How to travel the world and get paid to do it


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Today’s PhotoProfit show, my special guest is Paul Pichugin. He’s a photographer from Western Australia. Paul has gone from working in a portrait photography to wedding business photography, etc. yet still hit a burn out.

After all these challenges, he discovered that when it comes to photography; following what he loves to do (Business of Landscape and Travel Photography) can actually make a really good business out of it.

Let’s learn how Paul did it as he shares all his tips! Yes even the secret of how to get your photos licensed through a stock agencies. There are some REALLY good stuff in this podcast!

Enjoy! Brent

In this episode:
(01:17) Following Your Passion
(02:18) Feeling burnout
(02:45) Losing your creativity
(05:17) Making a change
(07:08) Money isn’t just a tool to achieve things
(07:18) Help other people
(09:53) Journey to Cambodia
(12:01) Helped out with orphanage & local doctors
(13:35) Passionate about what you do
(15:04) Targeting the Right Clients
(18:37) The targeted places
(18:48) Work out well who needs photos
(23:35) Working out the Best Rate
(27:52) Who will pay for it?

Show Notes:
Brent Mail
PhotoProfit – business of photography

Paul Pichugin – Business of Landscape and Travel Photography
www.paulpichugin.com
www.thegivinglens.com
www.imagebrief.com – licensing image
www.paulmp.deviantart.com
Instagram
Twitter
Facebook

Travel Agencies:
www.hipmunk.com
www.lonelyplanet.com
www.expedia.com

Following Your Passion

Started shooting and taking bookings in 2011

  • weddings
  • portraits

Feeling burnout

  • doing the same thing over and over again
  • lose your creativity
  • not really happy

Making a change

  • stop taking bookings
  • money isn’t just a tool to achieve things
  • help other people

Taking a Journey

  • Cambodia – do humanitarian
  • working on the landscape and travel
  • helped local doctors
  • being passionate about what you do
  • Your purpose

Targeting the Right Clients

  • putting my work out there
  • keep sharing it
  • tourism boards

The Right Places to Travel

  • Vietnam, Cambodia, and Myanmar
  • work out well who needs photos of these areas
  • travel agents

Working out the Best Rate

  • how much I value my own time
  • calculate the expenses
  • increasing my prices by x%
  • depending on what I’m doing and what I’m delivering
  • over $1500 a day Australian depending on the project
  • doing a social media campaign and delivering a small amount of images

Who will pay for it?

  • social media
  • sending an email
  • around the hotels
  • high end virtual tours
  • own proprietary software

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Introduction

Brent: Hey guys Brent here from Photo Profit, the podcast about the business of photography and today my special guest is Paul Pichugin. He’s a photographer from Western Australia. And he’s gone from working a portrait and a wedding business. Hitting burnout and then going to following his passion when it comes to photography. Following what he loves to do and actually making a really good business out of it and that’s the Business of Landscape and Travel Photography. In this Podcast you got to learn a lot of things how Paul actually did it and all his tips for you if you wanna go his way and even if you just want to license you images through a stock agencies. There some really good stuff in this Podcast. Just remember all the show notes at photoprofit.net, let’s jump right in. Today we’re gonna talk about Paul’s and what he did was he followed his passion when it comes to photography. He followed what he loved and now he’s really making a great profit out of what he loves and I’m now ask him a bunch of questions about that so Paul are you there?

Paul: Yes, thanks for having me.

Brent: No worries Paul.

Following Your Passion

Brent: So tell me a little about what it is you’re gonna talk about and then why you actually did it.

Paul: What I’m gonna tell you about is just how following your passion is the only way to go when it comes to creative industries especially photography and how that for a long term sustainable business that’s what you need to be doing.

Brent: So why do you believe that?

Paul: I originally got into photography as I was traveling around Australia. I’ve had a camera for most of my life. The real cliché my parents gave me a camera and I’ve been into photography ever since. It didn’t occur to me in high school that was a valid vocation you know that people actually earned money you know in taking photos. So I shifted to a different career and I was in IT industry for 10 years. And then I’ve started shooting weddings and portraits which was case of me trying to find some way to earn a living using my camera and making my camera gear so I started in that. I really enjoyed it but it wasn’t where I was passionate about. So I reached burnout point very quickly. I worked full in 2008 and I started taking bookings in 2011 and shoot my last wedding in 2013. So I’ve been working part time in the business for several years before that trying to go to a stage that it would give me a full time income.

Brent: And what is burnout look like for photographer?

Paul: For photographer you just feel like you shouldn’t be doing the same thing over and over again. And you lose your creativity. So you’re just not smart enough when you’re burnout. I never had any complaints as to the quality and all the styling of my photos but I knew that I could be doing better or I could be more creative I wasn’t really giving a 100% anymore. And I just don’t feel right about marketing and selling myself as a creative photographer if I’m not being creative.

Brent: And that feels like a job right, so the job with the camera?

Paul: Exactly, I might as well been back to my day job which I initially enjoyed, my day job. I’m pretty decent in that field and so you know t wasn’t like I hype in that field but I just didn’t want to be in it anymore.

Brent: Was the turning point for you when you realized that you needed to stop doing the portraits and the weddings and follow a different path; was it a pivotal moment for you?

Paul: There kind of it was accumulation of things but then there was one instance at the end that it was just like the final straw. I wanna go into that but really it’ quite a long story but most people wouldn’t believe it anyway. It’s crazy but it was just kind of that was the final straw. And you know I sat down and I have a couple of people that I have as mentors in business mostly. And you know none of them are actually photographers which I think it’s really important. But we sat down and we’re just kind of went over on where I was in life and business and everything and he was like “You need to get out of this. You’re vent out. You’re not really happy with what and where you are at and so you just need to get out” and I’m kind of saying “great” and we looked over the business model and it just wasn’t sustainable as proper business model in terms of you know especially if you’re just shooting mostly weddings. There’s no repeat business.

Brent: Yeah until they have a baby.

Paul: Well yeah that moves into portraits. And I wasn’t shooting a lot of portraits. I just didn’t really enjoy it at all. And I didn’t have a studio space or anything so it just what I wanted to be doing. And it took far too much of my time for the profit. So I always looked at it from perspective on how much time I am giving away for how much profit. I feel like it wasn’t worth my time. Especially I wasn’t enjoying it.

Making a Change and Helping other people

Brent: So let’s just recap quickly. So you’ve been shooting at weddings and portraits for quite a while, you hit burnout, you lost your creativity, seeing it as a job, you went to see a mentor. You’ve got a couple of mentors and they said “Man you got to change.” Okay so you decided to make a change. So what did you do? How did you actually make the change? Which direction did you go to that you lead you on where you are now?

Paul: So the real quandary when you want to give something off and start something and this is what you do for an income for the meantime. Coz the electricity and the telephone company don’t go “Oh you wanted to pursue your passion, free electricity.”

Brent: Yeah why not 6 months.

Paul: Yeah it’d be nice but it does just not gonna happen in the real world. So I mean I stop taking bookings but I’d had wedding bookings for 2 and half years. So I just shot those out and not booked anymore. And I actually went and do some work for my Dad for a little while in a building industry. Just doing demolition and pulling up walls and stuff. So just you know 2-3 days a week. Just to keep a roof over our head. My wife, she’s a school teacher so she was working. And so that kept us roughly the same income level between our two incomes s what we’re doing part of that. And I had to put 3 days a week and so the other 4 days a week I just shoot. My real passion is landscape and travel. So 2011 I dropped everything. I went to Cambodia for about 2 weeks. Get some volunteer work with humanitarian, organizations, photography. So then the given landscape came about a bit later. They came out to that trip though.

Brent: What did that do for your journey? For your business giving back like that; just doing something for the people and not for yourself?

Paul: It’s something I’ve always incorporated into my life and into my business. Not necessarily just giving back and making sure you’re passing it on. I believe in that money isn’t just a tool to achieve things. It’s not something I have any great aspirations to create in large amounts. I held all things loosely. If I can help other people, I do. And so you know I have found that that has come back to me ten folds so in terms of from a cynical point of view it’s good PR. You know it doesn’t hurt to be seen to do humanitarian work. If you really wanna break it down but I don’t know I just kind of help s you get all focusing on yourself. And realize that especially here in Australia regardless of your position in life in Australia you’ve got to better than 90% of the world. Simply by being in Australia. Yeah the saying can be said for all over UK and the US you know probably a few of other places around the world. But you know I’ve seen enough of the world to know that I’ve got a “pre do it.”

Brent: Now getting back to the giving back a little bit. It’s quite funny coz I’ve recently went to Vanuatu. Spent 10 days there helping locals after Cyclone Pam and I went to this church group. I’m not a big church type of person and a friend of mine the pastor is trying to convince me to go. He said “Oh it’ll be great. You’ll get all the PR. You know have it in the newspaper and everything else.” And I said “Look I don’t want it. I don’t want any PR. For me that’s not why I’m doing it. And I’m doing it coz I wanna give.” And I think there’s a lot of things happen after that to me and my family that most probably would not have happened if I didn’t do that trip and just give for the sake of giving. So anyone listening to this you knows yes its great PR and you can say “hey look what I’ve done and I’ve been helping all these people. But in the end really it should just be you do it because it’s the right thing to do and you can help. And I think we all should help every now and then. Anyway that’s just my take on it now.

Paul: I completely agree. That’s why I said you know from the purely scenic point of view. You know that’s if you think you’re gonna be completely about this business then I wouldn’t agree that being your motivation though.
Brent: And sometimes people have to actually justify that to say they got staff or other partners or whatever. And they’re going to spend money on resources or something. They’ve got to justify it in a business sense like “hey this is gonna be a good PR for our company” but you use to think like that a few years ago like I start and have portrait in my area and part of that was for the PR a bit. I write a blog and you got a lot of PR and a lot of good will from it. But now it’s just don’t I mean I’m just getting older. I just thinks it’s you know I just wanna give because I can.

Taking a Journey

Brent: Alright, so back to your journey so you went to Cambodia. You helped out there to humanitarian stuff and started working on the landscape and travel side of the business. How did you get that crank up and after you actually start living of it?

Paul: So with anything photography wise nobody’s gonna pay you anything you haven’t done before. Or if they do it it’s very rare. I mean I can think of two projects where I’ve been paid to do things that I’ve never attempted prior to that. But you know I was more than comfortable with my camera gear and with my photography to be able to actually confidently say yes on “yes I’m pretty certain I can do that” and yeah there were projects that they requested me. I’ve worked with them in other capacities. But generally speaking once you’ve got something to sell you’re not going to sell it. So what I mean with that is if you want to get into travel photography you have to travel. So it’s a bizarre concept. So we saved up and we put you know we invested in going to Cambodia. I mean if you’re gonna pick a place to go from Australia to Cambodia is very achievable. I’m looking at going there at the end of next month. All out it’ll cost me probably $12 or 900 Australian including flights.

Brent: No way, for how long?

Paul: About a week. I went last year September and it cost me $950 whole lot. So yeah that’s very achievable the most especially if you got a job. You know you can put away a little bit of money and just go somewhere every year.

Brent: Why Cambodia?

Paul: It’s just an opportunity came out. There was a lot of need there in terms of; yeah they’re still recovering from the days of Pol Pot and Genocide that happened there. And you know there’ evidence of that everywhere you go in Cambodia. Yeah it was actually quite funny. Friends from a church we’re going and “oh that sounds interesting. I’ll come too”, so we went along there and helped out with orphanage and spend a day, following or two days really following a medical team from here in Australia. There were volunteers gone there and set up clinics and helped local doctors in there. And also visit areas that I’ve never had any sort of Western medicine ever. It was really incredible. We filmed and photograph surgery happening in like a grass hut. Literally a grass hut in the middle of nowhere. It’s quite funny like I went on that trip not long after I kind of reached the tipping point with the weddings and portraits. And everywhere you go in Cambodia there’s no reception everywhere. Never was out of my reception so I’m in the middle of this rose patio and I just finished filming this surgery happening and there’s probably a crowd of about a 140 people from this village waiting to see the doctors. My phone rings and we’re in like very remote Cambodia. We’re not anywhere near anywhere that can be considered a town or a city or mud tracks, we’ve done several rivers crossing just to get to this place. And my phone rings and it’s my wife. And she’s like “How are you?” and I’m like “yeah’” and she said “Are you happy?” coz you know I wasn’t initially sure about going. And I said “yeah I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.” And that’s what being passionate about what you do. There’s that feeling that you’re doing what you’re supposed to be doing. What you’re intended to do so to speak with your life.

Brent: Your purpose.

Paul: Yeah exactly and so it was yeah I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be right at this moment unless the first time I felt that for a few years because I was so burn down.

Brent: So how does like when you stop looking at your watch and you’re saying “hey we’re just waiting so we got another 6 hours to shoot and then I can sneak out” where you’re actually enjoying what you’re doing and you like it. You don’t want the day to end because you’re in the moment. You’re not living for the future or the past. You’re actually living in the present.

Brent: And that’s so important particularly with photography is to really just enjoy those moments and be there for her. Yeah you definitely take your photos but don’t forget to have the experience as well. And yeah your photography proves and it shows in your work when you’re really in the moment. It really does and so from there just investing in a few trips myself that got me on a lot of companies’ radars in terms of like my work started on hopping up on places; on Instagram and their feeds.

Targeting the Right Clients

Brent: Did you target these companies?

Paul: Not initially. It was more just I started putting my work out there. I mean really I still don’t so much target people as much; I just keep putting my work out there and keep sharing it. I’m in the process of giving my website a complete makeover. But I keep sharing on social media mostly. And I’ve write about my experiences and where I’m going on my blog. So it’s about 3 or 4 months haven’t update at the moment because of the makeover I’ll putting a new content on there once that’s completed hopefully by the end of next month.

Brent: So then obviously someone’s picked you up or someone’s paid you for your images and your stories right?

Paul: Yeah so in 2012 I think it was a trip to the Gold’s Fields with one of the tourism boards.

Brent: Is that in Western Australia?

Paul: Yes, sorry that’s Australia. So we have this place called Lake Ballad which is apparently the biggest art installation in the world I think. They have 51 statues or sculptures made by Antony Gormley, UK artist. And they’re spread out over this salt lake and you’re in the middle of the desert and there are all these statues on the salt lake. It’s pretty bizarre and pretty incredible. So in 2011 I’m investing in doing a trip out there and photos of the statues and whatever. I just wanted to kind of get a supply of my portfolio and get some things that not everybody got. And I did some night photography out there which I haven’t seen any photos of it at night. And that was another case of it. I wonder what that would look like and yeah if I could and so those sort of because they’re different. They get shared a lot on Twitter and Facebook. They can like get the attention of people so I went on a trip with them in 2012, 2013 I did a trip to the Pilbara Regional Council stalking out their library.

Brent: Okay so all these local tourist authorities or councils they pay you a rate to go and photograph for them?

Paul: Yes, with the Pilbara Regional Council they asked basically I quoted on the entire project. It wasn’t a day rate but I’ve worked out how much I wanted per day and how much it’ll cost me per day. And so with them yeah it was probably the first project I had that was really exactly wanted to be doing. And that only happened in 2012.

Brent: So from then until now how is it looking? Have you got lot more work? Like lot more projects come on board.

Paul: Yes, so since then I’ve visited I think 10 or 11 countries.

Brent: Wow and these are all paid trips or someone is actually paying you to go and photograph.

Paul: Most of them are paid but not all of them. But most of them I think lined up people who want images from those places and have agreed to license before I even take the photos. I still have to pay for the trips.

The Right Places to Travel

Brent: When someone is starting off that’s enjoying your story here and they want to give it a go. They want to travel somewhere and then get paid to do it, how do they do that? What are the things that they need to do before they go? So for instance let’s just say okay I wanna go to Vietnam or somewhere, and I wanna have the trip paid for me. So do I target a travel company?

Paul: A lot of Asian doesn’t really especially places like Vietnam, Cambodia, and Myanmar such and surely other places they don’t have budget to promote tourism. And so they’re not really going to pay you. So what I do in my trips is work out well who needs photos of these areas. So companies like say Flight Centre who are international tourism and travel yeah people will say travel agents still relevant. They’re still very relevant. Flight Centre produce a lot of content in their blog in particular but they deal with a lot of corporate bookings as well which is were a lot of these travel agents actually make their income. So with them I did project in Queensland; with tourists in Queensland as well. So into case to find in who’s going to need the photos?

Brent: Okay so finding the need. So we got to Paris and Southern Europe in 3 weeks’ time, I’d like to possibly give this a try while I’m here. So I’m just trying to think of who; so obviously the flights on this one because we actually booked our flights thru them or at least the international portion of it. I mean the first couple of day’s accommodation in these different countries. So like for instance Europe, who would we be able to talk to us? Travel agencies, you obviously got the tourist’s websites?

Paul: Yeah so the things like Hipmunk who are good for searching for flight options. Expedia, Lonely Planet. Basically anybody who’s consistently putting out content based on the area you wanna travel on social media, on their blogs. So it’s not even necessarily printed.

Brent: What do you charge? Like how do you know how much that image is worth to someone?

Paul: Most of my images now I’m actually licensing thru Image Brief which I recommend to any photographer who’s got a decent catalogue of images get on there. It’s not a traditional stock photography website. I’m not a fan of stock photography. I know there are many photographers making lots of money out of it but it’s just I’m not a fan of it personally. I find with Image Brief they attract real companies that I actually want to work with. So thru them I’ve licensed images to Canon, the camera manufacturer which is a pretty sweet deal. And there are a few others that I can’t actually mention because I’ve signed NDA’s with them. And very reasonably money like the image I’ve licensed to Canon I think it was 1800 US dollars for one photo. And that was actually from the trip I did with the Pilbara Regional Council earlier.

Brent: That’s perfect. So someone else has aid you to go there. And you manage to make extra money out of the images that you…

Paul: Out of that trip of I’ve licensed probably 30 images extra.

Brent: Do you think it’s just because you being different and gone somewhere were not many people been before?

Paul: Not necessarily. Like some even just ask on license. I’m pretty surprised because I don’t think much of them or some of them. But others are definitely because it’s different but I mean how they really sell the location is showing people the highlights which is the place where everybody goes. So while I don’t let or careful not to let plans dictate exactly my shots and when I’m doing my own project I try not to shoot with thought of selling the shots I mean it’s always a consideration obviously but I don’t go out and go “I’ll shoot this because it will or I’ll go and shoot something because I want to shoot it.” And if it sells it’s kind of a bonus type of thing.

Brent: But you’ll probably get back into the same trap of burnout if you’re shooting to sell because then you’re not enjoying it anymore. There’s a purpose to that shot and the enjoyment is gone. And then you’re basically working again.

Paul: And I find if I’m enjoying what I’m doing I produce better work anyway. And I actually sell more so that’s why I’m saying you’ve got to be doing what you’re passionate about and in what you enjoy and keep true to that. If you want to actually have it as a sustainable career so yeah I mean most of my stuff right now license for imagery but I still get directory request and I do licensing directly. A lot of the stuff I am doing at the moment is just directs and long term projects; stacking up people’s library and contents if they’ve got stuff to share.

Working out the Best Rate

Brent: Okay perfect so one more question when it comes to a day rate, how do you work that out? Is there a certain formula? Coz I’ve got a day rate for years and I’ve made a mistake of having a commercial client who I gave my day rate to about 6 or 7 years ago and every year I’m scared to put it up for him because I feel like loyalty towards them even though my expenses have gone up. How do you work out your day rate?

Paul: I work out at how much I value my own time basically. So like in terms of what I do there are a few expenses. I already own my camera gear but I do have to calculate at some point I’m going to need to replace it. In fact at the moment I need to replace most of it but I’m getting there.

Brent: Okay, are you going to mere or less are you?

Paul: I am shooting with both. I’ve got a Canon 5D Mark III, a 7D and Sony A7R and a few other cameras.

Brent: What are your thoughts on the Sony?

Paul: I love the image quality out of it. It is incredible. I don’t like the size of it. I love the weight because it’s light but it just feels bit awkward. I’ve got quite large hands and so it feels a bit awkward. I’ve had a look at the A7R II and that’s got a bigger grip. And with the battery grip underneath it’s the only problem I had with it. It feels a lot better and with the battery grip you can have 2 batteries in there. The battery life is terrible compared to a Digital SLR. So I’m planning on having to carry like 5 or 6 batteries. The good thing is that I can charge it from USB though. SO I charge and plug in to USB port in the car while I’m driving and it’s fully charged within a short amount of time. So calculating a day rate you got to make sure you’re covering yourself on licensing. So you’re paying your monthly Adobe, you’re paying your Tax, your rent, so work out what your expenses are and then how much profit you want to make or on top of that. When I was doing weddings I had a mentor who I did some work with and he’s kind of look at my process and said “you need to double them” I was like “how to do that?” And he’s like “do it for your next couple of bookings and just tell me how you go.” So I did, I booked a hundred like I was still booking a 100% of the bookings. And so his theory I guess you would like a better word was if I’m booking a 100% of my inquiries or you know series of inquiries then I’m too cheap. Which I completely agree and so I always put it up when I start booking everything. I know when I’m losing about 20% of my job I price about right. And so that’s a hard to do if you’re starting out. But once you’re established you can start putting that up. There was another photographer that I’ve been speaking to for quite a while in the U.S and he does a lot of teaching mostly around portraits and developing good income from there. And he puts his prices up by I think it’s 10% every 6 months. And just hasn’t set his calendar like “It’s time to put my prices up” and he’s just put it into a system so that there’s no motion behind it. Obviously with portraits he’s probably not doing as much in terms repay business. Whereas you got a long term relationship with commercial client it can be a bit more difficult to put it up. But I just send out basically a notice before they even request another job. As basically as of this date I will be increasing my prices by x% just to keep the cost of living. It’s a very professional worded letter. And most companies I’m dealing with are just alike which is really nice. I mean I charged a different day rate depending on what I’m doing and what I’m delivering. So yeah you can say “I wanna really light profit on this particular project” but if it’s not worth that much to the client then they’re not going to pay it.

Brent: Okay, what kind of range are we talking about or you don’t have to answer it if you don’t want.

Paul: With the commercial stuff I do it’s over $1500 a day Australian depending on the project. I don’t even consider a commercial project if it’s not going to bring me that much.

Brent: Yeah pretty much where I am.

Paul: Yeah.

Brent: Okay, interested to see files on mark or not.

Finding who pays best for you

Paul: With the social media stuff, if I’m just doing a social media campaign and delivering a small amount of images, I still have to charge a day rate but I just deliver less. And then I had the opportunity to license further images after the project either to them or to other clients. I make sure I make up the difference that way or I’ll tie in a few commercial shoots while I’m on that project and I can do them a bit cheaper because my day to day cost are already covered and already making a profit. What I was saying before in terms of who is going to pay for it. When I wanna do a trip that’s what I keep in mind. So I did a road trip to the Pillsbury Wes Australia which includes Tara Gene and a few other iconic places and I just started in contact with businesses that were in those areas that might not have access to photographers of my caliber all the time. And I had to kind of put it that way. There’s a certain level of professionalism that I bring and style to my photography that isn’t always available than some of these places.

Brent: Totally, and you got to be confident that you’re doing a good job with what you’re doing you know. Otherwise why would you be in business?

Paul: Exactly, you’ve got to kind of walk that line between confidence and arrogance.

Brent: Yeah, which is tough sometimes? Especially for us, if anyone in the U.S. doesn’t do this you know here in Australia it’s not very cool to say how good you are. It’s actually look down on.

Paul: Yeah we play everything pretty casual. We tend to play it down, a lot of things. So yeah I mean the last trip I did to the Pilbara, I had Pilbara Regional Council pay me for the actual trip. Then I lined up Tara Gene eco retreat who have now became regular clients of mine. I lined up to hotels in Hedland, and another one in Karratha and a few other businesses. And it was just the case of sending an email or finding the right person. Then I’m in with LinkedIn, Facebook. It’s so easy to identify who the right person is to talk to. Basically it was casual “hey I’m going to be in the area, I’m doing this work with this client. Would you be interested in half a day shoot or is there something I can offer you while I’m in the area?”

Brent: Yes, so with the hotels are you licensing or selling them images of the area so they can promote the area? Or you’re actually shooting around the hotel?

Paul: Both.

Brent: Okay.

Paul: Plus with my commercial business I do very high end virtual tours. And I’ve got my own proprietary software with that that I’ve written myself with my IT background. That’s basically is unique because I wrote it. And so it’s nice to be able to offer them something that nobody else can because I’ve developed it myself. And so I put together a package for them and just say “hey this is what I can offer” and a lot of time they’ll offer and say “okay we’ll you can pay this much or we’ll drop the prize say you can pay this much we’ll give you a night’s accommodation and a meal” and if I don’t have to pay for accommodation then that’s fine.

Brent: Definitely, so just to round everything Paul. How do you feel now that you’re following your passion? You’re doing what you love and you’re getting paid. And you’re making good money out of it. How does it compare to when you felt burnout working weddings and portraits?

Paul: Chalk and cheese, much happier in life. My family is happy because I’m home more in terms of you know in between trips I’m home 24/7. And on some of the trips I can take my kids and watch. I have 2 daughters. And so I just take them into the last 2 projects I’ve done; one to Tasmania and one to Coal Coast here in West, Australia. And so yeah much happier, I’ve gotten much better balance in terms of what I’m doing. As I mentioned on doing up the commercial side of things and then we’ll be hiring more photographers to actually do the actual photography. I’ll need to train them up on how I do things. But because I’ve got all the systems in place it’s a case to just train them up and then they upload them and the rest is handled. But I’m actually had to do anything other than charge me a day rate.

Brent: And guys we’ll put links into the show notes for Paul’s website and all these and when it’s gonna be hiring these photographers too so awesome Paul, thank you so much for being on the show. Let me just run thru a quick summary of what we’ve spoken about. You’ve been so helpful. Basically this show has been about following your passion and then figuring out how pay for it or who’s gonna pay for it. So you went thru to how you’re in to portrait and weddings side of the industry and hit burnout. Then you got a mentor. You change direction and you figure out how to make money doing what you love which is travel and landscape photography. Then you’ve been to 11 countries. You’ve got all these different clients. You’ve actually got images out there. Stack images with Image Brief. You even managed to make money out of images that you’ve already been paid to photographed which is really cool. We’ve spoken about day rate and how to work it out. And also finding out who will actually pay for these jobs and pay for your travel. So one big action point anyone listening to this, what would you say on what would be the first thing that they do? You think they should sign up to Image Brief or go to another country and shoot some images and put them on Image Brief? What do you think?

Paul: You don’t have to necessarily go to another country.

Brent: Backyard is another country to someone.

Paul: Yeah depending on what you’re budget is like. Start with your own backyard which is exactly what I did. I started shooting the Coast of Western Australia. And even then like we live like a few minutes from the beach so I go down there every afternoon and just try and find something different to shoot. And just regenerate that creativity. Yeah definitely sign up to Image Brief. The way they worked differently is that they plan and put together a brief hence the name of the type of image that they’re looking for. And the idea is that photographers are sitting in a catalogue of photos that will never see the light of day. Why not try and make some money out of that bad catalogue. You know I’ve got probably a million images in my Lightroom catalogue. And so yeah I’m carefully tagging everything in with tags so that I can find those images. And so yeah I mean images that I’ve already shot and now I’m making money thru Image Brief. So I see brief and appropriate and then I go “yeah I’ve got images that fit that description” and yeah I submitted it s and sometimes mine get selected and sometimes that they don’t But they’ve also got a market place now for selling images and I think they started $250 U.S. So it’s good money. And then yeah so if you got to to shoot your own backyard, shoot it. Try and hoot it with an outside perspective because that makes any sense.

Brent: Yeah, finding out who’s gonna or who needs these images. And shoot it so that it benefits the company you are using these mages to market the place obviously.

Paul: Just try to see it from how you think your tourist would want to see it if you’re looking to get into that sector. And just shoot it as if you were like give yourself an assignment. Because you’ve got to fund your trips initially so Cambodia or I literally sat down and wrote myself a brief of the type of images I wanted to capture. And work about it as if it was a project for a client or I was the client coz it was like I was saying nobody’s gonna pay you to do things you haven’t done before. So you need to go and self-fund the first few projects.

Brent: Yup, pay yourself. That’s awesome Paul. Anything else you wanted to let the listeners know before hang up?

Paul: Check out thegivinglens.com, that’s a humanitarian and photography organization; an education organization that I’m a part of. Watch out for that. We’re heading back to Cambodia in December just finalizing the dates at the moment. But yeah very good organization that gives photographers the opportunity to give back and pay it forward so to speak. And if you haven’t travel overseas before or to some of the places I’ve been, they’re all very well organized and so it’s a good way to get your feet wet so to speak. And in another country if you’re not overly confident about traveling by yourself; I went on a trip with them to Jordan and that was incredible. I wasn’t one of the workshop leaders but that’s how I got involved with them. And so yeah if you’re not overly confident about travel and wanna see what it’s like, it’s a good way to have an overview of the country and some real experiences all the while doing some good.

Brent: Awesome, yeah definitely. I think that’s thegivinglens.org is it?

Paul: I think it’s dot com.

Brent: Dot com, okay. We’ll put it in the show note anyway. Well thanks Paul for being on the show.

Paul: thanks for having me.

Brent: Catch you later, bye.

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