Adam Taylor spent years as one of the top BMX photographers in the country before changing career paths to Real Estate and architecture photography. Adam found that he could grow his earnings by licensing the photos he took of high-end homes, to the cabinet, faucet, tile, and furniture manufacturers. Today Adam breaks down how to adopt the licensing mindset and start making more with your images in this interview.
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In This Episode You'll Learn:
How Adam got started in photography
What shooting BMX taught him about being a better business later in life
What is licensing
How to license your photos
Who to license your photos to
The differences between a real estate image and one you would shoot for a brand to license
What gear you need for real estate photography
Premium Members Also Learn:
How to find the decision-makers who purchase photos to license
How to set up an email to get a quick yes
How to price your images to license
How to protect yourself legally against image theft
Resources:
Adam Taylor’s Learn to License Your Photos Course - Save 25% by using the promo code “Beginner” at check out
Standout Quotes:
"If you're shooting for a product company, you want that product to be in focus, you want it to be the star of the show" - [Adam]
"The first step in protecting yourself is having a conversation with your client" - [Adam]
"I would rather not sell my photos than sell them for 12 cents each" - [Adam]
Key Takeaways:
Adam explains the role of having a focused mindset and asking for help, in pulling through the setbacks he faced as a learning photographer.
The licensing mindset is about more than how to license a photo, it encompasses the different avenues by which photographers can maximally monetize their pictures.
Companies that would purchase licensed photos are typically companies that are involved in the production or sales of items in the photos.
Adam explains different ways to connect with companies that potentially would value your photos enough to pay for them.
The first step in protecting yourself is having a conversation with your client, so they understand what they are allowed to do with the photos.
Comparing with third party stock photo websites, the major difference is how you upload, the price you get, and how people get the images.
Episode Timeline:
[00:20] How did you get involved with photography?
[06:09] Adam shares some of the hiccups he faced while advancing from being a learner in photography.
[09:37] How do you just keep moving on despite any setbacks?
[11:14] The transition from BMX to Real Estate.
photography
[15:40] What is Licensing Photos?
[20:45] Is there a difference between an image you would shoot for an architect and one you would shoot to sell to a tile manufacturer?
[32:45] Who are we selling our photos to, and how do we find them?
[42:50] How do you protect yourself against image theft?
[48:54] Adam shares major challenges with the use of third party stock photo websites as a means to monetize your pictures.
[55:16] Adam describes a typical set of equipment he would take for a commercial shoot.
[59:02] When it comes to compositing images, do you do that for every image?
[01:00:54] How to contact Adam
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, it is only intended as a reference.
Raymond Hatfield: 00:00:00 Trying to learn more about you. You know, one of the big things about you is that before getting into real estate, and then later licensing your photo, you started off doing BMX photography, which is, you know, always exciting to think about, you know, high energy, lots of adrenaline going on, but I couldn't find anything out about what happened before that. So how did you get into photography in the first place? And when did you know that, you know, photography and having a camera in your hand was going to play an important role in your life?
Adam Taylor: 00:00:28 I just got goosebumps, even you asking that question. So I fell in love with photography in fifth grade. My mom took my sister and me to New York city from a small town, Louisiana. We went on a family vacation and she just let me run wild with her little plain shoot Kodak camera and probably 15 rolls of film back then. And it was a very distinct moment. I was on the pedestal of the statue of Liberty, like looking up at the statute and snapping pictures and looking out at the, across the Harbor at the skyline and snapping pictures and like right there. And I was like, this is what I want to do. So, you know, I came home from that trip, just telling everybody I want to be a photographer when I grow up fast forward. My senior year of high school, I was on the yearbook staff.
Adam Taylor: 00:01:09 So I would walk around the school to take pictures. I would go get them developed. I would come back and kind of design and layout pages with those pictures. And I was super into BMX bike riding at the time had been my whole life. And I basically said, if I could do this meaning what I was doing for the yearbook staff, you know, take pictures, lay out pages for a BMX magazine. That would be the coolest job in the world. Of course. So, you know, upon graduation, everybody's saying, what are you going to do when you graduate? What are you gonna do when you graduate? And I had like an answer in the can for everybody. I literally told every person I'm going to go to school for graphic design as a backup plan. And then when I graduated, I'm going to move to Southern California and do whatever it takes to work at ride BMX magazine.
Adam Taylor: 00:01:47 So I went to school for graphic design while I was in school. I realized that the designers and the photographers for an actual magazine in the real world are two different jobs, unlike the yearbook where the designer and the photographer was the same person, me that the 17 year old. So once I realized that in college, which is so funny to think back of how naive I was, then I started to focus more on photography. And a month before I graduated, I got a call from the editor of that magazine, asking if I wanted to fly out for an interview and got my dream job working for the magazine right out of college. So about six months after I graduated, I moved from small town, Louisiana out to big time, metropolitan Southern California, and started working at my dream job photographing for the magazine,
Raymond Hatfield: 00:02:32 What a huge change in lifestyle that is for a, you know, a young 17 year old. I want to go back to fifth grade though, when you were there at the statue of Liberty and you're taking photos and you're looking up and you realize, this is what I, this is what I want to do without having seemingly even seen any of those photos at that point. Why do you think it was that moment? Or what was it in that moment that really struck a chord with you?
Adam Taylor: 00:02:57 That's a good question. I loved being able to take what I was seeing in my head, frame it up the way I wanted this frame it, and then the excitement of I'm going to get to develop this and then share it with people. Sharing my work with people has always been super exciting for me. You know, even today when I get shoot done with a photo shoot and I'm finished editing the set, you know, I bring my wife into the office and go through the photos and kind of have like a show and tell, you know, and, you know, tell her and show her all the photos that I shot. So yeah, it was, it was that idea of I'm going to get to share this with people. And then, you know, I got home and I'd developed them and I had all these stacks of photos and, you know, I would cut them with scissors to crop them. Right. Because they were pronounced from Walmart or wherever it was, you know? So I was like chopping up with scissors and yeah, it was just the coolest thing.
Raymond Hatfield: 00:03:49 So it was a very much a, a creative process for you in terms of being able to visualize something, use the tools that you had to capture it and then, you know, even continue on by cutting it up and doing more things with it.
Adam Taylor: 00:04:04 Absolutely. And to elaborate on that a little bit more, the type of camera was, I don't know if you or your listeners recall this, but there was an APS like advanced photo system camera from Kodak back in the day that had like a little switch where it had three different settings for the different links of the photo. So essentially it would give you like a panoramic photo or like a normal size or what kind of a crop size. And it was just, you know, it was just how much how wide, like the shutters were going to open on that piece of film. And yeah, you had to, it was like a different type of film. Like it slid in, he didn't have to like pull the little reel out, you know, it just popped right out. And I think you could get it developed a bit, all the same places. But yeah, so like even that part of the creative process back then was really cool. Like, you know, I get to decide which setting I have it on, you know, for this skyline picture or whatever.
Raymond Hatfield: 00:04:53 Yeah. I'm definitely gonna have to look that up. That sounds really fun and interesting. I remember you saying that right there reminded me of, I must have been, I mean, it must've been fourth or fifth grade. I wasn't, I wasn't very old. My stepdad had a rebuilt a it was it was a 1969 Chevelle. And like, I remember him building it up from like this just piece of rust to a finished car. And none of that has anything to do with the story. But he had a friend who was also into cars and at the time that friend of his had some sort of camera, I didn't know what it was at the time. Cause I was in fourth or fifth grade. And I remember that he was taking photos at a car show and then when he brought them to us so that we could see them, they were all Panorama images.
Raymond Hatfield: 00:05:36 And I remember thinking to myself like, this is like, this is insane. I've never seen anything like this. I was so young. But now thinking back to some of those photos, like he was still taking photos in the traditional sense where like whatever the subject was, was still directly in the center. So there was like two thirds of the image just totally empty. And it was, it was a waste of panoramic, but I'm going to have to look that up. That sounds like a lot of fun. That's very cool. That's very, so you know, obviously the, the visualization, the framing, those things were important to you, but when it became time for you to maybe advance and get your first SLR or DSLR did you find any big learning hiccups along the way when it came time to properly learning exposure or anything like that?
Adam Taylor: 00:06:20 Yeah. I remember a lot of things let's see, where do I even begin? So the, the, I'm just going to talk this out loud because this is an interesting question I haven't had before. So the first DSLR, or I'm sorry, the first SLR. I was a junior in high school and my mom got an SLR with like, you know, a zoom lens, like a kid lens so that she could take a picture of my sister crossing the graduation stage. She wants to be able to zoom in for graduation. So that's when I kind of adopted this new SLR. And then I kind of carried that with me throughout college. And so I used that camera in college and one of my first big hiccups funny story, I would live with the band any emo screamo fans out there might know a band called as cities burn.
Adam Taylor: 00:07:04 I lived with that band as they were forming themselves and I was taking their first quote-unquote press photos. And I didn't know what I was doing. I knew that I was always good with composition. I just had it in me. I went to school for graphic design. Like there was something in me that was like, good with like arranging composition and stuff. Right. But as far as the camera setting, I had no idea what I was doing. And they said they wanted to take photos in this like elevator, like this weird, like cargo elevator, where one of the guys worked. And so I brought a flash, I don't even know where I got this flash for brothers flash and I started taking pictures and I mean, I didn't know what else, it was just an on-camera flash. Right. and I got the pictures back and there was like this black line across like the lower third of the photos.
Adam Taylor: 00:07:43 I was like, what is this? Like, I don't know what is going on. Like, dude, I'm sorry, I messed up your press photos. Like, I don't know what this is. And it's funny because I was in college and I remember showing them to this other kid who was like in high school, but his dad happened to be a photographer. And he explained how the shutter sink worked. And, you know, if you shoot a photo with too high, a shutter speed with a flash, it doesn't stay open long enough, yada yada. And so that was like a big learning thing that it's funny. I was just literally just thinking about that, that incident, like last night in the shower, for some reason about, you know, how, how far I've come. And flash photography is really big in the BMX world. Like you have to use flashes, flashes and stuff, the motion and all that kind of stuff.
Adam Taylor: 00:08:21 So that was a big learning lesson for sure. Around the same time. Fish lenses are really big and action sports. So, you know, getting real close to the action stuff. And at the time I just had a kid lens and I went to this like weird kind of like downtown camera shop where you know, they sell a bunch of kits and it's this weird Hawker that's kind of hustling and selling you things. You know, you'll see a whole row of these stores in downtown new Orleans or somewhere in the New York district or whatever. Right. hopefully people can imagine the kind of stories I'm talking about, but I went in there and I was like, Oh, I need a wide angle lens. And he tells me this weird contraption that screws onto the front of my lens as a wide angle, you know, cause I didn't know what it was.
Adam Taylor: 00:09:01 And I remember showing it to like an actual BMX photographer that I met at one point. And he's like I don't know what that is that looks sketchy. I don't think he should be using that, but he wasn't like, he didn't explain like, Hey, an actual fish islands is 15 millimeters. It's a different lens, you know, like, didn't explain that. So I was just like, Oh, okay. Like, no wonder my pictures. Aren't very crisp and sharp, you know? And at this time I was, I had switched to DSLR. But yeah, there was a lot of learning curve there for sure, man.
Raymond Hatfield: 00:09:28 Oh, geez. So how do you, how do you, when it comes to these these moments of like, what am I doing wrong and you know, ruining a, a band's press photos and stuff. How do you continue to just move forward? Because you know, when you're new to something like this, a mistake or an accident like that can feel pretty devastating. How do you, how do you just keep moving on?
Adam Taylor: 00:09:51 Yeah, for me it was just keep your eye on the prize type of mentality. Like, like I said, when I was 17, like I knew what I wanted in life and nothing was going to stop me from getting that. And so, you know, for all those years, the only thing I was focused on was, you know, creating this career in the, in the BMX industry that I dreamed of, you know you know, while my friends were out riding and building ramps and stuff sure. I joined them sometimes, but there was a lot of times that I was in my room, like, you know, building a BMX website or working on some BMX design stuff or whatever. Because everything I wanted to do was just like, how can I move the needle closer to my goal? And so, you know, when those kinds of incidents happened, it was just, okay, how can I learn from this?
Adam Taylor: 00:10:33 Who can I ask to teach me, you know, like where can I learn obviously now, you know, YouTube is so prevalent and you know, you can Google just about anything. But yeah, I, I found a lot of great resources and just asking people and thankfully there was one of the guys that worked at that magazine that I wanted to work for who was very receptive to emails and you know, I would reach out to him and ask questions and he would give me, you know, little pointers and tips and stuff. So just, you know, asking the people that I admire really helped out a lot.
Raymond Hatfield: 00:11:02 That is fantastic. I feel like that story doesn't happen as often as it should. And I love how, as you said, you know, you keep your eye on the prize. You, you look to long-term, what is it that you want? And now you're going to keep working towards that. But today you're no longer doing that. So tell me where that transition came from from BMX to you just went right into real estate. Is that right?
Adam Taylor: 00:11:22 There was a little bit of a transition in between there. So from BMX, honestly, it was the fact that I've worked in the industry for about eight and a half years or so. And my passion was just changing and shifting, you know, I was getting older. And honestly I found CrossFit, you know, I, I drank the pill, I drank the Kool-Aid as they say, and I fell in love with CrossFit. It's funny because I started doing CrossFit because some BMX professionals were doing it to get better on their bike and, you know they were improving their health and their fitness. And so I was like, Oh, if I do CrossFit, I'll be able to, you know, ride longer and not get hurt when I crashed. And then within about three months of going across there just about every day, I loved it so much that my mindset completely flipped where my thought was, Oh, if I go ride today in a crash, I might be too hard to go to CrossFit.
Adam Taylor: 00:12:08 And I just fell in love with it and kind of how I, you know, fell in love with BMX and turned it into career. I started to do the same thing with CrossFit. So I kind of shifted from like shooting X games to shooting the CrossFit games. And I started getting clients in the fitness space. And eventually I decided that it was too much of a hustle and grind. It was a little too competitive. It was a little too young not quite lucrative enough of an industry where I didn't want to repeat the same thing. I didn't BMX where, you know, my salary wasn't very much, I really had to hustle to make any kind of money and BMX. And eventually my passion left because I was burnt out on it, you know, and I got too jaded by the industry and the personalities within the industry.
Adam Taylor: 00:12:48 And I didn't want to turn another hobby into a career and then lose another hobby, essentially. And so at that point, then it was like, okay, well, what do I do now? Like what can I take pictures of that's going to pay me. And so that's when I made that switch to, to real estate because at the time also to BMX and the CrossFit stuff was having me travel quite a bit. So, and I was traveling anywhere from like 120 to 200 days out of the year for like seven years straight. And I wanted to settle down, I wanted to get a dog. I wanted to be able to have a relationship. So I was like, okay, what, what would interest me enough to take pictures of that doesn't require me to leave and travel. And I really liked expensive houses, like, you know, luxury houses and, you know, being a dreamer and a goal setter.
Adam Taylor: 00:13:31 I honestly, I wanted to go hang out and these like multi-million dollar houses in LA to be able to picture myself in them, to be able to dream a little bit and to be able to kind of feed my motivation and stuff. And the idea of shooting portraits and weddings and stuff just never interested me. So I was like, all right, let's, let's give this real estate thing a try. So I went that direction, but you know, it didn't last too long with the real estate thing. Because the business model, I just wasn't fully aware of the business model before I got into it. And I thought that I was going to be able to create art. Like I explained earlier, you know, I, I liked that creative process, like creating art. But what I found out relatively quickly with real estate is that you're not necessarily creating art.
Adam Taylor: 00:14:11 It's a different business model. You're shooting a lot more and charging a lot less and trying to do volume. And you know, you're not getting paid a wage that will allow you to spend the time in a home to, you know, slow down and take your time. It kind of has to be a fast paced workflow. And yeah, I just wasn't enjoying it that much. But through that, I realized that I could take pictures for other people of the same type of spaces and get paid more and work slower and enjoy the process more. So that's kind of where the transition to working with architects, interior designers and custom home builders came, which is what I'm doing now still.
Raymond Hatfield: 00:14:47 Oh, I see. Okay. That's a, that's a big between working with real estate and working with the people who are essentially creating these homes, designing these homes. Oh, okay. Okay. Okay. So then today you are in your teaching as well as how to license your images which is something that I'm super excited to talk about when you reached out to me and were like, Hey, you know, would you like to talk about licensing your images? And I thought to myself, I don't even know where I'd begin. You know, as, as a wedding photographer for myself, I don't have to worry about any of these things, you know? And it is a question that I see that kind of continues to come up in the beginning of photography podcast, community, the Facebook group, and whatnot. So before we dive into the licensing side of things, can you tell me as if I was five years old as if a five-year-old came up to you and said, you know, what is licensing photos? Like? How does that work? What would you say to them?
Adam Taylor: 00:15:46 Yeah, good question. So starting at the beginning here when you, as a photographer, sell your photos, you're actually just selling a license to use the photos. And so hopefully this five-year-old uses Photoshop because I'm gonna use this as an example when you're on some pretty advanced
Raymond Hatfield: 00:16:01 These days. So I think we'll be okay when
Adam Taylor: 00:16:03 You okay. Five-Year-Old when you purchase frozen two on your Apple TV, you are don't own that movie. You cannot give that movie to all your friends that also want to watch frozen too. So, so that's the three-year-old version cause my daughter loves frozen too. But you know, as photographers, we all use the Adobe creative suite and different software, Microsoft soft you know, Microsoft word and Excel, those kinds of things. When you buy these software programs, you're not buying them, right. You're licensing them. And every year you pay for a new license and your licenses for you to use in your home and your business. And if you had a business with a bunch of employees and they were all going to use it, you would pay a different licensing rate. You would pay more to use that same software. But again, you still can't give it to everybody, right?
Adam Taylor: 00:16:45 So when you sell your photos, you're selling a license to use the photos for a specific reason. So for me, you know, an interior designer hires me and she pays or he pays to use the photos to market their own business. And the license that I sell to them doesn't allow them to distribute the photos or give them to other people. So if I shoot a kitchen for interior designer and she wants to use that for her website or a magazine ad, that's great. But if that same picture of a kitchen wants to be used by the company that manufactured the faucet, or that made the cabinets, or that manufactured the tiles on the backsplash, all those companies, if they want to use them, they would also have to pay for a license to use those photos from you from me.
Adam Taylor: 00:17:29 That's correct. Yep. So I am the copyright holder as the creator of the image by us law. I hold the copyright, obviously there's caveats. And when we put a big disclaimer here, I'm not a lawyer, don't take legal advice to me. But you know, in the U S you own the copyright when you shoot the photo, if you have a contract with a client that says you're to do a copyright transfer or something like that, that's a little bit different. But most photographers don't work like that. Right. So, yeah if the cabinet manufacturer, if the tile company wants to use those photos, they would have to come to me and negotiate a licensing rate for me to use those images.
Raymond Hatfield: 00:18:08 That was a, that was a very clear example that made a lot of sense. And it's funny, I guess, without even realizing it, I've kind of been giving that example to my couples, like when they asked, you know, do we have print rights? Can we, you know, do these things with our photos, I've always used the example of which is very similar to your frozen example, but it's a book, you know, you can go to a store and you can buy a book, but you don't know the words in that book. You don't own that book. You you're paying to read that book to look at that book, I guess. So that, that, that totally makes sense. Why do you think that this is so confusing to, to so many new photography?
Adam Taylor: 00:18:47 Hmm. Yeah. Good question. I think just lack of education, which is, you know, part of what I'm trying to do is teach photographers, teach companies teach our clients and educate on what this is. And you know, the idea that you quote unquote, buy something or pay for something, and you can't do whatever you want with it. It's kind of a foreign idea. The software companies do a pretty good job of, you know, monitoring their software because the way that you have to download the Adobe creative suite makes it very difficult to give it to other people, you know, back in the day when it was on a disc or a CD or whatever it was a little bit easier, you know, all through college, I never paid for Adobe. And even into my professional career, I still had these like, you know, bootlegged copies or whatever that somebody gave me back in college.
Adam Taylor: 00:19:30 Right. But as soon as they switched to the download version, they were able to protect their copyrights and their assets a lot easier. So just like the the MP3s and stuff, you know, it used to be pretty easy to let your friends burn your CDs. And now with the music download, honestly, if I wanted to put a song from my phone onto my wife's phone, I don't even know how I would do that at this point. So, you know, the, the fact that other industries and other other platforms are able to protect their assets makes it a little bit easier. So if you explain to your client like, Hey client, don't you use a Microsoft word? Well, yeah. Okay. I do. Okay. Can you give me a copy of that? Like, then they'll start to understand that, but because they have a digital file and they can email that file and they can upload that file to social media and they can put it on a thumb drive and hand it off to whoever else they want. Or they can put it on Dropbox. Like they have so many ways that they can redistribute your digital assets, your images. I think that makes it a little bit more difficult for them to understand that it's, you know a medium that should be controlled by the copyright holder.
Raymond Hatfield: 00:20:36 Right. Okay. So before we get into the moneymaking portion of licensing images let's stick with the photography side of it. Is there anything different from a photography standpoint, between an image that you would shoot for an architect or an interior designer versus one that you would shoot specifically to sell to, like you said, a tile manufacturer cabinet manufacturer or anything like that?
Adam Taylor: 00:21:01 Yeah. Good question. If you were asking that question for real estate the answer is usually yes. Most real estate photographers, real estate photos are shot very wide angle. You want to be able to see, you know, the whole room which makes sense, because you're trying to give people a sense of the layout of the house, how the rooms connect to one another. You want it to look big because, you know, obviously everybody wants a bigger place. And so those images are shot a little bit different than, you know, a design type photo. An architecture and interior design photo are typically going to be shot a little bit tighter, a little more artfully composed. You know, all the details in this space will be paid attention to a little bit more, as far as, you know, how the furniture is placed in position like this, the staging of pillows or items on countertops and things like that.
Adam Taylor: 00:21:51 And so once you get to the, you know, inter design architecture type photos, those are going to be very similar. And many times the same as a product company. Now, if a product company hired me to shoot specifically for them, I would shoot that a little bit different because, you know, a hundred percent of the time the focus point would be on that particular product. And you know, the, the things, the space around that product might be a little less cluttered to, for example. But let's, let's try to just try to make an example here. Say we're shooting a photo of a kitchen for an interior designer and we're we're up against a back wall. And in front of us, there is an Island with a sink and a faucet. And then behind that, there's, you know, the back wall with a range and a tile back splash.
Adam Taylor: 00:22:34 So that designer might want me to focus on the faucet in the middle of the room, which means the tile on the backsplash might be a little bit out of focus. And as I'm saying this, I'm just gonna use an example from a very recent shoot that I did here in Hawaii, where as we were kind of setting up the shot, you know, I was asking the client, how in focus do you want the background? You know, do you want it to be a little bit more blurry? And the focus has to be more on this Island and faucet, or do you want the background to be a little sharper? That's gonna, you know, change my stuff, right? So he said he wanted it to be a little bit more out of focus in the background. So I did that. I shouted F point at, for the Island and the faucet were in focus.
Adam Taylor: 00:23:13 The background was, you know, kind of blurry and out of focus. Very quickly I switched settings and shot the exact same photo at F 13 without even changing the focus point to where that tile backsplash was a little bit more in focus. And I was able to license that photo after the fact to the tile company. So, you know the, the style of shooting is very similar. But of course, if you're shooting for a product company, you want that product to be in focus. You want it to be the star of the show. When you're shooting for a designer, you might accidentally get the Thailand focus or, you know, accidentally get the tile as part of the shot that your client wants. And then you can still license those photos to the companies after the fact,
Raymond Hatfield: 00:23:51 See, this is why I love talking to other photography professionals because this is again a whole new world that I, I wouldn't even think of, you know, as a wedding photographer, I would never, I feel like I can't even imagine licensing an image of mine to somebody else, because I feel like I'm capturing these photos for my couples, you know, and while I take the photos, it feels like these are their photos. And I, again, can't even imagine what anybody else would do with these. But I guess this is kind of eye opening is that you, as the photographer, you like, this is your image. You could do whatever you want with it. And even if you're being paid to photograph an interior for an interior designer, you can still use that exact same photo to make more money after the fact by licensing these images, which goes back to like kind of what you were saying before we started recording the value of the photos that we take. And we're just leaving a lot of this value here on the table, but sorry, go on. You were about to say,
Adam Taylor: 00:24:51 Yeah. So w seeing the light bulb go off in your head gets me super excited, because what I teach is not just how to license your photos. What I teach is what I call a licensing mindset. And so I want to help photographers like you and everybody else be able to look at their work through a different light, under a different lens, so to speak and look at your work in such a way that makes you think all the time. Who else can I sell this photo to? How else can I monetize this image? And once you start thinking like that, and once you start understanding the nuances of your industry, or kind of adjacent industries that might be able to use some of your images in their marketing, then the flood Gates open up, then that the doors really open, and you can kind of hit the ground running and start making some money.
Adam Taylor: 00:25:36 And so just to kind of give you a little example in 2020, you know, we're here we are January 5th, 20, 21 last year, even with the pandemic, I was able to increase my revenue by $35,000 from licensing photos that I had already been paid to shoot, and I expect it to be even more this year. So yeah, she can't be leaving quite a bit of money on the table. And, you know, as a wedding photographer, I would love to see a wedding photographer go through the course that I have and develop that licensing mindset because you know, obviously like my frame of reference is, you know, the, the BMX stuff of license, the fitness stuff I've licensed, and now the interiors and architecture stuff. But I would love to see somebody from a different industry go through this to see what they can think of it.
Adam Taylor: 00:26:24 Because again, I don't understand the nuances. I've had this same conversation with a few other people just very briefly. And you know, one of the, the first thing that came up was like, Oh, well, what about the flower person or the dressmaker or the venue or whatever, and the feedback that I immediately got without digging too deep into the conversation? Oh, well, all those people expect to get the images for free, or, you know I have to give them away to the venue because I want to be on their preferred vendors list or whatever. And it's like a relationship based industry and those kinds of things. And, you know, in my industry, there is a lot of that misconception of, Oh, the designer thinks that they can send the photos to the appliance company to post them on their Instagram because the designer wants the exposure.
Adam Taylor: 00:27:07 And when that happens, it's very frustrating for us as photographers because that appliance company is building their brand off of my images without paying me. And so then it's okay, how do I get them to take it down? How do I get paid? How do I turn that, you know appliance company into a paying client or whatever. And so I think there's probably some education that could take place in your industry and some kind of opening the eyes a little bit and kind of widening your frame of reference and thinking, you know, who else can use these images. But kind of a little side step two is I'm sure that there's some wedding photographers that shoot other things, right. And so here's another opportunity. A good example, you know, when I was shooting BMX stuff, just for fun. One night I went out around the town that I lived in at the time, long beach, California, and shot a series of photos at night with, you know, long exposure.
Adam Taylor: 00:27:54 Like the lights lit up, all cool around the city, different skylines and stuff. And I posted those on a blog post and through SEO and just search engine juice or whatever. The blog post got some traction and eventually a company reached out to me and said, Hey, we are going to be part of a trade show coming up in long beach. We make motor homes and like custom coaches and tour buses. We want to wrap our bus with a cityscape of long beach. Can we license one of your photos from downtown? And I was able to negotiate a thousand dollars for that image. And here I am a BMX photographer, and I just sold a photo of my city for a thousand bucks, you know, because I understood that licensing.
Raymond Hatfield: 00:28:33 And that's a big score. Now, now your image is on the side of a bus. I mean, how cool is that? Just, I feel like just taking a picture of me in front of a bus with my image on it would be worth a thousand dollars for that is.
Adam Taylor: 00:28:43 Yeah. And, and to, to round out that story, I was actually riding BMX one day and just so happened to pass by while this trade show was going on and saw the bus in my photo.
Raymond Hatfield: 00:28:54 Please tell me that you took a photo of yourself in front of it though.
Adam Taylor: 00:28:57 I think I was by myself. I have a photo of the bus. I think I actually sent you that photo, but I do have a photo of the bus. It's just an iPhone photo from a very old iPhone, but I haven't done the less.
Raymond Hatfield: 00:29:07 That is so cool. Going back to your idea there about, you know, wedding photographers. I think I think a lot of the pushback is, is that, you know, when it comes to weddings, a lot of the other businesses are person to person, right? So a lot of florists are just a single person, a lot of cake bakers, or a small local business, a lot of venues. As you said, you know, it's nice to get on those lists, which I understand, you know, I fully understand that like supporting your, your community to better yourself, but there's also a million other businesses that I can think of that maybe are not small or local that would love to pay for some of these images, like probably ring companies, jewelry you know, a lot of the dresses probably you know, when when you, when you show up in the morning, the bridesmaids are all wearing like some sort of like special robe or something that they got a custom made.
Raymond Hatfield: 00:30:00 I'm sure that whoever made those would would, would be interested in licensing those as well. So I can think of a lot of these ideas. And again, to your point, you know, whereas this last year, it was tough for wedding photographers. You know, a lot of us could not legally photograph weddings and, you know, a lot of people had to, it'd be nice to have that backup idea for additional income, you know, maybe going out and doing some real estate photos to make some extra money, and then continue to use this information as far as licensing images, just in case I don't know, another global pandemic happens or something else terrible happens where we're forced to stay home. Let me, let me go ahead and ask now, because I'm thinking about, you know, there's been times where I've shown up to weddings and I thought to myself, this is not the wedding that I expected. Right. Are there times where maybe you go into a home and you think, Oh, this is this is so, so I, I'm not sure if I'll be able to actually get anything out of this. Is there anything that you do to spruce it up or, or do you just have to wait until the next home that you photograph and hope that that one's a winner?
Adam Taylor: 00:31:02 Good question. Certainly when I was shooting real estate, there was many times that I was like, Oh, I got into this thinking. I was going to be hanging out in these million dollar mansions. And this is a piece of crap. Now that I'm working with the higher end clients, there's a lot less of that. You know, there's certainly homes that are like more my style or less my style. But there are some times, like for example, when a builder will hire me and the house is empty and, you know, it's unfurnished, they have, you know, an interior designer hasn't gone in there and put their personal touch. And it's like, all right, here's an empty shell of a house like this. Isn't very exciting. But those kinds of things on every shoot, I bring what I call a props kit. So I have a big Tupperware bin with like little staging items in it.
Adam Taylor: 00:31:40 So I bring, you know, a little Turkish towel and some soap bottles and a cutting board and some fake fruit and some bottles of sparkling water a handful of items that I can put into kitchens, bathrooms, or maybe exterior, like patio type areas that will make it look like the space has lived in. So, you know, if a builder wants a completely empty kitchen shot, I can shoot that for him. But if, you know, I've got a little extra time on my hands, I might put a couple of things on the counter shoot that same photo with some staging items in there, and now maybe the cabinet company will want to buy it because it doesn't look so empty and boring, you know?
Raymond Hatfield: 00:32:15 Right, right. Oh, that's such, that's a great tip. That's something that you know, it just makes sense, but I don't know if a lot of people would would think about that, but obviously it comes from experience and that's why we're listening to this podcast right now, so that we can, we can continue to gain that experience. So let's go ahead and switch up a little bit. Let's kind of dive deeper into the business aspect of the licensing of our images. So let's say you go into a house maybe it was empty. You stage a few photos and then guess what you got yourself, a winning shot here, who are we selling our photos to? And how do we find it?
Adam Taylor: 00:32:51 Great question. The people that you're looking for are the companies that have manufactured things that are in that home. So we've got title companies, cabinet companies, foster makers, even on the cabinet, like the little knobs and the poles like those, you know, hardware. You know, some of those are maybe just from ACE hardware, right. But some of them are an actual company that designs those and, you know, made out of a certain metal and has a certain design to it. Tile and flooring companies, window manufacturers, fireplace companies. So basically every item you see in a house with a choice made by the designer or the architect, and put in there for a reason, and this is going back to that, you know, how do your photos have value or who are they valuable to every one of those companies that manufacture those products has a need for images to sell more of their products.
Adam Taylor: 00:33:41 So if I can break this down for us a little bit let's talk about a couple of different types of companies and you know, how they need or why they need photos and how they get their photos. And this will kind of help explain a little bit the value behind the images that we're taking. Right. All right. So we've got a small company that let's say they make tiles, small company being, you know, mom and pop type shop, like a couple employees only they need photos of their products installed in order to sell more of their work. How are they going to get their images? They can build a space and install them themselves. So what does that look like? They have to literally build like a little kitchen vignette and, you know, put tiles on a backsplash. They can maybe use one of their own bathrooms at their house and install their tiles in their own house or something to try to take photos of it.
Adam Taylor: 00:34:32 There's a lot of labor and planning and preparation involved in that. And if it's a couple person in the company, you know, what resources do they have to get that done? They can hire a photographer to go out and shoot photos. So what does that look like? That looks like, okay, we sold our tiles to this dealer in a different state. The dealer told us that they're going to go into a really nice house that so-and-so architect is building like, okay, track down that architect. Now you've got to try to work with that architect and or the homeowner and or interior designer to get access to that home. And then you have to call around and vent photographers in that area. Okay. Who's going to be able to take photos of this place for me, because I'm over here in a different state.
Adam Taylor: 00:35:12 And my tile has got sent out to this state over here. How much is that photographer gonna charge? Are the photos going to be good? I get the photos in like, Oh, like only three out of these 10 are really good enough for my marketing efforts. That's a lot of time, energy resources, money. The other option is somebody like me, emails them a digital file and says, Hey, this is going to be $350. Do you want it? And they say, Oh my God. Yes. Because my other options, I just explained, right. So why would I not pay a couple hundred dollars for this image when I already see that it's good. I already know where I can pop it into my marketing. And I don't have to go through all that effort and work to, you know, setting up the shoot, building a set, whatever it might be. And here I have a beautiful photo of this particular tile to put in my marketing.
Raymond Hatfield: 00:35:59 Wow. That makes perfect sense. I thought in my head, you know, obviously the, the smaller mom and pop type tile maker I wasn't even thinking about them. I was thinking, I guess, like, you know, Mowen and Kohler, like all these like really high end or large faucet companies and thinking to myself. Yeah. I'm sure that they just have like several kitchens, like in a studio somewhere where they just kinda exchange things in and out, but it's those smaller companies perhaps that, that are, that are too big to where they can't do it themselves, but they're not big enough to where they can have those, those set spaces. That makes sense.
Adam Taylor: 00:36:33 Yeah. So if we're talking about the big companies, like yes, they can build sets and they have the resources to, you know, get a product photographer in there. They have all these different avenues in order to get their, their digital assets. And so for that reason they might not need your photos, but what you provide for them might be a different style than what they've created, or it might be a new product that they haven't got around to shooting yet, or something like that. So they still might want your photos, these big companies, and I've, I've sold plenty of photos to big companies. But I've also been told by some of the big companies or, or a big company in particular. I'll go ahead and mention their name, Delta faucet. They said, we'll buy this photo, but we can't pay your normal rate because we just don't have that big a need for it.
Adam Taylor: 00:37:14 Like, it's not gonna immediately go on a, on a display. It's not gonna immediately go on a catalog. We're going to toss it in our database. It may or may not ever get used, but it's only a couple hundred bucks. So we'll take the chance and throw it in the mix. So they, because they already have a bunch of assets might not be able to pay quite as much. You know, obviously they have the budgets, but their budgets are allocated differently. So the medium sized company, you know, the medium sized company might be able to produce a small shoot kind of makeshift in their, in their warehouse, or they might have the means to you know, hire a photographer here and there on a regular basis kind of thing. So, you know, their need, their value might be a little bit differently.
Adam Taylor: 00:37:51 So you can kind of start to understand your industry, start to understand your potential clients and who you're reaching out to understand their business model and how they work. You can look at their Instagram. Do they have photos from other photographers or do they all kind of have the same look and feel meaning they kind of produce them all in the same type of campaign? You know, do they credit other photographers? Are they, you know, showing a wide variety of different types of spaces, like, you know, essentially do your research and kind of get a feel for what's out there so that you understand who you're going to be trying to sell to.
Raymond Hatfield: 00:38:26 Okay. So then who are we trying to sell through? Like, who are we contacting? Because if I'm thinking Delta faucets, you know, I can go down to Lowe's and they have, you know, Delta faucets there and on the back it says, contact us. And then there's some one 800 number is that who I'm contacting?
Adam Taylor: 00:38:41 Very good question. And know the people you're wanting to look for are the marketing directors, the creative directors, if the company's large enough to have one of those, but usually somebody in marketing. So you, you know, you're looking for marketing director, a VP of marketing, head of marketing, those kinds of titles and in the course that I have, I teach all about how to locate the decision makers cause that's a big part of the puzzle. You know, finding the right person to reach out to, or the find the right person to get your email in their hands. That's a big part of what we're doing here. And it's a big part of kind of what I've honed and developed and, you know worked on over the last couple of years in order to maximize my potential for success on this, you know, but there's a couple of resources you can use online to find emails rocket reach and Hunter IO websites are pretty good. I use those in combination with LinkedIn and with Google. So yeah, I mean, like I said, in the course, I teach all about this. Obviously I can't give everything away here. But there's definitely some resources out there that can help you find the marketing person and you know, the right people to reach out to.
Raymond Hatfield: 00:39:48 Yeah. And I think your course is like five plus hours long, you know, there's no way that we can cover all that stuff here in this this 60 minute podcast. So I totally understand what about that next phase though. Let's say that we do find that person and you mentioned earlier, you just go ahead and send them an email with the file and then you ask them if they want to use it. So there's no like big image reveal. It's not like, Hey, I have an image. Would you like to see it and then possibly buy it? It's just here you go buy it. Yes or no.
Adam Taylor: 00:40:17 Yeah. Good question. So my personal technique and the one that I teach in that I, you know, give you ABC one, two, three step-by-step guide in my course is, is my personal way. It's worked really well for me. It's worked for other people in the course. I'm sure other people have their way of doing it my way is make it as short and sweet as possible. I have an email template that I use, I copy and paste from it. You know, it's only about six sentences long. It gets everything right out the way as quickly as possible. I attach the image in the initial email or images. I put the price in the initial email, reason being is that these people get a lot of emails. They get a lot of people asking them for things. And they only have a couple of seconds to glance at your email and see if it's worth looking into, if the email says, click here for photos, or can I send you photos?
Adam Taylor: 00:41:10 That's one extra step that they have to do. If they have to wait any longer to do anything, you might get pushed down in their inbox and that's not where you want to be when you're trying to make a sale. If they can glance it over in 15 seconds and immediately make a decision, you're going to have a lot better chance to you know, engage with them, get that decision. I go for what I call the easy. Yes. So instead of trying to you know, do a bunch of back and forth negotiations on every single sale, I kind of have like a a standard rate if you will. And some companies are going to get a lot more use out of that photo than others for that same price, but it makes it simple for me and it makes it simple for them.
Adam Taylor: 00:41:49 And at the end of the day, we're trying to make it as simple as possible for these decision makers so that they can move on with their day and they can send us money as quickly as possible. So I'll go back and say, the email that I sent you is based off the exact same template. And, you know, I reached out to you wanting to be on your podcast. And I knew that you probably have a lot of photographers that want to be on here. And I wanted to make sure that I gave you every bit of information you needed to understand what I wanted and what I was going to provide for you, so that it would be easy for you to say yes. And so my question to you is did the email template work
Raymond Hatfield: 00:42:25 Well, you're here right now, right? So yeah, it absolutely worked. It absolutely worked. I'm thinking about a lot of new photographers a lot of photographers who maybe they're not new, but they're just not established as far as business goes, and there's no way around it. There's a lot of image theft in our industry. You know, even with companies, you know, taking people's photos on Instagram and posting them, them, their selves on their own business Instagram. So how do you I guess protect yourself from, you know, you're sending them the photo, like you're sending them what it is that that you want them to buy. So how do you protect yourself against them just saying no, and then using it anyway?
Adam Taylor: 00:43:07 Yeah, another really good question. So the most direct answer to that, and I'll have to back up and give you a little more context of this, but essentially when you email a company that is a professional company to some degree, you know, they're, they're selling products, they're making money, they're, you know, established enough to have products out there in the world and you tell them, here's a photo that I want you to pay for. This is the price, the odds of them actually using that without paying for it, I feel are pretty slim. And I've never actually had somebody use the photos that I sent them in an email without paying for them. And that for me is definitely a gamble that I'm worth taking a, because it's worked so many times and B again, because of what I just explained. I want to make it easy for them.
Adam Taylor: 00:43:49 If there's a big, ugly watermark on the photo, if they have to ask to see the photo, if they have to go through a password protected website, yada, yada, it's just more roadblocks between me and that sale. Now to back up a little bit the first step in protecting yourself is registering your photos with the us copyright office which is a little time-consuming and daunting at first. But once you do it once the process is, you know, kind of systematic and, and pretty easy to do, and it's very cheap and offers you a ton of protection. Once again, I'm not a lawyer, don't take legal advice from me but you know, registering your photos with the us copyright office. There's also other image tracking services out there that a lot of people in my position use and I use as well copy track pixie, P I X S y.com image tracker.
Adam Taylor: 00:44:31 There's a couple of services like that, that you can upload photos or attach your social media to and they'll actually kind of like search the web for places that have used your images. And then at that point, you can either go through that service and you know, file a claim or basically use their legal services in order to help get your money. Or you can go find a lawyer or you can handle it yourself after you kind of see where they went. As far as Instagram you know, in my position, working with designers and stuff what we see most often is a company like a cabinet maker will come in on the designers post, you know, the designer will tag the cabinet company first, the designer will say, Hey, that's a beautiful shot. Can we share it on our feed?
Adam Taylor: 00:45:11 And the designers like, Ooh, awesome. Like you have 200,000 followers. Like I want the attention, I want the exposure. Like, please go ahead. And they're flattered that the cabinet company thinks their design is worthy to be on their page. Right. And the Kevin company gets permission, quote, unquote from the designer posted on their feed. And then I see it later and I'm like, what the hell? Like, so the first step in protecting yourself as having a conversation with your client way before that ever happens. So for me, the very first conversation I ever had with my client, we discussed this, the second conversation, we're still discussing this when I send them my contract before the shoot, when I send them my invoice after the shoot, during the shoot, this idea of licensing and what you can do with the photos comes up numerous times so that my clients, you know, now, and going forward all know about this and understand what to do when this happens. So that's a big protection barrier there.
Raymond Hatfield: 00:46:01 What about and that, that perfectly makes sense. I get it. I think that's going to help out a lot of people when it comes to the licensing, your photos to a company, is it as simple as, as an email agreement them saying yes. And then sitting in an invoice and then you're done, or is there any sort of contracts involved in that
Adam Taylor: 00:46:20 I'm gonna wince when I tell you this? Once again, I'm not a lawyer, don't take legal advice from me. The lawyer will tell you to get a contract and have a licensing agreement and have people sign a contract. I am trying to do better. And this year, and I recently bought contracts from a lawyer to use and I haven't started using them yet. So to date, I have done this for, you know, professionally as a photographer for more than what going on 14, 15 years now. And I've been doing this type of licensing that we're discussing here for about two years or so and you know, really doubled down on it in the past 18, 12 months. And to this point I haven't used any kind of signed contracts, provide an invoice that has very easily read words on it, easily tied to digest words you know, layman's terms of what their license will allow them to do. And again, that, that has worked for me. A lot of people don't feel comfortable with that, and I understand why I'm a simple person. I don't like to complicate things for me or the people I work with. And that's what I've done.
Raymond Hatfield: 00:47:32 I love it. That was a very open and a very honest approach to, you know, how you, how you go about doing this. And obviously some of the mistakes that you made, some of the ways that you're going to be, you know, trying to do this better in this year and make it even more profitable for you and obviously protect yourself as well. Again, that's, that's a huge thing that I know people are, are, they're so worried about that that will stop them from even getting started in the first place. And then you know, you just come in here with that little piece of information and and just, just solve it all. So, so thank you so much for, for sharing.
Adam Taylor: 00:48:05 Yeah. That, that point of the analysis paralysis or whatever you want to call it. You know, if something is such a big hurdle that you're not going to even start, then, then skip that hurdle and go around it, you know, and, you know, knock on wood here. I've, I've never been sued. I've never had somebody screw me over. And you know, I'm sure there's times when I could have made more money by doing X, Y, and Z. I'm sure there's times when, you know, a contract would have helped me because of a, B and C, but at the end of the day here, I am sitting in Hawaii living my dream and I'm making money as a photographer. So, you know, you gotta be doing something right.
Raymond Hatfield: 00:48:41 I love it. I mean, that's a perfect way to, to, to think about it really. Again, so many people just, just get so hung up on the idea of just getting started that that they don't, and I'm not immune to that either. Like that's, that's totally me. That's only me. So if I was in this position right now, thinking about the idea of licensing photos, one of the objections that would come up in my head would probably be something like third-party stock sites, right? Where you can just upload your photos to these sites. And I would love to hear your opinions because to me, it sounds like a whole lot less work than having to track down manufacturers and find the decision makers and come up with this and possibly negotiate a price. So talk me through that. Like, am I, am I totally wrong here? Because the approach that you're taking is, is the exact opposite.
Adam Taylor: 00:49:32 Yeah. I'm glad you asked this. It's, it's a really good topic to bring up. I started submitting photos to stock website back when I worked in the BMX industry, because I was looking for other ways to increase my income. And I did the research and I saw there wasn't any good BMX photos on websites. All the photos of the time were shot by non BMX riders that didn't understand the nuances of the tricks. So my hope was like, Hey, let's get some better photos out there in the world. And let's make me some more money. The process of doing that was very time consuming and tedious. You said it seemed like it was easier. But yeah, but you know, there was a lot of like metadata keywording like description writing the way like the, the specific way that they, they stock websites had you upload things was very time consuming and very system-based.
Adam Taylor: 00:50:17 I had to get model releases from every writer that, which I had never had to do before. Which, you know, for me was like a weird thing. Like, Hey, you know, I know I'm friends shot this photo of you a year ago. Can you sign this so I can try to sell it later? Like it was awkward for me. Later I started submitting travel photos and stuff. And so I had several hundred, like probably close to four to 500 photos with a stock agency. And from that agency, they had partnerships with other, so they were on multiple different platforms. And in about 10 years, I probably made about $2,000. And you know, recently I went through and it was looking at my stock photo sales, and there was photos that were sold for 12 cents, 36 cents, you know, like less than a dollar each per photo.
Adam Taylor: 00:51:01 And at that point you know, I decided I just want to pull out, like I emailed the company and said, Hey, just take me off the platform. Like I don't, I would rather not sell my photos into selling for 12 cents. Each, like, to me, that's a slap in the face shine. So the big difference is how you upload the price you get and then how people get the images. So the stock website is a wait and see type of thing where you throw them up there and maybe people come to you, maybe not, which is cool. And it definitely can be a viable source of some income. And I'm sure there's people that do really well with stock photography and kind of have figured out how to work the system to their advantage. Just like I have with my system. My system is a very proactive way of doing it.
Adam Taylor: 00:51:42 And so it kind of puts the control a lot more in my hands. You know, once you understand who to look for, how to find them, once you get familiar with your copy and paste templates, again, that I've provided in the course and that I use on a daily basis to try to sell my photos. You know, there's definitely some work involved in like figuring it out in the beginning. Obviously the course help helps you, you know, fast track that. But even for me, it's still, I'm putting in work. I'm not gonna lie. Like I sit down at a computer for an hour or so and put in a little bit of time and effort. But it's a proactive approach instead of a wait and see approach. And again, I made $35,000 this year, as opposed to $2,000 total over the last 10 years or so.
Raymond Hatfield: 00:52:21 Right, right. Yeah. And I think that makes sense because you know, the amount of work that you got to put in for all those those photos on those third-party stock sites, I guess I wasn't aware of of how much work it takes. And I would much rather try to spend even a few hours trying to get you know, sell one photo or two photos for a few hundred bucks rather than you know, take 10 minutes to sell it for 12 cents.
Adam Taylor: 00:52:46 Right. And then let's extrapolate this on this a little bit more, the people that come to the stock photo website. Well, first of all, if they're looking for a photo, they've got to sift through hundreds or thousands of photos that look similar to yours, and you've got to hope they pick yours once they pick yours, what are the odds that they're going to see your name and come back to you to hire you as a photographer now, right, exactly. Zero. If you land in their inbox with a great photo and say, Hey, I'm in the wahoo Hawaii region, you know, please keep me in mind. If you ever have projects out here that you need shot, what are the odds that they're going to hire you again for a shoe tire? And I've been hired by other companies. I know, you know, people that have gone through the course of their colleagues and friends, mine that have been, you know, have built very long-term relationships, a very lucrative relationship with companies that they originally got in touch with because they reached out with the photo.
Raymond Hatfield: 00:53:33 Oh, that's cool. That's cool. So let's go ahead. I know that we're getting towards the end of our time here, so let's go ahead and kind of wind this down and let's kind of keep it photography related and talk a little bit about gear because that's something that we don't talk about very often on the podcast, but when it comes to an entirely new world of photography that I'm not perfectly versed in I know that there's always little nuances and, and, and whatnot. So say an interior designer reaches out to you and what a common goal will be to come in and photograph an entire house, or would it just be a single space within that house? How does that work?
Adam Taylor: 00:54:13 Yeah. Another good question. It totally depends on that particular client and what their needs are. Very seldom do I shoot an entire house, even if it's like an architect or a custom home builder. Usually if they did build the entire house, there's usually like a couple of bedrooms or something that are just like, ah, it's whatever, like it's not designed that good. And with the kind of work that I do 10 to 15 photos in a day, maybe 20 photos on a rarely high end, like very rare side, but, you know, we're worried about shooting that many photos because it's so you know, time consuming and methodical and expensive for them, you know, and so shooting a whole house is pretty rare. A lot of times a custom home builder will do a kitchen and bathroom model. So it'll be like a, a small powder room that you get one, maybe two shots in a kitchen. And again, totally depends on what the client wants, what their budget is. You know, my, my my recent shoot here in wahoo there, I just mentioned with that tile example, we only shot three photos in the kitchen. That was it. I showed up and shot three photos, and that was our day. So yeah, it totally depends on what the client's needs are.
Raymond Hatfield: 00:55:15 Okay. So let's say again, interior designer says, Hey, guess what? We're photographing a kitchen and a, a bathroom that we remodeled. What are you, what are you packing in your bag? What do you need to take with you to enable you to capture it all? Yep.
Adam Taylor: 00:55:30 I shoot with a Canon five D Mark for a body. Tilt shift lenses are pretty common. They're almost a staple in, in this type of work. So I have a 24 millimeter tilt shift lens with a 1.4 extender. A lot of architecture, interior photographers will only shoot with a tilt shift lens. They'll have a 17, a 24 and a, I think it's a 48 is the next one. And then they'll have, you know, the 1.4 and or the two TimeXtender that they can kind of swap those out. I also use a 16 to 35 millimeter lens or is it 1735, 24 to 70, and I have a 70 to 200. So you know, those kinds of lenses, but the tilt shift lens for, you know, the beginners out there are going to allow you to shift your entire camera lens up so that you can get more ceiling or more flooring. For example, without having your vertical lines start to go in or converge like a fun house which is very important in architecture and interior work, you always want your, your walls to look straight not, not crooked, not slanted. You want your horizontal lines on the ceiling and floor to be perfectly horizontal. So the tilt shift lens will be able to allow you to do that much easier without having to fix it in post production. Right?
Raymond Hatfield: 00:56:49 Yeah. I was going to say that Lightroom has the ability to automatically fix the geometry, but it tilt shift lens is what does it physically in camera so that you don't have to worry about things like,
Adam Taylor: 00:56:59 Is that right? Yeah. And and I'll be honest with you. I did it for a long time without a tilt shift lens. And it, it got to the point where, Hey, I wanted to increase the quality of my work because the, like the edges of the frame on until shifts are gonna stay sharp. Whereas if you're starting to expand out and you know, drag the verticals get stretched, you know, it, you know, they get stretched and get a little less crisp and stuff. But another big reason was onsite with my clients. As we were setting up the shots, it got to the point where I was working with high enough in clients, that it was kind of embarrassing. And I felt like an amateur to show them the image and say, okay, well, these are crooked, but you have to use your imagination because in post I'll fix that, you know? And so I want it to be able to show my client on site, like, okay, this is the actual image or we're creating here. But you know, there's some people that don't use them and just fix it in Photoshop. And like I said, I did that for a long time. But it certainly helps. And I would like to get a couple more of my gear bag. But it,
Raymond Hatfield: 00:57:54 They started beginners don't need a tilt shift, but that's more of a high end thing that once they've been doing it for awhile,
Adam Taylor: 00:58:00 My opinion that is correct. Other people will give you a different opinion, but that's my opinion. Yep. Okay. I think, yeah, just to finish that, I did it for a long time and made a lot of money without it, so you can do it. So that's my opinion lighting I bring in different flashes. I use flashpoint which I believe is like the same as Botox or whatever. I have to flashpoint explore six hundreds, which are big, heavy flashes that have a lot of power and then two flashpoints be lights. And then the, you know, radio trigger to flag to fire all those. At times I do wish I would have, you know, an extra one at beach. It could be beneficial. But you know, it's, it's a lot to haul around. So two of the big ones to the small ones usually gets the job done. And then, you know, if it doesn't do everything I want, I composite the photos anyway, so I can light up one area of the room or space and then move around, both flashes, light up another area. And then, you know, we're completing those in Photoshop anyway.
Raymond Hatfield: 00:58:58 Oh, I guess that brings up another question. I guess, you know, when it comes to compositing, this'll be my last question for you. Sorry. I know I'm keeping you here for a while. When it comes to compositing images, how often are you doing that? Do you do that for every image or just windows with a lot of dynamic range, like like with windows and stuff
Adam Taylor: 00:59:18 Personally I'd do it with 99.9%, my photos and, and this industry, if you want to call it that a lot of people use the word flamboyant. So flash plus ambient gives you a flame blend. Some people are against the F word, but you know, we'll call it flamboyant. So that's personally and currently my style of shooting and everybody has their own style. I don't have a lot of like the dark and moody and you know, kind of hard shadows and stuff. I'm not the light and airy where it's like all natural and super bright. I'm kind of in the middle. I would call my style a little bit crispy. I definitely go for the natural look. But at the same time I want everything to be, to be lit relatively evenly. So yeah, I'm compositing just about everything. So each, every shoot, every photo that I create I will shoot a series of bracketed images with ambient light, and this is what the house lights off, because a lot of times the the house lights are kind of orange or give off some kind of glow and don't necessarily add to the photo at all. So house lights off should have bracketed set of exposures and then shoot us a photo or multiple photos with flashes, and then we're blending those in Photoshop.
Raymond Hatfield: 01:00:30 Well, I, I'm not sure how to end it any better than that. I feel like today you have pretty much laid out a very comprehensive plan or I guess lesson on not only what is licensing, but a lot about real estate photography, what it takes to photograph interiors and even how to make money. So I just have to say thank you so much, obviously for coming on. Why don't you let the listeners know where they can find out more about you and obviously your course to learn, to really go in depth about this situation?
Adam Taylor: 01:01:02 Well, yeah, you can find me on Instagram at Adam Taylor photos and my website is Adam Taylor photo. If you want to check out my work my email address is on there. If you'd like to reach out, I'm pretty accessible. The course that I have is called learn to license your photos. You mentioned earlier it's more than five hours of very in-depth scripted content meaning there's no fluff, there's no ums and buts and pauses it's you know, straight to the point. We have also probably four to five hours plus more coming of bonus content, which is you know, in addition to all the course material it's interviews with clients of mine on the manufacturer's side. So you know, the head of marketing of a tile company interviewed with a client of mine that, you know, we talked to them about licensing just to get, you know, from the opposite end of the coin here perspective interviews with other photographers that have had different experiences.
Adam Taylor: 01:01:58 We have a private Facebook group that goes along with the course. That's a really cool community that, you know, we can all talk about this stuff and kind of share our tips and wins and tricks and stuff. So the courses that licensed your photos.com your listeners can get 25% off by using the promo code beginner at checkout. So just type in beginner and you'll get 25% off the course. And the ROI on it is pretty easy to track, you know, basically within one or two sales most people make their money back on the course, and we've had people make several thousands of dollars by going through the course and learning this stuff. So you know, it really is a no brainer. I think people outside of the real estate, interior and architecture space, we'll still get a lot out of it.
Adam Taylor: 01:02:40 The nuancey stuff is obviously again, based around my experience and what I currently do. But the big picture stuff, the licensing mindset stuff, the way it's going to get you thinking about things is all gonna translate to just about any kind of photography. And you know, I already saw your eyes open up a little bit during this conversation. I could see the wheels turning in your head. You already started to mention some ideas that just came to the top of your head while we were having this conversation. So, you know, the idea is that you hear those couple of ideas or you think those couple of ideas at the beginning, but by the time you get through the course that licensing mindset has really begin to develop. And once you get out there in the real world, it's just gonna keep turning.
Adam Taylor: 01:03:18 You know, I explain it like when you get a new car or you're about to look for a new car and you start seeing that car everywhere on the side of the road or on the road. Now, like now that you've had this conversation with me, I'm hoping that the plan the idea is that you're going to start seeing those opportunities more and, you know, before your eyes were just kind of close to it, and now you just have a little bit bigger you know, area to look at and, you know, hopefully your licensing mindset will kick in and you'll start to see these ideas all around you.