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011 - The Professional [Photographer] · The Nerdy Photographer Podcast

• 0:05
  Casey Fatchett: Hello, I'm Casey Fatchett, and welcome to the
• 0:07
  nerdy photographer Podcast. Today, I'm talking with my
• 0:10
  friend Anthony Collins, who's back to discuss what makes a
• 0:14
  professional photographer more on that after this short break,
• 0:18
  you
• 0:25
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• 0:29
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• 0:33
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• 0:37
  event and portrait photography. Make sure that your contract
• 0:41
  protects you and your client. Head over to the nerdy
• 0:45
  photographer.com today. Hello and welcome to the nerdy
• 0:52
  photographer Podcast. I'm here again with Anthony Collins.
• 0:56
  Anthony, you and I have talked about this many times before
• 1:02
  we've both been photographers for a long time. You longer than
• 1:05
  I have. I mean, I would say I'm about 20 years almost now and
• 1:10
  and for you, how long has it been? About 20 years? And what
• 1:15
  do you think makes someone a quote, unquote professional
• 1:20
  photographer?
• 1:22
  Anthony Collins: In my opinion, you are a professional
• 1:25
  photographer when it is your only job.
• 1:29
  Casey Fatchett: See, I would counter that you were a
• 1:32
  professional photographer when you are getting paid to do the
• 1:37
  work, because there are plenty of people out there who are
• 1:39
  getting paid absolutely to do this, but are not their full
• 1:42
  time job.
• 1:43
  Anthony Collins: I agree with that. They're also, there are
• 1:46
  also minor league football leagues, yeah, where guys get
• 1:50
  paid to play football. And they don't tell people they're
• 1:53
  professional football players. They say, you know, I work in
• 1:56
  ups. It's, I'm sorry. I don't want to sound like a snob thing
• 2:01
  to me, you're a professional photographer when it's your only
• 2:04
  job.
• 2:05
  Casey Fatchett: I mean for you and I, this is our only job,
• 2:07
  this is what we do, this is how we pay our bills. I would guess
• 2:13
  that there are people out there who say being professional does
• 2:16
  not necessarily mean being full time. You and I have different
• 2:20
  feelings on that. When did you become a full time photographer?
• 2:25
  Anthony Collins: I became a full time photographer right after my
• 2:28
  daughter was born. So that's going to be almost 14 years ago.
• 2:33
  My wife went back to work. I stayed home with her. I gave up
• 2:36
  my day job, and we decided as a team that if this photography
• 2:41
  thing was going to happen for me, now would be the time to do
• 2:44
  it. And so I stayed at home, built my portfolio, took small
• 2:49
  jobs, did took care of my kid until she started school full
• 2:53
  time. So that's like an age four, let's say five, pre K
• 2:57
  stuff like that. And then all I was doing was photography. And,
• 3:01
  no, I haven't had a day job in again since before she was born.
• 3:05
  Probably 1415, she's 14, five, seven and a half, 50. Something,
• 3:13
  scary.
• 3:15
  Casey Fatchett: Okay, I'm just gonna that blows my mind.
• 3:18
  Because, yeah, I mean, when I switched, I would say that. I
• 3:24
  mean, it's been 12 years for me as a full time photographer. I
• 3:29
  mean, I worked a lot of those years like I had other gigs, I
• 3:33
  had a day job, even though I was working overnights and, you
• 3:38
  know, worked in another photography studio for a while,
• 3:42
  just to kind of supplement my gigs, like where it is, the
• 3:47
  seasonal
• 3:47
  Anthony Collins: it is. It is not easy. It is not a job that
• 3:50
  you want to take if you think you're gonna have a beach house
• 3:54
  and a boat and, you know, put your kids through college. It's
• 3:57
  a lot of work. And you build and build, and you smile and nod a
• 4:01
  lot, and you hopefully the God smile upon you and the work
• 4:05
  comes your way.
• 4:06
  Casey Fatchett: Yeah. And so, okay, I made a lot of big
• 4:10
  mistakes when I jumped from being a quasi professional like
• 4:15
  getting paid and I was making, you know, I would say 70% of my
• 4:21
  income was from photography. I mean, I had my kind of, like,
• 4:26
  part time gig that I would do to supplement that. But when I
• 4:32
  jumped from that to just only photography, I made a lot of
• 4:37
  stupid mistakes
• 4:38
  Anthony Collins: everyone does in every industry, whether
• 4:40
  you're a plumber or home repair, whatever you do,
• 4:44
  Casey Fatchett: I just, I didn't know the business side of it. I
• 4:48
  was like, oh, you know, like I had already been doing
• 4:50
  something. I was like, Oh, well, you know, I need to be prepared.
• 4:52
  Is there anything you would suggest for people to be
• 4:55
  prepared, like, when they're making the jump to being full
• 4:57
  time?
• 5:00
  Anthony Collins: Yeah, make sure you have a safety net. I mean,
• 5:03
  don't go out on your own unless you know that the bills can get
• 5:07
  paid. You can pay the rent. And, you know, this is not a business
• 5:10
  that you make a lot of money. And off the bat, yeah,
• 5:13
  Casey Fatchett: and that's the thing. It's like, I had, I
• 5:16
  personally had no safety net at that point. And you know, they
• 5:21
  always tell you, like, if you're gonna switch careers or
• 5:23
  whatever, like, always have, like, three or just in general,
• 5:26
  I think three months, absolutely whatever I would Yeah, I would
• 5:31
  suggest six, if you're doing photography, maybe more, because
• 5:34
  you're gonna want to buy equipment stuff, and don't,
• 5:37
  don't charge it on a credit
• 5:38
  Anthony Collins: right? And simple things, like, some
• 5:40
  clients, might take you 45 to 90 days to get paid. Yeah, and
• 5:44
  that's a good faith payment. I have a lot of clients that are
• 5:47
  $45.45 day terms. And you know, your landlord doesn't want to
• 5:51
  hear that the check is coming or the invoice is going to get
• 5:55
  paid. Yeah, right. You know, you know, equipments not cheap, even
• 5:58
  if, even if you start off and you got to rent a lot of stuff,
• 6:02
  make sure you have a credit credit card, lots of space on
• 6:05
  it, yeah,
• 6:06
  Casey Fatchett: and that you can afford to make the minimum payments.
• 6:10
  Anthony Collins: Not an easy business. Yeah?
• 6:12
  Casey Fatchett: Because I that was one of the mistakes that I
• 6:13
  made early on. Was like, I'm gonna pay for some of this stuff
• 6:18
  with my credit card. And I was like, That was a bad idea. But I
• 6:21
  don't,
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  Anthony Collins: I wouldn't beat yourself up over it. I think
• 6:23
  people open pizzeria they open coffee shops, they own brew
• 6:26
  pubs, and they do the same thing. And it's, there's a
• 6:28
  there's a school of thought that you're better off opening a
• 6:31
  business and having it fail than to spend all the money to go to
• 6:33
  war. Is it one school of thought?
• 6:36
  Casey Fatchett: Yeah. I mean, that is, I I agree you need to
• 6:39
  take risks there. I mean, and I think that there's a lot of
• 6:45
  people who are afraid to take risks. And I'm not saying not to
• 6:48
  take risks. I'm just saying to be prepared for what you're
• 6:51
  about to do and to manage your own expectations for what this
• 6:57
  is going to be. It's not an easy gig. This is not like whatever
• 7:00
  like, you mostly do commercial photography. Now, I mostly do
• 7:03
  weddings. Neither one of those is like, an easy no
• 7:06
  Anthony Collins: a lot of competition, yeah. How do
• 7:09
  Casey Fatchett: you like? And I see it 100 times a week. If you
• 7:14
  go, like, there are just so many photographers in the market. How
• 7:17
  do I stand out? Like? Well, you have to figure out what your
• 7:22
  Anthony Collins: you have to get your slice of that pie and know
• 7:25
  that if someone's getting married, someone's going to
• 7:28
  shoot it, and it might as well be you, right?
• 7:29
  Casey Fatchett: Well, and a friend of mine said this way,
• 7:32
  and I think it's the, really, the, the best way I've heard it
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  put and most of the time, people say, like, all you need is, you
• 7:40
  know, point 2% of whatever, and then you're good, or that's all
• 7:45
  you need. But what he said was like, it's not that you need
• 7:51
  point 2% of everybody. You need 100% of that. Point 2% you need
• 7:59
  to find those people that are really your people, the people
• 8:04
  who want what you do, yes, and I think that's what people don't
• 8:08
  when they're starting out, when they're making that jump to
• 8:10
  being a full time photographer, all I think is like, Oh, I've
• 8:13
  got to make I've got to take pretty pictures, and people will
• 8:17
  hire me. And that's not really
• 8:19
  Anthony Collins: It's not that simple. It's almost like the the
• 8:22
  bartending analogy. You only want to bartend at a place that
• 8:25
  you'd hang out at. You want to shoot the kind of weddings that
• 8:29
  you'd go to. You want to you want to photograph the kind of
• 8:32
  corporate events that you would be a part of, and it makes the
• 8:35
  job easier. I worked corporate for several years. I worked with
• 8:39
  IBM and a few other companies. I know what's expected in the
• 8:42
  corporate environment. I know how they want you to address
• 8:46
  them, how they want you to conduct yourself, timing issues
• 8:49
  and things like that. I know what they want from a
• 8:52
  professional commercial photographer, and I try to do
• 8:55
  Casey Fatchett: those things every time. And it's
• 8:56
  interesting. I have very varied musical tastes, but I was always
• 9:01
  good when I was photographing bands, photographing bands whose
• 9:08
  music, the style of music, I really loved, because I knew how
• 9:11
  to relate to those people, like I used to do photos. I don't
• 9:17
  remember if we ever discussed this for like, one or two pucks.
• 9:21
  That's great. But it was because I could communicate with them on
• 9:26
  a level of, like, I know this genre of music. I am very
• 9:30
  familiar with this genre of music. I know how to communicate
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  with you. I get you guys and what you're saying that you want
• 9:37
  from me. So that's in that sense of, like, creating a client
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  relationship, the people you're trying to reach, knowing how to
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  communicate with those people, or, like rock bands, I just
• 9:48
  knew,
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  Anthony Collins: and there's a feel, and there's an energy. And
• 9:52
  when you meet your wedding clients, you're sizing them up.
• 9:55
  They're sizing you up. There's a vibe. There's a feel. You. Your
• 9:58
  images, your wedding images, like something that they want
• 10:01
  their images to be like, right? Your personality is the
• 10:04
  personality of their friends and the people that are going to be
• 10:08
  at the wedding. So there's not going to be any conflicts the
• 10:11
  day. Look, there's a lot of photographers out there, and the
• 10:14
  last thing they want to worry about on their wedding day is
• 10:17
  your photography. They want to know that that's a non issue.
• 10:20
  You're going to get the beautiful pictures in a style
• 10:23
  that they like. You're going to be out of the way, and it's not
• 10:27
  going to be about you, right? And once you get through that
• 10:30
  with your meetings and stuff, they love you. You love them,
• 10:33
  it's going to be a great day
• 10:34
  Casey Fatchett: And I think that it applies to whatever type of
• 10:38
  photography you're doing, you're dealing with somebody at some
• 10:42
  point, whether it's weddings or commercial photography or
• 10:46
  headshots or whatever, you have a person, even if you're doing
• 10:50
  product photography, you have a client who is a human being, and
• 10:54
  you have to know what that person wants, and You have to be
• 10:58
  able to understand that person's needs and desires and what they
• 11:03
  want from those photos, as well as their psychological makeup,
• 11:07
  there has to be a connection on some level if you want to keep
• 11:11
  getting those types of people.
• 11:13
  Anthony Collins: Yes, I got a gig with a large corporation for
• 11:17
  a simple reason that the last photographer they used didn't
• 11:21
  understand the power dynamics of the people in the room. He did
• 11:24
  not know who he needed to make happen. In other words, he was
• 11:28
  shooting and proofing and asking the wrong couple of people, is
• 11:33
  this the right way? He didn't understand that the person in
• 11:35
  the side of the room who was dressed down, who was not an
• 11:40
  extrovert was the person that he needed to make happen, and he
• 11:44
  ignored that person, and he didn't do it on purpose, because
• 11:48
  he just didn't know, and they didn't use that photographer
• 11:53
  again. Now my lucky thing that happened to me is they made a
• 11:56
  point in telling me that's the point person you need to make
• 11:59
  happy, and I was I possibly could have made that same
• 12:02
  mistake, but I was just very fortunate that they came to me
• 12:05
  and said, That's Susie. Susie, the person who's got the last
• 12:11
  approval of this. We need to make Suzie happy. Need to make
• 12:14
  sure that Susie's around by your laptop screen she can see what's
• 12:17
  going on and that Susie is happy with what is loading into
• 12:21
  Capture One or what's loading in the right light blue, all the
• 12:24
  other people may be above Susie, maybe Percival, she's the one
• 12:29
  you want to make happy, and that little inside information was
• 12:33
  was golden today.
• 12:35
  Casey Fatchett: So I mean, I guess any final thoughts for
• 12:38
  people who were like looking to make the leap to being a full
• 12:41
  time photographer
• 12:42
  Anthony Collins: shoot what you love. Try to find a way to make
• 12:45
  money shooting what you love. Now, look, we all love to go out
• 12:49
  and shoot. You know, maroon, five on tour, pink on tour. But
• 12:53
  not everyone photographed. What's that fun? I did five. I
• 12:57
  think working for you, actually, I was covering a gig for you
• 13:00
  that you couldn't do. But you know what I mean? Everyone wants
• 13:04
  to follow a rock band on tour. Everyone wants to do something
• 13:08
  amazing, or go to Iceland and, you know, shoot ice flows or
• 13:12
  something and get paid for it. But shoot what you'll find what
• 13:16
  you love, and think about how to monetize that. Someone is going
• 13:20
  to get paid to shoot that, it might as well be you
• 13:23
  Casey Fatchett: figure it out. All types like talk to you. I've
• 13:28
  talked to several other photographers, all doing
• 13:30
  different types of things, but they found a way to get paid to
• 13:35
  shoot the things that matter to them.
• 13:37
  Anthony Collins: They matter to them. Might not be your number
• 13:39
  one passion, but you're interested in it and like doing
• 13:43
  Casey Fatchett: that's great advice. All right, everything.
• 13:45
  Thank you very much. Great beating. Thank you so much.
• 14:13
  Ready now for my favorite part of the show, what's that Say?
• 14:19
  Useless information. This is always death
• 14:22
  in this episode's useless information. There's actually a
• 14:27
  law in Miami that says it is illegal to imitate an animal.
• 14:31
  That's right in the city of Miami, it is illegal to imitate
• 14:36
  an animal. It's also illegal in Florida to have sexual relations
• 14:40
  with the porcupine because Florida man for.
• 15:00
  I'd like to thank my friend Anthony Collins for being here
• 15:11
  to talk with us again until next time go and follow the nerdy
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• 15:23
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• 16:02
  Unknown: back to town. Beating about? Get better. Get better.
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