Lessons

Lesson Info

Photography Education

one other thing that we haven't talked about yet and we need to really visit this and spend some time with this let's talk about photo education uh I sure wish I could stand here and say I had a degree in photography I don't I don't have a degree in anything I have a degree in goofy ism uh I I never went to school I never went to college I grew up in a small town in new mexico and I was never encouraged by anybody to go to college uh me and my best friends not another three of us went to college and what a fund found interesting is that uh well while most people go to school get a degree and then go to work we go to work and then go to classes for the rest of our career trying to learn our craft I don't know doctors that goto workshops like photographers goto workshops are lawyers that goto workshops like photographers goto workshops they practice they go to law school the first they go to a four year school then they go at law school graduate school then they do an internship our resi...

dency program in the medical community they work like this and this and this and this forever and then they just goto work well we just pick up a camera it's it's funny do you know what it takes to become a photographer it doesn't take a degree it takes a business card in a rollo gaffer's tape you can rent everything else you don't even have to own a camera but you have to have a business card you have to have gap kaffir state of course it's an expendable but the fact is that your education begins when you decide to become a photographer I'm still learning you guys I watched creative live as much as anybody and she'll tell you and russell tell you they see my name popped in all the time in the chat rooms because I am at home editing and I'm chatting away with somebody in colombia about some question that somebody asked about thirty minutes ago are you kidding me he said that I think that's a great idea wow I should have noticed I'm learning like you guys were learning the education process continues and it never stops we have a career that never changes I mean that ever that that is ever changing that's what I meant to say where some careers they don't change a lot but the technology and what we do has changed so dramatically in the last few years you know I always tell the story about when I the biggest education for me was the day I shot my last frame of film and it was july of two thousand and I was on a shoot in new mexico I had a fuji s one camera in my hand and I had my hostel blood in my rolls of film for this job and it was a photograph an actor on a movie set and a photograph this guy and I shot all these six rolls of film and then I thought well I'll shoot this as one you know bam bam bam bam bam okay and files look pretty good and I uploaded and emailed one head shot to my client in l a who went this is exactly what we want this is perfect this is great we're good thanks oh go ahead and email me your invoice okay then in sin so now I'm in the car driving back to town I'm one wait a minute I've got six rolls of film in the front seat that have not been processed I just delivered the job to my client and I've already invoiced the client for the job now I get it now I understand the power of the digital technology and in a new digital photographic world and I never processed those roles and I've never shot another roll of film ever not even one frame and I've got film cameras believe me they're already all my retired cameras go on mike martin my mantle over my fireplace so I've got cameras lined up on this fireplace and all of my hostile blood's I've got four house of blood's lined up on that fireplace and two boxes of film that have never been shot I stopped the education never stops because our our craft continues to change there are some of the best photographers I know that you'll never see them published because they're such great educators in the classroom with some students today somewhere at r I t at art center at brooks they're all over the country they're teaching students day today some of the best photographers in the country live in seattle did you know that I know about twenty photographers that air in seattle that air is good or better than anybody in l a or new york there appear they're shooting for big name companies they're shooting for bowling they're shooting for oh my gosh you're shooting for big name companies and these guys are real and gals are really really talented but because they keep their education non stop learning process yeah thank you for that because I think it's true it's true and everything changes and we can't stop learning yeah it's it's big the world of education is big you guys built a company around this for the same reason well because also I mean a lot of the education just isn't isn't out there and available to people so so yes always very very important you started off talking about we're talking about business in this segment how much of your time would you say is spent on the business side and how much for your time was spent on the actual photography's that and that's and that's the direction that we're going to go after the break is we're going to talk a lot about the marketing and and specifically I want to talk about sales um I know that I know that if you're smart you'll block off a specific day of the week where you take care of the business and that might be paying bills might be marketing it might be chasing down uh clients that owe you money of whatever it might be but I think that you can't do that every day when you get into the mindset of shooting so I would say uh I don't know what the percentage would be cannon but I would think that I would think that there's a a significant percentage of your time needs to be spent getting the phone to ring I remember some of the best photographers I know that I ever knew that I would hear little stories that they were on c o d with the lab that they couldn't pay their bills with camera stores that and these were great great photographer said never put enough time into their business they were great shooters and they had a great eye and they had a great following and great careers as photographers but they couldn't take care of the business and I think that that's really said in a few or someone that can not do that it's just not a skill that you're uh that you are equipped with you have to get somebody that is and I would really encourage you to make friends with those first three people we talked about a great c p a a great attorney a great insurance guy those those people are so valuable but I'll tell you one thing when I decided to transition from portrait ce into commercial and I made that a pretty hard transition for me I didn't know what to do about getting commercial work I didn't know how to do it I just knew that I wanted to shoot more commercial work in the last portrait work and so I called there was a there was a wife of a guy that I had photographed and she was a senior art director an ad agency in my hometown of midland texas in those days and I called her and I said can I buy you lunch I really want to pick your brain about my career and she's like for lunch sure I'll talk to you and and I told her what I what my plan was and what I wanted to do and I didn't know how to do it and she said first things first you've got to stop showing something that you don't want to sell anymore you'll only sell what you show you want so you won't sell anything except what you show if I show a bunch of airplane pictures on my walls I can't have a portrait business nobody will come to me for that at all so obviously that's that's a no brainer and it's something that that certainly makes a lot of sense but I do think that what she taught me was get rid of the portrait on the wall and then let the transition begin and that's what happened with the guy that I mentioned earlier about the airplane can you do this job well sure I can didn't know how to do it but I faked it um but she also did something for me that I never thought of before that phone caller that lunch she said you need representation as a commercial guy she said you gotta have a rep and I said a rep I'm not um on a big time guy I don't need a rap she said you need to rep you need somebody that will go out there and sell you so you don't have to try to sell yourself I can say you were we'll get somebody else that can sell you and they'll go find you work and then you just give them a percentage of the day rate of the photography fi give them a percentage to bring you the work and I had and so I did that and and I'll tell you a little bit of the end result that all back into the story a little bit basically I was paying a rep twenty five percent of the day rate or my photography fee for bringing me work and one of my friends said you're giving up twenty five percent of your fee and I said nope she's bringing me seventy five percent of something I don't have and I had to learn to live with it that way because then it made sense to me this is a job I never would have gotten so can I do it for twenty five percent less you bet I'll raise my day rate a little bit to cover it right so from the world of business I think there is a significant amount of time that has to be spent taking care of that business the best photographers I know if they can't get that phone to ring it's very very sad to me and I hate to hear horror stories of great photographers and aren't doing well because they don't know how to ran is their business they didn't put any time into it and you guys know that you have to put time into it and that's why that business initiative with people of a so important I think there's they're people that will teach you how to do that there's videos there's books they got articles every month in the magazines that teach you how to do it get online and say help with my photography business there's two hundred sites I guarantee there's a lot of help out there that's the thing that I've learned about photography more than anything is people in our craft like to share except the commercial guys they won't share anything the commercial guys won't share much they are they don't like to talk a lot with their competitors like the portrait people do the portrait people they want to talk to their competitors they won't have everybody come over for coffee commercial guys not them they're not they're they're busy sorry they don't go to meetings because I know you're going to be bidding against him on a job next week