There's one more problem that affects many photographers which is competition - from having many photographers around the same location, photographers that are charging less, photographers with more work experince, established photographers.
These videos are both discouraging and encouraging at the same time. They are exposing many flaws in my business that I've sort of been trying to ignore. Feels overwhelming. But, thanks for it.
We need the discouraging videos. Helps to separate those who will continue to contribute their skin into the game and leave those who don’t want to evaluate themselves behind.
@@TheWutangclan1995 True. Just finding myself in a bit of a financial hole. Working to just stay afloat, but sometimes I feel like I'm paying more to work than earning an income.
@@JohnDoukasPhotography Hey man Sorry to hear that it's been tough, I feel your pain. My question for you is do you have any help? Cuz I can tell you I've been doing this by myself for years and while so many successful people have their partners in crime, I have yet to find anyone that gave a shit enough to try to even invest in what I'm doing. That is not to say I don't have fans, I certainly do, but none of them are in my particular fields or they have their own thing going on where there's just no hands being extended. And so I stopped asking and now it's a vicious cycle of just nothing happening. I hope you're doing better than I am, and I hope you can sort it out. I'm looking at the next 5 years and photography and I just don't know what to make of it. The market is a absolute disaster in many cases as well, so add in the AI stuff and I just don't know.
@@simonmaduxx6777 hi Simon. It’s been tough finding a partner to work with. Having peers is one thing, but someone who wants to work and invest with you is another thing. I have a church and family who encourage me often. Other than that, I glean much from pros via RUclips tutorials and whatnot. AI is an interesting horizon. My imagination is limited, but I foresee AI killing some jobs, while also creating others. AI is just a visual of Wikipedia, or at least that’s how I see it. At some level, I believe keeping on the grind and seeing AI as a tool rather than competition, it’ll help. A person with a brain will always be in demand. Autocad and/or Solidworks still require a person in the driver seat.
I believe I am getting addicted to watching your videos. I am all over the place on the timeline. I’m watching them as they appear on the internet. Lol
OMG what you first said is so true. In the illustration industry; even if your work isn't perfect and you can meet deadlines, you will have a very long career. You work on perfecting your style outside of the job. Just have 60% perfection and turn in the work on time.
So glad I’ve come across your channel, inspirational. In my late 40s now, suffered a brain injury 5 years ago that wiped out my full time career, turned my old side hustle of photography into a business, learning as I go. Your tips are huge, and yes you are making me feel guilty for purchasing $15k on a new Nikon mirror less system. Keep up the great work.
Yesssss you nailed it !!! The creative part, the new fresh idea part is what customers want and will pay for. If you work inside most any business the people who make the big money are the people who are the most creative and have the new ideas. Now they may not know how to change their car oil or how to boil water but they can come up with something fresh or new on a regular basis.
With the whole 'Just trying something to see if it works' thing. Sometimes you get a really unexpected bonus shadow or catch light when you do that. The world is a chaotic place.
This is hands down the best and most accurate list I’ve heard. Not to reduce your video but mid managing money and losing sight of creative equals failure.
A lot of very good advice there, thank you. I shoot portraits with a D4 and a 80-200 F/2.8 AF-D and people tell me I should be using a mirrorless camera blah blah. It works for me so why change for the sake of it
Yeah, I've got people at my local camera store, fellow photographers, and everyone else telling me I need to replace my DSLR for a mirror-less... funny how I have more wildlife photos than they do cause I spend more time outdoors getting shots instead of faffing about with gear every day. Taking more photos, experimenting, and learning is 10x more productive than acquiring or upgrading your gear.
Scott, this video was fantastic! I've been binge watching your videos, as I've recently stumbled across your channel. I love how you preach less is more & it really has been an inspiring perspective, as we live in a day & age when we're being told you need every new piece of gear that's coming out. Keep up the great work!!
A humble “yes, please,” for a video on ‘creating an image and not taking the image.’ I have zero interest in creating a photographic business, rather coming at this from a purely indulgent artistic folly and exploration. An evolutionary approach to photography being my Mindfulness activity for my CPTSD. Your thoughts and sharing of photographic experience are greatly appreciated and pondered by me. Thank you. 🙏✌️
I have a slightly different issue combined with what stated in here. My background is in design as a art director and such and trying to move laterally into photography has produced minimal financial successes. It has introduced me to a field that I otherwise would be oblivious to and I have had individual clients over the years. However after about 5 years of pushing pushing pushing I realized that my goals weren't being met because the people that I need on my side which would be editors, they could give a shit to be honest. Just last week I solicited some feedback from another editor from a fashion website and they didn't even bother to answer. This is the standard, they just don't care. And I'm struggling to figure out how to get these people to care. I want to believe then just keep doing the work and then they will come. That has absolutely failed 1,000% for me. So now what? I just don't know but I do know that I still want to do this work and I'm sitting in front of six cameras that's not being used. I've spent so much time trying to come up with materials to solicit the work that I haven't been doing any work. Even now I've been concepting promo material for the last two years because I stopped going on social media. My goals weren't being met and it blew up my proposed expectations of if this was possible to succeed in. Also worked with a magazine and seeing the frivolous nature of how photographers got hired, I spent the last few years after internally discussing myself is does this make sense at all to pursue. It's an extremely volatile area for me where most people talk stuff and don't follow up, other people don't care, and you're left to figure out how you can do better. Its nutty. Sometimes you're ambition is not met with the same excitement from others especially if that particular part of the field is hugely selfish (fashion). What I have learned overall is that if you're not surrounded by people that either need photography or can push your interest to their people then it's a wasteland. You could have all of the talent and desire in the world, but if you can't get those people which I have failed to do, then you're not getting any work and you'll end up with high anxiety and it'll destroy your creative process. So that first point is definitely a big one, searching for perfection. But as an art director I want to put out work that at least I feel good about, because the deck is already pretty much stacked against me. But so much anxiety has built up that I'm not putting this stuff out because now I'm triple guessing everything. I need this stuff to work to be able to continue with any plans to advance in this area, but now I've been paralyzed for quite some time and I'm struggling to get out of that. I'm trying to adhere to always be shipping kind of mentality, but my face is not high right now and at the end of the day water photographer like myself and others in this position needs his help. And I have no idea where this help can possibly come from besides a working professionals at all extend his hand down the ladder to help pull us up. That said especially on a fashion side, most of the photographers and people around it are some of the worst people I've ever met so I'm in a really crazy quagmire. Thanks if you read this far.
Really really good advice! Last year started off with a bang. I spent some money on getting my studio up and running. Turned out that the first 60 days were not indicative of the rest of the year. And of course, the studio startup costs were on my credit card. Lesson learned.
I wonder what your opinion is on stock selling platforms. Do you think they're any good? Do you think it's possible to make a living walking around taking pictures and videos and trying to sell them as stock footage on those sites?
I just hike around interesting places (off trail mostly), record my journey and create my movies. A interesting one uploaded recently is called 'Wolf Spirits". I don't work for money, nor for anyone else, I just create my own reality. We manifest our thoughts, whatever they are, always remember that! It's great being retired and still capable of daily 5 mile hikes, I am blessed. The two most important pieces of photography equipment I use are hiking poles and crampons. 😊
Money and money management is the #2 reason most businesses fail, including photographers. The #1 reason is... not having a business plan. And sure, you can succeed without any kind of business plan, but it's extremely rare that happens. And planning is the phase I'm currently in to determine if I can make photography an actual business. Sure money is absolutely important. No business can survive for long on zero revenue, and money mismanagement will sink any company. But not having any kind of business plan, and not adapting your business plan as you move forward, will severely hamper any growth prospects and make you more likely to fail. You don't need a perfect business plan at the start, because you can and should always adapt it, even if you're doing so... 3 months in. But you do need some kind of plan at the start so you aren't going in blind.
Wow. Yes. I struggled about an upcoming custom home shoot. I don't have a 10mm lens. Just a 16mm which is my kit lens on my crop sensor. And the lens I wanted to rent wasn't available. I said, "no". Absolutely no more spending. Make do. Be creative. I looked up how make do with your kit lens on a professional shoot. My story and ideas won the day and my biggest concern of the lens became overshadowed by sensor dust. That cost me a ton of time. Big lesson. So, I love these tips especially the last one. Plus my drone establishing shot and ending hit the wow factor. And I completely forgot I was shooting with my kit lens. Thank you.
02.34 - the what principle? I’m hearing Shim Flow Principle, which upon googling, is actually a principle in battery construction, though obvs doubtful this is what was said
Found your channel about a week ago, thanks RUclips. Excellent stuff. I'm an amateur and 90% resonates for me. Obviously I don't shoot on the basis of cost on return etc. but its so easy to say that this piece of kit will last xx years so... some of it might, but much of it didn't make the transition to mirrorless.
While profit certainly is important, don't forget that profit unless you actually get paid in time means nothing. The saying goes: Revenue is vanity, profit is sanity and cash is KING, This is true for all conventional businesses. No matter how much profit you make, if you can't pay your bills, taxes or other expenses you will go bankrupt.
One of my favourite photographs is of a dancing couple, full of motion blur. There are posters around town right now for a Sam Smith show next year. Looking closer, I see that the photo of Sam is blurry. So yeah, perfection is for amateurs, this seems to be true.
I'm grateful I learned the hard way in my late teens that spending money I don't have locks me into earning money in crappy jobs to pay said money back and limits my freedom of choice. I have avoided unnecessary debt ever since...
inverse square, law of incidence...the last one i couldnt get: Shin flow principle? English is my second language so I think im not understanding that one. Can some one let me know whats the name of that principle? Thanks :)
"Shimploog" got me wondering. Oh, "Scheimpflug" (*) he meant. In the original German pronunciation this sounds like Shime-pfloog. The video gives a very nice lecture that many small business owners do not understand. I would add that the #1 problem is as Scott describes indeed and it has different ways of addressing. It starts with cost calculation as a major ingredient. If Scott says that our operational costs must be 30% then - profit first - there 's up to 70% left as our income. So, more important than cost calculation is "price" - how much do you charge for your work. This can be done bottom up from all the expenses that go into your productions, including the income that your business has to pay you, or top-down, looking at what the market will be prepared to pay you. Looking at Scott's studio, while he gives the lecture, made me think if he rents all that, or owns the interior and kit, maybe rents the studio permanently as business space, and e.g. did the sound treatment in there on his own account. The studio camera stand he uses, when bought new, is somewhere between 5K and 20K, then there is a broncolor pack based studio strobe set with very serious light stands, the Cambo tilt/shift (T/S) camera with matching lens and 5DS digital back, and, and, and we saw an assistant or art director in the BTS plus a lady working food and dishes (who could equally well have been master chef or production manager or art director). There are two follow up lectures in there: (1) the roles of the members in the team, and how Scott grew his business to the point that it enabled him to afford all that photographic luxury. (2) Each of the tools he bought - we don't need all the nerdy stuff, he says in this video - will have a nerdy justification. If you shoot a T/S camera with a longish lens, then you need to stop your lens's aperture down a lot to get a bit of Depth of Field (DoF). Shoot that lens at f/32 for DoF and ISO 64, with a strobe head in a large modifier at a distance where the light is hard again, and you need a boat load of flash power (so the studio pack's power of 1,200 Joules or more is justified by that, but not the Rolls-Royce, or Bentley-Turbo, kind of choice for broncolor). I'm not critical of his choices that I saw in there, rather the contrary, but the interesting lecture would be to do this second lecture on how he was able to afford all this while building his career/studio/portfolio (of clients and images). In strategic business planning, we sometimes use the concept of "plateau plan" in which we project growth phases or spurts (market share, revenue, profit) and consolidation phases between these. Somewhere in that plan we project investments in production resources (like kit, studio floor space, assistants, etc, or an adjusted marketing budget). And of course, when we aren't able to grow along these lines then we adapt expenditure towards such resources. Grow faster and we need to spend earlier, grow slower and we stall. As Scott tells that he works as a coach to a handful of select colleagues, the video may be an advertorial for that line of business of his. And that's valid and appreciated too. But the implication is that he needs to make a trade-of between what is "public" and what is "private" in the coaching relation. Bottom line, it is about what decisions to make when, considering where we are in our implicit, or explicit, plateau plan. And in a coaching relation that will always be "private". Anyhow, valid and relevant video. (*) Scott uses a Cambo tilt/shift camera in this video with a Canon 5DS as digital back and a serious lens for digital with an image circle large enough for serious tilt/shift operation. Scheimpflug's Law says that we have sharpness between subject plane and film (sensor) plane when these two and the lens plane intersect in one line. In here, the lens plane is a hypothetical plane perpendicular to the optical axis with the lens's nodal point in it. And that nodal point is the geometric rotation point in the lens's design and actual setting. Scheimpflug's Law makes you wonder why we have sharpness when all three are parallel - the normal mode for all normal cameras. Well, this in turn is based on an axiom in geometry that states that parallel things intersect at infinity distance. When we shift one, two or three of the three participants (sensor/film, lens, subject) then nothing changes to these principles. When we tilt, however we start messing with the intersection line and potentially have more than one intersection line, much closer by than infinity. When we now arrange the three planes to intersect in the same line again, then we get sharpness between subject plane and sensor/film plane. And that's the easiest way of using the tilt/shift camera. Why would you shift? Well, it rotates the plane of focus and this means either you can shoot a shallow but sharp plane wide open, or you can have sharpness where this would otherwise be impossible. The latter however is easily solved with digital images by what we call "focus stepping" where we take several images from tripod and between the images shift the focusing distance. Then in post we "focus stack" these images into one that is sharp where we need it to be. It is hard to rotate the plane of sharpness however and "time parallax" becomes our enemy. In the case of motion in the subject, or of the camera, between individual contributing frames, we have problem that we may not be able to solve. So with tilt we can shoot a single shot and have sharpness where we need it, considering the camera's viewpoint (angle) relative to the subject's main plane. Note that Depth of Field (DoF) remains perpendicular to the subject plane. In the past couple digital decades, tilt/shift (T/S) has most often been used to create an image that makes reality look like a miniature world. When, way back, "we" shot large format and needed T/S because a "standard" lens (like a nifty fifty to "full frame") at 8"x10" format is some 350mm and hence has very little DoF - so the last thing we thought about was to create miniature world images.
I’m starting my business and although I’m afraid to how everything will turn out to be, I have been investing in educational courses. Business and Photography wise. I know that it will save me time on the long run. By the way, how many hours does the time lapse cover?
I have a question, If i take a photo and then upload it to be computer and my shadows are blue and highlights are red, is it something wrong with my camera or is lightroom just telling me i've underexposed/overexposed? 🤔
I just found your channel. Good sensible advice-especially the bit about not spending over your head. I have to confess to having a mild, and at this point, still manageable case of G.A.S. (Gear Acquisition Syndrome). I'm not a pro but I use photography a lot as an adjunct to what I do (I built and restore ship models. And, I have a RUclips channel). There are quite a few parallels between the two fields, especially when it comes to operating a creative endeavor as a business. Enjoyed your point of view. Having said all that, I do have one small criticism, and it may pertain to just me. It has to do with the sound track in the last section of the video: I noticed a rhythmic dissonance between the bass and the keyboard that was, for me, too strong to ignore. Don't know if the player(s) were trying for a polyrhythmic feel or just trying to create a little tension in an otherwise inoffensive piece of music, but it really was distracting. Again, this is just how it affects me. No one else would probably notice or comment about it. But I did eventually stop the video short of the finish because of it. Thanks for doing this and hope there's more where this came from!
Okay, stupid question from a non-native speaker... You talk about a focusing principle that is autosubtitled as "Shin Flow". That is also what I hear but it is definititely not what you say. What is exactly what you are referring to? I know this is not the main subject of the video but I am just stuck with it 😅
I have decided today that I quite like your content... odd thing to say but after having 30-plus years skin in the game in many genres you actually speak a lot of sense. I to have failed and come back then left it behind through choice before it made me have another frigging breakdown. I too hate the small talk in life and I too just tell it how it si and cant be arsed with the reactions from the wannbee twits who think they are bloody amazing artists. I don't agree with some things you say but you do make sense and believe what you are saying so good for you and glad you are not a Dick at large! so dam many of those around in this game today.
Perfect Execution ist for Amateurs, this is Exactly why I can make out any photograph taken by a prfessional: flaws, easy mistakes, self overestimation, execution without heart or soul.
Just discovered your channel and really enjoying it. You could save some money by turning off that bloody annoying light to the left. Otherwise, fab stuff 😁
String your content together and you’ll get basically an apprenticeship’s worth of wisdom for free. Incredible. And yes please to a video on making vs taking- that could probably be expanded into a whole course on creating
Trust me they don't 😂 I've been in a lot of rooms with a lot of successful people and most couldn't give a shite about spelling. In fact some people like it when they see it because they can relate.
Please do an Ode To Jaffa Cakes! Omg I love those things! Have to visit the UK again. We don’t have them here. As usual Scott, you’re spot on with commentary. One thing I wish you would address sometime - emergency situations. Back several years ago, I had a multiple product shoot, and there were power problems, big ones, in my area for 4 days. It was way before the days of portable MacBooks and it was quite stressful. Also, when I was shooting people and stuff years ago, my friends and I took over for a wedding shooter that had fallen I’ll and had to be hospitalized. He was lucky he had a network of trusted shooters in place. But many today do not. This is just something I think of from time to time as the business has changed so much.
@@DynastyUK Don't agree. For someone like me - good at English, who writes for a living, bad English, grammar, spelling, and, above all, punctuation, leap out at the reader, and make one howl! It's an "Ouch!" moment! Really painful. And someone, working professionally, who fails at good basic English, looks terribly unprofessional - like they don't care! And sorry, your "successful people" who don't give a shit, are really letting themselves down. If you can't master your own language, seriously, how good are you?? Sure, there are many "creatives" who aren't brilliant at their own language. But, it's still a personal weakness, letting them down in one area of their lives, even if it has no obvious bearing on their art. And it will be noticed! It's a negative. Being good at your native language still beats not being good at it! No argument!
@@fiddleandfart Sounds like a "you" problem though. Since I literally know millionaires who have come from nothing. One is actually still trying to learn how to read and write at a level of a high schooler and is in 7 figures. If they truly think spelling and grammar are that much of an issue they hire others to write their copy. Except they don't always. You can't say "no argument!" That's just dumb.
Useful insights and information, thanks. Good advice to keep your resources and gear inline with what you are actually doing (and/or earning)with your photography.
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There's one more problem that affects many photographers which is competition - from having many photographers around the same location, photographers that are charging less, photographers with more work experince, established photographers.
These videos are both discouraging and encouraging at the same time. They are exposing many flaws in my business that I've sort of been trying to ignore. Feels overwhelming. But, thanks for it.
We need the discouraging videos. Helps to separate those who will continue to contribute their skin into the game and leave those who don’t want to evaluate themselves behind.
@@TheWutangclan1995 True. Just finding myself in a bit of a financial hole. Working to just stay afloat, but sometimes I feel like I'm paying more to work than earning an income.
@@JohnDoukasPhotography Hey man Sorry to hear that it's been tough, I feel your pain. My question for you is do you have any help? Cuz I can tell you I've been doing this by myself for years and while so many successful people have their partners in crime, I have yet to find anyone that gave a shit enough to try to even invest in what I'm doing.
That is not to say I don't have fans, I certainly do, but none of them are in my particular fields or they have their own thing going on where there's just no hands being extended. And so I stopped asking and now it's a vicious cycle of just nothing happening.
I hope you're doing better than I am, and I hope you can sort it out. I'm looking at the next 5 years and photography and I just don't know what to make of it. The market is a absolute disaster in many cases as well, so add in the AI stuff and I just don't know.
@@simonmaduxx6777 hi Simon. It’s been tough finding a partner to work with. Having peers is one thing, but someone who wants to work and invest with you is another thing. I have a church and family who encourage me often. Other than that, I glean much from pros via RUclips tutorials and whatnot.
AI is an interesting horizon. My imagination is limited, but I foresee AI killing some jobs, while also creating others. AI is just a visual of Wikipedia, or at least that’s how I see it. At some level, I believe keeping on the grind and seeing AI as a tool rather than competition, it’ll help. A person with a brain will always be in demand. Autocad and/or Solidworks still require a person in the driver seat.
I believe I am getting addicted to watching your videos. I am all over the place on the timeline. I’m watching them as they appear on the internet. Lol
OMG what you first said is so true. In the illustration industry; even if your work isn't perfect and you can meet deadlines, you will have a very long career. You work on perfecting your style outside of the job. Just have 60% perfection and turn in the work on time.
So glad I’ve come across your channel, inspirational. In my late 40s now, suffered a brain injury 5 years ago that wiped out my full time career, turned my old side hustle of photography into a business, learning as I go. Your tips are huge, and yes you are making me feel guilty for purchasing $15k on a new Nikon mirror less system. Keep up the great work.
Yesssss you nailed it !!! The creative part, the new fresh idea part is what customers want and will pay for. If you work inside most any business the people who make the big money are the people who are the most creative and have the new ideas. Now they may not know how to change their car oil or how to boil water but they can come up with something fresh or new on a regular basis.
With the whole 'Just trying something to see if it works' thing.
Sometimes you get a really unexpected bonus shadow or catch light when you do that.
The world is a chaotic place.
A small business owner once said, "It's not how much you make, it's how much you keep."
"Wriggle it around and lets see what happens " so many uses for that motto
This is hands down the best and most accurate list I’ve heard. Not to reduce your video but mid managing money and losing sight of creative equals failure.
A lot of very good advice there, thank you. I shoot portraits with a D4 and a 80-200 F/2.8 AF-D and people tell me I should be using a mirrorless camera blah blah. It works for me so why change for the sake of it
Yeah, I've got people at my local camera store, fellow photographers, and everyone else telling me I need to replace my DSLR for a mirror-less... funny how I have more wildlife photos than they do cause I spend more time outdoors getting shots instead of faffing about with gear every day.
Taking more photos, experimenting, and learning is 10x more productive than acquiring or upgrading your gear.
Scott, this video was fantastic! I've been binge watching your videos, as I've recently stumbled across your channel. I love how you preach less is more & it really has been an inspiring perspective, as we live in a day & age when we're being told you need every new piece of gear that's coming out. Keep up the great work!!
Thanks Scott. You just confirmed what I've been doing wrong. I'm on the road now to success I hope 🙏🙏
Very good advice! It seems that a photographer must be reinventing himself/ herself.
Thanks for sharing 🙏
PROFIT FIRST is a great book, it changed they way I run my photography practice. Bro, thanks for sharing these gems
Solid advice, down to earth explanations, & practical advice! Well done.😊
A humble “yes, please,” for a video on ‘creating an image and not taking the image.’
I have zero interest in creating a photographic business, rather coming at this from a purely indulgent artistic folly and exploration. An evolutionary approach to photography being my Mindfulness activity for my CPTSD. Your thoughts and sharing of photographic experience are greatly appreciated and pondered by me. Thank you. 🙏✌️
If they can't afford it, they don't need it.
This advice also works for logictics (what I am working at).
Thank you.
Fantastic advice. Thank you!
Photography isn't about buying expensive gear, you can create amazing photography with the minimal stuff if you know what you're doing
I have a slightly different issue combined with what stated in here. My background is in design as a art director and such and trying to move laterally into photography has produced minimal financial successes. It has introduced me to a field that I otherwise would be oblivious to and I have had individual clients over the years. However after about 5 years of pushing pushing pushing I realized that my goals weren't being met because the people that I need on my side which would be editors, they could give a shit to be honest. Just last week I solicited some feedback from another editor from a fashion website and they didn't even bother to answer. This is the standard, they just don't care. And I'm struggling to figure out how to get these people to care. I want to believe then just keep doing the work and then they will come. That has absolutely failed 1,000% for me. So now what? I just don't know but I do know that I still want to do this work and I'm sitting in front of six cameras that's not being used.
I've spent so much time trying to come up with materials to solicit the work that I haven't been doing any work. Even now I've been concepting promo material for the last two years because I stopped going on social media. My goals weren't being met and it blew up my proposed expectations of if this was possible to succeed in.
Also worked with a magazine and seeing the frivolous nature of how photographers got hired, I spent the last few years after internally discussing myself is does this make sense at all to pursue. It's an extremely volatile area for me where most people talk stuff and don't follow up, other people don't care, and you're left to figure out how you can do better. Its nutty.
Sometimes you're ambition is not met with the same excitement from others especially if that particular part of the field is hugely selfish (fashion).
What I have learned overall is that if you're not surrounded by people that either need photography or can push your interest to their people then it's a wasteland. You could have all of the talent and desire in the world, but if you can't get those people which I have failed to do, then you're not getting any work and you'll end up with high anxiety and it'll destroy your creative process.
So that first point is definitely a big one, searching for perfection. But as an art director I want to put out work that at least I feel good about, because the deck is already pretty much stacked against me. But so much anxiety has built up that I'm not putting this stuff out because now I'm triple guessing everything. I need this stuff to work to be able to continue with any plans to advance in this area, but now I've been paralyzed for quite some time and I'm struggling to get out of that.
I'm trying to adhere to always be shipping kind of mentality, but my face is not high right now and at the end of the day water photographer like myself and others in this position needs his help. And I have no idea where this help can possibly come from besides a working professionals at all extend his hand down the ladder to help pull us up. That said especially on a fashion side, most of the photographers and people around it are some of the worst people I've ever met so I'm in a really crazy quagmire.
Thanks if you read this far.
Yes! Profit first changed my business life. Saved me during Covid.
Wish Id found it sooner
I enjoyed the timelapse at the end. I definitely wanted to see how that shot was made.
Really really good advice! Last year started off with a bang. I spent some money on getting my studio up and running. Turned out that the first 60 days were not indicative of the rest of the year. And of course, the studio startup costs were on my credit card. Lesson learned.
…just keep wiggling it around until you get it there!! Hahaha…priceless!
I wonder what your opinion is on stock selling platforms. Do you think they're any good? Do you think it's possible to make a living walking around taking pictures and videos and trying to sell them as stock footage on those sites?
I just hike around interesting places (off trail mostly), record my journey and create my movies. A interesting one uploaded recently is called 'Wolf Spirits". I don't work for money, nor for anyone else, I just create my own reality. We manifest our thoughts, whatever they are, always remember that! It's great being retired and still capable of daily 5 mile hikes, I am blessed. The two most important pieces of photography equipment I use are hiking poles and crampons. 😊
gear addiction🤯🤫 I think we all done it. Same stuff I have never used, but at the time I was thinking Got to have it🤔😀
Best video! Loved the behind the scenes. I did not know that digi techs exists until recently, the kit they have blows my mind!!
Glad it was helpful!
Thanks for the Ode To Jam Scott‼️✌️
Money and money management is the #2 reason most businesses fail, including photographers. The #1 reason is... not having a business plan. And sure, you can succeed without any kind of business plan, but it's extremely rare that happens. And planning is the phase I'm currently in to determine if I can make photography an actual business.
Sure money is absolutely important. No business can survive for long on zero revenue, and money mismanagement will sink any company. But not having any kind of business plan, and not adapting your business plan as you move forward, will severely hamper any growth prospects and make you more likely to fail. You don't need a perfect business plan at the start, because you can and should always adapt it, even if you're doing so... 3 months in. But you do need some kind of plan at the start so you aren't going in blind.
Jam photos looks like 3D renders, perfect !
Wow. Yes. I struggled about an upcoming custom home shoot. I don't have a 10mm lens. Just a 16mm which is my kit lens on my crop sensor. And the lens I wanted to rent wasn't available. I said, "no". Absolutely no more spending. Make do. Be creative. I looked up how make do with your kit lens on a professional shoot. My story and ideas won the day and my biggest concern of the lens became overshadowed by sensor dust. That cost me a ton of time. Big lesson. So, I love these tips especially the last one. Plus my drone establishing shot and ending hit the wow factor. And I completely forgot I was shooting with my kit lens. Thank you.
My issue has been that ever since I learned the technical aspect, I overthink it and my creativity has been drained.
It's becoming a bit of an issue.............. love it
02.34 - the what principle? I’m hearing Shim Flow Principle, which upon googling, is actually a principle in battery construction, though obvs doubtful this is what was said
Found it, Scheimpflug. Coming from video background this looks like “Lens Whacking” or tilt shift vibes, interesting though, definitely going to read
Found your channel about a week ago, thanks RUclips. Excellent stuff. I'm an amateur and 90% resonates for me. Obviously I don't shoot on the basis of cost on return etc. but its so easy to say that this piece of kit will last xx years so... some of it might, but much of it didn't make the transition to mirrorless.
While profit certainly is important, don't forget that profit unless you actually get paid in time means nothing. The saying goes: Revenue is vanity, profit is sanity and cash is KING, This is true for all conventional businesses. No matter how much profit you make, if you can't pay your bills, taxes or other expenses you will go bankrupt.
One of my favourite photographs is of a dancing couple, full of motion blur. There are posters around town right now for a Sam Smith show next year. Looking closer, I see that the photo of Sam is blurry. So yeah, perfection is for amateurs, this seems to be true.
🔥🔥 dropping knowledge
I'm grateful I learned the hard way in my late teens that spending money I don't have locks me into earning money in crappy jobs to pay said money back and limits my freedom of choice. I have avoided unnecessary debt ever since...
My problem with the kit money is that you are right but I still bought the Sony A7RV, not because i needed it but i wanted it....
Awesome video, thanks mate!
inverse square, law of incidence...the last one i couldnt get: Shin flow principle? English is my second language so I think im not understanding that one. Can some one let me know whats the name of that principle? Thanks :)
"Shimploog" got me wondering. Oh, "Scheimpflug" (*) he meant. In the original German pronunciation this sounds like Shime-pfloog. The video gives a very nice lecture that many small business owners do not understand.
I would add that the #1 problem is as Scott describes indeed and it has different ways of addressing. It starts with cost calculation as a major ingredient. If Scott says that our operational costs must be 30% then - profit first - there 's up to 70% left as our income. So, more important than cost calculation is "price" - how much do you charge for your work. This can be done bottom up from all the expenses that go into your productions, including the income that your business has to pay you, or top-down, looking at what the market will be prepared to pay you.
Looking at Scott's studio, while he gives the lecture, made me think if he rents all that, or owns the interior and kit, maybe rents the studio permanently as business space, and e.g. did the sound treatment in there on his own account. The studio camera stand he uses, when bought new, is somewhere between 5K and 20K, then there is a broncolor pack based studio strobe set with very serious light stands, the Cambo tilt/shift (T/S) camera with matching lens and 5DS digital back, and, and, and we saw an assistant or art director in the BTS plus a lady working food and dishes (who could equally well have been master chef or production manager or art director).
There are two follow up lectures in there: (1) the roles of the members in the team, and how Scott grew his business to the point that it enabled him to afford all that photographic luxury. (2) Each of the tools he bought - we don't need all the nerdy stuff, he says in this video - will have a nerdy justification. If you shoot a T/S camera with a longish lens, then you need to stop your lens's aperture down a lot to get a bit of Depth of Field (DoF). Shoot that lens at f/32 for DoF and ISO 64, with a strobe head in a large modifier at a distance where the light is hard again, and you need a boat load of flash power (so the studio pack's power of 1,200 Joules or more is justified by that, but not the Rolls-Royce, or Bentley-Turbo, kind of choice for broncolor). I'm not critical of his choices that I saw in there, rather the contrary, but the interesting lecture would be to do this second lecture on how he was able to afford all this while building his career/studio/portfolio (of clients and images). In strategic business planning, we sometimes use the concept of "plateau plan" in which we project growth phases or spurts (market share, revenue, profit) and consolidation phases between these. Somewhere in that plan we project investments in production resources (like kit, studio floor space, assistants, etc, or an adjusted marketing budget). And of course, when we aren't able to grow along these lines then we adapt expenditure towards such resources. Grow faster and we need to spend earlier, grow slower and we stall.
As Scott tells that he works as a coach to a handful of select colleagues, the video may be an advertorial for that line of business of his. And that's valid and appreciated too. But the implication is that he needs to make a trade-of between what is "public" and what is "private" in the coaching relation. Bottom line, it is about what decisions to make when, considering where we are in our implicit, or explicit, plateau plan. And in a coaching relation that will always be "private".
Anyhow, valid and relevant video.
(*) Scott uses a Cambo tilt/shift camera in this video with a Canon 5DS as digital back and a serious lens for digital with an image circle large enough for serious tilt/shift operation. Scheimpflug's Law says that we have sharpness between subject plane and film (sensor) plane when these two and the lens plane intersect in one line. In here, the lens plane is a hypothetical plane perpendicular to the optical axis with the lens's nodal point in it. And that nodal point is the geometric rotation point in the lens's design and actual setting. Scheimpflug's Law makes you wonder why we have sharpness when all three are parallel - the normal mode for all normal cameras. Well, this in turn is based on an axiom in geometry that states that parallel things intersect at infinity distance. When we shift one, two or three of the three participants (sensor/film, lens, subject) then nothing changes to these principles. When we tilt, however we start messing with the intersection line and potentially have more than one intersection line, much closer by than infinity. When we now arrange the three planes to intersect in the same line again, then we get sharpness between subject plane and sensor/film plane. And that's the easiest way of using the tilt/shift camera. Why would you shift? Well, it rotates the plane of focus and this means either you can shoot a shallow but sharp plane wide open, or you can have sharpness where this would otherwise be impossible. The latter however is easily solved with digital images by what we call "focus stepping" where we take several images from tripod and between the images shift the focusing distance. Then in post we "focus stack" these images into one that is sharp where we need it to be. It is hard to rotate the plane of sharpness however and "time parallax" becomes our enemy. In the case of motion in the subject, or of the camera, between individual contributing frames, we have problem that we may not be able to solve. So with tilt we can shoot a single shot and have sharpness where we need it, considering the camera's viewpoint (angle) relative to the subject's main plane. Note that Depth of Field (DoF) remains perpendicular to the subject plane. In the past couple digital decades, tilt/shift (T/S) has most often been used to create an image that makes reality look like a miniature world. When, way back, "we" shot large format and needed T/S because a "standard" lens (like a nifty fifty to "full frame") at 8"x10" format is some 350mm and hence has very little DoF - so the last thing we thought about was to create miniature world images.
thank you!
Done is better than perfect.
Concept over Content 👍
I’m starting my business and although I’m afraid to how everything will turn out to be, I have been investing in educational courses. Business and Photography wise. I know that it will save me time on the long run.
By the way, how many hours does the time lapse cover?
Good for you: it’s about 7 hours of shooting there
I have a question, If i take a photo and then upload it to be computer and my shadows are blue and highlights are red, is it something wrong with my camera or is lightroom just telling me i've underexposed/overexposed? 🤔
Good stuff... thanks... cheers
I’d love you to collab with Aussie photog Luke Ayres. You both have this knife shanking way of saving us all thousands
Professional get work done. As you said, it doesn't have to be perfect, it has to be done.
I just found your channel. Good sensible advice-especially the bit about not spending over your head. I have to confess to having a mild, and at this point, still manageable case of G.A.S. (Gear Acquisition Syndrome). I'm not a pro but I use photography a lot as an adjunct to what I do (I built and restore ship models. And, I have a RUclips channel). There are quite a few parallels between the two fields, especially when it comes to operating a creative endeavor as a business. Enjoyed your point of view.
Having said all that, I do have one small criticism, and it may pertain to just me. It has to do with the sound track in the last section of the video: I noticed a rhythmic dissonance between the bass and the keyboard that was, for me, too strong to ignore. Don't know if the player(s) were trying for a polyrhythmic feel or just trying to create a little tension in an otherwise inoffensive piece of music, but it really was distracting. Again, this is just how it affects me. No one else would probably notice or comment about it. But I did eventually stop the video short of the finish because of it.
Thanks for doing this and hope there's more where this came from!
Hiya Scott - what capture cart are you using?
Its just a rock and roller cart for now.
Very interesting and logical. Pardon my ignorance, but what is "Shrim Flow Principle"
Vic Peralta, "Scheimfplug" principle.
I really love your videos, but the point of spending gear is recently to much for me. I would love to hear more other tips.
'shinfa principle?' - tried to google it, most likely spelled it wrong, could someone kindly help point me in the right direction?
Workshops are luxury for those who can afford it... some are good but half of them are redundant
Off topic, but that rim light pointing at camera is terribly distracting 😅 I appreciate the content.
Okay, stupid question from a non-native speaker... You talk about a focusing principle that is autosubtitled as "Shin Flow". That is also what I hear but it is definititely not what you say. What is exactly what you are referring to? I know this is not the main subject of the video but I am just stuck with it 😅
What's the percentage breakdown of how you fund your photography business. You gave us the 30% - what's the other 70?
I suck at finding clients :(
Will commercial photography be replaced with AI ? I think the whole landscape of photography will change with tech companies in the near future.
I have decided today that I quite like your content... odd thing to say but after having 30-plus years skin in the game in many genres you actually speak a lot of sense. I to have failed and come back then left it behind through choice before it made me have another frigging breakdown. I too hate the small talk in life and I too just tell it how it si and cant be arsed with the reactions from the wannbee twits who think they are bloody amazing artists. I don't agree with some things you say but you do make sense and believe what you are saying so good for you and glad you are not a Dick at large! so dam many of those around in this game today.
@ 3:05 after 30 years of semi pro photography, I can assure you I will not learn photography based on digits, or numbers.... I promise!
to copy is a method to learn
Perfect Execution ist for Amateurs, this is Exactly why I can make out any photograph taken by a prfessional: flaws, easy mistakes, self overestimation, execution without heart or soul.
Just discovered your channel and really enjoying it. You could save some money by turning off that bloody annoying light to the left. Otherwise, fab stuff 😁
String your content together and you’ll get basically an apprenticeship’s worth of wisdom for free. Incredible.
And yes please to a video on making vs taking- that could probably be expanded into a whole course on creating
RENT IT 🎉
I don’t know why you don’t have 2mil subs at this point … oh yeah! Cause everyone just wants to buy gear to become an amazing photographer 🙄
haha, I should really do some gear videos and cash in at some point.
@@TinHouseStudioUK Or wear a blonde wig, put some makeup on and a pushup bra! 😂😂
imperfect execution is unprofessional. Grammatical and spelling errors do matter. It's not difficult to check.
Trust me they don't 😂 I've been in a lot of rooms with a lot of successful people and most couldn't give a shite about spelling. In fact some people like it when they see it because they can relate.
Please do an Ode To Jaffa Cakes! Omg I love those things! Have to visit the UK again. We don’t have them here.
As usual Scott, you’re spot on with commentary.
One thing I wish you would address sometime - emergency situations. Back several years ago, I had a multiple product shoot, and there were power problems, big ones, in my area for 4 days. It was way before the days of portable MacBooks and it was quite stressful. Also, when I was shooting people and stuff years ago, my friends and I took over for a wedding shooter that had fallen I’ll and had to be hospitalized. He was lucky he had a network of trusted shooters in place. But many today do not. This is just something I think of from time to time as the business has changed so much.
@@DynastyUK Don't agree. For someone like me - good at English, who writes for a living, bad English, grammar, spelling, and, above all, punctuation, leap out at the reader, and make one howl! It's an "Ouch!" moment! Really painful. And someone, working professionally, who fails at good basic English, looks terribly unprofessional - like they don't care! And sorry, your "successful people" who don't give a shit, are really letting themselves down. If you can't master your own language, seriously, how good are you?? Sure, there are many "creatives" who aren't brilliant at their own language. But, it's still a personal weakness, letting them down in one area of their lives, even if it has no obvious bearing on their art. And it will be noticed! It's a negative. Being good at your native language still beats not being good at it! No argument!
@@fiddleandfart Sounds like a "you" problem though. Since I literally know millionaires who have come from nothing. One is actually still trying to learn how to read and write at a level of a high schooler and is in 7 figures. If they truly think spelling and grammar are that much of an issue they hire others to write their copy. Except they don't always.
You can't say "no argument!" That's just dumb.
Useful insights and information, thanks. Good advice to keep your resources and gear inline with what you are actually doing (and/or earning)with your photography.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scheimpflug_principle
I think I still remember how it works, from when I was shooting on 4x5 studio cameras.