Speaker 1 (00:00:05) - And recorded live from a lemonade stand in your front yard. Hey, kid, how much If you add some vodka. It's the photo Happy Hour podcast. Hey, welcome, everybody. Come on in and grab a seat at the bar. I'm your photo Happy hour. Bartender Michael Mowbray. I have a little side story before I complete that. Okay. You know what annoys me a little bit? When people ask your name and you say and I say very clearly, Michael, and then they go, Hey, Mike, how are you doing? For some reason that annoys the crap out of me. I don't don't know why. Well, why do you think I changed my name from Fry Vault to Free Vault? Because I would say, Hey, this is Dan Bravo. Okay, Mr. Vault, what can I do for you? Exactly. And with us today is Dan Free Vault. And I am Carl Keeler Season Cat. Why? Because everybody gets Taylor out of Taylor. Even if I say season cat, they still put me down as Carl Taylor.

Speaker 1 (00:01:08) - Yeah. Yeah, I don't get it. So we went through a drive through for go through drive through a lot lately that's going to tie into our our topic today. But I went through drive through and Culver's and and you know Culver's now they're taking a little page out of the book from Chick fil A where they ask your name and stuff. So I was like, you know, and kind of get your name. And I said, Michael, Okay, Mike, drive on through. And I'm like, No. So I'm talking to my son about this as we're driving up to pay. And I'm like, You know, this really kind of annoys me. And he's like, His name is Patrick. And when people call him Patton annoys him too. You know, when you make a very specific and they ask, you know what your name is and you tell them they use a different name. It's like, I don't know you. You really shouldn't use my nickname. But anyway, so I get up to the pay and it's like, Well, okay, here's your totals.

Speaker 1 (00:01:58) - Whatever. Thanks, Mike. Like he did it again. Drive forward because you have to have to bring the food out to you and then different guy comes out. Here you go. Mike I'm like, Yeah, happened three times. So when you when you pay, you should give them a George Washington instead of a, you know, a Yeah, an Adams. Yes, but you call me Mike, so apparently you don't pay attention to me names. Well, so. And the bill is the same size. So yeah, it's the same, same color, same same size. Yeah. And that ties into, that ties into our topic too. It does, because I need to give them I need to give them an Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln because. Holy crap. Okay. You know, this has been going on. Everybody's been talking about this for a couple of years. It's been going on food prices, everything's going up. I honestly just like I really haven't paid that close of attention, I was like, yeah, you got to buy it.

Speaker 1 (00:02:53) - You got to buy it. You know, it's whatever. It's like, holy crap, that was $24 for fast food. It was two burgers. I didn't even get a meal. I got a burger, a cheeseburger with bacon. Okay. I had a bacon. Yeah. And and I did get a double dish of the flavor of the day, which was, like, brownie overload. So I kind of had to. Yeah. And then Patrick got a burger cheeseburger and brownie overload, and then we got a single for Lisa because she didn't need a double and she wasn't home so she wouldn't know. We just brought it home and put it in the freezer. So we, we just lost. Carl just went flat. Yeah. What the heck? Hold on. You got a power outage there? Oh, my screen just went to sleep on me here, buddy. Yeah, it was looking up. He didn't pay his electric bill. So speaking of pricing and cost of things. So along with that, went through a different drive through a and W the other day and w I never, I never go to AA w but it's close to my warehouse got chicken tenders in a meal so chicken tenders fries and a root beer.

Speaker 1 (00:04:05) - $16. Boom. What? Yeah. It's like airport food. Yeah it is.

Speaker 2 (00:04:15) - Well the funny thing is, you know, going out to eat and paying $20 or 30 or 40 5 or 75 for a really good meal at a great place, you know, gourmet type of thing. It fine. And you get the service for that fee and you get the quality for that fee. But fast food is really right now. And now let's add to it. There's a tip jar there.

Speaker 1 (00:04:40) - Right? Tip jar. There's not only that, a lot of restaurants, they are automatically charging like three, four, 5%. Yeah. Credit card fees, even if you like, don't use a credit card. You still have the fee on there because so many people use a credit card. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:05:02) - And or.

Speaker 1 (00:05:03) - You know, if you paid cash if you could if you'd say like, okay do I get this deducted. Probably. But they're.

Speaker 2 (00:05:10) - Not gonna ask.

Speaker 1 (00:05:11) - You. And not even restaurants I've noticed other places are are charging a fee as well like I brought my truck in.

Speaker 1 (00:05:18) - And because I had to get some work done on it and they're like, Oh yeah, do you know about our fee? I'm like, Oh, well, now, now you tell me. Like, I would have brought a checkbook or a cash, you know, because, I mean, it was through insurance, but I said a $500 deductible. So I had to pay, you know, whatever, 5% fee on that $500. I would have gladly wrote a check regarding cash, you know, But now I'm here. You would have saved enough money to go to McDonald's. There's nothing I could do. Yes. Well. Speaking of McDonald's, have you been inside a McDonald's lately? You know, all the food prices and everything went up and there's nobody taking your order. There's a kiosk. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:06:06) - Boop, boop, boop, boop. And it takes a lot longer than what fast food used to take, I'll tell you that.

Speaker 1 (00:06:11) - Sure does.

Speaker 2 (00:06:12) - We don't do McDonald's too often, but I did Wendy's a couple of weeks ago between building stuff and I couldn't get home.

Speaker 2 (00:06:22) - I had to get back here. And one is just a lot closer than home now. And so I swung in there. It took 25 minutes just to get my lunch. I'm like, This is ridiculous. Whoa. Yeah. And I walked in. There was four people in front of me. It still took about 25 minutes to get my food. Like, I could have went home, made a sandwich and drove back in that amount of time.

Speaker 1 (00:06:45) - No kidding. So. So we kind of jumped right in. But did we actually even kind of talk about what our topic is or what? Well, the yeah, the the transition is okay. Prices are going up everywhere. Are you adjusting your prices because your costs are going up? Mean lab costs are going up.

Speaker 2 (00:07:02) - Shipping costs are.

Speaker 1 (00:07:03) - Up. Yep. Your gas costs have been up for a couple of years now to get to where you want to go. You know your car isn't going to cost any less. So if you got to replace that, insurance costs have gone up.

Speaker 1 (00:07:17) - Carl And I know because if you had to put carpeting in your in your house or flooring in your studio or whatever. That's definitely gone up. What was speaking.

Speaker 2 (00:07:28) - That's going up, too.

Speaker 1 (00:07:29) - That's gone up, too. What was what was the difference in flooring costs you bought in February and paid in February? It was like 4417.

Speaker 2 (00:07:36) - And it's over nine now. Yeah, from February to or from January to now.

Speaker 1 (00:07:41) - 4 or 5 months later.

Speaker 2 (00:07:43) - For the same stuff or.

Speaker 1 (00:07:44) - Depending on when I actually get around to editing this podcast. It could be seven months later.

Speaker 2 (00:07:50) - It could happen.

Speaker 1 (00:07:51) - Well, yeah. And we were pricing out insurance, maybe changing companies well. Talking to a few agents, they're like, Oh, yeah. Be aware of that home. What did Stephanie say? Home insurance is going up because in our area last year, Storm went through the Green Bay area and a lot of people had hail damage on their on so to get roofs replaced. We didn't. But because you got to pay for everybody else in their area, they.

Speaker 1 (00:08:26) - I'm like, well, how fair is that? Like.

Speaker 2 (00:08:29) - Well, just every time a hurricane hits down south, plywood goes through the roof and we can't even get it even literally.

Speaker 1 (00:08:36) - Unintended.

Speaker 2 (00:08:37) - Yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:08:37) - Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:08:38) - Sometimes the walls. But where I where I lived in our mountain, they built the plywood OSB, right. The few miles up the road from me. They drove it right past our place, and we're paying more for it than what everything was getting paid for or charged down in in Florida and Texas and everybody else.

Speaker 1 (00:08:58) - I just need to pull a car across the road and, you know, do a truck inspection. You say, yes, go, go, go, go, go, go.

Speaker 2 (00:09:07) - It's those things that are heavy. It's hard to get a pallet of dry wood off by hand, I'll tell you that.

Speaker 1 (00:09:15) - So true. So true. I took the jeep and they get something. The other day. What the heck was it? I'm like, Oh, I don't think this is going to fit.

Speaker 1 (00:09:23) - I had, oh, a bunch of boards off the back and it's like it looked pretty redneck because I'm like, You.

Speaker 2 (00:09:28) - Got your roll bars. Just hang on to it as you're driving above.

Speaker 1 (00:09:31) - That's what I did. I added, Stick it off. Pass the the tire in the back. I tied it down. I'm holding on to it. I'm driving. It's sliding. I'm like this. Not look good. Oh, we've done stupider stuff. Oh, absolutely.

Speaker 2 (00:09:44) - Especially during college when we were having a sign correction context. Oh.

Speaker 1 (00:09:48) - Oh, yeah. I mean, Home Depot is in far of a drive, so I'm like, Yeah, I'll take the jeep. You know, it's funny that had one of those. What was it? Was it a Fiat or whatever? Like X19 or whatever? I don't if you guys remember the old two seaters, like they had like a little removable roof thing that was back made back in the 70s. Well yeah, he bought it in college.

Speaker 1 (00:10:12) - Fiero No, it wasn't a Fiero. It was like a fiat fiat triad. So like a triumph or seven, but different. But so anyway, it had like a little removable roof. So we would go and get a go, get a half barrel and we positioned like right in that little gap of the little roof. And we'd have to he'd have his left hand on it. I'd be in the, in the passenger seat with my right hand. I would be going down the road if we stopped, stopped quick. That would just go woosh like a freaking missile.

Speaker 2 (00:10:43) - Just make sure it clears the hood.

Speaker 1 (00:10:45) - Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Because expensive to fix it is. But yeah, but you know, it's a serious thing. We talk about this a lot, pricing and sales and things like that, but it's the time to look again because if you if you don't raise your prices accordingly and your costs are going up, you're making less. And how many of you out there are making as much money as you want? How are you how many people are sitting there going, you know what, I'm making too much money right now.

Speaker 2 (00:11:17) - All that happens, I'm sure. Yeah, well, here's the thing I run into at a chiropractor I go to there's three people that work there that are also photographers and of course, yeah. And we were having a discussion because I told one of them said, Does that bother you? I said, No, not at all. And I said, You know, photography is a great thing and everybody should enjoy it. But if you do it and you're doing it to make money, then charge for it, right? And she's like, Well, I just feel bad about it. I said, okay, let me ask you this. Would you come here to work? Do you own this place? You said, No, of course not. You know Dr. So-and-so owns it. I said, Yeah. I said, So you work for Dr. So-and-so? She said, Yeah. I said, So you wouldn't mind if you came to work here for the next month and didn't get paid, do you? She said, Yeah, I would care.

Speaker 2 (00:12:08) - I said, Then why do you do it to yourself? You know, charge You got, you got to make money. You got to make a living if you're doing this for a business, period.

Speaker 1 (00:12:20) - Well, yeah. And you know what I say all the time. It's like if you're doing it on the side.

Speaker 2 (00:12:26) - Raise it. You should be twice as much.

Speaker 1 (00:12:28) - You have nothing to worry about. You have no fear like you should. Yeah. Charge like crazy, amount for it, you know, because you don't it's not your sole source of income, you know, That's what it's like. Oh, shoot. You know, like if, if, if my numbers are down, I'm. I'm paying still for my studio. Right, right. Sure. It's like there's. Yeah, there's a lot of things in paying for. So if you're, if you're working for someone else and do it on the side, it's like, you know, you should just. Charge like crazy amount like I got no fear.

Speaker 1 (00:13:02) - He booked me a book. Me if not not you know. Right. Yeah. And you can.

Speaker 2 (00:13:05) - You flowers then you know. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:13:07) - And you can still do charity events. You can still give back a portion of what you make, you know, to people who really need it. You know, not to say clients or people. There's people who can't afford a photography, but you can do help portrait. You can donate money to whatever cause you want If you make an excess from it, you know, or maybe you just, you know, put 10% of each session towards whatever charity you want, then it's I.

Speaker 2 (00:13:35) - Could, I could use some investors right now.

Speaker 1 (00:13:37) - Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:13:39) - So, you know.

Speaker 1 (00:13:41) - 10% of my sessions are going to you, Carl. There you go. Please. Like the Carl Taylor Fund for photographers who need more money. There comes right.

Speaker 2 (00:13:50) - As we go. Round and round. Here we go.

Speaker 1 (00:13:53) - The Carl Carl Taylor Fund. Yeah. One of the one of.

Speaker 2 (00:13:57) - The first times I won an award, it came in as Carl Taylor and and in the newspaper even printed it as Carl Taylor. And I'm like I finally get in the damn paper. It's the wrong freaking name.

Speaker 1 (00:14:09) - Right?

Speaker 2 (00:14:12) - You gotta be kidding me. I just can't win for winning.

Speaker 1 (00:14:20) - Oh, thank you, Mr. Grizzle. Exactly.

Speaker 2 (00:14:25) - Taking a poke. Oh.

Speaker 1 (00:14:27) - Thinking about drinking?

Speaker 2 (00:14:27) - Yeah. Cheers. There you go. Hey, what are we drinking?

Speaker 1 (00:14:31) - Oh, I did. I don't think I sent you the photo of this. So, again, I've told this trick several times in the podcast. I'm going to share it again. If you like. Fine liquor, buy a bottle, photograph the bottle. Absolutely. Put it on the in the commercial product section of your website to show that you do the work and then drink the liquor.

Speaker 2 (00:14:52) - And write.

Speaker 1 (00:14:52) - It off. I photographed this this morning about our 12 year old Scotch. And it's a beautiful, beautiful photo. It was.

Speaker 1 (00:15:01) - Please, please consult your, uh, your tax accountant. We are not liable for, you know, taxation or, uh, photo prop, photo, prop or props. If you if you are looking for us to contact, you know Mike, not Michael. He's right, Mike. Mike handles all our legal disputes. Exactly. See?

Speaker 2 (00:15:27) - It's beautiful.

Speaker 1 (00:15:28) - Actually, I saw you. I saw you post that, and I'm like, Oh, that's right. We have a podcast today. Yeah, I was going to I was going to post that or make a comment on it going, Oh, thanks for the reminder. I forgot. We're we're recording today, tonight. That was a little subtle hint. You can see it's already been posted to social media, so it's already part of my marketing. So it's a legit, legit shit. I've got a trail trail.

Speaker 2 (00:15:57) - I'm going to start doing that. We have so many breweries and distilleries and stuff around here and wineries. I got to start photographing cans and bottles and.

Speaker 1 (00:16:07) - Well and you know along. Yeah that's maybe a segue too into like opening up other lines of business. I noticed right after kind of a lot of after Covid was ending or businesses were opening back up, a lot of businesses wanted photography, a lot of, you know, bars, restaurants, breweries, things like that olive oil place I worked for because they kind of never really had to market much. But then they realized, oh, you know, we gotta market up our game. We can't just throw out, you know, crummy shots on our menu because nobody's coming here to eat now, you know, kind of thing. So I think that's still can be. You know, a viable option if you if you need some extra income going out and hit these places up, you know. Practice first because it's a whole different lighting ballgame than photographing people. So if you never photograph food or products, there's some good resources out there. Yeah. Glass. Glass is hard. This is tough, but I have tips for that.

Speaker 1 (00:17:14) - So practice a little bit first, get a little portfolio together and yeah, go out and, you know, beat the bushes, beat the restaurants, you know, all that stuff. I have noticed local places in the last couple of years their website menu stuff looks better. So I think I think it's been the trend. I mean, I remember most local places you'd look on their menu or you look on their website and you're like, I don't want.

Speaker 2 (00:17:37) - To eat that.

Speaker 1 (00:17:38) - Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:17:39) - Hope it doesn't look like the picture.

Speaker 1 (00:17:41) - Gosh, yeah, exactly. What did you trade? That works too. Sweetness. So speaking of which, remember their starting camera I worked for for a while? Those guys open up several different bars and everything, and they were marketing geniuses. But the first place they opened up Karl, you've probably been there is a Oh, shit. Was it Ned Kelly's? I think. No, shoot, I can't remember the name of it now. Everyone would dance on the bar.

Speaker 1 (00:18:10) - Oh experience makes awakens. That's it. Yeah. So they you said to say dance on the bar. Oh hi. I knew the guy. That makes sense.

Speaker 2 (00:18:19) - He was in the dorm next to me or the next door. I'm over, I guess one of the guys that opened it and it's great. There is some crazy times. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:18:32) - Well, they negotiated a deal. Like to take it over and. And the guy said, well, yeah, you just pay me X amount and all the free paps whenever I come in here and here he lived like upstairs or something. So he either like he was down there all the time, like they had to order cases and he goes, no one else drink Pabst so Or it was like, I don't know, maybe it wasn't Pabst, but it was like paps are like Schlitz or something, you know? Blatz Yeah, it was, you know, before it was retro and cool to drink that stuff, you know, It was like nobody drank that back in the experience days, you know? So, yeah, they're like, He made out great on that deal.

Speaker 1 (00:19:09) - So when you do negotiate trade, make sure it kind of works to be parameters. Yes. Oh, that.

Speaker 2 (00:19:16) - Was that was the episode of Cheers and Norm got the bid to paint the office. Oh, he's like, what's this? Dollar signs. No, that's those are beers. That's my own kind of like monetary thing to say. You could even do $800 or 800 beers or a month's worth of beers at $800. It is. It's all yours. Because I can't afford a month of your beer. Beer tab.

Speaker 1 (00:19:48) - A beer tab? Yes. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:19:50) - Oh, my God. Missed that show or.

Speaker 1 (00:19:55) - I saw something the other day. It was like if there was any TV show out there that you wish had another season, what would it be? And that was one of the ones that came up.

Speaker 2 (00:20:04) - Oh, absolutely. Cheers would be one of them to in Cincinnati.

Speaker 1 (00:20:10) - That was another one that came up. Yep. Um, Ted Lasso, the new one.

Speaker 2 (00:20:16) - I have not seen an episode of that yet.

Speaker 1 (00:20:18) - I got mine just ended. It just ended. And it's like I, I started, I went back and I've started season one already. Okay? And it holds up. It holds up the second time around. Yeah, I, I've been trying to avoid everything because I haven't seen the last season. I'm like, dang it, I gotta get that. So I don't see any spoilers, but yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:20:40) - I also did you guys know they made the final season of Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.

Speaker 1 (00:20:45) - Yeah, we watched the end of that. All of our shows are ending, so we saw the end of that too. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:20:50) - I like how they wrapped it up. No spoiler alert. So everybody else but they. Yeah, you know, that was. That was a really good angle. Um, it worked out pretty well. I'm going to watch the whole thing again, I guess, but.

Speaker 1 (00:21:02) - It's yeah, I went back and watched the first episode and it was very interesting.

Speaker 1 (00:21:09) - How they came full circle. Very much. I forgot the first episode, like everything that was in it, you know? So yeah, a lot of times what I like to do is I'll go to YouTube and. Not so much for me, but for other things like, Oh, what you missed, you know, in season finale of the Umbrella Academy, you know, because there's so many things going on and Right. That's more of, you know, a heady type series, you know, and what you missed in House of Dragon season finale, you know how they tied to Game of Thrones and brought things and even tried to make Game of Thrones better by tying up where they fell short because they rushed to last season. Don't get me going on that. But yeah. Okay. Don't get anyone who watched Game of Thrones going on that basically. Well you'll like you'll like Ted lasso once you watch it because there are the last season there are so many callbacks to stuff that happened in the first two seasons that are really subtle, really subtle, the attention, you're like, Holy crap, they brought this back.

Speaker 1 (00:22:14) - Oh, they brought this back, they brought this back and they're all connected. And it was like and it all worked in the story. It was like these guys were brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.

Speaker 2 (00:22:23) - It must take a lot of thought.

Speaker 1 (00:22:25) - Along those lines and bring in photography. And so I was telling you guys before we logged in how I had my order and I was showing you guys the composites I was working on this whole week because. Because the girl who came in, she felt like I didn't really have like, she kind of felt like she didn't she wasn't in sports. She said she didn't have hobbies. I didn't really know what I'm going to do. I'm like, That's fine. We just we'll just do senior pictures. Not everything has to have a theme or a hobby or anything like that. Well, but then as I was talking to her for the consultation, which I do for every senior now, and I purposely do that to draw things out and for them to get to know me a little bit better, I get to know them a little bit more.

Speaker 1 (00:23:08) - All of a sudden she was into all these video games and into Marvel and we started talking about like, you know, I'm not a big Marvel fan, but I like certain Marvel movies like Deadpool and Guardians of the Galaxy, kind of like the offbeat kind of ones. And we started talking about like this the Ryan Reynolds tying other movies together and like, integrating like his like. The Adam Project. I don't know if you've seen that. Yes. Yeah. And there's a part where it's like, you know, there's a fight scene and this person comes down and he's like, whoa, Superhero landing. Yes. Yes. So, you know, so we laughed about that and everything. So then I'm like, okay, got all kinds of ideas. And she's telling me the video games and stuff. I don't have a clue what these games are. But of course I researched a bunch of stuff and books that she was into. And so when she came in for her session, we were shooting, you know, a bunch of things.

Speaker 1 (00:24:03) - I'm like, Oh, you should do a superhero landing. And then she's like, Which one? I'm like, Wait a minute, there's more than one. So she so she did this Black Widow one. And I kind of put together a scene with that with like her other video games and like other series of movies and her books. Like, she liked, um, Crown and Thorns and Roses or something. This book series. I had all rose petals on the ground. Yeah. And so, so she came in today and it was really awesome. But then I'm like, Hey, did you notice the rose petals on the ground? She's like, What? Oh, I'm like, Oh, I should have told you that. I should have kept that little part like a secret that maybe you would have noticed. Like. Like what? My montage is. I'll do that to put a bunch of images on. I have one really light maybe in the background. And I had a I had a senior.

Speaker 1 (00:24:56) - A parent come in like with their younger sibling and they're like, you know what? It was like two years later and all of a sudden we looked at her like, that was his class ring in the background from a state football championship. On one day we saw it. It just.

Speaker 2 (00:25:10) - Notice it.

Speaker 1 (00:25:10) - Now. Yep. Wow. Well, that's cool, though. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:25:15) - Well, it keeps it interesting longer. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:25:17) - Yeah, exactly. So here's a little known fact for you. Did you ever see any videos or photos on? Yeah, exactly. On how squirrels land when they jump out off of things like bushes and trees carefully land like they do superheroes. They do the superhero. Yeah. No, we got one more down. One like this.

Speaker 2 (00:25:37) - Maybe that's where they got it from. It could be in the park watching squirrels.

Speaker 1 (00:25:41) - It was actually pretty cool.

Speaker 2 (00:25:42) - He's kind of squirrely. I mean.

Speaker 1 (00:25:44) - It's really.

Speaker 2 (00:25:45) - So I came up with an analogy today at the chiropractor of all places, because they were talking photography and how they it's their hobby and they're not really good at it, but they they're putting themselves out there now for people to be photographed.

Speaker 2 (00:26:01) - And and there she said something about. The difference in. I don't understand. I have a good eye, but I don't understand all the shutter speeds and desktops. I said, Well, you know, there really is a lot of math and art to this, and I've been talking with that a lot in the last few years in my class, is that there's there's a math version of this and an art version, and you got to have a little bit of both to be able to pull this off because that's what makes you most creative. But then it got me thinking today. I said, you know, um, here's another a new analogy for our world and our industry. People and kids have colored for years and years and years, ages, some color on things, coloring books that have lines and some color within the lines, some color with the out of the lines. Some You start with a blank piece of paper and they just color for the fun of it. I said, And then.

Speaker 2 (00:26:57) - There's the people that really know what they're doing. And when you look at these color or the drawings or paintings and you can see what Degas was doing or Monet is doing or the Masters or, you know, trained photographers, there's a difference. Everybody can do it. Everybody can go and create. But, you know, when it comes right down to it, certain drawings stand out more than others. Yeah. When you're in art class, there is always that one person that their project always looked a little bit different than everybody else's. Whether it was a sculpture or, you know, we're making it was a paper maché, you know, with the balloon. And, you know, you make like a globe or something and certain, like Pinterest fails. Yeah, pretty much, yeah. So it got me thinking about just that whole tattoo thing, too. You know, you got the guys stand up.

Speaker 1 (00:28:01) - Children get what you pay for, what you paid for.

Speaker 2 (00:28:04) - I love that. What do you think's he's getting? What he's actually.

Speaker 1 (00:28:06) - Getting? The dragon one is the one.

Speaker 2 (00:28:08) - The wings.

Speaker 1 (00:28:10) - Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:28:11) - I love that. But so that's. That's kind of the analogy. I said, you know, just because you like to do it doesn't mean you shouldn't do it. I mean, still go ahead and photograph or, you know, create for people. But understand that there's a pretty huge difference of levels in our industry as well. And, you know, there's times when when there's things that are really important that you should leave those things up to somebody that's going to be more consistent with it each and every time. Then I hope this turns out right, because I don't understand the math of this well, or how to repeat this.

Speaker 1 (00:28:52) - Tagging into that, because a lot of people think that famous artists, you know, they just have this innate gift and they just put you know, they start painting and they create. Da Vinci. A lot of the greats. They would they they charcoal they'd sketch it out.

Speaker 2 (00:29:08) - And throw it away.

Speaker 1 (00:29:09) - And then and then they, they'd, they'd fill it in with paint, you know, it'd be sketched in charcoal or whatever. And so often they found and as they do some of these super high tech x ray, you know, photos of famous paintings, they find where they started and stopped and and change things. And even Mona Lisa changed. You know, there was an original draft underneath that is different than the final painted one. So, you know, even the even the greats will take the the meticulous steps to create and change and evolve and and do all the little dirty work before they go to the next step and make the beautiful art and layer the paint and. Or it was. So when we were in Italy, we went to a, um, where we were in Florence and went to the museum there and they had a bunch of, you know, art from like Da Vinci and, and all that think it was a, I think it was a painting by Da Vinci. I was pretty sure it was.

Speaker 1 (00:30:14) - And where the tour guide was like, okay, you can see this and you see that, and then like you notice how the paint is different on the wings on this angel because the person who bought the painting then hired someone else to make the wings larger because they felt like they were in proportion. And I'm like, Oh, the Instagram filter of photography. Like back in the day, it's like, you know, tigers get tick. Like they put an Instagram filter on My image ruined it. It's like even Da Vinci, Someone's like, Oh, no, we that was we're going to change. We need those wings to be larger or something. Well, paint over them.

Speaker 2 (00:30:53) - Let's let's think about that. I mean, this is how tough our world is right now. So, I mean, again, this is into you should get paid for what you're doing because this is tough crap what we're doing. You know, all the famous works that we've seen from logistics. Da Vinci. Okay, How many famous works do we know of from Da Vinci? Quite a few, right.

Speaker 2 (00:31:15) - But I guarantee there's hundreds, thousands of works that he produced that we didn't even see. Don't know because they're shit. I mean, well, the technical term, they were crap. And or you didn't want him seeing or you thought it was a mess up. Okay, so he produced this one image of this style or this this particular thought process. We have a subject come in, a high school senior. How many images are we showing? A senior? Yeah. How many images were you selling? A senior. And we can't possibly have every image via masterpiece for the for eternity. I mean, we can do our best we can, but I'm sorry, you can't produce, you know, 35, 100 images that each one of them is going to be timeless and never, you know, priceless, so to speak. I just want to price.

Speaker 1 (00:32:11) - Until the check clears. That's all I can. It's good to. Exactly. So I had to Google it here. I think it was the Annunciation is the painting.

Speaker 1 (00:32:20) - Oh, sure. Da Vinci. Yeah. Wow. So you want. You want to you want to see the statue of David? That's what you want there for? He, he, he. Man. Well, we kind of skipped that part we thought we saw, but it wasn't. It's like, Oh, no, it was a replica outside. I'm like, That's good. I thought the one I thought the one in Florence is the one where it is. But we didn't go to the they have one out on that like the, the free town or whatever. Yeah. His, the, the real one's inside. Yeah. I did get an apron though. With, with, with that printed on for when I barbecue with just a lower part. Yeah. Yeah. It's like the chest down. Yeah. It's pretty funny.

Speaker 2 (00:33:07) - Merchandising that's where the real.

Speaker 1 (00:33:09) - Money so Yeah. You're, you're there with like the tongs.

Speaker 2 (00:33:16) - Oh man. Oh boy.

Speaker 1 (00:33:17) - So well along those lines, too.

Speaker 1 (00:33:21) - You know, everyone. And I'm guilty of it. It's like you want to get there right away. Today's day and age, like, I want to learn everything right away and I want to be the best at everything. Like, fast, fast, fast, fast. And it takes time. It's the rule of, what, 10,000 hours? Like Da Vinci studied all these masters, studied under a lot of other artists and learn the ropes and made mistakes and, you know, practiced and, like you said, threw a bunch of things away or spent years on creating things, you know, And it wasn't just like instant so that, you know, that takes time. Even the Beatles, like, I think when they were discovered like, well, why are they so good? Well, they played ungodly amount of shows in bars and different things before they were discovered. So they they reached your 10,000 hours pretty doggone quick. And so they were even though they were new, they were extremely polished by the time they were discovered.

Speaker 1 (00:34:23) - Oh, interesting tangent on that, too. Something something happened for me today, too, is too often we're, you know, you're talking about getting there quickly and and sometimes we just, you know, good enough is good enough. You know we're just sometimes you get people who want stuff right away and you just don't have the time and you just want to give them good enough as is good enough. And we all fall into that. I had. I had a pig portrait you got. You've talked about this portrait, and she's been she's been asking me, like, every other day. It's like, Hey, when can I get that? It's like, I'm just not happy with it yet. So I made her wait ten, ten days, two weeks because I didn't like I just didn't. There's some aspects of it I didn't like and I just wanted to fix and wanted tweak and wanted to find some time to do it. So today I found a little bit of time and I literally painted fur on a pig because it was a furry pig and I didn't like the way he was the cut out on him.

Speaker 1 (00:35:22) - I didn't like the edges. I fixed his furry edges. So I will sell. I will sell no pig before it's time is the model. Wow. We're gonna look up and see what I actually said to her. But it was something along the lines of that there. There'll be no there would be no pig release before its time. Oh, it's like I messaged her and I said the pig is landed. Not something I thought I would ever say, but I'm much happier with the pig for now. Sometimes you just have to spend a little extra time on the pig fur. Well, you should hire the guy. The guy that.

Speaker 2 (00:36:02) - Painted the wings.

Speaker 1 (00:36:03) - The wings and the pigs. You'll get it when pigs fly. Exactly. Exactly. Full circle. Exactly. Exactly.

Speaker 2 (00:36:12) - Like that idea. So it is middle of June. Well, a third of the way through June.

Speaker 1 (00:36:19) - So at the time of this recording, The Times was recording. Thanks for that pressure. Yeah. Yeah. It'll be September when this.

Speaker 1 (00:36:26) - When you're listening to this. I'm leaving in two days. I'm going to be gone for a while.

Speaker 2 (00:36:31) - I'm just bringing it up because. Is there anything right now, I mean, for a lot of people listening. Our senior photographers like. Like we are. Is there anything that we should be doing right now? Even though it's should be started in the season. What's. What's hot on her mind right now to to try to get people here in. You know, August, September, October.

Speaker 1 (00:37:01) - Yeah, a lot of it depends on what part of the country are in, because a lot of the Deep South, this is their slow time. So this probably is their prep time, you know, because they're not shooting that much. And for us, it just finally got warm enough to, you know, the ice is melted and we can photograph people. Yeah, Yeah. Yes, sir. Is like a fall day. I'm like, oh, I hope we enjoyed the two days of summer.

Speaker 1 (00:37:23) - We had. Yes.

Speaker 2 (00:37:24) - 14 schools this morning.

Speaker 1 (00:37:26) - Shot big time. I mean, it's just. Yeah, you know, it's a constant. Drip with with marketing or, you know, if you're doing model teams and stuff that should have been done a few months ago. But, you know, schools are just getting out. So seniors tend to book later and later and later, you know, it's like, oh, it's, you know, after the 4th of July, I guess we better get this done, you know? And so you could still hit that pretty hard yet and get people in by, you know, promoting stuff and, you know, heading to, you know, the key point is I always stress this, too, is knowing who your ideal client is. Once you have that figured out, then you know where you can go and. Hit up, you know, or. Market to that clientele or hit up other businesses like yours to try and work together to help bring business to them.

Speaker 1 (00:38:27) - And they can bring business to you. So. Social media can really open up a lot of doors that way, you know, as well. Because, you know, instead of just doing. Yeah. Again, kind of maybe going back to. Well, you don't want to do beer restaurants, but it's like I had done, you know, my ideal client is generally an athlete, which is why that girl who came in, she felt like she didn't have anything because that's a lot what you see in my on my site. But I've I've, you know, worked together and marketed together with other businesses who train high school athletes. So it was a good marriage where I could do a photo shoot for them. I could have display things. They would promote me. And, you know, that's my target market. So they're seeing all my stuff. They're they're posting that stuff on social media talking about me. I give them my app as well where they can people can plug in their information.

Speaker 1 (00:39:27) - I can get leads right from them and they can have discounts based on, Oh, I know it came right from that business, you know, or during prom season. We did this years ago where everyone who bought a prom dress from this particular store, they would get a discount from us. So to book a session. So we knew right where they were coming from, you know, and that's a big thing. Like the first rush for me is like, this tends to happen. Like kids are going on spring break here and like March. And that's what they're kind of focused on or that's where their money's going to. And then the next thing is like end of March. April is prom. They're focused on their prom dress and that's what they're shopping for. So that's why we tie that together because then the next thing, okay, proms over the early ones are like, okay, now we need to tackle senior pictures, you know, or, or now they're kind of final exam so they're kind of busy with that.

Speaker 1 (00:40:23) - So it's kind of kind of a little bit of a lull. But then the next couple of weeks, like, okay, I'm going to get senior stuff, so. The marketing. Be working with businesses post on social media. You got to be out there all the time. I think that's the bottom line is because just tying into what you're saying, Dan, it's like there's different people are different stages throughout the entire year. You know, the athletes, okay. They get done with school and then they go to a camp. Yeah. Yeah. So like the football camps, the basketball camps, the volleyball camps or whatever. You know, so all the camps. And so, you know, do you have to get them before they go for camp so they can they can schedule when, you know, there's a gap in the camps or do you have to wait until they get back from the camps? And then they're interested, which is in the summer, right around the 4th of July.

Speaker 1 (00:41:15) - You know, there's a little bit of gap in there. So that's usually when I see a big pickup is right after the fourth is everybody's like, Oh crap, summer's halfway over and we haven't booked anything yet.

Speaker 2 (00:41:24) - But you do need to remind them that. And that's the that's the easy part with, with the athletes especially fall athletes say, hey, once practice starts, which is usually the first week of August, you're done.

Speaker 1 (00:41:36) - You're toast.

Speaker 2 (00:41:37) - You're done. That's it.

Speaker 1 (00:41:38) - You know, sooner than it's sooner than that now because everyone's skirting around what practice is you're talking about. Practice, practice.

Speaker 2 (00:41:48) - Practice, practice. This is not unsupervised. It's.

Speaker 1 (00:41:52) - Yeah, it's not unsupervised. It's run by the optional, but not really optional. It's not run by the coaches, but the captains of the team. But then the coaches, we just we were in the area and, and we can tell them by yeah, we just happen to be driving by the practice field and circles speaking.

Speaker 2 (00:42:08) - I noticed there on Tuesday.

Speaker 1 (00:42:11) - I see Aaron Rodgers is not missed one oh off season training camp not non non.

Speaker 2 (00:42:19) - See there is a new one.

Speaker 1 (00:42:21) - What's it called. Non-mandatory training camp at the Jets He's made every single one plus he's talking about working out with the wide receivers. Oh wow. Is that important? Is that. Is that something that should happen before.

Speaker 2 (00:42:34) - Might be a good idea. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:42:35) - Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know what makes you better? It's practice. Really. Wow. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:42:42) - I don't know. I just visualize and then.

Speaker 1 (00:42:45) - Yeah. Yeah, he's just going to manifest it if you're in your business, like, you know, Aaron Rodgers manifesting a Super Bowl. Look how well that worked out for him. So bring back Ted Lasso when you watch it. They bring in a superstar player for a little bit named Zaza. It's Aaron Rodgers. Just wait until you see. It's Aaron Rodgers. Totally. Totally. Yes. It'll be funnier once you once you recognize that right away and you're like, oh, okay.

Speaker 1 (00:43:17) - Go, go. Yeah, well. Conversation. And then we hit a lull. Maybe it's time to say Photo Happy Hour is sponsored in part by Mo Light, America's top rated Godox retailer. We're having a sale right now, but by the time you hear this, the sale will be over. Visit Gomo Light. Com.

Speaker 2 (00:43:37) - Yeah. By the way, tangent tangent on that before you get away. My very first senior here in Holland, we did some things in window light up front. We jumped into the camera very quickly because I wasn't prepared for or I wasn't ready, I guess, with everything here. Yeah, but I tracked out the 400 with that plug in battery. So the AC adapter.

Speaker 1 (00:44:03) - Oh, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:44:04) - Man, that's. That's sweet. So I don't have to worry about, did I drain the battery at all? Because now I'm going to take and go outside. Just plug that sucker in and turn it on and you're good to go. Popped it off, put the battery on out the door.

Speaker 2 (00:44:16) - I'm like, you know what? What a great use of of of this product in multiple areas.

Speaker 1 (00:44:25) - So versus buy one flash and you need it for studio and outdoors the 400 because you can get that AC 400 adapter it's like 109 bucks. Use it in the studio like Carl did. Pop it off. Put on the battery, go out on location. Now you can go anywhere and you got 400W of power. It's like about seconds of power. It's crazy.

Speaker 2 (00:44:46) - Crazy, cool.

Speaker 1 (00:44:47) - Yeah. I thought you were going to say you use your screen protectors. Oh, that's what I was. That's all I was waiting for.

Speaker 2 (00:44:52) - That was the most exciting part of unpacking so far is getting my rolling my rolling reflectors back. Yes. Both them suckers up there. And I got the translucent one for my fill and I got the silver and black for my accent light. And I was just a happy boy.

Speaker 1 (00:45:11) - Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:45:14) - And people are walking by going, What the hell is that thing? Just so you never mind.

Speaker 1 (00:45:19) - Something that nobody else has but you could have. You could. $329 at Gomo like.com.

Speaker 2 (00:45:24) - There you go. Buy two of their small ones for an accent. Ones for Phil You got to have both just saying That's right.

Speaker 1 (00:45:33) - It could be a background, one could be a scrim, one could be. We've used.

Speaker 2 (00:45:36) - It for backgrounds, too, and it could be a soft box.

Speaker 1 (00:45:40) - Put together for one hellacious V flat. Yeah, an angle. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:45:46) - There for a hunter with the battery pack right through it.

Speaker 1 (00:45:48) - Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:45:51) - Yeah. I got to send you a picture I got. I don't think. Did I show you the pictures of. I got to send you those. Since that was pretty it's a pretty remarkable image, actually. I actually really liked that one.

Speaker 1 (00:46:04) - Well, tease me now.

Speaker 2 (00:46:05) - Yeah, I'll.

Speaker 1 (00:46:06) - Say. Here's bad. Here's bad. As a waitress, we had our 30. How many years we've been married? 36. 636. Because you saw the post.

Speaker 2 (00:46:17) - 25.

Speaker 1 (00:46:18) - You keep doing it every year. You've added to it. Hey, you should just start doing tally marks. Yeah. Tell him. You see.

Speaker 2 (00:46:27) - He's saving a tree. Come on.

Speaker 1 (00:46:30) - For if you haven't seen it. If we're not friends on Facebook, I've got a like, a special invitation I did for our 25th anniversary. It shows photos from our wedding and all that kind of stuff is like you're invited to our 25th anniversary. So now I just repost it every year and cross out the 25 and write in 26.

Speaker 2 (00:46:47) - Cross.

Speaker 1 (00:46:48) - 27.

Speaker 2 (00:46:49) - 28.

Speaker 1 (00:46:50) - It's kind of like a license plate where you just keep the new year over top of it. Anyway, we went out to dinner for our anniversary and, you know, they asked, Are you out here for a special occasion? It's like, Yeah, it's our 36th anniversary. Oh, Oh, we'll get you a free dessert. Oh, we've got some of this chocolate decadence. Oh, it's really good. You know, like, so I'm thinking all through meals, like, yeah, I'm going to save a little room for the chocolate decadence, right? You know? So we get done.

Speaker 1 (00:47:16) - We get done. And she's like, Oh, so you're going to have dessert? And I said, Well, yeah, he talked about this chocolate decadence. And she's like, Oh, oh, I don't know if we have any left. I'm like, Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. You're selling this pretty hard, even though you're going to give it to us for free, but you're selling is pretty hard. I've been thinking about this the whole time, and I saw this old guy at the table next to us eating what looked like it was probably chocolate decadence. And if you're going to tell me he had the last piece, I am not going to be happy. She went back in the kitchen and found the last piece.

Speaker 2 (00:47:51) - So there you go.

Speaker 1 (00:47:52) - We were good. I don't know where I was going with that, but yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:47:55) - Two forks.

Speaker 1 (00:47:56) - Yes, it was. It was really good. Wow. So I know we're going to tie this up. That brings me another interesting story I saw in kind of ties in with marketing and sales.

Speaker 1 (00:48:09) - Well, this this waiter was selling way, outperforming all the other waitresses and waiters selling desserts. And everyone wanted to know his secret. He wouldn't tell a secret one tell a secret. So finally one day he told his secret. And what his secret was, is when he would take the drink and appetizer order, he would encourage them to order a dessert right away because sometimes they run out of desserts. You want to make sure and even, you know, you can always just take it home with you if you're too full, blah, blah, blah, because that's what happens. A lot of people don't save room for dessert. Then they bring the dessert tray out or they just offer dessert and people are like, No, I'm full, right? So he would he would had it on with the appetizer and if you were full, they would just package it up and you could bring it home. So that's how he helped to blow everyone else out of the water selling pre selling presents or or similar how they say that increases sales just by bringing that tray out.

Speaker 1 (00:49:14) - We you see all the desserts instead of just like, oh, I don't want a dessert. Like once you see it, it's like, yeah, I think I'll take that carrot cake. That's the size of, you know, Mount Rushmore. Well, similar to what I used to do, I used to do gift with purchase that whole approach. If you bought if you invested in a wall portrait in a grouping and an album and camera, what else I had in there, if you did all that, then you got you would you would get dessert. Now you get a gift, you get a gift with purchase. And they're at different investment levels. If it was 999, I think it was 999, you got the app and 1299 you got this and 1999 you got that. In 24, 99, you got this, you know, So I would lead with that stuff. So then people kind of had that in mind. So, oh, how close are we to how close are we to getting that, you know, the free cheesecake? It'd be like, oh, you're about an 11 by 14 away from getting that free cheesecake.

Speaker 1 (00:50:13) - Exactly.

Speaker 2 (00:50:14) - You know what? I think you just hit on a good a good thought. You know I'm all my incentives are photo based. Maybe we should be food desert. Well, I got. I got this place. Bachman's blueberries right down the street. Right. Right down the block here. That the restaurant is awesome. Their cheesecake triple for they call it triple.

Speaker 1 (00:50:38) - Heart attack.

Speaker 2 (00:50:39) - Something cheesecake. Yeah. Well that do probably, uh, put their pies and cheesecakes and coffees are just insane. Maybe I should at this level. I'll get you a Bachman's blueberry pie. At this level, we can add in, you know, five lattes or. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:50:56) - So. So full circle. There's where you go in. You do trade. Yeah. You photograph some of their stuff and they give you a gift cards and then you give the gift cards away. And as your incentive items. There you go. Yeah. And you go. And I do that for unexpected like Christmas or holiday gifts at the end of the year.

Speaker 1 (00:51:16) - I know a lot of people will give away, you know, other portrait stuff and I don't like to do that. I want to give them something other than portrait stuff because I just think it feels more special. So yeah, maybe work that into during the sales session. It's like, oh, you get, you know, a gift card to. Some other place, you know. And then that place is like, hey, you know, Carl keeps sending people over here, you know, they're going to maybe.

Speaker 2 (00:51:46) - Maybe I'll get my coffee for free in the morning. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:51:49) - Well, that's hard putting people your way. You got to have Carl do your pictures, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Every little bit helps like that. Yeah. Have that Carl Taylor, do your pictures. Taylor guy. See a new guy? Taylor guy.

Speaker 2 (00:52:03) - Don't you know, it's funny it's the IRS doesn't get it wrong, you know.

Speaker 1 (00:52:07) - Right. You probably get actually Carl Taylor's taxes too. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:52:12) - So they. I get a letter. I get a letter. Two letters in the mail every. Month, it seems like. And it's like your address has changed it. And and the only thing that keeps going back, both letters like this was what it was. This is what it is. This is what it was. This is what is. So the only difference is one I'm sweet. 210. And it's like it says one is spelt sweet out and the other one is like you. Whatever. Yep. And I think the only difference is, is like when I because I go in and pay my sales and use tax and log in in my account, but then my accountant does other things and his is set up with a different suite than my suite or something like that because keep going back and forth. And it's like, why do I keep getting these letters? Or like, I don't know. And then finally we figured it out. That's that's what. But it's like. Wait, wait, wait, wait.

Speaker 1 (00:53:14) - You pay your sales and use tax.

Speaker 2 (00:53:17) - Damn. I'm gonna have to start doing that.

Speaker 1 (00:53:18) - I'll start doing that. You're supposed to do that every month. So when? That's not. If you photograph, you know, you're the liquor that you drink, then you're. Then you're tax free.

Speaker 2 (00:53:33) - Oh, then. Okay, Now.

Speaker 1 (00:53:34) - There's, like, tax advice. There's not, like, a duty free. It's a Yeah. Oh, yeah, dude. Brainstorm. Brainstorm. Brains. I'm going to this space. A duty free zone. Oh, boom. There you go. Where do you get the paperwork done? Duty free? Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:53:55) - How can we do it anyway?

Speaker 1 (00:53:57) - On that note and that leave that parting shot with you guys. Sound tax advice? Yeah. Again, consult with your tax advisor. We are not tax professionals or we.

Speaker 2 (00:54:10) - Do not build people out either. Just saying no.

Speaker 1 (00:54:14) - Although we have a lot of money. I don't pay my sales and use tax anyway.

Speaker 1 (00:54:20) - Till next time, guys.

Speaker 2 (00:54:22) - Yeah. Cheers. Cheers to.

Speaker 1 (00:54:23) - You.

Speaker 3 (00:54:24) - Last call.

Speaker 1 (00:54:27) - You've been listening to the Photo Happy Hour podcast. Be sure to hit that subscribe button to not miss a single, action packed episode and join our photo Happy Hour Facebook group where we'll post links to the stuff we all talk about. You can find my Mo lite gear online at Go Mo Light. That's Geo. Mo Ligety. You can find the Facebook page under Mo Lite store. And I also run the Godox Flash help group on Facebook. You can find Dan senior unlocked website at seniors unlocked comm that's seniors with an S at the end unlocked.com and the Facebook group under seniors unlocked and you can find Carl's coaching corner at CC photo coach CC photo coach.com till next time cheers to you.

Speaker UU (00:55:28) - You don't know the power.

Speaker 1 (00:55:30) - Of this podcast, you must.

Speaker 4 (00:55:33) - Obey me and subscribe. When I first started listening, I was but the learner. Now I am the master. Subscribe now it is useless to resist.