FRAMES Photography Podcast
FRAMES Photography Podcast
D'Ann Boal
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In today's episode, W. Scott Olsen speaks with D'Ann Boal, a Boulder-based photographer, Nikon Ambassador, and Profoto Ambassador specializing in newborn, child, family, maternity, and senior portrait photography.
You can visit D'Ann's website here.
Find out more and join FRAMES here.
When I was two, my dad left. And my mom, a couple years later, remarried a man who was terrifying. And he had a son who was evil. And home was very scary. And I really, as a kid, turned to, I don't know, magic and light. I remember when I was 10, I decided to, it was the summer, and I decided to count butterflies. And I wondered if I could get to a thousand. And I carried a little notepad around and I collected butterflies in my mind. Every time I saw one, I'd do a little tally. And when I had my son, you know, when you're when you're growing up, whatever you grow up with, you you sort of think is normal. Like you don't quite know yet that that a scary house isn't how everybody lives, you know? You maybe compare a little bit or you feel really wonderful at a friend's house, or it but until your brain's fully formed. And for me, until I had my son, I didn't recognize how safe my life was now, and how just wonderful this little family of three was that I had. And the photos that I was taking started really feeling healing for me. I was able to capture light and I was able to capture my son with my husband and just our little family. And it's so it kind of started as this like, wow, look what I have. And now, you know, today I look at my work and I see how much magic and light still guide me.
SPEAKER_00This photography podcast is brought to you by Frames, a quarterly printed photography magazine. Here is today's host, W. Scott Olson, with another fascinating conversation.
SPEAKER_01Well, hello, everyone, and welcome to another podcast from Frames Magazine. Folks, today we're going off into the mystical arts. We're going into stuff that requires not only technical expertise and an imagination, but frankly, magic and a way of looking at the world photographically that is compelling and beautiful. And even beyond that, even beyond the photography we're going to talk about today, we're going to talk about the business of photography. You talk about mystical arts. We're going to talk about how you run something that actually is enjoyable and fulfilling and successful. We're talking about portraiture. We're talking about families and kids and seniors. And there is nobody out there doing a better job these days than Deanne Bold. Deanne is based in Boulder, Colorado. She's a Nikon ambassador, a pro photo ambassador, got 80,000 followers on Instagram, runs her own business called Smitten and Swoon Photography. You gotta look that up. Just absolutely gorgeous work. And like I said, she specializes in newborn child and family photography, does a great deal a bit beyond that as well. She's been everywhere. She's got awards, you know, 2024, Best Children's Photographer, 2023, Best Family Photographer. At the 2025 WPPI conference, The Poetry of Light was her presentation, the very first talk of the entire conference. And you look at this work, and it's just humbling if you're a photographer. You think, oh my God, I have no idea how to even begin to get that kind of light, that kind of magic, and that kind of presence into the work that she does. Deanne, welcome to the podcast today. How are you doing?
SPEAKER_03Wow, that was such an introduction. I have imposter syndrome listening to that introduction. Thank you.
SPEAKER_01You own every single bit of it. It is fantastic work. Let's just jump in at the very beginning because I know from you know reading your website and reading some other stuff, second grade, you got a teacher, big blue apron, and she was inspiring. You were gonna be a teacher. And in fact, you became one. You got a master's degree in education, you were teaching fifth grade for a while, but then comes along your son, and you decide, nah, teaching's not it anymore. I've discovered the camera. Tell me that story.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, wow, you did so much research. Thank you. Uh so my I was pregnant with my son. I had a fifth grade classroom that I loved more than anything. Uh, as you said, I spent my whole childhood dreaming of being a teacher. It's kind of all I wanted to do and have a really magical classroom. I had a fish tank, like a toy pond, like huge horse trough fish tank in my in my classroom. And I had twinkly lights and plants and this poetry that kids could go inside to read. It was like, I loved it so much. I loved teaching and I loved my students. And uh I was pregnant and my son or my husband got into vet school uh at a school in the Caribbean. So we moved when my son was a newborn baby to the Caribbean for two and a half years. And I found myself on this little island with no family, no friends, no job, just supporting my husband and raising this little baby. But uh my brother-in-law, he gave me the my in-laws gave him money to pick out a camera for me. And so as a gift, they got me a Nikon D 8,000, I think.
SPEAKER_04Okay.
SPEAKER_03And it was a DSLR, it was not full frame, and I had just one lens, and I just started documenting my son's life and our everyday for family and friends back home who you know we missed. And four years later, we were living in Ithaca, New York, and I was like really obsessed with photography. It kind of snowballed. And then after vet school, we moved back to Colorado, and I just slowly started having clients reach out to me and snowballed, snowballed, snowballed into this kind of blooming business, mitten and swim photography.
SPEAKER_01Well, okay, but I mean, there's a lot of people that run around with a camera that don't get the inspiration to become a photographer. When you were taking those early pictures of your son, or were you looking at him thinking, not only is this a cute kid, but this might actually be a good image?
SPEAKER_03No. I mean, every once in a while there was an image that had some light or some heart in it. Uh really, it was kind of I'd say it was sort of healing. I don't know how deep we go on this podcast. How deep, how deep we're gonna be able to do that. We can go deep.
SPEAKER_04We can go deep.
SPEAKER_03So when I was two, my dad left. And my mom a couple years later remarried a man who was terrifying, and he had a son who was evil, and home was very scary. And I really as a kid turned to, I don't know, magic and light. I remember when I was 10, I decided to, it was the summer, and I decided to count butterflies. And I wondered if I could get to a thousand. And I carried a little notepad around and I collected butterflies in my mind. Every time I saw one, I'd do a little tally. And when I had my son, you know, when you're when you're curing up, whatever you grow up with, you you sort of think is normal. Like you don't quite know yet that that a scary house isn't how everybody lives, you know? You maybe compare a little bit or you feel really wonderful at a friend's house, or it but until your brain's fully formed, and for me, until I had my son, I didn't recognize how how safe my life was now, and how just wonderful this little family of three was that I had. And the photos that I was taking started really feeling healing for me. I was able to capture light and I was able to capture my son with my husband and just our our little family. And it's so it kind of started as this like, wow, look what I have. And now, you know, today I I look at my work and I see how much magic and light still guide me. And just like it's it's really been kind of a healing journey. And then I've been able to, you know, share and spread and find light in other families as I've taken on clients and bookcraft other families. But that's kind of that's sort of the like deep, long without all the gross details.
SPEAKER_01No, that's that that makes perfect sense. And I, you know, I in one of your videos, you know, you talk about using, you know, a little um mystery or smoke machine. I think you've got an alpin glow machine too. Oh no. So some like um because I mean the the the light and and the dreamness, you call it painterly, we'll we'll get to that in a second. But you have a a photographic voice entirely built around, or shouldn't say, but but mostly built around an understanding and an aesthetic of light. Do you think the Caribbean um was sort of the the the the the natal, the the foundation of that? Because Ithaca's not really all that pretty in terms of light.
SPEAKER_03Right. No, it wasn't the Caribbean and it wasn't Ithaca. It was a combination of just always being sort of a light seeker. And also when we came back to Colorado, a few years later, we moved to this little farm. I live on a farm. We have horses and a barn and pastures and my studios on our property. And, you know, there is just a lot of golden light in Colorado, and sunsets here are beautiful with the mountains, and we have such a big sky here. And so I think just my location. Do you find that that where where you are? I mean, your work is feels it's so emotive and beauty-driven with your landscape and your negative space and your intentional use of light and your intentional use of color. I find that, do you see that as like where we're located has such a part in what becomes of our voice?
SPEAKER_01I I think not only where we're located, but I also believe where we're not. I live on the prairie. I live on the flatland, but I've had the good fortune to be in the mountains a lot. I love the prairie because I've been in the mountains. When I'm in the mountains, I love them because I live on the prairie. So I think we we are always informed by the opposite of whatever it is that we're chasing. Oh my gosh, totally. Well, I was gonna say, but okay, so you're you're taking pictures, they're turning out pretty well. At Tuesday afternoon, you thought, I'll just start a business?
SPEAKER_03Well, so when we got back from so vet school's over, it's been five years, we're back from New York, we're like now we have two kids. My daughter was born, and I had just, I don't know, a neighbor had a friend who who she recommended me take pictures of. I think that was my first client. And so I was like, all right, I'll do some family photos. And then that it just kind of was like a match that that struck in a dry field, and it just sort of you know, also the fifth grade students I had taught were now almost seniors. And so they were asking me, and some of the, yeah, the kids that I had taught, I came back and they were some of them were seniors. So I started doing senior photography, and then you know, you get into the schools and people just start, your name just kind of starts growing. So it was slow, but it it also was kind of fast, maybe.
SPEAKER_01I I think that is fantastic. Now, you tell a story, and and I love this story. An early client, they come in, you take the pictures, everything's great, they leave, you start looking at your camera, and you are profoundly unhappy with the light in your own. Now, they're not unhappy, but you looked at it and you said, no, this isn't right. So you grab a doll and get to work. I mean, t tell me first of all why you were unhappy and how you wound up then teaching yourself a better lighting.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that was a real, that's the core memory that day. I I stood in my studio looking at the back of my camera and just realized for the first time I didn't know anything about light. And light was like why I became a photographer. So it was a real bummer. And I really thought, like, wow, I should, what am I even doing? I need to go, I'll I need to go back to the classroom and and teach. And, you know, I had enough clients booked that fall that I couldn't do that. And so I just decided I a few days went by where I was really bummed and I really did, I truly thought about quitting. I was like, I can't call myself a photographer. And then this little voice came in that was like, you know what? Good. You don't know light, so you're gonna learn it. And I just the first thing I did is I brought a baby doll that had eyes that, you know, open and close it are kind of glossy eyes where you could see cat lights in the eyes. And I brought it into my studio and laid it on a beanbag and just watched the light and moved its face and closed the curtains and turned off overhead lights and and really found that what I thought I was always looking for light. And what I really needed to start paying attention to was shadows. And the day that I recognized that shadows were the thing to look for was the day that my photography changed. Like that is the biggest marker of my photography growth that you can see in my Instagram or in my work was the day that I learned to start embracing, sculpting, looking for shadows. And because light's kind of hard to see, you know, but you can see shadows.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you have a great quote. Um, and and by the way, everybody, the the uh poetry of light session from WPPI is on YouTube, the whole lecture. And and you've got to go there. I don't care what kind of photographer you are, it is a masterclass in an understanding of light. And then there's a there's a demonstration as well. But you you you've got a great line in that presentation. You say light is what gives photography its magic, but it's shadow that gives meaning.
SPEAKER_03What do you mean? Yeah, shadow the shadows are like the place where the light can have a place to stand. The f so here's what happened. I I started embracing shadows, and then I took a picture that was a silhouette of my daughter in rim light, and the photo was like 99% shadow. It was all dark, and there was just a little rim light around her face and her hair. And everyone, and I posted it to Instagram, this was years and years ago, and all the comments were wow, beautiful light. Oh my gosh, the light, the light, the light. And I thought, this is all shadow. Like it just gives all that shadow gave that little sliver of light a place to sit and take up space. And the lightest thing in the frame is what our eye is drawn to. And so having most of it dark with just like a splash of rim light, it was that was another kind of wow moment for me. Like how how intense, you know, how shadows can really inform so much of our light. And then what a metaphor for my life, that is, like the darkness of my childhood and how much light and happiness I have in my life today. And so, yeah.
SPEAKER_01You've talked about light as being really the essence of your photographic voice. I mean, tell me what how does light become a personal, recognizable aesthetic for a photographer?
SPEAKER_03Gosh, I don't know. That is a really good question. I think because I I used a lot of backlight in the beginning. You know, I was I was kind of obsessed with using backlight, and that's kind of all I shot with. And now I I also love moody, painterly, dark. I kind of I also like soft light. I like all types of light now. I'm not sure what it is that makes a artist's style instantly recognizable. I mean, you have it in yours. Your your work is instantly recognizable. I don't know. What do you think?
SPEAKER_01I I have well, I'm the the long technical answer is got me.
SPEAKER_03Um there's a mystery to art, right? That that's like there's some genessequa that an artist has that's something from their heart that really can't be contained in words.
SPEAKER_01You have been deeply um influenced though by the impressionist, by painters, by the impressionists and others. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03So last year in January, I was in a creative rut, and I called one of my good friends, and we were talking, and she said, Why don't you do a series, like a self-portrait series? So I sat with that and decided that was a great idea. And I immediately came up with a few paintings that I wanted to try to recreate. Every month last year, I did 12 of them. I did one a month. I chose a painting that I love or that resonates with me or that I felt would maybe be challenging for me, and I recreated it. Some were exact, you know, I really tried to do an exact take on the painting, and others I kind of took my own creative license to make it, you know, similar. But I did everything from pre-Raphaelite to Impressionists to Dutch Masters, even Picasso. And it was a really great experiment in learning from another art form where I, you know, you can leave out comparison because there's you're not going to fall that slippery slope of comparing your work with another photographer's. And I learned light and I learned all kinds of just, I don't know, new layers of technique from these master painters that I'm so grateful for.
SPEAKER_01Tell me about those afternoons, because I mean I I have seen some of those. You you've got them on the web. Yeah. And, you know, you recreated the set, you recreated the costume. Okay. I mean, that's relatively easy. But to recreate the light and and to to tweak it, to do deal with the nuances. It's not just, you know, here's my three light setup, let me stand at the table. I would imagine you took a picture, looked at it, and eh, no, that's not right. Move the light, you know, six six microns to the left, take another one, look at it. Tell me about those afternoons of taking the self-portraits and getting the light right.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that so it was probably more of the work happened before I got in my studio as I studied the painting. And often I'd sit with it for days, sometimes a few months. Like the Gustav Klimt, the Kiss. That one was really, that was kind of that and the Picasso, I did a Picasso one, the woman ironing by Picasso in November, and the Kiss by Gustav Klimpt I did in December. Those two were my hardest ones. And I thought about them for months. The Picasso one was tricky because that is so opposite. His sadness, his lack of whimsical light or luminosity is totally opposite my style. And I didn't want to take an image that would stick out like a sore thumb as something completely different from what I typically do. But I wanted to honor Picasso and his work. And so, yeah, once I sat with it for a long time. I knew I needed to do use some blue light, color the light, make it, you know, use some blue gels. And the light needed to be soft. There could be no luminosity. And I really needed to embrace shadows. So I kind of had an idea. I sort of knew with that one what to do, and just went to my studio and it took, I don't know, 15 minutes to set that up and take that shot. So some of them I can do the work in my head beforehand, but the kiss, that was a lot of trial and error in my studio alone. And then once I once I got it figured out, then I had my husband come in. But it probab that shot probably took three hours of just tweaking the lighting in my studio because it had to be so luminous and so golden. And I also, you know, because it was a painting, I also wanted to keep the shadows intact. So that one was tricky for me.
SPEAKER_01It's the the self-portrait is another act of magic simply because I mean you could stand there and everything could be right, but for some reason you've leaned back three inches and the whole thing falls off that way.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, self-portraits are so challenging. They are just like a total other level. I'm like, gosh, I could do this so easily if I just had two subjects come in and could just move the lights. But with self-portrait, you have to be so much more intentional. It's like taking a picture with one eye closed or with your hands tied behind your back or something. You don't have all your resources.
SPEAKER_01Oh, um, you have said that your thinking about a shoot begins with lighting before lens, before gear, before anything else. Somebody calls you up and says, I want a senior portrait, I got a newborn or whatever. How does your thinking begin with? I mean, I would imagine a conversation with a client, but how how does light come in first and then drive everything else?
SPEAKER_03So I have a questionnaire that I didn't have at the beginning of my photography career. I would just meet my clients. I'd talk to them on the phone, maybe for five or ten minutes. You know, we'd pick, I'd help them with clothing and we'd we'd talk about location, but I didn't have a questionnaire. And I'm gonna give you a security answer. I'll give you the long answer.
SPEAKER_04Okay. Okay.
SPEAKER_03So I had a client call me. She she was booking me for a senior photo shoot for her daughter, but she wanted to do family photos as well. And they were flying in from out of state for this shoot. It was a really special shoot. And they all came in and I knew they just wanted a few family photos, and the whole, the, the hero of this whole shoot was the senior girl. So we did the shoot, and throughout the photo shoot, at one point the mom had to walk off because she was crying. At another point, the mom and the daughter hugged. At another point, the dad and the mom hugged, and the dad had tears in his eyes. And I was like, What is going on? And at the end of the shoot, at the very end, the mom pulled me aside and she said, I had stage four pancreatic cancer. I am not supposed to be here and I'm in remission. This is a celebration. This whole photo shoot is a celebration of my life. And I was so so disappointed that I didn't know that before the shoot because I would have approached that shoot so differently, so much more emotionally driven. I could have gotten them such better images. And you know, I love to take these little mini failures as ways to just grow and learn. And so I just decided that night to implement a questionnaire. So I give every client a questionnaire and it talks about, you know, it asks a lot of questions. So I really feel like I know their style. And then I call them with the questionnaire in my hand and I just take notes while we chat on the phone. And so I have a really good idea about what kind of lighting they want. And then something I've been doing for the last few years is I'll say, you know, I'll give them everything that they're booking me for, which is usually backlight with mountain views. And then if I have something that I want to take from my portfolio or just for me, I'll say, for the last 15 minutes, I have this cool idea. Can I do an extra bonus? I make it sound like a treat. Because it kind of is a treat. Can we do an extra bonus photo down at the lake or in my studio with really dramatic lighting? And they that's usually the photo that they'll end up getting as a large piece of art. That's usually the favorite photo of theirs. But so now I have a body of work that shows those kinds of images. And then when clients are booking me, you know, I steer them towards my website and they're choosing images that they see that they want.
SPEAKER_01So that sounds like even with the questionnaire though, you wouldn't have said, tell me your medical history. So I mean, how how do you get at that special kind of deep core stuff in those conversations?
SPEAKER_03You know, the magic question, it's so simple. So I ask all the questions about, you know, locations or images that you love, or pose requests, or do you have any body insecurities or dis disabilities that you'd like me to be aware of? Do you have any hobbies you want to bring? All those normal questions. And then I have a question at the end that's so basic. Is there anything else you'd like me to know? And this, every time, clients pour their hearts out. I don't know if it's the prep beforehand where they've, you know, it's just been simple questions, but this is the place where I learned so much about them. And it's like an honor to then like know their story and be able to take photos from a place where I can really document their beautiful story for them.
SPEAKER_01When you're working with clients, do you take candids as well? You know, if if mom's rushing from the room in tears, are you gonna try and grab that?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I do. I try to grab the little micro moments in between. I do. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um, you have another heartbreaking story um about a one-year-old that you took a picture of. No, but I mean, you you you are you know artistically documenting milestones. I mean, you you really are you know catching, you know, the cornerstones, the foundations, whatever you want to call it. Um but I I don't know how many people would say they can continue when you get a phone call like you did with this one-year-old.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, well, okay, so the story before that is that uh somebody that I've I've loved my whole life uh was staying at my house, and my photo my photography business was brand new. And I decided to show this person my website. I was like, look, I'm gonna be a photographer. Here's my little baby brand new website. And I think at the beginning of every artist's career, your skin is pretty thin. And the critique that you get can go really deep. And uh, this person that I admire and have always looked up to laughed at my website, and I felt so small and so embarrassed and really doubted my my work and whether I should be a photographer. And it was months where I really, again, like another time where I was really like, What am I doing? Maybe this is just the dumbest thing. And then I had that session where a family came with a one-year-old baby, and we did just, you know, I did kind of what I what I was doing then, just connection and light. And they came back to purchase their images and were so happy, and they got albums and art. And then three months later, the mom called and said that their baby had died in his sleep and unexpected totally unexpectedly. He was perfectly healthy as far as they knew. And she said the only images she had of his life for the funeral that were in focus that weren't taken on an iPhone were the ones that I took that single hour. And so, you know, it really helped me to see how meaningful this work is. And I've just taken it so seriously since. And I've I've found time, I mean, so many stories. When you're working with clients and you're taking pictures of their lives, there's so many stories I have like this where clients like this is this is the thing you reach for when you don't have anything else to reach for is photos, you know.
SPEAKER_00Let's take just a quick break. We hope very much that you're enjoying today's episode. The very fact that you are listening to this podcast suggests that photography means a lot to you. And if that's the case, you might want to have a look at Frames Quarterly Printed Photography Magazine. We truly believe that excellent photography belongs on paper. Visit readframes.com to find out more about our publication and use the coupon code Podcast to receive a recurring 10% discount on your new Frames magazine subscription. And now back to today's conversation.
SPEAKER_01You know, I'm looking at the work, and one of the things that would scare me, you know, if if I were doing this kind of work, um, is the inability to get beyond the stereotype or or the cliche. Um I mean, you you can an average senior portrait looks just like every other average senior portrait in the world. Uh and you you find a way. I mean, how do you find a way to get into something and this is a question for all people working in portraits, because the people who do it well find a way for every headshot to be unique, every, you know, kid standing in a field to not be like every other kid standing in a field. Um how do you find originality? How do you find that that kind of this is uniqueness?
SPEAKER_03Well, I would say there's two sides of the coin to that answer for me. One side is, I think as you, you know, when you're 10,000 hours in, 20,000, I don't know how many hours I've done photography, many, many, many thousands. You just see the world through your lens. You know how it's going to look through your lens. You can, and you know you're so comfy in your style that you're able to just do your thing, you know? So you and as you continue down the path of photography, you get, I don't know, closer and closer to your specific heart as a photographer, which is going to be unique and different to anybody else's standard thing when they're starting out. The other side to that coin that I think is important to hear is that what you see on a website or what you see on Instagram is someone's favorite images. It's not the whole gallery, you know? Right. So I think that there are a lot of times where I take pictures that are just normal and standard, and they're not the greatest thing, and they're not gonna win an award. And also there's just a time and place for that, too. So I'm not like some magic unicorn who's always taking images that are word-worthy and totally different.
SPEAKER_01A couple of images I want to hear um the stories behind. And then we're I want to get in into more of the business stuff here. Um but one of your images, and and there's two versions. There's the image itself, and then I in one of your videos that you you've got uh you know a large review of it. But it's it's a long-haired woman, it's winter, she's wearing a red scarf. And I remember you know, you're using a 200 millimeter lens, F 2.0, so you got you know all the stuff going on there, but it's outside, it's snow, there's ambient light galore. And I noticed way oft in the distance in the back, there's one little backlight sitting back there. Uh and and I thought with all the outdoor ambient light, I would never in my mind have thought to put that light back there. Um, and then I went back to sort of the finished image to look for the evidence of that. Tell me about composing the light for that shot.
SPEAKER_03So it was a super snowy day. That's my daughter. And I wanted to I wanted the snow to be maximally visible. I didn't, I definitely didn't need any light on her face. There was super soft, beautiful ambient light that was super easy to expose for. But I'm always wanting a little bit of magic. And backlight has just such a magical way of separating the subject from the background and illuminating the snow. And it just like lit her hair softly with some golden warmth. And I think that's something that I mean, I'm always, I just give me backlight. I just want backlight all the time. I don't care if it's snowing or raining, just give me backlight.
SPEAKER_01Okay, so that that's put so it's it's a it's a well-focused, or by, you know, by I mean like snoot-ish uh light pointed at the back of her head way back there.
SPEAKER_03So I did something super uncommon that I normally don't do because I have a thousand modifiers. I didn't modify it. I think I put a CTO gel actually. That that light had a CTO gel on it to make it warm. But uh no no modifier, just bare bulb with CTO gel. No grid, nothing fancy.
SPEAKER_01Well, I didn't even notice it was there until I was just sort of looking at the I I guess it's in a video or it's in a separate version.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, behind the scenes reels. I love to share my process.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, there was just an uncommonly straight stick back there, and I thought, what oh my heavens, that's a light back there.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01You know, when you when you get a camera and and you you're watching some YouTube video on settings or whatever, everybody and their cousin says when you get to the the line that says in-camera skin softening to turn that off. And then I'm watching one of your videos about cherry blossoms and a flower umbrella that was too heavy, which you made gorgeous thing, by the way. But but then what struck me was that you said you turn the in-camera skin softening on, and you also said that your gear will give you the shot straight out of camera that you're hoping for. So I mean I would imagine, I would have assumed, there's an awful lot of post-production on your work, but you've got a real special involvement with that moment being photographically expressive as well.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, some images are heavily post-processed, where when I'm taking it, I know that I'm going to, you know, eliminate the horizon line or remove clutter or change the tones of someone's clothing to match the tones of the background or something. Uh, you know, lots of color grading and stuff. Other times I really just add a little contrast because I shoot in raw and add some clarity and maybe do just a couple, you know, warm it up a bit or something, and it's just done straight out of camera. Uh so skin smoothing is something that I used to painstakingly do on most images just because clients, I want to give them a little mini facial, you know. And the skin smoothing feature on the Nikon cameras is amazing. It just does that straight out of camera, and you just get it, and it's it's incredible. I love that feature. I keep it turned on always.
SPEAKER_01Oh, well, I I shoot with Nikon too, and that's turned off on mine because I've never had an idea to use it, but I'm gonna turn it on this afternoon.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, which camera do you have?
SPEAKER_01Um, I have a Z52, and and I can tell you a whole story there because most of my work is photojournalism or travel or that the small form factor I absolutely adore. Um, and I actually I strayed from the Nikon path for a while. I I went to a different brand um and missed my Nikon every day. So I finally, and it was a much, much more technically capable camera is the one I just returned to go back to this one. But tell me a story of a photo that was just it could not have been better.
SPEAKER_03Oh wow. Okay. This was my the dream session of my life. Okay. I was doing my first Nikon campaign for the ZF, that little retro camera that came out a couple years ago. And a couple of the Nikon leaders flew out to Colorado to spend three days with me shooting. And I took my husband up to, we went up to Rocky Mountain National Park, and these two Nikon leaders who are now dear friends of mine had never seen the Rockies. And we got to go into Rocky Mountain National Park, which is just, you know, 45 minutes from my house. And my we we got to the, we walked down this trail to the meadow, and then my husband came rolling up, riding the horse, riding the white horse, and the sun was setting, and there were like just this little creek rolling by. And it was just one of those magic moments where I took a second in the middle of that shoot and just looked around and I was like, How is this my life? And we were all just like giddy with joy and beauty, all of us. It was just one of those shoots that was so magical. And then we drove down the mountains back to my house, and it was those in Colorado, you get these evening storms where these huge cumulus clouds light up with lightning, and it was lightning, and music was playing in my car, and we were having this amazing conversation. It was just like the whole, the whole setup before, during, and after was just this magic moment in my life.
SPEAKER_01See, though those moments are the ones that instilled great fear in me because I just know I'm gonna get home and realize I'd bumped some dial on the camera and the settings were completely wrong. Oh my god.
SPEAKER_03I know. I I did I did some chimping. I was looking at the back of my camera, making sure, and I I saw on the back of my camera some, and I knew that these, you know, for Nikon had to be pretty much exact out of camera. There was very little editing that I was going to be allowed to do. So I did see some uh images on the back of my camera that immediately were my favorite images I'd ever taken in my whole life. Oh, cool. So that so I didn't go down, right? It wasn't writing down with a huge pit in my stomach, but those they are terrifying, those shoots where there's so much pressure. You're like, no pressure, but take the best picture you've ever taken in your life right now.
SPEAKER_01Um okay, now I gotta ask the other question. Tell me the story of a picture that just went to hell.
SPEAKER_03Oh gosh, how much time do we have? Oh gosh. Oh, so this year now I'm doing another image series, uh, monthly image series, self-portraits, where I'm choosing a quote, uh famous quote that has meant something to me in my life. And this was last month. I haven't shown, I should make a real showing this because I spent three or four hours in my studio with this setup. I ended up with a nine-light setup. That's more lights than I've ever used for any, you know, and they're all strobing. I've never used that many lights for a setup. And I got all the lights figured out, you know, got changed, got into what I thought I'd wear. And there was tons of detail in the scene. So just tons of like meaningful things that I put in to make the quote come to life. And I went back to my computer to edit them and realized they were some of the worst pictures I've ever taken in my life.
SPEAKER_01Because why?
SPEAKER_03Oh, the light was so bad. It just none of it was making sense. There were way too many details. Uh I didn't, it looked, it was just terrible. It was so bad. And I did a lot, I was bummed out. This is my process. I experienced something bad and then I'm bummed out, and then I have a voice. It's like, you've got this. Like, let's just redo it. So I sat with it and realized there were too many details. I needed to pare them down to the only ones that mattered. And my lighting needed to be more painterly and moody. And so I stripped down from nine lights to three lights. Maybe there were four. I think there were four. And and then I got a shot that I I really loved that I felt like really matched the quote. So sometimes it is nice to know. Like oftentimes I do go to my studio, I it takes me 15 minutes, start to finish, and I've got a shot I love. Other times it's like three or four hours, and then you go and you realize it's all junk and you have to try again. And then but there's a lot of learning that happens when you try again. And so there is like this sometimes this process that's really challenging. And I don't know, I always have a lot of self-doubt, and then I realize, like, no, I can do this. I've been doing this for years.
SPEAKER_01It's a good thing we're not working on film anymore. Otherwise, we'd all need fifth mortgages just to pay for the acetate and the developing.
SPEAKER_03Well, the nine flashes and all the lenses. I mean, we're we're not we're not doing bad spending lots of money anymore either.
SPEAKER_01I was spending it on other things later. Um okay, but now you have a completely different opportunity, or or I should say, offering. You also offer classes on natural light portraits at home. So so assume that I'm one of those clients. Um, how are you gonna talk to me about light? How are you gonna talk to me about what these these portraits may become?
SPEAKER_03So, as uh talking to you like you're one of my students about taking a class, yeah, for natural lighting, no flash.
SPEAKER_04Yep.
SPEAKER_03So, okay, I mean it really comes back to that day when I realized how terrible I was at lighting. And that led me to realizing that I really wasn't paying attention to shadow and how much I need to look at shadows. And I think I liked well, okay, so in the natural light class, I'm actually I'm actually not teaching that class anymore. But when I teach flash, I have a flash class that I teach. When I teach flash, I I start with like all the basic rules of natural light. And if you know the natural light rules, then you're gonna be able to use flash because light is light no matter what the source. So if you know, you know, that the that you can you can affect the quality of light, the quantity of light, the color of light, and the direction of light, those four things. And if you know that the larger the light source, the softer the light, and the smaller the light source, the harder the light will be. That's like everything that you need to, that is a natural light masterclass right there in a nutshell.
SPEAKER_04Okay.
SPEAKER_03And then from there, you know, practicing and finding where where the uh a window will give you the kind of painterly light you need, and maybe coming closer to the window, the fall-off of light is gonna be faster and more dramatic, or moving away from the light, it's gonna be a little contrastier, but you'll see the background more. There's just all these cool principles of light that you can learn with a single window. Or, you know, when you're learning Rembrandt light, you typically learn it around a window and you know, a room that just has one window and no other light sources. But then you can go outside at noon or any time of day and find, you know, place your face in a certain position and get Rembrandt light on your face with the sun. And you start to learn, and this is what I try to teach my students, that light is just light, whether it's a window or it's the sun or it's a cloudy, you know, a cloudy sky is just like having a flash with a big diffuser, like a big umbrella with a diffusion panel. Uh, it's just all light and it all carries mood and it all carries emotion. And when you know what the story is that you want to tell and you have a vision for that, then finding the light that matches that mood is going to be your first step, whether that's natural light or strobe.
SPEAKER_01I mean, to be intentional about it, to be artistically intentional intentional about it.
SPEAKER_03Totally. That is the word of all words that if I that I ever teach when I'm teaching photography is intention. What's your intention? Are you using color intentionally, composition intentionally, negative space, you know, pose, lighting, all of it, which I see in your work so much. You have so much intention in your work.
SPEAKER_01Um with your clients, uh tell me about art direction. Because I, you know, and about wardrobe uh setting, you know, this kind of stuff. Because you have a shot. I don't know if this is for clients or just for yourself, um, but it it's a person in a boat with the moon behind them and there's a lot of smoke and that kind of stuff. Is that your idea? How how do you how do you go about authoring the more imaginative pieces? I by which I mean, you know, less documentary.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. So I kind of see my work as two different things. One is my client work, and then one is my personal work. And sometimes I do personal work on either, you know, self-portraits or my children or a friend or even a client that I'll invite to come do some special shoot with me. Uh, but my personal projects, I'm usually setting up to just get one image. I'm not shooting for a gallery of images. Whereas with my client work, I'm shooting for a gallery, I'm shooting for a photo album, I'm shooting for art for their walls and for, you know, a holiday card. Uh so my approach is very different. So that's that was of my daughter. And Yeah, I'm very intentional about when it when it's a personal project and I'm spending hours for just one image. I'm really intentional with every detail from the lighting to the wardrobe to the all the props, everything.
SPEAKER_01Is this all pre-planned or are you are you sitting there thinking, let's try this?
SPEAKER_03Well, that shoot in particular, I didn't quite know how how the light would look. I knew I wanted a light with a big umbrella with a diffusion panel. I used, I think, my extra large umbrella with diffusion panel for the moon. I wanted moonlight backlight on my daughter in the water with a fog machine atmosphere behind and in front of her. So there would be like foggy. This was in October, so I wanted kind of like a spooky, kind of uh moody, moonlit, starry photo on the water in this canoe. We went down there and so I I had maybe I brought four lights with different modifiers because I wasn't sure what I'd need, but I started with my first modifier, which was my main one, which was my moonlight, you know, my moonlight in quotes. And then I looked at the back of my camera and I'm like, okay, she's too dark, so now I need another light on her, and now I want to light the boat up, and I think I put a third light in the boat. So that was a little bit of troubleshooting on the spot, but it was pretty easy and quick. I think that shoot took 15 or 20 minutes.
SPEAKER_01Oh, okay. I I I can imagine the back of your van or your or your truck or whatever. You have everything you could possibly need, even though you may not wind up using any of it.
SPEAKER_03I know. My poor husband, he's so sweet and supportive. It's like, all right, I'll carry it, I'll hold the moon for you.
SPEAKER_01Let's switch over to the business side a little bit because you too you also teach how to run a successful photography business, everything from pricing to clients and stuff like that. And and you had a really interesting opening um to a video when you said the really the first thing you need to be asking yourself is not what or how, but why. So tell me about why and and tell me about running a successful photography business.
SPEAKER_03Gosh. So yeah, big question.
SPEAKER_01So I In 25 words or less.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_03Got it. I've already used 10 of them.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_03So I think knowing your why. If you're just doing this for money, then you might want to, you know, rethink what you're doing. I I photography businesses can be incredibly absurdly profitable. And you gotta have your heart in it first in order for it to be become profitable because your clients need to trust you and they need to trust that your heart's in the right place. And so I think if you know your why and you've got this like why mission driving you, you can't help but be successful. So starting out, something good that I did that I look back on and I'm like, wow, that was great, was I valued my time from the beginning. So my very first photo shoot, I looked at my little kids and I thought, what is it worth it for me to leave them at sunset, leave dinner, and you know, miss a night with them. I'm like, that's a high price for me right now in my life. I want to, I want to make a substantial difference in my family's income to miss these nights with them. And so my first, what I did at the beginning was I I've never had a sale or I never had a session that wasn't in-person sales. I've done in-person sales since the very beginning. And that first sale that I had showed me how smart of a decision that was. It was a, I think it was an $1,100 sale. And I couldn't believe I was like thinking maybe they'll spend $200 or you know, I had no idea. And they spent $1,100 and they bought a lot of prints and an album and birth announcements. It was a newborn photo shoot. And just like my business, that my pricing kind of snowballed it. It started out kind of low, and it started with I was using Lightroom for my in-person sales software and inviting my clients to come sit at my kitchen table and look through my Lightroom gallery, showing them their, you know, their their images. And they were selecting from a piece of paper that I had written products on with prices next to. And now it's like I use, you know, a professional software system. I have a studio with a room, with a couch and a big screen.
SPEAKER_01And well, well, actually, slow down right there because you talk about a purchasing meeting as a special event, which again, I'm not in the business, so that was news to me. That seemed like genius. That, you know, you know, for on both sides, both for the client and for the photographer.
SPEAKER_03I'm so glad you're saying that because it is, it's so helpful for them. And I think a lot of people, when they're thinking about starting in-person sales sessions, they think, I don't want to make my client do that. They don't want to have to come back. But it's really an added service. So if you're a boutique photographer charging boutique prices, you better take good photos and give a boutique experience. And part of that boutique experience is helping the clients choose their images and help them look through the gallery of images and place an order. And because of that, their order is going to be much higher if done in person. I used to call that appointment a gallery viewing. And I had maybe two to three clients a year show up and not know that they were supposed to be purchasing prints and purchasing artwork. And so I changed it and I now call it a purchasing appointment. About 10 years ago, I changed the name and I call it a purchasing appointment, and now no one has ever not known what it is. So yeah, it's a purchasing appointment and it's wonderful. And I help them with their orders and they're so thankful. They're near tears by the end. I mean, oftentimes they cry looking at their images, and and then it's like, you know, a birthday or Christmas when they get all their prints and frames and photo albums, and it's so fun.
SPEAKER_01Do you wind up curating your own work as well as facilitating? I mean, what if what they're picking, you're thinking, ah, this the this there you really should be doing something else.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that's a great question. I only show them images that I love, so I cool it down heavily. In a one-hour shoot, I'm showing my clients 20 to 40 images. And in a two-hour shoot, I'm showing them 40 to 60 images. So I've cooled it down to only images that I love. And I'm able to direct them if they want, you know, if they're getting a 20 by 30 for their wall and they're choosing the family photo where everyone's looking at the camera and it's very posed. I might steer them, try to steer them towards the one that's candid where they're walking into the light or something, you know, that feels a little bit more like a piece of art. But clients often you know, now that I have such a style, they they come sort of knowing my style and wanting what I do.
SPEAKER_01Aaron Powell And you know, I I'm wondering what the worst mistake can be if you're starting a photography business. And and in the back of my head, I'm just thinking either vanity or modesty, you know, would actually be the big mistakes. But just that from you know sort of a product delivery standpoint, is there something that'll that you see a lot of people doing badly?
SPEAKER_03Say that again.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, let's say you know, I'm I'm you're teaching me how to run a photography business. You know, what what's the first mistake I'm likely to make?
SPEAKER_03Not to value yourself, not to value your art, to price your art too low. And yeah, I think the best thing you can do is price your art high. High so that it sparks joy for you, where you're to a point where you're like, oh my gosh, if I made that much at a sale, I would flip over myself. You know, I'd be jumping for joy and screaming for joy. At first, you know, when I first started out, my average sale was probably $800. And then as years went by, I went up to $1,600. And today my average sale is $4,800. And it it's great to know that, you know, I go out for an hour and I shoot a family and beautiful light, and that the pressure of knowing how expensive it is makes me bring my A game. And it also, the clients then, if they're spending thousands of dollars, they're bringing their A game. They're gonna dress better, they're gonna show up on time, they're gonna talk to their kids, they're gonna and make sure everybody's on the same page, like, let's let's really bring it here for this hour because this is expensive. And that sets a bar of value for your work that your clients will appreciate so much when they're holding the album that was, you know, $1,000 in their hands and they're flipping through it and they're looking at the art on their wall. If it's a $200 photo session where you're giving them a hundred digital files and putting it on a flash drive, there's just not a lot of value in that. And they're gonna put that flash drive in their kitchen drawer and they're gonna forget about it and they're gonna be like, oh yeah, I should do something with that. But they're not professional photographers. They don't know where to print. They don't, they're gonna go to Walmart and print. It's gonna be too green or too yellow. They're not gonna know, they're gonna get an eight by ten and hang it on their living room wall and they really need a 30 by 40, you know? So bringing our expertise and is such a huge makes a big difference for your client, but then it also makes a huge difference for your bottom line.
SPEAKER_01You have said that the experience of a photo shoot is equally as important as the product. I mean, the experience is just being friendly with your clients? I don't think so. Yeah. What do you mean by the experience of a photo shoot being equally important?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, your questions are so good. So here's an example. I was traveling with my family through the south of England, and we didn't know it. I happened to be wearing a blue dress that day, and my daughter was wearing a blue dress. I didn't plan it. We were just like on a tour, we had a guide, and he found out that I was a photographer, and I showed him some of my work, and he's like, Oh, I'm gonna take you somewhere amazing. And he took us to this lavender field that was peaking, it was peak lavender. And if you know my work and you know me, you know how obsessed I am with flowers.
SPEAKER_01I'm in heaven.
SPEAKER_03Oh my gosh. And I had my camera, you know, I brought my camera that day, and I was like, Belle, please get in a picture with me. This is my daughter. And she's like, no, mom. And I said, You are wearing a blue dress. I'm wearing a blue dress. This is net, we are never gonna be here again. You are doing it. And I just like made it happen. And she did. She like snuggled up to me, and we, and you know, I got all the settings, had my husband basically be a tripod and press the frame. And the picture's really pretty. I showed it to you. You might be like, Oh, yeah, that's really that's a pretty picture. The lavender goes on for miles. It's just amazing. And I had a good lens, it was dreamy depth of field, and it was just gorgeous. And my daughter kept complaining through that shoot, saying that she didn't feel good. She didn't feel good. And I was like, Yeah, you do, you're fine. Yeah, everything's fine. Just come on. And the next day she woke up with COVID, like really bad COVID. She was super sick. So I look at that photo now and I just think what a bad mom I was in that moment. I would never frame that photo. It looks like a photo you could blow up and hang on a wall, but I would never frame it. I I don't even want to look at it because it reminds me of like, you know, how much I like forced my daughter to be in a picture that she clearly was not feeling good. And I think about that. I've had so many more examples that I could sit and tell you about. But if we're making the moment really amazing and infusing it with the love, I do things with my clients, like I'll have all the kids sit and think about something that they love about their mom. And then on the count of three, they shout it out. And the mom is now hearing all these sweet things, you know, that her kids have have just told her. And then she looks at this image in the gallery and she's like, oh my gosh, I remember all these words my kids were saying. And so there's this added layer in that moment now of like, not only is it a pretty picture and everyone looks good and it's well lit and there's mountains and sunset, it's like this moment in time that this family can remember where there was some real love happening. Um, or or I'll get have a dad, you know, kneel down with his kid and just tell his kid, like, I'll say, hey, when I say go, and I the kid won't hear me say this, I'll pull the dad, I'll say it aside. I'll say, tell him, tell him a story of a time you're proud of him. Um, then they'll go over and I'll get them posed and I'll say, Okay, dad, go. And then he tells his son a story of a moment where he was proud of him. The son is like looking up at his dad with these eyes of like, oh, wow. And I take a picture of that, and that's the photo now. And so, you know, we can take, we can make our work more profound by making the moment really meaningful.
SPEAKER_01That is so very cool. I mean, as you're telling this story, I'm thinking, you know, we've got, if you're my age, you know, you have several hundred pounds of four by sixes, you know, in the basement. And and when you show that to somebody, they'll say, Yes, you know, that that's Aunt Susie, and that was the afternoon, and the the story comes. Totally. You know, the Yeah, the the image is is it's a snapshot, but it's a prompt. Exactly. And then to have the the beautiful, aesthetically, you know, pleasing image that is also a oh my lord, that's that is such a cool idea.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. And it it's sometimes the the families will buy the picture where the little girl was looking up at her mom and telling her the things she loves most about her mom, who's a single mom, and raising this girl by herself. And the little girl looks up at her mom in a squeaky voice and says, I'm so grateful that you're raising me all by yourself. And the mom cried in that moment, I caught that photo and she ordered, she bought it as a 40 by 60 and put it in her entryway with like a gilded gold frame because of the moment. The image was great. It was fine. It probably wasn't even the best image from that photo shoot, but it was that moment.
SPEAKER_01Dan, your your work is remarkable. I and everybody, you gotta go look at the website, you gotta look at this stuff. I mean, the the in the I mean, I don't know the stories behind any of these images, obviously, and and yet they are breathtaking uh just at that level. And my heavens, uh, what what a wonderful approach to the business as well. Thank you very much. I I have enjoyed this conversation immensely.
SPEAKER_03Me too.
SPEAKER_00Thank you.readframes.com. That's readframes.com.