Episode 09 - Coaching Session: Paths into Pro Photography
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Ian Harland on Instagram: @ianharlandphoto
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Matt Korinek: It's time.
We're embarking on a new year. And although I've never been one for resolutions, this is an opportunity for me to recalibrate my vision, align myself with my values and create new goals.
If you have any resolutions or goals for this year, share them with me in the comments on YouTube. I'd love to hear what you want to get up to.
And then consider what would happen if you reset your goals every three months, rather than just once a year.
In this episode, I am coaching Ian Harland. You can find him over @ianharlanphoto on Instagram.
He's working to find his way into the industry and we chat about being a Jack of all trades versus finding a niche, a path to commercial photography. The human side of networking and the importance of personal work.
We also discussed the benefits of assisting and experimentation. Hey, it's Matt. And welcome to the Photo Proventure Vlogcast.
Let's get into it.
[SONIC BRANDING AND OPENING MUSIC]
Before we get started, this episode is not sponsored. But it is brought to you by Descript. And when I say that, I mean, it helped me make this episode. No, that I'll always be honest with any product recommendations or reviews. And although I'm not at the point yet where I'm looking for sponsors, I will only feature brands whose products I use and can wholeheartedly recommend.
So why am I mentioning Descript, even though they're not sponsoring this episode? Basically, I've been looking to speed up the editing of these coaching sessions. I have this bad habit of using filler words that I have to get rid of things like, um, so like et cetera, or sometimes I start a thought, but I don't finish it as I reframe in real time.
And then there's the problem of unstable internet connections, where there are awkward gaps or when both people talk over each other. Descript has this transcription based editing and it's been a game changer and has allowed me to speed up my process significantly, but enough about the technicalities let's get into it.
Super nice to meet you, Ian.
Ian Harland:
Nice to meet you as well.
Matt Korinek: Welcome to the Photo Proventure Vlogcast.
Ian Harland: Happy to be here. I've seen a couple of them so far.
Matt Korinek: Yeah. And is there anything you've gotten out of them so far?
Ian Harland: Yeah, I've I've been taking notes for some of them. And I feel like they have been quite useful because there are people who are in similar situations as me. I think that lots of the content on YouTube at least for photography is very focused on beginners and people who are early trying to get into the industry as much.
So it's definitely very useful content.
Matt Korinek: It's a funny one. There's so much content to start out with. And then there's a bit on how to get advanced, but I don't find there's a ton for the people really looking to level up in either their artistry or even their business. And so hopefully this is an opportunity to do that.
Ian Harland: Yeah, for sure.
Matt Korinek: Okay. So first question, I just love hearing these stories. How did photography find you?
Ian Harland: So I've got a few people in my family who have had photography as a hobby. I've got two of my aunts on my dad's side who had photography as a hobby. One of them had a bit as a job, but still mostly as a hobby. And then both of my grandfathers. They both had photography as a hobby.
When I was 14, I got some of my first gear from them. It was just like really old gear that didn't really work well. But yeah, since then, I've just been really into photography. I started out with wildlife photography, cause that was pretty much all that seemed available to me as a 14 year old kid.
And I still really enjoy doing that now, but since then I've expanded to all the other types of photography, which maybe isn't the best, but maybe that's something we can talk about.
Matt Korinek: I think it's interesting. I do think that's how most people start their journey in terms of testing the waters in a lot of different places.
Wildlife was what I wanted to go into. And then I looked at the cost of lenses. And I was like this is crazy. Maybe I'll do landscapes because those lenses seem cheaper.
So the next step was a landscape and then the rest of the journey went as it did. But it's interesting. How, at the beginning, you play around with lots of different ones.
In fact, just as an interesting side note, which might be helpful to you when I do assess portfolios, one of the things that I notice is that people who tend to have a lot of different photography on their website. It's almost always an indicator of someone who's early in their journey.
Ian Harland: Yeah, I think that makes sense.
Matt Korinek: And not always there certainly are some portrait people who have some beautiful landscapes and they can pair them well. But when it's like landscapes, kids, animals, old people, weddings food.
When you get too many going on, that's certainly usually a flag for me that someone's just not too experience yet, or at least just hasn't found their way.
Ian Harland: Yeah, so right now what I'm doing is like I've got lots of different types of photography that I'm doing.
And while I really enjoy wildlife, landscape, adventure like commercial type work. The amount of work that I get from that isn't enough to sustain me.
I feel like it's so much easier just to do the weddings and the engagement shoots and the portrait shoots also like real estate and stuff. Because it's much more consistent and it makes money.
And I have those like on separate websites so that people, when they look at like my main nature website and like commercial website, then they won't see that I do a bunch of different things and it makes it still seem like a kind of specialize in something.
It doesn't seem possible to just hyper niche into one specific type of photography like you do. Because you're very specific in this fitness lifestyle brand. That's something I've noticed, with almost all the big successful photographers, they're like hyper niche. And that's what they're known for. That seems to be one big way that people get successful.
But it's just challenging at this point, it seems.
Matt Korinek: Totally . I think a question that would help me frame either advice or just get a better sense of you as a photographer is what does success mean to you? What does it look like?
Ian Harland: At this point here my short-term goal is just to be making a decent amount of money, which is I'm realizing that I should be able to get to that point by doing weddings in real estate, just as like a base thing running on the bottom. But I think that will probably not be what motivates me soon.
And then it'll be becoming more of a well-known photographer and shooting for brands and clients that inspire me more. Not that what I do a lot of right now doesn't really interest me. It does.
But I do feel like in the future working for bigger brands and leading tours and all that kind of thing would probably interest me more.
Matt Korinek: RIght. And so what is it about working with bigger brands that gets you excited?
Ian Harland: I think it's in large part, just being able to be more creative with my work. And shooting what I want to shoot . But some of the big outdoor brands and more like lifestyle, clothing type companies I really feel like the work that they make for their marketing is something that really interests me.
Matt Korinek: So a couple of thoughts come up that I find interesting. I think you're on a similar journey to a lot of photographers that when they're starting out and you're trying to make a business out of it that you'll do what's needed to get money coming in. Right. And there's nothing wrong with that.
Weddings are actually a super cool pressure test of timing different styles of photography. Cause you're doing still life. You're doing event, you're doing portraits, you're directing some, you're doing some candid. It's a combination and a lot of really excellent wedding photographers can move into lifestyle quite easily.
Once they've had lots of experience not to say everyone can, but you're dealing with different people who react to your direction differently. So it's a great learning place to be.
Of course, it's also a great place to be for money. Because it's fairly lucrative. It tends to be a weekend commitment in terms of the actual shooting work. And of course there's editing and things like that afterwards and the business side of things, but it does give you an opportunity for time.
If you're a portrait person you're probably working Monday through Friday, you're doing portraits all the time. Timing is everything in you're trying to build a business that makes money in that.
Whereas I feel like weddings does give you maybe a bit more freedom to do your own personal work. I'm not so sure about architecture and how that fits in. I know that it can be super lucrative, so potentially it could be the same where you take a few big jobs and then you can, work on your own vision outside of that.
Ian Harland: Yeah. That is the main goal of taking on these types of photography. While I still enjoy them, they aren't what I'm passionate about, but they do give me the opportunity to be more free in terms of the other stuff that I want to shoot.
Matt Korinek: Then the second part of where you want to go in terms of working with brands you mentioned the idea of creative freedom. And what I would maybe challenge you a bit is depending on how you work with them, it can be either creatively free or actually can be creatively stifling.
So I think your best chance of making it creatively free is to really double down on who you are and your style and follow your own passion, because then people will see that and they will hire you for that. Whereas if you sell yourself as a photographer who whatever your brand needs, I can do that.
You end up compromising the creativity because you'll have these people who aren't photographers saying, well, we want this and you're going to be like, I think that looks terrible, but you're the client. And my job is to make the client happy and you can just go down a different road potentially.
And it's not like two roads.
It's more of a gradient. I'd say. And so you're going to have to decide which end of that gradient you want to do. And there might be times when you dip into the, I'm just going to take this client because it's good money. It might look good on the resume in terms of I've worked with this big client.
But I won't be able to be as creative as I can.
it's every creative photographers dream to be doing the work they love and just get paid for that. That's the dream, right?
There are some people though who I'd say are business photographers and their dream is to make as much money as possible. And it doesn't really matter how.
And there's nothing wrong with that either. If you were that photographer, we could coach you in that direction. It sounds to me and correct me if I'm wrong, that you're maybe more in the creative and that you want to be fulfilled.
Ian Harland: Yeah, for sure. There's money that I need just as a base. But after that, I don't think that luxury is something that particularly interests me.
I think that probably pursuing jobs that interest me in the future would be my favorite thing to do.
When it comes to most people's journey and what tends to work the best, what do you think is the path that works the best for commercial photographers?
I'm sure it differs a ton for everyone.
Matt Korinek: Yeah, everyone's journey is different. What comes up for me is relationships are so important because it's something that you can completely control.
Talent is to a certain degree uncontrollable. We each have this innate talent for things and sometimes I'll look at a 17 year old photographer and I'll be like, Oh my God, this person is so talented for someone who's 17 years old. And I can see the arc of their potential.
Now, if they have potential and they don't work at it, I don't think they're going to make it. And people who have less potential and work at it can make it.
So it's not just about talent, but I can only give coaching on the things you can control.
Some people just have a way of viewing the world that's amazing. That I'm drawn to, and maybe the public is drawn to, and the rest of us who maybe have a certain level of talent, we need to both work hard and make relationships in order to make a career work.
Ian Harland: Yeah, I think that's a really good point. I've been quite surprised by just opportunities that arise from just meeting people. Sometimes they don't even see my photography work, but they just hear that I'm a photographer and then they'll be interested in some kind of photography.
Yeah, there's definitely lots of power to that. I feel like in person, when people get to know you, it's something completely different.
Matt Korinek: The thing that I think you'll find is that as you continue into this, you will be more successful partially, just because you're going to get better.
No matter how much experience you have today. With 10 more years of shooting under your belt. Think of how much better you're going to be.
And then let's say your 20 year old friends right now. Think about what jobs they have, what they're up to, if they're in an organization where they are in that organization and how much decision-making power they have.
In 10 years, they're going to be in a very different position.
And so if they work for that brand and they need a photographer, suddenly you're a peer of someone who's a decision maker.
So I do think sometimes the arc of success is actually just based on this age cohort, going through life and being successful together.
And so a potential hack out of that is making relationships with people who are outside of your age group.
Ian Harland: Yeah. Yeah. So that I can get a little headstart on that.
Matt Korinek: Yeah. Or surround yourself by people who are your age, who are already up to big things and may need photography sooner.
Ian Harland: Do you have any strategies when it comes to networking with people that are making the decisions?
Matt Korinek: Well, I hate the word networking personally. How do you feel about the word networking?
Ian Harland: Yeah, I think I'm more of an introvert. So I don't really go out a ton, especially to network with people who are outside of the photography community. Which when it comes to brands making decisions I'm usually not connected with those people there.
And I don't really know how I would get to know on a personal level, lots of the time.
Matt Korinek: So potentially talking about how to make connections might be worth it right now?
Okay. What are you doing right now to either, if you want to call it networking or building relationships or reaching out to people, what are you doing right now?
Ian Harland: There's lots of different parts of my business. So I've got the wedding website and then from there, I do lots of individual shoots for people, but then also from those. Lots of those people then have other needs for photography sometimes it'll be commercial.
And then there's real estate one, which I've only been in for a few weeks, but that's one of my friends who giving me his excess work. And then from the last few clients from those, it seems like lots of them also need extra photography.
Just meeting people. It seems like lots of clients come like that.
And then my wildlife and nature photography, that's the one I've been doing the longest and one that I've had lots of connections with in Vancouver and other photographers. So oftentimes opportunities will come up through that just from other photographers that I know.
I think one other thing that I try to do for networking is test shoots. But the first one I did in the last, nine months or something was last weekend. So that's something I feel like I should probably do a bit more of.
Matt Korinek: Totally. I think it's great. I think for me the one that interested me the most is if you're going to be doing weddings for at least the foreseeable future, because it's good money and it gives you the time to pursue other things. Weddings are full of people who own businesses or workplaces.
So the thing that comes up for me is what are you doing at the wedding that will plant the seed for a potential connection down the road.
So what could you be doing?
Ian Harland: It's tricky cause I want to stay professional during a wedding. So it's all about the couple and making it about them. But at the same time, I feel like I should probably update my business cards and stuff.
But then I'm also not sure. Oftentimes I'm not sure which business card to give people if I did have business cards.
Cause I have the wedding website cause they could be interested in that. But then if I want to be building my commercial business, then maybe one came to my nature website could be better.
I could just put like my phone number and email and then figure out what they need, but then they can't see my work.
Matt Korinek: I think that the majority of people you meet are not going to be like super photo savvy in most likelihoods. Right? Most people aren't super savvy or necessarily work in the creative business.
You have much more of a chance just in terms of percentages that you're going to meet someone who works for a business that might need photography.
So I always try to lead with human connection.
And I know that it might not work for everyone. So I'm going to tell you what works for me and if it resonates do it, if it doesn't resonate, you got to find your own way. That's why we said before, everyone does have their own path.
But for me I don't love networking or I hate it when I get a spam email or , maybe it's not spam, but like a cold email. That's not personalized. And then when you read it, there's no connection. I can't stand that stuff. And it's an automatic delete for me.
And I do believe that until you're a big name, relationships are so important and relationships are between human beings.
So, at a wedding, is it just chatting a bit more to some people who are outside of your age range potentially, and maybe there's opportunities to just chat to people in between while you're shooting.
Of course your focus has to be on the client, which is the bride and groom. But potentially getting a second shooter in.
One: you get to charge a bit more money.
Two: you have the safety of knowing that second person might be capturing when you're talking with someone.
There's like some side benefits of having a second shooter.
Ian Harland: Yeah for sure
that's something I should be working on I think.
Matt Korinek: And then if you make a connection with someone, instead of giving them your card or your email or your Instagram, you get their information.
Ian Harland: Interesting
Matt Korinek: Because then the responsibility is on you.
And be like, Hey, can I grab your email? I'd love to just reach out and talk to you about what your company might need or what your business might need.
Yeah. Yeah. I definitely into trying that for sure.
Because otherwise you're sort of waiting and hoping that they remember that you gave them a card and that they're not too busy. With all the other aspects of running a business to even think about you.
Ian Harland: Yeah. I'll definitely try that for sure. I feel like 'that's something different that could work.
Matt Korinek: And then when you make those connections make them as human as possible, right? Don't come up with a script.
You can have points that you like to touch on potentially, and you can test out different things, but make sure there's something personal in there so that it doesn't feel to that person like they're just another person you talk to at another wedding.
And so the extension of that to me is if you do want to make connections, outside of the wedding scene and you want to reach out to people who are either photographers for these brands or art directors at creative agencies or art directors within brands. Again, make it human.
Ian Harland: Yeah, I don't really have much experience working with art directors and stuff. Usually the brands have all worked with, who've been quite small, so they don't really deal with art directors and stuff. So I'm not totally sure how that works. Do you usually just start off with a personalized cold email or trying to call them or
Matt Korinek: I would try almost anything and I would try to do it in a human way. if they have on their Instagram account, that they are an art director at Roots or something like that, shoot them a message on Instagram or, comment on some of the photos that they're sharing from the work that they're doing.
And if that doesn't work, maybe they have an email. I don't think there's any one way necessarily, but I do think it's important to think about how you're framing it for them.
If you were approaching an art director, how do you think that you, off the top of your head, I'm putting a better pressure on you and there's no right or wrong, but how would you approach it?
Ian Harland: Well, I think that I'd have to approach it in a way where I can show how I'm different than other people. That's kind of hard, especially since I'm beginning in the commercial world and have quite a wide variety of work.
At at this point here, my shoots are usually quite smaller. Usually only one model and I'll just want to do all the lighting and the retouching and all that myself. Usually like the model will bring their own clothes and do their makeup. So the shoot costs are already much lower than bigger productions. But if a company has an art director, then chances aren't, they don't really mind paying more money as well.
So ideally I wouldn't be separating myself from others based off of how much I charge, but from my work. but It's challenging because my commercial work isn't super niche down and specialized where someone can see it and be like, that's, his work.
Matt Korinek: Yeah. I would suggest that you never compete on price. You're just going to end up having clients who will squeeze the life out of you. Because if price is the most important thing, you know that creative won't be.
Ian Harland: Yeah. I've found that people who seem to care about price are usually significantly harder to work with.
Matt Korinek: Yeah. And so creating a pricing that actually weeds those people out can be helpful.
Ian Harland: Yeah, but then there's also the side where if I price myself higher than what people think my work is worth, then I may not be able to build up the portfolio to be charging for the bigger companies that I end up wanting to work for.
Matt Korinek: That's logically true.
What I would suggest is that the work that will get you hired will probably end up being a lot of your personal work.
Because that's when you get to be really creative and that's when your vision really comes to life.
A lot of client work will be less likely to make it into your portfolio over time, because there are going to be a bunch of clients who just pay you money and you do a project with them and it's good money, but you're not necessarily like excited about the results.
And I always think it's better to lead with your creativity, especially with art directors, rather than leading with your ability to work with clients.
Now, if you want to create a niche where you're working more with smaller clients who won't have art directors, Then maybe it's your ability to work with a variety of clients and showing that you can do different types of photography. That might be a good way forward, but again, that's a bit of a fork in the road.
Ian Harland: Yeah. So with your portfolio, is that mainly from test shoots, the ones that interest you the most.
Matt Korinek: So I've had one good client that I've worked a lot with and has given me enough creative freedom that I think I can pick and choose the shoots that I work with them on that I feel represent me and I can share them.
There's lots of shoots I've done with them, that aren't on my website. And in terms of my portfolio, I really love some of the shoots that I did myself that were pushing myself and trying something new.
Because sometimes when I work with that client, it's not something new. It's just another version of the same thing. And I don't necessarily want more of the same.
If I was to go on my own, I would probably. End up replacing the majority of my client work with my personal, because then I get to have full control.
Ian Harland: Yeah, that makes sense. I feel like my commercial portfolio is something that I should be working on, including more of the personal works that I can really target clients that I want.
Matt Korinek: I think I said this in a previous episode, there's the idea that you. Generally will only get hired for things you've done before.
I remember we're doing a shoot, a test shoot, where I was playing around with someone running at night and there was reflectivity involved and I only ended up getting a couple of decent shots out of it. But suddenly if I show that ability, someone will be like, Hey, I saw you do that night shoot, can you do that for this?
It would be highly unlikely for someone to come to me randomly and say, Hey, I see your other work doing yoga. Can you do a nighttime run shoot?
And then if you think about those super high end photographers, they tend to be hired based on their specific style. Like they're not just niched out in terms of what they shoot it's actually how they shoot that they've niched themselves out. They have such a strong style that if you need that type of thing, you go to that person.
Ian Harland: Yeah. Do you think that probably right now, for me, it's a good idea to keep on separating my different sides of the company so that people think that I'm specializing. And just do that for a while, or do you think it would be better if I just put tons of my time into what interests me the most, which is doing workshops and private lessons and, commercial work.
To hear lots of stories from photographers who it's always been that one super small niche. That's what interested them. And then that's what they become known for. Instead of taking up tons of their time by focusing on other types of photography, which probably won't in.
Matt Korinek: I think if it's clear to you where you want to go, I think spending time on things where you don't want to go might not help you.
Shooting different things gives you insight that you can bring into the thing that you want. In a way that maybe someone who only focused on that thing doesn't get.
So for example, by shooting weddings, you might get some tools that someone who's just done commercial from the get-go might not have.
Ian Harland: Yeah. I found that a bit. There are lots of different types of photography that I do and I definitely use lots of the techniques from lighting to editing, to posing that it just intertwined throughout the different types of photography I do.
And I think that it's helped me out so far, but I do think that to become successful niching down will probably be important at some point in the future.
Matt Korinek: I think it probably will be as well. I think it's hard to be great at everything.
So at some point, you're going to make a choice on what you want to be great at and there's nothing wrong, or it doesn't mean you should have niched out sooner. As long as you're still learning and as long as you end up happy with where you end up all of it's part of the process. And there's no rush.
Ian Harland: Another small thing I wanted to ask you about was what you think the importance of assisting is when it comes to gaining photography experience. Is that something that you think is really valuable for people? Is that something that you did or, because I've never done that before, but I know that it's part of, lots of people's journey.
Matt Korinek: Yeah. Great question. I haven't done it ever, so I don't think it's necessarily And I do think that depending on how you learn and where your gaps are as a photographer, if you pair with the right photographer, then you could really benefit from it.
I think the pitfall that can happen is that assisting can make you decent money. You're not going to be rich, it's not lucrative, but you can make ends meet and you have generally less pressure than the person who's behind the camera.
And so you have this job that becomes easy to continue and stay in. And that's not to say that there's anything wrong with staying in assisting.
I think there's some great assistants who have been in the game for 20, 30, 40 years. And they're just great assistants and that's all they want to do. They don't want to be the person behind the camera. They want to help support the person behind the camera get the best results.
And so that's a path and I don't want to throw shade on that path.
However, if you want to be the lead, I do think that assisting needs to be done in such a way that you have a path out.
I know an assistant that I've worked with quite a bit, he's really great. He has a lot of experience. He at that point where I think he's starting to branch out and I think it's a real pivotal point because I do think he's such a great assistant. He could end up being an assistant for the next 40 years and having a good wage and being able to, live the life that he wants to live.
But I think for him, it's important to be a photographer. So, making that cut is going to be potentially hard because suddenly he might find that the income goes down for a little bit.
Cause it takes some time to get traction.
Ian Harland: Yeah. That could be worth trying out, but still think that being the lead photographer and having more of the creativity is more of a long-term
Matt Korinek: And so the other thing that I've experienced from the other side from people wanting to assist with me is that if they're in it to be photographers, there's two major pitfalls. One is you go into the relationship of being an assistant and you're sort of making it about you because you want to get what you want out of this relationship so that you can get to where you want to get.
Ian Harland: Yeah, no, that makes sense. For sure.
Matt Korinek: And as a photographer, Who's being helped by that type of person. How do you think that would feel.
Ian Harland: Yeah, you definitely want people who are sticking around for awhile and getting a bit of information and then leaving. Which I think makes sense. And I understand that's why lots of those assistants who are only interested in the assisting definitely very valuable for sure.
Matt Korinek: Well, and I think what makes them valuable is that they make the photographer and the project, the most important thing.
Ian Harland: like being there to as much as possible
Matt Korinek: If you make it about you. I don't think you're going to be a successful assistant.
And that's like a lesson that assisting can give you that actually really benefits you as a photographer,
As a photographer. It's not always about you either. It's about the project and the brand.
And so you can practice that lesson as an assistant. How do I communicate in a way that shows that this is the most important? How do I act on set? How focused am I? Am I on my phone or am I always paying attention am I anticipating what needs to get done to get the best results?
Think about that as a photographer. What happens if you make it about you versus about the results.
Ian Harland: Yeah at the end of the day, it's about the clients and making sure that they're happy. Which sometimes, if I go into some shoots where I've got like specific shots that I'm trying to get for myself, then the quality of the work for them and their overall experience goes down.
So I understand how that's similar to, with assisting as well. It's about client and the photographer are getting the best experience on their end as well.
Matt Korinek: Totally. You mentioned that you've had some experiences where you tried to bring your own ideas and that impacted the experience of the client. Can you expand a bit on that?
Ian Harland: During all of my shoots, including with clients shoots I always try to spend a little bit of time pushing my comfort zone a little bit, because I feel like that's where I learned.
Sometimes during client sessions I'll bring a strobe on set or an Octa box or an umbrella. Just so that I'm playing around lighting. Maybe I'll try out different poses. And I feel like by doing those things over
the long run, it's worth it because it makes my work better.
But I also want to make sure that I'm not doing too many of those things because then it could also reduce the client experience when I'm doing things that I'm not super confident in. It's kind of tricky. For the most part, I try to make
Matt Korinek: Yeah. What I think you could consider is that experimentation on set can be super valuable to the client. If the reason you're experimenting is for their benefit.
If it's for your benefit, then I can see how it could potentially land differently because you're doing something that might help you out. But if they're looking at it, they're like, this is way off. They're going to start questioning your judgment.
Ian Harland: Yeah. That hasn't happened to me yet, but it definitely could when I'm just like playing around with lighting and stuff.
I guess the best time to doing those types of things would be during test shoots or maybe I go through the entire session and then after I give them a bonus 20 minutes where I try some creative ideas and they understand that.
Matt Korinek: I definitely love that idea of adding it to the end. So you've covered yourself.
If it's in the benefit of the client, then you can get away with it during.
Let's say if it's a lighting thing, the reason you're trying it isn't because you want to try this new lighting it's because you saw this lighting that could probably really work well for them.
Ian Harland: Yeah. I think for the most part it's usually, because I think it'll make the picture look better, but there's definitely element where I know that it's also about me and my learning process. I definitely just want to
Matt Korinek: And I think it's almost like you're doing the same thing in a way. It's just from a different reason. And it allows you to create a filter during your experimentation that allows you to move on quickly and be like, you know what, this isn't going to work for this client. So I'll try this other experiment or, you know what, this isn't working, let's go back to what we know is working.
And then it just still stays about them and, you know, you get to experiment.
And then just beyond that, what you were saying about the experimentation during your test shoots. I'm such a huge fan of that because of my role, I basically had to shoot at least once a week for five years.
And. Because I wasn't necessarily coming up with all the concepts. There would be concepts that I wasn't sure exactly how to execute. And so I'd show up and I'd have to problem solve on set.
And I have no problems with problem solving on set, but sometimes it was super hard and put a lot of pressure on me. And so what I've learned over the years is the more pressure I can put on myself during test shoots. The more comfortable I am in different situations when there's a client there, because I've already done it. I've already tried that. I know how to solve this when it shows up.
And that is one of the benefits of assisting, because you can see how other people would problem solve something, because it's not often that you show up to a shoot and everything goes your way. It's more often that something is going wrong. And as a photographer, your job is to mitigate that issue.
Ian Harland: Yeah. It was landscape and wildlife photography. I spend a significant more amount of time, doing those hyper creative shots, because those are the ones that will become known and portfolio pieces. Instead of the safe shots cause that's what everyone has.
But yeah, it's definitely different when working with clients. I can imagine the same thing with assisting cause then the goal isn't, about getting that one specific shot it's about just making the whole entire experience
Matt Korinek: Or if you bring that same attitude to your commercial tests. Because then once it's in your portfolio, someone will be like, Oh, that's super dope. I need that person to do that for me and my brand.
And then you'll be like, well, I did it. And during that testing process, I learned this, this, this, so when those issues show up on set I'm not fumbling or I'm not like, I don't know what to do. You're actually like I've done this before and I know here's the possible pitfalls and here's how to solve them. So it's a super seamless experience for the client. Right.
Ian Harland: Yeah, no, I think that definitely makes sense in the commercial world. something that I should be working on a bit more. I think.
Matt Korinek: Okay. So it sounds like you have an action you might want to take out of that.
Ian Harland: I do have an action.
Matt Korinek: Can you verbalize that to me?
Ian Harland: I think I'm going to plan more test shoots with the real athletes agency. I've liked working with them. Every single test shoot I've done has been very rewarding and only good stuff has come from it.
So yeah, definitely have to plan more of those. And then, those shoots that are the ones that get me out of my comfort zone lighting, different posing,
Matt Korinek: Yeah, and put yourself into uncomfortable situations. One of the big learnings was trying to do fitness indoors in dark spaces because there's a lot of movement and not much light. And so you're going to have to make some creative calls on how you're going to approach it. And by making those creative calls on your own, suddenly when you're in a dark space, trying to get some shots, you actually have something in your back pocket.
Yeah for sure, that's
Ian Harland: definintely an action for me to take.
Matt Korinek: And so how are you feeling right now?
Are you more excited? Are you more daunted How are you feeling based on our conversation?
Ian Harland: I think I'm definitely excited. I feel like there are some things that I know I need to do. To get to where I want To be.
I'll be planning some test shoots and figuring out style that I want to be going towards when it comes to commercial photography.
I can still keep on working on the other sides of my business. Just making sure that they're separated so that I still seem very specialized and then eventually specializing in a certain niche that interests me the most is probably A good
long-term plan
Matt Korinek: And just know there's there's nothing wrong with being the Jack of all trades. It's just a different path.
Ian Harland: Yeah, I think that's more of a short term thing. And I think it could also be valuable just so that I'm learning a breadth of different skills, but when I look at the most successful photographers around. All of them kind of niche down. And that really interests me as well.
I mean, there are a few of them few different
Matt Korinek: There's also that commercial type photographer that do anything that's big business. And that's certainly another way forward.
So it depends what you're inspired by. Are you a bit more inspired by lifestyle or fashion or is it the glossiness of an ad in a magazine? Cause that's a different type of shooting.
My type of shooting is very much getting a variety of images that could work to tell a story a bit more. Other commercial photographers, it's I'm going to spend all day on two shots. Whereas if I came back with two shots, I'd probably be in trouble.
That's probably personality based. Maybe their personalities are well suited for that style.
Ian Harland: commercial work.
Matt Korinek: yeah, the way I would describe, what I try to do is like a mixture of reportage, fashion, lifestyle, and portraiture. are my ingredients and my hope is that by having those ingredients, I can play a little bit in each of them. Although I'm fitness first I hope that those skills allow me to play in different realms as needed.
I think it was Annie Liebowitz. I heard her say once that she always called herself a portrait photographer because it gave her the most leeway.
Ian Harland: Yeah. Her clients are all over the place
Matt Korinek: Because portraiture is taking pictures of human beings, it could be a human being in a really nice dress and it's fashion, or it could be, a movie star on the cover of a magazine and that's something else. Portraiture is one of those nice catchalls, if you want to still be playing in a bunch of different realms. Okay. Do you have any final thoughts or questions?
Ian Harland: I think I'm good. Yeah. It was super, super awesome talking to you. I wrote down a few things I wanted to talk about and we talked about them.
Matt Korinek: Well, thank you so much for joining me
Ian Harland: Thank you for having me, it was awesome.
Matt Korinek:
I hope that this coaching session gave you some things to think about and new actions to take this year.
If you haven't shared your goals for next year, jump down to the comments on YouTube and do it now. And if you're not sure about your goals yet, maybe just share your biggest takeaway from this episode. I'd love to know what you resonate with.
So try one new thing and get closer to the photographer you want to be.
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