Jeff started his career as a Military Photographer in the British Royal Navy but after nearly 10 years service he decided to leave the armed forced to set up his own photography company.
Eighteen months later he had a successful six-figure turnover wedding photography company and a commercial photography company, then going on to open a separate school photography business with sixty nursery schools on their books and a Boudoir Makeover company turning over 1,000 boudoir shoots per year.
He now mentors photographers in over 20 countries worldwide, helping them develop their brand to become the “Go-To Photographer” in their niche and achieve the success they deserve. Jeff has written a No1 best-selling book on LinkedIn for Photographers (The Photographers Missing Link-edIn) and also runs regular LinkedIn Lives as a platform influencer with 30k photographer followers.
He’s written for several photography magazine and associations and is also a marketing ambassador for The British Photography Awards, The Female Photographers Association and the UK and US Brand Ambassador for The Shutter Studio App, as well as a regular guest on photography podcasts around the world giving free help and advice to fellow photographers.
Resources
Resources:
- Grab my Photo Editing Workflow Walkthrough Video for free through February 28 with the coupon code editfree
- Jeff’s Book: The Photographer’s Missing “Link”ed-In
- Jeff’s Recommended Books:
- Shutter App
- thephotographersmentor.com
This post contains affiliate links. Consider using these link to support the show.
Transcript
Allie 0:00
Welcome to the photo Field Notes podcast. Before we get into the episode today, just a quick reminder, if you haven’t already taken advantage, I have a coupon code to access my photo editing workflow walkthrough video, where I just show you the basics of my photo editing a little behind the scenes video, it’s normally $35. But through February 28, it is free if you use the coupon code edit free at checkout. So go check that out. And that’s it. Let’s get into the episode.
Introduction 0:30
Welcome to the photo Field Notes podcast, where you’ll find stories, tips and inspiration from professional photographers to get you taking action in your own business and making your business dreams a reality.
Allie 0:44
Hello, everyone, this is Allie Siarto And today I’m talking with Jeff Brown. And he started a successful photography business along with photography school with 60 nursery schools. He also mentors photographers in more than 20 countries worldwide. And he’s helping them to develop their brands to become the go to photographer in their niche niche. He’s also on top of that written a number one best selling book on LinkedIn for photographers called the photographer’s missing LinkedIn. And he runs regular LinkedIn lives, which I’m sure are very handy. He’s written for several photography magazines and associations. And he’s a marketing ambassador for the British photography Awards, the female Photographers Association and the UK and US brand ambassador for the shutter Studio app. So many awesome things. Welcome, Jeff.
Jeff 1:27
Thank you. It’s a pleasure to be on.
Allie 1:29
It’s awesome to have you. Okay, let’s start with your story. I know you have kind of a really, really interesting career path that led you to all these things. So let’s hear kind of the overview of your career story.
Jeff 1:42
So I initially started out with photography as just a hobby. And then when I got into my mid to late 20s, I joined the Royal Navy. And then I was in the Royal Navy for three years as an engineer. Because being a photographer in the military in the UK, you have to be it’s called what’s called sidewards entry. So you have to join in another trade and then apply to be a photographer. So after three years, applied to be a photographer, passed all the exams and became a Royal Navy photographer, and then went on to work for the intelligence services for two years as a intelligence image analysis because photography and looking at imagery, were very connected, you know, so the light to people who are from a photography background to work in that particular sector. So I did nine years coming up to 10 year service in the military.
Allie 2:34
And what does that I don’t know if you can tell us all the details of that, well, what does that look like? What kinds of things were you doing with them?
Jeff 2:41
All sorts of stuff. So everything from we did macro photography, you know, defective aircraft, then we did PR photography, lots of PR photography, events, parades, criminal injuries, when Marines decided to go and beat people up in the local town after a few drinks we move to the criminal injuries. Funnily enough, one of my my first ever job I had on my own after after training, so during the six months training to be a military photographer, then I shadowed another photographer for eight weeks and after eight weeks, the boss turned around and said, right Jeff, you deem you have a good enough standard to go out on your own. And this is typically the Navy would like to cling in at the deep end he says so this weekend, you’ll be Prince Philip’s photographer and that was my first ever job was was a royal job and I had a Shadow Prince Phillip at the commando memorial in Scotland for the remembrance parade
Allie 3:40
while they did throw you right in so what was that? Like? Were you confident or were you kind of like
Jeff 3:47
I was quite terrified to be honest at the very beginning. And I did actually and you know when you make a big mistake and never ever ever do it again and I did actually shoot probably about 15 minutes of the parade without actually having to film and my camera cleaner my lenses double check and everything I was so nervous then he arrived at forgot a load of film and it was only after I must have taken about 40 shots. I thought hang on a minute. This kind of
Allie 4:16
did anybody did anybody notice that you didn’t have a portion covered? Or did you have enough that it was fine.
Jeff 4:22
I had enough that I managed to blog my way out with the boss and didn’t admit to it but I never ever made that mistake again. What a
Allie 4:29
day to make that mistake. That’s crazy. Okay, where did it go from there? Go from there.
Jeff 4:35
So yeah, so So then after working with the intelligence services, Arizona, a different base and a lot of people who are coming into the into my office, one intelligence stuff done they want the photographs of the dogs and the daughter was getting married and stuff like that. And I started to realize there’s a good potential here to actually make some money and and do something you know, and when eventually when my own Business so, so I set up a business who along with another military photographer who was working for the intelligence sector at the time, and he was based in the same area of the UK as me. And after about a year, we decided that I would come out first because at the time, I wasn’t married and didn’t have kids, and my business partner was sure it was more of a risk for him to leave. So I left first. And when you leave the military, in, in the UK get seven and a half 1000 pounds to spend on further training to become a civilian again. So instead of spending my money on photography courses, I spent it on marketing for a photography business. And the first ever course I did was a American guy, Charles Lewis did his photography, marketing course. And I absolutely loved it, I got really addicted to the marketing side of things. And then when my business partner left, six months later, he didn’t, he wasn’t interested in the marketing side of the business side of it. So he given me his seven and a half 1000 pounds, I spent 15,000 on courses and went off and did them. And that’s what allowed us to take the business from basically a new starter to a six figure business and then create another four businesses in a very short space of time. And to be honest, I felt a bit of a cheat really, because there was other photographers out there who’d been going 1520 years with much more experience, much better photographers than us. But it was the marketing and the branding and the understanding about the business element that catapulted us forward.
Allie 6:30
You’re not the first person to say that I’ve asked others, you know, if you could study marketing, or photography, and you could only choose one. Most people say all people say study marketing, that’s what’s going to make your business successful in the end. So it’s easy, not easy, but you know, you can learn the photography, and be a good photographer. But if you can’t market the business, then it’s not going to help you. So what about from there, the school working with schools and then going on to mentor others?
Jeff 6:58
Yeah, so So initially, I had quite a few friends leave the military who were military photographers, as well. So they would ask you, they were asking for advice. And then I also got asked to do a few talks at local schools about setting up photography businesses. And I loved it, I got addicted to it. And I thought, you know, in because that became my passion, too, because I saw lots of other photographers who weren’t doing as well as us, but really should be. But it was all down to the brand and the market. And so I decided that that was something I wanted to do. And then in 2015, I had a bit of a sort of a twist in my life. So I decided stupidly to buy a food pub, a little country food pub, in, in in County Durham, so in the north northeast of England. And the idea was this food pub was also going to be a wedding venue for us as well. So we do the weddings, hold the weddings there and do the wedding photography. And within 12 months had lost over 160,000 pounds that I’d invested in the pub ran up another 60,000 pounds worth of debt and everything that could possibly go wrong with that business did go wrong, it was it was a nightmare. And I ended up getting divorced as well at the same time over in the shelter, period. So I left the pub and I ran away to the to the countryside, still had the photography businesses, but I split them up. My ex business partner, he took the the nursery school and school photography, business and the commercial photography business. I just kept the wedding side and then started the photography, training and mentoring business up, which was the best move I ever made, you know so so from going from a huge loss where I suffered a lot of depression, I had tried to take my own life at the time I’ve gone through a really dark time within my you know, in my life and then turned it around to now having a business where I work with people in over 20 countries worldwide admit the flexibility so amazing. I absolutely love what I do. I’m really passionate about it. And I still do a few weddings I’ve got I think we’ve got about four or five weddings this year. I’ve got a couple next year. I’m not really I’m just doing them because I enjoy doing them not because I have to and I’ve done over 750 weddings so I think it’s about time
Allie 9:15
Yeah, what do you think it is that got you through that dark time and kind of kept you going or what advice do you have for others who are going through a lot of us are going through a really difficult time right now just because of the world that we live in right now. With COVID and everything happening so do you have any thoughts just like words or in hindsight to share with people who are kind of feeling that right now.
Jeff 9:37
You know, it was one of the stupidest things I ever did because I did feel totally trapped. I felt I couldn’t get out of it. I had a you know pub with it in stuff and did. I felt trapped. I couldn’t get out the lease of the pervy either. And every day it was just everyday it was more money that was getting lost more money and all that money wasn’t borrowed money. That was the money knew that I had made someone in five very successful photography businesses. So I just saw that vanishing before me eyes every single week. And one night I stupidly decided to when the bar was closed is drink myself into a stupid and try and drive my car for a bridge, which fortunately for me, I was too drunk to actually managed to do it, but I managed to smash the car up. And the next morning I woke up and at the time, my daughter who was then living with, you know, the living with my ex wife was seven year old and that was the first thing I thought of and I thought, Jeff, you absolute fool, you know, how would Araya cope without a dad in a life. So then I decided on it, you know, I needed help. And one of the biggest things I tend to funnily enough, my mom is a Samaritan, and she was director of the Samaritans and in the Northeast of England, but I didn’t go to her I went to audiobooks. And I would say Amazon audiobooks pretty much changed my, my life, really, it was all about reading books on positivity and listening to books and positivity. And because when you’re in that state, your mind wanders, I found it much easier to listen to books than actually read them. And I could consume a lot more. So I go through books, maybe three times over plan that one and a half times speed. So it’s getting through the quick, and, and then, you know, realizing that you’re not alone, you know, even the most successful people have been there and been in a very similar situation. And if you start making small steps now, you know, in three months time, six months time, your life can be in a completely different direction.
Allie 11:32
Yeah, that gets me as having a seven year old myself, that really gets me. And I feel that too with books, I feel like that’s been a huge way for me to stay positive. I’ve been in both directions, audiobooks that are just like really fun novels just to get out of this dark time. And then also these books that are really just like nonfiction storytelling and uplifting and positivity, I’m in that same place in a lot of ways, you know, staying positive with those things. So that I think that’s good. Is there any specific books that you recommend that you really loved?
Jeff 12:05
Oh, god, there’s, there’s quite a few. I mean, for photographers, there’s a guy. I don’t know if he’s very well, I think he’s quite well known in the US, actually, a guy called Craig Beck. And he called he did a book called unstoppable how to have an unstoppable life. And another one is atomic habits. I don’t know if you’ve heard of that one. That’s, I’ve heard of it, but I haven’t read it. Yeah. Yeah, that’s a really good one. But I mean, I’m talking about 250 on my playlist.
Allie 12:36
Nice. Yeah, I’m gonna I love also just being able to go on the library and, you know, see what’s there and look for recommendation. So put those in there too, on the notes. All right, let’s get into our main topic of the day, which is LinkedIn, which I think is underutilized by a lot of photographers. And maybe that’s why it’s such an opportunity. So what can you tell us about how photographers, can you use LinkedIn to find clients or build a community,
Jeff 13:03
but one of the really important things to think about with with LinkedIn is it’s massively underused by photographers. So currently, I’ll just give you some stats, there’s around about 750 million LinkedIn users on the planet. And, you know, the US, UK, and India are the three biggest users. Now, the LinkedIn, the people on LinkedIn are higher wage earners. So the average wage earning on LinkedIn is about 85 to $90,000. So these aren’t freebie hunters, these aren’t the people who just want Groupon deals and stuff enough. And these are people who have money in you know, unavailable income to spend out of the hole 750 million LinkedIn profiles, only 30 million of those profiles are what you call fully optimized, so that the showing up regularly in the searches, and out of the whole 750 million only 1% of the platform, a creating regular content. So out the whole platform only 1%. So I have clients on board my program that I work with, and after three months, literally three months of just posting to LinkedIn, they’ve got a fully optimized profile, they recommend that they go to photographer in their niche because other photographers aren’t doing it. And it’s not just business to business, because you know, people who own businesses have daughters who are getting married have wives and children that they want to get photographs of they have pets that they want to have photographs, I’ve sort of it’s a fantastic opportunity to be hitting your ideal client and getting out there to your ideal client.
Allie 14:37
Do you think you have to approach it differently than some of the other platforms? Like how when you go to create content or connect on LinkedIn? How do we start and what kinds of content should we be producing that’s going to help us be seen by these people? Well,
Jeff 14:52
one of the big things I say to everybody is, when you go on to LinkedIn is to create a LinkedIn niche. So to niches elftown to be a particular type of photographer, and with with it with a niche, and each can be driven by your passion, or sometimes driven, driven by a geographical area. So I live in a place called Northumberland, in the UK, which is the most leastly, dense, densely populated county in the whole of England. So there’s hardly anybody here. So I’d be no good being a headshot photographer. But what I could do is maybe be a photographer for either hospitality, and tourism, because it’s quite big on tourism, or maybe agriculture and farming. So that would work really well, or weddings, because there’s a lot of people come up here to get married. So specialize to a particular niche. Because if you try and appeal to everybody, you become special to no one. So it’s really essential that you, you narrow yourself down if you think you say you want to franchise of five Marriott or Hilton Hotels, and you are looking on LinkedIn for somebody to come in and do photographs of your hotels for your website and for your brochures. Who would you are their employee? Would it be a specialist hospitality and food photographer, or a photographer who does babies weddings, commercial, pets, you know, so and what also another thing to think about is, is people buy for different reasons. So when people buy for weddings, boudoir, and portraits, it’s an emotional purchase. When people buy for headshots for commercial photography, for personal branding, which is huge on LinkedIn, that is a solution based process. So you know, if you if you sell into the guy who owns the hotel, who owns a restaurant, you don’t try and sell him the the images, you sell them the end results, you sell them that you’re gonna get bums on seats every night in the in the restaurant, because people are seeing these images online. And that’s been an old car, we’re gonna go here, the food looks amazing, it’s gonna get more online bookings for sell the end result is a try and sell the photographs.
Allie 16:56
So do you think so for example, I have now doing branding photography, which tends to be like personal branding photography. And to me my head immediately goes to that’s what I would focus on in LinkedIn, even though I do other things. And so do you think that people should have a whole separate brand that does this specific thing and a specific website brand, etc. Experience? Or do you think they should just pick that thing to focus in on on LinkedIn, and it’s okay, if they have the other things, once you get to the website, as long as you’re directing them to that one thing?
Jeff 17:28
Well, funnily enough, when you think about LinkedIn itself, people on LinkedIn like to do business within LinkedIn. So it’s a very, very close sort of platform. So when people come to your LinkedIn profile, that you know, they can go into, they can view your past posts, you can view everything you put on for the past year, or however long you’ve been on the you can also set up what’s called a LinkedIn company page, and connect that to your profile. I’ve got five LinkedIn company pages for the different types of businesses that I run, and then the ambassadorships that I have. And that’s all those are all connected to my, my, my profile. So people can get more information about me from my LinkedIn company page on my LinkedIn profile, and they can go to any by going to any website, it’s because you’ve got to remember website is just a snapshot in time, isn’t it, it’s only, it’s probably relevant to when it was created. And then it probably hasn’t been updated, where you can get a lot more about a person’s personality and what sort of person they are, and reviews and everything like that from your profile. Now, when I look at my link, my website stacks and I go to websites, and look at their website stats, even though LinkedIn is one of my biggest generators of business for mentor. And with photographers, less than 1% of the people who visit my website have come through LinkedIn, because they just people on LinkedIn, just stay on LinkedIn. You know, they probably get them on a call, and that’ll be about it. So if you’ve got a profile, it’s fully optimized, not fully optimized for LinkedIn, but fully optimized for your clients. So it says everything the client needs to know it’s all about them, it’s not about you, then they don’t need to go and look at another website. So when I work with photographers, I said, Look, forget about the website, don’t build a personal branding website yet. Until you’ve got that you know, you don’t want to be spending the the $1,000 on a website or whatever. LinkedIn is free, get your profile up there, get your message out there, make your profile towards your clients, stop posting, start connecting, when you’ve got about a dozen or so jobs under your belt and you’ve got some money in the bank, then go down the road of getting that website if that if that’s if you want it, you know, but it’s not a necessity.
Allie 19:43
That is very interesting and very encouraging to that we can kind of experiment with having these very specific areas of focus without having to invest all this money in a whole separate website. So that’s awesome when it comes to actually creating content on LinkedIn, what kind of content do you tend to create?
Jeff 20:03
So LinkedIn, that that, again, is a huge thing with people on LinkedIn, like, you know, I said at the very beginning, less than 1% of people post content. And you know, I’ll speak to photography, especially when I get somebody who’s just new and come on board the program. And a lot of, as I say, a lot of people who come on my program off on LinkedIn, you know, they’ll message me and say, Jeff, I’ve been watching your stuff. I’ve been seeing your posts, I’ve been reading your content for the past six months, but I might get like a little message into my inbox and say, Jeff, I’m really interested in joining your program. So then I look at the person who sent me that message, and I think, hang on a minute. I’ve never heard of that person before. They’ve never interacted with any of my content. They’ve never commented. I just can’t remember seeing them. So I’ll say, Yeah, let’s regroup a call. And then when it comes to have a call, I get this over and over again. And I say are, you know, you message me through LinkedIn, I have been watching you for about six months. But I’ve never commented because I’m frightened to use the platform. Photographers are terrified to use the platform, not not post, let alone, let alone just come in to you know, because they feel that everybody on there is so professional, you’re going to be judged by whatever you put out. Where actually, it’s the complete opposite. If ever, there was a more forgiving platform and social media, and a pleasant place to be. It’s LinkedIn, it’s not like you don’t get the haters, like you do on like Facebook and stuff. Yeah. So it’s, it’s, it’s so refreshing. And and people love to hear good stories, the love inspirational stories, the love sharing, you know, imagery of like local views, you know, local scenes that, like tips and hacks that we’re going to improve the business. And I think one of the biggest things I can say to people on LinkedIn is be yourself. Don’t be afraid to be yourself. Because the one thing about LinkedIn with posting content, I’ve built a reputation. And I’ve got over 30,000 30,000 followers on LinkedIn, who are photographers, and they’re, you know, they’re watching me, they’re watching the content I put out there. Now imagine, if you put something out there now suddenly says, Oh, hey, that’s a lot of crap. I’d you know, I disagree with that. People are reading the comments that I’m putting there. So that just makes me look really unprofessional, you know, I could lose that entire brand that I’ve built up. So even if I have, and it’s only ever happened on two or three occasions where somebody has made a, quite a nasty remark on a comment that I’ll post that I put out there, I’ll just message I’ll just post underneath it. No problem. That’s, you know, that’s your entitlement. You know, we all have our own opinions. Unfortunately, I don’t agree with you on this one, but I wish you all the best. And then literally, within about 15 minutes, I’ve had another three or four photographers slagging this guy off and taking them down. But I’m not going to ruin my brand, for the sake of somebody else. But that is very, very, remember, I’ve got 30,000 followers, you know, so. So it’s, it’s very, it’s happened to me maybe two or three times in the past four years. It’s it is such a forgiving platform. So I tend to post I can see that, yeah, of course, tips, advice, inspirational stuff, and then it comes back to the old thing, you know, people buy from people who they know, they’re like, and they trust. So you have to go down a journey. So to be known, you have to put your name out there, you have to get out there, you know, because your credibility on LinkedIn is how visible you are. See, if you’re gonna just kind of sit back in the sidelines and do nothing you’re never going to be seen. And it’s the people that go to photographers are the ones who shout and put their stuff out there and try and help each other and, and make that step and do that post. And so, you get known and then to be liked, is you have to post in a way that is genuine and human and not like a robot, you know, and not coming salesy. Because when when you put in stuff when human people buy from people they like so if you can get that relationship going people start to like you and then they will trust you if you don’t try and sell to them. I probably hardly ever put a sales post out on LinkedIn. And then I’ll say to people you know, if you want a free advice call, give me a shout. We’ll jump on a 30 minute free advice call I’ll send you a brochure about my program and if you’re interested then say Jeff, tell me Well, if you’re not go in take the full 330 minutes free advice you know, and it’s it’s happening and people love that because it’s a genuine thing and so that that is it. That’s the thing is to get out there and start putting content out.
Allie 24:37
I can see a lot of potential for the branding side because let’s say I’m let’s say that I choose personal branding or just small business branding as my topic that I want to focus on on LinkedIn, which seems relevant. And then I happen to know quite a lot about branding because I’ve branded my own business and studied things like that. So I have a lot of advice to offer in how to use those images and How you know how you can improve your brand. So I feel like I’m seeing a lot of chances to create content around that bigger picture, but then really focusing on like designing your session. Is there also I know you do these lives LinkedIn lives, do you think that that’s been a big part of creating your presence on LinkedIn?
Jeff 25:20
Definitely. Because LinkedIn live, again, is that there’s hardly anybody got LinkedIn live, you know, because if if people aren’t going to have the frame to even post and comment, certainly not going to do alive, you know, but LinkedIn live gets you out there and it creates more personality, you know, you can answer people’s questions, and you can get in front of your audience a lot easier. And one thing that I was going to say when you’re talking about branding, and I would say probably, probably about 60% of the photographers I work with all over the world now are into the branding and personal branding, because it’s coming. Huge thing. I mean, even the hashtag on LinkedIn, personal branding has over 10 and a half million followers. But I’ve started the photographers, I worked with 10 to start like micro niche in personal branding. So funny. I was talking to a photographer this morning, Mr. Dunham, who has been on program that for a month now and is passionate about food. She’s a foodie, she loves to cook, she’s created her brand. And she’s called herself the foodies photographer. So she creates personal branding images for people within the food and hospitality industry. So it’s people who she’s doing pictures of the artisan Baker, the chocolates here, the organic farmer with these with the sausages that he’s made and stuff, because these people are part of their produce and their brand. It’s the people behind the produce, that make it special. It’s not made any huge factory, you know, so they are their own brand. I’ve got another guy Gwen Jones, based in Wales. And he’s a personal he’s a headshot photographer and his personal branding and headshots for people in the financial services and banking industry. He has a background in financial services, banking, so he understands that industry really well. He’s tailored himself down to that industry, and he knows that industry has money to spend, you know, that is the industry where they’re not going to be, you know, trying to knock them down a few 100 pounds on a shoot. And then I have another lady and Thomas who’s doing exceptionally well in personal branding, but hers is more for creative, like coaches, entrepreneurs, thought leaders, because she understands that those people are the type of people who value their own personal brand, because they are their brand, you know, so they understand the value behind the imagery, because if they look good, their programs and their courses and their services look good and sell better. So she’s so if you can make your niche even better, you know, because you’re going to stand out as the photographer who helps you know, the artisan Baker, sell more bread and then create a huge Facebook following, you know, so
Allie 28:03
yeah, it would be a natural Yeah. Like, of course you would hire that person if you are that. What about geography? Are they in big cities that makes that easier? Are they traveling to clients? How do they make that part work? Do you know?
Jeff 28:16
Well, geography wise, obviously. Well, funnily enough, Leigh Gwynn, He’s based in Wales, and most of his clients are in London in the city. So it’s a two and a half hour three hour train journey for for GWEN But he’d book ahead in a bouquet where he’s maybe doing 40 or 50 people that day for that particular bank. So it’s well worth it. And Thomas she’s she’s based outside London, she’s about an hour and a half outside of London. But she’s now working with people all over the world because she does the virtual shoots as well and she’s got last week she had a company in Amsterdam want firstly, headshots do and and she actually had, she’s got a company in Washington DC, that 160 Headshots done, but it’s a tech company. So what they want is everybody photographed at their home. But in a funny sort of way, which is basically tell us something about some for yourself that nobody else in the company knew so. So that the ethos behind this company is they want to say that it’s it’s the people that making the company, not the company that makes the people. So you know, you might have the guy standing there with his motorbike helmet and he’s standing next to his motorbike another guy with his apron on his Penny’s mixing board because he loves to bake on a weekend, you know, or, or the woman with three dogs. And I want to engage you on because she likes to grow up when and whether so each one tells her story about that one individual person.
Allie 29:44
That’s clever. Okay, let’s get really quickly into this whole idea of virtual photoshoots. Because I know it’s been kind of controversial, and I want to hear how this is working, especially for these people who you’ve worked with. How is that? Like, what is that? How is that working?
Jeff 29:58
So I’m a Brand Ambassador, I got approached by shutter app, which is a tech company that started short wrap up in in Germany. It’s a red chested company in Germany. And they wanted like an alternative to the first time or the zoom type photo shoot virtual photo shoot. So this app shutter app, we just go to the shutter app on Google shuttler dot app. It’s a free app at the moment, so you can download it. And you can take photographs of your client using their mobile phone camera, or actually a digital SLR camera, anywhere in the world. And funnily enough, I had a shoot done last week by a photographer in London. And the images are fantastic. And I’ve got a Huawei P 30. Pro, which has a 50 megapixel camera. And the short wrap allows you on the premium version to take photographs in raw. So the guy who was doing my photographs was like, Jeff, the images I’m bringing out like 14 megapixel, cameras, the quality is there, he can, he can zoom in and zoom out, he can adjust the exposure, the white balance they are so and before the shoot, it was great for me to see it from the other side as well. And be a client on the end of it in isolation can, from my point of view, client wise, I didn’t have to travel, I was doing it in my own home. So I just held the phone up, I showed Richard my living room, then we went through into the kitchen and the office, then went outside to the garden on the patio assured him from the pantry. He was like, Yeah, I’ve already got four or five ideas what we’re going to do, and then he would pause me you know, so I just put my phone on the selfie stick, but what a lot of people do is put their phone, you know, like in the UK, we’ll call them trainers. And I think you call them sneakers in the US. Imagine you’ve got your shoe, you put the shoe the phone in the heel of the shoe bit and it stands up and then you can just you can tilt it forward backwards, move the shoe about you could put it on the table. And then Richard Richard would just be like, move this way. But you have turned yourself that way. Take the you know and you hear the foot was getting taken. And it’s brilliant. And then halfway through I was like which you can just go and change me share it and I’d run upstairs get a new shirt on come down the the ability to use something like this, first of all to have clients anywhere in the world, like you know, Scott, that job in Amsterdam, she gets that job in Washington, DC, you know, and but they’re using a photographer in the UK, so allows you to work with anybody in the world, it’s quite exciting. Obviously, the the income side of thing is a little bit less because people don’t charge as much for virtual photo shoots as they do for an in person. But it’s a fraction of the time. You know, the we did yeah, locations in my house, and it was probably 2530 minutes altogether.
Allie 32:49
That is interesting. Well, what about art is on a phone? So is it just whoever’s phone they just install the app? Or does she like send some kind of special gear in the mail or how does that part of it work?
Jeff 33:00
What happens is, so say for instance, you’re the model, I would tell you to go online with your phone to the App Store, download shutter app to your phone, then you’ve got the you’ve got a shorter app on your phone, the photographer would then send you like a connection to request you would have then a one time passcode generated ID that you would then give to the photographer, he puts that in and that URL then gives access to the all the features on your on your phone. So you can like work on your camera phone and so on here’s he could switch between wide angle lens standard lens, because who are we have three different lenses, you know, and then as soon as he hangs up as soon as you you terminate that session, it’s just the same as you know, putting the receiver down on the Skype or zoom that it you can’t go back in and look at your pictures and access here, you texts and emails and stuff you know that’s finished. If you want to have another shoot with that photographer, then you have to generate a new unique ID passcode. Now the images that that photographer takes are not captured on your phone, they are captured on the photographer’s portal. So the photographer when he does that click and takes the picture doesn’t store to your phone, it stores to his photographers portal. And then he can then like today I got my photographs back, he will then give me a link to go on to my photographs after the been edited.
Allie 34:27
So you can edit it, okay? And that makes sense. Because you think about the cost to go into let’s say in that case with every employee to go to every home and set it up and photograph them would be really time consuming if you had to actually travel to everyone’s home, not to mention it’s across the world. And to be able to do it that way. It’s kind of a really fun, creative way. But you have to be the kind of photographer who knows how to direct somebody because you have to you’re basically making them feel comfortable and making them with even another element which may be more comfortable for some less for others to be able to, you know, make sure that you know how to make clients feel comfortable. But what a creative idea. So that’s the shutter Studio app.
Jeff 35:09
Yeah, shutter apps, I’ve interviewed quite a few photographers who have used it because I want to be, you know, being an ambassador for the company, I want to, I want to get their feedback and get the information out, because I was I agreed to the ambassadorship, because I could see the value, we could bring photographers to their business to make more money, because that’s what you know, that’s the whole thing. I’m about helping photographers make more money. And I think and who uses it quite a lot, put it in a really good context is, you know, if you, you’ve got to be good with your voice, you’ve got to be good at directing people. And you’ve got to remember that, you know, it’s the opposite way around. So if you say, move left, you mean, yeah, you gotta move. And you’ve also got to think on your feet as well, you know, so you might suddenly be like, Okay, I’m in their living room. Now, what can I see, move this move that. And also, you in non controlled lighting situations, you know, so if the clouds come out, if you’ve got a big window in the house, then all of a sudden, it’s it. Thing is that a lot of mobile phones that have very good, they’re very good for dealing with massive changes in the ambient light. So as to add this as well, effectively. It’s, it’s a bit like being a wedding photographer, because your wedding photographer, you know, you, you have to think on your feet, you have to deal with all sorts of lighting conditions. Sometimes, you know, things don’t go according to plan, and you have to switch quickly and go right? Well, by doing the show over here, you know, so I think, and also good at controlling people and directing them. So if your wedding photographer, have you got experience in that you’re probably going to be good at doing a virtual shoot.
Allie 36:42
So interesting. Okay, so I’ll put that link in the show notes, too. And then Jeff, where can people find all these different resources about you like your mentoring or LinkedIn guidance, etc? Where, where can they find you online?
Jeff 36:54
If they just head over to LinkedIn and type in the photographer’s mentor on LinkedIn? They can find me there and definitely send me a connection request. I will. I’ll connect with all your listeners. If they have any questions. Don’t be afraid to just drop me a message. Say, Jeff, I listened to the podcast, can you give me a bit of advice on this? And I always say advice is free, you know, more than happy to hack into a couple of voice clips back through LinkedIn messaging, just to explain something if you’re stuck on something. My website is the photographer’s mentor.com. And it’s got my prices and more information about my mentoring services in there. And if you want a brochure, drop me a message and I can send you a brochure out as well.
Allie 37:34
Good deal. All right. Well, I’ll go connect with you right now.
Outro 37:39
Thanks for listening. check out show notes at photo field notes.com. And if you loved this episode, leave us a review on iTunes. See you next week.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
