238: Keeping Your Photos Fresh

in five days. And, you know, I photograph almost entirely families, like the subject matter is relatively similar, the locations are often pretty similar, even though you know, everybody's house is different, or you know, if they want to be outside their yard might be different, whatever. So there is some variety built in. But when I'm photographing that frequently, it can get repetitive to the point where like, I'm getting the stuff that

I know I needed to get. And if my energy isn't really in it, I can just kind of repeat those things. And then at the end of the day, when I offload my cards, and I'm looking at my photos in Lightroom, I'm like, these little kind of dull, right, that's just not all that much excitement in the photos. And I know, you know, maybe they don't see the difference. Most of the time, when I feel that way about a session and I deliver it, I still get really

positive feedback. But it's like, it doesn't light me up. And I feel like I'm not doing anything really well. I it starts to be this like toxic combination of me being tired and me not being inspired by my work that can lead to this sense of burnout that may or may not have happened if the only issue was that I was busy, I really do think that it's almost like a creative boredom, needs, busyness equals bad things for

my creative brain. So today, I wanted to share the way that I have mostly kept myself out of that for the past several years. And this has been something that I sort of developed over time. And it's almost like a little game that I play with myself at each session. And this past weekend, when I was doing that I one of my sessions that occurred to me, I was like, You know

what? This, even though this is not what I normally talk about on the podcast, maybe this would be a good podcast episode to toss in here, it won't be long. But you know, if you are also in your busy season, maybe add this to your toolkit and see if it helps see if it keeps you from feeling stuck or walking out of any session, feeling like you didn't get something truly original. Welcome to this can't be that hard. My name is Annemie Tonken. And I help photographers run profitable, sustainable

businesses that they love. Each week on the podcast, I cover simple, actionable strategies and systems that photographers at every level of experience can use to earn more money in a more sustainable way. Running a photography business doesn't have to be that hard, you can do it. And I can show you how. Pretty early on in my career, I was having a portfolio of work critiqued by a gentleman at a conference. And he was looking through my work and you know,

had some nice things to say. But also, at one point paused, he kind of flipped back through several of the photos. And then you said it looks like you're spending a lot of time in the dead zone. And I didn't know exactly what he meant by that. But I was pretty sure that it wasn't a compliment. So as you know, I asked him to explain and he described the dead zone as you are standing at your full height, and you are somewhere in the like five to 10 foot range from your client or your

subject. So you're kind of at a safe conversational distance, plus or minus a few steps. So he described that and I was like, Well, yeah, I mean, that is a kind of a comfortable spot from which to take photos. But then as I went and looked back through my work, I was like, oh, yeah, that's pretty repetitive, right? I do that a fair amount. And I was compensating for it by

changing my focal length. So you know, obviously, if I'm standing 10 feet from somebody, and I take a photo with a 35 millimeter lens, and then another one with an 85, and then another one with a 200, which might start to get kind of awkward. Those are going to they're going to look different, but ultimately they still have kind of the same distance involved, right? It's this it's

the same perspective. And that conversation and that one comment from that guy, lo these many years ago started me on the beginning of what has become a more complicated game. But were I at every session that I went into To, I would say back to myself high, low, near far, high, low near far, and I wasn't necessarily doing, you know, making photos in that order. It wasn't like every, every fourth photo was something that I was taking from a high perspective

or a high vantage point. But I began intentionally moving my body around in relationship to my subject in order to get a variety of perspectives. So high meaning, you know, maybe I will actually, just this past weekend, I had a client, we were in their backyard, and they had a tree house, and I climbed up in the tree house, and I had them you know, they were kind of like running around playing

underneath me. And so I was taking photos, then that was a true like, almost aerial perspective, obviously, if I've got a little kid on the, you know, lying on their back in the grass, and I'm standing directly over them, I'm not particularly high, but my vantage relative to my subject is high, it's another kind of aerial perspective, high doesn't need to be aerial though, or that directly above perspective, it could just mean that like, you know, they're down the hill, and I'm up the

hill. So whatever that may be, I look for those high perspectives. And conversely, I look for low perspectives. So you know, sometimes I am, I'm frequently on the ground. So I will lie down, I definitely am sort of on my belly making photos of little babies, little kids who are either crawling or not yet crawling, but can hold their heads up, I'm, you know, down there, my cameras almost touching the floor, to get a sort of eye level photo of someone who is only eight inches

off the ground, right. So that's a low perspective, but I also will be sort of dramatically low sometimes where I am shooting up at my clients. So if I've got a family, and they're playing around, sometimes I'll get down on the ground and shoot up so that my background is not, let's say, the trees behind them. But the sky up above, same thing.

Again, if you're not in a position to be down, like lying down on the floor, that doesn't mean that you can't photograph up into you know, if you're at the bottom of a hill and your subjects are up at the top of the hill, or, you know, you're on the first floor, and they're on like a balcony, and you can see them up there. So all these different things get high get low, and then get near and get far same kind of concept. But, but just moving toward or away

from my subjects. And I you know, at this point, really take that to the extreme. One of my signature photos for my family clients is I often shoot with a 24 to 70. And if I find a setup where the family that I'm photographing is all together, they're kind of tight. And you know, I usually try and work them into that as they're getting comfortable with each other and they're playing around and they're giggling as soon as

they start laughing. You know, if there's like a tickling moment with little kids or whatever, I move in, and I will go my I'll make my lens really wide, like full 24 millimeters. And so I have this almost comically wide portrait, but when it's exaggerated with those, like big smiles, and giggles, and whatever, I find that those make really lovely family photos, combine that with some, you know, maybe some lens flare or something like that, if

they are situated properly. And I've got like a real stunner of a portrait for that family that doesn't look like something that they would get on their own. So I move in kind of uncomfortably

close sometimes. And then I also like to intentionally move way back and what's nice about like, moving farther back is that you can get more context, right, so you have sort of your subjects but they are in the bigger picture of wherever they are, whether that's inside at their house, or if you're out in a field somewhere you're getting a more atmospheric photo, it also sort of lends this more private look to the photo so it's a little more voyeuristic if I'm not right there in a

conversational space with them. And so I think that those photos you know are interesting are different are keep it fun, but also give a lot more of it's a little bit more of a storytelling photo because you have more context. So for a couple of years that was my whole mantra get high get low, get near get far get high, get low, get near get far, and that was good.

I mean, it definitely like live in depth perspective in my photos, but once I had kind of gotten good at it, I didn't even really have to say it to myself anymore, right? My camera holding body just like goes in those circles and moves in those different rotations. So then, of course, anything when it's new is fun, but as soon as it becomes not new, it you know, ceases to be sort of entertaining and I started to expect that variety of

perspectives for myself. So I would look at my session and have that same feeling of like, okay, fine. What Ever. But then as soon as I started to feel that I was like, Okay, I need to come up with something else to add into my little mantra to see if I can't expand. So the next thing that I did was I added in a couple of sorts of devices. Number one was motion. I love photographing motion, and it was something that I was periodically doing, even before I started getting more

intentional about it. I mean, one thing that I have been photographing since day one is like little girls twirling in dresses, right, if somebody shows up with a good twirl dress, you can bet that they will end up with some twirling photos and whether that twirling photo features, you know, their hair going crazy, or just the fan of the skirt, or if you know if it's kind of I'm feeling the the mood strike me I will slow my shutter speed down and it'll be sort of this twirling blurry,

you know, get some motion blur in there as well. Other motion that I like to play with as motion blur of all kinds, like, you know, if there's if we're out and about in the city and there's motion going on behind my clients, I'll you know, I'll sometimes slow my shutter speed down just a hair and get, you know, the cars driving by or something like that while they are still in the photo. But I also do probably more frequently

a lot of panning. So for me with little kids, kids running kids on swings, kids on slides, kids on bicycles, or skateboards, all of those things are great opportunities for panning. And if you aren't familiar with the concept of panning it is basically where you slow your shutter speed down to a point where you are still able to make a photo that will focus on your subject. But it's slow enough that as you follow your subject,

the background gets blurred. It is a skill that takes some practice, but it's not a hard skill. And once you get good at it, you can pretty quickly you know you take a handful of shots in any given scenario, and you'll almost certainly get one or two that are worth

delivering. So motion blur panning, and then again, like dresses, twirling hair toss kind of photos, you know, if somebody's got really great hair, I'll just you know, have them sort of shuffle it around on their shoulders, those kinds of motion. When you can see motion and a photo, it automatically a elevates it to a much more professional level. And B gives it some sort of intrigue and interest. And as you again get better at that that will be something that can

really set your photos apart. So motion was the first thing and the other one that I did at the same time was was incorporating more reflection or doing that more intentionally. So I have always loved photographing people in puddles that's just been like a thing where I will very awkwardly sort of turn my body upside down and photograph into a puddle. So I can usually I'll frame it so that I can see

their feet. And you know, you get good at finding good puddles and like puddles that have some maybe like leaves that have fallen on them, but they're still and so you can frame them in the leaves. And you have to position them properly so that you have a little bit of light on them unless you want it to be a full silhouette. But the but those can be they're tricky, but they when they turn out well, they can be really, really

beautiful. And I like to play with those in my editing, where when I get my photos back from my editor, I will actually open those individual photos and I'll play with toning and things like that, because you can I don't do really creative edits with my photos with my standard portraits, but when it's a reflection in the water, there's not really this anticipation that it's going to have a specific color or anything like

that to it. So anyway, reflection in puddles was where I first kind of started with that. But you know, of course there are so many reflective

surfaces in the world. So there are mirrors obviously but then any window you know if somebody's standing next to a window either from the inside or the outside, you can get really cool sort of double portraits where one is a little bit more ethereal than the the one of the actual person because that reflection is is not a perfect reflection like you'd get in the mirror. I love photographing

countertops. So any sort of marble or granite countertop that has a high gloss top is a really good reflector if you get low in perspective to that countertop so I you know, a lot of times people who have young children, young babies and want to photograph them, you know, one thing that I like to recommend is like, hey, why don't we do a like a sink bath, especially if I walk into their house and notice that they've got this amazing, you know, gorgeous farmhouse sink or

something like that. And because there are countertops in the kitchen, I'm able to get low and photograph the baby in the sink and get the reflection of the baby in the sink in the counter. And what's fun about those I mean They're fun photos anyway, but they also really surprise and delight my clients because it's their kitchen, they're in

there all the time. And yet they've never noticed or thought about the fact that like, there's this reflective surface there and, and so it just takes the ordinary and elevates it to the extraordinary. So thus far, we have talked about changing your perspective. So get high, get low, get near get far Get, get some motion, get a reflection that's like that goes around and around and around in

my head. And then most recently, I have just said, Okay, I'm gonna check every single one of those boxes at essentially every single one of my sessions. And I'm not perfect, and I'm not, you know, not saying that like, this is always 100% easy to achieve, you've got like a kid who's really acting up, and you have to turn your attention to that as opposed to like your

creative expression. But most of the time, if I'm having like a good session, and things are moving around, well, when I talk to clients in advance, I tell them, our session is going to be between 60 and 90 minutes. For me, that extra 30 minutes, 60 minutes is when the session is going so well that I can get that stuff in in kind of record time. But by 60 minutes, I should have just about every

safe shot I need. And that last 30 minutes is me playing around and being like, let's find a weird location where I can, you know, get a reflection that they would never expect something like that. But the most recent addition to my mantra is just as simple as find something fun to photograph in this session. And when I sat down to think about like, exactly what I wanted to say, for this session, I made a list because something fun is a

pretty vague thing. But there I feel like for me, those fall into a certain, you know, it's kind of hopefully it's not predictable. But I have like a little mental checklist. So number one is shadows, I love playing with shadows, I have gotten some photos that are some of my favorite in the world from

Shadow photos. So if it is a bright day, or I see some situation where there's good hard shadows, whether it's on a concrete driveway or garage door or something like that, I will set my subjects up doing something cool in front of that, that gives me some space to shoot through. So think jump rope, or riding their bikes or something like that. So those those create interesting

shadows. And I can photograph just the shadow or the shadow with just a touch of the people involved and get sort of more interesting look, if you are familiar with the photos on my website, my photo website. So it's mega pixie M eg a

pixie.com. One of the photos that has been sort of front and center of my business for a while is a photo that I took of a woman tossing her daughter in the air and her daughter has this amazing like big afro hair and she's laughing and her hands are just so on her feet are just so an eye, the kid is cute, always, you know that was going to be the case one way or the other. And the expression on both mom and daughter's face is fantastic. Of course that's there's a little bit of luck

involved, right. But what's not lucky in that situation is where they are, there's this really pretty dappled sunlight against a building the I could just picture like, this is going to be a great opportunity for shadow because it wasn't even just a blank canvas, it had the dabbling of the tree light. And so I said, Okay, I want you to

take her over there. And I want you to just, you know, let's let's play and maybe, and I am sure I probably did say something about like how to do some like tossing her in the air kind of thing. And that became one of my favorite photos of all So shadows are great. Another one that I play with every once time.

in a while and I don't do a lot of this, but it's one that almost anyone these days, if you're photographing, certainly, you know a film, any film camera can do this, but a digital camera, most digital cameras have this ability built into the to the camera is to create a

double exposure. So that's a fun one, you know, go to YouTube and look up your camera model double exposure, how to and you will find a tutorial on how to navigate in the menu and set it up so that you can shoot a double exposure and practice that. I mean, that's definitely not something that you're going to be great at right off the bat. Because it does, there's sort of like a method to it. But you know, again, that's something that somebody's not necessarily going to see they're

not going to expect it. And if you've never done it before, if you're new to double exposure, it's going to be fun for you just from a creative perspective. So like add some fun for you into your sessions. Another thing that I do all the time and this is like you don't have to buy anything you don't have to Uh, go into a session knowing exactly how you're going to do this is shooting through

something. So if I walk into someone's home and they have a translucent or like a transparent lamp base that's like fun glass or something like that, like it's got bubbles in it or something like that, I will sit behind that lamp and see if I can make a photo through it, that is, you know, still shows you what you're looking at. But it's not, you know, it's distorted in this interesting way, you can do that

with just about anything. I mean, there's all kinds of interesting ways to, to shoot through something, and create a photo. That's interesting. I mean, one thing, this is actually more reflection, but one thing that I see a lot of photographers doing this, these days, is using their phones as a reflective surface. So you put your phone right up to your, the bottom, the base of your lens, if it's a wide angle of some sort, you're gonna get a little

bit of that reflection. And you can't tell in that perspective, that it's your phone. It's just a reflective surface that sort of creates this magical, confused perspective. So you know, shooting through something or like right up against something. And then the only other thing that I would add to that list is really just unexpected cropping, or framing.

So like, you can take several photos in a panorama sort of array, and very easily stitch those together these days with AI, just to give someone an even, you know, wider perspective and even further back perspective. But you can also do things like almost macro photography, like photograph someone's eye, right, just one eye, you get really close up to them. You know, maybe the light looks really amazing in their eye, or maybe their eye color is really incredible. Get up really

close. Obviously, if you are photographing newborns, babies, that's a really common thing. One thing that I like to photograph with newborns that I feel like is an under underrepresented, everybody does fingers and toes, whatever. No offense to the fingers and toes, photographers, but like, I love

that fuzz on their back. And so when I have a newborn and I get them on wrapped or unclothed, and they've got those fuzzy backs, I will try and find a lighting situation where I can really capture that and I'll photograph it and you know, parents love it. It's such a it's it's a weird photo, right? It's not necessarily like them, or it doesn't look like them.

But it is such a tactile reminder for anyone who's ever had a newborn to to know exactly what that like fuzzy little skin feels like and it disappears really fast. So in summary, sorry, guys, you're getting one right off the top of my head today. The mantra these days that I say to myself is get high, get low, get near Gefahr. Get some motion, get some reflection and get something fun. So high, low near

far motion reflection fun. And if you are in a place right now where you feel like every photoshoot is running into every other one because you're just shooting, shooting, shooting, shooting, maybe take that, put it in your back pocket for your next shoot and see if you can come up with something fun. And if you do, I would love for you to come share it in the Facebook group or send me an email. I find it really enjoyable when somebody takes something that I have shared with them and shares

right back with me. Anyway, you guys have a great day. Well, that's it for this week's episode of This can't be that hard. I'll be back Same time, same place next week. In the meantime, you can find more information about this episode along with all the relevant links, notes and downloads at this can't be that hard.com/learn If you like the podcast, be sure to hit the subscribe button. Even better, share the love by leaving a review on iTunes. And as always,

thanks so much for joining me. I hope you have a fantastic week.