Shelton Muller. Creative Photo Workshops. Melbourne, VIC Australia. DIMAcast June you and Glynn Lavender started Creative Photo

Transcription

1 Shelton Muller Creative Photo Workshops Melbourne, VIC Australia DIMAcast June 2011 Two and a half years ago, you and Glynn Lavender started Creative Photo Workshops is that right Shelton Muller. Shelton Muller: It would be about that, yes. And today you re traveling all over the world doing workshops. Shelton Muller: Uh-hum. Home base is Melbourne, Australia. Shelton Muller: Yep. 1

2 And we are talking now in Allentown, Pennsylvania at Dan s Camera City. Shelton Muller: Isn t it cool? Where by the way you re on your honeymoon? Shelton Muller: Yes, that s correct. We married on Sunday and today is what Wednesday, so yes, we re definitely on our honeymoon. Congratulations to you both. Shelton Muller: Thank you. May one ask why you are doing photo shoots on Dan s Camera Cityprinted a special 12 pagecourse catalog for the Creative Photo Workshops. We encourage you to studyevery artfully crafted page. Many great lessons to learn in these pages. your honeymoon? Shelton Muller: I think we would be doing photo shoots on our honeymoon anyway, there was a reason that we wanted to get married on that particular date and also it fell the day before we were supposed to come to America. I said to my 2

3 love, look I have some photo workshops to run in America, do you mind coming with me and we ll run them together and she just jumped up and down and smiled and clenched her little fists and did a little dance and said are you kidding, I d love too. I don t think it s a honeymoon we ll ever forget, because we re just having such a great time, we love our work and it s not going to be all about the work, but they ll be so many other rewards attached to this honeymoon, that to be quite frank with you, other couples just don t get, because they re just holding hands on a beach somewhere, you know we re hanging out with fellow photographers, hanging out with you, hanging out with the gang here at Dan s Camera, that s pretty cool. How did Creative Photo Workshops get started? Shelton Muller: Glynn (Lavender) was working for a 3

4 retailer in Melbourne, one of the major players there and I think it was time for him to... well change what he was doing. We met each other as young teenager s in another photo retail outlet, since then we ve just become a couple of old guys I was running workshops under the banner of, Shelton Muller Photographer through that photo retailer and Glynn was organizing them. So when he left basically the idea was well why don t we just continue this and work together? I thought that, working with him would be a lot of fun, but I must admit I wasn t absolutely sure that we could pull it off. We had a bird in the hand already. And Glynn s argument to me was well do you want to run the same workshops out of Melbourne every month for, years on end or do you want to travel the world with me mate? I thought about that for about 30 seconds and ed him back and said, Nah. Let s do it! So, Let s do it! became, the starting 4

5 point for our forming our little business. It was a moment of heart and Glynn and I pretty much live in our hearts and we follow our passions and this particular business has been the consummation of those passions and ideas. So how did it go from passion from two old mates, to getting money through the door? Shelton Muller: Good question, because that s got to be the reality. Glynn s very smart, where our talents combined, he s very good photographer, but he s also very good at marketing and understanding the photography industry. We immediately built a website and it was very rudimentary, but it was us and we are up and we are online. We also built a Facebook fan page. It was under the Creative Photo Workshops banner, so it wasn t Glynn Lavender or Shelton Muller s Facebook 5

6 page, we created what s called I think is a fan page and we immediately began to engage with other photographers, so that we started a little bit of buzz on the site. Glynn is very adamant about posting interesting things on our Facebook page every day, so he will troll the web, find an interesting article an interesting You Tube video, something like that, that brings people back. So that is very, very clever so it s not all about us, it s all about photography, and that way people visit the site because it s not some, people praising themselves and talking about themselves or pontificating about themselves, it s actually about photography. And then every time we ran a workshop, we would always put up the images that we had photographed and encourage our customers to join that page and put their photographs up. When they did so, other people who were their friends, also fellow photographers, would say hey great photographs, didn t know you 6

7 could shoot like that, where did you learn? So we ran very small workshops to begin with, because it was a bit of word of mouth and so those we may have only had three or four paying customers at some of our initial workshops, but we would fill it out with friends. That made the experience, for everybody more community based, it was also good for our reputation, in that we filled a workshop, it was up and running and news very quickly spread about the nature of our workshops. Why did Dan s have to bring you from Melbourne, Australia to do an expedition for them in Allentown, Pennsylvania? Shelton Muller: Mike at Dan s and I would disagree on the word need. I think it also says to the customer look, we were prepared to fly these fellows over for you, because we think they have 7

8 something different and special to offer, it s a message to their customers that says we re not just sitting here and running the odd little thing ourselves. We really are interested in providing you, not only the education, but the unique experience that this education will also provide, to me is just smart, because it appeals to the very heart and passion of their customer. That s just good business. From Mike s perspective, there is a higher level of curiosity, why would they bring these two guys from Australia? Maybe the customers are asking the same question. Maybe I should find out, that level of interest and curiosity is also good for business, we know that in advertising, curiosity is one of the key sales factors to actually getting people through the door. Don t necessarily, give them something they understand or predict, build some curiosity. Maybe the customers were 8

9 asking the same question that you were Bill, why would they bring these guys? When they found out, they booked. Well last year you were at Dan s for how many days? Shelton Muller: Only about three or four days I think. And how many days you here this year? Shelton Muller: About seven, yeah, seven events we re running over six days I think, yeah. Yeah so it s pretty cool and it shows that Mike was right in that particular decision, to provide these events by these crazy people from Australia, and they ve all booked out pretty much, there s a couple of places left here and there, but the bookings have been, from what I m lead to believe, quite successful. Is the reverse true? Could an American photographer, teacher, instructor, 9

10 tour leader go to Australia and get the kind of reception you ve gotten up here? Shelton Muller: Yes, without a doubt, provided he wasn t all about himself, that is, a key factor to making the customer feel validated and honored in that process. we have a lot of fun with our customers, most of the time we end up teasing them, picking on their pictures, telling them all sorts of straight facts about how rotten their photographs are and what, they love us. They love the fact that we are straight up, that our culture is a little bit pointed in irreverence sometimes. I have heard so many testimonials from people who ve attended other workshops by famous photographers that I could name and everyone would go really? And all they do is follow him around or follow her around and while they take photographs and watch the process. They don t get involved. They aren t validated. They aren t really educated. They re 10

11 just given an exercise in self glorification and that is not going to work. How would you define the personality of Creative Photo Workshops? Shelton Muller: Fun. That s a simple word, but it s powerful in this context because why do people take up photography? Fun. We see so many advertisements for workshops in this country and in our own, workshops and photographic experiences that are worded along the lines of come along for two days of intense photographic training, now I don t know about you Bill, but my life s pretty intense enough as it is. There s a lot to do in life and it s pretty intense. Why would I therefore pay for another intense experience for something that I actually embarked upon for fun? Photography should be fun. And when Glynn and I rock up, we 11

12 want to have fun. We love our work. We don t want it to be intense. It is sometimes, but essentially we just want to have fun. The people who come along, come along to have fun, because they hear that that s the nature of the workshops, and then they also hear that great photographs can be taken, and the process behind them can be learned. So even though it s a simple word, I would say it s at the very heart of what we do. Anybody that listens to you for awhile, hears this word passion. Shelton Muller: It s at the heart of what we do, in the photographic industry and essentially in this particular industry and so many others it s at the heart of good business. Humans, especially creative humans, are not driven by their brains, so much as they are by their hearts. And a photographic 12

13 retailer needs to understand that. To compete at a cerebral level, in the photographic industry, to me doesn t make any sense. If you re trying to compete by drawing attention to the back pocket, you re not going to make it. You re not going to make any money and you re certainly not going to build a community of customers. But if you understand why a photographer walks into your store, it s got to be more than I wonder if I m going to get a $10 better deal here than I did in the shop down the road. I would say that a lot of people walk through the door because photography is the thing that they do and they want to find some way of building upon it, making it happen, expanding upon what they already have and they re hoping that this local representative of their passion, will give them something to build upon that. I honestly believe that that s at the heart of why so many people will go into a photo retail 13

14 outlet and not shop online. Why walk in? Because it s got to be about the experience. I mean here, at Dan s, you walk in and they re photographs all over the wall and a lot of those photographs are taken by the customers. Now that s incredible validation. A very large part of successful photographic retail has to be about validating that customer s passion. A camera to me is not a bit of black plastic with a lens on the front. It is a ticket to an adventure, a ticket to a life, a ticket to an experience. Now what kind of stupid cinema sells a ticket and then doesn t give you the movie to watch? If I buy a camera, I don t give a damn what kind of camera it is if I m passionate about photography, it is a ticket to the things I want to do, the images I want to create, the experience that I want in my life. Where a photo retailer like Dan s is smart, as they say right, I ll give you the ticket, but you re going to keep coming back for the the movie, the sequel, part three, part four and then there s another movie the same actor was in and we re going to provide you with the movies, the experience, the adventure, that the camera, as a ticket, represents. Where a person is smart is he says well, my price is this, but look what look at the community I 14

15 build, look at the experience that we provide, look at the entire arena into which you desire to step, that s right here. Why wouldn t I go to that photo retailer? And you know what I will walk out of there with a camera even if it is more expensive, I really don t care, I really love being part of all of this that seems to be either openly or subliminally represented right here on this premises. Photographers love the idea of being that person who experiences, the life and the images that come from that life. They may not know how to do it. When I was a teenager with a camera, I didn t know how it was going to eventuate, but if I could be part of something that represented the hope of that, then I would certainly want to become part of it. It may sound complex, but the heart of a photographer is complex, it has so many desires and wants, so many needs that a camera in a box by itself will not fill. A smart photo retailer understands that, and he will approach his customer through that passionate heart and work his way down to the back pocket, because that s just good business. Now it s not unethical to do that, because people respond from their 15

16 hearts and willingly from their back pockets as a result. You re here at Dan s six days doing seven events what are the different things you re doing? Shelton Muller: We re teaching natural light portraiture That s an outside thing? Shelton Muller: Yes an outside thing. Every one of our day long workshops begins with a morning seminar, a two hourish presentation which sometimes extends longer than that, and that is sort of a PowerPoint kind of presentation where the images and the techniques behind those images are expanded upon. Then we break for lunch and we head out to a location where all the things we learned in the morning are practiced and done by the customer. Our motto is the company is learning by doing, you can t tell someone how to do it; they ve got to actually be shown and then do it themselves. Once that s done, the synaptic pathway is created, they go home and they can do it for themselves. So that s at the core of of, the nature of our workshops. We re also doing a film noire event, And it s an excellent experience 16

17 because it s the reverse of what a lot of photographers think is necessary.it s also a hell of a lot of fun because the models are dressed in period costume and so as I was saying a minute ago, you re providing an experience, you re providing something that they just come along and have a lot of fun doing. And that s great, that s just, Why not create something for them to photograph? So for the photo retailer to provide an experience is just again really good business, because they ve sold the ticket, here s the tour and that kind of thing just works very, very well as a lot of fun. You ruined a good landscape photographer. Shelton Muller: His name is Keith Anderson, hello Keith if you re listening and I m sorry to be talking about you publicly. Keith has been a long time friend of mine, and I invited him along as a friend to our workshops and Whenever we want out shooting together, and he d always be out with the 4x5 and the plate, and the sheet film and the hand-held meter trying to do these landscapes and whatnot and he was damn good at landscapes, there s no doubt 17

18 about it. But I invited him along for people photography workshop and he said all alright I ll come along, but by the afternoon, he basically turned to me and told me that he hated me because where as he never thought he would like people photography, he was really enjoying it. And that was very rewarding, because what s happening now is that Keith is able to supplement his income with wedding photography, portrait photography and is looking to move into that gently, over the next few years as his job, so his passion is now his job. And I take great pride in saying that I was a part of that process. And I take great pride in saying he was also the photographer who did our recent wedding photographs. We loved the photographs that he did, he even made me look good, he did that by selective depth of field, I mean I was out of focus, right, but he made me look good, even out of focus and my girl, well she looks good in a potato sack, so that wasn t too much work for him. But his photographs, his images were absolutely beautiful. Can we put that photo in the transcript? Shelton Muller: Yes. Okay, so it s available at Shelton, are you still shooting pictures? 18

19 Shelton Muller: Absolutely, absolutely, I work for some large companies in Australia, commercially. The commercial aspect and the wedding photography aspect of my business is for two reasons, it supplements my income, and it keeps me credible, I can turn up at a workshop and say well recently I did this, this or this and people know that they re talking to someone whose actually working as a photographer. But I love what I m doing. The commercial aspect of commercial side of my business keeps me credible For instance during our presentations, we are able to show photographs from different parts of the world that we visited, I can say this photograph was taken at a recent workshop that we did in Pennsylvania. The person sitting in the chair will say oh wow, they re in Pennsylvania, immediately that adds a level of credibility, How do you work with retailers when you go in to put on a seminar that s sponsored by a retailer? Shelton Muller: First of all, I would want to know why the retailer wanted us to come along. In terms of what their needs are for their customers, in terms of perhaps products that they are looking to move, when you run a workshop you re talking about techniques and 19

20 well along with techniques come products. It s just a simple fact, and so I wanted to know what their aims were so that we could act as their servant and in some way a bridge between them and the customer. For instance, we came to Dan s; we see that they have an extensive range of ProMaster products. One of them being the five in one reflector. So we used the ProMaster five in one reflector today at our workshops. Now when the reflector did its thing, everybody said, oh look at that, what is that? We answered it s the ProMaster five in one, they ve got them at Dan s, so how many ProMaster five in one s are they going to sell, well a few more than they otherwise would have, For our studio workshop, here at Dan s, we re going to use the ProMaster studio lighting kit, why?for two reasons, Dan sells them and the customer sees that they re accessible and they do the job.it s a win/win for everybody. You were working at a magazine, Glynn was working at a camera store, boom all of a sudden you guys are in the workshop business. I m sitting here saying I m going to do what you re doing. What advice would give me? 20

21 Shelton Muller: Make sure that you can do it, and make it not about yourself, those two things would be a huge boost to the possibility of you being successful. First of all you need to know how to do it and you can t be too rigid about the rules, you have to be very flexible and make sure that you teach principles and not, points or rules. And that allows the customer to expand upon their own passions in their own way. But one of the problems, I think, in the digital world, the digital photography world, is that a lot of the core principles of photography have been forgotten. But they still apply every bit as much and they are revelations to a lot of customers. That is a sad thing. But it is true. Secondly don t make it about you. You re there to provide validation for the customer. You re there to let them know that it is achievable, that all the things that they hope and dream, in terms of the creation of images and the life that comes with them, are achievable for them. They already know that it s achievable for you; otherwise they wouldn t come to 21

22 your workshop. Right, you ve already done it, hence the credibility. Now they want to know is it possible for me and if you make the day all about you, you won t achieve that unique level of business that I think we have achieved. Glynn and I turn up as two self deprecating, high school drop outs but boy can we shoot and we can teach and we can provide a great, fun experience. So in the end, nobody questions us, they just say can you come back and that s what s happened here and in other places in this country and Australia, particularly and we re getting invitations from photo retailers in other parts of the world, because of that, we don t make it about us. It s a lot about us in terms of what we provide in an experience, but it s not about us and who we are and what we ve done. Shelton Muller, thank you for sharing your honeymoon with us. Shelton Muller: My pleasure, thank you. End of Interview We would appreciate hearing your ideas, suggestions or comments... Brian Mundy Photomation McCurry Associates Anaheim, California Princeton, New Jersey bmundy@dimacast.com wmccurry@mccurryassoc.com (877) McCurry (877)