Latest / the Visual Historian - "A Photographer's Journey" / How AI is helping or hurting the photography industry. Let's talk about it!

Transcript

How AI is helping or hurting the photography industry. Let's talk about it! · the Visual Historian - "A Photographer's Journey"

0:05
SPEAKER_00: Come on again, it's time to wake up, yum.
0:09
SPEAKER_00: Come on, it's Monday.
0:13
SPEAKER_00: If you're not a rock kind of person, oh well.
0:18
SPEAKER_00: It's okay, dude.
0:19
SPEAKER_00: Rock is the injection of Red Bull directly into the veins.
0:24
SPEAKER_00: I need my rock and roll, man.
0:26
SPEAKER_00: Um, it is my attitude, it is my happy, my joy, my anger.
0:30
SPEAKER_00: It's everything.
0:31
SPEAKER_00: Rock is everything, buddy.
0:32
SPEAKER_00: Okay, listen.
0:33
SPEAKER_00: Um, today on Monday, I have so many things happening, but one thing that um that just happened actually was how impressed I was getting off the phone with one of the uh gentlemen with uh Imogen.
0:51
SPEAKER_00: Uh Imogen Software, that's the calling slash processing editing app that makes your life easier.
0:58
SPEAKER_00: And there's a a few of these kinds of um softwares out there now, whether it's uh imagining aftershoot, what native, narrative, narrative.
1:10
SPEAKER_00: There's a there's there's there's a few things, and what happens is you know, competition is is wonderful because it normally helps the consumer with options, you know, some uh some differences between the programs will usually be features or quickness or efficient or quality.
1:31
SPEAKER_00: So it's neat to um, in a sense, see the competitiveness of our industry um always work on being better, you know?
1:40
SPEAKER_00: And yeah, you know, the the amount of things you need to offer now these days for a consumer to invest their money in per month or per job, whatever it is, it's um it's gotta be grueling, right?
1:57
SPEAKER_00: I mean, first you have a thousand people subscribe to you, then you have a hundred thousand people subscribe to you, and you don't because the new guy comes along with better features and a newer looking brand.
2:09
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, that's really, if you think about it, not that much different from any other business in the world right now.
2:16
SPEAKER_00: It's 2026, July.
2:19
SPEAKER_00: You know, if you are the shopping bride, you're looking at a hundred different photographers.
2:25
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you narrow it down to 20, and then you gotta get it down to eight.
2:31
SPEAKER_00: And then what is the big difference between the five that you like?
2:35
SPEAKER_00: I would like to think it's personality, you know, because what we do for a living is handle you directly.
2:42
SPEAKER_00: So it's very different than paying for software that you never gotta see the person that you're you're paying, you're just using the software, and it's it's very it's a cold transaction, very cold to come and go, you know, and look, that's your your guy given right, and they know this, okay.
3:00
SPEAKER_00: However, I have been extremely impressed this past year with like aftershoot.
3:09
SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, Justin has has been great.
3:12
SPEAKER_00: I've been with them since the very beginning.
3:14
SPEAKER_00: Um I've I've had meetings like this one I just had this morning with him, a video call talking about the software, talking about what you like and don't like and what you need to see, what's the problems.
3:28
SPEAKER_00: I mean, they can fix the errors more quickly if they hear directly from their users, you know.
3:36
SPEAKER_00: And both of these softwares, you know, these I hate to even call them apps because they're really software.
3:43
SPEAKER_00: They're they're they're programs.
3:45
SPEAKER_00: You know, whether it's imaging, after shoot, anybody, if you handle the issues quicker, then that means the masses of people trying your software will constantly, as people are coming in the door, they're constantly experiencing the better version of the conversation.
4:08
SPEAKER_00: So instead of, you know, like back in the day, you put a version out and you know, you didn't get the upgrades until the next version came out.
4:18
SPEAKER_00: Well, these days it's in real time.
4:20
SPEAKER_00: You know, I could email one of the guys over at Imogen or Aftershoot and say, hey, I have a problem with this.
4:27
SPEAKER_00: Is there a solution or am I doing something wrong?
4:31
SPEAKER_00: Or is this a fix?
4:33
SPEAKER_00: Nine out of ten times, they're like, Oh, that we've actually heard this from several photographers.
4:39
SPEAKER_00: It's in the works.
4:41
SPEAKER_00: And this isn't like checking the mail, kind of it's in the works.
4:44
SPEAKER_00: Like, no, they're working on it.
4:46
SPEAKER_00: Like, tech is working on it.
4:48
SPEAKER_00: So, kudos to everybody who is in business right now that is following this rule of customer service, this guide, you know, this is great.
5:01
SPEAKER_00: And I tell you, if if you have a business, and it doesn't matter what kind of business you have, any business you have, if you're acting like it's 1998, you're gonna get passed up.
5:15
SPEAKER_00: People are gonna choose quicker to something more brighter, more cleaner, more prettier, more effective, and sometimes better pricing.
5:26
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes not.
5:28
SPEAKER_00: I mean, look, I'll be straight up, imaging costs more.
5:31
SPEAKER_00: Does it work?
5:32
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it does.
5:34
SPEAKER_00: I love it.
5:36
SPEAKER_00: So today I want to talk to you really quick.
5:38
SPEAKER_00: If you are a working photographer, and that's the key, not an amateur at the house just playing with software.
5:44
SPEAKER_00: I mean, are you working?
5:47
SPEAKER_00: Do you have contract jobs?
5:49
SPEAKER_00: Do you have, you know, end times?
5:53
SPEAKER_00: Like I have a job tomorrow, starting at 7:30, ending at 3.
5:58
SPEAKER_00: They want these images by that um a few, they want a handful of faves, 10 to 20 faves by the late afternoon, like after dinner, and then full gallery by the next day.
6:13
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you're a working photographer, you understand everything I just said.
6:18
SPEAKER_00: You just painted a picture in your head of what has to be done.
6:21
SPEAKER_00: You understand, I'm gonna take a couple thousand images and they want all these images tomorrow.
6:25
SPEAKER_00: Are they nuts?
6:27
SPEAKER_00: No, they're not nuts.
6:30
SPEAKER_00: It's just where we are now, you know?
6:34
SPEAKER_00: And I was just telling, um, I was just telling somebody, I said, you know, I still shoot everything raw.
6:42
SPEAKER_00: I don't work with JPEGs.
6:45
SPEAKER_00: And I have some friends that are like, what's wrong with you?
6:48
SPEAKER_00: The cameras are great.
6:49
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, eh, they are.
6:51
SPEAKER_00: And I go, yeah, but they do want a quick delivery.
6:54
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, and I'm like, look, man, this is why you use the culling software.
7:00
SPEAKER_00: And the only thing I care, by the way, let's let's back up for a quick second.
7:06
SPEAKER_00: When when the client knows what they want, the follow-up question that you need to be asking your contact for this event, okay?
7:16
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not talking about weddings.
7:18
SPEAKER_00: This is more about if you if you work with seminars, convention work, if you work with companies, or any kind of event that you need to photograph where they they're just they have pertinent needs, you know, immediate needs.
7:32
SPEAKER_00: That's who I'm talking about.
7:34
SPEAKER_00: Not the bride, not the bride who you you're gonna give 20 of your faves the next morning anyway, kind of thing, and then full gallery by X, Y, Z.
7:44
SPEAKER_00: That's not what I'm talking about.
7:46
SPEAKER_00: I'm talking about commercial clients that have this in the contract for delivery, or you are penalized.
7:55
SPEAKER_00: That's what I'm talking about.
7:57
SPEAKER_00: So when I say due times of delivery, I don't mean when you feel like it.
8:03
SPEAKER_00: I'm talking about what y'all shook the hands on, which you agreed on next day by 3 p.m.
8:09
SPEAKER_00: full gallery.
8:10
SPEAKER_00: You need to honor that.
8:11
SPEAKER_00: You need to wake your ass up in the morning and get working, whatever in the hell you gotta do to make it happen.
8:18
SPEAKER_00: Because your contract is gold.
8:22
SPEAKER_00: It is everything.
8:22
SPEAKER_00: It is your word of mouth, it is your handshake, it is your reputation, it is your brand, it is the world we live in today.
8:32
SPEAKER_00: People like knowing what they're getting.
8:35
SPEAKER_00: That's all it is.
8:36
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
8:38
SPEAKER_00: So let me let me jump on to the culling part of these two apps.
8:46
SPEAKER_00: So let's let's talk about culling for a second.
8:49
SPEAKER_00: Um, so for those of you who who are working photographers and you you know what it's like to photograph a thousand images.
8:57
SPEAKER_00: We do not deliver all thousand images.
9:00
SPEAKER_00: There's no reason why the client needs to get uh the blinks, the blurries, the crazy crops, the lights that did the flashes that didn't go off.
9:07
SPEAKER_00: There is absolutely no reason why the client needs those images.
9:12
SPEAKER_00: They don't, they can I be honest with you here, they don't care how many you deliver.
9:16
SPEAKER_00: They don't care that, you know, that they're not like weddings.
9:19
SPEAKER_00: They're not like, oh my God, if I'm not getting 1200 images, they didn't work hard enough for me.
9:24
SPEAKER_00: That is not how they think.
9:25
SPEAKER_00: What I love about the commercial world, okay, is they want they want adequate, basically, they want the contract captured.
9:36
SPEAKER_00: That's it.
9:37
SPEAKER_00: They have needs, we deliver.
9:39
SPEAKER_00: You know, they say, look, we have speakers on stage, we have breakout sessions, we we need crowd images participating.
9:47
SPEAKER_00: Um, we need all of the signage that we have around the hotel or the convention center.
9:52
SPEAKER_00: Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
9:54
SPEAKER_00: Like they give you a shot list.
9:55
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
9:56
SPEAKER_00: Um, all they care is the shot list is taken care of.
10:00
SPEAKER_00: They look beautiful, they are crop straight, colors correct, nothing fancy, no filters, no lighting airy, none of that crap.
10:10
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
10:11
SPEAKER_00: They want true to life.
10:13
SPEAKER_00: We spent$100,000 on this event.
10:16
SPEAKER_00: We want to see it.
10:17
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
10:17
SPEAKER_00: Not your interpretation of the event.
10:19
SPEAKER_00: We want to see our event.
10:22
SPEAKER_00: That is why I love my commercial gigs so much.
10:26
SPEAKER_00: You know, because I can do those things.
10:27
SPEAKER_00: It's what I do all the time.
10:29
SPEAKER_00: I like hashtag simple clean beautiful.
10:34
SPEAKER_00: And to me, that means if you keep it simple, you photograph it clean, it's gonna be beautiful.
10:41
SPEAKER_00: That's it.
10:42
SPEAKER_00: So these commercial gigs, you know, nine out of ten times, they really are spending that kind of money, if not way more than that.
10:48
SPEAKER_00: Way, way more than that.
10:50
SPEAKER_00: And um, you know, they do have beautiful things, they do have branding, they do have everything.
10:57
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's given to you on a silver platter.
10:59
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, all right, moving on.
11:01
SPEAKER_00: So, culling.
11:03
SPEAKER_00: This is what I've learned about culling software in general, and it does not matter which one you use, okay?
11:11
SPEAKER_00: Culling software is trained to see the things that go into separate folders like closed eyes, blurry images, um, you know, which the the biggest part of the software is how good is it at quote unquote finding your great images?
11:34
SPEAKER_00: The problem that I have with the calling software is that there's still a huge human element involved in this.
11:42
SPEAKER_00: It's it's called preference, you know, your your taste, your personal preference, your personal taste.
11:48
SPEAKER_00: You know, there's an image of a seminar I did, and the lady who was on stage was a great speaker, and I moved to the side because that light coming across her face from the front.
12:01
SPEAKER_00: If I'm on the side, it it's just it's it's a beautiful shot.
12:05
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
12:05
SPEAKER_00: Um, she's obviously not looking at me, she's looking at the crowd.
12:09
SPEAKER_00: I'm looking at her on her side profile and that light coming straight onto her face, it's a great shot.
12:15
SPEAKER_00: The colour software I was using at the time did not select it because it just wasn't what it was trained to say yes to.
12:25
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
12:26
SPEAKER_00: So without going into the process of these companies having to rewrite the code for what to find, we're just not there yet.
12:39
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
12:40
SPEAKER_00: That's basically the best way to kind of put it.
12:43
SPEAKER_00: So, how I use the colouring software is to get rid of the blinks and the blurry images.
12:51
SPEAKER_00: Everything else I want to see.
12:53
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
12:54
SPEAKER_00: Everything else.
12:56
SPEAKER_00: So I will do the three stars four, five, and six, four and five, four and five, three, four, five.
13:04
SPEAKER_00: I will see all those stars.
13:06
SPEAKER_00: And what I like about all of the of these colouring softwares was that they will, with those stars, you can say, hey, show me all the three stars.
13:17
SPEAKER_00: Show me all the five stars.
13:18
SPEAKER_00: Those five here's the thing.
13:20
SPEAKER_00: Five stars are like ready to rock.
13:23
SPEAKER_00: They're good, they're great.
13:24
SPEAKER_00: Use them, go.
13:26
SPEAKER_00: I can't tell you how many times I'm using my three-star images more than my fives.
13:32
SPEAKER_00: Because it's just not this software does not see what you and I see.
13:39
SPEAKER_00: It just finds aspects of the image that makes any sense.
13:44
SPEAKER_00: You know?
13:44
SPEAKER_00: So basically, this is very difficult for humans to write code, you still gotta tell the computer what to look for and do the work.
13:55
SPEAKER_00: It's still an if-then statement.
13:59
SPEAKER_00: And if you're like me going way back in time to the beginning of the computer stuff, uh, you know exactly what the hell I'm talking about.
14:06
SPEAKER_00: Um, so anyway, I will use the colour software to just get rid of those two things blinks and blurry images.
14:14
SPEAKER_00: Just show me workable images.
14:16
SPEAKER_00: Remember, these people want, you know, 1800 images by the next day.
14:20
SPEAKER_00: That's a lot of stinking images to go through.
14:23
SPEAKER_00: But, however, if I can trust the colour, whichever one I use, to at least do those two things.
14:32
SPEAKER_00: And when you tell me that five-star image is a true five-star image, meaning it's sharp.
14:40
SPEAKER_00: It may not be crop shape, but that's okay.
14:42
SPEAKER_00: That's the next step.
14:43
SPEAKER_00: Turn that button on, you know.
14:46
SPEAKER_00: Um, I'm finding that the colour software is not perfect, and I'm still having to go back and find the images or still not deliver some of the five stars.
14:58
SPEAKER_00: That is the coding problem that they're having right now.
15:02
SPEAKER_00: Not really a problem, it's just they're improving.
15:04
SPEAKER_00: Everybody's improving, everybody's getting better.
15:06
SPEAKER_00: They're hearing more insights from photographers, they're starting to see.
15:10
SPEAKER_00: And I was just telling you, boy, from Imogen on the on the conference call we just had.
15:15
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, I don't know how y'all are gonna do this.
15:17
SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's a human preference to what we do that a computer, I just can't imagine, is gonna be trained well enough to find what I like.
15:30
SPEAKER_00: You know, like that's that's wild.
15:33
SPEAKER_00: Um, I'm not gonna lie, I wish it would.
15:36
SPEAKER_00: I mean, if I could just do my job and then click, call, edit, process, post.
15:44
SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh, if I could trust the computer to do all of those things for me, that's gonna be the day.
15:52
SPEAKER_00: The day, the day on this planet to be a photographer.
15:59
SPEAKER_00: And some people are saying, oh my god, we're not gonna use, don't let AI, don't let like a computer like do everything.
16:06
SPEAKER_00: That's like, you're you're degrading the artistry of what we're doing.
16:12
SPEAKER_00: Yo, stop.
16:13
SPEAKER_00: It's not what we're doing.
16:15
SPEAKER_00: All we're trying to do is get from A to Z a little easier.
16:19
SPEAKER_00: You know, we are very aware that we still need to go back and check the calling.
16:24
SPEAKER_00: We still make sure everything is crop straight, we still have to pick faves to put on Instagram and our blog post and Facebook and Twitter and LinkedIn.
16:34
SPEAKER_00: Like we're still having to do those things.
16:37
SPEAKER_00: So in the next podcast, we're gonna have to talk about Claude.
16:42
SPEAKER_00: Wanna talk about it now?
16:44
SPEAKER_00: All right, where are we at in the podcast?
16:47
SPEAKER_00: 17 minutes going on 17 minutes?
16:49
SPEAKER_00: All right, we have time.
16:50
SPEAKER_00: Um, if you have not tried really good AI software, you don't know what you're missing.
17:01
SPEAKER_00: Now, let me let me back you up for a second, give you a little history stamp of myself, okay?
17:08
SPEAKER_00: Um Atari, the game system Atari, when I was a kid, that was out.
17:14
SPEAKER_00: So I've been with computers since then.
17:17
SPEAKER_00: If you don't know who Packard Bell computer was, or Dell or IBM, it's like all those things have been a part of all this.
17:27
SPEAKER_00: So I have been watching and visually seeing technology advance in front of my eyes, in my hands, in front of my face on my own computer for decades.
17:39
SPEAKER_00: And where we are now, I honest to God thought we would have been here 10, 15 years ago.
17:48
SPEAKER_00: Like, what the hell's taking so long?
17:51
SPEAKER_00: Um, I don't know.
17:52
SPEAKER_00: That's a whole nother podcast.
17:53
SPEAKER_00: I do have theories, but keeping it simple, keeping it on track here, where we are now is honest to God phenomenal.
18:02
SPEAKER_00: Now everybody knows chat GT GPT.
18:08
SPEAKER_00: Okay, chat does good stuff.
18:10
SPEAKER_00: Chat is way better at designing graphics than Claude is.
18:16
SPEAKER_00: Claude, however, can do everything else.
18:19
SPEAKER_00: Chat cannot, and that's the best way to put it.
18:22
SPEAKER_00: Claude has a Chrome extension for your browser that once you install that and you give it permissions, Claude can do the work for you.
18:36
SPEAKER_00: So it's kind of like, you know, Iron Man having uh Jarvis, you know, speak to it, it'll do it, it'll even check, it'll double check, it'll even find resources to make sure it's doing it right, it'll even call you out when it's wrong.
18:50
SPEAKER_00: It's awesome.
18:51
SPEAKER_00: It's very, very cool.
18:53
SPEAKER_00: And yes, the parameters are set to where um I need to approve steps.
19:00
SPEAKER_00: So whenever there's a money transaction step, say like on my Etsy page, and I'm paying for and we're designing an ad, it'll say, Hey, this is where you, the human, need to take over because there's actual money involved.
19:14
SPEAKER_00: I think that's the coolest thing ever.
19:16
SPEAKER_00: There's simple requests when it's doing work for me with my SEO on my Squarespace site, it'll tell me.
19:25
SPEAKER_00: I just love it.
19:26
SPEAKER_00: You got to see it.
19:27
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna go to a visual podcast soon.
19:31
SPEAKER_00: Um, right now, just you know, for the sake of getting these things out for you to hear while you're jogging at the gym, maybe you're just driving to work, you need a podcast that's only maybe 30-something minutes long, I'm your guy.
19:44
SPEAKER_00: All right.
19:45
SPEAKER_00: Um, Claude has saved me so much stinking time.
19:52
SPEAKER_00: And what I love about Claude is the simple fact that it can do these things for me.
19:59
SPEAKER_00: Meaning, if your tabs are open in your Chrome browser, say my Squarespace tab is open and I'm logged in, you can tell Claude to do steps and it'll do it for you.
20:14
SPEAKER_00: It'll even check the coding, it'll even check the the browse history, it'll look at your rankings, it'll look at what you're missing, it'll it'll even be honest and tell you when it thinks you should do something different, or whether your idea is a great idea.
20:33
SPEAKER_00: It's awesome.
20:34
SPEAKER_00: It really is awesome, and it saved me so much help.
20:37
SPEAKER_00: The big difference for me though is that I did grow up with computers.
20:43
SPEAKER_00: I did grow up sitting down trying to write code for like a game or whatever it is.
20:48
SPEAKER_00: I've been the guy that has tech so many issues with computers and all this new technology we've been having since my kids were younger.
20:57
SPEAKER_00: Um, I'm the guy that understands what the hell claude's doing, basically.
21:02
SPEAKER_00: I'm watching it work, I can see what it's doing, it's telling me what it's doing.
21:05
SPEAKER_00: It's say, hey, I'm going into the background code, I'm looking for this schema code thing.
21:12
SPEAKER_00: I understand that, you know?
21:15
SPEAKER_00: So if somebody who isn't that tech savvy wanting to use Claude, I would be a little hesitant on the aspect of just be careful of what you're letting it do.
21:27
SPEAKER_00: Because if it's only you and the computer doing its thing and it's taken over, you don't want it to mess up anything on the background, you know?
21:37
SPEAKER_00: So that's just so cool.
21:40
SPEAKER_00: I have even I even got Claude to post directly to my Instagram, to LinkedIn, um, and my website.
21:55
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's that's what I have it doing so far.
21:58
SPEAKER_00: So, you know.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: As today's photographer in the social media world that we're living in, we have quite a few things to do.
22:06
SPEAKER_00: Quite a few places to post to.
22:09
SPEAKER_00: I mean, come on, I have like five that I need to do.
22:13
SPEAKER_00: Oh, you know what?
22:15
SPEAKER_00: Even my YouTube channel.
22:17
SPEAKER_00: I did a video and I went to Claude and I said, Hey, my YouTube channel, I'm logged in.
22:23
SPEAKER_00: The tab is open.
22:25
SPEAKER_00: I have the video.
22:26
SPEAKER_00: It's about XYZ.
22:28
SPEAKER_00: Can you post and do all of the SEO things?
22:33
SPEAKER_00: Can you fill it all out?
22:36
SPEAKER_00: To my shock and awe.
22:39
SPEAKER_00: Not only did it post for me and fill out all the fields correctly, the video that I did was on some Lightroom presets, my black and white lightroom presets that I recently designed that are on my Etsy page.
22:55
SPEAKER_00: Oh, Etsy.
22:56
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I have it gone to Etsy too.
22:58
SPEAKER_00: Um, and it knew from the video, it read the transcript.
23:05
SPEAKER_00: How it did, I have no idea.
23:06
SPEAKER_00: I didn't even give it this, but it did.
23:09
SPEAKER_00: It read the video real quick.
23:11
SPEAKER_00: It knew I was talking about my Etsy product, and it added a button.
23:18
SPEAKER_00: You know how you're watching a YouTube video, and then the button comes up where you can click on it and go see the product and buy it.
23:25
SPEAKER_00: It did that for me.
23:26
SPEAKER_00: I gotta be honest, I've never done that before.
23:29
SPEAKER_00: Just I mean, just because I haven't anything to sell, I guess.
23:31
SPEAKER_00: I finally do.
23:33
SPEAKER_00: Um, but it did.
23:34
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, that's what I'm talking about.
23:37
SPEAKER_00: This is where we should have been 15 flipping years ago, man.
23:40
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's not that I don't know what to do, it's the fact that you have to do these things yourself, and that's only one video, you know?
23:51
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I had to get to a point of giving myself a social media calendar for the year.
23:58
SPEAKER_00: Do you have one of these?
24:00
SPEAKER_00: Monday, I'm gonna do Instagram posts and I need to do a live, um, you know, a stories post.
24:06
SPEAKER_00: Tuesday, Facebook, tag your people, blah blah blah.
24:10
SPEAKER_00: Wednesday, LinkedIn, and you know, my Substack notes page.
24:19
SPEAKER_00: There's so many freaking things.
24:21
SPEAKER_00: And the problem is it's not like do a little post and you're done.
24:26
SPEAKER_00: You're not done.
24:27
SPEAKER_00: You gotta do the keywords, you gotta do the hashtags, you gotta do the the uh description, the correct title.
24:32
SPEAKER_00: You better make sure your thumbnail looks pretty decent.
24:35
SPEAKER_00: There's so many things that I don't want to do them.
24:39
SPEAKER_00: That's the problem.
24:41
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to do them.
24:43
SPEAKER_00: Well, this is why I like AI software that is here to help us do the steps that we know how to do.
24:53
SPEAKER_00: We're just telling an employee to do it for us.
24:57
SPEAKER_00: And yes, you can put your pauses on this thing to where you can check it before it goes live.
25:04
SPEAKER_00: The safeguarded aspects, you know, the safety rails are there.
25:10
SPEAKER_00: You can turn them off.
25:12
SPEAKER_00: Don't do that, dear lord.
25:14
SPEAKER_00: Just don't do that.
25:16
SPEAKER_00: However, when I tell you I'm excited again to be in this industry, like I'm I'm just I'm pumped, you know.
25:24
SPEAKER_00: Like I just did a a post last night, and here's the coolest thing, dude.
25:30
SPEAKER_00: And uh I know this is the first time you're hearing something like this, you're blown away.
25:34
SPEAKER_00: If you're using Claude already, you get it, but I bet you're still kind of excited about it because you're hearing other people use AI in a way that maybe you didn't think of, you know, you didn't know.
25:45
SPEAKER_00: I I didn't know it could even post to Instagram.
25:47
SPEAKER_00: I know that seems simple, but you have no idea how important that is for me.
25:52
SPEAKER_00: Here's the image, these are the people you tag.
25:56
SPEAKER_00: Um, this is what the image is is is about.
25:59
SPEAKER_00: Short little description, clean it up, post, go.
26:03
SPEAKER_00: And it does.
26:04
SPEAKER_00: I was like, oh yeah, oh yeah, here we go.
26:09
SPEAKER_00: Now I could be the beast that I am.
26:12
SPEAKER_00: I mean, look, I'm a one-man machine over here.
26:16
SPEAKER_00: Not only do I photograph everything, I do have a photographic team, which is basically other pro videographers and photographers that I'm like Batman, I guess I wouldn't be Batman.
26:31
SPEAKER_00: You know, when the signal goes up and Batman responds, well, when I throw the signal up, they respond.
26:36
SPEAKER_00: So maybe they're all Batman.
26:39
SPEAKER_00: Um, but my my point is there's so many things that we have to do that take up so much darn time.
26:46
SPEAKER_00: So if you can find things, AI software, programs, apps, whatever it is, if you can find something that helps you cut the time down, if not eliminate it.
27:00
SPEAKER_00: That's a beautiful thing.
27:02
SPEAKER_00: You're still doing your job, you're still being the photographer, you're still running your business.
27:06
SPEAKER_00: You just have that employee that you can tell what to do without hurting his feelings.
27:13
SPEAKER_00: You can just say, um, so Claude, you can you can write a skill.
27:18
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
27:19
SPEAKER_00: You can say new chat, you can say co-work, you can say new project.
27:24
SPEAKER_00: I have my project saved, and some of these projects are skills.
27:30
SPEAKER_00: Meaning, let me explain this to you.
27:32
SPEAKER_00: Meaning, Squarespace SEO project, open it up.
27:37
SPEAKER_00: We do all the things.
27:38
SPEAKER_00: I tell it what to look what to what to post, how to post it, make sure my location is this, make sure, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
27:48
SPEAKER_00: Say you get through an entire post at the end of that post and you're happy with it, you say, Hey Claude, can we make this a skill?
27:56
SPEAKER_00: It says, Yep.
27:59
SPEAKER_00: So what happens is the skill becomes like an action on Photoshop.
28:06
SPEAKER_00: Really quick, if you don't know what an action is in Photoshop, if you have to open a file, adjust the color, minus 10 degrees on the yellow, plus three on the magenta, add a vignette, uh, save and close.
28:20
SPEAKER_00: Boom, stop recording.
28:22
SPEAKER_00: That is an action.
28:24
SPEAKER_00: Every time you hit that action, it's gonna do those steps every time.
28:28
SPEAKER_00: That's all a skill is.
28:30
SPEAKER_00: It's gonna follow the um the steps that you did for that skill.
28:35
SPEAKER_00: How cool is that?
28:37
SPEAKER_00: So now when I go to do a post on Squarespace and I need help from Claude, it follows all the steps that I told it to do.
28:46
SPEAKER_00: And it's and it and it works.
28:49
SPEAKER_00: It works.
28:50
SPEAKER_00: I'm so impressed.
28:51
SPEAKER_00: So impressed.
28:53
SPEAKER_00: So, anyway, if you are where I am right now, I'm gonna end on this, okay?
28:58
SPEAKER_00: And I was just talking to the Image and rep about this.
29:03
SPEAKER_00: I said, you know, the the problem that a lot of us photographers these days are having, it's not that your software isn't worth the money.
29:09
SPEAKER_00: It is worth the money.
29:10
SPEAKER_00: I said, right now in New Orleans, it is blessed hot.
29:14
SPEAKER_00: Um, so we have fewer sessions outside.
29:18
SPEAKER_00: Nobody wants to be outside.
29:20
SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, our conventions are coming back after COVID.
29:24
SPEAKER_00: They're they're getting more and more and more and more and more.
29:28
SPEAKER_00: But our demand of work is less in the summer.
29:32
SPEAKER_00: That's just the truth.
29:34
SPEAKER_00: So I can't afford, you know, four different software it's asking for whatever they're asking for in the summer.
29:42
SPEAKER_00: But when I'm busy, it's like nothing.
29:44
SPEAKER_00: It's like cost of doing business.
29:46
SPEAKER_00: It's like imaging is running uh$165 a month, and that's for use their software unlimited as many images as you want.
29:56
SPEAKER_00: If you don't do that, then it's a plan that you're paying for, and it gives you so many credits, which is basically how many images is it working on.
30:05
SPEAKER_00: So let's just say a thousand images on a wedding, you have 800 credits left for the month, you have to pay the difference from the 800 to the 1200 images at what a nickel apiece?
30:17
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't seem like a big deal, but it adds up.
30:20
SPEAKER_00: And then let's say you're using that.
30:22
SPEAKER_00: Let's say you're I know you're paying for Adobe, and I know you're paying for Ivato, I know you're paying for blah blah blah.
30:31
SPEAKER_00: Well, when you take your four to five favorite workflow apps and add it up, it's an employee.
30:42
SPEAKER_00: It is now as an individual, you know, paying$20 a month for Claude, that's a cheap employee.
30:51
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
30:52
SPEAKER_00: But if you're an operational business, you have to run your expense report and see what are you paying for on a month totaling a year.
31:04
SPEAKER_00: Is it gonna be cheaper than an actual employee?
31:07
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
31:08
SPEAKER_00: But you're still coming out of pocket where we didn't before in the past.
31:13
SPEAKER_00: In the past, we paid for a version of the software, we're able to use it.
31:18
SPEAKER_00: That's it.
31:19
SPEAKER_00: Now, a lot of these companies are going towards paying for exports, like Evato pays for an export.
31:27
SPEAKER_00: In other words, you can look at your 800 images in Evato and do all the tweaks and the retouching and the face squeezing and opening the eyes.
31:34
SPEAKER_00: You can do all that stuff.
31:35
SPEAKER_00: But when you say, hey, from the 800, 500, I need to make these actual, you know, workable JPEGs, get them to the client.
31:44
SPEAKER_00: Those are exports, okay?
31:46
SPEAKER_00: Evato is charging you for an export, that becomes very expensive very fast.
31:51
SPEAKER_00: I don't like that.
31:53
SPEAKER_00: I despise that.
31:55
SPEAKER_00: Kind of ticks me off, to be honest.
31:57
SPEAKER_00: We want to use your software, but why are you digging so deep on us?
32:02
SPEAKER_00: You know?
32:03
SPEAKER_00: And to be fair, I get it.
32:05
SPEAKER_00: We're all moving forward.
32:07
SPEAKER_00: I do like change, I like new, I like productivity, being better, cleaner, sweeter, prettier, all that good stuff.
32:16
SPEAKER_00: But this is what many of these software companies don't understand.
32:20
SPEAKER_00: If you were my only investment, it would be cheap.
32:24
SPEAKER_00: But since there's four or five different kinds of software that I'm using, and they're all starting to do the same thing, now I can't afford all y'all.
32:33
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
32:35
SPEAKER_00: Now I know what you're saying.
32:37
SPEAKER_00: Well, you just don't have the business.
32:38
SPEAKER_00: Um, screw you, for one thing.
32:41
SPEAKER_00: The second thing is you may be in a different place in your life than the next guy.
32:47
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
32:48
SPEAKER_00: I'm only gonna talk about me here.
32:50
SPEAKER_00: I have three kids, they're in school, we have car insurance, we have a house note, we have health insurance, we have food, we have gas.
32:58
SPEAKER_00: I mean, come on, you know the whole thing.
33:01
SPEAKER_00: My life might just be different than yours.
33:04
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you don't have three kids, maybe you have one, you know?
33:08
SPEAKER_00: Maybe your husband is has a great job, and you know, you're doing your job because you want to, not because you have to.
33:18
SPEAKER_00: Everybody's home life is different, and it shouldn't be uh I'm you know, in more in need of.
33:26
SPEAKER_00: It's not that.
33:27
SPEAKER_00: Let's just talk about fairness, okay?
33:30
SPEAKER_00: It it to me, taking away that fairness just makes running a business a little harder.
33:36
SPEAKER_00: Like it's the summer right now, so it's a little slower.
33:39
SPEAKER_00: So I had to I stopped paying for the imaging at the 165 a month.
33:44
SPEAKER_00: You know, two months ago, it was great.
33:47
SPEAKER_00: I was slammed, I was busy, it was perfect.
33:50
SPEAKER_00: It helped me get through my busy season.
33:53
SPEAKER_00: But I'm not gonna pay the 165 plus the other four softwares when I don't have the kind of work I did two months ago.
34:02
SPEAKER_00: So that's just common sense, right?
34:03
SPEAKER_00: That's just logic.
34:05
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure you're in the same boat.
34:08
SPEAKER_00: And I don't know what the answer is.
34:10
SPEAKER_00: I mean, as an individual company, if I was the owner of any of these, you know, software companies, I would be saying the same thing.
34:18
SPEAKER_00: Say, hey, that's not my problem.
34:19
SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is what we offer.
34:21
SPEAKER_00: This is our deal.
34:22
SPEAKER_00: You like it, you like it, you don't, you don't.
34:25
SPEAKER_00: Okay, that's great.
34:27
SPEAKER_00: But I think we're getting to the time of the human experience where you do need to start taking into effect the human experience.
34:40
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it you do realize it doesn't matter how big of a company you are.
34:44
SPEAKER_00: I don't care who you are, I don't care if you're Disney, everybody can be can be crushed.
34:50
SPEAKER_00: Everybody can come down.
34:52
SPEAKER_00: Everybody.
34:54
SPEAKER_00: And it doesn't take as much as you think, by the way.
34:57
SPEAKER_00: You know, l I have no idea what Disney's numbers are.
35:00
SPEAKER_00: And to not even use Disney.
35:02
SPEAKER_00: To just if you're a say you're a hundred million dollar business, okay, and you keep growing and growing and growing.
35:11
SPEAKER_00: Well, now you need to make that kind of money to sustain how big you are.
35:16
SPEAKER_00: So if you tick off the client, if you piss off the regular client with an online racial slur statement, or you're not supporting some new trend that everybody's behind, when people stop using your company, you lose money.
35:35
SPEAKER_00: And the bigger you are, you know why they say the bigger you are, the harder you fall?
35:39
SPEAKER_00: Because the bigger you are, that's a big dollar amount every month you got to make to just stay the same.
35:47
SPEAKER_00: You know, stay as big as you are.
35:50
SPEAKER_00: So even if you saw a 10% drop in sales, bro, that hurts.
35:58
SPEAKER_00: 10% on a hundred million is a lot of money.
36:02
SPEAKER_00: That is non-working capital now.
36:05
SPEAKER_00: Now you're you're sitting and going, but gee, that's only 10%.
36:08
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you go ahead and tell that to the$100 million CEO.
36:12
SPEAKER_00: You know, the CEO of that company.
36:13
SPEAKER_00: Go tell him 10%'s only 10%.
36:16
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't see only 10%.
36:17
SPEAKER_00: He sees holy crap, can we pay the mortgage next month?
36:21
SPEAKER_00: You know, God forbid it goes down 20%.
36:24
SPEAKER_00: 30?
36:25
SPEAKER_00: Can you imagine Disney at a 30% loss six months in a row?
36:30
SPEAKER_00: It would almost be, you know, for foreclosing, selling swamp land to uh just keep the Disney rides open.
36:36
SPEAKER_00: Like, you don't realize it's not about the size of your business.
36:42
SPEAKER_00: Nothing is bulletproof.
36:45
SPEAKER_00: Nothing.
36:46
SPEAKER_00: And as long as you are pertaining to the human being as your paying client of any way, any way possible, whether it's software, an experience, an item, a product, doesn't matter, dude.
37:03
SPEAKER_00: Humans talk to other humans, and if people decide this isn't the way to go, and other people agree, you're at a loss.
37:11
SPEAKER_00: And it does not matter how good your product is, period.
37:16
SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna close out this this uh this podcast today um with questions.
37:22
SPEAKER_00: I would love to have you on the podcast, honestly, talking about something like this.
37:27
SPEAKER_00: Are you a newer kind of business, or are all of these things like crazy expensive?
37:32
SPEAKER_00: Like you would love to use Imogen and Divato and Luminar and whatever else, you know, like all these things are asking for dollars every month.
37:43
SPEAKER_00: Can you afford it?
37:45
SPEAKER_00: You know why you can't afford it?
37:48
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't really matter.
37:50
SPEAKER_00: Like everybody's home life is different, so that's not even worth even discussing because everybody deserves their privacy, in my opinion.
37:59
SPEAKER_00: I'm just saying, are you happy with how things are going?
38:04
SPEAKER_00: Are you fine paying for every darn export compared to a regular fee per month?
38:10
SPEAKER_00: Or buy the version of this software and use it until the next steps come out with the next versions, and you're like, hmm, I think I want to upgrade.
38:20
SPEAKER_00: Remember when you had that kind of control?
38:21
SPEAKER_00: You still do in certain aspects.
38:23
SPEAKER_00: I think Capture One still does that.
38:26
SPEAKER_00: I think Luminarch still does that.
38:27
SPEAKER_00: There's a handful of softwares that still do that.
38:31
SPEAKER_00: You can still use their software because you you bought it.
38:34
SPEAKER_00: They're not charging for every time you say, Ooh, let's let's use this on Suzy Q and let's develop 20 of her images through this new software I'm using.
38:46
SPEAKER_00: Oh, wait, they want to charge me a nickel per export?
38:50
SPEAKER_00: Well, that's not too bad.
38:52
SPEAKER_00: But then after a week, you're like, holy crap, I could have bought the software.
38:57
SPEAKER_00: Well, we're not there anymore.
38:59
SPEAKER_00: Or we're not gonna be there anymore.
39:01
SPEAKER_00: I'm just curious.
39:02
SPEAKER_00: Where do you sit?
39:03
SPEAKER_00: Where do you fall?
39:04
SPEAKER_00: Um, the people who have these apps and softwares do want to hear your point of view, and they need capital like anybody else.
39:14
SPEAKER_00: They can't make their software any better if they can't pay the engineers and uh the tech people to fix the tweaks.
39:23
SPEAKER_00: Cost of doing business is a real thing.
39:27
SPEAKER_00: Profit is a real thing.
39:29
SPEAKER_00: We all need it.
39:30
SPEAKER_00: So stop dogging on people for making money.
39:33
SPEAKER_00: That's the purpose, that's the goal.
39:36
SPEAKER_00: If I don't make money, it's not even about the profit.
39:39
SPEAKER_00: The profit just goes to my bills, it goes to my home life.
39:43
SPEAKER_00: That's all profit does.
39:45
SPEAKER_00: Everything else is just staying in business, you know?
39:48
SPEAKER_00: Oh man, that's a whole nother podcast we need we need to get into.
39:52
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
39:53
SPEAKER_00: So uh let me see here.
39:56
SPEAKER_00: It is early in the morning.
39:57
SPEAKER_00: I am apologize for sounding like look, I have a frog in my throat.
40:01
SPEAKER_00: I have my coffee right here, I keep drinking it, I keep pausing, and uh, I don't know, the morning got me a little bit.
40:08
SPEAKER_00: So uh oh yeah.
40:11
SPEAKER_00: Some some outro music here.
40:14
SPEAKER_00: All right, look, you guys, it's Monday.
40:17
SPEAKER_00: Hope you have a fantastic week.
40:19
SPEAKER_00: I have more to come on this podcast this week.
40:24
SPEAKER_00: I would love to have you as a guest.
40:26
SPEAKER_00: It's a phone call, it's not a video, not yet.
40:29
SPEAKER_00: Um, but yeah, man, other people want to hear from you.
40:33
SPEAKER_00: Because you represent everybody else who's listening.
40:37
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for being here.
40:38
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for love.
40:39
SPEAKER_00: Stay focused when you bring you guys digital historian.