189: Kristen Cook – Design a Photography Business Lifestyle Around your Family

189: Kristen Cook – Design a Photography Business Lifestyle Around your Family

 

Andrew Hellmich: Kristen Cook is a multi-award winning Melbourne photographer specializing in newborn baby and wedding photography. She gave up work as a lawyer after her daughter was born nine years ago, and was drawn to photography. Since then, her business and her photography have both evolved into something very, very special. She describes herself as a love chaser and a light painter. And I know that when you see Kristen's photography, you'll notice beautiful light, uncluttered simplicity, beautiful moments and a love of black and white. And specifically with her baby photography, I see crops and details I don't see from other photographers. And I think that's what drew me to her when I first saw that work. I'm rapt to have it with us now, Kristen, welcome.

Kristen Cook: Thank you. Thanks so much for having me.

Andrew Hellmich: My pleasure. So photography, that's not even your real job, or it wasn't?

Kristen Cook: No, that's right, specifically not what I was trained in to begin with. No, I am, I started my career as a lawyer, so being a photographer now is pretty much as far removed from that as you can get. I would imagine.

Andrew Hellmich: What sort of law were you doing?

Kristen Cook: Property, banking and finance. So it was extremely interesting. I basically went through this stage where in my transition from moving from the law to photography that I almost had to try and justify to everyone around me how I'd spent almost 10 years of my life either studying or practicing or learning about something that was no longer relevant to what I was doing as a photographer. But look, I'm a firm believer in journeys, and that had I not gone down that path, and had I not been a lawyer in my previous life, so to speak, then I wouldn't be where I am in my business today, because everything kind of has a certain path that it leads down that, I suppose, brings you to the point that you need to be in your life right now, and that's what it's done for me.

Andrew Hellmich: Nice. Did you, or have you replaced the income that you were earning as a lawyer, as a photographer now?

Kristen Cook: Yep, triple.

Andrew Hellmich: Triple?

Kristen Cook: Absolutely

Andrew Hellmich: Really? Holy crap, that's awesome.

Kristen Cook: Absolutely. Yeah, that's why people say to me, "Oh, would you ever want to go back?" And I'm like, "No, I have absolutely no desire to go back." I distinctly remember when I left on maternity leave in my career as a lawyer, that I kind of had the feeling that I may not be returning back to the firm that I was working with, but I kind of thought that I would go on to do something that was still law related. So in my mind, I thought, Oh, well, you know, I might be able to do conveyancing from home, or something like that that I can do around being a new mum, but obviously using the skills that I had developed over the years of property law. And when that didn't quite pan out the way that I thought it would, photography kind of took its place. I remember, after I had my baby girl, nine years ago, I was so utterly obsessed with her, and as any new mother would be, and my I suppose, journey of documenting every single thing that she did then became a quest of looking at these images that I'd taken of her and going, "I just wish that this was different or looked better, or how can I make it look like this?" And so going from this extremely fast paced, high intensity work environment to all of a sudden being at home with a newborn baby and almost like not knowing what to do with myself while she was sleeping, as normal people would do would actually be to rest.

Andrew Hellmich: Yes

Kristen Cook: I found myself reading camera manuals and jumping onto online forums and literally using the time that she would sleep, I would be literally educating myself more about how to take better photos, and then when she was awake, I was using that time to actually practice better photos. And this was not in the beginning because I thought that I was going to turn into a photographer. This was purely just because I was so keen on making my photos better and wanting them to be amazing, and having that goal in mind. And so as I suppose, my photography improved, and friends started noticing, obviously, that I was into photography, and begging me to take photos of them and their children. And I suddenly had this thought of nearing the end of my 12 months of maternity leave, that, "Gosh, you know, what if I didn't go back to the wall? You know, shock, horror. What if I actually did something that I enjoyed for a living, and that I got to do something that I loved. And, you know, shock horror even more. What if people were to pay me for something that I love to do like that would just be unheard of." And so my little business at the start kind of grew exponentially because it had to, like, I literally had no choice but to make sure that if I was going to be turning around to my husband and saying, "Hey, look, I think I'm actually not going to go back to being a lawyer anymore. I think I'm going to give this photography thing a go", I needed to make sure that it worked, and so I had to pound a pavement basically, and make sure that I could get any work that came my way, not only for, I suppose, building the business, but in building my skills all round, in being able to tackle anything that kind of came my way. And I suppose for me, because I'm pretty persistent like that, I will keep going and keep doing it until I get it right. But I always knew that if I committed to doing it, I had to make it work. And so that's what I did, and I haven't looked back since. So that was, yeah, nine years ago that I kind of picked up the camera, but eight years ago that I then launched myself into the business.

Andrew Hellmich: So good, so good. Now I should ask you, well, I should clarify a couple of things. You said you've tripled your income since you were a lawyer.

Kristen Cook: Yes

Andrew Hellmich: Were you a crap lawyer? Or were you a good lawyer?

Kristen Cook: A crap, hey! Yeah, no, I wasn't. I was in my going into my third year of being a lawyer. I can't say that, unfortunately, my firm looked after me terribly well. So by lawyer standards, it wasn't, certainly wasn't up there. But my photography business is doing very, very well.

Andrew Hellmich: If I threw a few numbers at you, turn over half a million?

Kristen Cook: No, less than half a million.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, so more than 250,000.

Kristen Cook: Yes

Andrew Hellmich: Awesome. So it's a great business.

Kristen Cook: Yes, absolutely, yeah.

Andrew Hellmich: How long did it take to replace your other income? You know, as a lawyer, once you started business?

Kristen Cook: Probably within the first couple of years. I mean, it's slowly increased every year. It probably did the most dramatic leap in the first, say, three to four years, and then since then, has kind of maintained a really good level for me. But that's also because I've adjusted the way that I run my business and what I shoot, and how I shoot. So it's that whole philosophy on, you know, charge more work less, type of thing, which I've kind of adopted and made sure that my business now works for me, which is the whole point of having a business and making it run for you is so that you can make it work for you and your lifestyle.

Andrew Hellmich: Do you think of yourself as a photographer or a business person?

Kristen Cook: Oh, photographer. But I think, as I say, because I've had that background in law, it's made me approach the photography business side of things with, I suppose, a little more insight into how I want things to run. But I mean, look interestingly, I don't think that it's necessarily me being a lawyer that has led to this kind of entrepreneurial bug as such. I think I've always kind of been the person who, since I was very young, have always wanted to start a business for myself, whether or not it be washing cars in my street for my neighbors for $5 or painting my friend's nails in high school for $5 at lunchtime. Or I used to run a party business with a friend when I was in year seven, basically entertaining children at parties. Then I had a wedding website business where I would build websites for people that were getting married. And you name it, I did it. I literally tried my hand at anything. And this was all whilst, obviously I was doing other things, either studying or working. But I think that kind of, yeah, I don't know how you would say it, but entrepreneurial bug is probably the only way I can put it, that it's always been part of who I am. So in that sense, it doesn't surprise me that I'm doing what I'm doing now, in that sense of being a business person, but I definitely do structure my photography business in a certain way based on all of those things.

Andrew Hellmich: What do you mean by that when you say you say you structure your business in a certain way?

Kristen Cook: Well, look in a practical example, I suppose I have many friends in the photography industry, and just listening to them talk about the way that they run their businesses, or the way that they deal with client issues, they often don't quite know how to approach certain issues or structures or pricing, whereas I suppose when it comes to those things, I'm very business focused. The decisions that I make in relation to when I shoot, how I shoot, how I price things, the way that I structure things and price things, are all based on, how is this going to be best for my business? The actual shooting component is completely different. It is very much based on the way that I love and see and want to capture emotion, which is completely far removed from the business head that I have, but for me, making sure that when that's all said and done, because we know, as photographers, the actual shoot component is really only, you know, 20% of the actual time that we may spend with a client, in terms of everything that we have to do for our businesses. So I have to make sure that the rest of it works, so that I'm able to live the life that I want to do, and spend time with my children and all of that sort of stuff.

Andrew Hellmich: Cool. Okay, I want you to keep your business head on more so than your photography head for this interview.

Kristen Cook: Sure.

Andrew Hellmich: And you said a couple of things that you said the way that you or sort of when you shoot, how you shoot and how you price. Can we take those things apart?

Kristen Cook: Yeah, of course.

Andrew Hellmich: What do you mean by when you shoot? Is that to fit shoots around your family?

Kristen Cook: Absolutely. Yep. So you know in the beginning, when I first started out, I would literally shoot anytime anyone asked me, I would rearrange my entire life to make sure that I could meet the client's requirements. If they wanted me there at 6pm in their living room on a Sunday afternoon, then I would be there, because that's when they asked me to be there. But that was also in the beginning, when I literally was trying to get every single thing that came via me at the beginning, and I just soon realized that that wasn't one how I wanted to run my business, but it wasn't sustainable, and it wasn't the reason why I got into this to begin with, which was obviously to try something that I loved and wanted to continue to base around my new journey, I suppose, as being a mother and so I suppose, in a nutshell, the way that I've switched that around is, you asked specifically about, you know, when I shoot? And the answer to that is that I have two children who are both at school, so when they're at school I shoot, that's when I work and meet with clients. So I structure all of my shoots to start at 10am because I find that once I drop them off at school, I'm usually home by about quarter to nine. I run my business entirely from home, unless I'm off shooting a wedding obviously, on location, that's a different story. So when I have portrait clients that come to me of weekday, then I shoot at 10am, that's the time of the start time of the shoot. The only exception to that would be if I was shooting, say, an older baby session. What I mean by that is, say, a seven to 10 month old, their session doesn't usually take longer than, say, 45 minutes to an hour, because babies just don't last that long in terms of their awake times. So I will normally shoot two of those in a day, if I can. So one will start at 10, one will be at 12:30 and then I am back picking up my kids again anytime from about 2:33 o'clock to pick them up from school. And then I do not work for the rest of the day. The only time that I then ever meet with clients will be after my children go to bed and they're asleep again, because I work from home, I have the luxury of putting my children to bed at about seven o'clock. They will then go down for the night, and I'll prepare for a client meeting from about eight o'clock until 8 to 9 o'clock, or whenever that finishes.

Andrew Hellmich: Do you think we should scare listeners and tell them that your kids are 18 and 16.

Kristen Cook: Seven and nine. But even that sometimes shocks people. I think they're like, what your nine year old goes to bed at seven o'clock? But I think it's just the way that I've managed to do it, and that she definitely doesn't go to bed, like to sleep at seven, but she'll read, or something like that until that time. But they just know that, you know, once they're in bed, they're in bed. And it just means that I can obviously work around my life first being the priority, and that they're the priority, and that your business can still work and be successful with these certain rules that you have in place, and you don't have to throw your life up in the air just to make things work for clients, they will work around you if you set those boundaries in a nice way. I'm not mean about it.

Andrew Hellmich: Let me ask you this. Let's say I ring you for, you know, I've just had a baby, or my wife, has we want to come in for a shoot, and you say, "Andrew, the only time I've got on that date is 10am or any date is 10am" and I say, "Look, Kristen, my baby's a handful at 10am. Can I just come in at eight? That's when he is at his best." How do you answer that?

Kristen Cook: Then I would just say, "Look, unfortunately, the start time is at 10am. I understand that babies are restless at different hours, but babies being babies, obviously day to day, hour to hour, they can be very different as well. And obviously, if you'd like to book in, I'd love to offer you a 10am session, but I'm afraid 8am isn't available."

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, what about if we do a Saturday or a Sunday? Is that possible?

Kristen Cook: That's not possible.

Andrew Hellmich: So really, it is, it's just like that.

Kristen Cook: It is, it is.

Andrew Hellmich: Wow. Okay, so, I mean, I know now there's, there's no room to maneuver. It's 10am.

Kristen Cook: Yeah, well, it's a decision that I've had to make. I mean, as I say previously, I would have gone, "Okay, well, look, if you can't make it at 10am then you know, maybe, maybe I can do it on a Saturday earlier, because then I don't have to do the school run." And I started to realize the only person I'm hurting in all of this is myself and my family, and that the whole reason, as I say, that I'm doing what I'm doing is so that I can develop this business to maintain our lifestyle and to be able to spend time with my kids and be the parent that is there to drop their kids off and to pick them up. And the only exception to that weekend rule is, of course, weddings, because that's when they are. It's usually on a weekend. So that is the only exception that I make to shooting on a weekend. And I also cap my weddings at 15 per year to make sure that I'm not overshooting on the weekends as well. And I also don't shoot more than one in a weekend.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, I'm going to weddings in a minute, and I want to stick with that how you shoot, I know you well, I believe you shoot natural light only.

Kristen Cook: I do, yes.

Andrew Hellmich: Is that what you mean by that's the way you shoot. And also you shoot at home, don't you at your home?

Kristen Cook: That's probably more where I was going with that. Not so much the natural light thing. Because I think in terms of setup, whatever works for you is the best way for you. For me, it's just natural light, because I've always shot with natural light, and I just feel that there's something emotive and different with the change of light. As it happens, I don't want my images always to look the same with the light that I use. So I'm happy to have that kind of difference that comes with the change of light, with shooting natural, but for me in terms of how I shoot? Yeah, very much. So that, again, in what I was saying before about the scheduling sessions starting at 10 and things like that, my clients also have to come to me. So again, if people ask me, you know, "Can you come to my home?" Again, the answer is a polite "No. Unfortunately, I don't shoot in people's homes, but if you love my work and you've seen the work on my gallery, then this is all reflective of the setting that you will come to see on the day of the session, and that's shot in my studio, which is in my home." So I have the very front part of my house basically dedicated to my studio space and my client meeting room, and that gets sectioned off from the rest of my home so that people can feel as though they're in a space that is dedicated to them, that are not sitting in my lounge room or anything like that, that they feel connected to the process and to the setup, without feeling like they're, yeah, sitting in the middle of my lounge room and feeling awkward.

Andrew Hellmich: Sure, have you ever felt along the way that you should have a studio frontage, you know, like a street frontage studio, to feel more professional?

Kristen Cook: Yeah. Look, we moved about five years ago, and when we moved, it was literally because we were outgrowing the house that we were in, because the business was growing so rapidly, because I used to shoot on location when I first started, as you've probably guessed, I did everything for everyone. So if people wanted me to drive two hours to go see them, I would absolutely do that. And it was when I fell pregnant with my second baby that I realized I just couldn't run after toddlers on a beach anymore when I was nine months pregnant. And so I had to, kind of make a decision, that I had to stop certain types of work. And newborns and babies had always been where my heart sat, I think, with portrait photography. And so I used, I suppose, the excuse of me being pregnant as to why I stopped all of these other session types. But in my heart, I kind of knew that that's where I wanted to go anyway. And so at that point, I basically said to people, "Look, I'm not going to be able to take on your 50 family members in this park across the town. I'm now just going to be shooting babies and newborns in studio at my home. And so if you want me, then that's how it's going to have to be, because I just physically couldn't handle it any other way." And if I wanted to keep my business, I had to make some concessions for my health to make sure that I could actually continue it anyway. And it was just a fortunate thing at the time that the business followed me, and I was able to still have people transition very, very easily, actually, into that new environment where they were coming to me. But the house that I was in at the time was the house that we had for many, many, many years before we got married before we had kids, before we obviously started the business. So it wasn't as though it was completely perfect for the setup of being a studio. So at that point of deciding to move, I was really under a big decision, I suppose, as to whether or not do I get a commercial space? Do I find, like a shop front to actually work from and do that, and then obviously we can either stay where we are or just move on to somewhere that doesn't necessarily have to fit a certain dynamic to encompass a photography studio at the same time, or do we find somewhere that can capture that all in the one together? And when I sat there and I thought about it, and it was very much at the time when people were doing that, it was a really big thing for people to get their own studios. And everyone was doing it, left, right and center. And I kind of had this feeling of being caught up with the Joneses and oh, well, if everyone else is doing it, then that must be the natural progression of a business, that if you're successful, you have to open up a storefront studio on a main street somewhere to prove your success in business. And when I realized that, oh, sorry, that's my Siri going off, but what I did is I realized that it wasn't so much about the storefronts. People weren't finding me because I had a studio on the street. And I don't think people were booking me necessarily, because, oh, and say to me on the phone, "Oh, you know, do you have a studio, or do you work in your home?" Like that was not a question that was coming up when I was having conversations with clients.

Andrew Hellmich: I mean, you wouldn't know from your photography. You couldn't tell.

Kristen Cook: Exactly, exactly. And so I kind of had to take that away and say, well, is that actually the reason why people are going to book me and how much more business would come in from foot traffic versus people wanting to book me for my work, and because my style was evolving quite specifically away from what the typical newborn photography industry was doing. I wanted people to book me because they liked my style, not because they just randomly walked past my studio on a street. And the places that I was looking at, you know, varied in rent anywhere from, say, 30 to $60,000 a year. And I just sat there and thought, "Gosh, I have to earn an additional $60,000 a year just to be in the exact same position that I am right now, without them proving after that how much more that shop front has actually made a change to my business." So when I sat there and kind of weighed all of those options up, it just didn't fit with what I wanted for my business at that time, or even the next five years at that point in time, which is kind of now anyway, my kids were still very young. I didn't want to be driving off and having to leave them either in childcare or at home with someone if I needed to go meet a client at odd hours of the day or anything like that. And now, having made the decision to actually combine it and move into a place where we've been able to use the front of the house as, I suppose, the business component, and live in the rest of the house has been the best decision for us, and it's so proved to me that it's not just about what you have on show and to make a business successful for yourself, because what works for you and your business and the way you structure it is ultimately going to propel you forward in your business, not what you think everyone else thinks you should be doing in your business.

Andrew Hellmich: You've proven that with not only the home studio, but also with your session times and not being flexible with the way you've moved things around. I mean, you're proof of that all the way along, which is fantastic.

Kristen Cook: Yeah

Andrew Hellmich: Let's talk about your pricing, because I imagine that plays a big part in your business success. How did you come up with the prices that you have?

Kristen Cook: It was kind of a transition along the way, because when I first started in business, not having come from any sort of creative/photography background, I really honestly had no idea what I should be charging, so I kind of just made up numbers in the beginning, to be honest.

Andrew Hellmich: So you didn't look at other photographers and sort of copy them?

Kristen Cook: Oh gosh, I can't even remember, to be honest, in the early days, I probably did. But I think what happened was that, because I was on photography forums and Flickr and all of those things in the early days, people would be having conversations about, you know, what do you price for this? Or what do you price for this? And I think I just kind of put it all together as a mishmash of all these different conversations that people were having without actually thinking through what things were costing me, or what the time was in each product, and all of that sort of stuff that obviously you would now think through when you run a business. So when that first started, I probably had really low prices for the first, gosh, four to six months of my business.

Andrew Hellmich: That's not too bad. Four to six months.

Kristen Cook: It's not too bad. But when you're trying to justify why you've left law to become a photographer, you pretty much had to work 24/7 to be able to maintain it with such low prices. But then after that, I realized I had to raise them. So I think I kind of doubled them by that point. But it was probably about a year and a half into my business, I attended my very, very first photography workshop, and I still remember at that workshop, it was Jinky Art Barb Uil workshop. It was the first workshop that she ever ran, actually, and we were all sitting around having a business discussion, and she pointed at me. She said, "You, you, you are worth so much more than the prices that are on your website. I do not want to see these prices on your website anymore." And I remember sitting there absolutely just so embarrassed. We're friends now, so I can say this with all humor, but I remember at the time, it stuck with me so greatly because someone that I respected so much at that time was literally looking at me going, "I've seen your website and I've seen your prices, and they're not good enough", and I completely overhauled them after that workshop, to the point where it was astronomically different to what I was charging previously. And the fear setting, as I call it, the fear of when you all of a sudden change your prices so dramatically, and it's that period where you're kind of waiting to see what happens with your existing clients and trying to find new clients, because you're very much putting yourself in a new dynamic within pricing, within the industry.

Andrew Hellmich: Did you notice a big kickback?

Kristen Cook: Well, I did. I did hear crickets for a while, because there's always that initial period where the previous clients, because I was very much working on a big, big word of mouth focus in the beginning, I still do, but when you do that, people obviously have an expectation of where your pricing sits and when they refer you. People naturally will talk about your prices. And so I think when that change so dramatic. Likely there was a definite drop off of people, but what I found was that there was also this whole new set of people that would have never even considered me before because my pricing was so low. And we all know that, you know, sometimes, just without meaning to, we see low prices and we expect low quality as a result, and I didn't even really consider that in the early days. So with that came this whole new breed of client that I was getting that was amazing and wonderful and hassle free because they trusted me, because my prices were more in line with what they had expected in photography. And so from that, building on word of mouth and referrals through that, the clients that I've been able to maintain since then are all in line with this new, I suppose, price bracket of what they expect from photography and what they're happy to spend on photography.

Andrew Hellmich: So what are your clients typically spend? Like, what's an average spend?

Kristen Cook: Yeah, sure. So when clients book with me, or when they inquire with me, I should say, I always have the same, I suppose, spiel that I give to them, and I always, always tell them that my clients will typically spend between one to $3,000 on their purchases with me. And the reason I say that from the very, very beginning, from the time they first inquire, is because if they're scared off by a $1,000 number, then they are not going to want to book with me. And I always say to people that obviously it'll depend on what you purchase. And some people will want a beautiful album, some people will want a wall print. Everyone's different, of course, in what they're after, but typically, my clients will invest, usually between about one to $3,000 so I have clients that spend a lot more than that, but the majority of my clients will fit within that range.

Andrew Hellmich: I think that's pretty clear from your website. If I go to your pricing page, the session fees start at or at 165 they are, and your digital collections begin from 990 so I know that even if I just want the digitals, I'm going to be spending $1,000.

Kristen Cook: Correct. Yeah. I mean, that's all very well thought out on my behalf, because I don't want them being scared away by $1,000 if they are and they're only wanting to spend 500 then I'm not going to be the photographer for them. I just won't be, people in booking with me, if I've done my job correctly, they will want to have more than one or two images. And I never ever want my clients walking away thinking one that they didn't realize how much it was going to cost them at the end of the day, or that they didn't realize how much it was end up overspending and then regretting it at the end of the day, and giving them a print list of prices in advance is not going to tell them how much is going to come out of their pocket, which is why I'm so honest about that in the beginning when talking to clients, because I just don't ever want them regretting booking with me because they just didn't realize how much the process was going to cost them at the end of the day.

Andrew Hellmich: So that initial call, they call up, they make an inquiry. They love your photography. You let them know it's going to be between one and $3,000 they say, "Okay, that's great." Do you have any more conversations, or do you liaise with them anymore between then and the shoot?

Kristen Cook: Yeah, absolutely. So after that initial phone conversation that we might have, where they want to book in, then I'll send them booking information, which, again, will reiterate that one to 3000 spend range. After they book in, I then send them like a comprehensive online client portal which goes through the details about the session, what to expect. That's when they get all of the individual pricing as well. So they do get a chance to see all of that before the session. And again, reiterating that spend range, they come in for the actual session again, I go over it again, telling them what the process is and that they'll come back in to have their ordering appointment.

Andrew Hellmich: So what before the shoot? You'll go over this? Or is this after the shoot?

Kristen Cook: This is at the shoot as well. I give them a brochure as well, which reiterates the same information again about the typical spend range. When I contact them again to arrange their ordering appointment, I'll redirect the spend range again and during they, because I always give my clients a 24 hour preview as well, which not many photographers do, but I find it really works for me.

Andrew Hellmich: What do they get in that?

Kristen Cook: They get a preview of their images before they come into their ordering appointment.

Andrew Hellmich: Not on Facebook.

Kristen Cook: No, no online. So I have a custom built portal that I basically send through to them that opens up 24 hours prior to their appointment time, and they just get a chance at home to look through a basic slideshow of their images that I shot. The reason I do it is because, one, if anyone has ever been a new parent, they know that making decisions in the early days is extraordinarily difficult to just to decide what to eat for dinner, let alone what you want to purchase with your newborn images. And the second reason is because I personally can't buy on impulse. Cannot buy on impulse and before when I was doing, ordering appointments without actually having a chance for people to look at their images, and just expecting them to come in and buy on the spot. I couldn't justify to my clients why I was doing it, and when I got thrown really curly questions by clients of you know, "Can we think about it, or can we go away and just have a talk about it?" I couldn't justify why I couldn't allow them to do it because, of course, I'd not actually let them have a look. They were making decisions on the spot, and I just kept thinking, if I was them, I would hate this process.

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah, sure.

Kristen Cook: I would absolutely hate this process, because I am probably the most indecisive person on the planet, and if I'm like that, then I can't sell like that. Now I know many photographers do, and they make their businesses work for them that way. I just don't work that way. So I had to find a way where I still wanted to make those decisions with them in person, but I also wanted to give them the opportunity to at least digest their images before they'd come in. So I use it as a way of allowing them the opportunity to have a look through their images. It's all set to music. It's beautiful and emotional, and most people actually, I can probably reiterate the exact conversation that I have with every single client, because they all say the same thing, but also gives them the opportunity to share it with family and friends, which is the big bonus for me, because I will almost always, at every ordering appointment, get a few extra $100 from grandparents or from aunties and uncles that have had the chance to actually look at the images and have told the parents, "Can you order me this photo, or can you give me these three photos?" And so they'll come into the ordering appointment with already family and friends orders with them.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, so hang on. I'm getting confused now, because I can picture the slideshow to music, and that sounds beautiful. Are there image numbers on these slides?

Kristen Cook: Yes, the image numbers are on the slideshow.

Andrew Hellmich: Are there watermarks as well?

Kristen Cook: Yes, and there are watermarks as well.

Andrew Hellmich: Oh, okay. Are the watermarks right across the middle?

Kristen Cook: Yes, correct.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay. So really, they're not going to take screenshots and print these things.

Kristen Cook: No

Andrew Hellmich: But they can certainly see the photos.

Kristen Cook: Yeah. And look, to be honest, I'm not really that fussed if they do. I just don't get clients like that anymore, I suppose, because of how I've priced myself and where I am with my pricing. If people want to screenshot something from the gallery, I still know that they're going to spend that much with me. I can't even tell you the last time someone spent less than $1,000 with me, because they kind of already have the understanding that that's where they're going to sit financially. So look, I'm just not honestly, that bothered by it. I mean, I have my watermark all over, and I have do not copy, but at the end of the day, if you put anything out there on the internet, you have to be okay with the fact that someone may screenshot it. That's just the way it works.

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah, what software to use to make the slideshow?

Kristen Cook: Oh, it's just an old website template that I have back from when I first started, I basically just turned it into a proofing gallery so it's not supposed to be used that way. It's just the way that I ended up using it.

Andrew Hellmich: So you would share that URL with the client. You tell them that you're happy for them to share it with their friends and family?

Kristen Cook: Yeah, which also gets them sharing it with people, so that people get to see their entire session that wouldn't have normally attended the ordering appointment. And it gets all of those images out there into the world that otherwise, as I say, if they're not at the ordering appointment, they wouldn't have been able to see unless they'd been purchased.

Andrew Hellmich: These images, they're the 25 to 35 shots that you've picked, and they're fully edited.

Kristen Cook: They're not fully edited, they're soft-proofed. So it's another part of my process that I don't spend the time in advance fully editing every single image until I know which ones they're wanting to purchase, but they're about 80% done. So it's just a Lightroom edit, basically of those images.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, all right, so it's pretty quick for you to do this.

Kristen Cook: Yeah, it probably takes me about 20 minutes to half an hour to cull and edit for the viewing of the ordering appointment.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, are you showing about 25 to 35 is that what?

Kristen Cook: That's what I promise as a minimum. I always show more than that, so I probably show between probably 35 to 45 images as an average, sometimes a little bit more, but I also don't want to overwhelm them. So if I get past the 60 mark, then I start to get a little bit twitchy.

Andrew Hellmich: And do you use the I mean, I know, I'm guessing it changes over time, but use the same song for every client?

Kristen Cook: I use different songs based on the type of session that I have. But obviously, if I've got returning clients, which I have quite a lot of, then I just try and use a different royalty free song based on who has come back. But I definitely change it up based on the type of session as well.

Andrew Hellmich: Where do you get your music from?

Kristen Cook: Triple Scoop Music.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, that's pretty popular, isn't it?

Kristen Cook: Yeah.

 
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Andrew Hellmich: Look, my last question for you before we find out where the listener can go and check out all your work is your newborn and your baby photography business, it's amazing. It sounds fantastic. It sounds like that's where your passion is. And I know we've barely touched on your wedding stuff, and I know you've got the kids and a husband and you're loving life. Why do you shoot weddings at all?

Kristen Cook: Because I love weddings. I love, love. To be honest, I'm just a big old softy. I wear my heart on my sleeve. I'm entirely emotional. Is the way that I run my life and my business. It's all in one because I am my business. And so for me, shooting weddings is such a natural progression for being able to photograph the most two momentous occasions in people's lives, which is getting married and having children. And I get to be a part of that. And more often than not, I'm photographing the babies of the couples that I've photographed with their weddings. So it's such a beautiful transition to watch that, and then they come back every couple of years when they've had kids, like I've photographed a couple that got married way back when I first started shooting weddings, and they've had three kids since, and they've come back every single time for every child. And it's such a beautiful journey to watch as they move through those various stages of life. So just love it. Love it, love it.

Andrew Hellmich: Nice. Kristen, where is the best place for the listener to go and check out all your stuff?

Kristen Cook: My website, kristencook.com.au, I also have a Facebook page. If you search Kristen Cook Photographer. I'm on Instagram as Kristen Cook One, Twitter as Kristen Cook, and it's about it really.

Andrew Hellmich: I'll add links to all those.

Kristen Cook: Pinterest, just search my name.

Andrew Hellmich: And I'll add links in the show notes so people can easily find all your stuff there. And I know that you're speaking at the Baby Summit. I know that you might be doing that before this interview goes live. But you attend or you give other workshops?

Kristen Cook: Yeah, so I run workshops either, well, not really on a regular basis, but sporadically throughout the year. I've got information about that up on my website as well. There's a section for photographers, so if people are interested in workshops or mentoring or anything like that, then they can find out more information about that on my website as well.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, and is that teaching newborn photography, or is that more business related type workshops?

Kristen Cook: Anything really, I've had mentors that have only come to me for business things, and then I've had people that want to come to workshops specifically to know more about photographing newborns in the business of newborn photography.

Andrew Hellmich: Kristen, it's been a real pleasure. Thank you so much.

Kristen Cook: Thank you.