032: Andy Marcus – Networking Leads to Wedding Photography Success

032: Andy Marcus – Networking Leads to Wedding Photography Success

Andrew Hellmich: I am super excited to have Andy Marcus from Fred Marcus Photography on the line today. He's coming all the way from New York. He has a multi-million dollar family business. It's been running for a long, long time. He's seen a lot of changes, and I hope to delve a little bit deep into what's working, what's not, and pick his brain on how we can run and improve our photography businesses. Andy, welcome to the podcast.

Andy Marcus: Thank you.

Andrew Hellmich: Look, it's an absolute pleasure to have you on. And maybe, maybe we can start by giving listeners a little bit of a background about your business and maybe how it started and sort of where you're at now.

Andy Marcus: Our business is this year, 72 years old. It was started by my dad, and now we're in the third generation, with my son coming into the business about 10 years ago. My father started the business, coming from Germany. In 1939 he on his way to United States, he stopped in Cuba and had to, he thought he was only going to be there for a couple of weeks, but wound up having to stay for pretty much two years. And in that time, to make a few dollars, his hobby was photography, and he had the only thing, one of the only things he brought out of Germany was a Leica M3 and he took pictures of other immigrants on the beaches of Cuba and developed them at night in his apartment, and specifically in his bathtub. He would watch the pictures, and not while he was in the bathtub, but use that as his, use that as his little dark room, and then would sell the pictures to these immigrants on the beach in Cuba. And to make a long story short, they loved his work. He wound up coming to the United States. Was in the army in the United States for a short time, and after the army wound up coming to New York, where all these immigrants were going, and they remembered him. They hired him for events, and basically, little by little, built up his photography business with a lot of hard work. And I used to, when he came home at night from the studio, he used to sit at a desk and make phone calls and try to book more business and I was always listening. My room was right next to where he was doing this. Always would listen to how he spoke to clients and what he said, and it became very ingrained in my lifestyle. I used to help him as an assistant since I was 13 years old. I went into photography after I graduated college, into the business, because I really enjoyed the business, and he made me really start from the ground up, basically numbering proofs. And that was my introduction to looking at a lot of photographers work and kind of being critical in my own mind about it, and seeing how I could maybe do it a little bit better or improve upon certain things. And I really did not take any formal courses in photography, just kind of did it by, more like just hands on, and little by little, I started to sell weddings, and our breakthrough was we had a couple of celebrity weddings that we had people that come to us for and were very successful with. And this has brought on an increase in our business and increase in our, the quality of our clients. So what I'm what I mean by that is that we've kind of geared our business now to a very small niche group of people, wealthy, large weddings are basically what we handle in our studio today. We do a lot of portraiture, we do videotaping, and that's kind of the overview of what we're doing in our studio.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, sure. So to give listeners a little bit of an idea about where your position now, I know you said you're looking after high-end clients, what would be, you know, a rough guide to how much a client would spend, or how much you would charge for your photography services?

Andy Marcus: Well, it varies depending on the size of the different weddings that we do. So I would say on the, you know, small scale, we'll probably do weddings in the $7,000 range, US dollars, and then in the end, I've had clients spend up to a quarter of a million dollars on photography for just one wedding, you know, photography.

Andrew Hellmich: Wow. Okay, that's a, that's a massive sliding scale, isn't it? It's huge.

Andy Marcus: Is it? Yeah.

Andrew Hellmich: So okay, then so, I mean, I just, I really want to, just need, like, get into the little, the nitty gritty, so people have an idea of what they can learn from you. So with, I mean, you go from 7000 to 250,000 but can you give us a, like, an average all-day wedding?

Andy Marcus: How that happens? Well, the, you know, the wedding that I'm talking about, actually the quarter of a million dollar wedding was, was just recently, and that was a wedding that we did. It was a destination wedding that was actually four days long. The wedding was probably, I would have guesstimated at a probably eight to $10 million wedding. And so a quarter of a million dollars is not really that much. It's two and a half percent of what they spent on photography as to what the whole wedding cost, which is a small percentage, I usually average out, I would tell you probably at about 10% of the cost of the wedding for photography. I even tell that to my clients that probably cost them that. So people get a general idea of where, you know, we're going to be. My pricing doesn't start at that point, but because of the quality and quantity of pictures that we give clients, they want many of them, and that's really why my orders become very large. We tell a good story, and people want the photographs.

Andrew Hellmich: So when you said that, you took the jump from, you know, once you shot those first couple of celebrities, that's when the business took a turn.

Andy Marcus: Right.

Andrew Hellmich: So what did you consciously do then, once you book those couple of celebrities, how did you change your business?

Andy Marcus: Well, it's more about the word getting out. You know, my dad always said that, you know, you never know who you're going to meet and where you're going to meet them. My biggest customers have is, have really come from sometimes the smallest little job. For example, you could do a portrait sitting. One of my biggest customers actually came from a portrait sitting that I did one day. Loved the pictures and called me a couple of weeks after and invited me to photograph his birthday party on a boat in Monte Carlo. And when I got into, you know, how many people would be at this party, and how many of you saw, you know what staff to bring? He said, "No, no, it's only 12 people." And I said, "12 people." I said, "Why would you fly me to Monte Carlo from New York with for 12 people?" And he, "I like your work. I like the way you, you know, your attitude when you were working." So again, make a long story short, back and forth, I really didn't want to go. It was and also it was a two hour party. So to fly for 16 hours for two hours. It doesn't make too much sense, but I gave him the price I would want to get, and he was more than happy to pay it. Was flying me business class, and the whole thing, it turned out to be my biggest, I went every year to Europe photographing his birthday party, and now we are doing parties for his kids. The gentleman lives in Florida, has children, and we do all their parties. And it's become a really, really good customer, such a good customer that he doesn't even look at the pictures. I just make his album for him, so it can have 100 pictures, or it can have 500 pictures. Doesn't matter. I make a great album. I create a great album, and I just send them a bill, and it's paid immediately. And that's the kind of customer I really appreciate working with, because that's somebody who really trusts what we do.

Andrew Hellmich: I think everyone listening would love to have customers like that.

Andy Marcus: See? You got to work towards that, that's all. They got to trust you.

Andrew Hellmich: Well, so tell me, so this customer, I mean, he is the ultimate perfect customer. So he, he hasn't just sort of walked down the street and seen your shop window or studio display, and said, "Andy, I want to book you." So what is it that's drawn him to you, you know, to be so free, and you know, really want you.

Andy Marcus: It's, it's, it's all about, I think your reputation, it's about quality. It's about consistency. As I say, you never know who knows who. So I could be at a very small party and somebody meets me and they let or see the work that we do, and they like the work. And they'll tell this gentleman, let's say, and he says, "Oh, you know what?" Looks us up on the website, you know, and checks out our work, and he makes a call. And it was just that simple. It really was that simple. And he became a serious customer. Little by little, we did that birthday party. Loved what we did. We've done, he's flown me literally all over the world, and he owns a 727, believe it or not, his own 727, and, you know, if he needs me to go to Florida, you know, "Go meet, you know, go to the airport. My plane will be there, take you down", you know. So it's, it's, it's pretty crazy, but, but that's the kind of client I really try to focus on. And it's, about people who, because the truth of the matter is, as a photographer, anybody who's listening as a photographer, or at least in my case, it doesn't matter if you're a client spending $500 or somebody spending $50,000, I will work as hard as I possibly can and give you the best photograph that I possibly can, so I would rather, and personally would rather work for somebody who is, since I'm working just as hard for somebody who would spend $50,000 as I would for somebody who would work spend, you know, five, you know, $500, so the bottom line here is that, you know, little by little, you build up this clientele. So this very wealthy gentleman knows other people, and they, you know, call you, and you know he has children, and you know they'll call you and back and forth. So it's, it just grows from there. And people talk if they're happy people, you know, tell other people. You know, in New York City, I find that a lot of people are not happy with their photographers for numerous reasons. And we get a lot of, we get a lot of phone calls from people you know who have had a bad experience with other photographers. And they come to us because you know what they say is, "Everybody I ask about you, you know our studio, Fred Marcus Photography, everybody who I ask, loves your work. They love how they you handle them." They love the customer service we give them. This is all part of the overall, you know, vibe we have with clients.

Andrew Hellmich: So is this something that this customer service and this vibe that you're talking about, is this something that your dad started, or is this something that developed as you took over the business?

Andy Marcus: No. A 100% I have to give, it's my father, and he was, he's still legendary in the business in New York, where I still walk into venues and they say, "We love your dad. He was the best." And so my father passed away about 12 years ago, but he was, you know, an amazing personality. Everybody loved him. I still have people coming in today, bringing me albums from 1950s that he photographed. And, you know, it's crazy. I mean, it really is. And they, they still have stories about him. He had a great, you know, great personality, very outgoing, very friendly, very funny. And, you know, I learned a tremendous amount from him, a tremendous amount. And fortunately, my son, who is now just was 35, knew my dad, and he got a lot of that out of from him as well. And you know, it's about treating people, especially people with wealth, as you would treat anybody else, you know, I would treat anybody the same way. I think people like that. It's not, you know, I'm not nervous about it. I'm not stiff about it. I kid around with these people. I have fun with them, and they like us. I mean, they just like us. And, you know, it's not always about necessarily the photography, it's the experience. And I think that we give it, we give our clients a very good experience.

Andrew Hellmich: So can I, can I ask something just a little bit more personal? Did you grow up, did you grow up as in a wealthy household?

Andy Marcus: No, not at all. On the contrary, our, I wouldn't say I was in a poor household. I would say we were middle class. I would not, in any way, say we were wealthy. You know, I think my father struggled for many years, you know, in his business, not to the way, we were always, we were always fine. We always went on vacation, we always did, but we didn't have all the trappings of wealth. I think that over the years, I increased the volume of our business to a point where we were, it was almost uncontrollable. In the early 90s, we were doing almost 800 plus weddings a year, and that got totally uncontrollable, because I couldn't keep the quality level. And then what we, you know, we just cut back, and now we do about 250 I would say, weddings a year on average, sometimes a little bit more, sometimes a few less. But that's about where we want to be. It's, it still sounds like a lot of weddings, which it is, but you, at least, I can control the quality. And we do everything, all the, you know, all the post production, everything is done in our studio. So the retouching and the finishing and the album design all done in our in our studio. It's not sent out to other places.

Andrew Hellmich: Sure. So I want to dive a little bit deeper into the fact that you have staff photographers and other staff in the studio. But the reason I asked about your upbringing was I want to know how it felt when you started to book these clients that were spending, you know, 20-30, $40,000 on photography, when to me, that would just seem, I would feel nervous asking for that. So you must have had to, must have had to overcome that yourself.

Andy Marcus: Okay, that that's really an excellent question, Andrew. It's a problem I'm having with my son a little bit, where sometimes he comes to me and he says that, you know, "Nobody's going to spend that amount of money." And I said, I. And I always go, "Brian, I said, just because you wouldn't spend that kind of money doesn't mean that somebody else wouldn't spend that kind of money. And it's sometimes you have to understand what you're dealing with, and with people that have this kind of wealth, money is not the issue at all. If they're happy with the product, it doesn't matter what you charge." This is, actually, I found to be extremely true. And again, treating it not as," Oh My God, this is, you know, 200,000", that, you know, whatever the final, you know, when somebody comes into order, this order we just took recently, where the bill was a quarter of a million dollars, I'm like, you know, he was, like, flipping out that I would even send a bit like that. And I sent it, and I just said, "Look this, you know, just have a million pictures here." "Yeah" I think it was 11, 11 albums or something like that we created. I said, you're, you know, and I made almost like a joke out of it, you know. And I said, "You know what, you got to send me half, you want to pay it in singles or, you know", so they, you know, they say they laughed. I got the check the next day by Federal Express. Got the, you know, the check came and it was, it was great. So this is, you can't, you know, I mean, you have to be able to have the understanding that when you do well, at least in our business, where we're dealing with these multi-multimillionaires or billionaires, in many cases, you're dealing with a different kind of a person. Money is not an issue. It's, you know, we're small potatoes when you, when even, you know, with those numbers. So it's, you know, it's something that you mentally have to, you know, just get over and again, like I say, treating people and making kind of a joke out of it, and having fun with it is part of what we do. And people, I think, really appreciate that. So I meet, there's a magazine, I don't know if you have it in Australia, there's a magazine in New York called Forbes, which has, every year, the 400 billionaires in the world, the most wealthy people in the world, and I, last year, went through the magazine, and literally, 40 out of the 400 are clients of us, not people we photographed. And, "Oh, I saw him at a wedding and I took a picture of him." It's, literally, these are people who are full-fledged clients we've done weddings or parties for and it's, it's just, my friend was on the phone with the wife of one of them this afternoon, talking about, you know, another party, another event that she's having. And it, this is the kind of thing that we do, and it's, it's fun. I mean, I make it a fun thing. You know, that's why I'm still doing it.

Andy Marcus: Sure. And it sounds like you're still enjoying it, which is fantastic.

Andy Marcus: Oh, I do. And that's, believe me, honestly, financially, I don't need to do it anymore. I do enjoy the whole, the whole part of the business, not just the photography part, which I love, but the back and forth with the, you know, the negotiating and the, you know, creating albums, the sales. I enjoy all of that. It's part of what I do. And I love going in every day to our studio and meeting new people and having fun with them.

Andrew Hellmich: Sounds good. Sounds good. Let me just, let me explore this little thing with Brian, just a little bit more. So, when he's trying to get over this, or get past the fact that he's charging the amount of money that he is for his work. Are you giving him advice like, you know, "Brian, you've got to dress better, you have to wear, you know, these sort of clothes. You have to present your photos in a certain way." Does he have to carry himself differently? And you have to teach him how to do that?

Andy Marcus: No, I don't have to teach him how to do that, because he's very good. And when he goes to work and he goes out, this is actually another great question, because it's one of my little pet peeves, is that a lot of photographers today go out there, you know, as "photojournalists", quote, unquote, and they go out and they dress with, you know, for me, completely inappropriately for weddings. ,So we do these very high-end weddings, everybody's in black tie. Everybody's in, sometimes, a white tie. The women are wearing $1,000 gowns, and you can't walk around in a pair of black jeans and a black T shirt with short sleeves that, well, that may look very cool, it is not going to get you any, you know, pluses for, you know, for dress. Now, Brian dresses beautifully. He's a good looking guy, and he dresses really well. And, you know, all of my photographers and assistants and anybody works with me at a wedding must dress the way the guests or dress that we find out all of this stuff before, we ask a lot of questions before a wedding. But we, you know, if the guests are wearing black tie, then we come in black tie. If the guests are in a, in a business attire, we'll come in a dark suit. Never in T shirts, unless it's, you know, specifically asked for, but you know, it's a barbeque somewhere, obviously you don't wear suit so, but that's, you know, the exception. In general, we come dressed that whatever the guests are wearing, we will wear. And, you know, you look good. You blend in. And people, I think, really appreciate that.

Andrew Hellmich: Perfect, great advice. So what about for listeners that you know aren't at the level that you're at, as far as clients and they want to sort of step up to the next level. Do they, should they be dressing better than their clients, or should they be talking differently than their clients?

Andy Marcus: Well, I don't know how they're talking to their clients, but as far as dressing, if you're going in other way, how do I, like our studio, when you walk into our studio, it looks like you're walking into a fine jewelry store. It's, we spend a lot of money on the decor. We had an architect that had a designer come in, and it's, it's beautiful fabrics and woods and little details. And when people walk into my office, they know they're going to be spending money. This is not the normal, so to speak, studio. It is not rough and ready. It is not in some loft somewhere. It is, it is like, it's, it is like you're walking into a fine, you know, store on Fifth Avenue in New York. And that is really, really important. And I think in partially, in making your case to sell an expensive product, if you look sloppy. If you're not, you know, you know, you're, you haven't shaved, and your hair is a mess, and you're dressed, you know, sloppily. That is something that is not going to get you the job. People don't, right away get turned off by that. So being dressed, I mean, you don't have to be dressed in a suit every day, which I'm not, but you have to be dressed neat, clean, look great. The room that you're doing your sales in should be clean and neat. And you know, if somebody walks into a sloppy studio with stuff lying all over the place, it looks like you do sloppy work. If you walk in, it's, I always tell my staff to major on the minors, meaning you walk into my office, if there's a light bulb out, it's the first thing I notice in the morning. And I always get upset if nobody's changed it. And I always let them know that I'm upset, because this is the first, other people walk in and they see that and it's sloppy. It's something that they don't care. So I always want everything to be as perfect as it can be when they walk in and it gives it, give them a good experience. I have fresh flowers in my office, something I worked out with a florist, and we get flowers every week. And it's, it's, it's just nice when people come in, they go, "Wow, this is kind of cool."

Andrew Hellmich: Andy, when your business started growing, or as it went through its growth period and you've started to take on other shooters, how did, how do clients react when they came to book Andy Marcus, and you're saying, "Well, you can have, you know, Vince is going to be shooting your wedding or your event." How did that go down?

Andy Marcus: What did you say, who Vince?

Andrew Hellmich: Oh, I'm just making up a name.

Andy Marcus: I had a photographer for 35 years, name was Vince. Anyway, good photographer, but okay, the way I deal with it is that when either Brian or I come to do the photography, there is a premium on having us come to do the work. Also, when people come in and I show them albums of the different photographers, people, this is part of this consistency theme that I kind of talk about a lot, is that when people see the work of my other photographers, the work is very similar to what we do, the posing, lighting, the way we do things is very similar from a, you know, from photographer number one to photographer number five. That's why I don't have 30 photographers. I have a small group. They're great, and I know the work every week will come back and I'll be happy with it. That's a big deal if you're going, you know a photographer starting out in the business and has a wedding, and then somebody, maybe a second wedding, comes in, he has to have people that he can trust to do work very similar to his own. I very rarely have new photographers come into the fold. I do have assistants that we work with that I kind of try to get people who want to be photographers, who want to learn and watch and do and I have actually a few people right now in the pipeline that are really at that point where they're excellent what they're doing, they're getting better. And actually my assistants, I'd be very happy if, if I couldn't work at a wedding, having them do it, I know I get the same product back, and, you know, that's how good they are. And that's all a matter of training them and taking the time to really drill it in that, you know, you want things a certain way, and there's a certain method to what you do. It's been successful for all these years. It was successful with my dad, successful with me, and it will be successful, and is successful with my son right now as well. So it's just, you know, doing this constantly.

Andrew Hellmich: So you have a consistency right across the board, no matter who goes out.

Andy Marcus: That's correct, and that's, that's the key. The everything that we do, lighting, posing, everything, you know, the equipment we use, it's very consistent throughout.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, let me play, let me play the customer for a second, or your client, and I'm coming in to book you for my event, my wedding, and you tell me now that you charge a premium instead of Vince, you know "Why do you, why does it cost more to have you?" What do you tell me?

Andy Marcus: It's, you know, I'm a contract. What I do is I never sell myself. You know, I feel if people want me to be their photographer, they will very, they're not shy, they will ask for me, "Are you available on this day?" "Yes, I am. Here's the price, if you want", "Oh, I don't want to spend that much money. Could I, what do you suggest that I go with? "Well, I have, you know, X, Y and Z available. And so, here you want Vince? I will have Vince do the photography for you. He's a little less expensive, but does just as good a job." And it really is, the staff I have are amazing. A lot of them are in my studio full time, so I can just call them over and to meet the people. It's very unusual that I would have a problem. And like I say, both Brian and I are available, we kind of interchange. Brian is asked for a party, he's not available. He'll kind of tell him, "Oh, you know, you can use my dad. He's here. You meet him if you want. And if not, we have these other photographers. They're all good." And it's, it's about really keeping everything at a certain level. And that's the key to success, is that you can't do one good wedding one week and do some amazing pictures and then the next week do something that's mediocre. You know, weddings are very, I think there's a lot of pressure for, for having somebody new in the business certainly, there's a ton of pressure, but, but there's always, it's, I don't, I'm not nervous going out to do weddings. I love going, and I have a lot of fun with them. But it's, the pressure is to make sure you come back with the right shots. That's really the key thing.

Andrew Hellmich: Sure. And do you, with your sort of clientele, Andy, do you still get your one hour that you asked for your location shoot, or is it a totally different sort of scene, and you just have to, you're shooting as fast as you can. You don't get the time. You don't get them to set up the shots that you want?

Andy Marcus: No, well, this is, this is where, again, I am not, or we are not of the you know, group of photographers that are, you know, so to speak, I don't know anybody who does it anymore, but true photojournalist, where they just walk in and start taking pictures. See in the end, after all is said and done, brides think they know what they want, but invariably don't. And if you, if you, you know, if a bride tells me, "Oh, I just want a photojournalist coming around." If I truly did that, they would never be happy. They wouldn't have family pictures. They wouldn't have friends pictures. The mother may never talk to her best friend at a wedding. So these are things that I need to know before I go out. We are, we actually ask a million questions, like, you know, kind of like, what you're doing. We have a little interview with all of our brides and grooms and parents, and find out all their wish list of what they want done and what they expect to have at the wedding and anything special happening at the wedding. So I find out all this information. I print it out on a worksheet. I know who the sister, the name of the sister of the bride and the brother of the bride. Are they married? Do they have kids? What are their names? So we're prepared when we go to a wedding, we're prepared to photograph and know people by name. This is a big plus for us. If there are any special requests, I know what to ask for, and it just makes you, it makes your job, in the end, easier. It also, you know, when we photograph, we want to have a story, and part of that is that you show all the family pictures are taken. I find as much as a lot of photographers kind of poo-poo, the family pictures, "Oh, you don't need them. It's not important." The only reason they're saying that probably is because they don't know how to take, you know, beautifully posed photographs. We also, you know, while posing has a connotation of being, you know, kind of tiresome, we make, we move this along and they're very candidly done. The photographs are, are fun. They're not very stiffly posed. We don't worry about every hand and foot being in the right place. Is this picture going to win an award in our association? I could care less. It is all about getting great expressions. It's about selling a lot of pictures at a wedding, and that's what we're really good at.

Andrew Hellmich: That's great. Great answer. Do you, do you have trouble marketing your work because of the clients that you have? Are you, are they okay with you showing their images on Facebook and your website?

Andy Marcus: Yeah, most people have no problem with it. Celebrity clients that we photograph, I would never put any pictures up from their weddings. As a matter of fact, we have a, you know, spoiler alert here, we have a very big celebrity wedding that I cannot talk about, but, you know, coming up this weekend, and it's all about, you know, giving people privacy. If somebody wants their pictures released, we are more than happy to do that. If they don't, we're more than happy to, you know, keep them private. I find, we, for example, we did Donald Trump's daughter Ivanka Trump's wedding. She was lovely. We had picked, she wanted pictures in the newspaper. I sent the pictures during the wedding to the newspaper. Ryan and I photographed the wedding. I even brought along a retoucher for this wedding, because it wound up in 100 and last time I looked, it was like 147 magazines, the images. And which is, like, ridiculous, but we, you know, we sent out images all over. It was in the, in one of the New York papers had it on the front page before the wedding was over. It's already out on the front page. And this was all handled and with permission and everything. The Professional Photographers of America use one of the pictures on the front cover of their magazine. Of course, I asked for permission. She was so happy. Not a problem. Put it on the cover. Done. So most celebrities don't have a problem, you know, giving us permission. Some do. We did recently, there's an, I don't know how familiar with new with American television, Kelsey Gramma is a big actor here in a lot of television shows, Broadway and so on. We just did his wedding recently, and again, he wanted very much privacy of you know, you know, nothing should go out to the press. And of course, nothing did. And then one of the bridal magazines came up, Grace Orman, which is a very high-end magazine here in in the US, came up and asked for photographs, and yes for he would like that to be done. And he did, and we wound up having a big spread in that magazine. So it's, it's all about, you know, keeping, certainly, keeping, you know, privacy. You know, it's not, you can't just use the images for whatever you want. However, today, celebrities have gotten a little bit more savvy. And in general, they want you to do their weddings for free. That's the new thing in the United States. So I always tell them, you know, when I get these phone calls, I go, you know, "Free doesn't work for me", "But, oh, but you'll get all this publicity." I said, "I get no publicity." It's not, you know, you really don't get publicity. The publicity comes, you know, when you can show your images, rarely do the, you know, the major celebrities that we've shot let images out. I'm even curious this weekend, what's going to happen at this particular wedding, because I'm sure something is going to, you know, come out, but it this is a seriously major one. And, you know, at this point right now, they want privacy, but I'm sure some of the magazines and newspapers are going to want a picture, and I'm sure they will release a photograph of, multiple photographs. And we're ready for that. We're ready to do that at a moment's notice, you know. So this is all part of, you know, the service that we give people and the confidence they have in using us, that we are private.

Andrew Hellmich: Well, it's a totally different world to I think a lot of listeners lives and the sort of people you're shooting, it just sounds incredible. Now, are you Andy, are you ready for these 10 quick questions?

Andy Marcus: Sure.

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

Andy Marcus: You know, it's funny. I'm Canon, and my son is Nikon.

Andrew Hellmich: Oh, really?

Andy Marcus: Yeah, it's a, we have this thing, you know, if you're gonna go Kodak or Fuji, when it was filmed, my son used Fuji. I use Kodak. He likes to be a little different. It's okay.

Andrew Hellmich: What did your dad shoot then?

Andy Marcus: My father was, was, oh, we were before Canon, Nikon. We were basically I grew up with it started out with a four by five Graflex camera with four by five black and white film. That's how I started, with flashbulbs. You know what a flashbulb is, Andrew? Those flashbulbs. We used to take 80, 60, 80 pictures at a big wedding. That was all we photograph. Now I see photographers take 80 pictures of the bride's shoes. So, it's the business has changed so much. But then I went from there to Rolleiflex. We used twin lens Rolleiflex. And instead of changing film backs, when a bride was walking down the aisle, you ran out of film, you would change cameras. You just switch out a camera, and then when you had a moment, you change the film in the camera. Then we went to Hasselblad, where I was with Hasselblad for, oh gosh, for probably 25 years photographing. And that became an extension of my arm. I mean, I knew that camera better than anything. And then as digital came in, obviously the switch took place, and I went with Canon, and my son uses Nikon.

Andrew Hellmich: Beautiful.

Andy Marcus: That's the wrong answer.

Andrew Hellmich: That's okay, that's okay. What's your favorite lens and why?

Andy Marcus: Oh, gosh, I have so many. I use it. I use a lot of lenses. I love the 85 millimeter 1.2 lens on the Canon, because I just love to be able to, you know, shoot some portraits at, you know, 1.2 and, and that little short depth of focus is, is amazing in some pictures. It just pops eyes out. I love it. It just makes the photographs very different.

Andrew Hellmich: Great. JPEG, or RAW?

Andy Marcus: RAW, only RAW.

Andrew Hellmich: What's, have you have you faced any setbacks along the way?

Andy Marcus: In what, in what sense?

Andrew Hellmich: In your business and your business journey? Has there been any big setbacks that you've had to overcome?

Andy Marcus: Other than the economic, you know, difficulties in the United States for the last bunch of years, we've actually, actually had very, we thank God, we have weathered this extremely well. Every year we've done a little bit better than the previous year. I think things are opening up a lot more today. I think that people are spending more money on weddings. The weddings are getting bigger. For many years, many years, three or four years, weddings were definitely scaled down a lot. The venues were not as busy as they were today. There are some huge weddings going on, and thank God, we're, you know, right there for them. And it's been great.

Andrew Hellmich: That's good. That's good. What's one thing you can look back on through your business and think, "Yeah, when we did this, we took a big step forward."

Andy Marcus: I think when we switched to digital and were able to retouch and color correct our own images, was a big step forward in photography, as opposed to what we used to do with film, hand retouching, each, each, each print. We made the print, you sprayed it with lacquer, and then did retouching hand. Retouching by pencil. That was always a very time consuming, expensive process. So today, with the computers, we can, you know, work in Photoshop, and I think that's definitely moved things a big step ahead.

Andrew Hellmich: You know, listeners are thinking, "What is he talking about, spraying with lacquer and retouch?"

Andy Marcus: I mean, what are they talking about, flashbulb. See, that's what. But that actually, you know, what's interesting, and I think that, you know, makes is that when I learned with my dad and I was going out and we were shooting 80 pictures, you know, at a wedding, and you, every image, you had to pull a put a film holder that held, you know, two pictures, two sides of film, you know, two photographs, basically on a film back. Or, you know, when things advanced a little bit, do they have something called a Graflex back, to give a little history, where you could put it into the camera, and you could actually take six, a big six photographs, you know, before you had to change all of this, but it was expensive. It was four by five full and then it had to be processed, and you had to be very careful with it. Any light or anything would ruin the images. So everything had to be done in darkness. This was, this was a big deal, you know. So what happened was, you know, it taught me not to take thousands of pictures at a wedding. I hear sometimes photographers, "Oh, I took 3000 pictures last Saturday, or I took 4000 pictures, you know, at this wedding the other day." And I'm going, that's, it's crazy, because it's only more work when you get back to your office. I am, I'm very careful. I know exactly what I want to capture, and I kind of wait for the moment to happen and then push the button. I probably do take more pictures today because of the whole digital thing than I did many years ago. But you know, it's, it's nowhere near what a lot of photographers take and then they knew also new, new inventions come around where, you know, my son and another photographer just came out with a light they've been in, I don't know if you've seen it in Australia. It's called the Lowel GL1. It's a, it's a handheld. It's a handheld LED light. That's, that's absolutely amazing. And you can, it's not flash, it's constant light. You can adjust it. You can, it's changed out the look of some of our photography, especially candid, on the fly kind of photographs are just amazing with it. So that's been a big thing for us as well. And you know, it's been doing really well, Lowel lighting company came out with the light about three or four months ago, and it was really great development.

Andrew Hellmich: Nice. I've actually seen that advertising. It looks like an amazing bit of gear.

Andy Marcus: It's great. It's great, getting a lot of good press. And we, from National Geographic photographers to fashion photographers in France have been calling to get to be able to use it and try it, and we get a tremendous amount of great press on it. It's great.

Andrew Hellmich: Great. Two more questions for you. Andy, what, do you watch what other photographers are doing?

Andy Marcus: Always

Andrew Hellmich: Always?

Andy Marcus: Yeah

Andrew Hellmich: Wow.

Andy Marcus: So, I like to make sure we're doing, you know, we're doing as good and we're up to date, and I think we're many times very cutting edge, and I find a lot of photographers are copying, you know, even things that we're doing or things we've done years ago, they're trying to do now. So I think we're very much on the cusp of what's going on in the photographic industry.

Andrew Hellmich: Have you? Have you got an embarrassing moment that you're happy to share that's happened while you've been shooting a wedding?

Andy Marcus: Oh, gosh, I try not to have embarrassing moments. No, I'll tell you, I did have an embarrassing moment, as a matter of fact, wasn't that long ago, and it wasn't at a wedding. Does have to be a wedding?

Andrew Hellmich: No, not at all.

Andy Marcus: One of our good clients is, who his wife is, actually the president of, believe it or not, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. And came into the studio for a, actually just a portrait for their website. And I set them up, and I took all these pictures, and I, the wife, and then I took pictures of the husband. This was all took all of 10 minutes. And okay, we were all done, and they were about to leave. And as people leave, I normally shut the camera off and I, I pull out the card, except I didn't have a card in the camera, and I felt like, oh my god, if this ever happened at a wedding, and it's silly, because normally our cameras are all locked, so that can't happen. And there is always a, there's a function that, you know, but this camera had been out for service, and I guess they reset all the settings, and that wound up back. And I got like, "This is embarrassing, but we have to do this over." It took another five minutes to do. But, you know, those kinds of things are, you know, terrible. It's not as bad as dropping a roll of film, you know, which can be, you know, I remember years ago, you know, that things like that could happen, and it's, you know, at least today, we're much more careful with backing up things and so on.

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah, wow. I mean, like you said, lucky that wasn't a wedding that would have been frightful.

Andy Marcus: Exactly.

Andrew Hellmich: Now I am going to keep you on the line just for a few more minutes to talk about marketing for Premium members, but for listeners, where can they check out your work and see your, see your stuff, and maybe even get in contact if they want to.

Andy Marcus: Sure, I'll give you everything. It's our website. For our studio is fredmarcus.com Twitter handle is AndyMarcus, and my Instagram, which I love, is also AndyMarcus, and, you know, have a lot of fun. And I also tweet a lot of pictures for my weddings that we do every week, and you know, have fun with that as well. And if they need to get me, I'm on Facebook. My email is [email protected].

Andrew Hellmich: Fantastic. And I'll add links to all of those different outlets in the show notes as well for the episode. So Andy, it's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much.

Andy Marcus: My pleasure.

 
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