The Workflows Photography Podcast

Join the Imagen Community on Facebook to continue the discussions between episodes.

In this episode of Workflows, Scott Wyden Kivowitz is joined by the innovative and influential photographer Elena S Blair. With her authentic approach and efficient workflows, she has revolutionized the school photography industry.

She offers an in-depth look into her year-round school photography services, emphasizing the importance of getting everything right in-camera to minimize post-processing time. She opens up about her preferences for a specific gallery solution due to its organization features. She discusses the cautious adoption of AI in her workflow, highlighting its benefits and efficiency.

Elena S Blair is an internationally recognized Lifestyle Family & Newborn and Fine-Art volume school photographer based in Seattle, WA. Her work has been featured in prestigious publications like Click Magazine and Rangefinder Magazine. Elena also teaches photography through renowned online platforms. She runs a successful group coaching program, The Elena S Blair Mastermind, guiding photographers worldwide to create meaningful art and build profitable businesses.


"I believe in starting with minimal resources and only investing in additional software when it's profitable."

Why You Should Listen
  • Enhance your school photography business with tips from an industry expert.
  • Discover best practices for organizing and delivering school photos efficiently.
  • Learn how AI is transforming the photography business, especially in editing.
  • Get insights into effective marketing strategies that can lead to increased customer spending.
  • Understand the importance of simplifying photo products to meet customer satisfaction and boost sales.
Resources
Tune in to the Workflows podcast to learn how to streamline your school photography process and take advantage of modern tools and technologies.

  • (00:00) - 050
  • (01:11) - What is one thing that you do for the photographic process that has saved you time?
  • (04:26) - What is one thing that you do for the business that saves you time or money?
  • (14:19) - What is one thing that you do for editing that has saved you time?
  • (16:13) - What is one thing that you do after a session that has increased business?
  • (23:38) - Can you share an outlined breakdown of your workflow from lead to delivery?
  • (31:36) - What does the future of AI in photography look like to you?
  • (35:58) - How did Imagen impact your life?

Creators & Guests

Host
Scott Wyden Kivowitz
Community Manager at Imagen
Guest
Elena S Blair
Seattle lifestyle family and newborn photographer. I help photographers make meaningful art and build profitable businesses.

What is The Workflows Photography Podcast?

Ready to enhance your photography workflow? Welcome to Workflows, a podcast by Imagen that transforms how photographers like you manage their business, making every minute count.

Each episode offers advice on optimizing your photography workflows so you spend less time at the desk and more time behind the camera. It also tells real-life stories and shares innovative tools to optimize your operations, helping you maximize efficiency and creativity in your photography business.

Join host Scott Wyden Kivowitz, who, despite challenges like dyslexia and color blindness, has mastered the art of efficient workflows to excel in the photography business, as well as building and leading one of the most popular global photography communities on Facebook – the Imagen Community. Through insights and conversations with photographers fro m various countries, backgrounds, and walks of life, discover how structured workflows can save time and alleviate stress in your professional and personal life.

Get ready to overcome common industry hurdles and boost your photography business's profitability through effective strategies, innovative tools, tech, and automation.

Join the Imagen Community to continue the conversation and connect with fellow photographers, share stories, and access unique resources tailored to the challenges of managing a photography business.

Don't let workflow inefficiencies hold you back — tune in to Workflows for inspiration and guidance on crafting a thriving, productive photography business.

For photographers who prefer creating stunning images to getting bogged down by business tasks, Workflows is your gateway to a smoother, more rewarding photography career.

Join us today at workflowspodcast.com

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[00:00:00] ​

[00:00:00] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Elena, I am. So happy to have you on. finally. You're fif 50 episodes in. 50 episodes in, but we're

[00:00:21] here, we, we,

[00:00:23] Elena S Blair: That's a lot of episodes.

[00:00:25] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's, you know, when you first start a podcast, you're like, okay, if you get to eight, it means that you're potentially gonna beat the, what they call the pod fade, where it just like goes away.

[00:00:37] Elena S Blair: fades at eight. That doesn't seem like very many. Wow.

[00:00:40] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: yeah. It's more common for people to end at eight. so getting to 50 is a, is really nice. And we're ending season three at 52 episodes, so I'm really

[00:00:49] excited. right after yours is your friend Nikki Closser. So,

[00:00:54] Elena S Blair: Ah, love Nikki. Yay. Yep. I haven't seen her in a while, but I love her.

[00:00:58] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: yeah, we just [00:01:00] recorded yesterday and, I mentioned that we were recording and she said the same thing.

[00:01:04] She goes, I love her.

[00:01:06] So,

[00:01:06] Elena S Blair: her. Yeah.

[00:01:08] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: so the first question I ask every guest is,

[00:01:11] What is one thing that you do for the photographic process that has saved you time?
---

[00:01:11] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: what is one thing you do for the photographic process behind the camera that saves you time? Mm-Hmm

[00:01:18] Elena S Blair: Behind the camera. So before, not for, not after. Okay. So like while taking pictures, one thing that I do that, well, gosh, I only have to one thing,

[00:01:28] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: You can share

[00:01:28] more than one if you want.

[00:01:30] Elena S Blair: the one thing that I do and that I know that I do, which is gonna sound so simple and not really that profound, but is that I get it right in camera because I deeply understand light.

[00:01:44] So when, and I'm a natural light photographer, and I, I, I like very interesting light. I use light very creatively. I, you know, flares and, blowing out things and all of that is very intentional for me. But. I, when I'm looking [00:02:00] at somebody's portfolio an an older or a newer photographer, I can tell right away if they're trying to fix it after the fact, if they're consistently doing that, and it's all about light.

[00:02:10] So I would say that what I do behind the camera is get it right, because I understand light so well.

[00:02:16] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: it's a good one. That is a common one that people say, and. It,

[00:02:19] it, it definitely makes sense for it to be a common one.

[00:02:22] and I mean, as, as a somebody who's been established in, you know, in their, in their, with their business and in their craft for, for quite some time, you, you, you understand more and more why it's important, right?

[00:02:38] Elena S Blair: Yeah,

[00:02:39] you know, early days like I.

[00:02:41] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: mm.

[00:02:41] Elena S Blair: Fixing things in editing that I thought I was the seeing other people fix in editing, not realizing that I had skipped a few steps that I needed to learn more about light and more about using my camera, even though I was a couple years in. So it just takes practice.

[00:02:57] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: I think it's, it's one of those, [00:03:00] you can understand it and you can, strive for perfection in it, but no one's perfect. You know, the,

[00:03:05] it's always a learning process and light is complex and. If you are a natural life photographer, light changes a lot.

[00:03:15] So, you know, even on the fly you might have to learn something new about how to adjust for a situation that might come up that's unexpected.

[00:03:24] Elena S Blair: Yep.

[00:03:25] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: you have, multiple aspects of your business, not

[00:03:31] only from the, the. Photography itself, but you also got the education side. You've

[00:03:35] got a lot going on in your business. what I wanna talk about specifically now is the, like these fine art school portraits that you do. Okay.

[00:03:44] What's really, what I like about them is that they're so different from the typical school portraits that you get. I'm gonna buy my kids school portraits because it's my kids and I'm gonna buy 'em, and why wouldn't I? Right.

[00:03:58] Elena S Blair: Yep.

[00:03:59] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: [00:04:00] But they're, they're so cookie cutter compared to what you're doing. You're doing these beautiful, portraits that have a, a, a vibe to them.

[00:04:09] They have emotion to them, unlike a school portrait, which is, okay,

[00:04:13] sit here, stand here, smile. That's it. so when it comes to your, your, your, school portrait side of your business, what is one thing you do for that? Saves you either time or money

[00:04:26] Elena S Blair: What,

[00:04:26] What is one thing that you do for the business that saves you time or money?
---

[00:04:26] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: what,

[00:04:27] on the business side of things, what saves you time or money?

[00:04:29] Elena S Blair: So volume photography is what I, I feel like it would be called in our industry these days. It's funny how things change. I've been in business so long that, there are terms now that were not, that did not exist when I first started stuff, but school photography, volume, photography, you know, the.

[00:04:45] the most important thing is that you have a system and that you have a process and that you are extremely prepared before the actual photo shoot happens.

[00:04:55] You have, you cannot be more prepared. You have to very be very, very [00:05:00] organized because you are dealing with, you know, some, even if you're, doing very small school of 50 kids, it's a lot of people, a lot of kids that you have to stay organized.

[00:05:08] Most people. You know, really move up pretty fast to schools that are 200, 300, 500, a thousand kids. So you have to be extremely organized because if you aren't, you are going to be spending a ton of time doing a bunch of like admin organization type of stuff. That can be very frustrating if it's not organized before.

[00:05:27] So systems and organization is extremely important in volume photography.

[00:05:33] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Is there a specific, software tool that you're using to.keep everything organized for the schools in particular, because you may, you might need a different software for like, family sessions, right? Than you

[00:05:45] would for these volume schools.

[00:05:49] Elena S Blair: So that's funny that you asked that. So I've been teaching about this since 2012 and my, whenever I teach anything, I know that my audience is often somebody who's just starting that. [00:06:00] Well, even if you're a photographer already, just starting this process of being a boutique school photographer.

[00:06:04] And I actually, when I teach other things like business and posing and whatever, I am sort of speaking to that person that might really just need that. Whatever it is to figure it out so they can go to the next step with volume photography. And don't worry, I'm getting back to your, to your question. when you start Googling it, and I know this because back in the day when I was figuring it out, you're getting all of this information from photographers that have a big budget and have been in business a very long time and are doing schools that are typically, this is why my, my Indus my little community that I've created about this.

[00:06:38] It's actually a big community now, but is this kind of a particular segment of school photography? 'cause most of us are about a thousand kids or less, where there are, you know, volume photographers who are doing thousands of kids and that's all they do. But it's not, they, they don't have a family business.

[00:06:51] They are a, or a wedding business or whatever it is. All school photography. They've got, you know, a whole operation. And we all know the big box companies that do that. I don't have to [00:07:00] name any names. So when you start looking. There is a lot of advice from those types of school photographers and hey, if you ever get to that point, you might need that, that advice.

[00:07:09] But for a smaller mom and pop business, that's what I kind of feel like my business is or was. And for a business that's maybe just a one person shop, I. You need it to be simplified and you need it to be affordable. And so I actually teach how to do it in a super organized way, very time efficient without very much extra software.

[00:07:30] And to be honest, some of the companies take a very large cut of your, of your profits and when you are doing this to make money, launch your business. And, Market yourself to other, I can get, I can go on and on about all of the reasons why you should do school photography, but when you're doing it for those reasons.

[00:07:47] Take someone taking five to 10% of your profits is a huge deal. So I teach how to do it with very minimal software. And to be honest, the funny thing is, is that to this day we do about 10 schools a year in my [00:08:00] business. We still do it that way even though we've tried some of the software. And I actually, always, so the, the company that I can't live without, without and that we really do use, Despite any, trial of any other company, people's criticism of it. But I'm still using ShootProof for this. And again, it's just for this exact reason, that we are this like. We're this unicorn, we're kind of right in the middle. We're this mid-range volume, cohort, and we don't need all of the millions and millions of other things that some of the other companies offer.

[00:08:34] And so if we use ShootProof, they don't take a cut from our, from our profits. And so we, you know, I have a very tried and true thousands and thousands of kids systems that we use. And so we end up getting everything onto ShootProof, and that's how we sell. And. It's just the way we do it. So that's the only software, in particular other than like my web provider and, you know, other things that we use for, for our like sales of school [00:09:00] photography.

[00:09:00] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Yeah. So. I have to dig into this a little bit

[00:09:04] because that's so interesting.

[00:09:05] Elena S Blair: like that by the way. I don't like a lot of software. Like I am like a,

[00:09:09] I am like a very much like I can teach you how to do this. I, I always say, my dad would say duct tape and BVC pipe. My dad can fix anything with duct tape and PVC pipe. My dad like builds airplanes. He's an amazing man, and I always say, I can teach you to do this with duct tape, like I actually I am.

[00:09:23] And then later, if you have the profits in your business, then spend the money. But that's a big mistake that a lot of new business owners make, and that's why that a lot of new business owners that we see right now aren't gonna be here in five years

[00:09:37] and they'll run outta money.

[00:09:39] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: There's a, there's a guy on TikTok, I don't know his name off the top of my head, but there's a guy on TikTok that, solves problems around his house or in his life with pool noodles.

[00:09:48] That sounds like something your, your dad would do.

[00:09:51] Elena S Blair: Yeah.

[00:09:52] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: so, okay. I had, an episode, 44. I had

[00:09:57] Jay and Carinna Boatwright fantastic [00:10:00] vol, like super high volume sport portrait photographers. by the way, Sportraiture also a term that never existed years ago, but it's

[00:10:08] Elena S Blair: Yeah,

[00:10:09] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: I love that term.

[00:10:10] Elena S Blair: all of it. There's so many new little subsets. We do a lot of dance studios too. I'd say that, but

[00:10:16] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: so, so they use a variety of software because of the amount of

[00:10:20] volume that they're doing. They need to have like get beyond like paper and, and

[00:10:25] like, spreadsheets and stuff. But So are you saying that even just to organize for, okay, here's the students I need to photograph and here's what they ordered, or whatever it might be.is it literally like an Excel spreadsheet or a Google sheet that you're working off of?

[00:10:41] Elena S Blair: it depends. It depends on where you are and what kind. I mean, we, we definitely talk to and have tutorials from the big companies in our workshop because we have so many students. I have thousands of students from all over the world.

[00:10:52] But yes, for the most part, the way that we do it is very much, like we make note cards for all of the [00:11:00] kids or, or you can print.

[00:11:01] we have. We have spreadsheets, we have, and then everything else is done like for ordering 'cause we do hand order as well. We're all about profits. So you can go through, ShootProof and have the lab send the photos right to the family. I. But when you do that, you have to charge portrait print prices.

[00:11:18] And these are school photos, even though they look like professional portraits because they're so much higher end in quality, they are school photos. So you, we use unit prints to save on money and so we hand order. And so the way that we do it is we sit down and we open up the order sheet, which comes in as like a CSV file and we just, and we open up rows and we literally.

[00:11:38] Order by hand like that. I mean, it's, it's pretty, it's duct tape and PVC pipe, but, two hours of ordering to save thousands of dollars is worth it for us. I have a staff, I have, I have, I don't do it myself too.

[00:11:50] I would rather pay somebody. It's actually more economical for me to pay somebody to do it than to take those, those cuts from our profit.

[00:11:56] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Interesting.

[00:11:57] Elena S Blair: Yeah, sorry. Sorry to say that. I know that's a,

[00:11:59] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: [00:12:00] No,

[00:12:00] Elena S Blair: I often say things that are very, not what everyone else is doing, but I have a, you know, business that makes half a million dollars a year. So I think I know what I'm doing.

[00:12:08] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Y Yeah. No, it, it's,

[00:12:09] it's there. You're not doing the wrong way. You're doing the way that works best for your

[00:12:13] business. And I think that's really important for everybody to see different perspectives on similar genres. You know, the Boatwrights have their business, which

[00:12:22] Elena S Blair: There's thousands of kids. That's different. If there's, that's a, this is where we're this little, subset, like I said, where what I'm teaching people, and if you're, if you're listening, you've never heard my, my class is called Schooled and it's about how to. To go into, so you, most of my students are kind of like, gosh, my business is just not getting off the ground.

[00:12:43] And what they're doing is finding all of this marketing advice about how you should make tiktoks and reels and Instagram, Instagram, Instagram or whatever. One of the, you know, the more trendy. It's like actually what you need to do is get yourself front and center with your target market. And this is how you're gonna do it.

[00:12:58] So that's the main reason that my [00:13:00] community does schools is because they want, and, and the marketing is ridic. Like we teach them how to market to feel, funnel them right through their website. And I mean, it is crazy, but you make a ton of money. I just was in our, our. Facebook group asking, what's your average sale?

[00:13:14] My average sale is 75 per kid. It's like math. If I can say that that's how much we're gonna make and that's what we're gonna make. Some of my students are like up to a hundred per kid like math, but we are doing schools that are 50 to 500 kids. You don't need that massive.software situation where if I told somebody they needed that, they wouldn't even do it.

[00:13:34] And that's why this class is so successful because I say, let's start here and if you get to that place, 'cause some of my students have, then you can explore those options. I have partnerships with Got Photo for one and I could, you know, name a few of the other bigger ones and they, they make tutorials for us on how to get started and all of the things.

[00:13:51] But I want people to start now. It is start now because that works. It works. That's how I did it. That's how, that's probably how you did it. Those [00:14:00] of us that are here

[00:14:00] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Oh yeah.

[00:14:01] Elena S Blair: weren't afraid to just give it a try, so,

[00:14:03] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Yeah, I love it. Yeah, like, like I said, I feel like, different perspectives, different businesses, different business models. There's no wrong way. It's

[00:14:11] what works best for you. And I, I, I definitely appreciate that.

[00:14:15] so let's move into the editing side now. taking, Imagen outta the equation here for a second.

[00:14:19] What is one thing that you do for editing that has saved you time?
---

[00:14:19] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: What is one thing you do for the editing again, when it comes to these school, school photos, that saves you time?

[00:14:26] Elena S Blair: Well, I'm gonna say light

[00:14:27] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: this is

[00:14:29] Elena S Blair: I was gonna say light again. get you, this is okay for school photography or volume photography. And I actually teach people how to do it with natural light. We do it with natural light a lot of the time. I know. See, I do everything weird. we do use lights now though.

[00:14:41] We do, we're working with pro Photo and we do use lights for some of our schools. But, You have to get it right in camera. This is, you don't, I, you do not know if this parent is going to pay for your photos, so you can't be going in and like cropping and spot editing and any of that. So it has to be, it's very important that you get it right in camera, and that you have the [00:15:00] lighting situation figured out before.

[00:15:01] So that's one. But, the next thing I would say that keeps our editing so, so easy and quick is that. We, well, we are use, starting to use Imagen for this, which is Imagen still kind of, I can't believe it's real to be honest. I'm like, whoa, did that just happen in 30 seconds? Like, I can't believe it.

[00:15:19] But we have, presets or actions that, that we use to keep it super quick and consistent

[00:15:26] that we created. So,

[00:15:28] yeah.

[00:15:28] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Awesome.so when it comes to these school portraits, and again, you know, I said, I said earlier, I love your school portraits, but they're not the cookie cutter. Right?

[00:15:44] Elena S Blair: Yeah, they're very different.

[00:15:46] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: yeah, those aren't, what you do is not offered in my school district, in any, at any way.

[00:15:51] I'd have to, I'd have to go and hire

[00:15:52] you.

[00:15:53] Elena S Blair: training, I'm probably training as photographer in your area right now. We have so many students that,

[00:15:58] yeah.

[00:15:59] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: but [00:16:00] I, I've, I've seen, as a parent what these, chain photo studios do for the schools after the fact. So I wanna know, what is one thing that you do after you're done with the school,

[00:16:13] What is one thing that you do after a session that has increased business?
---

[00:16:13] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: what is one thing you do that has increased business?

[00:16:17] Elena S Blair: Whew. Oh my gosh, I love talking about this. So.

[00:16:20] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Hmm.

[00:16:20] Elena S Blair: And I'm sorry that I keep kind of going off of tangents on tangents, but I feel like a lot of school photography stuff kind of needs a little bit of a, a little bit of a like intro in that.

[00:16:29] we have been completely conditioned to believe that school photography is like this awkward rite of passage right there.

[00:16:37] This, our standards are like on the floor for school photography and, there's, there's literally no standards and we like accept it. Like you said, we spend the money on the photos even though they're bad. my two daughters are like their school. I don't do their school. I don't typically do public schools.

[00:16:52] I have, I don't typically, but, There's, they're, I, one of my daughters is like considering being a model, like she's gorgeous. Her photo [00:17:00] is, I could not, it could not be worse from last year. I mean, it's, it's weird how they made her look so bad. And that's just what we have become accustomed to. So, with, with this approach, when it's, it's not hard to actually focus on spending.

[00:17:19] It's not long. 60 to 90 seconds on a kid and taking a photo of what they actually look like that at the, at the simplest form, there's that. So don't, not making them stand weird, sit in a weird thing, put their hands in a weird place or whatever we do for school photography. and then it's also kind of relaxing on that uniform.

[00:17:39] Crop that everyone thinks you need for a yearbook like I've, everyone thinks, has to be this like perfect, exactly the same uniform crop. It actually doesn't, and it looks really cool when it's all over the place. So it's kind of like relaxing a little bit on some of the things we thought we had to do in school photography.

[00:17:57] But the simplest thing is that you, all you have to do is [00:18:00] let the kid be themselves. That's it. No forced smiles, no, weird poses. And it, that's it. It's really not that complicated. And when the parents see that. Even affluent parents, we believe, 'cause we're photographers that everyone in the world values high-end photography.

[00:18:16] Truth is there are billionaires who have never hired a professional photographer before. So these parents see a photograph of their kid like that and they can't. They go nuts. They spend like $500 on school photos because it's the first time some of them have ever seen a professional portrait of their kid.

[00:18:33] So it's pretty cool. It works really, really well.

[00:18:36] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Yeah. It, it's,

[00:18:37] Elena S Blair: I don't even know

[00:18:37] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: you think,

[00:18:38] Elena S Blair: correctly. I got excited about that, but,

[00:18:40] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: well, so I think the way that you answer it is basically saying like, by doing something creative and something that's you, right, this is your style.

[00:18:48] And it's outside the box. It's not cookie cutter. That in itself is selling your, your, your school business to the

[00:18:56] Elena S Blair: parents.It's also the, there's so many things that we [00:19:00] do, that I teach all of us in the workshop. So many things that we do that aren't, I don't think that astronomical, they're not that crazy,

[00:19:07] but, But they are such, so different than what we've been accustomed to. So no pre-ordering, that's one of the main like user, what, not user experience, but customer experience.

[00:19:15] Things that we do that I think is just so appreciated by parents. You know, most schools still send you an order form before schools even start and expect

[00:19:23] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Drives me nuts.

[00:19:24] Elena S Blair: you haven't seen. And they're, by the way, sorry, I'm not undercutting our industry. They're overpriced. They have, it's over complicated instead of like really beautifully designed collections or.

[00:19:35] Real prints that everyone wants. It's like, here's a two by two and of a key chain that you're never gonna, you know, weird stuff that it's like, why, why do we have to do that? Why don't we treat this like a portrait studio? So we have, you know, normal sizes and, sorry, that just seems like pretty, like a no brainer, but there's weirder things have happened and it's, the ordering experience is better.

[00:19:54] It's two to, we always say we, we guarantee two to five. So two to five. Individual photos of each [00:20:00] kid. There's usually many more, especially the little kids. The little kids are silly. You know, you get lots of photos and and we include them in both color and black and white and the families. That in and of itself is just like such a better experience that they just throw their money at you.

[00:20:15] It's

[00:20:16] it. This is a, some of my students are like brand new to business, you know, undercharging dragging along and all, and then they do this and they make $5,000. And they're like, and it it that too. It's just like, whoa, I could make money, real money doing this. And then it just kind of snowballs from there.

[00:20:32] So

[00:20:33] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: it's very

[00:20:34] I, you brought, you brought something up and it just made me think of a question. does, are, does your, does ShootProof allow your, your customers, the parents to. Build their own packages and

[00:20:45] like if they, if they do this and this and this discount, now it's a bundle instead of

[00:20:50] just a print.

[00:20:51] Elena S Blair: Yep. It they do. And that's actually a newer feature, and it had some kinks last year, but it's working now. And they do have that. We're still pretty, we have [00:21:00] very, we mostly do a la carte in my business. it just depends on your business though, mostly because we've noticed that that was what people ordered.

[00:21:06] So we, you know, we kept a, we always keep our finger on the, on the pulse of what's going on. So we ended up this la, this new season that we have embarking next week, we have like. I think five schools in, in the next couple weeks, it's gonna be busy. But, we have raised the price of a la carte and mostly are pushing a la carte and have, they can do bundles of what the a la carte stuff already is and save a little bit.

[00:21:29] But we didn't build like these big collections 'cause people weren't really buying 'em. So we just raised the price of the a la carte.

[00:21:35] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Nice.

[00:21:36] Elena S Blair: Mm-Hmm.

[00:21:37] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: okay. This is now my favorite part of the show. I've got this ritual that I do. 'cause it's very, very random. Can

[00:21:44] you pick a color, please?

[00:21:47] Elena S Blair: I'm gonna go with orange.

[00:21:48] Okay.

[00:21:49] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: yep, Okay. I'm gonna shuffle through this deck and you're gonna tell me when to stop.

[00:21:54] Whenever you're ready. Wow,

[00:21:59] you're [00:22:00] really waiting.

[00:22:00] Elena S Blair: Stop.

[00:22:02] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Okay. Alright. What the, you, you, you pick this by the way. what's the biggest lie you once believed is true?

[00:22:13] Elena S Blair: It is the biggest lie I once believed is true. Whew. Goodness. I, oh my gosh, about anything in life or

[00:22:23] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Anything in life, anything could be pool noodles and fixing houses.

[00:22:27] Elena S Blair: Yeah.oh my goodness. I once believed that when you committed to something, it was forever and that you were stuck.

[00:22:40] That there was no two-way doors in a commitment. I believed that that was success. and I luckily learned, I. Very young that you could change your mind. And I mean this in so many different aspects of my life, but you know, I was very much raised like, you get married, you go to [00:23:00] school, you get that job and that's it.

[00:23:01] You know you're gonna do that exact thing and be with that exact person and go on that exact path for the rest of your life. And that's what success means. And, I, I broke away from that. I was the only one sibling in my family that did that at the time. And, there's six of us and it was very scary.

[00:23:19] And I, that just, that one breakaway of that showed me that I can change my mind anytime I want.

[00:23:26] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Anytime. Yeah.

[00:23:27] Nice.

[00:23:28] Elena S Blair: Yeah.

[00:23:28] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: that. I like that.okay, so we're about to go deep here. I want you to look at your.business from a 30,000 foot view down.

[00:23:38] Can you share an outlined breakdown of your workflow from lead to delivery?
---

[00:23:38] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: if you can share an outline, breakdown of your workflow from lead to delivery, I'm assuming that, so you're not doing public schools, you're doing, you're doing charter schools and private schools, things like that.

[00:23:52] Elena S Blair: Yeah, we do. and when we say schools, we're talking about daycare centers, preschools, co-ops. That's, this is why it's endless. This [00:24:00] is why anyone can break into this.

[00:24:02] so you want lead to what? Gallery delivery or?

[00:24:05] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: yeah, yeah. Yeah.

[00:24:06] Elena S Blair: Yeah. Okay. So we have excellent search engine optimization. almost all of our new schools have been coming from that route as of late, which I'm super proud of. That's my, we're not gonna talk about marketing right now, but I think that if, if you're listening to this and you do not have a website with good search engine optimization, you are.

[00:24:25] You're wasting a lot of time. So go do that.so we get our leads come through there and we have a lead form that puts them right into a workflow in HoneyBook that immediately educates them on the type of photographer that we are. First from a school perspective. What working with us is gonna be like.

[00:24:45] We have like a whole FAQ I'm a big like overeducate your clients as much as you can.

[00:24:50] we schedule a phone call, which I don't do in my family photography business. I don't wanna talk to anybody on the phone. But in this case, you do need to talk on the phone. It's a bi, it's a bigger contract. We schedule a [00:25:00] phone call.

[00:25:00] we us, we do a Zoom phone call so we can show them things that we wanna show them, like the ordering process and that kind of thing. They're gonna wanna know all of that. They wanna make sure that you. Can take care of the parents 'cause nobody else wants to take care of the parents.

[00:25:11] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: The, the school might be hiring you, but it's the parents that are

[00:25:15] Elena S Blair: 100%.

[00:25:16] The school's not paying. The, the parents are your, are your clients. And the, and the schools are already overtaxed. They do not want to have to be like the middle man between you and the parent for ordering. So they wanna see the process. They also want their parents to be satisfied. So we show them everything at that point.

[00:25:33] They almost always are like, yes, we're ready. Let's do this. so we have a contract that we send out and then from there we schedule a time to tour the school to make sure that we know exactly where we're gonna shoot. We have a whole checklist of things that we need from the school from there, which is, student rosters.

[00:25:50] We make a schedule with the school on photo day. From there, we decide whether or not we're gonna bring our own assistants or use school volunteers. We usually bring our own.sometimes they just [00:26:00] want to give you volunteers, but we usually still bring our own and then we, schedule out the photo shoot and we do it.

[00:26:06] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: We do the day whatever day works best for them. And this is something that does happen year round. I think a lot of photographers are worried it's only in the fall. Bigger schools typically want it to be the fall. We do 'em all year. We do them in the winter, and this eliminates slow season for us. do you do often do twice a year for some schools? 'cause

[00:26:22] here for some reason, they do twice a year

[00:26:24] beginning and

[00:26:24] Elena S Blair: schools we do. Some schools we do. It depends on, we offer, we offer it because why wouldn't we? We have two colors that we use, two background colors, and so we will offer it and I would say probably 50% of our schools do it twice a year. It just depends on the school. Usually littler, schools with littler kids wanna do it twice a year, I think.

[00:26:41] Just 'cause the kids change so much throughout the year. Yeah.so we do the photo shoot and then from there, we come right home. We back them up immediately. That's the immediately, like I, I tell my associate, I say, I don't care if you don't get to them right away, but I need you to back those up right away because last thing we wanna do is do a school twice.

[00:26:59] Like [00:27:00] nobody wants to do that. So we back the, the files up immediately and then. From there, we would call, edit, and then organize files, upload to ShootProof, release the gallery, and we release the galleries within. We tell the, the school it will take two to three weeks. We always have them back within a week.

[00:27:18] I like to under promise, over deliver. I. Because in my mind, sales are higher when it's on the, the parent's mind still when they're like, oh yeah, photo date just happened. If it was a month ago, they already forgot. They've moved on to the next PTA event or whatever. So, we try to get them turned around as fast as possible.

[00:27:33] We leave the, we only leave the galleries open for two weeks, sometimes only one, depending on the time of year. so that we can, and then we order them all at once.we have them delivered to the hou to our to. I work from home still. I've been in in business many years. I don't know why I haven't got a studio space, but I don't care.

[00:27:48] I still working home. We have 'em delivered to the house. We organize and we hand deliver them to the school. That's the whole process. Yeah.

[00:27:54] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: how does, because. ShootProof wasn't originally, and, and maybe this [00:28:00] exists, so I, I, I don't personally use ShootProof, so I, I don't, I don't know the backend as well. But, how does it work with ensuring that the parents only see their kids', photos, or do you have them all in one

[00:28:11] gallery and then they just look for their kid?

[00:28:14] Elena S Blair: So it depends on the school. And most schools that are at this size,

[00:28:20] do not care if other parents can see their kids' galleries, but there are some schools that want that. So ShootProof will automatically create password protected.

[00:28:28] password protected galleries and when that's the case, most times actually, and probably your other volume photographers would say that these schools have a way to, if you create the right CSV file, send an email to each family with their password protected gallery automated.

[00:28:44] So the school usually deals with that if that's necessary, but nine outta 10 times, 9.5 per, out of 10 times, they don't care. So what, how we organize it, they, the family can't see. The entire school gallery, but they can see their whole. class. So it would be like Mrs. [00:29:00] Wiggins second grade. And then within that folder, every kid has their own folder.

[00:29:04] So the family doesn't have to see everybody's, but they can. and that just depends on the school. You take that on a case by case basis, and we, we work with the school on what their needs are privacy wise. We've had schools, bigger schools say we don't care, that we wanna allow some families to opt out.

[00:29:20] And so in the first day packet, you have kids, you know, first day, first day packets go like. It's a disaster. I spent an entire day last week preparing my kids packets. But anyway,

[00:29:30] but in the, I have three, I have four kids, so it's like, it was literally a whole day. But in the first day packet we had like an opt out of the public gallery and of the, this, school had 600 kids, like three families chose to opt out.

[00:29:42] So it's actually pretty unlikely, but it just depends on the school.

[00:29:46] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Yeah. For, for, using a software that wasn't. Specifically designed for school volume type work. That's a pretty good workaround to go by the class. I like that because I could see if you had to break it down by kid, that's a lot of [00:30:00] ShootProof galleries with passwords

[00:30:01] and everything to set up.

[00:30:02] Elena S Blair: but they do, but they set it up. It, they so ShootProof. Actually, I, I, I know that it's kind of,

[00:30:09] I'm a rare bird that I have stayed with ShootProof this long, but I try other stuff and it just doesn't work for me. And ShootProof has a desktop uploader that automatically

[00:30:18] on the upload makes. It's very organized.

[00:30:21] Yeah. So there's no like hand doing it. And then if you want them to password protect, you literally push a button and it generates a password for every single kid's gallery.

[00:30:30] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: I think there's still a lot of people who use ShootProof. I don't think

[00:30:34] Elena S Blair: Yep.

[00:30:34] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: for any, for volume, it's not as common. But I

[00:30:37] think weddings and families, I think there's still a ton of people who use ShootProof.

[00:30:41] So,

[00:30:42] Elena S Blair: And I've seen these other.

[00:30:43] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: alone there.

[00:30:43] Elena S Blair: These other volume software programs, they're slick, but they're, the one thing that I don't like about it is, and, and call me cheap, but I feel like the profit share is a little too high. It's too high for us, for me to, again, I would rather just pay my employee [00:31:00] to do the, the grunt work that is required, then pay a software company,

[00:31:06] So that's just where I am right now. I might change my mind one day and that's, I mean, if I get to, I don't know if we'll ever get higher than a thousand kids on volume though. We really like where we are right now, so.

[00:31:16] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Yeah. Yeah. And you're obviously, you're profitable, you're successful in it. So if

[00:31:21] don't break, what's not broken. Right.

[00:31:22] Elena S Blair: Right, right.

[00:31:24] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: I mean there's always, but you, you don't have to. okay. I wanna touch on AI for a second here. You are fairly new to the AI realm in, in the photography industry.

[00:31:36] What does the future of AI in photography look like to you?
---

[00:31:36] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: what does the future of AI in photography look like to you?

[00:31:42] Elena S Blair: Oh my gosh. I was a late adopter to AI and now I am a big fan, even. You know, like chat, GBT, like other ai for example, like chat. GBT is an employee right now for us. My, it's, it's me and my two, teammate team members. No one can [00:32:00] believe we do what we do with just the small amount that we have. We we're very efficient team, proud of us for that, but we use AI every day.

[00:32:07] and, and it just, you know, as a photographer, you're a content creator. If you don't, haven't learned that yet as a marketer, well, it's time to learn it. You have to blog, you have to do social media, you have to email, you have to, you literally can't, I, you give me a, a photographer that's not doing that, even just at least a little bit.

[00:32:26] And that's a huge task for a lot of people. And AI can make it so much more efficient. And then for editing, I think that what, what AI. Means for editing is that this is going to become industry standard. And I know people get really nervous when I say that because they're like, oh, we're like this hustle culture that things need to happen overnight or whatever.

[00:32:48] It's like, well, unfortunately, I. It's just the way that it is. It's just like how when you get an inquiry, that person sent an inquiry to five people, and if you don't have an automatic email that goes to them immediately, [00:33:00] your chances of getting booked are significantly lower. That's not that we're asking you to be there answering.

[00:33:07] We're asking you to create systems. To be with the industry standard. And I think it's the same thing with editing in that if you, if, if you and this other other person are both competing for the same wedding, for example, I think like this really happens in weddings and you're still taking three months to deliver the gallery.

[00:33:25] That person who's using AI can do it in a couple of weeks, or even if they can bring it down to a month or whatever, they're probably doing it in a couple days even. You, you just, you just lost out in that competition in what is staying true to what is industry standard where we're getting, so I think if that's what's, I think it's becoming an industry standard to be more efficient with ai.

[00:33:45] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: yeah. Well, there's a, there's a, a common trend since, since Imagen came to the market. Four years ago, is a common trend in the wedding space that I'm seeing a lot of other, industries start to, or genres start to a adopt, which is, you [00:34:00] charge, you're charging 6,000 for, for shooting the wedding, right? What, just to throw a number out there, you're charging 6,000

[00:34:06] and you're. At least,

[00:34:08] And your, your, your turnaround is three months on paper, right? But when they're signing the contract, there's an upsell for $500. You can have a guaranteed one month, a guaranteed three week,

[00:34:18] Elena S Blair: Ooh, I love

[00:34:19] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: week turnaround time. So bring this back to, to the schools. You could do the same, right? You're trying to turn these around in a week. You could guarantee a week by doing a little bit more.

[00:34:31] But again, your parents are the, are the clients. So

[00:34:34] Elena S Blair: But we could do that with our family photography. So I, I haven't talked about my family in newborn photography business. I mean, we have a, I have a full fledged. A hundred shoot a year family and newborn photography business too. Sometimes I wonder how all of the things happen that they do, but they do.

[00:34:50] and, and we could do it like that. And I actually, you know, did a little experiment where I was like, well, I'll have my editor edit and I'll do it with AI and I'm gonna look at what, what the difference. Like I went through the whole process [00:35:00] and I sat here and it would, it's more touch for me still.

[00:35:04] Then using a human to edit them. So we'll say that, you know, like when I get 'em back from, Imagen, I do have to go and look at everything and, and you know, a couple of tweaks. He, my, I always call him a guy, my editor, Imagen Editor, my dude, he's not quite perfect yet, but I have a feeling he is gonna keep getting better and

[00:35:20] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: gonna,

[00:35:21] Elena S Blair: And so there's that piece. And so during the really busy time, I, I probably will sometimes still use my editor because I of that. But anyway, I, I just feel like the. Ability to do something that used to take, I mean, weeks or so, one photographer could spend nine hours on a family photo shoot if there weren't really a proficient editor.

[00:35:43] You know, a for it to happen like that, it's, it's mind blowing.

[00:35:46] It's mind blowing.

[00:35:47] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: let, let's, let's, hear,

[00:35:49] on that exact topic, since you started using Imagen, in all, let's go all of your business,

[00:35:55] right? So for each genre that you photograph,

[00:35:58] How did Imagen impact your life?
---

[00:35:58] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: how did Imagen [00:36:00] impact your life?

[00:36:03] Elena S Blair: well, it saved, it saved me money for one. And, you know, as you can tell, I am a very much about profit. I'm a profit person. I'm like, we are running a business here. We have to have profits. it's it, so it saves you money. It's, it's ridiculously affordable. So that's one thing. And I mean, it's, it saved me time.

[00:36:22] I just feel like the i, the time that it used to take, if I was gonna hand edit something or if I was gonna edit a gallery on my own, I mean, that's hours of my life. Even if, even though I'm a really efficient editor, one session would take me an hour or two hours. Take this, this takes about 10 to 20 minutes with Imagen,

[00:36:40] literally

[00:36:41] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Yeah.

[00:36:42] Elena S Blair: like, I'm not exaggerating.

[00:36:43] Like it's, it's actually pretty uncanny how fast.

[00:36:46] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Have you I'm curious because you do have a very successful business overall, both in the photography and the education side.

[00:36:53] Have you, with all the time that you've gotten back from editing, have you. Started [00:37:00] doing things on the education side that you could, didn't have time for before? Or have you been going on more trips and

[00:37:06] excursions like you, you wanted to do or anything?

[00:37:08] Like what, what, what kind of impact has it made on that, on those,

[00:37:12] Elena S Blair: So what, I have a team and so I wasn't doing my own editing anymore. I haven't been for like eight years. so the, one of the main things that I got back is, is finance financial because I, don't, I'm not having to pay what I was paying before for editing. So that's one of the main things, time-wise for me.

[00:37:28] I'm always in my team looking for us to be more efficient and, I've actually. I'm lucky. I've gotten to a place in my business where I have very normal work hours. Don't ask me about this past week, I'm, we're about to have a lunch, but for the most part I have very normal work hours and I. What this allows me to do is use my team more efficiently, so I have only two team members.

[00:37:50] Again, when people, if you looked at our profits and you looked at what we were doing, it's actually kind of ridiculous that that's how many team members we have. But as I even said earlier when I was [00:38:00] talking about schools, I am obsessed with systems and processes and simplifying and making very, very sure.

[00:38:07] That somebody isn't doing something more than once, or that we both aren't touching something more than once, or that there isn't like a, a step that is being done that isn't necessary. And with this editing, advancement, I would say it has freed us completely from the editing part of. Photography, especially in schools, and I had to push Rachel, my school photographer to do it.

[00:38:30] She was like, still, I said, why are you still editing this gallery? Did you try Ima, did you do it? Did you try? Imagen she was resistant. Resistant. And then she was like. Oh my God. You know, she sent me the the, I said, see, but I had to push her. I'm like, I'm paying you hourly. I want this to be more efficient and you're going to use Imagen to do it.

[00:38:48] And she did. And it changed. It blew her mind. So it just allows us to run smooth, more smooth and more efficiently. And we really, actually, in my business very much, every couple months, I, we have these documents and I look and I have. Go through it and I say, it [00:39:00] looks like you probably, I'm gonna take you off of this task.

[00:39:02] I'm gonna put her on this one. What are you doing that you don't feel like you wanna do anymore? We're very efficient and so this has helped us to continue with that, that trend of

[00:39:10] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: It also makes it, you know, looking at it on things on a regular basis like that.

[00:39:14] and analyzing what's strengths and weaknesses and, and, just like gut feelings and creative and. Burnout and all, like, it's good to mix things up and allow people to not, to explore other opportunities

[00:39:27] within your business and help here, and it, it, that's just good for, for the, for the brain.

[00:39:32] So.

[00:39:32] Elena S Blair: with editing too, I think that I. There will be a lot of, well, I guess this is the Imagen Podcast, so I'm sure that everyone here is curious about AI editing that's listening. I actually don't really know a huge amount about your listenership, but I think that with photographers, especially new photographers, they believe that holding onto the editing process is.

[00:39:52] necessary for like their authentic voice to be infused into the photography, right? They're like this, it's not mine. If [00:40:00] I let someone else edit it, it's not mine. am I cheating if I use AI and. They'll get over that. Most people and, and a lot of them that don't, might not be here still in five years.

[00:40:11] When somebody tells me they're suffering from burnout, I'm like, well, okay, that it happens. We we're all gonna get there. This is a job. It's the best job in the world, but it's a job. It's your job to take a peak at what's going on. Where do you have to, there's two things you have to get back when you're burning out.

[00:40:27] There's time and profits. And usually first you have to get your time back before you can get your profits back. But usually the easier thing to do when you're having that, and if you're looking at my video, I'm trying to show it, it's like this, like little teeter of like burnout is like, is always time and profit.

[00:40:43] Those are the problems. And a lot of people who are burnt out have pretty, pretty good profits or enough to live. And what you can look at first is all of your systems and processes and where can we get you some time back? And usually the first place is editing. And that's when the, that photographer has to say, I'm [00:41:00] ready to let this go.

[00:41:01] I'm still an artist, even if I don't do it. Or no, I'm gonna hold onto this and drown. But it's usually that. It's usually templates, systems, those things. And when you look at those things in a business, you can get somebody significant amount of time back. Then they get back up to that place where now we can start looking at their profit margin and see where we can start charging more.

[00:41:18] Can we bring in other offers? All of that. So I could go on and on. I love business.

[00:41:24] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: I think when it comes to the editing specifically, like that hesitance to let it go, right to, to let that, creativity aspect go. And if you're not letting it go, completely, letting it go a little bit. Once they see that, oh, it, it actually is me, it's just. Not me sitting there doing it.

[00:41:42] It's a computer doing it for me. Then I can then go in and

[00:41:45] say, oh, good. The, the, the annoying mundane part of me staring at a screen, doing the same thing for a thousand photos is, is done. I can now just work on the creative parts that I love to do.

[00:41:57] So that's, once they get that mindset, it's [00:42:00] like, it's, that's the game changer right there.

[00:42:01] Elena S Blair: And it's also, you have to, it's not just the creative parts. I mean, I, I think that, a lot of photographers, you know, that I, I, I, I have a mastermind. I mentor a lot of photographers every year, and they're wondering what's not working and they're not marketing themselves. And they think that posting to Instagram once or twice a, a week is enough.

[00:42:19] It's, it's not spoiler alert, I'm just here to tell you 15 years in it is not, and. And I, I get it. It takes time. And if you can pull some of your time back and work on those things, you'll start to see a big change. But it's, people have a very, only a limited amount of time each day that they can expend.

[00:42:37] So you have to get efficient fast.

[00:42:40] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Yeah, definitely. Elena, it's been so great having you on,

[00:42:44] on the podcast, where if, if nobody's heard of you yet,

[00:42:50] they, they have now, where can listeners learn more about you, connect with you and of course see your, incredible photography.

[00:42:57] Elena S Blair: Ah, you're so sweet, Scott. So of course [00:43:00] I'm on Instagram. That's a good fast place to find me because I. I share things there and you can find all my links. So ins, Elena s Blair Photography, so don't forget the s in there, Elena s Blair. And then my education site is elena s blair.com and that's where you can find a ton of free resources.

[00:43:18] I am a, I have a private podcast right now. We're thinking of taking it live, but lots and lots of free information on family newborn school, photography, and the business side of photography. I'm very. Obsessed with people actually being profitable. And then, my photography website is elena bla photography.com and that's where you can just see examples of my, my style and my work.

[00:43:41] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: just to throw a little third party testimonial into Elena's Mastermind, a good friend of mine was getting into photography. it's in her family. so she, she won, she always had photography in her blood, and she was starting her business, family, family portraits [00:44:00] predominantly. and. She took Elena's Mastermind and her business is since then, has like skyrocketed and is doing

[00:44:09] extremely well. And, you know who I'm talking about, but,

[00:44:14] Elena S Blair: it's pretty cool, you know, when you start something like that. A lot of, we make, we made our businesses up, all of us. Right. We just like made it up.

[00:44:21] And when I started I thought, is this actually repeatable? Am I really gonna be able to like, you know, systemize this and, and share it? And now I've worked with eight different groups and I mean, it's so fun to see these people just, you know, thriving, leaving jobs like big jobs, like leaving a job as a doctor, leaving a job as a pharmacist because they're now making more money as a photographer.

[00:44:44] And that's, I'm not saying that's for everybody, but it's just very cool. It's very, very cool to help people in that way, so I know there's enough business for all of us. I 100% know it in my heart, so I love helping people with that side.

[00:44:57] Scott Wyden Kivowitz: definitely. Awesome. Thank you again for [00:45:00] joining me. It's been

[00:45:00] a lot of fun chatting.

[00:45:02] Elena S Blair: You're welcome. Good to talking to you.

[00:45:03] ​