Pierre T. Lambert is a travel photographer and youtuber with more than 183,000 subscribers who follow him for his photography challenges and tutorials. Today we talk about how you can take better photo of your next travels.
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In This Episode You'll Learn:
How Pierre got started in photography
What about photography connected so well with him
What Pierre struggled with most when learning to shoot
The difference between travel and landscape or street photography
Tips for photographing strangers
How much gear to pack on a vacation
How to keep your photos safe and backed up on the road
What new photographers get wrong when shooting their own travels
Resources:
Did you enjoy this episode? Check out more recent interviews with other great guests!
Full Episode Transcription:
Disclaimer: The transcript was transcribed electronically by Temi.com and may contain errors that do not reflect accurately what the speaker said. Because of this, please do not quote this automated transcript.
Raymond: 00:00 Today's guest is Pierret Lambert, a travel photographer and youtuber with, by the time this interview comes out, we'll have more than 150,000 subscribers who follow him for his photography challenges and tutorials. Today. I'm excited to chat about, talk about taking better photos of our travels. Pierre, thank you so much for coming on the podcast.
Pierre T Lambert: 00:21 Thank you for having me. Thank you for taking the time. It's a blast. I'm super happy to be here.
Raymond: 00:27 I'm excited to be here. You are. You are one of those. You know, if anybody watches any of your YouTube videos, you are very much a personality in the in the world of photography. There are a lot of people who can educate. There's a lot of people who get into the technicals of things. There's a lot of people who just focus on the theory. I feel like you cover all of it pretty well and you, you bring this personality to your, your videos that it's clear why why people enjoy watching you. So again, I'm excited for our chat here, but before we get into kind of the travel photography side of things, can you share with me in the listeners, how did you get your start in photography in the first place?
Pierre T Lambert: 01:07 Oh, that's a good, that's a good one. I got it sporadically into it through the years. So it's not like one day I woke up and everything changed in my life and I wanted to be a photographer. It kind of did, but it happened over years when I was a kid, I remember playing with like a dark room when I was like maybe like eight years old or nine years old. It was showing us that in school and it was, thought it was cool and then we'd go on field trips and my grandfather gave me a camera. I used also a lot of disposable cameras. You know the one with the film that you have to wait for? Oh yes. Never knew what you would take off, but I always found it kind of fun. And I always spent a lot of time looking at adventure books or looking at books around the nature and animals. So there were done tons of photos in there. And I guess that in one way I was like, Oh, I can capture my own stuff. You know? Obviously it wasn't the same, but
Raymond: 02:04 Yeah, we get disposable camera that's, that's difficult to achieve the same results.
Pierre T Lambert: 02:09 And then few years later I got into I got an engineering degree, got into engineering, started working and traveling a lot. And one day it just like occurred to me that I actually made a lot of my decisions around traveling, meaning like the job I wanted, the company I wanted to work for, everything had to allow me to travel. And that's how I had kind of decided on everything. And the company I was working for was absolutely not inspiring me. I would look at managers who are olders and that was like, I don't want to be you. I don't want it. I'm like, Oh, right. No one's inspiring around me. And I stumbled upon a book called the four hour work week while I was working offshore in Africa on the boats, like in the middle of the ocean. It was very boring because we didn't have many operations going on at that point.
Pierre T Lambert: 02:58 And I received an email saying like, Hey, is the four hour work week possible? And I was working like 12 hour shifts, you know, like night shifts. So you're like, no way. There's no way. I'm like, what? And that came from my engineering degrees school. Like how'd you call that college if you wanted? My college was sending out that newsletter with that conference. I was like, what is that about? And then they were trying to discuss around that book. I was like, well, obviously I had to grab the book. I was in the middle of the ocean. So I found a PDF version and I started just reading through the book and it was like a lot of things hit me really hard where it's like you speaking to yourself sometimes, you know, but as long as you haven't seen it written by someone else, you always think those are either stupid thoughts or you just surprise them to forget them because no one around you shares them.
Pierre T Lambert: 03:49 And then when that you discovered that other people around the world do so, then you're like, Oh, wow, cool. And that got me thinking what I have. I could do anything with my life. What would I be doing? Can I do something for myself and not for others in the sense that I was building that CEO's dream or like those shareholders that I had no interest. I didn't even know them knowing no one cared about anything in the company if you want. So it's like, well, that sounds very inspiring. I want something better in life. Something that's, that is striving every day that I strive for. And that makes me feel like I am growing in a way. And I literally listed a bunch of ideas, maybe 50 60 ideas, like anything that would go through my mind. And the one that, the theme that would come all the time was like travel and photography and a little bit of engineering related stuff towards aquarium for example, according to filters because I was into like Aqua scaping it back in the days.
Pierre T Lambert: 04:49 And I was like, okay, let's circle the ones that are the most important and the one that I would actually consider doing or maybe I want to look into. And so the two main ones, three main ones came, aquarium, filter, a platform to book photographers online and like booking.com basically. And another one was me being a photographer and I was like, okay, let's just go through the list and try them. And so I tried to accord them filter and it got nowhere to, it's good creative exercise though. And like just trying to dip my toes into how to launch a product or, or just like anything. And I just killed a project and I was like, you know what? Photography is way more exciting to me and the platform for photographers is very exciting. So today I decided I would become star for, I looked into hard work and how I could make money.
Pierre T Lambert: 05:43 And I was like, Oh, a national geographic photographer sounds great, but I also realize it's not the easiest path in a way. It's a very long path and you need to be in the right environment, which I wasn't at the time, so I thought, why don't I just look into porch at the tar? And it was always super shy. I'd never been there taking photos of people. If you asked me to take photos of others or like other family, I would get like you know, you're not like happy to do it. Yes. So I decided, you know what there's money to be made. I'm in Paris when I'm not traveling and a lot of people who travel here or who need the engagement shots, who propose whatever, like that could be cool. So I just started gathering all the resources I could find and then I just like learn every single day, whatever I could and then practiced it. And that's how I started.
Raymond: 06:37 Okay. So a few few follow up questions for you. The first one, let's start with kind of where you ended right there. At what point did you, did you leave your, your, your engineering job? Like were you already somewhat established as a photographer before you did this or did you make the leap before any of it was proven, I guess?
Pierre T Lambert: 06:57 No, I did not leave before one was proven. That would have been reckless from mine just because I needed to financial stability. And just because tomorrow you decide to be a pilot racer, it doesn't mean you're gonna, you're gonna make it or anyone's going to be interested. So you might want to try out a driving a few cars pretty fast first. So what I did is I, I learned as much as possible and I looked at photographers who were already established in the market. So I did a little bit of market analysis. Who is showing up on Google? Who is like getting clients and, and that portrait and wedding space. And then I would basically look at their work and rank them in my head, one to 10 and I was like, okay, this guy's really good. He's charging a lot. This guy is like ma and he's charging a little less but not that much less.
Pierre T Lambert: 07:51 And then so I looked at what was average in terms of market and then what was like average plus an average and super high hand. And I was like, I want to be in that range. Yes. Because then I have to work less hours but I make more. So I was like, that sounds better. And also creatively, I thought I Fe I think I still think that the more in the way there is a limit actually, it's like a curve like that. There is a sweet point where you're like high end but not too high where you're working with celebrities and have no creative direction. You just say high end people want your creative direction. And that's, that's actually really cool. So anyway, I looked at those guys and I was like, my work has to be as good as those guys and then I can charge. And so I did everything possible to practice and get there. Shooting for free, asking friends, friends of friends asking my wife yeah.
Raymond: 08:46 What, where did you, where did you learn photography? I know that you, you know, you started off and you just enjoyed taking pictures with digital or with disposable cameras and looking at, but where did you, where did, where did learning of portrait and engagement photography come from
Pierre T Lambert: 09:01 That that came from? My, my progression curve in photography started a little bit before I got into the idea of becoming a photographer because I always would travel with a Canon 450 deep back in the days. So like a rebel, something like 2011, 2012 version with the entry kit lands to do the 1855. And I had also a 7,300, which was great, really fast. That's and I would travel with that and that was awesome. But obviously my photos wouldn't end up as good as the others. So I started like digging a little bit more and I did my first beginner mistake and I thought my camera, I needed to be upgraded. Obviously that's where we all started. I know. So I bought a Canon five D Mark two, I think maybe it was second hand, that one. And then I bought a 50 minima one eight.
Pierre T Lambert: 09:59 I bought a 1740 millimeter and then my photos change already. Just having Boken my shots was like, wow, this is so cool. Yeah. And the wide angle so was just so fun to shoot with. So I was keeping that and then didn't go anywhere. And the moment I really decided to work with clients, I had to step it up and that's when I dug into like online resources. My dad had like old books from the 80s on photography and composition didn't change that much since. So yeah. So I just read everything I could. I started watching. It was no YouTube video at the time. There was nothing free in a way that would teach you anything outside of Photoshop or editing. Like if you wanted to learn like photography as a business or, or shooting people, you had to go into paid resources. So there was creative life that was kind of getting up there.
Pierre T Lambert: 10:55 And I remember creative lab was a good one. I would watch the lives back in France with the jet lag. It was like 3:00 AM during the week. And I was like, Oh no, I can't miss that. This is so interesting right there. I know well I had the daytime job so I couldn't like do everything at once. I had to do it at night. And so there was creative lives and then I can't even remember. Like there was sometimes like photographers that would pop up with their own course or blogs. But that was pretty much it. I remember I, I owed a lot to their, their like classes at the time. Because this was really good and in depth.
Raymond: 11:36 So why do you think, because obviously there's still a lot of online resources. There's a lot of photographers who have blogs now. Why do you think you were able to, I guess, let me rephrase that question with a lot of photographers with blogs and a lot of free online education, how come everybody, doesn't it? How come you think that you were able to break past this barrier of just being a hobbyist and really grow as a photographer?
Pierre T Lambert: 12:05 Hmm, that's a good question. I think people that fall in love with ideas and they fall in love with the idea of becoming or doing something. But the moment you really have to do it, you quickly become disillusioned in a way where you're like, Ooh, that's a lot more work than I thought. Especially when you're hitting the marketing part. Let's, let's pretend you just got good at photography and now what? Right. It's like, all right, cool guys. I'm good. Well, I mean, people are not going to just, just find you out of the Bush. You know, you gotta be out there. You got to do your own marketing, you got to find clients. You're going to like put yourself out there to get those clients. And I think a lot of people might struggle with that part, especially so more like the business part and also getting really good, especially working with other people, requires you to be very humble in the sense that you're going to be it B and you might suck, completely edit and they will see you suck at it. Right. It's not like you're going to be a landscape photographer and hide in the, in the landscape for like six days and no one will ever see those photos. You're literally working with people and that I can see the photo, you know? And if, if those are models that work with good clients, good photographers before they'll, they'll probably think, ah, well that's pretty crappy, but that's your learning curve and you need to go through it.
Raymond: 13:27 [Inaudible] Yeah, you just gotta you just gotta do it. You actually have to just [inaudible]
Pierre T Lambert: 13:30 Yeah, suck it up. Be humble. Like put your head down and just work.
Raymond: 13:34 Oh, I love that. I love that. So when, when, when you first started, when you first started like taking it seriously when you said, okay, I need to learn this as a technical skill, as much as it is a the creative abilities I need to harness this. What would you say was the hardest aspect for you to learn or grasp or or fully understand what was the hardest part of photography for you at that time?
Pierre T Lambert: 13:57 I think the hardest part was
Pierre T Lambert: 14:01 Being able to do, or like it's like you see a lot of different puzzle pieces and you understand each one of them individually, which when you're supposed to bring them together to get a photo, that's when everything would collapse. It's like you would get your exposure right, but you feel good. The composition, then you got the composition red, but then your exposure was wrong and then you got composition and exposure but your subject was not ready or you didn't communicate to them or it just looked terrible. And then there's the editing part where obviously when you start you overdo everything. So everything looks too much and you're like, well, I don't understand this one looks too crisp and good, my photos don't look as good. So I think that part, like being able to balance everything and really bring it together and I'm in a situation you, you're under pressure was a little bit difficult. That's definitely the steepest learning curve and that's why I think learning and, and breaking down things and being able to train without your camera also really helps you. Like when you're in those situations, put everything together easily, at least some parts of it. Everything is not linked to the camera composition, light subject communication. You can train without your camera and then you just bring it and it just becomes almost second nature when you're back with your camera and you can focus just on the technical aspect.
Raymond: 15:25 [Inaudible] How do you suggest we we practice lighting and composition without our camera.
Pierre T Lambert: 15:33 Ah, that's a lot of observation. I would say. It's just being aware of what you have around and understanding how different sources of lights actually help you or actually work against you depending on what kind of result you're trying to achieve. Being able to understand when you look at other photos, how they've been lit up, what, what light was important, and that you can just do it anywhere. You know, you're looking at our videos, you try to pinpoint the sources of light around you, why it was set up like that, what kind of mood it creates, and then you just play you, you move people around, you move your hands, you move objects. If you're shy, just use a stuffed animals, you know?
Raymond: 16:14 Yeah, absolutely. Or mannequins. I've seen mannequins before. Yeah, right. Modeling heads. Okay. So again, it just goes back to just putting in the work and not just doing more than just reading about it or watching it, but actually actually doing it
Pierre T Lambert: 16:28 Well. Yeah. I mean it's like abs, right? You can read all day about abs. Nothing's going to happen.
Raymond: 16:33 Yeah. Trust me. I know. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. All day, all day. Not a single thing. Not a single thing. So let's go back to where you, where you were shooting weddings. You're shooting portraits today. Are you still shooting any weddings or portraits?
Pierre T Lambert: 16:50 No, I don't shoot weddings anymore. I shoot portraits, yes. But not at all in the same context where it's going to be either lifestyle portraits was friends or like influencers or it's going to be portraits for like corporate sometimes, but and more like towards video. Like it's a mix. Yes. But not like I used to where it was like engagement, portrait couples, families. Those were really fun. But I moved away from that, especially after I moved from Paris to New York. My clientele was in France then I didn't restart trying to find clients in New York. I, I kind of switched gears. So
Raymond: 17:32 Let's talk about that. Was that a conscious decision to not try to book any more weddings once you moved to New York? Or was that out of necessity?
Pierre T Lambert: 17:40 Yeah, no, it's, when I moved to New York, I didn't know exactly how it would work out in terms of work and authorization and everything. I didn't want to put it into time because I was also, so while at the same time I was becoming a photographer and learning, I also learned to code and I can about [inaudible], which was for booking photographers online. So I built a full scale a worldwide booking.com for photographers and I was working a lot on that, on that end. And when I moved to New York I was like, you know what, I'm going to focus my energy on that part and not the individual shoots right now. I'm going to try to scale that skeletal a bit higher and like bring in more work to other photographers. And those are in, in Europe back in Europe.
Raymond: 18:29 Gotcha. So, so when did, when did you shift away to that and start focusing more on travel photography?
Pierre T Lambert: 18:37 So that's when we decided well, so the fun part is that travel photography has been all the time. So anyway, I have a very deep desire for travel and I have the travel bug and I cannot not travel in a year, otherwise I just go crazy. So I would travel like maybe three times a year or four times a year. And I always take my camera with me. Sometimes I would do shoot actually with clients. For example, in Taiwan when civil where I had the wedding stuff like that, but really got into the travel, travel photography. When we decided to go on the ward tour with my wife after New York, we decided to leave. We took a few trips I should for some NGO in Nicaragua. And then we went to Mexico, a bunch of places and one at one point we're like, why don't we just take a year off? And I mean, not for me, but for her. And I was just gonna focus on more travel photography and YouTube.
Raymond: 19:40 So then was that, was that kind of the I don't wanna say the end goal, but at that point were you thinking like, you know what, this is where all of my focus kind of needs to be like, like what, what am I trying to ask you?
Raymond: 19:56 This is, this is going to be a YouTube question because obviously you put out a lot of content on YouTube, you put out a lot of helpful and educational videos. Was that the goal from that? From that point when you guys were in, say, Mexico and Nicaragua thinking, why don't we just take a year off and I'm going to focus on this? Was that, was that the plan
Pierre T Lambert: 20:16 Three? No, because I had another YouTube channel where it was more like a blog and we're just doing travel content, meaning like information showing how it was traveling, those places, et cetera. But six months into it, I was shooting in this beautiful location, like getting shots I really liked. And, and more and more I was like, I want to share that with others. Like I get really excited about the photography on the channel. We don't really talk about it just because that's not who the people are watching what they're watching for and was like, you know, I think I can, I can do something good with the photography side on YouTube. And at that time there were a few photographer on YouTube that started rising up. There was a Peter McKinnon that just started in November. I think he's done 17. There were like a few others and I was like, I think it's a pretty good time to get into it. And especially because I'm traveling all the time, I want to share that with others and I'm sure other people would get excited. So that's when I decided and I actually started taking action I think in March or February, 2018 that's when I dropped the first video on that channel.
Raymond: 21:26 Yeah. Your, your growth has been pretty consistent, which has been awesome to see. It's as I said in the beginning, like it's great to see that or it's, it's clear to see why people, I think enjoy watching your videos. You just bring this personality to it and as you said, you know, you were in, you were traveling the world and you really liked the photography side of things, but it was hard to share it with with the, with the viewers of that channel. So then, then, let me ask this. When it comes to you know, a portrait, when it comes to a wedding, when it comes to a landscape, when I say those words, I can visualize those images in my head. What is different about those then say you know, a travel photo. When I say travel photography to you, what's the image that pops into your head?
Pierre T Lambert: 22:12 I'm going to ask you this same question after when I, you say travel stuffy, there are two kind of images that that pop into my head. Like charismatic, a guy or a worker or somewhere in the exotic place. Like very like a phase that shows you like years of work. Yes. that's what shows up in my mind. And another one is also adventure where it's like maybe a small road with a car or something. And people like literally going through a journey in, in a very, very different place from where you are right now. And that's, that's kind of what I see when I talk about Charles photography, that that makes between adventure and people,
Raymond: 22:56 The mix between adventure and people. Oh, I love that. I've got gotta write that down. The mix between adventure and people because ultimately I think when people, when people, when people travel, they're buying into the idea that they're about to have an experience. Right? And that's what they get excited for. So when you go on these travels, as you said, the people, the people are a big part of, of what makes a location unique. And I don't know about others listening right now, but I know that personally I get nervous. And as you said earlier, you know, you got nervous as well just at the idea of taking, you know, a stranger's portraits. So now with the experience that you've had, do you have any tips on photographing strangers?
Pierre T Lambert: 23:38 Yeah, definitely. And actually that's something I'm going to talking about that photo keynote so I don't. Cool. Yeah. I was like, Oh, I think it's a good topic. Because I went through that journey where I would never like take a photo of someone or feel really afraid or shamed or, or anything. Even if it, they were your clients. I mean, and again, if you were training with someone who was like a model for your day, you know, to shooter, I was very much shy, but one day I either watched a photographer work or I S I think I was at the workshop and that photographer was basically sharing that if you want the result, if you want it to look good, you have to be involved in it and you have to be able to get the best out of people and, and show it to them, you know if something excites you about them, just let them know what excites you about them and why you want to take their photo. Obviously if it's something you think is just say drama, maybe don't point it out, but or don't take their photo because it's not that cool. But but when you're doing travel photography or street photography, the most important I think is to go in with an open mind and always remember that you want to approach people the way you would love to you.
Pierre T Lambert: 25:01 Right? So imagine you're sitting in your shop and you're in God knows where. Like imagine you and Jana polys and there's this guy from India and his first time in the U S and he's a travel photographer, which is the same thing as me going to India and seeing guy in the shop, right? Yes. You think about it and, and the guy comes in with like a can of frowny face, doesn't know what to do and like kind of like sneaks. You don't know if he's trying to steal something for you or if he's taking a photo or you have that other guy that comes in with a smile and says, I love your shop. Or I think those calls like regrade, can I take a photo? You're more likely, I think statistically speaking to say yes to that guy versus the first one if he even asked for it.
Pierre T Lambert: 25:43 So I'm like, can I have every time I talk to someone and leave, is it possible for me to leave them with the day better than it was before they interacted with me? Can I have a positive impression on them that makes them have a better day. So that's kind of my goal every time I should people. Just because I don't know, it feels nice to, to do, to make people feel good. So the best thing you can do, just compliment them on something. Find something. You have glasses. I would say, dude, I love your glasses. How it makes your eyes pop. Can we take a photo of you? You know, you're already smiling. Z I have won the game and if you're able to say that 100% and there's going to be a video activity that's going to drop maybe next week or so.
Pierre T Lambert: 26:33 We did a challenge with a friend in New York and we had 10 minutes to shoot as many strangers as possible and ask them, Oh wow. And my friend did great, but we end the lies the after. And every time we would get, yes, it's when people, we would tell them why we wanted to take a photo of them, not because we're doing a challenge. That's another good reason why for them is there an incentive to have that photo taken because you find that their haircut is cool, you find something school about them, something looks good on them or delight looks beautiful and you think it did just enhance the background or whatever, you know. Every time you can find something cool about people and let them know you're going to get a lot more yeses.
Raymond: 27:20 Geez. I'm trying to think right now. That would that definitely makes things a whole lot less scary, you know, especially when you approach it from that mindset instead of like, Hey, they have something that I want. I wonder if I can get it from them, which is like their likeness, but instead, how can I make this person's day better? And then in return, hopefully I can get a photo out of it. Yeah. Yeah. That makes it a whole lot less scary. I would imagine that doing that 10 minute challenge to get as many portraits of people, I feel like that would be a tough thing to do because you almost don't want to just take somebody's photo. And then like run away and then get somebody else's photo. You almost want to like spend time with them for a moment and try to I don't know, enhance the photo or, or, or like you said, you know, just kind of talk to them and make, make their day better. I'm excited for, I'm sure that that will be out by the time this this interview goes live. So if it is, I'm going to take the link and I'm going to put it in the show notes. So if you're listening right now, it's in the show notes. Check it out. That's a great, that's great.
Pierre T Lambert: 28:15 But yeah, think about it. How long does it take for someone to have a positive or negative impact on your day? Seconds, right. It's like a girl passes by and spines at you, that's enough, right? But then someone cuts your lane and then you're angry. So it's as fast, you know, in both direction.
Raymond: 28:35 Not me. I, I used to get angry about stuff like that. I, and then I, and then I moved to LA and it was just like, this happens all day, every day. Like this is just life. I got to get over this. It definitely made me a better, a better driver after that. Yeah. You know? Yeah, you're absolutely right. It only takes, it only takes seconds. It only takes seconds. So gear, let's talk about gear for a moment because we don't really talk a lot about gear on this podcast. As you know you know, a camera or lens isn't what makes a photo great. It really is, is the photographer and it's there's so much that goes into it, but when it comes to gear and when it comes to traveling, it always seems like you know, if, if, if, if somebody in the beginning photography podcast, Facebook group is traveling, there's always a question about gear. You know, how much do they need to bring? Because the question is, is we all want to capture it. All right? When we travel, we want to capture the entire experience. But we also don't want to get bogged down by the amount of gear that a that either we have and we don't want to bring it all. So do you have any tips for facing this?
Pierre T Lambert: 29:42 Yeah, there is there I'll have two tips. Take the lightest gear you have. That's my number one. That's a good one cause you'll hate the rest. And second, just going to your light room or whatever software you use and filter by lenses you use and look at the lenses you use the most and it shows your favorite pose. Then just take that lens and that's a good tip. Whenever you want to switch gear or whatever, just look what you shoot most with. Like if it's 18 millimeter or if it's 55 or if you're someone who loves to shoot wide all the time, you, you got to know that it's very important and that will, you will help you when, when you're out there traveling. And the last thing is, the more gear you have, the more question you're gonna ask yourself. But if you only have one Lance, maybe max two lenses and you know one's really wide and one is a 85 one eight for example, you might be like, okay, today I'm just going to be like taking portraits or having fun at 85 and then you're going to put that on and forget about the rest.
Pierre T Lambert: 30:44 You know? And that's going to be really fun. Now if you're shooting for example, a really wide, then you do a really wide day, you know, and try to not have to make change lenses all the time because that's what I take away from actively shooting and thinking about shooting.
Raymond: 31:06 Yeah. Yeah. That can be a hard thing though. Cause it kinda, you know, like I said, it's like we want to capture it all. And I think, I think when you first start to learn photography, there's just so many options available. You know, the idea of, of using all of your gear is almost, you almost equate that to being able to use all of your knowledge, you know? So if you can't bring all your gear, you almost feel like you're leaving your, your knowledge or the potential behind and that that can be harmful. But when you come at it as a challenge, kind of like you said, just do a wide day, just do a, you know, portrait day that does make things easier. Well, what about things like now this isn't necessarily like, you know, DSLR mirrorless camera, but things like a like a GoPro or a drone. You know, how important are these things when when you travel?
Pierre T Lambert: 31:57 Well, GoPro and drones allow you, in my opinion, to get different angles, like different field of use, different types of experiences. So for example, GoPro, you're going to have something very immersive and then your drone is going to help you get settings. It's going to show you where you are. It's going to give context to the place you are. It's going to help people understand better. And so if really you're trying to go and capture a whole, the whole experience, you want to have tight shots, you want to have detailed shots, you want to have people, you want to have the general area, like show giving context as to what the looks like and the area. And then you want to have maybe the immersive experience that GoPro gives you of being like in the action. And I think those are like, think about them as different lenses. That's all. All they are. They're just tools to help you like create a homogeneous vision if you want into your work. And if you're doing ever editorial, that's what they look a lot for is not just one type of, of focus is they want people, they want setting, they want details on what people are using, for example, what their, how their life looks like from detailed perspective. And then they also want the zoomed out picture that shows you the whole context.
Raymond: 33:24 Yeah, I think, I think that you just, I think that you just breezed over something that is more important than you could possibly imagine, which essentially what you're saying right there is that you need to learn how to tell a story when you're traveling. It's not just about one photo, it's a whole, it's a whole story that you're trying to capture. Yeah.
Pierre T Lambert: 33:40 I wasn't trying to tell them because well I'm sure a lot of people talk about stories and I remember when I was a beginner, I, it was very difficult to understand. I'm like, well, everything can tell a story and nothing can tell a story, you know? But that's the truth. It depends how you see it, how you want to portray that and what matters is how you see things and what you're going to do to actually make your viewer get it. You know? Are you gonna focus on details because you're trying to shoot something very detailed or a worker and you want to show how difficult his work is. So you want to like focus on the traits on his face and his hands or whatever. Or do you want to show the craziness of a city and then you don't need to go asthma, the details as, as for the worker for example. And I think as long as you know what story you're trying to tell, it's going to help you get those different types of shots and make it match. So GoPro, just to wrap up, go pro John, just another tool that, that you definitely want to use for, for you. Hire creative vision in a way.
Raymond: 34:47 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, so great toys. Yeah. Very fun toys when so let's say, do you have any, do you have any travels coming up soon? The de the GB happy to share about,
Pierre T Lambert: 35:00 Yeah. I'm going to be in San Diego. I have no clue what's going to happen, but I was supposed to be going to nip Powell, an NGO I think need India is going to fall short, but Nepal might be going through, so, yeah.
Raymond: 35:13 Okay. So let's talk about Nepal for a second. You're going to Nepal. It's a very remote location. You're not going to be able to bring a ton of stuff right now. Are you already planning in your head types of stories that you want to tell with your photos? Or are you more of the photographer who shows up and says, let's see what happens and then I'll just follow it and see where it goes.
Pierre T Lambert: 35:35 Oh, that's, that's good question because what are discovered is that my travels also made up of a lot of photos I might have seen in the past from magazines, travel, magazines, books, whatever. And so when I imagined a place, I imagined that based through those images most of the time. So if you want to play a game book of ticket for a place and never look what it looks like before, that's good game. If you're going to a place like Nepal, which is fairly well known yet few people have been there. I want to do two things when I go there. There are, there's like the loose bucket list shots that I really want to get. For example, those flags in the wind on the mountain with the Himalaya's in the background. So, and maybe the monks also if I have access and if they're cool with that, trying to get a little bit of that culture, but also from my friends who spent quite some time there also want to have an element of surprise. So I want to be in the streets or the villages and just like stay up and just observe what happens and capture what I think is is worth not word. Everything's worth it. But in a way as that it's something I want to share with the rest of the ward.
Raymond: 36:53 Huh. huh. Yeah.
Pierre T Lambert: 36:55 Oh, and the last one, sorry. And the last one is how can I integrate myself into those locations so that I also have a personal souvenir.
Raymond: 37:05 How can you integrate yourself in the location so that you have so as in like a like taking a photo of yourself in these locations as well? Yeah, that's a cool idea. That's, that's one thing that I definitely don't do enough of. I spend all of my time behind the camera
Pierre T Lambert: 37:19 Cause it's, it's the easiest right moment. You have to be in front of it. You're like, Ugh, I'm going to start over.
Raymond: 37:25 For me, I think for me it's a, I'm, I don't want to say that I'm a control freak, but having more knowledge of photography than say my wife or my children, it's like if I hand them the camera, I know that I'm not going to be happy with whatever photo that they [inaudible].
Pierre T Lambert: 37:40 Oh, good. You, you can use your tripod, you set a perfectly, and then you get in your frame. I'm going to have to find that. It's not going to look right as Jean run as if you had a really good photographer friend capture shots of you and the action, but to be at as a try it out because in 50 years you'll be happy to have those shots. Yeah. Oh wow. That was me there. That's so funny. Look at me. I had the beard. No, I had no beard. You know, you'll be like, Oh, cool.
Raymond: 38:09 I still had glasses. We hadn't figured out how to solve everybody's high problems with a pill or something. That's hilarious. Yeah, I'm really excited to to see more photos. I'm sure that you're going to be making videos in Nepal. I'm really excited to see that as, yeah, that's, that's definitely one of the places that is if I could travel anywhere in the world, I would love to do that. I don't know if this would help you at all, but maybe it would, but I recently asked the the audience of beginner photography podcast, if they could take their camera anywhere in the world, where would it be? And there was there was a, there was a good range of options, but I would say overwhelmingly people said, Alaska, people want to go to Alaska.
Pierre T Lambert: 38:46 Yeah, I've, I've heard that. Like, one of my, Aaron just went to [inaudible]. I really say, dude, it's so crazy. They're like, it's so beautiful. Like the nature everywhere, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, wow. And so I can see why.
Raymond: 39:04 Yeah. Well, there, there you go. There's a, there's a location for one of your next when your next series of videos. That's gonna be great. So speaking of, you know, traveling to these locations, you know, going to Nepal, it's very remote, you might not have internet access for periods of time. What do you do about keeping your actual photos safe?
Pierre T Lambert: 39:23 Oh, that's really important. Very important. So back when we were in the work too, I had two, three hard-drives to normal hard drives, let's say like the cheap ones. I had two, four terabyte hard drives or two to two terabytes and th those would be Doppler Cades. So whenever I would be done with the shoot, I would transfer everything into one hard drive and then duplicate it onto the other one at all times. And during that world too, I had ended up with like three, four times 12, four terabytes. So the two like 12 terabytes, three times four. And then I had three hard drives crash. So if I didn't deprecate those hard drives, I would have come home with zero. Oh, that's what I tell to everyone. A number one, make sure you always carried applicants and don't put those in the same bag. If you can separate bag or better give it to your wife or your friend. Now nowadays, do not buy old school hard-drive invest in SSDs because they will be stuck proof.
Pierre T Lambert: 40:30 I just how it's made in height works. It's shockproof so you don't have to worry about banging it and losing everything because the had the reading had like moved or whatever and you're completely safe. But always, always just duplicate. And if you want to just send it to the cloud if you haven't internet. Otherwise I'm use devices. Like I use a knob box for example, which is recall, especially when I don't have my laptop and I don't want to take it, just dropped the memory card, do a backup on the NAR box. And if I have an extra hard drive, I do it an extra backup into the other hard drives. And if I want to be extra cautious, then I keep that memory card into a different spot and I don't use it until I'm back home or in a secure location.
Raymond: 41:13 Oh, gotcha. So you don't, they never wipe a a card while you're,
Pierre T Lambert: 41:17 Well, it depends on the job. It depends. If I'm shooting for myself, I might, but if I'm shooting something very important on like some like portfolio worth shots or I'm working for the people, I want to have like two or three, three backups. If I can do your memory card, no space, you just buy another one. That's it.
Raymond: 41:35 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. For some reason I feel so many new photographers get hung up on, on memory cards and I don't know. Keeping multiples and it's like, just buy, just buy another one. It's like $30.
Pierre T Lambert: 41:49 I know. It's like, Oh, I have all my shots in 2016 on it. I'm like, what? I'm like, what are you going to eat any moment? Yeah, I know, right? He's like, no, no. I'll know dozer, my wife.
Raymond: 42:03 Well, I have a, yeah, I know that there's so many horror stories of people who recently actually one of my wife's friends her car got broken into and they stole her camera out of the car and she wasn't like a photographer or anything, but she had this camera and you know, she bought like it was probably like 128 gig card or whatever. So she had photos of her child's birth on this card and her child was like, now four years old. So every photo that she had ever taken was on this card in the past four years. And you know, you feel bad for those people in those situations. You know, maybe there's just not enough education for, for non photographers, but yeah. That, I mean, you just think about that. That's a horrible situation. Horrible situation.
Pierre T Lambert: 42:45 So that's where you can ask yourself, why do people buy cameras if they'd never take them off their camera?
Raymond: 42:51 Right. Well, I think, I think it was that she would, she would, she'd like, she'd probably take the card out of her camera and put it in her computer, pick the one or two photos that she liked from a birthday party or whatever, upload it to Facebook, take out the card, put it right back in the camera and then that would be odd. And you know what I mean? So there was no cataloging of photos and ultimately that was, that was the problem. That was the problem, which is really sad. So when you get when you get, say back home home base, now you have all these hard drives full of photos and video what do you do? What do you do with those
Pierre T Lambert: 43:25 [Inaudible] nowadays because I'm using the NA box. I actually pre-call all the images. I read them before I get home, like on the flight or something like that. But let's say I just came home, didn't read them or I didn't even have time to look at anything or just like go through, let's say the 2000, 3000, 10,000 photos. And just read them and say, see which one I would keep and which one that would not heap. And once I know which one I keep, I just like import those into Lightroom and the rest I would just say leave it out into a folder that I would delete a little bit later once I'm done working on the project just to make sure in case I need to go back to it, I would, or if I feel really confident, which I don't recommend to anyone because that's when you feel very confident that something happens. Yeah, yeah. I didn't realize it towards a TimeLapse and that's just the last frame. Yeah, that happens. And then you, you just go back to, to working on those photos and once you're done and you know, you have everything you wanted, you just delete the rest.
Raymond: 44:30 Okay. Okay. Gotcha.
Pierre T Lambert: 44:32 So you're not the kind of photographer who keeps every raw that you've ever taken. You just keep what you used, what was good enough and then, and then ditch the rest? No, I don't, I don't keep everything. It's, it would be mental. Raymond: 44:44 Right. I know
Pierre T Lambert: 44:45 I have an easy shutter, so
Raymond: 44:48 Yeah, right. Yeah. It's very easy to go out and in an hour and take a thousand or so photos. No, I'm, I'm, I'm the same way when it comes to weddings. It's like I only keep after, after six months after the wedding, I only keep what it was that I used and then I just trash all the other photos cause
Pierre T Lambert: 45:03 So, so what I did for weddings and I would set myself like a year and I would take all those photos I did that didn't make it through selection and I would dump them into a hard drive called rejects and dump all those photos in there and keep it for your, and after just you raise that folder after a year or so and make space for another one. The reason was that sometimes you have clients who are not happy or want to see the [inaudible] or the or or some thing that you did not include in your calls called photos and they're like, Oh, do you have that? And if you say no, well, I mean, yeah, it doesn't look good as a pro. So as a pro would always keep those for your and usually after your, you're safe. Like if this [inaudible] has been a year, what are you
Raymond: 45:49 Yeah. Did you forget about your aunt for that entire year? Like now's the time that you're coming back to us. That's hilarious. As, as, as somebody who shoots a lot of truffle photos, who you talk to a lot of other photographers who are interested in travel photography, I'm sure that you see a lot of photos from amateur travel photographers. What is something that most people get wrong about their, their travel photography when, when they're documenting their own travels?
Pierre T Lambert: 46:21 I don't know if it's just about travel photography, but I felt like more for any kind of photography and Tai mean. And that comes down to two aspect, like finding the good light for like time of the day. For example. Like, if you're not dedicated, you'll probably go out at like 11:00 AM after the strong night or whatever and then you'll come back home before sunset because you're tired. But if you want to be good or if you want to get shots that are a little bit more worth that you were going to be chasing light, just like Netflix, let's say you want to be you, you want to be out there like sunrise or early morning hours and then also evening and maybe nighttime so you get different Ambien. So I think not everyone's ready to put that dedication. A lot of people are just like, I don't understand why I don't get those photos. Well maybe because you're not that or the same time, you know? And the last one is just taking time to get to composition, right? And, and not rushing or like feeling like someone's going to attack you if you take a photo, meaning like, no one cares if you take two a minute in the middle of a busy road to take the right photo with your right to composition. Like there are crazy people everywhere. Just be one of them, you know, and that, and that's it. Just get over with it.
Raymond: 47:41 There are crazy people everywhere. Just be one of them. I love that. That's great. It's going to be definitely the most memorable quote of this. Right here. My last question here for you, what is something that you think that people would be surprised to find out about? Being a travel photographer?
Pierre T Lambert: 48:03 Mmm. Mmm. A lot of time on the laptop, but it's a, it's a lot of time trying to either find if you want partners or, or spending time, like the business part if you want, takes a lot more times on them than being on location and once you're on location, especially for me if I'm doing YouTube, but it gets very, very intense where I have to think about the photos. I have to think about the video and it's not leisure at all. It is not a like, Oh nice, I'm waking up, it's goes shoot for five minutes. No, it's more like I just went to New York and my scale was like 10:00 AM midnight every day, a certain days, sunrise until 10:00 PM. So it's like being out there at all times trying to get as much content as possible or the right content and make sure you maximize that opportunity. I will say if you don't like that, just slow travel, but then you gotta have flexibility. You just spent a month in the country or two months and, and take your time if that's more suitable for someone.
Raymond: 49:19 Travel doesn't always equal leisure.
Pierre T Lambert: 49:22 That's perfect. Yeah. No, no, but since I love what I do, it doesn't matter. Right. It's like I get excited waking up with sunrise and in going to do something it's not easy to wake up, but I'm excited. So yeah. And then if your alarm rings and you're like, ah, that's five minutes later, once you're out, you're like, yes.
Raymond: 49:46 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It really just comes down to like, I guess people's definition of, you know, what, what travel is and what it is that they want out of it. Cause I know, you know, maybe this is a mostly American construct as I just simply don't know. But I know a lot of times when it comes to travel, you're thinking of like, I got to relax. Like this is a vacation. Like, like this is my time away from my job and this lets me can recoup. But I think when you get out of that Headspace and when you use, I know me personally, I work better. Like I have a very hard time just turning off. I have a very hard time just sitting there and just doing nothing. And that having some sort of goal, whether it be to capture a certain sort of sh shot or to, you know, make a video or something, definitely makes travel or vacations for me, a lot more enjoyable.
Raymond: 50:36 But I've also never, excuse me, had to go around the world and create like consistent content. And I can imagine that, that, that, that schedule of shooting, editing, uploading a has just got to be tedious and and, and very difficult to keep up with. So I just have to congratulate you. Obviously I'm doing that. I'm doing it very well. You know, growing a YouTube channel as well. It's been very fun to watch you and your growth. And I look forward to seeing you in your growth in the future as well as I know that great things are to come, but for those who maybe this is their first time hearing of you, can you let the listeners know where they can find you online and where they can follow along with your work?
Pierre T Lambert: 51:20 Sure. you can find me online everywhere at purity. Lambert, so that's spelled out P I. E R R E T a, L a and B E R. T. so if you type my name on YouTube or if you type in Instagram and ticktock wherever you want, you won't find it. You can also go to [inaudible] dot com you'll find, what are you going to find there? Some photos. Mainly if I'm honest, I think it's going to be presets, probably maybe a cheat sheet, some gear lists and a, and the workshop over 30 days for whoever wants to learn. Yeah.
Raymond: 51:54 Great, great. And again, Pierre, I have to thank you so much for coming on and sharing everything that you did. I had a blast talking with you. It's clear that your personality is exactly as it is on your YouTube videos. And again, I, I had a great time and thank you again for sharing everything that you did.
Pierre T Lambert: 52:09 Thank you Raymond.