On Monday and Tuesday of this week, I was honored to join thousands from across the world to participate in Escalate Live. For those who are unaware of what Escalate Live is, Escalate Live is a photography conference about bringing your vision into reality. It’s meant to inspire and equip you to uniquely define and grow your creative business. Top experts in the photography industry will give you an under-the-hood view into their real-life experience and actively advise on how to tackle your business hurdles. This conference is for anyone who is ready to change how they approach their photography business.
Escalate Live 2010 had eight inspiring speakers all bringing their personal experiences to the table and sharing them with everyone.These eight speakers are: Dane Sanders, Becker, Jasmine Star, Julieanne Kost, Jerry Ghionis, Jessica Claire, David Jay and Jeremy Cowart. Each and everyone had something to offer to help you become a better person at running your photography business.
Dane Sanders: Kicked the whole event off with a speech on collaboration. When Dane talks about collaboration what he is referring to is that fact that photographers “should be for each other” or “being for each other”. Another key note in Dane presentation is that there are many benefits to photographers coming together in a community and sharing their ideas, techniques, and collaborating with one another.
Becker: Talked about the ABC’s of Success: Attitude, Branding, and Connecting. Becker motivated people to have a better attitude and shared a bit on power of a positive attitude. One of Becker’s keynotes is that a photographers attitude can make or break a client. If you go into a shoot with a positive attitude that client is more likely to refer you and remember you. Becker also explains all the hype around “branding” and what branding really is about. Branding is all about feelings. Good, bad or indifferent. Becker’s goal for everyone is to connect with your clients and other vendors and provide a positive experience for everyone.
Jasmine Star: Talked about the power of social media and how she uses it to her advantage. She also shared examples of how other companies are using social media to gain presence. An example she used was “Pink” by Victoria Secrets facebook page and how the two girls who maintain that page are real. One of J* most important points in her presentation is to be yourself. She stressed this over and over again.
Julieanne Kost: closed day one talking about Adobe Photoshop CS5. She talked about how there are two versions of bridge which she called “little bridge” and “big bridge”. She also noted that Bridge is now part of Photoshop again instead of being its own application like is was back in CS3/4. She also talked about the new content aware fill, which is absolutely amazing and she talked about the new Adobe Camera Raw 2010 and compared it with the older 2009 version. When she was talking about Lightroom 3 and how CS5 uses the same Raw Engine, I was hoping she would have dropped a release date, but teased us all and said “it will be out soon”.
Jerry Ghionis: Kicked off day two. (I missed most of Jerry’s speech because I had an important final project that I needed to get completed. From the last bits that I got, Jerry is a great speaker, and has the ability to inspire others.) Jerry flew all the way from Australia to partake in Escalate Live.
Jessica Claire: She laid it all out on the line and was real. She was direct, honest and even went beyond and shared some of her not so great images to prove a point. It doesn’t matter what you as the photographer wants, what matters is what the client wants. It’s okay to shoot some images for yourself, but ask the client what they want and connect with them.
David Jay: What an amazing speech. DJ brought everything together and put it in simple terms for everyone. Collaboration and Attitude will get you everywhere.
Jemery Cowart: Ended Escalate Live. Jeremy told some stories, shared some techniques and shared the importants of Vision. He also shared that photography is always a learning experience and that a photographer must always be willing to learn. He was honest and authentic in his speech. He’s a commercial photographer from Nashville and his work is amazing. You have to check out his Voice of Haiti project and his Help Portrait project this coming December. I have been following Jeremy and Help Portrait months before he really pushed the concept, and last December Help Portrait was a huge success.
Sorry if day two sounded a little bland. I was only listening to Escalate Live this day while I worked on finals.
If you missed the conference and would like to watch it, it will be available through a video on demand service in just a couple of weeks. The low resolution rough cut will be available June 7th and the HD fully edited version will be available June 7th. Sign up here: http://escalatelive.com/vod/
A few weeks back Zack Arias was Scott Kelby’s guest blogger. Unlike most of his other guest bloggers Zack Arias decided to produce a video instead. This is what Zack had to say:
I was recently asked to do a guest blog post on Scott Kelby’s site. I had free reign to talk about anything I wanted to talk about. I took it as an opportunity to get off my arse and make something that was new and fresh for me. I decided I would do a video. I decided to do this for my wife, Meg, because she is always inspiring me to go beyond the normal stuff I create. She’s always pushing me. Sometimes it sucks because she knows just what buttons to push in me to make me think about things a bit deeper. So I took all of her button pushing and went out and made something of it.
This video is over a year old and I still continue to come back to it every once in a while to watch it. Transform is a very powerful video that can relate to all photographers and then some. Transform reminds me why I have chosen to become a photographer, the struggles that I have faced and the struggles that I will face. When Transform came out, I to was dealing with the fact that a loved one was in the hospital so this video was very emotional, uprising, and inspirational to me personally and as a photographer. Just weeks before Zack Arias released Transform I was in an emotional wreck debating whether or not photography was for me and looking at all my options. After this video I had to make some hard decisions and I decided to stick with photography because it made me happy. Today I am still perusing my dream and following Zack Arias advice of not giving up. Zack Arias Transform:
Back to the Very Basics
Do you hold your camera correctly? Do you think about your camera settings? Do you make pictures on auto pilot? (it’s okay to admit it) I know I had gone into auto pilot recently. After years of school and shooting, my camera was just an extension of my hand… I had no idea if I held my camera correctly. I never thought about it. Why? I was in auto pilot. That’s a good thing, right? I’d gotten to the point where Mr. Gatz (my principals of photography teacher) voice was no longer in my head every time I shot. I saw the light, saw the shot, fingers set the camera, and fired. My images were good…clients loved them.
Copyright © Andie Smith Photography
Then it happened…I was at a workshop, and the speaker was telling everyone how to properly hold the camera. Mmmmm….how do I hold my camera?? I go to grab my camera to see how I hold it, and the speaker stops; “Andie, what are you doing?”, “Getting my camera to make sure I hold it correctly”, “You do. I know because I’ve never corrected you”. I grabbed my camera to make sure (If you care…I do!). Then he went on about composing them focusing…mmm I know I am guilty of focusing and then recomposing…bad Andie. By the time the speaker was done with his talk (one I had heard so may time I can regurgitate it…and this was a watered down version) I was questioning myself on a lot!
Copyright © Andie Smith Photography
I made a deal with myself that night. “Self, you need to go shoot this week and slow down. Think about the basics when you shoot”. I made sure to check all my settings, including my custom picture style (kids this is how I get the bang of color in my images!). Double checked my composition, then moved my focus point with the “joystick” (because we compose then focus)…and shot. Asked myself through out the day, “if I turned this image into Mr. Gatz for a grade, what would I get?” I know if I would give it an A, he wouldn’t even give it a C! Wash, rinse and repeat through the day.
Copyright © Andie Smith Photography
MMM guess what happened?? My keep:toss (no i don’t really toss them!) ratio went up…WAY UP!!! I’m not just talking ”yeah its okay lets keep it” images either. I’m my toughest critic. Some of these images made my heart beat a little faster…some of them made me want to send the file to a lab and ask “how big can I make this?!” Don’t get me wrong I love photography, and I enjoy the images I take, but….going back to the basics made things click (yes, pun fully indented) again. Made me re-think how I was “seeing” and shooting things.
Did going back to the basics make me a better photographer? Maybe. It re-energized me, and made me re-look at images. So the moral of the story: Don’t be afraid to go back to the basics and slow down….no matter how long you have been shooting.
Copyright © Andie Smith Photography
