Latest / PropMedia Podcast / From $150 Real Estate Listings to $30K Architectural Shoots w/ Jordan Powers

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From $150 Real Estate Listings to $30K Architectural Shoots w/ Jordan Powers · PropMedia Podcast

• 0:13
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, I'm Maddie, and this is Moses.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_01: And this is the Prop Media Podcast where we talk about everything around property media.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_04: Today we get to talk with Jordan Powers.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_04: We're excited to have him actually in our studio.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_04: It's always fun when we can interview somebody in person.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_04: And Jordan does architectural photography.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_04: You may know him from a YouTube channel.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_04: He's done some instructional content for the community.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_04: Um, and we're stoked to hear how you got into this business and what you think about it.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_04: So give us the two minutes on how you got into this crazy thing.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, two minutes.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you guys must not have seen any of my YouTube stuff before.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: That's why we said two minutes.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: That's why we said two minutes versus 40 seconds.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, two minutes.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: So quick background.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um I've been a photographer since 2006, real estate photography 2011, architecture photography 2018.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: And that's pretty much what I've been doing exclusively since 2022 is architecture.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_04: Not real estate like production photography with a realtor, but strictly architectural now.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: I haven't done a real estate photography shoot in probably three years at this point.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, not not on purpose, they just don't hire me for my rates.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, right, is what it boils down to.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: So and I really just don't market towards realtors anymore.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_04: Not being said, they're totally different products, different uses, different vibes, all kinds of stuff.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's about the quickest background I can give, but I can expand on anything you guys want.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure we'll dive into more.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: Just for a little bit of context, you started into doing architectural property type media, doing real estate though.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: That was was that kind of the where you started and then graduated into architecture or graduated.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: That's an interesting word.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: Let's let's put a pin in that and revisit that later.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I actually the first um I did architecture.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: So I started off doing weddings of portraits in 2006.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: Some marketing company hired me at some point just to shoot some of like they had some restaurant clients and they had me shoot some of their restaurants.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: That was 2008, and that's when I technically shot my first architecture, but I didn't think of it as architecture or real estate, it was just a photo job.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I just I shot it, they look horrible.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: And um that was technically when I first shot it.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: And then we moved from Ohio to Minnesota, my wife and I, in 2009, and started like transitioning away from weddings.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: And then by 2011, we were looking for a house and driving around with the realtor and couldn't find a good house.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: Like just the photos were horrible.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I didn't know real estate photography was a thing, but I was like, have you guys ever considered working with a professional photographer?
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, because literally in my town, this is 2011, like, real estate photography really wasn't a thing.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_04: Um, I mean, it really wasn't back then.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it was in the bigger cities, but not in small town Minnesota.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: So he was like, No, I hadn't thought about that.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I didn't, I wasn't thinking about making it a business, but I was like, hey, well, if you want to try it doing on a listing, let me know.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: And he called me, he's like, actually, I do have a listing coming up if you want to give it a try.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: So I, you know, looked online just to see if there was anything online about real estate photography, and turns out it was an actual business.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: And uh PFRE existed at the time.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if um you guys have a lot of people.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of like the blog and all that bag.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: The original.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_04: Um, the first one we went to was PFRE.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: So um that was so Brandon had taken over PFRE from Larry Loman or Lorman, I can't remember his last name.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, long story short, um I pretty much just did a crash course on what's the kind of basics of real estate photography.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: And like, in short, it's like make sure the verticals are straight.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: There's some um that was pretty much it.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: Real estate photography.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: Make sure the vertical yeah, it's exactly that.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, if well, once you understand photography, you kind of like the rest of it's but that's all I really needed to know in terms of what I needed to do to do a shit.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I already knew how to do photography.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, um, and then the business component.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: I think Larry had this formula that was um, you know, find out what the cost of a furnace repair technician would be to come out and service your furnace, and that's something like that's your price.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_01: Interesting.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: Something like that.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I heard that.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: That was that was like the starting price for um people are gonna correct me, or but uh it's something like that.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: It was basically what's the cost of us, and I think the philosophy was you're a service-based industry, you're coming into people's houses, your appointment time is gonna be about the same.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: That's what people are used to paying, but that's gonna be a comfortable, familiar price with them.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: So I basically based my original prices on that.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: It was$150 for a listing, uh, for you know, up to 2,000 square feet, and then I had some tiered pricing beyond that.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that was 2011.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that first year I did probably 12 listings from like June to December, and then it doubled every year up until 2018 when I finally brought on another photographer.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_01: So, and how did you make the jump into architectural photography?
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you're or already or why?
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: Well, uh, I think throughout that time I was shooting real estate, I would get hired from a builder occasionally, from a designer occasionally.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't get hired by any architects uh until probably 2018.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: I started like getting really interested in architecture, and that was mainly because I kind of saw where real estate photography is heading.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: It was heading, it was less about photography.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know, I was a photographer first.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um I was always like kind of an artsy fartsy kid.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not I'm not like a big business person.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: I was I was never gonna be the person who scaled and built like a big conglomerate empire thing.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: I just I wanted to have a good business that supported me and my family, and it was kind of as simple as that.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I had one other guy who was shooting with me, and that was kind of that was kind of my limit.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: I couldn't really go back.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: I tried scaling, I tried, you know, I was probably 2017, 2018.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: A friend of mine in Ohio wanted to model after my business, so we set up like an extension of my business in Ohio, anyway.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I just kind of saw where things were going and I was like, I don't know if I want to build this big business.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, you know, Matterport was starting to become popular, virtual tours, and video is starting to become less about just making a property video and more about making content.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, I don't know if I want to turn this into I I tried turning it into a media company, but I just the more I did it, the more overwhelmed I was getting with it.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, I just don't want to do this.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, a lot of the photographers that I had kind of grown up with in the real estate photography world were starting to shoot for more designers and architects.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: And when I saw what they were doing, um, it just seemed more appealing to me.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: It was a slower pace, it was less shooting.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you're not shooting five, six listings a day, you're shooting like maybe one shoot a week, uh, if that.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, this is more my pace.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's not so much about shooting nice homes or being in nice homes all day because you can do that with real estate.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, you can make a lot more money with real estate.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like most real estate photographers are making a significant amount of money compared to architectural photographers.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_01: I think their companies are, yeah.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if they are.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_01: Some might.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_04: Maybe it kind of depends on how well they run their business, how much of the money they keep, but the top line sure could get higher, I would think.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, some of the numbers that I know people are making, and that even the even what they were making back in 2018, 2019, it was just significant.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: Like I was in small town Minnesota, we lived in a town of about 60,000 people, and I was probably doing I think my best year is about 150 a year, which is pretty good for just a real estate photography business.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: And we pretty much only did photography and video, maybe 500 listings a year.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: I think that was, I think I don't even think we quite reached 500 listings a year.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: So it was a really small, slow business, but you know, a decent enough income.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but I had friends in you know other parts of the country that were bringing in at least a million back then, and now it's scaled even beyond that, you know, and it's that's pretty common these days.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: But I just I don't know many architecture photographers who are doing that kind of business.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the different paths I think real estate photographers.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_01: I say real estate photographers are generally shown like a path around production that is kind of like the a strong theme that's that's not the saw it on TikTok or Instagram of like, hey, most coaches I could do.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_04: All the coaches well, I don't know about all, but most of the coaches focus there, the flashy ones.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_01: I think there's basically this is a pretty big generalization, but there's two paths I think you kind of go to.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_01: So I used the word graduate earlier.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_01: But a lot of people come into real estate photography, uh thinking maybe not with a photography or media background, maybe some interest, but like they hear something like, Oh, you can make good money doing that, and all you got is a simple camera.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_01: You can buy all the gear you need at Best Buy for$1,500 in a laptop, and uh, you know, do these settings and you'd be in and out in 15 minutes.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yep, and they do that's in this literally what a lot of the introvides are.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: And they start, yeah, they start growing that business.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_01: And we're not talking about anybody in particular.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_01: No, there's no one in coming to mind.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_01: No, but uh no, but I mean it's not a bad business, it's not a bad photography.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_04: It's a it's a different business.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_04: Like yeah, yeah.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_01: It the there's this understanding, people get into it with that kind of understanding, and they think, Oh, I'm gonna be a great photographer someday, or maybe they think I'm gonna be a great business person.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that is kind of where it starts to branch a little bit, like as far as like final outcomes, or they just never get over the hump and like their business falls off.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: But maybe they're starting to get into it and they're like, I really like photography, or I really like business.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I do think there's uh eventually you need to decide on kind of at a personal level and as the business owner, what you gravitate towards.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: And one possibility is you scale a business and you build a system and you have photographers and you become a media company, and you are not kind of the central fulcrum of your business, or you go deep into the craft, and that usually leads further down where uh customers that want to pay premiums, luxury real estate, builders, architects, um, advertising and marketing, um, which is more of a category that most people don't know into, and I think actually is a lot harder to get into.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm hoping this conversation might be kind of demystifying for a lot of people because a lot of people see the other path of at least they understand it.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_01: This is how I scale and grow that.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_04: Lots of people talk about that.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_04: There's lots of ways to know about that, but there's less, less discussion on the architectural side.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: So and I'll you see it the same way, yeah.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to be careful with how I word things too, because I can just distinctly remember back 2018, 2019.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: Anytime I'd hear an architecture photographer talking about architecture photography over real estate, it was like it felt really elitist.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, I I don't see them as uh I don't see it as graduating to architecture photography.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, in some ways it's a step back if if business is your focus.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's they're two separate businesses, they're two separate sub.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the the you're you're working in the same environments, but uh the intent is completely different.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: The clientele is completely different.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: What you're looking at, what you're thinking about, uh how you're planning your day, how you're doing your marketing, how you're having your conversations, what you're consuming online, it's all completely different.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: And it's it's really hard to keep it's it's hard to keep your um have one foot in each.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's hard to it's like for the longest time I did real estate and architecture.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_04: And I think a lot of people like that's part of what keeps people from moving as well, is they like they don't commit, they've got a good business over here and they want to do a little bit of this, but I think it's really hard to do both.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's very hard to do both, and it's it's it's because you're juggling.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: It I think it all boils down to mindset, really, because if you're it it's if you're not fully committed, it's really hard to um it's not impossible.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: You guys interviewed Fraser a few months back, and um good friend of mine, he's doing he's kind of built his business around that though.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: Like he started yeah, he has a little bit of both.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he's got a little bit of both.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's really hard to like start with just real estate photography and then start having architecture be a thing you offer and be able to do it really good.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: And again, it's mostly because of mindset, you know.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_04: If I remember right, he actually had a pretty bifurcated, like he had his kind of luxury brand that was mostly him, and then he had like shooters, like he had both, but they're a little slow.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, Frasier has a couple shooters under him that does you know they do shooting, but they also do like Matterport, for example.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: Like, so he's got a company of other shooters, but then people hire him for what he offers.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's more branded as him, yeah.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: And you can do that as well.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: There's a company in Minnesota called um Spacecrafting.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: And um yeah, yeah.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: So spacecrafting, really big company, they they have a massive team, but they offer photography and and uh sorry, real estate media and uh architecture photography.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of the architects and builders up there hire them for their architecture photography, but they approach that the same way they I don't want to say the same way, but they've got a big team to tap into.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: So they'll have like maybe two shooters go and do an architecture photography shoot, and the rates might be less than what you might hire a solo architecture photography shooter.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying they are, I don't know what their rates are, but the way they're they have their business set up, and it's not a knock against them at all, it's just like there is a way you can do it, is my point that makes sense.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: But what I've found is that unless you're fully committed and you really are making architecture photography like what you're consuming, like if you look at my social media feed these days, all I see is architecture and architecture photographers and design.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas if you would have looked at my social media feed back in 2019, it would have been realtors doing welcome videos.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, I mean, like the latest, and I still see those from time to time.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but all I consume now is like what architects or you know, uh pretty much what architects are going to be consuming.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: Kind of went away from what I think the original question was.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: But I think for me, I had to fully stop doing real estate photography in order to finally be successful with architecture photography.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: So I like literally my last real estate photography shoot was December 2022, and I haven't done it since.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: And it's mainly because I just decided I can't just keep dabbling.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: I either have to like be fully committed and like cut ties with real estate.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: And don't I'm tempted to go back all the time because I actually enjoy the business.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: Like I enjoy okay, I just enjoy shooting.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I don't enjoy the hustle and I don't enjoy the the media part of it.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: You know, like if if it was just real estate photography again, I'm all in, but it's not, it's just not the reality of things.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_01: I think it'd be pretty hard to be an exclusive just photographer in real estate.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_01: That might be true in like some high-end markets, yeah.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_01: And build a brand around that kind of luxury presence and all that um for real estate, but in our our market locally, like yeah, our it wouldn't be able to sustain that probably even for one person, I don't think.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: No, and I've had realtors reach out to me asking if I'd shoot something for them, and when I tell them what it's gonna cost, they're I just they ghost me.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, Andrew Bramasco, are you guys familiar with Andrew?
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: Uh he's a shooter in Southern California.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: He is I I would consider him an architectural photographer, but he shoots real estate.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: Like real realtors hire him, those are his clients.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: He's shooting real estate listings, but he's shooting, he's charging what an architectural photographer would shoot.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: And he's busy, he's very, very busy.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: That's kind of the exception, but his market the commissions could be maybe millions of dollars, potentially.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas we're thousands, yeah.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that's not gonna happen.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody's gonna pay my rate, which is gonna probably end up being like at the minimum, I'm not doing a shoot for less than like$2,500.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's probably like my low end.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, nobody's paying that for a real estate listing, even if it's even if they're gonna make yeah, you know, 30 grand, it doesn't matter.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's they can get it done for a fraction of the price.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: So there's exceptions, obviously.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: You know, there was a listing I did in Nashville.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe that's no that's not a good example because that that was a realtor from California.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_04: So I was gonna say the only the only place in the world I know that might pay those prices would be like high-end in New York or LA.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: Never mind.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: So that's not gonna happen here.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: So let's get back to some basics a little bit.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_01: For our audience uh who may or may not know a ton about architectural photography, and for me, uh help me understand.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_01: What is how do you define architectural photography that's different than what real estate photography is?
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_01: Is it a business distinction?
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_01: Is it the actual craft is different?
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_01: What what's the difference?
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: I touched on a little bit earlier, it's but it's everything.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's the the only commonality that I see between real estate and architecture strawberry is the location where you're shooting and the equipment that you use.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: We pretty much all use the same equipment, we're all uh working in an environment, and it's like that's those are the commonalities.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: Some of the angles might be the same, some of the compositions might be the same.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's kind of limited to that.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: We we still do window pulls from time to time.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: We still remove color cast, so some of the editing can be the same.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: But that's pretty much it.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: I I feel like the main differences are from a business side are gonna be again, pretty much the obviously the clientele is different.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: The marketing is gonna be a lot different.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I'm not gonna get any architects to hire me by doing like EDM roller coaster real estate videos.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: Like this, like nobody wants to see that in the architectural world.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's not about hype.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_01: You mean you don't want it like an AI helicopter pulling a curtain off the house?
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, no, you have to have your speed ramp through the door, man.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: No, hey, actually, I shouldn't say that because there are some architects who who that's their vibe, and they do want to have that flashy hype.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_01: You might be surprised to hear that.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's not I haven't seen it much around here, but I have seen architects who like just go full into the hype, you know, and that's their brand, you know, and and it works for them.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: So but um, and I also don't want to make it seem like that it's like this again.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: I want to be careful with how I word things because I I it's not it's not a gr you're not graduating to architecture of tire, but it's just a different clientele.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's kind of like I compare.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: Have you ever done portraits or headshots?
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: Headshots, at least.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: Headshots and portraits, I think, are actually a good comparison.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so so if you if exactly like it, or even just like senior portraits to fine art portraits, you know, it's like they can be the same.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: Like you can do a fine art senior portrait, or you can do a headshot of a senior portrait or whatever, but it's like they're they're just two very different things, same subject matter though.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: And um you're also again, all your marketing is gonna be completely different.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: You're you're gonna maybe have a more depending on your brand, like there's some architecture photographers who feel more like refined and more high-end and in luxury architecture photography.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: And there's some that are more just a little, I don't know, just like artsy far.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: Like Simon, Simon Debitt.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: We talked a little bit about you guys interviewed Simon recently.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, Simon has well, one, he's on the other side of the world, so like the the architects out there have just different, they have different light down there.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, everything is different down there.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um so his approach to architecture is gonna be more introspective, you know, more more creative.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas like I don't know, like somebody in Miami, for example, is gonna be shooting architecture a lot different.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: They're gonna have a different a different brand.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: Here, like me, for example, I just I kind of gravitated towards a certain look, you know, like I really like a what what a mountain I I like what a house feels like, if that makes sense.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: That sounds a little artsy fartsy, sorry.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's all right.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'll try to I'll try to tone it down a little bit, but you know, you guys have been in hundreds of homes, if not thousands.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: You kind of like there's certain environments that just feel cool to be in, and it's like I I I want to like somehow figure out how how can I capture what a space feels like to be in with a camera.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know, but that's what I'm striving for.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: So like if I can look at a photo and say, oh, that feels like it feels comfortable being there, like looking at it.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: Like if you go on my website, the main photo is like this just a way.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Wide panoramic shot of this lady sitting at her dining room table, but you can see the mountains in the background.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: And it's just it's got this vibe, like a familiar or like nostalgic, or some kind of vibe to it.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: Like that's what I want to go for.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna do a real real estate talk, but I just want to show the space.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: You know, uh that's a really long-winded partial answer to what you asked me, I think.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_01: But did you find because you had a foot in both uh business models kind of at some point in your career?
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_01: Did you find uh they'd bleed into each other, or did you find that you were in very different mental spaces when you were doing one versus the other?
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: Very different mental spaces, and maybe some people can do that.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: I I can't though.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: I can't have both feet in.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: So um I literally had to leave.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: I I my real estate photography business was in Minnesota, and I had to like leave there to like pursue architecture photography, essentially.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: I couldn't do architecture in Minnesota, like I did there was too much competition.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um there wasn't really much architecture happening where I was at.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I just didn't have the opportunities where I was at.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: And when I whenever I tried applying the same business models to architecture, like if I would give some kind of tiered pricing, or if I was like, I offer this, this, and this.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: If I if I if what I've what I've found is if I try to convince or sell an architect on like hiring me with like the things that I offer or the services that I do, I just they they're they're not interested.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: Like architects, in my opinion, it seem to kind of gravitate towards what you what your stuff looks like.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: What you do, right?
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: What you do, um, how you present yourself.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, I found once I let go of real estate photography and I stopped pursuing that and stopped trying to put everything I learned about the real estate photography business into my architecture photography business, I started getting work.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it was just timing.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: I I can't, I don't know, really know what I can attribute that to, but I just know that once I finally was like, I'm done with real estate, I'm exclusively architecture, then I started getting busy.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's weird how that works.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, it happens all the time, everywhere, whatever you focus on.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: I uh that's why I was kind of going back.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's all about mindset.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's like it, it's if you're not all in on something, it's just really hard to find success in it.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: Like I said, I'm tempted from time to time to like get back into real estate photography because it's I enjoy the photography end of it, but if I do that, I'm just gonna be taking a step, I'm just gonna be moving away from what I actually want to do.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_01: Does your client base is it primarily architects?
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_04: Is it what do they like we call it architectural photography, but yeah, let's talk.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, uh, that might be a good thing to talk about because I I remember distinctly when I was a real estate photographer, I would call myself an architecture photographer, even though I was shooting real estate.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I would say that I was shooting architecture, um, but I was still just shooting real estate.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: And then I started saying I was an architecture and design photographer because I was shooting details of shots.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: So I think there was a lot of confusion, even up until probably 2022, even though I had been shooting architecture since 2018.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: There I still had some confusion internally as to what I was actually shooting.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_00: So there's architecture photography, there's design photography.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: Those are two different things as well.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: Architecture, I would say, is more focused on the environment, what the light.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's more about the space in itself.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas interior design photography is more about the design of a space, it's more about like the textures or maybe the colors or the just the way things are like laid out, maybe your focus is a lot different.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: They're very closely related, and you're often doing both of them at the same time.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's it's and you're often doing the both of the things in real estate photography as well.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: You know, sometimes you're gonna be shooting details in real estate photography.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_01: Is it more collaborative when you're doing an interior?
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_01: You're doing something like you're working with the designer, it can be more art direction and stuff happening.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: It can be.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: So I actually don't work with interior designers.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: I have and I don't like it.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_00: I I I've not had a positive shoot with an interior designer ever.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_01: Hmm.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_01: And being picky and not getting the results that either of you want are kind of yeah, we put you on the spot here.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, it's I'm just trying to think of how to word this now.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_00: How to word this without being uh politically incorrect.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: You know, designers look, there there's our clients are also all over the spectrum as well.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: Like in terms of like maybe they're beginners, they're really cheap, they don't have big budgets, or somebody who's been doing it for a long time, they know exactly what they want, and you know, they're not worried about money.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_00: We're dealing with that all the time.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: Interior designers, I have found, and this is just my own experience.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: This is not across the board because any market you're in is they're gonna have a different experience.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_00: But my experience has always been lower-end interior designers, um, lower to like lower mid-tier, are going for Instagram.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's like all about Instagram for them.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_00: They want the Instagram look, they want a thousand photos, you know, and they want them to be good.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_00: Have you heard of the the three, the good, fast, and cheap thing?
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, they want all three of them.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that's not how that adage goes.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_00: Choose two.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly, but they want it doesn't matter.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um, they want all three.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_00: And um, again, that's my experience.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: That's not everybody's experience.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_00: Some people uh like interior design, like Stephen Carlish is a prominent interiorist photographer.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_00: He he doesn't shoot architecture, he shoots exclusively for interior designers.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: Not that he won't shoot it, but like his clientele is interior designers, and but they're all high-end and they're flying him all over the world to shoot these things.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_04: And he's probably really focused on that and probably has great methods of setting expectations with the up-and-coming, like it's gonna be my way, would be my channel.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the difference is he doesn't shoot for those people, yeah.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: And they so they self-select out, exactly, and that's kind of where I'm at finally in my career.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I I know who I'm wanna shoot for, and I know like the minute an email comes through, I know whether or not I'm gonna get the job.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's like I if if they're asking about pricing, it's not gonna happen.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I should say it's rarely gonna happen if they're just asking about pricing.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_00: I forgot the question.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: I I went on a thing.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_01: Customers, we yeah, generally, what does your customer base look like?
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_01: We kind of talk to on interior designers, it's something is it architects?
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so architects are I primarily shoot for architects now.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_00: So I shoot, I have my own business that I shoot for primarily residential architects.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_00: I have probably like how many clients do you guys know what the stats are like how how many clients an average real estate media business has?
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_00: Like hundreds, many hundreds.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, yeah, it would be like I have like four, right?
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, you know, so um that's pretty much my business.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: I have four, and then I then I get random one-offs from like people who have projects maybe in this area or other areas that live in other cities, but they were, you know, for example, I just shot um, I'm shooting five master plan communities.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: Uh they have like these mall areas around them.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um where like they have like a little central park area and then they've got shopping around this plant.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, this is you kind of live in a kind of similar yeah yeah.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm shooting like five of those for a PR company based in California.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's so completely random.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I'll get those as well.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_01: Is the shoot in California?
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, it's it's just in Charlotte.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, Charlotte area.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_00: So um, but it's for a PR company.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I'm not shooting for the architect, but they hired me because of the way my architecture photography looks.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_00: So I have those as well.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_00: So my client, and I'm shooting, like, you know, I'll be shooting um a pretty noteworthy hotel in Nashville in in about two months, and a PR company hired me for that.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_00: So my clients are primarily residential architects, and then I've got a whole separate set of clientele who are like random one-offs that find me through architectural.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_04: But they find you through architectural photography.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_04: Exactly.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_04: They see that work and they're like, hey, I could apply this to my hotel.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_00: Right, exactly.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and often that's because they're going for a certain look.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_00: Like I get hired for these hotels specifically because of like two or three photos that are on my website.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_00: Like, oh, that's the look I want.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: We're hiring him.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_00: Doesn't matter what the price is.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_04: It's it strikes me too, like, if I'm not mistaken, a lot of times in architectural photography, there's pretty clear crediting.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_04: Like it actually says Jordan Powers, like in the presentation, a lot of times.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_04: Where like in real estate photography, it is more like you've got to maintain relationships because they're all just flowing through the MLS and Zillow.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_04: There's no, there's no uh, you're not looking through Zillow and like, hey, I like Jordan's photos, or I like Moses's photos, or I like Maddie's that it's all nondescript there.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_04: But in your world, they actually can find like, hey, I like these photos, and I noticed that they're all taken by Jordan and then go find you.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_00: So I would love to say that that happens all the time, but it's it doesn't it's more of a dream.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, like the um I'll use I'll use this hotel since we're just talking about it.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_00: There was this one like lounge I shot in Nashville that was a great photo, but it was like in all these magazines everywhere.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: My name wasn't on there once.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_00: Like nobody, nobody knew.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_00: But that that that comes with the territory because it's for a PR firm, it's for a hotel.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like my name's not going to be associated with that.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_00: However, if they find that on Google, you know, it's gonna, you know, if you go to like Google Image Image Search, you're you're gonna see that same photo pretty much everywhere if you search it.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: And my name is eventually going to show up there.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_00: But ultimately, what ends up happening is because I shot a hotel and it's on my website, if another place that's looking to have a hotel shot is looking for a hotel photographer in a certain area, they see that they see that photo and they're like, oh, I recognize that because it's all over the magazines, uh automatic credibility.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_00: So again, I'd love to say my name is on every thing, but it's just not, unfortunately.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, with real estate, you don't you don't that's a whole other conversation about like copyright and what and licensing.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_00: I uh I I think Frasier touched on it a little bit on his business, but like licensing is a huge part of my business as well.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I'll I'll go shoot for an architect, say, you know, and it's just let's just say it's a$3,000 shoot, whatever it could be anywhere, but I might end up licensing those photos for an additional, I don't know, five, six, seven thousand dollars, depending on what's in the home, who else was involved in it.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_00: There was an arena I shot, a small arena in uh Clarksville, Tennessee, and the developer hired me to shoot it and I shot like 30 or 40 photos in there.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_00: And that was I think in early 2023.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_00: And uh that I continued to license photos from that shoot for I don't know, up until probably like three, four months ago.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_00: Because these companies were finding the photos and like, oh, I want to use that for our thing.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_00: They'd reach out to me and you you know you license them.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_00: Depending on the usage, you could license one single photo anywhere from 350 to you know$750 or more, depending on what the use is.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_00: So one$3,000 shoot could turn into a$10,000,$15,000 shoot.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, when you're doing the original shoot for the architect, the license that you like uh the your boilerplate license, does it have kind of an expiration date?
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_01: Like you can use this for five years in these cases, yeah.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um I have I use that as a negotiating point.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_00: So I have it by default as just perpetuity because most of my clients are just local regional.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I don't need to like put a restriction on them.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's a relationship business.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but let's just say a company comes and they they're like, oh, your rates are too high.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, okay, well, I have a perpetual license.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_00: How about we limit it to five years?
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_00: You know, something like that.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_00: Like I can use that as a negotiating point, is my point.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_00: And then I can kind of disguise or use that to reduce my rate slightly based on that licensing.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_00: Because I know if they want to use it beyond that, I can charge them later for additional licensing.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_00: I don't do that though, to be honest with you.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_00: But it's just it I have it in my back pocket if I ever need to.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_04: No, it's it's great though, is it's uh I don't want to say it's an excuse.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, your your license is a real asset, but it like just if you set a price at$3,000 and you just they push back and you're like, okay, I'll do it for two, there's a level of like, well, why was it ever priced at three?
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_04: But if there's a rationale, that's a more professional experience.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_04: And I mean, I mean, we would argue pretty strongly.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, there is real value to how long you get to use the media.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_00: There is, and also again, it depends on the client.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_00: Like, if it's a regional client, they're they have a very specific use case, it's gonna be for their website and maybe their Instagram.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_00: That's pretty much it.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_00: But if it's a hotel or something, it's gonna go in magazines, it's gonna go.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_00: So, this hotel I'm gonna be shooting soon is for um it's Dolly Parton's hotel.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_00: Cool, which is that's very cool.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_00: As you can imagine, that's going to be seen everywhere for for a long time for a long time.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, my name is not gonna be tied to that at all.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_00: So well, it will now for a for a very small like group of people, like but you know, and I don't say that to brag, like my name's not gonna be tied to that.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_00: So it's uh I don't even know if I can even share those on my website, but because of that, I'm able to charge more because there's some exclusivity.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you know, my regular rate might be fifteen hundred dollars for a day, but I can say, oh, it's actually three thousand dollars for a day because I have some kind of restriction placed on me that's gonna limit my ability to use these the way I want to use them.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_00: So it's gonna cost more.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_00: So going back to the business end of things, it's easy to negotiate those types of things based and also based on the clientele.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_00: Like oftentimes, if you're working with these PR firms or other companies, you know what kind of budgets they're typically dealing with, depending on the clientele, you know.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_00: So I didn't mean that to be as a humble brag, but I realize in hindsight, it kind of comes off as a humble brag.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_00: I was almost, I was really just trying to to to illustrate that like there's a spectrum.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, kind of like when we had Tom Cruise on the podcast last week.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, it'll air in the future.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, no, but my point is there's a spectrum.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_00: There's like this, there's the local residential architect who has like maybe three or four people at his firm.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_00: They're gonna use it for website and Instagram, then there's uh this up here where you know you're gonna make a significant amount of money and like very noteworthy thing, but nobody's ever gonna know you were involved in it.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_00: You know, um, that's the business that I'm in.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm also only shooting probably 30, 40 days this year.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_00: You know, so I I shoot a lot less.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_00: You know.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_01: So what do you do with all that extra time?
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_01: Are you digging a business?
• 37:32
  SPEAKER_01: Worry about when the next shoot's gonna come in.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_00: I get that, you know, marketing goes.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_00: Uh editing, a lot of editing because the editing is slow.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, if only there was a service I could use to I know, right?
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_04: If only there were.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_04: It's that time.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_04: And with that great TN from Jordan, it's a great time to remind you that Pixel Mob is a great place that you can find editors all over the world, real humans that can do precise, specific edits for you, respond to feedback, have a three-day revision window, all kinds of stuff all bundled together where it's easy to find somebody who works well for your business.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_04: So we would love for you to check it out.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_04: Go to app.pixelmob.com, look at the marketplace, and find somebody who works well with your business.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_04: Back to us.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there's a lot of time spent retouching, going back and forth, like with a client, um marketing, like trying to figure out where um I also have my hands on a lot of other things too.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's like I I keep busy when I'm not shooting.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like one of the big differences between real estate photography and architectural photography businesses is kind of the journey that you go on to produce the media, like real estate.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_01: These are for lack of uh a better term, catalog photos where you're going to go in, see the house and make decisions about this is what the house is, and there's not gonna be the layout.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_04: There's not gonna be a whole lot of difference hiring one production company from another, a little, a little different framing, a little different whatever, but it's gonna be pretty similar.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_04: There's not a ton of like artistic voice in that space as much.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_01: So uh, and you might do five of those in a day.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_01: And so you were saying you've got a shoot coming up in two months, you know, most real estate shoots are being planned two days in advance.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and you don't have that kind of like and then you're gonna shoot it if that you're gonna turn it around the literally the next day, and then you're out, which is what was so appealing about to me about real estate photography is how quick that turnaround is.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_00: Appealing to me too, right?
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so there's Berks, both sides.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_00: There is, yeah.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_01: Walk us through what it looks like in the architectural journey, what that timeline looks like, and kind of even what a shoot looks like from starting how do you get your business?
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_01: Like you said, maybe you'll get an email, an inquiry to your files are delivered and you get paid.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_01: What does that look like?
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_00: Oh man.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I know that's probably yeah, it's a different big, big conversation.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_00: But if I had to summarize it all, um 90% of my business has come through SEO.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_00: I've okay, I've intentionally set my business up to be where I'm not working in my immediate area.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you were mentioning you fly different places.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm flying a lot, I travel a lot.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, 90% of my personal business.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_00: Now I also shoot in-house for a company as well.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_00: So I didn't that's a whole other conversation, but so I keep busy with that.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but for my own personal business, 90% of it comes through SEO.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_00: So again, PR firms, developers, whatever.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um the other percentage, 10 10 of it comes from just relationships that I've built and established over the years.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's it I I believe it is a relationship business first and foremost.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_00: You have to like really, it's a small, small area.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you have to, and there's a lot of competition, you have to kind of earn earn the business here.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_00: And you're not gonna get it through marketing tactics, you're gonna do it through being genuinely interested in people and having actual connections, not trying to solicit business, just trying to build a connection.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_00: And it takes time.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's taken me three years to finally start shooting for people that I have been wanting to shoot for for a long time.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_00: But I was just persistent.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_00: And finally, let's just a shoot comes through.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_00: You get a you get a either an Instagram DM or a lead through your website.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_00: And it again, different types of clients, it's gonna be everyone's gonna be pretty different.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_00: But more or less, what happens uh they come through your website, they said they have a shoot.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_00: I try to set up a scoping call with them.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_00: If I can get them on the phone, I I'll usually get the job because I have a conversation with them.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_00: I connect with them.
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_00: I connect with them.
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, if I just respond through email, I'm probably not gonna get the job.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and I'm also looking at the timer.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_00: I've got I gotta try to wrap this up.
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, no, you're good.
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_00: I've got two minutes to explain.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, guys, and that it's hard to answer too, because every single one of them is different.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I'm there's a product manufacturer who does pavers for like driveways and whatnot, and they have a chute.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_00: They hired they're hiring me to do a chute, and it's very weather dependent.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_00: And we're in the mountains, so it's like every it's like I'm probably gonna have have to block off three days, three or four days, just to get this one shoot.
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's only gonna last two or three hours.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_01: So planning is a big part of it.
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_01: What kind of factors are you thinking about?
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, like, are you scouting locations often or getting stuff?
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_00: So I charge, I charge for scouting.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_00: Like, if they want to do a scout, then I'm gonna they have to pay for it because I'm gonna go there and you know spend some time and we're gonna figure out when the lights best.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, a lot of it's a lot of it's how I have my rates structured.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_00: Like I have two different ways I approach.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_00: We can either do a collaborative shoot where we're working together, like you brought this up earlier with designers.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_00: Like, we'll we'll sit there on a laptop, we'll dial in every photo, and then I've got more of like a documentary approach where I can just show up and just capture the space.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_00: I can explore it, walk around, you know, and yeah, just kind of capture the space.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_00: I don't typically do scouts for those.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_01: That would probably be a cheaper.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_01: No, it's actually more expensive.
• 43:10
  SPEAKER_00: Really?
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's more expensive to not to do the more documentary side.
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's well, okay.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_00: Let me the the prices on paper are the same.
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_00: But what ends up happening is because they kind of let me do my own thing, I capture more photos and there's more licensing opportunities.
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_00: So they actually end up paying more in the end.
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, because they have more photos.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas if we're collaborating and shooting, we'll do 15 in one single day.
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's very structured, it's very structured and they're getting a limited amount of photos, very few photos, and they're they're paying less because we know exactly what we're shooting.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas if they just kind of leave me open to it, they're gonna get more photos, more options to play with.
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_00: So it ends up being more expensive for them.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_01: What do you think gets a better photo of those two approaches?
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's hard to say.
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, um, I most often I'm doing a hybrid approach, like like I'll have a shot list.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_00: Or we'll be working together and then I'll shoot things on the side.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_00: I just did a shoot a couple weeks ago in Asheville.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_00: We had 15 photos that we myself and the architect were there all day.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_00: We dialed in.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_00: I have an assistant.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_00: We dialed every single photo in throughout the entire day.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_00: We were there from like 8 to let's just say 4 p.m.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_00: doing 15 photos.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I also did probably 30 additional photos, that entire shoot.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_00: So they had the initial 15 they licensed that we dialed in, and then they licensed an additional 14 photos on top of that.
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_00: So most often I'm doing a kind of a hybrid approach of the two.
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um which one's better?
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_00: Hard to say because the ones that we shot together, they knew exactly what they were getting because they saw it on the laptop.
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_00: So we're moving things an inch here and there, um, removing things.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_00: And uh the other ones are just kind of me documenting and walking around and capturing things.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah.
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_01: Gotcha, okay.
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_01: So what kind of lead times do you usually have in advance of a shoot?
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_01: Sounds like could be sometimes two months.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_01: Is it sometimes a year out?
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes well, this this hotel shoot has been we've been planning it for over a year.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um it just happens to be happening in about two months.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_00: Got it, okay.
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_00: But the you know, some shoots are two weeks.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_00: Like um, scheduling this was a little challenging because it right I'm in the thick of busy season.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I know that I have like I said, I have this this paver company who I they're gonna call me one day and they're gonna say you gotta kind of go out there.
• 45:41
  SPEAKER_00: I I have this place in Charlotte that I'm doing.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_00: I have to go out there when the weather's nice.
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm looking at the calendar every day.
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we just did a scout there two days ago, and I wasn't planning on shooting until next week, but it's supposed to be thunderstorms all week next week.
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_00: So I had to go last night and shoot one of them until like you know, I didn't get home until like 11 o'clock.
• 46:03
  SPEAKER_00: So they're all different, you know.
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_00: But I'd say like lead time uh minimum two weeks usually, sometimes shorter, sometimes longer.
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_01: And what's kind of the trailing time usually for delivery?
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I think it depends on how busy things are, but I usually say 10 to 15 business days after their final selections.
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but I mean, sometimes it's like, you know, for this one I did in Asheville, like there's not a ton of editing I had to do for them because we dialed them all in right there.
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_00: So they made their I sent them the photos, they had a couple revision notes that they had.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um like removed this light socket here.
• 46:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um then what's kind of a payment process for them?
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_00: Is it uh they're paying on all on the back end, kind of some up front, some on yeah, I do uh for most clients I do 50% up front, okay, and then the rest of it upon delivery.
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um but honestly, like if I've got a good client, I just I just tell them to pay me after I just delivered the photos to that client yesterday, but I probably won't get a payment from them for I don't know, a couple weeks.
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_00: But I know they're good for it.
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not I'm not really worried about it.
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't live check-to-check, so I'm not worried about money coming in.
• 47:25
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a small town, like nobody wants to get a bad reputation, you know?
• 47:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 47:29
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, but for a bigger company, um, you have to also be mindful of like this paper company, they don't do retainers that they have they have a process that they do where it's always net 30 or net 60 or whatever, depending on what's right.
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_00: That's right, yeah.
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_00: So you have to be mindful of what they're doing too.
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_00: So I can't I can't get a retainer from them, but I can have a contract in place.
• 47:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it says, you know, there's a cancellation fee, etc.
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_01: I've done projects for like universities and they have whole billing departments, and they'll have contracts.
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, like every vendor they use has to go through approvals, and and then they, you know, you're signing on to like sometimes net 60, net 90 deals, um, and you kind of have to live with it.
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_01: And you just uh I think it's the kind of stuff real estate photographers don't touch.
• 48:20
  SPEAKER_01: No, we have uh paywalled website you pay to download.
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_01: Very yeah, yeah.
• 48:27
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we have that now too.
• 48:28
  SPEAKER_00: There's a there's a software platform called Studio Ledger, okay, where they just came out.
• 48:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's uh veteran architecture photographer Tony Roseland put it out.
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I'm not affiliated, but I really believe in the platform.
• 48:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's kind of like Ario or HD Photo Hub, yeah.
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um, or whatever other Spiro other ones are out there, but it's pretty much for commercial photography.
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_00: So we can do paywalls now, um, which has been like kind of a game changer because before all we had was Dropbox and QuickBooks and maybe some like wedding photography websites that we deliver galleries on to exactly so, but now we've got something for for everybody.
• 49:03
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like I've got so many other questions.
• 49:05
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I know why do you guys gotta limit this to 40 minutes?
• 49:09
  SPEAKER_01: I'd love to know about your kit sometime.
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_01: I'd love to know uh about kind of longevity.
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_01: Uh how about we do a lightning round?
• 49:18
  SPEAKER_00: A quick lightning round.
• 49:19
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_01: Kit that's a good kit's a good lightning round question.
• 49:23
  SPEAKER_01: What what's in your kit?
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Sony cameras.
• 49:25
  SPEAKER_00: Camera doesn't matter though.
• 49:26
  SPEAKER_00: I'd shoot Canon if I had one.
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Sony, I my default position is handheld camera, but I never get to shoot that way, rarely.
• 49:36
  SPEAKER_00: Tripod if I need it, lights if I need it.
• 49:39
  SPEAKER_00: Uh otherwise, like I try to just capture everything as is.
• 49:42
  SPEAKER_00: Natural light.
• 49:43
  SPEAKER_00: Natural light.
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_00: I try to, but I can use lights if I need to, block light if I need to.
• 49:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 49:48
  SPEAKER_01: Do you work with uh talent?
• 49:51
  SPEAKER_00: Uh occasionally, I we don't hire people, we don't hire models, but it's like if the homeowners are there or you know, employees if we're at a commercial location.
• 49:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um what's your split from commercial to residential?
• 50:03
  SPEAKER_00: Well, for the company I shoot in-house for, it's exclusively commercial.
• 50:07
  SPEAKER_00: So um it's like everything I shoot.
• 50:10
  SPEAKER_00: But my own work, it's I would say 90% residential.
• 50:14
  SPEAKER_01: You said you have one kind of your uh agreement as an in-house photographer.
• 50:20
  SPEAKER_01: What's kind of the split of independent jobs versus kind of this more like content?
• 50:27
  SPEAKER_01: 50-50.
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, yeah.
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_00: I would say I shoot more of my own work um this year so far.
• 50:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 50:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, last year I shot more for them, you know?
• 50:35
  SPEAKER_00: It just depends.
• 50:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 50:37
  SPEAKER_00: They were a client of mine and they just were like, we need to get somebody in-house.
• 50:41
  SPEAKER_00: Do you want to do it?
• 50:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, sure.
• 50:43
  SPEAKER_00: So that's that's the short of that story.
• 50:44
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 50:45
  SPEAKER_01: I got two more.
• 50:46
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 50:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, all right.
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_01: What how often are you traveling?
• 50:50
  SPEAKER_01: What's kind of the split on local versus travel?
• 50:53
  SPEAKER_00: Well, what you have to find local because okay, fair enough.
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, like flying versus driving, yeah.
• 51:00
  SPEAKER_00: I probably fly like 10% of the time, but like, you know, I've got to shoot in New York in a couple weeks, I've got to shoot in Kansas in a couple weeks, I have Nashville.
• 51:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I'm gonna be flying a lot in the next month or so, but then I'm not flying again for the rest of the year, as far as I know.
• 51:17
  SPEAKER_00: Driving though, I'm you know, I don't drive less than I mean, it's a minimum one to two hours of travel time every single time.
• 51:24
  SPEAKER_00: Got it.
• 51:25
  SPEAKER_00: So, like I I've I've not the closest shoot I've done since living in the south was like Greenville.
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I shot like one of the Peace Center venues that they just opened.
• 51:34
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, cool, yeah.
• 51:34
  SPEAKER_00: So, like otherwise, I'd I'm always traveling.
• 51:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's usually almost always an overnight shoot.
• 51:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, got it.
• 51:41
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, and then uh give us like a floor and a ceiling of what an architectural photographer might make on a job.
• 51:50
  SPEAKER_00: On a job?
• 51:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, well, uh, you know, reality.
• 51:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I can I can only speak for myself because I know other photographers who've made a lot of money, six figures on a single shoot.
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but like for me, I'd say my range has been probably on the lower end, 1500 for just a couple shots.
• 52:12
  SPEAKER_00: Or up to, you know, I think the most I've invoiced for a shoot is probably closer to 30 for like multiple days, uh, and or video.
• 52:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I haven't issued a final invoice for this hotel shoot that's coming up, but it'll be more than that.
• 52:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, probably, I I don't know yet.
• 52:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so that's the range, but like on average, if if somebody wanted to start doing architecture photography today and they want to know what they could probably make in the next three to five years, their average shoot's probably gonna range from you know 1,500, 2,000 to 6,000, 7,000 on an average shoot.
• 52:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's I would say average, that's probably what I'm doing.
• 52:54
  SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
• 52:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, cool.
• 52:55
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that was the Lightning Run.
• 52:57
  SPEAKER_04: That was great.
• 52:58
  SPEAKER_04: Tell people where they can follow you and we'll we'll wrap up.
• 53:00
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, sounds good.
• 53:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Jordan Powers Without the Vowels on Instagram.
• 53:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um, just you can pretty much find me Jordan Powers everybody else everywhere else, uh, YouTube website.
• 53:11
  SPEAKER_01: All right, check him out on Instagram, check out his website.
• 53:14
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for being with us.
• 53:14
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, Jordan.
• 53:16
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks.