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General and Postprocessing Q&A

Lesson 32 from: Pets and People Photography

Vicki Taufer

General and Postprocessing Q&A

Lesson 32 from: Pets and People Photography

Vicki Taufer

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Lesson Info

32. General and Postprocessing Q&A

Lessons

Class Trailer

Day 1

1

The V Gallery Evolution

15:52
2

Selling the Experience

09:33
3

Why Pets?

19:08
4

You and Your Clients

16:32
5

Pet Photography Intro Q&A

10:26
6

Creating a Market: Dog Days of Summer

36:30
7

Educating Clients about Dog Days

29:03

Lesson Info

General and Postprocessing Q&A

Are you ready for some q and a ready all right we're gonna just start ok first question is from your underscore and d who asked do you show clients images with and without treatments how much two clients get to ask for these treatments I'm wondering how much you let clients direct the style of the images um actually I would say treatment um for me for a client like in the sales room might be turning just a couple of vintage with the vintage action or when judge showed the overlay if one of the images kind of tailor itself to having a neat overlay to it not very many not very money or treated most of what they're seeing are just proved like you saw in just a beautiful vibrant color and then a few black and white now the cool thing is you khun if you do your pre selling during the session talking your client you might pick up on some things like oh, I know I want the nine opening or I really like kind of grungy look you know I do let them direct that I mean I listen to him I don't say oh...

yes we're going to do all these things you're images because you said that like I just am listening to them and paying attention so I know what direction we can kind of go with them plus if someone says I know I really love all color images I don't like black and whites were not going to spend the time making a lot of black and white I still will probably do a couple artistically if I think they should be black and white so it's kind of a balanced like I will do the things to the images I think um should be done to make them look their best but it's not a matter of showing every image both ways either just if that makes sense it's not like here's version one version two version three that's going to confuse the client so if there's no work and more work yeah, we like to work let's work so you can play more uh, thompson world is wondering what are your export settings for exporting out of light room when you are going to bring it into photo shop? Forrest no restrictions, right? Okay, question from I a b g who says I'd really like for them to explain how to either build ourselves or how exactly the template with automation works like their artists suggestion how does how does it know where to put each image? I know they sell the template, but what if we want to create our own and even for the one they sell? How does photoshopped nowhere to put each that's a great question on warner somewheres and ask that because there's a very specific answer when you're creating action and template combos. I want to try to do my best and explaining this now. Uh, I found this out the hard way because for the longest time, when I wanted to make that again, it was a redundant process and I thought to myself, there should be a way to automate this info to show off. How do I do? And I worked on it for weeks and could not figure it out until I don't even rember how he stumbled across, but I think I was just frustrating. Frustrated is checking every menu item and all those images open in it. I kept getting to the same point where on ly specifically select like you're recording the action, and if you select a different image than to move into the template, it would on lee record that image that you're selecting so it would work. But only with those images every time. If I wanted to bring up new images, it wouldn't work, it would say final not found or whatever. Um, and then I found out that the way that the secret this is the big secret for creating action. Temple comma is to go, and we want to select a different file you go upto window. And you know if you go up to a window and lists all the files that you have open out there at the bottom so you go up to the window and go down and there's all the files that's a generic way to select different files if you select it you know, within the app itself if and you record that into an action it records what the file name is of the file you're selecting if you do it through window it's like select document eight or select document ten or select document three it's generic and I found that out and I was like, this is it this is the key so I think that's I think that's the question that they're asking that's the way to do it to generically select documents you don't do it with within the window itself you do it will you do it under window at the at the bottom of all of your files are listed that's the way to get around it that's the way to make it work oh and then when you drag them in and where you move him it'll it'll record where it moves you know and you'll see that it records in and say like almost the coordinates like tio one point zero nine eight to one point eight, five, two or whatever so yeah that's that should be I hope that answered the question maggie is wondering how much collaboration between vicky and jet occurs during the post process and jed, do you meet the clients or do you know their market so that you know how to sell, how the way collaborate as little as possible? That actually is part of like the hole in the dog house working with your spouse? We have he slides for that and then, like in all seriousness, I was being serious with no yeah, no and we've learned that the key though actually and working I want him to be my husband, like outside of work and not just be completely all the time like that work together and and at home together and like, we're micromanaging each other, but if you're very clear, clearly defined roles like this is what you're doing and this is what you gotta find your rules and you gotta set those boundaries and you keep those boundaries you know, it's one thing if you have a partner even employees, whatever, but if you're married or if your significant other whatever man set those boundaries, I think it's a good I think it's a good rule of thumb for no matter how you have your business set up, you know, but if you have a partner whether it's a spotless her not man set those boundaries to find those roles and stick to it well and just to clarify I mean, we have like this history power business has been over the years that been jet it's been employees we judged not that person any more I mean he's the most knowledge of purple person and that his trained all of our employees and at the beginning and for years that wass issue it was only jen and I but we don't collaborate at all on when you asked about the client question judge pretty much I mean not involved honestly only during emergencies if there's an emergency I step in but that happens maybe once a year maybe he's the technical go to guy I guess but really he makes sure make sure the employees the interns can do all that that's you know, he creates a systems that they can then dio he doesn't need to be that person which is actually better for us much better for us. Okay uh this is under the portraiture section you I'm I'm not sure mary is talking about portraiture specifically, but she asked in which specific cases do you decide use a droplet instead of a bash? Does it depend on the number of pictures, the actions themselves or something else? We'll drop it kind of I mean, you could match with the droplet mean batch if you're in photo shop already have a bunch of files hoping and you want to just throw, you know, whatever sort of treatment or action one of those one of those files I use a droplet when the images were closed and I want to just pull a folder images they're gonna drop it and walk away. You're running a batch using the droplet to do it, whereas the batch is what you do when you're in photo shop all the finals or there or you where you want to just do it. It's batch ing in photo shop is just more man because you can still do it open files you khun pick a folder you know there's just more work if you're matching as opposed to using and drop it where it's just more automated, you know, because the droplet points to the action and you could run a batch of whatever using that drop. I hope that I don't know sometimes I start talking, I don't even know I'm gone I hope that answers that question last meri alright, she'll let us know uh, let's see lights from new orleans, louisiana is asking, do your files come out of the camera as tiffs? Do you have an action that transfers to tips? What are the advantages of working with tips? Were good rock chute wrong? We hardly ever work with tips if we do where the loss was file for money psd, because it's a little bit smaller than so rock t p s t s t s t o depending on purpose. Okay, here is a question that is a little bit off topic. Um, lisa in new york city, ash should we get special insurance to shoot pets, especially events like dog days, where lots of animals are in one area? I would say that's probably not a bad idea. I also will be honest and say that's, not something that we've done here, your agent, I talked to my agent, they're gonna want to sell you insurance, but I mean, you can make, you know, make an educated decision after talking to them and saying, this is what I'm doing, I guess I get yeah, I might as well ask him, but I guess it didn't really hurt me. Well, because I've had pets or kids or, you know, there's people come in all day, and I have insurance that covers me in my business in my studio and everything for that purpose, so I just I guess I assumed it would carry over because we boys had pets on some level coming in, but that's, not a bad idea, can't endorse making the assumption that I would I would look into it at the very least, you know, some of that, too, might be on side of my property, so like, yeah, what if you're into the dog days event is someone else's location, like we talked about you going to make sure you're kind of working with them on that, too? Everything's coming, it's a good idea to look into it. Keeping in mind that if you ask an insurance guy, if you should buy insurance, they're going to say yes, you know, so keep just keep that in mind. Here's the question to our athens from athens, georgia. Uh, what method software do you use to upscale your images to those large canvas sizes? It doesn't greatjob inter plating, you know, there's genuine fractals, uh, there's a few different options out there, but we've assuming that you're starting and here's here's what it comes down to every time. What do you starting with? You know, if you're starting with junk it's gonna look like john, but if you start with something, if you kneel your exposure and you do it right in the camera and you have a big enough file, you know, like we had, we had problems at first with the very beginning, when make you have a huge image and the subject is really tiny and this person was like, oh, I want a big head shot of that thirty by thirty and you know, this was ten years ago when you're not realizing I have all this data but really you're trying to get a huge file from this is it? And then it's a twenty thousand dollar three megapixel camera you way to go there but anyway I was horrible, but the point is, you know, it's it's all about like what you're starting with really and photoshopped assuming that what you have, what you're starting with his is decent too good, too great you shouldn't have any trouble actually with our lab printing I think it's over sixteen twenty they wear whatever you think's over sixteen twenty I think it's sixteen twenty or larger but either way either way should really work we just don't residue because you know if you start raising three hundred and thirty by forty files a lot bigger and it just takes along a lot longer to upload, so yeah, so we have about twenty questions about like photoshopped workflow I don't know if you could just do it overview you hope just like you open the photo in light room it's a raw photo, you do some adjustments? Well, we have a lot to say if we start with five hundred images in my room uh we'll go through and calm him down and kind of a first and it really quick and it usually an intern or somebody else does that and then we'll go shoo second at it sort of like that's when that's when you'll come in a lot of time for vicky's coming we make like white balance color adjustments you know and sink it across the board on dh then she'll come in and do a second narrow it down to like the sixty or seventy that we want to show the client she was the artist suggestion images from there and then that's where we're deciding okay if it's gonna go on an artist suggesting we might need to do some extra stuff to it so maybe we'll take a dozen home and export everything is a j peg proof that export mandy a half a dozen of them as a high res psd file and then do some extra work that's the ten to fifteen minutes of work on dh then perfect and there's the rest is just the proof action that we throwing everything else well and I think just to clarify to simplify it I mean really we're using light room like I mentioned yesterday with all the other software and things we use like it can do this much we and our workload use it to do this much we really are using it as an editing machine to do those basic adjustments and then our whole workflow after we get them exported out is the j pigs is really all photoshopped driven so for the most you know, just to think about it you know, there's this key things should started off with like those tips of, like the one the one previews and some of those things but you like to show us and demonstrate there's a lot of people in the chat rooms that would love to see the whole work do they adam do we have it that's ready? Tio come around and well, I didn't bring it sure whatever you want take another question. Is there any question about it that they want to set that up? Thank you. Yes, just do you have any brawls on there just where you can just do it doesn't describe this image is okay. Couple questions on portraiture while we get yeah, I'll set it. Um yes, please. So question about your face appearing and ways that we can protect our images. You know, when you export on image from light room there's all of the metadata that you can kind of, you know, sink in and building? Do you guys do a lot of that linking it back to your website or, like, invisible, you know, whatever water it's not really a watermark but it's built into the no, we don't mention it's not that we shouldn't yeah I'm not going to sit up here and say don't but no you know we do we just manually put our water mark on it okay um so um is just short for anything no jet is jed it's not jedediah or did I despite when I've been called in was known throughout theeighties uh I wass jed clampett it was not named for stars I was named after jed clampett yeah, I know it's gross her asking his middle name your house uh oh it's a joke ok, lots of jokes surrounding my name anyway uh here's the import dialog box in liar. So this is what I would do typically these air j pegs um but let's just assume that their roz I'm gonna import all of them. I'm gonna render on my one to one previous so that I can go through this is typically where I would be going to get a sandwich. This is why it's a little bit difficult to show this on a short amount of time because typically this would take you know however long however many images you have if we're going to just kind of a show, a speeded up version here and what we usually do to like my employees just know if I'm shooting during the day they will always start a session run dream before they leave for the day so I mean it's just like then when they come in the next day man they're running at it okay then we would have insured great card typically you know every different lining scenario you'd have a great car so I don't have a great card in here we don't anymore well, we don't anymore so that's what used to be but we were here this is just white man thing so I'm gonna take you know, the white from this cat's fur and I'm going to let's say that there's seven images that are shot our four images that are shot out lighting scenario I'm going to go through and select all of those and then sink that white balance and any other color adjustment is that making typically I had a little bit of a little bit of clarity a little bit of vibrance little bit of saturation now everyone always wants to know how much clarity how much firebrands how much saturation a little bit I don't know there's not a number a little bit just whatever looks good that's a technical answer yeah that's my technical that's my weakness that's my technical answer and then my point curving eyes always medium now this is getting strong this and we just actually had some stuff done to it I don't have a bunch of raw images to go through but the point is these are my settings I go to medium contrast on my tongue cur and I had a little bit of clarity a little bit of iris little bit of saturation and that's usually it rarely do I have to adjust the exposure if I do it's going to be over the course of twenty images because maybe it was just a little bit under a little bit over so I paid twenty images I just my exposure and I think it I just wanted actually jumping so I never talked about this when shooting this is actually something that makes her work quote really easy in light room is that I am doing the light meter when I shoot and setting my camera manually because realistically like even if let's say I do like meter reading and I set my camera and it's a little bit off a little bit under over its consistently a little bit off like under over that in one second sinking and getting the one image how I like it all the rest are done if I'm using a setting and camera were like just depending on where my my meter's reading in the shot I got skye got the ground is on the subject like that could be all over the place that every single image it may be close but it might not be up a little bit down a little bit and I'm almost like you can't use the sync button very easily does that kind of makes sense? So by using the light meter and just setting all manually, hopefully it's it's on. But if I would do something that I was off a little bit it's, actually consistently off that it's, much easier to correct and make the adjustments, you know, if I want, and if I want to apply some treatments or whatever in light room using my presets, my presets are in the developed module here on the left hand side, and I can go through them. My hears this is from our seven collection there's a ton of presets, and I can go through them and see what they look like just kind of was a preview and I think to myself our offer that as a brownstone version I can export that is a brown conversion from here if I want teo and then even exported as a psd flores psd file, if I want to and decent extra work on it. And maybe I have thirty images that I want to do that I just select thirty images or three images, or however many sink the same settings, you know, and export those versions as well, if you want to do that. Um, typically, we just go through and do a few things in photo shop afterwards, but it's kind of like six one way half dozen, the other it just kind of depends on what you like, everybody, not everybody but a lot of people just kind of want this, like, how should I do it? And I don't know, I do it the way that I I feel most comfortable doing it, and I feel more comfortable doing more stuff from the photo shop because I can do more stuff in photo shop and I can do in my room. But if it's something quick and easy that I just want to throw out there real fast and it's on the like the front end, I'll use light room because I'm already in my room when it's already here, you know, I just could say that's exactly as you say, I used presets and light room if I'm just quick, um, wanting to do some images may be thrown on the web do something because it could look just really nice and great, but in our workflow what I really want ultimately always and if we're using presets, it's not gonna work for our workload for clients I want in every single clients for folder, a color re of their ordered images, a colored retouched uncrossed uneven yet id psd because now they can order anything they want black and white vintage I mean they can order anything they want and we have that file to go to if we exported persons of brown tone and then run a perfection and then do all its retouching them then they're like oh I want to color your going back so every single client part of their work when I'm sure judd said this but we have that that image that is basically you could do anything to it because its color and it's it's everywhere yeah full resin cropped so that's why with our workload that makes sense so at this point after I do my color correcting in my white when white balancing color correcting and make those adjustments in sync kamal maybe some exposure adjustments if I have to and sink those then and this is already after everything's been edited down too then I would just export everything and that's just a matter of going in the library and so I think it all heading export you know you can rename it when you do this final naming rename when you're exporting you khun re name to it whatever you want to rename it too and we name it tio client's name and the final number and the date um and then I just go down to file settings and all of ours is a ninety quality j pick one hundred um that's like the difference between twelve and ten basically fearing photo shop it's it's they have twelve different levels, but really j pegs our have hundred different levels. Um, are they go? They go to a ten to one hundred scale rather than one to twelve scale that's a photo shop thing, but if you go to just ninety, if you just go to ninety, you're not going to see any difference. And yet the file's gonna be, like, half the size. Same thing if you use a level ten j peg as opposed to a level twelve j peg it's going to be double the size and you're not gonna really see any difference. And I can go ahead and get lots of people arguing with me on that. But I've done lots of tests and I've never seen it like looking at huge files like this big. You cannot see a difference, it's just twice the size. Okay? And then so this is where we re size are images to nineteen twenty by ten eighty and our resolution is seventy two. This is because our project are projectors resolution is nineteen twenty by ten ut this is how I'm going to show my client. So I would export all this and you can export wherever you're going to export it and afterwards you can open it in photo shop if you want hope on a wall in a photo shop or do nothing which is typically what I do because then they're ready for the sale and we load him into pro select and that's how we sell um or o r where if I'm doing this to my image is that I'm going to have like maybe I'll just have six of them picked uh I'm not going to do this and I'm gonna do this so I'm taking off the image sizing I'm changing my image format to psd my color spaces adobe ninety eight and I'm just going to get six to eight maybe ten big four as psd files that that's where I'm gonna spend my ten fifteen maybe twenty minutes creating stuff on spec for the client um but that's really I don't know that's really it looks then once exported do the proof action which we showed you right and you can even and you can run proof actions if you want to in light room and exported from light room with proof actions already run if that's what you know some people don't have photo shot if you don't have photo shop it's okay use light room if you don't have right room it's okay use photo shop you know you khun dio a lot in both know you can do more in photo shop but it's not like it's essential it's not like you're a professional photographer you need to have photoshopped you don't you could do virtually everything that you need to dio in light room you could just do maurin photo shop if you decided you know, get do that stuff and get funky and do all kinds of different treatments and stuff you could do a little bit more photo shop then you can let go but even us you can see all this stuff in lightning there's seven different modules we used to and in photoshopped there's a billion different things you can do. We do seven things select when there's a million every things you could do with this stuff it doesn't mean you have to do it like I was telling people during the break we don't we never have we can and you can if you want teo, you know buster brains all day long if you want that's what you want to go but I want him go outside and see the shine and go eight places and stuff like that, you know, makes sandwiches anything how easy is it to create your own preset in light room? Well, it's not hard to, uh, shoot because we don't use him that often I mean, our presets initially came out of people asking for him like we like all your stuff but we want presets album, so we made precepts but we very, really appreciate I know I remember when you did that there was the trick and then it's like, oh, he had right there. Well, I'd like to say it's easy, but then I was sitting up here and I don't I haven't made a preset in light room in years that actually might be a good question since that's the beauty of it creative live photoshopped theirs but there's people on the chat that I'm sure my presets all the time hopefully can answer there you go that would be the first place to look like a writer. Now this comes out now this is the same thing that comes up when you sink or something similar this you have these different settings that you can apply it if you could create I'm just gonna create an entitled preset and there it is and my user precinct so this preset that I set to this cat or all this stuff thank you for that now remember so that that that whatever I had over here in my developed settings that's all going to be recorded and then I can applying that to whatever else you know curve adjustments basic color adjustments um highlights shadows clary vibrant all that stuff that I had before you can even apply that when you import things so when you import you can apply a preset when you import or when you export you're gonna play a priest so keep that in mind thank you for that I had no idea where it wass right there all right uh just before we head on to the next section here I want to let you know what people are saying. Jill adam says this is amazing have you written a book? Give us more what resources would you recommend to learn how effective to do all of this amazing photo shopped for photographers this is the meat or tofu for vegetarians janet leigh says I need this guy can we clone him please? Actually you've been asked that many times I've been asked that I need a jet unless you want presets in which case I have to rely on you um you know, I have not written a book, not a book really I don't have any plans to write a book what I recommend but I always tell people is there's so many options nowadays? Um most of the time if you see somebody's work that you really like and you see somebody style you really like and you've seen you gotta feel for them as a person you think I I want to learn from this person the option usually exists nowadays I mean who's not doing workshops everybody's doing workshops released it seems like everybody has an option on how you can learn from them whether it's phone consultations or workshop or they're speaking somewhere um I would just that's how I did it at the beginning when I was learning you know dave jr with somebody that I really liked his work um and he seemed to know what he was doing he thank thankfully for me he did, um back then when it seemed like it was just chaos and nobody knew anything it seemed like dave knew and so I hired him to come down. He spent two or three days with me and we spent thirty seven hours and three days working in front of the computer and I learned a ton of stuff you know, you can go and see things at uh, big seminars are this is a mean this is this is an awesome option here I would be home right now with the bag of chips and my boxers sticking back and auction creative alive I'd probably have a video game going on here, you know, that's getting a little gross but that's you get to the point is you can do whatever you want now and and watch something like creative live and get all this information for like next to nothing free for ranching and I mean that's what I recommend people do basically do what you're doing but then get out there and playing here's another big thing and I'm kind of going on a soapbox here but I'm gonna go for a second you get all this information and people I see people all the time writing it down and they have like seventeen different pages of notes or forty pages of notes and they go home they put the notebook on the table and they're like um and I'll get to that someday and they don't do anything with it or it's so overwhelming because they wrote so much they don't even remember what they were writing or what was going on like take three things you know I've heard people say this before this isn't anything new take three things or take one thing from a segment on me like I love that I'm going to implement that I'm gonna do that this next week and make it a goal give yourself ago by next week I'm gonna have this implemented into my work flow and then the following week there's something else on the following week there's something else and over the course of several months or even a year you won't even believe where you're at you look back a year before this this final happened us you look back in here before you know I can't believe what I was in here you think you know just for me that is the beauty of, like creative I didn't exist when I was learning so like I think this whole weekend for me I've just been sitting here and in the back of my hand like I wish you know I have this experience when I was starting out I uh but the judge said I mean, we were investing so much to go places and we were learning it was great and I don't know a threat that but the opportunities here and even wait what you said earlier I mean if you buy the course for the ninety nine dollars like yeah, you could set your goals this week but then you can go back and re watch it once you've achieved those rather than oh now that list is gone oh what did he say now that I realize my business you have it and you can go back to it and refer it and I understand amazing are asking the question that means they're watching this which means they're doing what they're asking you know, which is great, you know, I just say keep doing what you're doing, this is it yeah yeah alright guys, you're wonderful team thank you all right, so I think we're gonna wrap cuny for right now because they're ready to move yeah, yeah, we just have yet we'll wrap that and there's a few slides in here we might bounce around a little bit I'm just first take of time and show some of these other ones a tte the ending segment but yeah, I just I just want to reshoot that today I think that was somebody's tweet that last night I saw you know can we just do that again? It was just it was so much fun um yeah we're gonna owe big things big things I forgot this is what we're doing here hand these out we have swag bags for the audience members all kinds of fun goodies in here be kept offering to these items but now you actually give them I feel like oprah or ellen my favorite everybody gets a car gets a car you just have to pay lots of taxes on a seven thousand dollars in tests so somewhat we've had so many vendors jump on board and they've been giving away prizes all week I mean your guy's a swag bags these air the specific vendors who gave things way gave our prime business workflow unleashed. You guys all got that thousands and thousands of dollars with sarah pettis book worth every penny photo talk forum triple scoop music about image tools and katie and designs and then it just few I think I bought some things in target dog driven for you two in there so just some fun stuff oh, in the bag, actually, too. If somebody wants to hold the bag up for the camera, the bag is from one of our friends. They have a company, grimm's inc. And they dio like all of our promotional stuff. T shirts, bags, first attire for us around the country. They just happen to be in our town rooms, inc dot yet grams inc dot net, so they actually donated the bags that all kinds of stuff you guys can go to trader joe's. And I think seattle's has an ordinance. You have to actually bring your own bags or no plastic or something. So go shopping so enjoy. And yet thank you to all these amazing vendors who donated to the swag you asked us for a slide earlier on, people were asking about our prime business workflow and unleashed on our web site. This is actually all the information here, the promo code and it's normally two, ninety nine for one fifty. But everything on the sites is fifty percent off. But the other thing I want to mention and this afternoon I'll talk a little bit more about giving back and the fund we started, but not just for creative, live but permanently that website big our haven dot com from qatar for his ten percent of sales we'll go to the ocean fund which I will talk about later but uh the fund we started to help kids and families indeed so thank you guys for um supporting creative lives supporting us and really giving back at the same time so um I'm trying to think time wise what I want to do you know what I am going toe I actually have a video but I think I'm gonna wait and show that this afternoon since jen and I were up here together weaken weaken talk rather than sit here and watch a video I will show that one after we shoot but and feel free to interject and we're in here we just had a few slides to open some dialogue with you guys the audience members if you had specific questions too not related to necessarily photo shop it could be anything but really we've been on this journey jen and I for well we were high school sweethearts for like twenty years but uh in the business fourteen years and we both have referred to this has been like we had no idea what we're doing tio why we got weighing overheads tio you know being that person working together we're we were quoted as the shoulder and cry on is a tech attached to the neck you want a ring right like that's what working with your spouse could be sometimes that ultimately for us our journey has taken us too the parents in the last couple years I'm through adoption and from that journey it's like just our lives completely changed and I think we were getting to that point anyway like I'll be honest you like even without that it was sort of just like I'm just working I'm working too hard that there's more to life than this and so let's find a way to work smarter not harder let's like practice what we've been preaching we've been teaching and say be efficient and do this but yet we're just running around crazy all the time well and I think because this is something that we've been teaching for seven years now like we're work smarter not harder and I think it's because it's it's ongoing I think because you know as your business of walls and as your life changes this is always going to be a part of it like always always like trying to figure out what can I do better how can I simplify this process how can I give myself more time with my family? How could I give myself more time for myself even um it I don't think least I haven't gotten to the point where I'm like okay, I got this figured out I'm good you know? So I mean I see this up here and and that means an awful lot to me but it's something that's always the case you know, so yeah, simplifying our business in order to get our lives back way do that every year, you know, it's like the constants, a constant challenge for us, the simple fire business to get our lives back, you know? And what with what's happened in the last couple years with adopting our daughter? We were in a position where we needed to do this, like even more in two thousand ten. And then, like, this catastrophe happened, basically with our government, and we're adopting our daughter. We were forced to do this in a lot of ways, you know? Look, looking back, I can say, oh, that was that was a great thing that happened to us. It was horrible during the time, but we were forced to make decisions and to make adjustments that's simplified our lives on dh now that we have this amazing little girl, uh, gotta be careful because I don't want to cry and embarrassed. Uh, now that we have this little girl, uh, I'm arm or and thankful for that struggle, like, every day, like that six month period happened that made us make these adjustments because her having somebody like this, this little girl in our life beforehand, would've been cast for her, you know, so now that now that we have a system set up now and things are simpler for us now that's better for her it's better for us yeah, but it's better for her and you know if you have kids, this is extremely important, you know, I don't know how many times people come to us and they're like, hey, uh, I want to order I want to open a big studio a storefront, what do you think about that way say, well, how many kids do you and sometimes it's, you know, I don't have any kids and I'd like for you to do whatever, whatever you want, teo yourself out like one lady told me one time I have three kids, they're four boys or something when I said, well, if you open a studio going of seven she's like, what do you mean? I said what's gonna be equivalent and two or three more kids, you know, who's going to suffer for that? Then she started crying, you know, she's got tears running down her face and she's like, okay, can it alright? Thank you, like I'm just telling, you know, I just want to tell you the truth, I'm not I'm not even telling her not to do it, you know, because you're going to make your own decisions, but you know, t do crazier things you could do anything you want with this business, but you have to take in right or keep in line that there's consequences to your decisions, you know? And this you don't want to miss out on you don't want to get to the point through three years down the road or your forty grand in the hole in your busy every day. Oh, I'm so excited! People are tweeting and facebook, I have forty eight sessions next week. That sounds like horrible to me hitting me. That sounds awful. I wanted I want to see the person that says I have four sessions next week, you know, in the back of my mind, I'm thinking I'm hoping you're pricing right if you're averaging four, five grand from the sessions, which is a lot, I get it, but our goal is to do one session in here and have a million dollar average working. We're getting there right? We're gonna happen. That's not the point. That's that's our goal like that's what we want to move towards, not oh, I have forty eight sessions next week and I'm booked through the ending and that was that is what I was doing, hm. Like that that is what we were doing right and that's that that's awful I think for us that's that's what your life is that's all your life is and I don't want, you know, five five more years to go by and it's not gonna happen like that now, but it would have you know, what, five years would have gone by and we wouldn't look back we've been like, what happened? You know what? What even do there? And I just think I think in the only person that could decide that you really all it's about is finding that balance and that could be it's gonna be different for everybody. So you know what we're saying and how that is working, where we're at in our stage of life right now that's what it is because I actually also know there is going to be time when my daughter is older and in school and I'm gonna have more time again and so at that point, you know, I want to make sure I've still got the solid business I work so hard to build and that I can keep doing that and so that's really that's really what we're talking about that's really where we're at and that will always change like where we're at right now, it's a good balance now is going to be different later it's not gonna always necessarily and would be the same this's always always change so that later there she is we already talked about that I I let you actually take this one well and hear this kind of goes along with all that right? So anyone that tells you that they're not afraid is lying so not only are there afraid, but they're a liar because everyone's afraid everyone, you know, that's that's what? I think so maybe they're in denial. I don't know, maybe I really don't think that they're afraid who isn't afraid all right? I mean, we're all afraid of the same stuff we're all afraid of failure are all afraid of the economy going down the tubes were all afraid of who's going to do what, in the in the government, you know, there's all these different things there's all these different things to be afraid of and I don't want to be a debbie downer ending but there's a lot up there that you could be afraid of, but everyone has a choice. Like what vicki said you could do one or two things with it. You can use it to really motivate you and really surged forward and be motivated by that fear where you can curl up in a corner and suck your thumb and rock back and forth and hope that it all goes away it's not related to the business so like for me when I read that what I hear or I see is like, oh like what that photographer like they're so good oh, I'm so bad yourself oh there's too many photographers in my town oh there's all these competitors like you that's a fear like it may not first come out like it's their butts like fear of all his competitors or fear of not having enough business. And so rather than even oh well, I can't photograph pets because people won't do that in my town like really it's just ok take that fear and do nothing great, you know or turn it and get motivated by and like I am gonna thank to yourself no one's doing and no one's doing this in my town that means that yeah, and people still have pets and people still love pets in your town. I don't care who you are have pets and they love their pets that means you just have this gigantic market, you know, like half empty, half full type of thing, you know, when it comes to your business especially I was talking about life in general well, I think that ties into for us it's really important that, you know, we could always say set goals, set goals and have a plan and I think that's really important with your business but what I've learned and still learning eyes I really have to do that personally to like to get that balance and so like for me I mean since I've been home from nepal like sinking into my chickens and gardens and that's like just been this outlet for me which honestly for the last twelve years like before that I would have never made time for so and it's not just about you know, being with my daughter like that's something that personal for me you know that I like that's outside of being a mom and the business and that's part of my balance you know, for jet it's eating sandwiches and playing video tio don't place you know e used to put I I liked it I like to cook out I like to entertain so we had like a bacon have I like time to have people over you know and enjoy my time with my family and my friends on dh cook forever it does involve food but I like to hang out outside you know, for five or six hours at night and kick back and laugh until stories and if if my business isn't set up accordingly I can't do that the way that I want to do that or even if I am doing it I'm worried about all that session I still got clients coming in you know, there's things that you could do and there's processes that you can put into place and let that fear motivate you to get those systems in place and actually make it happen so that you can cook out with your family or you can build a garden or plant an orchard slides yesterday or the first day we talked about relationships in the port of relationships like, I mean that's like a really high priority with our clients, but also with their family, with our family meaning immediate family, extended family, all those things, you know, our focus is really relationships, our big part of our goal setting in our priorities uh, you know, one thing I do like to share just really quick is the importance of having personal projects, um, that's just always there's been a handful of times throughout my entire fee career that I've sort of just challenged myself to do something I've created a project and it's been really, I guess motivating or if I'm in kind of that burnout mode, kind of like lights, a fire underneath me and my latest one wass actually, I had six months in nepal, and so I decided early on and it's, not your concept, like I'm gonna photograph the alphabet um, in the fall, and so even every here could have five nose procrastinator giving my keynote slide, you know, five minutes before we go on, I'm in nepal, you know, the day before I'm finally get the visa and I'm coming home, hiring a taxi drivers like I need a cue. I needed our help. Me. We're like driving on this city trying to complete the alphabet. Uh, but it was actually really cool and really challenging, and some of my friends over there when my family came to visit it x was like, oh, my gosh, like, we're walking around poker and wanted kathmandu trying to find letters in the landscape. But now I've turned that into a poster, an image that we sell and one hundred and the money goes to the fund. That's actually on rv gallery haven site was well, but it was just like having no that personal project, unrelated to to my portrait's and to my everyday photography, was actually, like inspiring for, um, it got me more excited about tar free. I was doing in the studio to like it, just about photography in general.

Class Materials

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Keynote Slides
Keynote Slides Day 2

Ratings and Reviews

a Creativelive Student
 

This was a great topic. I tuned in thinking I wouldn't be interested, and then, wow, it was fabulous. So fabulous I'm holding an event in two weeks time to launch my own pet photography and raise food for local homeless animals. Thanks so much CL team!

Carolyn Himes
 

Vicki Taufer is Brilliant as a person and artist. What an honor to experience her for the last 3 days. Thank you to Jed for your expertise and reminder that technology can help us all have time to play more and enjoy life more! Thank you creativeLIVE team....top notch!

Student Work

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