Jay and Carinna, it's so nice to, to see your faces again
and to speak with you again.
we were just together.
Just over a month ago.
Can you believe that that came and went so fast?
Oh my
I was, yes.
that was,
it's been a month.
Yeah.
yeah, it's, that was, I think I mentioned this to you as we parted ways, down in
Georgia, but that was one of the most hands-on workshops I've ever witnessed.
And, if you are a volume sport photographer who is looking to dig in
deeper, I strongly recommend to check out the, a Boatwright bootcamp because it's
hands down, one of the most engaging, most interactive, one of the most
educational workshops I've ever seen.
But, it is specific to sport photography.
so.
It was, yeah, it was cool.
It was cool.
It was, everybody at work keeps asking me how to describe it.
And the way I keep describing, to really drill it in that like you're not just
showing up and taking pictures of people that you're doing a full production, is,
I describe it as it's a movie production set for sport photography, like.
That's the way I, that's the way I, I, I, I describe it to everybody and
that like, it makes 'em understand.
So, welcome and, nice to see you again.
Yes.
Its good to see you.
Yeah.
Well, thank you for having
us.
Yeah, thank you.
Awesome.
so we're gonna dive right into the first question I ask every
guest, and it's not often that I have two people I get to speak to.
And this is fun just for everybody who, um.
who is listening, who is not aware of you?
You, both of you, your business.
Can you quickly explain to all the listeners why I asked both
of you to join this conversation?
Specifically?
Well, I think it's, it.
It's a lot like inviting.
If you were to have a restaurant, that's how I would think about it.
Like Jay's the front of the house.
I'm the back of the house.
I'm making sure everything's happening.
Oh, and there's another back of the house, Finn, who just joined
our dog.
The office.
The office dog.
Yeah, the
office dog.
but I would say that's, that's how it would happen.
Like if you were to, to be interviewing a restaurant, you
couldn't just do just a chef, really.
You're going to it.
It kind of encompasses everything.
and, and that's how our, our business works is that you have to have a strong
front and back of the house to, to make volume sports in particular work.
Yeah.
Kare and I are very different.
We're different and we really play off each other's strengths.
Yeah.
And that was one thing that you drilled in, at the, at the bootcamp
was, was the fact that, you know, if somebody has a question about.
The photographic process, which is actually gonna be my first
question once we get to it.
then like go to Jay.
But if somebody has a question about a certain business thing and like
the reasoning why it's done this way, whatever, go to Carinna, right?
So you guys, started out saying like, you know, here's the, here's
how we work together, but here's a separation and why it works so well.
And that was why I, I said, I'm gonna have you both on because.
Yes.
At, in this, podcast, I ask questions about photographic and business.
So that's why, it's just, it's awesome.
Okay.
What is one thing that you do for the photographic process?
This is behind the camera.
That saves you time.
it has to be, just taking the, I, this will probably be the common
answer for most photographers, but take doing it right in the camera.
You know, we have our lighting set up, we have, it pretty much dialed in.
We have a system for it.
And I think that just being consistent on the lighting, is where
we're gonna save it the most time.
Also, Also the new features of the mirrorless camera, I think really help
us is we have crop lines in our camera.
'cause most of the photos that we crop are eight by 10 ratios.
So we have crop lines eight by 10 ratios set up in our camera,
and we also have levels in there.
So we make sure that not only are we shooting with the correct amount
of space between the head, and the feet, but also we're shooting level.
So getting lighting right in camera and making sure that you're, you're
cropping your photo correctly and you have everything level is
probably what saves us the most time.
Yeah.
That was one of the things that, I, I, I had a feeling you were gonna say that
because of how much effort you put into.
with your lighting set up, the system, you have to ensure your lighting is set
up consistently every job that you have.
I knew that was going to be your answer and I'm glad that you brought it up.
I've never, again, like I've never seen anything like it before.
Like, I've been to a lot of workshops.
I've never seen anything like it, and it was very impressive.
and it, and it makes sense for such high volume to have
something in place to guarantee.
A hundred percent of the time your lighting is consistent.
so,
Yeah.
Right.
And we do provide that to the Bootcampers too.
So anybody who does attend our bootcamp, we make sure that they have the tools
they're gonna leave with those exact.
Same tools, down to a science, that we have, so that way everybody
can be guaranteed the same.
You know, for us, photography wise, it, it has to be the same every single time.
And just, just to, just to stress that a little bit.
When you say the right tools, you're not just saying the education, you actually
physically gave them the tools that they need for your, for your system,
which is even more impressive, the fact that, they 100% A to Z were able to
leave their, with everything they need for that specific thing in particular.
Yeah, that's pretty cool.
'cause it's very specific workshop.
You know, if you're in that business, this is like kind of like a business
in a, here's the package, here's what you needed to be do to be successful.
Mm-Hmm.
Yep.
Yeah.
And you guys, you guys didn't hold back anything that, that your students
needed to beat to, to, to have a successful business in your genre?
They, they, they were able to get it no matter, you know, you weren't gonna.
Gatekeep, anything you were just given, you know, this one's for you, Carinna.
Yes.
What is one thing you do for the business that saves you time or money?
And we're gonna get to Imagen down the road.
So let's skip Imagen for the time being.
but in general, one thing you do for the business that saves you time or money.
Right.
It would be making sure that you have the right, the CRM software, and
whatever online for us, the online platform, that is gonna host the picture.
So everything kind of behind the scenes, it has to be.
Perfect.
It has to be completely seamless.
so whatever type of software it is that you're using in particular,
it has to, it has to fall in line.
You have to use it exactly the same way every single time.
you have to have, very rigid For me, I'm extremely rigid on my processes.
so that way I'm not, not forgetting, any, any, points and, and, And so that
way when we show up to a shoot, what that's gonna do is that, that's gonna
guarantee, I mean, I pretty much know that, that I'm gonna vet the, the league,
the league that we're going to hire, and then, I'm gonna know exactly what
it is that, that how much money it is a good idea, what we're gonna be making.
so for, for me, that, that saves me time is that I don't ever have to go back.
And like backtrack and be like, okay, what is it that we talked about?
Like I have everything outlined perfectly, in my software programs,
everything, all my processes that once I, from one to five, I'm
gonna follow those steps exactly.
To ensure that when we show up for the shoot, everything's
gonna go perfectly smooth.
Yeah.
What, what are some of those softwares that you're using to see around
the gallery that that is helping?
Because I'm going to guess.
10 years ago you were pure paper, right?
Give or take.
Now you're not, you know, now it's, there's a lot of digital, which
definitely can help streamline.
So what are some of those, those, software that you're using that,
that has helped with those?
sure.
So I use ShootQ For my CRM software and for me, it's not like I have
to keep track of every single customer, who's ordering from us.
My main customer is going to be my lead contact.
So the board member, the team o, whoever it is that handles that, that entire
program, that's gonna be the person that I'm gonna be in contact with, to
make sure everything runs smoothly.
I'm able to create workflows even in that, you know, talking about workflows,
I create my workflows in there.
So I'm gonna have automatic emails that are gonna pop out to them.
questionnaires about the location, just reminders that they get sent.
and for me that saves me a load of time.
so that way when.
As soon as I book my customer, which is gonna be my league, is that I'm gonna
send out, it's gonna have a workflow and it's gonna send out automatically
to my board member and that's how it's gonna end up, saving me time there.
I don't have to go back and, and make sure I've sent, you
know, one through five emails.
It's automatically gonna do that for me.
I have it all set up.
And then also, for the software that we use for, For selling our pictures.
The online platform is PhotoDay, so they, for us, we just upload everything there.
They, they host the pictures and they do pretty much all of the text
marketing, email marketing, everything that, that it is that we need,
that takes care of it on that end.
So as soon as I upload the pictures, I don't have to look at anything for.
12 weeks, honestly.
there's some instances where I don't look at it for 12 weeks.
I open it back up and I look and see what we did for the sales.
So, yeah, so I use PhotoDay for that.
so just to, branch out a bit from the sport genre in the wedding
space, for example, there's off, a lot of photographers
are automating as well, right?
And there's a, some instances where you might need to stop an automation,
for example, after a person gets married, it's a year later, let's
say they got divorced, right?
You might wanna stop an automated anniversary email.
are there any instances now going back to sport, are there any instances where
there's sort of this like emergency, like red alert, I gotta stop an email
from going out type of situation that you have come across, in, during your,
you know, your time with automation.
Right.
no, actually, if anything it's been, it's really been my best friend.
It's been my best tool, because I can send out emails that say, Hey, if you're not
my contact person for next year, who is?
so, you know, that always keeps me in the loop.
It, it, my, that automation always keeps me in the loop and it, it's
never really backfired for me.
Awesome.
That's great to hear.
You never know, like I, you know, I photographed action sports before.
But not enough that I needed to automate.
So I've never thought about that until, until just now about, what
kind of red alerts might you run into?
So,
Well, it's a little different in the industry 'cause we
have two customers, right?
We have the final customer, which is actually buying the photos.
Mm-Hmm.
But then our other customer is the, the head of the organization.
So if there's 500 base kids, in a baseball league, we have the board that we have
to, that's our number one customer.
And then the number two customer would be all the parents
that we sell the photos to.
Mm-Hmm.
So we are having to please two separate people.
So you know her, her software is.
Geared towards her CRM software is geared towards the board
where the PhotoDay software is.
That's all geared towards the final consumer.
Mm-Hmm
yeah.
Nice.
let's move into editing.
Let's, pre Imagen, right?
what is one thing you do, and I think you might have just
mentioned this earlier, but, so maybe it'll, it'll come up as well.
What is one thing you do for the editing that saves you time?
F for I, well, I'll let Carinna answer on, on her end what she might
do, because we have different jobs.
You know, I'll do the photos than she actually does the editing.
But for me, the biggest thing was is just making sure there wasn't.
Light stands in the photos or scrims in the photos are just, you know, because
we shot, we, we basically cropped by cropped and edited by hand before Imagen.
And so your, your mind when you're taking photos and the wind blows
and the scrim comes in your way, you're like, oh, I can crop that out.
That's what you're thinking, you know?
And with Imagen we don't want to do that.
We want it to be as clean as possible for, so for us, it's just making
sure that we have a, a clean set.
You know, there's no light stands, there's no, there's no trash, there's no anything.
There's no, I can crop that out later.
You know what I'm saying?
Like we want, if we want all the cropping to go through smoothly and
quickly, then we have to make sure that we have a clean set on, on, on shoot.
Or that's you,
right?
Right.
Well, you know, previously, before, you know, we are Imagen, users, so,
but previously we did have an, an I guess you would say, Across the world.
Yeah.
Off offsite editor.
Yes.
Offite editor.
Yes.
And we sent him everything.
And so, he took care of, care of everything for us, but it
was, it was just very difficult just to list logistics of it.
I mean, one of my main jobs in the office at that point was just making
sure everything was sent properly.
it was uploaded properly.
I mean, again, we did everything by hand.
So this editor did everything by hand, and then we came through and
we double checked everything by hand.
So everything, all of the pictures would always, every single
one would be touched, by us.
And so now with Imagen though, I mean just running it through, it's.
Spot checks.
Yeah.
Now it's just spot check, checking spot checks, which is a lot nicer.
Yeah.
This, this is a good opportunity to bring up.
What is, any day from the time this episode airs.
any day now, there's a new feature that's gonna be an Imagen.
It's something that, was, you know, in partnership, with, with you both, with
partnership with some other photographers that we've consulted with to.
get a new crop specific to your needs in place.
In Imagen, and what we're calling it is portrait crop.
So what that is is, anybody can go to, sport can go to school category
when they're going to edit, and you'll see two different crop modes.
You'll see crop, which is the original crop that Imagen always had.
And you'll see portrait crop and portrait crop will do your exact
crop of that, space above the head.
Space above the feet, four by five, or which is also eight by 10, and
will center the, the, the student, the, the player, whatever in the
frame, exactly how you've been.
Framing it in camera with your crop marks and, getting it perfect every time.
And it's very exciting that it's, it's gonna be here.
And, it's only a matter of weeks, hopefully, knock on wood, when
we have the same feature for five by seven also available too.
So, that's very exciting.
so I know our product team is grateful to have worked with you on that to, to get it
out there and, it's, exciting that it's.
Finally here again, within days of this episode airing.
So,
Yes, me too.
And you know, we can go in more detail what our workflow was used
to be like compared to Imagen if you want to get there, but the crop.
Situation is a big game changer for us because we, you know,
we generate a lot of photos.
So, having the feeling that we can upload to Imagen and crop and editing
is done and we can move on is, is kind of a life changing thing really.
I can't really, it is not exaggeration.
It is like, it could be life changing for us,
right?
Because, you know, for your audience.
For us, we consider volume.
I mean, it can be anything over a hundred kids.
but I, I typically, we don't typically do anything less than that, but it's
gonna be like a hundred kids, we can take up to 12, 1500 kids in a day.
So you're talking about, for us, we do what's called progression.
So.
Jay's gonna do a bunch of different looks for these kids.
They're gonna be about five different looks.
So when you're going through and you have that many pictures that you
have to edit and, you know, of each athlete, it's, it can really pile up.
Yeah.
It, I mean, doing that one by one for each kid and you know, like
once they change the pose, yes.
You've got your, your, your, your markers of where the, where the kid's gonna stand.
You've got your lighting in place.
You are quite literally sitting in a, in a chair on the ground.
and, and you are, everybody's, everything is fixed.
The only thing that's moving so much.
Is the kid.
Right.
And that slight change in
change angles.
Yep.
Mm-Hmm.
Yeah.
That, that slight change in pose is while, while it might be minor,
when it gets to the editing point.
It's not so minor anymore 'cause you've got so many that you have to go through.
so that is, it is something that, that, you know, I know it's
gonna save you a ton of time.
I know it's gonna save, many other volume shooters a whole lot of time.
is there anything else you wanna share about, about that,
before we keep moving on?
The crop tool.
Sure.
Crop, before, before, Imagen had it or, or now,
Well, I mean, you know, I guess, and I just, what do we estimate?
We're probably saving 20 hours a week since we switched from doing everything
by hand to So it's been a huge thing.
And the crop, I mean the crop tool, the crop in straightening is where
I, why I first came to Imagen, 'cause the straightening tool wasn't just
the Lightroom tool, it was, you know, it really was doing a good job.
'cause when you're shooting sports, you have a lot of fences in the background.
You have a lot of stadiums and you know, you have different, you
know, W well, you gave parallel.
Mm-Hmm.
The horizon.
Yeah, the
horizon line.
So, you know, I would, I would have a hard time adjusting
him, by hand myself, you know?
so Imagen did a great job and that's why we originally went with Imagen compared
to the, in any of the other AI companies.
So having a, a smart crap crop tool, not just something that's, you know's, gonna
randomly do, you know, the same thing, like a batch is gonna be, you know, Yeah,
I mean, we're gonna be able to either take more time off or gain new, get new leads.
Either one of those is fine with me, so it's a huge deal.
Yeah.
When we, when you say 20 hours, we're talking about
20 hours a person, so, right.
So it's not like 20 hours, you know, maybe, and, and maybe
I'm saving my editor 20 hours.
No, I'm talking about the entire office.
Like it's really, as opposed to getting the images back and let's
say we shoot, we're gonna shoot all weekend, we're gonna come back with.
You know, I don't, 20,000 images, let's just say.
and to go through, I mean, now we can, before we would, maybe if we
didn't have anything else going on, we'd have 'em up by Friday.
Now we have them up.
And this is like even kind of being a little bit lazy no later than Wednesday.
by Monday, usually everything's done.
Tuesday, we're spot checking everything and.
You know, doing some other office work.
And then for sure by Wednesday morning I have everything posted,
on PhotoDay, which is huge.
I'm gonna be really interested to see numbers wise, what that's going to do,
because, you know, near the end of the season for us it's, it's things we're
getting like two weeks behind because we are just like shooting and we're
coming back to the office and editing and shooting and editing and, and it
is just like a never ending cycle.
And so.
Now I'm, I'm really interested to see how the numbers are gonna play out for
us, being able to turn those images around so quickly for my customers.
We're almost gonna have to hold onto 'em for a minute 'cause
then it's gonna look too easy.
I know.
I was like,
we need to hold, let's hold on these two for a couple days.
'cause I don't wanna look like it's, it is too simple.
Know.
That's what I
did for yesterday, so I was like, I can't post this.
Yeah,
yeah.
I got home from a shoot, we did our first shoot yesterday and it
was just this little small shoot, but, you know, literally I came
back to the office and ran it.
I mean, I had it done and, you know.
10 minutes.
Yeah.
And posted the PhotoDay, ready to go.
And I guess you, I'm like, yeah, we're gonna hold onto it for a day.
At least we did something.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
at a, at Imagen one of our taglines is Imagen the possibilities and, when
we're thinking about volume, school, volume, sport photographers, I think it's
more Imagen the opportunities, right?
Because now, you know, it's very much.
yes, yes.
All of this is gonna save you guys enough time where you could go and go on more
trips and, and spend more time out with the dog and, and the kids and and so on.
But, but I think it's a lot of, it's gonna unlock even more business opportunities.
'cause now you've got, you're gonna have even more of this, time to.
To bring on more leagues, more teams, do more Bootcamps, et cetera.
Right.
So I I'm also very excited to see
Yeah.
We've very much, anytime we, we, save time doing something, we somehow
managed to fill it with more business.
but you know, that's the thing is like, that's what we're good at though.
Jay's great at shooting, he's great at educating either other.
Our photographers, you also shoot.
I'm great at, at keeping track of everything and making sure everything
is gonna go as smoothly as possible and, and we're gonna run this business.
And so that's for us that, that's exciting for us.
You know, I don't, I don't like the editing part.
I don't like, I, I don't like, you know, we, we have, Our,
our lab partner is Reedy Lab.
And, we, we learned very early on, we did not like stuff in those envelopes
with pictures and sending those, like we were really bad at it by the way.
And so just to be able to focus on the things that we're really good at,
that's what Imagen allows us to do.
Mm-Hmm mm-Hmm.
Yeah.
That, that, I think that oftentimes what happens when you have something
like this that frees you up with so much time, things happen that you
really can't anticipate and what, you know, it'll give me more time
to have a better, education process.
Like Carinna said, for our photographers training photo, I could do more
social media stuff, which might bring in a different type of client.
there's just so many things you can do when you're not burnt out because
before imagining we were literally.
Taking photos, we were due, anywhere between seven and 10 shoots a week.
Then we're back in the office editing and our days are like, you know,
they were from 10 to 10 is what our days looked like, and you just had
zero time to think about anything else besides shooting and editing.
So, mm-hmm.
By taking the editing off of us, which was the most time, then we're gonna
have, I think we're gonna come up with all kind of creative stuff and
that's, it makes the job fun again.
yeah.
I can't wait to see what you guys wind up doing.
from here on, it's gonna, it's
too.
so, my next question to you, it's still business related.
What is one thing you do after, typically I ask one thing you do after a session,
but I'm gonna say after you do a full day of, you know, an entire league, right?
what is one thing you do after a day that, increases business?
And by the way, this could be.
I'm gonna do a twist on this.
It could be during, because you guys do a lot of stuff during as well.
So let's say either during or after that increases business.
Okay.
You go first.
That increases business.
well, I, I, I automatically just thought about you, that you're always
out looking for the, the board members.
For other leagues, or if they're with the rec department, we're
always trying to figure out how we're gonna get at the different sport.
yeah, I mean, typically for, for, for my, my job, when I'm on site, typically I'm on
site Carinna's at the office and on site.
If a shoot goes smoothly, I.
Typically the people that are gonna be sticking around afterwards, have
influence, at that, that, that league, and of course maybe other leagues in
the community because, you know, the, the different board members talk to
each other, different parks, you know, maybe I'm dealing with a baseball
board director, but they're also sit on the board of a football league.
So when we just had a successful shoot and everybody's excited, and typically
during the shoot I'm uploading some photos to Facebook that I really
like, that I'm taking at the shoot.
You know, to get parents excited, get the board excited, say, Hey,
photo, today's going great today.
Here's some of the samples of your league.
And we post some photos.
And then so everybody's on a high, you know, everybody's real excited about
how everything went, and that's a really good time to start asking for more
business if you get the opportunity.
So we, you know, that's been a really good way for us to, to, to
grow, organically and not really have to go and chase people.
We're just like, you know, you know how personal introduction's the
best, so I do that as much as I can.
Mm-Hmm.
Awesome.
you?
I think more business like the, the way she markets after the shoot.
Like she has like a couple times a year where she does like a, your little
special or you expire stuff, right?
Yeah.
I
expire stuff.
I expire galleries make it, there's, there's some type of deadline
to, to some of the galleries.
So,
your last chance offers make us a lot of money.
Yeah.
So we do a lot of,
a last chance to buy a print of your kid before the gallery expires in
Or goes up in price.
Yeah.
Mm-Hmm.
Yeah, I usually do those at, at
Twice a during
slow season.
Mm-Hmm.
When we need some money.
Yeah,
yeah.
When there's no sports going on.
So it's a good bump though.
it's, it's a very, very, very good bump.
Yes.
It's
really, yeah.
It's really, it's significant.
But, you know,
for me, I, I do, expire my galleries, but I always, I, I have something that's gonna
tell the customer that we're expiring it, but then I, I do expire it, but then I go
on the next day and I reopen everything.
It's just more expensive.
So, so they do, there is an urgency to it.
but yeah, people, it really helps.
Mm-Hmm.
Yeah.
Get through the slow season.
Outta curiosity, for those who are not familiar with the Georgia area,
what are the top three sports that you, that you're photographing
throughout the the sports season?
Mm-Hmm.
The top three would be, the top money makers would be the traditional
ones, football, cheer, and baseball.
Softball.
Actually softball does really good here too.
Yeah.
and we got
a gigantic basketball league, so it is the ma the major sports.
But percentagewise, no.
But percentage wise I would, I would say, sales wise would
be baseball, football, cheer.
Mm-Hmm mm-Hmm.
what is the, the least obvious sport that you wouldn't, people, most
people wouldn't expect that you've, that you've photograph either here
and there or on a regular basis.
For Atlanta hockey.
Yeah.
Ice hockey in Atlanta.
We shoot a lot of ice hockey.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah,
that was, I, I loved hockey growing up.
I did baseball and hockey growing up, but
Well, I, you know, being the ice hockey photos are always fantastic too.
We really love shooting 'em.
So we're fortunate we get to be on the ice here.
a lot of photographers up north don't get to be on the ice to have to do
composites and things like that.
And we are, we don't do composites.
We're, you know, field of play.
Or a, a really cool backdrop.
That's all we do.
And so, our hockey photos are on the ice and that was a bit of a challenge,
you know, a learning curve for me 'cause I never played hockey growing up.
So, but now we're really good at it and we really enjoy it.
And you know, this, that's actually a very good point that you made, is that
we do take pictures on the field to play.
So we are not composite photographers for us, everything is gonna
be in the natural background.
I always say kinda like the natural habitat.
Yeah.
So, that's
mean, literally you're doing dugouts, like literally in the,
Yeah.
in the habitat.
Yes.
Yeah, exactly.
first of all, that's gotta be a nice change of pace from the Georgia heat
to go onto the ice, every so often.
but also what do you do with light stands on the ice?
Do you put rugs down first or do you just plop 'em down?
Yeah, we just put 'em down.
sometimes, you know, you have those little rubber stoppers.
I usually, I use them, I use the man photo.
We're traveling all the time.
So I have stackable stands or the Manfrotto is the 1 1 0 0 4 BAC, I
think is the, and they're stackable.
Since we're traveling all the time, we have to have gear that, that,
you know, folds down pretty tight.
So I use those stands.
They have little rubber stoppers, you know, that keep from scratching
floors and some, sometimes you set the, the stands on the ice.
They have the Zamboni that goes around, you know, and the ice a little bit wet.
You put the stand down and then, you know, we have to get off after
every session, so every 45 minutes we're taking the lights back off.
And so sometimes those little things get stuck on the ice, but for the most
part, yeah, you just throw the, the, the light stands right on the, on the
ice and the Zamboni cleans up anything that, you know, if it made it a little
indentation, it'll take care of it.
Nice.
That's, that's gotta be a lot of fun.
It is.
okay, so, this is going to be a fun one.
Again, I've never done this with two people before.
So between the two of you, you're gotta decide, pick a color,
Pick a color.
Oh, I'm not,
pick a color.
hold on.
Let's make it bigger so we can see.
Let's see.
Oh, I like this one.
Yellow.
Yeah, we both liked, yeah, your left.
All right.
I'm gonna thumb through the deck.
one of you just tell me when to stop.
Okay.
You tell me.
Stop.
Okay.
I'd like for both of you to answer whatever this question is.
Okay.
is my favorite part of the show because it's like complete, I have
no idea what I'm about to ask you.
Okay.
I've had this question before with somebody else that's funny.
What is something you don't mind paying more money for?
It fell out.
What was the question?
What's something you don't mind paying more money
money for?
I know my
It does not have to be photography related.
It could be anything
Okay.
what do I not mind?
A great steak.
nice.
I love a steakhouse experience, like a really great luxury high-end steakhouse.
Ugh.
Doesn't
we did hear that at the, at the bootcamp.
You are a foodie, so that
I am.
Yeah.
Very on brand.
yes, yes, yes.
Okay.
Mine's gonna be a little bit cheesy, but you know, it is what it is.
mine is definitely Imagen because, because we're paying, yes.
Because we're paying a little bit more than we paid our editor, I think, right?
For volume.
So it's a little bit more, but I don't mind paying 'cause it's.
than paid for it.
You know what it, it's, it's more expensive dollar wise, but as far as you
include time, it's, it's less expensive.
Mm-Hmm.
You know what I mean?
But we knew, I knew going on that this was gonna be
Okay.
So what would be, what else Your, okay.
I told you what would be your answer if,
if it wasn't, Imagen it can't not including, Imagen,
yeah.
If it was not, but you
didn't say that, but, okay.
what
do you not mind paying for?
What am I not mind paying for?
So I think the last person I asked this question to is Jerry Ghionis
Um, and he said, going to see a really good show, like, a Lady Gaga show
mm mm-Hmm.
famous jazz musician or whatever, like he was like over the top, like, I'll
spend a fortune on something that epic.
Yeah.
I mean, golf, probably golf for me.
And experience like golf.
Like golf, I love, yeah.
If I, I experiences
trips.
We really like to travel.
Yeah.
So, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, I love a good golf course with a caddy in the whole, and like spoil myself.
Yeah.
That's, I love that.
Mm-Hmm.
Have you ever done one of those, like celebrity tournaments where
like you're the Joe Schmo that's playing with a celebrity I,
No, but I don't really get that starstruck.
I mean, I've met some famous golfers before, 'cause I, I grew up playing golf.
and I would be more about being with my friends at a really good, good golf course
rather than playing with a celebrity.
That's not really my, my thing.
They're just like a regular guy, just like everybody else.
You know?
I like to, I like to play like, just be at a beautiful landscape is my thing.
Yeah.
I have never played a, so my, my grandfather was a big golfer, and growing
up, like they moved down to Florida like many Jersey grandparents do eventually.
And, you know, I, I would go down there and he'd always say, Hey,
do you wanna go play golf with me?
And I'd.
No, I don't wanna do golf.
But we would go to the range and we would, I would just hit balls all day.
mm-Hmm.
That, I mean, it's just like going to the, going to the batting cages,
like just hitting all day long is, is nothing better for me at least.
but I'm sure one day in my life I will actually play around, around a golf.
You should.
Mm-Hmm
yeah.
so.
I typically ask a question about outlining your, do an outline breakdown
of your workflow from lead to delivery.
But I'm gonna again, twist this a little bit.
I would love for the both of you to share an outline breakdown of how a typical
day, or if it is like a full, a big, big, big lead that needs multiple days.
Just in general, how does a, a day of very high volume, you're doing 1500 kids.
How, how does a day like that look?
Just like an outline breakdown from the photographic and the business side
of things from start to finish for, for a, a whole day of high volume.
You
want me to go first on the photo side?
It's gonna first.
No, actually, the first part that's gonna happen is that I'm gonna book them.
I'm gonna get them into my software.
I'm gonna get them all the marketing material from PhotoDay.
and then from there I'm gonna, I'm going to make up their schedule,
their picture day schedule.
I don't want them doing it.
They don't get to tell me how I'm gonna run my picture day.
So I'm gonna, I'm gonna make up the schedule.
I'm gonna make sure I know, I have to make sure I have enough
people hired, for the shoot.
That could be five people, that could be 15 people.
Mm-Hmm.
make sure to.
To, make sure it's gonna run smoothly.
and then I'm gonna know the exact location.
I'm gonna keep an eye on the weather.
Very
Yes.
The weather.
Yes.
You are outdoors a lot of the time, so that is very important.
Yes.
The weather.
And then a day of, we're all gonna get there about an hour, hour 15 early.
We're going to, step out of the car and then that's when Jay takes over.
Yeah.
Yeah, we typically pack up the night before.
I've got Mm-Hmm.
A van.
We have a big sprinter van and we also have a trailer
that we have to get packed up.
So we have a, a, a list of goods.
'cause each ba, each line, we have three lights.
So, you know, if we have three lines, that's nine lights, and
then, you know, team lines.
So you're talking about nine to 12 lights for a big shoot in scrims.
So we have to make sure we're, we're real organized on.
Packing up.
Then once we pack up, once we get to the chute, you know, like, you know,
Carinna gives us an hour, hour and 15.
We have to decide, you know, typically they're, they're anywhere from three
to six hour days, so we have to pick a spot on the field, which is gonna
be the best for Sun for traffic.
for sales, and we pick that spot.
We set up, set up our lights, and then we just, with the staff, we have determine,
you know, who's, which photographer's gonna work with which assistant.
Like for in sports and what we do, we always have an assistant.
There's a lot of sports photographers that try to go do it by themselves,
which I think is a mistake.
It kills you physically.
And you can't do as good of a job without, you know, with somebody
really being hands-on with, with your, with your, your athletes.
yeah, and we, and we shoot and we shoot and we shoot and it's nonstop.
There's typically bare, barely time for a bathroom break.
Sometimes cor schedules a sum in there, but it's a pretty, pretty, tough
physically to get through a, a six hour shoot on a turf field in the summertime.
It's pretty rough.
And then once we're done, we're just packing up, we're going back.
And then that's when we start, you know, we try to upload once we get there.
And the uploading process is really important 'cause you
can make a mistake there and.
That's pretty rough.
You make a mistake, you know?
'cause we have typically, we have, you know, we have a bunch of shoots.
So if you make a mistake, it could affect a couple of different shoots after that.
And then that's where Carinna takes back over.
Right.
So then there is an in-house, in-office protocol as to how we're
going to organize the images, make sure everything has been uploaded.
Mm-Hmm.
double check the cards.
we do in between each shoot we do, reformat the, the backup card.
the main
card backup card.
Safe.
Oh, sorry, sorry, yes.
Yeah, the main card we're gonna reformat.
Hopefully we got everything uploaded and then the backup card stays in the camera.
And then we're, getting ready for the next shoot, which is usually the next day.
Yep.
Yeah.
We forgot.
We're running through.
Imagen and then fill today,
right?
Yep.
Run it through.
Imagen.
And, that'll take.
We will automatically go ahead and just, just send it.
We'll go ahead and just send, send the, that catalog on over.
And then, the, the next day when we come back into the office in the morning,
we're taking those images from Imagen and just spot checking and then, yeah,
uploading them into PhotoDay and then posting them and then making that money.
Mm-hmm.
Making them money.
I think there's, there's, there's two things here worth,
worth, worth mentioning.
One is, you kind of subtly touched on this, but there's this domino effect
with the volume work where if one part of the process of one job gets messed up.
Of some way it impacts those, following it in some aspect as well.
So, it is very, you know, important as you said to, to really pay attention
and make sure everything's done correctly for, for a lot of these tasks
so that there's no domino effect and everything else remains on, on schedule.
Yeah.
I mean, you know, for, for Carinna.
Like literally like, we'll, we'll on a busy Saturday we will have seven
cameras in the field, you know, so we have to upload, we have to keep
track of seven different cameras.
And before, Imagen when we send it overseas, we could
only send 500 images at a time.
So, you know, we'd come back from a weekend with thousands and thousands
of images, and you're talking about if we came back with 5,000 images,
which could be a typical thing, that means that Carinna has to bust
that up into 10 different catalogs.
to send o overseas because internet connection's not that good over there.
So, but then you have to add Monday through Thursday shoots.
So, I mean, we have this, this board over here that would be full of catalogs in
which Carinna just had to keep track of.
Right.
And if there was somewhere in those catalogs were one image or images, a set
of a hundred images weren't uploaded.
Then we have to go back and search in the memory cards.
And I mean, it was just, just this huge task that only Carinna could do, you know?
So now with Imagen it's literally one quick catalog.
You know, we went from on a big shoot from having seven
catalogs to keep up with to one.
You know what I mean?
And that's just been like such a, a huge.
Change for us, and it doesn't, you know, we're not, you know, losing,
it's a lot more difficult to lose images now that we have this system
compared to what we were doing before.
Right.
Mm-Hmm
yeah.
And you're, you're sending smart previews, and they're not,
they're not going overseas now.
They're staying.
In the US going to US Amazon servers, which are, you know, so you're getting
as fast as you possibly can get,
Yes.
at the end of the day.
another thing that, you definitely mentioned this at the bootcamp, and
I think you subtly mentioned it just now, is you're not really culling,
you are, you're doing a quick pass just to ensure that like, you know,
there's nothing just completely blurry.
and, and you're just sending 'em all for editing because you're not shooting.
With super high, you know, high speed burst, you're shooting
high volume with intention.
Every single time you click that shutter button, there's a reason for it.
so, I think it's worth, worth, worth pointing out that, it's, it's a
lot of photos that you're doing and every single one, the goal, there's
one goal and that's to sell it
correct.
single one.
Yeah.
Well, it's been great with mirrorless cameras is really that I feel like
everything just kind of came together perfectly at one time between
software and mirrorless cameras and that electronic viewfinder.
And, before with DSLRs, you had to be real careful.
Like my thing was, is like, do not take the photo until the subject is ready.
The worst thing you do as a photographer is take the photo and they'd be like, oh,
can you adjust this, that, or the other?
Adjust everything first.
Then take the photo, you know?
And so, same thing with over to mirrorless, but now we have the advantage
of seeing the photo in the back of the camera as soon as we take the image.
So you take the photo, you got it, you move on to the next, whether it be, you
know, we're changing our camera from portrait to landscape or whatever it
may be, but we try to be intent, like you said, intentional about each photo.
So that way, I mean, 'cause we, and the other thing that photographers
do is you take one good photo and it's so great that you take it again.
You know, you just keep looking like, oh, that look good.
Take it one more time.
And that's where she gets upset.
She goes, why do we have four photos that look exactly the same?
You know?
So you have to be kind of disciplined because the other part of it is, is you
have, you have literally 10 minutes to get through 12 kids plus buddy photos
with their photo, with their coach, with their sibling, that sort of thing.
So you might be taking 17 subjects and you have 10 minutes to do it,
so you don't have a lot of time.
To be messing around, you gotta get your five or six photos, get 'em outta
the way, and move on to the next team.
Otherwise, you're gonna have a bunch of mad coaches standing there behind
you and parents and kids crying.
It can be very stressful, so you have to be really smart the way
you do it once you get on site.
Right.
Because it is the time saver, right.
That that's the part, like not having to call, as you said Yeah.
Is really a time saver.
Like people don't realize, they're like, oh, you know, I can just,
it's, it's always like doing the fallback on, on, I'll just take
care of it when I get in the office.
Yeah.
And that's, I, I, absolutely,
Yeah.
I cannot live that way.
No.
Yeah.
It works for some genres, but in your genre it can't because of, because
of the level of volume you're doing
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
you know, you never know.
Maybe down the road there'll be AI trained on, on.
On your type of work, and then there will be culling.
That can help just take out that one that you don't need.
But, it, I think it was, it was important for, when you said it at the
bootcamp, and I think it's important for everybody to hear now here to
who's listening now to also hear it.
that culling isn't always required if you're shooting with intention.
So, my last question to you both is, You have a profile now available
with Imagen for anybody to utilize.
All they have to do is buy it.
what did we, what did, what did you call it?
Was it just called the
smaX
Photography?
Sports portraits?
I think,
I think so.
Yeah.
I think the word smacks is attached to it.
I know.
smaX, yeah.
smaX sports.
Yeah.
yeah.
Something like that.
it is called smaX Photography Sports Portraits.
Can you describe your, your editing style, so that everybody's listening who
might be interested can then go to the show notes, check out the link, and buy
your profile if they want it or try it.
They can try it before they buy it too.
So,
Sure.
Can you describe what,
I think I'll try to, and then if I'm wrong, Carinna can correct me.
Okay.
all, all of our typically, You know, we are shooting, you know,
sometimes as sports photographers, you don't get the best location.
You have to go off in corner somewhere.
So we typically shoot at a very shallow depth of field.
you know, we want the subject popping out.
And our profile, we've always had a little bit of a vignette on our photos.
we wanna, really make the, the green grass pop and the blue skies pop when we can.
so we, we increase the blues and greens a little bit.
then also we have some contrast in there.
typically we're shooting youth sports, so skin's really not a big deal for us.
Typically, I would say 90% of our, our athletes have good skin, so we
can maybe even bump up a clarity or texture a little bit in our profile.
just, you know, provide that sharpness, that we don't really have to, but
Imagen does do the, the face, right?
Yeah.
So we do increase, the clarity and the sharp and, and the, texture a little bit.
just to make the uniforms in, in the, the sky and the grass pop.
And we are off camera flash too, so yes, every, with at least a
two light set up or more so two or more lights, never on camera flash.
Mm-Hmm
a lot of the times you're saying two, two or three lights, because a lot of times
you're being back lited by the sun or that you're, you're, the kids are being back
lit by the sun, so there is another light.
It's just, that's your natural light that Right.
So, so are you saying that, just to, just to clarify, are you
saying that in some, in some way.
The colors of the uniforms and the overall scene are more important than
the skin tones in some cases, because that's, it's a team, it's team photos,
you know, at the end of the day.
or is it just, that's just the focus point that you've, that you've made,
for the, for your editing style?
I mean, not, there's no wrong way of
Right, right, right.
No, I think that, I think that we've always, bumped up
the clarity on our profiles.
Like whenever we're in Lightroom, we're always bumping up the clarity.
And I think you have to be really careful with that.
People who have bad skin, you know?
'cause that's just gonna make, yeah.
So that's, that's more what I mean.
We still want the skin tones looking correct and, so, but I
think adding a touch of vibrance.
Pretty much to everything in sports photos, a little bit more saturation in
those uniforms is, you know, the colors you can get away a little bit more.
you know, where like a senior photographer, they might wanna
have some muted colors, you know, with sports we don't do that.
Parents like bold, bright,
Yeah,
vibrant colors.
So we, you know, we try to bump those up, you know, as much as
we can without looking fake.
Right, right.
so for those listening, if you wanna try it, I will link to the,
profile that you can check out.
You can try it before you even buy it.
it is also worth noting that, as Jay said, there is a vignette.
In the, in the, in the editing style, if you are not a fan of
vignette, 'cause some people don't.
in Imagen there's actually a feature called a profile adjustments.
And in there you could actually override the vignette on their profile and say,
do everything but don't do the vignette.
And, And so you can have some personal control.
In fact, it's also worth noting that when, if, if you buy the smaX photography
sports portrait profile, it's actually a personal AI profile on your own
account that learns from you over time.
So, it's, it would be as if you made it yourself and, you're just using their
style as a starting point that then you can continue going and it'll just
get smarter and smarter on your needs.
We've put a lot of photos.
We have put a lot of images in there.
Yes.
To note
that, that this is definitely, I feel like it's been very fine tuned,
as you all do have a fine tuning.
it has been fine tuned and we do have, a lot of, especially like our
Bootcampers, the ones who've attended our bootcamp, is they, they ask us, 'cause
you know, the editing is usually the.
Sticking point, for a lot of people who come into the volume world is
they're like, now I gotta edit all these
Yeah.
So, so for them, because you gotta internal know they're hearing Yeah,
they're hearing about Imagen we're, we're talking a lot about it, because
it's really revolutionized our like.
Office life.
And so, we have a lot of photographers who are asking, you know, can I, you
know, can I get a profile from you?
Is there a starting point that I can start with?
So, I do think, I mean,
it's a good one.
If I
was listening and I wasn't course photographer, that wasn't me would get it.
I would so be into it because we have, we have put a lot, we put an entire
season basically into it, and we're talking about editing wise, it has.
me, Jody, Jamie, we're all three of us.
We went through, getting all the images backed from Imagen and making
sure everything was fine tuned.
It's not like we created it and then we just ran everything through it,
and then we're like, okay, now buy it.
No, we went through, I mean.
There's a lot, there's a lot of pictures and for three people to
constantly be going through and double checking because we're used
to hand checking everything anyhow.
So I had everybody go through that process of hand checking,
I mean, tens of thousands of images, that's been double checked.
So I do feel like this is very much, I, I, I highly recommend it.
Yeah.
one more thing that, that I, I, I meant to bring up earlier, that you just
brought up your team again and I was like, oh yeah, I wanted to bring this up.
I think it's important to everybody know, like, yes, there's the two of you, right?
You, you own this business.
you might be the masterminds behind the business, but you have
a team that not only helps you.
When you're actually doing the jobs.
But at the, at the, at the bootcamp, they were there as well helping.
And not only are they very nice as well, but they know your business.
They know, that, so if somebody, if one of the students had a question and they went
up to them, they knew how to answer it without having to come to the both of you.
Right.
And I think that's really important for any, any, volume
photographer of any genre.
To make sure that the team that you have, not only do you trust them,
not only are they good people, but they truly know your business.
Because if you don't have a team behind you that knows your business as well
as you do, or almost as well as you do, it can make or break things right?
And you've, you've over time, you've built this team, of, of fantastic people that
really add a lot of value to what you do.
So just wanna point that out.
I agree.
That's awesome to hear.
Yeah,
okay.
thank you both for joining me.
I, I really appreciate it.
I'm so glad you were both able to, to come together for this.
where can listeners learn more about you?
Connect with you, of course.
See your awesome sport photography.
yeah.
We have, boatwright, boatwright bootcamp.com is, our workshops.
Mm-Hmm.
smack heart.
S-M-A-X-A-R t.com is our website.
Mm-Hmm.
on Instagram, I'm smaX, it's sm a X_ photography.
Yeah.
And, and where else?
Oh, we, we periodically, we do, some educating also at some, some of the shows.
I don't know if we're gonna do anything this coming year,
probably, maybe SPAC, I don't know.
Yeah.
But you can also find us there too.
Yeah.
Awesome.
They're very friendly.
If you're listening, they're very friendly.
If you do see them at one of the events, go say hi.
absolutely.
thank you again, both of you.
All right.
Appreciate it.
Thank you, Scott.
Thank
you, Scott.