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Jasmine's First Featured Shoot

We're talking about my first blawg feature why am I talking about the first blood feature? We're talking about publications? But we're talking about the how of half of the how and the why it happened because at the end of two thousand seven when I was realizing was that okay? I shot thirty eight weddings and after shooting thirty eight weddings, three of them yielded the type of weddings that I wanted to shoot I want tio change that ratio a little bit to start shooting mohr of the weddings that he wanted to shoot, but in order for me to do that, I needed more people to be seeing the photos, but I didn't know how to make that happen around two thousand eight I tried getting one of the weddings featured I tried getting martina and georgia's wedding and I didn't even remember this it was actually preparing for creative life. I was just like and for the life of me I was racking my brain. I was like when it was my first feature and when did that and it could remember when I wear I submitted...

it because I just know that my first mission didn't come on my own doing so I was like get a life and I'm going to all my archives of my photos and I come across a folder that says martina and george blog's mission and I was like what is this and I click on it and when no man did idea that submission wrong I mean I wouldn't have all those mistakes that I made as I did that's mission as we get to that when we get to that point tomorrow but I was like what an idiot I wish I would have known but either way my first feature didn't come by my own doing it came because somebody else start started in prompted prompted it but in two thousand eight I was lucky to work on a shoot with industry friends now I was able because after working as many weddings as I did in two thousand seven I started running in similar circles every weekend with different vendors and it started finding people I started connecting with of course you don't connect to everybody but the people that you do make sure you follow up with them and create a personal as well as professional relationship and what ended up happening is we did issue that ended up getting style that end up getting featured on snippet and meek so how how did this happen? And I believe it happened because of collaboration and resourcefulness so in two thousand eight I started seeing that these other teams were collaborating and these other teams had everything we didn't have they had money, they had re sources, they had time and most of the time at this particular moment you know I worked with carisa of jail designs and melody brandon of sweetened saucy now theresa was still trying tio transition to being a full time florist melody had not even opened her bakery a and melodies now like designing cakes for celebrities, she went from here and skyrocketed it's I just think he's so proud to see how far all of our businesses have come and then when you see your friends being successful from, like literally starting with nothing, it just makes you feel so happy for them, so but at the time we're all trying to make it work, right? So this is beginning of two thousand eight were just like, gosh, we see all these other people know what we didn't have was re sources to places, so this is that's always the hardest part is to find a place to actually make the chute happen without paying a lot of money. So what happens is coordinators who sent a lot of business to a particular hotel or particular venue can call in a favor they're like. Can we use your place for a tuesday shoot and most of the time it's a win for the hotel or the ballroom or the space because they want to get it featured, but you need that connection and those air connections that we didn't have and like like how can we make this work so she said, I think I think we have this idea for doing a french farm styled shoot she's like, where can we shoot it and we weigh all of us lived in orange county and orange county there's no french there's, no farms and there's nothing of the sort. So I walked around my neighborhood and I went to a park that is three blocks from where I live and I said, I think if I shoot this in a particular way, way might be able to get we might be able to get through it so what christie did was to pull from her current resource is she went and either rented or bought or you stuff from her own home too stylized the shoot because everybody was bringing their own resource is so of course I wanted to spend one hundred dollars or for someone to spend a thousand dollars that was none of our that was none of our business she was gonna invest in what she needed to do melody who's providing the cake for the shoot could have spent one hundred dollars or five hundred dollars designing her cake. I could have spent however much I wanted on the shoot, but that was up to me to bring it to the table what she did was, she said, we need to start showcasing things that we no longer want to shoot we want to be the forerunners we want to be off guard within our industry and change what we're doing so what we have is you know I had chuck he's like these the centerpieces like these potpourri types of babies and they had crystals falling down those air fine and those were great and we love them but what could we start doing to start attracting brides and let them know that we want to do something different that's what chris that that was her goal for doing something along those lines great she says I'm thinking about putting like asparagus in the floor and the flowers and I'm like I love it whatever you think is great because I want to start attracting the same kind of kind of client so this is a pullback photo of a park by my house and if you were to look at this from a park it from an outsider's perspective it's really just parked evils underneath the portico but we shot it kind of a little bit tighter to pull that vote this is as faras we pulled back this's very french this's this french is we can get in orange county and we took what we have to make it work and I think that's basically the goal when you are starting your business because you have to take your current resources and maximize them to the best of your ability unless you have you know it was your trust fund beatty and hundred daddy's money to invest. We have to say we have to start simply and then move on from there. This is a picture of melodies, abilities, cake and one of the things that makes me like, really happy is if you were to go to melodies website, she still has a photo of this cake and this cake is now like years old, but it makes us proud to look back to see how far we've come together and the fact that we are still producing work that we produce back then that we're still proud of totes still to the state and she's skyrocketing. I'm so happy for her. This is a seizure on snippet in ink. Catherine, the editor was so kind to take it and feature it, and I think it kind of just goes to show the simplicity of what styled shoots looked like three or four five years ago, and they have become so much more complex since then. But I think that what had happened was korisa took the reins and submitting it, and I was able to watch from an outsider's perspective. Oh, that's, how you do it clearly I did it wrong, so how can we apply what we did in this u two? To your business because not not enough to simply sit here and say, oh, so this is what I did know let's, bring the homework and say, how can you go home and replicate, do something on your own? If this is what you want to do one we wanted to showcase clients what we could do. We wanted to showcase and highlight our skills outside of the parameters of given twenty five minutes to photograph details on a wedding day, and we wanted to put together a shoot to showcase what we wanted to shoot in the future to we wanted to get published on the site that highlighted details in a way that would start attracting a different clientele than from our current referral circle. And three we wanted to take what we had and make it work to simply show that what we might not be the top in our market, what we might not have all the resource is when we might not have all the connections, what we do do you have his heart, and I sound like I feel like this is like the plot for, like rudy or like rockier, like benji or something, you know it's like all the underdog or something, but really that's what it comes down there's more of us for hungry for it, so what can we do to rethink it? This is the first time that was able to see the submission process so what carisa did still is applicable to how I do it now slightly different which we're going to get into the details tomorrow after our conversation today with a block editor summer watkins from great likes bunnies so part of why I want to focus on this particular thing is because and this is my caution photographers so off often is you get into a shoot, you get into ideas, you get into visions and you not even our you're slow to realize what the bigger picture is because I'm going to say quite honestly that we know the industry is absolutely saturated with styled shoes we know that and so all of a sudden there's this new breed of photographers who are trepidatious at putting together styled shoot because it's just one of the hundreds that are featured every single day and part of the reason why that trepidation exists I believe is because we're not understanding the theory or the ideas behind it it's no longer enough to put together shoot and pretty and shoot pretty things it's so competitive that you have to know the beginning the middle and the end so I do believe that every creative team has different goals and there's no there's not a right girl some people get together just for building a portfolio perfectly fine some people get together just for publication perfectly fine. Some people get together just for the sake of being creative and not so I think is really red because you're not worried. Oh, this is going to be too edgy too get featured bump that you're doing that simply to collaborate with other people for the sake of collaborating and changing the wedding industry. Awesome! There is no right and there's no wrong. However, the lack of goal is what I take issue with and what I want to talk about today. So I'm going to talk about what I've done and how I've maximized my shoots using this theory if it rubs you the wrong way. That's totally fine absolutely you can look at this and say that's totally not for me. Great! It is just is valuable for you to know what you don't want to do as it is for you to know what you want to do, it will push you towards your goals in a way that suits me the best. So the first thing I want to talk about the first and one how about is the goal you need to have a goal for your shoot. What will this shoot be used for? If you can't answer that question, I beg you to hold off until you can, will it be submitted? If so, the entire group needs to be on board if it's just a build your portfolio there's no pressure to get certain types of details, but if you if you don't have a goal, you don't know that if you just shoot it and be like, oh, should we submit it? Well, if you ask yourself after, you might have missed so many components that should have gone into planning to get the types of details to plan the time today to get a venue that you would need if it's just for being creative, you don't need all of that. If it's for publication, all of those things need to be placed, be put in place before what I also encourage you to do is to find a theme color palette is no longer enough because because we talk about the saturation actually, there was a justice that going around the web about a month and a half ago that saying, like, fifty one percent of brides are tired of things that was chutes on blog's and what they really want to see more of our real weddings. Fair enough, but I ventured to challenge that statistic by saying, perhaps just maybe the style shoot that are being featured. Are just lackluster in the respect that they're not teaching or showing what could possibly be done it's just here pretty flowers, here's a pretty bride in the field on a sofa and that's fine, but how does it apply to her on her wedding day when you create a theme, what you're essentially doing is teaching a bright how to create a theme on her wedding day and when my bright have beans on their wedding day, I couldn't be happier because it makes everything go so much smoother and how I need to photograph details on a wedding day and my losing you guys, are you guys glazed over? Got to come with me? Here we go. Are we ok? Ok, ok, ok, because I know that this is so much to throw out at you, I totally understand it, but it's going to make so much more sense when we're shooting tomorrow, I promise we're going toe like judge it up, okay? If, for instance, the theme was, I don't know in nineteen forties art deco that's what we had decided to theme once that becomes that that becomes a litmus test in which we must measure everything against does the bridal gown look like it's reminiscent of the nineteen forties? If it does not, we cannot use it doesn't okay look like it could be be from the nineteen forties if it does not, we do not use it does the location looked like it could be from art deco nineteen forties if it does not, we cannot use it does the drinks you know we can't offer like a mangle martini as the signature drink for the nineteen forties art deco shoot because they weren't drinking martin mark mingle martinis they were probably dean drinking something with scotch or gin. We need to make sure that the signature drink reflects those types of things that's why I feel sometimes styled cheats are like western because we didn't think about the entire process and who I really feel like helps me think about this process was a producer for madmen, the details that they put out in that show just it just kids me, I feel like the amount of time and their litmus test is by far its at the standard in like the the movie of the tv industry how then can we set a new senator than the photographic community by saying our shoots need to be editorial worthy in a way that we thought about it from beginning to middle and end? And lastly, I think what we should be thinking about is the story what's the story behind this art deco theme because once we have a theme in mind, how then did the bride and groom meat on this day in preparation for this day for the art deco theme I try to create and some people think it's absolutely silly I don't think you need to create a story I just feel like it helps when you create a story from a photographic perspective as well as from the creative team perspective everybody knows the vision behind and then you're creating amounts of measurement within each other to keep each other in balance so I try to create a three four sentence story about how the couple met and give him a name and I give him a profession because we know that like a rocket scientist wouldn't be a would it find appeal but about a certain detail the way say a professional nfl football player would we need to create we need to find some like similarities within those couples and create stories around them so for example catherine and jimmy met on their way to hong kong from los angeles as new additions to a financial investment firm blending their left for travel katherine's chinese heritage and jimi's passion for mid century modern furniture they wanted to take they wanted their wedding to reflect their unique personalities as they married in a field of cherry blossoms that's the story so if I know katherine and jimmy met is it on a flight to hong kong as transplants from the united states in that how then does that look as I'm photographing it how then, does it? How, then can I incorporate the fact that they're there in the financial investment field? How, then can I? How, then can I use the chair in the field of cherry blossoms to reflect his cherry blossoms on the cake? What's, the huge looking like clearly, were not to be picking up blue for colors if their palate is in a cherry blossom field. All of those things, that story created the litmus test in which we should measure everything against.