Atkins Labcast
Hosted by Kate and Paul Atkins, the third generation owners of the oldest photo lab in Australia. A podcast about living with and loving photography. From philosophy to technicalities, for amateurs, artists and professionals, we talk about it all.
Atkins Labcast
Atkins Labcast Episode 47 - Craig Arnold interview
Paul sit's down with Craig to discuss his life as a photographer. This is particularly interesting for those who struggle to promote themselves, as Craig has wrestled with introversion his whole life.
Craig's website: https://www.shecreative.com.au
Craig's instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ishuttertothink/
Craig's knife making: https://www.instagram.com/p/C6ncU61ysO-/?igsh=MTdwcDEyNzQ4MHg1Zg%3D%3D
One of Craig's favourite photographic subjects: https://www.instagram.com/p/C7nvPvMSxVm/?igsh=Y3FpZGVobXR3Y2R6
And the jewler's website: https://www.kathinglis.com
Craig's networking group: https://bnisas.com.au
G'day listeners, welcome to the Atkins Labcast. In this episode I sit down with Craig Arnold, a really successful commercial photographer. Craig puts his success down to his ability to maintain and gain relationships with clients, which is really a neat trick when essentially Craig calls himself an introvert. So Craig's worked really hard on this issue and he's got a lot of great advice from for everybody of all experience levels in the industry. So whether you're shooting wine bottles or weddings, there's something in this for you. Enjoy. Well, I'm sitting here at my desk today. We have a full plate of cookies. We're in Australia, so they're called biscuits, right? Sure. They're sitting in front of us. I'm sitting with my good friend, Craig Arnold, and the reason... why I've asked my good friend Craig Arnold to talk is because, well, it's a great thing to hear from a working photographer who's making a good living and making it happen and has got enough experience under his belt to understand how to run a business. And I think a lot of photographers don't. A lot of photographers that we hear from are very loud and You know, they're out in the speaking circuit or whatever, but that doesn't mean they're running a good business. And I want to talk to people who are making things happen for real. So Craig, welcome.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you very much. That's exciting.
SPEAKER_00:Yes. And so Craig is a bringer of biscuits or cookies. Yep. We have an unreasonable amount of cornflake biscuits. So there'll be some ASMR action happening here. Maybe some crunching. There might be crunching. We have tea. Yep. Excellent. So I'm going to start by asking you, We've known each other for a while, but the audience don't know you at all. Tell me, where did photography enter Craig's life?
SPEAKER_01:I started photography almost by accident. I used to work in the mining industry and I always had a camera with me. I had a little Pentax ME Super film camera way back in the day with a 50mm lens is what I used to carry around. And when I was out in the middle of nowhere near Coober Pedy, doing my job in the mining industry, I'd take photographs of sunsets and wedge-tailed eagles and kangaroos and whatever I found interesting. And I just loved it as a hobby back then. It was just something I used to capture moments and to record the things I'd seen. So how'd you end up in the mining industry? That was totally by accident too. When I was in school, I had a very busy brain, very distracted, a bit of a ADHD kind of vibe. Yep. Surprising,
SPEAKER_00:I know. I can see you bouncing. And it's not from the sugar, impending sugar of the biscuits.
SPEAKER_01:No, it's just how my brain works. And I didn't suit regular education particularly well. And I was a bit of a nerd. And I loved photography just as an aside, but I didn't know what I wanted to do for a career. And I just thought, well, I'd like to get out and see some of Australia. So I went and Got into the mining industry, which is ironic because you go see these beautiful places and then they dig it up. They still do, you know. I know. As a 19-year-old, it struck me as an interesting job for a single bloke to go out and do some stuff and see some things, which it was. It definitely was that. Yeah, yeah,
SPEAKER_00:yeah. And so with the camera gear, was that something your family gave to you or did you just? I got a
SPEAKER_01:camera for my birthday. I think it was like my 16th or 17th birthday. And back in the day, that was a big deal for me. You know, it was a very impressive thing. You know, this little Pentax camera, I still remember it. And yeah, I used to, I was one of those people I'd go out on the weekends and I'd photograph things that I thought were interesting that I'd take my roll of film to the pharmacy and get it developed. It was my local chem mart.
SPEAKER_00:So where were you living at that stage? In Port
SPEAKER_01:Lincoln. Port Lincoln. Yeah, in the country.
SPEAKER_00:Those don't understand Port Lincoln's eight hour drive from Adelaide. So it's as far as Melbourne, but there is really nothing between Adelaide and Lincoln except some water or some gas. Desert-y farmland. The people
SPEAKER_01:at Port Augusta would be very unhappy to hear you say that. You kind of go up the bite and then down the other side. You do. It's on the end of Eyre Peninsula, and yeah, it's kind of its own little world down there in Port Lincoln.
SPEAKER_00:So you guys were quite remote, and so your growing up was in this sort of, was it kind of like an idyllic, remote, like, because there's a city down there. It's not a small place. It's got a decent sort of a town feel to it. It does.
SPEAKER_01:Look, Port Lincoln's a funny town. It was very much... Back in the day, a surfy kind of town and a fisherman's paradise. And, you know, people loved it for the rural lifestyle. It's a very pretty place. And there's still a lot of people who retire there. A lot of football players and people like that from Adelaide go and retire to Port Lincoln because it's so beautiful. And people in the yachting community love it. Yeah, yeah. It's good sailing down there. And I loved it as a child going to the beach and the sunshine and all of that, you know, coastal Australian rural living. Yeah. It was good fun. As a teenager, I didn't like it at all. It was very monocultural for me. I had a bit of an arty brain and an alternative brain and the idea of just going to the football every weekend and that being the main conversation for 80% of the time just didn't excite me. So I wanted to do other things.
SPEAKER_00:So how did you feed yourself in that environment? Like where did you find out that the football culture didn't suit you but the idea of art and that kind of stuff? Did interest you. How did you find that? It
SPEAKER_01:took a long time to filter through, to be honest. I was an avid reader and I was a nerd long before being a nerd was kind of interesting and popular. And I don't know, I've always been a little bit counterculture anyway. I've always wanted to question whatever the main dynamic is of a situation I'm around. So I like to see the other side of things. So I think just naturally, I wasn't interested in just slotting into whatever the mainstream ideal was and whether that's in terms of culture or in terms of preconceived ideas of masculinity or what recreation should be or all sorts of stuff. I just always wanted to know what else there was. I wasn't necessarily interested in just watching movies football on the weekend and thinking that was the most exciting thing in the world. That wasn't the most exciting thing for me. I was far more interested in Countdown, the music show, you know, and seeing the clips of all the bands and things like that. Stuff like that influenced me a lot. Yeah, yeah. And long before I knew about lighting and composition and lenses, you'd see a film clip from somebody and go, wow.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I mean, that was the beginning of a really interesting, very loosely shot film, really, wasn't it? Totally. And it was for– it was supporting– Another art set, and yet it really wasn't seen as an art thing as itself, but it really became it quickly, didn't it? It did. So that was an influence, right? So how did you get yourself all the way from a mining camp, taking photographs for fun, to being a working commercial photographer? What happened?
SPEAKER_01:It's been a really lumpy journey. I've done all sorts of things in the photography industry. I went and studied. Back in the day, there was a commercial photography course at Elizabeth Tafe, and I went and did that. Right. I did it initially because I really liked the idea of stepping out of the mining industry and not being covered in dirt and flies every day. I started to find that a bit boring. Funny that. I know. And the idea of occasionally talking to girls I thought would be fun because out there it was very blokey. And so, yeah, I went and did a course and discovered that I was actually quite good at it. And then, yeah, my love for photography grew. The more I learned, the more I wanted to learn. So it
SPEAKER_00:just evolved. So TAFE is like a– it's not university, but it's in the middle there. It's about technical– well, it stands for Technical and Further Education. Yeah. So it's about working and practising. So from TAFE, often you find yourself doing a placement for it. Is that where you found yourself for the next stage?
SPEAKER_01:I went and worked for a little while at a portrait studio, just doing portraits of, you know, happy, engaged couples and– people and babies and everything, literally all sorts of kinds of portraiture. And it wasn't quite the right fit for me. I started photographing weddings, as a lot of students do, and I really enjoyed that. I
SPEAKER_00:mean, they're dangerous things to do.
SPEAKER_01:They are, and initially it was very stressful because I was an introvert, so having to step out of my introvertedness to help run the show and get the right moments captured. And, you know, still shooting on film, by the way, and I used to bring my films to Atkins Technicolor, your lab in Pirie Street, back in the day. Back in the olden days. In the olden days. So
SPEAKER_00:what years are we talking about here?
SPEAKER_01:Oh, 90s, early 90s. I
SPEAKER_00:think that's when we really met each other. That's when we met each other. Yeah,
SPEAKER_01:and... Yeah, since then, I then worked in different– oh, I went and worked for a large commercial studio for quite a while, Orange Lane
SPEAKER_00:Studios. Yeah, and we should mention that one of your mentors, one of the two guys that ran it, passed away just the other week. And that's really– I mean, we talk to each other reasonably regularly, but that was where we last saw each other, at the wake for it, which brought the whole South Australian industry that– An industry, a part of the industry that I thought I forgot entirely about. Yes. You know, these large working commercial studios that had a lot of people move through them. They did. So you're one of these people that sort of started as a, what, a junior in that?
SPEAKER_01:I started as a darkroom technician back in the day. So I was working on larger printing black and white films back in the day. We printed a lot of black and white, mostly for press ads. Yep. And then obviously I learned how to shoot. colour transparency film. That was a big deal back in the day. We shot for a lot of commercial clients and we worked with the folks at Duck Pond. So I'd be constantly running films to and from Duck Pond, picking them up. We'd check the transparencies on the light box and then send them off to the clients. You know, the process was longer and much more arduous in the day of films than it is in this digital era.
SPEAKER_00:So how many people did it take? Let's say a car was in the studio because Orange Lane were famous. Lemon Connell originally were famous for having a cyclorama big enough to put a car in there.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So how many people would be involved in shooting a car?
SPEAKER_01:Oh, gee, at least six. Wow. Yeah, it was a big deal. So you'd have your photographer. Mike and Drew used to tag team, the two owners of Orange Lane. Yep. They'd tag team a lot on their commercial shoots. So Mike might be chatting to the client and Drew would be organising something with the lighting or getting a computer organised or whatever it is they were doing. And the assistants would be, you know, painting the site, putting sandbags down, you know, just there's all this stuff. He's done a lot of white paint. Oh, heaps of white paint. Stacks. Do you like it? No. No. I painted that cyclorama. And we used to joke that if you'd cut through it, you'd see a cross section of layers of all the different colours. And the styles of paint. And the styles of paint over the years, you know, like layers of strata.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, it's huge, that place. It was huge. I mean, anywhere you can drive a car into. Yeah. And light it evenly. Because I remember when they, when digital took off and they, Towards the closing years, they were using multi-captures to build up the image and also painting with light. Was those techniques used back then? You couldn't with film. It was all single capture, wasn't it?
SPEAKER_01:It was single capture. There was a bunch of techniques. We used to do light painting on film. And back in the day, we shot a lot on medium format and large format film, which meant you could put a Polaroid back on the camera, test your exposure with Polaroid back, pull the Polaroid through, wait your two minutes until it was cooked, peel it apart, look at what your lighting was doing and go, oh, okay, that's good, but this bit over here needs a bit more or I need a reflector or, you know, it's a bit too hot because some of the films were very fussy with their exposure.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So you had to really keep an eye on that stuff.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So what, like working in a big studio that you obviously got a ton of stuff out of, with the idea of running a, like a business, you know, the idea of going out and actually basically running the studio yourself. Did you get much out of the way they operated their studio and how that informed you for setting up the business of Craig Arnold Photographer?
SPEAKER_01:Look, I did and I didn't. There's things in business where you work for a company and you go, oh, I love how they're doing that thing. And then you also go, oh, I probably wouldn't do it that way. Like there's lessons for and against. And I think some of the things that I learnt were so useful in terms of lighting and composition and the different aspects of photographing subjects. This was predominantly a product studio. That was our main bread and butter. So we were photographing for... BRL Hardy and Mitsubishi and Woolworths and Mitre 10, like National Brands used to do a lot of their stuff in Adelaide because this is where their distribution centres were. Oh, right. Of course,
SPEAKER_00:Central.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. And so it was a fantastic learning place, but I feel like I didn't learn enough about business back in the day.
SPEAKER_00:But you wouldn't have seen a lot of that? Because were they hard sales people? Did they have an aspect to them? Because they had to seize these contracts. They had to get them from Bernie Van Elsen or whoever else was running a studio nearby.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:You didn't see any of that?
SPEAKER_01:Look, I saw some of it and a lot of it came down to relationships and Adelaide especially has always been a relationship town and business is about relationships. So we used to– Orange Lane Studios had a lot of work with different advertising agencies. So you'd know who was running particular accounts of particular clients and you go, wow, we want to get more work for Mitsubishi. We should really go talk to so-and-so.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_01:And so people used to, you know, whatever, this is the era of the long lunch too. People used to take each other out for lunch and discuss concepts and have a few glasses of wine and say, yeah, yeah, actually we'd love to work with you. Like it was a different time. And certainly in Adelaide, the advertising agencies had their own style of how they managed business, some of which was good. some of which wasn't particularly good, and it's since been outmoded.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:But it was the rule of the day back then. So
SPEAKER_00:has that– okay, so I get it, right? And I did see those relationships and how that works. How has that now translated to now? Because, like, in 2001, a lot has happened in your career. You've done a lot of stuff. In 2001, you formed a business with another person. Like, you got together and you collaborated with someone. And this is a really– I think it was a very early idea. There wasn't a lot of businesses working this way where you got a designer that you worked with and you formed a creative compound. Yeah. That's not a great way to, I don't know the best word for it. It sounds a bit too Trumpy in a compound, but you know, the idea that you get together in a building and then you have these different skill sets and that's, then you can deliver that information. So this is in 2000. We'll go back to the forming of that business in a sec. Yeah. But how has the idea of the long lunch and the relationships, what has that turned into now? with your business? Because I know you're very active with relationships and networking and that sort of stuff.
SPEAKER_01:Look, it's something, again, I've kind of fallen into. To be honest, if I hadn't got with my partner, Jodie, she was a client and she started up SheCreative, the business that we run together. She is a fantastic business person, very smart, very structured. And she thinks a lot about business relationships and I guess the strategically who she'd like to work for in the long term and how she can best serve those clients and fix their problems. So she's like a sniper in that respect. She's
SPEAKER_00:looking
SPEAKER_01:ahead and going, okay, they would work with us well. Very intelligent in that regards, whereas I've always been patchy as heck. Like I really was not organised in that area. I'm a stereotypical creative in that I see a project and I jump right into it. I'm like Homer Simpson. Ooh, a poodle, you know. A dog with a fluffy tail. Exactly. Exactly. So that hasn't always served me particularly well because I'll be like, oh, I must go concentrate on this job. And then I pop up from the job, I've finished it and go, now, I was supposed to send those emails and I should have followed up on that quote. And my business processes were not great. So ironically, when I got together with Jodie, Jodie was a client, we got together romantically. And then later on, we got together as a business partnership. So she's the The brains of the operation in many ways and the graphic designer and the creative director of She Creative and I'm on the photography side. Yep. And as well as being a, you know, I feel very fortunate to be with her as a romantic partner. You've got that as well. Yeah. I'm super lucky to be with her as a business person because she's best practice in many ways in terms of how she runs the business whereas I have been rather patchy at times, but I'm leveling up my game and I'm doing a lot better with that stuff these days. And it is about relationships. Right. And it's taken me such a long time to realize that. Cause I used to think, well, if my photos are lovely, people will find me and I'll get the work.
SPEAKER_00:And I'd love. You've always been strong with relationships. I, I mean, I don't know. Maybe you just didn't realize that that is the thing you need to work on or use because like we started hanging out and it was the early days. It was early for both of– well, for me and you had just started working as a photographer. And we– you know, it was a relationship. We formed it very quickly. Yes. And in many ways I was a supplier in some kind of ways, but we had a general friendship. But I always felt that with everyone– everyone spoke very highly of you at that time and do now and that you check in with people and you– you know, I don't– I think that comes naturally to you. Whether you saw that as something you needed to work more for your business, I don't know. Because I felt before She Creative, you were bouncing around and feeling a little bit erratic about what you're doing. Totally. Under the wings of Orange Lane, you had work fed to you. You produced great work. You had award-winning images. All that stuff that, well, the AOPP, the Australian Institute of Professional Photography, certainly rated you highly for. In that world, which is hilarious. Not that they rated you highly, but hilarious that it's all about just taking a nice picture. Yes. Which we know professionalism has nothing to do with– well, not nothing, but it's maybe a third of the deal, maybe a 10% of the deal. Totally. The other 90% is– Yeah,
SPEAKER_01:right. Look, it's funny. I'm an introvert by nature, and I got into photography. Yeah, I know. Hard to believe.
SPEAKER_00:You ought to see him about, I wasn't there a couple of hours ago. You were at a networking event. Yes. Today, this morning. Yes. We're now looking, it's 9.30 in the morning, and at what time did you turn up at this networking event? I got there at 6.40. How many people were in the room? 65. And you were doing what, bouncing around like a little ball? Energize a bunny? Pretty much. Okay. So what's this introvert stuff?
SPEAKER_01:Well, look, I have had to work against my nature. One of the lovely things about being an introvert is that you tend to be more of an observer than a participant at times. Like you're happy to sit on the sidelines and watch the people with more confidence do their thing. So as a photographer- That's perfect. Like for me, this has worked out as a really good career because I'm a natural observer and I will frequently sit back a little bit and watch a room before I choose to participate. But the tricky part about that, and this is probably relevant to the Instagram generation now who love to photograph their breakfasts and their holidays and everything, is that if you spend too much time being an observer, Susan Sontag, the fabulous philosopher, said you become a tourist in your own life. If you're just looking at everything through a viewfinder. And I figured that out. I went, well, this is all well and good being able to come to a place or to an event and take beautiful photographs and then walk out again and look at those photographs and go, that was a lovely event. But if I haven't participated in it, you know, I'm selling myself short in terms of what I'm getting out of life or getting out of the interaction. So I've had to work against my introvert nature to be more of a participant. And the reason why I joined that business networking group was not just to get more business and find more relationships that I value, but also to learn new skills. Introverts need to get out of their own way to be better at interacting with the world and meeting new people. And in this era of the digital bubble where we're all in little bubbles, stepping outside of your comfort zone and trying new stuff and meeting new people and people from different walks of life and perspectives and cultural backgrounds is so important. It's so important for your brain, but it's also super important for business.
SPEAKER_00:So how did you defeat– because like the traditional definition of an introvert is after being with people, your energy's gone, right? Whereas the definition of an extrovert is that you get energy from being with people. Yes. So how did you defeat– that feeling like we're now after the event of you hanging out with 65 being the energizer are you still working on that you're going to leave here and you're going to be miserable as all hell and going to need a day to process and recover or have you tricked yourself past that and now find there's like safe energy in the way that because you know you're in your 50s now you understand you've done a lot of living in life yep um and you've practiced this thing and you know that I mean, the other thing that I've been told with introverts is that you run back through your conversations and you're kind of regretting saying certain things and you're overanalyzing what happened in that event.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Have you realised that you're not going to put your foot in it and that you're going to say nice things and people are going to like you or is it a safe group of people? Would it work the same if you're going into a huge political event that you're photographing? Would it work the same? It
SPEAKER_01:does work the same. What it is is... It's kind of exercise. You have to do the reps. Oh, really? Yeah. So whenever you choose to challenge yourself to step outside of your standard nature, whatever that might be, you've got to put in some effort. And it's by putting in effort to challenge your natural nature, you actually find rewards that you wouldn't normally have found. And certainly if you're an introvert and you– Get out of your own way and you go and meet a bunch of people at a networking event or, you know, if I'm photographing a bunch of people and I choose at some point to, you know, put the camera in the bag and chat to people. Yeah. That's actually really valuable. It's really good for you to do that stuff not only because you might happen to meet someone who becomes a client or find a new friend or just learn some new information. It's also good for your own personal development. And that's something I've challenged myself to do over and over and over. Yeah. Because yes, that introvert nature, you go out and you do that stuff and then you just go, oh wow, I need some downtime. And so mostly what I do is I'll structure my time so that if I do have to go out and engage with people, then I'm back in the office doing my emails and doing my admin and doing the other things that I have to do in work that don't require me to put out that same kind of energy. So that works out quite well. There's a yin
SPEAKER_00:and yang to it. Yeah, so you've basically practiced that. And it's been beneficial to your business, right? Big time. Yeah. And so what do you mostly find yourself photographing these days? Oh, it's really broad. So
SPEAKER_01:as a commercial photographer, you know, last week I photographed a giant earth mover for a group that does, I knew you'd like that, for a construction, they do stuff for construction companies. And, you know, I do corporate portraits and I do photograph wine models and I photograph events. It's really broad. And so the current theme, well, the central theme is it's images for marketing. Okay. Which depending on who you're talking to, if they're making products, then I'm doing product photography. If they're professional services, then I'm photographing the people with the skills that they offer and I'm photographing their client interactions and their offices and their teams. Yeah. So it's really varied, but I love the variety. It makes me happy. It suits
SPEAKER_00:my brain. I'm sure the ADHD thing would be fed by, you know, not just being the dog photographer or the, Wedding photographer. Back on that, do you ever find yourself shooting domestic things like pets, families, babies, weddings? Hardly
SPEAKER_01:any anymore. I did a lot of weddings at one stage. And again, it's such a good thing to learn from. But it's not my natural jam. What is it
SPEAKER_00:about it that you don't like? Or that you didn't jam with? That means they don't like.
SPEAKER_01:Look, I really like the editorial style of weddings where you're being an observer and you photograph all the beautiful moments and you're not running things as such. You're letting people find their own vibe. Yep. And you're capturing all the beautiful little interactions and the happiness and the craziness of weddings. Yeah. And there's still a big market for that. Don't get me wrong.
SPEAKER_00:It's the most solid. I think it's the most solid business idea with a camera.
SPEAKER_01:Yes.
SPEAKER_00:For what it's worth, that idea. So,
SPEAKER_01:yeah. But I feel like, you know, it's just horses for courses. I've always enjoyed product photography, which sounds weird. But I love working with light and figuring out backgrounds and all sorts of things that make a product look good. more interesting than it is or, you know, as interesting as it can be, but technical challenges as well. You know, if someone comes to me and says, I want to photograph these wine bottles, but the varnish on them is really weird and no one can photograph it. I'm like, well, that's, I have to do it now. It's a challenge. I really want to make that happen.
SPEAKER_00:And I'm sure that's when everything at Orange Lane that came would be just in the back of your head. Cause I remember the challenges, particularly with film, how you deal with with, you know, reflections and...
SPEAKER_01:Yes.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, like, it's incredible. And I've still... discovering those sorts of things because I'm not doing that practice. So discovering those things and you'll speak to someone like yourself, you know, yeah, you just do that. Yes. And you can't be afraid to ask these questions to resolve them because you buy yourself one of those little pop-up light tents that Amazon sells you. Yes. And you stick your products in there. Yeah. Everything's going to look the same and you're going to find those problems bouncing straight back at you.
SPEAKER_01:Totally. Yeah, it's an interesting thing. Product photography is like architecture, is like portraiture. At the end of the day, what you're trying to do is get the best out of a subject. And in my mind, I'm always thinking about the marketing brief associated with those jobs. So it's not enough to take... a pretty picture of someone in yoga gear on the edge of a cliff looking fabulous Instagram style. For me, it's about, is this serving my client in the market? Is this going to help them get more sales? Is this going to represent their business in a really interesting way? The marketing aspect of what my clients are doing
SPEAKER_00:is- How do you get that from them? What's the process with a client of- You're obviously fully loaded when you go to make this shoot. Where do you get this ammunition for to how to make it work?
SPEAKER_01:A lot of it's experience, but a lot of it's listening. They Again, that introvert skill of being interested in other people's stories and not just wanting to lead off with all my opinions is really useful because you really want to get a, you know, we call it a brief. You get a brief from a client. They say, oh, listen, we need to get some photos for our website. I go, terrific. What else do you need? Oh, we could probably use some stuff that we can put on Instagram and use on LinkedIn. And, you know, as soon as you start speaking to people, the conversation gets broader because initially it might be, oh, we need to get headshots of our team. I'm like, cool, where's your offices at? And they say, oh, we've got a headquarters here. I'm like, excellent. So what kind of facilities do you have? And the conversation often goes from being, oh, we need a dozen photos of our team to, actually, we could probably do with photos of all of our vans or we should photograph
SPEAKER_00:our- Right, so you're saying that, and it's just by- Are you researching these people before you get there? Are you Googling their websites and seeing what they're talking about?
SPEAKER_01:Often Google people's websites, especially if they say we want photographs to revamp our website or that we're getting a brand new website built because our old one doesn't serve us. Then yes, you look at what their old one looks like and you go, well, yeah, I can see why we need to update this. But yeah, it's about having a bit of curiosity about what their situation is. And again, who their target market is, what they're trying to do with this product. with all of the images that we want to create, what do they want to achieve? For some people, it's simple. They've got products. They want to sell their products. The images need to show their products really, really well. But as soon as I start those communications, I'm like, awesome. If I'm photographing for a wine brand, can I also do some photographs of your cellar door or your vines or other aspects of the wine brand than just your bottles? Especially if you're travelling to a location. Yeah,
SPEAKER_00:to a location. Absolutely. Yeah. So with the... the way your workload is made up. Yeah. What, you know, if you can be a rough indication of what you get from just word of mouth, what you get from marketing activities, like where you're actively putting yourself out there, what you get from maybe She Creative Jodie and her connections. Yes. So how does that break down with you now? Or how much you get from your networking activity in your business networking group?
SPEAKER_01:It's... It's funny. I would say constantly my business networking group brings me about 75% of my work. Yeah. And it's because I go there every week and I meet with these folks and there are all these different professions and they constantly send me new work. And I find it really satisfying because while they're listening out in the marketplace for someone who might need a photographer, I'm listening out in the marketplace for someone who might need their particular skills. Yeah. And so every week I try and find at least one or two opportunities for people in the room. Every week people in the room send me at least three opportunities for other jobs. And it's so useful. It's a different way of doing business than what I've previously done. And
SPEAKER_00:they're all clear on your pricing?
SPEAKER_01:Well, look, I have to educate them. That's one of the tricks. You have to educate people so they understand the value of what you do.
SPEAKER_00:I struggle with the term of idea of educating a client because it sounds like a magic trick. Go on. What's your general experience with expectations with pricing? So, like, people come to you going, oh, that was a lot. Like, that's going to, oh, I can't afford you. Is that
SPEAKER_01:what happens? So much depends on the problems they're trying to solve. So, you know, I have clients who will say to me, you know, okay, a simple example is the construction industry. They are super busy, they are time poor, and they frequently don't photograph their projects well. And they hardly ever have great photographs of their teams because they're busy. They're doing their stuff. They're out in their IVs, you know, stomping around on site. So for them, if I say, you know, to do the photographs to revamp your website, it's going to be, I don't know,$1,800 or$2,000 or something like that. And I'm going to shoot for these many hours and deliver this many shots. For them, it's a no-brainer. It's such a small investment. For other people, if you have, you know, if you're making money from every single product, you might go, oh, gee, that's a lot. So it is industry dependent. It also depends on what it is they want to achieve with their marketing.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, really flat rate. You charging for like half day type of things?
SPEAKER_01:Yes. Look, I mostly am talking hourly or half day, but I have packages these days. It's just easier for people to understand if you have a package and you can just say, listen, this is where I normally start with people in your situation. And they say yes or no. You can pre-qualify people. in many ways, if they kind of wince at you, you go, well, you know, maybe I'm not the right photographer or maybe you're not quite ready to spend that sort of money. I frequently back it up with, well, look, do you have a budget in mind? Tell me what your budget is and I can tell you if I can help you. And we go from there. But it is very much industry specific. And I get the weirdest requests. You know, I did photography a while back for a soap brand. They wanted to launch some really cool handmade soaps and they wanted to sell it through Amazon. And I gave them a quote and they said, oh yeah, that sounds great. And I said, look, also we could do this, this and this. I'm actually going out in the country. I could take some of your soaps and put them in this particular scenario because it was very Aussie branded soap. So I was like, I can photograph them out amongst some gum trees and other than just studio shots. And they went, yes, let's do that. And so the quote went from being modest to larger. They didn't bat an eyelid because they had a very specific marketing plan. They were launching themselves in the U.S., So they weren't just going, oh, wow, that's a lot of dollars to spend on some soap to just photograph. Yes, they know they need to do it. They know they need to do it. And they've got a very particular marketing objective. And for them, they were like, oh, yeah, no, that's great. Let's just get it done. We want to launch this brand. And they've done really well with this brand because the photographs perfectly suit what they want to achieve. So that stuff is really important.
SPEAKER_00:And it's you sitting around with Jodie workshopping the brand and is she giving you feedback saying, hey, you should– Ask them about that. Does that happen in your little...
SPEAKER_01:It doesn't really. Jodie and I tend to work very separately. She works for a lot of government clients and I work with this other... Hodgepodge of different varieties of clients in construction, people in corporate, people through my B&I group, all sorts of different areas. But just yesterday I was doing a quote and I typed out the quote and I said to Jodie, can you run your eye over this just to see if I'm in the right, because it's actually quite a large job. And she, as she usually does, she went, oh, no, that bit's not right. And this bit could be worded better. And have you thought about this aspect of how much time that's going to spend? And so we do bounce ideas off of each other, but we work very separately a lot of the time. We're servicing different parts of the market, which is very handy in a business sense. Oh, yeah, when
SPEAKER_00:one's up, the other can be down. Okay, so that kind of changes my thinking a little bit. I mean, I understand a lot of what you've said, but I'm just thinking for the sake of the listener that the way you work with Jodie is not such a tight collaboration in that respect. You're not– always feeding each other clients and all those kinds of things, or picking a client up and feeding design work to her and all that kind of stuff. You're kind of running it as a separate entity. You just come together for a brand. Your website's very cool, and I love the fact that you have a director of greeting people, that your dog is sitting there. Yeah, Floss. Floss, I would have thought she would have held more– of a role in the company. Like Frank here is chief executive officer. We all do it for Frank. Right. Right. You know, like if he's not happy, then what's going on? That is a trouble.
SPEAKER_01:Yes. Look, Floss is director of first impressions. Yeah. Is that what, I got the wording wrong. Yes. Always
SPEAKER_00:happy to meet at a cafe.
SPEAKER_01:I am very happy to work my busy lifestyle to support my dog. So that's, you know, that's what it's all about. No, it's funny. Jodes and I have a really lovely working relationship. We've been working together for quite a while. Hang
SPEAKER_00:on, that's 23 years you've been working together. Well, look. She created as a, no, Jodes formed it in 2001. Jodes formed
SPEAKER_01:it in 2001 and we got together later romantically and then professionally. Yep. So I think we've been working together 15, 16 years, something like that. That's a tough gig for a relationship, isn't it? It is a tough gig. And, you know, as I said, Jodie's a business director. Dynamo. She's a really hardworking gal and has created a very successful business. And at times I have been a really useful asset. At times I've been a bit of a passenger in terms of how well
SPEAKER_00:I have. I'm going to say lead weight.
SPEAKER_01:No, I've run a bit hot and cold in the industry and there's been times where I have just not had the right client base. So I've had to work hard to find better kinds of clients. And I'm still going through that process, to be honest, because I love finding new clientele and I love finding new opportunities in the market and again I've had to change my introvert habits to see that as an exciting thing rather than an onerous thing because for quite a while I found it a bit onerous to go oh god I've got to get out and meet people and find some new clients and everyone feels that some days though but if you can flip it in your head to like you know this is an exciting thing to go out and to chat to people and find out what their situations are and what their challenges are and You know, I think being that thing of being in a networking group where I can literally go, oh, okay, you don't need photography right now, but what are your challenges? And they can say to me, oh, I kind of want to meet a business coach or a copywriter or a so-and-so. And I can go, well, listen, I'm part of a group and I can introduce you to somebody who might be really helpful for your situation. Would you mind if I do that? And people almost always go, yes, absolutely. That'd be lovely. And then... that sort of good karma comes back around. People will then go, oh, that was so helpful and I do need a photographer now. So I like that aspect of it where you feel like you're giving people solutions to problems and you're one of the solutions that may turn up depending on their situation.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and not being precious if it doesn't work for you this time. No. And not being precious, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I heard a marketing coach gal or a business, I guess, coaching gal, and she was saying that it's very much like working out. You just need to put in the reps. You need to, you know, turn up at the gym and, you know, do the repetitions and you just get stronger. And so no longer looking at it like, oh, my God, it's a personal defeat if they didn't choose me. It's like, you know, every no just brings you closer to a yes. And I think taking some of that, self-esteem stuff out of the equation. And I got to tell you, it's taken me a long time to reach this point. I used to take it very personally. If a client didn't pick me for a project, I'd be like,
SPEAKER_00:damn it. Even though the temptation or probably the practice that you may have done was to lower your price. Yes. Drop your value, like lower what you think of yourself by dropping the price just to get a job. Totally. To get the feedback from the client that you did a great job. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, look, it's a hard thing. It's crazy, isn't it? Your self-esteem can really just go on this absolute, rollercoaster ride. And certainly for an introvert, I'm super good one-to-one. Very happy to be chatting to someone one-to-one, but as soon as I'm in a larger group situation, I have to put in more effort to handle things right and to do things well. And so, yes, I do have, well, I previously have put a lot of self-esteem on the line in terms of winning work and things like that. And now I don't do that nearly as much. I'm much happier to just get out there and do the work and create nice images and create nice solutions for people. And then, yeah,
SPEAKER_00:hop onto the next job. So when you, when you, like you said, one-on-one, you're great. I agree with you. And I've, I'm comfortable that way too. I'm not that discomfortable, discomfortable, uncomfortable when you walk into a room and you see a group of people standing and looking at their feet and you walk into that group and you go, Hey, what's going on? Like I can, I can almost do that comfortably. I don't know why. I think it's just one of my lucky skill sets. Have you got yourself, because I know that's part of walking to, you said you're a great one-on-one, walking to a group with a bunch of people talking about how about them crows or whatever the subject, you know, that everyone wants to talk about what happened with the election or whatever. Yeah. I mean, that's not great fun. Have you got a bunch of preloaded questions that you throw out to start things, you know, like icebreakers with people? Is that something that you've developed?
SPEAKER_01:It is. I'm very organic with that stuff. I like to find out how do people come into the situation they're in. So often at a, you know, a professional meeting or a network or whatever you say to people. So, you know, how did you fall into this career and what do you love about it? What are your challenges at the moment in the market? And there's all sorts of things you can ask people, but the trick is to just pay attention. Oftentimes people don't realize, but they're just waiting for the opportunity to speak. So they're not really paying. Yeah. They're not paying enough attention. And as soon as you start paying attention, there are conversational openings all over the place that you can tap into and And also people find it nice when you remember what their situation is
SPEAKER_00:about. That's a real skill, though.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And that's something you have naturally. You don't take notes. I'm not saying that. I don't think it's a nefarious thing. I think it's a really clever thing. to remember people's information. And at times I found myself making notes like, oh, geez, that's what the child's name is. Yes. You know, because you have conversations with people all the time. You go, oh, my dog's called Floss, right? And you're going, when you see the person, is that Flo? Is that
SPEAKER_01:Flory? See, weirdly enough, I can remember people's dog's names.
SPEAKER_00:I can't remember their names. Well, I think that's it. Yeah, there's a ton of people that are like that. Because dogs are safe, okay? What
SPEAKER_01:are they going to do? But I'm also often more interested in dogs than people. That's a full disclaimer. Yeah. But no, I'm– People are weird. Yes. And sometimes I like the weirdness and sometimes I don't. I guess the thing is I like a lot of ADHD type people. I like the deeper stuff. I like the emotional stuff. I like the real stuff. If you just want to talk to me about the football or the weather, I will start to ice over. So I like to try and get underneath that stuff and ask questions. more interesting questions from my point of view, deeper stuff, because otherwise I feel like we're just doing the same tap dance around and it's, it's a bit dull for me. I
SPEAKER_00:mean, the things with the football week and it's a great, it's a great thing to bring up here. There are people that genuinely interested. Oh yeah. So let's replace football with like, what does Craig like to do in his spare time? And I know you like making knives, right? Yes. Yes. So, uh, Our football conversation could be about knife making. And if it was popular enough, then it would be replace football with knife making. You know what I mean? It's just the idea. I think everyone has the thing that's their special thing. Sure. And finding that special thing helps conversation. And there are some general things people are generally interested in as well. Yeah. So that curiosity that you have and you've got this– A bit of a memory trick that allows you to remember certain details about people. Yeah. And you use some tricks on the side to help that work.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it's funny. I feel like it's just actually at the end of the day learning how to be a better conversationalist. I don't necessarily remember stacks of stuff about people, but being a good conversationalist is an art in itself. And if you can be a little more curious and a little more engaged and, again, get under the surface stuff a little bit, People really respond to it. But also you just have much better, much more interesting conversations. Yeah. And that interests me because I do think most people, if you scratch the surface, will have some interesting things to say, which is why I don't want to sit just at the surface. I want to go underneath that a bit. But it's also a useful skill in business because you can then get to, you know, is your business growing? Have you got challenges? Are you looking for a new location? Are you trying to find new staff? Are you wanting to break into new markets? There's– So many conversations you can have depending on the questions you ask.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So the networking group are effectively made up of self-employed people, really. Mostly. Yeah. So they have this thing where their big interest is their income being sustained. Sure. And that is by- Finding new clients. Finding new clients. And that's being, yeah. And it's being sustained by finding new clients and having those conversations and keeping that connection with- You know, the people around. Did you think the networking group makes it easier for you to remember what it is? Because you're seeing the same people every week. So you can actually say, hey, how'd you get on with the doctors last week? Big time.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely. And I guess when people are first used to this stuff. So the networking group I'm in is BNI. It's an American model. When you first turn up at the meeting, it seems completely bonkers. You've got all these people standing up and asking for referral requests and saying, this week I'd love to be introduced.
SPEAKER_00:It has a religious fervour to it that is scary, but I just want to qualify that because it does have a religious fervour and it feels very American and weird. But I've been now, I don't know, four or five times for different reasons, once or twice with other people and three or four times with you. What I've found, though, is– these, if you think about it, there's a large group of people in a room. They're all individuals. They wouldn't be there if they were doing a bad job of what their business was. Okay. So this is about referring people. This is about word of mouth stuff. So those people wouldn't survive in that group if they weren't doing a decent job of their thing. And that's what it really comes down to because you can't, A group of people– it's not like an Amway thing where everyone's lying about the same idea, right? No. No, it's not because you've got someone who's selling their photography, someone who's a plumber, even though it feels like an Amway thing. Yes. And there is a lot of hype and energy at the place, and it is disturbing to the person who's uninitiated.
SPEAKER_02:Yes.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I actually think it's pretty amazing for someone who is a self-employed person to get them sorted.
SPEAKER_01:Look, it's a big deal because a lot of people in business, they're rattling around in their own little bubble and they're meeting, you know, other people who do similar things to them or just their traditional client base and they don't get out of that headspace at all. And, you know, even now digitally, Instagram and all those things, Facebook, it filters everything so you see more of what you're already like. And that's actually not very good long term.
SPEAKER_00:The death of serendipity.
SPEAKER_01:Totally. Yeah. Whereas I joined this business group because I wanted to get better at, you know, not being an introvert. I wanted to step outside of that stuff and learn how to public speak and how to strike up new relationships with other business people. But it's also a little community. So, you know, we support each other. If someone has an issue during the week and they go, oh, my God, I've got this whatever legal problem. And then you talk to the lawyer and the lawyer says, no, no, just do this. And you get all of this support. in between the meetings that's super useful. And you find new friends. You make new business acquaintances. You have long-term relationships with people who keep sending you work. There's a lot of lovely stuff about it. Yes, when you first come to a meeting, it feels like a lot. It's a lot at that time of the morning. Yeah, it's a lot at that time. I mean, I'm a
SPEAKER_00:morning person
SPEAKER_01:too, so I'm cool with that. Well, I'm not a morning person. Again, another reason why I joined is I need to get my ass out of bed and get out and do stuff. Yeah, Craig, you never do anything easy. Look, I tend to take– I have literally had school teachers who said to me, if there's a difficult way to do something, you'll find it. So that's me. But– Are you sure? Yes. But, you know, again, I kind of want to not fight against my nature, just learn new skills. I feel like that's super useful. That's a pretty
SPEAKER_00:rare thing. Like I'm– What I would love for people that are listening to get ideas, because this is the reason why I asked you to come on, because you actively work on yourself more than anyone else I know. And it feels to me like you've had a great success with that. Now, I'm also asking the question like out there is, is this actually yourself really? And were you trying to hide behind the fact you wanted to watch cartoons all morning and not get up? Yeah. I don't know. I'm suspicious that you're actually this kind of a person, really, and you're pretending that you're a– anyway.
SPEAKER_01:No, because I think it's a really important question because we all change throughout our lives. We constantly learn. We change that much. No, we change a lot. You have a different relationship. You get in a romance with somebody, suddenly you'll change what you like to have for breakfast or you'll change– Sure. You know, there's a range of– You're not changing who Craig Arnold
SPEAKER_00:is. I feel like we change constantly throughout our lives. Something got you out of– port lincoln and out of football and drinking on a saturday afternoon something got you out of there that was not because it's so easy to fall into that there's lots of nice people supporting each other in this town and there's you know the sports and there's you know there's girls and there's all sorts of reasons not to leave there but then you found yourself in a mining camp like what a what a horrible place for a lot of people to be um a tough tough place for a lot of people to be and you weren't You know, you weren't the big, boofy, minor guy. No. You weren't, you know, full of misogynistic jokes. No. You've been a feminist since the beginning of time, and yet you find yourself like, you know, like you keep– anyway, I'm suspicious of you. I'll just say that, okay? That's an interesting perspective. So let's get back to B&I because I want to– there's one of the things that I think that works, and this is not an advert for B&I– Do whatever the hell you want, everybody. And I'm not a BNI member myself. Yes. But I think the fact that you're allowed to have one of each kind of business in BNI is really important. Yeah. Because, and I'm fighting against the idea where we talk about collaborations, we talk about getting together with groups of friends. If you hang out with photographers all the time. Yeah. You're going to be just basically sharpening your pencil until the lead falls out. Totally. It's the whole business model of, you know, print awards and all that kind of stuff is everyone looks at each other's work and ranks each other based on how each other's photographer. I don't think that's the way it, it doesn't get you more business. It gets you better as a photographer, but it doesn't get you operating in the real world. And I think BNI being a microcosm of the real world and that, you know, you've got plumbers and wallpapers and they've all got to, all got to work to the accountants. And I think that's a clever thing. Do you think there's a critical size, though, that a networking group has to be for that to function? Because if there was like five members or 20 members, do you think it would work as well as something– the group you're in has got 60-odd members.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, we're lucky. We're currently the biggest BNI group in Australia. Australia?
SPEAKER_00:In Adelaide?
SPEAKER_01:Yes.
SPEAKER_00:Is that because we're all desperate here in Adelaide to get work? Or
SPEAKER_01:what's the
SPEAKER_00:story?
SPEAKER_01:No, we created a nice culture and it just grew organically. So I feel like the culture of any particular group you join will obviously– affect the efficiency and the results you get from it you can join some groups and it's honestly like just socializing you hang out and you have cups of tea or beers and have a chat and it's satisfying socially is it advancing you professionally are you winning new clients not necessarily so you know it's so much depends on you know i know people who are members of the masonic lodge and people who join rotary and people who you know join sporting groups and For some people, it's just the interactions and the sense of community and they have fun and that's enough. You know, they like that interaction. That's great. I like the idea of self-development and professional development and learning new things. And so I felt like BNI was such a good fit for me because they constantly want you to learn new stuff and to figure out how to interact with other professions and other strata of business and win new kinds of clients, ideally better clients than you used to win. There's a lot of learning involved and I really enjoy that part. Would it work for someone who's not so interested in that side of it, do you think? I feel like so much depends on what you want to get out of it because it's like anything. It's like dating, you know. If you want to turn up on a date and you just talk about yourself and you talk about your football and you're not interested in what the person on the other side of the table is interested in, they'll walk away going, that was a terrible date. That was really boring. This person just wanted to talk about themselves. It's precisely the same in business. If you're just waiting to go, oh, my God, I own a photo lab and we do really great products and I can't wait to tell you about our, you know, and you just blather at them. It's not a great engagement and you're not necessarily learning stacks of stuff about the other person. And I feel like, again, being a good conversationalist or being curious makes such a difference to the quality of your interactions,
SPEAKER_00:you know. Do you ever fear that– that stuff could tip over to being a good manipulator. Oh, hell yes. And as you get really good at it, that becomes like, well, I'm a bit of a magician of sorts, you know. And the other end of that scale is con man, you know. Yes, totally.
SPEAKER_01:Look, I am a five-star people pleaser, and for a lot of years it's been to my detriment to be a people pleaser because I've put myself well down the list of, you know, how this interaction is going. Yeah. People pleasing is at its heart a kind of manipulation. You don't necessarily want to ask upfront for what you're after. So you manipulate the situation to please the other person first so they like you more so you can start to ask for what you want. Like absolutely there are aspects of manipulation to being good at those skills. Again, I feel like a certain generosity of thinking is the nicest way to work around that. Like don't have this, I just want to get stuff out of every interaction thinking mindset. i i feel you know no one likes to be sold to and also i don't think that that style of neediness is it particularly attractive or useful yeah and i have been needy at times in my life i've been like oh my goodness i just want to get this out of these interactions and it's not lovely it's not nice and i don't like being in that mindset so for me being generous with my time and my thinking is a much better way to go yeah
SPEAKER_00:okay so it's the generosity of thinking and not feeling every interaction is there to benefit you. No, far from it. Is the way you feel that you're keeping that sort of thing at bay. Because, you know, you hear of people, oh, he's a great salesperson. And I don't ever– I've never thought that of you. But you see, and there's people in our industry who have always seen it. On selling. Oh, my God. And, you
SPEAKER_01:know– It's okay, but the problem is you just tend to get good at winning new relationships and not maintaining them. That sales mindset is I must get another one, must get another one, must get
SPEAKER_00:another one. So you're working through the audience. It's a bit of
SPEAKER_01:a churn and burn kind of vibe and you're not looking after your relationships you've already got. You can't do that here in Adelaide. You can't do that here in Adelaide and I would suggest you can't do that in a lot of markets. But also it's just a really crappy way of living, like that sales mentality is yuck. Whereas if you're just working on relationships and you do a great job and people want to refer you because you're good at it, it's a whole different way of doing business and it's a whole different way of just living in the world, interacting with people in a really honest way and saying, hey, I really enjoy this kind of work. If you know someone who needs it, Let's have a chat.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah. That's great. So you work from home? Yep. Do you have like a studio set up at home?
SPEAKER_01:No, we used to have a studio in the city. Had it for 10 years and loved it. But we got a bit tired of the commute and we wanted to do a bit of a sea change. We bought a house down at Largs Bay, which is down near the beach. And then we sold our office space. And then about four months after we sold it, COVID hit. So it was like the absolute best time to sell an office and to move into home. We were all set up and ready to go. And then COVID happened. Wow. Um, and you know, again, um, props to my partner, Jody, when COVID happened, my work dried up, of course, as a location photographer, it was, I couldn't get out and do stuff. We're under lockdown, but the work she was doing for her education clients tripled because they had to put all these resources online. So again, uh, She was very smart in terms of the kind of work she was offering to the marketplace because it was exactly what was needed.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah. And look, both of you have been in the industry for a long time. Yeah. your respective parts of the industry. So, you know, up-and-coming photographers and that sort of hearing this, there's the unfair advantage that you're comfortable with yourselves and you know what you're doing. And a lot of the thing with youth is unsure that the path you've chosen is the right path. Do you have any advice for someone in that situation who likes taking pictures and they think you're talented? I mean, I see so much great photography, not just on Instagram, but… you know, in exhibitions and around the place. And you can see these people, you can see there is a core of talent that's there, but you can see also they don't know how to make anything of it. What would you give them?
SPEAKER_01:Look, it's a hard thing because in some ways photography is a bit like the music industry. You see these people at the top who are making a lot of money and putting out albums and touring. And there's a lot of people who are doing pub gigs and they're not necessarily making heaps of money, but they kind of enjoy what they're doing, but they'd love to get that break and have a, you know, a really high-selling record. And photography has for many years been kind of that vibe. There's certain people who you see and you go, oh, my God, I love their work, you know. You see these photographers photographing Hollywood stars or, you know, photographing sports cars or whatever it is they love to do. I haven't always wanted fame or fortune or any of that stuff. I just enjoy the work for itself. I feel like it's like anything. If you really enjoy a particular thing, then pursuing it as a hobby and as a love, there is nothing wrong with that. For some people, if they then try and make a profession out of it, it can suck all the happiness out of it. We've seen a lot of that, haven't we? And that's a hard thing. Plenty of people got in the music industry because they can sing beautifully and have interesting ideas for songs. As soon as they try and make a living out of it, it's actually really hard. So for some people- You know, there are so many photographers and artists who they do their photography as a kind of a side hustle and they've got another job which, you know, works with that. They do their nine-to-five job or their three-day-a-week job and then they do their photography on the side. And that seems to be a good mix in terms of their happiness, maybe economically. I don't know. It's not as good, but, you know. I mean, it's got to be safer.
SPEAKER_00:Yes. Because it's the same with you and Joe. You've both got a very different sort of client base. Yes. So if you've been working whatever it might be, three or four days a week, and photography's done, it's a safety net. And it's probably going to make your photography better because it's going to take the pressure off of it to make.
SPEAKER_01:Yep. It's a hard thing, knowing where your market might lie and how to monetize your skills. And certainly in this digital era where everything seems to be– So freely available, easily downloadable. How do you market yourself in that world?
SPEAKER_00:It's a tricky thing. Well, I mean, you've kind of answered that in that it's about a network. Yes. And I think there are people of your– not just you. I'm talking to a young photographer. There's people around you doing interesting things. Yes. They're the people you should be photographing because, and it's going to take a few years, but give them five or 10 years and those people doing interesting things. are going to be doing more interesting things and they're going to be making a living out of it. And that relationship with them and photographing their journey, however it might be, is what's going to be your business. And do you find that your clients are of a similar age set to you? Like, are you moving up with them or now it's different? Now you're established. It's
SPEAKER_01:really different. I bump into people all the time. I bump into startups who need a certain thing so they can sell their products in the market. I bump into clients who are really established and have a a very successful business and they just need more marketing assets to use across all their different platforms. They're selling their services. It's very broad, the clientele that I work with. And that's, I think unconsciously, that's what I've been wanting is a broad client base because it used to be, I mostly did new people who were my age, you know, white middle-class professionals doing a particular thing. And that was my client base, but that market could run really hot and cold on me, which then stressed me out. Now I'm bumping into people from all sorts of different occupations. And I really like that. I like the variety for me. It's a mixed bag of lollies. I don't know what each week's going to bring. And I enjoy the spontaneity and the finding new people to chat to.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So out of like, we're going to
SPEAKER_00:wrap up our little chat, but we could talk for five hours easily. I just wanted to ask you, like, you've got a good career and you've taken some really interesting stuff and work with interesting subjects. Is there anything that just like sticks in your mind or something that you've done that you're really proud of that was really, you know? Oh, look,
SPEAKER_01:there's lots of different jobs I'm proud of for different reasons. Some of them are just nerdy technical things about lighting that I really enjoyed at the time and other people would have no appreciation of. I've done a lot of work. There's a jewellery maker in Adelaide, Kath English. She makes the most amazing jewellery and she makes it out of PVC plastic. So a dead boring industrial product. And she uses these tiny little chisels, woodworking chisels, and carves intricate patterns into them. And then she dyes the plastic and she turns it into bracelets and necklaces. And it's the most amazing stuff to photograph because you can do beautiful things with the light. It's reflective and translucent and you can get great shadows. And one of my absolute favourite subjects to photograph is Kath's jewellery.
SPEAKER_00:Wow.
SPEAKER_01:And, you know, I've also photographed for knife makers. I enjoy making stuff outside of photography. I like making stuff. you know, all sorts of things, recycling. So you've
SPEAKER_00:had stuff in the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art in New York, haven't you, in the gift shop? I have. I have. Hang on. So this is nothing to do with photography and this is not what the podcast is wrapping up. I'm telling you, it's wrapping up. It is nothing to do with photography. Oh, it's wrapping up though. So we're not, this is not going to be a whole other story, but just give us a little bit of what you did.
SPEAKER_01:I started to make bracelets out of old lenses. So back when cell phones took off, people were throwing out all these beautiful old cameras because they didn't want them, you know.
SPEAKER_00:Different story now.
SPEAKER_01:Yes. Yes. Very different story now, which I'm happy to say, but people were throwing out cameras. You'd see them in garage sales all the time. And I went, this is ridiculous. These are beautifully made objects. So I started to make bracelets out of the lens rings, especially if I could find a broken lens. A
SPEAKER_00:photographer doesn't want to see F64 on their wrist or F8.
SPEAKER_01:Totally. So I started doing that and then I started selling it through a website in Sydney. A lady had a jewellery website specifically about handmade objects. And then she got an inquiry from the Museum of Art and Design in New York saying, you know, we'd love to stock this stuff. And when I got the email, I thought it was a scam because I thought, this can't be real. But it turned out to be real, and, yes, I got into an exhibition with, I don't know, 42 different artists from around the world. And it was all about photography and jewellery and the intersection of those things because from the earliest days of… Cameras
SPEAKER_00:are jewellery. Like, they would take jewellery… hands to put them together and that's very fine
SPEAKER_01:lens
SPEAKER_00:making
SPEAKER_01:but from the very outset of when they first started to make tin types people would wear them on their chest like with a photo of their husband and wife they used to do cameos like you'd wear a portrait of your parents as a brooch as out of respect from the first moment you could encapsulate people in photography people were using it for jewelry yeah so there's a long association between the two and yeah i got to be in an amazing exhibition showing that stuff
SPEAKER_00:Did you go over for it?
SPEAKER_01:We did. We went to the opening. It was overwhelming. There was a lot of stuff going on. And some of the artists there are incredible. People have been jewellery makers for, you know, 30 years. Yeah. And I just stumbled into it sideways going, oh, this is an interesting idea. I might try this. And suddenly they liked it. So it was good fun. But
SPEAKER_00:you did it by following your nose. Yes. It wasn't about a plan. No. It was about, hey, this is a cool thing. I do like to explore stuff. So that was very useful. Oh, that's lovely. Well, Craig, it's been a wonderful hour. You keep reminding me of... what I love about life and what I need to do more of. And I'm very grateful to have you around. Oh, thank
SPEAKER_01:you. Likewise. You're one of my longstanding buddies in this industry and in life. And, you know, I like your generosity of spirit and the way you're always interested in other people's stories. So I feel like I've been trying to embody that stuff.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, thank you. Well, it works. So thank you for your hour and we wish you good luck on whatever's next. I'm sure, you know what, I don't think it matters what you're going to do tomorrow with a camera. It'll be fine. It'll be great because every time I look your way, you're just motoring along. And I think I wish that for everybody in the world and I wish that for every photographer I know had that sort of peace. And I know it's not all… Beer and Skittles for you. No. I know this is hard work out of, like, there's been struggle and there's been times it's been tough making an income and there's times you've had to rely on others. Yes. And that's not a good feeling. No, no, it's horrible. And it's not, and it's, you know, a feeling that, and, you know, you grow up in a blokey growing up world. Yes. And it doesn't feel right in that universe to be relying on a partner for those things. No. But thank God that's, falling apart. Yes. Thank God wokeness is not going to save us. And I, you know, I, it's just, I know we've sold this as, as Craig's a superhero and you are for what you are, but I want everyone to understand it's, you're a regular person who's doing regular stuff. It is work really, really hard to get what you are and anyone can do it. Yeah, definitely they can. It's not, you know, and I don't want to put you down in that respect. No,
SPEAKER_01:but look, I feel like photography is one of those things that any level that you're at, you can get some beautiful personal rewards for it. And it's not all about making money or making a career, you know. Years and years ago, I was going out with a gal and her uncle was a photographer and he had exhibited his work in Paris. His work was beautiful, medium format, black and white stuff. I was... just starting to learn. And I looked at his work on the wall and I was so despondent. And I went, oh my God, this work is beautiful. I could see so far how much better he was than me. And he said to me, it doesn't matter. I'm like, how can you say that? And he said, because at any level you can get joy out of photography. You can't necessarily get from other things. You know, you can take a beautiful photograph of your partner or of your dog or a sunset and go, oh my God, I just love that so much. You might not have the full technical knowledge or the skills, but you've managed to nail it on a particular day, I feel like that's one of the lovely things about this industry. You can just capture moments that you really, truly love and, you know, be satisfied with that. That's a really good thing. That's awesome.
SPEAKER_00:Well, we've got a plate of cookies to eat. We do. We've saved the audience from the ASMR of crunch because they're cornflake biscuits. Yes. And you couldn't like the louder thing to eat. No, I
SPEAKER_01:know. We both just looked at them.
SPEAKER_00:We did. And they're calling us. There's four of them. We'll have a photograph on the show notes of these things. But, look, thank you so much, Craig, and all the success to you.
UNKNOWN:Thanks very much. Thank you.