How will massive online followers transform your photo-business?


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Today’s episode on PhotoProfit, we have an amazing photographer from the Gulf Course Stephan Bollinger. He’s originally from Switzerland and he photographed beautiful women like models and those type of things. He’s got a massive online following; a couple of million of people are following him.

What we are going to talk about in this podcast is how to gain a large online following, why it’s important and why it can really help your photography business. We will speak about which social media networks to post on, which one appeals to people and what happens when you get a troll following you. We will also talk about what kind of post to post and etc.

This is a very interesting conversation. You will really love this episode.

Enjoy! Brent

In this episode
(1:20) – Faking too much will not get applauded
(2:30) – The camera looks both ways
(2:50) – Authenticity is key
(3:30) – We only know so many people personally
(4:18) – How can I present what I do?
(7:54) – Forget about it
(8:34) – People will discover you because you are real
(9:19) – It’s so easy to be a fake person
(9:56) – If you make it about what you love, people will identify to it
(12:37) – Followers are not equal return
(15:50) – One hand washes the other
(16:18) – I do not want them to cook the dinner for me
(19:47) – Post one a day
(20:00) – Never post only words
(20:30) – Do not be annoying on social media
(24:10) – Photography is about creating something that we can share with others
(28:11) – People wants you to respond to negativity
(29:24) – The person in the mirror smiles back

Show Notes
Stephan Bollinger – www.sbp.social
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  • Being real is key. People are looking for heart and soul.
  • Authenticity. Be authentic and be bold in expressing yourself.
  • The camera looks both ways. It shows the image captured and the imagination of the photographer who captured the image.
  • Having a vast amount of followers in social media means influence, love and hate.
  • You will attract like minded people and at the same time attract people whose only agenda is to destroy you.
  • Ignore trolls or haters. If you give them attention and respond to them then they are getting what they want… Your attention.
  • Always appeal to people’s emotions. Not everybody speaks English but if you give them an image that attracts their emotions then you are speaking the universal language.
  • For anyone in the creative business, you cannot compare yourself to others. Be yourself! Everybody else is taken.
  • Would you rather follow trend or set trend?
  • Set your own trend. Make your own style, express your heart the way you want and don’t let the world dictate you how you should present yourself.
  • Do not ask other people to do the work for you. It’s ok to ask for direction but you have to do the work.
  • We creatives needs to do something that is in our heart. Something that makes our heart sing. We cannot live a life of merely existing. We have to express!
  • Look at the mirror and ask that person what it is that makes his/her boat float. What is it that makes you happy? Do it!
  • Do something not for the people, not for the world but for you! What makes your heart sing?

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Introduction

Brent: Hey Guys, it’s Brent here and welcome to another episode of Photo Profit. The podcast all about the business of photography and today my special guest is Stephan Bollinger. He’s an amazing photographer from the Gulf Course. He’s originally from Switzerland and he photograph beautiful women. You know, models and those types of things and he’s got a massive online following. A couple of million of people are following him and what we’re going to talk about in this podcast is how to gain a large online following and why it’s important and why it can really help your photography business. We’ll speak about all sorts of things, you know which social media networks to post on, which one appeal to which people and what happens when you get a troll following you, what kind of posts to post and etc. It’s a very, very interesting conversation. I’m sure you Guys are going to love it. Let’s jump right in!

Microphone and Being Authentic

Brent: Stephan, how are you?

Stephan: I’m wonderful! How are you?

Brent: Brilliant! Brilliant! So, Stephan, firstly tell me a little bit like the short version of your story, how you actually gain this huge following online?

Stephan: I don’t know where to start. I think if you look at sort of the way I got into the whole thing, I didn’t start as a photographer. I started as a singer on stage and I’ve learned very early on that if I faked too much on stage, I didn’t get much applause. And the more honest I was on stage, the more I gave from myself. The more I guess there was heart and soul in it and the more the audience reacted and when I started to pick up the camera and take more and more photos, first purely as an amateur. Just out of fun and which then over time turned into a full time job. I realized it’s pretty similar. It’s not applause but now it’s pay cheques or its likes online or its followers but it comes down to the same thing. The more heart, the more soul or the more me was in it, the more I was accepted and respected from others. The more I was potential material to be followed, I guess. Now, I look at my photography different than other people, I still see a lot of flaws in it and everything but I think what people get when they look at my photo is that there’s a certain honesty in it. There’s a certain personality. You know, the an old saying “the camera looks both ways”. It’s not just the persona in front but it’s the person behind. Now I think the way I became a photographer, the way I deal with people is exactly the same as the way I deal with social media or with press or with whatever it is. There’s this big word, you know “Authenticity”, yes! You know a Swiss guy trying to speak English, it’s just you know.

Brent: Hey, you speak better than me. I’m a South African trying to speak English.

Stephan: Okay, well, let’s not go into that. But you know, being authentic, being you, I think that is a big, big part of that if you want to call it the secret source.

We Only Know So Many People Personally 

Brent: Perfect! Before we go into more of your journey, let’s jump to the “why it’s a good idea to have an online follow”. How has it benefited you to have a large online following in your business, Stephan?

Stephan: Well, the fact is we only know so many people personally and generally we surround ourselves with people that have similar interest. So, if I have people around me who are very much interested in photography then probably would’ve gone and shoot themselves. So, the chance that they book me and they pay my mortgage is very little, very small. So, I need to reach people who like what I do but I’m most probably not in contact yet.

Brent: So, Stephan, what you’re talking about here is reach. You get a much larger reach with the online following than you would in your local area you know, with your friends or with your business colleagues or your local network. When you’re online you get a much huge reach. Is that what you’re saying?

Stephan: Yeah! That’s correct. I mean, the big question is how can I present what I do, what I love to people who might otherwise not see it and there’s of course different ways that you can do this. You can go to your local community hall and ask if you can have an exhibition or you can go to your local restaurants and say “can I hang some prints in your restaurant?” and you put a little sign underneath but somehow you need to be seen. You know, Burns sounds it so brilliantly, “If you have the best musicians in the world playing the best piece ever in the most beautiful theatre. If there’s no audience it’s a crap show”.

Brent: I like that! That’s awesome! Okay, so let’s jump back to your journey. You were telling me that you shouldn’t fake it. You need to be real, you need to give all your heart and soul with your photography. You know, don’t be fake out there and so you started doing that with your photography and obviously people started connecting with that.

Stephan: Yeah! I’ll take one example. Two weeks ago I came back from Tokyo. I was there for three jobs just for a week and I had some time in between. So, what do I do with my time? I can be a tourist and wander the streets which I love, which is awesome. But I also like to meet some local people. How do you get in contact with this? Be it for a paid job or just to meet awesome people. Well. Social media helps you with that. The more reach you have, the more likely you’ll find like-minded people that you can connect with or possible clients. Now, be it for a trip like that that you go on LinkedIn and look for people who are in your industry and in the industry you’d like to sell into or go on Facebook and connect thru friends or friends of friends. You can go to Google Plus or wherever it is it just helps you make connections that you don’t have otherwise and now we have the internet. I mean 20 years ago that was much more difficult. You arrive at the airport in Tokyo and you just look around. Nowadays, we have those tools so why don’t we use them?

Brent: So, How did that help you? Did you actually hook up with a few people through social media and they showed you around? What actually happened?

Stephan: Well, I have one apprentice that works with me. One of my students who lives in Tokyo so I spent two days with him and actually took him on to a job that I had which was a great experience for him as well to see how I do things in real life. But then on the other side, I connected a while back with the chief conductor of Tokyo Symphonia which just happened to have a concert in that week that I was there. So, I then ended up photographing them in the rehearsal which was amazing and photographed their gala performance as well. So, that is something that connection I wouldn’t have had without the prior connection to the chief conductor.

The Best Way to do it is to Stay Motivated

Brent: Awesome! So, I mean, that’s what that can do having a large following on social media. So, Stephan, if you had do it all over again, say you’re starting from scratch right now, maybe you have a hundred friends on Facebook or something, how would you do it? How would you get a large online following for your photography work? What’s the best way to do that do you think?

Stephan: The best way to do it is to forget about it. Because I think if you want to make money with something and you’re entirely focused on the dollars, then you disregard the reason why you started the whole thing. You started because you have a passion for something and you start because you love something. So, that should be the motivation behind it. If the motivation is the dollar sign, you’re most probably going to fail and if the motivation is to have a large following, you’re most probably going to be frustrated. I believe that you have to do what you love and you just do this every single day. People will discover you because they see that it’s real, that it’s you and you do it because you love doing it rather than to impress other people. Because it’s a sword with two sides. I mean, one cuts you and one wins for you. The more people follow you, the more trolls you attract, the more people disregard with what you do so, you have to come to the point where you say “you know what? It’s not about the likes. It’s not about the numbers. It’s about what I do and what I love” and I believe that is attractive. That is something that people see and you know, it’s so easy these days especially online, it’s so easy to be a fake persona. It’s so easy to pretend that everything is perfect and the world is a big gummy bear and everybody can bite into it. But reality looks a little bit different, you know? You have your ups and downs. You have your moments where you’re looking at the mirror and go “man, I suck” and then you have other days where you’re just dancing around and smiling all day. So, and I think if you can portray this online and create more of a personal. I don’t want to say personal diary or a blog but you know what I mean. If you make it about what you love then other people can identify with that and that is much, much more interesting for others to follow than if you pretend to be the business because there’s tons of people out there who pretends to be the business and when you look a little bit behind, you see that there is no substance.

Brent: Yeah totally and so again back to being authentic in your strategy there. But do you have an online strategy? Is there like or do you post 3 times a week, is it one image, is it three images at a time? Do you write a little article when you post to be more authentic? Coz I’ve noticed when I’ve been reading a few of your post, Stephan, you might put a really great image up there but you do write a paragraph or two. Sometimes it’s even more which I find really interesting because there’s kind of a story behind the image. Now, have you got some kind of a strategy for that or you just do it when you feel like it?

Stephan: I do it as time allows for it to be very honest. Sometimes, I have very little to say or I feel like I have very little to say and then other times I have no idea what I’ve been asked or get an email where interesting questions comes up. Sometimes, I just answer them directly and sometimes I think “well, that would actually make a good post”. So, it really changes. If I shoot a lot and I have a backlog of images to process, then sometimes I don’t post for a couple of days because I just have to makes sure the mortgage is paid and the kids have food on the table. So, there are priorities. Then there are other times when I do have a huge amount of images that I can share and I share daily and I guess the amount of information I give with the image depends on the story I have to tell. I don’t want to bluff people to the point where they go “oh my god look at that again”. I want to make it interesting so if I find something interesting for myself, I will share it. If I think that it’s just bland and warm wind, I will leave it with one or two sentences. Sometimes I just write an entire article about something that touches me or I find important and then in other times I just write “look at those beautiful eyes, I can’t look away. Hope you like it”.

What is the Best Social Media Platform?

Brent: Where should people share things in social, which channel? Facebook, Google Plus, you know, Instagram, what do you recommend? What’s getting you the most followers in equal return on your invested time when you’re posting things?

Stephan: That’s interesting because followers are not equal return. Because I get more return on Facebook even though I have a farest smaller following than on Google Plus. On Google Plus we talk millions, on Facebook we talk thousands, on Instagram we talk tens of thousands and the same on Twitter. So the numbers are vastly different however, the outcome is also vastly different. I find that you have to find the right platform for you and it might be very different from person to person. For me, personally I know that I have to be in various places at the same time. So, Google Plus for me. Most of the people that I’m connected with on Google Plus are people who are interested in photography more from the creative side. As in other photographers, people who like to take photos themselves not so much clients, not so much families, not so much young models. One portfolio shots and I think they all hang around on Instagram and they’re on Facebook. So for me, I think the strategy is to be at all the different places at the same time. I do change my post sometimes slightly, sometimes I just post exactly the same on the different platform because I do reach different people. So for me, Google Plus is to connect with peers if you want to sum it up, Facebook is to connect with a lot of private people, Instagram is to connect with the younger crowd with the makeup artist, the stylist, fashion designers, the hip people. Not that I’m one of them but I’ll pretend and Twitter kind of for me is more or less to just shout out that I’ve posted something somewhere else. So if I post something on Facebook, I might take the headlines of my post and put it on Twitter and say “hey, wonder what Trey has been doing naked in Miami?” and then the link and then some of his following follows to me. That’s another tip that I think is very important. Try to connect with people who have influence. Because if just shout out into the forest nobody is going to hear me. But if I shout out in someone else who usually is heard shout out, well they amplify my message. So connecting with people who might have a bigger reach is a very effective way to be heard yourself. Now, you have to be very careful with that because I get a lot of email from people saying “hey, you’re at a certain point in your business with your reach or with your clients, can you help me?” well, if I can and it’s not against my personal beliefs or whatever, I might try but you know, there’s so many people who want other people to do the work for them and that’s not how it works. In Switzerland we say “one hand washes the other”. “You do something for me, I do something for you”. That maybe works in trade business but in creative business it’s about show me what you believe in, show me that you really want it, show me that you’ll do whatever you can and once I get that feeling, I’m more than happy to push you up that hill but if you expect me to push you up then I’m not interested.

Coaching and Community

Brent: That’s more like being a good coach, really! And I guess that’s where it comes from because you’re coaching other photographers to get the most out of themselves and you’re not doing the work for them. You maybe show them a few things, ask them some leading questions like “how are you going to do that?” “How are you going to solve that problem?” not giving them the answers right away. I think that obviously shows that you are a very good coach.

Stephan: Well, I’m not sure if I’m a very good coach but I just noticed myself that there are certain moments where I feel stuck and I just don’t quite know where to find the answer and I need somebody to point me to the right direction. I do not want them to cook the dinner for me but I want them to show me the direction of where I can find the answer because if I find the answer myself, I always know it and I will never forget it. If someone just cooks it for me, next time I need them to cook it for me again and I like the approach of this French Chef who says “well, the source is 99 percent perfect, let’s put it down and try to do it again” and that to me is learning photography. You do it, you do it, you do it, you do it and then you start from point one again and you do it again because that at the end of the day produces experience in different scenarios and that’s how you learn but as I said there are moments where you just need to know first of all, where do I stand? Not in terms of pure technicalities, you know? Aperture and shutter speed we can teach to a monkey. I mean, that’s just math. It’s that simple. The big question is you know, personality exposure, creativity, well, yeah, take the exposure part out but this is difficult and sometimes we need someone from the outside who doesn’t love us so much. If we ask our family, of course they think we’re awesome! Sometimes we need someone from the outside who’s a little bit more objective, a little bit more honest and help find where we actually want to go. Where we are the most happy is where we are also the most capable and then we do the next steps ourselves until we hit the next wall and then we need to know what does someone else think is the best way to go. Do I go left or right? And then we walk in ourselves.

Brent: That’s similar to the community that I’m involved in. The Share Inspire Create lounge. We’ve got photographer and me and Johny in there every day helping them out like showing the right way and similar to what you do. Basically coaching people and directing them and helping them find their own journey their own way instead of giving them everything and not learn anything. That’s a great point. So, what can you suggest we do, Stephan? I know, you kind of said you post when you got the time. So, for someone like me who’s doing a lot of photography and I’ve got a lot of images archived, what would be good to do? One image a day with a little story or one every two days? What could you suggest that we do? I’m trying to find an action step. Something that I can. If someone is listening to this who’s got a photography business or they’ve got a lot of images and they want to start sharing in an effective way, what would you say we should do?

Stephan: One a day. So, my golden rule if you want to have a step by step plan. My golden rule is that no post ever goes out without an image. Be it on Facebook, on Twitter, on Google plus, I never ever post only words. Reason being is that there’s only so many people who speak English. There’s a vast amount of people out there who love and enjoy photography and beautiful pictures and who may not speak the language I’m writing in. They can be anywhere on the planet so, why exclude them? So, I post always with an image. Ideally, I post one a day if I can. I will not post more than two pictures a day because I don’t want to become annoying. If someone goes to Facebook and they look it up and they say “Oh there it is again” they will dislike or unlike or unfollow me. If I did this once a day that’s fine. Twitter you can go a little bit more crazy because it’s a much faster phase kind of environment but on Google Plus, Facebook I will generally keep it to one a day. On Instagram, depending on where you are. If you’re in a middle of a photo shoot and you share some behind the scenes and say “look at the sunset how beautiful it is”, “Oh look (10 minutes later) now color has really come out” and post this right away, you can do that. But be aware that how you personally react if you open up your stream and you see image after image after image from the same person, at some point you get annoyed. First you’re excited and then you become annoyed. So, that’s not what you want. And then the third point is quality. If you post just for the sake of posting, your quality will drop. Only post things that you think are worth looking at. Not from a self promotion’s point of view but from the viewer’s point of view. If they see that there’s quality work coming everyday from this certain person, well, that’s more like the person I look up on the website, that’s most likely the person I might contact for a job. If there’s good image and then there’s just lots of mediocre stuff and then there’s a good image again then there’s a lot of mediocre stuff. Well, I don’t know what that person is capable of producing. If I hire that person, what do I get? Do I get the mediocre in between or do I get the exquisite that once in awhile shows up? Be very, very careful about the quality that you share because they say you’re only as good as your last image that you posted.

Brent: Okay, what will you say to people that compare themselves to someone like you they look at their images and then they look at your images and then they go “gees, my images are nowhere near as great as Stephan’s I’m not going to post anything”. What would you say to people like that?

Stephan: I don’t put myself into that category. I love my images and I love what I do but I don’t think I’m that brilliant. Look, if you want to be like John McNelly, you’re in trouble because John McNelly is John McNelly. So, if someone wants John McNelly, they will hire him. If you compare yourself, you will always lose. I think every sports person know that they have to have their own game plan going into a match and try to beat their opponent with their own game plan. If you just try to react, you’re always a little bit too late. Do you want to follow trend or do you want to set trend? I much rather be on the setting trend than the following trend if possible. So, I don’t really believe in comparison or competition.

Dealing with Negativity

Brent: Agreed and that’s a great point. I think, if you like your image, I would say… especially if you think it’s going to be worthwhile to anyone who’s following or connecting with you. What would you say to people who say “I don’t want to get involved in social media because there are too many trolls out there”.

Stephan: Then you might as well dig a hole and hide. Because, let’s face it! Photography is about creating something that we can share with others. Now, if you own a gallery and sold your own work and you can hang your own pictures there good for you! I would say 99.99999 percent of people do not have that kind of outlet so, why do you take pictures? Just to kill the afternoon or do you want to create something that you can share with others. I want to share the beauty. When I come home from a job and I switch on the radio or the TV, all I see is bad news. Landslides in Peru and this, that and the other and for me then to share something that makes people smile and people look at it and say “wow that’s beautiful”, that’s something. And you know, people sometimes put the whole beauty industry or the whole fashion industry down and those kinds of images. They’re like “yeah it’s all so artificial”. Yeah, but those put smiles on people’s faces. It shows another side of the world because the world is awesome. Yes, there are some things that are not cool but hey, there are also a lot of really awesome things. And I want to share these so that’s my personal decision.

Brent: Yeah, totally and I agree, Stephan. I’ve a saying once and it goes “once you get your first troll, that means you’re successful online”. That means that people are actually noticing you enough to where they say all sorts of bad things about you. Also, I agree that there are a lot of great things out there in the world and there are some bad things too but it depends on what you focus on. If you focus on all the bad stuff and you watch the news all the time then maybe that’s why you’re depressed. If you focus on the good things and you have a look at Stephan’s beautiful images or the other beautiful things out there and you focus on that you’ll be happy and that’s something that we can do. We can actually create an emotional connection with the people out there by actually deciding on what we write or what we put out there online.

Stephan: You sell me so well. Are you working as an agent or something? You do.

Brent: Yes! Okay.

Stephan: You make me sound so much better than I really am and I love it! I’ll send you the $20 later but, man! You’ve earned it!

Brent: Cheque is on the mail right?

Stephan: You’ve earned it, Man! No, but on the side you know, we photographers and I guess it’s a common thing in the arts be it a painter, sculpture or be it a photographer, we are our own critics and sometimes it’s very hard for us to judge how good or bad we really are. You see some people posting some images and they think they are the business and you look at it and you go “Man, you’ve got a long way to go” but then there’s other people out there who thinks that their work stinks but their work is actually extraordinary. So, it is of course I find always very difficult to judge. I look at my photos very differently than other people might and I find flaws where other people might see beauty. That’s fine and I think that just might create the next good post on social media and saying “Hey, I created this and I really love it. Tell me what you honestly think” and yes, you will invite a few trolls as you mentioned but hey, that’s why they invented the “delete” button.

Brent: Or the block button.

Stephan: You can block them. Look, I read those comments. Especially the negative ones, I read them then I think about it then I disregard. I do not answer, I do not get back to them. Zacharias once said to me that some people are just looking for a fight and a few of them deserve one.

Create for your Own Smile

Brent: And I think they are. People are obviously saying negative things online and they want a response and if you give them response you’re giving them what they want. I would say just ignore them too. Well, Stephan, you’ve been amazing. You’ve given us so much information. Let me just run through quickly what we’ve done. So, we’ve kind of ran through why it’s a great idea to have a large amount of follow online and to have that reach. You gave us an example on your travel to Tokyo and how you actually connect with people because of your online following. You said to be authentic and to be real when you post images, give them your heart and soul. I’ve said to post positive, happy, encouraging things. We’ve spoken about trolls, we’ve spoken about how often we should post online which metrics to post to and we spoke about all sorts of things which is great. We’ve also spoken about being a coach and when you teach other photographers you know, when you coach them along in their photography journey. Is there anything else you wanted to mention, Stephan before we sign off?

Stephan: The only thing I think we didn’t mention which I find is super important is looking to the mirror once and awhile and ask yourself what makes you happy? Because you know, commercial success in photography and in the arts is one thing. That puts food on the table, it pays for a beer, it pays for the mortgage that’s super important, yes. But, we should still pursue our personal project. We should do the things that are near and dear to our heat. The things that may not be received by the world, the things that may not create a big following but make a heart sing, it matters. It may lead to something or it may just make our hearts happy but that’s good because if you feel like getting up at 5:00 in the morning and go for a half an hour run and you just feel good for the rest of the day, nobody has seen you, you didn’t get many likes for it but it makes your day. So, why don’t people in the arts just constantly do that to themselves? Create for your own smile. If that then in the long run produces something important and you can now make it a business, cool! If not, cool but work on your personal projects. Find what makes your heart sing and disregard what other people think.

Brent: And I’d like to add to that, Stephan. To do your personal project if you can be involved in something that helps people. When you give back like help portrait or recently I went to Vanuatu and I helped out for a week and it’s not even photography related. You know, building houses for people. Just a way of giving back I mean you know, I don’t do that for self promotion I just do that because it’s the right thing to do, I think that’s where people should get involved in and actually someone in my community, his photography is all about giving back. He just shoots for free for non-profit organizations to help them out and I think that’s a great way to feel good about what you’re creating.

Stephan: Yeah, I think it’s awesome. I mean, you have to find a good middle ground because let’s be brutally honest here. If I just do everything for the greater good, my kids will look at me and be very, very hungry. So, it’s all good and well to just say “Okay, let’s go and save the world” which I’m all for it don’t get me wrong but at the same time we also have to make sure that we don’t starve in the process. As we said with the concert hall with no audience, it’s a little bit the same with photography you know, if nobody looks at your pictures then they will just fill up hard drives which is making very little sense. You have to make someone happy with it. Be it yourself to a certain point but of course the people that you photographed or the landscapes that you shoot you want to show people. You want to give them an idea of how beautiful it is to go to a certain spot and I think the big mistake in all of this is that people think the it’s all better when you become a professional and that is I think where a lot of people go wrong. I think you’ve got the single best position when you have a good job somewhere with a regular income and you decide to take pictures on the side because now you can photograph whenever and whatever you want and you can charge or you can not charge for it. You can give things away for free if you want, you can invest amount with doing good and it has nothing to do with quality. You can be an amazingly talented photographer and still call yourself an amateur with all the freedom that comes with it. So maybe sometimes people are just too focused on this silly word “professional” which has nothing to do with quality but only means that you pay your mortgage with it.

The Real Motivation – You!

Brent: Totally! And that’s something that’s very close to my heart actually. To be able to have a personal project that something is just for you and it’s not for the money. You’re not doing it to make money, you’re actually doing it to please you. It’s for you, you’re shooting it for you. That’s great! Well, Thank you so much Stephan for being on the show. You’ve been amazing, you’ve given me all sorts of information and for the listeners also, some really good stuff to focus on. What would you say would be the first action step to do?

Stephan: Have a conversation with yourself in the mirror.

Brent: I like that one! Yeah, you might be surprised what comes back to you.

Stephan: Well, you know the mirror is a good thing because if you smile to it, most likely it will smile back. Long story short, as a creative in any kind of shape or form be it a musician or a painter or a photographer, you will have your ups and downs and that conversation with yourself in the mirror will be very different from day to day. Some days you will get a smile back and some days you will just look at the mirror and say “What the heck am I doing here?” “I’m just not as good” or “I’m not as successful” or “I’ve been doing this for so long and I feel like nothing is happening”, you now, go and Google this video that Zacharias has done awhile back or maybe you can put the link into the show note. You know, the big guns and the small guns we all have that feeling once in awhile that nothing is going and then other days are just brilliant and blue sky and awesome. This is part of being a creative because that means that we are passionate about. That means that it touches us, that means that it’s important to us. Well, feeling bad is actually a good sign. It means that we live it.

Brent: Yeah! And sometimes feeling bad means that you need to change too.

Stephan: Yes, snap yourself out of it.

Brent: Yeah! Well, thank you so much, Stephan! If people want to find out more about you what’s the best place?

Stephan: Well, the easiest is to go to SBP as in Stephan Bollinger Photography. www.SBP.social. Nothing more required and there you’ll find the links to Google Plus, Facebook, my website of course and that’s also something that we didn’t mention, sorry. To throw that in, people should have a website. It’s cool to have social media or it is super important to be in social media but you also need your home somewhere and I think that’s something that is super important for other people if you want them to take you seriously. They ask you for your website address and you just give them your Instagram stream, that is not taken too seriously especially not when you deal with companies. So, get your website in order and you’ll find my website and all the other links on sbp.social.

Brent: Awesome! Well, thank you, Stephan! Thank you so much for being on the show and I’m sure I’ll catch up with you soon to have a beer and next time I’m up in the Gulf Course or you down my way in my beautiful area. Awesome and thank you very much!

Stephan: I look forward to it! Thank you!

Brent: Okay, thanks! Bye!

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