For the interview I wanted to focus more on who Scott Kelby really is and kind of dig a bit deeper than focusing purely on what he’s extremely well known for i.e. Photography and Photoshop.

I’m proud to be able to call Scott a friend and over the past few years I’ve got to see more of what he’s like ‘behind the scenes’ and you know what…he’s exactly the same: what you see is what you get…a devoted husband and father, a Photographer, Businessman and friend who genuinely loves what he does and loves life!

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Glyn: Hey Scott I don’t want to take up too much of your time but first of all I just want to say thanks so much for agreeing to be interviewed for the blog 

Scott: I’m very happy to do it Glyn so no rush, no rush at all 

Glyn: I guess when you’re asked to do interviews a lot of the time it’ll focus on the Photography and Photoshop side of things but certainly over the last year or so having got to know you better I wanted to focus on a different angle; such things as ‘Who is Scott Kelby?’ if that’s makes sense.

I think it would be great to talk a little more about your background so in true Piers Morgan style let’s kick things off by telling us a little bit about what life was like growing up for Scott Kelby…where you come from, what life was like growing up, your family and all that kind of stuff…

Scott: Ok so I was born about an hour and a half from where I’m sitting right now so I haven’t travelled too far from home. I was born in Lakeland, Florida which is very close to Walt Disney World, say about 45 minutes or so and I had a truly wonderful childhood; a wonderful Mom and Dad who were just super, great people, incredibly nice. I know alot of people grow up and kind of like their parents later but I knew I had awesome parents from when I was a little kid all the way through. I was very, very fortunate…my Dad was a Prince, my Mom was a Queen…they were great, I mean just really lovely people. They gave me a very fun childhood and were very involved in my life…I had a ball.

The great thing about it was they supported absolutely everything I got involved in; I wanted to be a musician and they were 100% behind me. In fact most of my early life was being a musician which started in 7th Grade so I was maybe 12 years old when I started playing drums and I played that through High School and then when I was at College I switched to playing keyboards. I played at my church for a number of years so most of my youth was spent as a musician and I wanted to make it full time. I never had aspirations to be a big star or anything. I never was willing  to move to LA, New York, Hollywood or Nashville I just wanted to play in a bar and have fun and just play music and that’s exactly what I did all the way until I was 32 years old. 

Starting in my late 20’s I did get a day job too and so by day I was a Financial Consultant and I worked many for years for Merrill Lynch and then I worked for one of the largest banks here in the United States as a Financial Consultant for a while, and then I quit that job, I was newly married and so my wife and I started our own graphic design business. 

It quickly became where we were like the Art Department for Ad Agencies that were too small to have their own ‘in house’ Art Departments so we wound up writing copy and that’s where I started to learn how to write by writing advertising copy and doing designs and things. We kept growing and growing and that’s basically how we got our start with my buddy Jim. You see at the bank I worked with his wife Jean and so the four of us, two husband and wife teams launched a small newspaper for Macintosh users in Tampa, Florida. Anyway this magazine grew and grew and eventually it became Mac Design and then later that became Layers Magazine.

Glyn: So Layers Magazine was out before the N.A.P.P. was around?

Scott: Oh yes this was our first thing, as I was an Ad Agency guy so what happened was we were literally sitting there trying to think of ways to make money because it’s very hard to make money in the magazine business…you have a lot of influence but you don’t have a lot of money. 

So as luck would have it one night I went to a Mac users group meeting and because we ran this Macintosh users type magazine I guess we were like mini celebrities in our mac circle and we had a guy talking about Photoshop that night and this is when Photoshop was back at Photoshop 2.0 and it was great but we held our meetings in a public library which meant you had to be out by 9 o’clock at night

Glyn: And speak very quietly as well huh ?

Scott: Well it was a private meeting room so that was alright but we did have to be out by 9 and you know there’s a law here in the United States that says when you leave a users group meeting you must go for pie afterwards and we’re all sitting around like ‘Man I could have listened to that guy for hours’ and one of the guys said ‘Man I could have listened to him for 3 hours’ and I’m like ‘Man I bet people would like a whole day of Photoshop’ … and one person said I wonder if people would go to something like that, and I was like  ”We could do a seminar”. We all started talking and advertising it in the magazine and as luck would have it besides the guy who was teaching Photoshop, you know who else was there that night?…the Adobe Rep for the Central Florida Area, and I knew him cos he went to my church. 

I asked him to step outside for a minute and I said ‘Hey Bill if I did a Photoshop seminar do you think Adobe would sponsor it?’ and he’s like ‘Here in Tampa? are you kidding? cos not only would we sponsor it we’d provide you with software to give away and I’ll even speak at the conference if you want.’

So the next day we had a meeting to plan the first seminar and that was back in 1993. In October 1993 our magazine sponsored our first seminar, 150 people showed up at $59 a piece and at that moment we said ‘Hey here’s how you can make money with a magazine’. So that was it, we never did any mail shots, there was no social media, there was hardly any internet so we did the whole thing through the magazine…and the magazine was free.

After doing the seminars for a few years people would ask us on the day ‘man this seminar was awesome…when are you coming back?’ but when we said well…next year they were like ‘so what do we do between now and then? And that’s how we got the idea for the N.A.P.P. and Photoshop User Magazine. We took the idea to Adobe and when we went to them Glyn we had everything ready…cover of the magazine, spreads, layouts, articles, logos, everything…we just laid it out and the guy that was in charge said ‘We’ve been approached many times about starting an association but no-one gone as far as you guys have. You guys look ready…how long until you’re ready to launch?’ and I said ‘3 weeks’ and he’s like ‘Really?’ and I said ‘Yep…we’re ready to go’ …and so we launched and that was back in late 1994 

Glyn: So when you say ‘we’, at this stage then in 1994 how many are there making up this group of people? 

Scott:  It literally was 4 people…myself and my wife, Jean who is still our business partner to this day and her husband Jim but Jim retired maybe 6 years ago. So the company is run by myself, Kalebra and Jean who is our very dear friend.

Glyn: So not only has it been alot hard work but also being willing to just do it?

Scott: Yeah sure a lot of it has been willing to take risks you know because a lot of people talked about having magazines but we did it, talked about doing seminars but we did it, people had approached Adobe many times but we showed up ready to go so I think yeah we had a lot of lucky breaks and timing was definitely a great part in all of this but if there was anything we did right it was that we were willing to just try and see what happened.

Glyn:  Scott, this is always something that fascinates me because you see many people that I know who have become very successful I’m always keen to chat to them and find out what is about that person that separates them from the next person who maybe hasn’t been so successful. Scott what would you say it is about you then that has enabled you to get to the stage in your business life you are now…clearly very successful?

Scott: Glyn if I had to point my success to any one thing I would honestly say that I’m very willing to take other peoples advice and I think very rarely in life we meet people who will really take other peoples advice. I think people will ask for advice a lot but I also think that what they really want is for you to tell them that what they were thinking was correct. They don’t really want to hear other peoples advice. So I spoke to a couple of people who’s advice I really trusted, the main one being Kalebra who has got great business sense and she always has this famous line ‘If we don’t do it somebody else will’ and so you know when she gave me advice on business and so did my brother who also has great business sense, plus a couple of other trusted friends it’s always easier for other people to see your situation and see opportunities from the outside when they don’t have all the emotion on the inside. I think if I’ve done anything right it was to listen to the advice of people I trust.

And you know Glyn, Kalebra gives phenomenal advice. I’ll often hear her finish a phone call with a friend and I’ll be like ‘That was the most unbelievable advice’ and ofcourse the person she was speaking to never listens and they always call back and go ‘I should have listened to you’ My difference is…I actually listen.

So I guess what I saying is be willing to take other peoples advice and not just seek it. Many people seek advice few people take the advice that they get. Glyn I’m sure you could name me 3 people who’s advice you trust and because they’re on the outside they can see your situation so clearly.

Glyn: Ok so back tracking  just a little bit then Scott am I right in saying that Photoshop was first and then Photography for you came further on down the line?

Scott: Now that’s weird because I was a photographer first in fact even before I met my wife and we’ve been married 22 years. So yeah I was a photographer first and my brother who was quite a good photographer, he’d done some traveling and came back with some fantastic photos and that got me interested in it. I finally invested in a Pentax film camera and he and I spent a few years traveling around doing that kind of photography and when I was in my early 20’s when I got a job as a financial consultant I started a small portrait studio with a guy there who had won a bunch of awards from Kodak…mostly just for fun and we’d charge just a little bit of money for head shots and stuff like that but not enough to make a living. So I was shooting film, I had my lights a light meter, hot lights, shooting on seamless paper, had a Vivitar flash and all this stuff and I was so into it that I got completely burned out and at some point I was like ‘you know what I’m done’ so I took all my camera gear and stored it up in my attic and I didn’t touch a camera for maybe 10 years. However the first time I saw a Digital SLR and that you could see your pictures immediately that was it…it reignited my passion for photography. So I was a photographer first, then I became a graphic designer and it was digital that brought me back to photography.

Glyn: I remember when I first joined the NAPP, and long story short I’d got my first ever copy of Photoshop, opened it up and was like ‘Ok now what?’ so I went onto Yahoo, did a search and then straight away the N.A.P.P came up so out of complete blind faith I joined. Back then I don’t really remember there being as much focus on photography with the N.A.P.P. and Photoshop User as there is now so how did that come about?

Scott: Glyn what it is, is we followed Adobe. We have to do what Photoshop does. Now when Photoshop first came out it was a tool for graphic designers…photographers didn’t use photoshop but then photographers did start to use it and Adobe started to add things to it for photographers. There was no camera RAW…there was no RAW right? … all those things were added and when Adobe starts doing releases that are 90% geared towards Photography then we had to do it.  I remember Dave Moser coming into my office and saying ‘We need to do more photography’ like really concerned that we weren’t following the trend and that everything was about photography now and we’re focusing on designers so it was like ‘ok, ok’

So we basically followed where Adobe were taking the program. When you look at Photoshop look at the last four versions and look at what they’ve added…you could pick out a few tools for designers like vanishing point and ermmmm….well that’s pretty much it. 

But seriously think about it how many new tools have they created for designers? Off the top of my head I’m thinking vanishing point, but the rest of it like healing brush is a retouching tool, Camera RAW is ofcourse for Photographers, all of the stuff they’ve added to the Bridge, Carousel and all that stuff, Lightroom they built a whole program for Photograhers so you can see how we kind of had to follow that. Now as for the rumours about Photoshop World turning into Photo World let me just say…there will always be Photoshop world it’s just that if you didn’t have a bunch of photography tracks you’d have a very empty Photoshop World.

Now what we do have is we have one track each day that is just photography, not photoshop. We have one track that is just Joe McNally talking, Dave Black talking and so on but all the rest of the classes are either Lightroom or Photoshop so if you really look at it there’s a lot of Photoshop there.

Actually whilst you’re there I’m going to just open Photoshop and see if I can find anything that’s been added in just for designers in a while…

Well I guess maybe you could say the 3D stuff but that’s the only thing right? Maybe even refine Edge but as a photographer it’s proving really handy so you see what I mean?

You have to go where the people are. Glyn how many conferences are there today for Graphic Designers? Now 10 years ago there were all kinds of conferences for graphic designers, huge big expos but now how many are left? I can only name one in the United States. That’s saying something.

Glyn:  Scott certainly during the time I’ve been a member of the NAPP and Kelby training things seem to have really grown with so many more resources available for people to learn. 

It’s very rare that I talk to someone be they a professional or a keen amateur who hasn’t heard of ‘Scott Kelby’ so obviously there’s a kind of ‘fame’ attached to it for want of a better word so my question is how do you deal with that? and also on that line, with everything you’ve put together to date do you really realize what you’ve done? I for one have a lot to thank the NAPP and Kelby Training for because without them I very much doubt I’d have ever picked up a camera let alone have my own business.

Scott: Glyn I get letters from people saying that all the time and as an educator I love to hear that stuff. Honestly I don’t sit back and look at it all a whole bunch. Dave Moser says we should stop and smell the roses more but I’m so focused on what we’re doing next that I don’t sit around my house going ‘Hey I’m Scott Kelby’ you know. I’m just focused on what to do next and I don’t think of myself in those terms. I’m very proud of what we’ve done as an organization but I don’t know…I guess I feel so incredibly regular. Hey we know each other right so you know what I mean…I just feel like me.

It doesn’t feel any different you know I stay up late playing modern Warfare with my buddies…you know I have a very normal life.

Glyn: But then that could be part of why you have been so successful to date

Scott: If you love to teach and you know cos you’re a teacher too, you’re happiness comes from teaching

Glyn: Sure it’s the best feeling ever when someone enjoys what you’ve shown them and it’s helped them to move on

Scott: Yeah totally, that’s what makes your motor run. That’s it exactly and you just want more of that. It’s a self fulfilling thing because your goal is to help people learn and when that happens you’re happy. 

It’s like you, you don’t do what you do teaching people because all you are focused on is the money…you do it because it’s who you are. Your thing is to share this stuff with other people so it’s just kind of what you do. I don’t want to say it’s a ‘calling’ because that sounds kind of heavy but for whatever reason…it’s who you are.

I love to teach, I love to hear stories about how it’s helped someone’s career and that makes me feel like ‘wow that was really worthwhile’. Every story makes you want to do it that much more. It’s hard to take credit for what you’re supposed to be doing…does that makes sense?

Glyn: Absolutely. I can honestly say that  if I could do it for free then I would; I get so much satisfaction out of doing it.

Scott: Yeah it’s like anything else. It’s like playing music right? I mean why do I like to play music? It’s because I love to see an audience enjoying it, seeing they’re happy makes me happy. I don’t do it for the money but at the same time, there was a time when I had to feed my family through music. And so being able to do something you love and get paid for it is phenomenal and so now I do the same thing in teaching…I love to teach, I love that I have a job where I get paid to do it and that doesn’t make it anymore sinister than say my Pastor… he gets paid, he has to feed his family too right? It doesn’t make him a bad person that he needs to make a living; everybody has to feed their family.

Glyn: Scott going back to the subject of family, we see you guys traveling around a heck of a lot doing seminars so I want to ask you how do you strike up a work / life balance because that’s something I have struggled with and I still do but thankfully Anne is very good at bringing me back on track.

Scott: Well I’m very lucky that the business I own has 85 employees so I don’t have to be there all the time and for example I’m here at home every morning with the kids, they go off to school and a lot of times I’ll drive my son there or pick him up and I take off pretty much when I want. I’m at every school function, I’m at every one of my son’s basketball games. If I need to change my schedule then I will so that I can be there. You know the other day I went to my daughter’s school…there’s like 26 kids in the classroom and there’s like 4 Dads. So I feel very fortunate that I can take off time and I can take the whole day off if I want.

My average time to arrive in the office is maybe 10am and a lot of times if my wife wants to hang out then it’s 11am or 12pm. Sometimes I’ll just go straight to lunch with my wife and will call the office and be like ‘I’m just going to hang out today’ and Kathy’s like ‘yeah fine’. Kathy’s my personal assistant; I have two Brad and Kathy and they cover so many things for me to be able to write and also when I’m writing I’m usually at home. 

My travel schedule is so bad because of trying to get home. So for instance I’ll shoot a football game…I get up in the morning, I fly to the city, I shoot the game and I’m literally home the same day so a lot of times it’s like man I was up in Boston shooting a game but I was up at 6am and back home to tuck the kids into bed that very same night. So I do a lot of things that are a pain in the butt to make sure that I am home and that I’m not on the road so much. 2011 was different because I launched the Light It, Shoot It, Retouch It tour and it’s only me that does it so I travelled more in 2011 than I did in the last 5 years. 

Glyn I took 8 weeks of vacation last year… that’s a lot of vacation and when I go on vacation I don’t do anything. I read books, I sleep late so I take a lot of vacation; this year I think I’ll end up taking about 7 weeks and sometimes in the year me and my wife might just take a week off…we don’t go to the office, we don’t do work and we don’t go anywhere…we’ll just stay home and do nothing. 

Glyn: Scott if you don’t mind can I take you back to your photography but in particular how you feel about it. We all have times when we don’t like what we’re producing, nothing seems to click and something  just isn’t working and we all have our own ways of dealing with it but what about you?

Scott: Ok as far as my photography goes I’m pretty miserable about it most of the time. It gets very frustrating because I’m not a full time photographer… I’m a full time Photoshop Instructor, I’m a full time businessman and so I don’t get to shoot nearly as much as I want. This is why I’ve signed with a wire service for my football photography to try and get better; it’s something I’ve wanted to do and I’m still not where I want to be. I look at my own portfolio sometimes and I just hate it and that’s because I know I can do better but I just don’t have the time to practice to get to where I want to so personally a lot of the time it’s just frustrating. I do some things that I like then I look at them 6 months later and I can’t stand it and so I’m constantly struggling with my own photography. A lot of the times when I do photography it’s because I have a book coming out and I have to do 7 portrait shoots to fulfill everything I need to do and because it’s on a tight schedule there isn’t really the time to experiment and try new or different things. 

One of the ways I get out of this frustration though is when I get the chance to shoot more, but when I’m not shooting I’m frustrated because I’m not progressing in my craft. I don’t want to sound like I’m complaining Glyn because I’m not. I have wonderful opportunities, I have a full time photo assistant, a fully stocked studio so it’s not like ‘Oh poor me’… it’s not that, it’s just that I know I can do a lot better things than I am getting to do.

Bottom line is I don’t get to shoot for my portfolio but rather I get to shoot for tutorials…do you know what I mean?

Glyn: So if you could change one thing what would it be?

Scott: Not just to shoot more but to shoot more for myself and put some images in my portfolio that would make me proud and Glyn you know I find it very hard to complain about anything because I have a blessed life but you asked me the question and I’m being honest with you.

Glyn: So many people in this industry go around saying everything’s fine, their photography’s great, life is great, things couldn’t be better and all that and whereas I understand them saying stuff like that, I think people really benefit from hearing what it’s really like sometimes. Clearly this is why Zack Arias’ Transform video made such an impact on people because when it was first published it was like the first time that honesty was out there. 

Scott: Yeah Zack’s video was a different kind of inspiration because most times it’s like ‘you can do it, it’s great, just go out there and seize the day’ but he inspired us by admitting something we all go through. You can look at Zack’s work and be like wow he’s great but he has times too when he hates what he does and it makes you think well if he goes through it then maybe I’m not alone.

Glyn: Yeah it made people realize that what they were feeling was normal. Ok changing the subject then Scott let’s talk about ‘Springs of Hope’. How did you come to be involved with that and what plans are there for the future?

Scott: I go to a very small church and the Pastor is wonderful guy … a very hard working, selfless person who started this church and it’s a non denominational Christian church. So in that church there was a husband and wife that every weekend we met who were always taking people in, feeding homeless people downtown…always taking people in and just helping them…people who definitely have a calling to help others. Well they went on a vacation to Kenya where they were helping to feed orphans for a couple of weeks and they came back, spoke with the leader of the church and said this is what we’re supposed to do and they literally sold their home, all their possessions, took their teenage son and moved to Kenya. They just realized that they were meant to do this so they moved out there brought a piece of land and built an orphanage. It’s a beautiful orphanage and I’m hoping that this year we get a group to go out there where we can work for like a week and maybe do a safari too. 

But anyway they’re wonderful people and they do so much more than the orphanage because they feed kids who live on the streets too.

Glyn I don’t know what it’s like in the UK but here sometimes we have these organizations that are raising money but then we hear that the person running it is taking an insanely large income from the donations but when you know someone personally and know what they’ve done and that every penny you send them goes to do the right thing then that was something my wife and I knew we wanted to get behind.

With all the problems out there what’s being done in the scheme of things is such a small thing in comparison but there was a pastor at my old church I remember telling a story about a kid walking down the beach and there’s loads of starfish washed up, thousands of them and the kids picking them up and throwing them back in before they die and this guy says to the kid ‘Kid you are wasting your time. There are 5 thousand starfish on this beach and you know what you’re doing just doesn’t matter’ so the kid replies ‘you don’t think what I’m doing matters?’ and the guy says ‘not at all’ but then the kid picks up a starfish out of his bucket, holds it up and says ‘Well it does to this one’.

And so that’s the thing…the orphanage cares for 22 kids out of a million but you know what for those 22 kids it’s transformed their lives.

Glyn: Scott some people sent in some questions when they knew we’d be speaking so I’d like to finish off maybe with a couple. The first one here asks what’s the biggest mistake you see people making today with editing and photography? 

Scott: I think the biggest mistake that people make is they’re over thinking everything. None of this stuff is that hard but I think that people almost want it to be a technical thing. They think that the answers to their photography problems are in a menu. That somewhere in there there’s a button to check that when they turn it on magic happens. I’ll give you an example of what I mean…

Epson run the Epson Print Academy and they toured around the United States giving a series of seminars. A friend of mine was running them and I spoke to him the one day asking what the feedback was like and you know the number 1 complaint from the entire tour was people thought we were going to show them something secret about their printer. That there was something in the printer that the Pros use to get better pictures and if they went there Epson were going to show them the secret panel in the back. They desperately wanted there to be something else that they needed to do but there just isn’t. It’s what you do in your camera and what you do in photoshop. 

And you know I think it’s the same thing in photography. I think people have these expensive cameras and sometimes get these crappy pictures but put it down to the fact that there’s some menu button they haven’t selected. People can get too much into the technical when what they need to do is focus on the creative side of photography. I think the best advice I can give is to stop looking in their camera and start looking at other photographers’ work. Find what you like and then try to put it on paper… is it the cropping? do they shoot everything wide angle? You know maybe if you realize that all the photographers work you like is shot wide angle but you hate your own work and you’ve been shooting telephoto then maybe there’s your answer.

Don’t just look at other people’s work that you like…analyse it. What is it about the imagery that you like? Is it the location? Joe McNally says if you want to shoot more interesting pictures then shoot in more interesting locations.

You’re not going to get the same kind of picture of your local city hall like some of the images of the Taj Mahal. And what else? Well you’re going to have to probably go to these places many times until you get the perfect lighting and situation but a lot of people aren’t willing to do that. 

My buddy Bill Fortney teaches landscape workshops and Glyn I kid you not that Bill has an iconic shot of every landscape place there is in the US. I don’t care what it is, if you name it Bill has the best shot of it you’ve ever seen. And so someone asked him ‘How do you get those shots?’ and Bill said to them ‘You want to know the real secret to getting great landscape photography? You’ve got to go there 25 times. Do you think the places looked like that the fist time I went there?’

But there’s the problem people won’t commit that much time. They’ll get up at dawn get what they get and move on but if you really want an unbelievable sunrise of Monument Valley you need to plan 2 weeks there and then if you get lucky on your 3^rd day there, then you can leave. How many people are willing to do that Glyn? How many people are willing to go to one area and stay there to shoot every dawn until they get it? So it’s not a menu, it’s being willing to do what other’s wont. 

Glyn:  Ok so one more question then Scott and this one’s from Dave Clayton

Scott: Ah yes Lord Jollybottom

Glyn: Dave asks … Scott the Government shuts down the whole Kelby Media Group for harboring a fugitive Canadian for the past few years; what would your realistic job be if there was no more N.A.P.P.?

Scott: Can I give you a non-realistic and realistic?

Glyn: Sure thing 

Scott: My unrealistic job would be I’d love to own an NFL team; I would love to be the owner of a football team so that’s my unrealistic dream job.

As for realistic I would love a job at a big magazine; being able to shoot portraits for a big magazine…one where I’ve got some latitude rather than where I’ve got to run in and take a snap shot…make really meaningful pictures of people I think that would be a lot fun.

I do enjoy sports photography but that’s a really tough one but what I would like to do is shoot athletic portraits for a sports magazine or maybe shoot people’s stories but really just to have the time to take a really great portrait like a movie poster or something…that would be fun.

Maybe I’d like to do something in television…produce television shows or something like that…yeah ok that’s my answer…a Producer.

Glyn: Well Scott I just want to again say thank you so much for giving up your time for this and for sharing your thoughts…it’s very much appreciated.

Scott: Hey Glyn it was my pleasure, thanks.

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Blog: www.scottkelby.com
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Twitter: www.twitter.com/scottkelby
500px : www.500px.com/skelby

National Association of Photoshop Professionals (N.A.P.P.): www.photoshopuser.com
Kelby Training: www.kelbytraining.com
KelbyTV: www.kelbytv.com

Following in the footpaths of some of my Photography & Photoshop hero’s there was always the question of what would I write about. So, I decided to focus on something that eluded me for quite some time i.e. What am I? and Who I am? when it comes to my Photography and Photoshop and also ‘Style’ or to be more specific ‘How do you get one?’

It’s an honest account of how I started out, the excitement, the frustrations and numerous tips and advice I’ve been given that has helped and continues to help along the way in this wonderful creative industry.

Huge thanks to both Scott Kelby and Brad Moore for inviting me onto the blog…it means a heck of alot!
Hope you like it,
Glyn

*You can check out my Guest Blog post here [Link]

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Keep up with Glyn ‘Day to Day’ and get more from ‘Behind the Scenes’…
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Literally from day 1 of using Photoshop I joined the N.A.P.P. (National Association of Photoshop Professionals) of which Scott Kelby is the President and Co-Founder.

Now I know I’m not alone when I say this but I can’t even begin to quantify how much I’ve learned and continue to learn from Scott through his all his books, tutorials, DVD’s, the N.A.P.P., Kelby Training and so on; however what I do know is that without him and his team I very much doubt I’d have a business let alone be a Photographer & Retoucher.

Someone I’m proud to be able to call a friend Scott’s generosity never ceases to amaze me which is why I’m incredibly grateful that he’s giving up some of his time to be a Guest here on the blog.

Spending time with Scott you get to realise he’s the ‘real deal’ … not just someone who’s incredibly talented at both Photography & Photoshop but someone who is 100% devoted to his family, a very successful businessman a great friend and someone who genuinely loves what he does, loves sharing, loves teaching and who’s motivation first and foremost is to help others.

So what would you ask Scott Kelby?
This evening we’ve arranged to catch up on Skype and chat through Scott’s Guest Interview and yeah there’s plenty I want to ask him but what about you…what would you ask Scott?

So here’s the deal…If you have a question that you’d like me to ask Scott on your behalf then all you need to do is post in the comments section below or if you’re on Twitter attach the following tag: #AskScott and during our chat I’ll randomly choose a few of your questions and will include them in Scott’s Guest Interview once it’s posted online.

Right, that’s all for now folks so feel free to ‘ask away’ and I’ll catch up with you later,
Enjoy

•     •     •

Keep up with Glyn ‘Day to Day’ and get more from ‘Behind the Scenes’…
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Based in San Diego, California Alan very kindly gave up some of his time to talk about a whole host of things from how he first of all came to be a Photographer, teaching, life as an Author and so much more…

So, here’s the content of our conversation accompanied by some of Alan’s incredible Live Concert Photography which I simply cannot stop looking through!
Enjoy

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Glyn: So Alan, I guess the first thing to ask is ‘How did you become a photographer?’

Alan: Well first off I never meant to be a photographer. I got a degree out of college in computer science and english and I went to work for a textile company that was in our family, so photography was kind of the last thing on my mind but I enjoyed taking photographs and it was one of those like “Well if I’m going to go do something I might as well take  a camera along with me”

A couple of years ago I started having a little more free time…work was slow so I started doing more and more photography just because it was something I enjoyed. It was kind of like making more out my hobby than a job, so it was kind of like a passion and then manufacturing in this country started falling off more and more and more and suddenly it seemed like there wasn’t a very long term opportunity in manufacturing…especially in textiles as it seemed to have moved to China and out of here. I working with my father and he decided it was time for him to retire and I decided it was time for me to try something else and in my mid 30’s I decided it was time to become a photographer and follow that passion that I already had. You know I already enjoyed taking photographs but now I had to actually start making a living out of it which is a big step to take.

Luckily enough at the time my wife had just started a new job so she was secure and suddenly I was the one floating around…

Glyn: So you didn’t initially run it alongside what you were doing with the textiles then? You literally came out of that into nothing and started your photography business?

Alan: Yeah I basically had a bit of time and we had a little money saved away and so it was the right time to do it or I was going to have to start looking for another 9 to 5 office type job.

It didn’t work out as well as I had hoped. It took a lot longer to get some clients, it took a  lot longer to get my name out, it took a lot longer to actually get paid for jobs that I used to do for free. It was very difficult to tell people that now it’s no longer a hobby and I’m no longer willing to do the same work for free that I was doing earlier.

So there was a steep learning curve in setting myself up correctly and if there’s one thing I would tell people now, even if they’re starting out with photography as a hobby they need to start thinking about it in a professional way. So you see I didn’t really approach it very professionally when it was a hobby and it kind of came back to bite me in the butt. It became real difficult to ask for the money off people I’d previously done work for for free.

Around the same period of time there was a photo expo in San Diego and on the expo floor I got into a discussion with Lexar Media before they were bought by Micron and they were releasing some new cards readers and they were talking about the new UDMA cards and all the advances they were working on so they just told me to keep in touch with them and at the same time they asked me to write a blog. So just because I was interested in it and I had the time I thought it would be a great opportunity and that blog for Lexar really kick started everything else that’s happened to me since.

The sad part is that Lexar changed ownership and they kind of changed the way they did things a little bit and I don’t really have too much of a link with them anymore but they did start something that has grown quite nicely.

Glyn: That was actually one of the questions I wanted to ask you…how on earth did you get your name out there and clearly social networking in the form of the blog played a big part…

Alan: Yeah it did. I was a professional photographer in that I actually got paid to take photographs and they were looking at this new technology called blogging which wasn’t really wide spread at the time and they wanted a bigger web presence so there were I think 4 or 5 of us that started a blog and basically I could blog whenever I wanted to and obviously they would prefer it was about photography and through that I actually got an email from my current publisher. One of their acquisitions editors had read the blog a couple of times and thought that I had the ability to write a book. I thought they were crazy but they were adamant so from that blog they contacted me and it took a little while, I mean it wasn’t like I wrote a blog on Tuesday and had a book contract on Thursday, it was more like I wrote a blog entry in February and got a book contract in November. It took a while going back and forth but the next thing I knew was that I wrote 2 books on Sony cameras; the Sony A700 and then right after that the A200. Those are the Sony A700 Digital Field Guide and the Sony A200 Digital Field Guide both for Wiley Publishers.

So that was really interesting because I wasn’t actually a Sony shooter at the time so I needed to go out and borrow all the Sony gear and I bought the cameras which ate into some of the profits but I wanted to make sure that the pictures were all taken using the Sony kit.

Glyn: So did Sony give you some kind of recognition for what you wrote for their equipment?

Alan: No that’s actually one of the things that was quite disappointing and a real eye opener. Sometimes the camera manufacturers don’t really care what people are doing to really help them to sell cameras and that part from Sony was seriously lacking and it’s one of the reasons that right now I don’t think Wiley Publishers are
going to produce anymore Sony Digital Field Guides. It seems Sony released too many cameras too quickly for any of the books to get a good grip in the market and there was very little support from Sony on the sales side  ie the books aren’t available in the Sony stores. They didn’t lend me anything, they didn’t offer any support you know…it was really tough.

At that time I was asked if I’d edit some books so I was actually Rick Sammon’s technical editor on about his last 4 books with Wiley which was really interesting because I understood how the process worked from an author’s point of view so now I was looking at it from the point of being an editor and it was really enlightening.

Then Wiley came to me and said they wanted to expand on the Digital Field Guide series and would like to write a book about Exposure…the basic concept of exposure and I jumped on that really fast. I thought that would be a great book and it’s turned out to be a really well received.

After the Exposure one did well we went on to Composition and that was the follow up to Exposure and has been well received too and still has nice sales behind it; it seems like it’s taken a little longer to catch on but I’m really happy with the way that book came out.

Now around the time I got a note from Scott Kelby asking if I wanted to come and do a live version of the my Guest Blog that I did on his website covering Concert Photography as a pre conference workshop at PhotoshopWorld and a class on concert photography in the conference and that was really exciting because when the books were coming out I was starting to teach at Photoshop World which I guess was the Summer of 2009 being the first time I taught.

Actually at the last Photoshop World it was the first time I taught a class on Exposure and Composition based on concepts from both of those books that I mentioned earlier.

Glyn: Looking back at some of the pictures all you guys were posting up, I was sat here green with envy that I wasn’t there but it looked like you had an amazing time…

Alan: That was my 4th Photoshop World and it was the best one yet, not just because I enjoyed teaching a new class and I’m a lot more comfortable generally now, but it was the people and everything was great…except for the weather….

Glyn: Yeah I heard it rained really bad…

Alan: There was Lightning and the Thunder all day long and the torrential downpour certainly wasn’t expected but when you’re at Photoshop World in the Classes or on the Expo floor it doesn’t matter at all.

Anyway at the Exposure and Composition Class I tried to do things a little different this time and I so I tried to do it as general concepts rather just sitting down talking about favorite F Stops and all that. I had 60 minutes to talk about Exposure and Composition, you know I might as well say I have 60 minutes to talk about the whole of Photography..it’s too broad a subject to go into all the details but I was really hoping that people would start thinking about it in broad terms and not get overly concerned about all the math involved. It was a really interesting class for me to teach and different too because this wasn’t in my usual realm of Concert Photography. I was really happy with the way people were coming up to me afterwards and telling me how they enjoyed the class and that it was fun and different.

Glyn: So did you do your Concert Photography Class too though?

Alan: Well we did a Pre Conference Workshop on Concert Photography which is probably the most unique thing I’ve ever seen but yeah maybe I may be a little bit biased, but I only taught the exposure and composition during the conference.

Glyn: Alan one thing I’d love to know…how did you get involved in Concert Photography?

Alan: Glyn I’m a huge music fan so I really enjoy going to concerts and I enjoy taking photographs and this is going back to the 80’s when you were allowed to take photographs at concerts, you know not every show but at a lot of shows and they didn’t really care as much as they do now. I think partly because back then photography was a lot more expensive and of you wanted to take photographs it cost you…you had to buy the film, you had to develop the film, you had to print stuff so it wasn’t just taking 300 digital pictures and posting them on your Facebook or your website. So a lot of people weren’t really bothered to carry a camera around everywhere they went because there was an inherent cost to it.

I used to go to watch a band called ‘The Grateful Dead’ a lot and they had a very liberal camera policy and a very liberal recording policy and a pretty much a liberal everything policy and allowed you to take photographs if you wanted to. Now this was just from the audience and the rules applied that you couldn’t upset anyone or get in someone’s way; generally make sure you didn’t interrupt anyone else’s experience. You know they were allowed to enjoy the show and you were too by taking
photographs and that was fine. This gave me a lot of time to practice, the kind of practice that you just can’t get anymore so I took that and when I was back in San Diego and starting to have little more free time I started talking to promoters here who were putting on festivals and a little more of the Jam Band stuff, you know the hippy music and I got the pony tail so I’m good…

After a while the bands started noticing the pictures and this is all around the same time that blogging and websites and email and the Internet craze you know so all the pieces all started coming together and I actually managed to send the photographs by scanning the prints or negatives or slides and then putting them into an email and creating a website and doing all these kind of things back in the very early 90’s and kind of got a little bit of a ‘leg up’ and the bands started seeing images and the next thing I know they’re asking me to shoot some photographs and I started getting more and more calls.

Because I love music this was just fantastic you know I can go to the show take some photographs…

Glyn: Geez yeah an absolute gift…

Alan: Yeah sure but at the same time there weren’t  that many people doing it and it was still all film…digital camera weren’t quite out there yet. I mean the first digital point and shoots were coming out and I had some little thing that I can’t remember what it was now, but I used to take it along too and experiment seeing what it could do and how long it would take to get a photograph and get it onto a website and it kind of worked so while I wasn’t doing it full time I did feel likeI was on the cutting edge of technology and some of the local bands really appreciated it.

I found out the hard way that there’s not a whole lot of money in actual Concert Photography . There’s some magazines that will pay but if you’re shooting a lot of live performances, to actually sell live performance photographs and make a really good living it just isn’t going to happen.

So I started doing portraits and I shot some weddings and I’ve done product photography and I found it more satisfying to actually work for the bands and do stuff for their websites. There are a lot of my photographs that have never bee seen by the general public because they’re sitting in offices or promoters living rooms…you know things like that.

Anyway getting back to Photoshop World, what we do there is a Pre Conference workshop for a maximum of 40 people and I work with the very talented Scott Diussa who works for Nikon as his day job but he likes to shoot concerts too. So between the two of us we teach a class and not only do we go through the ins and outs of getting a Photo Pass and the settings for your camera and how to work in a Photo Pit and all that classroom stuff. We also actually have a live concert shoot so we have a band on a stage with as close to concert lighting as we can get and we let them practice where there’s no pressure.

No one else is doing that at this point. I’m sure someone somewhere is going to figure it out and jump on this but we’ve now managed to do it 4 times and each time we get better images, each time we get people who’ve never photographed concerts coming back with images that just blow me away.

Glyn: What’s really interesting Alan is that I think it was a couple of years ago now when I was over in Atlanta with Zack Arias and I got chatting to Allen Ross Thomas who you know is also a concert photographer. I remember Zack doing a review of his portfolio and we got chatting and your name came in to the conversation and then we started talking about how cool it would be if someone did a workshop on Concert Photography but how on earth they would do it, God only knows. Anyway I think it was at the following Photoshop World there was the Concert Photography Workshop and you were running it…freaky or what!

Alan: I’ve talked to Allen a lot. He’s such a talented shooter too and I was really hoping he’d been able to make it out to this last Photoshop World but it just wasn’t possible. We’ve had this discussion over and over again and it’s so difficult to get all those pieces lined up…to get a band that’s just willing to sit there and not play for a crowd and not cost thousands and thousands of dollars, get a venue, have someone running the lights and know what they’re doing without it just being priced out of existence. Now the one thing we have a Photoshop World that we’ve been really lucky with is that they have a stage set up for their keynote speech the next morning so we get access to that stage the day before and Scott Kelby is a great musician and has a great band that he plays with and they’ll come along and play for us and stop and start and pretty much do what we want on a stage that is as close to we can get as a concert stage; so it’s been really great having all those parts come together.

Because of the way Photoshop World has different themes each year we don’t know what the stage is going to be like pretty much until we walk in but that’s very much like the real world; I don’t know what a stage is going to be like 6 months in advance I only know what it’s like from the minute I walk in the room.

What’s kind of interesting is that some of the people that come on the workshop saying  “well I don’t know if I’m ever going to shoot a concert but I kind of want to be able to do this and work in low light photography” and a lot of them leave and the next thing you know is that they’re emailing you saying ‘Well I just asked this band and that band if I can shoot them and I’ve also shot my friends band’ and then suddenly they’re out there saying they had so much fun they want to shoot more concerts, and that’s great for us. I’m all for it and I think the more people out there shooting the better it is.

Glyn: It definitely seems to be something people want to do more of and I’m noticing that over here in the UK too. Last Christmas for example a few friends of mine I know went out to shoot bands at local bars and they’d never have done that before

Alan: I think the digital camera has gotten to the point where you can get really good photographs even if you set it on an Auto Mode. Of course you won’t get consistently good photographs and the composition won’t necessarily be there which is a different story but you shoot say 3-400 photographs on a compact flash card now or an SD card, it doesn’t cost you anything and you’ll get one or two great shots and people really like to see photographs they took of shows they went to.

I worked with The Dead when 48 hours after the concert you could buy a book with photographs that were taken at the very same concert you were at, and people love that.

Glyn: When it comes to concert photography now it’s not something that I actually do; I tend to work in areas where I can take control and plan what I’m doing, and set things up but with what you’re doing you go in and right off the bat you’ve got to nail it and there’s no chance of ‘can we just do that one shot again’

I mean is it even worth letting folks know what settings you would generally work to when you’re photographing a concert; I mean the best advice I guess for anyone looking to get involved would be to get themselves over to Photoshop World and get in on your Pre Con’…

Alan: I mean yeah of course I’d love everyone to come on over to Photoshop World and get themselves onto the Pre Con’ but I can give you an idea of settings right off the bat now…

When I’m walking into a venue I always have my camera set the same way because it’s a starting point that I’m familiar with so off the top of my head I can tell you that I always have my camera in Manual Mode, my metering is set to Spot Metering, Aperture is set at f/2.8 because most of my lenses are f/2.8 or faster and my ISO is set to 1600 usually and Shutter Speed can be anywhere between 1/160 of a second to 1/200th of a second. That’s just a starting point so when I raise my camera to my eye and take a picture and I quickly look at it and it’s really dark I know I can either drop the shutter speed down to say 1/125 second or I need to increase the ISO up to maybe 3200. If I start off at the same point every time I know where I can go to make the changes I need to make to get my exposures right where I want them. After that it’s very much a case of watching what’s going on..if the lights get brighter then increase the shutter speed, if they darker then decrease the shutter speed. It’s not as hard as people think. I think the biggest problem that people have with concert photography sometimes is trusting their own eyes and their own brain. They really want to do what the camera says because they’re used to the camera having some control and this is one type of photography where the camera has no control. No matter how smart the camera is you have to believe that you are smarter and if you do it long enough you’ll actually be able to meter the light in your head.

Glyn: There’s one thing I find really fascinating is that when I look at Concert Photography and yours in particular, Allen Ross Thomas’ work I can tell now who’s images are who’s and I guess the average person would think it’s a concert…how can it look so different. Style still plays a big part in what you do huh…

Alan: I think I have a pretty distinct style because I tend to shoot sideways across stages as opposed to some photographers who get right in the middle and shoot directly back. I mean I’ll do that if it’s something that’s looks good but I tend to start more on the edges and try to shoot kind of a 45 degree angle at a musician so that I’m not right in front of them. This came from the The Grateful Dead and later with Bob Weir and RatDog when I was working with them and the rule was don’t stand directly in front of the main performer, so I had this beaten into my head over and over again. People come to see the band…they don’t want to see the back of your head, so I tended to edge off to the sides and I kind of liked the angle I got, I kind of liked the look and after a while I started to notice that guitar players tend to turn a certain way and then I don’t have to worry about the microphone sticking out of them and that kind of stuff.

The more I’ve done this I’ve found that the I’ve gotten some shots that other people just haven’t got because they’ve just been following the crowds around. Obviously there are times when you get told that you’ve got to stand in a certain place and that’s what you have so you just try to do your best.

I tend also to shoot a little wider than most so that I can crop later. I found you can’t add to the frame you can only take away from it so working for some of the people they want more space on the top, bottom or sides for using it on a website or whatever and I found it was easier to shoot just a little bit wider.

Glyn: Ok so now we’re talking about shooting styles and settings what kit are you using on a day to day basis photographing concerts?

Alan: Right now I’m using a Nikon D700 with a motor grip and I use 2 lenses for 90% of my photography. I use a 70-200 f/2.8…it’s a Nikon lens, the original VR1 and a 24-70 f/2.8 from Nikon and that gives me 24 – 200 in 2 lenses and pretty much if I can’t capture it in that it can’t really be captured easily. So that’s my kit…one camera and 2 lenses right now.

Glyn: So you’re not walking in with two bodies with each having one of the lenses on?

Alan: I used to but honestly the other body that I’m using some of the time is a Nikon D2x which isn’t all that great in low light.

I found that in the concert stuff and in the 3 songs I can actually switch lenses fast enough to not have it concern me too much. But with all that being said I still plan on getting a Nikon D3s or equivalent later this year…that’s still my goal because it’s one of the the best cameras for low light situations that there is. For big shows or festivals I have been lucky to have the use of a D3 as a second body as a loaner.

Glyn: I’m shooting with a Nikon D3 and love it but you know the more I hear it and I hear it a lot, I tend to wish I’d got myself two Nikon D700’s instead.

Alan: Yeah sure it’s an incredible camera and that chipset…the one in the D3 and D700 is just outstanding. I don’t even worry anymore if I’m shooting at 1600 ISO or 3200 ISO or whatever.

Hey Glyn, just backtracking a bit now and talking about Photoshop World, this time round I did Portfolio Reviews and I saw 7 different photographers and I was just amazed at the quality of photography coming through that door…it was unbelievable. From Travel to Sports, and obviously they gave me a bunch of concert photographers too but I think anyone who goes to Photoshop World and is serious about their photography needs to sign up for a portfolio review…it’s free! It’s one of those perks you get for going there and I know there’s various types of reviews that will make you cry or tell you that you should try something else, the goal here is to help people to improve their photography and focus on the positives. But it was a great experience to be part of the Portfolio Review team. I was sitting in the room with some of the best digital artists and photographers in the World…Joe Glyda, Bert Monroy, Moose Peterson… You know these guys are just sitting around and one on one helping people with their Photography I mean it’s just an unbelievable thing and people don’t take advantage of it the way they should.

Glyn: Yeah I’ve been to Photoshop World before but it wasn’t something I took advantage of but when we come out in March 2012 I’ll definitely be looking for a Portfolio Review..be daft not too.

Alan: Yeah and the way they run it is that they ask you who you and what you’re looking for and if you go “I’m a portrait photographer” and they’ll find an instructor that will kind of match or work in your field so that you’re not getting you know advice from just anyone.

Glyn: Well you may find that next March you have a whole bunch of folks from the UK lining up for reviews because like I said, Dave Clayton and I will be there and we hope to encourage lots of other folks here to take the trip over and experience Photoshop World

Alan: That would be awesome. You know Scott Diussa and myself went over to Tampa in August and recorded a class on Kelby Training [Link] on Concert Photography that we filmed over 3 days and I believe clocks in at around 2 hours so there’s a lot of stuff. We filmed a variety of bands in a variety of situations and actually stopped and talked and had them come back on stage to go through what we looked for when we were shooting them.

We had so many good reviews from that, that we incorporated some of that into the live shoot at the Pre Conference Workshop. People loved how we talked about everything…the lighting, positioning, how many shots we’d taken, what we look for and so on. I can take concert photos all day long but I want to be able to get people who are also trying to do it, to see things how I see things…if they want to of course.

Glyn: So how do you find the teaching side of things? … I mean from where I’m sitting it looks like you really enjoy it.

Alan: Ever since I first went to Photoshop World back in 2002 and saw all these people like Ben Willmore, Julieanne Kost, Felix Nelson all sharing the knowledge I thought it would be really cool to be able to do that. You know sharing the Photography secrets… there really is no such thing, but you know the first time I did it was a little nerve wracking but doing it every time since then it’s actually become more enjoyable. I think it’s great to be able to share this information with people. There’s a story going round from the last Photoshop World where Sports Photographer Dave Black actually had people crying in the closing Keynote with his story and about the teacher that changed his life; the teacher that had him go in a different direction after taking his class but it was more than that it was about the excitement that Instructors have sharing their knowledge.

You see we don’t think it’s something to be kept secret to have an advantage of over someone else. The more people that get this information the more people are out there having a good time and that’s part of what makes Photoshop World so unique from a lot of other places where people can tend to talk down to you. Photoshop World is just full of people wanting to help and to share all their information.

Glyn: I guess some people are scared that if they tell others how they do what they do then they’ll lose business but my attitude is that it doesn’t matter because no matter what, you still put your own ‘stamp’ on what you do…do you know what I mean?

Alan: Listen if I teach someone something and they get so good that they can come and take away my job then I obviously need to start improving my Photography.

Glyn: Absolutely yeah

Alan: In one of the Portfolio reviews I saw a woman who was 18 or 19 years of age shooting concerts with a point and shoot camera from the audience as the opportunities presented themselves and she had some photographs that I would have killed for when I was 18. I mean she had an eye and some of the things she was doing were just unbelievable and some of them were bands thatI had shot in the photo pit and I didn’t even see so its’ not a matter of you know dial in these settings and stand over here, there’s got to be a passion involved.

People ask me if there’s a band that I really want to shoot but let me put it as succinctly as I can…

I will shoot any band at any venue at any time. It’s the idea that I’m there photographing music that makes me happy. Even when they have the after hours party at Photoshop World and Scott’s Band is playing in a bar and I’ve been shooting all day and teaching all day I still can’t put my camera down.

You know if I was to say who are my favorite bands to shoot I’d say the ones who move around more; the heavy metal guys seem to just have more energy on stage which translates into an easier time for me; probably a harder time technically but it’s an easier time for me because I’m enjoying the motion. Last year Slater, Anthrax and Megadeth put on a show together and it was fantastic…each band moving around more than the one previously…just a great, great time. I just Otto shoot the Big 4 show here which was Anthrax, Megadeth, Slayer and Metallica. One of the most challenging shoots and one of the most enjoyable shoots all at the same time.

Glyn: Ok Alan so let’s move on now because I want to touch on the iPad because obviously you’ve already had one phenomenal book released called ‘iPad: Fully Loaded’ and now you’ve written a follow up from that so I want to get your thoughts on the iPad and how important you feel it is for Photographers and how you best see it being used. So generally what are you thoughts overall on the iPad?

Alan: I think the iPad is a really good device. I think a lot of people buy it and then they try to figure out what to do with it later…like playing Angry Birds, watching the news or doing some crossword puzzle or whatever. But, when it comes to Photographers it has a fantastic screen with really good resolution and it’s so intuitive that you can turn it round and hand over your portfolio to someone and you can go through it on the iPad and get it in this really beautiful package. A lot of the conversations I had at Photoshop World with iPad users were on which type of portfolio do you use…you know wanting to know if I just use the Photo App, how are you getting your pictures into the device. Terry White was shooting wirelessly to the iPad the whole conference…you know he had an Eye-Fi Card in his camera and as he was taking pictures they were popping up onto the iPad; he had the iPad mirrored onto a screen so as we were doing events suddenly pictures were instantaneously being shown on the screen I mean this wouldn’t have happened a couple of years back; it would have taken wires and tethering and software and all kinds of things that are now just happening right off the bat.

Another thing with the iPad, it’s really good for doing business out on the road and not having to carry around a computer. I did some work on a book with a wedding photographer out of Chicago who picked up an iPad right when it came out, put his portfolio on it put on a PDF business form you know to hire him and met with clients, pulls out this really slick device which can hold as many pictures as he needs to convince them to hire him and can actually have them sign a PDF contract right there on the iPad and never has to have the laptop, send papers and do the rest of it. It’s a brilliant business device like that.

Glyn: I remember when Jeremy Cowart was on the first Episode of The Grid and he along with Scott Kelby and Matt Kloskowski were talking about how David Ziser uses his like a modern day business card i.e he’ll actually email potential clients his contact details along with a photo so they then se the photo and remember him and it has so much more impact…I mean such a simple but clever way to use it and to promote yourself.

Alan: I actually spoke to David about the iPad and the iPad 2 and even David Ziser who is a fantastic photographer and is using this cutting edge technology, even he was like ‘is there a good portfolio…how do I hand this out’ … he’s still working through it; everyone’s still trying to find the best way to use it and the limits of what we can and can’t do with it. I know from my personal use that I’m starting to use it for things that I would have previously had to turn to a computer for … filling out PDF forms or keeping on top of my schedule, go through some pictures, take some notes. It’s taken over from a notebook, from a Phone Book you know all kinds of little things.

I’m not going to lie it’s really great as a consumption device for entertainment purposes..I have a TV series, a couple of movies a nice folder full of games but even when I was flying back from Orlando I found myself using the writing Apps and taking notes for some future book projects more than sitting there and watching the latest comedy special or whatever. Whilst all that’s great I actually found myself sitting there in the cramped airline seat, I mean I’m 6ft 2” and those seats are not made for people my size and the person in front of me is asleep and the plane seat is back and I can still use Pages on my iPad to basically flush out a couple of ideas that I’ve had as opposed to hoping I’d remember them later so I actually broke it out as a business tool, emailed myself the file and when I got back to my laptop there my notes were.

Glyn: So what about the iPad books you’ve written?

Alan: I wrote the iPad: Fully Loaded and I tried to add as much useful information as I could and then the rumors started flying around that Apple were going to be releasing a new iPad we started talking about writing a iPad 2: Fully Loaded and I wanted to make really, really sure that although it’s a new book and it’s a second edition for a second version that most of the information in it is actually new. There is still a little bit in there about how you can put your pictures or movies onto the iPad, deal with email and word files but this time I also dealing with Social Networks like Twitter and Facebook and dealing with Educational uses for the iPad and renting text books on the iPad.

I also added some information in what I call the Entertainment Chapters so some of the Cook Book Apps, Music Creation apps …not games, I stayed away from games because anyone can load up as many games as you want but I started tying to get things that were a little bit different from the first book. I still have chapters on ebooks, movies, television and music and some photography but we also now go into video creation because the iPad 2 has a video camera. We also go into editing videos in iMovie and FaceTime and some of those newer web browsers that actually allow you to play some Flash Movies so instead of just going ok and updating the information from the first book I tried really hard to add brand new stuff.

Glyn: So it sounds that even if someone has an iPad version 1 there’s still stuff in this new book that would be valid

Alan: 99% of this can be done on your iPad 1 so thinking that it’s just for people with an iPad 2 is a mistake and we’re trying to make sure that the wording in the ads and on Amazon and wherever it can be bought is that people understand everything in here can be done on the original iPad and the iPad 2 with the exception of things that involve the built in camera; there is no FaceTime on the iPad 1 and there’s no video or photograph taking on the iPad 1 but everything else even getting iMovie loaded onto the original iPad is covered in the book.

I also covered something this time that I thought was really interesting and that’s Remote Desktop which allows you to control your computer with you iPad and is something I now do on a regular basis because I’m really quite lazy and don’t like to go from the living room to my office if I just want to check one little thing.

Glyn: Now that sounds great because all I’m using to allow me to do that kind of thing is Dropbox

Alan: Well there’s actually a couple of Apps that allow you to have total control of your computer so you can see the screens, you can navigate around and do some cool things

Glyn: Ah man, this is just teasing…when the hell is the book coming out???

Alan: It’s actually available for pre order right now so it’ll be shipping real soon. I just want to make sure that people understand both of the books can live on your bookshelf because they both offer something different. Yes there’ll be a little bit of overlap but certainly a lot of new stuff to keep everyone interested.

It would have been great to release the books like Scott Kelby’s Digital Photography Series 1, 2 and 3 but since these books are on different products. You know as a side, Scott Kelby does an amazing job; he’s one of the nicest people I’ve ever met in my life and I owe him a huge debt of gratitude for inviting me to speak at Photoshop World in the first place.

Now there was a question that came in I remember seeing on Twitter and that was asking about my camera straps so I’ll just dive out for a second and make sure it’s covered…

When I’m shooting with 2 camera bodies, one of them has a Lowepro Strap on it that’s made out of neoprene that I carry round neck and the second camera is on a Rapid Strap so that it hangs down by my side and they stay out of each others way, but honestly I’ve been using one camera body for a while and I kind of like it.

Glyn: Alan I’ve just noticed time has flown by and I really don’t want to keep you for too long so maybe we should look at wrapping up but before we do there’s just a couple more things I’d like to cover with you…

Alan: No problem

Glyn: Ok so Social Networking…Obviously you’re online with Facebook and Twitter but what are your thoughts on it? Are you on it because it’s well…it’s the done thing or do you see it differently to that?

Alan: Let me tell you what’s happened with me…

I don’t use Facebook all that much as I haven’t got round to setting up an official Facebook site and I tend to have the Facebook account for people I know in ‘real life’ you know friends of friends and what have you. Facebook and I don’t get along very well, I don’t use it very much but Twitter on the other hand has been one of the amazing learning experiences. I started out with like 2 followers and I didn’t know who they were and I started realizing there was so much great information on Twitter from so many great photographers that I started following. I think at the moment I’m only following  about 200 – 220 people right now, it’s not huge…I still get a little overwhelmed by Twitter sometimes but the people I follow are either personal friends that I happen to know and I’m interested in what they have to say or they’re photograpers…Joe McNally, Moose Peterson, Scott Kelby, Matt Klooskowski…you know the guys that I look up to as either educators or photographers or a combination of both. It’s growing all the time, more and more friends are joining Twitter but I found out that Twitter is actually a really great place for me to sell myself a little bit and be a little bit more out there amongst the general public. It’s all very well being some guy who wrote a book or some guy who teaches but on Twitter there’s a little bit of a back and forth and I can throw out ideas and thoughts and things that interest me and I can get into short conversation with people about subjects I’m interested in and I can walk away from any conversation without hurting anyones feelings because they have come to expect that from Twitter and I think it’s an amazing marketing device.

I’ve done some book giveaways on Twitter that has worked fantasticly not just in terms of people getting free books from me but getting people reading my comments and commenting on my website and sending me emails and I have to be real honest: I try to sell books, I’m an author, I teach at Photoshop World and I need customers and this is one way for people to find out a bit more and for me to push myself out there without it really costing much except for a bit of time.

It’s really interesting because there are people I met at Photoshop World that I’m connected with on Twitter and I feel like I’m friends with them and know them before I actually meet them. Its like I have had some kind of interaction online and when you meet them for the first time face to face it doesn’t actually feel like the first time.

Nancy (@NAPP_news) is unbelievable at making sure these things happen at Photoshop World. I look at the way she tweets…it’s a company but then she’s a person so there’s a personality plus she not going over the top and throwing things out she believes in without it being backed by the company. I’m an individual but I’m also my own company and I really have to take that into account and know that Twitter is a very public face of who I am.

Social Media has just taken off like crazy.

Glyn: Ok then last thing to finish off and this goes back to the Photography side of things, and this is a really open ended question here…

A Golden Nugget…if you were to give Alan Hess’ Golden Nugget of advice to anybody involved in Photography, wanting to get involved in Photography what would that be?

Alan: The one thing I think a lot of people don’t do and should do is…

They need to learn how to shoot their camera in Manual Mode and they need to know where all the controls in the camera are because I believe that unless you know what all those buttons and whistles, knobs and dials actually do you’re not getting the most out of it. You can go and grab the biggest and most complicated camera in the world that has all this stuff on it but if you can put it into Manual Mode and control the shutter speed, the aperture, the iso and so on then you’ll see it works just like any other camera that’s existed in modern times. I firmly believe that people need to go out and shoot their camera in Manual Mode. After that and you’ve got it then yeah go ahead and set it on whatever mode you like but at least you know what the camera is doing…at least you understand the concept behind making that photograph.

I also believe you need to be able to adjust those things without looking at the buttons so if you’re holding the camera up to your face and you think you need a faster shutter speed then you can just do it or if you need to adjust the aperture then you can do it without bringing the camera down.

In concert photography then you need to do this stuff quick but say for example if you’re a wedding photographer and you’ve set up a group shot with the bride, groom, parents and everybody and you’re having to look down at your camera and figure out how to change a setting then confidence in you is lost instantly and people are looking at you thinking “You are not a professional!”

So if I can sum it up I’m saying you should be capable of shooting in Manual Mode and confident that you know where all the controls are

Glyn: Well that makes perfect sense.

Alan, I just want to again say a huge thanks to you for taking time out to chat…I really do appreciate

Alan: No problem at all Glyn; look forward to seeing you guys at Photoshop World

•    •    •

Website: www.alanhessphotography.com
Twitter: www.twitter.com/shotlivephoto
Facebook: www.facebook.com/alan.hess

Kelby Training Class on Concert Photography

Author of the iPad 2 Fully Loaded (coming soon)
Author of the iPad Fully Loaded
Author of the Composition Digital Field Guide
Author of the Exposure Digital Field Guide
Author of the Sony A200 Digital Field Guide
Author of the Sony A700 Digital Field Guide

Don’t Miss This!!!
On Friday 24th June 2011, Alan is hosting a Webinar for Nik Software on the use of Silver Efex Pro 2 in Concert Photography.

Register for FREE for clicking on this [Link] or the graphic below:

Specialising in Concert and Live Event Photography Alan has photographed: Billy Idol, Black Eyed Peas, Bruce Hornsby, Marilyn Manson, Robin Williams and Willie Nelson to name but a few and not only that he’s an Instructor at Photoshop World, Kelby Training and a Best Selling Author in Photographic Books; his most recent book ‘The iPad: Fully Loaded” [Link] becoming the ‘Go To’ book for iPad owners!

Alan is one of the best Photographers and Instructors in his field out there and that combined with his genuine love of passing on his knowledge with others means I’m pretty much champing at the bit to share what we talked about with you.

In the mean time be sure to check out more of Alan’s work over at: www.alanhessphotography.com and for more ‘Behind the Scenes‘ follow Alan on Twitter (@shotlivephoto) [Link]

Enjoy

We talked for quite some time covering all manner of things such as how he first got started, how he came to be one of the Photoshop Guys and end up working with the Scott Kelby and everyone at the N.A.P.P. and Kelby Training, Adobe Lightroom, his latest book and much, much more…

Everyone who knows and has met Matt will vouch for him not only being incredibly talented but a a gifted trainer who genuinely gets a kick out of helping others to develop their skills. His generosity too knows no limits and it’s for these reasons that I’m really excited to be sharing the content of our conversation here with you…

Enjoy

• • •

Glyn: Hey Matt great to speak to you again.

Matt: Yeah it’s been way too long

Glyn: Matt before we start going through some questions I just want to say a huge thank you from Anne and myself for sending over the picture that you did; it just blew us away mate it really did.

Matt: Hey well I’m glad it found a good home

Glyn: Absolutely it did. We got it framed by a company over here called Kaleidoscope who have done a cracking job and it’s now taking pride of place in our living room.

Matt: That’s really great to hear.

Glyn: Well I just want to say firstly how grateful I am for you giving up some of your time for this cos it’s clear to see that you guys are real busy to say the least.

Matt, what I’ve done is put together a few questions and also I’ve a few questions that people sent in via Twitter, but I don’t want to take up too much of your time and I promise you that none of them are too probing…well, not all of them anyway

Matt: Ok sounds good to me, let’s go for it…

Glyn: Alright then let’s kick off with the first question which is probably the most obvious, but how did you first become involved in Photoshop and then with the N.A.P.P. and Kelby Training ?

Matt: Alright so I first got started with Photoshop, and it’s really kind of boring, and that was after I graduated from College back in the early 90’s having studied marketing so I got a job selling construction equipment and our advertising department was pretty busy so it was hard to get any advertising from them so I kind of took it upon myself that if I wanted any kind of flyers or any type of handouts that I could give to customers as I came across them, you know anything that was different to the standard company literature, then I pretty much had to create it myself. So, I got a copy of Photoshop and started making my own and that was my first use of it.

I actually dropped out of it for a couple of years after that and then I came back into it when I went to a night school and got my IT Degree in Computer Science and Programming and all that stuff. When I went to work in the IT field I was doing alot of web development and this was in the beginning or like the infancy stages of the web so maybe 1995/1996 when if you had a Red Button on your website that was considered Hi-Tech. So my boss walked over said we need to make our website look better, dropped a copy of Photoshop on my desk and that’s when I started to mess around with it again.

Glyn: Ok so from that point how did you finally come to work with Scott, Dave and guys at the N.A.P.P. ?

Matt: Well I took a liking to teaching but you know I never went to school with the intention of one day becoming a teacher or anything like that, but I just kind of developed a liking for it. I adopted certain technologies at the company I worked for, the IT, Web Development Company, that became ‘needed’ pretty quickly so because I adopted them when I did, I was the only guy that knew what to really do with them. This was when people were just starting use XML, ASP and all that kind of stuff and it just wasn’t that mainstream so I became the guy that they needed to teach people because the IT business was growing so rapidly and we were hiring people that didn’t have that much real world experience. So that’s how I got into teaching and into Photoshop and I then started sharing my knowledge online and I sent emails to every book editor, magazine editor and web site that would have me; the N.A.P.P. happened to be one of them and I just started doing weekly articles for them on a freelance basis. Then one day they needed somebody full time and they gave me a call.

Glyn: Obviously that’s different to being in the UK here because the Photoshop User Magazine which is produced by the N.A.P.P. would be something you’d have been able to get off the shelf in a newsagents or magazine store?

Matt: Exactly…you can buy it off the shelf here. In fact before I was even a NAPP member I used to buy the magazine and then I realised I can become a NAPP member and get it for free

Glyn: You see that was something I was always intrigued about because I literally stumbled across the NAPP completely by accident. I’d not long got into using computers, my uncle who was using photoshop showed me some stuff he could do…you know high end editing like removing red eye and all that kind of stuff but when I got a copy I remember sitting there thinking ‘what the heck do I do with this?’ and I was just browsing round the internet looking for tutorials and came across the NAPP and it was just blind faith really that said ‘go with it’

Matt: Yeah totally, I remember where I was when I got my first Photoshop User magazine…I was in a Barnes and Noble store.

But hey I already kind of knew everybody at the NAPP having met them before and living in Tampa but anyway I came along for the interview and a week later I got

Glyn: So how long ago would you say that was now?

Matt: Almost 7 years now I guess

Glyn: Ok so I take it from what you’re saying there then Matt is that it was the Photoshop that came first before the Photography?

Matt: Yeah. I took classes in Photography at High School and then moved onto College and well you know it kind of got forgotten about. I always enjoyed photography, I was always the guy with the camera but I didn’t really do much with it to be honest with you.

I probably started to get back into it maybe 10 or 11 years ago when digital started to get more and more popular, I was starting a family and it just brought back that interest again.

Glyn: When I first joined the NAPP, it seemed very much Photoshop orientated only but then there seemed this kind of transition where more photography was being brought into it so was it at that kind of time when you really kicked in with it too would you say?

Matt: Yeah I guess it’s kind of where the market went. How can I explain it? You know take Graphic Design as an example, that’s a job. People who work in graphic design will do that during their day at work and then go home and that’s it; obviously not every person is like that, but by and large it’s a job whereas Photography is a passion for many, many people. You don’t stay in the photography business because you like it, you stay in it because you love it. For most photographers it’s not like it’s this incredibly lucrative business but photographers do it because they love it.

Also if you look at Photoshop and Adobe, that’s where all the features were going. I mean when was the last time you saw a feature come out that was specifically for Graphic Designers? Almost all the new features that come out in Photoshop have some kind of Photography slant to them.

Glyn: Ok so seeing as we’re talking about Photography, I know you’re a Nikon user but if you had to choose your ‘Go To’ kit and you could only take certain limited kit with you on a shoot and let’s say it was a portrait shoot what would be the lens you’d choose?

Matt: I have a Nikon D3 right now and I’ve shot with a number of different camera bodies so to be honest unless I was shooting sports or a wedding in low light I wouldn’t care about the body but the lens I would take would most likely be the 70-200 f/2.8. That’s just my favourite lens; it’s beautiful what you can do with it…

Glyn: Sure it’s a great lens. I remember when I spoke with Photographer Bert Stephani about the very same thing and at the time he said he was really trying to force himself away from using the 70-200mm because he said it’s the lens that he can’t seem to take a bad photograph with and he was pushing himself to try and use his 24-70mm alot more…

Matt: Yep that’s me. I got the new 85mm f/1.4 from Nikon recently and that lens is just amazing. I did a portrait shoot, kind of a lifestyle portrait shoot, in New York last October in Central Park with all the Fall colours and everything and the photos that came out of that, if you zoom into the eyes they look like they’ve been through the Unsharp Mask Filter twice already, they’re just so sharp right out of the camera.

Glyn: I’ve got the older version of the same lens and I gotta say I love it. Don’t use it as much as I should but do love it.

Matt: I’ll have to send you a photo taken with it

Glyn: Sounds great but my only concern with that is I’ll start justifying to myself why I need to upgrade and before you know it…”Buy Now” will have been pressed.

Glyn: Ok so you obviously get to mix with alot of the top guys out there but who would you say you draw most of your inspiration from?

Matt: I guess it’s like what happens to you and alot of other people out there in that it always changes, so this week it’s one person and then next week it changes. But that being said I always draw inspiration from Joe McNally; he’s just inspirational no matter what. You mentioned Bert Stephani and I’ve followed his stuff for quite a while and I’m always interested to watch his stuff and honestly I like to watch your stuff too…

Glyn: Ah geez you don’t have to say that …

Matt: Hey don’t worry you can send me my $20 later on.But seriously if you want to talk about lately, I draw alot of inspiration from Scott’s work you know, just watching some of the ideas he comes up with.

Glyn: That recent fashion shoot he blogged about…that was just superb! [Link]

Matt: Yeah absolutely, very cool stuff. Lately I’ve taken a slant towards alot of the compositing work that’s out there and you know what I realised is I really, really like to use Photoshop and sometimes I’ll go out on a portrait shoot, come back and throw a vignette onto it and I’m done aside from a little bit of sharpening and maybe a contrast boost which is great you know but I also love being creative in Photoshop and I’ve found myself getting away from that because everything in Lightroom’s so easy. So anyway I’ve really gotten back into that and I’m looking alot at work by Joel Grimes and Dave Hill. You know talking about Dave Hill, people talk about the ‘Dave Hill Effect’, but forget about that just look at Dave Hill’s work. You know even if it didn’t have that, I don’t know what you call that look to his photos but you know what I mean right, that contrasty almost surreal type of look to it, but even if it didn’t have that there’s some killer compositing and Photoshop work that’s going on behind the scenes.

Glyn: Yeah and also the great photography to start of with…

Matt: Yeah and that’s the main thing you know…light it right and make sure everything is done well, but I do really enjoy the compositing side of things alot.

Glyn: You’ve had Calvin Hollywood out spending some time with you guys at Kelby Training too right?

Matt: Oh yeah I follow Calvin, I like him alot…he’s a real good guy. I’ve spent a good amount of time with him. There’s another guy out there too…Clint Davis who does alot of commercial work.

Glyn: Matt one of the things I’ve talked about alot to other Guests here on the blog aside from the Photography itself has been the subject of having your own ‘style’. Tim Wallace who you’ll know, always says that ‘style’ is something you can’t force, it just happens and he believes that your style is dictated by your own life experiences.

David E. Jackson said that you don’t choose your style it chooses you, so I know it can potentially be quite a deep subject but when it comes to having a ‘style’ what’s your take on it?

Matt: I think my own style has come from looking at all the work that’s out there and kind of just sometimes knowingly and sometimes unknowingly making decisions that merge all the styles you see out there, which eventually becomes your own style if that makes any sense.

Everybody follows people they like and hey let me tell you something, if I was to wake up tomorrow morning and somebody said “Matt, your photos all look like something Joe McNally would take”; I’d be pretty damn happy about that I can tell you.

Glyn: I’d want to shake their hand

Matt: Not like anyone’s ever gonna say that but I guess what I’m saying is it comes from watching other people and just picking different bits of what I like.

Glyn: What’s your favourite subject matter to shoot? Are you a portrait guy, a landscape guy…what’s your preference or do you like shooting all stuff?

Matt: I really enjoy portrait photography. I like shooting people and believe it or not and I know some people think I’m crazy for this but I like shooting kids and family portraiture generally. I also love shooting landscapes.

Glyn: You see Landscapes is what I thought you might have said…

Matt: Yeah I love landscapes. I have no problem getting up for sunrise as I’m kind of an early bird type of person so I don’t mind getting up early and I love to get out there and shoot. I like the process of it, I like the feeling of being out there, providing the weather’s nice of course, and I just love trying to capture that huge place that you’re looking at into a photo. And that’s not always easy because it doesn’t translate well into a photo but that’s the challenge I enjoy of trying to convey that scene I’m standing infront of to other people.

Glyn: Ok moving on then, Lightroom…

Matt: Never heard of it

Glyn: We briefly mentioned Lightroom and obviously I know that you run a blog called ‘Lightroom Killer Tips’ [Link] but it’s possible that in some far flung corner of the world, hiding themselves away in a dark room is a person who’s never heard of it so for their benefit can you just give us a brief run down of what the blog is all about?

Matt: Ok the blog is all about me trying to be the world’s source for Lightroom information. Whether it’s to let you know the news of something new and just come out, a tip, a plug in, I make presets available to download, I do videos from time to time…basically a one stop shop for Lightroom information.

Glyn: So when we’re talking about Lightroom then what would you love to see come out in future releases or do you think it’s already a complete program?

Matt: No I definitely think there’s still some gaps in there. Sounds kind of silly but I’d actually like the interface to be a little more customisable. Photoshop has keyboard shortcuts you can assign to things, you can move your palettes around and sometimes I wish I could do the same thing in Lightroom.

Glyn: Personally I really like using Lightroom but when I see what some folks are doing with it, honestly I think sometimes all I do with it is use it as a cataloguing program but then thinking about it differently that’s the good thing about it i.e. we use it how we see fit.

Matt: But that’s the beauty of it you see it is so simple; it’s meant to be a very simple program and some people get really caught up in it. You know, just put your photos into a folder and import it into Lightroom. Don’t move that folder cos Lightroom’s not going to know where it is and if you do move the folder then it will show a little question mark so just right click and point Lightroom to where it’s at. It gets a little complicated but I always tell people not to over-think the cataloguing process, just put your photos somewhere like you normally would and let Lightroom import them for you.

You don’t have to use all the stuff in there like keywords, flags, picks and ratings. Just use what you want…if you like it, press ‘P’ to pick it and leave it at that. If that works for you then great.

Glyn: Funny but that’s exactly all I do aside from a few minor tweeks in the Develop module

Matt: Yeah cos in the Develop module you’re basically in Camera RAW but what’s nice about it is that it’s all in one place and you’re not going back and forth between programs.

Printing though there’s nothing out there that comes close to Lightroom’s Print Module.

So all in all I guess a little bit of customisation would be nice. Photo Books…I think they’d be huge. Slideshows…well there’s some things they could do to improve here but honestly if they just looked at Apple’s iPhoto and make it more like that I think it’d be great.

Video editing doesn’t do that much for me because I don’t need it but I think the industry is going to need it.

Oh and one of the biggest things I’d have in Lightroom now we’re talking about it is an automated Backup Solution. It needs a 1 click backup solution for people because backing up is so difficult for people right now.

Glyn: I am so hyper paranoid about backing up. Ok so what’s your backup workflow?

Matt: Now my photos are always on an external Hard Drive so my photos are always backed up as I’ve always got several backups of that. My catalog is on my computer and so I just make sure I backup my computer and I do that every night so I know it’s really just one day away from being there. That pretty much gives me everything that I need and if something crashed I’d be ready to go again.

Glyn: So where are you spending most of your time now then?

Matt: Most of the time is still spent in Lightroom as far as getting the photo to look it’s best between exposure, white balance, sharpening and all that kind of stuff. The creative stuff, well that’s done in Photoshop because really that’s what it’s for. Lightroom is for the most part meant for global adjustments to your photos.

Glyn: You’ve recently written a second edition of your ‘Layers’ book which I did a review for on the blog [Link]

Matt: And thanks for doing that too by the way

Glyn: Hey not at all. I saw the wording you’d put out there saying if anybody had the 1st edition then maybe they wouldn’t need this new release but I tell you what I’m so glad I did and I’m not just saying that because we’re talking now but what a cracking book. Like I said in the review, that final chapter made the book worth every penny.

Matt: That’s really cool of you to say

Glyn: Yeah I seriously enjoyed that and I know alot of folks have too from all the messages I had sent over since the review

Matt: Since the first version of the book came out it kind of shattered all my expectations. I just hoped to have a decent book and it turned out to be a Best Seller and I was really happy with it and it continued to do well in the rankings even though I’d written it for CS3. That lasted too through CS4 when it remained in the Top 10 of all Photoshop books but when CS5 came out we knew it was time for an update.

Glyn: I guess putting a Best Selling book together takes a considerable amount of time; is it something that you really enjoy doing?

Matt: You know I enjoy writing to a degree but I enjoy speaking alot more. I think given the choice I’d probably do a video over writing books only because I prefer to learn that way. So it’s not that I don’t enjoy reading because I do alot, but when it comes to software training, for me personally, I enjoy watching it rather than reading it. That being said though, there’s obviously a huge audience out there that prefers to read their training so I just want to make sure that I cover their needs too.

Glyn: I got my copy on the iPad through the Amazon Kindle Store which reads really well…

Matt: Yeah I don’t want to read it if I can’t get it on my iPad; it’s got to that point now.

Glyn: I held off from getting one for so long but now I’ve got it I don’t know what I did without it

Matt: I must have 80 magazines on there and god knows how many books; it’s where I do all my reading now.

Glyn: Ok Matt, I’m conscious of your time here so just a couple more things….

What would you say are the common mistakes you see folks making? … and this can be either photography or photoshop related or both.

Matt: Ok let me think…

Glyn: I’ll give you an example….

When I asked the same question to Calvin Hollywood, he said that the common mistake he sees people making is working through their editing too quickly. Some folks will go out on a shoot, get home, import the photos, do a quick edit and then upload them straight away to their blog or FLickr or wherever. He said that rather than that just slow down. Do a little editing on your images and then walk away. Come back a while later and with fresh eyes you’ll see if anything else needs doing rather than trying to get it all done in one go.

Matt: Yeah totally so if I was going to say anything I’d build on what Calvin said in that what I try to do when I’m working on an image is leave up full screen when I go to bed at night and then the test is when I come back in the morning…how do I like it? When my computer wakes up and it’s the first thing I see, how do I feel about it?

So, I’ll do that alot. You know retouching there are some common mistakes you see…eyes that are too bright, eyes that aren’t bright enough.

People not doing things because they think Photoshop is a bad word. Eyes that aren’t sharpened and crisp, just not knowing that the way they come out of the camera isn’t good enough. If you want your stuff to compete whether it’s commercially or non commercially or just for your own hobby and you want your stuff to look it’s best then you’ve gotta sharpen the eyes. Skin that looks basically plastic because it’s been blurred so much, teeth that are glowing, yeah we see alot of those mistakes and alot of that can be fixed by doing what Calvin suggests and walking away from it and then coming back with a fresh set of eyes.

Glyn: Ok so to finish off Matt I always ask…if you could give one golden nugget of advice what would it be?

Matt: Golden Nugget of advice….

I’d say don’t be afraid of your Photoshop skills and don’t be afraid of Photoshop. You see it alot out there where it’s the unsaid thing when people ask “What did you do in Photoshop?”

Don’t be afraid of it, don’t dwell on it. Did you use Photoshop? Sure I did!

Glyn: It’s almost like a ‘put down’

Matt: Yeah sometimes it does seem like that and yeah of course this is coming from a Photoshop Guy who makes his money teaching and using Photoshop so you’d expect me to say this but I see it alot out there.

Don’t hide from it, don’t think you’re doing something wrong if you use it and you know all of the images out there that are great images and that compete have all had Photoshop work done to them to some extent.

Glyn: I’m so glad you’ve said that because there seems to be this thing that I’ve heard for example when some says they like what I do, but for themselves they say that they prefer to get things right in camera

Matt: Oh gosh, man if I hear that one more time! You know I hate to get it right in camera…lol

Glyn: Yeah me too, I just love spending hours editing out mistakes that I could have gotten right at the time I was shooting…lol

Matt: You know honestly, when someone says they prefer to get it right in the camera or “I’m a natural light photographer only”, most of the time they’re saying “I don’t know how”

Bottom line is that I too like to get it as good as possible in the camera and then do my bit in Photoshop so ultimately I’m getting the best out of the image.

Glyn: Well I tell you what Matt, I think we’ve covered a fair amount there so again I just want to say a BIG thanks from me for giving up your time to this I really do appreciate it.

Also, a BIG thank you to you, Scott, Dave, Corey, RC and everyone at the NAPP and Kelby Training for everything you guys do because on a personal note, I know hand on heart if I hadn’t stumbled across the NAPP there’s just no way I’d be in the position with my business that I am today let alone picked up a camera.

Matt: Absolutely no problem my friend, glad to do it. Talk to you soon.

• • •

Website: www.mattkloskowski.com
Blog: www.lightroomkillertips.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/ThePhotoshopGuy
Twitter: www.twitter.com/mattkloskowski
N.A.P.P: www.photoshopuser.com
Kelby Training: www.kelbytraining.com

Literally from day 1 of using Photoshop I joined the N.A.P.P. (National Association of Photoshop Professionals) of which Matt in company with Scott Kelby and Dave Cross is one of the original Photoshop Guys.

I can’t even begin to think how much I’ve learned and continue to learn from Matt through his tutorials, books, DVD’s and sitting in some of his classes at the mind blowing Photoshop World. However, what I do know is that he’s been instrumental in helping me to develop my skill level and as a consequence, my business.

Someone I’m proud to be able to call a friend Matt’s generosity never ceases to amaze me which is why I’m incredibly grateful that he’s giving up some of his time to be a Guest here on the blog.

Now, keeping in with the tradition of previous Guest’s, Matt and I are going to be chatting through all manner of things but this time we’re going to do things just a little bit different…

If you have a question that you’d like me to ask Matt on your behalf then all you need to do is post it on twitter and attach the following tag: #AskMatt and at the end of our chat I’ll finish off by randomly choosing a few of your questions and will include them in Matt’s Guest Post when it’s posted online.

Matt and I will be chatting today at 7pm GMT (2pm EST) so you have from now until then and the time we finish to fire over any questions. Oh and if you’re not on Twitter no problem…just post your questions in the comments section below.

Enjoy

Facebook: www.facebook.com/The PhotoshopGuy
Twitter: www.twitter.com/mattkloskowski
Blog: www.lightroomkillertips.com

We talked for quite some time covering all manner of things such as how he first got started, what it was like building his business and at the same time holding down a full time job until eventually quitting and become a full time photographer, his thoughts on having a unique ‘style’ and lots more…

Dave is definitely one of the ‘Good Guys’ ; not only a talented photographer but someone who genuinely believes in helping and inspiring others. His generosity knows no limits and it’s for these reasons that I’m really excited to be sharing the content of our conversation here with you…

Enjoy

•    •    •

Glyn> First of all Dave I just want to thank you for agreeing to do this and for giving up some of your time;  I really do appreciate it.

Dave> Hey, no problem at all! It’s my pleasure Glyn!

Glyn> So how’s things? I can see from watching your blog that you’re real busy

Dave> Yeah, we’ve been busy lately trying to get our personal work wrapped up and placed into our new portfolio. We’re hoping to step out it sometime around late spring or early summer.

Glyn> Excellent stuff. Ok so Dave there’s loads of things I’d like to chat with you about but I guess to keep with the tradition and to keep the gear hungry folks happy if it’s ok with you I’ll kick off by asking what gear your using on a day to day basis when it comes to your camera, your lighting and so on…

Dave> I get asked that question a fair bit and my typical sarcastic response is ‘duct tape, bubble gum and chicken wire’. That’s always an interesting question because I’m an anti-gear person. Gear is obviously an important factor for any photographer, but when getting into a discussion about it I always tell people, especially those who attend my workshops, quality photos are not about the gear, about the lens with the red band on the end, not about the brand… but rather driven by the idea you are trying to communicate in an image or the feeling it evokes with the viewer. Fulfill your vision first using what you have in your bag and worry about the shiny gear fairy second.

Glyn> Absolutely

Dave> Glyn let me tell you… if you were to open my gear bag right now, to be honest you’d probably feel a little embarrassed for me. People would gasp, ‘oh my God, I can’t believe you’re making photos with what’s inside here!” I have gear that I can rely on, gear that works for me, lenses that I can go to for a very specific reason and nothing more. I don’t believe on wasting money on junk I’ll never use, simply because it’s novelty. I know what my needs are for specific shots, so I can always go to them as needed. For the most part I try to keep things super, super simple. Right now I have a Canon 85mm f/1.8 lens that is broken. It doesn’t even work. I have 50mm f/1.4 lens that’s broken and I’m pretty sure I can’t find it at the moment. Yeah, I lost it. My main lens that I use right now is a 24-70L f/2.8 and it gets the most use. I also have a 70-200mm f/2.8 that I only take out when I’m shooting weddings, a 100mm Macro which is increasingly becoming my most popular headshot lens, a 16-35L f/2.8 and I also have a 35mm f/2.0. I just have lenses that are functional. Actually a conversation came up the other day between a couple of photographers and myself at our recent workshop and mentioned the 85mm 1.4L and the 1.2L and I told them that the 85mm 1.8 should be an L lens; it’s tack sharp, better than any lens out there and it’s affordable. I called it my “money maker”. My main body is a Canon 1D Mark IV and my back-ups include a 1D Mark III, 1D Mark II and a 40D. Buy used and buy smart.

Glyn> I guess if all the kit in your bag was looking immaculate and not a mark on it, then it would mean you’re not really working much but the fact you’ve got some broken stuff in there Dave you could say is a good thing huh…I’m trying to make this a positive thing you understand

Dave> Ah man, my stuff is all dented, dinged and looks f’ugly…it’s been through hell. But I’m a working photographer. It’s like looking at a warrior’s armor. If it looks shiny and new, then you haven’t seen any true nitty gritty, down and dirty action.

Glyn> It’s interesting what you say about the 24-70mm lens and that at the moment that’s the one you’re bringing out alot and then the 70-200mm you only seem to bring it out at a wedding because the complete opposite of that is Bert Stephani who I chatted with towards the end of last year and who also has appeared as a Guest on the blog. He was saying that he’s trying to use the 70-200 less because he feels it’s a very safe lens and he was going through a stage of forcing himself to shoot more with the 24-70mm.

Dave> Yes, I hear you there. It really is that “safe lens”. Typically if I had the option, I’d shoot a ceremony wide angle, moving in nice and close, however sometimes I’m restricted to how much I can move around during a ceremony. After all, this is northeast Wisconsin and I’m generally shooting in a church with crazy restrictions so that 70-200 comes in real handy.

Glyn> Dave, I think the first time I was exposed to your work and got to know more about you was when Zack Arias was doing his portfolio/web site critique series and I remember distinctly that yours was one that Zack loved; he just couldn’t say anything negative at all. Now that must have been a great feeling; in fact I think the only other critique I remember getting the same response was Allen Ross Thomas’. So like I say that’s how I first got to know about you but one thing I’d love to know more about is, how did you get started?

Dave> Ok, a little bit of background…

I grew up in Wisconsin and eventually moved to a small town called Appleton where I currently reside. After I graduated from high school and losing my drivers license due to receiving two speeding tickets in the same week, I realized that I had an interest in getting into Law Enforcement; I got in and loved the profession early on. I always thought Law Enforcement would be a great job and become my lifelong career. I spent 14 years in the profession, the last 9 of which I worked for a local agency here in the Fox Valley. During this time, I always had a big interest in music and graphic design. My friend Keith and I started an online music magazine blogsite in 1999 in which we did interviews with bands, CD reviews, etc.. As a result, we ended up going to a lot of live shows and often snagged a press pass. At the time, I’d always take a 35mm point and shoot camera with me just for the sake of having some pictures. After a while I realized that none of my pictures were looking anything like the kind of shots I was seeing out there on the internet and I became increasingly frustrated. I mean, ‘why can’t my pictures look that cool?’

I ended up picking up my dad’s 35mm Mamiya 1000DTL camera and started shooting film. And lemme say, I went through a lot of film… and I spent a lot of money on processing it all. Those early roots of shooting film, for me, were instrumental in beginning to find my voice as a photographer. I learned a lot on the fly.  Composition, the mechanics of shooting manual, how to see things with a camera without getting caught up in post production techniques, learning to find and read good light, etc. So I kind of found my baseline voice in photography while I was working as a police officer. Eventually, the job changed for me. I had some high profile cases in my career, some stressful calls that made me think ‘is the stress worth it?’ I found out early on, the job doesn’t consist of eating donuts and sipping on coffee…

Glyn> Ah the stereotypical cop huh?

Dave> Exactly! It changed for me. It definitely changed for me and I realized I was slowly growing away from it with this budding hobby of photography. At the same time in my own personal life, as a husband and a father, I was slowly becoming somebody that I didn’t want to be. I hated the thought of going to work, I hated the thought of waking up in the morning, I was constantly irritable and my family didn’t want to be around me. It was at that point, I realized I could do one of two thing; I could sit in this job, rot and become cynical or I could take a hold of my life and my photography and turn it into a career. So those were my options. During the last two years of my Law Enforcement career, with the unrelenting support of my wife, I ended up making a lot of important decisions. With that came extensive personal sacrifices to begin pursuing my photography seriously, build a business, create a tangible business plan, find my style and eventually put an exit plan in place to walk away from my cop gig. I left in December of 2007. In the last year that I worked, I burned up 17 of my 20 vacation days to shoot weddings and develop a small client base. In that last year I worked ridiculous amounts of overtime, forced on 12-hour shifts, and would them come home and burn the candle at both ends. I did that in order to handle the business while maintaining my life as a father and a husband. Just alot of stress, you know?

It paid off. And in the end, I knew could finally leave that job knowing that I’d made the right decisions. And it wasn’t a just a snap decision. It wasn’t a “have camera – have a business” thing. Financially we planned things out. Going back to the gear thing, I did not spend a heap of money and set unrealistic goals of who I wanted to be as a photographer; I didn’t buy gear and useless crap that I didn’t need. I used what I had and I still do that to this very day.  It was a thought out transition.

Glyn> Dave hearing that, do you think it was a brave decision you made? Because to me it sounds that way with you having a family and moving away from a regular job…

Dave> Glyn, there was no other option for me. I had to be a photographer. It’s who I am. There were no other options for me at the time. I could either act on my talent or leave it behind in the dust. But I don’t want to be that guy who regrets not taking a risk or leap of faith.

You see, there was a turning point in my career in August of 2002.

While working one morning, my partners and I received a call of a man acting suspiciously and stepping into the path of oncoming traffic while walking down the street. When we arrived on the scene, we were aggressively approached by this man, who eventually attempted to attack us with a machete. This guy was coming at us fast with a weapon and it was apparent he meant business. I remembered having my gun drawn, repeatedly telling myself ‘I don’t want to shoot this guy, I don’t want to kill this guy!’ While charging us with this machete over his head, he made a last second right turn towards the other two officers with me and my partner ended up shooting him 6 times. And he lived.

It was one of those instances where I just realized it’s really ‘life or death’ out there. And although I handled myself on a daily basis with solid ethics and the utmost morals, I also knew that this career had changed for me after going through an incident like this. I guess it was at that point I realized there are more options out there for me. Glyn, you know there are options out there for anybody. That a career transition can be made by anyone who feels stuck in a career they loathe. I’m here as proof.

Glyn> Ok so here’s a question for you Dave…when you were in Law Enforcement and at the same time building your photography business, when you were working with clients did you keep it from them that you were also a police officer…that you had a ‘day job’ for want of a better phrase. Did you ever feel that if they knew that then maybe they wouldn’t take you so seriously as a photographer?

Dave> I never found that to be an issue. And to be honest, I never held that back from my clients. Because when you strip it all down, I am who I am. There’s no changing that. My personality needs to speak from a place of honor and that’s why I’m working with the clients I do; because they respect me for who I am…I’m Dave Jackson. I’m just a dude with a bunch of rickety gear who likes making killer photos. Sometimes I’m goofy, sometimes I’m shy, sometimes I’m sarcastic, but most times about having fun and connecting with people. When bringing up the cop profession… sure there would be some odd, awkward moments. But generally I found that my profession didn’t matter and often after a shoot I’d get people saying ‘Dude, I can’t believe you’re a cop.’ And that’s because I’m putting myself out there as a person and not as a career choice; and for that reason I’m more human. To be successful in any profession, especially photography, it’s important to be a real human, not a machine. To be a person that people can relate to and communicate with. We are people first, photographers second.

Glyn> You mentioned a short while back Dave about when you were developing your style. Now one of the things I’ve talked about a lot with the other guys is style…it’s a subject that always, without fail would come up. Commercial Photographer Tim Wallace I remember saying that he firmly believes that your life experiences show up in your style and that every time you take the picture you’re photographing a bit of yourself and your experiences too. At the time I guess that seemed quite heavy but when he explained it, it made perfect sense that your style is heavily influenced by the person that you are and the experiences you’ve had in life. So, when it comes to style Dave what’s your take on it?

Dave> I think Tim is spot on here. I don’t think that you can choose your style, I think your style chooses you…if that makes sense…

Glyn> Absolutely

Dave> I also think if you’re good at what you do then it just occurs…you can’t force it. You can’t force a style. It naturally progresses. Heck, I can’t say that I’ve completely found my style yet. But I’m finally getting close to having my style find me.  Each and every day that I’m picking up a camera…each and every day that I’m going out on a shoot, I’m constantly shooting for myself and moving closer to finding my unique voice. I think that’s a constant and evolving process that never truly ends.

This past Saturday we were looking through some of my early work from 2004 and then comparing it to some of my recent work. There was no comparison. I think that your style is a culmination of everything; the way that you handle yourself during a shoot, who you are as a person, building different skill sets … all that stuff kind of snowballs into your eventual style. It’s important to define you’re voice. I’m not going to say style, but define your ‘voice’ as a photographer and that can only happen once you get through all the technical confusion of photography and begin to approach the human element of creating an image and at the core, what you’re trying to say with your work. Along my journey I have had inspiration, as far as those people that have stood out to me in the industry and those who have helped me get closer to where I want to be. It’s a culmination of finding inspiration, emulating certain people’s style and learning how people create their work. But eventually we need to take the little bits and pieces from everybody out there that we look up to, put them into a bag, shake the crap out of it and call it our own. Do you know what I mean?

Glyn> So is there anybody in particular now that you look to for inspiration or has it gone beyond that and you get your inspiration from just every day kind of stuff?

Dave> My inspiration has come from a lot of places. In fact, let me backtrack a little bit…When I was just starting out in the photography world, while shooting bands, I would search the internet and find photographers work I fell in love with. Eventually I mustered up the courage to send a bunch of emails out randomly to photographers saying, ‘I love your work, you inspire me, and how the hell did you make this awesome picture?’ I did this all the time and I NEVER heard back from any of them, ever. Except for one person. One person took the time to be honest, genuine and real. That person was Zack Arias. Zack made a huge impression on me at that point and over time I began to create this online relationship with him. At some point along the way he kind of became a long distance mentor, but more importantly I eventually built a friendship with him. To the point that now I can call him up and not talk photography…you know, just talk about life. He’s made a big mark on me and he’s always been there; but he’s been there with honesty… and he’s been a good friend. I look at him, Meg and the kids more as family now.

I draw a lot of influence from photographers. Some friends, some not.. Yousef Karsh, Annie Liebowitz, Dan Winters, Travis Shinn, Mark Seliger, Chris Buck, Adam Elmakias, Joey L, Marc Climie, Jon Canlas, Michael Howard…and so on…

Glyn> Moving on Dave, what do you see as being one of the biggest mistakes that people trying to break into the photography business world are making?

Dave> Ok…”I got this SLR for Christmas and now I’m going to quit my day job and create a photography business in the next 3 weeks.” Please know I don’t want to come across as harsh, but that’s what I see at ground level. What’s happening, in my opinion, is that a lot of photographers aren’t spending the time to build skill sets, to learn the technical and business stuff early on, before they are going out there and taking on paid client work. It’s a path of self-destruction. Yes, it can work… but rarely does it survive and thrive.

Glyn> I’m guessing it’s no different in the US as it is here but one thing I see is people getting a camera like you say for Christmas and then setting themselves up in business real quick and going out shooting weddings because…and I quote “it’s a quick way to make money”.

Dave> Yeah sure, but there’s a component to that…everyone needs to start somewhere and I’m not going to be the guy that says you can’t start out by being that $300 photographer; those people are not killing off the seasoned shooters in my opinion. Everyone needs a starting place, but to really put yourself out there and create a business without having the technical foundation of photography formulated or some business sense about you.. is essentially laying out a path of self-destruction. That, and people back themselves into a corner by following the ‘what’s hip now’ trends in the marketplace. When those trends are no longer hip, they find themselves having to either dig out of the hole they fell into or fold their business. I think that a lot of people starting out need to do their research and homework before they get into business. You’d be surprised how many people are in business, in the photography world, and don’t have insurance, that don’t have any kind of financial plan, don’t have any short, mid and long term goals…plans in place for ‘what if this fails?’ They’re just going out there and hoping for the best. And hope doesn’t pay the bills. My wish for other photographers starting out is that they make every best possible business choice early on so that things don’t collapse on them down the road.

Don’t get wrapped up in high-end gear, slick studio spaces and trendy lifestyles only to end up driving yourselves into a meaningless financial hole…it’s so unfortunate.

Glyn> How important do you think social media is nowadays Dave?

Dave> I think first and foremost, there is no better form of social networking than actually getting out there, getting to know people, meeting people face-to-face and having people associate with who you are as person. That is THE best form of social media in my opinion. The human element.

Glyn> That is exactly what Photographer Allen Ross Thomas said when we spoke. He said he loves twitter, he loves Facebook but you cannot beat face to face interaction…

Dave> Absolutely. You have to get out there and get face time. Not iPhone facetime either. Actually meet people and build your own network over an ice cold beer or a cup of coffee. In the context of Facebook and Twitter, yeah. I think it’s important. I think everyone out there in business needs to embrace social media. If you’re not growing, then you’re going to be left behind. Having said that people use social media in different ways. Four years ago I was promoting my business through MySpace. Then Facebook came along. And look how that has changed in the last year. Now Twitter is huge. Embrace it! But at the core, you cannot beat real conversations. It’s certainly a great way to get your work out there too; to show your recent work to clients and potential clients.

Some photographers, particularly wedding photographers, are getting a lot of work through places like Facebook. They’ll shoot a wedding, upload albums to their Facebook page and tag their clients. Then their clients and their friends see your work and more leads are generated.

Glyn> You mentioned about making the move over to more editorial work and I remember a short while back you did the shoot with the Shear Chaos Salon and made up the whole circus themed set; is that the kind of work you want to do more of?

Dave> Yes. Hell yes. That shoot was a mutual collaboration with our friends over at Shear Chaos. And it was all personal work. I’m finding right now, that personal work is the best way for me to fine-tune my dynamic as a photographer. In February 2010, I was going through this stage of thinking ‘Dave, who are you as a photographer?’ I was taking on some fashion work in the studio and I enjoyed it. But after a short while I realized it’s not what drives me. Sure, I’ll always take the job and enjoy shooting it, but it’s not what plucks at my heartstrings or defines my portfolio. It all boils down to evaluating my skill sets and finding my place in the greater market. What am I going to do that’s going to create a unique name for myself? I asked myself a lot … ‘Who is Dave Jackson’? I needed to strip it down. The answer was right in front of me. I’m a editorial portrait photographer. As of late, we’ve been doing a lot of personal work at our own expense so that I can step out and say, ‘this is me’, ‘this is who I am!’ I know that I’m not going to get jobs shooting guys dressed as clowns holding knives, but I’m going to get more and more work as a result of it and I’m going to start landing projects that are unique and based off my strengths.

We did a recent commercial shoot for a huge radio station in Milwaukee where they wanted all clean head shots for their website, ads and local billboards. I had maybe 5 minutes with each person. But after I’d wrapped up their ‘safe’ headshots, I made time to shoot some personal shots. And those shots lasting only minutes will end up in my new portfolio.

It’s a constant process. Getting out and shooting personal projects in order to step out with a unique portfolio.

Glyn> I totally get the personal work because it allows you to get out and shoot exactly what you want to shoot otherwise if you’re just shooting for clients then it’s very limiting.

Dave> It can be tough. At the moment I’m still shooting weddings and senior portraits. It’s my base. My safety net, if you will. But at the same time I’m shooting personal work and re-envisioning my direction. I’m going to continue to shoot weddings and the small projects in between, but I will start scaling it back as we get the new portfolio out there and start meeting people in the advertising market. It’s not going to be easy, it’s going to be daunting process. But when I set a goal I go for myself, I have to make it happen. Just like when I left law enforcement, I had to be a photographer.

Glyn> I was going to ask you how important you think personal projects are but I think you’ve answered that it is clearly very important if you want to develop

Dave> Right. If you are picking up your camera only when there’s a paycheck associated with it, I’m sorry to hear that… because you are not growing, you’re not making mistakes and you’re not learning during the process. If you stay with what’s comfortable, then you’ll just stay at the same level. Once you break away from that comfort zone and start making mistakes, you’re out there learning new things. That’s when you’re growing within yourself.

Glyn> And if you’re not making mistakes you’re not doing enough

Dave> Exactly right.

Glyn> Dave I know that you have workshop series called ‘Breaking the Rules’…can you tell us more about that and maybe what someone attending would expect?

Dave> We just wrapped up our sixth Breaking The Rules workshop. It’s constantly evolving, but the long and short of it is… that it’s a broad spectrum class in portrait shooting and my goal is to get people to think about generating new skill sets and to become re-inspired within their own work. To give them options. It’s an overall look at portrait shooting. It’s not a lighting workshop; sure that’s mixed in there, but it’s designed so that people can start thinking about what they can do to improve their work and will help them to get going in the right direction. The workshop embraces all levels of photographers who attend; from beginners and amateurs to those at a more advanced level. While I cover the basics, there will be stuff that the more advanced person will glean. How I’m shooting, my workflow, how I interact with clients and so on. I want to give photographers who are either struggling or starting out something that they can take away and help them to develop their work. That’s what I learned early on…the principle of giving back.

I love teaching. I love educating other photographers. I really enjoy it. The workshops, to me, are not about financial gain; they’re about showing people new techniques, helping them, motivating them, inspiring them…getting them thinking. One of the most fulfilling things at the end of a workshop while doing critiques, is looking at some of the attendees photos saying, ‘holy crap…these are sweet photos, this is cool, really, really cool’. To see actual growth. It’s rad.

Glyn> I’m almost reluctant to ask this next question because you’ve talked a lot about developing your skill sets and getting it right ‘in camera’ and so on but people always want to know how big a part Photoshop plays in your work

Dave> Let’s look at the core of my work…I preach to other photographers that the image has to be about as perfect as it can be in-camera when it comes to lighting, composition, exposure…everything. It needs to be right in the camera because that is where a great image starts. All of my work needs to be near-perfect right from the file and when it comes to post production, it’s just a matter of minor adjustments to tweak contrast, color temperature, sharpening and we’re done. The images must look good out-of-camera, so I have to do minimal post production work. When it comes to my editorial, conceptual work… yes. Photoshop comes into play. Only after I’ve created a solid base image, is it that I’m going into Photoshop and make some significant tweaks; dodging and burning, tonal color grading, etc.. to give my images the final polish that’s going to make it a little more marketable. Yes, I work on my images to make sure they’re perfect. Yet I think you need to acknowledge when you’re going too far. It’s very easy to do. When you’re working in Photoshop, you need to know ‘why’ you’re using it. Not just for novelty… You can’t just bring a crappy image in CS5, play around for a while and call it a day. You need to use it for a purpose, for a reason to accomplish your final vision. Otherwise you’re spraying air freshener over an un-flushed toilet.

Glyn> Garbage in, garbage out…,

Dave> Absolutely and you can quote me. You basically need to know ‘why’ you’re doing what you’re doing in Photoshop. Just like ‘why’ you’re using a certain type of light modifier, aperture, etc.

Glyn> But the bottom line Dave is that you’re not relying on it because some people nowadays seem to think ‘it’s easy for you guys’ you just take a simple photo and then it’s photoshop that makes it what it is…

Dave> Exactly and some people do rely on it. Take a look at my SIMPLE+DIRTY work…you’d be surprised how little Photoshop has gone into those. If you find the right light or you use the right lighting while on-location, it looks like it’s already been edited right out of camera…it’s that simple. You’ve got to get it right, right from the start. Look at Joey L’s work. He’s dialing in his lighting to get his pictures exactly how he wants ‘in-camera’ so there’s just a few tweaks in Photoshop. And it’s that type of work that’s getting noticed right now.

Glyn> Every time this subject is touched on it reminds me of Zack on his OneLight DVD when he’s walking through the streets of Atlanta saying that if you’re saying to yourself I’ll fix that later in Photoshop, put down your camera and slap yourself hard across the face because you’re being lazy… kind of sums it up perfectly huh?

Dave> I love it! It’s so, so true. Some of the best lyrics to come out of Atlanta!

Glyn> Dave, one last thing…if you could offer one golden nugget of advice…what would it be?

Dave> Regardless of whatever you want to be in the photography world, in your career, in your life… I think the most important thing is that you need to remember the things that are important to you. It begins with you. Value yourself. Everything begins with you. Then value your family and the people who support you everyday. Love your family and those people around you; put them as a priority. Because let’s face it, photography may not be here in 2 days, 2 weeks, 2 months or 2 years. So you need to have other priorities in your life besides photography and your career. Just let the other pieces fall into place. If you really want it bad enough, it’s going to fall into place. But never forget about your foundation…ever. My wife has been there for me from the beginning and she’s stuck by my side and supported my decisions… even when the odds were against us. She loves me, my work and she puts faith in our business. Heck, she even comments on my blog when others don’t. But the foundation is our love for each other, our kids and our family. Everything I do is for my family. Trevor, my studio manager, is family too. That’s why this all works…because it’s all about love.

Glyn> Nailed it Dave…100% percent; totally agree with you because without that, what is this all for?

Dave we’ve covered a lot of ground here and I’m really conscious of not wanting to keep you away from it all for too long so I just want to say a huge thank you for giving your time up for this and sharing your thoughts and feelings and experiences…I really do appreciate it. Dave again, thank you so much for your time …

Dave> It’s my pleasure and I certainly do appreciate what you’re doing Glyn. It’s cool that you’re out there, helping other photographers grow. I’ve been through your blog and I’ve followed some of your tutorials and I think it’s fantastic what you’re doing. Stay at it man…

Glyn> You bet, and one day I’ll definitely buy you that beer…

Dave> Absolutely; great chatting with you!

•    •    •

Links:

Website: www.davidejackson.com
Blog: www.davidejackson.com/blog
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/davidejacksonphoto
Facebook: www.facebook.com/davidejackson
Twitter: www.twitter.com/davidejackson
Flickr: www.flickr.com/photos/davidejackson

I’ve been a huge fan of Dave and his work ever since I saw him featured over on Zack Arias‘ blog, so finally getting the chance to catch up and speak at length was a real privilege. We chatted for quite some time covering all manner of things from equipment, your style, the importance of personal projects and so much more…

Dave really is one of the good guys; a great photographer who believes in sharing his knowledge and expertise to help others and I just know you’re going to love what he shared during our chat.

In the mean time, here’s one of Dave’s ‘Behind the Scenes’ videos; some images from which I’m sure we’ll be including in his Guest Post.

Enjoy

Facebook: www.facebook.com/davidejackson
Twitter: www.twitter.com/davidejackson
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/davidejacksonphoto
Flickr: www.flickr.com/photos/davidejackson
Blog: www.davidejackson.com/blog

Anyway, Glyn is adamant about waiting for the new generation of the iPad. I felt the same way until I actually got my hands on one, prior to the Irish launch. After 10 minutes playing about with one, there was no hope of ever holding out that long. I got one in the first week of release.

First and foremost, the size is perfect for bringing about with you. The weight is comfortable enough for one hand use for short periods. More importantly is the screen is beautiful for photographs. I’m currently use a really cool app called Minimal Folio to show my work, from casual interactions, to more serious client meetings. Folks love the tactile response as the scroll down the photos, or scroll between different portfolio sets. It’s not like trying to aim pages so the window light does shine off the photo covers. As well as my photos, Minimal Folio can present PDF, useful for my magazine work, and Movies, for my timelapse and short films. Anything that can promote my work and bring in more is a boon in my opinion. I have an exhibition opening in December and showing the images on the iPad has been useful in securing some funding to help offset the costs. As a first exhibition, I’m not expecting to sell out, but I’ll be happy if I can recover costs.

Even though professionally produced portfolios are expensive, if I used the iPad for that only, it would be a waste for money. For it to be truly useful it has to allow me to travel without a laptop. Now I don’t mean teaching trips, where I have to be able to run PC/Mac compatible software, I mean general travel. This means being able to import and view photos, work on them for web purposes and do general net related stuff. Apple’s Camera Connection Kit allow me to import from camera via the USB connection, or via the Sandisk Image Mate card reader. There are others that work, but I rely on Sandisk over other cards and readers.

When I get the images in, I view through the inbuilt Photos app, but I use Filterstorm to edit images. Of course, it’s not the same as Lightroom or Photoshop, but I have done headshot sessions where the final output from the iPad was perfect for the client. The edit and conversion was done in Filterstorm, and even emailed from within the app. There will be Filterstorm Pro after iOS 4.2 is official that will make it into a more robust app for photos on the iPad.

Email, Facebook, Twitter and a host of social media related things are possible from the iPad. Of course there are other things it’s great for too. I find I’m reading physical books less and less, opting to use Goodreader with PDF copies instead. It’s great carry a whole library in the weight of 2 books! It also can get files from your Dropbox account, as well as download files from the net.

The iPad is still targeted as a consumption device. Video and audio are excellent, especially with the 10 battery life (and longer!). I’m using Atomic Web Browser for surfing the web, a great improvement on Safari. As a musician, I’m really liking the iPad as an impromptu practice pad. I own a Korg Toneworks unit for bass, rather pricey when I got it, that’s been dropped for the Amplitube iRig. There’s also a host of other instruments that work on the iPhone and iPad; this video from Atomic Tom shows some of the iPhone versions:

I don’t think it’s perfect. I do miss Flash on the device. I’d like if there was a camera in the device, even a basic one for Facetime and Skype. I still haven’t found a perfect time management app. I’d like dedicated USB, with the option of using higher powered devices, even at the expense of battery life.

In connectivity terms, I went with a 3G, for 2 reasons, one is for normal out and about use with no wi-fi, and the other is for travel, because wi-fi can be well overpriced in hotels and free hotspots are hard to find. Of course, in Mallorca recently it proved easier and cheaper to buy a router for my host’s internet than get a microsim! Next week will tell the tale as I tour the UK with Mark Cleghorn. A device like a MiFi might work out cheaper to buy with a 3G only iPad though (but you then have to bring 2 devices!).

So Glyn, keep holding on. Failing that I’ll have one for sale after the 2Gen version is announced!

Oh and one more thing if you’re about the UK this week, here’s the link to the tour I’m on with Mark Cleghorn and onOne Software: [Link]

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Sean McCormack on the web:

www.seanmcfoto.com
www.Lightroom-blog.com

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