Orion Photo Group Success Story Podcast
Orion Photo Group Success Story Podcast
The Journey to Mastering Emotional Photography
Crack the code on curating an emotional portfolio that will make you an in-demand photographer. We promise to reveal the secret sauce in our latest insightful discussion where we open our treasure chest of experience, to help you capture powerful emotions that stand the test of time. Trust us, the art of wedding photography and storytelling will take a new meaning for you after this episode!
We don't stop there though. We also untangle the influence of AI software in the culling process while emphasizing the irreplaceable human touch for the final selection. This episode is not a sugar-coated fairy tale; we confront the harsh realities of the editing process, the tough decisions, the good cries and the bad ones. So, gear up and get ready for an enlightening journey that will equip you to elevate your photography portfolio like never before! You will leave with a sharper eye, a deeper understanding, and a stronger resolve to capture the moments that truly matter.
Hey there, welcome to OPG's Tips and Tricks. Here I'm going to share some quick tips and some tricks that I think you'll find very useful. Let's get right to it, hey there. Today we're going to focus on curating an emotional portfolio for your clients and a portfolio for OPG, and how to choose those images when you're putting your portfolio together. I'm going to kind of move around a little bit here, but focus on some key elements in culling, editing and curating that portfolio.
Jason:Curating is a tough word, mainly because it does encompass a lot of different things. So, when it comes to wedding photography, obviously capturing emotion is the key element that elevates your everyday pictures that your guests can capture to making you a pro and a really wanted photographer as a wedding photographer. As the talent director for OPG, I've also been working in my years at WPPI and also running my own business. I've spent my lifetime trying to figure out the secret sauce for this. The trick is attention, focus and getting great shots to begin with is the first tip. That's the most of, but really focusing on emotions and cherish moments and things like that that will always stand the test of time. So what are the things that you can do to create a great portfolio that has lots of emotion and things that clients are really going to be looking for. Obviously, we're looking for the celebration of love, joy, happiness, the bittersweet moments and being there to capture them when we're at the wedding. Embracing storytelling obviously, an emotional photograph is like a window into a moment and tells a compelling story in a single frame. If you can tell a whole story in a single frame, you've done your job, and being there to observe a moment as it's going to begin, so recognizing a moment's going to happen, being there to capture it and then shooting through the moment is a really, really important one too. So don't just grab the one shot that you know you're waiting for, but shoot through the moment, and that's super, super important.
Jason:Again, identifying those authentic moments is key in that Recognizing that something's about to happen and I mean don't just mean cake cutting, ceremony stuff like that, it's recognizing and listening to the conversations during your getting ready pictures and things like that, where you know something's about to happen, and then recognizing it's about to happen and going over and shooting through that moment, like I was just describing. Of course, grabbing those moments with a great composition is what sets you apart too. So creating a great composition as you're shooting those authentic moments is really important, and recognizing those different emotional nuances. So, again, shooting through the moment from the beginning of somebody giving a gift to someone, the emotion of opening the image, opening the gift and then the reaction to the gift and then the reaction of the gift response to the person who's the gift giver those things are really important. Now the most important thing is letting your emotion guide the editing process. This is the key part here. When you're putting your portfolio together and you're calling those images in your first round of edits is what we do at OPG. You don't need to worry about that. But when you're curating your own portfolios for your own websites and for your portfolios for us, as you change them over the years, letting your emotion guide that process is really important, and the meat of what I'm about to tell you is exactly in this.
Jason:Now, I know there's lots of culling softwares out there right now. They are wonderful AI tools. I've played around with some of them and a lot of them work really, really great. But at the end of the day, it's really looking for specific key things like a smiling face, the eyes and things like that, and it does a very good job of capturing those moments. Once that culling process is finished, whether you're doing it on your own or doing it after the call has happened from your AI software, at that point you still need to do, in my opinion, a rough selection at that point. So, again, once that happens and you're telling it usually with AI you're telling it I want 500 images from these 10,000 images, whatever that may be. So it's doing a rough edit and that's really, really will save you a lot of time.
Jason:But this is the key thing for me when you're looking at an image, when you're doing a final call or you're adding it to your portfolio and this is where the emotional process guides you here it is the key thing to do. It is when you look at an image and you're using your arrow key or however you're editing, when that image comes up on your screen and I usually like to make it big on my screen it's yes or no. That immediate reaction is yes or no. Now what unfortunately, guides us sometimes is that we know it's a cake cutting or first look. Let's do first look. Let's do first look images, and you know that you need to include some first look images in your portfolio or your final edit. It's a yes or a no. And sometimes the composition's not there, that's a no. That should be your immediate no. Sometimes your exposure's not there, that's a no, that's immediate.
Jason:And then third is the actual emotion itself, and this is a really tricky one here, right, because sometimes we have people who cry and there are people who are good cries and there are bad cries, and what I mean by that is some people look really good crying and some people are just an ugly cry. So when you're shooting through that moment, you should be getting all of those emotions and a good cry is the best shot you could possibly get on the planet. There's nothing better than a groom crying as a bride is walking down the aisle. But sometimes it's just a bad cry, like they don't look good crying, and you need to edit those out. It's a no. That image is a no, even though it looks great. However, you can generally get the first time he's going up to his eye and that tears are starting to come out, that's not a good, that's not a bad cry. But when they start ugly crying and it's just really like they look like somebody just died, that doesn't go in your final edit, okay, it's a bad cry and those things are the nuances of what makes you a pro putting together your portfolio for your final edits and you need to throw them out and you need to be confident about throwing those images out because they don't belong in the final edit. You can do the beginning moments and the after moments, but the ugly cry does not stay in the shot. Now, if you can get the good cry and you have zero control over it, sometimes you can do a better. You can create that shot and it's a great composition, sometimes save it, but generally bad cries, bad cry and it's unfortunate. It happens a lot in my 30 years of shooting, unfortunately, I'd say out of 30 years of shooting, or I would say out of 20 great shots, only maybe two or three of good cries, which can be really frustrating at times and you feel the need to leave it in. But it needs to go. That's just generally across the board.
Jason:When it comes to good cry versus bad cry and again going back to the key thing, when you're putting together either your final edit or the one portfolio that you're creating for OPG, it's a yes or a no. So in your final calling process edit that's going to the clients for your own weddings. You look at it and you, as you scroll through, and it should be a quick process. Yes, yes, yes, no, no, no. It is that immediate initial reaction and you need to be brutal with your edits in that sense. If you told your clients you're gonna deliver 500 images, you should not deliver them any more than 500 images. That should be that, that Cutthroat.
Jason:Now, granted, we sometimes need to leave images that are not perfect to get 2500 images, and that it is what it is. But in my opinion, if you shoot enough during a wedding day, culling your images down to a great portfolio of final edits Should not be hard, especially if you are working throughout the entire day. If you're only shooting for a few hours and you've over promised the amount of images, that's gonna make for a tough edit. But again, yes, yes, yes, no, it is your immediate reaction and you will figure out the ugly cry versus the good cry Right away when you're thinking about it that way, using those emotional keys as as the things that guide you. Okay, and, and you know, if you do it this way, take some practice. Eventually, you should, you should get to, to where you need to go.
Jason:But those are my tips for creating your portfolio. And then, when you're working on your final edit. Now, when it comes to your Portfolio, when it's a, you know, a portfolio of 50 images, let's say, when you're creating it for opg. Now this is key to okay, it is a yes, yes, yes, no process again, and you need to be extremely brutal when you're doing these final, curated portfolios. This may be your best of portfolio that you may give to your clients for each wedding. What you feel are the best images that you're going to deliver. That is crucial. Yes, yes, yes, no. Be brutal with your images and then take a break, come back and do it again and that's how you're gonna get a great portfolio, a Celebel portfolio for opg and is gonna, is gonna get, is gonna give you success in getting booked with us and it's gonna give you success in getting booked with your own wedding. So good luck out there.
Jason:I hope this is helpful to you. If you have any tips in the way that you Curate and call and edit your weddings, I love to hear them. Come on our show and be one of our success stories and you'll get a $25 B&H gift card for coming on Sharing your stories with us. I hope you're having a great day, good luck shooting this weekend and we'll speak to you soon. Thanks so much. Hey, do you have a tip or trick you want to share with us? Please email me. Jgroup at Orion photo groupcom. I would love to hear your tips or tricks and we'll even send you a nice little award for doing so. Until then, thank you.
