Original subtitles

Welcome back everyone.

This week we're going to continue with the

two-man toolbox.

Now, before we get into it, as much

as possible, we want to answer and address

the questions that we often get in our

workshops, in our in-person workshops.

One of the ones that we often get

is, when do you stop pursuing an idea

and move on and try something else?

So basically, when do you give up on

an idea or a composition or just decide

that it's time to move on, it's not

working?

So we probably have...

It's a tricky thing.

It often comes up because we talk about

taking risks and swinging for the fence and

taking chances and common dilemma for photographers is,

okay, well, how do I know when to

commit to it and be patient and wait

at the risk of missing something else that

maybe I could be doing?

Because often it feels like there's so many

possibilities to commit to something for any length

of time, we start to question ourselves.

So I think that's why it's a common

question.

And I think one of the most important

things to do, and this sort of becomes

a lot more intuitive the more you do

it, is to sort of look at the

situation that you're in in the room and

rate the moments.

You know what I mean?

Like we've got moment over here with grandma,

maybe this is the last wedding she'll ever

attend.

That moment's probably a nine out of 10.

And we've got the moment over here where

you're trying to triple reflect someone getting their

makeup done.

That moment's probably a three out of 10.

And maybe you've got another moment where someone's

pinning the corsage on dad, maybe that's a

six out of 10.

So just sort of mentally rate the moments

in your mind and figure out which one

is more important.

Not more important for your photography necessarily, but

more important for the longevity of the photo

and your client.

And maybe there isn't an obvious moment that

is the moment that you should be focusing

on.

So then it becomes more about the composition

and the light and how you can best

capture the story or whatever's happening.

And I can't remember where I heard this,

but somebody said when you're rating things on

a scale of one to 10 and you're

trying to choose like, is it a yes

or is it a no?

It's like rated on a scale of one

to 10.

You can't give it a seven.

Seven's like the cop out.

So you got to give it an eight

or you got to give it a six.

If it's a six, maybe it's a no,

move on to something else.

If it's an eight, it's like, okay, maybe

this is a hell yeah.

I mean, stick with it.

So that's sort of one way that you

can figure it out.

I mean, it also helps having another set

of eyes.

Lani will often be working on something.

And when Lani gets committed to something, he

gets committed to it to the point that

it's detrimental.

Sorry.

I get the blinders on, you get the

binders on, but even with editing or, or

with building this course, you get committed to

the point that it becomes detrimental.

And so having a voice of reason often

helps.

And sometimes I'll look, I'll be like, what

are you doing?

You've been spending 10 minutes on this.

This is totally not worth it.

You need to move on and do something

else.

So it does help having that if you

have an assistant.

And then the other thing is sometimes you

can just feel it.

You can just feel it in part of

your body.

If it's, if it's the right moment.

And if you're working on something that's worth

it for me, my breathing changes.

If I'm really feeling excited about a shot,

I can, I can feel it in my

chest and I can feel it with the

way I start breathing because I start doing

this kind of sounds a bit like an

orgasm behind the camera, but it, that is

a sign to me that I'm pursuing something

that's worth it.

I'm waiting for some magic to line up.

I got to stick with it.

And that's it.

And then, so it's a feeling, you have

that feeling, that conviction, you know it.

Yeah.

And then the other thing is, and this

is the last thing I'm going to say

on it is that, you know, it's not

our job or we don't think it's our

job at least to get photos of every

single person at the wedding.

Okay.

So if our clients have requested that, we'll

bring an assistant along to do that.

But Landy and I pretty much stick to

the narrative of the main players.

Okay.

So any of the really important people we

feel are going to intersect with the couple

in some capacity throughout the day.

And so we, that, that factors into our

decisions about what we choose and what we

not choose not to shoot as well.

Focused.

Yeah.

Rather than having to get, getting pulled and

sucked into all different stories and periphery things

that are happening is to just stick to

the main players in their vicinity.

And those important moments, those important relationships are

going to intersect.

And I lied.

That was not the last thing I was

going to say about it because the other

thing that's been really helpful is sounds counterintuitive,

but it's been really helpful to come to

the realization that no matter how hard we

work, we're going to miss 99% of

the wedding day.

Even though there's two of us and we're

working our asses off all day long, we're

going to miss 99% of the wedding

day.

And that's okay.

Right?

We're only two people.

We're going to make mistakes.

If we miss a moment, if we miss

a composition, we got to let go and

move on.

Right.

We're going to try to set ourselves up

for success.

So that 1% that we do get

happens to be right.

Good bank for our buck, anticipating the play,

trying to be in the right place at

the right time as best we can, but

not overpaying for our mistakes, right?

All those things that we miss inevitably, we

have to try to get over it.

Move on.

The other thing I'll mention, because a lot

of photographers shoot by themselves exclusively, or once

in a while, they'll have the luxury of

an assistant or a second shooter with them.

A great piece of advice with regards to

that, if you do have a second shooter,

if you can set yourself up at least

mentally to be your own second shooter.

So your second shooter essentially becomes the primary

photographer.

You have to have a lot of trust

in them.

A lot of trust, right?

It can't be the first time, but if

you trust them, they can get in focus

photographs properly exposed, right?

Without cutting off limbs.

They can focus on the safe stuff, right?

That frees you up to do those more

creative outside the box type things.

So try to be your own second shooter.

And give yourself that room.

Give yourself that room to be creative.

If it means showing up an hour earlier

than you normally do, try showing up an

hour earlier and then just play around, experiment.

And that second shooter analogy, we realize a

lot of photographers, ourselves included, we realize that

some of their favorite photographs, some of the

photographs they're most proud of came at other

weddings when they were second shooting for another

photographer.

It's like they were in a different psychological

headspace.

And so if you can put yourself in

that headspace at your own weddings.

Yeah.

All right.

Shall we get back into the toolbox?

Back into the toolbox.

Okay.

So this week we're going to get into

throwing shadows, burnizers or bokeh panoramas, and reflections.

And finally, our secret weapon.