The Beginner Photography Podcast

Photo Q&A - Photography: The More You Know, The Harder It Gets

• Raymond Hatfield

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#349 You have photo questions, I want to answer them for you here on the show.

Whenever you have a question about photography, day or night, 24 hours a day 7 days a week, head to https://beginnerphotopod.com/qa , and send me your questions.

After shooting for more than a decade and interviewing 300+ world class photographers, its time to share some of that practical information with you!

Todays Photography Questions:

  • Can you market yourself as a weekday wedding photographer?
  • Can you use CloudSpot in Sweden?
  • What tips do you have for orginizing all of your photos from vatious locations into one place?
  • What to use, Lightroom or Lightroom Classic
  • How do you deal with imposter syndrome when the more you learn about photography the more critical you become
  • How can photographers earn money in a recession when luxury items are typicly the first expense cut.

Resources:

Sign up for your free CloudSpot Account today at www.DeliverPhotos.com

Connect with Raymond!


Thanks for listening & keep shooting!

Speaker:

I highly suggest that you continue to critique your photos, but not, what's terrible about this photo. There's so much more that goes into it. Look at a photo, not in a negative sense, but in a positive sense. That every time you do it, you're going to learn something, not only about photography, but who you are as a photographer and how you like images. And that's only going to make you a better photographer in the long run. So getting into it and asking yourself, what do I like about this photo? What do I not like about this photo?

Speaker:

Hey, welcome to the beginner photography podcast brought to you by cloud spot, the easiest way to deliver and sell your photos on line. I'm your host, Raymond Hatfield. And today is our monthly Q and a episode that is right. You have photo questions and well, I want to answer them for you right here on the show. So, you know, whenever you have a question about photography day or night, you can ask me. 24 hours a day, seven days a week. All you got to do is just head to beginner photopod. com forward slash Q a, that's just two letters Q a and send in your question. and, there are two options. You can send in, an email with your question or a voicemail and guess what? Because this is a audio podcast voicemails are going to get priority. So with that, why don't we get into this week's questions to see how we can help you to become a better photographer. The first question here is from Eva. Let's see. She leaves a voicemail. Here is a, her question. Hello, I'm Eva. I live in the UK. Really enjoying the podcast. I wanted to ask a question about weekdays and wedding photography. Now, I'd be willing to sacrifice some weekends. I would love probably, you know, two Saturdays a month maximum, but is it possible to do weekday weddings? Can you actually market yourself as that? Or at least can you have a mixture? Or do you basically have to give up all your Saturdays and have no social life? Yeah, so Eva, that is a great question, right? and I fully understand that's actually one of the reasons why I got out of weddings, is that now that I have kids. They're in school during the week, but they're home on the weekends. Weddings are typically on the weekends. you can absolutely market yourself as a weekday wedding photographer. The problem is there's not many brides having weekday weddings. Now I think that that is changing a bit. As many couples are looking to save money, weekday weddings are cheaper. Some couples also decide to get eloped midweek, and, that is an option as well. So, yeah, you can absolutely do it, and I think that, the reasons in which, for why you want to do weekday weddings is, is a solid one, But, it just comes down to supply and demand. If there are more, I would say that, this is just a guess, 98 percent of weddings probably happen on the weekends. And then the other 2 percent probably happen, the other 5 days of the week. So, if you find, a reason as to why those brides are getting married, on the weekday. Then that's how you would market yourself. You would start speaking to that. You would start speaking to, whatever the reason is. Whether it's, um, cost savings or whether it's, for a more, maybe it's a, really important date to them in that year. It just so happens to land on a weekday or, whatever the, the, Myriad of reasons may be if you find out what that is Then you can speak directly to those couples and be a weekday Wedding photographer. I will say that in the 10 years that I had shot weddings I think I may have shot a tuesday wedding because it was the couple's like anniversary from their first date, and maybe just a small handful of Friday weddings. But aside from that, I just didn't get many requests for weekday weddings. Maybe it's different in the UK. So, that's really interesting. Yeah, you will have to let me know how that goes, cause I am interested. And if you can do that, that's like the best of both worlds, right? All right, next question here comes from Sandra. Let's see, she leaves a voicemail. Let's hear Sandra's question. Hi, this is Sandra from Sweden. I just love listening to your pod. And I also found out that CloudSpot seems really, really great. Just a question. How does it work here in Sweden? Is it compatible with the GDPR? How does it work with billing? Just curious. Thank you. So great question. Okay. First things first, CloudSpot is awesome, truly love them, and to better answer this question I actually reached out to our friends over at CloudSpot, reached out to Gavin and Kristen, Kristen thank you so much for the help here, and we got some answers, right, so Kristen specifically said, she said, just a quick answer for your knowledge, CloudSpot works perfectly in Sweden for galleries, you can share your photos, you can send them to friends and family, they can view the photos, that is fine. If you want to connect your store to be able to sell prints, wall art, then you need to connect that via Stripe Express or PayPal. So what that would mean is that you would have your own personal offerings, right? So here's how I would see this work. Work. Essentially, you would create a store within CloudSpot that would be, custom fulfillment. So it wouldn't be automatic fulfillment. So here in the States, if somebody buys a print from one of my galleries, it automatically just goes through automatic fulfillment. the purchase order and the file gets sent to a print lab, it gets printed. That print lab then sends it to either myself to print. You know, approve it or just can get sent directly to the customer as well. But in other countries, it's a little bit more difficult because of, you know, to tell you the truth, I'm not sure why it is more difficult, but from everything that I've read online and seeing people's posts, it is more difficult. And obviously, Sandra, you have the same, issues as well. So what you would do is you would just do instead of automatic fulfillment, custom fulfillment, and then only offer products that, you know, that you can have printed. So this is a more manual process. So what would happen is, if you had a gallery and you went to sell a photo, somebody buys a 4x6 or an 8x10, that order would come in, and then you would just go to your favorite print lab, whether local or online, and then you would order it through them, have it shipped to you or directly to the customer, and then you would just go through it that way. So then you would have to pay for the print out of your pocket. It's typically more expensive that way. So then you'd have to build that cost into, the price of your prints as well. But that is, that is how that would work. As far as GDRP or GDPR, to say the truth, I'm not familiar with it. We don't have to deal with those sorts of, uh, email and contact, regulations here in the United States. So I'm just not. You know, kept abreast of how it all works, but, if somebody's buying something, you can send out emails directly through CloudSpot. But if you would feel more comfortable, you might want to, just because of, the local laws to you, you might just want to take all of those contacts and put them in your own email service provider, and then you can create some sort of GDPR, GDR, whatever it is, compliant email to get their consent for you to send them emails. But again, if somebody is just purchasing something, then. I would assume that they would have to get an email for some sort of confirmation and, uh, the information on that, order. So, Sanjay, I hope that that helps answer your question. If you have any more, I can vouch for the, customer support at CloudSpot. You can just go to their website. They have a little chat bubble down at the bottom. Very responsive, and then they can take care of any very specific questions you have. But again, I hope that that helped. All right, next question that we got here, another voicemail. I'm a loving these and surprisingly, the very first Q and a episode that we did, you ladies only had one representative send in a voicemail. And today I'm proud to say every single one of these questions that we're going to have today is from our female audience. So congratulations. And thank you so much for, getting on and sending in your questions. This is so much fun. So this next question here is from. Carrie, let's hear Carrie's question. Hi, Raymond. I am wondering if you have any recommendations for, getting started organizing, your photos. I have photos everywhere, whether they're coming from my phone or a camera and, um, I just spent half my day trying to download them all from different clouds and get them in one place organized and I want to use Lightroom to categorize and everything, but then I Ended up in a rabbit hole of Lightroom, cloud versus classic. And I just kind of feel frozen and unsure how to move forward. So I wondered if you might have any tips or resources, to approaching that in the correct way. And thank you for all you do. I look forward to your response. All right, Carrie, that is a big, big question, right? How do we organize all of our photos from various locations into one place? Yes, so this is something that, um, so I have, my history in photography has been, you know, I've, just been taking photos as kid, as a kid. I have film photos. I have, photos that I took on digital camera way before you even thought about organizing your digital photos, cell phone photos from, you know, my Motorola Razr back in what, 2005 or whatever it is. just don't think about organizing these photos and saving them. So at the time, all that I did, and there definitely wasn't an all in one solution to be able to do so. So at the time, what I would do is I would create folders on my hard drive. Starting the folder tree would start with a year, right? So, in today's case, it would be 2023. And then under that would be the type of session that it was. So, in my professional photography, it would look like, weddings or engagements, portraits, or more personal stuff. and then within that, I would break down, the date and the client's name, right? So it was always organized that way, but not everything is a wedding. Sometimes you have family photos and what are you going to do with those? So, again, I understand the frustration that you have and when we take so many photos of so many different things, that can be challenging. But I would, challenge you to sit down and think about what are the photos that you are shooting. Are there any sorts of buckets, right, that I would call them buckets, right? So, do you shoot a lot of weddings? Do you shoot a lot of, still life? Plants? Children? You know, anything like that. Is there, are there any main themes in which you photograph? Okay, and then, so like, write that down on a piece of paper. And then, from there, ask yourself, like, are these projects? Are these ongoing things? or anything like that. So after you write down all those, then you still kind of have to figure out like what are you going to do with all just your cell phone photos. And now you've got to ask yourself, are you going to take in all of your cell phone photos, or just selected cell phone photos? And then if you're really going to get crazy, think about what you're going to do about all your past photos as well. And it again, very overwhelming to deal with. Now there are several services that can help you with this. I use several to tell you the truth. I use Lightroom Classic, I use Lightroom, which is just a cloud version of, Lightroom. And then I also use Google Photos. Now let me break down why I use all three, okay? Rather than just one to house all of my photos. It all started with Lightroom Classic. This was really the first time that I had any sort of organization in my images, and they were all professional images, right? They all came out of my quote unquote real camera, and I was excited to have them organized in a way that I'd be able to find later. They At some point Lightroom decided, you know what Lightroom classic is built on such, old architecture for software development that, we really can't do much more with this. We have to introduce another version of Lightroom to look forward to the future. When that came out, which is today, it's just Lightroom, right? You can access it on your phone, your iPad, as well as your desktop as well. Once that came out, I decided to start using just regular Lightroom for all of my personal photos, because I really didn't like using Lightroom classic for my personal photos and. I'm not sure why. I just didn't, I like to be able to have my photos in more than one place, right? So to be able to work on them on my computer, but also show them on my phone. And then if they're just all on Lightroom Classic, it was a hassle. Okay. So anyway, so then all of my personal photos now today go into just Lightroom. And then within Lightroom, the way that I organize everything is, by date. So I still break it down by year. And then month. And then outside of that, if there is a big project or something that I'm working on, if I'm working on a photo series, a specific photo series, I have one called the road, which is just photos of the road of, street signs, of what cars look like, of, all of those things that I believe in the future are going to look very dated and that, I don't know, it was exciting to me. So I'm just working on something like that. So that it wouldn't make sense for me to put those photos in the In a, like a monthly album, because I'm not going to go back and look at those photos fondly, they're for a project. So I'm going to only use them in the sense of that project. And that is it for that right now. I also use Google photos, like I mentioned, because, when Google photos first came around, they had free unlimited storage for your phone photos. So I took advantage of that. I started uploading all of my phone photos and not only that, but I also started uploading all of my photos from the past. That I had on past hard drives or photos from, when I was a kid or an old cell phone that I had, when I was in film school, everything like that, I started uploading to Google Photos as well because I was going to take care of, I was going to take advantage of that free cloud storage, right? So all of those photos are there. So now how do I bring all these together again? Big question, and I feel like I'm still figuring this out, but this is what I've come up with. Today. All right, so no longer shooting, high volume professionally, weddings, engagements, and whatnot. So, today, I'm not using Lightroom Classic. And, if you're on the fence, which one should I use, Lightroom or Lightroom Classic, I wouldn't recommend Lightroom Classic. I would just recommend that you use Lightroom. Because you can access your photos everywhere. They're also backed up to Adobe's creative cloud, which is just another layer of security for your photos that if anything were to happen to your laptop, desktop, hard drive, whatever, they're going to be safe. Now that does come at a cost. A monthly cost. So think about that as well. But here's how I tackle that. Okay. So no longer a professional high volume shooting. So I don't use Lightroom classic. So now I'm just using Lightroom, the cloud version for all of my photos. So I go out and I shoot something. I'm going to import those photos into Lightroom, the cloud based version. And then I take all of my keepers, the photos that I like, that I can use, that I want to keep, and then I put them into the monthly folder, right? For whatever month it is in this case, February, 2023, and then all of the other photos that I didn't keep from that session or whatever, I just delete them. I'm of the mind, I'm not going to go back and look at those photos. I'm not going to want those photos. So, I just delete them and I've, I've never had a time in my life where I thought, man, I really wish I kept that out of focus, blurry photo of, that day at the zoo of that gorilla or whatever. So I'm not going to keep those. So now I have a folder of the month and the year of, you know, when these photos were captured, but then at the beginning of a new month, so say, March of 2023, what I will do is I will go into my Google photos and I will look through all the photos that I had taken with both my phone and my wife's phone, of our children, activities that we do, and then I will save all of the keepers. I will export those onto my computer and then I import those into Lightroom again, into the month and the year folder. So that way. I have found the easiest, way to just view all your photos is in a chronological, order. Unless, again, there is a big project that you are working on, or a specific project that has a defined start and date time that, you probably aren't going to want to look in your monthly, and yearly folders. And, I had something else to say about that, but that's pretty much it. That's pretty much it. Right. So again, let's, so to recap Lightroom classic versus Lightroom, if I were starting today, I would only use Lightroom. The con about Lightroom is that because it is connected to Adobe's Creative Cloud, you will have to pay for storage, and as time goes on, the storage is going to grow, right? So it's going to eventually cost you more money. You can either keep it that way, or there's an option to keep all of your, uh, original files stored onto a local hard drive, but that option is only available if you have a desktop or a laptop. So if you're using Lightroom just for, just on the iPad or just on a phone, that's not an option for you. So, you got to think about that as well. To me, it's worth it because I would like to access my photos from other places. I do a lot of my work on my desktop, but sometimes I'm out and I'm traveling and I have some extra time and I'm going to go through and call or edit some photos on, while I'm, on my iPad at the airport and being able to sync all of those photos is, is worth it to me. But again, that's something that you are going to have to think of. If you only have a desktop, then maybe you don't have to pay for all that extra storage. And you can just, you know, work off of a hard drive as well. So again, I hope that helps. I hope that the organizational structure there, kind of made sense. If you have any more questions, of course, do a follow up and I'd be happy to answer anything else that you got. Again, I know that it's a big question, so if there's any follow ups, just let me know. All right. The last voicemail that we got today is from Brooke. Let's see. Brooke says, Hi, Raymond. My name is Brooke Pappas. I'm fairly new to photography. Your podcast has been an incredible guide for me and a tremendous source of inspiration. I love listening to your podcast. Anyway, I have some questions about imposter syndrome. Um, I come to find out that our own levels of confidence with photography, move up and down. It's never a straight line. And the more that we know, I think the more we critique ourselves and our own work. And sometimes when I'm feeling really good about what I do, that imposter syndrome creeps in. I was wondering, what are some tips or advice with handling that and not letting it defeat us? Wow, Brooke. Preaching to the choir here, man, I've never heard truer words spoken. Our confidence in our photos goes up and down, depending on, what we know that's absolutely true. What that is called is the, uh, the Dunning Kruger effect. And essentially what it means is that, you first get started in something and once you learn this minor, you know, tool, you feel like, wow. I figured out how this whole thing works. I know exactly what I'm doing. This is amazing in photography. That could be, you know, just learning how to shoot in manual or how to control your aperture or something like that. And you just think that, wow, I am the best. This is so cool. It's so easy. I got this. And then as you learn more, uh, then your confidence starts to dip because you realize there's actually so much more about this thing that I have no idea how it works. And the same is true for looking at our own photos, right? we learn more about photography, And then we look at our own photos and we think to ourselves, What was I thinking when it came to shooting this? Point is, as you learn more, you see more flaws in your work. And, again, very frustrating. The thing with imposter syndrome, and this is something that I'm still working through as well, often times, you know, I think people look to me as a source of all photography knowledge just simply because my name is attached to a podcast where we talk about photography. So I must know everything about photography and that's just not the case. And for a long time I thought to myself, am I the right person, you know, to be hosting a photography podcast? and I think where that comes from is external sources, right? You're worried that somebody's either going to call you out or you see somebody else's work and you think, Wow. That is really good. I love what they did. How come? My work doesn't look as good. And then when you start comparing yourself to others, that's when you find imposter syndrome creeps in. So to deal with imposter syndrome, one thing that I have found is it goes away after time, after a while. One, as you learn more, you just become more competent, so, it's easier to have those conversations if you need to, but the other thing is, the longer that you go on, the more that you, you know, know about your technical skills and your knowledge in photography, you're going to also develop more skills. a voice. You're going to develop, your style in photography and a style that nobody else can create. So if you're going to get into photography and just, all you want to do is just like take some nice photos every once in a while and, use it, I don't know, recreationally, I suppose, then you're probably not going to reach that stage and that's fine. But just know that, imposter syndrome will probably always creep in because, If you're just shooting photography, recreationally, and there's somebody who does it professionally, of course they're going to be better, right? They spend more time shooting. They spend more time developing their skills. So, if that's you, right? Then just try to focus on your own work, right? Try to focus on the things that you love. And I highly suggest that you continue to critique your photos, but not, what's terrible about this photo. There's so much more that goes into it. Look at a photo, not in a critiquing a photo, not in a negative sense, but in a positive sense. That every time you do it, you're going to learn something, not only about photography, but who you are as a photographer and how you like images. And that's only going to make you a better photographer in the long run. So getting into it and asking yourself, what do I like about this photo? What do I not like about this photo? The things that I do like about this photo, why do I like it? You know, how does this photo make me feel? Why does it make me feel that way? Is there an element to this photo that makes me, super happy that puts a smile on my face or makes me feel, uneasy. Is there anything like that, that you can point out? Or maybe it's just the feelings that you had while you were at that session. Maybe it didn't feel great while it was happening. And that's happened to me as well before where, I thought that I'm just bombing this thing. I feel so bad for this couple. It's going to be terrible. I'm just going to tell them that, I lost the memory card and we got to redo the entire shoot and in hopes that it's better next time. But then I get home and I load the photos on my computer and I think, actually, these turned out pretty good. And that only happens. Through self critique. Do I like this photo? Actually, I do like this photo. It's in focus, it's properly exposed, she has a good expression on her face, what don't I like? Well, it was a bit wide, you know, I could have gotten a little bit closer. Alright, so next time I know that I'm gonna do that, make it more of a, a mid shot rather than a, uh, than a wide shot for something like this, why do I want that? So that that emotion on her face sells more, so that we can see more of that, so that we can Can be happier when we see the photos. So again, remember imposter syndrome, it's always going to be there, but over time, it's going to get less and less. And exponentially so, the more that you lean into your own vision in photography and your own voice. So, Brooke, I really hope that that helps. I encourage you to keep going with this. Don't quit. Just keep shooting. I end every podcast episode with, the more that you shoot today, the better of a photographer you're going to be tomorrow. And I truly, truly mean that. So, if there's something that you are unhappy about in your photos, you're feeling that way for a reason, right? You're feeling the imposter syndrome for a reason. Maybe look at a bunch of photos that you absolutely love. Maybe they're not from you. And again, ask yourself those questions. Well, what is it about this photo? How did they shoot this photo? Is it the composition? Is it the lighting? What is it? And then you can go out and practice those in your work. And remember that first time that you go out after you start critiquing photos, it's going to help, but it's not going to change everything. You really have to keep at it. Photography is really a progression. Over time, my son actually just showed me yesterday, there's a, a comparison of self portraits that Picasso made of himself at 18, at 25, and then at 90. And they're also wildly different. You would think that over time they would become more realistic and true to life and, you'd be able to capture those details, but what happened was it was almost the opposite. The first, self portrait of him, himself, at 18 or whatever it was, was very realistic. It was very true to life. It looked, what I could only hope to be as a, uh, as a illustrator, as a painter. And then his self portrait at 25 looked a bit more impressionistic. There were more of those defined lines that you can see in kind of Picasso's work. And then at 90, man, it looked like, he had just taken a bunch of mushrooms and looked in a mirror and was like, here we go. Let's see what this thing looks like. It's not about being better or worse, right? It's about, figuring out what it is that you like, because you're the only person who can tell whatever story it is that, that you want to tell with your camera. So. As long as you follow your vision in telling the story that you want to tell, that's it. There's nothing to compare yourself to. And then over time, you just keep getting better and better and better. So, again, Brooke, I really hope that that helped. I wish that I could tell you, you know, do this one thing, do this second thing, and imposter syndrome is gone tomorrow. But unfortunately, it just doesn't work like that. Such a long journey that you just have to keep putting in the work, and uh, that's the way to do it. So that is it for podcast voicemails today Q& A voicemails now I did get an email from Richard in which he had a question that I want to answer as well So this next question from Richard Richard says with the economy and inflation not working in our favor these days What tips do you have for those of us who are part time or full time photographers to keep earning a bit of money? When money gets tight, the first thing to go is luxuries. And let's be honest, paid photos are a luxury these days. When everybody has a camera in their pocket, thanks. Really love the podcast since discovering it a few weeks ago. Well, Richard, thank you so much for sending in your question. Thank you for the kind words. And this is a really good question and something that I know has been on a lot of photographers minds as well, especially here in the US where, I don't know. These money markets are kind of. Well, who knows what's going on, but I do have, some tips for you to help. But the first thing to know is that photography has always been a luxury. It's we as photographers who, when you first get into it, you think, oh, there's not a lot of costs involved in this to produce a photo, especially with digital, that you can charge a relatively low rate and feel like, You know, it feels like a good deal of money because again, you don't have those costs associated with producing something. But when you start getting into the business side of things, it does get more expensive and you have to raise your rates and you're always feel like it's always going up, up, up. And I think as a photographer and I've gone through this, you feel almost a sense of like, Oh man, I hate to do this to my couples. Like I wish, I wish that. I didn't have to be priced to a point to where people had to stretch to afford what I can give them. Because again, you take a photo and the cost is, if it's just you and a camera, it's nothing, you know, once you actually snap the photo. So that is a pain point. And I understand we're going to tackle that, but first there are three ways. There are only three ways to bring in more money into, any business, right? You either charge more. You get new clients or you spend less money in the business. That's it. Those are the only three ways that you can bring home more money at the end of the month. Okay, let's tackle those one by one, right? First, mind shift change. Photography has always been a luxury. Meaning, nobody needs it for, for survival. But just because photography is a luxury does not mean that people are going to stop buying it. Buying it right. The only people who are going to stop buying luxuries in a recession are people who can't afford luxuries, I promise you no matter how bad the economy gets people will still buy iPhones. People will still buy, you know a brand new Mercedes people will still be putting pools in their backyard Now that doesn't mean that everybody can afford all of these things And this may be an unpopular opinion, but if you are selling a luxury item, you have to market to people who can afford a luxury item. Because if you market to people who can't afford a luxury item, or they can only afford it when times are good, then you're going to go out of business. And I'm not saying that only the wealthy should have photos of themselves, but as a business owner, as somebody who is running a business, the business's one job is to make money for its stakeholders. That's you. Now, if you want to donate your time, to photograph people, that is fine. At the end of the day, this is your business and you can run it however you would like. But unfortunately, that does not guarantee success. So my advice to you, Richard, would be If you want to, still keep bringing in money during a recession, and you don't want to have to worry about people giving up these luxuries, create a product offering that people who are not worried about spending money will want. Here's a question that I ask, when it comes to pricing, right? If I had two computers in front of you, one of them was 500 and the other one was 3, 000. Which one of those two computers is better? Without knowing any specs or anything like that, you would more than likely choose the 3, 000 computer because we equate a high price for a higher quality. But we as business owners, again, we get into our head, we get that imposter syndrome like we were talking about earlier. and we think to ourselves, can I actually do this? if I, you know, people are already, you know, saying that they have to stretch to make affording me, work, how can I raise my rates even more? And the truth is, as much as it hurts to say, there are always people who are going to be able to afford luxury items, and there are always people who are going to be able to afford your prices doubled or tripled or even quadrupled. The pricing issues that we have are internal. When you fly on an airplane, then they give you that safety speech. They say, in the event of, you know, whatever, a mask is gonna come down. If you have children. Put the mask on yourself first as the adult, and then put it on your child. And I think hearing that for the first time, I was like, especially after having, our first child, I thought to myself, man, I would do anything for this kid. Like I'm going to make sure that he's protected before myself, but the reasoning behind it is you can't help others if you are not in good condition. And if you are charging 50 or a hundred dollars for a photo session. The people who can only afford 50 or 100 photo sessions are going to stop buying those during a recession. Even if you are the best photographer in the world, like technically you create the most amazing photographs. Because you're charging 50 or 100, the perceived value of your work, as unfortunate as it is, is going to be extremely low. And if there was a photographer who was, 10 times more expensive, right? 1, 000 for the same session, people are going to assume that that photographer is, produces a better quality product. And some of it has to do with, people's, visual literacy, you know, not having high visual literacy. But the other part is just, that's how we are conditioned with, like, of how money works. And you can't reverse it. So you might as well lean into it. Now here's the thing. If you take care of your kid right on that plane, mass comes down, you take care of your kid, but oxygen is going out so fast that after you do that, you pass out. You're done. You helped one person, right? If the mass comes down, you put it on yourself first, then you put it on your kid, you've now saved two people. And now the person, the aisle seat, you see that they're having trouble as well. You can now help them, with the plane lands or, whatever it is, you can help get people off the plane. This is really dark all of a sudden talking about plane crashes and whatnot. But the point is, If you take care of yourself, you're going to be in a capable position to be able to help others as well. And it's the same with your business. If your business has pennies in the bank, it is going to be difficult to go out of your way to help others, right? Whereas if you charge, what you may think is an unreasonable amount of money for a photo shoot, but people continue to purchase it because there's a high perceived value, you're going to have a, you know, money in the bank. And then what can you do with that money in the bank? Well, maybe, four times a year you host a, free family shoot session where you have, you set up, in a park and you have, uh, people from all over the community come and maybe they donate stuff. Maybe you have a local printer donate prints and you have, somebody, maybe they even come and they can cater the event for you and you just get them in front of a backdrop. You take one really nice family photo. You give them that as a print, they're able to go home. Maybe the city even gets involved and they can create little goodie bags for, these families as well. You can create a lot of positive change just because you're charging for your work doesn't mean that you can't help others and that you can't create that positive change. But to be able to do that, you have to be in a good position financially first, because if you're always worried about where's that next dollar going to come in, you're not going to be taking the time out to plan, this big event, that is organized and, calling in radio stations and having, letting, the community know about it so that they can bring everybody and that you can really make an impact on people's lives. So it's all about mind, shift, change, as far as how money works, not trying to change everybody's perception of money, but just leaning into it, and then figuring out what your goals are in terms of, helping your community or, you know, whatever cause you decide to participate in. So Richard, that's a very roundabout way of saying, again, there are the, I'll recap with the three ways to bring in more money. You either charge more for your services, you get new clients, or you spend less in the service. So again, Richard, hope that helps if you have any questions, feel free to follow up with me and let me know. So with that, we are at the, end of our question and answer show. If you have a photo question that you want answered here on the next month's photo Q and A podcast, just head to beginner photo pod. com forward slash QA again, beginner photo pod. com forward slash QA. Two letters, Q, A, to submit your question for the show. And if you have a question about photography, chances are others do too. So by asking your question, not only will you get the answer that you're looking for, but you're going to be giving help to another photographer who is struggling with the same issue. So give yourself a pat on the back for being a helpful member of the Beginner Photography Podcast community. One last time. That is beginner photo pod.com/qa to send in your questions now. Until next time, remember, the more that you shoot today, the better of a photographer you will be tomorrow. 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