Janneke Storm is a young Australian photographer with two distinct looks to her work in two different genres that are simply clashing. In this interview, Janneke shares what she's doing and how she's aiming to to do both wedding and fashion photography as a business while building both brands simultaneously.
I didn't use the introduction for Janneke that I planned. I felt it may have come off totally wrong but it's something I shared with her in the interview, here it is:
I think this may be the toughest introduction I've had to make since starting the podcast over 100 episodes ago.
Today's guest is Queensland based fashion and wedding photographer, Janneke Storm. Born in South Africa, Janneke has been living on the Sunshine Coast for the last 7 years and says she's never been more happy – living her dream by having the best job in the world.
Here's where it gets tough for me.
I love some of her work, but some, I just don't get. It's not a dislike. It's different, it challenges me and it leaves me wondering what I'm missing, what I'm not seeing. I'm not sure if it's me or the photography.
We cover that, plus plenty more in this episode.
Here’s some more of what we cover:
What’s on Offer for Premium Members
If you’re a premium member, you should have received an email with links to your version of this episode where you can hear lots more content from where we dive deeper into some of the earlier topics plus some new ones that I pushed hard for that include:
What is your big takeaway?
Following this interview, I’d love to know what your biggest takeaway is – what is the one thing that you’d like to implement or learnt from what was shared? Let me know by leaving your thoughts in the comments below.
No amount of money for me could pay me to shoot something that I don't want to be shooting
If you have any questions that I missed, a specific question you’d like to ask Janneke or if you just want to say thanks for coming on the show, feel free to add them below.
If you’d like an easy way to show Janneke your thanks, and support for the show at the same time, click the link to create a tweet and automatically show you’re listening: https://photobizx.com/tweet
AIPP Workshop… The Sauce
I mentioned last week that I'll be leading a couple of discussion forums at the upcoming 2 day AIPP workshop in the Blue Mountains on March 23rd.
Unfortunately, due to a date change, I won't be part of what will be a terrific workshop.
Are you a NEW listener?
Ive been trialing a new marketing idea for the podcast with hand written letters to wedding and portrait photographers in Seattle, Phoenix, Sacramento, Tacoma, Salt Lake and Denver areas. I'd love if you are the recipients of one of my letters to let me know you're now listening to the show.
Simply shoot me an email at andrew@photobizx.com to say hi, I'd love to hear from you.
Joey Wright Swimsuit Model Photography Workshop
I interviewed swimsuit photographer, Joey Wright in episode 52 of the podcast when his career was really starting to kick off. Joey has been working super hard and going from strength to strength in his business and his photography is simply spot on.
Joey will be running a swimwear workshop in May 2015 in the Bahamas! If you've ever wanted to learn or refine your skills as a swimwear or model photographer, this course would be a perfect fit.
Links to people, places and things mentioned in this episode:
Janneke Storm's Wedding Portfolio
Janneke Storm's Destination Wedding: Las Vegas
TAFE – online and face to face adult learning
Kat Williams Rock n Roll Bride Blog
Raw Digital and Film Lab Podcast
Follow Andrew on Instagram – http://instagram.com/andrew_hellmich
Equipment
Canon EF 50mm f/1.2 L USM Lens for Canon Digital SLR Cameras
Thank you!
Thank you again for listening to the show and thanks Janneke for being an awesome guest!
If you have any suggestions, comments or questions about this episode, please be sure to leave them below in the comment section of this post, and if you liked the episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see at the bottom of the post!
That’s it for me this week, hope everything is going well for you in life and business!
Thanks and speak soon
Andrew
Loved this interview, I too have 2 “styles” Interiors and weddings. In my case I ended up creating two sites with two brands almost as I found people that liked interiors didn’t seem to want to see my weddings and vice versa. Works really well now for me.
Hi Hannah – thanks for adding your comments and glad you enjoyed this episode.
I think with two distinct looks, two websites makes total sense. Is it a nightmare managing the two sites and keeping both up to date?
Not really Andrew, I am an art director full time so I am use to keeping to the aesthetic of certain brands. It’s quite nice to dip in and out of things – keeps me from getting bored!
You make it sound so easy Hannah.
Must be a male thing – not being able to concentrate on two things at once. 🙂
This girls sounds so young but when you look at her work its amazing, it reminds me of a mixture between Helmut Newton and Terry Richardson and then the wedding side is so soft and gentle, I love it all good on you Janneke. I think also that Janneke was very open in her interview, she didn’t pretend and that shows hugely through her work. I think a big takeaway for me was to feel confident in what you do, do over think things. Nice work Janneke
Great to read your comments Paul and I imagine Janneke will love your comparison.
I couldn’t agree more about her honesty and openness. To hear her praising mentors, stylists and designers was terrific and gave a true insight into how she gets the shots she does.
Great interview, I also have two styles. only the one site for our wedding business. I tend to keep ther other stuff for myself as it does not jive with our brand. Opening a second site does seem like a good idea.
Hi Kenny, thanks for adding your comments.
I agree, two sites makes sense for totally different styles unless you’re trying to bring the two together? In that case, showing your personal work on your wedding site could work and attract the kind of clients that want what you’re shooting for yourself.
I guess it depends on the direction you want to take your wedding photography.
Great to have you listening!
I’ve just had the same website issue! After changing my style of homepage, I didn’t consider the SEO tags and descriptions and had lost my page 1 ranking. I fixed this last week and am slowly coming back through the rankings. Whoops.
Hey Ben – thanks for adding your comments.
It’s annoying to see previous work down the drain with SEO rankings.
What did you do to fix things?
So, my site is through Square Space and I’d added a completely new index for my home page. However all of the site titles, meta tags, and description were still on the old one which had been disabled. So I transferred those across, re uploaded my images with meta keywords and SEO friendly file names, and then re sent my url and site map to Google. I’m back at page 4 now, so hopefully will come back from there.
Oh ok – that’s not too bad a fix then if you were able to copy and paste everything.
If you’ve kept the same url and site structure, any backlinks should all still be pointing to the right places.
That’s a big drop from position one, page one to page four… just shows how much all this stuff works and matters!
Yep they’re quick to penalise now, but also quick to reward, which is great for my local area because there are so many wedding photographer sites that were built 10 years ago that, because of their older algorithms, were automatically ranked higher locally. They won’t be now because they’re not updated frequently or mobile friendly – Google are penalising this as we speak. I’m sure it’s probably been covered, but Google has this great tool to test your site https://www.google.com.au/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/
Definitely a good thing for the newer, more hungry and savvy photographers out there. I’ve always thought it was unfair to the new guys that Google rewards older local photographers and makes it so hard for the new guys. There are some smart people working on that algorithm, that’s for sure!
I have heard of the “Mobile Friendly” tool but never actually tried it… just did, and all good for my sites 🙂
I’ll share this in the next podcast episode if that’s ok Ben?
Yep, the playing field is definitely a lot more fair nowadays! Of course, no dramas. Loving these episodes, it’s been a whirlwind couple of weeks where I reckon I’ve spent a solid 40+ hours listening to your voice, but am getting through the backlog. Stoked to get stuck into some changes to the biz.
Whoa, 40+ hours of me… Some would argue that is WAYYYY too much 😉
I’m guessing you have some kind of a notebook filled with ideas. Have fun implementing what you can.
I’d love to hear about the changes you make and how they work out when you get some time Ben.