Photography | Queensberry Connects

We have discovered a new range of Photoshop plugins that allows us to put the soul (which we forgot to put in while shooting) back into our imagery.

Because these soulful images are our unique selling point, I can’t tell you where we found them.

With this set of plugins we are able to take a loveless bride and groom and turn them into passionate beings. We are able to take an indiscreet glance and turn it into the look of love. We are able to take monochromatic feelings and turn them into a fiercely burning fire … all with the help of some photoshop and a couple of plugins.

It’s not true! That’s the thing.

The most important thing in the imagery … the soul of the image … cannot be added later.

Where do you find the soul in the imagery … it lives in the people that populate your work. I cannot emphasise enough how important this is to the imagery we put into our albums. Emotion always wins over a dramatic landscape.

To create the emotion we nurture trust with our clients, and to get the soul (in its simplest form) we let the bride and groom focus on being together over being in front of our camera.

There is no easy answer and it certainly doesn’t exist in Photoshop as a filter. As much as technology plays a dominant role in the new age of wedding photography there is that thing which technology cannot ‘create’ and strangely it is the thing that is most important.

Best, Johannes

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I’ve packed my bags and shed a tear (as I leave my family) and right now I’m eating airline food and watching all of the movies I can as I jet over to the UK for a speaking series for Queensberry.

It all started with a stranger walking into my studio and being curious. Liz from the MPA was on her last days of travel in New Zealand and happened to find our studio. We had a conversation and what do you know … I’m off to the UK with MPA.

I’m going to talk about me and all of the things I did wrong to get to where we are now … because I know so much on that subject.

I’m going to talk about albums … because I love telling stories and we just won another wedding album award.

I’m going to talk about how we fixed the recession (for us) … by being respectful and disrespectful.

I’m going to talk about business … because otherwise the rest of what we do makes no sense.

And if there is any time I want to talk about taking/making better photographs.

And when I’m not talking about me, albums, business, recessions, better photographs or my family, I’m going to get in some stuff about Photojunction.

If I’m not covering the thing you want to know about then leave a comment on this post and I’ll see what I can arrange.

If you are coming along make sure you say Hi.

If you want to come along but haven’t booked there’s probably room for one more.

Ian Baugh is coming along as my chaperone … it’s going to be great.

Cheers

Johannes

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What are we actually selling?

When people contact us about their wedding, if they are doing a general search, they most often ask, ‘How much to shoot our wedding?’

Eventually they get around to ‘What do I get?’ and finally ‘Are you available?’

This email just came in. It says it all really.

To whom it may concern,

Would it be possible to be sent a full price list of your wedding packages?

Thanks,
Justin

We all want our clients to care, because it is the caring that makes them better clients.

So what are we selling?

Are we selling a product at a price?

Are we selling our ability to make great photographs?

Are we selling our ability as a digital artist?

Are we selling our ability to tell a good story (the one where the Princess wore white and the Prince was dashing – off to a wedding) and somewhere there is a happy ever after?

Here at Moda we are selling something for them to care about.

We are selling them more than just photography.

We have photographs that show our skills.

We have stories that talk about our experiences.

We have albums that show our ability to put together a good fairy tale.

We have a studio that reflects our attention to our clients’ needs and our drive to be our best.

We are not selling 400 images in a box, two enlargements and an album with 20 sides.

We are selling them an experience.

How much should that cost?

The next question is how do we get our clients to recognise that?

Cheers, Johannes

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Last week we had a wedding in Wanaka. It had been miserable the day before the wedding. In fact it had been snowing.

As our plane came in to land at Queenstown the captain announced that we would be circling while they waited for the weather to clear enough to see the runway. 45 minutes later there was another announcement that we were about to try a final approach for landing.

The Airline had a Plan B. If we couldn’t land we’d fly back to Christchurch and they’d drive us back by bus (six hideous hours).

Our own Plan B was to drive ourselves …and we could because we had enough time (we’d planned it that way).

Our other Plan B involved friends in the area who are amazing photographers … we could call them in.

Our other other plan B was a variation of the last one, where we went through the list of local photographers!

Stress is one of the major causes of health issues. The best way to deal with stress is to have good solid Plan B in place, so that you have a way to deal with the worst case scenario.

Plan B is a personal and professional responsibility.

Cheers, Johannes

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At weddings there are always time burglars stealing from the innocent, so we talk to our clients about how long things really take … so we don’t lose the time we need. Sometimes this means that a cunning couple will deliberately try to run us out of time because they hate having their photographs taken. We distract them by focusing on their feelings for each other instead of their feelings about photography – easy if you aren’t constantly asking them to smile for the camera.

One of the most guilty time burglars is the make-up artist … stealing time from the photographer to get the perfect look.

Greeting people as they come out of the church steals lots of time, but still we try our absolute best to get people back to the reception ‘on time’. A happy caterer is a happy ambassador.

We like to start off in credit by turning up to a gig ahead of time. Being late creates stress, and stress does not create good images – a very simple equation. Even though we sell our services by the hour we stay flexible on this.

Finally we always make sure someone in the bridal party is “watching the clock”.

As they say, keep your enemies close. Look out for the burglars of time.

Hugs, Johannes

We heard a lovely story over the weekend about a bride who gave the house-keys to her mother for safe-keeping. When she locked up to leave the house the bride managed to trap her dress in the door. But Mother had left for the church 15 minutes earlier. Nobody had a key! This could have gone horribly wrong but Dad was able to ‘bend’ the door with a crow bar sufficient to release his daughter for a timely arrival. Some Dads are handy like that.

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I watched a video on DWF by Jesh de Rox (“Client Connections”).

Everybody loves Jesh, and “Jesh loves everybody” … Actually there are probably a few photographers who don’t “love Jesh” because they don’t know him … Possibly fairer to say, ‘To know him is to be loved by him” … and we all know that love works best as a two way street.

He talked about getting couples to show their love to you, the photographer.

You cannot do it without trust.

And you cannot do it without first giving them some love of your own. How profoundly simple but true!

Johannes

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Crikey!!

We see things differently, Jo (my lovely wife and the mother of our child) and I.

She likes punchy images, and I like seeing detail and tone.

You can’t have both – it’s a trade-off.

In spite of our differences we both want the best.

I sympathise with the lab, trying to keep people like us happy.

Its going to be interesting seeing who gets to dress our child (in June).

Cheers, Johannes

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At the seminar I mentioned recently the presenter prefaced anything that might sound critical with, “I know this doesn’t apply to you, but…”

So, I know this doesn’t apply to you, but… Tony Bramley had this to say about Johanne’s last post:

“There have always been crap photographers. Even in the days of film our old lab used to tell us of terrible exposures etc.

“It’s just there are more of them with digital cameras who think they can do a professional job in a very amateur way. If they don’t know their trade and tools they are not professionals. As a printing company as well as an album supplier, you need to accept that a certain percentage of your customers are going to be poor at what they do and cause you some grief. Unfortunate but a reality.

“Good professional photographers have two schools of thought on this. It puts us, in customer perception, at a higher level with good value at a higher price for excellent work. However it does give the profession a bad name… I suggest charging extra for particularly bad images that require extra work and you could make some extra money!”

When I asked, Johannes didn’t disagree with Tony’s main point, but said:

“Before they invented pixels (ending the era of the unforgiving nature of film) it was more important to get it right in camera … The magical art of pixel massage has reduced the need to ‘get it right first time’. The expression, ‘We can fix it in the computer’ has led to lazy photographers. If people were able to incorporate those early capture ethics of exposure, composition and posing first up they would save themselves a lot of pain and time.

“Getting it right in camera may not seem as important to the new generation of the ‘forgiven’, but in truth it is more important than ever. There will always be crap, I agree. That’s a good thing. That is what makes the average look better, and the better than average look exceptional.”

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Before they invented pixels much of the stuff that we do in post production happened to the image as it was taken.

There used to be a vignette you could apply ‘on camera’, there were wonderful things that you could do using a softar filter.

There also was attention to detail. Details of composition, lighting, expression and, dare I use the word, posing.

We now shoot a ridiculous number of frames as we become more opportunist and somehow more reckless.

Certainly from this reckless/prolific behavior we get some true gems, but we often create more work than is necessary.

I just wanted to give a plug to doing it right in camera over fixing it in post production.

Know your light, know your composition, and start with well exposed images.

I am aware of a move to learning more about the craft of photography, and I fully support that as the new era of photography … another case of the latest ‘new thing’ being the old thing but better.

Why does it matter? It matters because it costs us … It costs us in time and quality to deal with these things in post production … Join the revolution! The revolution for photographs shot right in the first instance.

Cheers, Johannes

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