Lessons

Lesson Info

Appealing To & Working with Brands

more questions let's let's keep him going yeah we got a couple questions about stock photography you mentioned that you do stock photography how do you handle that how does that affect your commercial work um I was in a pretty large stock agency for a long time and uh what I found was that they that agency just they just did not all there was very prestigious and it was a great one and they represented a lot of amazing photographers but what I realize that they just were not the right one's for me they understand the work that I was doing so they weren't able to sell it correctly right so what ended up happening was um my agent uh started their own stock agency a boutique agency and so I brought all my stock in house with them and now I basically been selling everything through them massive management and massive m s s I f their stock agency and it's been going extremely well because the thing is happening is most of stock I was selling was purely through myself so now I have a stock a...

gency that small and boutique and I'm able to work with them hand in hand to kind of tell them hey here's here's the images I have I think this would go really great here can we reach out to them and and here's the contacts I have and we're working together so I would recommend for anybody first of all make sure that you're the stock agency that understands if you're all about shooting like he said shooting wakeboarding make sure you're with the stocking to see the understands action sports right don't go with somebody who just understands commercial portraiture and like you know wedding photography right or something like that make sure that you're with somebody who can really can really get it and to be honest you guys like stocks of great way to make money off your photography I I just would recommend not making sure you have the right person look over your contracts so you're not getting locked into something that you don't you don't want to be a part of its you know could kind of damage you in the long run as well as just figure should they are someone who truly like like I said get your your style of work and maybe you have a really human being you can talk to about your work cause that's the most important thing you know he's making sure that it's being distributed and sold in kind of the right way right so jamie has do stock here as well cool awesome uh we're creating on three aerials its navy drone stock oh cool that's calling here on so that's great it's like that z that's like a huge need right now is like something that specific to that type of stock you know which is awesome so more questions questions on stocky guys you have some stock but you don't use interested oh oh do yeah a little bit more for like I actually I loved use pinterest for image searching because pinterest is a great like if I'm going to the location and be like hey I'm going here um I wanna look for images that just a really good way to curate like great imagery so use it a lot for that um I don't find ii all post like I have my team they post some of my work on their books and stuff like that um on pinterest as well and but it doesn't do immensely well but I but I do like the format you know it's really clean and stuff like that more questions keep got awesome so what's an example of an assignment you've been referring to like assignments throughout what does that process look like once you get an assignment time assignment can can vary in so many different ways you know assignment can be um everything from a small you know a couple hundred dollars assignment to go out and shoot x product for this brand for social media or it could be like hey we're going and doing a shoot um at this location for for this work this like you know this catalog this lookbook this video assignment could be any of those things any time you have an assignment it's when ah brands approach shiyu to create content for them for some sort of marketing purpose whether that means being marketed on your channels well that means you're just shooting the images in their marketing on their channels there they're using it for catalog you know look book this and that they're using it for um for you know advertisement stole page spreads billboards whatever it is any type of thing that's an assignment right um spec work is when you're going out with the hopes of selling that work back too this brand or this magazine or whoever right so in the beginning of my career a lot of the work I did was spec right and the best way to shoot speck is when you already have a relationship going right like speck is kind of like when you kind of have that relation already going you know the editors you know what they want you going out shooting with hopes of getting it printed and it probably will submitting just blindly is when you like you have never met them you have no idea what they need or want you just shooting photos with you know crossing your fingers that maybe they'll like something which can also be beneficial it's just kind of different approaches of ways to do it I mean the assignments that I have done has been everything for shooting you know uh surf trips for patagonia served trips for surfer magazine um too you know shooting you know directing commercials for corona or things like that you know it's some stuff that you'd never see stuff for microsoft or apple or whoever is you know that it might be for social media might be for in house use might be for stuff that I would never be able to really reference you know because it's internal sometimes you never even see it right which is the crazy thing s so it just depends you know you when you when you do these jobs they can they can be for so many various things there's times when I've done shoots where the usage is on ly limited toe like japan you know or like asian markets or something like that so I never get a chance to really see that work um but and this is kind of where it comes back that idea of like there's a lot of value and doing work even though maybe it's not paying as well that the work comes back to your portfolio right because ideally you want to be doing more of that work you know yeah this kind of ah like touchy question is about pricing um obviously we have people that are probably watching just starting out all the way maybe oh yeah to your level how do you do you have a system like a fixed system or is it different every time you go out well I put a minute this is a really good way to segway into agents and how this whole relationship works but you know when I started in the surf industry um I there used to be there was industry standard pricing when I'm talking about pricing you guys typically I'm talking about like commercial like licensing a photograph for an advertisement or licensing a photograph for a website or a brochure a hang tag or a window display or website I mean learn what printed ad in a magazine doesn't matter those are all the same things right they're all commercial uses editorial typically the magazines have set rates like surfer magazine would send you a rate card and say hey here's our rate sheet x amount for a double page spread x amount for a cover x amount for this they're just set rates there's no like negotiating that really sometimes you could negotiate with them great typically it was never really something I would worry about now in the surf industry or in any industry yoga industry mountain bike industry climbing industry there's industry standards right every industry has a standard and what it's based on is how big that industry is surf industry is massive I think every almost every other action sports industry could fit inside of it right snow industry is really massive too right meaning that they have bigger rates for things right so when I was in the surf industry I had kind of a surf industry standard rate card that I would send out two sponsors or mean to potential clients of people saying hey we saw this image we love to license it for an ad in japan or something like that and say great here's my rate card and they would say awesome we'll give you x amount I'd say no I want this smell and they say okay cool I'll give you this amount that's a fine so so that's usually you know you negotiate right it's just negotiating process rights there's nothing's ever set in stone unless you are like really really rigid to those rates which is fine it's just everybody kind of works differently the one thing you don't want to do is say is say yes I'll take a wet suit for that shot cool and then you basically lower the industry standard you start to take gear or clothing in exchange for stuff they should be paying for that's the worst thing you can do for yourself and for the people why because they know that they can just pay you the same amount next time you're never gonna get anything more than that ever if you lower your standards to that level right so keep in mind every industry has a rate she that's pretty standardized in the surfing industry it was something that was mellow because a lot of us photographers wanted to share that so that you all keep our rates hi right we didn't want somebody coming in saying I have no idea what to do I'm just going to I'm going to sell stuff for x this amount you know and it wouldn't it would kind of lower everybody's rate so every every sport or every industry has kind of their own specific rate sheets now there's amazing web sites out there that you can source rates from if you guys don't really know because it's kind of confusing right it's hard to know what to charge for this and that there's stuff out there that you can decide for life I'm blanking on the names but I know there's some really good ones also two for me what started to happen was I started doing more work outside of the surf industry uh meaning clients from like you know maybe it was a music uh like a brand management for a music group or wine label or you know somebody for a tourism office or a car company they were coming to me saying we want to license this image is this image for this and I was saying wait wait wait chris you're in over your head you don't know how to negotiate this because this is outside of your realm this is outside of the industry that you know right because they're not planning to use it within this industry their plan to use it somewhere else where the rates are way higher or way different ok um just so you guys know really quickly side note the editorial scale like the magazines usually those always be based on the circulation so pretty much any magazine with same circulation whether it's in ski snow whatever they should all pay similarly the same if their circulation is the same surfer magazine has a circulation of six hundred thousand and you know mountain bike magazine's circulation hundred thousand they should should be on the same level it's all based on circulation and the cost of the magazine how much money they're making right so that's just something decided but um so what was happening um what was happening was for me I was starting to get these enquiries from clients and companies that were just way outside my realm and I knew I needed help and before I got a full time agent what I started to do as I started to go with freelance agents meaning companies like wonderful machine they're a great company based out of back east and they there's a mini like them take down that name wonderful machine what they do is they have agents that will negotiate for you and research rates for you on your behalf for an hourly wage it's really simple you're like hey I got this really good sale I'm gonna do I have no idea how much to charge them I'm gonna go you know I'm emailing you guys because I want to work through the great no worries our rate is x amount per hour and if you get it or if you don't you pay us the same amount right there's no like finer there's no fee after that right so it's just really simple you khun it's a bit can be harsh because sometimes you could pay a bit of stuff and then you don't get the job right but that's a really great way to intro because if here the thing if you guys don't are are not doing that much commercial work or you're only doing ah little bit of stuff where you need an agent this is a great way to kind of intro into it right because for me every single thing I do goes to my agent everything and every single thing I do has my agents cut from it I don't pay my agent any think up front or anything like that it's just he helps negotiate it he does all that the beauty of using an agent or someone like wonderful machine who has a bunch of agents that can work for you guys is that you are removed from the negotiating process you're also removed from the the recuperation of funds process so you're not the one having to reach out to them to get paid what you got to do is sit back be creative put a smile on your face and I have to deal with any of that not fun stuff because the last thing you want to do is be like oh man that was such a fun shoot by the way yes I'm paid me like three months can you can you can you send me that check is that that's a bummer and none of you guys want to be that person right it's so much nicer to be able to sit back and be the creative fun person and have somebody else kind of deal with that negotiating fees so so what happened for me was I was kind of using one for a machine quite a bit I was using other companies like that who could basically just negotiate for me on higher right and what happened was I started to realize that I needed someone more full time I needed somebody who could really work for me so and um so I had cold people who had reached out to me and I ended up settling with an agent that I really liked and a guy named john feldman and he he was starting a boutique kind of agency refering wrapping a small amount of people and he understood my work and what I was coming from that I was emerging from this or if industry into doing more commercial work and he was saying hey I think that I could take the work that you're doing and I could really make it I could really make it you know socially viable for these bigger brands that's exactly what he did we met we signed an agreement and basically he took my portfolio and he gathered a lot of the work that he felt was really strong a lot of the work I had shot on spec personal work this and that and that I had gone to kind of create these bodies work for car companies and this and that so he made these portfolios and what he did is his rolls to go out kind of shop around my work right to ad agencies so I didn't have to do that so I don't have to send my portfolio or my book right now he's doing that for me right and he's out there negotiating my contracts and negotiating my fees and it's really easy and simple because I just had to pay him an x amount cut of the work that I do now I love working with an agent it's it's you know quadrupled my income in a lot of ways but also it has taken a lot of me letting go and learning how to let go because I've been turning over a lot of relationships I'm working with for years and years and years over to somebody who's now negotiating for the beauty is that you know there was relationships where I was getting severely underpaid that I didn't really know and now that I have some working with me it's been really really helpful process right because he knows what the industry standard is because that's his speciality right so his specialty is negotiating so I get a room myself from that worry about clicking the shutter and you know and doing that and being creative and stuff and not worry about the invoicing and all those things which is awesome yes your gallery or you're interested in having your own gallery and I do have my own gallery it's anabel beach we opened it about four five months ago and other than being right off it's really just an awesome space to share work and do films and have workshops and and quite a few workshops there as well as you know signing books and having a space to kind of have those things so it's always been kind of a dream of mine and I knew as much as it was just gonna be basically I was going to lose money probably on it because galleries were really hard especially a small coastal california beach town to sell sir fart and things like that I knew that you know what if if I was going to do it I had to try you know so I always knew that if I didn't try I would always have in the back of my mind and wonder you know is that what this ever work for me so it's been a really fun process if you guys are ever in california love you to come by talk story check it out see images large and stuff but yes but the process will answer to the fact that you don't have any just work without the galleries I've done a lot of work with other galleries and I've always been a fan of that but the problem is I did so much work with galleries and work was always concentrating damaged in the process you know I was having to be responsible for printing up all this work because here's the thing is like you can't just bring a show to a gallery you know like a well here's our wall space here's our size we have fill that gallery after this so I was constantly putting all this work wasn't selling enough of it it was just kind of a process you know and it was a themed show or was that you know so I have to print a bunch images for this kind of theme or for this specific thing and it was just kind of becoming ah bummer and also the transportation that stuff is expensive so you'd print the work transport the work you have to help pay for some of the expenses of the opening night or whatever and then by the time you're done you know you're not really making that much I'd rather just pay rent and print images that I know are best sellers in my own print shop because I a big part of my business is selling prince I would say it's like you know a fourth of my income now so I know what sells I don't have to have a gallery tell me I know from two reasons I know from social media but also because I sell these images on a daily basis so now that I have my own space that I can cure it my own way it's been a lot easier right question where you get your stuff printed but it sounds like maybe you use I smugmug approaching about two years ago so I usedto this is a good question actually is something we should talk about uh but I I was using I was doing all the printing myself through like some random print shop in colorado or whatever who does great service but like people were emailing me I was taking the print order or my assistant whatever they're taking the print are doing all this stuff going through they were having to check on it you know sending them this and that the tracking number it was kind of like I was realizing I was spending a lot of time paying somebody else to do it and I was approached by smugmug and at first I was kind of like the quality of this stuff is just not that great and I was a little I was a little bummed out at first because what I was what I felt like I was seeing wass it just wasn't on par with the quality that I wanted well they they came to me they said hey we can also build websites and we can make your website and turn it into a uh ah print selling website I said really and so basically they designed my website and it's all a smoke monk website right and so basically what I've done is I've been ableto to create a shop and where I couldn't sell books and prints and you can basically take any image in here um any image in here and you can click on this thing and clicked by this photo and people could go on here it's all automated all user friendly it's all really easy to do and so the beauty of that is that now I was taking people out of the equation so now it's and I still get half people where I have to walk them through it but basically someone could come on to here and they could just look it you know okay paper prince and that's that's the big concern for me was is the quality going to be good and they have four labs you can choose from one of them is bay photo which is one of the which is based in san francisco and there one of the best labs in this area I could do aluminum prince metal prince campus g clay you know basically anything and want even like fine art hannah mon paper which is very expensive and as basically as good as you can get and so that was kind of the thing and I can turn off or turn on the different types of things that I want to do um so it was kind of ah it was kind of a cool process to be able to see and check out you know what um you know all this type of stuff so people can buy prints and add to cart they could do this and that so every day I just get an email of saying okay you sold x amount of prince yu saw this it's a really easy great process I took in the middleman out of it and now everything from shipping to quality control is all handled by them right she's super nice so that's been a huge thing that you know and the guys that the key with businesses be the sign of a successful business is being able to walk away from it and have it run itself right and if you cannot do that then it's not a successful business if you constantly have to you know baby it and stuff then you're going to be in a situation where you can never really go out and be let your mind be free to go create new work right that's the hardest thing is that I could have my business always be on point dialed when I'm there but I want to be able to walk away and go create more work and bring it back so questions yeah do you compensate your models you might have talked about this a little bit earlier it seems like you use friends often you have a lot of buddies yeah I mean a lot of these trips I'm using friends or like this is my assistant who's jumping in here I jumped I never jumped ask somebody to jump into a freezing lake unless I would yeah so I always do just let them know like thanks yeah but yeah you know like for example like for this shot this is my assistant he's jumping in here um he's I'm paying him to go it's kind of part of the deal is like hey I might shoot some photos of you if I was shooting a friend I usually would never compensate them unless that photo got sold and if that folder got sold I would absolutely compensate them or cut them and that's just being a cool dude I think it's always important you know this one's my assistant this one's a surfer you know so it's kind of like mutual compensation there uh this one is a surfer from the trip you know and if that photograph sold for some commercial use I would also you know wantto I want to still came out or or compensate him as well you know so that's just kind of the way those things work usually you know you're always trying to think of ways you can hook up your friends and stuff like that um and and compensate your models you know where you see yourself in five years um I don't know my kids will be five years old I don't know you know that's a tough one I really I really don't know I feel like it's been an interesting process and I'm just happy to be travelling I mean this is why I got into photography was to travel I didn't travel growing up all I wanted to do is see the world and have a perspective of the world on my own so being able to go out and experience those things that has been the most valuable thing to me overall so all I really want to do is continue to travel continue to see new things and open my eyes and and uh and you know inspire people along the way and I think that's that's the goal is that there comes a point in your work where I've realized that hey like making money is great and uh but that's really not what it's all about for me you know now it is I would I would happily put work out there in the world just to make people happy and give them enjoyment um if I know that I'm still on the back and somewhere making enough money to survive you know like that's that's the goal so just continue to do what I'm doing I think and working on larger bigger projects and things that can get more people outside to enjoy nature and that's really what it's all about you know for me so who knows where I'll be I don't know probably doing the exact same thing that I am right now what kind of camera stops to you oh yeah good question for a backpack so uh this is a good question actually I use this uh this brand called peak design and they make these rats traps I love it because they're just super universal but um big fan of camera straps the nice thing about these is they've just pop in like this so if you are traveling somewhere um and you need thio they just have this little metal tab they just pop in and they're super super solid writing to take them off it's just the same exact thing off on great I love him well in case I needed to know in case I need it I want to go like um just do a singular okay one as well right have it like have the camera angled somewhere else also they make my little bottom plates and these little bottom place have a little tab so to pull the tab up you kind of use that then you can loosen it by hand if you want as well so pete design they're actually based in moscow they're awesome brand make a lot of really good stuff like that and I use them on you know my water housings as well use them on here I've got these little tabs on everything and that's the cool thing is I couldn't throw money cameras all usually bring four five straps on the trip and they're super lightweight and just ultra ultra easy to use and I and what most people that just like I'm using different cameras and since I have smaller cameras I can bring more of them which is nice so all kind of inner like interchanging what I'm using from using something at night you know toting around this or even one of my bag just like that I could put those straps onto you know one of these bags and then and then have it you know go around my neck or some like that so those little guys are great they're their work really awesome yeah awesome do you sometimes ask editors what they need for their magazines so you can adapt to that totally once I get that relationship going completely okay always asking one thing that you really wanted use you want to build the relations so you can get on their stocks mission list every magazine typically they haven't email they'll send every couple weeks and say hey here's what we have coming up we need photos of x y and z and this and then you know doing this skiing here trail running here hiking here and yada yada yada yada yada and the goal is to kind of get and be a part of that list right so that you could be that cool I'm fulfilling their needs I'm gonna gather this submission in this emission and you know every couple weeks you might have a photo that gets in the magazine or something like that but that really only happens until after you've developed that relationship and after you can develop that that they know that you can produce and what work you're producing and and you kind of develop yourself is like especially so cool he's for central california this is the places he's been you know um one of the things that I was showing you guys on that deck and if you saw is it showed some of the locations I've been too well that might be a list that I might send them is to say hey here's my list of locations in places I have been too or activities I've shot in these locations so would say california you know kayaking here and surfing every coastal county and done you know blow like I'd make a a document that would have all those things so that they know and they can put that up in their mind like great this person's got photos of surfing and dubai you know he's the only person that has that or surfing in the arctic circle or he's got photos of norway in the wintertime you know he's so like that's the thing is that you're surfing in kamchatka like people know that I'm the person who has that stuff so you want to let them know as well what content you have and you start to work back and forth that person and let them know what you have so that obviously you're there kind of go to person right and that's what is nice is when they'd start to know what kind of work you're producing they'll come to you saying great we know that you've been here you know what do you have for us or hey we're doing a winner issue we really want a feature a different image what could you share with us that we haven't seen before right which is great and that's what's nice about kind of being a specialist that whole idea of going to places people haven't been what you're goingto also increase the chances of you getting something published if you're if you're not trying to compete with other people who have shot in those locations right so the importance of travel is is so crucial in this work I think awesome so chris you have been uh doing this for ten years now I've traveled all over the world multiple times and uh I'm curious like what what still inspires you I know you're you're making a living at this now you still are taking those fun trips where you get to surf with your buddies and shoot the vehicles that you want to shoot and go to the places that you want to go too but what are the things that are in it for you that in maybe another ten years you are you're looking forward to or you think the your career will take you what air what are some of those things so ten years I mean that was well I mean like I said this you know I I have found in the last couple of months more time to work on personal projects you know personal projects where I'm going to places you know I'm going teo location like iceland for a commercial project or like norway or whatever that is and I'm finding time to shoot stuff that is my that is something my own that's something that I really enjoy shooting and it's something that I want to work on more and so for me that's kind of what it's became I feel like you know it's it's great fun to do these big commercial jobs and stuff like that and you know the energy and stuff like that but I'm also looking forward to creating stuff like my children's book that I just released this last week this is something that I was able to work with an amazing disney artists on right and I basically I wrote this book and I took my images on and you know I don't know if you can see you know he took basically some of the inspiration behind the images that I've put out I don't have you can see any you know any uh similarities in any of these but essentially you know that was the goal was to kind of create a project that I felt like he uh we could do together and I wrote this story and he illustrated this this piece and so these are the kinds of fun things that I've been ableto fill my time with his stuff that I can share with my with my kids and stuff that I can share with other people to ultimately inspire them when I say inspire them it's not just you know to inspire you know twenty to thirty five year old males to go out enjoy nature since fire everybody right so this is a project that we basically did just for the fact that we wanted teo to reach out to a different demographic right we wanted to reach out to a different age group because ultimately that's what your work should be about shim yu should be about you know making money getting gear doing this and that it should be about inspiring others and creating enjoyment and not only your life but those around you so for me that's really what it's been about now this rivers you know project is something that I've just been really passionate about and I wasted mostly a lot of my time and energy and money doing because it's a minute's beautiful to me and maybe someday I'll make a book about it and I'll talk about my experiences up there but um that's I guess that's the fun of photography in so many ways is being ableto find new things constantly finding new things that make you see the world in a different way because I feel in some ways like I've seen a lot of things that I've seen a lot of perspectives of the world and so when I find something new a new way to see it a new way to share it it's exciting and that's that's kind of I guess the goal isto is to continue to you know seek out those things yeah um so you're known as a traveling photographer obviously so how often are you actually home and getting time to spend with your family and if you know maura I wish I could spend more sadly that what usually happens for me is I try to build my trips into a bolt block so right now I'm in the middle of basically like thirty days of traveling or more but before that I was home for like a month or two right so I tryto I tried to be gone just like over and over and over I tryto like do a block at home and they do a block on the road and then vice versa and you know what I find is for anyone who has a family who's out there planning to try and travel and do this for a living it's really tough you need to be able to be a really good communicator um you need to be able to make the extra effort go the extra mile to communicate to those around you because for me you know it's just the little things that make a difference you know sending a video to my kid while I'm on the road you know letting them feel like they're there with me you know making sure I call my wife is much as I can and kind of clued them in to what I have going on with the good the bad all everything in between right so that they feel like they're kind of along for the ride you know and that's really a big important one and although it means amore expensive phone bill I think it's worth it you know and so that's that's a huge part they also know that like the I think that when they know that like it especially when I'm in a place where like you know monetary gain is really not the goal here you know we looking for more ways to spend money that make money now it's like when my wife and those that support me know that like my goal is really to inspire people and the aspirations or are well well thought out and they know that it's an important purpose and it's filled with something that's that's really good and I think that if everybody khun stand behind a good message in their work than I think we would all be making a lot of change right so you get to take your family with you whenever I can I tried teo but the problem is they don't usually want to go the places I'm going tio they don't want teo they don't want to go sleep in the back of a you know bus in the middle of the arctic or something like that I mean this this month loan I've spent like almost like twenty eight days in iceland and then you know it's just been a brutal brutal mission so uh yeah um you know more about your your rivers project and um you said you're starting to get into aerial photography what kind of set up do you use to shoot some of those good I'm usually just shooting out of a plane or helicopter I see your it's not like a drone or anything I've shot quite a bit of stuff with drone um usually I work with a really talented drone operator this's another photograph from our project and just shooting a lot of aerial footage as well as you know I have I am three d robotics drone as well loza phantom too and uh you know I've just been able to work with a lot of different people shooting a lot of different footage and content for these things but it's more of like just shooting that aerial perspective I think you guys saw um in that edit that we were doing there was that photo of um yellowstone from above grand prismatic springs right that was another project just I had the opportunity and I wanted teo go shoot it and so I went there and um you know just basically paid the helicopter pilot to take me up so I could go and we'll be able to find a photo but so I could go and shoot that perspective and there was something that's been really really just fulfilling to me to kind of work on something that's new and exciting and feels like it's it's kind of ah it's challenging in a way because like I said I think that the goal is to always make people change their perspectives of what they want to see what they can see so um here's another one I was in wyoming shooting and I just wanted teo I wanted to go up in a helicopter to shoot the grand prismatic springs from above so for me it's been so valuable to kind of bring these different perspectives to my work these different layers right and I've shot a lot of aerial stuff in the past but it wasn't until the last couple years that I've really been putting this workout there um to share you know one thing about the ice the rivers in iceland is that there's some of the most pure and untouched in the world so to document them from the air is really amazing because you're able to see what an untouched natural resource looks like when it does not you know irrigate it and moved around with farmlands and these things you know they're kind of left alone to meander and are or to braid right and it's the different levels of sediment that move through them that give them that crazy texture so for me that's been a really unique thing to sheriff people just like I said it's all about changing your perspective that's what makes us grow as human beings and I think that the more people that embraced that idea and that concept we're gonna be better off in the long run right I've never really been one to be considered myself any type of environmentalists or this and that I just feel like the cure for most the things that happen in our lives is pride to get outside a bit more you know surround ourselves with more you know like uh face to face time rather than face time I guess you could say so I don't know so one more technical question and and then we'll go big picture how do you copy right your image is well there's some ways you can do that with like the way I think it's the copyright office you can actually go and you can you can register your images to copyright them and stuff it's a total pain in the butt um one of the things that I just try to do is in the metadata I always make sure I have the copyright of the images in there as well but yeah I mean what I tend to do is I take my my really my portfolio that's really my best you know kind of you know fifty sixty hundred images I just copyright the main main ones to make sure that those ones don't get in the wrong hands or nothing weird ends up happening with them you know but yeah I think it's the copyright office in washington you khun submit your images there and fill out some information to get them actually copyrighted and stuff but I've never had an issue with it before some night is kind of one of those things that we do it just and in the fear reflects you know but yeah I can't imagine it being an immensely massive issue but I know some people have had problems with it in the past so yeah so do you have any final words for us what do you want people to go do a cz we're wrapping this whole thing up what final thoughts I think that I'm no more questions for you guys I'm sure there's always there's always a question but um I would say you know when when it comes to you just in general this this opportunity to chat and talk about work in photography and all this I think it really I really want to bring it back to that idea a concept like what is your message you know what is the message that you have to share of people on dh how does your work support that message right think about some of the most amazing people that you you know you follow you engage with magazines the brands you respect all those they all have a core message that they stand behind and I think it's photographers and artists and creatives we need to have that same value to our work you know we need to basically I have that same conviction to what we want to support and what we don't and I think that it's never been more important nowadays to really be someone who is approachable you know with social media you know we can't like I said hide behind you know r our cameras are leads we have to be able to speak whatever that truth is whether you want to advocate for nature you want to advocate for you know this or that be someone who like reflects that you know and be someone who supports those ideas and concepts and I think that when you start to really embrace that not only in your work but in your entire life you're going to see incredible things happen I mean at least for me um I've learned every every good bit of education I've ever gain has been from the outdoors has been from a life on the road and learning and seeing and it's really broken down any barriers of what I have ever thought people or cultures could be like and that's been a huge arab for me and so I guess for me one of the biggest things I try to do you know being a dad being father being you know having kids is that I never want to pass on some inherent fear of the unknown I want to pass on this idea to go and to explore and to you know look at things from a childlike perspective and I think that in our work in photography that's exactly what we need to do is just to be curious always and I guess that's probably greatest advice I could really ever offer anyone we keep that so awesome chris thank somebody for being here appreciate you read those last two days I hope you guys really enjoyed this course and krista springing all of his experience and knowledge and stories and photos and techniques and just you just unloaded on us in the last few days has been phenomenal thanks again that's around