500 Headshots in One Day with Gary Huges

#359 In Today's Episode of the podcast I chat with...

Headshot Photographer Gary Huges, who shares actionable strategies for maintaining profitability in your photography business, from client acquisition to managing job costs. You will discover how to align your business practices with your passion for photography, ensuring a sustainable and fulfilling career path.

What You'll Learn:

1. Profitability Focus
2. : Learn why taking unprofitable jobs harms your business and how maintaining a profitable portfolio is crucial.
3. Client Acquisition
4. : Gain insights into effective marketing and client acquisition strategies that align with your budget requirements.
5. Mindset Shift
6. : Understand the importance of thinking like a businessperson and prioritizing sustainable business practices over artistic sentiments.
7. Networking Opportunities
8. : Discover the benefits of engaging with local business communities, like the Chamber of Commerce, to generate new leads.

Transform your Love for Photography into Profit for FREE with CloudSpot Studio.
And get my Wedding and Portrait Contract and Questionnaires, at no cost!
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Connect with Raymond!

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Thanks for listening & keep shooting!

Transcript

Gary Huges: 0:00

Don't do the thing that doesn't make you happy. People, sometimes they just need permission to know that if you don't want to photograph newborns in weddings, but you want to work in photography, that's possible to do that. If you don't want to do the high touch boutique business model, you don't have to. Like if you're going to take the risk of trying to have a business on your own, creating something with your talent and your ambition, you're going to walk away from a corporate job and you're going to make that sacrifice to do something that you love. Why wouldn't you insist on being happy when you do it?

Raymond Hatfield: 0:36

Hey, welcome to the beginner photography podcast brought to you by Cloudspot, the easiest way to deliver and even sell your photos online. I am your host, Raymond Hatfield, and each week I interview some of the world's most interesting photographers to learn what it really takes to capture beautiful images and compelling stories so that you can do the same. Now today we have an episode from the BPP Vault. So after years of interviewing these world class photographers, I've built up quite a rich library of photo tips and tricks that guests share to help you get better amazing images. And with new listeners finding the show every day, these rewind interviews allow for new listeners to discover those gold photo nuggets that the guests have, and allow long time listeners to revisit, and hear, an interview with fresh ears. Some more hands on experience to draw from. So in today's interview, we are chatting with headshot photographer, Gary Hughes. Now, until my chat with Gary, I kind of always looked at headshot photography as it's like a transactional type of photography, not that there's anything wrong with that, but I don't see many new photographers talking about how much they love taking headshots or anything like that, but again, after hearing what Gary had to say today, it really reinforced that you can bring art to anything that you do. Gary also shares with me that he shot 500 headshots in a day. So of course, in this episode, we talk about just the logistics of how to achieve such a feat. So with that, let's go ahead and get on into today's podcast to interview with Gary Hughes. Gary Hughes is a headshot photographer from Orlando, Florida, and the co host of the Photobomb podcast. Today, we are going to be talking all about organizing and shooting Volume headshots, Gary, you're the man here. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast.

Gary Huges: 2:26

Yeah. Thanks for having me and I had no idea what we were going to talk about, but I'm glad it's something that I'm good at.

Raymond Hatfield: 2:31

Yeah. Usually, it's a complete mystery to the guests, whatever we're going to talk about. So I'm glad that you're excited because

Gary Huges: 2:38

I can talk about anything as you'll find out. So let's try to keep it under 60 minutes. Let's just see if we'll see. And I don't know that we can.

Raymond Hatfield: 2:44

yeah, we'll see what happens, but in order to do that, I think we have to start from the beginning. Which is how did you get your start photography to begin with?

Gary Huges: 2:53

Yeah, good question I grew up in a photography family. My parents are were both professional photographers They're retired now from photography after like almost 40 years running a studio and me and all my siblings took turns working in the family business I lived at the studio as a kid. I was, I was sick a lot when I was younger, had a lot of chest infections, bronchitis, stuff like that. And so I was, I missed a lot of school. I never got perfect attendance, but on those days when I was not at school, I was always, my dad ran the studio and I had to go to the studio with my dad, even when I was sick, no matter what. So I spent a lot of time in the studio. And then when I was old enough, by the time I was eight, my first job Eight by 10 black and white headshots in the studio for my dad. So I, in his dark room. So I would do an eight by 10 enlargements of business headshots. Like that was crazy. It's like the first thing I did. And it took, I don't know, 30 years for that to realize itself. But, um, so, you know, we all grew up putting together proof books for weddings. It was a small town photography studio, so they did everything. So I assisted with photo and video loading film into backs for digital or for, uh, Mamiya's and Bronica's and carrying lights on weddings, even shooting videos at weddings and, all kinds of stuff. And that was basically all of us because, we were a family of five with not a lot of money. And so all the kids were basically the labor in the studio. And, eventually that was just, I decided that was not what I was going to do. Had a big falling out with my dad. One day, I think I was probably about 17. And we were fighting over something the way that they were doing something in the business. And he just, he basically said, this is my business and you're going to do it the way that I want, or you're going to get out. And I was like, well, fine, I'll just get out. And so dad move right there. You're going to do it my way, but he was right. Like he was right. I was clearly wrong. I was just, I knew only enough to be dangerous and thought I knew better than him. And I didn't, and so I worked as a manager at a movie theater and I. And then after, you know, I went to college and then I, I worked in music and then I worked in construction. I worked in it and eventually many years later, took an interest in photography because I never really photographed anything, only really assisted. And so I was working at circuit city, rest in peace. And I bought a, A digital rebel on a black Friday sale, probably about 14 years ago, 13 or 14 years ago, and started taking pictures for fun. And I kind of liked it. And because I am who I am, I can't do anything without trying to figure out how to monetize it. And so my mom actually recommended me to a photographer in the Orlando area where I was living at the time and to go and try and get a job there, and I got a job at a studio there. And that's sort of how I got into it. In the modern era, I worked for another photographer a couple years carrying bags, and I learned God, I learned a lot there and then eventually met my wife and she was into photography as well. And we, well, I didn't meet her as my wife. I just met a girl at a bar who ended up being sure. Yeah, I'm going to be your future wife. That'd be weird, right? I knew I knew almost right away, but six months later we start our business together and we weren't even married yet. we were just dating. We weren't even engaged when we started our business. And everybody, nobody was cool with that, by the way, like no way.

Raymond Hatfield: 6:06

Yeah.

Gary Huges: 6:06

And then, uh, just sort of progressed from there. And that was 11 years ago. We started the business together and here we are.

Raymond Hatfield: 6:12

So when you were starting off in your family run business, I would imagine, so my stepdad used to, like, he, he rebuilt a, uh, it was a 69 Chevelle. And I remember oftentimes I'd go out there and I would help him, help in air quotes as a, like an eight year old kid or whatever. But I didn't pay attention to anything that I was doing. I wasn't learning anything specific.

Gary Huges: 6:31

Yeah, exactly.

Raymond Hatfield: 6:32

Was it the same for you and photography? Like, did you have to learn photography after? Oh yeah, I didn't know

Gary Huges: 6:39

anything about photography, really. I mean, I knew a little bit about the photography business. I can tell you how to shoot a wedding or what to expect at a wedding, at least. And, there were lots of things I knew about photography, but not about the actual craft or art of photography. I knew very, very little, almost nothing because I hadn't so much as taken a single photo other than with a, like an instant camera my entire life until I was an adult. And everything I did was support staff really in the studio. So it was like, putting together proof albums and developing pictures and carrying bags. And I knew, I knew exactly where to stand to light a group for a wedding. But I didn't know how to operate the camera. I don't know.

Raymond Hatfield: 7:23

that's so interesting to think about. so when you did first buy that, camera, Circuit City, and you first started taking pictures, what was the hardest thing for you to understand or learn about photography itself?

Gary Huges: 7:34

Nothing. I mean, I guess the hardest thing to understand is that you don't know anything. And immediately, you know, you think you've got whatever it is that people say, oh, you have an eye for it, or oh, you have You know, oh, you're so talented or, oh, you've, you've got a, you're an artist. And, when you think that the thing is very often that comes with a kind of bizarre narcissism that you think that everything that you do is good. And however, as, as ridiculous as that is for people starting out in photography, that you think you're, you almost, everybody thinks they're way better than they actually are when they start learning how bad you suck is the most important part of growing as a photographer. However, if you learn that too soon, you'll quit. So you have to insulate your fragile little soul. from knowing how bad you suck with this sort of like self defense mechanism of this artistic narcissism you surround yourself with. And slowly as you learn, there's like a, a convergence where your lack of knowledge and your knowledge of your lack of knowledge meet in the middle. And then all of a sudden you realize how bad you suck, but you're into it enough to where you're willing to keep going. And if you reach that point too soon, you might quit because there are still days, dude, where I, I mean, and I'm not, I'm an accomplished photographer. We've been in business 11 years for myself and I still feel like I suck some days. Like there are shoots that come out of them, like what the hell did you just do in there? You know, like, do you even know what you're doing? I can't tell you how many times I'm on, I'm taking pictures and in my head, my brain's going, you're blowing it, dude. You're blowing it, man. You're blowing it. And that doesn't really go away completely. It just gets less frequent.

Raymond Hatfield: 9:13

Yes. You know, yes. And, uh, so good to hear from another photographer. I'm not the only one who shows up to a wedding and thinks to myself, they're going to figure out I'm a fraud today. Like today's the last day of my professional career.

Gary Huges: 9:24

All it is, it's, it's just, repetitive. You're going to continue to run into situations where you're challenged and you're going to continue to let very basic things slip your mind in the pursuit of this artistic excellence. You're going to be like, why wasn't this working? And then you realize, oh crap, I forgot to turn that other light in the room off and it was ruining the photo and that was firing the background the whole time. Like, there's, you're going to make dumb mistakes, but you have to sort of temper that enthusiasm, that artistic enthusiasm that need to create. With knowledge, and yet, if one takes precedence over the other, you sort of lose out on the actual excellence in the creation. And so like, you have to have that enthusiasm to create, and you can't let the, your lack of technical ability squelch that. But you also can't let your enthusiasm and your belief in your artisticness and your right as an artist to create and your need to create, you can't let that just make you glance over the technical, because you can look at photographic artists all over the world and let me tell you, the ones that you think are the artsy ones, Can be very, very technical. I don't know if you, if you know, Lindsay Adler, for example, like she is a brilliant artist and really lovely human being. And she's to me, she's one of my favorite photographers and people, but as a photographer, she is an incredible conceptual artist, but the technical is down. And I love that she teaches that. And I think that. When you're new, you might gloss over things that seem harder, or you may go, oh, I'm an artist. I'm not really a technical photographer. I don't really do that. That's not my thing. And you're like, yeah, and you can, you can really cheat yourself out of the ability to make better art. You know what I mean? Like, you can absolutely Cheat yourself

Raymond Hatfield: 11:09

out of the ability to make better art. Wow. That's gonna be my memorable quote for this episode. Okay. That's great. I had never thought about that. Especially that convergence point that you were talking about. As, at least for me, everything that I've always wanted to do, I just kinda pushed through, you know, I don't know. I don't know. Now that you say something, I'm thinking of a lot of people who I know who bought a camera with full intentions of going, pro, and then six months later, they never touched that camera again. And I'm thinking to myself now, was it, I always thought originally like, Oh, well, you know, they couldn't get clients as fast as they wanted or whatever it was. Not even thinking about, Not pushing through that, that technical barrier of not knowing what's next, I suppose. So that, uh, that's great. That is an entirely different way of thinking about things. And I love that. So thank you. In a

Gary Huges: 11:56

perfect world, you would buy a camera and you'd buy a textbook and you would learn. And, you would master the concepts and you would become an apprentice to a great photographer and you would learn everything you needed to know, and then you would seamlessly step into your own career as your own photographer, knowing everything you needed to know to move forward, but that's just not the industry at large. It's I have a camera. I like to take pictures. And then if you show enough enthusiasm for it, even without seeking it out, people will seek you out to take pictures for them and offer you money. It happens. They're like, Oh, uh, you know what? Cool. You're so good. Can you take pictures of my kids? I love the pictures you take of your kids. Could you take pictures of my kids? And you didn't even ask for that. And then you go, then a light bulb goes on because if you got that little bit of an entrepreneurial spirit and you might see this light at the end of the tunnel that says, Holy crap, I could get paid to do this thing that I really, really love. And then, and then it just goes from there. That's, it happens so, so much. You can take, but I caution everybody out there. You can love photography without making it your job. And if you love, if you love photography and you want to continue to love photography, there is a 100 percent chance that if you don't make it your job, that you will still love photography down the road. Now, if you love photography and you try to make it your job, and you do it poorly, and you crash and burn as an entrepreneur, as a business person, there is a 100 percent chance that you're going to hate photography by the

Raymond Hatfield: 13:19

time you're

Gary Huges: 13:20

done. Nothing can make you more miserable than trying to do the thing that you love for a living and failing at it. Or, succeeding at it can be even worse because now you're overwhelmed and now you're having to do it all the time, not for fun. But to take pictures of other people snotting those little kids that you don't like, or go to somebody's wedding and get yelled at by the drunk uncle, I mean, that can take the joy out of it, I think. Oh, man. Yeah. I'm sure you've got stories,

Raymond Hatfield: 13:45

right? Like, uh, I don't know about drunk uncles and stuff. I mean, there's the occasional, person telling me, you know, why is my flash over there or whatever, and then I just kind of walk away, I suppose. But luckily, I've been, I've been really lucky as far as, uh, you know I don't really have that many horror stories. Not that many horror stories, no.

Gary Huges: 14:03

Alright, well, that's good. I'm not saying that everybody has those, my very first horror story, I was 14, assisting on a wedding, and the bride's aunt died on the dance floor. Had a heart attack and dropped dead. No way! I was 14. So my first, my first human being died when I was 14 at a wedding. And that's not funny, but at the same time, is there something worse that can happen at a wedding? I was photographing a wedding once and it was in Florida. It was August. It was a hundred degrees outside. And so I was trying to get the wedding party into the shit and they wanted pictures out on the golf course. And so there's this gigantic Oak tree and I brought everybody under it to do the pictures under the Oak tree to get them all out from the sun. And then the mother of the bride tripped and fell and hit the ground on a mogul and broke a couple of ribs. And had to, and had to go to the emergency room. That's horrible. Yeah, and she missed the reception.

Raymond Hatfield: 15:57

What do you, what do you do at that point? Do you like say, oh my gosh, like do you take care of her? In the words of Freddie Mercury, man. The

Gary Huges: 16:03

show must go on. You just keep going. The bride was up for an hour crying her eyes out. And the reception started late and everything. All kinds of terrible things can happen, can go wrong either way. One of the, well, you know, they just all seem to happen to me, I guess. Yeah,

Raymond Hatfield: 16:19

I think so. I've never had anything like that, uh, like that happen to me. Thankfully, thankfully. so When did you transition from, shooting weddings or children to now, now focusing on headshots, which you do now?

Gary Huges: 16:30

Well, this is a story I've told a few times. I'll try to tell it in a new way for anybody who might have heard it before. But you can only emulate what you know to start with. So I emulated the, what I grew up in, which is the photography studio that does everything. And so, I think that that works depending on where you live. You can be in a market, a small enough market, in a small town, you have to, you can't really specialize in a small town, you know, depending on the small town. If you are in a, a big city, you almost have to specialize. People expect you to specialize. And so, if you are in a large, saturated market, I think that the photography studio that does everything is, It's just, it's a harder way to live because your marketing isn't as focused, your scatter shot all over the place. And so that's what we did. We did weddings and portraits and high school seniors and babies and family and dragging couches into fields and photographing babies in buckets and all that crap. But, and we did the in person sales thing and the whole nine yards, but we did everything, anything you needed a picture of, we'd say yes to. And it was a very unhappy. Unhappy time for me as a business owner. Not that I'm an unhappy person. The business was unfocused and it was unpleasant a lot of the time because as I came to realize I didn't like 90 percent of the stuff that I was shooting, I didn't want to do it. And so we had had a line in actors, headshots, funny enough. We have a good, a fairly robust entertainment market here in central Florida because of the parks and stuff like that. And my wife is good friends with a girl who was an actor. And she had been in a couple of feature films and she needed new headshots. So Julie, my wife actually went and photographed her and did her headshots. She took them to her agent or agent, like the headshots, and then asked if she could meet with us. So we went and met with this agent and then, then that started it off. And we started getting actors coming into the studio here and there. And it was a nice little supplemental part of your business in our market. It would be very difficult for that to be the only thing that you do. And we still photograph a lot of actor headshots, but it's 10 percent of the business, to be honest with you. So it's not like entertainment headshots. Yeah. It's a significant, but not huge part of the business financially. And so one day a guy calls up. And because, I had built our website and headshots were on the website. And this was before really at the beginning of when headshots started to be a thing that everybody had to have. This wasn't not every LinkedIn was new. Facebook was new, my space was still fairly popular. And so this wasn't the time that we know now where everyone has to have a headshot. This was before that we sort of caught that wave riding in. and we're doing this to the point where when I was teaching photography at conferences and stuff, which I started to do fairly early because I started teaching, social media marketing, website design and stuff for photographers rather than teaching photography itself. And I wasn't, nobody would let me teach about headshots. Nobody would let me talk about headshots because nobody even believed it was a standalone genre in photography. That was more of a sub genre of portraiture and everybody did a little bit of it, but it wasn't a real thing. And I knew that it was because here's what happened is a guy called up. And he sounded like an older guy. I don't know how you sound older, like Grandpa Simpson. Hey! I don't know.

Raymond Hatfield: 19:55

I hear it in my head,

Gary Huges: 19:56

though. I know what you're talking about. We didn't have hot chocolate. We just had hot! You know, like, stuff like that. And, uh, anyway, so a guy calls up. He's an old guy. Not that old. Probably in his 50s or whatever. And he's like, And do you, uh, photograph anybody who's not young and good looking? Cause obviously it was on our website, but he's looking at all the actors and this guy was an attorney and he needed a headshot for his law firm's website. And it was at that moment that I realized that I was working so hard to get actors headshots. So when it was pale in comparison and in amount to the other types of headshots that are out there that I needed. And so we started to show more of that on our website and started to market more towards that. And it just became this thing to where. There are two things that happened at once. One was I found out that I was going to be a father. And this was my daughter, Ellie, who just turned five. And my wife told me there's a really funny story behind this. But anyway, she told me she was pregnant. And the first thing was, I thought was, okay, I know you're scared, Gary, but you have to like hug your wife and tell her how happy you are. Uh, you know, so try not to crap your pants. And then the second thought I had unbidden, which was. Wild, it was, you got to get out of the wedding business and I remembered in that moment all of the weekends that my parents were working or that I was working with them in the family business and so basically what happened was, is I realized, not that I was, I was really proud of my parents and what they did, I still am, But everybody in my town where I grew up, in the small town where I grew up, everybody's parents worked for the big engineering firm in town, or they worked in agriculture. And not everybody at that point was a photographer. Photography was still, this was back in the film days, and it was very unusual to have parents who did something that like my parents did. It was, and I was really proud of that. But they were wedding photographers, and they, in fact, they were wedding and portrait photographers at Catchall Studios, so they were working nights and weekends a lot, almost all the time. And so if there was a very often football games and scout trips or whatever's happening on weekends I was either working at somebody's wedding at like 12 or 13 years old or my parents were working and we were staying at a friend's house So I was riding with another family to a sporting match or sports ball sport, whatever was going on sports And I did play sports I did, but anyway And so I realized that I did not want that for my kids. And so, and then at the same time, we sat down to look at our numbers at the, uh, in the fourth quarter of that same year. not long before my daughter was born and we looked at our numbers and we were spending so much money, marketing money and time marketing weddings and portraits. And yet it was about 20, no, I guess it probably about 30 percent of our business. And we were using about 80 percent of our marketing bandwidth to market for it. And we looked and realized how much money headshots was bringing in and we weren't even really marketing for it. And so at that moment, we made the butt puckering decision to stop doing weddings and stop taking, we stopped taking weddings. We stopped taking portrait commissions and we just focused on that other end of our business. And honestly, as scary as it was, it ended up being the best decision we ever made.

Raymond Hatfield: 23:06

Wow, that's insane. That's insane. That's great to hear. There's, there's a lot there really to, unpack obviously the lessons that you learned and what I love, which I hope people listening pull out of that is that as a photographer, you can decide like what you want your life to look at.

Gary Huges: 23:22

Nobody has a business like ours in our area, like not really, or they didn't at the time. And people, sometimes they just need permission to know that if you don't want to photograph. Newborns and weddings, but you want to work in photography. That's possible to do that. If you don't want to do the high touch boutique business model, you don't have to. You can make a living in photography doing other things. We have a commercial portrait studio. I take pictures of people for their jobs. And whether that's website images for companies, or models and actors, or personal branding sessions, or just simple headshots for giant law firms, we, that's what we do. And for the most part, with the exception of the occasional Sunday gig at a conference or something, I work Monday through Friday, 10 to 6.

Raymond Hatfield: 24:07

Yeah.

Gary Huges: 24:08

And I don't edit when I'm at home, and I'm off on all holidays and weekends for the most part. I'm not doing those day after Christmas family sessions. And I'm not saying that any of those things are bad. They just weren't me. I just wasn't happy. And now, I'm happy. I come to my studio, and I'm doing work that excites me and that interests me. I have positive interactions. All my interactions with people are professional and not emotional. I'm not emotionally selling. Everything is decided up front. And it just fits me better. And the other stuff didn't fit me well. If that fits you well, then do it. One of my good friends in the photography business, Megan DePiro, has a very similar kind of clientele, but she does it in a completely different way. And she's the opposite business for me. And we have talked several times on the subject of, don't do the thing that doesn't make you happy. Like if you're going to take the risk of trying to have a business on your own, creating something with your talent and your ambition, you're going to walk away from a corporate job with benefits and stability, or at least more stability. And you're going to make that sacrifice to do something that you love. Why wouldn't you insist on being happy when you do it? Why wouldn't you insist on doing it in a way that pleases you? It doesn't make any sense not to do it that way.

Raymond Hatfield: 25:27

Hey, Raymond here. And we will get back to today's show in just a moment. Have you seen that YouTube channel Unbox Therapy? It centers around the idea that we as consumers love the experience of opening up something new. In fact, Apple spends more than any other electronics company on using premium packaging because they know that it will elevate your experience. So why are you still sending your images with Google drive or Dropbox? You can create a beautiful delivery experience in your photography. With Cloud spott from easy to use uploads to grandma proof downloads, and everything in between. Cloud spott will give your clients a premium experience. You can get started for free by heading over to deliver photos.com today. That's deliver photos.com and sign up for Cloud Spot today. Now, let's get back to today's interview. Yeah, Megan's one of those people who she's, I feel like whenever. I, watch her on Facebook. She is a very happy in the work that she's doing. I think she's in Australia right now, which is my,

Gary Huges: 26:36

uh, my GPS tag on her ear actually started malfunctioning.

Raymond Hatfield: 26:40

Oh man. Yeah. You got to get that replaced. Got to get there. back to headshots though, headshots are one of those things that I really don't know much about. It's not something that I do. So, in your own words, would you tell me like, what would you say is the description of a headshot photographer? Like, like what is it that you're trying to capture?

Gary Huges: 26:57

Well, if you want to start a fight in a Facebook group, just ask what a headshot is. And then you'll get a thousand conflicting opinions from people who have no idea what the hell they're talking about. Because it doesn't matter what you think a headshot is, it matters what your client thinks a headshot is. And so a photographer can book a branding session and make a couple of thousand dollars off of somebody who inquires about a headshot. Because Your consumer is, is a headshot, is much more of a catchall term for a photographer. A headshot is a commercial portrait of the head and shoulders of a person. It implies that it is for business, that it is for, commercial purposes, and that is a head and shoulders usually, like, I call it like nipples up. It's usually like a nipples up photo. Mm-Hmm. . I don't say that like in the camera room, but uh, right. Of course, when I'm training other photographers that work for me, I'm like. When you take a headshot, like, nipples, top of the head. That's, just do all that. Leave that in there. Anyway, so, um, other photographers have very strict and weird definitions of a headshot. Like, it has to be lit a certain way. It has to have a certain color background. You can't have a hand in it. You can't, you know, if you show down to below the ribcage, it's no longer a headshot. It doesn't matter. A client calls me for a headshot and they go, they book a headshot session. They go, I also going to need a three quarter length photo for a thing that I have coming up and I go, Oh, this is a headshot. I'm not going below the nipples. No, I take the picture. Cause they're my client. That's what they want. That's the term that as people use it, a headshot is just a photograph of that person. For the purpose for commercial purposes, basically. And so, if they want a head to toe full length for a application to the Navy, I'll do that in a headshot session. It doesn't matter, but essentially, it's what the client thinks it is, but it's, whatever it is, it's taking a picture of people for commercial purposes, whatever that, whatever the dimensions of that, whatever body parts you put in it. that's how I look at it now.

Raymond Hatfield: 28:46

Sure, sure. if a headshot is a shot of a head, right, whether it includes the, the torso, ribcage, hands, you know, whatever it is, what do you think is the difference between a headshot taken by, an amateur, somebody just getting into it versus a headshot taken by a professional.

Gary Huges: 29:03

Probably, uh, intention? Knowledge?

Raymond Hatfield: 29:07

I guess, so, so those I think just comes with, under the veil of being a professional. But I think from, from a technical aspect, from a visual point of view, what is it about an amateur headshot that stands out to you to make you say, Oh, no, this is, this is, well, it's

Gary Huges: 29:22

not any different than, people who are new. First of all, I just would like to say that nobody picked up the camera and was amazing right off the bat. Every, most photographers, even great ones, even great photographers still take mostly crappy photos. You know, that's, that's just the way I know very few photographers that don't waste a lot of frames. We all waste frames. And, and so everybody just calm down. We're not curing cancer or putting rockets into space. We're just taking pictures of people's heads. So, but I would like to say that there's nothing different in what's. amateurish or what's incorrect in my view about a headshot, then there's not wrong with any other genre of photography in the same way. The things that I see are, they come in stages. The first thing that you really start to understand in photography is the mechanics of your camera, how to make things work, that exposure triangle, the relationship of the shutter speed to the ISO, to the aperture, to the white balance and all the other things, all the settings you have in your camera and how to make those work focal length. how to shoot with intent when it comes to using your camera physically. That's like the first thing is getting your camera to work to the point where you don't have to think about it. You're just shooting like you don't, when operating your camera mechanically becomes like riding a bike to where you don't, if you ask somebody, how do you ride a bike to go like, well, you just sort of sit on it and go, your camera function comes first. And after your camera function, then you start looking at your camera and yourself. And then you start looking at your subject and then you go, Oh, okay. So now I have to make this person look good. It's not just about knowing how to get a correct exposure. It's about making this person look good. And then usually lighting or posing come next. Those are two are usually lumped together. So some people will learn and they'll experiment with posing and stuff, but mostly it's finding the light. And so usually using to use available light. And how that works and some people they discover the glory of open shade or garage door lighting and and they play with that and then they'll usually say, Oh, wow, this looks really cool. If you add another light source to this and then that comes and then you go, Okay, now I can light. Now I understand the mechanics of using that stuff and even adding strobes in there. What about actually making the person look good? By how I choose to pose and position them and posing usually follows that. And so usually camera mechanics, lighting, then posing. And once all that stuff really starts to fall in place and it becomes second nature to you to work with people in this way, to work with your equipment, you're comfortable with your equipment, you're comfortable lighting and posing your subject. Then really comes interaction with your subject, getting great expression, and after you learn to really elicit that because you're confident enough in your fundamentals of photography that now you're more concerned about how the subject looks than you are about getting a good exposure, all that stuff comes, then you're interacting with the subject, then you are focusing on making their experience good so that you can elicit an incredible response and get pictures that are more meaningful to the subject, because guess what? Your subject doesn't care about lighting, about aperture, about anything. They care, do I look fat? Do I look tired? Do I look old? How does my hair look? And that's all they care about. And funny enough, that that tends to be the last thing. That we get into as photographers. It's like, okay, let's figure out how to make the subject have a great time and look good and feel good while taking the photo, because here's a tip, my friends, do you have a, do you call your listeners anything? Like, do you have a name for your listening group?

Raymond Hatfield: 32:47

The beautiful listeners of the Beginner Photography Podcast.

Gary Huges: 32:50

Alright, okay, here you go, beautiful listeners. It is absurd to think that we're more concerned about ourselves than about the subject when we take a photo. And if someone. Has a great time with you being photographed by you. They will like pictures that aren't as good if they like you because they had a good time. And so that is definitely something to consider. now moving on from that, then you start to get into things with a real artist's eye, then think, then come things like subject background relationship, color harmony, storytelling, all those things happen once all that other stuff is in the bag. When you really notice that somebody's really good, not only is it well lit, well posed with a great expression, but then you start to notice that Look at the color palette in that image. Look at the story, look at, look at everything that makes, what makes this image impactful goes beyond lighting and posing. And that doesn't happen until you get all of the technical. And so, if you put those, those things tend to come in that order.

Raymond Hatfield: 33:49

Would you agree with that? Absolutely. Photography is very like a, it's very much a personal thing in the beginning. And then it's not until you get somebody else in front of your camera that you realize, oh, this isn't, this isn't all about me. So yeah, absolutely.

Gary Huges: 34:01

No, and, and, and get your beautiful listeners, shield your tender little artist heart for a second. I just want you to, art is a collaboration, especially when you're photographing human beings. You are working with a person. That person is not just a subject. That person is your collaborator, whether it's your client, whether it's a model who you've hired, that person, you are using their image for your own artistic gratification. And that is something that you should take seriously. And when you start taking that seriously, your work will improve and you will become a better artist.

Raymond Hatfield: 34:37

Yeah. want to go back to something you spoke about earlier, which was like kind of that discovery of lighting, right? Oftentimes, you got a million videos on YouTube. I look at your videos, you got large, umbrellas, you got soft boxes, you got all these things. Now, oftentimes new photographers don't have all the gear and resources that professional photographers have, but then you mentioned something there. Garage light. I'm really interested to hear about that. Tell me more about garage light and why it's how we can use it

Gary Huges: 35:05

Yeah, sure. I mean this is basically I think garage lighting is it's a very cool technique to have in your Rolodex, it's not something that you can Just make happen, although I guess you can now, V flats and such, but essentially what it is, is understanding that light has direction, intensity, at varying levels, and how to corral it, and so a long time ago, a caveman once noticed that in the opening to the cave, whilst looking into the cave, his, uh, the cavewoman who he was currently living with looked a lot prettier and then chiseled it onto a rock somewhere. And so, essentially what garage lighting is, is when the ambient light outside is forced into an opening, it be, it is a very soft and flattering light that is absent of light that's overhead, which casts a shadow down, or lightness that's necessarily coming up from underneath, or from any particular direction. It forces, if you think of like the mouth of a garage, essentially is a giant softbox. As long as that light, that sunlight isn't hitting direct sunbeams into it, like if you've got a north facing or south facing opening, then you will be able to pretty much any time of day, stick someone just inside the opening of a garage or a doorway or anything like that. And you'll be able to get fantastic, flat, soft, flattering light. And this is very, very common in headshot photography, especially with actors and entertainers and models. You see this type of lighting a lot. It's super flattering. It gets rid of a lot of wrinkles and it's just sort of, you don't have to have really any equipment to do it. You just got to find yourself an opening. And this works under, overhangs out on streets, you know, it works anywhere that you can find and, a place that corrals the light in. More specifically, what you want is something, an overhang of some kind that stops the light coming down. And so all the light is coming from directly in front of the subject as they're facing out from that opening. And gently and lovingly called garage light because well, a lot of photographers have garages and that's the place where a lot of times we start our studio work. So you open up that garage door, you set somebody about 18 to 24 inches just inside the opening to the garage and then you can shoot till your heart's content and they're going to look fantastic most of the time. That's awesome. That's

Raymond Hatfield: 37:21

a great tip. I gotta, I gotta practice that with the kids outside. I always, uh Oh dude, seriously.

Gary Huges: 37:26

I mean, it's the same thing like putting your back to a big window or something like that. It's keeping the light source behind you, nice and big and soft and flat. And it's just a thing that you can find it just about anywhere, anywhere you go. So if you're looking for good flattering light, that's the way to do it. Just make sure the real, the key is to have something over top that shields that light from coming down. And then you'll see the only light that's getting in is the light that's hitting someone directly from in front.

Raymond Hatfield: 37:53

So, let's talk about, company contacts you, right? Obviously, you're not going to say, Great, I know the perfect garage. Let's go ahead and bring all the employees into my garage. But when a company does contact you for headshots, is the first thing that you work on like a concept together? Or is that Do they just expect you to show up and then you just do your thing and deliver the photos when you're done?

Gary Huges: 38:13

The great part is that people mostly have no idea what they want. Uh, so that's, you know, yeah. They really just, you know, if you're, you have to establish yourself to be a successful business, to be a subject matter expert. And this happens over time. So when you first start out when you're new, what happens is if you have not yet established your, sort of, your brand and your style, and that takes time, If you don't have this yet, do not be hard on yourself, because this takes time. Once you've established a brand and a style, people start coming to you and asking you, For what you do until you have a style and a brand established people come and they ask you to do what they want Do you see the difference? so somebody will come to you and they'll bring you a list they'll bring you a pinterest board or they'll and they'll say like here are Can you do this this and this and this shot at a wedding like the the shot with the weird? Perspective where the bridal part is being crushed by a high heel or whatever Like though people will ask you for dumb stuff that they saw on pinterest. I mean every wedding photographer does that You But people, when most people, when they get a sense that they are in a place where an artist is working or someone who is established, they have enough of a portfolio and a reputation, you're not gonna, you become an auteur. You become an artist rather than someone who's just fulfilling. Even in a bit, a commodity business like mine, clients will go to my websites, go to our social media, see their portfolio, and they will book me because they like what I do. And they want me to do my thing for them. And so for the most part, my clients will be, will totally trust me. And they'll say, I've seen your portfolio. You obviously know what you're doing. Just do it for me. can I have a gray background or something like that? But there is always a discovery process to where I don't necessarily want someone to come in and to be subject to whatever my emotional whims are that day. So I definitely think that in every photo shoot you need to have a very robust discovery process with your client to make sure that you are setting the expectations. And if you have a great discovery process before the shoot, you're going to have a lot less buyer's remorse. You're going to have a lot less people upset. You're going to have a lot less reshoots. You can have a lot. Oh, you're gonna have a lot fewer problems, you know, than you are if you just show up and shoot willy nilly, set those expectations, find out what the client wants, meet them somewhere between your vision and what they're expecting. And so corporate clients contact me and mostly they all want the same thing. They want to headshot with, basically, mostly flat light on a white or gray background. That's about 75 percent of what I shoot. However, I do photograph a lot of actors, entertainers, and models, and I do try to get on the same page with them. I have to shoot what's expected in my market, in my genre, but I also have to do it in a way that I like to do it. And so, asking those questions, finding that out, that's all really, really important stuff. But, the more you establish yourself and your style and your brand, the less that people are going to ask you to do anything except for what it is that you do. So if you are a really good business person, one of the best things that you can do, especially if you're a boutique photography business, is to establish a very specific style that is very recognizable to the client. And then they will, people who love your style, will be the ones reaching out to you. And all they're going to want you to do is to execute your vision for them. Now if you have, if you're just a photographer, who, a person who has a nice camera, and shoots whatever people want, people are going to treat you like someone with a nice camera who shoots whatever they want. And that's the way that everybody operates in the beginning. And it takes a while to establish your style, it really does.

Raymond Hatfield: 41:42

Yeah, that's a, that's a hard thing to, to figure out. That's a hard thing to communicate, I think, to many, many new photographers, that they want to have that look, and it just, it just takes time. And it's not something that you can curate on your own. It's not something that you can just pick. No, it just comes

Gary Huges: 41:55

out of you, I believe that. Like, you'll find it, you'll find it, and when you find it, it'll click. And the thing is that, you may not even realize that you found it.

Raymond Hatfield: 42:04

Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. There are so many photographers who they'll send me photos like, Hey, can you like, look at these photos or whatever? And I'll look at them and say to myself, like, in my head, it's very consistent, they're doing a great job. And then when I will tell them that their first reaction is always like, Oh, I don't have a style. I didn't think I had a style. Like, as you said, it just comes out of you. It just comes out. It is, it

Gary Huges: 42:24

is a, it is a mystery. not that much of a mystery. It's just. Make sure that if you're doing photography as a business, if that's your intention, then bring some intent to that style. Evaluate your images, send your images to other people to be evaluated. Think about what it is that you are trying, what emotions you're trying to elicit. And approach your work with purpose, and your style will sort of evolve out of that. And eventually it'll become so obvious what your style is, that other people will just ask for your style. And they'll stop asking you to imitate other people.

Raymond Hatfield: 42:56

So coming up with that quote unquote style obviously comes, as you said, with practice, doing it over a long period of time. And in something like high volume headshots, I mean, I'm sure that there's, what would you say is probably the most amount of headshots that maybe you've done in a day? In a day? Mm hmm. I don't

Gary Huges: 43:13

know. Uh, probably 500 or so?

Raymond Hatfield: 43:17

500 headshots. Okay. Wow. I was not expecting that. Okay. Yeah, yeah. 500 headshots. I mean,

Gary Huges: 43:21

typically, if you shoot all day, you're going to shoot somewhere. And it's normal to shoot between 150 and 250 in a day. 500 would be a big job where, I think we shot, I worked for Sam's Club one time, and we shot 1, 200. Okay.

Raymond Hatfield: 43:38

Okay. So, okay. 500 headshots. If you think about it, that's not

Gary Huges: 43:41

that big of a deal. Ask any school photographer. Oh, no,

Raymond Hatfield: 43:44

I'm sure.

Gary Huges: 43:45

You know what I

Raymond Hatfield: 43:45

mean? You can turn it. I'm sure. So that's where this high volume thing obviously comes in, right? So, there's a lot of differences between weddings and headshots. The biggest, I would say, probably price, right? On the surface, the biggest one is price. And nobody's wearing

Gary Huges: 43:59

a wedding dress, right? And

Raymond Hatfield: 44:01

that, unfortunately, as well. So, how do you price something like 500 headshots?

Gary Huges: 44:06

Well, at some point, uh, you have to have a, hybrid pricing system as far as I'm concerned. You have to be able to meet the client where they're at. And this is the thing that I hear a lot, I hear photographers go like, well, you charge a $500 setup fee and then you charge it's $300 a person. It's like, nobody's gonna pay you that to shoot 200 people. Somebody might pay you that to shoot 20 people or 30 people even. That's fine. That's, you know, that's a small enough company to where the people who make the purchasing decisions are very close to the whoever you're talking to. But if you go into a company that's got 3, 000 employees, the budget was decided 18 months ago in a committee with the person who's hiring you, you've had nothing to do with. And so there's no wiggle room on the price. And so how you charge really doesn't matter compared to what the client's budget is. And so sometimes the budget just isn't going to be there and that's fine, but we have a day rate and, uh, that's, if somebody is, what's the difference between photographing 150 and 200 people in a day, not much, you're slightly busier throughout the course of the day and the price is the same, but we have an estimate of how many people were able to execute per hour, per headshot station. and then we have a price for that. So we charge, you can't charge by the person when it comes to that. Nobody, there's no number that's going to make sense. Even if it's like 20 a person, there you go. Times 600, 12, 000. Are you kidding me? They're not going to pay you 12, 000 to shoot for eight hours. It's just not, I mean, maybe depending some companies, but not

Raymond Hatfield: 45:34

often. You know, I, I guess, I guess what I was getting at was, with weddings, it's almost like, here's your package price. And it's almost like by the hour, right? Like, you get this, you get these things, you get this time, you get these things, you get this time, you get these things, these are your options. That's it. But obviously with a small company, they don't need a full day with a large company, they're gonna more than a small company. So is it, more of a package thing or is it more of a

Gary Huges: 46:00

itemized type? Well, we have a little bit of both. We have a flat day rate and then there's a cost retouching is extra. If we have options like people can see and select their favorite image on site. We have instant delivery via iPad stations. We have all kinds, we have hair and makeup artists can be there for touchups. So there is the, basically there is the commodity version of it, where let's say, for example, that a company contacts you and they've got 150 employees at their internal sales conference, and they just need you to take the pictures and then to provide them with the photos. Organized with each person's name that I don't need all the bells and whistles. I could do that by myself. I set up an iPad station for people to sign in. So I have their name and information and then I shoot them and they move and I shoot them and they move and I shoot them and they move. Now, if I have a company who's putting on a big conference and they want to add some really cool value and a fun experience to that conference by giving attendees a free headshot, then. They're going to want me to have, a large screen displaying images and advertising. And they're going to want, kiosks where people can see and select their images and deliver to themselves via text or email. They're going to want a hair and makeup artist there for touch ups. They're going to want me to be playing music. They're going to want it to be an experience. And so, uh, both of those things are things that we do, but I don't try to sell the big experience to the person who just needs headshots for 150 employees. So it depends on what they want. I have to have pricing to make an experiential version of the headshot thing, and I have to have pricing for a commodity version of the headshot thing. So I have it, it starts with a base day rate. And then you can add on whatever it is that you want to change the experience. we charge, if they want us to deliver the images to each people and to host a gallery, we have a price for that if they want us just to deliver the images to them, that's, you know, everything. It's just a menu, but it starts with a day rate. And so if we have one day rate for X amount of dollars with one headshot station, we can shoot roughly, we estimate about 20 people per hour of shooting and in an eight hour day, that's going to be roughly seven. Six and a half, seven hours of shooting. So we usually reckon we can probably, we guarantee about if they're organized on their end, about 200 people in a day with one headshot station is usually what we go for. If they want to photograph 400 people in one day, then they got to pay for a second station and then everything kind of doubles up and they have to have, you know, so it just depends on what they want. We, we cater the package around. What they need, but ultimately it's going to come down to their budget more than anything else. So if I put in a bid and it's for 5, 500 and they go, well, our budget was 45, I have to make a decision. They're not going to lie about the budget. And I'll tell you why they're not going to lie about the budget because they don't want the lowest cost service provider. That's not how if you're in the corporate world and you have a budget given to you for a project Let's say I give you Raymond a five thousand dollar budget for a project and then you go and get that project done for three thousand dollars Then the budget committee meets and then the next year you get the same project. What's your new budget? 3,

Raymond Hatfield: 48:53

000.

Gary Huges: 48:54

Correct. You just cut 2, 000 out of your budget. So your corporate clients want to use the budget. They want to be under it, but not like a lot, like 95 percent of budget is perfect for them. So they're not going to take the lowest cost all the

Raymond Hatfield: 49:07

time.

Gary Huges: 49:08

They know that if they take the lowest cost service provider, that it's going to hurt them when this project comes around the following year and it will. And so we, if I look at the numbers and I have, and I say, okay, I do the math. How much does this job cost me to do? 3, 000. Will I make the money I want to make if I do it for 45, even though I bid 55? And if the answer is yes, I do the job. Like, that's it. It's not that big of a deal. Like, and if the answer's no, then I refer it out. Like, there's no sense in taking a job just to stay busy that's not going to make you any money.

Raymond Hatfield: 49:38

Yeah, that's another hard thing for new photographers to, uh, they either stand by their price so firm that it hurts them later on, or they're just so willy nilly that You have to stand

Gary Huges: 49:49

by your price to a point, but from a point of logic, not a point of emotion. You have to stand by your price to say, this is how much the job costs me, and then this is going to be my tax burden on this level of income, and this is going to be how much profit I need to make in order to sustain my business. And so most of the time when we put a bid in, I've got about a 40 percent profit margin on any job that I bid on and I'm willing to go as low as 25 Profit margin on a job and that's after taxes after everybody's paid after my salary is paid That profit is in addition to all that I will take a job But if it goes below 25 clear profit, then I refer it out They're not going to change their budget Like, very rarely, sometimes, but rarely. So, if I'm not gonna make a profit, why do the job? I can't sustain a business without a good level of profit. And so that's where you get into the, you're gonna hate photography if you're not successful at business. And by taking jobs that aren't profitable, all you're doing is, is drawing out the inevitable death of your business.

Raymond Hatfield: 50:51

Oh, that's so sad to think about. That's so sad to think about.

Gary Huges: 50:54

So, no, it's not sad to think about. It's important to realize so that you cannot do that anymore. What's sad to think about is people knowing better and doing it anyway. You get desperate because maybe your calendar looks a little light this month. You're like, Oh, I need that. And then you start taking jobs where yes, it's cashflow, but if you understand how much you're going to owe in taxes and you're standing how, how much time and effort and product and whatever it's going to cost you to do the job. And then you realize. If you're breaking even on a job, you've lost money.

Raymond Hatfield: 51:22

Yes. Yes. Yeah. You

Gary Huges: 51:25

can't. You have to put the profit first. You have to make decisions like a business owner, not like an artist who's sad that they're not busy. Like, go find another client. If the budget's out of alignment, then go find another client. Like, just put that same amount of effort that you were going to put into that job that was going to cost you money to do into marketing, into finding another client. Take that energy. That job is going to take you 15 hours to execute and 500 in cost. Spend 500 in 15 hours doing something else that's going to bring money into your business.

Raymond Hatfield: 51:57

Okay, so let's, let's talk about that. If I were to look at my calendar for, later in the summer and think, Oh, I don't have many weddings booked this year. I could throw up an ad on Facebook. I could, post something on the wedding wire or something like that, is there something similar for headshots or is the marketing just completely different? Yeah. I

Gary Huges: 52:13

mean, one of the things that we do is we get down and dirty with our local chamber of commerce. And so they do like 130 events a year. So I just volunteer to go photograph a couple of events, hand out some business cards, meet people, you know, be a part of my community. And it will always come up in conversation. If you've got a camera in your hand, somebody is going to ask. something for them. you can't escape that. So if you go out, don't go to a networking meeting without a camera in your hand. And even if you can make it, you know, we have a great relationship with our chamber of commerce and they put on 130 events a year or something like that, like local art festivals and all kinds of stuff. And so anytime I'm like, Hey, do you want pictures of this event? give me a lanyard or press pass and I'll come photograph some events and I'll give you the pictures like my ulterior motive is to be there in an official capacity and they usually have pretty good food and booze at these events, by the way, to be there in an official capacity to be serving my community, to be volunteering for an organization that I believe is absolutely worthwhile. But then I'm the guy, I can, people are going to be, Ooh, take our picture. Yup. Boom. No problem. How do I get this? There you go. Ba blam. And now you've got, another person, another contact. You've got another warm lead of somebody who has interacted with you and likes you and you're doing everything. So that's an easy way to get out there. And it doesn't really cost you much, except for your time. If you're slow, get on some marketing. Like it's, it's just that, it's just that simple. And you know, with headshots, it's easier to, you can run. Google ads are great. Most of my headshot business comes from Google anyway. And Google AdWords Express is fantastic for driving web traffic to your website. if you don't have any headshots on your website, you're not going to really book many. I'm going to be honest with you. So you should have a place for it. And there's a whole like, there's a whole sub lesson in here about how to get this type of business. But the point is, you got to think more like, make this one change in your life. Stop calling it the photography business. And start calling it the business of photography and then put the word business in front of it. And make that small change in your mind. You're in the business of photography. You're a small business owner where photography is the product. Start acting like it. And you will start to see those small changes cause more success in your business. Don't take jobs at where you don't make money. That's just dumb.

Raymond Hatfield: 54:27

That is dumb. That is dumb. And when it comes to business, it's a very common phrase that time is money, you know, so it's the only thing. Yeah, exactly. So for you, when you're shooting high volumes of people in these situations, how do you minimize the amount of time that you spend working per headshot to be able to shoot something like 500 headshots and, and make more money.

Gary Huges: 54:48

first of all, it's a lot of practice. I have a woman who I work with who does a lot of my volume headshots. Just worked with her yesterday. Her name's Kelly and she's been working with me for two years training to do volume headshots for me. And she's going to next week, shoot her first job without me. Like going shooting a job for me after two years and so it's just a lot of practice and that's just headshots But you know, I'm kind of extreme about the way I like things done So I'm not saying that that's how long it takes but you have to be to do volume work You might not be suited for it. Not you. I mean the beautiful listeners the beautiful listeners Yes, if you don't try to force yourself to do this if you're not suited for it because you have to really, really like people, you have to be really fun, and really energetic, and you have to be able to pull great expressions out of people in a very short amount of time, and although beautiful listeners, you may be unique and fantastic. I'm sorry if I'm not allowed to talk directly to the listeners. Yeah, they absolutely are. Uh, but if that's not, if that doesn't make you happy, then don't, don't do it. Don't bring it into your business. However, you can create a heck of a side hustle. Find somebody, you know how many photographers are out there that love to shoot and want to work in photography, but don't want to run a business? Most of them. So you could find somebody to work with on a, to, to create a headshot side brand to make a little side hustle, create like a cool one page website with some examples of your work and a contact form and some pricing information and pay for some Google ads to send traffic there. And then you have a photographer with a great personality who can shoot headshots that you can send out to do these jobs for you and you handle everything and you take the money and you pay them a fair wage. That's a great side hustle. And then you can go and you can photograph your sleeping babies hanging from little trees and baskets or whatever the heck it is that turns you on. Like you can make money. And this is thinking like a business person instead of like a photographer. You can have a photography business that brings in money for you that you don't actually work in. Think about that.

Raymond Hatfield: 56:49

That's a game changer. That's a game changer for a lot of people. There's, as you said, I mean, so many people want to be, to make money with their camera, but don't want all the hassle of the business. A lot

Gary Huges: 57:01

most. And sometimes people want that, but they haven't realized it yet. Yeah.

Raymond Hatfield: 57:05

But yeah. I think if those listening decide that that's what it is that they want, they should really start pursuing other photographers and trying to make that happen as that's, that's fantastic. I would love it. If somebody came and shot for me and just did headshots. Okay. Do you consider yourself

Gary Huges: 57:20

a boutique wedding business?

Raymond Hatfield: 57:22

Me? I don't know. It's in your market. Is your price point low, middle, or high? towards

Gary Huges: 57:27

the high end of the middle. Okay, so do you think that there are people out there who do not have 5, 000 for wedding photography but still want pictures? Absolutely. Okay. Do you think that you could make money if you found a pretty talented shooter who doesn't want to run a business? And let's say that you started doing weddings and you say, okay, well we'll do, um, 2, 000 for five hours of coverage and a five by five album and the digital files from a wedding, but you don't want to go shoot those because you know how many of those you got to shoot to make money? You got to shoot like 50 weddings a year. You could easily create a business where you have a shooter or two that you employ that you trust to go shoot weddings like this and you just do the marketing to bring them in. Create a separate business for volume weddings and say, hey, look, people who aren't rich deserve decent wedding photography as well from a provider that you can trust, somebody who's insured and experienced. You know, you shouldn't just have to hire somebody off of Craigslist. So, some people need to drive a Kia, and some people get a Mercedes, and some people drive a Ferrari. There has to be a level of product that will serve them, and you can create a profitable, tidy little wedding business that you own, and run, but don't shoot in. Couldn't you do that? You don't have any weddings you book. If you came in at like the 2, 000 mark for five hours of coverage and a five by five album, and you could turn those things around. If you had a couple of shooters that you could trust, do you think that you could add 250, 000 a year to your gross without breaking a sweat, doing a business like that, thinking about that? That's a, that's incredible. And you're answering emails. Hey, I use 17 hats for my CRM. You could automate the whole damn thing. If you wanted to pretty much with the technology that exists today. Like if you got it down to the point where the profit was there, there's money in volume and volume isn't just headshots or school photography. You can do volume weddings. You can do volume seniors. You can do volume families. It doesn't have, the photography doesn't have to be bad. It's just, you don't give a 2, 000 wedding client the full court press of 60 or 70 hours of your life.

Raymond Hatfield: 59:34

You

Gary Huges: 59:34

know?

Raymond Hatfield: 59:35

Oh, geez, that is such an exciting idea. I have to tell you that. That is such an exciting idea to have that. And I'm writing it down right now because, That's just one of those things that

Gary Huges: 59:44

I get 5%. I get 5 percent of

Raymond Hatfield: 59:45

the personality. I will make sure that the cut is, uh, I'll make it 6 percent because I really appreciate that idea. Aw, thanks man. Yeah. I mean, that's something that, I don't think I think why that would work is because nobody wants to put in the work to make that happen. Um, and it would be Nobody wants to be

Gary Huges: 1:00:00

a business where you don't, where you aren't the artist.

Raymond Hatfield: 1:00:03

Right, right. Oh, and there's so much potential there. There's so much potential there. That's definitely something to look for. Let

Gary Huges: 1:00:08

go of being the artist. Be the artist on your own damn time. Would you rather be the artist on your own time and have your business bring in loads of money? Yeah, absolutely. That you can, you know, send your kids to college and own your house outright? Like all that stuff is possible.

Raymond Hatfield: 1:00:22

Yeah. okay, let's, Oh, I got to stop daydreaming there for a second. because some of those figures that you threw out was, really exciting to think about, let's get back to headshots and talk about the, studio aspect of things, right? Do you, would you say that you need to have a studio or some sort of large location to start shooting headshots or even just to be taken seriously as a professional?

Gary Huges: 1:00:42

No, I, I don't think so. It will hurt you not to have a little bit, not to have a place for people to go. There are certain areas of the business that are going to be more difficult. For example, I have about a dozen different companies that we shoot for regularly where we photograph all their new hires. And so they don't want me, I don't want to go out to their office and set up a studio once a month just to photograph one person. I don't want to do that. However, you can cater to companies. It's like we have 15 or 20 employees and you can be a concierge business where you go out to their business and photograph them there. Most businesses prefer that when you get into that number of people. So there will be certain things that you aren't able to do. However, if you get a good relationship going with a, another studio or a rental studio in your area, Uh, Before I had a studio, I actually had a place that we rented from and I would charge if the client insisted that if they don't have a location for me to come shoot at and they need a studio, I charge a studio fee. And so I would just rent a place as I needed it for stuff like that. So if they, if they want to come into the studio, I would charge whatever it is, for a two hour session and you can rent a studio for 50 bucks an hour. And I would charge 150. Studio fee. And now, since I have my own studio, I charge a location fee. You know, like it's not, it doesn't mean whatever everybody else is doing doesn't matter. Well, whether I'm making money matters. You can run, I know plenty of photographers that run a very successful business out of their home. Some of them have even, built extra space in their home into a perfectly fine working studio. There's no problem. Let me tell you, it's not like you're going to have Bridezilla's in this business that are going to stop by and kick your door down. You're talking about people's headshots. Nobody gets super emotional about this, you know, for the most part. So. I ran my studio out of, I ran my business out of my home for the first six and a half years we were in business and I've had a studio for the last five and it's, I've done it successfully both ways. I like having a studio. I like having my work away from my house. Yeah. I like going home and not having, not be having the ability to work. Yeah. I think that's cool too. So that's good. But that's me. I like to get up and get dressed and go to work in the morning. I don't love working at home. It's too, there's too much distraction. I have nothing here at the studio except the ability to do work. If I'm not doing work here, I'm not focused, I'm not getting anything done, I just go home. Just

Raymond Hatfield: 1:03:00

go home.

Gary Huges: 1:03:01

Yeah.

Raymond Hatfield: 1:03:02

That's very cool. As somebody with a, uh, three year old who's out there right now, probably on her iPad, at any moment, you could come in here and tell me the truth. Hey, thank God for the iPad, man, because I've got

Gary Huges: 1:03:10

a five year old, a two year old, and a five month old, and when you need a minute, an iPad is exact. We go out to, we went to Epcot, uh, the other day, and we went, we're getting out, the kids are tired, we're going to have some food before we drive home, so we sit down at a restaurant, and the kids are a little fussy and wild, and it's just, Here's a phone. Just shut up for five minutes so Daddy can have a margarita. Please, just five minutes. Mom and Dad have ten minutes together. I just dragged you around Epcot for nine hours. Yeah, what do you have to be upset about? Daddy wants some chips and salsa and a Dos Equis. Please, just watch YouTube for a second. Yeah, enjoy

Raymond Hatfield: 1:03:45

Peppa Pig. Yeah, this is what you're gonna do right now.

Gary Huges: 1:03:47

My kids go way down weird YouTube holes. And like, my two year old's watching like, weird videos for kids in Japanese and stuff. It's bizarre. Like, I don't even know how she finds it. It's weird. Crazy.

Raymond Hatfield: 1:03:57

My son just found the podcast the other day on YouTube and he was blown away. Daddy's

Gary Huges: 1:04:02

famous. Yeah. Yeah.

Raymond Hatfield: 1:04:03

He's like Why are you on YouTube? Like what is this? He was so confused. I was like, well, this is how I make money. So yeah, very interesting. Yeah, that's the other thing too

Gary Huges: 1:04:12

is what once my daughter who's five once she was six weeks six or seven months old My wife used to come to the studio and work with me and we would just set her right here on the desk Yeah, that's crazy

Raymond Hatfield: 1:04:22

In her

Gary Huges: 1:04:22

little carrier and she would and once she became sitting up crawling around and stuff that had to end now My wife stays at home and I work in the studio because you're not going to get anything done with toddlers around so I almost need a studio

Raymond Hatfield: 1:04:34

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. Sometimes I feel bad about the amount of things that I can't get done with, uh, with kids at home. And then I just think to myself, it's only a few more years. Healthy

Gary Huges: 1:04:43

babies are gonna fetch a good price. I've sold at least two of mine. I have five kids out there somewhere.

Raymond Hatfield: 1:04:48

Yeah. They're listening right now with a tear in their eyes. Listen to me! Okay, you know what? Poor kids. Poor kids. I feel bad because I know that we're going over on time. So I got one last question here for you before I let you go. You got time? I do. Okay. One thing that we have not talked about, we've talked about lighting. We've talked about location. We've talked a lot about business and how to make a multiple six figure business. Uh, that's pretty much all automated, which is super awesome. But the one thing that we haven't really talked about is posing so much. Now, when it comes to posing, there's really, um, just a ton of different ways that you can pose a human being. When somebody sits down in front of your camera, what is your approach? What's the first thing that you do with them?

Gary Huges: 1:05:32

First thing that I do is when someone sits down, I will usually spend five to 10 minutes. Moving around, fiddling with lights, and chatting with them, testing lights, and part of it is to make sure that everything's working okay. But really, what I want to do is I want them to sit there for a few minutes and unwind. And then you'll see, probably about half the time, people will put themselves into a pretty natural position. So, rule number one is, if somebody is doing something right, don't change it. Don't pose somebody just because you feel like you should do some posing. Sometimes good posing is not changing something that's working already. And so you find that people will very often do interesting things, especially for like editorial portraiture. And I remember that I was photographing an event, of a headshot for charity event, and there were all these donors to our local, art museum. And there was an older gentleman, he was an interesting guy, had a nice blazer and an ascot and things and cool framed glasses, kind of that, that like artistic type. Almost that John Waters kind of a look. Oh, that's going to be me. I love that look so much. And he was sitting back and I would be looking around at the people waiting to be photographed. And he was doing like the most interesting stuff while he was just sitting there. And then I go, that's the pose I want in him. Because when he sees that or when his wife sees that, they're going to, that's going to feel like him. And everybody has things like that. So people will have certain smiles, or looks, or ways of sitting, or ways of standing, or ways of folding their arms, or ways of leaning on something that is them. And if you take a photograph of someone and it feels really natural, then it's gonna look great. There are definitely things that you're gonna need to do to flatter people and to make them look better. But probably step one is watch. Talk to somebody and watch them. And see what they do, and if, and just in case they might do something interesting, or they might do something right, or they might do something really authentic, and then photograph that, and even just tweak it a little if you have to, and then they're gonna really like it. And I've taken some of my favorite portraits of people like that, just watching them, and letting the first picture I take be something that is something that they did on their own while they thought that I was distracted doing something else.

Raymond Hatfield: 1:07:42

Is the hands something that you, deal with often? Because obviously, at a wedding, the first thing I always hear is, What do I do with my hands? Yeah,

Gary Huges: 1:07:49

people ask the same question when you're photographing their headshot. And I go, you know, I'll usually, It depends on what it is. It really, really depends on what it is. Hands can, can add a lot of story to an image. But they can also look really weird and janky. So, hands are, usually minimized or controlled are usually the way to go with hands, but it's just going to completely depend on what you're going for in a picture. I sometimes I get a lot of photos with hands in them. And my rule is if the hands are near the face, don't put any weight on them because it squishes the face, And so usually it's just touching rather than like, you know, squishing and you just have to develop by practicing. One of the things that I recommend that people do is, create a Pinterest board of poses for different genres. I have about a dozen Pinterest boards that I go to. I have female model poses, male model poses, business headshots. And I bring in work from all these great photographers, and I just look at what they're doing. And I will use that as a jumping off point. Not necessarily to emulate it, although emulation isn't a bad way to practice. But once you sort of shoot a thing and you try a thing and you find your own way to do it, you'll start to increase the amount of poses that you know. You'll have your Rolodex of go to poses in your head, and you'll know when you see it, you'll know when to bust one out. And you go, yeah, and then you'll always have things to fall back on. Not everything that you do is going to be an original idea every time. It's okay to have fallback poses, but the more of those you have, the better your work will appear and the more diverse. I

Raymond Hatfield: 1:09:17

know that a lot of people are really gonna get a lot from that right there. That not every idea that you have has to be like really original, especially when it comes to poses, that's something very hard to figure out. So personally, I have to thank you for sharing that. I have to thank you for sharing everything that you did today. We've gone much longer than our 60 minutes that, uh, that we had talked about, but I really do appreciate it. And before I let you go, can you let the listeners know where they can find out more about you and what it is that you're doing online? Absolutely. Beautiful listeners. If you

Gary Huges: 1:09:46

are into podcasts, this is a great podcast, but also. I co host a podcast with my good friend, Boo Ray Perry. It's a weekly podcast called the Photobomb Podcast. And it is essentially, it's not super educational. It's more like two people who happen to be professional photographers sit down to kind of discuss their week. It's more like a drive time radio program where the hosts happen to be photographers. And we also cover some, whatever kind of interesting stories are in the photography news that week. So you can find that on iTunes, Stitcher, or you Podcast anywhere. It's just the Photo bomb podcast or you go to photo bomb podcast.com. And listen, you can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Gary Hughes. I'm easy to find. I've had that handle for, since Twitter became Twitter, and on, Instagram at Gary Hughes official. And my business is Hughes Fi Ready Photography, and it's at Hughes Fi Ready on Instagram or hughes fi already.com. And that's it.

Raymond Hatfield: 1:10:38

I really hope that you enjoyed today's podcast interview with Gary Hughes. I would love to hear your biggest takeaway, maybe a light bulb moment or something that you are going to be implementing into your photography. You can share it with me by reaching out via the contact page at beginner photography podcast. com. And there you can leave me a voicemail because voicemails allow me to share your thoughts and questions in your own words right here on an upcoming episode of the podcast. Now to leave a voicemail, guess what? Nothing to download. And of course, you can preview what you say before you, you hit send. I've made some flubs before and I know how helpful that is. So to send me a voicemail, just head over to beginner photography, podcast. com to send in your voicemail now. So that is it until next week. Remember, the more that you shoot today, the better of a photographer you will be. Tomorrow. Talk soon.

Outro: 1:11:32

Thank you for listening to the Beginner Photography Podcast. If you enjoy the show, consider leaving a review in iTunes. Keep shooting, and we'll see you next week.