Lessons

Lesson Info

Summer Watkins, Grey Likes Weddings

Earlier, I said that I was nervous this morning as I woke up and I didn't want to, you know, get it back, because I knew, like, now is the day that we had to start. But I said, part of the reason I was able to get out of it was I was able to be joined by an amazing creative team to help me walk through into the stand. She ate some of this ideology they have about wedding photography, and there is no other person to do it better than summer. Watkins of gray likes weddings, so to give you a little bit of background before summer gets in, teo talking is I want to talk a little bit about how I first met summer and somewhere, and I met about two and a half or three years ago, and she at the time was doing florals. She was doing design, floral design, and at the time, I even I even blogged about the experience because it was a challenge for myself to do something different and outside of the norm. And I said, you know what? I really like flowers, and I want to learn how to just put them toge...

ther just for the sake of having them in my home, and some are particular workshops, so I signed up for her workshop and I was so excited to meet her and I was like nervous and had a great time and I got to know summer outside of her business I got to know her as a person and what I realized was that I really, really, really liked her you felt she's extraordinary, intelligent and kind and well spoken and we've kind of our friendship has grown throughout the years and summer is the person that I depend on when I'm really honest about this is the truth when I'm in a pinch I take summer with me shopping and you need to help me and she really does from from lowers to clothing to weddings I think that just stylistically as a whole she kind of gets something and that was part of the reason why I wanted you to come because I think that she is she's extraordinarily well rounded in a lot of different capacities when it comes to weddings so that's what the next a portion of this will be about but before I kind of get there and start asking some questions, the questions will be opened to you guys as well. In a given q and a session, I have a set of questions I want to ask summer and before I get there I want summer to introduce yourself and talk to us a little bit about how she started greatly all right, well, first I have to say I love the jasmine gives me permission to talk super fast. Well, actually, you know, people people complained there just like justice had your ass handed like I don't talk fast, you isn't slow, so between summer night it could be like an auction way set the pace and I'm just going to keep up with it. I gotta get awesome. So I'm really glad to be here. We started green likes weddings on several years ago, I think kind of before we saw this gigantic boom with wedding blog's, but we started to see this sort of momentum and I think just is grew out of this passion to one of curate really beautiful things and start collecting and also I was so obsessed with being trolling photographers, websites and so I began just by spending hours and hours and hours and hours a day looking at numbers website websites beginning to kind of examine their work. What are things that caught my eye? What did I find to be beautiful? What if I was a bride? Would I be attracted? Teo and what were the types of things that made a really great feature? And I really started to see a lot of patterns with a lot of different photographers they sort of there's a pattern that target was normally use and there's some that really stand out and there are some that really just get the block thing, and they just know how to do, and they're all over and there's others that just you could tell they really want to, but they haven't quite figured it out yet, so I have really come from a background of just obsessing over imagery, obsessing over photographer's work and all that kind of stuff. And then on the other side of it, one of the ways that we've been able to build and grow our blawg is by, you know, for me, my blood was written from the perspective of a stylist, so I'm not a pastor, former bride, I mostly silence, so I d'oh more than just floral design it's sort of bringing together the entire element. So one of the things that's really been fun as we've gotten started building our business is doing shoots for photographers and teaching them how to shoot the way me as a stylist want to be shot the way me as a florist would want it to be shot, and then the way me is, the blogger would want it to be shot and sometimes their little nuances and differences, but it's, just something I've become really passionate about is really empowering photographers. Because I think sometimes it's just little things that they just don't get because they're so focused on the other side of the camera. And so that to me is just what I'm really excited about, and part of what she talks about these nuances, she actually gets into it in detail, she teaches a workshop for photographers and it's, not a photographer, teaching photographers it's, a stylist blogger coming from a floor perspective teaching a workshop, she entitles, shoot this not that dot com and you could find that it should this not that dot com, and she teaches a workshop in the kind of exclusive she does that maybe once a year, once or twice a year, and she changed changes of the location. So if you were a photographer and hadrian's in your work and you're at a point where you think, ok, I don't necessarily know if I want to go to another photography workshop, but I want to know how to see it from entirely different perspective than perhaps this might be something you might be interested in. So, kenna, we are very excited because summer has graciously is giving away a seat in one of these upcoming workshops, and so this section of the workshop, we're going to have this special prize twitter giveaway and the way that you could enter that contest is to tweet your favorite quote from this whole interview section with summer so it's about the next two hours or so that summer is going to be with us and so you can tweet your favorite quote you're going to include the hashtag gray likes and that's one word within e so g r e y l I k e s and the course you're on again for for this page I mean for this workshop and we will be giving away a workshop that is october attempt and eleven in montecito, california and so for the should this not that workshop and so tweet away with a special twitter uh contest and you want to say anything else about that I think you know the workshop is just so different than I think not that I have attended a million part of your work but that is so different and we are going to do tons of awesome hands on and I think that's one of the things I'm really excited to do is get into the nitty gritty hands on of styling details and shooting details and really what's cool is I think one of the things that makes a difference for photographers is as we kind of head into will get into the soul of it but head into a bit more of a curated art directed style of photography you knowing how to be a stylist in very small and simple ways, I think will really empower you to take your work to the next level. And so that's why? I think this perspective is really powerful and will be really exciting tio and part okay, I just have to ask you because I'm not about to like to any warns, but have you been watching this morning? No that's, okay? Actually, if you say no, it will be better now, okay, great, because has she not been saying the word that we've been talking about style izing, sure rating art directing to a surgeon component, so I just I've come to believe that I'm not necessarily a trained professional, but through working with various bloggers and working with style with some are both as a floral designer, as a stylist and as a blogger, I've been able to see see and kind of like coagulate information. Now, before we get into the interview, what I want to say are the questions that will be omitted or kind of like looked over will be how two questions, how do you submit to a block? I'm going to be getting into that tomorrow. And every single block has a submission guideline on the post itself I don't want to give too much time or too much credence into something that's already existing if you want to do a little bit of hard work so what I want to bring really focused summer here on are the things that we don't know outside of what could already read online so if you guys can give me that and so if there are questions that I think we'll get to tomorrow because we are going to get into literally the how to how many submissions are a good thing how what should we be sizing them as that will be tomorrow but for today I would hope tio focus on leveraging the things that summer brings that we can't get as photographers so we're going to get into now is just q and a with myself and some are having conversation and one thing too was I told summer tells him right eye whatever gave permission at whatever the word is I told summer tio not think that there's cameras here or that there's people here I want her did it we had a conversation okay let me back it up prior to choosing who I would want to join me on this panel we have the option of doing it via skype and having a few bloggers and I was considering what would be the best fit for me randomly I needed help with a few things and summer so graciously said, I have the afternoon I'm so stressed out, but your afternoon is yours. We hung out, we ended up at a cafe in over tomato soup summer night started talking about this state of how the industry and what's emissions look like how belonging should look and all these things and as she's talking to me, I'm thinking she hit a nerve with me and this is what photographers need to hear now, however, it makes us feel uncomfortable. I said, this is what we need to hear. I can't see it from my perspective because people would be like, oh, who does she think she is so rude, bo block I want somewhere to say this is what we like, and this is how we like it and this is why we like it from somebody outs of our industry saying, listen, this is why it works, and this is why it doesn't. So on that note, I'm going to start for the very first ambiguous question of what makes good photography. Oh, such an obvious question, and I think one thing for me that is really important for you to just starting off the bat, I'm coming from a very specific perspective, so you could ask that question tio, a professor at a university and you could ask that question to ansel adams and jasmine star and other bloggers or magazine editors everyone's going to give you a different answer. So I am going to do my best to answer that question from the perspective of a blogger and my industry and what I'm looking for in terms of whether or not I would want to feature your work just so you know, because I don't think it's fair for me say blanket statements, but that being said, I think what makes good photography for us number one, whenever I am receive a submission, I look at the gallery at a glance, and I can usually tell even without zooming in and looking at the images, whether or not I'm the future it right away, and one of the ways that I can do that is because of strong subject matter and that's one thing that I think is really missing in a lot of editorial submissions to us at this point, and the reason, I think, is because there's were coming from the school of photojournalism, which to me is observing your observing with your camera and you are stepping back, and you're just there to observe all day long. With your camera and the photographers I think that are making a big impact and I can see difference is that they are making art and they're getting involved and they're not afraid teo move things around and they understand what really great composition is and how have really really a great strong subject I come from an english major background and so to me I think of it like a subject of a sentence and you can't have a complete sentence without a subject and you know you remember we did the grammar and you'd like double underlined subject and underline the verbal hover we did it but that's me I see so many images without a subject that that really isn't compelling it's kind of boring it's just there it's competing you know the subject matter might be competing with the background of the foreground distracting all those kinds of things so to me that's one really really, really big thing that is super important compelling imagery that is saying something I think that leads to the next question because what makes it appealing to you as an editor and when you brought up that sentence structure I was like oh my god I was home schooled you remember no I didn't do that I'm always like I think this is a kind you might need you know what? Wait there's a lord so I think I'm a photographer e know what macy appealing to you how it makes it appeal on what makes it if you will makes it appealing to you because I think what happens is here at creative life I like to put in a definitive because you say oh this subject competes with the ford of the african I want to know what makes it appealing we're going to get actually into retreat into a critique of images that can actually dissect them but what how does it when you look at a photo and you think this is what I like what is that thing? And I know there's a variance of it but if you give us one example I think would help create like oh I get it uh one example I think it's so uh because I could have all been really different ranges from well then I'll change it to you this way then because we're hearing it from different perspectives we have the we have like forrest you we have the stylist in you don't have the blogger and you yeah at some point in the future you may be a bright if you're looking at a photographer what's gonna be the thing that's pulling you in from his or her imagery how do you look at that like that's what I want right? Well I think I think that actually hits on a really great point is that I think as editors we are a totally different type of client then the brightest so when I'm examining as a bride, I'm gonna probably be looking for different things and then an editor would be looking for and I don't think that that has to be like mutually exclusive, but I think that the point of that is brite's are looking for some of that emotion, but to me, as a bride I would rather have an image on my wall that is beautifully perfectly composed like a piece of art rather than something where I'm like dancing on the dance floor and I'm like sweating and that might be like a really great shot, whatever, but for me personally, I'm looking for art no matter what like so that does mean, you know, following the law of, you know, the third's in your image and understanding what that means and really great exposure and our trend right now that people really love and I love it is that it it's bright I mean that it isn't overly gangly and dark and mysterious and that's just I think where the wedding industry is that right now it's where the trends right right now, it's what editors are looking for right now, that's what I'm looking for so when we talk about details it's like one or two things in the image and I like to do to me, I like the mosaic approach when you're shooting where you're giving us more like the pieces all together you're zoomed in on each piece and when we then pair all this stuff up together then you get a really great idea of the whole so rather than standing back and just kind of shooting all these things all at one time and jamming it into one frame like zooming in and showing us really close really tight really lovely imagery that clean, clean, clean, clean and really simple and getting rid of all the extra stuff that's around it. So from a photographic perspective, if you're shooting the cocktail hour I see a lot of people getting like these wide global shots which is yes appealing and yes beautiful because it sets the tone ality but prior tio that space being field with people what you should be doing is if there's customized paper napkins getting those now casey napkins and style izing them in a way with like a sprig of lavender or against like a white piece of paper so that when you get that shot of the overview and a horizontal and you pair it up with something as simple as a napkin with a sprig of lavender, you now told a very different story so making sure that that's what I think so just to get the idea and bring it down to like a photographer's perspective okay, so tell me context yes so what are the common mistakes photographers are making? Um common mistakes. Okay, so what we'll find so she came fully prepared. She has notes and I think this is really good because I want her to touch on it like a few things. And so she sent me her notes, and I was like, I like this girl. I think that one's like, twenty it's right about here talk, master. All right. Ok. So what? Listen, that's coming to st ok, so in terms of common six, they're keeping you from publication when jackson is going to get into this a lot later, but just kind of poor manners in terms of how you're submitting what your you know, your way of going about submitting. So when that time comes definitely take notes and pay attention because just poor manners in terms of how you do it makes a big difference, esso and the next thing is in its election again. Editors are looking for different types of images than brides are. So you are going to send your bright the picture of her, you know, brother doing the snake on the dance floor, but you probably are going to send it to the blogger on lee because and here's the thing photographers wedding photographers are wedding photographers, I think, because they love people I think you care about the couple when they come and meet with you and you ask them their love story and you're still excited and you just get all wrapped up in the day and so by the end of it when you're submit as you're like oh, you should have seen and the brother I hope it's just I goes the layers and we're like no idea and no where do our readers they weren't there either? Our readers were at the wedding so for them it's not reliving a moment for us from my block for my readers they're there to get ideas for their own big day so we need totally different types of images and not to say that one is better than the other or one's more important than the other unlikely you know, brother, doing the snake might be more important than the cocktail napkin historical abner if you're over there, you know, stylized in the napkins and missing the moment like absolute beauty don't do that. But when you are able to build into your workday on the david wedding too in the stuff that I care about that's when it makes a really big difference so I'm you know, image selection is a really important thing to make sure that your curating the types of things that we're looking for one thing that I see photographers that have been overlooked lately they've overlooking lately is they're sending almost too many details and they're not sending enough of the portrait it's and we actually really do love to see portrait's if you've got this a bride in a stunning vera weighing or a darling short dress or like something that just really stands out knocks your socks off that's something that does make a difference and makes a wedding very distinguished and makes us excited to feed what percentage if you had to put a percentage of portrait because I think that when you say oh there's not enough that's ambiguous so again yeah like so I would say probably seventy twenty ten so that's my percentage about you mean give or take so seventy percent still life and I don't call details details I like to call them still life because to me detail means that you have this pressure like I had to shoot the flowers have to shoot the cocktail napkin and then photographers get to this point where they say, well, you know the bride just didn't have any details so I couldn't send any in when you call it still life than that means it doesn't have anything to do with what the correct the bride provided it could be the location and there are so many things on site on location that you can and should be shooting, zooming in and zooming out to make sure like you know, if there's all kinds of a beautiful topiary at the location and then stand back and she's gorgeous stairwell that's going up, whatever it is, those air all to me still life it's not necessarily details that the brights providing so there's no reason why you shouldn't be sending me still life images it's okay, if it's not provided by the bride, but then you can also, I think it's important, that you're kind of recruiting is what I call it recruiting details. And so if one of the guests is where let's say, the wedding is yellow and you know this ahead of time, so you are walking past a wall, a piece of art that's yellow, like throw your bride and groom in front of it and snap that shot it. The location was chosen, chosen because they have lemon trees like you should be shooting lemon trees. You should be grabbing eleven with a sprig of the branch off of it and grabbing one of the guests that's like s doesn't say if a guest that cocktail hour and she's wearing a yellow dress and she's holding the signature drink that's the show heavens, part yes, you're like, oh that's, a photo that we yes, so keeping your mind open to a mirror read options in regards to that, so anyway, seventy still life twenty is portrait ce so that's still a really hefty good amount of portrait? One of the elements of a wedding that is missed? I would say eighty five percent of the time when people send me submissions is bridesmaids. Bridesmaids are so lovely, they have a dress that matches the entire polar concept aa lot of times they're both case can be even more beautiful than the brights, like they're a little bit more edgy or more colorful or whatever, and they have great shoes and photographers miss bridesmaids all the time. Look at bridesmaids or they kind of shoot them doing crazy, wacky things and never just a lovely shot of brides made just like you would the bright. So that's, another detail that kind of fits in the portrait like area, but we don't see enough of and then I would say ten percent could be those emotional moments because we do still, we do care about that emotion. We do want to see it the you know, groom crying is this bride walks in the aisle, you know, the father giving her away all those special things we want to see that emotion in those moments, one of the things that helps us force admissions is when you explain the moment. We see them crying but okay, why, you know, like the bride's mom died of cancer and she's holding her hanky and that's why it was so emotional and she walked down the aisle to get to that tomorrow it's ice and a question near to my clients based on the photos that I have chosen. So if I have chosen a moment where there's two people crying, the editors, these two people crying, but she doesn't know the story, I know that her mom died of cancer, so I need to include in that question you're a very specific question to my biases. What happened at the moment that her dad handed her her mom's handkerchiefs? Then she responds to that. So when the editor gets the question year, if someone were to look at this and be like, oh my gosh, that photo just went from a photo of two people crying to a very powerful moment that she could partly to her readers toe have them then it's like digest. Is there another way that I can incorporate a personal element into my wedding day from the past from a family member who might have passed? So these are the things that were, you know, talking about preparing our clients were going get into those details, I think, to just adam that really quick is that pre research, too, if there's knowing when you go into it that that hanky is important, if you didn't know and you just wanted to and you miss that shot and you didn't grab it and then like for her, that is going to be an important thing, writes do care about details, not just about getting published on their block, but when they have this hankie that represents their mom that passed away from cancer, like, if you went into it knowing and you, you ask your brides or do that, like, get that info ahead of time so that you don't just like especially if you're not in the habit of shooting everything like jasmine already does, you know, get yourself prepared so that on the day that you should feel like I've got to make sure she's that hanky, and you add that to your shot list that I think is a really significant things if you don't have a shot list or you forgot shot list or it's, just not into your work phone that's still ok, what I do is I'll also depend on people. Who are already in the room? I actually try not to talk to the bride outside of a cell mutation, so I say hi to her, I let her know I'm there and they say, who can I talk to you to get all the details and the minute that I'm there? I also asked, is there anything that maybe I'm not aware of anybody who might have passed or those details? And sometimes that we brought up the lot of the most recent wedding that I shot she had a rosary tied around her bouquet and it could have simply been a family rosary? I don't know it was her great grandmother's rosary from italy as she immigrated to united states and walks through ellis island. That was a big deal that I needed to know about and photograph outside of it being put on the bouquet. Well, it was being put on the bouquet by the bridesmaids and the bouquet by itself with that rosary so all three of those things told that story. So what air three simple tips that you could give to photographers to improve to improve? Yes, I think decluttering your image is number one is a really, really, really big thing, so you're saying not tio maybe use like collages, ok, because we talked about this today I showed like my early year collages I put like I was seventeen voters I think a lot are not even lying I know, I know, I guess exactly so de clutter well, I think de clutter on that level, but also on the level of when your ex I'm hitting like one image itself needs to be de clutter, I think what awakened from national use your lens to de clutter if that means that you need to brought your background if that means that you need to pick something up and put it in light so it's brighter so that it can be de cluttered so that we don't see the like dark leaves on the ground in the background and said we see bright grass, whatever it is there a lot of ways that we can like de clutters, simplify your images, we are looking, you know, as bloggers and as editors and readers that air coming to us, they're coming for ideas, so those ideas that they come to see need to be very strong ideas that needs to be clear and sometimes this stuff around it is so distracting that we can't it's not reachable even of the idea itself was absolute genius and we wish we could so that would be, I would say, number one, okay, I think for editors, the other thing, one big thing that we're looking for is really consistent editing we noticed I I get somebody who's got some that air images that are like really oversaturated and then some dinner you know super right and then some that are been two g and script up and we just that's not away we're trying to tell a story and it needs to be a complete story from beginning to end and so we're looking for very consistent processing find your style even if you're sort of playing with yourself and experimenting whatever you said to me whatever you decide to send send on ly one specific style until you land on what you think works and what people tend to respond to or is there a particular style this is not part of our question but is there a style that you feel like works better like food with photographically like in terms of processing yeah I would say that we you know clean there are some for choppers that are doing lots of that like bright pops of color and I think that can't you know like really kind of bumping up the saturation forgive me because my started feeling goes no no no that's good that's really I think there are some that do that do well I think that what we're seeing pretty consistently is and you know people are telling him I mean getting this but right now bloggers love and bryant love those beautiful bright clean image we were headed that direction we don't we're not seeing as much of that kind of vintage overtone I think that sort of came and went pretty quickly and I think that the pendulum is sort of swinging back tio really clean classics from a photographer's perspective I have been in this industry all of six years and so the older photographers I think hopefully like substantiate the sentiment the sentiment is it always swings back yes you clean classic for talk I would if it's like that's the middle of the pendulum and it's going to go constant but this is one thing to mean I know I feel like marcio weddings was the end all be all perfection and is still today like that she's just the bible of perfection of what s o and this is this to me proves the point is that she did attend your anniversary issue uh and I was going through like I recognize that image why are they were using it and then I come to really look at the front oh it's their ten year anniversary twenty or whatever it was and so then it was like oh my gosh these images are still beautiful her style is still beautiful even though it he she homeless she picks up on some trends but she does it in such a great way so all that to say in terms of photography she it's always been clean classic chris yeah simple right not over bright just perfect, like, lovely. So you have mentioned to me in the past that editors are invisible clients? Yes. Could you explain that? Yes. I think we got into a little bit in terms of when we were talking about dancing and emotion. And those things you care about versace us is editors. What we care about, we essentially are kind of your backup, a person that you should be caring about. So throughout the day, we do want you thinking about us. I think if you were to be able to go into your day eventually and have a shot list that's prepared and created, as in terms of what editors are looking for and the kind of details that we need that are often very easily over overlooked and men best, that could be a really big difference. Like we want to send you. It was like a mission. But all that to say we are your kind of invisible client, like at the end of the day, we don't matter. The person then hired you, and that is going to be creating albums out of all your work. The person that matters the most is your bride. So that's. Why? I think we should just sort of be this, like invisible clinton, that back in your head that yes, you're shooting some for us that you're bright may or may not care about but that we care about and we want to be ultimate goal for us is bloggers is to be your platform. We want to be your marketing till we want to be your vehicle for you to get out there for you to, you know, increase your reputation so people get to know you and your work all that kind of stuff so that you could book more brides are all different types of things that being featured on a block and help out with so it's a amazing vehicle tool. But you gotta remember that where your client it's not like, oh, my gosh, thank you. So weigh do you guys sustain sustain what we do for a living like you make it possible? We are reliant on photographers, but at the same time it's kind of if you treat us like a client, you can raise yourself like the cream rises to the top and it doesn't matter to me. And I think a lot of people think this is that bloggers only feature the same people over and over and that we kind of get this pipe reputation for like we only feature advertisers, none of that not true, we feature beautiful images, ok in that same vein it was the next question you have mentioned also in the past between us and so now I'm putting out our business like out on the table but I told her that we were going to be talking about this and she likes signed off on it because in light of benefiting the industry that's the goal so you have also mentioned that it's been one of the hardest parts of your job is dealing with the photographers ego could you expound on that because you're talking about like how sometimes people treat you like you should be privileged that you're featuring my work or something I don't like yeah we do we get that on first off and I think you know what industry I kind of look to sometimes is the publishing industry like if you're writing a book and when you're writing a book you're just you're just a plain old joe schmoe who wrote some words on a paper and you're sending your submission off to any editor that would be willing to read through it and there is no way that you were demanding to editors like I have not heard back from you about my suspicion of my two hundred page book on the russian revolution and is compelling it's compelling work and you're funny e I was laughing I know I gave like a good hearty laugh there russian revolution way there's kind of become this sort of um I'm awesome attitude a little bit with photographers and I think that the ones that kind of it really is and you really think that I'm going into that like humble spirit and just being super excited to send in your imagery and if it isn't a fit like or if you don't hear back, send it to someone else and keep working harder at your own work if it is amazing you will hear back one hundred percent you will get featured and so you know, it's an easy way to be like, ok, next person let's move on, but the other thing in terms of ego and this is one big thing for me is I think photographers have this thing where they're like they want to implant their style on the images that they take an eye little jasmine to me, one of the biggest ways that I see ego and imagery is with angles because it's like, oh, I'm gonna shoot at a cooling go oh my gosh and what it does is it makes it makes me aware when I look at the image with a crazy angle, I'm aware of the photographer in the image it says to me, there's a person that took this shot rather than having me go oh my gosh, those air stunning florals because it was just shot beautifully and normally and that you we were at the service of the subject matter the subject at hand that gives us opportunity to like actually focused on this lovely should subject where I wouldn't be distracted by you're like oh my gosh watch me and glitter out really fast watch the horizon and not that you're actually saying that when I shoot it but that's kind of how it feels when we get you know for us like on the other side of the computer we don't get to know you as a person so it's only like I'm looking through a gallery of gillian angles that don't look good next to each other angled shots never look good so if I don't have any street shots that's really difficult for me to work with so those are the things that it just kind of drives a little bit crazy like we you know I feel like it's a bit of a dichotomy because I want youto aren't direct and get involved but then I want you to step back and observe it once you're done doing that like with your camera that kind of makes sense yeah he's a subject matter to me the most important thing that's going to take it a couple says back because when I hear them talking I wanted like step in as a photographer and do some clarification when it comes to not hearing back from an editor we're going to get into this tomorrow, but for those who may be might miss, that particular section is if you have not heard from a blogger, he should establish some type of terms of yourself. And I think that the terms for me, if I haven't heard back from the longer in two weeks, what I will do without any ego is to say, dear summer, thank you so much for taking time. I know that you're super busy if by any chance you've had an opportunity to look over my submission, if you could let me know if I don't hear from you by this date may highlight the date I will assume it has been passed on. So what I'm doing is I'm not making summer summer, can you even like that with no that's, a very uncomfortable conversations all say, if I don't hear from you by the state, I will have assume that you have passed on the submission, and I have yet a blogger who has not responded back to that and saying, we're going to pass on it at this particular time. So that's just for the clarification as we get into that and you can't even given expiration date in your first female, I don't even mind that if somebody says, hey! I just want to let you know that we are going to go ahead and send this to you if we don't hear back within two weeks, we'll go ahead and send along thank you so much for checking it out I actually don't mind that either. I know that maybe some other bloggers whatever but expiration dates are fine it's okay to say hey, I'm not gonna wait like a year before you hear back from you that magazine editors going totally different that and where we'll talk about that on sunday but can you talk about a few do's and don'ts when it comes to photography from I mean full of bloggers from a bloggers perspective ok, from a blogger's perspective first off okay let's, get into it now are you ready? Thing oh, listen a lot of don't bring this nice again so number one don't make it night I told you that I told you you don't have to soften it. We're all big kid I feel like the harder somebody pushes you the farther you go so like hang on for the ride you know critiques come and get radio first off first off, do not send us images of the hotel room inside unless you're at the montage okay, all I'm saying answers the point is that typically hotel rooms are hotel rooms and we can spot them a mile away and this is what charters do you see it all the time you're in there you're shooting bryce it's pretty her flowers delivered you're like oh, perfect time for the book a shot, right? I know you're holding this you grab them okay, you take it to the hotel chair you're like, oh, this is perfect and you set it up on the hotel chair and you shoot it now you're laughing way okay, but unless it's this pristine, perfect, lovely white chair, what you're doing is shooting it endorse shooting on extremely distracting background you probably are gonna have a difficult time blowing out the background of the chairs even make it like a really nice, beautiful shot. So it's a shock that I'm just not going to use. So really all you're doing is playing with them, okay? And kind of wasting your time on the bride finishes getting ready. So that's one thing we kind of don't love any and people will do this with I've seen shoes shot on a hotel bed with the hotel bed unmade with the orange uh, you know, had headboard in the background and the cheesy hotel lamp in the background people will hang shoes on the rail of the balconies, shooting out over the hotel guys ok, wait, wait, wait however so can't let's bring this let's bring this back because I have to understand that there was all these people are watching or be like well that's what I should like her at the sheraton and omaha okay so how about what you d'oh and ok good okay and they also shoot station and nothing is wrong and nothing and nothing is wrong with omaha I'm shooting away so I don't want people from nebraska being like we have great job like I know you do you d'oh motel okay motel six yes ok, what do you want? Tio is and I think sometimes and you're probably more of an expert at this like knowing whether or not how you do this but taking your you know, letting your right now hey, I'm going to escape really quickly with your stationery did we not talk about this? Thank you. Sweet baby jesus right there. Good she's a substantiate outside yes taking outside take it somewhere lovely on dh shoot the shoes she address shoot them okay elsewhere out of the hotel unless it's like a stunner hotel room you know there are places where it's it's the architecture is the point of it. So if it's at you know a surf it's out wherever but this is the other thing too with the hotel room that kind of gets tricky is that we featured a jillion ace hotel room like weddings and so that's all your detail is the a's, unless you're doing it from a really different perspective or like finding new places, it's going to be rehashing the same thing. So this is a constant challenge for you to figure out a way to do that from a photographer's perspective. If there were certain blog's you want to start submitting teo, I would heavily suggest to subscribe to them our new rs s feet or when they tweet love this wedding. So what happens is our bloggers most probably will feature more than one wedding a day, and they'll pick one wedding to be that that highlight wedding that they tweeted in the morning and evening to make sure people are pushing them. I will click on those features so summer just tweeted a couple days ago about this wedding that featured eggs as part of their centerpieces and because there was highlighting that I wanted to know I need to follow the people who I'm submitting to because if say, she had stated she had published quite a few weddings at the ace, I need to know what they look like and it's not as if I'm studying those photos. It's actually, just an act of being of gosh, says susan. Right like that's being no but actually it's like if you just naturally follow them you will have known what they're drawn to you which is great you can get that for your own portfolio but also to shoot it differently the ace has been shot ten a thousand times before what do you bring with your eye to find a different space about it so another don't yeah ok so another don't uh talking about intel chairs black and whites actually is a challenging for us is bloggers to feature unless it's just the most amazing, most compelling most stunning black and white you'll notice if you read logs that we don't feature a lot of black and white imagery and I think the reason is again because we are kind of our readers are looking for ideas they're looking for details they do want beautiful photography but the I think the first thing that comes to us for us hey I'm planning my wedding I need some ideas end of the day so black only imagery doesn't always and so this is what bums me out is if you're using what if you're limiting yourself you're saying okay I'm only gonna send two hundred images and of those two hundred or one hundred or whatever you send ten percent of black and white I just delete them all I mean black and whites in just a week right away because but do you believe I think okay, well, I look I mean, let me just ask you a question from my perspective, I the on ly black and white photos I submit our of the bride and groom yes, yes, I know all detail photos are in color, hands down so that we do sometimes feature black and white. I'm just the other day feature the black and white so doesn't mean that it's an absolute no but it's a challenge for us to fit in, especially when we have this specific color story that we're trying to tell it's you know, it's it's got to be really compelling your favorite absolute five black and whites that we're just like, drops dead. I have to send these in, so just limit yourself because sometimes it just takes up too much of the space of submission. If there's lots of black and whites on I haven't here do okay can be won. See? And I think I kind of touched on this a little bit, but citizens extra images of the best elements. So essentially we are going to create a future around usually it's one or two awesome things. I love that dress or holy cow that bring there is the most adorable thing I've ever seen in my entire life. I need twenty pictures of him I need a picture of his bow tie. I didn't contribute shoes. I need a close up of his suspenders. I need him running in the field, whatever it is. And because he's too cute for words. So what we want you to do when you do have an image that their wedding that you're shooting, like, really capitalized on the strongest element of it, and make sure that you send his extra images of that favorite component, whatever it be. It's the flowers, if it's okay, location, whatever. So that's a big one press don't send us lots of dancing and getting ready photos that we talked about that a little bit. Because, again, that's emotion and that's for the bride that's, not for us is your invisible client that's, not anything we normally feature. You don't see a lot of dancing photos and getting ready with people. I think photographers here's one thing, I think that they feel the obligation. Stop me if I'm wrong, teo. Kind of proof that they were there all day to say like, ok, I was there. My gosh did not talk to ashley about this, I swear we're on the same wavelength. What I spoke about earlier was I said, in regards to actually just my personal walking, but it applies to a lot of other things is that I felt like I had to put images online to prove to people I know what I might know I'm ok, I am a decent photographer, I am woman I am photographer, I'm roaring on the internet when I realized I have nothing to prove if I have weddings, I'm ok anything that he goes to submissions as well. And I think this is one thing to that if you just jump into about the blogging because I was going to say that you did so okay, I told you you could be whatever you want to say anything about it applies to when you're blogging as well. You know, we've seen so many shots of the makeup trade like that's awesome cool it's really called double congratulations. I think that your bride will love it and actually, you know who would love that picture? The makeup artist that's the person you should send those images to, like you did such a great job I'm sure you might want to use. This is like behind the scenes, whatever make afraid with her every time she has needs, you know, gonna suggest a photographer of something she's going oh, my gosh, this person totally took care of me and remember me is that but don't send it to me and I don't think it necessarily needs to be blocked one day down the road as you begin tio build up your portfolio on your block if I google image search or at this point pinterest image search your name what images were gonna come up and you want every single image that comes up to be beautiful and if that means that you have a wedding where you only put three images up I would rather go to for total has blogged and he's so blown away by every single post I see then you have to scroll and scroll and scroll looking for one or two images that will increase your reputation on what people think about you tenfold if you are more curated and more careful about what you present on your block not even what you sent to us so I think that's a really big thing since you said it good good no it's awesome I just feel like we're on the same page and just because I said it when somebody else says it it's it's it's get john d in question speaking specifically two weddings do you put do you put when you see an engagement should like the portrait that's on the wall when you see something that is stunning and amazing but it's and it is wedding related maybe something going around it but not the wedding itself it's that teacher that do you feature that way feature all kinds of things we feature engagement sessions today I featured in anniversary session of a couple that has been very for ten years and they have this really sweet love stories we featured something like that it just goes to show you need to follow so you want us in it too because we I would know the answer to that question I would know if you would ask me about four four five bloggers who I follow what they feature I will tell you somebody might not feature er yeah a certain thing and somebody else might so the more you become familiar with them the more confident you become with your submissions so what do you wish more photographers new have one list all right um ok that I think that what's replacing that's what you said that is that I did e I was planned I mean, I'm really I'm practice practice before you got here first I think the style of our individual blocks now here's the thing I think if you're not a wedding logger that res everybody's blob it's hard to decisions like what you know at the end of the day we are really a news source so we're just like huffington post or whatever like it's news weddings are kind of like news and we're obviously gonna always be featuring beautiful weddings and beautiful bright but there are and especially as the as blog's mature and grow we are beginning to find our niche and our style and then for tarver's air picking up on it too and starting to send specific weddings to specific blogger so it's really kind of starting to kind of distinguish among kind of the top blog's you could really start to see a difference in some of the stuff so we love that if you send especially if there's wedding that has a very specific style but you kind of know where to send it so that's one thing we wish we knew was the difference between ourselves and maybe someone else's style going to get into detail ing what those different styles for for blog's for certain blog's tomorrow okay, so we'll be able to because I just want to put summer in a way in a position to where she has to talk about other blog's or bloggers and away so I think from a so I want her to do for the wedding industry what I would do and our opinions mean jack squat this is our opinions this is just how we see things and you have opinions do so tomorrow we talk about where people should be sending certain blog's you know what? Like we talked to john during lunch break if you're shooting a ballroom wedding don't said it's summer chances are it's probably not and it featured because she doesn't feature ballroom weddings so we're gonna talk a bit more about that tomorrow but another thing that you wish photographers knew ok, I would say we talked about this a little bit how to capitalize on the best elements of a wedding not just sending us extra pictures but how to actually capitalize on it and there's actually a really wedding in here that we could talk about that when we do our our critique come one thing one thing one I really love is and these are just different ways for you to think about how to approach wedding I like to say that you should use your five senses when you're shooting a wedding so what did the europe the cocktail hour? What did that beat? What were you hearing shooting the musicians to show us what was everybody here and while they were there was a three piece band or was a a like jazz trio was it what was it that we could hear? Was it you know, the guitar at the reception all those kinds of things those are really fun things what could be here? I'm texture what can we touch? What did a few light so zooming in on little things like a pin or approach that she was weary or her? You know sometimes people will get their initials sewn into the dress or whatever it is like water cem feel elements and just kind of think through, like on the wedding day, your senses and how to apply that to the details and what you're shooting. I think it's just a fun way to mix it up and think about, you know, it will. They'll kind of prompt you to oh, I could shoot that I could shoot that. Um, the other thing, too, is how to tell a color story and really how to capitalize on it. I wouldn't say there might be that you know, the pride, my single, my weddings, yellow. So you go into this wedding and there could be a lot of other crazy colors or whatever. But if you feel like the strong color story is yellow, then then focus on that. Capitalize on that look for ways to had details that will supplement the imagery that's already there. And then when you send in your image selection and find out how to time from the right, okay, so tell me about your colors, you know, on the day of so then, as jackson was saying, if you're driving in and you see something like, you know, she's there's a lemon tree in the side of the road as I'm driving up to the vineyard hey, why don't I jump out and shoot that like one or two quick shots that's going to reinforce the color concept behind or snag a few of the lemons and take him with you to the prep room? Intense she's a stationary with that's, right? Done and done right now, okay, also, we have a few more minutes, so I want to cruise through this and get through the the top four mistakes that will keep people from getting published, but I don't want you to finish I think the last one, the last one, I think the most important thing is massive, your shot list and I think not just master, but create one in the first place. What is it that we're looking for? And then after that be able to go into and to where it's just secondhand, you know, like like these three elements for the bridesmaid, these three elements, all that kind of sets of it as you go throughout the day. It's super easy to get through good, yeah, so we have a few more minutes before we open it up for q and a and then after q and a, we're going to get into thie critique but we talked about for mistakes that photographers will make our will keep excusing for mistakes that will keep photographers from getting published. And the first thing that you mentioned was poor manners, yes. So what do you what you mean before, man? Poor manners, it's things like photographers will send a submission, tio every single blogger all in the same time, and we can all see each other's names that usually those kind of manners are not helpful. We don't love that kind of thing. Oh, I get e mails, dear abby here, jen, and your life. Okay, so obviously either a don't know who I am or be said that mentis and that somebody else. And so those are because, of course they sent it to them and then just caught and pace you just like it happens that way. They like it, made it like a sorry bad side. So that's definitely, and like I was your fifth choice or not that that you know you don't will be, of course, just for what it is like no one wants to nobody like you know what you want, maybe later destroyed even I'm not your first choice wear you wanna be the treaty that you want, it doesn't matter, we don't you care to know that you are the first you just don't want to know that you were fit one big one I just wish every check for new this is that you could if you could just in your head remember tio name your submission folders after uh have yourself we're going to talk about we're gonna talk about that tomorrow like the technicalities of submission because we have to understand that these bloggers are getting hundreds of weak and so they all get them as gray legs sweating submission it's like she's opening eighteen hundred grade likes the wedding's missions which is like who is this? So we talk about naming the file that were also talk about meaning our images after the photographer so we'll cruise on other big things forced admission practices you're getting into that poor online presence actually is a really big one so and you guys know this how important really great branding is and I think we kind of touched on that it's really important for you to put images on your block really curate really careful I think that makes a big difference because we do go check out your web site we want to find out more about your work and so if your presence online you know you're your borders are all the same and just when you're blogging like your verticals are lined up and just all just season look good, I think, for much longer is perspective is who they feature is a representation of who they are. So we can't think we live in a bubble right that they're not going to do research on their own before they decide. So if there's a submission, I'm just guessing if there's a submission that's on the fence and she's like and then someone goes to your blogger, your website and it's like a hot mess, she might be stopped from actually sending you an email saying, hey, do you have any more pictures of this when she just realizes, wow, lucky yeah, yeah, so but if you do have, like, a great online, you know you're I always think that your personality sells you the most. If summer can go back to your about section and read so much about usually think I really like this a person I want, I want to get to know the one I want to help them. I want to start them on a career because they feel like I have a lot of promise. I think that that would definitely help.