Today we are shooting in Justine Ungaro's studio in Studio City, Los Angeles.
We are just about to get started. Let's go inside and have a look.
We have now got Tim behind the video camera for the rest of the trip.
His first task is to film Justine over a busy two days and
we are starting of by shooting a couple and their tiny dog.
The shoot is in full flow. It's going really well.
The couple is having tons of fun and images are looking great.
During the rest of the time with Justine, we also saw her capture a number of
other shots including some family and individual images.
But we also had time to ask her about the secrets of her success
with running a wedding and portrait business. Here's what she had to say:
When I first moved to Los Angeles, I decided that I was not gonna start
from the bottom and work my way up and do jobs for free. So I decided that I wanted
to go after a higher end marked from the very beginning.
Having a successful photography business is equal parts creativity and business savvy.
A few things I learned along the way are
first of all that being paid in exposure is not really payment at all.
I haven't really gotten real work from just having my work published places.
It can be a benefit in conjunction with other things
but you need to be careful not to be taken advantage of.
Sales don't have to be this scary, awful experience on either end.
It can be gentle and soft and everyone can come out happy on the other end.
That is what keeps them coming back.
Another thing is that I believe in creating clients for life. I don't believe there is such thing
as a former client in terms of what I do. Since I photograph different genres but they're
all people, individuals and families, I use the wedding business as sort of a funnel for
the rest of my business. Each year I photograph about 20 weddings and I think of that as a
funnel, and they funnel into my life and my work for the long haul.
Point of this is to just forget about me for a minute. I don't want you to be thinking about me.
Another thing I have learned especially with working with the same clients
over and over again is that I have to continuously push myself to the next level,
keep on getting better, I can't do the same things with the same people year after year.
Once I have mastered something, I have to push to the next level.
You have to continue to push yourself to be excited to be doing new things
and I think investing in the right camera kit that gets you excited
to do the same kind of work you have been doing for a while
or enables you to shoot it in a new and different way, that that excitement,
rubs off on your clients and they mirror it back to you.
We are now done here in L.A. We packed our gear.
We had a couple of amazing days here and now we are off to the airport to go to Sydney.