005: Ian Wilkinson – Style, Unique Pricing, Holidays and a Photojournalistic Approach to Wedding Photography

005: Ian Wilkinson – Style, Unique Pricing, Holidays and a Photojournalistic Approach to Wedding Photography

Andrew Hellmich: I first met Ian at an AIPP workshop. He was presenting, and I was still developing my business and style. But I remember a couple of things vividly, and this was about eight years ago now. I remember Ian. He was 100% confident in what he was doing, even though it was totally different to what everyone else was doing at the time. There were big albums with a norm, and Ian brought out his most popular album at the time, and it was about a seven by 10 inch really, really thick album. It was different to anything that I would ever consider showing my couples, and it seemed that he didn't care what anyone else thought. He liked it, so he was selling it. The other thing I remember was when, when I went to approach him how helpful he was, and I was sure that I was thinking back about it now. I was actually scared going to chat to him like he was this big time photographer presenting at the, at the conference, and I was a reasonably new to the business. And what I found when I went to approach Ian was he was totally welcoming. He was almost humbled by the attention that he was getting from everyone. It was, it was a really nice, a nice thing to see. And if you look at Ian's website today, it's still very clear to me that he's doing things his way. He doesn't have a set price list. Most of his images come from the actual wedding day, not just the location shoot. And if you have a read there, you'll see that he only asked for about 45 minutes to an hour for the, for the location shoot, or that part of the day. He's been shooting for about 25 years, and can't be considered anything else than a success. And Ian welcome to the podcast, mate.

Ian Wilkinson: Thank you, Andrew, and glad happy to be here.

Andrew Hellmich: Mate, so all that was, right, you've been shooting for 25 years now?

Ian Wilkinson: Yeah, 25 years this year, which is pretty darn amazing. That's more than half my life. Can't believe how fast time has gone, the changes that we've seen in the industry through that time as well. It's been a real eye opener for me. It's been a great journey, and I've enjoyed myself immensely.

Andrew Hellmich: That's awesome. So you've got another 25 years in you?

Ian Wilkinson: I reckon that that's cutting it a bit short. I'd like to see a few more than 25 more years.

Andrew Hellmich: That's great.

Ian Wilkinson: But definitely at least 25 more years shooting weddings, and then another 50 years after that, just wandering the earth, exploring our amazing planet and seeing what I can find.

Andrew Hellmich: Beautiful. So I see that you've actually run, won an award, the Queensland Landscape Photographer the year back in 2010, which isn't that long ago. So is that something that you've always done, the landscape photography?

Ian Wilkinson: Something I've always loved, I think the landscape. The Queensland Landscape Photography, I think, was about 2003 or 2004, and 2010 was the Australian Travel Photographer.

Andrew Hellmich: Oh, sorry. Okay, yep.

Ian Wilkinson: But yeah, I've always just loved wandering with the camera and just, you know, doing my own thing and just capturing the world as I see it. I know I love clicking through other photographers images and their books and their websites, and just seeing the world through their eyes and through their camera. And I guess I just love getting out doing the same thing. We were in, last year we had, actually no, 2011 we spent three months with our kids. Our kids were about four and six at the time, and we spent three months traveling through Europe. A couple years before that, we spent nine weeks traveling through Europe with kids as well. So they're about two and four then. But when we were at the sites, you know, the typical tourist locations, like the Leaning Tower of Pisa, I was happy to just sit there for three hours and shoot photos of the tourists being on top of those things, but tend to hold up the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and other real kick out of just photographing everybody else doing their thing. And so, yeah, I love the travel photography and the landscape stuff and just exploring the world.

Andrew Hellmich: It sounds great. The first thing that jumps out to me is that you went away for three months. And then what was the other one? Was it just say six or nine, nine weeks?

Ian Wilkinson: So 2008 was nine weeks. 2011 was 12 weeks, and then we head off again in about two months’ time, for 13 weeks, doing the same thing. This time we're actually shooting for a large travel company. So the previous ones have just been holidays, but this time, it's actually a paid gig, and the wife and kids are tagging along as well. So that's going to be just a brilliant three months. Really fabulous.

Andrew Hellmich: I listened to that, and I think you're definitely doing something right now, like you just jumped up another notch in my eyes. I want to get to how you're doing that and what you've done in your business to get to where you are now. But do you want to tell everyone that's listening how you got started and where you're based?

Ian Wilkinson: Sure, well, that's really gone back a few years now, isn't it? Do you remember back in the day when the days when shops weren't open on all day Saturday and they weren't open on Sunday? Well, I worked Thursday nights and Saturday mornings at a, at a Meyer store, which is kind of like David Jones down in Sydney, Melbourne, that sort of thing. And the section manager loves photography, and after I'd been there for a couple of years, he opened his own studio in the main street of Toowoomba, which is a country town, think population about 80,000 people. So he opened his little studio in the main street, and we were friends. And, you know, always I was the kid with the camera while I was at school and everything. So I ended up, he taught me how to print photos in the dark room, and then I ended up printing his black and whites for him, because he didn't enjoy it. And then somehow I was tagging along weddings with him and shooting that. And then a few weeks later, he was, bought a second outfit of all the gear we were shooting on Pentax 6, Pentax 645. So he bought a second outfit and had me shooting my own weddings. I got paid a grand total of $50 per wedding that I photograph, $20 for every wedding I assisted on.

Andrew Hellmich: That's right.

Ian Wilkinson: Sure glad things have changed, man.

Andrew Hellmich: So how old were you then Ian when you did your first wedding?

Ian Wilkinson: About 19 or 18.

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah, right, okay. So then once you went out with this guy, and he sort of showed you the ropes, and then you went out and started shooting on your own for him. Did you start your own business not long after?

Ian Wilkinson: Actually, I did not know. The intention the photography thing was merely spending money for while I was at university. It was just a way of paying my way through uni. So I had no intentions of being a photographer, certainly not a wedding photographer. It was really just a, it was just a part time job, something that was a bit of fun. I enjoyed it. I never, did not at that time, ever consider that I'd be doing it still 25 years later. So it was, it was just a part time gig, to go through university. So it was about the end of the second year of uni. I wasn't enjoying university, really. It wasn't actually doing any work at university either. I was certainly enjoying myself. I wasn't really accomplishing very much. So I decided to give it a go and see if I could start my own photography business, the whole concept of, you know, being your own boss. How good would that be? You know, I think a lot of people have the same dream. So I thought I'd give it a go. And two years later, I was flat broke and going nowhere and struggling. Wasn't doing too good. But, you know, fortunately, things turned around once I went to work for a very big name in the photographic industry here in Brisbane. So I took on, I, because I was doing so badly, and I was essentially living off two minute noodles and frozen corn, which and doing worse than I was when I was at uni. I, you know, just made a few phone calls and got up and grabbed a few photos together and walked around a few studios and said, "Hey, any jobs going?" That was kind of hard to do because I did want to be my own boss, and it was very much my head between my tail. You know thinking that I'd failed, and I had to, you know, fall back to being an employee. But, you know, one of the guys gave me a job quickly, it was, which was great. I think I went to see him on a Thursday and started shooting for him on a Saturday.

Andrew Hellmich: So..

Ian Wilkinson: Then..

Andrew Hellmich: Sorry, at that stage, then was he, was he actually teaching you anything? Or were you shooting portraits? Or, you know, did you just, were you expected to go out and just shoot?

Ian Wilkinson: Actually, that's a great question. I didn't shoot weddings initially. I shot portraits. So, yeah, so actually, great you picked up on that. It was portraits that I was shooting initially. So he was certainly booking weddings in for me, but he was pretty switched on. You know, everything was very solid with the contract side of things, that sort of stuff. So there was no way there was going to be any weddings for me until first, I'd proven myself, and then secondly, the six or 12 months had passed that it takes for weddings to book, because people would come in and actually sit with the photographer that was chosen to be their photographer initially, so it's six or 12 months before the wedding. So I didn't, I didn't get weddings being booked for me for the first, I can't remember, I was probably there for a good two or three months before I shot my first wedding that came in with a fairly short time frame. But what I did do was assist him. So I was always his assistant for a few weeks, and he was really happy with everything that I did. Shooting two portraits a day, every day of the week certainly brings your skills up to scratch.

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah, how was he booking two portraits a day back in, back in the day. I mean, a lot of portrait photographers today would love that.

Ian Wilkinson: Well, actually, he was booking a lot more than two portraits a day. When I first started, there was about six shooters shooting portraits, and we all had portraits every day.

Andrew Hellmich: Wow.

Ian Wilkinson: And then he moved premise with different ideas, put everyone, either sacked everyone else, or moved a couple of them back to part time. So I was the only one that actually kept the full time job there. Then, yeah, but his marketing was interesting. It was very clever. But essentially what he would do is he would buy, I can't remember whether it was the Endeavour Foundation Lottery, you know, the ticket. So people used to buy those Endeavour houses, the tickets, or golden casket, prize homes, or something it was.

Andrew Hellmich: I think I do remember. So you go into a draw to actually win a house.

Ian Wilkinson: Yeah, and thousands of people, you know, or tens of thousands of people, would buy these tickets. He would buy the database of those names, which they sold to a lot of people. Actually, I didn't realize this sort of thing was happening, but yeah, he would, he would buy the database, use software on the computer to break down that database into, you know, regional areas. So he wasn't interested in Sydney buyers or Melbourne buyers. Obviously, he just wanted Brisbane. And within like an hour circle of Brisbane, he would actually send them a consolation prize to be a free shoot with a free five by seven with his studio.

Andrew Hellmich: Wow. So it's just a direct mail marketing campaign.

Ian Wilkinson: Essentially. So that was probably the biggest draw card. The other one was, there's a bit of a jewelry chain up here in Brisbane. He was teamed up with them as well. And every time someone bought an engagement ring, they would get a voucher for a free sit, a free engagement sitting, and a five by seven print with that. And so that's where a lot of the shoots came from. So it absolutely worked. Quite a few people, you know, clearly within the prize home ticket thing would get annoyed when they realized that, you know, it was really just a marketing thing, and they didn't really got second prize.

Andrew Hellmich: So he would basically do a shoot then on spec, and then hopefully the images were so good that the client didn't want to say no, and they made a purchase.

Ian Wilkinson: Absolutely and it did work like seriously, I think the studio average was, you know, up around that 15 or $1,800 per sitting.

Andrew Hellmich: Wow.

Ian Wilkinson: It was, was really quite high. My sales certainly weren't, were below average, actually. So, a couple of the other photographers had much higher average sales than I had. But essentially, I didn't believe in the pricing structure and was quite embarrassed by the prices. Really struggled with the whole sale, so..

Andrew Hellmich: Did you have to sell your own images? Did you, at that at that time?

Ian Wilkinson: We did, yep, we had to sell our own images. So that didn't last forever, because they quickly worked out that whilst I shot well, I didn't sell very well, so it cost them money for me to do my own sales. So they tried to stop me, which was fine by me. They, they realized that having me doing my own sales wasn't a very smart business move. So I just, I guess I choked on the prices, essentially, which a lot of people do these days. I think it was five by sevens were $115.

Andrew Hellmich: It's funny how things almost seem the same now, like it's amazing that those same marketing techniques get used. Um, the idea of having someone else sell your images, you know that happens today as well, and frequently, that's it's incredible.

Ian Wilkinson: It is probably nothing really new going on.. Rehashing the old same things over and over, just basic business. You could probably read a 1920s business book and get some great tips out of it.

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah, so is this guy still in operation?

Ian Wilkinson: His studio is, yes. He sold out a little while ago, but yep, he was still in operation till just a year or two ago, and doing very well, probably the most financially successful photographer in Australia.

Andrew Hellmich: Really? Happy to say who that is?

Ian Wilkinson: I'm not too sure.

Andrew Hellmich: I think you've given him a great rapt.

Ian Wilkinson: Yeah, look, it was, it was a really great starting point. His name was Chris Hall. Yeah.

Andrew Hellmich: Oh, yeah I know Chris.

Ian Wilkinson: Yeah, he did a great job and gave me a great opportunity and very grateful. Probably wasn't so much in teaching things as throwing you in the deep end, and if you learn to swim great, which, you know, I think is a pretty valid way of teaching actually. He, I got the opportunity to experience the way he worked, and see how big business worked, see it for myself and learn. And I did see several staff over the years, over the couple years that I was there, come, last a day or two days or three days and leave. But if you hung around long enough, you certainly learned, you know, some really good, solid business techniques, which I'm really grateful for.

Andrew Hellmich: So you're obviously making a living then at that stage, and things are looking up. So what happens after two years when you leave Chris?

Ian Wilkinson: Oh, I wanted to be my own boss, so I went out and did things. Changed and went with a different attitude. I no longer believed that, you know, we had to work and compete on price. So there was no more, you know, $495 weddings for me. It was, I had to totally take on board the fact that there's, there's business costs: superannuation, insurance, it is the cost of the gear, the cost of attending seminars. And it wasn't so much in the way of computers and software back in those days, I guess, but just running the car. Mobile phones were very expensive back at that time. Ads in magazines, you know, like it was, it was quite common to pay between four and $5,000 for a double page opening in a magazine. And I guess it was the realization that if I'm going to make a go of this, I have to factor in all of those costs to my pricing. I have to ignore the fact that, yes, a six by four might cost $3 and a five by seven might cost $7 which is what they cost in those days. There was no such thing as a 15 cent Harvey Norman 6x4 printing through a ProLab. I think it was about $7.64, I used to pay for 5x7, and a 6x4 was about $3 something. So you'd think, okay, it's $3 for 6x4, I guess if I use those, you know, three times. You know that this famous, the thoughts where people say, you know, "Mark up your price by three times to work out your retail price." Well, it comes to a whole $9 and if someone was to buy six 6x4, I've made a whole $54 from the shoot. And that's just ridiculous, you know. So the realization that if I'm going to make it and continue doing something that I love to do, and be able to actually buy food that I was going to have to, you know, apply some of the things I learned from Chris. So I did, and my wedding prices quadrupled, or probably went up five times over what I was charging. And from there, never looked back.

Ian Wilkinson: So you go out there, you put your prices up five times what they were. Are you scared booking that first wedding when you, when you go out on your own?

Ian Wilkinson: Seriously for the first, for the next 10 years? I was surprised that people booked me.

Andrew Hellmich: Seriously 10 years?

Ian Wilkinson: It's really, it's really tough getting that mindset and believing that, you know, someone's actually going to pay, you know, 2,000 or $2,400 for their wedding photography. You know that would, I would choke on that. And I really did struggle with that. Malcolm Matheson was probably the next person. Did you ever meet Malcolm Matheson?

Andrew Hellmich: No, I know that name, but I've never met him, I don't think.

Ian Wilkinson: I've actually sent Malcolm a message a couple years ago telling him how much he changed my life business wise. It was probably maybe around 1998, 1999, so four or five years after I left Chris, or a few years after I left Chris and he was the rep for Queensberry albums. So Malcolm was a great, accomplished photographer as well, very dedicated to APRA and the award schemes. And just a really lovely guy. And I got to meet him a couple of times, and he was nice enough to say, "Listen Wilko, I'll come out and I'll sit down with you, and I'll teach you how to make a life on this, from this industry?" And he did. He came and spent like an entire day. He lived down in Sydney or Melbourne. I don't even know where he lived. He lived down south somewhere. I only saw him at industry events, and he came and spent a whole day with me. Went through lots of things, ripped images apart, showed me what I was doing wrong. Spent a lot of time talking to me about prices. He helped me set up my price list. He showed me how, what I needed to do was, you know, present albums to clients and not just offer, you know, prints on walls and negatives, and that sort of stuff. So just, but to be totally professional in everything that I did. He helped chose images to put on my wall, pull down some of the display stuff that I had, and from there, met a guy by the name of Rob Heyman, and then Wayne Radford up here in Brisbane. So Rob and Wayne both spent quite a bit of time helping me and giving me advice and teaching me things. And I guess the whole time, I was just soaking it all up and really grateful that these guys were taking their time to help me out.

Andrew Hellmich: So how do you meet these guys? How, why do these guys come into your life and offer to spend so much time and help, especially flying up from Sydney, you know, to go through your studio and give you that head start?

Ian Wilkinson: Well, Malcolm was up here. He didn't come up just to see me. He was just said, next time he was up doing business, that he would, you know, come and give us a hand. And he did. I guess, basically all through AIPP industry events, you know, attending the awards and going to seminars and like when you came up and chatted to me after that presentation a whole gazillion years ago, me doing the same thing to them.

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah, sure. So do you think, do you think you have to, for anyone listening, and if they're at that early stage, they have to go, put themselves out there and go and talk to these presenters and talk to the people that are in front of them?

Ian Wilkinson: Do you know at the start, you said something about you're a bit nervous coming to talk to me and approach me.

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah, I was actually scared.

Ian Wilkinson: Yeah, everyone feels that way. Everyone does. I feel exactly the same way going up to seeing these people at the very first time. I went to speak to Rob Heyman, was after a forum that was up here, Wayne Radford, Jim Fisuji, Rob Heyman. So Wayne, Rob, Jim and a couple of other photographers put a thing on where they sat around and answered questions for about three hours. They literally just sat on chairs and let everyone in the audience put their hand up and ask questions and get guidance, and they showed photos, and they spoke about some of the techniques and the gear they used and how much a five by seven costs and lots of stuff. After that, like when it all finished, and people were lined up behind, you know, to go and talk to these guys, I waited right till the end, and then Wayne was sort of just, Wayne and Rob were both sort of standing there. No one was talking to them. And I'm going, "I'm gonna go and talk to them. I want to go and say hi, and I want to go and say thanks." But I couldn't actually get the courage to do it. How ridiculous is that? But in the end, I did, so I did actually, you know, 10 minutes later, went up to them, but it was as they were walking down the footpath to their cars. I sort of walked quickly behind them and said, "Oh, hi guys, just wanted to say, really, thanks for everything. I found that really awesome, and thanks for that." And they stopped and they talked to me, they're talking to me, and it's exactly the same wherever you go. But the hundreds of seminars and things that I've been a part of or attended to watch or whatever, every single person I've ever talked to has always been really nice back to me.

Andrew Hellmich: It's funny, isn't it?

Ian Wilkinson: You think these heroes and these gods, they're actually just normal people.

Andrew Hellmich: Exactly, exactly. It's nice. It's refreshing, isn't it, when they actually talk back, it's, um, that's lovely.

Ian Wilkinson: It is. And most of them are really, really lovely. Go, attend something like WPPI in the States, where there is literally thousands of attendees. I think there was 16,000 people when I was there in 2011 and when a speaker finishes, there is often 50 or 60 or 70 people waiting to say thanks, or say hi or ask a question to the speaker. And often, you'll come back into the room two and a half hours later and the speaker was still there, waiting to answer questions for the people lined up. Note 95% of the photographers doing presentations are lovely, normal people, just like you, and your mom and your dad, and everybody else, and they happy to help. So don't be afraid, but you do have to, you can't expect them to come up to you and read your mind and know that you want to talk to them. You have to build that courage up to walk up, put your hand out, shake their hand and say "Thanks, that was great. By the way, can I just ask you?" And you ask them the question, and 95% of them will be more than happy to stand there and help you. They're just, it's an industry that just seems to attract really down to earth normal people.

Andrew Hellmich: Mate, you're exactly right, Ian. And I actually, I went through a little bit of the same sort of thing when I was just starting this podcast. And, you know, even getting the courage to email you on, I had to think to myself, "Well, he can only say no, what's the worst that he's going to say if I ask him?" And, you know, here you are, you said, yes. It took a bit, a bit to get you here and with timetables and things, but I really appreciate it. Yeah, it's worth asking, isn't it?

Ian Wilkinson: Absolutely and it's the only, if you want something in life, you have to get off your butt and chase it. It's not going to come to you.

Andrew Hellmich: True. So you're off and running. Your prices have, would you say, quadrupled or six times what they were when you ,when you first started? Are you, are you already trading now, is Ian Wilkinson Photography?

Ian Wilkinson: I am, yeah.

Andrew Hellmich: Did you ever consider having Studio 54 or something like that? Or did you always know it was your name?

Ian Wilkinson: I really want it to be my name. I don't believe, generally you can sell a studio. So a lot of people say they want to start a studio, and they'll choose a generic name so that it's got some ‘saleability’. But I think there's probably only two in my 20 odd years of doing this, I think I've only ever seen two studios actually sell. So I think you're better off trading under your name being known, particularly with Gen Y. Gen Y, this new generation coming through is a very personable group. They like to know what you have for breakfast and all these little personal things about you. And I think them knowing your name is the way to go, and it, I don't know, just felt like the right thing to do. I don't want to be, you know, Studio XYZ. I just want to be Ian Wilkinson, he's a photographer, and just go with that.

Andrew Hellmich: Sure. Did you ever look at with your business, taking it sort of bigger, having employees or other shooters and things like that, like Chris Hall?

Ian Wilkinson: I dabbled with it. I have had other people shoot weddings for me. Maybe four wedding, maybe three, or three or four weddings have had other people shoot for me. So I did dabble in it two times. The first time and the second time, it did not go well. It didn't, and by then I was, so it must have been four times I've done it. The first two times it did not go well. I still had two more weddings booked in, so I had to continue with it. I sent out two photographers to cover those next two, just to try and, you know, ensure that everything went well. And they went okay, but I guess they just saw the world differently to what I did. So the clients had fair points. You know, when we were going through the images and looking through them, a lot of the stuff that I would have shot wasn't shot, and the way they did some of the things they did shoot, I wouldn't have shot. So because I sold a very personal product, and my style of shooting isn't something that's easily replicated, like, I'm really not interested in the bending the groom, bending the bride over in the street, kissing around the neck. I'm shooting the real things that happen throughout the day. It's really hard to find someone that sees things exactly the same way as what I do. So I don't think it's really fair trying to sell a second wedding on a date when I know the photographer that's going to come along isn't going to shoot the same way as I will. They might shoot other stuff better than I would shoot, but what I see is the most important and key factors at a wedding. I don't know if I could find someone else that saw the wedding day exactly the same as what I do.

Andrew Hellmich: So, what? So, you, sorry, so the answer is no.

Ian Wilkinson: It's definitely a no.

Andrew Hellmich: So when you're talking about your style, and I think you describe it yourself as photo journalistic, did it take a while for you to define that as your style? Or how did you get to the stage where you were comfortable shooting the way you do?

Ian Wilkinson: Well, I know it took a lot of years to believe in myself, and even now, I think you still have doubts. I still look at other people's beautiful pose, constructed imagery, and think maybe I should be doing that. But the bottom line is, those images, I guess, don't really touch my heart, if that makes sense. So I know that right now the couples are very interested in the fashion, style imagery and the shoots important, and where we go and what we do is important to them. But I think as time passes and they lose family members and friends, that it'll be the little grab shots of their family and their friends laughing together, they're really going to be so grateful to. And I'm, I'm just confident that I'm making the right decision, and by having shoot location shoots, but having more interactive time, or advising to have more interactive time between the couple and their guests and their family and, and not trying to rush through. You know, some of those parts of the day that generally are left out. So I know there's a lot of brides will come in and they'll say, "Oh, you know, we're talking about the reception." And they'll say, "Oh, we've told the dads to only have three minutes each for speeches." And I say, "No, no stop. No. This is your dad's chance to stand there and tell the world about his little girl. Don't give him a three minute limit. Let him have as long as he wants." He won't go past 10 minutes, and if he does, it'll probably be a fabulous 20 minutes, but you'll be able to sit there and remember that for the rest of your life. Think of the words that he said, and I would say to them things like, "I promise you that in 20 years’ time, you'll be more grateful that your dad had a 20 minute speech and you had a 10 minute photo shoot", than you will be if it was the other way around, and most of them come around. And that's, I guess, finding my clients, finding people that are very close to their family, and, you know, love their family and friends, really recognize that. And as soon as you pointed out to them, usually, they're like, "Yeah, you're right, yeah, yeah, thanks."

Andrew Hellmich: So that makes sense. It does makes total sense. So, but what I'm wondering, though, is I know that as a photographer myself, sometimes when I come back from a shoot, particularly when I was in my earlier years, I would come back from a shoot, I think, "Geez, I didn't get that shot. I didn't get that shot. I should have done this here, and I ran out of time." And do, you must have a thousand sort of images that you see in your head at every wedding, and you can't possibly capture all of them. So how do you get past that?

Ian Wilkinson: Well, I do try to capture them all.

Andrew Hellmich: In your 45 minute location shoot?

Ian Wilkinson: Two, two cameras, mate, one pointed to the left, one pointed to the right.

Andrew Hellmich: See now you sound like a modern photographer. Was it spray and pray?

Ian Wilkinson: Well, someone, someone's talking about converting a helmet into a GoPro hole. I mean, a, a cap to a GoPro hole. This was something that was, I saw in the net ,on a forum a few weeks ago, and they're seriously going to mount a GoPro on their head, one of the new 4k GoPros.

Andrew Hellmich: Right.

Ian Wilkinson: And they're just going to, they're gonna shoot as normal as well, but they're actually cannot have this GoPro running on their cap throughout the entire wedding, grabbing things that they miss.

Andrew Hellmich: Oh, my God.

Ian Wilkinson: Yeah. But anyway, so back to answer your question. Look, I guess you just have to accept that it's physically impossible to do. Nobody. You could have a team of five photographers go and cover a wedding, and they're still not going to capture everything, but you can still capture a really beautiful story. You don't, you know, I do it by myself. If you sent a team of five photographers out there, you're going to have guests and family and a bridal party that are exceptionally aware of the camera, and it's going to change. It's going to change who they are, because everywhere they look, there's going to be a camera pointed at them, and they are going to act differently, and they're not going to be themselves. So going out as a solo shooter, just mingling quietly amongst the crowd, grabbing shots, and just ensuring that, you know, I grab enough shots. I know that I'm not going to get everything, and I'm, I think that kicking yourself over missing something, you know, it's probably doing yourself a bit of a disservice. It's physically impossible to get everything. And as long as you work hard for those 12 or 14 hours and you keep in the back of your mind some of the shots you've got, like, I know, if there's a grand, if there's grandparents there, I work very hard to ensure there's great shot to them. Even the grandparents, that put their hand up in front of their face and they say, "Oh, go away, sonny. You don't need a photo of me." I'll just look at them and say, "Of course, we do. You're the most important one here. If it wasn't for you, none of these people would be here today." And just try and, you know, just make sure I get really great shots of them interacting with their family. When it comes time to things like the family photos, you know, every 90% of brides and groom will say," Oh, we don't want too much. We don't want any of those stay in a row photos." I'll just ignore it and go and grab grandma and bring grandma over and say, "Okay, we need all of her children, which are all adults by then." I say, "Okay, we need all great, all of Grandma's kids, you know, and bring them all in, which will be the bride's mum or dad and all the uncles and aunties," and then kick them out and say, "Okay, we need grandkids now, bring over all the grandkids and make all the grandkids stand with grandma and give her a cuddle and stuff." And just, I'll just sort of take over and make sure that those shots that are too much trouble for a lot of people to shoot, get shot, and while I'm doing that, the bride and groom can just mingle and chat with their family and friends and have a great time. They're not having to organize that, I've done it for them. They generally wouldn't have asked for that. So I'll just, just do it my way essentially, you know, I'll shoot what I see is important parts of the wedding to do.

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah, that's awesome. I can hear how important family is to you, just by the way you talk about shooting weddings, and I imagine that your, your wife and kids are, you know, you must really treasure them, just the way that you shoot the weddings, I can hear that you do.

Ian Wilkinson: I might be biased, but I do actually have the greatest children ever born.

Andrew Hellmich: I'll happily argue with you over that one. But let's get back into your, your journey. So things are going good, so once you leave it and like I said, the prices went up. You're Ian Wilkinson Photography, is it just plain sailing from then until now?

Ian Wilkinson: Plain sailing.

Andrew Hellmich: Look, is business always get improving?

Ian Wilkinson: Business has been really fabulous, but except the last couple of years, where it started to slow down a little bit. So I guess I'm gonna have to adapt and change some of these new fandangle times using Facebook and that sort of stuff. So we still have a great amount of work, but we're down. If you look at up until about 2010, we have dropped about 25%.

Andrew Hellmich: In the number of weddings, or in turnover?

Ian Wilkinson: In the number of weddings. So from 2010 to 2013 we'll be down about 25%. But at the start of last year, we actually saw, we going to say, at the start of last year, we put all our prices up about $600, so that kind of compensated for..

Andrew Hellmich: To hang on. Hang on. So your wedding bookings dropped by 25% but you put your prices up by $600 after that?

Ian Wilkinson: Sure. So I don't think the weddings didn't drop because of the price. The weddings dropped because there's so many other photographers out there these days. So we still know how much money we need to turn over to, you know, have the life that we want and to do the things that we want do, and we knew that we were going to, you know, drop those few weddings, so we needed to reclaim that lost income, so we just put our prices up, and it worked fine.

Andrew Hellmich: That's awesome. I can imagine everyone listening to this right now would be thinking, "I wish I had the guts to do that." Because most people, when the, when the weddings drop, they drop their prices, to try and catch more. It just doesn't work, does it?

Ian Wilkinson: We end up chasing our tail seriously. You just, yeah, I mean, a lot of people do, do that. And a group of us that have breakfast here every Thursday, really great bunch of, bunch of guys. We've been doing it for years and years and years. And a couple of those guys have done the same thing as I have, put their prices up to keep their figures in, you know, in line. But when I go to conferences and seminars around the place, the most common path of action is to drop your prices, and for that whole McDonald's thing, you know, shoot cheaper weddings, but try and shoot more of them. And I just find that crazy. Yeah, you'll burn out. You've got more work to do behind the scenes. It's just, that's craziness. I think just doesn't make sense at all.

Andrew Hellmich: I love what you're saying right now. It's just awesome. And it's funny that you actually mentioned your group for breakfast, because I remember, because I remember you talking about that same group when you presented at the AIPP, AIPP conference that I was at, when I was scared to come and talk to you. I remember you saying that, that your little group up there. I know that. I think Marcus Bell was one of them, I can't remember the other two or three that you mentioned at the time, but you, I remember you attributing a lot of your success to that group at the time. So can you talk a little bit about that?

Ian Wilkinson: Sure we, some of the other members were the key members, were Jason Starr, he owned Studio 60 up here, so he's still going strong. Robert Cobcroft, he owned Hipshots up here. There was Steve McAlpine, who twice won Australian Wedding Photographer of the Year, is currently chasing his growing dream. So he's dropped out of the photography thing and chasing his real love in life, which is inventing and growing, and that's still going well. And there's been quite a few other people over the years. So there's a, you know, another half dozen or so that come along these days, we're all good friends. All talk about everything, we even though each other's competitor, we're still good mates and very open and share things together. So, over the years, it's been great to have those people to run ideas past. We've formed little advertisement marketing groups before as well. It didn't go so well. You know, there was a bunch of us. We started something called Masters of Wedding Photography. That was years and years ago. The website probably still exists, but that must be, I don't know, maybe eight or so years ago, we started this group called Masters of Wedding Photography. Then came some DVDs, and the same thing, which were unrelated to us, just happened to have the same name, and we would take out joint ads. So instead of paying five grand each for five of us in the magazine, we just take it one double page ad, make it a cool little ad that just had our websites listed, and with the theory that, you know, people were, you know, were showing a group of five or six talented photographers, all with a little bit of difference. That they would probably choose from one of those five or six, you know, photographers. They wouldn't feel as much need to have to go in search of more photographers. They'd find enough, search enough, you know, enough options there between the five or six of us, and that seemed to work to a degree, but we never pursued it. You know, everyone just sort of chased different things. I think it was a great learning experience, and I think it would work, but we just never, never pursued it. You know, we're all too busy doing our own thing. And children come along and you just, life changes, and suddenly you're back to doing your own ads in magazines and stuff, and we all talk about and joke about it, but..

Andrew Hellmich: So when you go to these groups and or your morning breakfast and you have these chats, are you really that open that you're discussing packages and pricing and business ideas and marketing things that you might be looking at?

Ian Wilkinson: Totally, absolutely.

Andrew Hellmich: And you're not scared that the other guys are going to steal it or do the same thing?

Ian Wilkinson:
No, because I think we're all mature enough to realize that we can't do what the other one does anyway. So you sort of start to realize that your personality is part of what clients buy as well. It's not just your photos, and it's the whole group of different factors. So even if one of the guys did take a great idea of mine and run with it, it wouldn't work for them the same way it would work for me. I'd make subtle little changes along the way that they wouldn't make. They might do it better than me. They might not do it better than me. They would explain it to clients in a different way to what I would do, I would explain it to them. They'd build these little differences, maybe 2000 and I can't even remember, it's too long ago. But whenever Apple was in Perth last, which must have been..

Andrew Hellmich: Oh my God.

Ian Wilkinson: Something like that, it was a while ago. It was really quite a long time ago. A bunch of us went wandering around, trio together. So there was Mercury, myself, Steve McAlpine, Jason Starr, Jeff from Perth. There was a bunch of us anyway, and we walked around digital cameras with, you know, were just sort of coming into play. I had one, a few guys had digital cameras. A couple of guys had film based cameras. We walked the streets, a few hours shooting side by side, and walked away with just entirely different sets of images. It was, it was really quite amazing. Mercury speaks quite a bit about this at seminars as well, and presentations he does. And there was, really, you know, there was 10 photographers at one point in time. There were some big colored circles painted on some walls in the main street of Frio. And this waiter, really dark- skinned waiter, came out of one of the restaurants, and one of us asked him, would he come in and pose? So there's these bright red, bright yellow and blue circles painted on the wall. And maybe Jason, I think, went and asked him if he'd come and pose for us to, you know, so we could shoot a few photos.

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah.

Ian Wilkinson: We did. So we shot this poor guy for about 10 minutes. You know, cigarette in hand, not in hand, hat on head off up against the wall, whatever. And then when we were sitting around later that night, flicking through the image of them on the back of the cameras, it was like, "How can our photos of the same subject at the same time, shot from where I was standing, look so different the way that each of us saw it." One of us would time it when he was laughing and looking up and shoot it wide with him down in the bottom corner. The next person would shoot just his mouth laughing with the cigarette smoke behind, and somebody else would shoot a really wide shot with a slow shutter speed with him in a corner, but people walking past blurring because of the slow shutter speeds. And it was just such an eye opener to see how 10, you know, reasonably accomplished photographers all in the same spot, shooting the same subject at exactly the same time, could walk away with such vastly different imagery. It was really, honestly, it was just mind blowing. And as a concept that even now 8, 10, years later, still plays in my mind that, how is that possible? From that, I realized that you can tell everyone in the world every secret you've got, and they're going to do something different with it, so it doesn't matter if you tell them.

Andrew Hellmich: Do you think that's why photographers are so happy to share their information? I mean, I've found it unbelievable approaching people to do this. It's been great.

Ian Wilkinson: Yeah, I guess so, I guess creative industries attracted certain personality type. That certain personality type is probably also their own worst energy enemy when it comes to running the business. But, you know, yeah, I'm sure that's a big part of it, but, yeah.

Andrew Hellmich: So if you, if you're talking to a new photographers up and coming and they had a chance to join a group, would you say to pursue that? Or if they didn't, should they go and look for a group to join or start one?

Ian Wilkinson: I used to always say, "Guys go and start one", you know, everywhere. So I was part of a conference somewhere, it was like, "start one". Maybe, I don't know how many years ago again, but a long time ago. Terry, Steve McAlpine and myself went on a bit of a seminar tour called 'Dog Goes North'. So in Queensland, we have a conference each year called Hair of the Dog. But a lot of the northern guides would say, "Hey, what's the AIPP doing for me?" "You know, we're up here in Cairns or Mackay or Townsville or wherever, and nothing, nothing goes on for us." So Terry and Steve and I were all on council at the time, so we thought, let's do a mobile tour. It will take a week, we'll fly out to Mackay, then we'll drive to Cairns, stopping along the way, doing day long presentations, you know, to try and, you know, appeal to people that thought they were getting nothing. So we did that, had a great time, and taught all the things that we could on the way. And I can't remember where I was going with this.

Ian Wilkinson: Forming the groups, getting people to form groups.

Ian Wilkinson: Yeah, exactly. So everywhere we went, that was one of the things that we tried to do, was say, "Guys, form your own group." And you, you'd say to people, so you might have, you know, 40 people in the quay, and you'd say, "Okay, guys, who of you are friends with someone else in this room?" And no one will put their hands up for, one or two would. You know they were so protective and they didn't want to, you know, show their hand to anyone else around them. They didn't get to know them. They were the enemy, so to speak. And it was just totally the wrong way look at it. These people held the key to your success. They weren't holding you back. You were holding yourself back by not getting to know them and by not sharing information and not making the industry better as a whole. So we tried to form the same sort of groups in every, everywhere we went. It worked a couple of times apparently, but not so well in others. So, it's, I don't know, it's just hanging out with other photographers, and not being scared to show your hand is really a great learning curve for yourself that'll help back and you've got someone to fall back on if something happens. I've, I've covered weddings now for four, four or five people that have, that have been sick or injured on weddings over the years.

Andrew Hellmich: Look, I do want to be conscious of your time, so I've got one or two quick questions, then I'm going to take you into my 10 quick questions segment if that's all right?

Ian Wilkinson: Sure.

Andrew Hellmich: So I do notice, and I mentioned earlier that on your website, you don't actually have prices, and it sounds as though you don't have any packages. How does, how does that go over with your clients?

Ian Wilkinson: It certainly creates some issues from time to time. But the bottom line is, with their wedding, I don't really know what they're going to end up wanting to buy. And it's not that I'm trying to hide anything from them. It's just that most people can't really tell me what they want. It's not like going shopping for a car where you say, I "want a red Honda Civic with air conditioning and sunroof and mag wheels", and if they can come to me and say, "I want a 60 page album magazine style with this reception coverage and a photo booth", well then I can give them an exact price, but it's really difficult when they're not quite sure what they want. Last night, Jeff Newsome, he's an American photographer..

Andrew Hellmich: Right.

Ian Wilkinson: Actually, yesterday gave a presentation up here in Brisbane, which I attended. Afterwards, I was talking to a group of photographers. One of them is reasonably new to the game, but he's gonna be a fabulous shooter. He's, he's gonna make it in this industry. He's just got exactly the right attitude. He's a lovely guy. He's been brought up wonderfully, and he loves what he does. And we were talking about what is the product? Is the product the album that you hand over? Or is the product the images and the moments that are captured inside? I think the product is the images and moments that are captured inside the album, and the album is merely like the serving plate for dinner at a restaurant or something. He felt the album was the product, and he's really struggling with how to do his prices and set things up.

Andrew Hellmich: So your way, really, you're charging for your photography skills, and the album is, is the add on, not the other way around.

Ian Wilkinson: Pretty much. But we don't know what the album's going to need to be yet, until we know what images were captured on the day. We don't know what their mood is. You know, a wedding just a few months ago, the bride was really annoyed with the groom because he wouldn't deliver. He wouldn't go and pick the cake up and deliver it to the reception venue. He wanted to go and play mates, go and play golf with his mates. He was a Melbourne boy. He followed her up here. The wedding was up here. He had a bunch of mates coming up on Friday. He wanted to hang out with them, play golf, etc.. She wanted him to go and pick up the cake and deliver it and pick up a couple other things as well. And on the day, you could see she was like, when I when I arrived to her hotel, where she was getting ready, within one minute, I've heard this story and how she's annoyed with him. She held that grudge seriously. She held that grudge all day. Even in the photos during the ceremony, you can see her looking at him, going, "You bugger. I asked you if it was something you wouldn't do it."

Andrew Hellmich: What a great start?

Ian Wilkinson: Yeah, exactly, but that there's not going to be as much choice for images from them because of her mood on the day. So something as simple as people's mood can affect how the images go. The weather, there's a whole bunch of variables we don't yet know, and it makes it really hard to know what they're gonna get. So because I don't have a set routine with the photos on the day, like I don't, don't work to shot lists, I don't often have a location chosen until the day. So we'll walk out of the church, have a few kisses and cuddles with everyone, shoot some family photos, and then we'll work out where we're going to go and shoot some photos, depending on the weather and the timing, if they're having a great time with their guests. Well, why even leave? Let's just hang out there and spend some more time laughing and having a great time with guests. And fortunately, a lot of my clients see things the same way, so a lot of it is, you know, kind of winged on the day.

Andrew Hellmich: That's awesome.

Ian Wilkinson: But because of that, how do we know what we're going to need album wise? So I can't really sell them a 50 page album up front, because we don't know whether it's going to need 50 pages, 80 pages or 100 pages. And I'm totally against the whole industry standard thing of having a package that includes 20 pages in an album, when you know that they're going to need another 20, 40, 50, 60, 70 pages to complete that album. The clients think they bought a finished album. They come back, go through photos, and they get hit with a bill for another $5,000 and it's that whole process just doesn't sit with me. So that's why I can't go with their packages, because I'd have to start doing that whole 20 page thing as some sort of basis and build from there. And I just don't want to.

Andrew Hellmich: So I can understand, I understand exactly what you're saying, and I agree with it. So when, when the client comes to see you for an appointment and they're looking at booking you for their wedding, do you, do you actually have a written process where they can see, where you could show them, if you go with a 50 sided album, it's going to be this much?

Ian Wilkinson: Sure, absolutely so that there is a real price list, and it has, has all the components written on it. They just have to assemble those components as, as they wish after the wedding. Actually, that's another point too. Is this, this process means they don't have to decide before the wedding what they want. They decide after the wedding. And in our industry, we have to try and, I guess, sell for one of a better word, we have to try and sell our services without a product that they can actually see and yes, they can see someone else's wedding album, and they can see someone else's photo on the wall, and they can see someone else's slideshow, but I can't show them theirs. I can't show them what photos we're going to get from their wedding. I can't, it's impossible. We need their wedding to have happened for them to see the photo of their mum and dad struggling to give their speeches, and mum tucked under dad's arm, and Dad kissing her on the forehead as Mum wants to tear away, all that sort of stuff. You can't imagine those photos are going to happen. The bride and groom certainly can't imagine they are gonna happen. I know I'll go looking for them, but I don't know what I'm going to be able to deliver to them.

Andrew Hellmich: Sure.

Ian Wilkinson: You know, it's just so hard to sell them something based on someone else's wedding.

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah, no, I agree. So do you have a minimum price to go out and shoot a wedding? Do they know they're up for something?

Ian Wilkinson: Yep, absolutely. So the way it's based is it's $2,800 paid up front, and $2,000 of that is credited toward their album.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, so really, you're just charging an $800 fee to go and shoot then.

Ian Wilkinson: Right.

Andrew Hellmich: That sounds cheap.

Ian Wilkinson: Yeah, well, the average album is, in total is between about seven and $11,000.

Andrew Hellmich: Right, okay.

Ian Wilkinson: It's just a very simple way of doing things. I still fall back to the same system with, you know, the more pages in the album, the more it costs, the better the job I do, the more pages go in, that sort of stuff. So it's still a basic business promise, a premise. You know, I'm still doing things to try and maximize my profits. I would love to have a basis, a simpler system. We stayed in Italy with some photography friends that we made over there. They shoot. They're an English couple that shoot English couples coming to Italy to get married.

Andrew Hellmich: Right, cool.

Ian Wilkinson: That's their life. They shoot for about four months of the year, only just through summer. The other eight months of the year, they don't shoot, but during those four months, they shoot, always at least 60 weddings during that time frame. So they're very, very busy, but they have a 5000 pound package, a 6000 pound package and a 7000 pound package. The clients get no say in the album. They get no say in anything. They never meet with these with Amy and Andy. Amy and Andy do make all the decisions and choose everything for them, and then ship them in their album nine months later. And I would love to do something where they just choose a really basic, you know, a set price, choose the five grand one or the six grand one or the seven grand one, and I'll make it to you and you get whatever I want to give you. And that would just be a fabulous way of doing it. And it's still in my mind to maybe do it that way, because there is something that's uncomfortable about doing the whole sale after the wedding.

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah, I don't think anyone likes doing that.

Ian Wilkinson: No, no one does. But it's, it's that whole catch where, you know, how do you sell them something before they've seen it? So I still struggle with that all these years later. So I'm just basically doing the same system that I've been doing for 15 years now. Rob and Wayne presented this idea to me all those years ago, back in the late 90s, and I've run with it ever since. There's parts of it that I don't really like, but it's a simple way it works. And I've always believed that you don't make rash changes to your business, you know, without thinking them through. And I can't think of a better way to do it than the way I'm doing it now. So it just sits as it is. You know, initially, the amount of money paid isn't huge, isn't high, but at the end of the year, it always works out really well. So I'm just stuck with it for everything.

Andrew Hellmich: I know you're doing something right, because you're having those amazing European holidays, so I'm definitely listening.

Ian Wilkinson: Well, I like my travel so.

Andrew Hellmich: Very good. Mate..

Ian Wilkinson: But I don't.

Andrew Hellmich: Are you ready for these 10 quick questions?

Ian Wilkinson: I think so.

Andrew Hellmich: 10 quick questions, 10 quick answers, 3 2 1, go. Canon or Nikon?

Ian Wilkinson: Nikon.

Andrew Hellmich: What was your first ever camera?

Ian Wilkinson: Pentax, any Super.

Andrew Hellmich: And I'm taking that was film.

Ian Wilkinson: Oh yes. Wasn't even dreamed.

Andrew Hellmich: What's your favorite lens today and why?

Ian Wilkinson: 40,35 mil. I can shoot everything with it. I mean, I like to shoot pretty close with a lot of my couples, so I'm happy with that sort of wider angle lens. Last 2011, our trip, I took a Fuji X100, which was a 35 F2. Loved it, was happy shooting that around the world. And it's one of my favorite focal length at weddings as well. So if you go into Bridge or Lightroom or whatever software you use, and you turn on the display of your, the focal length, you can actually tell that software to show you what focal length each, each photo is shot at. I just noticed that I shot, I commonly shot around that focal length, so..

Andrew Hellmich: Also, even if you had a zoom, you're still shooting at 35.

Ian Wilkinson: Yeah, I shoot with two cameras. I've got one on one hip with a 70 to 200, another one another hip with the 24-70. And more, more than 75% of the wedding day would be shot on the 24-70 and shot at the wider end of it.

Andrew Hellmich: Right. So you don't have a dedicated 35 1.4 or something?

Ian Wilkinson: I have had in the past. But for the last 18 months, I've been off my primes, and I'm back shooting two zooms.

Andrew Hellmich: Cool.

Ian Wilkinson: Just a phase.

Andrew Hellmich: Yep, do you shoot JPEG or RAW?

Ian Wilkinson: Gee, does anyone answer JPEG to that question?

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah.

Ian Wilkinson: Really? No, I shoot RAW.

Andrew Hellmich: Including me.

Ian Wilkinson: It's such a fast way to prepare files. If you, if you nail everything in camera, if you nail your color and your exposure in camera, well then there's no reason to shoot or really, you can get fabulous quality from JPEG files. I guess I'm just get a bit, you know, hit or misses sometimes with my exposures. If you're outside, you've got the couples kissing and hanging out with family and friends, the sun's off to one side. When I'm shooting with the sun falling on half of the guests faces, it's a very different exposure to when I'm shooting with the sun falling on their back, which is how you are if you know the sun. If you're out in the middle of a group of 100 people and they're evenly spaced around you, well, the sun's falling on the back of the heads of half of them and falling on the faces of the other half. I guess that variance in exposure does mean that there's some variance in the accuracy of my exposures when I'm sitting in front of the files, RAW just gives me that latitude gesture. You know, help tidy up the mistakes that I made.

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah, and I can see that it would totally suit your style as well the way you are shooting, so...

Ian Wilkinson: That is very, very, like once you've got your workflow sorted, it's extremely fast, you know, being able to correct, you know. You open the first image inside the church, set the white and color balance, and you set that white, that white balance to every other photo inside of the church in one go.

Andrew Hellmich: Yes.

Ian Wilkinson: It's not like open up all 250 photos. I just apply it to every shot in two sets of keystrokes, copy the white balance and paste it to the rest.

Andrew Hellmich: Cool.

Ian Wilkinson: It's done.

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah. All right, let's get going. We could get you out of this seat. Biggest, what was the biggest breakthrough in your business to date?

Ian Wilkinson: Biggest breakthrough?

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah, business wise. When, when was the sort of the biggest jump? When did you realize things are good? What happened?

Ian Wilkinson: The early nine, I mean, the late 90s, early 2000s when people like Malcolm Matheson and Rob Hayman had me pre-designing albums and realizing that it's actually okay for a photographer to turn a profit and to make money in this industry, and that we provide a valuable service, and that it's okay for me to make, you know, as much money as a bus driver, and that they don't have to move on less than that.

Andrew Hellmich: Cool. If you were to start over your business today with exactly the same knowledge that you've got now, what would you do differently?

Ian Wilkinson: I'd probably do an apprenticeship in carpentries.

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah, I know you're not serious.

Ian Wilkinson: Sure, that's a really tough one. I guess I don't really, if I really think seriously back through it all you know, if I knew now, I mean, if I knew then what I knew now, then I would have missed other parts of the journey of life. And I think it's, it is with sounding too much like, you know, some swanker on a philosophy show. I've enjoyed the journey. I don't think there's anything that I would really have done differently, because it's been a great journey. I've enjoyed it, I've met great friends, and I'm really grateful for the friends that I've made along the way. And I think if I took today's knowledge back 20 years that, all of that would be different.

Andrew Hellmich: Cool. Yeah, good answer. I thought you would have said pricing. I thought you would have put your prices up earlier.

Ian Wilkinson: Yeah, but then I wouldn't understand how the mindset of some of the newer photographers is. So when they come and ask me questions, I wouldn't understand what it was like to be in that scenario.

Andrew Hellmich: True. True.

Ian Wilkinson: I think it's all good as it is.

Andrew Hellmich: Good. All right, what software do you use for your batching, editing, renaming and renumbering?

Ian Wilkinson: Well, two software packages. So for renumbering and culling, I use Photo Mechanic.

Andrew Hellmich: Yep. So I use two.

Ian Wilkinson: Yeah, it's just..

Andrew Hellmich: Fast and easy.

Ian Wilkinson: It is very, very tricky, very fast. And for the batching and color and density corrections, I use a Bridge with Photoshop. So I've used Lightroom as well, I just don't find it as fast. I love the keystrokes that I use in Bridge. You know, everything you can do in Lightroom you can do in Bridge as well. A lot of the stuff that's in Lightroom is available in Bridge. People just don't realize you can do it. At Hair of the Dog, the seminar that I gave there, which is all workflow based, I know there was an awful lot of people that come up to me afterwards and said, "I had no idea you could actually do that in Bridge." Everyone bags bridge. But if you actually know the functionality, it's very capable program. So I'm back using Bridge and Photoshop again, and I've dropped Lightroom.

Andrew Hellmich: Wow, that's pretty interesting. All right, two more questions for you. Where do you see wedding and portrait or wedding photography in five years’ time?

Ian Wilkinson: Well, when you look at some of the new apps that are out there. There's an app out there now that's coming to launch soon, where every guest uploads their photo shot from the wedding to a particular server. The bride and groom can then access it. Those sort of things are going to have some influence, I guess, as technology gets better and better and cameras get better and better, the guest photos are going to get, you know, closer to an acceptable standard for the, you know, couples to use themselves. So I think it is going to be tough, a tough industry in five years' time to survive. Hopefully, there'll be enough customers that still want me and want my approach and my eye that I'll still be doing well, but I think it's going to be a very tough industry to break into for the newer photographers. In five years' time, it'll be such a heavily saturated market, prices seem to be continuing to fall at the entry level, so there are a lot of people competing on price. We have a couple of studios here in Brisbane that shoot for free and then sell files for $6 each.

Andrew Hellmich: Just weddings, weddings?

Ian Wilkinson: Shooting weddings, yep. So they'll go to, they go along to your wedding, they shoot for free, and then you come along to their studio or their house where they work from. After the wedding, and you sort through the images, and you choose which ones you wish to buy for $6 each afterwards.

Andrew Hellmich: Wow.

Ian Wilkinson: So that kind of thing is, you know, is going to probably become more and more common. It's a tough call. It really is a tough call, trying to predict what's going to happen, you know.

Andrew Hellmich: Sure. That's why I asked.

Ian Wilkinson: The business of photography is harder than ever, and the capturing of the photos is easier than ever. So it's going to be, it is going to be tough times, I think, for a lot of very creative people who don't handle the business side very well. I know I have quite a lot of friends, I mean, they've all stopped saying this to me now, but over the last couple of years, they've gone, "Look, what are you doing putting jokes on your, on your Facebook page, and what are you doing having politically sensitive topics on your Facebook page? You know, it's the face of your business. Stop doing it." I'm like, "No, I just want to be me. I don't want to create this fake facade and try and make out that I'm someone I'm not just to try and treat customers". But the bottom line is I probably have to be conscious of that soon, you know.

Andrew Hellmich: It'll be a shame.

Ian Wilkinson: Well, it is a shame, and that's, we know social media marketing is heavily biased not toward the images that you shoot, but the personality that you portray.

Andrew Hellmich: But then you've attributed a lot of your success to your personality and the way you shoot. So why couldn't you continue that with social media and still attract the same clients?

Ian Wilkinson: Yeah, because, yeah, I don't know. I think I'm a little bit of, maybe.. what's a better word for this? The only word I can think of is a rascal.

Andrew Hellmich: So, to me, I think that would appeal to a lot of clients.

Ian Wilkinson: But I don't think it appeals to brides when they're in that looking for the wedding phase. It works really well at weddings and I get on great. I've got a whole bunch of wedding cards and things on display in the studio, some of them from the mums of the brides and stuff. So I'm getting really great with them on the day, but I don't think that's what they go looking for when during that initial 'find a photographer' phase. So they like that in you once they know you, but they don't necessarily respond to that during that initial search. They don't realize the sort of personality that they want in their photographer yet, they're still looking around so they're judging you by your photos.

Andrew Hellmich: And your comments.

Ian Wilkinson: I don't know.

Andrew Hellmich: It's really interesting. You say that, it sounds like you've given a lot more thought than that. A lot of photographers would have. That's really cool. All right, last question for you, mate. What's your most embarrassing photography moment or stuff up at a wedding?

Ian Wilkinson: Oh, the most embarrassing one, I guess, would be picking up my knapsack off the ground full of my camera gear, but not having done the zip up, picked it and run off after someone, only to have every piece of equipment fly out, my 70 to 200 just smash cameras to go everywhere, flashes and batteries to go everywhere. With everyone standing looking at me.

Andrew Hellmich: I'm pretty sure you wouldn't get a laugh at that stage.

Ian Wilkinson: A few of the groomsmen laughed. People came over to help try and pack it back up. It was one of the groomsmen that picked up half the lens and literally held up and said, "What do you want to do with this?" Of course, everyone laughed when he said something like that, so I just laughed along as well. Fortunately, I had one camera and one lens in the boot of the car. Although one of the cameras did keep working, but I had a spare in the car, which was very, very, very lucky, and I was able to keep shooting, but that was just after the ceremony, so I still had a fair whack of the day to go.

Andrew Hellmich: Wow, scary and embarrassing at the same time.

Ian Wilkinson: Yeah, the 50 mil lens stripped the threads. It wouldn't work. One camera body, the mirror went up and wouldn't come back down on. The 7200 literally broke in half about or about a third the way up the barrel. It snapped where the zoom ring is, literally broken two pieces.

Andrew Hellmich: Did you feel like crying?

Ian Wilkinson: No, I just had a little smile and said, "Oh, that's what insurance is for." You know, just joked, inside you're thinking "Bugger, bugger."

Andrew Hellmich: But I think, well from that.

Ian Wilkinson: Oh I don't know what rating your program is that one.

Andrew Hellmich: I appreciate that. Thank you.

Ian Wilkinson: That was probably, probably about the worst one I've ever done. So..

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah.

Ian Wilkinson: Although I have actually torn my pants as well and had to walk around for two hours with a big split between my belt and my groin.

Andrew Hellmich: I had exactly the same embarrassing moment story from Ben Marden when I interviewed him. Although he wasn't wearing underwear that day.

Ian Wilkinson: Oh, I was, it was black too. So black pants with black jocks. So it was pretty good.

Andrew Hellmich: He got away with it.

Ian Wilkinson: Well, I just called into a chemist, like when we're going to the photo shoot. I just called into a chemist and bought some Elastoplast. So sat in the car and Elastoplast across the split, and kept going. And it was all good.

Ian Wilkinson: Isn't that skin color?

Ian Wilkinson: Yeah, but it was on the inside. So I pulled the, I just ripped my pants down, elastoplast on the inside across the split. Pull them back up. It was all good to go, and no one knew any different. Actually, it does actually grab the hairs on your legs as you walk.

Andrew Hellmich: I'm getting pictures. I don't want a picture.

Ian Wilkinson: I don't want to picture them either.

Andrew Hellmich: It's been an absolute pleasure. And you know, thanks so much for giving up some of your time today. I really appreciate it. I'm sure the listeners are totally rapt. Is there one last piece of advice you could give to new photographers starting out?

Ian Wilkinson: Oh, well, follow your dream, but realize that to make your way through life, you need to generate a profit. There's so many things you miss out on in life if you don't generate that profit. So follow your dreams, but make sure you're doing it, you know, with financial sense in mind as well.

Andrew Hellmich: Awesome, great advice, mate.

 
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