Orion Photo Group Success Story Podcast
Orion Photo Group Success Story Podcast
From Music to Clicks: Matthew Khan's Photography Journey and the Power of Networking
Join us as we sit down with the dynamic full-time wedding photographer, Matthew Khan, who shares his intriguing journey from studying music business to becoming the go-to photographer for the reality TV show, Married at First Sight. Matthew provides fascinating insights into how networking has helped navigate his path and made him a name in the photography industry. This episode promises to enlighten listeners on the power of networking and word of mouth in the field of photography.
We then move on to his thrilling experiences on the set of a reality TV show, where he had to deal with unexpected challenges while setting up perfect shots. Matthew gives us a sneak peek into what goes into making brides and grooms feel at ease in front of the camera. An amusing story of a bride who underwent a dramatic dental transformation is also on the cards, guaranteed to tickle your funny bone.
Lastly, we dive into Matthew's unconventional methods in wedding photography. He shares his novel approach of using a restored view camera for family portraits, a practice that has received overwhelming reactions from his clients. We also discuss a groundbreaking business model that involves a roaming photo lab to develop film and make contact prints. Not forgetting the success stories from Orion Photo Group, where photographers are thriving in the industry, and an open invitation for our listeners to share their stories and suggestions. This is one episode you wouldn't want to miss!
Howdy, thanks for tuning into Orion Photo Group's exclusive podcast. For each episode we're going to dive into the lives of OPG's photographers and videographers across the country. We're going to talk shop, hear their stories and listen to any advice they want to offer us up. So grab a tasty beverage and settle in for some fun conversations featuring our little community. That's you. Let's go. Welcome back to another episode of Success Stories. I am joined here today by Matt or Matthew Khan is a Matt or Matthew Matt Matt, cool, cool Matthew Matt Khan from Nashville, tennessee, which is just down the road from where I live and one of my favorite cities here in the Midwest. For sure I haven't spent as much time as there as much as I'd like to, other than really going to the last couple imaging USA's that were at the Gaylord and then a couple other trips down there, but I'm a big fan of that hot chicken sandwich.
Speaker 2:Gotta come to the Broadway for sure.
Speaker 1:Yes, I've been there too. The music is, I think, what I would love the most, and it's crazy because in my trips over the last like 10 or 15 years, it is crazy how much Nashville has changed. But, thank you, welcome to the show. I should say that Thank you so much.
Speaker 2:Pleasure to be on. Yeah, I can't wait to talk with you more.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so how long are you born and bred in Nashville, are you no so?
Speaker 2:actually born in DC. Smelt out of DC called Silver.
Speaker 1:Spring, maryland. I know exactly where that is. Wow, I mean he's coaster. So yeah, Okay awesome.
Speaker 2:But yeah, born and bred there and then moved to Nashville for college, went to Belmont University and I studied music business, which is a degree that a lot of people don't end up using after college, just like me. So yeah, and ever since, I've been shooting weddings in Nashville.
Speaker 1:All right, cool, interesting fact about me. So I'm born and bred in New Yorker who moved to St Louis to work for a music licensing company. Wow, that's so cool. So that was why I would make make had made more recent trips to Nashville to meet with some artists and it was a super interesting job. As far as it was kind of a it was a startup that crashed and burned pretty quickly, but it it was really.
Speaker 1:It was it during a time when there wasn't a lot of music offered to photographers and videographers to use in their videos and it was really hard to find not really crappy music. And one of the things that he wanted to do was get mainstream music. And still to this day there's a lot of people at the in the music labels who'd have no idea how he struck these deals to be able to get some like one republic songs and like some really really big artists to sign on, and it really was a big deal at that time. And then later on we kind of discovered that they really didn't need the mainstream stuff so much. Especially the videographers really just wanted background music. That was good.
Speaker 1:But at that point we were already getting beaten by people like soundstripe and music bed, and you know those guys really a doggy dog world.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but that's so cool. You worked for them. Yeah how long were you there?
Speaker 1:I was there about a year with them. I had known the owner for a long time and it's I. Before that I had worked for WPPI, which was in conference and trade show expo in Vegas, if you've never heard of it. But yeah, it was an interesting time. But my favorite parts were going to Nashville to meet artists and then, you know, we'd always go out and I kind of grew up around music. My dad worked for John Lennon as a sound engineer and that's a whole other story.
Speaker 1:But we don't need to get into that. I could save that from what we're done. This is really more about you, but yeah, so I grew up around music and has always been a big deal for me, so so, yeah, so you moved to DC in college I'm sorry, natural in college and you kind of stumbled. So talk to me about the stumbling into photography from a music background.
Speaker 2:So I got my first camera in college and it was like the worst. You know, nikon DSLR you can buy. I got a freshman year really just to take pictures of friends, right yeah. And then around sophomore year, I, you know, I started learning. Oh, I can actually make money at this. And so I upgraded my camera a little bit, started shooting weddings. I shot my first friends wedding, which is how I feel like a lot of people start their wedding career and then from there I really branched off and I was like I love this, this is incredible. And so I really I'm. I'm wedding photography full time, but I also like I just got back from a trip to Yellowstone.
Speaker 1:Nice.
Speaker 2:And I'm really interested in all aspects of photography. So wildlife, you know, travel everything.
Speaker 1:That's cool and it definitely like reading your photographer bio. It sounds like you definitely are well rounded as far as the kind of photography you like to do. I gotta ask about Netflix Lifetime's Married at first site, season 16, which, just as a caveat. I haven't watched any of them, but every time. I walk into our bedroom.
Speaker 2:My wife is watching one of those episodes Amazing, yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean it's a great season, but funny enough. I wanna, before I go into kind of what that experience was like, I wanna make a point of saying in this industry it's really about who you know and all about word of mouth, and so the referral to get on that show didn't come from any bride, from any. It came from a friend who works in the music industry and they asked him to be on the show and they asked him oh, we need a wedding photographer. Who do you know, and me being his best friend.
Speaker 1:I got the job.
Speaker 2:So that's. It was amazing, but truly one of the highlights of my career so far. Just incredible experience, that's all I gotta say about it. I mean I can take you through kind of the experience as a whole. I'd love to.
Speaker 1:Yeah, actually I wanna talk about that, but I wanna make a quick point that I love that you talked about. As a photographer, one of our jobs is the best photographers are usually the best networkers, and the best networkers are usually able to not necessarily the most talented not saying that you aren't, I'm just saying like a good circle of friends and creative friends will always lead you in good places, and I also think that it's also one of the reasons why it's so important to live in a city that is designed around something that you really like, like Nashville, if you're a big music person, or New York City, where you're surrounded by creative people and different places, or LA, if you're into, let's say, fitness or lifestyle things. Right, that's what's gonna get you that work and, as a young person, I know with my teenage kids, I'm gonna push them in directions to live in cities that will help them with their career, and that's kind of how you can find things that you love doing even if you hate the city you're living in.
Speaker 2:So that's the point I'm gonna make.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna let you go ahead and talk about that experience Great and just on that too, really quick.
Speaker 2:like I've spent years of my life on photography, all of my free time spent on photography, but by no means am I the most gifted photographer in the world, and so kind of what you were saying is like you can be that most gifted photographer, but if you're a hermit you're really not gonna go that far. It's all about talking to people. It's that mix. So yeah, but when I actually got on the show, it was so funny because it wasn't really what I was expecting. They told me you're gonna be the lead photographer for two of the couples and I went great, that's what I'm born to do.
Speaker 2:But when I got there it was very much. You were running it but you weren't. So what I mean by that is you were on the show's time so nothing could happen. For several hours they were setting up the shots and everything, not to say that it's staged. It really truly is a live show, but you know they have to set up the shots and whatever, and so you kind of be waiting around for a couple of hours and then the director would swoop down and was like where's that photographer? I need you to direct now, you know, so it was great. You know, I love those learning experiences Branching out and it made me a better photographer as a whole, and if you haven't seen that Any episodes so far, definitely go and watch.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm well, I definitely gonna be digging up those episodes for sure. And you know, I think, what's also really great about being a photographer, you know, outside of shooting weddings, and even shooting weddings too, in the 15, 20 years that I did weddings, I also did a lot of commercial stuff. But some of the experiences that we get to be part of, whether it's the location you're at or the things that are going on, I I've done one reality TV show In my life.
Speaker 1:Well, it's gosh. It was probably almost 15 years ago and it was actually for like a daytime talk show and I got contacted by one of the producers and they're like and I forget who the I forget who it was now somebody who had like a very brief Time on like daytime talk TV and she had a show and it was a lot of it was around or a lot of it was around, like A friend finding somebody doing something to fix them, to make them better, whether it was physical appearance or emotional. And then they would, they would kind of recorded this episode was and they didn't tell me what it was. They said we're gonna have this wedding at this location. I see on your website that you shot at this location. I would you like to do this reality TV show we're. And of course, at that time it was like there's no payment here, it's just for exposure.
Speaker 1:And I was like, as long as you put my name on the in the credits, I'm totally fine, right so it turned out that this episode was a bride who had like terrible teeth and like her teeth were all like she had gone through years. I think she was a drug addict and her teeth were like pretty much all rotten and so she had gone through this huge dental surgery. She was and and and and. I didn't see any of this until after I saw the episode. And then they then she was getting, they did the surprise wedding and it was really beautiful and it was really really neat, but the bride was like so emotional During this whole thing, like she barely wanted to do any pictures afterwards because let's go out and do some pictures with you and your husband and she's like I'm done. It was a really interesting experience, though, that's amazing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and again because, like what you were saying, like at one point, they're like you, photographer, be photographer.
Speaker 2:And it shows definitely work differently and that's kind of my goal too is to book more shows like that. Love to. I know the bachelor I hear is coming to Nashville. Hmm, I love to get on that. But yeah, that's so funny. I love that you did that. Yeah, and so I get a question for you if you know man. Yeah, how On that show did you make the bride feel comfortable and like kind of get her out of her shell?
Speaker 1:Wow, that's a great question. So I mean, obviously, years of being a wedding photographer. I've had lots of nervous brides and people who you know, gotten into fights and stuff like that. If they're very, very nervous, my advice is I would actually pull them aside and say come on, let's go. Let's go have a chat for a minute, and I love look them really straight in the eye and I would say this is your moment, this is about you. Whatever is going on, please just get yourself into this moment. I know and, depending on how old I was at that point and then later in my career I could be listen, I'm the old guy who shot thousands of weddings at this point. Trust me on this.
Speaker 1:Just Focus on this moment for a few minutes and I promise you you will thank me. Maybe not now, ten years from now You'll thank me. What about you? How would you do it?
Speaker 2:Um, so I think it with it. It varies for me with brides and grooms. With brides, I love the.
Speaker 2:The best thing you can tell a bride on her special day is like you look amazing, you look beautiful and so I and I've never said it where I don't mean it, but I say it a lot is that you look like we're doing a vogue shoot. You look Spectacular and instantly you can see her eyes brighten, her smile lines. I mean that's amazing.
Speaker 2:The vogue thing doesn't really work with guys as well as brides. But what I love to do with guys is I kind of had this just happen is when I'm Photographing a groom's party, I'll usually go up to a groom's man before and then I will ask him you know, tell me about a memory Of you in the groom and you of all the guys where you had a great time, or it was like a really funny memory, something really specific. And so when I had them all together, I'm like counting down on three, two, one. When I say one, I want you guys to think about that time. So and so had too many drinks at so-and-so bar. Insomely, the groom is like how does he know about that Nardwar moment or something. But it it's all about provoking that genuine reaction. Yeah, when you are doing these like staged photos, that I love to do.
Speaker 1:That's awesome and that's also really good advice. Cool, how long have you been shooting weddings so?
Speaker 2:started sophomore year. I'm so terrible with losing track of time a ballpark yeah. Yeah, so whenever sophomore year was, I started college in 2016.
Speaker 1:it's 2023 now, so okay, it's been a few years, cool yeah and I, you know, and I was looking at your, your record for OPG and I see we haven't actually shot any weddings for us yet. You have three in the future coming up and I always like to ask you know about the onboarding process with us and kind of getting to it. I actually want to. I think this is a good question for you. So one of the things that you have to do when you work with us is you have to upload a bunch of pictures to us for your portfolio review and you've got to gather those images, and I do a lot of interviews. You know I do some of the interviews for new photographers that join us and I'm always curious, you know that's that's that it's the hardest part about onboarding with us, and building a portfolio is Something that we all have to do, right, what advice would you but like? What was your process and what advice can you offer for that kind of stuff?
Speaker 2:so my Best. But first of all I got to say the onboarding process with OPG is incredible. That's cool so easy, so fast it's cool Nice to hear you guys are doing a great job, but my my best advice for new photographers or anyone growing their portfolio is if you have a free day, make use of it, whether you're making money from a photo shoot or not. You know DM, instagram models say I've loved to collab. You know it's totally free Exposure, but you need to be building that portfolio in a genuine way.
Speaker 1:I Could not. I could not agree with it that more, and what I think is interesting about that is I also feel like you know there's many of us who it's also like you can take those pictures too, but at the same time, you need to do something with those images and archive them and keep them in different places, and one of my biggest fault over the years is not Keeping like a best-of folder of all the weddings that I've shot over the years and you know I shot weddings in my own store.
Speaker 1:I started when I was 17 and I had my own studio for 15 years, but there was a whole career of 10 years shooting before that and I really wish that like. I have a couple of old wedding albums from like the late 80s that are hilarious but I really wish that.
Speaker 1:I just kept some of those prints and you know those things over the year. But I love that advice always be shooting. And one of my one of my best, one of my best friends in this industry his name is Ben Crisman is he's a really amazing wedding photographer and he always has a camera on him always. It doesn't matter where you're going or what you're doing. He has a little. If he has a little, um, I forget what it's called a smaller camera. It's a twin lens, not not twin lens.
Speaker 2:A rain finder.
Speaker 1:A little rain finder yeah or a little Fuji, and he always has that thing strapped around his neck and I've been to some like parties and stuff at, you know, conferences and trade shows, and he always manages to get these incredible Portraits of people and that practice of doing that, even after he's had a million beers that night, that practice of doing that is just so invaluable, you know, over the years, and it really does make a big difference that every time you pick up that camera and I think for newer photographers too.
Speaker 1:Like when you first start shooting, it's all you can do to get through the day from a technical standpoint. But when you release all that technical aspect, then it's when the magic happens and when, when photographers and I can see that in your images too I'm looking at your website now and I can see that in your images and you know when you, you know finding that you really are you looks like you shoot a lot of available light and You're really good at finding that light, this detail shot that you have, and I can tell that you know it's amazing, so cool. I'm glad that the onboarding process and good luck with your weddings coming up.
Speaker 2:Wait yep. Yeah so it'd be part of the team.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thank you, welcome aboard. I gotta ask you about the view camera in your in your bio shot, that's. That's the next place I want to go.
Speaker 2:So that camera. We found that camera in my great-grandfather's basement.
Speaker 2:I know she's not kidding and they just had a a slip of paper in the box that said trench camera. So I don't know whether it was actually in a trench or something, but we dated it back to around World War one and of course you know, like with any basement camera finds had to be refurbished. Took it to a great shop in Virginia I believe it's called pro camera Got it all fixed and I I spent like a year really learning how to use it and Develop my own film in house because I don't really want to rely on, you know, sending film off to California to get it developed. But Shooting large format has been so cool because you whip it out, especially at a wedding, and Everyone's like what the hell is that? You know decades and it's so cool. Get these amazing reactions for people.
Speaker 1:Are you using it for like portraits or you're just kind of waiting to load? Times are in the day.
Speaker 2:For weddings. I will usually break it out kind of when the family photo happens, okay, because I feel like I Love you know the the group reaction to it. But I will use it for individual portraits throughout the day as well. I'll usually bring about, I Think, ten, ten cases of film, ten cartridges, so it's about 20 shots, okay, okay.
Speaker 1:And actually just getting back for those of you listening what I'm talking about, as Matt has a bio photo of himself with with it looks like a four by five view camera. Right, four by five view camera, a view camera. If you don't know what that is, look it up. It's a large format camera that shoots anywhere from four by four inches by five inches film with magazines that you put in from the back, and the best way to describe is think of the old-timey guys with the cape that goes over there, the back of their head. They're looking at a ground glass on the back of the camera which is upside down backwards.
Speaker 1:The first part of my career, you know, in commercial photography, in product photography, back in the day and I'll date myself now we shot everything on four by five and eight by ten, and it was towards the end of those days, but Many that most of the studios that I worked at we shot everything on film. It was way before digital and they needed these, these super-duper images, and we would shoot Generally four to six sheets of film for each shot that we did, and For large.
Speaker 1:I did a lot of stuff for Jay Crue during the day Back in the day and we shot everything on eight by ten, those large stacks like you see on the covers, the photographers I worked with with where the people who invented that style and I worked in the studio that did that it was. It was some amazing times, but I kind of caught the tail end of view camera photography and I'm I'm really Glad and I love to hear that you're using it for portraits, which is which is why I wanted to talk to you about it. So I'm gonna give you an idea. I love to see you run with it. Um, because it's been an idea that I've thought about for a long time. I still have an eight by ten sitting here in my basement. Um, it's an old. It's either a graph-lax or my four or five is a SINAR, which is still worth a lot of money, but I had a few lenses and the Polaroid back and I had everything and I actually just lent all that stuff out to a friend of mine.
Speaker 1:But my idea and please, take this idea is for you to create an entirely new business just doing this. So you still hire a photographer, they can still hire a photographer, they can do the thing, but you show up around family picture time and you give them 30 to 45 minutes of just 10 or 15 pictures. It's a great idea, and it's just four by five or eight by 10. Family pictures.
Speaker 1:And you're just taking five or six shots. They're going to be epic shots. You come, you show up, you take an epic background of some kind. If they're going to spend this kind of money, it's probably going to be a nicer wedding, so that maybe be a mountaintop or trees or something really pretty. And that's all you do when you charge them for that and you're done in two hours. You go home Amazing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that would work really well with the Polaroid back If you could get that Polaroid film, which is hard to get now. But yeah, yeah, the Polaroid film.
Speaker 1:So you could take it one step further is get a truck where you could develop the film Right.
Speaker 1:So you could be like Ouija, you could be like Ouija in the 20s, developing your film in the back of the car and then maybe you shoot it on an eight by 10. And all you need to do is make a contact print. Contact print is where you take the actual negative and just make a reverse of the negative. You're actually putting it right on the paper itself and then frame it right there and give it to them at the end of the night, like one family picture.
Speaker 2:Do it, please do it. I actually think I might take you up on that. Yeah, that's such a good idea, and think of having a roaming photo lab.
Speaker 1:I don't know how you could process eight by 10 film in the back of a truck though that would be, you could make it work.
Speaker 1:You could make it work and there was some guys that were doing like a Polaroid truck and they would drive around the country Polaroid was sponsoring them to do it for a while, really, and there was a I think there still is a Polaroid store in New York and it had something to do with that. So you just do your homework on it. And there were guys out there that are doing this kind of stuff and, you know, at one point I was like emailing these guys and say I want to do the pictures, I hand it off to you and then you take it from there and then I'll frame it after you're done. But if you do it, let me know I'll drive down to Nashville to help you get through the first couple of shoots.
Speaker 2:I'll send you an email for sure. That's such a good idea.
Speaker 1:I'll give you credit. Yeah, whatever, whatever. I'd just love to see somebody do it, because I think we're just at a timeline that's just far enough away from it that it actually might be a saleable thing. Yeah, and like that.
Speaker 2:So anyway, I'm really worried about it having cut because I'm not trying to gatekeep too much but you know, through so much money into getting it refurbished, I'm worried it's going to have that same like resurgence of like record players.
Speaker 1:For sure.
Speaker 2:Like your friend, bought it in college and now everyone has one in your dorm, you know.
Speaker 2:And so there's a very large active Facebook group on with large format cameras Yep, I do know about that, but now I think it's a great. It's a great camera to learn on, believe it or not. Or even if you have, you know, a couple of grand laying around, I would definitely pick one up because you're so much more Conscious about what you're shooting. Yeah, setting up your shot. Yeah, when it takes like 10 minutes to set that up, versus click, you're done with, like modern-day mirrorless DSLR.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think that is a great practice for people. One of the things that I used to do in my workshops back in the day was We'd go out shooting someplace and I'd make them use a meter and I tape the back of their cameras and then we'd come back Afterwards and see who did the best with, you know, learning exposure, measuring lights, and it was a great. It was a great experiment for them. This is the same thing, you know, when you don't have polarides. But those polarites, gosh, they're really expensive. Yeah, the four by five polarites are like five, six, seven dollars a piece. Now, right, yeah, that's crazy, it's crazy. So, all right, cool. Any other fun projects you have coming up?
Speaker 2:Just shoot more weddings. I'd love to get on more shows, but right now I'm just excited to be shooting with OPG and look forward to the future.
Speaker 1:Right now, right on, I'm actually gonna give you one piece of advice for your, for your portfolio.
Speaker 2:I'm on the website.
Speaker 1:while as much as I love the view camera shot, I'd love to see your face in your bio picture shot.
Speaker 2:I was actually gonna. Yes, I took some great photos in Yellowstone of me, so Amazing.
Speaker 1:Amazing and just in general, forever anyone who's listening out there. And I've given this advice to some very talented photographers who recently I we scheduled a call and he said I'm not getting as much work as I'd like. And I went and looked at his bio picture. It was very arty, which is great for your website and you know the commercial stuff. That's what they expect to see. But for weddings, you want to be approachable, you want to be personable, you want to be smiling or not even smiling.
Speaker 1:You want to show something that's like oh cool, look at this shot, right this. This may not be the best example for that.
Speaker 2:So no, you're absolutely right. Brides want to know who's behind the camera, and I was thinking about that recently. Right, right, I think it turns out, yeah cool, all right.
Speaker 1:Well, it's great meeting you. I can't. That went really fast at 30 minutes. Yeah, yeah but Good luck with your weddings coming up. It's really great getting to know you again, getting to know you, and thank you for being on this episode of success success stories.
Speaker 2:I'm having a great time and thanks for making me part of the OPG team. All right, great.
Speaker 1:All right. Well, that'll do it for this week's episode of OPG's success story. If you'd like to be on this show and be like Matt, who's gonna get a $25 gift card to be an H after being on the show, please join us. I'd love to hear your stories. It's been. It's been a joy for me to hear as photographers were generally very as far, as I've never met a boring photographer.
Speaker 1:So I'd love to hear your story and what you're up to and come on here and tell your story. So again, we'll still see you on the next episode of success stories. Take care everyone. All right, that'll do it for this episode featuring OPG's best of the best. Would you like to be featured in an upcoming episode or do you have a suggestion for somebody you'd like to hear from in our Little community? Please email me. Jake group with two peas at Orion photo group, comm. That's Jake group at Orion photo group, comm. I look forward to hearing from you and hearing your suggestions. We hope that you enjoyed this episode and I look forward to hearing from you and your story. That's it for now. We'll see you on the next episode. Have a great day.
