kids to come out and we'll absolutely do that again. We want to get a lot of variety and quantity so that always slows it down kids and animals down we get what we need first and then added and the children and animals after that said there should be somebody there to help you wrangle the kids so that should be stated and on that note to props props is something that people a lot of people I really want the balloons and I want this then this that's awesome that's great we're going to be more time for that because props really slow it down but we always try to bring it back to it's not about the props it's not about the props it's about the connection between you guys so location this is super important you guys that I animated the slide like this cliche location, location location it's so important um we already touched upon the idea that the client is going toe always choose the worst spots we want to look for our hometown heroes and if we're doing to shoot where we're not using our hometown heroes the scout is super important so we'll scout there there are times that people you know we can't they won't listen to us and we go and shoot where they want to shoot on in that case we stout we show up early we scout we make the best of it we turn into alleyways and all the places off the beaten path to try to find something different and it could be that we just find a simple wall like this and we kick kick the butt of this wall also for traveling we'll do an online scout will scout online like one with the bora bora we had teo scout everything online to figure out what we're going to dio and then when we got there see if it works yeah yeah you got to do the extra work so the wedding displays this is what we love we have our wonderful albums that we could bring in now that would be awesome these are the different ways people have used the photos this was actually we made a huge movie posters that they framed and blew up at the wedding so these are the potential upset lt's right and we have albums that we sell anywhere between a thousand to three thousand for our albums we only offer we use renaissance we love renaissance books and they have a variety of different types and styles for all budgets if somebody can't afford that then they can do a large print to show at their wedding but here's so this is like this's just a soft cover that they could do is a guest sign in book I'm sure you guys have all seen this stuff but we kind of this is sort of our signature album there's another book that we do a lot of our clients do initially want to do is sign in book we often recommend against that obviously there's have their hearts set on doing it it's fine we just feel like this is an heirloom the book itself is an investment and it should really just be images in there if they want to do something where people are signing then have a separate book or have you know a print where people sign around on the mount board but these are awesome people love these this is a partner for their wedding albums helpful to see this is helpful to see how with all that variety how it fills up a book there's just so many different looks that they just have to have it in a book do you guys see that? How much different different stuff there is this is another style of book and you can probably see the style thes guys used there uh this was their on their invitation that right davey designed that he wasn't he's an artist he's a muralist our room and he designed this cover which I think it's so awesome and beautiful and sew them and this would be an example of a self mt hurts aria can you help me that's a matter that album thank you. Another renaissance book so we have all these books that we offer and canvases way had a client in new york we did a conceptual themed engagement shoot. The wedding was in new york they came to l a for the engagement. This took a lot of work trying to figure out what we're going to dio she's a ballerina a dancer he's a finance here and in the end we came up with the idea of recreating three famous paintings. When was the singing butler? I think we showed that image earlier. One was thie kiss by gustave clint we had three famous pieces she had the quilt of the kiss made by one of her wardrobe people how freaking special is that by the way I'm getting goose bumps just thinking about how amazing it was we called in favors to get access to certain locations and they took those photos and they blew up thirty of them and made an art gallery at their cocktail. It was incredible all of these amazing images a key that on that too is it's not just pictures of them but it's actual art like the way the photos were shot so that it's not so like look at me it's more like isn't this amazing? Yeah, it was it was amazing of course it was, you know, additional money for the hard work that we had put into investigator time to find these locations and spend a lot of time flushing this idea out but in the end it was it was awesome. Eso yeah, yeah way even had people take a canvas and make the score card table out of the campus I mean, this guy's a hundred ideas absolutely one hundred ideas on how to how to make money. Okay, let's, wrap this up post shoot here we have a strategy and how we're going to deliver the photos uh and how we're gonna present them so let me show you how that works right here uh every single photo that is seen by the public for us at least is retouched um retouch yes that's heisted really touched bryan is a retouching master let me show you what that looks like so you can see what that looks like here's the original shot and I just say first you should be shooting to get it right out of camera number one retouching is not to fix bad work ok when you're trying to deliver some one four hundred or five hundred photos out of a thousand thatyou're taking get it right out of the camera to take the time that said there are things that you can't make perfect like bags under the eyes or you know if the hairs out of place but anything that you show to the public should be retouched taking away yes yes that was a that was a good point though and I applaud you for interjecting when you did thank you you got it okay all right so retouching uh this is is very subtle but that makes all the difference in the clients so back again so what's going on there you can still see her pores and his pores but we're smoothing their skin that's out of camera no that's that's the retouched wait now that when that gets out of camera the light is perfect you know everything's but that might be color corrected because their lives are super think that might be coming um and then there's the retouching here's the original and here's the retouching so to me, our job isn't just taking the photo our job to deliver an extraordinary client experience is to deliver and present the photos also times you can say to the client, you know, I know you want to print this photo on your own allow us to retouch it for you and print it through our lab look how much better this looks um and this is this another example? We just love to get rid of stuff one way and fix it up, and that literally takes ten minutes when you get good at it. So what we're saying here is where way meet a lot of photographers who are light remotely, um, that haven't mastered creative life has great classes way great opportunity in the right place. We encourage everyone to master photo shop to spend every moment working in photo show every moment, every way out of your lives, every waking moment in a photo shop because I feel like when we started, I spent every waking moment in photo shop I did I don't even own a shop so thankfully brain thousands of hours and classes, but we're two living an extraordinary product and so we need to be masters of that this is what works for us and then alien skin you wantto every bond this is no joke every single photo that we retouched that I retouch I have a little recipe in alien skins exposure which basically just adds a little bit of a fade and pop it the same time to the photo uh we have got my own little recipe that every photo goes through uh don't talk so again clear division of responsibility here I do the sales brian does all the media stuff so this is the truth that so the way we talked about it before but we'll get probably day after the shoot one photo on facebook will tag it any moment will hopefully that thing will start taking off we'll also instagram it I'll either instagram it as a square which all crop myself or there's a no crop ap I don't know if you guys are aware of that where you can actually post a photo so that you don't lose the ratio on and that's where I go to town on you know if this is bora bora bora bora engagement in bora bora engagement photographer destination wedding photographer bora bora tahiti you just keep going down on the station people fishing people I mean you just make stuff up it's kind of fun it's actually the most creative part of photography right what will you do all day ideo wonders on explained that it doesn't take any more time I call this toilet work for lack of a better term but this is the type of stuff that you can do when you boil it that if that is where you do this work if but I'm serious lot comes across kind of strange, but I mean there's time line is the only man in a house full of women the office is your bathroom, but if you're in line, I guess that's a better way of describing if you're in line somewhere that's a great chance tto teo instagram that photo and tag it to uh they lock it so this is super important. I learned this lesson from our dear friends a june bug weddings when they talked blair and christy talked a few years ago about your website should only have your best images on it I'm not blogging for the client I'm blogging from my brand and I want the photos that represent my brand on lee on there it's very hard to do that and lose track of this the story I often want to tell the story, but no, I just want to show the best images I won't have a great mix of all that approach colleague able approach images as well uh and this is also a sales tool for you that you can keep going back tio that singing in the rain shoot was like three years ago now and we still send clients to that toe look at it so we're constantly referencing all of these old logs, so the block is next and that's what they seem, or on then we'll show then the online garrel art gallery, which we talked about before it's broken into cat if they've changed its broken into look one look to, uh all the images are color corrected in light room, which just means we're adding four hundred images we deliver our color corrected, which means we had a little bit of saturation for our look some contrast on dh that's, really it on we'll fix the white balance, we do not shoot white balance in camera, and when we released that gallery to the clients, we say in that email there are so many awesome images and we always mean it because we always are delivering great images for our clients were working hard at that you should showcase these at your wedding let's, get on the phone, let's talk about what we can do with these photos let's not let these go to waste hold on to these, don't share them right now let's share them at the wedding, right? So there's that and then we kind of just want to wrap it up by our tenants in the beginning, the strong connection well, when we're not shooting the strong connection, we work at it through the phone call we work on it through talking about them the questionnaire blogging their story so when we block we will try to get a bit of their story in the block uh we're working on the imagery through the retouching on we're working on the maze balls experienced by fully disclosing how we operate you like that one huh and amaze ball experience by fully disclosing yeah sounds good to me we're gonna manage their expectations so that again being very clear we're goingto under promise and over deliver we tell our clients and it goes for weddings as well two to three weeks on the photos we turn around wedding images in one week to two weeks rapid rapid delivery but we don't tell him that because he wanted to be a nice value add to their experience and social media they get a kick out of the social media part gets on facebook et cetera um so for those getting started make it mandatory they have to do it do it for free it's not it's not really free because you're getting tremendous benefit out of it we've already talked about that but included and if it's between you and a couple other studios that you go up against all the time and you're including it for free that's awesome they're gonna book you they're going to get excited about that engagement shoot you talk it up and before you know it you can increase your prices come up with a great idea and just have your friends do the shoot so you can add it to to your portfolio um, partner with venues a lot of times venues will want to do a shoot to get that out to show off their venue. Ah that's a great idea. Yeah, brian and I think the part of this is because we use a lot of sophisticated lighting in our work. There are some venues in los angeles that are much darker. They have a difficult time selling their hotel for wedding space, and they love partnering with us. They'll let us come in for free and shoot an engagement there so that they can use that for their marketing collateral and then guess what? We're on their vendor list that's, right? And every search for a less hotel calloway gable comes up on these emerging shoots that we've done there s so you can get really creative about how to use these to the engagement shoots to really make make your brand bigger. And I'd also say when you, when you'd block and you when you want to, often my search engine optimize a shoot and you don't live in a major market, maybe market it to a major market, in other words, chicago engagement photographer rather than if you're in the suburbs so that more people get attracted to that the more specific you are, actually, if you're in a small area, that bigger area won't come up. So that was an idea I had maybe search engine optimized to a wider audience like that wider audience, maybe try using our approach as a framework as well to get a lot of variety, and that is it. We just want you guys to get out there and shoot, shoot, shoot yep way have promo codes, questionnaires, we also offer private coaching things like that go to our website and feel free to go to our blob caliber gable dot com slash blawg click on recent engagements and you'll find tons of inspiring work there to kind of get you thinking about ideas for your own clients, so I'm sure can yeah, questions that was a lot of us talking, and I'm not sure if you don't mind I'm going to steal your table here, please. Yeah, just because we've got plenty of stuff to talk about here waken give that hey, let's, start off. I feel very furniture movers are part of our service here. Incredible. Okay, question from chris sharing out now you guys are gonna have kids got family says my husband and I are exploring going into destination engagement shooting too. Together okay wondering his parents of small kids how do you guys work all of your travel into your kid's lives? Do you have an arrangement with family? You hire a nanny to take him with you. How do you work the pricing that's a treasury that's a complicated question anyone who has children understand that uh brian and I do not have our mothers we don't have a very difficult family situation some of the worst you could imagine s o we're on our own and we have created our own family of friends around us to support us we have a wonderful nanny who's like a grandmother to our children we do have my father and stepmother which is nice so the way we break it down as if we're going to a cool place we'll take him um sometimes the profit goes way down I will say for it for destination engagements we shoot separately so brian will go to vancouver or I will go to new york usually it's brian, do you think and what some what is sometimes with the higher profit margin I can actually go we do we work it into the price and it you know, as people with kids can understand, sometimes it makes more financial sense to bring them what you're paying and travel would be equivalent to what you paid man he anyway but you just make it work you make it work, and this is another reason I'm not afraid to ask for money. And I want people out there, tio be empowered to know you're worth we one hundred percent using any services. Uh, when we travel and we have a nanny at home, yeah as well, if we don't take them, but lately we've wanted to take them because they're they're growing up too fast. Yeah, experience for them? Yeah, they've already been in so many places for bora four times this year. It's hasaan what you said about just making it work figured out whether you can take them with you and if so, you know, build that into your practice. I understand that this is what's important to you, absolutely business owner and make it work. Speaking of making things work for your pains, video says I will assume you to use humor because you feel it's your strong point if I'm not as humorous, what are some other strong points? That what you would consider an asset in photography? It's definitely not my strong point. It'll worried natural that I would ask, what do you think your strong point is as an individual and interesting people? Yeah, I care yeah I think this is this is going to sound very happy when I say this I'm going back to the childhood thing and I do keep bring this up because I think a lot of artists have some kind of trump tower you know everybody has something um you have to genuinely care about people and I think if you come from a place of love with your clients they love you back I'm not funny I don't feel like I'm funny I think brian maybe makes me funny but I just come from love always I think about these people as you know they're my children they're family I want to give them and I think if you come from that place people can't help but love you and connect with you it's beautiful way sometimes I think that what we're doing this sounds really crazy but we sometimes feel like we're motivated to provide an experience that we didn't have yeah that we don't have way have it with each other now but we didn't as yeah a cz kids way kind of feel like that sometimes you understand the importance of absolutely absolutely want to make sure other people don't write beautiful so people who doubt their value questions like why would anyone pay for this just pictures? Well it's not just pictures it's not it's an experience and if you're approaching it that way you need to rethink it and then there's another note on that if I if I if I also read somewhere I think the prince too is that we are trying to get people that are buying us as well maura than just photos so the idea is to steer your business to that level where people want to buy you and that experience they don't want just photos yeah, which is why in that first phone call when you get the inquiry connecting with them is so important if you're the one who's connected with them and the three other places they call didn't they're going to feel more safe with you so loving so actually that leads in very nicely to the next question I was going to ask, which is from art investor who says what is your elevator speech if you've got one so let's say you're somewhere in a hotel somewhere get in an elevator with a couple and they're they're like like we just got engaged you like oh well, hey I know what for an engagement photographer what's your speech we traveled all over the world shooting weddings and that usually right off the bat people see that we're probably good and successful I would say that that's probably an area we're not very good in business because we have carried this but there are people on the plane way say that I say we travel around the world we've been toe you know where we've been to, and usually that people, yeah, fall into that. Yeah, I think a lot of our plane time, we spend color correcting, calling, weddings and there's a lot of interest from people sitting around. So, um, I don't think that we're sales people like that, by the way, that's. A great way to get leads is if you're on a plane or train, have your computer open and kind of tilt it. And this is an awesome correct how many times we've met people on the plane. It's. You know, someone who knows someone of something or what. Although, again, usually it's people are going to find us in other ways, so beautiful.