EP155 Figuring Out The Why (And How To Teach It!)

The Mastering Portrait Photography Podcast

So I have a new toy (or two) - a nice new set of RODE Wireless Pro 32-bit floating point recording units. Nice. But I honestly wasn't sure if the recording had worked (there must be a lesson or two in UX design here, but I'll let that go.)

Anyway, the recording DID work, or I wouldn't be publishing this podcast. No editing. No effects. No tricks. Just straight out of the recording unit - 32-bit floating point is good like that, you don't even need to set any levels!

The topic is mostly about what we've been up to and the things going on. Which is to say, lots!

Enjoy!

Cheers
P.

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Transcript

[00:00:00] What is it? No matter which way you put the keys in, it's always the wrong one. Oh, squeaky windscreen wipers.

[00:00:18] The sound of a Land Rover's windscreen wipers, as you can, as you can probably tell from the scraping sound, it's drizzling outside, which means you have to have the wipers on intermittent, and a Land Rover's, Windscreen wipers are not subtle. They're kind of, they're just noisy. They kind of scrape water, um, off the windscreen.

[00:00:43] If, and if you're wondering, maybe they should just be replaced. These are new ones and they always sound like that. Anyway, as you can hear, I'm in the Land Rover. I am just leaving a shoot with the Hearing, Dogs. I'm acutely aware that it's been a while since I've, uh, recorded a podcast, and so here I am.

[00:01:02] Once more sitting in the driving seat of some really wonderful British engineering, even if it is clunky, making scraping sounds in the drizzle, which is so poetic, I suppose. I'm Paul and this is the Mastering Portrait Photography Podcast. Now, dear listener, if you're listening to this, then it's been a success.

[00:01:39] If you're not listening to this, well, you won't know it hasn't been because it simply won't come out. I'm recording this on a new set of Microphones, or at least a new set of transmitters. So, uh, we were recording a workshop video the other day and it became apparent that I needed to bite the bullet and upgrade our transmitter system.

[00:02:01] It's been a while. I've had the old RØDE system now probably ten years, I think. And it felt like it was the moment to buy into some new technology. So here I am. Quite excitedly, if I'm honest, because I've never recorded myself in 32 bit floating point before. Now, if you're just a stills guy, that means nothing.

[00:02:24] Uh, 32 bit, I mean, our images are in 16 bit or 8 bit, so you obviously are, you know, aware of the difference in quality, but 32 bit floating point essentially means you never need to set the levels. Now, that's the bold claim by anybody. RØDE, Zoom, Sennheiser. who make 32 bit recording, 32 bit floating point recording gear.

[00:02:48] Apparently you never need to set the levels, you can plug in and record, it'll sound amazing, and how easy could that be? Where could it possibly go wrong? Well, I will know where it goes wrong at the end, when I drag the audio off this unit. Uh, and see if I can make a podcast out of it. Uh, so, as I said, apologies.

[00:03:11] I seem to spend my life doing this thing. I'm really sorry there haven't been many episodes of the podcast. But it's not because I'm lazy. It's not because I don't want to do it. It's simply that, just for a minute, we are swamped. There is so much, uh, going on. And we've gone quiet on quite a lot of channels.

[00:03:30] To the point where, even yesterday, I had a couple of WhatsApps. Are you alive? Uh, anybody there? Almost knocking on the glass to see if, uh, we're alright. We are fine. We're just incredibly, uh, busy. And that's not to say we haven't found a few gaps in the diary to go do some nice things. We've been watching the cricket, the 100, which is the UK's franchise cricket.

[00:03:54] And obviously the test matches have started again. Now, Sarah and I, we really weren't cricket fans until Jake started working with the English Cricket Board. Now, obviously, Superfans. So we went to the final of the hundred, uh, at Lords the other day. Wonderful day out with the kids. It was a beautiful, I mean beautiful, hot, sunny day.

[00:04:16] You wouldn't know that this is Thursday I'm recording it, and on Sunday it was hot and sunny and nearly 30 degrees. Today it's 16 degrees and drizzling and windy. Uh, you wouldn't know it's in the same week, let alone the same season. Or the same season, let alone the same week. Uh, but there we are. So we have found time to do a few bits and pieces, uh, like that to spend a little bit of time with the family, but essentially that's it.

[00:04:42] Everything that isn't core to what we're trying to do just at the moment has fallen by the wayside, including my love affair with a Peloton exercise bike. I'm paying for it dearly. I'm gonna have to get back on that thing when all is done. What are we doing? Well, we're re engineering still, but properly.

[00:05:02] Finishing off the re engineering of the Mastering Portrait Photography, not just the website but the whole offering. So ranging from the way we do our workshops, the teaching side of it, through to the assets that you can download, uh, as well as the articles, the videos, the membership side of the site, all of it is being overhauled with a view to getting it out there at the beginning of September.

[00:05:28] That's our current date which of, as of right now, we've is about a week away. It's a lot closer than I would like it to be, but that's what we're trying to achieve is to get version one, um, everything sorted and out there. So, uh, last night, um, basically I spent the entire night building, uh, an animation of our garden.

[00:05:49] I've built the garden that we shoot in, in 3d, in software. So that I can, uh, run any angle of, on the garden and show exactly how the lighting would look and why we use it the way we do it. And that's an exercise that's been going on, uh, for a few weeks as well. So there's all of that. We're also been working on how we do workshops and trying to figure out what I want the workshops to be.

[00:06:14] And essentially, I want them to be why. I want them to answer the why. That's what I'm trying to figure out.. How to use language, how to use pictures, how to use, um, the various, um, things we do. The what and the how, yeah, they're kind of interesting. They're the sort of things you get from YouTube videos, typically, or from trainers, typically.

[00:06:38] You know, do it like this, do it like that, this is what you should do, this is how you should do it. Um, but, I get really bored really quickly. I have a boredom threshold that's more or less on the floor. Um, And so, I'm really only curious when somebody's explaining why. Why do we do things? Why do things work the way they do?

[00:07:00] And so that's become, um, our focus, or my focus on, uh, that side of it, is explaining why it's important that we do what we do. rather than just the what. So that's the reason why the podcast has gone quiet and we've had, I mean, a myriad of clients. A brilliant, brilliant magician, David Schwartz, flew over from New York.

[00:07:26] He's a native New Yorker. I first photographed him on a cruise ship heading towards the Arctic Circle in Russia. Nine years ago, it turns out we were discussing it. Um, anyway, he was in Europe. So he flew over from where he was in Germany, came over to London and, uh, I photographed him again, just the nicest guy and the nicest pictures.

[00:07:47] Um, and also he did me the honor of recording an interview on the podcast, which I will cut, um, and release in the near future. Um, it was, this was intended to be an introduction to that. Particular podcast, but it takes me longer to cut those podcasts. This podcast, you're getting this straight off the microphone , so if I screw it up, you're getting it anyway.

[00:08:12] Uh, because there isn't time to do a craft edit. uh, on this. The other thing we've done is we've now got someone inside, talking of craft edit, someone in the business, uh, Katie, who some of you will know is one of our, uh, she was originally a client, went to film school, went to university to study film, um, and then sarah and I were at Jake's graduation. Jake graduated, he got an upper 2. 1 from Loughborough University in Sport Technology. He's now back working with English Cricket Board, but we went to his graduation and while we were sitting having breakfast, the three or four of us were sitting having breakfast, I got a text from Katie.

[00:08:53] I'll have to paraphrase it because obviously I can't read my phone when I'm driving, but it said broadly speaking, I You're my favorite people to work with. Is there any chance of a more permanent role? Because Katie had been and helped us record a few bits. She's obviously modeled quite a lot for us these days.

[00:09:07] Um, and so I looked at this text and thought, you know what? This is, I mean, this must be six, eight weeks ago. Um, and so, well, we're at this kind of interesting junction in the business's career. And, uh, We need, we know we need video capability. We are building videos and have been building videos, but what we don't have is the natural capability in house.

[00:09:29] Now I can do it, I can learn it, so can Sarah, so can Michelle, but it's a little bit of a struggle. It's a bit of an uphill battle to learn all the software, to learn all the edits, even things, you know, like the recording gear I'm working on right now. And, and so it'd be really useful if we had someone in house who could help us shape the videos, help us script them out, maybe storyboard them, and then edit them.

[00:09:55] And Katie, of course, being a graduate from film school, uh, fitted all of those bills. And on top of that, she is super lovely, um, and has slotted in to the team almost seamlessly. And so we're sitting looking at this text and it's, you know, as you all know if you're running a business, how can you You can't simply find the money.

[00:10:16] There's got to be an argument as to how we're going to do it, how we're going to monetize that, what's going to come out of the budget. Uh, so a few things like me getting a faster computer for a minute, that's stalled, that's for certain. Uh, not least of which because obviously the Land Rover blew up at the beginning of the year and we're still just paying that six and a half thousand pound bill off.

[00:10:34] But nonetheless, nonetheless, we sat and looked at this text and thought, well, it feels like the stars are aligning. We wanted to get the website up and on its feet. There are some things next year in the diary that mean it would be very useful, uh, if the website was, uh, up, the Mastering Portrait Photography website was up and working, uh, almost autonomously.

[00:10:56] We need to be able to create videos, we need to have a backlog of videos ready to roll for some of the chunks of next year, early in the year. More on that will come out in future podcasts. And so, um, with a little bit of trepidation, we committed to the first ten days or so. With Katie and it's been an absolute blast.

[00:11:15] We're all still learning how this is going to work, how we're going to do edits and things, but uh, DaVinci, which is the editing suite we've chosen to go with is incredibly intuitive. Now I'm, I've used Premiere Pro since I can remember, probably 20 years um, or something like that. So uh, I thought we'd go down that road, but it turns out that DaVinci is a much better collaborative tool.

[00:11:39] It's also I think it's a better editing suite. Certainly if you love sound, uh, the Fairlight sound engine in it, um, that allows you to do the mixing is absolutely wonderful. And I love, I absolutely love a bit of sound. Uh, so Katie has joined the team and that's sort of another distraction away from me just releasing podcasts.

[00:11:59] But today I've just been down to Hearing Dogs. But before I left the studio this morning, I don't know if this is the point of this particular podcast, but it's certainly a little bit of a reminisce. So now we're teaching. Now we're really growing the academy side of our business. Um, coincidentally this morning, I got posted, you know how Facebook sends you notifications? And there was this thing about some of our favourite teachers from the high school, for our American friends, uh, secondary school for my British friends, uh, I went to, which is the Alun School in Mold in North Wales.

[00:12:33] Um, and it was really nice to see some of the teacher's names knocking around and it got me to thinking about my English teacher. Now I've emailed the school to see if I can get a hold of him, uh, in a nice way just to say thank you. Now, Mr. Betley was probably. The strictest teacher I have ever met. Um, and back in the 80s the teachers were fairly strict.

[00:12:56] I have had boar dusters bounce off my head, bits of chalk thrown at me. I've been, one teacher who shall remain nameless held me up against a wall by my throat, which these days would instigate legal proceedings, but back then seemed to just be the norm. However, Mr. Betley, strict as he was, somehow dragged English out of me.

[00:13:21] He dragged the written word, or the love of the written word, out of me. Now, he was also the guy that broke my own ruler, hitting me over the knuckles with it. Because I'd been messing around. I was a dick. I mean, let's be honest, I was an absolute idiot. Probably still am. Um, I wouldn't say I was unruly, or particularly I wasn't naughty as such, but I certainly never focused.

[00:13:45] I found it impossible to focus, um, particularly in academic, um, subjects. Was good with things like woodwork and metalwork and art, music, of course. Uh, but when it came to sitting and concentrating on a page of writing, I was not gifted in the slightest. And so, one particular lesson, he asked me to get my ruler and come up to the front, to which he whacked me over the knuckles with it, splintered it into a thousand pieces, and gave me f I don't know what it was, 40p or something to go and buy a new one.

[00:14:14] Um, that was the life back then. I remember one day, um, I had been asked to do an errand for another teacher midway through the class, so I pottled off across the school campus to do this errand, whatever it was, can't remember, and on the way back, our lesson, whatever lesson it was, was on the top floor of one of the blocks.

[00:14:35] And so I thought I'd use the lift, um, elevator. And so, uh, without really thinking too much about it, I was on the ground floor. I hit door, you know, up, climbed in, went to the top floor. And as the doors opened, I knew I was in trouble. Cause you're not allowed to use the elevator. Gradually, ever so slowly, the doors opened and I can see a figure, a shadowy figure standing in the corridor outside, and there he is.

[00:15:02] Mr. Betley, just stood there, arms folded, who'd clearly clocked that I'd walked in on the bottom floor and knew, somehow, that that's what I was going to do. So the doors opened. There's Mr. Betley, stood there, just quietly watching me. Wilkinson, he said, Wilkinson, come to my room at lunchtime and you're going to write four sides of A3 on the life and times of a ping pong ball.

[00:15:30] He leant in. He hit ground floor button, stepped back out of the elevator and let it take me all the way back down to the bottom floor. Come lunchtime, I had to sit and write four sides of A3 on the life and times of a ping pong ball. Now I don't know quite how he got that idea, where that subject came from, but I remember it clearly.

[00:15:52] I remember thinking up all of these arguments and all of these stories about dented ping pong balls and ping pong balls that have lost their air. And ping pong balls that have been spun out of control by these incredible Welsh ping pong players, uh, I was in school in Wales. Uh, and how, how sometimes when they hit the net it's a relief just to get a bit of respite.

[00:16:12] Um, you know, it's just one of those, uh, things. And then the ultimate demise of every ping pong ball is that crack. The final, untimely, ignominious crack. And the ping pong ball is useless for nothing more than going into somebody's craft box. www. Where it'll be reincarnate as, I don't know, the eyes on a monster or something, I'm sure that's what I wrote about.

[00:16:35] Anyway, Mr. Betley gave me a love of the English language, the written version of the English language, not the way I speak, I know I don't speak particularly, um, eloquently. But he gave me a love of writing stories and that has carried on now and I write for Professional Photo Magazine and NPhoto Magazine and Digital Photographer Magazine.

[00:16:55] www. professionalphotographer. com And I absolutely love the written word. And so I'm trying to get hold of him, and it's all a bit of a coincidence, but it's, I suppose what it's done in my head, is just trigger some thoughts about what makes, what makes, I don't know, there are teachers I loved, but didn't impart an awful lot, and there are teachers like Mr.

[00:17:16] Betley, who I, I guess, I don't think I feared him, but I certainly respected him, and he drew out stuff from me, and how he knew that I had, the ability in me to write when all I really did was mess around. Um, then I don't know. Uh, so we're trying to figure that out. And the reason I tell you the story is that's what's been going on behind the scenes is it's me trying to figure out and putting the materials together for better workshops, for better content on the mastering portrait photography website for finding ways to be useful to add insight, to answer the inevitable why. I love the question why. Why do we light things the way we do? Why, why do I bang on about the catchlights in the eyes when I'm doing portraiture? Why is that my anchor point? Why do we use fast shutter speeds for some things and slow for others? Why do we pick the lenses we do?

[00:18:20] Why, oh why, oh why, all of those. wise. So that's what's been going on. So apologies for there being no podcasts for a while. I will try to make up for it. If this little bit of kit works and I've got no idea, there's absolutely nothing that tells me this is recording apart from one little red light, um, on the transmitter, which has gone orange, which is a little bit freaky.

[00:18:41] I don't know whether it's still working. Everything seems to be good. It doesn't even have, because it's 32 bit floating point, it doesn't even have level dials. It just kind of says, yep, recording. So in about 10 minutes, I will know whether this was a fool's errand or whether you're actually going to hear this podcast completely uncut.

[00:18:59] It's going to come out the way it is. I'm just driving back through the village to the studio, um, over the speed bumps. There you go, speed bump, and still my squeaky windscreen wipers in the background. They'll be in the background, by the way, but I can't drive without them. Uh, that's just, uh, one of those things.

[00:19:17] Anyway, anyway, I hope the podcast, I hope, I hope a little bit of me hopes you've missed the podcast. If you haven't missed it, if you're, this is the first episode you're listening to, please listen to one of the other episodes that have been recorded, uh, and edited. Craft edited, I like to think. Um, if you like your podcasts raw and from the cab of a Defender Land Rover, then I'm your guy, here it is.

[00:19:39] Uh, anyway, I hope your world is good. I hope the summer. Or as we head into the late summer and the beginnings of the autumn, I hope you're having a wonderful one. I hope you've had a wonderful one. Um, I hope that life finds you well. To all of the students out there today who've just got their GCSE results in the UK, I hope it's gone well for you.

[00:20:01] Uh, I know a couple of my clients, uh, Jess in particular, one of our dancers who's I've worked with. Uh, I hope you've got the results that you've, uh, deserve having worked so hard and as I pull up in front of our studio in the drizzly mizzle, uh, whatever you're doing, whatever you're doing, be kind to yourself, take care.