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Reinvent in 2014

Lesson 3 from: From Images to Art: Storytelling in Wedding Photography

Jim Garner

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Lesson Info

3. Reinvent in 2014

Lesson Info

Reinvent in 2014

So here's where where we've we've taken it out it's pretty exciting so we've this isn't just our studio where it's called a synergy style studio we've made lemonade out of the fact that there's a lot of photographers in the same place and we've come in we share this space there uh uh four five offices of creative people in the space and we share the studio costs etcetera and it's all managed by this wonderful wonderful friend uh and it's called the house studios you could check it out online what the concepts about I recommend that the's concepts pop up all over the world pull your resource is you're not in this alone it takes a village to be in this career it's takes partnerships it takes an industry bar lifting okay so here's our space here's our dressing room are meeting area yes there's three shooting days sometimes you fill it out most of times I have that whole space to myself which cash raises the bar on our um appeal of our company help spring commercial client's help spring we...

dding clients take us very seriously when they come into the space notice we have this image is almost four feet by eight feet large mean it basically when you sit down in this environment are meeting area you think these people make big pieces of our alright what you show is what you sell simple, simple rule but very true looking two back there there's an image twenty twenty inches by thirty inches or maybe it's bigger um nothing but big images in a professional environment we have espresso and champagne of course it's all about we talked about the experience all about providing experience and for a commercial work we've invested as a result of frankly the success that we've had in our wedding world wedding industry in the wedding industry or with our wedding clients were able to afford to invest in eighty megapixel digital camera that we make monthly payments on that sets us apart as well I could say to my current personal clients we have an eighty megapixel camera that will shoot your work with very high resolution very beautiful we use we use in love phase one so we've taken some great clients as a result it's this member it's this inertia thing I've been talking about letting that letting the rock free on the hill this is the result of that great new clients exciting they take us you know, to a place of diversified work where you're always doing something new every day which makes work really enjoyable we all agree that more diverse things that we could do the better and this is my team you'd think with all these lovely ladies and we have many of them here that I have a pretty big head uh but the truth is they keep me they keep me in task that's the truth so and we have care here and katarina obviously and then there's sarah and audrey and then little old me honestly though it's we are we don't work from a owner or boss type work environment everyone has the role everyone loves a role and frankly I am far from the boss I do what I'm told and that's how it should be in my life I need I need help so anyways thank you to my team I love you guys and um you're the best so here's here's what I really want to get into the meat here can't wait to really share what we're gonna dio um my question for all of you is can a strategy work for you? Some of you might be saying I'll never never be able to get a studio like that I'll never be able to have that hey whatever your goals are if that's your goal you'll get it but you gotta have the tools to get there you got us backward engineer that place the way that we did so the good news guys is it will work for you it's just this decision right now souto that way or that way it's not difficult this point and if the way we're going to spread these steps out over two seasons it's going to be seamless okay and I promise you it's tried and true you're going to hear from somebody going through this process in the next segment they're going to share with you they're pitfalls they're going to share with you how it's worked along the way what has been easy what's changed and I'm gonna tell you right now this is gonna be really fun I can't wait for you to meet jeff and jen guzman coming next but first I guess this is my call for reinvention we're gonna go for it I hope everyone that stayed online they're still watching we want I'm hoping that you've made this decision already. Okay, so let's talk about it. What is reinvention inventions to make major changes or improvements okay to present something in a different way that's new that's what we're asking to dio make a major change but it starts just one step all you got to do it's not intimidating so set a goal move towards that goal take baby steps along the way they're not huge steps so we're gonna break it down okay? And we're gonna break it down progressively as these three days that we have together it's not going to be overwhelming we're going take one step at a time I want you to have these steps with you if you decided to make this commitment and we're going to help you by giving you tools documents if you wish tools, documents, et cetera a workbook etcetera on the way and I think well first share a baby steps um so we set a goal a few years back knowing always setting for always reaching for the next step okay so few hours back we knew that most of our proffer in fact all of it came from the art that we're producing we knew that we had this much profit from doing single volume books okay, so how could make a larger book you can't go up to fifty double page spreads but what if I make it a double volume book for people when that be cool so I set a goal in two thousand eleven two two thousand thirteen is to double my profit from weddings by making books that are twice as large so and huge custom wall pieces I set a goal and we we backward engineer it the way I'm gonna teach you to do today and we started making these double volume books huge huge books and I want to share one with you from this wedding I believe is that this one is yeah it's this way I'm going to share with you now but um let me just tell you what's going on here um remember I told you earlier that somehow we're being sought after for our destination weddings I think this client saw our website saw that we're doing the's destination weddings and they say mean they're calling from a different state okay, they answered we answer the first and most important question are we the right people for them they took value in the fact that we produce this art based upon a promo video and the images sorry the stories that we show in our website we answered that important question are you going to be a presentable person for our wedding day? These type of clients really require that understanding and then they invite us to photograph their wedding and this particular wedding was in quiet and of course we're going to quiet we'd love to be there for a few days and we're going to photograph everything you want to do as our gift to you and that's part of the custom proposal process that will get into so not only are we going to photograph your wedding day tch which you've agreed for us to pay for or it's part of the proposal wedding to coverage but we're going to do your rehearsal dinner we're also going to do the rehearsal party oh you want a paddleboard with your guests? I'm gonna photograph that my gift to you okay and you know what? Since you kind of you know want to do something special you're attracted these type of images on our website why don't we not even bother photographing the two of you or directing the two of you all should entirely photo journalistically and candidly on your wedding day itself okay, you guys can if you want it's up to you could put your dress back on and your tux and we'll go shoot the next day or in this case we shot three days later after they arrested and that's what we got on the helicopter that's when we story told all these ah bunch of these elements that you see in the end of the book but you know what? We did so many things without complementary time then I gave him that it required a lot more places to put those stories now their minds were oriented to the art that we produce write these big books they saw these big books we showed them what a double volume book looks like and what it's about and you know what we were able to say? Hey, you know, I was shot so much free time and that awesome shoot we rented that helicopter, etcetera. Hey, what do you say we move to a second volume and the cost is x I'm gonna get really into this, okay? Perfect instead of spending and I'm just going to give you a brief introduction we make our cost per spread very expensive two hundred dollars per spread so that when we give it away it has this great value and I wantto emphasize don't give anything away without assigning a valley to that gift otherwise as my good friend bambi cantrell says it becomes the gift that never stops giving okay and that's a real their psychology behind that okay so we get to this place with the book hey it won't fit in one one album let's do a second alan I probably need to make thirty more spreads to fill in what we want to fill in thirty spreads it to fifty that's a lot of money one we instead just to do it's my fault I've shot too much it's time to take care of you when you just pay for one album by itself it all filled to the brim as many images I can without rehearsal with the paddleboard with the extra shoot himself my cost for that book is twenty five hundred dollars perfect we'll take it wow see thirty spreads to know if that's seventy five hundred have been seventy five hundred dollars thank you for doing the math um but they get it for twenty five hundred do you see what just happened there sales in wedding photography when your art shooter is very very different it's not about sitting face to face and going hey pick this what? You want your price list no when you get to this place where you doing custom proposals for clients it is the cell's processes the entire process is how you take care of them how you how you set your business up we're going to end today in fact with sales and we're gonna talk more about this because it's so important what I just said um if you do this properly you're going to get a client like this one who not only had a double volume book worth five thousand dollars but they also wanted one for their parents and the other parents you see all your profit comes from the art okay I don't have the numbers in front of me but what is that? Five ten fifteen plus the cost to do the wedding it's just mind blowing I never would ever ever achieve that is a picture taker in fact I know I had those clients I know I had those clients because they wanted me there for twenty hours shoot as many rules as I possibly could but they didn't receive any art it was unable to sell them anything we'll put them in a place you see we don't realize it this but our clients want the art we just have to help them understand that they do by showing how beautiful and timeless and wonderful the art that we can create could be so I'm gonna continue got a slide show for you I want you to watch this way we owe you enjoyed that looks like fun I had so much fun on that on that shoot on that wedding um you noticed there's probably seventy five spreads there ah big book really big nice I'm speaking spreads ok to take out the confusion one spread is two pages double page spread all right so a spread for me is one retouched unit one photo shop unit we put the images in with go through light room we had it we pulled right out of light room drop him in and then we finished the entire book we move images around you know that's too many designs like this one let's do a little different design over here oh gosh according to our rules every fifth spread has to be every five spread you got to do a while spread so we gotta move this over here perfect and they were retouch it it could have twenty images one spread but one retouch unit this is how you save your time by being aren't focused it's really cool we're gonna get into work flow and I love that section because people go oh I never thought of that I never thought that by producing albums for each client you decrease your workflow and I'm gonna prove it to ten months of physical labor ten months is more than half I'm just being conservative for people just starting it saved me ten months for moving and I'll lay it all out but anyways transformation is a lot of fun we're gonna have fun ok it is a wonderful process it's not more difficult what you'll be doing it's actually easier proven ok people think all moving this delivering our uh I'm gonna have to do so much more work wrong totally wrong it's not difficult it is however required for you to see the fruit you can't go half this way half that way it's all or nothing which means that you need to make a commitment to delivering our to each and every client so that you start developing a skill set around delivering art and you start being known for delivering only art okay, so the transformation let's talk about our goals for this workshop first okay we're going to explore the steps of transformation okay well challenge each each enough to make a really great decision okay I'm gonna teach you how to sell this art can we do that today we're going to have to sell the story telling the art focus philosophy the story we're going it's like not just about our it's about selling the philosophy to your clients okay it's not again it's not difficult how do you market yourself within this business model super important how do you do crease your workflow by half this's my fun fun part that love the section coming up I'm going to increase your earning potential by two times or three times more than your currently earning shooting the wedding is that you shooting the quantity that you're shooting right now? Okay works were explored post production techniques that are simple we're gonna simplify what you do because we only use five things in photo shop to get that look I'm gonna teach you every one of them some advance photoshopped techniques that well we're gonna we're gonna turn images to art that go on walls and return and we're in a photo shop in a simple way it's easier to do album spreads so much fun too so we're going for the album when wall art design and what you should consider we'll explore the products that you should probably consider uh we're going to share the tools to better master the craft okay you'll learn to shoot for the store in the art it's easy okay set up the art client communication and this member that river going across client communication and we're gonna give you the rope to cross that the river is you increased amount of communication is one of the pitfalls it's the river and I'm gonna take were need a whole section on that communicated with clients you need some tools I'm gonna give it to you okay explore the concept of conceptual art delivery this is a conceptual art program you'll become conceptual artist all right set a goal raising the bar for each and every one of you the industry as a whole that's why you're all welcome to join the ten percent that are doing this now because each and every one of you that come into this philosophy the more people are, he'll seek it out because the more people they'll have in the referral stream everyone needs to join this. So these are steps will initiate for you, looking out on a future higher quality of life, that's going to help each and everyone of you enjoy the beauty of that life has to offer and not be owned by your career in wedding photography the way it was for me. So my recommendation is how to use this program. I want you to consider this a two season approach. Okay, I want you to consider this going beyond just this initial viewing of this program. You know, I recommend that you own it. You bring it out, you use it as a personal consultant. The way I would work with my individuals, I want to refer back to the steps as we go through the steps. Each step should be implemented a different part of your two season process. Okay, own it. Bring it back into your world, view this maybe it's just a segue, the segment that this is the stage that you're in. Okay, just consider it a mike doing the best I can to give you every tool that you possibly need and that's why I needed you and have to plan for this because there's a lot I'm going to put I'm going to be wearing out the batteries in this clicker in the next couple sections, so it's going to be a lot of information and and I apologize, but we need to get through this, especially today because we'll be shooting tomorrow we'll be doing exciting photo shop work together. It's set up these steps this day is particularly important we're going to get through five steps just today, okay? So time for step one here we go. Honestly, evaluate yourself in your business, it's what we're doing right now be honest, though, where are you? Where are in your career? The time frame for this step is right this minute and it's appropriate because the first up it's your call to reinvent and a quote, we'll get a quote with each challenging quote or something to make us think the first quote is by henry david thoreau, not until we're lost do we begin to understand ourselves I was lost, I didn't even know it, okay? It wasn't till that moment that I describe to you my wife crying in the back and I really want this is not working, you know, many of you are just like I'd go full time, so why not do I try to get more weddings or get a different career somewhere else? You know, maybe you're lost maybe this is your your turning point. So question is, how about you? You find your foundation guys know where you start so you could know where to go okay, so my commitment, my commitment to you is the falling through this program I promise to give you every bit of infinite everything through my career and all the tools all of them that I've developed and put together they're yours. I want youto have them through this communication process through creative life. I'm going to lay it all out on the slides. If you really want a brace and go further, there'll be opportunities that will get into in just a little bit. But my commitment is just being here for you through this program and I want to think again creative lives the opportunity so I wantto askyou a few questions. So are you content? Are you making a living in this field? Are you able to pay your bills now? These are hard questions saving for a rainy day to a balance in your life in a healthy lifestyle things your spoon also have do you need more work for house? I know a lot of us out there do ok, do you wish you had less work and more income? Perhaps I got there in my journey are you proud of your image style and how your market perceives you? Do you enjoy your daily work routine? Why didn't, um, do you feel focused and inspired? Are you wondering is this it is this all this this world has to offer in this career? Do you see your future and clearly know what it will be in this crude career choice? I flailed, I was not focused. I don't know where I was going until I set some goals. So my call to you is to stop throwing seeds to the wind and hope something gross hope something sticks be purposeful about your career, be purposeful about where you want to be five years, ten years, etcetera. So here's the fact. If you don't know where you are, how can you decide where you're going? I wanna see value, honestly evaluate and my challenge question for you. My first challenge question are satisfied if not what's compelling you to improve and push yourself what's compelling you think about your motives. You're here today, you're listening online was compelling you to push further, think about.

Class Materials

bonus material with purchase

Foldable Field Guide
10 Steps to Success

Ratings and Reviews

Ester Knowlen Photography
 

LOVE LOVE LOVE all the bits on how to create a wow shot without stressing about getting it/catching it by chance. So SPOT on!! A little bit of planning, a little bit of vision, and great ideas/recipe for amazing "wow" shots that are prompted and genuine (unique just like the people we shoot), rather than stressed over and chased. :) Amazing video!! :) Thanks Jim Garner!!

222 N 43rd Pl
 

This is such an amazing course. It is my first purchase that I have made with Creative Live and I couldn't be more pleased. Jim shared so much information and so many insights. It's great to be able to watch the segments over, picking up something new every time. Taking volumes of notes! I am starting to implement Jim's approach to photography—storytelling. I am just starting out in wedding photography and am so excited to have found this gem tutorial! I would highly recommend this to any photographer who wants to take their work from photographs to art.

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