Photo Field Notes Podcast: Career Advice for Photographers

Stories and career inspiration from professional photographers

photographer

Episode 185: Advancing Your Photography Skills with Marc Silber

Advancing your photography skills with Marc Silber - a photo of Marc on an orange background with a blue shirt

Marc Silber is a photographer, a three-time best-selling author, film-maker, and the producer of the popular YouTube series Advancing Your Photography. Today’s he’s sharing his photography journey, from going to school with Annie Leibovitz to guiding other photographers on their own journeys.

Resources:

Transcript

Allie 0:01
Hello, and welcome to the photo Field Notes podcast, I have a quick little update for you. I’m going to talk more about this in the future. But just to let you know, I have a new guide and system for you. That’s for sale at photo field notes.com/shop. And this is the system the updated system that I use to prep my clients for their photo sessions. So I have guides created in Canva, that can easily be updated and shared for general photo sessions maternity and newborn photo session prep, wedding prep, and then also a product guide to show your products and your prices. And then with that, it also comes with a PDF guide. It’s a 23 page PDF guide called the simple product sales system. And that’s everything from how to prep your clients to expect products, to how to set up all the tools to easily run your sales. So my philosophy for years has been that I do give away digital files, I price myself for profitability, giving away digital files, you can also do this in a tiered system where you give away some number of digital files. And then I offer prints to my clients in addition, and even though they’re getting their digital files, they are very, very often buying prints. Because I have shown them the quality, I’ve guided them I’ve shown you know I’ve set them apart. And so this walks you through that. It also comes with my email template guide, which is giving you the exact emails that I use from the time that people book through the delivery of products. So it’s not just about selling products. It’s actually like the whole workflow all in one. But there’s a ton there. But I’ve tried to make this a little bit more simple because I was finding that in some of the courses I was doing if the videos were really long, I wasn’t finishing them. So instead of videos, I just made it a PDF, really simple step by step directions. And, and then customizable guides 12 customizable mock up images where you can put your own images into like an album, wall art, all of these fun things so that you can show your clients what your photos look like in these products without having to purchase a million different samples. So again, that’s at photo field notes.com/products Go check it out. I’ll talk a little bit more about my philosophy in the future. But that’s where to start. Alright, that’s it for now. Let’s get into the episode.

Introduction 2:20
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 2:33
Hello, everyone, this is Allie Siarto. And today I’m talking with Marc Silber, who is a three time best selling author, a photographer, a filmmaker, and the producer of the popular YouTube series advancing your photography. And in that show, he’s interviewed scores of some of the biggest names in photography, which is really fun. I like the multiple things that you’ve done mark in that way. So a little bit more about Mark he learned. He actually started out learning darkroom skills and the basics of photography at the legendary Peninsula school in Menlo Park, California, in the 60s and moved on to hone his skills to professional standards at the famed San Francisco Art Institute. I used to dream of going to the Art Institute. I want to hear a little bit about that. And beyond that, so mark moved into teaching photography and workshops all over the country. He became renowned as an engaging and helpful speaker and coach, as his greatest story comes from helping others. All right, Mark, I want to hear all about this. I want to hear about your background in photography. I want to hear a little bit about the Art Institute your thoughts on like education and photography today. I know that’s a lot more but let’s, let’s start with your story.

Marc 3:39
Okay, well, thanks for having me, Ali. My story starts when I was about 12 years old. What happened was I you know, like a lot of kids at the time, I was taking photographs with probably a brownie, mainly a Kodak Brownie that really dates me. That was the iPhone of the day. Everybody had one. But you know, I’d send my rolls of film off to usually just, there was a local camera store, you drop them off, or maybe even a drugstore. And you know, you’d wait very excitedly and they’d come back and they were tiny little muddy prints. Very disappointing. And one day, I was in the seventh grade and my teacher said, Would you like to see I’m a photographer. Would you like to see how the darkroom works? And I said, Yeah, that sounds cool. So, you know, we went to his house and his wife cooked us dinner and then after dinner, we went into his darkroom and developed a roll of film. Now the film, you know, developing the film itself was kind of interesting, but it wasn’t until we cut it up and put it in the enlarger. And all of a sudden the magic of the darkroom unfolded for me it was like a revelation because I could control the process. Up to that point. I was at the mercy of these labs that ran it through their machine and everything came out really, you know, uninteresting. All of a sudden I could see the potential. And that’s when I became a photographer in the seventh grade. And I embraced it wholeheartedly. There was a darkroom in the school, you know, somebody who has to make an interesting documentary that you know, is like, covered with cobwebs, because nobody had been using it and I, and I went in there and cleaned it out. And I just embraced it. And then I ended up building my own darkroom in my mom’s laundry room, you know, which worked really great.

Allie 5:39
Fun side note, on the laundry room, when we bought our house, our house was built in the 70s. And when we bought our house, and we went down to the electrical, our now laundry room was labeled a dark room. So we were like, Oh, that’s a fun history, the laundry room is dark room.

Marc 5:53
Well, it works well, because you have a big sink there, and usually not a lot of windows. So anyway, then, you know, at that point, I was just full on as a photographer, and really did pretty well as a team. And it was, you know, I had some, I have a lot of interesting stories about that. And I’ve written about them in my books. Probably the most interesting one is I was a senior in high school. And I was really getting antsy with, with what was going on. I hated being in the classroom, I had gone to a really great school in New England for my junior year. And I came back to California for my senior year. And it was basically a rehash of everything I’d already covered. So I was it’s a dangerous thing to have a bored teenager, and I was ready to drop out of school and take my camera and travel around and do something interesting. And of course, that didn’t happen. But what I discovered was that I had almost enough credits to graduate I needed one more social study class. And I cooked up this thing, which was kind of interesting. I, there was a kind of a mini mini Peace Corps project in the remote region of Mexico. And I pitched it to the principal of the high school and I pitched it to my parents. And to my surprise, they both said, yes. So I went there with a roll of flax with dozens of rolls of film and worked on this project, came back with these amazing photographs to this day, some of my best work. And that was pretty remarkable. I went to school in Vermont for a while then I came back to California, and I did go to the San Francisco Art Institute. Annie Liebowitz was there at the same time. She was older, though. Did you know her? I didn’t at the time. I met her later, you know, at the time was kind of funny. I was pretty introverted and shy. And I think most people were unfortunately. And you know, there were some things I learned in art school. But I have to say most of it. I was self taught. And then fast

Allie 8:09
forward. Yeah. Wait, well, let’s pause there. Because that’s really interesting. Because I’d love to know your your thoughts today. And you know what education looks like? Obviously, at the time, that probably there were a lot more barriers to entry to get into photography, you couldn’t just go on and enroll in this class or read this book or do well, there were books, but there’s just so many more resources today. And so I’m curious to hear if you were that teenager, again, just starting out? Would you go to art school? Or how would you? How would you pursue that today?

Marc 8:44
I’ve thought about that a lot. First of all, I really believe that that what you need to learn is the technology in school, the art part of it, frankly, just comes from your own study your own, you know, understanding of composition. But the part that really I could have filled in which wasn’t being taught. Were the technicalities of lighting of it. You know, at that point, I mean, I already knew my way around a darkroom, but I’m sure I could have learned more things. And especially now it’d be incredible to learn, you know, digital photography inside and out and Photoshop inside and out. But mainly things like lighting and working with a bigger environment of photography, rather than just kind of on my own, which is what I ended up doing. But I think there are I think there are opportunities. The other big thing about art school and this is probably the biggest thing that I got out of it, which is what I do now is critiquing and learning. You know that you had to have a project that you followed me We all picked a project for the year and followed it you know Very doggedly through to the end, which is really important. It’s an important part of photography rather than just taking one off photographs, making a cohesive story, which is what I did when I went to Mexico. So I was already familiar with that. Yeah, well, I

Allie 10:16
think I think about I only took one art class only what took one art class. In college, I studied advertising and digital media. So technically one actual in the Art College of Arts one class and it was a drawing class, it was a summer class. And I think this is interesting from your perspective, where you’re like, you know, you’re focused on a project because I learned photography through a nonprofit, local community organization, where it was like an accelerated version, we had weekly, twice a week classes once in the classroom, once in the lab with the critiques. So we learned really quickly, like the technical side, and we did critiques and we learned about composition. But we weren’t necessarily like diving in on a project, it was very quick turnaround. But that art class on drying, I remember drawing a praying mantis. I don’t know why that was what I was drawing. For some reason. I don’t know if it was a side, I cannot remember. But I remember thinking I was done with this project and be like, here’s my praying mantis to the instructor. And she was like, good start, keep going. And I was like, Oh, I think that the key to art is just to keep going, like you take this project, and you keep going with it. And you don’t just call it die. Oh,

Marc 11:25
true. At the Yeah, you know, I have a weekly class. In fact, I just got through working with these guys. And we meet together, I’ve given them a number of different, you know, stories and things to work on, and that sort of thing. But really, they pick their own story, and we’re carrying it out originally was going to be a one month project, but they all want to keep going which I agree is a good idea. And that’s really what makes you into photographer is if you have to tell a story. Because otherwise, you know, you could you could go okay, here’s a landscape. And here’s the sunset. And here’s a portrait. But when you put it all together, it really elevates your photography. I’m a big believer in that I think there’s

Allie 12:10
just so many cool, you also see these opportunities to like, take a project really far, both from your own creative learning side. And also, if you can come up with the right project, the press that you can get for it as another having also worked in PR. Get for it, I started a project in early 2020, called Euro stuff. And the idea was we were trying to cut down on our waste. And so I was photographing every item that came into our house, which very quickly became overwhelming. And I ended up stopping the project. Because once I got worried about when in the early days of COVID when we’re like wiping everything down, and I was like I can’t do this, I can’t like wipe everything down. And

Marc 12:48
there’s just a piece of mail or whatever that.

Allie 12:52
I mean, now if I’d actually carried through, it would have been an amazing project. But I just think you can come up with that really cool perspective or life project. Yeah, that has a story behind it. There’s really cool press. So anyway, Mark, I keep interrupting keep going.

Marc 13:06
No, no worries. Okay, so the rest of my backstory, I went off in a completely different career path, and became a management consultant had a really great consulting company in Silicon Valley. But I was hungry, I never really fulfilled my goals as a photographer and 2004, I ended up selling the practice to my partners and said, Okay, guys, I’m leaving, I’m gonna go relaunch my career as a photographer, and I did. But by then, of course, it was the, you know, the digital age and I had to really catch up, I had to relearn everything. And, you know, that’s fairly daunting. You know, back back then, you know, Photoshop wasn’t the most friendly, user friendly application, there was no Lightroom it was, you know, it was a pretty kind of, in terms of the way things are now fairly crude here of the digital age. You know, the, the cameras weren’t perfect yet. They were getting there, but they weren’t. They weren’t great. They were big and bulky and whatnot. But I, I launched into it. And I taught myself digital photography, and said, Okay, I’m going to become a pro, I’m going to make my living doing this. And I did. And then in 2008, I said, Okay, I want to teach. And the best way I know to teach now, I was doing a lot of workshops, but I said, you know, if I get on a video, and make a video, people can watch me all around the world. And that’s what I’ve been doing since then I have this channel called advancing your photography, and I teach photography, and I’ve written three books about it, and I have classes I’m pretty immersed in this world of photography.

Allie 14:49
Let let’s now get into that because as someone who’s teaching that in that way, and you know, getting feedback from people, you see some of the common questions some of the common myths misconceptions coming in about learning photography. So what can you tell me a few of those? What are some of those common misconceptions that people come in thinking that might kind of be a little misguided miss? You know, they’re, they’re coming in thinking the wrong thing.

Marc 15:17
Yeah, this is from I did a survey recently of some really great photographers. One is Ed Kashi, multi award winning photographer, you know, he shot for National Geographic, just an amazing photographer, that practically every big name publication you can think of. And I asked Dad, Hey, Ed, what are some of the common misconceptions of photography? And he said, The biggest one is the false belief that it’s easy to do. Now. That sounds like why is that a misconception? Edie? You know, isn’t it good to think that it’s easy to do? Well, here’s the thing, it sets the person up on kind of a wrong expectation. Like, if you picked up a violin, you knew you would know you’re not going to play beautiful music the first day, and the first time you run the bow across this thing. But yet, I think we feel like with iPhones and smartphones, it’s so easy to, you know, hold the camera and press the shutter that you can become a photographer overnight. And that is a misconception because it’s just as much of a challenge to learn to become a great photographer, it is as it is to learn the piano or, you know, guitar or learn to be a great chef or whatever. This instant, instant newness, which I call fast food, you know, photography is deceiving, because yes, maybe you can press the shutter and there’s a beautiful sunset. But what about a meaningful photograph? So he labeled that as the first misconception, and I have to agree with him. It takes some work, you know, like anything, that’s great that you’re going to do a good job at, it takes some work. And if you’re prepared to do the work, great. If you think it’s going to happen in a split second, you may not, you may not get to where you need to go. Because as you said in the in the darkroom days, the barriers to entry were pretty high. So you had to be pretty dedicated just to get in the door.

Allie 17:23
Let’s let’s talk about let’s talk about that idea. Because I think a lot of people listening are probably have, at some point seeing some conversation or had a thought you see it on a Facebook page, where people say, Ah, there’s so many new photographers coming in. And they have, they just got a camera for Christmas. And they put up a Facebook page, and they don’t even have a legal business. And I mean, we all see it. So what would you say to those photographers who are feeling that kind of frustration that so many people are jumping into the market?

Marc 17:54
Yeah, I mean, here’s the thing. Everybody has their has the potential of having a unique voice. They don’t always develop it. Because sometimes this could be another misconception. You get, like what does get a lot of likes as a guiding principle. You know, we’re looking at social media. That’s a big change from how I learned photography. We looked, I looked at books. And one of the first books I looked at was Henri Cartier Bresson, amazing photographer, street photographer, I looked at Ansel Adams, I looked at Edward Weston, I look at some of these great photographers, as my model, the concept of likes, and you know, how big you were on Instagram obviously didn’t exist. So they were only known by their work, you know, I mean, which is what you should be known by. And I think that that’s an important thing. And I still feel that’s really important to to look at not just those photographers, but look at classical artists to see what they did. You know, you can look at Rembrandt, you can look at a Vermeer and see how they lit their subject and how they frame their subject. There’s a lot to be learned there. But it does take a careful examination of that work, and then turn it into your own version. Like you’re not trying to copy these other artists, but you can get inspiration from it. And that I believe, is a really important process in learning. But again, it doesn’t happen overnight. It’s not a split second thing, it takes some time to really develop your voice. So I will say to those people that you just mentioned, hang in there, develop your voice, don’t pay attention. Don’t even be sidetracked by all the Who cares how many millions of photographers there are in the market? You know, when the Beatles launched their career and how many other pop groups were there? You know, how many others how many singer songwriters were there? I mean, there’s many more now but they did it right.

Allie 19:58
And I should I didn’t even ask you for listeners, what type of photography is your favorite like when you jumped in in 2004? What were you focused on at the time?

Marc 20:08
Probably you see, for me my I have two genres that I really kind of gravitate towards. One is what I call environmental portraits where you’re, you know, you’re photographing somebody in, in their environment, not a not a headshot or in a studio, but in their environment, and landscape. So those are the two types of photography that I most kind of, for me, I resonate with. And so that’s what I was looking at, you know, is looking at the, the old, my old favorites, but I was also looking at a lot of newer photographers at that time, like Chase, Jarvis and Joe McNally. And a lot of other people I ended up interviewing later on, became, you know, really prominent to me, because I could see what they were doing with digital photography.

Allie 20:58
So if you were to describe, kind of finding your style, let’s go with environmental portraits, for example. Yeah, because I think more listeners probably fall into the portrait side. So if you were to describe finding your style in that, which you kind of did you like you look at the others, but you also find your own voice. And within that, you know, describe what it looks like, what is your style, or what is your approach that makes you unique?

Marc 21:22
You know, I really tried, I see communication as a really huge factor in photography. And a camera is nothing more than a communication device that records what you see in front of you. You know, there’s a lot of ways we can communicate, we can communicate through our voice, we can write, we can draw, we can take photographs, we can make films. And so for me, it’s an extension of me my ability to communicate. So what I try to do when I’m photographing people, is first of all have a rapport with them. One of the reasons I used to really like shooting with the role of flex, if you’re, for those who aren’t familiar with it is it has two lenses. And one lens is just used for focusing and composition. And the other is actually what’s used to expose the film. It’s kind of interesting. I mean, they don’t make them anymore, it’s a little more complicated than we need. But, you know, it was kind of cool. But what was neat about it is you look down into the screen where you’re focusing. Now what that allowed for is not is not having a barrier right in front of your face, like when you hold up a big DSLR to your face. It’s kind of like this big forboding piece of machinery right in front of you and your eyes. Well, we communicate a lot with our eyes, when you look at somebody and you’re talking to them, and you can see them and they can see you something happens. So that’s something I really try to do in my portraiture, I try to have that report so that it’s an extension of that. Now, does that mean the person always has to be looking right into the camera? Or looking at me? No, not at all. In fact, sometimes I want to moodiness that isn’t just a friendly smile or whatever. Because I’m trying to see something, you know, maybe there’s a different part of them, that I’m trying to capture an emotion, let’s say, and I’ll even guide them and I’ll say, hey, look, I want to see that. What was that moody? Look, you just gave me what? You know, bring this evening, bring that back. I am an active photographer. I’m not talking about street photography or documentary photography where you don’t interfere with your subject. I’m talking about photographing, again, somebody out in an environment so I tried to get very involved with my subject. And I’m either trying to get them ideally to forget about the camera, because the camera tense you know, people tend to tense up and show you something artificial rather than who they really are. And that’s what I’m aiming at getting them past that so it’s kind of like them and me and there’s just happens to be a camera and that’s considered an important

Allie 24:20
Yeah, that’s also a good reminder. I think a lot of photographers try to move too quickly and they try to get quantity over quality. And I think the number one tip if I were to give anyone a tip would be to slow down because totally slow down really good point. It’s everything from not just like, like the zoom with your feet idea like actually back up. The longer portrait lens instead of just going like let’s go 24 millimeters like right in your face. But also building building that connection, I think is it takes time. So don’t take your time. Just communicate is

Marc 24:56
you know it’s funny how much timing is a part of photography, if you think about it, timing, I mean, really, when you get down to what does it take, you know, as far as what’s imagery, you know, its composition, its lighting and its timing. Sometimes you have to go really fast. I mean, there are those moments, right? Especially in things like sports and action where, where the actions could just disappear if you’re not on top of it. But the other side of that coin is what you’re saying, Yes, take your time. In fact, here’s a tip. Do not enter the scene, and immediately pull out your camera and start photographing, talk to the person, look around, see what’s going on. You know, my son work in a, he still works for this startup. And Annie Leibovitz came in to photograph the startup. And he said, it was interesting that she just walked around, didn’t even have a camera with her for the first half hour, she just went around and looked at where everybody worked, and what the scene looked like, and what they look like, and she was gathering kind of mental notes. And you can only do that if you are paying attention. And because that’s the other thing, slow down. Pay attention. And look, really, really look. That’s Those are, those are crucial ingredients. Yeah,

Allie 26:21
I think important. Yeah. And that constant communication, because if you’re, if you’re slowing down, what you’re not communicating what you’re doing, then people are like, what’s this weird person doing?

Marc 26:31
I got up a sleeve. You have to be very transparent. You really do. And, you know, and, and, again, you have to make people feel comfortable. Because if they’re uncomfortable, there’s just not going to be a good look. There’s no, you know, unless you were purposely trying to make somebody look nervous, I suppose you could

Allie 26:54
write probably not not probably the most popular approach to make people. Alright, so Mark, are there any other misconceptions that you see caught, like common misconceptions that you see?

Marc 27:07
Here’s a yeah, here’s one that I hear. And I really liked to debunk it. And so I don’t know who started this, but it’s that you need to shoot in manual mode, you know that you’re not a real photographer, unless you shoot in manual mode or something like that, which I think is a crock of, you know what, and it’s not just me, every pro that I know. And I brought this up a few weeks ago with Scott Kelby where I was on his show, and it was like, Oh, we all hear that. But who’s, who’s pushing this? Because the pros that I know, basically, most of them shoot in aperture priority, right? Why wouldn’t you utilize your camera to help you out and that there are times I have to move to manual, there are those moments but 98% of the time, I don’t need to and it just gets in the way because the more equipment and the more diddling you have to do with your camera, the less you’re able to really pay attention to your subject, or you could even be distracted, and something amazing happens. So I hear that a lot. And I just want to say to those people who are struggling with this and trying to learn, okay, don’t worry about it. Listen, it isn’t it isn’t a prerequisite it’s some sort of some false impression. Because again, every pro I know and I pretty much asked them all they do not shoot in manual mode. It’s not the Holy Grail.

Allie 28:41
That’s when I when I took my first class we completely focused on aperture until we got into Flash and then I think we moved a little bit more into manual but my gosh, honestly for the first like probably few years shooting weddings, I don’t think I even like really understood manual. It was actually

Marc 29:00
a wedding especially you have to be ready you know you have to be moving fast at a wedding right? And anyway, I bring that up because I’ve seen that I’ve seen tutorials and I’m like why are we focusing on this there’s so many more important things to learn. And this is the I guess leads to the next misconception, which is that somehow gear and cameras are going to make you a great photographer. Not true gear in cameras or gear in cameras any more than a fully decked out kitchen. Let’s say every imaginable you know utensil and you have the best stove and you have the best of this and that all of a sudden out of that is going to spring really great food. You know, you could take a great chef and put them on a camp stove and they’d make a great meal because they understand what cooking is about. And the same thing is true with photography. I mean, you could hand a old one any old camera practically an iPhone or anything Adding to a skilled photographer and they’re gonna make good photographs with it. But by the same token, you can hand them hand the most amazing camera in the world to somebody who doesn’t understand what composition is all about doesn’t understand. Lighting doesn’t understand how to make your subject work with you. And they’re not going to have great photographs. And I’ve seen it. I’ve seen people decked out with the most amazing fact too much equipment, they’re like, they’re they’re actually weighing themselves down with too many cameras and too many long lenses and this and that, they need to be more nimble, and fluid. And yeah,

Allie 30:40
I wish I could remember there was a, like a YouTube, maybe like a little series on YouTube or somewhere where it was like, they would give different photographers who were well known or successful photographers, they would just give them like these really cheap, awful cameras, and set them out to make really great photos. And then they show how they did it. And it was really fun to see how they still they took this like, really, really like, like play toy camera, and they still made out of it. So what do you what do you think? Rather than focusing on that, rather than focusing on the gear, what do you think photographers should be focusing on?

Marc 31:21
Well, in so in my book, advancing your photography, I talk about that there’s five stages of photography. And maybe I should just run through those because gear is only one of them. There’s five stages. The first one is you have to have your visual, your ability to visualize an image. You know, ideally, you kind of see the image before you even press the shutter, but you should have some vision of what you want to photograph. And that comes from studying classical art, studying other photography, getting ideas yourself. And research is really important. Like if you’re going to an environment you’ve never been in, it’s a good idea to research it what what is, you know, what’s it going to look like? If I’m going to shoot sports? For instance? How can I get up close and personal at the sporting event, or if I’m shooting architecture, what are these buildings look like? What would be unique angle, that’s part of your vision. So getting your vision in the second stage of this is your equipment, you do need to know your equipment. And you especially need to know what your camera will do with light every cameras a little different. And you can’t assume that what you see is what the camera sees at all, camera sees very differently than our own eyes. So you have to know that the third stage of the process is processing your images, we have to do that, you know, and I mentioned like, my you know, coming of age as a photographer came when I went into the darkroom, well, the same thing is true with a digital darkroom, you got to know how to carry your vision out so you can see it, maybe you want to a really great black and white. But it’s not just a matter of D saturating, there’s a lot of controls that have to go into making a really good black and white image. So you need you know, your processing. And then the final stage is sharing it getting your work out to the world, there’s a lot of ways to do that. Besides social media, I use social media like everybody else, but it’s just a very minor way to get your work out to the world. And one of the best ways is making prints, hanging them on the wall, put them in books, you know, get get your prints out there. So to answer your question, need to know all five of those stages and keep them in balance. It’s sort of like living a holistic life, you don’t want to be just doing one thing, you know, you might love reading, but you don’t want to spend your whole life reading, you have to get outdoors to you know, you have to balance these things out. Learning composition, to me is like one of the best investments you can make. Because there are what I find is many in this kind of one of those misconceptions that many photographers get stuck with maybe four or five compositional techniques, and that’s as far as they ever go. And it’s kind of like having a five word vocabulary. What kind of sentence Are you going to be able to make, you know, but if you had a, I found 83 compositional tools, we have 83 tools in your toolkit and you could pull them out and use them and also combine them. So it really combines to hundreds or 1000s. You can be really fluid and you can really express yourself well as a photographer. So that’s more important than just getting stuck on gear for sure.

Allie 34:47
Yeah. And then last question, and then we’ll get into sharing all the resources because obviously there’s more than we can get into everything here. One One thing that you said people ask a lot about is finding a mentor And what do you tell them in terms of where they can find that mentor?

Marc 35:05
Yeah, well, I try to provide that for people. I mean, that’s one of what I consider one of my main roles is, and I have a YouTube channel that where we do live YouTubes, where I can give feedback on that sort of thing. But if you want to find a mentor, I would look in your own community, I would look for a photographer that you resonate with, and you might even volunteer, you might even go say, Hey, I’d like to intern with you on a limited basis or whatever. I’ve had people intern with me full time to get experience and they go away, and they get amazing jobs afterwards. So, you know, that’s one possibility. I think, finding a my early mentors were not pro photographers. They were my uncle was a really avid enthusiast. I had another teacher who was an avid enthusiast so you find people who know more than you. And that can give you good advice. So just beware of the gearheads because you don’t want to spend all your time there are people who really get so stuck on that, that they never really go out and take photographs. So I’d be aware of that. And look at their work if if their work seems like something that you would be proud of. That’s probably a good person to work with.

Allie 36:25
Sounds good. Okay. So Mark, where can people find your books, your information? Where can they go next? Your

Marc 36:32
video best? Yeah, the best place to buy my books is advancing your photography.com. And you can actually get my book on a special we have a special price for that you actually cover the postage and handling we give you the book. So advancing your photography.com and you can get my other books there as well. My YouTube channel if you remember my name is spelled ma R Si. Si, l. B E or if you remember that you can find me anywhere so you can find me on youtube Mark silver. You can find me on Instagram Mark Silber, you can find me on Facebook, Mark Silva. My main website is Silber studios.com. Just remember it’s a B Silva studios.com. And that’s how you can find me. I’m pretty findable. If you just put, you know, just Google my name. You’ll you’ll see where I am.

Allie 37:27
Yeah, and I’ll make it even easier because all of these key links will be in the show notes so everybody can check their Mark, thank you for sharing your story and sharing your tips.

Marc 37:38
My pleasure. Thank you, Ali.

Outro 37:41
Thanks for listening. check out show notes at photo field notes.com. And if you loved this episode, leave your review on iTunes. See you next week.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Episode 184: How to Automate Onboarding Workflows with Charlotte Isaac

How to automate client onboarding workflows as a photographer

Charlotte Isaac is a Business Operations Consultant who gave up her role as a corporate ops manager inside of a creative agency so that she could serve small business owners who love their people just as much as she does hers. Through her signature program, Ease Seekers Society, and her DIY Dubsado shop, Charlotte helps overwhelmed and overworked entrepreneurs build customized solutions so they can serve their clients better, automate busywork, and feel confident in their business.

Resources

Transcript

Introduction 0:01
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 0:15
Hey, everybody, this is Allie Siarto. And my guest today is starlet Issac who’s a business operations consultant. And she gave up her role as a corporate ops manager in she was in a creative agency, which said that she wanted to serve small business owners who love their people just as much as she does really like serve those clients. So now Charlotte helps those overwhelmed overworked entrepreneurs build customized solutions so that they can serve their clients that are automate that busy work. I’m a huge fan of automation, and just feel competent in their businesses. So welcome, Charlotte, thank you for being here.

Charlotte 0:48
Thank you so much, Ali, I’m excited to chat to you.

Allie 0:52
Give me a little bit more about this background of this business this like corporate ops manager position that you were in, and then how you decided to make this pivot into working with small businesses doing it yourself?

Charlotte 1:05
Yeah, of course, it’s got a bit of a roundabout journey, like I think we all have, we do a few loops, some circles before we get to ultimately where we are. But like you said, I was working in creative agencies, I was leading the operations team, but by all means, I had a really fun job, I was pretty lucky. But I got to the point where I wanted a lot more freedom and flexibility. And I wanted to have more time at home and, and really just to be able to be in control of where I was going and how I was spending my time. So I left my corporate gig, and I got to keep working with creative people to help make their businesses better, which is what really, really excites me. So I didn’t start by helping people with their systems. But I gradually helped a couple of people, I started to become known as that person, people would tell their friends, their friends would tell their friends. And, you know, just like that, I became the person that people call the dubsado. Queen, which I find both very humbling. And I’m very embarrassed to say that at the same time,

Allie 2:00
yeah, but that’s so often how it works with business. So were you doing that on the side and then kind of slowly built up into, you’re able to do it full time as your own business.

Charlotte 2:08
So I left straightaway, I have found that I’m not great at doing kind of being in two camps, I prefer to focus entirely on one thing, so it might be a little bit stupid, I left my corporate gig and thought, You know what, if I do this, and I have no clients, there’s gonna be a fire under my butt, I’m gonna figure out how to make it work.

Allie 2:25
It’s brave, I am not that brave. And I was always the one running multiple businesses at the same time, or doing multiple things at the same time until I could get it to work. So I commend you on your bravery sounds like it’s gone well. So let’s get into the topic today, which is really largely focused on like automation, but also using those processes using those workflows to just create a better client experience. So it’s not just about getting your life back. And kind of almost, I always call it like my personal assistant, that’s not a real person. But it’s also about creating a better client experience. So you talk a lot about using automation to onboard new clients, if someone is completely new to this world, and if you are, I’m so glad you’re here, because this is going to change your life. Where do you recommend that they even get started?

Charlotte 3:17
Yeah, I think sometimes it starts before the system. So like you said, automation is only great if it saves us time. And it makes the experience better for our clients as well, too. Otherwise, it’s never going to feel good. And it’s not really going to do its job. So if we take a step back from systems, which the people that don’t like tech are probably like, thank goodness. So take a step back. And we want to get really, really intentional about what your client process looks like. So we want to start to dig into how you do things now what maybe feels hard. The things that make you want to pull your hair out every time it happens with a client, what you want to do better, maybe there’s some things you’ve thought about starting for a while. And we really want to drill into all of those things and make sure that before we even start looking at any tools, we’re really, really intentional about how you work with your clients.

Allie 4:03
Okay. And then you also talk about like the framework for a great client experience. So I assume that that’s kind of part of it that once you’ve evaluated what, what you want that experience to be like, or what’s working or what questions, or for me, it was always like, every time that someone did something that I was like, Oh, I don’t want them to do that in the future, it would go into like a guide that would automatically get sent out to them, or would go into something that would help create that process make that process more clear whenever anybody had a question. So how do you like what is this framework is that basically it’s just figuring out the pain points, and then like, getting out a piece of paper and writing down. This is how I’m going to make it like, do you like sketch it out like a wireframe? Or how do you go about creating that framework?

Charlotte 4:50
Yeah, so exactly like you said, it starts with what you’re already doing right now. And you can slowly grow it and change it as there’s things that you find that frustrate you about your clients and things that don’t fit So smooth process is definitely the first big step into creating a great client experience. And that’s where we often start. And then we want to look at it with a few other layers as well, too. So making sure we have great communication, some people find that really, really easy, others don’t. I think as photographers, you will have a little bit harder to communicate really well with your clients, because you’re off it shoots, you’re not always in front of your computer, you’re juggling a lot more clients than say a web designer would that maybe only has a couple clients a month. So making sure that when we’re looking at that process, there’s lots of little steps built in that make it easy for you to communicate well with your clients. So that’s the first kind of layer, we want to put over that. The second one is making sure that there’s room to deliver on time. So making sure that you don’t take on too many clients and making sure that you’ve got enough time set aside. So things like editing, and you can always, you know, get back to people in the timeframe that you say. And then the fourth one, I think that makes a great client experience is your personality, I think a lot of people will work, you know, move mountains to work with the photographer that they want to I know I set my wedding date based on the photographer, which, you know, I’m happy to admit that my family thought I was a little bit nuts, but I had a person in mind, and I was willing to do it. And I think sometimes when we’re thinking about our client process, we forget how much our clients can love us and how much it’s okay to be ourselves. So we want to put that in there, too.

Allie 6:25
I also, you don’t, you haven’t mentioned this in any of you know, our prior communications. I don’t know your thoughts on this. But with that personality, and in the idea of automation, I have found that including videos has been really useful. So in my automated process, they automatically get like access to videos that I’ve pre recorded that answer some of the frequently asked questions or even in like, I’m moving away from weddings myself now. But when they would fill out the contact form, or when Yeah, when they fill out the contact form, it would automatically take them to a page where I would like before just giving them the pricing, I would walk them through the experience. So is that something you’ve had experience with too? I mean, I guess it’s silly to say do you recommend it? Like I think yeah. Okay, so it’s Yeah, so I really do. Yeah, have you worked with any clients who have done other creative things like that, that are kind of a little bit outside of the box to help take, like, the things that we find ourselves saying often or just to kind of like creatively connect with clients?

Charlotte 7:29
Definitely. So videos, I think a great a lot of people like, Oh, I’m scared to do video, I’m gonna have to make myself look presentable in front of my camera, I’m gonna have to say this concisely. If you can make yourself get on video and do it, I think clients really, really appreciate it. And it means that they’re getting the experience of working with you without you having to be behind a computer. And that’s kind of the goal of Systemising. And automating some of this so that it all happens while you’re out shooting, or you’re on your couch watching Netflix after a long day. So videos are great. If you feel less comfortable with video or you feel like it maybe for the information, clients would absorb it really well. The other thing that I often recommend to people is some kind of services guide or magazine that sent people before they’ve even thought about working with you. So you mentioned you send yours out when they’ve already inquired that the same time I think is brilliant. You know, send them stuff that talks about your process and why you’re the best person and, you know, show some of your beautiful portfolio in there and get them really, really excited so that by the time they hop on, you know, if you do a zoom call with them before you work with them, whatever that looks like, you know, they’re already sold. They’re excited. They understand how you work and not going to be pushy, and try and change your process.

Allie 8:39
Yeah, I think that kind of brings me back to when we booked our wedding photographer, or really any photographer that we’ve ever booked that specific their wedding photographer, she actually like didn’t even reveal her prices until after we met which is interesting because I had come across her at a networking event and I just really liked her. So I was similar to you. I was like willing to lend my that around her. And she didn’t share until much later. But by then I’d already gone through like here’s the experience here with the album’s like, like, here’s just like the, like, free of the money conversation. You were having that. So I can see, like a magazine or something. And that’s why the video walks through the experience first, if you can kind of really get them excited about that process, instead of just being you know, price shoppers. You can you can really, I like when you can come into that meeting already feeling like they know you in that way. And I think that that’s, it’s just so helpful because then in the meeting, you can get right on into what matters instead of having to repeat yourself and say again, and again, all of these things. So when they’re doing kind of like a magazine style, is that going out? Is it an email? Is it like a PDF? What kinds of formats are you seeing people using for that?

Charlotte 9:53
Yeah, it could be a PDF. It could be a hidden page on your website. It really doesn’t matter whichever feels good. I find PDFs off even feel a little bit more special sometimes. But again, whatever you’re comfortable with, I think that if you build something into your process, a lot of people are going to take notice if they are someone who felt like they had to press up, maybe they really loved you. But like, you know, they’re shooting with their family, or it’s a brand photography, and you know, their business brain is telling them that they need to press up, you’re going to stand out against other people by doing anything. So really, if it’s a series of videos, if it’s a PDF, it’s a web page, I think like you said, these things do help people feel really comfortable about the decision. And they’ve almost decided before they talk to you so that when you have a call with them, or you meet them in person, it can be a conversation about what the sheet would look like, rather than, you know, selling yourself and justifying your prices and telling them the same things over and over again.

Allie 10:47
Yeah, so they’re already excited. Okay, so once you get them excited through the magazine, or the video, or the email series, or whatever it is that you use in an automated way, so that you’re not sitting there retyping Hello, this is like a you can take the time to put the personality into it, and do it once and really make it great. Once we get that how, how do you recommend kind of like making that simple transition into if it’s the kind of service where you need to have a meeting, to sell which giving my own context, most of mine do like I was previously, hopefully, folks are mostly focused on weddings. Now, as I’m doing branding work, I really need to have that meeting. So I have my own ideas, of course about this, though, I want to hear yours before I mentioned, what do you feel is the next natural next step to get them into that meeting.

Charlotte 11:37
If we talk about services, like you mentioned, like branding, or weddings, or some kind of service that you really don’t want to talk to them first. I think having an online scheduler that goes out at the same time, as you know, whether it’s this magazine we talked about or a web page or video, that feels really good. You could also put a step in and make sure you’re checking your availability first if you had to, but like we’ve talked about people will move mountains to work with you if they’re excited about it. So definitely an online scheduler I think is the next step. I know you use online scheduling ally. So

Allie 12:08
yes, that’s Oh, yeah, it’s like the best $5 a month I could. Amazing, I don’t know how we ever coped without it, I don’t ever want to email someone, again, like just 2pm on Thursday work for you. So definitely having an online scheduler in place to set the meeting with them to chat with them is really great. And then the next step is having really great templates and everything for things like proposals and contracts. If you use a piece of software like dubsado, you can make it really, really on brand and beautiful and keep kind of dragging them through that same dragging is a little bit extreme, walking them through that beautiful experience and, and keep them excited about working with you. Yeah, and I would imagine, you know, in all those cases, yeah, bringing imagery into that overall experience. And I’ve noticed that, you know, again, going back to weddings, I’m kind of like stepping away from weddings, but still have that page. And I’ve almost made it like less appealing. But in general, I want every step to show some combination of me. So that there because part of the product is me, images of me or video of me, even though it feels so weird at first to do that I’m trying really hard to like insert myself into those steps and my work so that they see that along the way, as well. So yes, I’m a huge fan. I use Calendly to book my meetings. And in the case of weddings, I just say, go ahead and book it. And if I’m not available on your date, then I’ll reply and let you know. But we’re or give you an associate photographer information give you that option. So I’ve had some more sometimes I’m just like, oh, sorry. Can’t do it. Okay, so now what about though you said in the case of mine, where I want to guide them to a meeting, but there are cases where we don’t necessarily need to have a meeting or for some photographers, some might need a meeting for everything. And again, I have my own opinion on this, but I want to hear yours first. So let’s say you don’t necessarily think a meeting is necessary. Maybe you’re selling mini sessions or something you just want to like hook them all up without meeting with every single person. In that case, what’s your vision for that kind of booking process?

Charlotte 14:20
I think what you do on your website is basically spot on. So having a scheduler embedded that people can choose a time that works for them, they can pay for their session. I haven’t booked one of those with you. I’m in Australia, so unfortunately I can’t I’m assuming that after they book and pay, they get some sort of welcome and they get some information from you. I think with that kind of service making it as easy as possible for people to book in so that if they’re you know, sitting on the couch and they’re like hang on I should really do this right now. You want to be able to let them absolutely fly through that process and then you also want to follow up with something that makes them feel really good about that decision. And not like they just handed over their credit card to some stranger on The internet.

Allie 15:00
Yeah. And I will say I just kind of switched to that process last year. So for context, because I don’t expect you all to have to go to my website and figure this out what we’re talking about. Before last year, I used to just have a contact form. So if somebody wanted to book, like just a regular, let’s say, family session, or I do a lot of college seniors, just different types of outdoor sessions, I would, they’d have to contact me. And then they would get an automated response. But then we’d have to like, go back and forth and get the contract signed and pick a date and all this. So what I realized was I use 17 hats, I assume it’s very similar to dubsado. So I went through my system. And I looked at the time, the sunsets for like everyday that I want to be shooting. And I scheduled in literally manually every single session, because you can like block it to be like to have this repeat, but the sunsets at a different time every day. So I looked up every single date, I just spent a couple hours one day, putting in every session that I wanted to offer. And then I just made it public on my website. And so I made it where I could also stack them. So like if you do a full session, that’s an hour, you get to pick the location, if you do a mini session, I call a mini session, it’s actually 30 minutes, it’s not that many. But you get a little less, you don’t get to pick the location, I get to pick the location, which really means that full session gets to pick the location. And so I just put those up there. And they’re available the book, kind of going off the idea that like if I was booking a luxury service, like going to a salon or booking a massage, I really just prefer to be able to see the availability, look at my calendar and know the pricing and book it. So all the sales have to happen up front, a little different. But yeah, just like today, I’m sitting here working on some editing and someone books, almost five or $600, little session. So that’s easy for me. And then literally everything’s automated, so they get all the prep information, and all I have to do is click to sign the contract, and then they get the invoice, the prep information, the follow up the reminder, absolutely everything. So I have found that by switching to that system where I make everything accessible to my clients, my bookings went up. And so I think when you remove that barrier for that kind of session, it allows me to book more. And so I do give away digital files, and I do I don’t do in person sales, I have this whole process for virtual sales where I booked you know, where I sell more products later. That’s a whole other conversation. But basically, by automating it, and then also stalking it, I can make more per hour giving away digital files charging accordingly. And just having it all kind of like run itself. So that’s me taking over and then go into the process in the long winded way of saying that, so, okay, let’s get back. So um, if we are, let’s say the bigger purchase, though, like the branding, the wedding, the in person sales kind of thing. How can we, maybe we’ve kind of already covered this, but like, how can we really help save time taking them from? Well, actually, no, because I want to talk about getting paid. So how can we save time between having them say, Yes, I’m interested. And then like getting that invoice paid?

Charlotte 18:20
We almost want to take some of the same principles of everything you just talked about for the mini session. So yes, we want to meet with them. And yes, we want to give them our personal attention. But then we want to create a little process that happens afterwards that, you know, they can receive via email, they can sit down if we use wedding as the example because that’s kind of the easy one, they can decide maybe which package works best for them. And they can check it out if you like I’m air quoting for anyone listening. But they can check out straight away. So in dubsado, and one of the reasons I really liked upside, I think 17 Hats does something similar, correct me if I’m wrong ally, but you can have a proposal that is tied together with a contract and an invoice does 17 hats do that as well? Yes, it does. Yeah. Beautiful. So I really like to take advantage of that if you’re using a software that offers it amazing, definitely do it. So we can set it up so that you’ve got this beautiful proposal that you choose a package, they flick to the next page, they sign that your agreement or your terms and conditions or whatever it is, last couple of years that have taught us that’s pretty important. So get that sign of that using a separate software. And then they can be taken to your invoice and you know, maybe it’s a 50% deposit, 25% deposit, whatever it is, we want to make sure that that invoice is there as soon as they decide to work with you. And the reason we love that, obviously we all want to get paid quicker. But the thing that’s nice for the client is we’re not making them decide to work with you more than once. So they’ve chosen their package, they’re ready to move forward and they just do it on all in one go rather than the next day receiving an invoice in that email and it’s like oh, hang on. Oh, that’s like, you know, that’s a bit expensive. Do we really want to do this am I splurging here So bringing it all into one little nice package is great for your clients as well as you. Yeah, funny,

Allie 20:06
I actually don’t take advantage of that feature. But it is something that I’m aware of when with all the work, they have different names like the workflows and the Yeah, the quotes versus proposals, but same concepts, and definitely I can see where that would be really useful. What about in clients you’ve worked with or and your recommendations, just like throughout the whole process. So once they’ve booked, let’s say, there, it’s going to be a little while before the wedding, for example, or like maintaining a relationship, I mean, these tools like dubsado, and, and 17 hats, like their client relationship management tools. So how do we take advantage of those to maintain that relationship, either while we’re waiting, or maybe after?

Charlotte 20:50
I think if we go back to the very first thing we spoke about is being really intentional about the process, I would start to think about the things that you need them to do over the long timeframe of getting ready for their wedding, or whether it’s maybe just a couple of months before their brand, shoot, whatever it is, think about the things that we really need them to work on, and then deciding the right time to drip it out. So maybe as soon as they have said yes to working with you get a lovely welcome email, it might remind them of the checkpoints that you’ll get in touch with them. So maybe three months before the wedding, we start to talk about timeline or something like that might be earlier, it might be later. But whatever it is, we want to make sure that they have a really beautiful welcome. And they kind of know what to expect when they’ll hear from you. If you use a software that has a client portal, you can get them pre loaded up with a bunch of things that they’re going to need to use in the future. The other thing that I really like is dripping in any extra little resources that you might have. So if you find that all of your clients ask you for referrals for makeup artists, and hair, and you know, venues and all of that kind of stuff, load that all up somewhere else, you could just drop it as a PDF in the welcome email, if using the client portal, it could be there. But trying to think about the things that all of your clients ask you, again and again and again, and put that in place somewhere throughout the process.

Allie 22:05
Yeah, and I also like the idea, I’m just thinking of this, of like, just scheduling out even like a little reminder of those things. Because even though I tell clients like I’m going to send out your questionnaire a month before, and your final invoice a month before, and I don’t really you know, you don’t need to worry about anything until then. But I will get the occasional like, hey, it’s just been a long time. Is there anything I need to worry about? And I’m like, No, but if you want to, we can talk about it. So maybe that’s not a bad idea to just schedule in that check in even like an automated just, hey, just a reminder that you’re good to go to store, like the tips that could just be like, here are some tips. I still don’t need this from you. But just a way of making them know you haven’t forgotten about them. Even though sometimes, like I’ll schedule, I’ll schedule that questionnaire. And then I don’t I can forget because I just have to wait for them to then reply because it’s it’s going out automatically like that. Well share with me then where people can find you where they can find more information about your services. And even if you want to share, like what your services are so that people know exactly what you’re helping them to do. Yeah, of course.

Charlotte 23:17
So there’s a bunch of resources on my website, specifically around dubsado. And I have a free mini course called Seven Steps to automation that will help you decide if dubsado is the right platform, or if there’s something else and what you can do to streamline your process and the kinds of things that you might be able to automate. So Sialidase iq.com/photo field notes if you want to grab that in terms of how I can help. In addition to all the resources I have that I also have a bunch of templates, I have a program called ECE kids society, where we get together with a bunch of creative business artists over six weeks, we’ll set up dubsado together and then of course, I also help people set up dubsado.

Allie 23:54
Nice. Okay, and one more question for your Charlotte as I’m thinking this through. One thing that I kind of struggled with, that I just haven’t dug into does dubsado make it easy to take your clients and export them into some kind of email system where you can then just like have all your clients from this set subset and email them, oh, my sessions are live for the year except for example,

Charlotte 24:19
integrates with Zapier, which you could use to do that. So whether you use like MailChimp, flow desk, anything like that you could zap them from dubsado Maybe when they signed their contract or like they finished their session or delivered their photos, like you could choose a time to pop them in so that you can keep nurturing them. So very good question. Okay.

Allie 24:35
Yeah, I haven’t looked into that I know of that tool, but I haven’t looked into it much. But that is my one big gaping hole that I don’t do well with is taking them from client to then putting them on my email list so that I can remind them of future opportunities.

Charlotte 24:50
Yeah, and I mean, you can check in with them long term as well, too. I think the cool thing about photographers is people do need to work with you again and again. Like if you do more of like a wedding photography and you also offer lifestyle shoots or newborn shoots, obviously, there’s a reason to get in touch with them as their family grows, branch shoots, we all need to redo them again and again. So definitely, I think keeping in touch with your clients long term and nurturing them is both a great way of getting repeat clients and also getting referrals because they keep remembering you and seeing your free face and remembering how wonderful you

Allie 25:22
are. Yeah, absolutely. Oh, when I saw it, I mean, I did it manually, which I don’t necessarily recommend. But I did put together my email list from last year with clients and email them out just to like, let them know what’s new. But and you know, of course, I heard back from them just personal responses to which was great. But yeah, I think automating that would be wonderful. All right. Well, yeah. Oh, yeah, absolutely. So everyone, check out Charlotte. You can find them all of her information in the show notes or photo field notes.com. Go check out that free resource. Check out what she’s got going on. She’s got a lot of good stuff for you. So Charlotte, thank you for sharing and giving me something to check out. I’m gonna have to go look at Zapier again.

Charlotte 26:04
Thank you so much, Allie. It was fun to chat.

Outro 26:07
Thanks for listening. check out show notes at photo field notes.com. And if you loved this episode, leave your review on iTunes. See you next week.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Episode 180: Pivoting Your Photography Business with Paige Ray

Pivoting Your Photography Business with Paige Ray, Photo Field Notes

Paige Ray is a commercial photographer for brands that are a creative force in their industry. Today on the podcast, she’s sharing tips on how to pivot from one specialty to another as a photographer OR how to “pivot” your prices to make more money as a photographer – including how to introduce your pricing to clients as a high ticket item.

Resources:

Episode 179: Intuitive Marketing with Casey Crowe Taylor

Intuitive marketing with Casey Crowe Taylor

Marketing doesn’t have to feel hard or icky. There is a huge false conception around what marketing is in the entrepreneural space, and it’s Casey Crow Taylor’s mission to help creatives find their own unique marketing process that not only works but is FUN for them. We’ll also talk about pivoting in your business and using Instagram in a way that works for you.

Resources

Episode 171: How to Stand Out Online in 2021 with James Patrick

How to stand out online as a photographer in 2021 with James Patrick - a photo of Jame Patrick looking to the side holding his camera

James Patrick is an award winning photographer, best selling author, entrepreneur coach, podcast host and public speaker based in Phoenix, AZ. He is the founder of FITposium, an annual conference guiding fitness entrepreneurs to grow their careers. James has received a variety of awards for his work as a photographer, marketer and entrepreneur.

Leveraging his diverse experience, James has presented on stages coast-to-coast in the United States and has been interviewed for numerous TV, radio, magazine, newspaper and podcast features. James is the author of FIT BUSINESS GUIDE: The Workout Plan for Your Brand and is the host of the Beyond the Image Podcast. His mission is to create art and opportunity for others.

Resources from James Patrick:

  • Text 480-605-3254 and ask for the lighting guide
  • Instagram: @jpatrickphoto

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