019: Dean Dampney – Less Hours and More Lifestyle is the best Measurement of Photography Business Success

019: Dean Dampney – Less Hours and More Lifestyle is the best Measurement of Photography Business Success

Andrew Hellmich: I'm really excited to be speaking to my guest today for one main reason, I want his lifestyle. Well, I think I do anyway, if I'm imagining it the way he's explained it to me so far. So what he says is his business model is minimalistic. It's geared towards his customers, but equally to his family and his lifestyle. He lives in the middle of nowhere in a little coastal town, a coastal dot of a town called Lake Tabourie. He shoots about 40 weddings a year, one a week for nine months, and works two and a half days a week to gross around $120,000 a year. The rest of his time is with family and surfing. If you haven't guessed, I'm talking about Dean from CloudFace Photography. Dean, welcome to the podcast, mate.

Dean Dampney: Andrew, thanks very much. Geez, that sounded pretty good, didn't it?

Andrew Hellmich: Like I said, I want your lifestyle. Two and a half days a week and 120k turnover. That sounds pretty cool.

Dean Dampney: Yeah, I'm actually quite excited, because tomorrow, I don't know if I should be exclaiming how excited I am about shooting the last wedding of the season. But tomorrow marks the last wedding that I'm shooting for the season till I start again in late August. So I've got, um, I've got a couple of two and a half months off coming up. And you know, not that my day to day or week to week existence isn't, isn't really excellent otherwise. But yeah, it's nice to think that we've got a bit of a break coming up.

Andrew Hellmich: So is that something that you actually plan for? And you sort of, you block that out of your calendar, or you just, you just don't get bookings at that time of year?

Dean Dampney: It's a bit of both. As my reputation gets stronger, I am starting to get more and more inquiries for that time over winter, but inevitably, people, especially the kind of clients that I typically attract, don't want to get married on the south coast in winter. So, so that works for me. I do block it off. And for the couple of inquiries that I've been getting this last two or three years, I let them know that I'm not available.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, so, so with my intro, I did say that you're sort of living in the middle of nowhere in a coastal dot of a town, is that a, can you explain to listeners you know exactly where you are and sort of the surrounding areas, like, how busy is it where you are?

Dean Dampney: For sure, we're based about four, three and a half hours to four hours’ drive south of Sydney, where the closest center would be Batemans Bay, about half an hour to the south, or Ulladulla, which is only 15 minutes to the north. Yeah, I guess Lake Tabourie has got one little shop called the Tabourie Tucker Box, fairly, fairly famous Roadhouse, which does the standard fair fish and chips, chico rolls and petrol and all that kind of stuff. It also serves as our post office. So yeah, there's not much that goes on down here. I guess half the places in like to barrier holiday rentals and there's a couple of 100 of us at most that knock around the quiet streets. Otherwise, where we ride on the beach, it's a lake as well as the name suggests. So yeah, it's, it's absolutely paradise as far as we're concerned.

Andrew Hellmich: That sounds amazing. I want to find out how you ended up sort of coming to be there in Lake Tabourie. But where are your clients drawn from? I'm guessing not Lake Tabourie.

Dean Dampney: No, I haven't photographed anyone from Lake Tabourie yet, and most likely never will. The majority of my clients come from Sydney. When I first established my business in 2007, I thought I'd probably have a high proportion of my clients coming from Canberra. But as you're probably aware, Canberra has got a pretty established collective of really amazing wedding photographers, so inevitably, the Canberra clients that do end up getting married down here on the south coast, end up bringing a photographer with them, not, not in all cases, but quite a few. So what that means is that the clients that I end up photographing for, like I said, inevitably, come down from Sydney.

Andrew Hellmich: I want to get into the how you market to those clients, but how so how did you end up in Lake Tabourie? Is that somewhere where you're born and bred?

Dean Dampney: No, not, not at all. I grew up in the suburbs of Sydney's Northern Beaches, a place called French's Forest, and I lived there until my early 20s. And I guess, I guess, as a teenager, my friends and I, as soon as we got our P plates, as soon as we're able to drive down, and we'll drive anywhere with our parents, we started as surfers coming down to the south coast. We went north as well, but inevitably, we'd keep on coming back to the south coast and basically to this exact region here. It's a fairly wave rich area, and, you know, with the bush and the solitude, it's a surface paradise in many ways. So it was around that same time that I more or less made a resolve in myself to make my life down here one day, just make a simple shack and, you know, hopefully have a family and raise some kids here, which is exactly, exactly how it's ended up.

Andrew Hellmich: So what you were, sort of 18 or 20 years old when you moved down there?

Dean Dampney: No, look, I went to University in Sydney, and I did a couple of degrees with absolutely no foresight or understanding of where those years of university education were going to were going to take me. What I did realize at the time is that I really wanted to travel. So, you know, I spent five years working really hard in part time jobs, getting through my university degrees and essentially working towards that one goal, which was to jump on an airplane and travel for as long as I can. So I ended up doing that again. And I did spend, I guess it was about a year and a half, close to two years living in San Francisco, and I was lucky enough to be born in The States to Australian parents, and therefore had an American passport. So what I was able to do is essentially travel for a year, and I spent a year or so in South America and Central America and Mexico before crawling up across the Mexican border at Tijuana there, into towards San Diego and up to San Francisco. And that's where I made my base for that couple of years at that stage.

Andrew Hellmich: And what were you doing for work at that time?

Dean Dampney: At that stage, I when we first, when I say 'we', it was my partner and I, my partner at the time, and myself, were we arrived at a backpackers in San Francisco with, you know, next to nothing, less than $20 to our name, enough for a nice accommodation. I remember she came up really, really early the following morning after we woke up and said, "There's work, there's work. There's this guy down there that needs a couple of guys to help build furniture." So that was the first job, and that was some pretty dodgy, dodgy furniture making in downtown San Francisco. Looked, to cut a long story short, from there, I ended up working as a cocktail waiter, which was a really unique position, because it's normally a job characterized by cocktail waitresses, but I think, I think the Australian accent, everything else, sort of, I don't know, gave me a little bit of weight in that respect, fairly short lived again, before I ended up as a bike messenger. And I think that's something that knowing your background a little bit Andrew, something that you might be a little bit more interested than cocktail waitressing.

Andrew Hellmich: I would love to delve into the into the bike messenger thing, but I don't know if the listeners will be stoked to hear all about that.

Dean Dampney: I'll keep it really end up bike messaging for four or five months before eventually landing a job using my university education, and that was as a software engineer, basically. And what turned out to be Silicon Valley at its prime time of the IT Boom back in the days where, basically, the internet was a new concept, and web pages were few and far between. That was, that was 1996.

Andrew Hellmich: So you could have been, you know, could be living there now, or you could, you know, you could have made your millions and be back at late Sabari, being there at that time.

Dean Dampney: Different life, that's for sure. Look, I love San Francisco, and it's still such a great place in my heart, and I'd love to get back, because I haven't been back since. But yeah, I always figured that I was going to keep on moving. I did spend that year in that first real, quote, unquote "job" and it went really, really well, but it also taught me that I didn't want to work, I guess what I was doing 55 hour weeks at the time. I did not want to work that hard. And I also wanted to work creatively, which, although there were plenty of prospects to work creatively in the IT field at the time, or within the multimedia field at the time, they didn't come my way. And I guess, I guess it all worked out perfectly, because I ended up traveling for another couple of years or another year and a half or so before making my way home. And, yeah, look, I kept on doing short term IT contracts as a software engineer for another four or five years, or three or four years, before eventually, I felt that the sensation that I'd gain every time I'd jump into those elevators and walk into those offices was something I didn't want to do anymore. I always felt like a black sheep, and I always had a little bit of a sinking feeling when I went into those offices to do my work, and meanwhile, I was shooting a lot as a as a passionate amateur photographer, and I'd also realized that that was something that might even be able to provide an income for me down the track, if I, if I focused.

Andrew Hellmich: So let's fast forward to that period. So when, when did you first charge for your photography work?

Dean Dampney: My first job was actually down here as the local newspapers weekend photographer. So that's the Milton Ulladulla Times. And I bought the place that I'm sitting in now, which is formerly known as The Shack, although it's a lot bigger than a shack these days. So I bought this little shack for next to nothing, for less than $70,000, the last shack on the south coast. I basically turned down a full time position with my last employer. Decided to move down here full time and work towards basically getting my first photography exhibition together at that same time, which was 2003 I ended up getting that local, getting that job at local newspaper and, yeah, basically taking photos for the first time for money.

Andrew Hellmich: So married with kids at this stage?

Dean Dampney: Not at that stage. It was, it was that year that I actually met Naomi, my wife, at the photo lab in Sydney that I was getting my work developed at for my upcoming exhibition. So that's a story in itself. But, um, yeah, we hit it off from essentially the moment we met, and yeah, haven't looked back since.

Andrew Hellmich: So where was this exhibition? Was it down on the south coast?

Dean Dampney: No, it was a gallery in Paddington, Sydney, called the Blender Gallery.

Andrew Hellmich: So, okay, so what? So you're living in the South Coast, that's where your dream house is, or the shack, and where you want to build your lifestyle. So why? Why you? I mean, I know you can't exhibit in Lake Tabourie, but why are you heading back to Sydney?

Dean Dampney: Yeah, that was the bottom line that there's, I really wanted to be able to exhibit in, to be able to showcase my work in the best light possible. In my mind, at the time, it was the more prominent or prestigious photography galleries in Sydney that I set my mark to try and achieve. And I was thankful that Blender Gallery was also only two or three years into their establishment, were happy to take me on for a solo show based on the work I'd shown them, and really to date, the first show I had with them, because I ended up having a number of them, but the first show I had with them was probably my most successful.

Andrew Hellmich: In regard to sales, or?

Dean Dampney: Yeah, actually, in every respect, in regards to sales, in regards to the turnout I had, to the response I had, it was kind of controversial in some ways as well. But again, that's, you know, that's sort of a deeper part of the story, but it was a really excellent experience for me.

Andrew Hellmich: I mean, you sound very creative and artsy, and then that's, that's sort of the direction it looked like you were heading. How then do you sort of get into weddings and portraits, or, you know, weddings?

Dean Dampney: For sure. Look, I guess I did realize really quickly that I wasn't going to be able to garner a living from being a photo artist. I could certainly stand with that label of starving, tortured photo artist, but it wasn't going to sustain. It would probably sustain my lifestyle down here alone, but certainly wasn't going to sustain my family. So we had Malaya, who's my first or my oldest son, about a year and a half through that process. So, you know, falling pregnant and everything else, I guess I realized that I had to go, to go out there and get a real job. Look, my heart was always photographically into street photography and documentary photography. So initially I did see myself as a street photographer. I guess that morphed fairly naturally into the genres of reportage and documentary photography. And being a photojournalist was really, it became the be all and end all for me really quickly. So I guess it was the end of 2000 and towards the end of 2003 after about eight months, six to eight months of harassing every picture editor of every newspaper and in the country, more or less, but especially, especially Sydney, that one of them finally gave in and I landed a part time job with Fairfax community newspapers, and then only about three or four months into that, ended up with a full time job with Cumberland newspaper group, which is News Limited Suburban Newspaper group. So yeah, basically, beginning of 2004, I started my first full time job as a wedding, sorry, as a photojournalist.

Andrew Hellmich: On the south coast or in Sydney?

Dean Dampney: In Sydney. So at that time..

Andrew Hellmich: You moved back up the coast?

Dean Dampney: Moved back up. And that wasn't purely because of work. It was, it was sort of meeting two needs. It was serving the purpose of living in Sydney with Naomi, who was quite intent on spending time in Sydney, and she'd never lived there before. She'd lived there briefly up until that time I'd met her, but she, she'd only been back from extended travels herself for two or three months before I met her, and she really wanted to spend some time in the inner west of Sydney and, yeah, basically just explore Sydney and get a feel for what it was like to live there. She didn't, she grew up in a basically in Wollongong, a couple of hours south of Sydney.

Andrew Hellmich: So did you, did you have a wedding photography business in Sydney? Or did that start when you got down south?

Dean Dampney: I did have a wedding photography business as such, when I was in Sydney, I was actually photographing weddings. From even before the first jobs I was doing for the local South Coast newspaper down here, from about 1999. From exactly 1999, I was shooting weddings. The first, as most wedding photographers experience, was at the request of a really close friend, and it's a sad story, because I ended up really screwing up their photos completely. It was devastating for absolutely everybody involved. But regardless, I made amends, I guess, the following year, and then progressively, got asked to do more and more through more, to shoot more and more weddings through the extended network of friends and friends of friends. So within by the time, I was actually working as a photojournalist in 2003, I was probably shooting about a dozen or so weddings at that time, and essentially just under my own name, Dean Dampney Photography and was, yeah, was looking at them to supplement my income.

Andrew Hellmich: I gotta ask you about this first wedding. What happened?

Dean Dampney: Look, it was back in the days of film, to sort of try and give you a little bit of a picture. It was a really beautiful couple. Two of my closest friends. The wedding was up in Byron Bay. It was, it was just absolutely stunning in every sense. And as Jacqueline was walking down the palm front shaded aisle, I just had this subconscious understanding that extended shutter release, that extended click that my shutter was making, was not quite right. I knew it was meant to be going click, but it was more of an extended click.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, so everything was over.

Dean Dampney: Everything was looking all right, like my, you know, my aperture was wide open, my film speed, my ASA, my ISO, all that kind of stuff looked fine. But for some reason, my shadow is just, was sounding like it was releasing really slowly. I had no choice but to basically just hold my camera as still as possible, hope for the best, and hope that I was just hallucinating or just hearing things. I wasn't. And look, my camera was, as it turned out, my aperture was locked down, F22 you know, without me having any idea or control over the situation. And basically Jackie, Jacqueline and Jack ended up with an incredibly artistic, blurred slow motion, motion, blurred images.

Andrew Hellmich: Wow, are you still friends today?

Dean Dampney: Oh yeah, it took an it's we are we're really good friends still, but it, it took a while, and Jack, Jacqueline was absolutely devastated. Jack is more or less your typical Aussie guy was able to sort of shake it off and laugh it off and everything else. But yeah, Jacqueline was pretty devastated. Yeah, it still really hurts to think about it.

Andrew Hellmich: Of course, yeah, sorry to dig it up, but..

Dean Dampney: Oh, that's okay. It's yeah. Look, I have been thankfully. I've never had, touch wood, I've never had any issues whatsoever with shooting anything ever since. Thank goodness.

Andrew Hellmich: So are you? Are you one of these photographers now that encourage brides not to book you know, a new person to photography?

Dean Dampney: For sure. Look, if someone's to ask me my advice, I'd say there's a lot that comes with experience, that's for sure.

Andrew Hellmich: And how are you going? Like, how did you feel about shooting your next wedding?

Dean Dampney: Apprehensive. And again, they were really good friends, as it turns out. And yeah, look, I was, I was definitely apprehensive, but I guess I just saw it as a case of getting back on the horse. And it was a meant to be situation that my friends whose second wedding I shot, were completely understanding of what had happened the previous time. And look at, it worked out really, really well. And you know, to this day, actually, I think those wedding shots are some of my favorite images that I've taken. So it worked out really well. It obviously gave me the confidence to keep on going.

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah, nice. Mate, let's fast forward a little bit. So I want to take you to Lake Tabourie, and just fill us in when you went back to Lake Tabourie, did you start your wedding business then, and how you approached that? And then you know how it went from there?

Dean Dampney: For sure. Look, I am, when I came back to Lake Tabourie, I was doing a lot of different styles of freelance photography, and being freelance photography, I guess it wasn't consistent. Didn't give me that financial security. I was shooting more and more weddings. I was probably up to about 15 to 20, maybe 25 weddings of those couple of years. And it just struck me, I guess, really, in a single moment, that I could actually sustain a living and a lifestyle shooting weddings, that by that time I figured was something I was able to really, really enjoy doing, especially if I was able to do it in the kind of way that I was able to foresee it. Time, or that the kind of way that I was doing it, but even more the way they wanted to do it. So I realized that, you know, with, I just realized that I could, I could make it, make it happen. I essentially launched my business online. I don't even remember if we had Facebook back then. So that was the end of 2006 to that beginning of 2007. Look, we, I done a bridal show the year before, not under CloudFace Photography, but Dean Dampney Photography. So I was still, I guess the network of people that had come to me as a wedding photographer was still expanding, and really there wasn't much more they did beyond that, except just essentially legitimize the business in some ways, certainly just give it more of a pronounced profile and look and feel, and look beyond anything else, I just decided to own it wholeheartedly. I started turning down the freelance jobs and really put all my energy into wedding photography.

Andrew Hellmich: Cool, so that, so from then on, your full time wedding photographer.

Dean Dampney: Exactly. Look at, well, exactly to the point that there's still a couple of years where I was doing the drips and drabs of freelance work. So the odd commercial assignment, the odd editorial assignment, are still freelancing at that point for the Australian newspaper. So if there was anything, any, if there was ever anything that was newsworthy photographically, certainly on the south coast, I was their stringer. So there was those bits and pieces, but obviously not that much happens in Lake Tabourie, or on the south coast. So there weren't, you know, there weren't a lot of jobs coming from the Australian or, you know, for the rest of them, for that matter, because I stopped putting myself out there and started as a as that kind of photographer, and started putting myself out there as a wedding photographer.

Andrew Hellmich: Sure. So you still doing wedding or bridal fairs these days?

Dean Dampney: No, look, that was the first and last that I've done. Does that sound bad? I did actually make a vow to myself to never do another one again, to be honest.

Andrew Hellmich: No good or just a bad experience?

Dean Dampney: Look, I just felt that my I felt that the people that were coming to view my photography, I guess I just felt commodified a little bit. I felt that, that wasn't photography and the presentation, the images that was being taken into the highest regard, more so than the price point, and you know how much they're going to get for their dollar, and that kind of thing. And obviously that, that makes complete sense, and that's how we work. But to me, I've always, I guess, worked with clients on the most part that have come to me, first and foremost, without a price point in mind, but being incredibly enthusiastic about the type of photography that I can do for them. And that's that point that I know that that will inevitably work together if I'm free, that that were a good match. So it was with the wedding, with the bridal fares, I wasn't able to find those kind of clients.

Andrew Hellmich: So, so you're shooting around 40 weddings a year now, and you said they're mostly Sydney clients, and you seem to be, it sounds like you're shooting the way that you want to shoot, and that's they're the clients you're attracting, the ones that want your style of photography. So how are you finding these clients?

Dean Dampney: Look, what you said is exactly right. I'm shooting, I've shot 45 the last couple of years, but I am consciously paring it back this coming wedding season, and I am shooting exactly how I like to shoot now, which is such a great feeling. I'm not doing anything consciously. I'm not doing much consciously to try and attract the right kind of clients. What I am doing, the little bit that I am doing, is just trying to be really honest in my branding, in my online presence, in my presence, full stop. But that online presence is essentially my presence. People come to me essentially through the internet, first and foremost. So I'm just trying to be with my website, trying to present myself through not only imagery, but in language and everything else, in such a way that my clients have a, hopefully a really clear idea, or my potential clients have a really clear idea of what they can expect.

Andrew Hellmich: So would you? Would you be very careful then to only show the images on your website that that you actually want to be shooting?

Dean Dampney: Yeah, absolutely. Because I, I think, like most wedding photographers, you know, I still do the whole gamut of styles, I guess, of wedding photographs. When I say that, I kind of mean, you know, for instance, I don't have any family shots on my website, not that I think there's any reason to exclude them, you know, with the kind of style I'm trying to portray. But essentially, family shots don't fit into what I try and portray as a documentary or photojournalistic style of photography, likewise, with photo shoots or with more posed style imagery. There's a couple of those shots that have made it into my website, but not very many at all. And I'm sorry, go ahead.

Andrew Hellmich: I was just gonna say you would still shoot the family shots. You know, bride and groom in the middle, mum and dad on either side. You still do those shots, but you just don't show them. Is that what you're that what you're saying?

Dean Dampney: That's exactly right. I really strongly believe in family shots, above all, really in a lot of ways, which I guess is a little bit ironic that I'm not showing them that much on my website. But I think through, well, there's, there's a couple of small descriptive phrases in my website, that if my clients delve down deep enough, they'll realize that I do, do family shots, but I assume that it's almost a given, and if it's not with my potential clients, and they suddenly, if they ask me, I make it really clear that there's something that I consider it a really high priority, despite the fact that I do it really succinctly and you know, in a way, that's short and sweet.

Andrew Hellmich: I really want to know how you communicate with your clients, particularly when they live so far away, but I still want to know how you get in front of these clients. So is it purely a website, like, how do your Sydney clients find you?

Dean Dampney: That's a really good question. Look, it's purely my website, and I had a really good friend about or maybe five or six years ago, shortly after I actually, actually established my website, who suggested to me that I buy a domain, which is southcoastwedding.com.au and that was a really smart thing. So with that domain, essentially cloudface.com.au, diverts straight over to South Coast Wedding and with those keywords alone in the URL, along with some strategic, I guess, keyword placement throughout my site, I'm number one, I think, in most of search engines, for anyone who is searching for most things related to South Coast weddings, certainly South Coast wedding photographer or photographers, I think, you know, I don't check that regularly, but I'm certainly pretty prominent within the top two or three. So that's, that's a really big part of my presence. It's a really fundamental key factor to how I've gained a fairly, a fairly good presence.

Andrew Hellmich: I love that. Okay, so you see, bought the domain South Coast Wedding Photography. You said, or photograph?

Dean Dampney: Simply, South Coast Wedding.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay. And then if anyone searches for that term, it'll automatically, you've got a redirect set up to go to CloudFace Photography.

Dean Dampney: That's, yeah, it's actually the opposite. I've got to redirect from, yeah, no, that's right. Or if anyone searches for that term, they come up with South Coast Wedding. If anyone's actually coming up with CloudFace, if anyone's searching for CloudFace Photography, they get diverted, or redirected through to South Coast Wedding. So everything lands on South Coast Wedding.

Andrew Hellmich: Yes, okay, I've got it now in front of me. I'll see exactly. Okay, so, so really that the SEO part of your strategy is that the key.

Dean Dampney: Yeah, I guess I'm absolutely. It's, yeah, I think that's, that's certainly a really significant part of my business. The other, the other factors, the other single factor, just being more and more so actually, client referral and venue referral, like I mentioned earlier.

Andrew Hellmich: Sure, yeah, I can see on your website. So when people go to your homepage, they can see, I mean, I can see the style of images that you'll be, that you like to shoot, that you're showing straight away on the front page.

Dean Dampney: Yeah, cool. Look, it's a as I think I mentioned briefly in that email, just having this conversation with you now has been inspiration to rejig the website. I do tend to do that this time of the year, every year. So that's something I do in my downtime, I guess, as well. But yeah, it's a work in progress. Hopefully suddenly, by the time that your listeners are listening to this, it will be in the kind of state that I'm really, really happy for everyone to look at. Yeah, hopefully it'd be as good as it can be.

Andrew Hellmich: It looks great. It looks great. So if you, if you go and check now, say, let's say, in six months’ time, you could do a search for South Coast Wedding Photographer, and you find that your website is sort of down to the second page. Will you use, invest money then to sort of address that?

Dean Dampney: Yeah, look, I think I would definitely. I, what I do first and foremost is, is invest some serious thought into what's happened. And I guess with my background in IT, I'm able to sort of work through those, those problems a little bit as well, depending on the extent of it. So yeah, I am fairly literate in the online world of, you know, HTML and SEO and that kind of thing. I try and avoid it as much as I can, but I do know enough to be able to, yeah, hopefully work things out to keep me in a prominent position. I guess.

Andrew Hellmich: Sure. So let's say that a Sydney client has found you and they landed on your website. They love your work and they contact you. So what's the next step for you? Because you know they're not going to be turning up to your house to have a chat, I imagine.

Dean Dampney: For sure. So pretty much 99% of my clients will contact me via email, and I think my website's geared towards that happening as well. My phone number is listed on my website, but most people seem to just flick me an email or use a contact form on the website first, just to essentially see if I'm available and to see if they can get some kind of gauge of my prices. So that's my process. When I sit down here at the computer, I go through my emails and I replied back to any inquiries simply with my price list, usually a fairly personalized email response, yeah, just depending on how much information they've given me. And then I guess I just kind of figured that if they're right for me, they'll come back to me again. I can normally tell from the initial inquiry email whether or not they're going to be the kind of client that I'll end up working with if I'm free, and it's the email inquiry that comes through saying "I really love your photography and I really hope you're available", I pretty much can, can feel confident that I'm going to end up working with that client. If it's the kind of inquiry that's more of a "Look, I just want to know what your prices are." They don't necessarily have a reference to the date of their wedding. I'm almost guaranteed not to end up working with that client, essentially, because I'll be a little bit more expensive than what they hope, to what they hope to pay.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay. And when you said you, when you've craft your email back to the client, you try and make that as personal as possible. So you know, what sort of things are you sort of getting into there, like, how can you make it to or, how can you make it personal?

Dean Dampney: For sure, look, I guess to back a little bit from, from, from that last statement I still have, I've got three or four templates which are essentially, essentially just saved emails that I do, copy and paste depending on the type of inquiry. But a really simple example of something I'll do almost every time is if my client does mention where they're getting married, or the information that I have is the time of year that they getting married, their wedding date and the venue. They're the two things that, inevitably, my clients, as prospective clients, will mention in that first email. So look, if, if I'm familiar with the venue, even if I'm not, I'll usually make some kind of remark about that venue. "I've shot there a lot. I love that place." Yeah, I guess probably half the venues, half the wedding venues that I do end up working with, the venues that I've worked at before, and more often than not, I've worked there a number of times, and that's probably about a dozen venues that span maybe 200 kilometer or a 200 kilometer stretch of coast here. Sorry, go ahead, Andrew.

Andrew Hellmich: I'll just ask when you're talking about sending a personal email. I interviewed Rachel Brinke from The States a couple of weeks ago, and she actually goes on to Facebook and sort of trying to get, tries to get a little bit of background information on the client before she returns the email. It's almost, I mean, I'm not going to say stalking, but that's what I'm thinking. So you're not going that far?

Dean Dampney: I'm not going quite that far. Look, I do occasionally, basically try and befriend people on Facebook who have liked whatever it may be through my page, depending. So I do try and build up my Facebook presence, I guess that way, a little bit. It's obviously befriending people through my personal Facebook profile, as opposed to my CloudFace Facebook page. But I'm still that's, that's something I do a little bit, but I certainly don't go to that extent. I just, I just try and include a line or a small sentence or two, just a reference to understanding and showing them that I'm familiar with, with both their venue and with the time of year that they're getting married, and it's something that I'm excited about potentially collaborating them with.

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah, that sounds really good. Once you've established that little bit connection, I guess you you've got that foot in the door, don't you know? It shows you care, and you've actually read their email, which is, which is nice, I guess that's the aim.

Dean Dampney: Exactly. And, yeah, look, I obviously do care. I care to get the business which, you know, I guess that's as a matter of fact, but, um, yeah, look, I care too, because they've just got engaged and they've taken the time out to write me a personalized email, you know. And in their personal approach it, it may only be a half a sentence as well, but at least I, I feel like I, I should return the favor, at least.

Andrew Hellmich: Sure, and you said there that when you meant, when you return that first email you do send your price list. Do you have you got packages, or do you have one set price?

Dean Dampney: Yeah, look, I, my price list is at iteration 19. So I've had gone through 19 prices in five years, six years.

Andrew Hellmich: Have they always gone up?

Dean Dampney: Yeah, they have actually. There's been a couple of, sort of couple which have sort of tableau at the same level, but been rejigged a little bit. But yeah, they've always gone up. And, you know, they haven't gone up heap. So, you know, I was listening to, I think it was Kelly Tunney talking to you. And you know, they haven't gone up to what they've gone up to in Canberra, they've gone up in small increments.

Andrew Hellmich: So what would be an average wedding for you now? What's your most popular package?

Dean Dampney: My most popular package is, essentially, my most popular request is to work for about five or six hours. Sorry, I'll pair it back a bit. What, I've got two packages now. I've actually got three, but I'll stick to two for the sake of this conversation right now. And that is a four-hour package, which is just myself as photographer, even just on disk. So it's a shoot and burn package, I guess is, as we've known to call it, and that's it. And that's, that's, let me guess. It's 2900 that I charge for that, what I was saying before and respect to the five or six hours comment that I made, it's, it's usually, most of my clients who end up booking me for the four hours, essentially for my photography and for the images on disk, usually add that extra one, one and a half hours on top of that package, sometimes a little bit more than that as well. My second package is pretty much the everything you can want package, without respect to giving them, you know, 12 hours’ time, it's seven hours, and they get 100 page art book, which I consider, just to be as premium as they get. I designed the art book just as a matter of interest for your listeners, potentially, and again, they get all the images on disc. So that's 4950, so coming close to 5000. Those two packages are pretty carefully structured, or, you know, they've been through obviously, a lot of careful consideration to get to that point. And what I'm trying to do is essentially get most of my clients to book me for the lesser of the two package.

Andrew Hellmich: Really?

Dean Dampney: Yeah, because one point being, is that I'm a lot more enthused about shooting for five hours than what I am for seven. And when it's seven, I also tell my clients that I'll, I'll inevitably spend at least 15 minutes, maybe half an hour, on top of the allotted time that I've, that we've negotiated with the packages. Look as, yeah, as just a matter of trying to be able to give them as much as I can. I do say to them, "If they want me for longer that 45 minutes, half an hour, 45 minutes, we start working on an extra additional hourly rate." But, um, yeah, look, I guess my point being is that when I'm looking at a seven-hour plus wedding, it's a really big day. And you know, I think, I think any wedding photographer knows that I started off doing "Look, just have me for as long as you want me", and doing the 11-12, hour marathons and I, I feel like, energetically, seven hours is cool with me, and I can give it my complete and utter, physical and emotional dedication throughout that time. But you know, there's, it's also something that I need to sort of take a day to recover from in some ways, not that I'm on the couch, just like I have run a marathon the next day, but I do find it it's a long time to be able to stay completely on my game. Going back a step, with four to five hours, I can do that twice a week if I need to, and I'm not going to be doing that anymore as well as an aside, but four to five to six hours, that's, that's really cool with me, in the sense that I can give my clients absolutely everything on an emotional and physical, energetic level.

Andrew Hellmich: So you wouldn't book a Saturday, Sunday wedding anymore or you prefer not to?

Dean Dampney: I prefer not to. Look, I still, you know, I still do get really excited about, you know, the adventure of potentially shooting a big Indian wedding, for instance, or whatever it may be, but I don't get that excited about it. Look, a really good case in point is that I just recently photographed a wedding in a place called Echo Beach, about 150 or 100 kilometers south of Broome in Northwest Australia. And it was, it was an adventure, and it was visually stunning. And as a documentarian, as a photo wedding photo journalist, it, it was just brilliant in every respect. I loved it. But, um, you know, with sort of air flights at Dean, with airline flights, it didn't quite connect up and certainly driving from here to Sydney and parking the car and I pretty much visited every second capital city in Australia, getting there and back. It turned out to be a four day event. And look, they did make it worthwhile financially for me. But when my priority right now, at this time, my life is to give to my family as much as I can. And, you know, look, I'm also quite selfish and driven to fulfill my personal needs as well. You know, not only as a photographer, but you know, as someone who loves just spending time in the ocean down here on the south coast as well. So it was too long away from my family in this recent event. It's not something I regret in any means whatsoever, but I'll think twice again before I do another one, I guess.

Andrew Hellmich: I love, I can, I can hear the honesty and I really understand now that, you know, with my intro, it was 100% spot on. I mean, you really are all about your family and your lifestyle as much as your client.

Dean Dampney: Absolutely. Look, some of my clients, if anything, benefit from, I guess, my ideology or from my approach. But yeah, we've, you know, we've got three boys. We've got a six month old baby right now, and two other two elder boys, five and seven, and yeah, I guess half the reason that the South Coast or this type of living was always appealing to me is because there's more time we can afford to create, more time, to spend time with each other as a family.

Andrew Hellmich: I love it. I love it. I want to ask you a couple of things. I wanted to ask you, did mention your art books there? Who are you using for your art books? Well, they sound, if you've done a bit of research, then you've sort of were very specific that you design them. I guess you're trying to say that you don't outsource that.

Dean Dampney: Yeah, yeah. Look, I guess I'm, in terms of being specific about me designing them, the point in case, was that I don't get my clients to select the images. Look, I'm such a black sheep in the wedding photography industry that, and I'm so removed from what everyone else is doing. I guess I don't really know what everyone else is doing, but I yeah, look first, I use a company called Iris book. I-R-I-S Iris book in Canada, which I do feel a little bit bad about, because they're obviously not made in Australia. But to date, I still haven't come across books that serve my purpose better. You know, they essentially work on a more or less a one image per page layout. I use a square 11 by 11 inch format, and yeah, I basically design or put together that layout for my clients and everybody, they'll come back to me and give me maybe two or three, four or five, hopefully not more than six or seven changes in images that they'd like to make to that layout. And then before I go ahead and put it through production. So yeah, that's, that's the way I work the books, and I guess, sort of coming full circle on the conversation I try and avoid, I don't try and avoid, but I don't necessarily encourage my clients to book me for the bigger package that includes the book, because there's more work involved once again. And you know, as that intro announced that two and a half day week might get extended for the time it takes to design that book. And look, I've got that down to a fine art as well. And that's, that's only, that's really only a four to six hour process for me, but yeah, at this stage, it's, you know, along with the sort of profit line and everything else, I'd rather, I'm fortunate enough to be able to prefer and work better with the smaller package option.

Andrew Hellmich: I really want to delve into this two and a half day thing in just one minute, but I've got there's one thing that sort of not adding up for me when I look at your website, and that's that you've got Jade shooting for you as well.

Dean Dampney: Okay. Well, look, that's I appreciate your feedback for a start, and Jade probably hasn't even seen her presence on my website, and this, this, again, is very much part of the work in progress. Jade, originally did some work for me when I was snowed under with more than 45 weddings. I think I did 48 the year that Jade came and did some retouching for me, just she basically worked through the image culling and post-production process for me, just to lighten the load. And she's been shooting weddings in her own right for, I guess, since that time, for four or five years now. She's, she's quite young. She's in her early to mid 20s, mid 20s, I think. And she's, she's certainly someone that stands out in my mind, as someone locally is a really talented and extremely passionate photographer. I think what happens for me about once or twice a year is, to be honest, I go through a little, little paranoid moment and wonder if the inquiries are going to keep on coming.

Andrew Hellmich: I think everyone listening is going, "Yeah, so do I."

Dean Dampney: Yea, and look for me this year, it came shortly after Easter. And I don't know if it was that paranoid moment came for me shortly after Easter. I'm not sure if that was because Easter was early this year or whatever. I think, I think it's probably the same timing for me every year. Basically my paranoid elastic band snaps. And I think, "Okay, I've got to do something here", and look just there was a bit of serendipity in that snapping moment where I saw one of Jade's more recent weddings that she blogged online. And I thought, Jade, she maybe, she can come and work for me. And, you know, the self-interested businessman, thought to himself, "I can, I can make money from her."

Andrew Hellmich: See, that's what, that's what goes against everything that I'm hearing.

Dean Dampney: I know so maybe it's not going to work out. And then, hang on, it's for her own benefit. Yeah, look, it's a work in progress. It's an experimental stage for CloudFace. She certainly does represent everything that I try and represent on a personable level, photographically, she doesn't have the same experience that I do, and I'm sure, but what I am sure of is that she's going to get better every year. So look to tie all that thought thread together, that really random thread of thought together. I do have got those clients that do come to me that I assume I'm not going to get because they don't want to pay what I charge. And those clients typically are happy to settle for a lesser and you know, I'm sure you know this from your own experience in your own business, Andrew, that they're happy to settle for, I shouldn't say settle. They're happy to have the experience of a wedding photographer who's less experienced for a smaller at a smaller cost outlay to them. So that's, that's Jade for me at this stage.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, so you will actually charge her out at a different rate to you?

Dean Dampney: Yeah, absolutely, at a much lesser rate. And look, this is where the work in progress comes in. So I think what will happen is that, tell me to stop if I'm banging on too much, but I think the way I'm going to work it is if I get an inquiry that, how am I going to work it? If I get an inquiry that, first of all, if I'm not available for, I'll let them know that Jade may be available, or I'll let them know that Jade is available, or otherwise I won't, I won't let them know that at all. So and give them the option send an individualized price guide for Jade, let them have a specific link to her online folio. And second of all, if I get the feel that, that client is not going to come back to me because they're scared of my prices. I will feel out somehow that process and maybe send both price guides and give them both options. And look, obviously I haven't thought this through to its entirety, and it should manifest itself relatively soon. But like I said, any feedback is appreciated.

Andrew Hellmich: I'm super interested, because we're actually going through exactly the same thing in our studio with me and a couple of my shooters. So we were torn with the idea of having two separate prices, because we think, what does that say about the other photographers? But you know, they're great in their own right, but I want to charge more for me so that that's always, we're struggling with the same thing. So it's cool to hear, to hear your views.

Dean Dampney: Yeah, it's interesting. I think, I think certainly prospective clients are going to assume that they shouldn't pay as much for someone who's not as experienced. But it's a different model to the one that you're perhaps working with where in a studio, every single photographer is representing at that highest quality of delivery. So, yeah, look, I think there's a little bit of a vacant space between the two models that needs to be explored more. And I'm not, not sure how to do that.

Andrew Hellmich: Cool. So, so you don't think we'll come back to your website in 12 months’ time and see 12 photographers there?

Dean Dampney: Look, there's, there's absolutely no way you'll see 12. The funny thing is, though that I, you know there's, there's people that end up sort of ensconced in, in this world that you end up living in mine, the world of my wedding photography is had a couple of videographers that have sort of been involved, and they live down the road and they're young and they're extremely talented, and of course, the natural inclination for me is to think, "Well, people ask for videographers from me all the time. Do I start perhaps getting them under the umbrella of CloudFace as well?" And the next logical or rational thought that I have is, "No, stop". For a start, I do know enough photographers to understand how that model doesn't necessarily work in Sydney. I know it does. I know, sorry, not in Sydney, but any of the bigger cities, but I know that works really well for a lot of really accomplished studios as well. Yeah, but look, my lifestyle will still be first and foremost. And I guess the bottom line is, what I've, what I've absolved myself to do is to keep my, keep Jade and potentially those videographers, if they ever do come on board, more or less working for me as subcontractors in a freelance role, they'll rep. I'll represent them, and obviously they'll be representing CloudFace. But look, I certainly don't, don't want to be charging, I don't, I don't want to be profiting from them to a huge extent. I want it to be a mutually beneficial relationship. Basically, I want them to be able to garner more work through my online presence for them, for which I'll, I'll take a small slice, but otherwise, yeah, I guess as long as everyone's happy, that's, that's my goal.

Andrew Hellmich: I like it. We have to get back together in 12 months’ time and see how well that's going. But you did, you did talk about lifestyle a few times, and I want to be conscious of your time. But I really want to know, and I'm sure the listeners are thinking "He's gonna run out of time", tell us about these two and a half days, what happens after the wedding?

Dean Dampney: Okay, so the wedding itself is, let's say that's one day.

Andrew Hellmich: That's included in the two and a half?

Dean Dampney: Yeah, for sure.

Andrew Hellmich: I'll come and shoot for you.

Dean Dampney: And look hopefully, the weddings I'm hoping are getting, the goal is that the weddings are getting closer and closer. So there was a time that I was shooting weddings in Sydney still, not entirely but the odd one. These days, I do stick to about 100 kilometer radius, maybe a little bit further. So the more time on the road I spend, obviously the longer the day, so the closer to home, I guess the inverse of that is, the closer to home I'm working, the shorter the day.

Andrew Hellmich: Well, let's say you've shot the wedding that is one day. So what's the process after that? And yeah, just talk us through that.

Dean Dampney: For sure. Look, it's normally Monday, it's the next day. It's not Sunday. The next day is Monday. And look, a typical day might be dropping my kids, my eldest two boys, off at the bus stop, checking the surf, go for a surf and come home and try and basically get my culling and the majority of my Lightroom processing or post production work done before the circus arrives again at about 430 at my house. So there's about four and a half hours there, anywhere between about three and a half and five hours there on a Monday afternoon or the following day, depending.

Andrew Hellmich: So sorry, Dean, how many photos you're shooting roughly at a wedding?

Dean Dampney: For sure, normally about 1200 on average, I'd say. I tend to shoot maybe, I guess it works out to be about 150 to 200 per hour. Actually a bit more, I guess, when I do the math, so, yeah, look at it, I roughly end up with anywhere between about a thousand and 1300 images, unless it's a really huge wedding.

Andrew Hellmich: So, and they go directly into Lightroom, and then you do your cull.

Dean Dampney: Yeah, look photoshop, I do, sorry, I do my cull in Photo Mechanic, all those images for a typical wedding, I cull that 1200 images, down to about five or 600, between about 450 and 700 I guess, to be more precise, that's a one and a half hour, one and a quarter hour process, and I am pretty acutely aware of how long everything takes me. I guess I do try and manage my time fairly precisely. So it's about one and a quarter one and a half hours there for the initial cull process. Then they get fed into Lightroom. I run a preset over them, and I individually retouch them, if that's the right term of phrase, or I individually go through those images in Lightroom. That process itself takes me anywhere between about three and four and a half hours depending, just depending, depending on the image set, basically. So that's really your six, your six hours right there. And look, yeah, so six, let's say six to eight hours realistically. And look, the other half day, if we're going to call it a two and a half day thing is really involved with, you know, just basically bits and pieces. I try and make sure that, I guess, more specifically, bits and pieces that relate to my business. So that's basically choosing, I guess logically, the next step, after the cull, is that I create a duplicate of my color images into black and white. I then load both sets of those images into a single folder and make a selection that up until now, has been roughly around 100, anywhere between 18 and 120 images that will go up on my blog. I'm going to radically reduce that number down to about 15 to 25, and I think we all really struggle with that part of it. But I really just want to showcase the images that I consider to be, be unique images, I guess, or to be certainly my strongest set of images. Not that the 120 images aren't the strongest images in that set, either, but I really just want to represent not only to my clients, but to other photographers, I guess as well, the 15 or 20 images that I'm really personally proud of, I guess. So anyway, that part of the process is another, that part of the process essentially a one-hour process for me. They hit the blog. I basically copy the blog post URL goes straight up onto the CloudFace page in Facebook, and then, you know, I might share that to my personal profile, which extends the exposure there a little bit, and then that's about it. Look, well, that is actually, I guess, the next part of the process, too, is to burn the disc. So there's little, sort of fiddly bits like burning the images. Well, I guess to sort of explain that my, my clients inevitably receive their ,every client receives their images on disk, being the shoot and burn guy that I am, and they basically get bundled up in a little CloudFace, recycled cardboard, CD, DVD, envelope with a personalized little letter saying, personalized templated letter, a semi-personalized template letter that, you know, that I print out and sign on a masthead and all that kind of thing, and, sorry, on a letterhead, and that goes in an envelope, goes in little DVD envelope and dropped off at the postbox. Next time I go drop the kids off at school, go for surf.

Andrew Hellmich: No. Sounds magic.

Dean Dampney: Yeah, I don't want to be too, I don't want to talk it up too much. I couldn't be happier. And I do pinch myself all the time. I just, I really, really appreciate. I couldn't be more appreciative of, you know, of how lucky I am and how, how good a place I am right now. And I guess, like any photographer, I've got to make sure that I'm always extremely self-critical and preparing for the worst and all those kind of things. So I am constantly trying to up my game, I guess, stay on my game, up my game. You know, follow what other people are doing to some extent, and yeah, just continue up in the ante as much as I can.

Andrew Hellmich: Nice one, nice and look, and for listeners, I mean, we've sort of harped on there, I've mentioned a few times, $120,000 turnover, or the gross, I guess, the takings. But you were very clear to me that there's obviously a lot of expenses in there, and actually looking at net profit a lot less than that, aren't you?

Dean Dampney: Yeah, look, that's, that's right to be, to be completely upfront about that, my net profit, which, you know, it's an interesting study in itself, but my net profit is basically around the 60,000 mark, which, you know, I think is probably about bang on what the average regional Australia or South Coast Australian family is perceived as needing to survive on it. It gives, it definitely gives us enough freedom to spend a little bit of time away in winter. But, you know, we, and we're not frugal by any means. But on the same note, we don't drive flash cars. We, you know, I guess we don't have restaurants. We do have restaurants. We got some really good restaurants. You can't buy food down here,

Andrew Hellmich: Down to the Roadhouse for a pie.

Dean Dampney: That's it, at the Tucker Box. Look, there's, there's no, I guess the point being is there's not much, there's not much going on really, and so there's not a lot of things to spend excess money on. Yeah, we do live relatively simply.

Andrew Hellmich: I love it. I love it, mate. You've been so generous. You want to try and tackle these 10 quick questions?

Dean Dampney: Yeah, head on. Let's go.

Andrew Hellmich: All right. Here we go. 10 quick questions, 10 quick answers, 3-2-1, go! Canon or Nikon.

Dean Dampney: Can I just say Canon, but I was so staunch Nikon, but then Naomi, who's a photographer in her own right, was Canon, and we needed to, there was a brief, a brief time that we were Naomi and Dean Photography as wedding photographers. It was very brief. We couldn't decide over diptychs or triptychs. But regardless of that, she had a better, she had a better kit in the photographic sense, and what I did. And so we became Canon, and I became Canon.

Andrew Hellmich: Wow, big move.

Dean Dampney: It was, it was sad. I still, yeah, no. Well, look, I love my gear, so.

Andrew Hellmich: Cool. First ever camera?

Dean Dampney: You know, I had thought about that a little bit, and I've got a perfect picture of it in my mind's eye, but I'm still not exactly sure what it was. I was only nine or 10, and I'm sure some of your viewers out there will know I'm not that much of a gearhead. I think it was a Minolta. It was a yellow waterproof camera that was about a size. It was about 25 centimeters long. It's sort of a rectangular shape. I think it was a Minolta, but I'm..

Andrew Hellmich: I've got a feeling, I know. The camera said, did you get that, because you're already into surfing?

Dean Dampney: Yeah, look, my dad bought it for me. And yeah, I was interested into the ocean. And yeah, it was such a great gift. I was right into it.

Andrew Hellmich: Cool, favorite lens today, and why?

Dean Dampney: It might be the lens I don't have. Can I say my favorite two lenses?

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah, go for it.

Dean Dampney: I basically shoot everything, absolutely everything, on two lenses. And it's a Canon 51.2 and the Canon 24 1.4 and look, I think if I was to say the single one lens. It'd be probably the 35 whatever it is. But I don't, I don't like changing lenses, so I use the two, the 24 and the 50 for all my wedding work, and really all my work full stop.

Andrew Hellmich: So when you say to you don't like changing lenses, so you've got two bodies with those lenses, or you do change those two?

Dean Dampney: No, that's exactly right. I've got two, I shoot with two bodies with, yeah, one of those lenses on each body.

Andrew Hellmich: And why don't you like changing?

Dean Dampney: I just, it's time that I'm potentially missing potentially good shots.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, cool. So you shoot pretty wide most of the time.

Dean Dampney: Yeah, I shoot probably half my shots on, I shoot around half my shots on the 50 and the other half on the 24.

Andrew Hellmich: Wow. Okay, great. JPEG or RAW?

Dean Dampney: Look, there's no, no question there. It's got to be RAW, right?

Andrew Hellmich: I won't even, we won't go there, because this will go on for another hour. What? What keeps you up at night?

Dean Dampney: Um, my six month old baby.

Andrew Hellmich: Good answer.

Dean Dampney: Almost every night at the moment, but, yeah, but yeah, nice. I sleep pretty well.

Andrew Hellmich: Awesome. What? What's, you mentioned your software? Didn't you say, your software for batching, editing, renaming, is Photo Mechanic, and then you go into Lightroom, don't you?

Dean Dampney: Yeah, that's exactly it's, I almost never come into Photoshop these days. And, yeah, that's, that's it, Lightroom.

Andrew Hellmich: Do you? I know you mentioned earlier that you never used to look at other photographers work. Do you? Do you do that these days?

Dean Dampney: Yeah, look, I definitely do. I'm always been most inspired by the reportage and documentary photographers. I guess the best way to sort of generalize that group would be really anyone that is under or associated with Magnum Photography, the agency Magnum, and I still follow all the best number of the best reportage and documentary photographers, especially locally, but internationally as well. And that's where my inspiration comes from. Look, the on an equal portion, I guess, inspiration for me comes from the Wedding Photojournalist Association, which is, look it's international, I guess. They're a North American based Association. But the photographers that associated, or members of the WPJA Wedding Journalists Association, are usually the guys that I draw my, the majority of my inspiration beyond that, there's look, I've probably got six or seven wedding photographers that I follow blog post to blog post. And yeah, on the most part, they're wedding photographers that are associated within the realm of wedding photojournalism.

Andrew Hellmich: Do you want to throw one or two at me?

Dean Dampney: For sure. The guy who I'm, who I'm really inspired by at the moment, is, and it's, I'm not exactly sure how to pronounce his name, but he's a Mexican photographer called Fer Juaristi.

Andrew Hellmich: Oh, he's awesome.

Dean Dampney: Yeah, cool. I'm so, it's interesting, you know of him. I've got no idea how well or how well known or how not well known. These guys are, yeah, look, he shoots, he shoots really wide. He's really, he's, he's really close. Look, he's probably got more of a, he's, he's probably got more of the dedication to the wedding photo shoot than what I do. Not that I don't really enjoy that, that part of a wedding day, but I made the majority of my strongest images come outside that framework, outside the wedding photo shoot, as we call it. Whereas I think, for probably spends, a lot of his images seem to come from that, that time frame of the wedding day. Look, I just love his work full stop. Think is absolutely awesome.

Andrew Hellmich: I've actually seriously, without a lie, I had one of the tabs open. I'm looking at your stuff in front of it. One of the tabs in my browser is his website. I was looking at it yesterday. It's still open. And yeah, he's, he's a great shooter. I love his work.

Dean Dampney: Wow, that's really interesting. Just look, I've just signed, anyone, the WPJA website has quarterly contests, and any of the work that gets selected for that and the photographers associated with it, is stuff I look at, just looking through, I've got sort of another studio that's actually come to prominence on my little blog. Tiling area of my browser right now is Chrisman Studios and or Chrisman Studios that, if I were to hear that, probably just flinch.

Dean Dampney: Do you want to spell that for me?

Dean Dampney: Yes, C-H-R-I-S-M-A-N, Chrisman Studios. And look, they're based in, I think they're based in San Francisco, ironically enough, and this, there's about four or five shooters for them. And, you know, going back to those two different models we were describing, we're talking about before, they seem to have four or five extremely talented shooters. It's, I think it's a husband and wife, husband and wife team that set them up initially, and then they're just, I think their work's brilliant. Again, they're probably a little bit more sort of orientated towards, no, I was about to say, towards the photo shoot, but they've definitely got a creative documentary style, and I really appreciate it.

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah, cool. I'll put links to all of those for listeners in the show notes, so you can jump over and get those. Mate, two more questions, you were married. You're married, aren't you?

Dean Dampney: Yes, I am.

Andrew Hellmich: Who did he get to shoot your wedding?

Dean Dampney: We had two girlfriends of my partner, my wife's Naomi, that were both up and coming wedding photographers at the time, and they both as a team, I guess, although they were working individually, offered to shoot our wedding for us as a gift, I guess, which was incredibly generous. And I guess beyond that, we've got a lot of photography friends, and, yeah, I will never be able to sort of clear the image of from my mind's eye, of basically standing next to Naomi when we're in our ceremony. And it was a really close knit, but really quite big group of people outdoors and looking away from Naomi towards the group of friends and family that were there, and seeing about 50 image, 50 lenses just cutting down straight towards me. And I'm not talking iPhones. It was, you know, as the photojournalist with their, you know, their 300 mil lenses. And it was just a really daunting and really humorous scene. I guess, typical photojournalist, I think I got my first one of those images delivered about a week ago, six years down the track.

Andrew Hellmich: Are the two girls still in business, the ones that shot your wedding?

Dean Dampney: Yeah, look, one of them is, and one of them is not. One of them, can I say her name?

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah, go for it.

Dean Dampney: So one of them is a girl called Megan Somerton, and she's pared back her business a little bit as well. She's based in think it's Elizabeth Bain, Sydney, and, yeah, she's, she's just had a baby this last eight months. I think she's got an eight month old baby at the moment, so she's paired back a business a little bit as well. But yeah, she goes by Megan Summerson Photography, and she's one of those beautiful people that just has such a great way with people. She loves people, and people love her, and there's a natural flow on effect into her photography. And we're delighted that she was able to take a few shots. We were also, ironically, both not very geared towards having a lot of images taken. We, we didn't do a photo shoot, for instance, we were just really happy to have a couple of shots, if, you know, if anyone's prepared to take them, and inevitably, just hope that everyone there was with camera in hand all night was gonna have a really good time. So, you know the, look, it's, it's one of those embarrassing things. It's, the only album we have to date of our wedding is one of the magazines, one of the wedding magazines that Megan actually publish, that published Megan's photos of us, the six double page spread is the only, the only photos that made it to print so far apart from the one that sits on the on the mantelpiece.

Andrew Hellmich: It's a typical photographer. We're talking about embarrassing. Let me give you a last question before we let everyone know where they can find you. Can you share an embarrassing moment or stuff up that you've had while shooting?

Dean Dampney: I'm a bit of a dag. I pretty much have embarrassing moments every single wedding I shoot, it can be counted on. I always I think every single wedding I will have a moment where I think I probably shouldn't have said that, that way, or whatever I said, I think to myself, that was just not that cool, but it's okay. Look what, what one of those things is. It's not every wedding, but from time to time, it is really embarrassing for me is I do forget names, and I make the mistake of actually trying to impress my bridal party. If there's a bridal party with my great ability to remember their names, and I, I pull out their names a couple of times. And this isn't like a business tactic. This is just a personal thing that, you know, do with whoever I meet. I want to be able to remember people's names. And I'm, you know, sharing an intimate experience with and I'm, you know, it's, it's the bigger bridal parties in particular, but um, that around the time that maybe we're sort of halfway through the photo shoot time, which is still quite short, but regardless, or about three hours or four hours into the into the wedding. And I'll pull out someone's name, who I've repeated a couple of times that say their names, John. I've called John, John a couple of times, "So John can maybe you can help me out by standing over here", or whatever it may be, and then I'll call him something completely random, like Stefano, whatever it may be, and they'll just look at me and just shake the head and just go sort of publicly denounce myself and swear never to try and remember or voice anyone's names ever again.

Andrew Hellmich: I'm sure there's hundreds of photographers listening going, "Yep, I've done that too."

Dean Dampney: It's embarrassing.

Andrew Hellmich: It is, it is. Mate, you've been so generous. Dean, can you tell people where they can find you and see your stuff?

Dean Dampney: For sure. Look, thanks, Andrew, you've been really generous too. Look it's cloudface.com.au just CloudFace. One word .com.au, and as we mentioned, it's a redirect through southcoastwedding.com.au.

Andrew Hellmich: And they can find you on Facebook too?

Dean Dampney: Yeah. Look at Facebook for sure. So www.facebook.com.au/cloudfacephotography, I think I can't remember, but certainly if you do a search in pages. Yeah, look, I don't I've never done the Twitter thing, that kind of felt like it might take my two and a half days a little bit further beyond my capacity. What, look I am doing Pinterest on a personal level, but I have started up a wedding board on Pinterest, and I'm a little bit, not completely dedicated to the whole social media process. So look, I've got Google Plus and Pinterest and Instagram, actually, and all three of those social domains. I'm a little bit half asked about yes this at this stage, and when I don't have a six month old baby keeping me up at night, or when I do decide to do a three and a half day week instead of a two and a half day week, I'm going to dedicate to the cause, put some energy into that, that realm. But right now, it's just Facebook and even that's probably not as established as what it should be.

Andrew Hellmich: Mate, I'd say forget all social media and keep surfing. That's my advice. Mate, let me just say thanks again. You've just been so generous, Dean, and it's been a real pleasure.

Dean Dampney: Thank you, Andrew, look, thanks so much, mate. I really appreciate your time, and I look forward to meeting face to face one time. I might actually crawl out of the boondocks at the far South Coast and meet a bunch of other photographers one day. You know, hopefully yourself included.

Andrew Hellmich: Well, next time on down the south coast, it'll be you, me and Ben Martin. We have to catch up and have a beer.

Dean Dampney: Look. We'd love to and look, I do know Ben. Ben is really my only grip on the photography outside photography world down here. So yeah, I'd love to, you're welcome to come over a cup or a beer anytime I look forward to it.

Andrew Hellmich: Sounds good.

 
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