Atkins Labcast

Atkins Labcast Episode 49 - Bec Griffiths

• Paul and Kate Atkins • Episode 49

Share episode

Paul interviews Bec Griffiths from Melbourne. Bec is a photographic artist with a corporate marketing background. One of those rare people holding two quite different skills. Adding a third foundational skill, Bec is a great communicator.

Combining all this, Bec mentors artists, aiming to assist them to make the best of their practise.

https://www.becgriffithsphotography.com/
https://www.instagram.com/bec__griffiths/
https://www.nakedmarketingschool.com/
https://photocollective.com.au/australian-photography-awards/
https://www.instagram.com/laura_aziz_/
https://www.instagram.com/nataliefinney_photo/
https://www.salafestival.com/

SPEAKER_01:

G'day listeners, welcome to episode 49 of the Atkins Labcast. In this episode, I interview Bec Griffiths. Bec's a Melbourne-based fine art photographer, and while she calls Melbourne home, she can often be found travelling and running workshops all around the globe. Bec came to my attention through seeing her work on Instagram. She moves in the same photographic art circles I follow, and after seeing her work, she was a natural follow for me, so you might want to check the link out on Instagram and follow her too. Bec has a background in marketing, in big corporate marketing, which is something often missing amongst artists. If you think about it, having to put yourself out there, having to get yourself noticed, having to get the invitations to exhibitions, that's pretty key in the step up the ladder. So she's combined her powers, and just like a superhero, she helps artists make the most of their work. So there's a lot of information there, little courses and things that she's got running that you might want to check out. But whilst doing all that, she still produces some thoroughly moving artwork of her own. So whether you're interested in the marketing or not, you certainly love what she has to say and her attitudes and thoughts behind working and living as an artist. Enjoy.

UNKNOWN:

Enjoy.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, tell me, Bec, tell me about photography and where it all began for you because you are a, you're a family photographer. What do you do? What do you do?

SPEAKER_00:

That's a really good question and I'm one of those typical artists that hates being defined. But effectively I just create for art's sake. So I don't do any paid art. So I don't, I've dabbled in doing family stuff or dabbled in other stuff. But really I just create for myself and for art.

SPEAKER_01:

What a fabulous situation to find yourself in. It's like there's so many people in this world that are, that have a love for something and then try and make a living out of it and it kind of crushes the bunny. Yeah,

SPEAKER_00:

and I think both avenues are completely fine, right? It's like if you love it and you love it so much that you also want it to be your paid career, then what an amazing way to create a career, although I do agree with you it can be kind of– you can get a bit more caught up in what you should be doing rather than what you're called to do when you have client expectations. But the only thing I would say is someone who doesn't have clients in that way, I actually work really well with deadlines and so I kind of feel like sometimes that would be good because it would give me a structure to what I have to deliver. So

SPEAKER_01:

I've heard that some creatives really like to have tight constraints. Is that you? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

It depends what you call tight. I think some constraints are really important, well, for me anyway, but I think for a lot of artists that I kind of speak to as well because it just helps give some refinement. I think you can be more creative when you've got an understanding of what the parameters are because then actually as artists what we do is push against those parameters or find the most creative way within that space. parameter I think with no parameters at all it wouldn't work for me

SPEAKER_01:

yeah right so so where did this all begin with you like were you just an arty kid that

SPEAKER_00:

no I wasn't I was a kid who had who asked for a briefcase for their eighth birthday and a filing cabinet and ran a library out of my bedroom window I was like that I'm going to be a business person kind of kid um my mom you're the

SPEAKER_01:

alex p keaton were you

SPEAKER_00:

oh not quite not quite not quite um no my mom was incredibly creative um and she's an artist um so i probably had it and a lot of my family are in kind of some art or art adjacent stuff and so it was always around me But it wasn't kind of, yeah, like I look at my niece, for instance, who's incredibly creative and that wasn't me. It wasn't like, oh, that's the creative kid at all. But when I, as is with lots of parents and particularly mums, when I had my second child, I really wanted like a good camera and so I went and got a camera and really started playing from there and then just started kind of kept exploring and kept wanting to do different things and try different things and yeah and felt motivated to just keep trying I think

SPEAKER_01:

because your work is wild like it's it's so it's amazing and I can see that you've got you're focused on on like they feel like family themes but then They're sort of like love and connection and

SPEAKER_00:

all

SPEAKER_01:

that sort of stuff.

SPEAKER_00:

I think some of that is just logistics, right? So my kids are 12 and 14 now. They're much less happy to be in front of the camera, but when they were younger they would do it, right? It's

SPEAKER_01:

not very skibbity, is

SPEAKER_00:

it? So some of that's access. And then I also– so I've taken– both my kids i find as muses definitely my son in particular i explore with him a lot of um work that kind of skates along the intersection of masculinity and femininity um and so he's a good study of that um and then i also take a lot of photos of just women um but it can be harder to access or I'm too lazy to access maybe. Well, you know,

SPEAKER_01:

it's tricky getting people to want to play in that game. I mean, if you've got someone, you've got a friend and you can, you know, become back and forth with that sort of stuff, can't you?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I mean, I'm very fortunate. I've had lots of people do it. Yeah, I wouldn't want people to think that I don't appreciate those who have been in photos for me, but it's just– it's more logistics, right? You've got to organise it, find the right person, find the location.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, totally.

SPEAKER_00:

Work out the light. So what are you

SPEAKER_01:

trying to show with that work? What are

SPEAKER_00:

you trying to reveal? It's something I'm always– In the process of defining, so I feel like it evolves all the time, but I would say what I recognise in my work is a couple of things and one is the multiplicity of women in particular and the way that society expects us to turn up in the world, and that's often contradictory to each other. So, you know, as a mother, we're expected to be soft and caring and compassionate. In business, we're expected to be strong and affirming. And when you stray from any of those labels in the wrong environment, then you kind of– punished is too strong a word, I can't think of it, but there's consequences of that. And I think that often we're being kind of asked to flip into different personality styles given whatever situation we're in. And I'm quite interested in that in the same way as I'm interested in imposter syndrome and the kind of fake it till you make it, but also be vulnerable. And I just think there's such conflicting messages and I find that fascinating to explore. And so what I've started to do in my work, both consciously and subconsciously, is kind of layer it. So how do you kind of go, well, this is the first layer, but then if you layer something else on. And the

SPEAKER_01:

layers swap,

SPEAKER_00:

wouldn't they? Sorry?

SPEAKER_01:

Layers would swap around, wouldn't they? Like depending on what's going on, what's on the bottom layer?

SPEAKER_00:

Definitely. And doesn't it

SPEAKER_01:

kind of conflict with, you know, the fake it till you make it sort of conflict with the authenticity and the idea like, are you gaslighting me sort of thing? Well, actually, I'm just trying to do the next thing. I'm trying to take

SPEAKER_00:

the next step. Yeah. I don't know. And there's no... concrete answer and everyone's experience is different I think there are some common there's the kind of what do they say the universality and the specificity I can never say that word and there's definitely commonality I did a project that I shot in New Orleans a couple of years ago and in that project it was about eight eight or ten women from all different backgrounds all American but other than that from all different backgrounds and experiences but there was a commonality in that feeling anxious about the multiple ways that we have to kind of turn up in the world and then the other so that's one of the big pieces and then the other piece that I tend to play with in all different ways particularly in work of my son is the the femininity and the masculinity, which is, it's the same theme, right? It's like when you expect to have more female characteristics, quotation marks, when you expect it to have more male characteristics and what do you assume when you meet someone? And yeah, so I think that's what's underneath it, but that's not necessarily consciously when I've got the camera, the forefront of my mind, but it tends to kind of play out in the end work.

SPEAKER_01:

So I must be there in this bubbling way always, and then its way out is with the camera or your way you're asking those questions with the camera. So your background, I can see a lot of community interest, like you want to work with other people, you want to help other people. Obviously, you've worked with people in America. I can see you've got something coming up in the future in the CAT skills. So tell me how that community mentoring and all that has come about.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, good question. And why

SPEAKER_01:

the USA? That's what I want to know.

SPEAKER_00:

That's a really good question too. Oh, where do I begin? So I would say some of the first friendships and relationships I made with other photographers happened to be from photographers from the US and I think in some way, and they happened to be in that family, photographers, genre because at the time I was taking lots of photos with my kids um and I think it's a much more established genre over there and at the time which is probably coming up to nine ten years ago it was particularly more established over there um and and we've got a great family photography community in Australia but it just happened to be who I connected with and made a lot of relationships that way. So I think that's why the USA piece. And then I subsequently started a business with a friend of mine who's a US photographer. And so a lot of that business, a lot of our clients were from the US. So that's the US connection. And I love visiting there and have had the fortunate chance to meet a lot of my friends there in person.

SPEAKER_01:

It's pretty, you know, it's pretty... What's the best word? It's kind of a lush place at all different levels. Like, if you're into rivers, the most amazing rivers totally chock with water. Like, we've got nothing like it. Look at the Yarra and the Murray here, and it's just those miserable little things sneaking by. You go to America and there's just like this intensity. So, at the level of, oh, I'm interested in family photography… or I'm an artist working in gender, there would be like thousands of people interested in that. In Australia... It'll be, you know, hundreds.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, it's just purely population-based to a degree. Population, percentage of population. So they've got a pretty similar, my understanding, despite the geographical maps we grew up with. I actually think our landmass size is not that different to the US. We've got

SPEAKER_01:

10% of the population.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, but we've got tiny amount of population. So you just, my other background, without segueing too much, is marketing. And you just, in the US, you can have very specific subset groups to market to, and it's It's enough volume. In Australia, a lot of our marketing is done to the mass because we don't have the volume within the niche communities.

SPEAKER_01:

And it's crazy. We get all our marketing– we don't. We used to get our marketing ideas from the US and used to listen to it like it was a Bloomin' Bible. But the reality is they– I mean, it should flip the other way. And it does to some extent. I mean, we're famous as being a test market because if it can kind of work in Australia, then– kind of work anywhere. But the reality is they just kind of hang a shingle out and off they go as a business

SPEAKER_00:

person. Well, they just have a completely different volume. And also, I mean, this is all incredibly stereotyped, of course, but there's a rich entrepreneurial community sense without the tall poppy syndrome that we–

SPEAKER_01:

Self-belief, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

But do you know what? I think that's– Self-belief. I think

SPEAKER_01:

that's super– I think it's super problematic, though, in America. I think it's a part of what Trump is, is that, you know, like unchecked, we're the greatest. And there's something about the way it's here. Like, I mean, we look at our politicians and we go, yeah, you know, tell us another one. And we're always checking on them, whereas they can say anything they want, whatever the side of politics it is. And, you know, I'm certainly not interested in Trump, but, you know, it's definitely a weird thing. But as a small business person, it's a very powerful tool to do. you know, to be that kind of supportive. So you're operating that world, helping people. You said you've, I've heard the word marketing background. What does that mean?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, so I, my career, which is 20 plus years, has been in corporate marketing.

SPEAKER_02:

Wow.

SPEAKER_00:

So I've worked both client side and agency side for more than 20 years in that space. So one of the things I did when I started this business with my friend, Yann, is we started a business called Naked Marketing, which is, really tries to guide artists in how can they create a fulfilling and thriving business from a place of integrity because marketing I would say sales even more so, but marketing just has such a stigma around it of, you know, the car salesperson and trying to convince people to buy things that they don't want or need. And yet it just is a crucial part of having a successful business as a photographer. So it's how do you teach and help artists use the tools from marketing in a way that feels authentic?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's a massive thing. I mean, in this world we all have to ask for something, you know. Can you please pay me for this? Can I give you one of my potatoes for one of your eggs? Like that's the core of it all because we have to eat, you know.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, totally. But it's so hard because as an artist and I, you know, I get this because that's one of the reasons I'm not in business as an artist, as a photographer. It feels so... vulnerable and so you know when you create art it's different to creating a widget that sits to the side that feels less self-connected or less connected to our own kind of purpose and way of being in the world but when you create art there's a piece of you in that and then you're having to ask people to pay you and then there's all these kind of how it's all tied up in validation

SPEAKER_01:

and trust

SPEAKER_00:

And

SPEAKER_01:

trust, you know, like I know Beck's work. It's amazing. But what's she going to do for me? Like how's she going to make me feel and look? Yeah, I like how she made, you know, Martha feel and look, but how is she going to make me feel? Like that's a really tough bridge to cross as an artist or a custom manufacturer, you know, someone who makes bespoke handbags. I'm sure they have a similar issue like when there's a one-off thing they're making. So the corporate marketing has given you like the information to pass on because, you know, you as not a practising artist selling that work, do you feel like it's hard for you to empathise completely with those people because you're not there trying to make it yourself?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I would say I'm a practising artist. I just don't sell the work. So I probably would, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Sorry, I meant to clarify that.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

because I think that the mindset of the artist is the same. And I've definitely done, you know, I did do family sessions for a little while, but not long. I don't have, I definitely don't come in saying I'm an established family photographer, although my business partner in naked marketing is. And so I think that's why it's such a good combination. But I definitely understand and can empathize with the mindset, some of the hurdles, that are difficult as an artist to create a business in. But I actually think the fact that I'm not working as an artist, because really to do that means I wouldn't have 20 years of marketing experience. So it's... I wouldn't want to... Let me think how to frame this. I think part of the immense value that I bring to other artists is that I'm able to understand as an artist how we create art, how it feels to create art and how it can feel uncomfortable to put a price on art, but at the same time bring the more pragmatic and less... emotional tools that i've learned for you know more than 20 years and applied to lots and lots of different brands so i think it's an asset rather than um a difficult for me to connect if that makes sense

SPEAKER_01:

no no i get that that makes complete sense i mean just your experience alone uh would bring a ton of value to that um mentoring relationship i mean people people say i was in marketing etc whatever they think but the reality is if if you've been in with large corporate clients. That's a very different

SPEAKER_00:

level of things. It's incredibly different. And what it means is that I really focus on teaching the, I guess, the kind of ground and foundation tools rather than the latest fads and social media tools. trends, if that makes sense. Totally. And I feel very, very strongly that to get good at this, it's not about using a formula that someone else has created. It's actually about digging into your own reason for having a business, for creating art and finding the unique thing about you that is going to draw in clients rather than looking at a very successful, established, specific person who's in the same genre as you and then trying to follow it because then you're always just a derivative of that.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. There's a famous, well, you would have been witness to a few speakers that have travelled the photography circuit and said this is how you do it. And we had an example, a friend of mine who was someone who I would say he's creative in certain ways but he's not a broad thinker and he's a little bit of a, you know, follow the instruction book type of a person. And he followed this speaker to the nth degree and just lost everything, lost his house, lost his wife. Oh, really? Because the idea that these people say, no, just do it this way. And it was the American model. And it just doesn't work like that. You have to then take that information and digest it and apply it to yourself and who you are. A

SPEAKER_00:

hundred

SPEAKER_01:

percent. That's so hard to– like it's hard to teach people that particularly– If they're, you know, along those lines of, oh, just give me the recipe, you know, I just want to.

SPEAKER_00:

But I think all of us are like that a little bit. So I don't want to kind of in any way come across as looking down or thinking people who are desperate for that recipe are any less than because actually I think we all would love that, right? Like if someone said to me, here's a recipe and you're going to have a happy life and I guarantee it, I think we'd

SPEAKER_02:

all

SPEAKER_00:

kind of be a little bit wanting a piece of that. Of course. And I also just think, and I kind of bang on about this a bit, but particularly things like social media and this promise of it used to be like a six-figure income. It's probably gone up now. But it's... we're so conditioned to want things quickly and we keep getting served all these stories of overnight success. And so we kind of feel like a failure when we're not smashing it within two months, a year of opening a business because we're just fed. There was one, do you remember that show called I think it was on Netflix. It was a really popular one, Queen's Gambit. I think it was about the show. Oh, yeah. Yeah? Yeah, yeah. So I remember everyone was talking about the producer or the showrunner on that was this overnight success. But actually, if you dig into his story, he'd worked for 20 years. The idea had been rejected several times. Like, I just think we... content and clickbait is so focused on the immediacy and who who's done it and not the backstory and we only ever skim the surface and then you could just feel like a failure and actually 99% of people are doing it by turning up and trying and turning up and trying and turning up and trying over and over again

SPEAKER_01:

and the one thing they have improved enormously is the ability to worm into individuals wants and likes because you know they're scraping all of our data at any rate instagram and facebook whatever and they know what we're about to do next um and so they could easily pitch this stuff to us so you know

SPEAKER_00:

it doesn't take much vulnerability so it's so seductive and also do you

SPEAKER_01:

want to be that cynical like that you like write all those approaches off or all those ideas off. I mean, I don't know many people that would be happy being that cynical as to just ignore it all.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I think that's a good point. So I think it's about taking the essence of it because there's some fantastic people who have done amazing things that we can learn from. It's just probably not following the exact formula of how they did it.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah. So tell me, with the people you're working with, I've just, you know, like, just like I described the Google machine or the Facebook machine, I also was looking back through your posts and... Oh, yeah. Sorry. And you talked about Kintsugi, this Japanese idea of remaking breaks. So how does... Are we talking about artists at a certain time of their life that are going... or people who've had other things in their life and trying to pull it back to make something? Is this what

SPEAKER_00:

the idea? I know what you're talking about. I completely forgot. No, that refers to, so one of the things that I do when I mentor or when I'm teaching a course, especially in a kind of when there's an ability to have a one-on-one discussion, is kind of going, let's just talk about everything that exists, right? And throw it on the table and then from that we'll build what is the business structure that most suits or what is the thing that's going to have this really nice intersection of what you want to spend your day doing and create and put out in the world but also is commercially viable. So it's really just going let's just spread everything on the table and put it back together in a different way.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, right.

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I mean it's a beautiful idea even, you know, in the sense of the Wabi Sabi side of it where something is actually, you know, broken and you need to reassemble it. You

SPEAKER_00:

see it in everybody. There's a great artist playing much more specifically in that space. I saw this, I can't for the life of me remember who the artist was, but where she was photographing women but like using gold leaf on scars and things on their body and it's just stunning. Wow. But no, when I was referring to her, that was very much about how do we kind of break down what's existing in your business and build it back up again?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I mean, it's a wonderful way of thinking. It's a very progressive idea. We often try and hold on to the things we're told that we're meant to be from the past and we're like, oh, I've got to do this. But in reality, you know, you've got, if you've got young kids, you've got between sort of 10 in the morning and, two in the afternoon to actually do anything.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

So what do I want to do in that time and what can I actually get done?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, for a lot of people,

SPEAKER_01:

that's right. Yeah, it's a massive thing. Yeah, it's an interesting idea and I love the idea that you're talking about where effectively what you're seeing on socials and what people are proposing their life is like and you're always comparing that to what your actual is. You know, they're on stage, you're backstage and it's so hard in that world to find your way forward. So with the people that you're working with, how have they responded to this sort of mentoring? Do you feel like you've built this bit of a community happening?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, definitely. I mean when we– Naked Marketing now has a product that you buy and do at your own pace. We used to teach it as a live course and so that also had a very specific community element to it. I think ultimately– As humans, we want to be seen, heard and understood. And we want to feel that advice given to us or tips and tools are based off how we feel as individuals. And I think that's what that offers. And we certainly also do that in our work. Naked at Home, which is the one that you do at home, but obviously we don't then have a one-on-one relationship with the person. I do have another course coming up though. So we're just about, I don't know when this podcast is released, but in about two days, registration opens for a course that I'm doing through Illuminate Classes. And that's the art of marketing. So that's very similar to all the themes we've been talking about today, but it has a one-on-one element with active students. So it just is a five-week kind of get in there, get saturated, learn, and then it's all done within the five weeks. So that's probably the next opportunity to do that. Well, this

SPEAKER_01:

will probably be out this week, end of this week, over the weekend or something like that. So perhaps there will be an opportunity for people to pick that up.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it might be, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

So what's happening with the Artful Retreat? Tell me about that.

SPEAKER_00:

So I guess back to your question of how does that come about, so I think that– Really, particularly in the last five to 10 years, I felt like there are two parts to my life. So there's the corporate marketing, very business focused part. And then there's the artist letting go of all those rules, creating, um, you know, working with the other side of the brain, really. And in that part in particular, I just think there is such opportunity for meaningful conversation and connection. And I think a lot of us used to find it on places like Instagram, where when I first joined Instagram, particularly when I was joined and creating art at the time, it was a place to talk about art, be inspired by art, feel connected to other artists. I've got a lot of friends I've made through Instagram that have now become friends in real life and that I've either gone to see or we've travelled together. I don't think, I don't know about you, but I don't think Instagram does that anymore. No,

SPEAKER_01:

it's definitely... They've broken it.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I just feel like I'm constantly getting served weight loss ads and, you know, ways to feel bad about my life again, whereas it used to be such a community culture. And so my friend Laura, who actually lives in Brighton in the UK, and I and we met through Instagram, we just feel like there's We need to find other ways to have that community, to be able to talk about things that impact us as artists. So we happen to both be mothers of kids similar age, so teen kind of kids. How do we not feel selfish about spending time on art rather than housework and kids and, you know, other parts of our lives? How do we... connect with other artists and let go of the kind of label of responsible partner, mother, caregiver, and how do we just be selfish, and I mean that in a positive way, to focus on art. And we don't feel that Instagram is doing that for us anymore. And so we're looking at ways to bring that conversation more broadly. So we did an in-person event in London in may i think it was we had about 20 artist women turn up to just talk about these things um then we did an online version of that and the artful retreat is the kind of next iteration of three and a half days of fine just kind of Being an artist and practicing and we've got elements of bringing a lot of you just certainly don't have to be a photographer, but a lot of our community are photographers. So we're looking at doing workshops that. And not photography based. So I, for instance, at home, I've been playing with Polaroid Emotions, which is photography based, but it is, you know, it's not about your camera, so to speak. She does a lot of collage work. So we're looking at ways to kind of ignite creativity that doesn't feel, that feels... like it's okay to be a beginner again. So let go of kind of the outcome has to be a perfect finished piece of art and more leaning into the creativity that happens in the process.

SPEAKER_01:

That's fascinating. You can see it with organisations, well, past organisations like AIPP where they were practising like really high-end creation and output. It was all, it all kind of felt the same heavily structured heavily produced and it was missing those elemental making things that you kind of get when you're in the mud. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

You

SPEAKER_01:

don't know what you're doing.

SPEAKER_00:

Not to take it too much to Instagram but I do feel like it is something that is kind of a big part of lots of people's lives in the art community and I think people are craving the rawness. They don't want the perfection. They want to see the, I think you put it really well, the backstage. We want to see the backstage, not just the onstage, because we're so encouraged in life at the moment in this era to perfect every part of kind of our outward facing selves.

SPEAKER_01:

Isn't that

SPEAKER_00:

a competition thing? And actually we're craving the opposite.

SPEAKER_01:

Isn't that because we're competing now? Like we feel– we're made to feel like we're competing. Like this whole likes, how many likes did you get type of stuff.

SPEAKER_00:

Totally. Totally. So how do we kind of– so we had an artful conversation online the other day and the way that we tried to reframe it is we don't think– we think something like Instagram still has a role, right? But it's if we treat it like a playground rather than something that– you know, is validated by likes, then does that change our relationship with it? Does it take us back to the ability to just play and be and not feel perfect and polished and judged?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, right, right. Have you messed around in TikTok?

SPEAKER_00:

I have and I feel like I'm too old, Paul.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, come on. It's like… Yeah, it's like finding what to do on it is really tough. Yeah. Because you don't want to be just doing the person that dances to the 90s. Yeah. Or 2000s, you know, you don't want to just be that person.

SPEAKER_00:

So what do you

SPEAKER_01:

use it for? What do you use TikTok for? The labs, I mean, I'm just reposting stuff because I really love it. I think it's… It's what Instagram was without the heavy manipulation I feel I'm getting now

SPEAKER_00:

with it. Oh, interesting.

SPEAKER_01:

It's a little more responsive to what I am liking and looking at than what they think I am, if you know what I mean.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah,

SPEAKER_01:

okay. And,

SPEAKER_00:

you know, I just… The algorithm is really spot on.

SPEAKER_01:

It's wild. Yeah, wow. It's so good and it's… It just lands in your lap and, I mean, it's very addictive in that respect. I'm lucky that I have a low tolerance to new, new, new, new. I need to slow it down. I'd rather be watching something dumb in YouTube for 15 minutes than 15 minutes of TikTok after TikTok. So I'm blessed, lucky, whatever. You know, I'm just so– whereas I know everyone else in my house, or Kate and the kids, they– They love it. And the kids are constantly uninstalling it because they're

SPEAKER_00:

fine. They feel like I've had too much. And how old are they?

SPEAKER_01:

So Elizabeth's 21 and Joe's 20.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, okay. So they're like adults now.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. So they both are. And so they're managing it. But, you know, they're also uninstalling Insta every now and then. But, you know, with our road trip where we drove and visited clients up the East Coast, we found that with our– how many of 1,000 followers the lab's got, 12,000 followers. We got no views of what we were posting. If I go for a bushwalk on a Sunday with my 1,000 followers, I get 100 views. And, you know, so it is kind of broken. But also I kind of respect the fact they don't want sales there. It ought to be about sales whereas, you know, it's a business account. So they ask us to pay money and then they'll show people.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes.

SPEAKER_01:

You know, I think we probably got away with free marketing for a very long time and now.

SPEAKER_00:

And that is the other thing that the kind of black and white part of my brain goes because there's a lot of creators that did incredibly well on Instagram for a long time and it's easy to feel really frustrated that a platform that used to work incredibly well for you isn't anymore because But again, if we reframe it to, hey, wasn't that cool? We got that free for a really long time. Because most, if you, you know, not to be too boring and corporate about it, but most advertising costs money.

SPEAKER_01:

Serious

SPEAKER_00:

money. It's amazing that Instagram for a really, really long time didn't.

SPEAKER_01:

I agree. I agree. But it just feels like, and it was good for us as a business. It made a huge difference to an 80 odd year old business to actually see a a lift with tools that were, if you just played the game right. So I think we're looking into TikTok for that. And the original question is, what's it about TikTok? And we've done a few things, but we realised that, and we're into making kind of still things, you know, stuff, you know, to sit there and enjoy in the still. But it's got, there's a lot of other info about that. There's the hows, the whys, the feelings you get from it. And that's what we're thinking about from our business perspective as to what to do. And artistically, I'm interested in unusual processes and unusual techniques and relationships and seeing art and sharing art. So personally, that's what I would be doing with TikTok. I just think it's a place and it's kind of working better than the others. Who knows what else it's doing to our brains in the background?

SPEAKER_00:

I don't know. It's scary.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah. But you've thought about it, obviously. Yeah,

SPEAKER_00:

but I guess I, but I also, you know, in terms of what I teach students, it's platform agnostic. Right? I'm going back to what are the fundamental principles of marketing. I'm not saying I'm the latest and greatest and up on the marketing trends. And probably for me personally, and particularly having teenagers in the house, I am holding them off TikTok as long as possible. And therefore I'm not going on TikTok because I want to model what I expect of them.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I understand. I've got to say, though, the thing that freed us and made us relax about it was that it didn't feel like it was trying to sell us anything.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, that's interesting.

SPEAKER_01:

It felt it was reflecting the better side of culture. Now, I'm sure if we were following gun nuts and that, it would be a different story.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it depends what you kind of follow, isn't it? But,

SPEAKER_01:

yeah, it's been– and the information, like particularly around autism– which is sort of rife in my family, particularly around, you know, kindness and the culture around, you know, change and, you know, the idea that you had mentioned where you You know, you look at what you have and you build something out of that. You know, this idea of shaking off the past and going, okay, hang on, we've got these problems to solve. How do we solve them? And I think that's why it's been super relaxing. And, you know, Kate's a good police officer for these things. She's very cautious about, you know, what she does and shares. And she feels very strongly. And I have enjoyed that same aspect of it. It's been very human. Again, I still don't know what it's doing to me.

SPEAKER_00:

But also you're adults, right? Sure, sure. I think if it was just me, I might be making a different decision. I've got lots of friends who I love and respect and who are on TikTok and there's no judgment for me. But also I don't– I know– I do feel susceptible to some of the messages already coming through Instagram, which I think is a bit of a tamer environment in some ways. So anyway, maybe I'll give it a go one day, but it's not this week.

SPEAKER_01:

No, I respect your decision. That's fair enough. It is hard to, I mean, I've always felt that our kids are like this cutting edge of the horror of online world, but someone has to work it out.

SPEAKER_00:

It's the

SPEAKER_01:

future. And these digital natives,

SPEAKER_00:

they're

SPEAKER_01:

going to rule it. They're going to know everything. they're going to know what an AI fake is before. I

SPEAKER_00:

hope so.

SPEAKER_01:

We do, yeah. I hope so. I haven't seen anything that's really, I mean, I'm very attuned to image quality and I know things when I see it, but I haven't seen an AI fake that's, oh, that made me not try. I've seen, you know, some, like a plane doing crazy things. Like I get a boys group and we share videos of water bombers and stuff like that. And, you know. I've shared a few things with me and they go, yeah, models, yeah, AI. And so here I'm telling you how great I am. But, you know, I've seen this stuff of Kamala Harris and Trump and that sort of thing out there and you go, hang on, that's, you know, don't be ridiculous.

SPEAKER_00:

I will say, I don't know where it's headed, but I think like any new tool, there is going to be downsides and upsides to it and we'll just have to ride it out to some degree.

SPEAKER_01:

So how do you feel in this sort of stuff about work-life balance and like because this stuff is very pervasive and it's 24 hours a day, you know, and I think a lot of the marketing that is about telling people who you are and wanting to connect with you as a person, not as a product you have, that requires seven days a week sometimes. How do you feel that works?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it can do. But again, I think the starting premise of that is that it's a mainly online platform marketing strategy and actually I mean your business is 80 years so you might not remember but you probably heard from your parents but the majority of the first few years of business it's word of mouth so get off social media it's having discussions it's doing a good job and then getting referred and again we're conditioned to believe that um social media equals marketing actually the most important steps of marketing and get really really clear on what it is that you're selling and why people should buy from you how are you going to make them feel and then being consistent but consistency doesn't mean necessarily posting on social media three times a day It might mean turning up, if you're a wedding photographer, to wedding expos. It probably means networking with other suppliers at any weddings that you've got booked, for instance. So I do think we've got this absolute conditioning that success equals I'm visible and I'm sharing of myself on social media. And that can be a pathway to success, but it's not the only pathway.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, your comment about you don't remember starting off in business, and you're dead right. I certainly don't because it's my grandfather's

SPEAKER_00:

job. Well, just from the early years, but I'm sure you evolved it and had kind of.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah,

SPEAKER_00:

totally. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

I appreciate the compliment that I'm not 80. Thank you. That's awesome. But what I will say, the thing I observe with our, like we are clearly in the domestic photography business, We make things for families and weddings and babies, right? We get it. So what we see happen is you defined it perfectly, is we see people make connections with their group around them, whether it be as they're getting married or as they're having babies. And then as their network blooms and their work is reflected by people asking to photograph for them, right? Yep. And eventually some of them, like let's say it's weddings, they then move into babies because people start having babies and then families, and they successfully ride those little waves of their network as it expands. And eventually, and you get to, like I'm 54, right, you get to this age, and looking around at photographers that are 54, and quite often they're past all of that now because your kids are like adults. What do you do next? And that's when I think it becomes actually really challenging for to do that next step. It's like the Badlands. You've got to make it across this. And how do you lay down that I'm a trustworthy, but I'll turn up to your wedding. Like, do you really want me at your wedding? Like, you want some, you know, 30-something bouncing around, having a great time that you feel like you can connect with. Do you really want me? So that's the challenge, I reckon, with that sort of stuff. And you end up working overtime trying to make that happen.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it can be.

UNKNOWN:

I think...

SPEAKER_00:

Not to be flippant about it, because I think you raise a good point. But I think ultimately, I would also say a lot of men and women in their 50s don't want to be photographing weddings anymore. So I think it kind of, I mean, it's exhausting.

SPEAKER_01:

I

SPEAKER_00:

think it comes back to also, what is it that you, why do you want to be in business? What is it that you feel passionate about? You know, what is a purpose-driven reason that you want to be in business and what do you feel passionate and energised by creating and then creating a business model around that? Yeah. Do you

SPEAKER_01:

know

SPEAKER_00:

what I mean? Are you really working? If you are in your 50s and you are still incredibly passionate about photographing weddings, I still think there's a pathway. And, in fact, there's a proposition that you are completely different to 99%. of other wedding photographers. But I would say if it doesn't start from a passion of that is what you want to do and how you want to spend time and make money, then what is it that you want to do and spend time and make money from? It starts from that.

SPEAKER_01:

That's a really good point. It must feel like if you were in your sort of mid-40s as a wedding photographer and you hadn't really thought too much about this, it must be a horrible feeling if this stuff is just draining away and you– You don't know what's next?

SPEAKER_00:

Maybe. I mean, I don't know. I don't have a particular client that's going through that. And I think it would be so based on the individual. But I guess I would... my hypothesis would be if you are still passionate and energised by it, then there's probably still a market for it, particularly if you're someone who's been doing it for 15 years. You've got experience that brings a different value to someone who's got a completely fresh and young perspective on it.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. I only say it because I feel like I've had more of those conversations where people are– like where's the work gone type of a thing and you don't really want to say, hey, are you ageing out of this job?

SPEAKER_00:

I think the conversations I do have that are the most similar to what you're talking about is actually older and, again, in quotation marks because in your 50s you're not really old in the scheme of the world, is it? Thank

SPEAKER_01:

you,

SPEAKER_00:

Beth. Yeah, I think it's more– they are not energised by the same type of weddings. So they don't feel like they need to be at the most trendy places and with a certain type of people. They actually just want genuine collaborative relationships with their clients. They're

SPEAKER_01:

not performative.

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

I

SPEAKER_01:

know what you mean.

SPEAKER_00:

And I actually think there's a significant market for that.

SPEAKER_01:

I agree. And I think we're seeing– one of the things we're seeing with this sort of the change in– well, just in what a wedding costs, right, to put on, a lot of people are kind of in some ways forced into a small– even an elopement type of thing. And then it does actually become more of a genuine event rather than a performance for this family that– Who are they? Do I know any of these extended relatives? Do I like them? Were they kind to me? I

SPEAKER_00:

mean, COVID shifted that, right? Oh, really did. Suddenly you had to have small amounts of guests so people re-evaluated what are the bits that are the most important to me. And if the big wedding, and it is for some people, is the most important, then that's totally fine, but you can't do it yet.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

UNKNOWN:

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, that's so exciting. So tell me, your next big thing is the trip to US for the Catskins.

SPEAKER_00:

No, the next big thing is this five-week course on Illuminate classes. I'm really excited to teach that because it's a– You know, when we teach our naked marketing course, it's a really intensive six month course. So it requires kind of investment of time, energy and money. And this way it's it's really affordable, accessible. But I still get to have some one on one interaction because I. You know, I'm a I'm definitely not a people person. Please, I don't relate to that type of label, but I definitely am a collaborator. I love connecting with people, and I think this is going to be a really good opportunity to do that.

SPEAKER_01:

Connecting and challenging people.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_01:

That's great. Now, artistically, what's next for you artistically?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, good question. Because I don't have any deadlines at the moment, I'm kind of not– I'm not doing as much as I would like to be doing, but I've been playing with Polaroid emotions. Have you done them before?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah, it's

SPEAKER_00:

wonderful. I'm not very good at them. I find them very frustrating. But that makes

SPEAKER_01:

some amazing things.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, but then when it works, it kind of is pretty exciting. So I've been doing a bit of that. What else have I been doing? I actually, for a long time, I've only really been shooting film, but I'm actually feeling a bit more drawn back to digital, so

SPEAKER_02:

I'm

SPEAKER_00:

playing with what I might do in that space. And when I was in Brighton in the UK, I had about eight women come and visit me at my friend's house and I did half-hour kind of sessions with each of them using music and dance because I'm playing with the idea that once you let go of clothing layers and societal expectation layers and you kind of are dancing rather than feeling like you're posing and needing to be asked to do something specific. How does that, how do you find release in that? Or do you find release in that? And so I'm kind of playing with the photos I took there and how I want to present them.

SPEAKER_01:

So that would be stills and not, not motion.

SPEAKER_00:

They were stills. Yeah. I took digital stills, but then the, some of them I've turned into Polaroids and I'm doing emulsions out of them. And yeah, And I'm doing– yeah, I'm playing with layers that I then may reshoot on film. I'm not sure yet.

SPEAKER_01:

Sounds amazing.

SPEAKER_00:

I am.

SPEAKER_01:

So what you need to do is reach out to the Ballarat International Photo Biennale and book a space and

SPEAKER_00:

give yourself a

SPEAKER_01:

deadline.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, maybe I do.

SPEAKER_01:

No, your stuff's great and always it hangs together. Like when you do a body of work, it just– It really goes together well. And I reckon where you are, the greatest festival in Australia is the Ballarat Biennale.

SPEAKER_00:

You know, I went to it for the first time. It's October, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01:

September, but it's not this year. It's next year. It's

SPEAKER_00:

every second year. Oh, it's every year. So I went to it last year for the first time and actually shot some self-portraits in a house that I hired there. And it was great. It was really good. I'd never been before.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, it's like a– For me, it's a feeding frenzy. I just don't know where to look and I just bounce around like I'm on weird drugs from show to

SPEAKER_00:

show. Well, because they've got all these free kind of spaces, haven't they, where you just happen to go to a restaurant and then they've got stuff and then they've got kind of more... Yeah, so that's the fringe. And

SPEAKER_01:

then there's the core, which is the one where you get invited to be a part of and like the really what you... I think the idea is that you get a venue and there's thousands of venues, 1,200 or something like that. Yeah, wow. And the idea is that you just keep turning up in the hope that one day you might be a core participant. But just going along to the opening weekend and hearing people speak and meeting people and just sharing in the whole buzz of people using photography for art, it's remarkable. You'd fit in really well there.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, thanks, Paul. I actually think I feel like I went after speaking to you at the APA Awards.

SPEAKER_01:

Maybe.

SPEAKER_00:

You'd just been and I went, I've been meaning to go and then I finally booked it because I went at the end of it.

SPEAKER_01:

How good were the APA Awards?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it was

SPEAKER_01:

good. Marvellous. I did not expect– well, I had my back to the whole thing and, you know, you just– There's only so many things you can do it in a year. And, look, I noticed you put a quote on your Instagram a while back, and this will be the last thing we'll talk about because we're pushing on a time. And I could talk forever. But I can't remember what the quote exactly was, but I felt what I got out of the quote was that work-life balance is just like it's a bit of bullshit. Like you tell yourself you've got to live this, you've got to do this, and it's that got to spend more time with this. Like that's the thing that tears you apart, not the fact that you might just be working too much this week.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I think you're probably right. I can't remember writing it, but it does sound like something I would write. I think that, I think we've been sold a bit of a, I don't know, a story about work-life balance. I've heard someone talk about it as it's not really like a set of scales that have to equal each other out. It's actually a seesaw. And sometimes one will be doing more than the other and then it'll flip and the other one will do more. Yeah. It also depends. It's a very corporate language, right, because it's assuming that your life is not– it's assuming they're two discrete things that you have to balance as opposed to for some people it's very intermeshed and that works for them, that work is part of their life as opposed to a discrete separate. Well,

SPEAKER_01:

that's the problem. They're probably assuming– that the source of your stress that's causing you to not sleep at night and go to the doctor is because you don't like your work or something like that and not any one element which mixes it all up. I think it's a big thing that– and I think your idea of finding what makes you happy and putting the emphasis on that, that's obviously going to solve those problems if people can just–

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, but without being too Pollyanna about it, I think that's a great starting point and then you need to put commercial pragmatics on it, right? Because if your one thing that you want to do and you do all the time just doesn't have a kind of client base for it, then you probably need to bring in other sources of revenue to enable you to do that.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

But it's just kind of the way that it's the mindset for one of a non-buzz.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I love that idea of, you know, looking elsewhere for the revenue just because you're not going to do it out of the thing you love the most you know it's

SPEAKER_00:

nearly how we started the conversation right for some people they feel pressure to monetize what is kind of i don't say hobby because that feels like it's degrading it but what is a practice that doesn't necessarily need to be monetized and actually you can separately earn money to enable the practice one of my friends Who works full time and is an amazing artist, Natalie Finney. She jokes about having like a corporate sponsor, which is her, that's, you know, she enjoys her job. She does her job nine to five and that enables her to spend time on art.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, I love that. That's so beautiful. That's just wonderful. What a great way of framing it. Yeah, that's beautiful. I know. We've got our art festival on right now, South Australian Living Artist Festival.

SPEAKER_00:

I know. I wanted to come, but I just can't make it work. I know.

SPEAKER_01:

For Carrie. I

SPEAKER_00:

know. She's so brilliant.

SPEAKER_01:

There is, I think. How long does it go? I could be wrong here. 10,000 shows on at the moment. Wow. Or is it 10,000 artists? Yeah, 10,000 artists. are out and about. And Carrie's in this fabulous little burger bar and her work just fits and works beautifully on the wall. So, you know, I'm overdosing on art at the moment. It's great. I'm so glad I got a chance to talk to you today.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, thank you. Thanks for having me. It was really good to chat with you.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I think you've got a perspective that a lot of people need to hear. So I wish you all the best, you know, with the retreat. and the courses you're doing for people. I think it's so important.

SPEAKER_00:

Thanks, Paul. And I will come up. I really want to come and see Atkins because the way my brain works, if I can see what happens at that end of the process, then I can think about, well, how could I send it in a different way because I want that outcome. So I need to come up. I just need

SPEAKER_01:

all of you. Totally. No, you'd be more than

SPEAKER_00:

welcome.

UNKNOWN:

Well, thank you so much. Thanks for being here.