Original subtitles

Well you guys, hello and welcome to the

official Q&A session for CreativeLive, the Complete

Wedding Photographer Bootcamp.

What we have going on right now is

we have two periscopes, two periscope feeds going

on.

We have one periscope feed with CreativeLive, we

have one periscope feed coming from my particular

account, and it's just exciting.

So we're getting extra meta right now, it's

like live on live on live, which is

just technology and I like being at the

forefront of it with an organization that believes

in it just as much as I do.

So if you are on joining us on

periscope, find us at creativelive.com forward slash

live four.

I feel like I'm doing one of those

like American Idol, like four, like vote for

me four.

So creativelive.com forward slash live four.

That's where you guys will be joining us,

so please get us there.

The feed will be a lot prettier than

what's coming off on our phones and we're

going to be showing videos and photos, so

join us there.

So on that note, I want to say

thank you so much for tuning into the

Q&A portion for this experience.

Now up until this point, we are halfway

through this boot camp and it has been

an adventure and for people who are coming

on and really just joining us, I want

to say thank you.

I think that this course has turned into

more than I could have anticipated because it's

not about me and it's not about a

wedding, it's about everybody coming together and realizing

how much we have collectively to grow and

learn and better our businesses.

Now what I want to make sure that

you know is that this Q&A has

nothing to do with me.

This Q&A is all about you, your

needs, your desires, and to fill in the

gaps.

I think that it's easy because I might

have taken for granted me getting in and

just doing what I do, right?

So it's more along the lines of I'm

running in, I'm shooting a wedding, I'm teaching

courses, but there could be times where I

jump over ideas.

So what I would love for this Q

&A to do is to fill in those

gaps to ensure that once this boot camp

ends, you feel great, you feel confident, and

you're ready to move forward.

Now on that note, let's move forward.

Let's start with the first question and it

was a great one.

Shannon L.

Johnson asks, how many of the images you

choose are JDs?

Seems to me the main photographer is mainly

in the best place for the shot.

How do you cull through a second shooter's

images?

Well, when I shoot with JD, JD is

my husband and he is my second shooter.

When it comes time to cull our images,

the thing that I'm going to do first

is I'm going to go through all my

images first.

I am the first shooter.

I will obviously have the best angle, but

JD has a second complimentary angle.

So what I want to make sure that

I'm doing is having JD fill in the

gaps and the grout.

So as far as culling goes, I go

through all of my images first and then

I kind of lay a framework.

In a past CreativeLive course, I have referred

to my images being the tile and JD's

images being the grout.

So together we're creating a firm foundation for

the wedding.

That's a great question.

Thank you, Shannon.

Now what I'm going to do is I'm

going to move into our next question.

So let's dive into Pamela's question.

How are you able to get both the

bride and groom in focus at such a

wide aperture?

Magic?

Okay.

Well, I hate to break the news to

you and let you down, Pamela, but it

is definitely not magic.

There are a few things to really keep

in mind when you're shooting in general, but

specifically when it comes to wide apertures.

Wide apertures, the thing that we want to

focus on the most is focal plane.

Now, theoretically, there are two, not theoretically, concretely,

there are two focal planes that we as

photographers focus on.

The X plane and the Y plane.

If I focus on one thing along that

X plane, anything along that X plane should

be in focus.

If I focus on something on the Y

plane, anything above and below that focal point

should be in focus.

So theoretically, if I were to stand here

and then somebody were to stand on my

shoulders and you focused on my eye, the

person standing on top of my shoulder's eye

should be in focus as well because they're

on the same Y focal plane.

When I'm shooting a couple, I can't shoot

really wide apertures if the couples are very

different in height, but chances are couples are

roughly the same height and then if a

girl or a bride is wearing heels, she

gets to be really close at the same

eye level with the groom or the fiance.

That is the kind of the main thing

that I'm looking for first and foremost, that

I can shoot at an F2 if my

couples are nice and close together and their

faces are lined up and their eyes are

on the same X plane, that is the

trick and that's the thing you want to

focus on.

No pun intended.

The thing too to keep in mind that

I was learning my first and second year

was I would do a lot of shifting

and I would focus and then shift and

recompose.

Now, I was composing not on an X

plane or on a Y plane, so I

would focus and then I would tilt my

camera ever so slightly, maybe at a diagonal

in either which way.

Now, if I focused and then move my

camera at a diagonal, the focus would be

slightly softer because I was no longer on

that focal plane.

I hope that kind of makes sense.

On that note, when it comes to focusing,

Kayla Rodriguez asked a great question.

She said, do you do a lot of

focusing and recomposing or do you quickly change

between the focus points?

What is your strategy to getting sharp photos

when there is so much movement going on?

Now, one thing that I really want to

focus on and bring up to speed, which

I have mentioned before in my blog.

When I first got into photography, I shot

with the Canon 20D and then I upgraded

to the Canon 5D and then I upgraded

to the Canon 5D Mark II.

All of these cameras have a nine-point

focusing system.

When I was working with a camera with

a nine-point focusing system, I was focusing

and recomposing quite a bit.

In fact, if you look at my very

first CreativeLive course back in 2010, we shot

a live wedding and what you saw me

doing a lot of was focusing and then

shifting my camera.

Focusing and shifting my camera.

I got so many questions from photographers being

like, what is she doing?

I was recomposing my photos so often.

Well, since that time, I have upgraded to

the 5D Mark III and that has a

61-point focusing system.

Instead of nine focusing points, I have 61

points.

Because I have 61 points in my frame,

I no longer have to shift and recompose.

During the wedding, I was rotating the focal

point extensively.

With the 5D Mark III, you have to

use the knob on the top and the

nozzle on the back to find your focal

point.

I have become so accustomed and quick to

it that I can change my focal point

to ensure that what I want is an

intact, sharp focus.

This is going to be our last question

on focus because I did quite often get

a lot of questions in regards to people

wondering how I was focusing and what I

was focusing on.

Macrina Rosales asked, how do you focus when

you do walking shots?

Now, if you had tuned in throughout the

Not Dream engagement session and if you tuned

in throughout the past five days, five lessons

in regards to the Not Dream wedding, you

will have seen me employ a certain tip

or trick.

Now, every time I had my clients walk

to me, I said the same thing.

When I say it, you might be reminded.

I said, I want you to walk with

me at a cadence.

A cadence is simply a beat, and then

I gave them the beat.

One, two, three.

I told this to the groomsmen, I told

this to the bridesmaids, I told this to

the bride and groom, and I said it

to Samantha and Taylor at their engagement session.

One, two, three.

That is what I did again and again.

The reason why I'm giving them a cadence

is because I want to pan with my

subjects.

Now, I understand that if I do not

move with my subjects and I focus on

my subjects, the next step that they take

to me will not be in focus.

But if I can keep equal distance between

myself and my subject and I can focus

in between each frame, then I know it's

going to be tack sharp.

I shoot in one shot.

So, one-step focus, two-step focus, three

-step focus.

These are the things that I'm thinking about,

and it's created a pattern that when I

look back at the photos, I notice that

there's a higher propensity for photos that are

in focus.

Now, I did just talk about the not

dream engagement session, and on that note, I

want to dive into a particular thing from

the not dream engagement session.

But before I get there, I want to

remind you to please, if you have questions,

I want to make sure that this is

just about you.

I'm going to be incorporating a lot of

our producers for your questions to make sure

that you feel a part of this process

as much as anything else.

So, in this next slide, I'm going to

be talking about one of the questions I

received most after watching the not dream engagement

session.

And a lot of people were asking me,

how did I create a connection so fast

between my clients, especially having never met the

clients?

Now, in a previous lesson, if you tuned

in during one of the earlier lessons, I

talked about how I prepared my clients for

a successful engagement session.

I taught you how I encouraged communication with

my clients before the engagement session.

So, once they arrived, what did that look

like for us?

How did we just meet?

How did I go from just only talking

to them via email to all of a

sudden being warm and fuzzy and getting their

true selves out in front of the lens?

Because when we had a previous lesson talking

about the engagement session, we dove right in

to shooting and posing, and people thought, well,

what did that first part look like?

Well, I'm excited because what I want to

do is I want to talk about the

three things that I first talked about with

my clients.

And this is directly pulled from a previous

lesson that I had spoken about.

In a previous session, I talked about how

I like to set the tone for the

shoot.

And I do this in three ways.

Firstly, I ease into the shoot by introductions.

I had only spoken to the client via

email, so I felt like I had to

introduce myself as a person, as their photographer.

And I also, for this particular shoot, JD

does not always come with me on shoots,

but he came with me on this shoot,

so I had to introduce JD and his

role for the shoot.

Secondly, I'm going to explain how the shoot

will unfold.

I'm setting out those expectations.

Now, thirdly, I want to know that those

expectations for me, for them, are simply to

relax, enjoy, and have fun.

So, I'm going to show you a video

about how that happens.

We're going to roll into that video right

about now.

This is JD.

This is my husband.

This is my second shooter.

Hi, nice to meet you.

Oh, you look stunning.

You look so beautiful.

No, you look so beautiful.

Oh, my gosh.

I mean, look at all these options you

guys are bringing in.

I had no idea.

I thought that was a good idea.

Okay.

That's actually a really good idea.

I'm not gonna lie.

I thought the same thing.

I was like, I guess we could just

play the fool, but we were able to

score parking, so that worked.

Okay, good.

Oh, you guys, I'm so excited.

I'm so excited.

Congrats on everything.

Thank you.

you guys it's such a I've been watching

things online how things are unfolding my gosh

it's been yeah and the planning process like

has it been just you know what's weird

it's just been it's been crazy but in

a different way like I feel like wedding

people it's crazy because they're wedding planning with

us it's crazy because it's like we're doing

this fun stuff and we're doing that fun

stuff and it's not the planning that's great

oh my god you guys so many people

would love that experience a lot of your

stuff so throughout the day are you sure

yes this is yes please we want you

guys to relax as much as possible on

a wedding day jd shoots with me but

on engagement sessions he comes along just to

kind of get to know you guys and

carry stuff you guys are so cute i

really like some of the things your relationship

reminds me of ours because it's just like

genuine in love and genuinely like them yes

above all no no we'll know if it's

truly telling if you feel like you're marrying

up to the guy that you're with then

it is it mirrors i totally feel like

i married up i really did well you

guys i'm so excited yeah i mean this

is gonna be great so i hope this

setting is good yes i mean it's well

here's the thing i mean you guys are

beautiful and in love and we could pretty

much shoot anywhere and they're gonna be great

photos right now we just kind of want

to use this as an opportunity to get

to know you guys to hang out awesome

and um you know just build like a

cool relationship before the wedding so that the

time the wedding comes around you guys aren't

like that awkward meeting strangers so this is

cool this is cool okay let's let's let's

let's head out this is this is seriously

this way i'm here i am too bad

you should have you should have brought down

you need a gym member i know i

know so as you just thought that was

our initial meeting we wanted to make sure

that we kept it warm that we kept

it intimate and it was slightly informative and

it was slightly informative in that i was

just repeating the things i had prepared for

them via email now uh what i wanted

just to do was just to reiterate everything

that i had told them in like the

four or five previous emails that we had

shared before the shoot so to ensure that

we're bringing everybody who's in the chat room

and watching online involved in this conversation i'm

gonna uh turn and get a question from

the chat room and jd i think he's

been he's in the chat room are both

the producers in the chat room so they're

reading everything yeah no celeste actually uh brought

this question to me from the chat room

and it's from star mercer uh she asked

uh do you ever tear up when photographing

a wedding i know i do oh i

know she will yeah yeah she does i

do too sometimes absolutely you absolutely um i

think that the minute you stop tearing up

when you when you shoot what you're doing

um it could possibly mean that maybe you're

not um as fully present as you should

be i think it's important for you to

have a personal uh personal capacity as well

as a professional capacity there are times where

there's really touching moments during a speech that

i get teared up or when a couple

uh shares their vows it's still such a

special thing so yes i absolutely tear up

i mean i tear up during a few

creative live courses so there you go i'm

i'm a natural crier um let's move on

to another question that we have um brought

in for this course ann marie gillery asked

why do you use your ghetto fabulous lens

hood your hand instead of having one on

your lens at all times i got asked

this question so often and the answer is

it's simply ease of use having a lens

hood and um makes my lens longer as

well as wider and it's very difficult i

change my lenses rather quickly and a lot

of the time so if i'm taking out

a lens hood and putting back in and

taking it out it just becomes too complicated

and i really like the ease of movement

and quite honestly it's a personal preference there's

not a right way or a wrong way

i have just found that i can travel

with less gear make my camera less intrusive

by simply holding up my hand and yes

i refer to it as my ghetto fabulous

lens hood because it didn't cost a dang

thing and i can cut out on the

haze that i don't i don't really like

i'm not a big fan of we're gonna

get into uh the next question which i

thought was a little bit funny and i

debated even answering it but i'm gonna get

into it right now because i got it

a lot girl how do you stay looking

so fresh on a wedding day let me

tell you it was so hot in sonoma

it was i think 85 degrees but it

was 85 degrees with humidity and there was

no shade and so people were asking well

how did it not look like you were

sweating and the answer was i have no

idea because i was dripping but what i

can say is that before the not dream

wedding and before any wedding i really do

uh put on quite a bit of makeup

because i feel like not only um from

a personal perspective i think from a brand

perspective when i show up at the division

of my brand i want to make sure

that i'm still looking as put together as

possible now this is a total girl answer

and some of the guys are gonna be

wah wah i'll get through with it real

quick uh here are a few tips that

i want to share that i have shared

in the past in my blog what i

want to do is i want to make

sure that i put a primer on my

face so that the primer is the thing

that actually soaks up all the sweat so

i put a primer and the primer that

i use for makeup forever and it's called

all matte and i put it on before

i put my foundation on so i put

the primer foundation and then i pat it

down with some powder once i do that

i will use the mac prep and prime

it's a little tiny pot that i use

and i simply put it over my eyelid

and it actually absorbs any sort of oil

so put it over my eyelid and slightly

under so it keeps my eyeliner and mascara

everything just nice and tacked and once i'm

done with all of my makeup i will

use the mac fix plus spray now i

just spray it on my face and it

becomes a sealant does it sound like i'm

embalming myself absolutely but the trick of the

trade is to actually look presentable and that's

only by putting in a little bit effort

before and in advance so now all done

with all sort of girly style questions we're

going to get into a question uh from

this all of these questions have been sourced

from the ever amazing facebook group there is

a 30 day wedding uh complete wedding photographer

experience facebook group and the people that are

in it are amazing i turn to them

say hey guys can i get some feedback

what's going on so the questions that are

being sourced directly have been from the facebook

group definitely check it out they're a group

of phenomenal people now once i answer uh

this next question i'm going to turn it

over to again either celeste or jd for

the question so this is from kelly kelly

pomeroy about how many ever how about how

many images on average do you actually give

a couple in their gallery i know you

shoot about 100 images an hour but what

do they actually receive edited final i chose

this question from kelly because i thought it

was such a great question that i needed

to clarify now i tell my clients that

i shoot 100 images an hour and that's

what they should expect so if a client

hires us for an eight hour wedding which

is very average for us they will receive

around 800 images however what jd and i

are shooting is closer to 175 to 200

images an hour so um i will shoot

somewhere in the ballpark of 1500 images after

a wedding 1600 images after a wedding and

then we bring that number down because our

job as as a photographer is yes to

shoot photos but it's also to be a

curator of our images it's going to be

very important for us not to just spray

all the photos and then turn them over

to the client our goal is to shoot

effectively get the shots that we need curate

them down and then deliver an image that's

not going a series of images that are

not going to be overwhelming for a client

to kind of sift through an entire gallery

so thank you kelly for that question i'm

going to turn it over to jd and

jd is going to ask a question real

quick okay this question again comes from the

chat room from autumn harrier uh she says

have you ever been called bossy and if

so how or do how would you respond

not saying you come off this way but

you work uh with initiative and very quickly

i second shot my first wedding a few

weeks ago and one of the groomsmen told

the lead photographer that she and included me

as well was bossy and needed to tone

it down a bit i was mortified oh

i feel so bad for that question um

okay so the answer is have i ever

been told that i was bossy like more

times than i would like to count but

never from a client my family thinks i'm

bossy my husband thinks i'm bossy my dog

thinks i'm bossy but when it comes to

clients i think that it's really important for

me to understand that my personality has to

be honed in because it's a reflection of

my brand as well as it being a

reflection of the client's experience so as you

saw if you're able to tune in during

um as i shot for the not dream

wedding is yes i was in control yes

i was articulate yes i raised my voice

when i needed to but i always kept

it going and as lively as i possibly

could i did that by laughing i did

that by smiling and i did that by

expressing appreciation oh thank you so much for

this thank you so much thank you that's

so nice of you i appreciate this anytime

that you can uh cover a sword with

honey it's gonna be easier to swallow so

i don't know if that was the best

analogy just came to me whether or not

it worked or not i i'm not sure

i'm gonna get next uh into another question

it's gonna give the producers some time to

source questions from the group chat so let

us know how that's going next question comes

from erica sheedy it looks like you don't

use lens caps during the day in your

bag and i was just wondering if you

do that to make it faster using them

is definitely a hassle but i'm too scared

things will get scratched or something this is

a very similar question into why i don't

use lens hoods now i don't use lens

hoods and i don't use lens caps now

i understand that i get a lot of

heat as to why i don't use them

it's a personal preference and in the course

of 10 years i have never not once

had to replace a lens because it was

scratched or wasn't treated right when we travel

when i have the lenses in storage when

i keep them in my studio they have

the caps on them of course but on

a wedding day because i move so quickly

they're coming in and out of my bag

that i am never concerned that they're going

to get scratched i'm never going to concern

that they're going to get dirty because the

bag that i have has a flap over

it so in the transition between the bag

and the camera it's never been an issue

i'm going to get into another question from

ashley rose fouts she asked will you be

posting the entire gallery from the not wedding

for us to look at at pixieset on

pixieset and the answer is yes of course

i will absolutely be posting a gallery of

all of the images so that you can

see because of what i definitely wanted to

clarify that i did not do at the

wedding is all of the images for all

of the shoots i will produce as part

of this boot camp what you guys are

seeing are images straight out of camera there

is no retouching there is no judging there

is no making it pretty so does this

is this disconcerting to me as a creative

as an artist as a photographer yes it

makes me wildly uncomfortable that people are seeing

everything out of camera without it being retouched

however i understand that there's going to be

a sense of greater good that people can

look at those images and think well girl

you have some work to do and i

will respond and say yes i absolutely do

but the end product is something that i

stand by and that i am proud of

so i would love people to see the

gallery from the wedding you can definitely check

that out if you decide to download the

course the engagement session the wedding and all

of our five shoots how to pose a

curvy bride how to work in harsh light

how to pose a tall and short couple

all of the shoots that we produced for

this boot camp you will be able to

see galleries from it so definitely if you

want to see galleries definitely check out the

option for a download uh celeste or jd

do we have any other do we have

any questions we do we have a very

lively chat room jasmine i have to say

it's making me feel a little disconcerted like

standing up here and it's so silent and

i'm like hello hello you have a very

active anybody out there are i this is

my first time channel hosting so i was

hanging out in the lounge like a dummy

and i'm like oh questions are over here

in this one so i'm a little slow

on the uptake but i got there and

there's lots of questions there great my bad

guys so a question from missy rich um

one is do you see same day edits

becoming more popular how did you handle the

330 deadline from edited images you had during

the not wedding maybe a step-by-step

process that's great that's great and unfortunately i

don't think it's going to be the answer

that most people want to hear i am

absolutely um i'm not afraid by same day

edits in that i produce a same day

slideshow at 99 of my weddings and the

way that i am able to do that

is while guests are eating during dinner um

i will be sitting just outside of the

room or room next door and i go

through my cards rather quickly and i will

produce a same day wedding slideshow now the

same day wedding slideshow are images that have

not been retouched and i'm okay sharing my

photos at least on a wedding day at

the venue on my computer as unretouched i

believe that we should be shooting images as

perfect as possible out of the can and

to be honest when it is on a

slideshow it's on a such quick flip that

each image is being shown for 2.5

seconds so that's a really short amount of

time for somebody to look at it now

imagine put yourself in the mind of a

same day edit viewer right they've been probably

sitting in the sun or sitting at a

church and they drank a little too much

during cocktail hour i have a running joke

that never gets old to me it's like

the more you drink the better my photos

look so i put out a slideshow after

cocktail hour after the guests have eaten after

course two then it's ready and as i

usually put the slideshow in the line by

the bar because people going to the bar

during dinner are the drinkers and those are

the people who are most vocal and if

you're most vocal you're gonna say those are

great photos you gotta come see those photos

it really definitely works so same day edits

don't intimidate me the not dream wedding uh

same day edit did intimidate me because they

wanted all retouched images for their press deadline

at 3 30.

the wedding did not end until four o

'clock but as we know as wedding photographers

there is an end time but that does

not mean that that's the time that all

the guests leave so i knew theoretically that

we were going to end it for but

guests would not be departing until around 4

15 4 20 and i thought to myself

how can i make this all work but

what i was doing is i was shooting

on cards and my first and second shooter

jd was my second shooter tammy was our

third shooter however at 2 p.m i

asked tammy to sit down in another room

and go through all of our cards and

she was calling the images for me so

that when i walked back into the room

i quickly said this image this image this

image message and then we were together able

to edit the images and get them to

them at the 3 30 deadline without compromising

my job as a photographer to shoot the

things i needed to during the wedding reception

and not compromising the deadline for the knot

that was a fantastic question thank you so

much i'm going to answer one of the

keynote and then i will toss it back

to celeste if that's okay um our next

question is coming from mary mcclellan terran when

you have to travel for a wedding do

you charge travel expenses if so do you

build it into the cost of the weddings

slash session or charge separately mary that's a

great question i got asked that quite a

bit in the group as well when it

comes to shooting a destination wedding it's going

to be important for us to make sure

that all of our costs in addition to

the cost of the collection are covered so

a client will hire us and then they

commission us for the collection and then about

if it's a domestic wedding they're getting married

in the us 90 days before the wedding

i will email the client and i will

say you know it's time for us to

get our flights here are a few flight

options this would work better for our schedule

and here are the prices am i okay

to purchase these and i will invoice you

for them so i'm letting her know of

her options i have cross-reference price to

make sure that she's okay with it and

every single time client says thank you so

much for doing that work yes please get

these tickets we're we're we're good to go

and once she approves of those tickets then

i say wonderful so we'll also secure a

hotel and it's the same hotel that her

whatever hotel she recommends her out-of-town

guests to stay or is the same hotel

that we stay in so i don't want

to stay at a really fancy hotel but

i also don't want to stay at the

motel six where she suggests her guests is

also like a safe place for us not

safe as in safety it's safe in that

if that's what she's recommending to her guests

that's also a price that she would be

willing to absorb to have us there as

her wedding photographers so once we booked the

flight then we booked the hotel and we

also booked the rental car at a later

point in time we will invoice her for

the flight the rental car the cost of

the hotel and any associated travel fees according

to get us to that destination so the

client will see everything and when it comes

to paying the final payment that is when

all of that transaction is handled thanks mary

we're going to turn into uh questions uh

from celeste and jd i thought i'd move

over here you guys look so cute together

look at us oh my friends my sweet

friends i love it i love it we're

like those characters from the muppets really i

know i know i know uh we've got

a question from kat donovan in the chat

room saying how do you calmly educate clients

who hand you a shot list of 90

minutes of family and group shots when in

reality you maybe only have 30 to 45

minutes that's great and i want to take

a second just to highlight kat donovan because

kat donovan is one of like the leaders

and the forerunners in the facebook group she's

fantastic at really giving feedback orchestrating conversations and

i believe it comes from like a real

place a place that we all collectively can

make our industry stronger and better together so

kat i see you boo thank you now

i'm gonna take a step back if somebody

is handing you a shot list on a

wedding day i'm going to cautiously say to

you that that conversation should have happened at

least at minimum 30 to 45 days in

advance i tell my clients six weeks before

their wedding that i need all shot lists

four weeks before their wedding if i do

not get the shot list one month before

their wedding i cannot be eligible to work

within a time frame if say the day

before i'm getting the shot list and i

realize there's not enough time so what we're

trying to do is we're trying to exceed

expectations by managing expectations i cannot she cannot

hand me a list and then me tell

her um sure i can get this all

done if i was in your situation because

now the milk has been spilled so what

are we going to do about it if

i was handed a shot list the day

of the wedding i would review the shot

list and then i would pull the bride

and somebody else not just me the bride

and the third i need a witness to

the conversation so maybe her maid of honor

maybe her mom maybe the wedding coordinator whoever

i can just have keep us both accountable

i would say i just got this timeline

today or i just got this timeline yesterday

i don't think that we can get these

photos so what i want you to do

is i want you to prioritize the photos

we have 30 minutes for photos prioritize the

photos that you want and then any extra

time we might have we'll be able to

get into the extras now all of the

photos that we don't get into in this

30 minutes we will follow you during the

wedding reception and we will ensure that we

get all of these group shots so that

you have them but maybe just not right

now because this is not the time or

the latitude that we have to service you

in the way that you need that's the

question that's the answer not the question that's

the answer okay um let's see do we

have any other questions from the from the

group we do we have lots of questions

coming in okay actually jessica i'm starting to

like this job so you gotta you better

watch out because i might no i don't

need to watch out kenna clausterman needs to

watch out you're going after kenna's job okay

we have a question from uh lindsey wolf

photo and she says a question about j

star camera beep oh i got this a

lot is there a reason why you have

it uh on even during the ceremony do

you do you not feel like it draws

attention to you or is a distraction yes

absolutely this is oh one thanks for the

question that was a great question and i'm

glad i have the room to clarify i

left the beep on for this course and

i'm leaving this beep on for the course

because i want people to know how often

i'm focusing so it was for educational purposes

but by and large we do not have

the beeps on what i wanted to do

is make sure that the beep was on

so that people who are watching it turned

into an educational adventure as opposed to me

like in stealth mode and people weren't really

understanding when i was focusing when i was

shooting in those two different differentials so thanks

for the question we're going to get into

one more from the facebook group and then

we're going to toss it back to celeste

and jd i don't see oh this is

asked by jen vazquez i don't see a

strap on your camera why is that well

jen i have been asked this quite often

and it boils down to three things and

this is so important to me that i

actually wrote notes about it the first thing

is that the strap gets in my way

if i'm going to be honest is that

i i do know that there are photographers

who have a strap and they wear the

strap around their neck but more often than

not i see photographers with a camera and

then they have their strap dangling now i

am quite honestly one of the clumsiest people

i have ever encountered if i dropped my

camera then the length of the strap would

be hitting the floor and i can guarantee

you that i would step into the strap

and i would fall i know this i

absolutely know this so because i don't want

that to happen and because i run the

risk of using a camera with a strap

that's dangling so that even if i were

to drop the camera i wouldn't be able

to get it from the strap anyway i

consider it a complete waste secondly vanity it's

vanity because i prefer that my camera is

just looks like my camera and not a

strap to distract now i know that there

are really beautiful like leather and bedazzled straps

it's just not my cup of tea i

prefer it for specifically the third reason which

is professionalism and trust when i first got

my very first camera like when i was

in college it was like a film camera

and i had a strap on it and

i just wanted to take such good care

of it and i loved it and when

i would go to like disneyland i would

see people with straps on their cameras and

when i would go to sporting events i

would see people with straps on their cameras

and i went to tourist things straps on

the cameras and then when i started getting

into more of like the wedding world i

started noticing and seeing photographers that i was

inspired by editorial photographers you know major landscape

photographers or people that i wanted to do

more of like lifestyle commercial and editorial i

never saw straps on their cameras and i

thought to myself in a very naive way

i said if that's the person i aspire

to become i must first start taking things

and shooting confidently that also comes into a

form of professionalism i want to have my

camera with me all day i never want

it to rest i want to know the

focal length that i'm working with i want

to know my settings that i'm working with

it's easy to have a camera and then

just let it rest and then pick it

up and realize you're at 400 iso when

you really need to be at 1600 iso

the fact that i'm with my camera i'm

constantly changing the nozzles and the buttons and

it makes me a lot more confident as

i approach the wedding day so let's get

into another question from am i am i

am i just talking too fast too much

i mean what is going on i'm this

room's empty so i just feel like i'm

dying up here i'm dying it's great you've

got the chat rooms full of people um

i will say we weren't planning on doing

this what we're doing right now thanks guys

no it's okay with me it makes me

feel less alone i'm not gonna lie i'm

not gonna lie you got an audience of

two thanks guys thanks guys so i'm just

i apologize if the lighting and just the

background like we just we kind of we

are literally winging this right now um and

we got a text from kenna saying that

she has our eye on us but oh

kenna i'm pretty comfortable here aren't you i

you know i think kenna does a better

job so kenna don't worry you're safe i

don't know i think i might i don't

know you gotta watch out for celeste all

right we've got a question from laura tarl

asking how do you shoot the reception details

if the guests arrive before you most weddings

i photograph the guests are allowed in the

reception area while they wait on the bride

and groom to finish pictures that's a great

question that's a great question so um it

depends the the situation really depends entirely on

the relationship that you've built with the bride

and groom in advance so um even at

even the weddings that i shoot today the

number one question i ask just to make

sure that um the client is accountable as

well as myself is i ask her to

please make sure that the doors to the

reception are not open um it's really important

to let the client know that you need

the room clean to get those shots now

there have been weddings that i have walked

in and all the guests have been seated

and when that happens what i want to

do is i want to first find a

table that's empty and then hopefully in the

best light because i might not be able

to shoot oh let's bring this into a

real situation at the not dream wedding i

was not able to get a room shot

or like the reception shot without having hundreds

of people in it the coordinator all the

guests started going to the tables and i

realized i had not got that shot yet

so i turned to the coordinator i said

is it too late to ask people to

move like i really need a clean shot

and she said i'm so sorry it's just

too late so in light of that what

i decided to do was find tables that

didn't have like purses or coats on it

i tried finding it and putting it in

good light and then i shot a lot

of the small details so instead of fighting

for a shot that had every like that

had a clean shot from all the tables

what i decided to do was get clean

shots of small details and then once all

the guests descended upon the location i took

a few steps back big big big steps

back and i stood on a ledge and

i got an overview of the reception site

with everybody in it so while it wasn't

a clean overview shot it was still an

overview shot that i feel like i could

deliver to my clients and i hope that

that helps sometimes when you're given a situation

where people are in there you have to

do the best you can given what you've

been given but at the same time giving

yourself a front door in advance so that

if the client says oh well you didn't

get an overview shot of all the tables

you said i you can say i had

asked you to have client or have your

guest not go in or i asked the

banquet captain i tried to get there as

best i could but because everybody had gone

in i did the best with what i

could and so now everybody's on the same

page i'm going to get into another question

from the facebook group and this is from

liz pinto how do you use each lens

i find myself changing them every five minutes

and i think that i'm wasting time that

i can use on photos i think that's

a great question and it's a question i

get quite often in regards to uh me

only using one camera body so i use

one camera body and i swap out my

lenses but i don't feel like i'm losing

too much time like on a wedding day

or on a shoot because i do it

rather quickly i'm going to show i'm sure

if for those of you who tuned in

for the not dream wedding you saw how

quickly i was changing out my lenses and

how effortlessly it happened i don't think that

my clients thought that why am i taking

so long or what am i doing it

was just part of what i did and

usually what i'll do is when i'm talking

to a client or as you saw as

i was posing the group photos what i

was doing was say hey everybody guys great

getting here getting here and i would turn

my back to them and i would quickly

change my lens so that when i turned

around it was just simply part of the

motion of what i was doing i'm going

to show a quick video about how quickly

i changed my lenses and you guys could

see that right about here i

actually posted that video on youtube flippantly people

had asked hey how do you change your

lenses and i had video footage of it

and i put it together i put it

up on youtube and that video uh has

been seen quite a lot and there are

some pretty scathing comments in the comment section

talking about how unprofessional or how novice it

was and how you can get your sensor

dirty and how and i don't think that

what they said was necessarily wrong i just

happen to think that people become so preoccupied

with things that don't truly matter i've been

doing this for 10 years and i haven't

had spots on my sensors that could not

be removed i get my gear cleaned and

treated four times a year having them treated

four times a year never presents an issue

and i do believe that you can create

a flow around swapping your lenses quickly and

efficiently and completely own what that entire experience

looks like so we're going to get into

a couple questions as we kind of we're

going to go into maybe like 10 more

questions i'm excuse me 10 more minutes of

questions so jd celeste great okay uh this

is also from the chat rooms from molly

sanchez and she asked is the not wedding

the most stressful wedding or the not dream

wedding the most stressful wedding that you've had

to handle so far yes really yes all

right i think it was one of the

i think it was one of the most

stressful but um we have had other stressful

weddings like that's just the truth of the

matter like what we do there are different

pieces of of stress on a wedding i

remember a wedding that we had shot in

newport beach and it was just for a

high very high profile client and they had

a wedding at a very beautiful luxurious resort

and they really wanted these open beautiful views

of the ocean and they had paid for

those views and very unlike california it was

a torrential downpour and the coordinator in the

venue said oh we're going to move this

inside and the bride was like no no

no we're having it outside so it was

pouring rain guests were walking to their seats

in literally puddles that were four or five

inches deep the bride walked down sloshing down

the the grass so she can get her

ocean views that was an extraordinarily stressful wedding

there are other weddings where we come to

find out the wedding ceremony will literally be

three minutes including the processional the recessional the

exchanging of vows and so that in and

of itself is stressful so that's just to

say that yes the wedding was stressful but

it was stressful in a digested way in

that i knew i had a lot of

responsibility for so many different people and at

the same time i needed to effectively articulate

what i was doing because i had the

creative live team with me so i think

of those two levels of stress but guess

what a week later we're here we're alive

we're happy we're healthy and i think that

we're making the industry better as a result

i'm going to get into another question here

and then we're going to toss it back

to gd and celeste chris boland asked i'd

love to know where you get most of

your bookings from do you have a percentage

of referrals do you ask people where they

found you i'd love to know that thank

you so chris asked a great question i

think it's very important to understand where your

leads are coming from but most of the

time you won't know where your leads are

coming from unless you ask so i have

a series of email templates that i sell

on jasmine star store.com if you go

to the email template number one you will

see the exact email that i send to

my client and that is asking for the

bride's name the groom name the wedding date

wedding location all of these things to get

this information and i also ask at the

end who can i thank for this referral

because i don't want to say how did

you find me it's who can i thank

for this referral and then i then i

can tell where the source of that originated

now i keep track of every inquiry i

receive and then i also keep track of

the referral source so if for instance um

i happen to book oh this is perfect

okay so you guys came on the journey

with me as i met with cory and

katherine during um our client consultation when i

came when they met me at my studio

in orange county now i had asked katherine

how did you find me and she had

mentioned her sister had recommended her and through

a series of small connections i realized oh

her sister uh kind of really loves photography

had been following you for a while so

then katherine got engaged her sister said you

should really hire jasmine well that brought us

together once the camera's closed i said katherine

do you think that you can send me

your sister's address i'd like to send her

something and so katherine had sent me her

sister's address and i sent her a dozen

cookies from this uh amazing bakery in los

angeles and they are called delicious cookies like

d.e. delicious cookies in la and so

i sent her um uh a dozen of

those cookies with a thank you note just

saying thank you so much for sending katherine

and cory my way i do want to

know the origin of those referrals specifically if

they're finding me through facebook by and large

a lot of my clients are finding me

from facebook but not uh not just happenstance

so they will see that a friend of

a friend had been tagged in one of

my wedding photos and that is mostly how

it's working it's not just self um self

-originated and pushing it's really just using your

photos as a way to tag and get

into other people's feeds that's the strongest so

yes i ask and yes i do know

where they come from thanks uh let's go

to questions from uh celestine jd i could

get used to this it's good that's a

life i don't know about that but um

seeking asks uh at what points are you

switching your cards in your camera how many

cards will you use in a day that's

great that's a fantastic question thank you guys

so much so um i shoot now i

i i'm risk adverse like i like to

hedge my hedged bets so um for a

while and you know it sounds so ridiculous

when i think about it i was shooting

on four gig cards um and the the

the more i upgraded my camera the minute

i got to the canon 5d mark 3

the file sizes were so large that i

realized it just wasn't smart for me swapping

out um my my gig cards as often

then i upgraded to the 8 gig and

now what i'm currently shooting at is 16

gig cards but i shoot large raw so

i'm getting about 244 images on a 16

gig card and i feel pretty darn safe

with that and the reason why i feel

safe with that is because i am shooting

with the cf card and i'm also shooting

with that ever amazing backup sd card um

in my camera and um in a previous

lesson i spoke about how and why i

shoot with those cards and so you can

definitely watch how that works and that was

in the uh gear and lenses lesson that

i that had aired last week but if

you download the course you'll be able to

see all that information and the reasonings why

i do that i'm going to get into

uh one question from the group then we'll

go into one last question from celeste and

then i'll end it so one two and

three because i'm organized i'm efficient so let's

do take the mic don't try to turn

it away i see you back there okay

okay so mckenna olson asks i'm just curious

what are some goals or improvements you want

to make for your business at this point

in your career i debated actually putting this

question into the queue but i felt like

these are the things that i ask other

people so i myself must be able to

be confident and comfortable asking answering the question

and i thought about it a lot this

morning and the things that i think i

want to move into as i move into

the next year of booking and planning up

my life is the thing that i want

to be the most confident is in saying

no i think as entrepreneurs as creatives as

business people we run the tendency to doubt

whether or not we're going to make money

next year because what we do the nature

of our business is to get paid on

a cyclical basis i don't wake up and

just go to work and get a paycheck

i have to hustle for each wedding and

sometimes i think especially earlier in my career

but i am tempted still honestly today to

take weddings that may or may not be

the best fit for me so going into

the the next booking season the thing i

want to hold fast to is if it

is not the right wedding that i have

to trust that i can pass them on

to a photographer who i think is a

fantastic fit for them and then trust that

the perfect bride will come my way because

i've said this a few times in this

course and i'm going to say it again

it is better to have two brides who

are wildly happy and excited to share your

name than to book 20 brides who simply

feel like you're just doing a job the

goal is to get other people sharing about

you so that they become your evangelist not

simply just people who are paying you to

do something that you do that's going to

be my one of my goals moving into

the next season we'll go to celeste and

then i'll close it up with the last

question all right we've got a question in

the chat room from we couldn't decide if

it was alys or alice so whoever you

are thank you for this do you request

a seat at the reception and do you

eat the same dinner that the guests eat

at the reception fancy living fancy living um

no i do not request a seat at

the reception in fact there have been plenty

of times that we've been given a seat

at the reception and it makes me so

uncomfortable because i feel that we as vendors

and as photographers whoever we're sitting with at

the table it makes them uncomfortable it's like

they're sitting with like the help and so

we have to make that awkward small talk

and then you know guests are drinking and

we don't drink at weddings but like it'd

be easily perceived as if we were drinking

so people would assume like oh those photos

are going to be so blurry because those

photographers be getting drunk i just don't like

to run the risk of any of that

so we see we keep it super clean

i prefer to take my meal outside of

the room so that i can quickly eat

as well as work on the slideshow that

those things are important to me i do

request in my contract to have a hot

meal and in advance because i am a

gluten-free vegetarian i have to make accommodations

for that if the hotel or the venue

or the coordinator cannot make those accommodations i

will bring my own um snacks to help

us get through the day so that's the

answer to it if you want to sit

in the reception feel free to ask for

it but i have to just understand that

a lot of my clients are paying anywhere

from you know a hundred dollars to two

hundred dollars a plate for their meal whether

or not i'm going to make that request

for myself and my second shooter to be

eating along with those guests isn't important as

long as we are served a warm meal

even if it's i'm going to be okay

and very thankful for that so i'm going

to get into our last question for this

q a this is from sue and simon

she asks what are three things you wish

you knew when you were starting your photography

business what advice would you give someone just

starting their business um this is a fantastic

question and for those who are watching who

are in that kind of first year that

for that first or second year push the

first thing that i want to say is

one take time to invest in your business

i want you to rent gear until you

can afford it buy the best gear but

until you can afford the best gear rent

it and make wise decisions about what you're

doing with your money it is a risk

to start your business now you don't want

to start so deep underneath the ground that

doesn't take you a while to claw back

up for the first almost two years i

was renting the gears that i needed according

to when i needed it i had bought

one camera and one lens and then every

wedding that i booked every gig i booked

to put a portion aside and a portion

aside a portion of it and then i

saved it to buy my second lens and

then the more hassle the more hassle then

i saved it to buy my third lens

but buying the right gear really does make

a big difference secondly i wish that i

had taken bigger risks so because i wish

i had taken bigger risk i encourage other

people when you think you can only jump

four feet take the risk and jump five

and understand that the net will appear understand

that you have larger wings than you know

you are capable of and when you trust

those wings you're going to fly towards the

destination of your dreams and lastly the thing

i wish i had adhered to most in

the beginning which is what i want to

encourage new photographers is ignore the naysayers ignore

the people who are in your life who

don't believe of your capacity of success if

you believe it if you are your number

one supporter it is absolutely possible it is

feasible the minute you set your intention the

minute you set your goals the minute you

walk towards your dreams and once you get

there it is not a moment of sitting

back and relaxing i made it i'm now

at my dream no it's a cycle the

minute you get to a place where you're

happy and you're thinking you got those goals

and dreams you're going to start all over

again and guess what there will be a

new set of naysayers of people saying you

can't do it or you shouldn't what i

want you to do is to ignore them

i want you to trust your gut and

i want you to run towards your dreams

and never look back thank you so much

for tuning in to this q a session

i am so excited to have you part

of this journey and toast to all of

your hard work this week thanks guys