027: Michael Rammell – On The Path To Full Time Wedding Photography Success

027: Michael Rammell – On The Path To Full Time Wedding Photography Success

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, today I've got an interview with a little bit of a difference. I've got a photographer on the line from the UK. He has a full time job, he's got a family, he's got a mortgage, he loves photography, and he wants to make that his full time job. So we're going to find out some of the deal that goes into the decision making behind that, and if, if he's going to be able to make the jump. Michael, welcome to the podcast.

Michael Rammell: Hi, Andrew. How you doing?

Andrew Hellmich: Really good mate, really good. Thanks for coming on the show.

Michael Rammell: Not a problem. Thanks for inviting me, pleased to be here.

Andrew Hellmich: So tell me you're working full time and you want to become a photographer. Why?

Michael Rammell: It's a huge question to start, yeah, thanks. I just, I guess it's so cliche, but just, I just love photography. I guess that's the answer that most people probably would have expected me to give. So I haven't got another answer for you. But, um, no. I mean, like you said, I've got a day job. I mean, there's nothing wrong with it, don't, you know, demonize the day job. I've got a regular, consistent paycheck, which I quite enjoy having so but, um, having said that, yeah, there's a level of satisfaction you get from making money from photography that you don't quite get from sitting at a desk.

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah, sure, let's have a little bit of a background then. So you've been shooting for a while. You've actually shot weddings and portraits up till now, haven't you?

Michael Rammell: That's right, yeah, so I've shot, I'm on my, I'm shooting a wedding this Saturday. That'll be my 17th wedding.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, so you've certainly got a bit of experience. Then are you just shooting weddings?

Michael Rammell: At the moment, yes, literally, I kind of made the decision to focus purely and solely on weddings. Is this is what I enjoy most. I mean, have in my mind been toying with the idea of doing like headshots and stuff recently, because I did a couple of headshots earlier on this year, I thought was a great experience. So, as in, you know, I really enjoyed. It was hilarious. It was good fun. And the guys were really pleased with the end result. So I have been toying with the idea of doing some head shots, but the more I think about it, the more I think, no, just, just focus and specialize on one thing, and that's and that's why they say.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, so you sound like you're past that stage where, you know, where you get nervous going to the wedding. You certainly shot in different conditions now, so you're pretty confident in the way you're shooting? Yeah,

Michael Rammell: I think I'm pretty confident with anything I shoot really. I'm one of those guys will walk into a meeting with a client and yeah, I use humor and I laugh, and I'm, yeah, I'm not nervous about anything. I'll walk up and on the wedding day morning to the bridal preparations and take control of the situation and calm things down. It's, it's a fantastic thing to do. I think, thinks probably my strength, really dealing with people. So, yeah, no, no nerve for me at all, really, I'm quite able to turn up on a wedding day and just go with the flow.

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah, sure. I really want to know what, what's going through your head, as far as becoming a, you know, photographer as a job. Why not just enjoy photography and have fun? You know, enjoy, enjoy the kids growing up. Don't worry about having to work on the weekend. And, yeah, you know, and just keep the day job and have photography as a hobby.

Michael Rammell: Sure, sure. Well, I think the thing is, again, I keep repeating this, but don't demonize a day job, but, but the problem is, with a day job is that I don't really feel like I'm in charge of my own destiny. So I'm working for somebody else. I'm working five days a week, sometimes more, and, you know, everything, kind of that I do on a daily basis is dictated to me, so I kind of what I don't like. But the other thing is, well, in the last couple of years before I sort of started, you know, sort of taking this photography business quite seriously, it was that actually getting introduced to business, in business, as it were, as in exposure to, you know, things like accounts, quotations, invoicing, and it's something I actually really enjoy. I don't just enjoy the side of photography. I actually enjoy the business stuff as well. So when the two come together, it's seven, I quite enjoy the stuff. So the idea of actually starting a photography business appeals to all sides of my brain, my creative brain, my logical brain. So it's, yeah, like I sort of said earlier really, is the level of satisfaction I get from doing this, I don't think I've ever had anything else before.

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah, cool. I mean, I'm with you all the way. I mean, I went through the same process, you know, 12 years ago, so, and it was a real juggling act. So have you got a path, sort of, you know, marked out that you need to get down to be able to become the full time photographer and throw in the day job?

Michael Rammell: Absolutely, yeah, and I've got myself all planned out. So at the moment, I'm making a kind of slow and measured transition. I'm just kind of trying to pave my way and, you know, put my safety net out there for the future. You know, right now, my wife and I have a second child on the way, so a lot of people just say, you know, "Just do it. You know, make the jump. Quit the day job. Yeah, stop working for the man." But I'm just saying, "No way." I mean, really, I want my wife to have, like, a full year off work next year to when the new ones, new one's here, it's probably gonna arrive Christmas day, knowing our luck, it's June, December. But, you know, I think I'll have to be a little bit selfish at some stage, and, you know, give up those regular paychecks, you know, and sort of so called chase the dream. But I don't think it'll be really until my wife's had that quality time with our children, and until she settled back into a working routine. I think, like one of the first Twitter interactions that you and I had was following another podcast I've been on, and a lot of what we touched on was, was why I hadn't made the jump yet. And the guy was kind of pushing me, saying, you, you know, "The only thing stopping you is you." And while that's right, while that is the case, if I were to quit my day job tomorrow, I wouldn't be able to pay my bills the next week. I just don't shoot that many weddings. I don't shoot enough weddings, I should say. So, for me, the plan I've got is to carry on doing what I'm doing, shoot a nice number of weddings, get them under my belt, build a bit of a reputation in my local area. And as soon as things are kind of, you know, sort of settled down here, with regards to, because we got quite a few overheads as well. We got quite a nice lifestyle, once we sort of finish our project, as it were, to get those lowered and get our things, get our foundation settled, then, yeah, I'm gonna start ramping things up, doing some AdWords marketing, try and get some more weddings and see if I can transition.

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah, cool. Okay, I really want to get into the marketing stuff in a little while. So how long is this path looking like being for you at this stage?

Michael Rammell: Well, basically next year, as in 2014 for us, is going to be somewhat of a write-off. Like, I say, my wife's gonna have a whole year off work and, then, like, the only thing that I really care about the moment in terms of our personal life, is making sure she has that year. That's, that's the one goal that we're working towards. So we're saving her money and reducing her outgoing to ensure that she can have at least 12 months or so off of work to spend that really good quality and valuable time with our children. So that's not to say I'm going to stop doing weddings or anything in the meantime. Absolutely not. I mean, I'll take as many weddings as many weddings as I can get, within reason. I don't want to do too many, but, but the thing is, yeah, like I say, if that puts my day job at risk, and then anything happens there, and then my wife has to go back to work any sooner than 12 months. That's 12 months she's never gonna get back, and I'll hate myself for that. So we, okay, so we've got two kids. So our first, when we had our first child, she only had four months off, and it's, it burns her. She so regrets it. She really wanted to have longer, but we just couldn't afford it at the time. So, you know, I'm really desperate to give her what she wants and make sure she has that long, long period of time of work to spend that really good amount of quality time with our little one.

Andrew Hellmich: So when you talk about outgoings and overheads, you talking about, what are you talking about there?

Michael Rammell: Mortgage, everything. Yeah, actually, yeah. So, bills, cars, you know, utilities, everything. So everything I've got in there, I've got a really sort of quite comprehensive spreadsheet where I put everything in it. It's a photography based spreadsheet. So I put in what I earn. Obviously, I have my collection prices. It gives me hourly rates, all that sort of stuff. So I use that basically, to kind of gauge whereabouts I am at the moment. So like you say when I talk about outgoings, I'm talking about not just business outgoing so I'm talking about, you know, the lifestyle outgoings. It's the cost of living.

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah, sure. So are you going to try and, like, reduce those to nothing before you go full time in photography? Or you're going to try and manage those?

Michael Rammell: No, no, exactly that. We've got to, we've got to get rid of a few things. So we, we've moved house like three times in the last three years trying to find, like, the right house for us. So that's always cost us a bit of money as well. So we've got a credit card, we've got a car that we want to kind of get rid of and get a different car, nothing, nothing special. We just want to get a bigger car for the two kids. But equally, we don't want to commit ourselves to too much more outgoings on the car as well. So basically, for the next sort of four or five months, we've got a bit of a project to get rid of one credit card, to change the car, and then just get ourselves in a nice level footing with some cash in the bank basically.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, sure.

Michael Rammell: And that kind of serves two purposes. So not only is it going to reduce our outgoings for my wife to better take the 12 months off work, it should also mean that when my wife goes back to work, is that those low outgoings are still going to be low, and we should have a nice kind of, you know, low overhead so that we can afford to take a bit more of a risk, as it were, you know, to just get this photography business going, so.

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah, sure. So, how, have you looked at what you need to earn through photography to be able to leave the day job when you decide to?

Michael Rammell: Yeah, yeah. So one of the things I put my..

Andrew Hellmich: I'd love to know that figure.

Michael Rammell: Okay, yeah. So just to survive. So I'm not talking holidays. I'm trying to open my spreadsheet up here. So just to survive, I need about 28k year. And this is pound as well. This is pound. So, yeah, so, so just doing a bit of sort of working out. So I think sort of 1000 pounds works out to be just over 2200 US dollars. So I don't know what 28 UK pounds, you know? Sorry, 28,000 UK pounds works out of here in Australian dollars, but I imagine it's somewhere just above 30, $30,000 or something?

Andrew Hellmich: No, no, I think it's gonna be more than, I think it's gonna be around, is it nearly two times, $60,000 Australian dollars?

Michael Rammell: Well, I don't think it's that much, if I can get my laptop, one second.

Andrew Hellmich: This is live podcasting now.

Michael Rammell: I'm conscious you guys have got, like, a good listener, you know, sort of set of listeners from all over the place. So, yeah, if I just go to my cost of living calculator, yeah. So my cost of living basically works out to be 20, 27,000 pounds, which it worked out to be 45,000 Australian dollars.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay, right. Okay.

Michael Rammell: That's what I need to earn. And then, you know, reversing it back from there, then I can also then work out what I need to, how many weddings I need to shoot, and what I need to average.

Andrew Hellmich: So that's what you need to have that as, I guess, is a take home pay that's after expenses, isn't it?

Michael Rammell: Well, yeah, so what I've got in my little spreadsheet here, again, I keep referring to spreadsheet, but yeah. So that includes my car lease, that includes things like insurance, and obviously it's rent and all my utilities, and then insurances, things like mobile phones, internet connections. And then in there we have included things like date nights and dinners and things like that. Because we do like to include. I mean, as far as we're concerned, we consider that a must, you know, we've got to, you can't just sort of survive on nothing and then, you know, sort of not spend some quality time together. My wife and I've got to have a relationship as well. That's one of the things we spoke about, really, is if I go into business as a photographer and don't have a day job, if I'm not earning enough money from it, or if it's not, you know, sort of helping us survive, as it were, then I'm not going to enjoy it as much. And really, I think that's going to undermine the actual idea of doing this. So, you know, I love my photography. Absolutely love it. I'll shoot 24/7 if I could, you know, I took a day off last week just to go into London, just to take some photos. But if I'm really struggling. I don't want to end up kind of resenting photography for what it is. It's, you know, it's supposed to be, I guess, to an extent, a creative relief from the day job. But I've kind of now got this fixation on making it my day job, if you will. And like I say, if it's not paying the bills, I really don't want to end up resenting it, which is why, like I said earlier, my kind of path in transition is like sort of slow and steady and measured. I don't want to mess this up, so.

Michael Rammell: The amount of times you've already mentioned this spreadsheet, I know it's going to be totally measured.

Michael Rammell: Yeah, well, you know, hopefully you see it's just a few tabs long. So it's got a, got a quite a lot of information, a lot of numbers.

Andrew Hellmich: So, so for 27,000 pounds, how many weddings do you need to shoot to generate that sort of income?

Michael Rammell: So it depends on what collection, because I've got sort of three different collections available. So one, so I start at 895, that's pounds again, so that works out to be 1500 Australian dollars. So I'd need to shoot like 35 of those a year, basically. But that depends because, I mean, the reason I work it out my lowest base collection is because that's generally what I'm booking the most of at the moment, I rarely get my second or third collection. So I go, 895, like I say, which is $1,500 and then 1500 pounds, which is $2,700 and then 2000 pounds, which is $3,400 but like I say, most of what I book, it seems to be that lowest collection.

Andrew Hellmich: So, so what's the possibility of booking 30 odd weddings in a year for you at the moment?

Michael Rammell: So right now, none. I mean, there's no possibility of that, because I don't push, market myself enough, having, having a having a day job does not permit me to book, well, did not permit me to shoot sort of 20-25, weddings a year. I could probably shoot sort of, I think I could probably afford, in terms of time, to shoot sort of between 15 and 20 right now.

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah, okay. So, so, so let me get this right. So what you're thinking is that when you leave, when you decide to make the jump, then you can ramp up the marketing and then expect to pick up those numbers pretty quickly. Is that, is that what you're expecting or?

Michael Rammell: No, no, no. Well, I guess you don't expect anything in business. But with regards to the, the marketing, I'll have to do, like my sort of AdWords and my and make sure my SEO is tip top, which I think it's quite good anyway, I'll have to do that sort of towards the tail end of next year, or middle of next year. And obviously, I guess it's all going to be sort of a year in advance. When I first started out my first year, I was getting bookings for the same year, so I had a lot of the lower-end weddings, you know. And brides would come to me, I guess, as a bit of an afterthought, and booked me for sort of three or four or five months in advance. But at the moment, I'm getting a lot of bookings for 2014 and quite a few for 2015 as well. So I'm finally starting to book my sort of clients. You know, the ones that will pay the going rate, or my going rate is, I should say, who seem to value photography, and also think about it in good time as well. So rather than just booking me a few months in advance, an afterthought, because they've got the flowers and the cake book. Oh, I'll go get a photographer as well. I've got a lot of brides and groom now, thinking about photography first. They're booking me 12-18, two years in advance. So I'm doing quite well there. Like I said, I think I'll definitely have to think ahead. So my plan with regards to marketing is going to be to probably start pushing that middle of next year for the year after that, so.

Andrew Hellmich: how are these weddings that you're getting so far? How are they coming to you?

Michael Rammell: Mostly word of mouth and via Facebook. So I'm doing, I wouldn't say I'm doing the minimum amount of marketing, but I'm certainly not doing much more than the minimum. So I've got a blogger website and Facebook and other social media, so pretty much the free outlets. I mean, well, my website isn't free, but obviously social media is. So yeah, at the moment, I'm getting a lot of referrals, mostly referrals, which is, which is fine, actually, because it's quite cool to go back to a wedding and to at least recognize someone or recognize the venue, that sort of thing, so.

Andrew Hellmich: So the word of mouth referrals are coming from brides that you shot, or from bridal parties that were at the wedding, that sort of thing. Or?

Michael Rammell: Bride, yeah, mostly people at the wedding. Yeah. I mean, a couple of times I'll be shooting at a wedding, and someone will come up to me and say, "Right. I'm getting married in October." I had it this year. I shot a wedding in June, and a couple came up to me and said, "We're getting married in October. We've got a business card. We'd love to see the photos when they're done." And so they booked me as well. So I presented the photos two or three weeks after the wedding, and they had a call a week after that, saying, "Oh, cool, but we've seen the photos. We'd would love it if you can come shoot our wedding in October." So that was pretty cool as well.

Andrew Hellmich: Nice

Michael Rammell: I think, yeah, I think the danger of that is, if you will, because I'm only really in my sort of third full year, is that I started off shooting very, very sort of low-end weddings, like I literally, my first few weddings were sort of between 250 and 300 pounds, which would be sort of six or seven Australian dollars or something.

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah

Michael Rammell: Obviously, with it, with referrals, I guess you attract like for like. So you know it, if I was charging someone three or 400 pounds, the referral that I'm going to get is going to be for the same sort of value. So I've really, sort of made a really conscious effort to try and move up in the last few years. So in my first year, when I shot five weddings, I was averaging 260 pounds of wedding. And then in the second year, I went right up. So I started shooting. So I shot six, six weddings my last year, and averaged 650 pounds of wedding. So huge, huge jump there in my average, which I'm really pleased about. And this year, so far, I've only shot five weddings, but I'm already averaging 677 pounds a weddings. So not, not much of an increase. But have shot fewer weddings. I should also add as well that this year I shot two weddings that I had booked last year on my old prices. So this year I shot two weddings, one at 451 at just under 400 pounds, which works out again, probably, what, $900 or something, Australian dollars.

Andrew Hellmich: So, so what's happening with your price, are you just notching them up a little bit at a time on your website?

Michael Rammell: No, no, no, literally, what I did, I mean, when I first started my website, I had my entry level package at like, 295 pounds, which is nothing, it's a shoot and burn package. And then I went right up to, like a 999 pound package, and then, like, to two grand. I was crazy thinking that I could appeal to, basically, you know, the 295 pound shooting burns and, like, appeal to the 2000 pound premium wedding album clients as well. That's crazy to think now. So I sort of woke up one morning and thought, like, you know, what, if I'm going to want to make this a sustainable business for the future, I really can't be shooting weddings for 295 pounds because that, that works out to be less than minimum wage over the course of, you know, sort of 35 to 40 hours. Again going back to my spreadsheet, one of the things it does is it works out roughly how long I'll spend on each wedding as well, and then in turn, it gives me an hourly rate. So for example, at the moment, if I shoot a wedding, 895 pounds, which is my first collection, my sort of entry level collection, if you will, I always sort of guesstimate that I'll be working around 35 hours a wedding, which works out to be 20 pounds an hour, or, if you will, about 33 $34 an hour Australian dollars an hour.

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah. Okay, so you really worked right down, right?

Michael Rammell: Yeah.

Andrew Hellmich: You've looked at everything.

Michael Rammell: Exactly that. I mean, well, I know what I own in my day job, so I kind of value. I mean, I'm really happy with what I own for my day job. I don't think I'd be any more motivated if I earned much more from my day job. It pays for a quite nice living, and we could probably survive on just my wage alone, if my wife would have stopped working. So what we've kind of said is that the, what I am from my day with job is kind of the target from photography as well. If I could earn at least that, then we'll be set. We'll be quite happy with that.

Andrew Hellmich: Nice. Look, I mean, it looks like with the numbers you talking about and the progress you're making that you know, should definitely be a reality for you.

Michael Rammell: Yeah, I think, I think my numbers are real. They're realistic. It's just a case of getting there and working towards those, really.

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah. Okay. So, you mentioned Facebook and your website and your blog. Are you actually getting, are you booking weddings through those?

Michael Rammell: I've only ever booked one, I think maybe two, weddings through the blog. But I think more than anything, I get a lot of traffic through Facebook, a lot of comments and messages and people asking for quotations. And, you know, so I get a lot of interest through Facebook, and people are..

Andrew Hellmich: So how are they coming to you, Michael? Is that because you're posting someone else's wedding photos up?

Michael Rammell: Exactly that, Andrew, yeah, exactly that. So, I'll obviously post an engagement shoot or a wedding and say, you know, so what I always try and do is drive traffic back to my website first and foremost, which, again, obviously, because I'm only sort of in my third year, and I've not, perhaps, given enough thought, I'm not sure if that's right. I think it's right because I'm fully in control of, obviously, what's on my website, the work that's there, the layout, the wording, not to say I'm not control of what's on Facebook, but obviously I can control every pics on my website. So I like to try and drive people back there, because I think my website is a good representation, you know, on a whole of what I'm about. So, I try and drive everyone back to my website. So I'll post a wedding and say, you know, "Paul and Alex got married this week, or, sorry, last week. I want to invite you to view a small selection of the shots for the morning", and then provide a link. And I think that kind of, if you like, sort of Facebook, is the kind of handshake, you know, "Hi, nice to meet you. This is some of our work. Go and have a look at some more." And it's only when I think they see the website that they sort of look through further client gallery, look at the prices, look at, you know, sort of what I'm all about, and then, and then book me from there, I think.

Andrew Hellmich: So you'll actually get emails come through your contact form on your website?

Michael Rammell: Yeah, exactly that. I mean, I'm quite, so I use Squarespace my website. So it's quite nice. Whenever I get a Squarespace submission form come through. So I get, I get sort of one or two inquiries each week at the moment, and exactly that. So I'll get a lot of inquiries come through for my inquiry form. So they'll obviously give me the date, the name, some contact information, because I always like to try and call the clients. Speaking by email is nice, because you get everything in black and white and you can remember what you said. But I always prefer to speak to people. I think when I can get someone on the phone, I can have a word in their ear, I think it goes a lot further to sit in the deal.

Michael Rammell: And how do you get that phone number? Do you ask for it via email?

Michael Rammell: Absolutely, it's an optional field, so they didn't have to give it, but, yeah, I do ask for it. I do ask for it. I think it's also the last field as well. So I don't have it. I don't have, you know, I don't say name, email address, telephone number. I'll ask them for all their details and a short description of what's going on, and then ask the telephone number at the end.

Andrew Hellmich: Cool. And then if you get that, then you obviously give them a call rather than sending back an email.

Michael Rammell: Yeah, exactly that. So typically, a client interaction, if someone comes through for an inquiry, I'll first give them a call, introduce myself, ask them about the big day, and then obviously I'll go back afterwards with an email and just kind of summarize what we've agreed or summarize the conversation we've just had, if we haven't agreed anything, that's typically the way we do it.

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah, sure. Okay, that makes total sense. That's great. So you talked about other different avenues that you're going to explore when you start to wind, when you start to ramp up, the photography side of things, you mentioned AdWords there a couple of times. So is that something that you've looked at already?

Michael Rammell: Nope

Andrew Hellmich: It sort of sounded like it was going to be the magic bullet that was going to sort of ramp things up.

Michael Rammell: Yeah, for the perfect answer for you, no. I'm a member of a photographer's guild here in the UK called The Guild of Photographers, and it's full of some of the most talented, not just photographers, but businessmen as well. And they all talk about AdWords all the time, so it was really only when sort of asked the question, I said that guys, "I know AdWords are, I sort of roughly know how to use them, but does anyone want to go through it with me?" And I had a couple of people give me all sorts of information about, you know, preparing the website for AdWords, and how to gear and target AdWords, and it just seems like a minefield that can easily go wrong if you don't know what you're doing. So at the moment, I'm not going to touch AdWords, because I know that I'll probably spend a few 100 pounds, I need to work it out for Australian dollars.

Andrew Hellmich: We'll stay in pounds. That's fine.

Michael Rammell: Yeah, and I'm not sure that really, I'm ready I'm set up for AdWords just yet. So really, I think before I even spend $1 on AdWords, I'll definitely make sure I know as much as I can take onboard about AdWords. So I want to make sure it's right so, because everything I make for my business goes back into my business. So we've only taken money out of the business a few times like we needed, like a car service last year, and I just shot a wedding. So I said, I will use that. But typically, speaking, whatever I make, I'll put into my account. I'll leave it there. I'll do my books, and then that goes back into wedding photography. So I'll use that to hire gear. I'll use that to pay for the fuel to get on the in and get to the venue of the day, that sort of thing. So it's, it's, you know, the business kind of feeds itself.

Andrew Hellmich: So you mentioned gear there as well. Is it you hiring gear like for every wedding?

Michael Rammell: Not at every wedding, not at every wedding, but some weddings. I'm really, really lucky, because I've got a few really local, good friends. I mean, I basically shoot with two or three different lenses, not, not very many at all. And I own one of the three different lenses. So I don't really, I mean, I got over my gear obsession quite a long time ago, when I started doing forecasting and planning and okay, so I started including what I'll need to start earning and the gear I'll need. And I thought, "Gosh, that that gear is taking up a huge amount of that I don't need all that. I've got a flash. I've got two flashes, I've got my lenses that I need. I've got two bodies. Let's just leave the gear. If I need gear, I'll fire it or borrow it." So I'm quite fortunate now get to borrow a lot of gear from a good friend of mine who lives literally opposite me. So I can just not going to do on a Saturday morning. "Can I borrow your 24 to 105?", or that sort of thing. But I've also got another friend who's got a ridiculously insane amount of gear. He's got like, four one DX bodies, and you name it, he's got it. So I can sometimes give him a shout and say, "Hey, you know that 24 to 70 you never, ever, ever use this on your shelf, bearing dust. Can I borrow it, please?" So yeah, he's, I'm quite lucky in that respect. But whenever those pieces of kit aren't available, I also live one town away from a fantastic lens rental company, so I can go and collect the gear rather than having to mail it back and forth.

Andrew Hellmich: I'm 100% sure you've factored all these things into your spreadsheet. But does that concern you that you're sort of borrowing or hiring gear, or is that, is that a temporary thing?

Michael Rammell: No, I think, to be honest with you, I mean, like, the 24 to 70 Mark II that I've got my eyes on is, like, you know, just short of two grand. That's a lot of money. There's two stuff that's, that's a hell of a lot of money, and, you know, it's gonna take sort of like 15 weddings of renting that, time and time again before, you know, that come to the cost, it would have, you know, that would have cost me to buy one. So no, I'm not too concerned about it. I didn't see a problem with renting gear at all. I mean, I know the lenses inside out. I've used them regularly. So if, I mean, if what you're saying is, you know, "Are you by renting it, are you sure that you know what you're doing with it?", that sort of thing, then no fear there. No fear there.

Andrew Hellmich: So, I guess my fear would be that it's going to be out of stock, so someone else has booked it, and I'm at the wedding without the gear that I want, or that, or that it's not mine, so I don't know how it's been looked after, and it may muck up on the wedding day. That would be my concern. No, I don't want, I don't want to put fears into your head.

Michael Rammell: Oh, well, I'm scared. I'm never renting again, thanks Andrew. No, I'll never, I mean, to be honest with you, we kind of, you bend it, you mend it, sort of thing. "So if I do drop and break a lens, and I'll fix it. Thanks for letting me borrow it. You've saved me some cash. So least I can do is mend it." But we go to the renting the gear, what I seen, or what I tend to do as soon as I take a deposit from someone, which I always try and encourage them give a deposit as soon as possible, secure their dates, and I'll go ahead and put that gear on a hire. So, I can put a lens on a hire, sort of six months in advance. That's the way I tend to work. I tend to make sure that I've got it available. So, like I say, I've got three different avenues to get gear. I've got, I've got the lens rental option. So I can go, obviously, a higher and insured lens if I if I really want to. I've got my mate over the road who's got gear as well. I've got another friend not too far away, who can also let me get, so I've got three different ways I can borrow equipment if I really need to. But I mean, having said that, 90% of the time I use one lens, and that's the lens I own anyway. So really, if options A, B and C were exhausted and I really couldn't hire a lens, I'm pretty confident I could shoot a wedding on the two or three lenses I've already got that I own anyway, So.

Andrew Hellmich: That's cool. So you taking backup gear to each of these weddings, like two bodies, two flashes?

Michael Rammell: Yeah, exactly that. So I keep, so I've got, like, a little sort of crumpled side bag. I don't use straps or anything like that. I take the strap off the camera. If I drop it, it's my fault. I'm a plonker, but I don't like using traps to get in the way. So what I'll do is I'll have, like, one body, one body on me with two or three lenses in the bag, and then in the boot the car. I'll have the other body with a few bits, a few lenses, and the other flash in there. What I tend to do is I'll grab the other body for, like the ceremony, for like the church or the barn or whatever I'm shooting in, and I have like a short sort of zoom lens on one, and then the heart of 70 to 200 on the other.

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah, right, yeah. Sounds perfectly fine. Yeah. It sounds like you got it all sorted, like I did tell you, I got to tell you, you are certainly a little bit different to most. I get, especially newer photographers that all seem to have so much gear envy. They just want, you know, they want everything you seem that doesn't seem to be part of you at all.

Michael Rammell: No, not at all. I think, because I only shoot with the 7D, I don't shoot with a full frame body. And for a long, for the longest of times, I was lusting over the 5D 3, and I just thought, "I've got to get one. I've got to get one." And then I thought, Well, I mean, I've got a 70 to 200, 70 to 200 f2.8 Mark II, which is, I think it's the best lens in the world. So for me, I think if you stick that on most Canon bodies, you'll be fine, I think. But the tipping point for me was I used to use when I first got into photography, my first DSLR was a tiny little Canon 500 D, tiny little thing, and then you strap any half decent lens on it, and you can take amazing photographs. You really can. I took a trip to South Africa, 2011 with the 500 D, and my, I think it's like a little 3.5 to 5.6 telephoto lens. I didn't want to take my best gear in case I sort of got lost or mugged, you know, people telling me scary stories. So I didn't take my wedding gear with me. And I got some amazing photographs. It's only when I really came back and I thought, "You know what I use, you know, comparatively, some extremely basic gear. And still got, still got the same caliber of shots." I mean, there might be a bit of, you know, chromatic aberration, that sort of thing, a bit of vignetting, but that's no big deal. It really isn't so. And what's more, as well, I think the other guy that I borrow a lot of gear off, he only shoots with a 60 D and he takes photographs that really, you, you'd believe were shot with a 1D-X, an incredible wildlife photographer. So the idea that you need, you know, the best gear to take the best shots, it really isn't the case. And I think the one moment that's meant to that belief in my mind is when I went to a seminar. Do you know Frank Doorhof?

Andrew Hellmich: I've heard that name, but I don't know. I don't really know.

Michael Rammell: Yeah, he's a fashion photographer. He's from Holland, and he was doing a tour around Europe, and he came to Windsor, which is sort of right next to where I live, and he did a seminar, and he was showing some amazing photographs on this slide presenter. It was slideshow, and it turns out that most of them were shot with an iPhone, most of them were shot with old, knackered film cameras, and some of them were even shot with, like really old, horrible bodies that are battered and bruised with some really basic lenses that weren't even time for that camera in the first place. And you just, I don't know, obviously, an incredible photographer, but to get those sorts of shots with that sort of equipment, I think there, and then, literally, right there and then I just thought, "I don't need a 5D 3 right now, when I'm in the money, fine, I'll get one. I don't need the 72 200. Oh, sorry. I don't need the 24 to 70 Mark II right now. You know, if I want them, I can hire them, but you know, right now, I can do what I need to do. I can fulfill what's in my mind's eye with the gear I've got. So yeah, I'm totally over the gear obsession.

Andrew Hellmich: That's really, I can imagine there's a lot of listeners right now thinking this is so refreshing hearing someone say, say the stuff you're saying.

Michael Rammell: I think the other thing I'd say, Andrew, as well, is the very next wedding I shot after having that epiphany, what was far better as well. Because rather than me shooting the bridal preparations or the church ceremony, thinking, "If only had a 5D 3, if only I had a 24 to 72", I just stopped thinking, all those hanging thoughts were gone, and I just did the best I could with the gear I've got. I think that's probably the thing is that if you're, if you're buying new gear every 12-18 months, you know, or two years, I think you're never going to reach the fullest potential of the gear you've got. I mean, I think I know my 70 and my lenses inside out. I see, my eyes see in like 72 200 zoom. So I know everything that I can do, or, you know, conversely, cannot do with that lens, which isn't much. And also know the limits of the 70. I mean, I know ISO 6400, is struggles. But also know that really ISO 4000 that is fine. Shoot to the right, a little bit, you know, exposed to the right, and shoot ISO 4000 it's fine. That's absolutely fine for me.

Andrew Hellmich: Nice. Really. You sound advanced beyond your years, mate, saying stuff like that. It's really nice to hear.

Michael Rammell: Thanks, Andrew. Thanks, Andrew.

Andrew Hellmich: And I won't talk about the new D4 that I just took order of this week.

Michael Rammell: No. They're cool looking gear, the Nikons, I must admit. I see sort of Jerry Ghionis walking around with his all black 7200 and I do think, "Oh, that looks nice." That's the only time I've ever got gear envy with how things look, I think.

Andrew Hellmich: So, talking about Jerry and, you know, being at the stage that you're at, where are you? Where are you learning? How are you learning these days? What are you doing to progress?

Michael Rammell: Okay, yeah. I mean, so for me, I basically, I used to subscribe to Kelby training, the kelbytraining.com on a monthly basis. That was like 25 bucks a month or something. So you would get access to a few Jerry Ghionis videos. Another huge hero of mine is Cliff Mautner. So you get a few of his videos as well, and then a few sort of business and lighting videos as well. But recently, I've stopped that, and I'm now subscribing to the ICE Society, which is Jerry Ghionis his own, own sort of educational website, which is endless hours of inspiration and education, is an incredible website. But as well as that, really, I'll be going to as many seminars and tutorials and training days as I can. Haven't been able to go to too many recently, because we're obviously trying to save every penny we can for the next 12 months to make sure my wife have as much time off work. But, um, I've got my eyes on an posing course that's going on in September for a company called Aspire Training here in the UK. Aspire, so they're, they're doing a course for like, 300 pounds, which I'm really tempted to go on as well. Yeah, that really, I'll take as much formal training as I can get. I think, though, for me, I'm not saying that I've got the technical down. I'm not saying I'm the finished product or article. I think you're going to be learning till the last frame you ever make. But I think rather than me focusing on the technical side of things and the training side of things with regards to how to shoot, I think what I now need to be doing is going on a lot of business courses and business seminars and things like that. I think if I want to take my business to the next level. It's not going to be done by taking great photographs, or, you know, that is the case. It will be done by taking great photographs, but taking better photographs would only help me a little bit. I really need to know what I'm doing in business first. I mean, you see a lot of average to poor, I don't want to upset anyone here, but wedding photographers making great money because they know how to market, they know how to business. You know that they know how to do these things. So if I, if there's a weak link in any of my abilities, it's, it's probably on the business side, which, which I recognize, which I think is a good step. And I've identified a few things to do to fix that as well.

Andrew Hellmich: I mean, you talk about business being a weakness, but I mean you, when you're talking about your spreadsheet earlier, it sounds like, you know, you've got all the numbers sorted out. So, like, I'm really, I'm curious, where do you think the weaknesses are?

Michael Rammell: Well, I'm talking about things like selling and pricing and things like that. So I'm talking about things like anchor pricing. So at the moment, I've only got three collections on my website, and I've just adjusted them, so I'm now at 895, 1500, and 2,000, that's all pounds. And I mostly book most of my weddings at my entry level, so 895, but I'm extremely poor at post-wedding sales, so I practically don't do any, so I'll, literally, I'll book the collection 895 and that's about all I'll make unless I can convince them to buy an album. So when I say business, I'm talking about sales as well. I'm not talking about, you know, pricing and account. So I'm talking about making sure I can actually market and sell my business as well. So the other side, so the non-shooting side of wedding.

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah, sure. No, I'm with you. So how did you come to the prices? How did you come to that 895 package or that collection?

Michael Rammell: Okay, yeah, that's fine. So basically, when I first started shooting and I was doing my 295 packages, really, really cheap. I sat down, I created this little spreadsheet, again, you can say, I do a lot of spreadsheets, and I realized I was earning something like four pounds an hour, which is less than the UK minimum wage.

Andrew Hellmich: Okay. How did you come to that figure? Because of the hours that go into the wedding, divided?

Michael Rammell: Exactly that, yeah. So, exactly that. So, I mean the cost of the collection minus tax, and then divided by the number of hours. So that worked out to be a ridiculously paltry amount, something I wouldn't even get out of bed for. I mean, I really value my own time. Like I said, I've got another little boy in the way. I've got a girl already here who's almost two, and I want to spend a lot of time with those guys. So if someone says, "I'll pay you four pounds an hour for 35 hour of your time", I'll tell them to go away, because I can, I can value my time a lot more than that. So that's the first thing I do, is work out what I was currently getting, at you know, an hour ..

Andrew Hellmich: Let me stop you there. Michael, sorry. So that 295, when you very first started, was that a figure you plucked it? Plucked out of the end.. and the reason I'm asking is because I get so many emails from listeners asking, "I don't know how to set my prices. You know, how should I set my prices when I start now?" You come up with that 295 figure, which you now say was ridiculously cheap. How did you get that figure in the first place?

Michael Rammell: A couple of ways, really, I think, yeah. First of all, lick my finger, stick it in, yeah. See which basically it was a total, you know, 295, it sounds really cheap, but not too cheap. It sounds I could book some cool weddings on that. It was, yeah, it was a total thumb socket. There was no science or math. So, yeah, that was literally, I think I always felt like, you know, "I've just started, I can't charge a thousand pounds a wedding. I don't deserve that. I've just started. There's no way I can, I can justify that.", which was my first mistake. And like I said, I didn't actually do the reverse engineering to figure out what that equates to for me for an hourly wage.

Andrew Hellmich: Why did you say that was your first mistake?

Michael Rammell: What? With regard to thinking I wasn't worth it?

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Michael Rammell: Or I wasn't worth more than 295? Well, well, two things, yeah. First of all, because I worked out how much that pays me in an hourly wage, and I think I'm worth more than four pounds an hour. But also, just because, if you're going to charge what you think you're worth, you've got to, how do you know what you're worth? Because are you comparing yourself to other photographers? Are you basing what you're worth based on the number of weddings you've shot? Because if that was the case, if you're going to say, "Okay, I can charge x because I've shot y number of weddings, or I can charge this because I've not shot that number of weddings", then surely the oldest photographers are going to be charging the most and the youngest photographers are going to be charging the least. Now we all know that's not true. We all know that there are some very, extremely talented young photographers charging a lot, and the reason they're charging a lot is because they are worth that much. And the reason they're worth that much is because they believe they're worth that much. That was my first mistake, was just believing I wasn't worth that much money. So, I mean, I don't do it anymore, but what I used to do would look at other wedding photographers and try and gauge where I am, fit myself in that in that gap. So if there was two wedding photographers in my area, one a thousand, one an 800, I'd say, "Well, okay, well like they're both better than me, or they're both more established than me. I can't charge the same, so I'll come in underneath. I'll take my rightful place underneath those guys and be, you know, the third rate wedding photographer." But that's not going to get you the right kind of client. It's not going to get you your kind of client, or at least it's something, I mean, my kind of client. I don't want to shoot, I mean, I'm generalizing here, but with those lower-end weddings, you have kind of two kinds of clients. When people are paying 250, 300 pounds of wedding, you have two kinds of people. You have people who are, you know, that's what they can afford, which is fine. I have no issue with that. But most of the time, what I find is the people paying that much money don't value photography, and the reason they're booking you is because you're cheap and not because of the quality of your work. So they'll look at your prices first and then go, "Oh, and he's all right, let's book him." And for that reason, they don't really appreciate what you're doing on the wedding day. So you know, if you say, "Oh, here's your shots, it's all thanks very much. Pound the back, cheers. And that's the end of the conversation." They don't have that same appreciation for, A, my time, B, the photographs and, you know, C, the actual effort that's gone into that. So it can kind of make it a bit of a soulless task when shooting up that, for that little wage, it really does.

Andrew Hellmich: Sure

Michael Rammell: It's, you know, you're not earning that much money, and you're really not getting the thanks and appreciation that you, wouldn't say deserve, but that you perhaps earn.

Andrew Hellmich: So how long were you going on at this before you realized, "Okay, this has got to change."

Michael Rammell: Oh, not long at all. Not long at all. So I had my 295, and prices up on my website for three or four months, something like that. And I probably did the wrong thing, and I've still pretty, you know, in gauging myself compared to other photographers, but I went through a period of sort of thinking I was better than I was. So I racked my prices up to, I actually racked my prices up to where they are now, and I took them down again to like 695 and I thought, "Well, that's 695, you know. So 700 pounds is still respectable." And then I actually sort of kept comparing myself. "No, no, I'm better than that person. They're charging 1000, so I'll do that." And in the end, I thought that, you know what, I've got to stop comparing myself, because I don't think my work is similar as everybody else's. And when I say that, what I mean is there's a lot of photographers out there who look exactly the same, so I'm not trying to be different or be the same. I'm just shooting how I like to shoot. But I thought, "Okay, well, look, you know what? I have got an element of a unique selling point. My work is slightly different. It's identifiable as mine, I think. So, I've just got to stop comparing myself. I'm going to charge what I think I'm worth." So to work out what I think I'm worth, I'm going to do my hourly rating again. So I said, "Okay, I want to earn 20 pounds an hour." So to get there, I need to do 20 times 35 or 36 hours. That works out to be about 900 pounds. So that's exactly what I did.

Andrew Hellmich: So when you said that you're comparing yourself to other photographers, and they're charging this and they're about this quality, I think a lot of photographers do, do that. Do you? Do you think the brides or the couples are doing that too? Or do you think it's just in our heads?

Michael Rammell: No, no, I think they do it too. Absolutely. I think the reason I say that is, if you're planning a wedding, you identify a list of things you need to achieve, your cake, your flowers, you photographer, then you don't just go with the first one you find. You go out and you find as many as you can, and then pick a kind of, well, this is my sort of assumption here of the way I think things work. But most clients will choose a good balance between cost and style, which are those kind of middle of the road clients that are paying the 895 and then you'll get the higher-end clients who will be not less concerned with the cost, but kind of more concerned with the style and what they want. So they'll go for what they really want out of photography, and then try and say, "Okay, well, can we afford that? Rather than, can we afford this? Because we quite like it." It's, it's the mindset of those clients are different, so, that I mean, that's what I'm working towards at the moment. I'm trying to go for those higher-end clients, because I'd like to shoot a kind of quantity, that's right quality here for quantity style business, So, I don't want to be shooting 50 weddings a year. I'd rather be shooting 25 to 30 for a couple of reasons, purely because I quite like to have some time to spend with my children as well, and also, because I'm really, really badly organized, I think if I shot 40 weddings a year, I'd do stupid, I'd probably hand over the wrong pictures, the wrong client. I probably failed to invoice people. I'd probably turn up to the wrong church and the wrong bride, I really am badly organized, so I think there's only some, my brain only has so much capacity to shoot so many weddings. I think so. And also, like I said earlier, I'm quite happy with what I'm earning. So I'm not motivated by money at all. I'm, I'd quite happily earn 30k a year from weddings, afford to continue, you know, continue living the lifestyle I've got. I don't really want to drive a Porsche, you know, yeah, I'd love to have one, two or three holidays a year. But quite happy with the house we've got. We're fine with it. So I've always believed if you chase some money, it's gonna run away from you anyway, because you're gonna get to your target, your target increases. So my target isn't really to chase a set figure. In terms of that being 50 or 60 or 70 or 100,000 pounds, it's, it's to afford to live my current lifestyle through photography. It's that simple. And whatever that number falls to be, that's the target.

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah, that's nice. It makes total sense. And I think if you've heard any of the earlier, earlier interviews, guys like Ben Marden and even Israel Smith, you know, they've got similar sort of viewpoints, and it's more, more about maintaining and sustaining a lifestyle, rather than chasing something that's way off.

Michael Rammell: I'm extremely envious of those guys. I think it was yeah, Israel, who was working, I mean, how many weeks a year was he working? Well, he was doing what, two or three days?

Michael Rammell: That's Dean Daphne.

Michael Rammell: Was it Dean? Was that, sorry, yeah. Its Dean, yeah. So, extremely, I was listening to that, thinking, unreal. If I could get there one day, I would, you know, actually, no saying that. I mean, I think as much as I'd like to have time-off to spend with my kids and my wife, there's probably such a thing as too much time. I think my wife would end up killing me if I spend too much time around the house. I think she probably wants me out from under her feet to go and make some money anyway, so.

Andrew Hellmich: So, with the transition, talking about the transition that you know, going from full time work to the photography. Is there a chance of going part-time? Is that an option for you with your job?

Michael Rammell: Yeah. I mean, I'm not sure if you've got some inside information there, but yes, at the moment, there's a bit of uncertainty in my day job, so I can't talk about it too much.

Andrew Hellmich: Sure

Michael Rammell: Because it's all, yeah, a bit of download, but yeah, there may be an option to reduce some hours effectively. I may be getting a redundant shortly, but have some sort of contracting base work instead. So yeah, we'll see what happens there. But like, I say, really, my only focus is to have a consistent paycheck until at least the very, very end of my wife maternity because, and when I say quality time with the children for her, what I mean by that is that she's relaxed and safe in the knowledge that the bills are going to be paid. So if she can just leave that sort of thing for me and she's not worried about it, then the time that she spends with the children is going to be even better. So I don't want her sitting down with me because she's an accountant as well. So I don't want to sitting down every night looking through figures when really she should be reading a bedtime story or singing a song to the kids and, you know, that sort of thing. It's I just want things to take care of themselves. And when you have again, I hate saying it sort of, you know, quote, unquote "day job", but you kind of have that, as long as you go into work on time and do a heart decent job, you're not going to lose the job. And that's kind of quite comfortable. So if I can just do that for the next 12 months and make sure that my wife spends the best quality time with my children, I'll have achieved a huge goal. Because to give her a year off is going to be something very special, something, but that's our next current goal. You know? It's just to give her that. So for me at the moment, I just want to keep paying the bills, ticking over, shooting a few weddings in between. You know, label me what you want, but I don't, I have no problem being called a weekend warrior because I'm professional. I'll call myself a professional, I'd argue with anyone who calls me on, you know, tells me I'm not. But, um, yeah, I shoot at weddings at weekends and edit them many evenings after I put the little ones to bed. So that's, that's how I am at the moment.

Andrew Hellmich: Did you cop any grief? Or have you copped any grief from other photographers? More established photographers, while you've been building up?

Michael Rammell: No, not at all, actually, not at all. I mean, I must admit it's, so I've joined this, this guild of photographers, you know, where like I say, they've got some hugely established pros, some incredible photographers. And I think, I'm not saying I get respect, but I'm what I think I'm saying I don't get disrespected because I don't do the two night fires, I don't do the silly discounts, even though I'm only shooting on weekends. Or, you know, I can shoot Fridays too, by the way.

Andrew Hellmich: Is that for any brides that are listening?

Michael Rammell: Exactly yes, a little plug there. Gotta say, no, no, yeah, just, just because I've got a day job doesn't mean that I can afford to subsidize wedding photography. Because effectively, if you charge anything less than you're worth, that's exactly what you're doing. You're giving your brides and your clients a discount by charging less than you're worth, just because you can afford to live your lifestyle with or without photography doesn't mean you should charge less than both A the market rate and you're worth as well.

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah, that's nicely said.

Michael Rammell: So that was my view. Is that again, like I'm sort of at the moment, my plan is to start as, I mean, to go on like I referred to earlier, about like, for like, client referrals. If I keep doing 250, 300 pound weddings, then I'm not really gonna have a great first year in business, because I'm going to be shooting 50, 60,70, 250 or 300 pound weddings. It's just not going to make ends meet. I really do need to go for both, you know, a good measure of quality and quantity. So that's the way I'm doing things.

Andrew Hellmich: Sounds like you're on the right track. Now I want to be conscious of your time. So are you ready to tackle these 10 quick questions?

Michael Rammell: Certainly, am. Go for it.

Andrew Hellmich: 10 quick questions, 10 quick answers, 3-2-1, go! Canon or Nikon, actually, we know the answer to this. You're a cannon shooter, aren't you?

Michael Rammell: No Hasselblad.

Andrew Hellmich: You are not.

Michael Rammell: Now, I'm joking, yes, a Canon, yeah. Cannon, yeah. But I don't buy into this either or argument. I've got to be honest with you, as and when I do upgrade my 7D, or whatever it might be next if, if there's an amazing Nikon out there, I'd consider it, yeah. A Canon at the moment, but, you know, never mind, watch this space.

Andrew Hellmich: What do you mean if there's an amazing Nikon?

Michael Rammell: When I see one.

Andrew Hellmich: Alright

Michael Rammell: Now, what I mean is, you know, if the new set of models that come out this fall or later next year, you know, if there's something that really means that I should be going for that over the next available Canon that I mean, because, really, I think next progression for me will be a 5D Mark III, but if there's something out there that's around the same sort of value, but has a whole lot more to it than, yeah, why wouldn't I go for that?

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah, for sure. Favorite lens and why?

Michael Rammell: Oh, depends on what I'm shooting. But on a typical wedding day, I'll spend most of my time with a 70 to 200 because quite a few reasons, actually. And one of these is a bit controversial, but I'll tell you anyway, I'll come to that last but it's a great vocal range. It's very, very handy. The way I shoot is I shoot quite close up. I like to fill the frame with faces and moments. I don't do a lot of these kind of cool back scenes, you know, where you've got like, kind of a bride and a groom in the corner of the picture, and then you've got, like, the rest of the picture of the scene. I like to really fill pictures with faces and moments that are going on. So. 72 to 200 obviously helps you do that, because you limited focal range, 72 to 200, and it gives amazing compression, you know. So that Boker effect is beautiful. If you're standing quite far back and you're, you know, sort of between 150 180 and your f2.8, and you snap the focus right on someone's eyes. It just gives a beautiful, creamy background. So it's absolutely incredible. It's fast, it focuses like you would not believe, especially on the 70, if you use the center focus point, it's so fast. It's a wonderful lens, and it's big and it's white and it looks impressive.

Andrew Hellmich: Is that the controversial part?

Michael Rammell: That's right, yeah.

Andrew Hellmich: Do you shoot JPEG or RAW?

Michael Rammell: RAW. Always RAW. I do, I wouldn't say I over post process, but I do like I'm going through a very black and white phase at the moment. I really like to push the contrast and things like that. But the other advantage of RAW, of course, is like I mentioned earlier about ISO, if I go to ISO 4000 sometimes, and may need to just slide that little noise reduction up a little bit. So, yeah, RAW just gives me that handle. I mean, not only that, though. I mean, you know, CF cards and FD cards are so cheap now, and storage is so cheap that I've got no excuse to not shoot RAW. But the other thing about it is that in sort of 5-10 years' time, when you know the average display screen on someone's desk is like an iMac quality. You're gonna want all the details and all the pictures you can so anytime I edit, I really don't just draw any pixels, so it's gonna be RAW all the way for me.

Michael Rammell: I know even they've been going for a little while, but have you faced any setbacks so far?

Michael Rammell: The day job?

Andrew Hellmich: That'll do fucking 40 hours? Yeah.

Michael Rammell: Was, yeah, no, that eight hour distraction, Monday to Friday can be a pain.

Andrew Hellmich: If you had to start over again, like today or tomorrow, would you do anything different?

Michael Rammell: I think I'd work harder sooner. And I think..

Andrew Hellmich: When you say work out, did you mean learn the craft more quickly? Or what would you do?

Michael Rammell: No, not craft. I mean, I'm relatively happy with my skill set. And, you know, I think I can shoot quite well. When I say, work harder. I mean, I would probably learn about AdWords sooner. I would probably learn about marketing sooner and implement it sooner. I would probably, just things like that, that really, rather than me kind of dawdling and saying, "Okay, well, I'll do it my own time." I guess that's the thing with a day job, is that you can afford to be complacent, because there's no pressure, no urgency. So the only urgency and pressure I've got is the urgency and pressure I put on myself to make this happen. So, you know, now I'm at a stage where, like I said, I don't, I don't dislike my day job. I think it's fine, but I've just got this burning part. I've got all this business sort of, you know, ready to go. I've got my platforms, I've got my spreadsheets. You know exactly what I'm doing and where I need to be. I've got a target to work towards. I do. I just wish I knew and I worked out that target sooner so that I could have focused on it sooner and start working towards it sooner. I think effectively, what I'm trying to say is I'm like, a wedding season or two behind where I guess I could be if I worked or been more focused, I guess.

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah, sure.

Michael Rammell: And also, one other thing I say is as well, is that I wish I dropped the gear obsession sooner as well, because that would have saved me money. It would have saved me energy. I'm just looking on the internet and reading MTF charts and comparing lenses and just, just get one or two lenses, get a good camera and shoot. Don't worry about everything else.

Andrew Hellmich: Cool. Well, said. What software do you use for your batching, editing, renaming and renumbering?

Michael Rammell: Lightroom. Nothing else. I do dip into Photoshop every now and then. But I've got myself a lovely iMac, a brand new one. So with regards to the importing and things like that, it's lighting fast. It's got, I've got a solid state disk in there, and I've got a Drobo 5D connected to it by a thunderbolt. So I stick my compact flashcard in, I render full previews, and I walk away for half an hour and come back and it's all there.

Andrew Hellmich: Nice. Do you, do you watch what other photographers are doing?

Michael Rammell: Not at the moment? No, but I haven't. I stopped doing it probably this year, really this wedding season. So the only wedding photographers I really look at Jerry Ghionis and Cliff Mautner, not because I'm trying to emulate them or copy them, but just because it sounds brutal, but they're the only wedding photographers I like. I look at a lot of the big names. Don't name any because I would not want to upset anyone but yeah, I just go, "Oh, that's nice. That's cool." There's really only one or two photos in most people's portfolios that really make me say, "Wow." But with Jerry and Cliff, I just love everything about it. It's what they do with light is second to none. It's amazing. So for me, it's only Jerry and Cliff that I look at, but like I say, not to emulate or to copy, just for inspiration, just to be awed, really. And I guess for me, they're a benchmark. If I can get my work to be sort of, you know, anywhere near that, I think I'll be happy with my startup.

Andrew Hellmich: You talked a fair bit about training before. Do you have trouble implementing the stuff that you learn, or do you just listen and take notes and put it aside?

Michael Rammell: No, I think I'm pretty good at implementing things alone. Yeah, absolutely. So I take a lot of notes. I've got a little notebook that I carry everywhere with me, and I'll hear a quote or a phrase or a tip or a bit of advice or a technical idea, and I'll put it in there. I'll, straight into the notebook, and I'll look through it regularly, and I'll have a quick read and make sure,, you know that everything I'm writing down is saying in my mind. So I'm quite forgetful, but when it comes to photography, I don't seem to forget my...

Andrew Hellmich: Hang-on, so you are writing it down. You're listening and you're remembering about it. You're actually doing it?

Michael Rammell: Absolutely, absolutely. And that goes with all sorts of things like that's pretty one of the ways I came to the conclusion I need to do a spreadsheet and work on my rates, you know, work out my numbers, things like that. So if you don't know the cost of business, how can you be in business? Because you should just kind of be finding your way through the dark, not knowing what you should be charging or, you know when you should be charging it. So yeah, things like that. I'll definitely implement things like lighting and posing techniques and cropping and composition. I'll see something or hear something, and, yeah, I'll, the next time I'll get to shoot, the first thing I'll do is try it. I'll throw anything that doesn't work and keep the things that do.

Andrew Hellmich: And that's cool. I think a lot of people listen and take notes, but then they have trouble implementing I think that's where a lot of people sort of fall, fall down, and don't progress as quick. So yeah, it's cool, but you've been shooting long enough, can you share an embarrassing photography moment or stuff up?

Michael Rammell: I don't think I've had any embarrassing moments. I've not split any trousers yet, although I'm sure that's inevitable, I'm a little bit overweight. I think the only, the only stuff, I'm gonna be really honest here, the only stuff I've ever made was at a wedding last year. In fact, I won't say when it was, in case the couple are listening, was I temporarily misplaced a compact flash card for all the ceremony features on it.

Andrew Hellmich: Well, at home or at the wedding?

Michael Rammell: During the wedding day.

Andrew Hellmich: Ugh

Michael Rammell: Yeah, it was, it was a very, it was a winter wedding. So it was, let me just say it was, it was, give or take, two months around December. So it was cold. It was a bitterly cold winter. Here in the UK, we were shooting at a registry office in the local town. So they'd done their little ceremony in the insert in the registry office. Then we went outside into the lawn to shoot the group shots. And just as we started shooting, I noticed I had like, three or four pictures left on the compact flash card. So I changed cards. So I number all my cards. I'm really meticulous. I opened my little combat flashcard case, took one out, put it in the camera. Took the other compact flash card out of the camera, but I thought I put in the case, closed the case. Didn't think anything more of it. Shot all the group shots went to the venue afterwards. Shot the venue filled up another card that evening, went to change my card again, and noticed there was an empty space my compact flash card. Oh, dear. Okay, so I'm missing a card, and it only then dawned on me, because I numbered my cards, 123456, so it only then dawned on me the card one, which contained the bridal preparation shot from the morning and the ceremony pictures in my view, just about some of the most important shots you can get. And was gone. So luckily, they're having a really long evening. So I called my wife and said, "Okay, I'm not telling the couple just yet, but I've lost a card. Can you come to the venue? Can you drive? Because I'm a little bit nervous right now, you drive to where I think I've lost it, which I'm sure the only time I change a card was at the, you know, the lawn outside the register." So we went there. It was pitch black. There was frost on the ground, and I could not find the card. So, yeah, I cracked myself and I just calmed myself down. I said, "Look, do the best shots you can do this evening. They're going on honeymoon tomorrow. Don't tell them before they go on honeymoon, because you're gonna ruin it. It's gonna make it worse when they come back, but you're gonna have to take that much in." The next morning, we woke up, the crack of dawn, I said, "Look, let's go down there as soon as the sun comes up, because if we leave any longer, someone else might find it." So we went to that same lawn and burst into tears, if I'm honest with you, because I found the card it was on the floor covered in frost.

Andrew Hellmich: Wow.

Michael Rammell: And yeah. And the other thing as well was that there was confetti and all sorts of stuff everywhere. So there was another wedding that had gone afterwards. So I'm surprised that no one's heel had gone through it, or someone had trodden it or picked it up.

Andrew Hellmich: So it was all fine. That would work perfect.

Michael Rammell: All fine, all fine, absolutely fine. So I've got that little compact card. I never use it now. I've got it sat on top of my driver right here. Card number one, yeah.

Andrew Hellmich: Wow. That is scary

Michael Rammell: Absolutely, yeah. And know that, that was a huge turning point as well. That was, I think, the first time it dawned on me how important what I was doing was, as well.

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah

Michael Rammell: So, if anything, it's just served as probably the most valuable lesson I've ever had in photography so far.

Andrew Hellmich: Yeah, that's a tough lesson to learn, isn't it? A big one. That's, I'm so glad that worked out well for you.

Michael Rammell: Absolutely, yeah. So, and it was also a good justification to the wife why I need a 5D 3, but I said to in the end, I said, "No, I just need to be more careful. Let's save the money. We won't buy 5D 3 yet."

Andrew Hellmich: Michael, it's been an absolute pleasure. Can you let everyone know where they can check out your work or find you on the on the internet?

Michael Rammell: Yeah, I'm absolutely everywhere. Really the only thing I don't use is Instagram, which is perhaps a crime, but you can find me over on Google, plus Facebook, Twitter and my website as well. So most of the time, I'm over at Michael, or if you Google Michael Rammel, that's R-A, double M, E, Double L, or Twitter, I'm RammelPhoto, and you better find me there.

Andrew Hellmich: Excellent. I'll put links to all those different places in the show notes as well. Just before you go, Michael, I was going to, you're pretty like, you're pretty big on social media and Twitter particularly, does that work for your business? Or is that more for building relationships with other photographers and vendors and things?

Michael Rammell: Yeah, just for vendors and things. I don't, I've never, I've never even entered a discussion with a bride or a groom or anyone like that at all over Twitter. So it's just to get myself on podcast like this.

Andrew Hellmich: Well, it's been great having you on and I look forward to chatting more in the future.

Michael Rammell: The pleasures been on mine. Thanks. Andrew, cheers.

 
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