Orion Photo Group Success Story Podcast
Orion Photo Group Success Story Podcast
Level Up Your Craft: Inspiring Gifts and Shared Wisdom for the Photography Enthusiast
Do you feel like you deserve a reward for your hard work this year? Why not treat yourself to some inspiring and practical gifts that will take your photography to the next level? This episode is a virtual shopping guide of our personal favorites, from the perfect camera bag to a handy memory card case, and the fun experience of aerial photography with a DJI drone. We also explore the joy of learning and networking at photo conferences and the excitement of upgrading to a prime lens! It's time to celebrate your dedication to the artistry of photography!
But we're not just talking gear here, we want an exchange of wisdom! We're all about growing as a community of photographers and what better way to do that than by sharing your insights? Whether you're a pro or a beginner, your tips and tricks could help another photographer see things in a new light. Don't be shy, reach out to us at jgroup@OrionPhotoGroup.com. Imagine yourself on a future episode, sharing your experiences with our listeners. Let's embark together on a fascinating journey into 2024, filled with stunning images and meaningful connections within our photography family.
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. All right, everyone. Welcome back to another Tips and Tricks with the Orion Photo Group. This will be the last podcast. 2024, or the last set of podcasts that I'm going to be writing, not 2024, 2023. Last podcast for 2023. And sounds like I'm ready, right, all right. Well, I hope you guys are doing well out there and you've had a great 2023.
Speaker 1:As always, we look forward to the next year and this is a great time for reflection. If you've been a photographer for a while, you probably have gotten all of those gifts, everything from fingerless gloves to silly photography gifts. This podcast is not about that. This one is about rewarding yourself and going out and getting yourself some great gifts. I'm going to give you some tips for how I've always looked. I've always rewarded myself this time of year with a great gift for myself, whether it be a high ticket item or just some fun things that I feel like I can add to my camera bag. That just keeps me going, makes me feel good, and I've always been a gadget guy as photographers. If you've been doing this for a while, you probably have a case someplace just filled with the gadgets that you never use anymore, but you keep saying to yourself at some point I'm going to use them. That's what this podcast is about today.
Speaker 1:All right, so this is about tips and tricks and give you a little guide for self-rewarding gifts for photographers. All right, as we know, navigating the sea of gift guides for photographers can be overwhelming. B&h does a great job with their gift guides and you can navigate through them with lots of different by price or by whatever it is. Adorama, same thing. Even Best Buy, even Amazon does a pretty good job. If you want to search for those gifts there, that's a good place, or you could start here. We often find ourselves drawn to those high ticket items, but what about those little desires that often go unfilled? That's what this gift gift ourselves guide is about. You earned it. Go out and buy yourself something fun and good and something that's going to help you for the next year.
Speaker 1:All right, my number one thing is always a high quality camera bag or case, whatever it may be, whatever you need. Your camera bag is not an accessory. It is an extension of your style, but it's to safeguard your valuable equipment. This is one of those things where when you buy good quality, you're going to have it for a long time. Me, I'm a think tank bag guy. Have been forever. I also really like temba bags. But think tank if you can afford it, especially those bigger cases, they last forever. If you ever have to get on an airplane with one and you need to check it, you want a think tank bag for those things. They have great customer service. Over the years I've had zippers that have broken. They fixed them for me and they're just really good people there. Let's shift gears. I want to bounce around on this a little bit on this one.
Speaker 1:My second thing would be go to a photo conference or workshop. As we go into the winter, this is the time. This is trade show season. Find a good conference or workshop. Trading and education is one of the most rewarding gifts a photographer can give to yourself. For wedding photographers, DUDPPI is probably the pinnacle. There are smaller ones out there to look for. You can always reach out to me personally for a suggestion if you don't want to go to DUDPPI. Imaging USA would be number two. These are the larger trade shows. These are where you're going to go and make new friends and get yourself in with a bigger group. The smaller shows generally are a little bit more catered to specifics and you need to be careful, buyer beware, on those things. Number third would always be prime lens upgrade. I'm a prime lens guy. If you don't have one in your toolkit, or even if you're a zoom guy, a nice prime is more of a higher ticket thing. But if you're gonna splurge on one thing, that would be where I would go.
Speaker 1:Moving on to a tiny little item, but probably the most important thing that we overlook, how about a great memory card case? Memory card cases are what stores our cards. Back in the day I used to have several different card cases because we would be switching cards a lot more. Now we're not switching cards as much because of the high volume we can buy inexpensively for cards. But I always suggest switching cards two to three to four times during the day and having a good case. To put it in, man, I can't tell you how many times I found myself in a place where the card case fell out of my pocket into the water. I know it sounds crazy, but it's happened. So having a really good case is important. I like Pelican cases. They're super sturdy, they're a little bit more expensive, they're reliable and lots of different kinds of cases to choose from In the digital realm.
Speaker 1:Number five professional editing software. Most of you, if you've been doing this for a while, probably have your suite of Adobe products or Capture One or a host of other editing softwares. The new one this year, the big one, is Avoto. Avoto is a really cool AI portrait, skin retouching and just a high level editing product. You buy per export, so it's a little bit different and definitely worth exploring out there. Avoto is a really cool product that has just come out, so if you haven't checked it out, you really gotta go, and it's a huge time saver for your own work. With OPG, you're not editing your work as much, but or at all, so you don't have to worry about when you're shooting your jobs your own jobs. Avoto is the way to go.
Speaker 1:Okay, next fun one DJI Osmo Mobile 6. This is just something that you can use for your own phone. Gives you a little gimbal, it shoots on your phone. Takes a little bit of time to get used to shooting on it, but if you calibrate it properly, you can get some really cool reels for yourself or Instagram or TikTok or something like that, and you know, listen, this is the world we're in now. You need to be savvy on social media. Dji Osmo is a great little pocket tool that you can use for yourself to create these things and still be a pro right, all right. Number seven this one's always a little bit of a definitely more expensive item, but super duper important. Get yourself a nice calibrated monitor, and I really like the Viewsonics. The 32 inch Viewsonic is a great model. The ISOs are really good too, but when you really start editing your own stuff and you wanna make sure your color calibrated especially when you're printing things like albums or prints and things like that you really wanna calibrated monitor.
Speaker 1:Number eight portable hard drive. We always have lots of portable hard drives, but I always like to have one that I never touch. It stays in my bag with the cords that I need and it's only really for an emergency use. So maybe I forgot to format my cards and I'm like, oh my gosh, I don't have enough cards to shoot. That day I can quickly download my card give myself. Or maybe you get to a job and you're like gosh, did I download this card? Did I back up this card? So I always keep that and a portable hard drive and a card reader to download to my laptop.
Speaker 1:There are other things out too that I suggest you don't need a laptop, that you can download your cards directly to the device. I've tried them. They don't really work as well for me, but I always bring my laptop with me to every wedding that I go to. So this is just one of those things that if you have the hard drive, you have your laptop, you can download a card. Maybe you just want to put a social media post up and you want to download some cards Again, peace of mind.
Speaker 1:Maybe you have weddings back to back and you don't want to back up. When you get home, you know that you have that extra hour at the end of a wedding where both of you or if there's two of you shooting you can be downloading cards in the background in a quiet spot and you have that peace of mind to have that. Then you get home and you just plug in your computer to your external hard drive and just dump everything over at once. You don't have to download individual cards. Anyway, one hard drive that you keep that's just for an emergency use is a really good idea for your kit. Okay, along those lines.
Speaker 1:Portable power bank I know this is something that you probably already have, but again, it's an extra one that I always have. I keep it charged. It only goes in my camera case and it only really used for that emergency, when I forget to charge my phone or I'm playing with that DJI Osmo and I kill my phone that day, or things like that. Some of the better hard drives will also run your laptop. We'll charge your laptop as well. There's some really good ones out there that are not super duper expensive. I like the anchor power cores. Those are really great power banks as well.
Speaker 1:Finally, back to education. Go get yourself some photography books, whether it be from B&H, and have some education. Education is the best gift you can give to yourself. Barrier head in a book this summer. Start a fire, put on the football games in the background and pull out one of those books and it can be something that you have on your shelf or the long term. I know I have one on the zone system that I pull out every now and again and I just kind of read it and it's just a really good investment in yourself. I have an old Peter Lindbergh book that I really, really love A fashion book of his, probably one of the most famous photography books out there for any photographer Super duper, inspirational, great for portraits, something that you can look at before you go out to a wedding or a portrait shoot or just something you want to learn more on. But photography education it doesn't change and if you buy yourself a good book that has some in depth knowledge, even if it's just on bare bones type photography stuff, we can always go back and review it later on and those foundations are what will keep us going. So, anyway, reflect on this year it was a good one and get yourself a nice gift. These are designed to celebrate you and dedicate and elevate your craft.
Speaker 1:Get yourself some education, get yourself some nice gear, clean that gear and embrace the new opportunities that you have coming up for 2023. I think it's going to be a good year. This year, I know some photographers were complaining that things were a little flat out there. Let's not forget that people still need to get married every year and you can be one of those people and getting yourself educated and rewarding yourself every now and again. This is a tough time of year, I've always found for myself, because you're really slowing down as a wedding photographer and for the next few months, you may not be that busy, especially if you live in a place where it's cold. It gets cold in the winter. You're generally not going to be doing a lot of shooting in January and February, so use that time, build your social media profiles, build your education up. Go, get yourself some gear. Get yourself a new camera bag, organize that camera bag. I know that I'm constantly redoing that and maybe that new camera bag will get you that organization that you've been looking for for years and years and years. Anyway, you're going to keep doing it All right, I've got enough about that.
Speaker 1:Happy 2020 for you guys, and if you ever have any questions or have a suggestion for a tip or a trick that you want me elaborate on, I'm always here, jgroup at OrionPhotoGroupcom, and I'd love to have you on a podcast. If you have a story to tell as well, take care everyone. We'll see you on the next episode. Hey, do you have a tip or trick you want to share with us? Please email me, jgroup at OrionPhotoGroupcom. 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.
