Original subtitles

Okay guys, do you have any idea what

you've gotten yourselves into here?

Hopefully not, because you've thrown all those expectations

out the window, right?

Yeah, and you've written down your intentions, right?

Because we did, and as promised, here are

mine.

I'll go first.

Okay, and actually I have three.

One, honour your trust.

Two, grab your photography by the shoulders and

give it a real good shake.

And three, not have a full-on domestic

dispute while the cameras are rolling.

Like, what's the point?

We're getting the same shot.

You're just in my way.

We're upping our chances.

I've got it.

Okay, okay.

I've got it.

Just go, just go.

I don't do this to you, babes.

I can do it.

You want me to do it?

No, no.

I just didn't know what was wrong with

that.

Nothing was wrong.

I just thought we might want to say

it one more time.

Okay.

And by the way, your breath really smells

right now.

Sorry.

That's going to happen.

Well, they might cut that out, but that's

likely going to happen.

Okay, my intention is very simple.

My intention is to actually give you everything

that I can in this 14 weeks.

You know, we often define how well we've

done at a wedding based on how bad

the wedding hangover is the next day.

I'm sure you guys all know what a

wedding hangover is.

But if you don't, it's basically how you

feel the morning after a full-on wedding

where you've given it everything you got and

you feel like you've been hit by, run

over by a train the next day.

Yeah.

The worse the wedding hangover, the more we

did within our power to just give that

wedding all we could, right?

And it's the same with workshops.

Like actually, workshop hangovers are way worse than

wedding hangovers.

But the worse the hangover, the better the

workshop.

Okay, so I want to have like the

worst hangover at the end of this week

of filming ever.

What the heck is To Man You?

Well, it is literally seven years in the

making for us.

That's how long it's taken us to distill

our experiences as photographers and educators down to

the core lessons and to hone our methods

of teaching what we do.

And to figure out what we as photographers

need to be doing to make better art.

Yeah.

And I mean, we're still learning that, right?

We've been super lucky.

You know, we've been teaching these in-person

workshops all over the world for seven years.

The first installation of the workshops were distastefully

called Balls Out.

That was the original name we had, which

wasn't exactly appropriate.

We had to get rid of that.

Yeah, but Balls Out, of course, wasn't...

That name had nothing to do with...

There was no sexual connotations.

It was nothing to do with male sexual

anatomy, okay?

It was basically about going full throttle, pedal

to the metal, everything we got.

And that's where the phrase Balls Out came

from, from the old steam engines.

When the engineers wanted to go full throttle,

they would say, let's go balls out because

the balls in the pistons would actually...

Would come out of the pistons.

Steam would lift them up.

You only ever found that out once you

had to win an internet argument and you

googled it.

But we named it that because that's what...

Yeah, but then we came up with a

better name.

We did find a better name.

We came up with a better name, which

was Metanoia, which is a Greek noun meaning

fundamental change of thinking, transformative change of heart.

And that really gets at the essence of

what these workshops were all about, right, that

tiny little shift in perspective that could change

everything.

And we fucking loved those workshops, okay?

Those in-person workshops were magic.

And really, this owes everything to that because

that's where we spent seven years puzzling out

how to do this as best we can.

Because as awesome as those were, we knew

we could make something even better.

Yeah, because those workshops were three insane, very

long days.

We would literally share everything we knew and

everything we felt about photography in three long

days, like 16, 17-hour days.

And I think on some level for the

participants, it was like drinking from a fire

hose, right?

Because we had to fit everything we knew

into those three days.

And it didn't allow the time for it

to really sink in.

It didn't allow the time to practice the

skills as much as we'd want to.

It didn't allow the time to fail, which

is such an important part of the process.

And it didn't allow the time to just

sort of sit and absorb and just be

with the material.

Let it marinate.

And so with this, now we get to

drip it all in gradually, methodically, with the

space and time for it to swirl around

up there and form new synapses and really

sink in.

Now, we feel that we've created here a

framework that's more conducive to deeper, profound learning,

okay?

As long as you commit, like fully commit.

Ask yourself, am I doing this or am

I doing this?

Because if you're not ready to change, you're

not going to change.

And really the biggest thing we can all

do to improve in our photography is invest

in it.

And I don't mean investing in fancy new

gear or prisms or fancy lenses or SLR

cameras.

I mean invest in yourself, right?

And the world often separates creatives and non

-creatives.

Like we say, oh, you're a creative person

or you're a non-creative person.

But we're all creative, right?

The only thing that differentiates creatives and non

-creatives, so-called non-creatives, is that creatives

don't leave their creativity up to chance.

They give their creativity nurturing.

They give it time.

They give it space.

They give it room to shine.

So you've already invested the money, okay?

Now you just got to invest the time,

okay?

And the mental headspace to make it count.

I literally want you to take a page

in your notebook and sign a contract with

yourself, right now, okay?

And that contract states that you will carve

out three to four hours a week to

dedicate your full undivided engagement with this course.

Make that time distraction-free.

Treat that time as if it's sacred.

Treat that time as you would a university

course where you go and sit down in

a lecture hall for three to four hours

a week.

Don't become one of the stats, okay?

The 97% of people who purchase an

online course and never finish.

Or worse, they kind of watch it in

the background while editing or culling or cooking

dinner, okay?

You are here with us now because for

whatever reason, maybe cost or the timing, flights,

wait lists, the alignment of the stars in

your universe, you never attended one of our

in-person workshops.

Or you did and you're back for more.

Hey, guys.

Hey, guys.

But for those of you who didn't, not

poor you, lucky you.

Because even though those workshops had all the

in-person awesomeness, we've actually figured out how

to replicate and even improve on that experience

here.

Because we're not confined to three days in

just one physical location, okay?

So you're at an advantage.

You're in the comfort of your own studio.

Maybe you're in your pajamas, which actually wasn't

out of the usual at our workshops, come

to think of it.

But you're on your own time here, okay?

You can drip this in at your own

pace.

And we're able to show you some things

here we simply were impossible to do at

an in-person workshop, okay?

So this is an unprecedented opportunity, really.

So don't fuck it up.

We want you guys to milk this thing

for every last drop.

And so here's how you get the most

out of this journey.

One, fucking do this.

If you want to get at least what

our students got out of our in-person

workshops, then you got to commit like they

did.

Or most of them did.

True.

There was the odd person.

You know, we could always tell who was

going to grow and change from the workshop.

And we could tell when there was someone

in the group that wasn't going to.

Which brings us to rule number two.

The photographers who really grew the most at

our workshops were the ones not distracted, okay?

They weren't distracted by their phones.

They weren't distracted by social media, emails, client

requests, family dramas, right?

If you want to actually grow and change

here, then you got to tune in 100%,

okay?

And the only way, I know this through

experience, guys.

The only way to tune in 100%

is to tune out 100%, okay?

Put your phone away.

Turn off notifications.

Close Facebook.

And this is all working against you, okay?

They've got algorithms in place so that you're

addicted to them.

Close Lightroom.

No, seriously, close Lightroom.

And Photomechanic.

And Photomechanic.

This should be the only program running, okay?

No calling.

No editing.

No email.

No kids fighting for your attention, okay?

For those two to three hours per week,

disconnect from your other roles, okay?

Give yourself the time and the space to

actually do this.

Yeah, and if that rule doesn't apply to

you, on to rule number three.

Check your ego at the door.

Don't worry.

It'll be waiting there for you when you're

done the session, okay?

And by ego here, I don't mean your

sense of self, okay?

That's kind of important.

By ego, I mean all your preconceptions about

this course, about photography, about weddings, about Erica

and me, and most importantly, about yourself.

Whether positive or negative.

Because if you're not in a place to

hear the message, you can't hear it.

Real growth, real development, real change has two

enemies.

Complacency, and you're not complacent because you're here.

And fear.

And what's our biggest fear?

Failure.

Yeah.

And we're going to ask you to do

many, many things that you might not be

comfortable with.

You're going to fail.

There's going to be lots of failing, but

this is like the perfect place to fail,

right?

And failure is not fatal.

It's actually critical.

It's at least critical to our creative process.

So embrace it.

And don't think of anything you do within

this course as winning or losing or even

creating.

Just think of it as making.

Making.

That's all you're doing.

You're not making anything concrete.

You're just practicing the process of making and

experimenting.

And with that is going to come growth.

Okay, next up, don't should on me.

We are going to try not to use

the word should.

Try.

But we will.

We'll probably even tell you how you should

think.

Yeah, but think of everything in this whole

course as a smorgasbord of ideas.

Because there's no one way.

There's no right way.

There's no wrong way.

Okay, just pick and choose what resonates with

you and apply it to your photography and

your business.

However it feels right to you.

Okay, so it's like an idea buffet.

Taste it.

Chew on it.

Swallow if you like.

Okay, but don't should on me.

Rule number six.

Soak this up.

Opportunities like this don't come along every day.

We are going to pour every last drop

of ourselves into this for you guys.

Make the most of it.

Because that's all it can be.

What you make of it.

Okay, so what's this course all about anyways?

The best way to explain what it is,

is to explain what it's not.

Okay, it's not about us and our photography.

Okay, it's about you, your photography, your career,

your journey as an artist.

It's not about learning how to use your

cameras.

Okay, you guys can do that on YouTube

for free or at your local camera store.

This is about discovering new ways to see

the world in your own unique way.

Okay, it's not about creating great photos for

your portfolio.

I mean you will, but if you've come

here to do that solely, you've come to

the wrong place.

It's not a business class.

Although we're going to share all our business

mistakes with you guys like open books.

But it's not a business focused course.

For that, just type in how to transform

your business and look in your spam folder.

We want to transform your photography.

We want to transform the way that you

see the world.

And that in turn may very well transform

your business.

And this is not a master class in

technical bullshit.

Because you'll see that's just not really how

our brains work.

We're going to teach you the way our

brains actually work.

And don't worry, we're going to talk gear

and f-stops and flash settings.

But you're going to see that that stuff

pales in comparison to the stuff that really

matters.

And the stuff that really differentiates your work

from other photographers work.

And it's not a step-by-step how

-to with guaranteed bookings.

Okay, or guaranteed photos that look exactly like

ours.

Sorry, there's no magic pill.

This is real life.

It's complicated.

And it's nuanced.

And we're taking you all the way down

that rabbit hole.

And it's not about the awesomeness of what

we do and the awesomeness of our industry.

This is about the good, the bad, and

the downright ugly.

You're going to see how the sausage is

made.

And it ain't pretty.

Not pretty.

Okay, we're going to be photographically exposed together.

So brace yourself.

It's certainly not about how perfect our lives

are and how you can get here too.

Okay, we're going to burst that bubble.

And you're going to probably see us get

into several domestic disputes on camera.

If you're lucky.

Okay, so that's what this course is not.

So what is it?

Ultimately, it's about change.

Change in perspective.

And that change doesn't have to be an

entire paradigm shift.

Okay, even just a slight tiny shift in

your perspective can entirely alter the trajectory of

your art, your career, your life maybe.

And this change is going to come in

three forms.

And so we've designed the course with these

three principles in mind.

From least important to most important.

We're going to teach you some skills.

All right, some mad skills.

But that's only going to take you so

far.

More importantly than skills, we want to teach

you how to see and think differently.

Or even better, to see how you see

the world.

How you uniquely see the world differently than

the person sitting next to you.

Right, because our clients don't hire us because

we know how to use our cameras.

They think they're hiring us for that reason.

But that's not why they hire us.

They hire us for the unique way that

we see the world.

And most importantly, recognizing and understanding the changes

that we need to make as photographers in

order to make better photos.

In order to make better art.

And these changes can be so much bigger

than actual photography.

Than actually learning how to use our cameras

or our flash settings.

One of the things that Lani and I

realized was holding us back pretty early on

in our career as photographers was our connection

with clients.

And we were sort of on opposite sides

of the spectrum here.

So Lani was way over here on this

side of the spectrum where he wasn't connecting

with clients at all.

Because he was always so preoccupied and focused

on making that next most epic shot.

And so he was making these lifeless representations

of ideas.

These beautiful photos, but they didn't have any

soul to them.

Right, so he had to sort of come

more into the center of that spectrum and

connect more with clients.

Where I was over here on the opposite

side of the spectrum where I was connecting

so much with clients that I was partaking

in moments instead of photographing moments.

So I had to connect less and come

to the center in order to make better

art.

So these changes are going to be completely

unique to you and they can be so

much bigger than actual photography.

And they're impossible to change until you recognize

it.

It wasn't until we realized, ah, this is,

and it might be something that's awesome about

you in life, but it's hindering you or

holding you back in photography.

And so these more introspective self-discoveries won't,

you know, necessarily be found so much in

the actual video sessions themselves as in the

assignments, right?

And the time, the self-reflection.

Yeah, which is actually going to start right

now.

So in your notebook, I want you to

write down something.

One thing, maybe a couple things.

Something that's holding you back as a photographer,

okay?

And it might be something really specific, like

I can't figure out how to use my

fucking transmitter, okay?

Or it could be something more general, like

I'm bored, I'm complacent, I'm lazy.

It might be something technical, okay?

Or it might be something more personal, like

I'm anxious at weddings or I always fall

into my safe zone.

Whatever you come up with, write it down.

What is holding you back from making better

art at this moment?

And if you can't think of anything right

now, that's okay.

But as we go through the course and

you start to see these new blind spots

appearing, come back to this page in your

book and write those things down, okay?

Because those are the light bulbs that change

everything.

So the transformation is going to come in

those three forms.

Mad skills, seeing and thinking differently, and unshackling

of yourself.

In terms of your time, I'd plan for

two to three hours.

Two to three hours, yeah.

Two to three hours of active viewing, note

-taking, and photographing per week, right?

Yeah, and with that, make sure you schedule

this time in, like in your actual calendar.

Make sure it's distraction-free.

We recommend that you watch all these chapters

in sequential order because there's a method to

our madness.

Yeah, watching them out of order would kind

of be like watching the rise of Skywalker

before the Force awakens, okay?

So we put a lot of thought and

intention into the arc of this journey so

that things unfold logically and progressively for you.

And also, try not to skip any of

the sessions, okay?

This would be like leaving the theatre to

go to the bathroom during a major plot

twist, okay?

The sessions aren't really designed to be standalone,

okay?

They're built upon the foundation of each of

the sessions before them, and they lay down

a foundation for everything that's coming after them,

okay?

So it's all interconnected, but in a way

that only really makes sense when you unpack

it in the right order.

Okay, so one of the other cool things

about this journey you're on is there's a

group of very like-minded photographers from all

over the world right now, and they're setting

sail on this journey at the same time

as you.

And you're all in an online community together,

okay?

It's a Facebook group.

And we're going to make that community during

the duration of this course as valuable as

possible for you.

Lani and I will be hosting biweekly Q

&A sessions in there, so whenever a question

comes up when you're watching the material, make

sure you write that down.

Write it down.

Maybe have a page in your notebook just

reserved for questions, and we will answer them

directly during these biweekly Q&As, which we're

going to try and do live at a

time of day that meets everybody's time zone

restrictions.

But we'll keep them up there for a

while, so if you do slip behind in

the schedule of things a little bit, that's

totally okay.

But keeping on pace will allow you to

be relevant to the content and the questions

that we're addressing.

Yeah, exactly.

So the video sessions, the Facebook group, the

live Q&As, and the homework.

Every week, we'll have some sort of homework

assignment for you.

And it's always optional, of course.

Can't force you to do anything, but we

strongly encourage you to take advantage of these

opportunities to practice what you're learning.

To hear something is one thing.

To hear it and write it down is

another.

To hear it, write it down, and see

it, even better.

But the holy grail is when you receive

all of that and then go out and

do it.

And so that's where the homework assignments are

going to come in.

And don't worry, they're not going to be

super onerous.

Just as straightforward and practical as possible.

In terms of how we structured the course,

it's basically centered around the three pillars that

your success is balancing upon.

Art, craft, and industry.

Art being the uniqueness you bring to your

photography and your business.

Okay, and this is the hardest of the

three to teach.

But if you can learn it, and you

can, then we can teach it.

So we're going to try.

We're going to try, yeah.

And then there's the craft, okay.

For photographers, this is all about transferring that

art, right?

That uniqueness that we each have into a

two by three rectangular frame.

Okay, it's using your skills, it's using your

know-how, it's using your tools.

You take what's in your brain and transfer

it into an actual photograph.

Okay, and then the last is industry.

And for photographers, this is all about surviving

in a volatile field that's constantly evolving, constantly

innovating, constantly changing.

And it's about how we put ourselves out

there as artists and business people and service

people.

Yeah, and where art and craft are about

the products that we deliver for our clients,

industry is about the experience we deliver our

clients.

But it's also about the product too.

There's all these gray lines.

It's all interconnected, right?

It's hard to separate these things, but they're

all interconnected.

But really, everything that you're going to hear

from us throughout these next 14 weeks will

relate to one, two, or three of those

pillars.

Okay, here we go.

Let's zoom out and take a 10,000

foot view of what you're in for.

We're going to start by showing you the

good and the bad and the ugly of

who we are and what's brought us here

in these chairs today.

Then we're basically going to take you inside

our brains and break down our whole approach

to wedding photography, why we do it the

way we do.

And that's going to provide context and foundation

for everything to come in the rest of

the course.

So it's really important you watch that stuff.

And so if that's the why we do

what we do, then we're going to move

into the how.

How we take everything up here and everything

in here and express it through our cameras,

the tools and techniques that we use to

get the job done.

So we'll show you everything inside our camera

bag and why it's in there, as well

as how and why we set up our

cameras the way that we do.

Then we're going to dive in to the

rabbit hole of light, how we use natural

light, how we create manufactured light, right from

the fundamentals all the way up to the

downright ridiculous.

Then we'll start to get into our technical

bag of tricks and image deconstruction, where we're

going to reverse engineer all kinds of photos

for you and show you how we pull

them off out in the real world.

Then we're going to take you behind the

scenes with us at a real wedding so

you can see what everything actually looks like

at an actual wedding behind the scenes, including

every single frame that we make, unedited, unculled.

And we'll explain our strategy for every part

of the wedding, from the bride prep and

groom prep, to the ceremony, to portraits, to

family formals, bridal party, to the reception, to

the dance floor, including all of our lighting

setups.

That's basically the art and craft of it

all.

And everything that takes place during an actual

wedding itself.

Then we're going to switch gears a little,

and we're going to show you everything else,

how we put everything into play in the

industry, right?

Everything that takes place before the wedding, everything

that takes place after the wedding.

And we're going to take you through our

entire client experience, from the first time someone

lands on our website, to the final delivery

of images, and break down that entire workflow

piece by piece for you, including the post

-production magic.

And then finally, we're going to bring it

all back around to the life-breathing force

behind what we do with our cameras, which

is creativity itself, and a whole bunch of

twists and turns and surprises along the way.

So there you have it, guys.

That's the framework for what we hope can

be a transformative experience.

And the value you get from this, of

course, is dependent on your commitment to do

the work.

And at times, it will be intense.

At times, it'll be technical.

At times, it will be personal.

At times, it will be completely uncomfortable.

And at times, you'll be excited beyond words.

And at times, just know, at times, you're

going to feel like quitting, okay?

Just welcome all those feelings.

They're part of this journey.

Guys, we're so stoked for you.

We'll see you back here soon for the

next session of Two Man U.

Where you're going to see the real Annie

and Erika.

We've got some bubbles first.

What we're really like.

All right.

Oh!

That was a good one.

The water went down my back.

That was, I was going to punch you

there.