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Lesson Info

Things We All Do in Front of a Camera

I was shooting here last night yesterday and I had a the woman was like I just want I want to see myself in the images in the pictures I want to see myself I want to see myself I want to see myself and she's like how I see myself I see myself I see myself and it was so nice it was like cool because I was like I get that you want to see yourself but the camera takes that away so this is this is essentially what we do when we get in front of a camera there's one of four things and I developed this with uh dr animo roly the psychologist so um and it's part of this seif atala ji thing so we either own it we get in from the camera were authentic where ourselves we pose we get in front of the camera and then we feel like we have to turn something on or do something which is usually ridiculous so posing people are posers we diminish which is the largest percentage I modeled for eight years you put me in front of a camera there was that there's this there's this misconception that models know ...

how to model I didn't ever take a course on modeling I just I ended up uh I was ah I was sailing this in the book too but I was sailing and I was, uh I met this designer from d came wine she sent me over to polo and polo was like we want real sailors for an ad campaign and boom they threw me into this photo shoot with bruce weber was a photographer and I'm modeling that day with tyson beckford and bridget hall on all these like big time and I was just like okay, I know what to do it was awesome it was cool and the fact is I looked those picture I look amazing I look amazing in those pictures because of bruce weber I don't look amazing because I knew what to do I look amazing because bruce made me feel comfortable bruce is if you guys don't know who bruce weber was he encouraged me to pick up a camera he's the reason I'm photographer he's my biggest inspiration because so we're looking at his work I see it a mile way not only for the look of it but before the vibe that he gets into his work so go look up bruce weber and look at this stuff um and and I diminished so after I was with bruce I would I got an agency and I started modeling and I get in front of these photographers and if they didn't treat me or make me feel anything I turn into a lump of nothing I was like, you know, I was like dude the out to lunch I think and they're like we're paying this guy and he doesn't know what to do I didn't know what to do I was and I did a ton of jobs I was still the model actor bartender dude because it couldn't have four I I didn't make enough money modeling to live in new york city, but I did okay, but I was still doing the bartending and I was just sick so I bartend till four a m one day and I tell this story like I was the wrangler had hired me to be like a wrangler guy have that picture somewhere anyway so I was doing this wrangler thing this lighthouse guys it's going all right, I'm going to bring it back in a minute so the wrangler on the wrangler guy so one year I and, uh I the biggest the thing I hated most when I modelled was shooting on like a white psych or something like when I was sailing with bruce it was easy. I was on a boat, I hung ofsome line I went and trim the whatever I trimmed and I just, like was doing sailing stuff. And when I was, uh when I was on a white psych with nothing standing there like this and I had wranglers on and the tigers in front of me and the art buyer the art director and like all the ad people there was like this there were like, all these people like this in front of me and a photographer and I diminished I'ma diminish her right. The only thing to bring me upto owning it was the photographer and the tarver says to me, okay, peter, just do what you do, e I was like, I don't do in my brain, I'm going, I don't do anything what am I going to do? All these people are in front of me, so I went like this on then I went like this and then I might have went like this and it was weird. It was weird and then the shot came out and my head was cropped off and it was just my body in the genes you couldn't even see me. I was like I was down, it was so bad that photographer had no game, he didn't have any game, you didn't give me anything. I need something you know, it's even worse when you get an avoider that's the fourth thing that's the people with the p a s all right, so they're the avoiders so it's essentially like this so sixty percent of you will diminish, sixty percent of the people that you get in front of a camera can diminish sixty percent these are numbers based off of me shooting over probably fifteen, twenty thousand people this is what I believe I shoot a lot a lot of humans um, so I believe eighteen percent avoid fifteen percent post seven percent owning these are this is the key to guys if you I know you're working hard, you're getting better at direction, you're sitting there, you're listening at home or whatever because you want to get better at headshot photography or you wantto you know, work on your way that you direct people and everything like that do not put an avoider aura diminish er in your portfolio unless you got them to hone it like you're trying to run people up this scale, people I coach on headshot crew and I do portfolio reviews we do crew cast every tuesday every tuesday I'm on there and I do these portfolio reviews and I'm looking for associate photographers so I can span the globe with you guys and be like, I've got a guy here, I've got a guy there, I get clients that have I get these things every day all we have twenty offices worldwide and we need thio keep our look consistent I was like, I could do that, I can create that I've coached you guys to be able to create a similar look to what I do in new york in my studio and I just came out with my own lights with westcott called the peter hurley flex kit that is going around people who really get consistent on this so I'm gonna be able to go to those companies go out yeah, I got every every place in the world covered I was trying to work on one yesterday one of these jobs so um back to the f stop her story I brought them in they started filming and I kicked them out and I was like, I can't do it I couldn't have them watching me while I was they were I asked the clients I was shooting could you mind being video and they were like, no, no problem, but I didn't feel like I was getting genuine reactions out of them and I work off reactive stuff like when I'm coaching and I like it to be reactive, you'll see that once we start shooting and I wasn't getting reactive stuff, so I said, guys, you got to go, I can't handle this and they're like, okay, can we come back and interview interview you? I was like, yeah, it's fine, so they came back, we didn't interview they post on their site and all of a sudden the email increase that I got from photographers all of a sudden went crazy and matched the e mails I was getting from clientele and I was like, this is crazy why are all these photographers asking me questions? I was like, this is nuts I was like, how did this happen and what I did and this was I was in my burnout stage and what I realized I started talking to them and I actually I don't know, you know, zac, you guys act areas has been on here numerous times, zack and I had lunch one day he's like you got to teach and I was like, really, I don't know how to teach it's like, just go do what you gotta do a dvd, you got to do a course you've got to do this stuff was like, all right, I'm gonna go for it and the teaching now what it did for me he was the burnout went away because now I mean, the people got the burn out to go away, but the burnout really went away because every day I'm searching for new things to teach you guys, I'm searching not only for new things I'm searching for new things to get better as of tires for the teaching made me such a better photographer. I am such a rock star now compared tto I will when I was in that burnout stage where I was just going along collecting a paycheck, I mean, great paycheck I put the person from the camera press a button get paid yes, but I was debts where I wass and now I'm always digging at them to figure out new stuff and that was the reason why I apologize for all of you out there who waited two years for this peach pit eyes my publisher and they put it on they put on pre order like before I didn't know I wasn't even done with that I was like it's from pre order there's people going toe I really have to finish this thing the problem was is that I wanted everything in here but there is no end everything so we do so I'll tell the story about this so scott kelby it had actually asked me to write the book any and I said I'm not a writer I'm not good at writing there's no, I'm not this is gonna be horrible I'm never going to get it done he goes look, we're not you're not gonna have to write you're going to sit down with me and we're going toe talk out the book and I was like, we're going to talk out the book he goes yeah, well put it so we put my phone in between us you guys know like scott's time I believe is fairly valuable the guy sat with me for a least twenty four hours transcribing this book it was like I kept going back to tampa and we did it over skype and we got together and we spent the whole day and I talked about the book and he transcribed he sent it to me said the books perfect. Just go publish it. And then I started reading and I was like that testing sound wait, that doesn't make a sense that's not that's, not it wait and then so I was like, scott, I gotta change a couple things he's like, okay, meanwhile, I'm such a perfectionist, I rewrote the entire transcription, so this transcription was the backbone of this book, but I rewrote the whole thing, and as I go now, I learn new stuff there's new stuff that I have that I could teach you today. That's not in the book, the book came out in august and I finished it they were like, you've got to stop you can't you're always gonna have new stuff, you can't you've got to stop somewhere and I was like, okay, so in ju on, like june right around junaid, because that's, my anniversary, I knew I finished the book I think june ninth something like that I was like, oh, my gosh, is such a load off my plate um, and since june there's stuff you know, but I teach in my workshops and stuff, but you guys are going to learn a bunch of stuff from the book today I'm rambling on, but let's, I want to show you a couple of a couple of things. Hold on. I want you guys to all go two scientology dot com. If you're out there, go check outside pathology. Dot com. Why? Because I want you to scroll down. This is my site with my, uh, with the psychologist there's me shooting? I'm photographing were seif atala jai's ing people here. Whose is it? But I want you to go down to here. I want you to go and find out what your scientology quotient is. Your peak you is exactly what I said. It's either. Are you an owner? Are you oppose? Er, are you a diminish her or are you avoider? And you can take the survey on the site, so find out for yourself. You could have your clients coming and take the survey to know what you're up against when they walk in the door, if they'll be open to it and you can also send them to see the this is this is this is me when I had shorter here, um you khun sent him to see the, uh the video here, which is the text talk so I think you know the peak you survey is pretty cool. So I thought that was worth were showing you guys. But let's, talk about what's. Really going one on. All right. Um, let's, go back to play. So what's really going on there? What is going on? Let's, talk about this. You got a ton of muscles in your face, right? You gotta you gotta time. Look at this who's controlling those muscles to make the expressions that you're making who's controlling you. Are you sure? Did you guys, how many of you got here this morning? Did you think about your expression yet today your face was fine. Nobody freaked out when they walked by you on the street or coming in here. Everything was fine, right? Okay. So you mean to tell me that every day you walk around and you never think about your expression, your brain just does it. It's on auto pilot, right. It's on my circumstances, circumstances but what's controlling it. What's controlling it is your subconscious mind, you guys, could you imagine if we had to control our expressions and that was on our plate all day long? Like you'd have to be walking down the street on there somebody the way I gotta pull the corners of my mouth up a little bit to smile at them so I don't look like a real jerk you know like your brain does all this stuff for you it's active it's it's working in the background and it's got all our facial muscles under control there's only two times that I believe that we well there's other times because right now you can all think about your face right and your muscles in your face and what they're doing you feel you have no idea what they're doing right now you don't know so why does every photographer say this but when they put up a camera they go like this to me you did it to me too then you one two three boom what do you get in the person ready for so they're conscious mind works you want to work them on subconscious why would you want them to get ready for anything? They're just going to go into their zero stage and you're gonna get zero even shooting and confusing them that's better than getting them ready for anything one two three that doesn't work how's that gonna work that's not going to do anything for them um there's nothing to get them ready for there's nothing to get them ready for you don't want them ready ready is like they're holding their breath. Think about it this way. So, uh, how many people thought about their breath today? You did what happened? All right. Did you control it? Did you stop it? This is what expressions air like. So, uh, we are we breathe all day long, right? If we want to hold our breath, we can. Everybody hold your breath, okay? We're not gonna do it too long, but you can't. So that's what happens when people get in front of cameras like they're holding their breath? Their expressions are generated on their face. My favorite expressions to get are the ones where the spouse or something like when I see my wife smile and I go oh, my gosh that's I love her smile and I'm like that's an amazing picture because I can see her wrapped up in it. You know, that's what you want, you want the significant others of the people to be like, oh my gosh, that's them that's really them because you got them operating from their subconscious, not their conscious mind. And if it is the conscious mind, then they have to be confident with what you're doing so that they can own it, you want to get him up to this owning stage