not everything is going to work out
according to plan we make these plans in our life and we we want it to go
a certain way and it you very well may get to the end goal but it's
not going to be how you pictured it how is it going ladies and gentlemen this is
Sean Barnes I want to welcome you to the way of the wolf Our Guest today is a gentleman named
LaDavid Taylor I have watched his progression as a photographer and videographer over the past
few years as we have been focusing on increasi
ng the production quality of the podcast over the
years I've kind of picked his brain asked for some perspective some guidance I recently
purchased some more cameras so we are going to dive into these cameras that we purchased and
I thought I would bring him on the show to talk through these cameras share his perspective share
his story and really just kind of chop it up and hopefully educate some of you guys on cameras to
use whenever you are creating your own content L David welcome to th
e way of the wolf I appreciate
it thanks for having me on um I'm excited to be here I'm just like hey whatever you want me to
talk about whatever you want me to say I'm down for it so I'm just excited to be here especially
when I get to talk cameras you know that's right up my alley so I eat sleep and breathe this
yep okay so here's what I want to do I want to share my perspective of your journey and I
want you to correct me along the way and tell me is my head right or kind of share some s
ome
things that you've learned along the way Fair yeah okay we first met oh what was it maybe four
years ago at TF supplements or so so Chris has been on the show before I love that guy he's just
fantastic and you were selling supplements there and we might have run into each other at the gym
occasionally yeah started just kind of having some conversations and then one day I started seeing
some content come across my feed from you that was really more focused on the photography side
of thi
ngs and I thought oh okay all right well that's that's pretty cool and I thought okay well
this is a side gig thing that he's working on and and that's pretty cool and as time went on you
started getting better and and I thought okay all right so he's starting to take this pretty
seriously and then at one point I think I had a conversation with you at the store and said man
your stuff's looking pretty good you're like yeah I really like it it's something I'm passionate
about excited and the
n I started seeing some video content come across and it just kept getting
better and better and I thought oh man this dude he's he's doing some legit stuff and now you do
it full-time yeah right how long have you been doing it full-time um it's still hard to believe
coming up almost on a full year full time so I think I'm like around like that 10 11 month Mark
so I just kind of rounded up so it's been my first four year being full-time I eat sleep breath
photography videography that's all
I do and how has that been it's been amazing so the the
journey has been great uh obviously everything as far as entrepreneurship you know ups and downs
to it I've learned a lot in my first year and I've been blessed to work with a lot of great people
entrepreneurs businesses uh companies and um even influencers I never thought that I would even meet
I've been able to work for them just in that short period of time so I'm just humbled to even be in
this position was it scary stepping off in
to it yeah I would say it was more so comfortable when I
was just doing it recreationally at the gym doing my fitness content you know the stuff that you
were seeing and then when I decided to take that plunge and leave my job which I was uh working as
a stretch therapist um for stretch Lab Studios and that was hard CU that was that was it you know
obviously I calculated it I planned it but it was either go all in or it's it's either all in
or nothing you know at that point how long were yo
u doing it recreationally before you had the
feeling in your gut that you want to go do this full-time and then once you had that moment how
long did it take for you to actually jump off um I would say so my recreational period can kind of
go back kind of far um probably about five or six years a lot of people don't know I have a YouTube
channel I started out as a vlogger daily vlogger so I made Vlogs talking about Fitness lifestyle
my life I just genuinely enjoy sharing my life I used to t
ake pictures when I was younger so
I did the YouTube thing I did the Instagram thing you know recorded my workouts so YouTube I
did for probably about four four to five years I haven't done anything in the last year or so on
my channel um and then I did Instagram for about like another year making nothing but Fitness
content really pouring all of my effort into that cuz I was a personal trainer so I really was
trying to highlight myself as an online coach but um when I was working I I was i
n the military
for a while and what got me to get out is cuz I wanted to pursue what I wanted to do to make
me happy to enjoy my life while I have it and I started to get that feeling again when I
was working at stretch lab um great company I met great people just certain things where I
felt like undervalued and I was like I want to do what I want to do and I was doing photography
recreationally and just kind of on the side and I was like you know what I'm meeting people who
are actually m
aking a living doing this I didn't know this was possible they're doing it why can't
it be me so I'm just going to wait for the right opportunity and I'm going to make that leap and I
believe it was right when I decided to make that choice um uh Legend barbell Co so Henry Walker
over at Legend barbell gave me that shot that I needed to say you know what I'm going for it and
then when I got my first like um proposition for like a full-time like contract uh that's when I
knew okay it's possib
le how did you feel in that moment I felt nervous but I felt accomplished um
I felt proud but at the same time I felt like I didn't really deserve it because I was like wow
there's so many people that are better than me um why am I giving being given this shot but I
just you know took it and I took all feedback and constructive criticism and I remember there
was one pivotal moment where I did like my first project with him that I look back on and laugh
and the feedback that I got from the c
reative director at the time was I think it's good but it
can be better right and I didn't take it to heart but I took it very personal as in I'm going to do
everything I can from this day forward to become one of the best people in my industry and in this
area and it wasn't as far as like arrogance it was just that I want to prove to myself that I can be
great and that this person whether or not they're with us or not down the line can say I knew
that you can do it and that's why I took it
I figured that they felt that I could do better
they sewed that seat and I just watered it isn't it interesting how little comments like that can
light a fire inside of us that sometimes we didn't even know existed and and and it starts off with
this kind of reactionary state of oh watch yeah right but then it turns into this this just fire
that just cannot be put out like burning hotter than hot and that is what drives us ultimately
to become the best version of ourselves and I don't thin
k we ever actually achieve it it's a
constant Chase yeah because every time we start to get better at that thing we look across and
see somebody else well hell yeah okay I guess I don't have my stuff together I really need
to start okay well I really like how they did that okay maybe I can incorporate some of it but
it's actually an easy trap to fall into of trying to directly emulate somebody that we respect and
admire MH and I've found in in my career that when I try to directly emulate s
omebody it it doesn't
come across as genuine because it's not me and it's important to be able to identify well I like
this trait and that trait that resonates with me so that's what I'm going to start bringing in to
to my leadership style and and obviously that's kind of something that I'm very passionate about
have you seen something similar with photography videography and then the content creation side
of things absolutely I was just talking to um a good friend of mine um consistent vis
uals and so
that's his his company name and so I kind of been doing this for a while he just got into it and so
we shoot together a lot and we were just talking about that and I was like man it's always going to
be somebody who has a different style or that you look up to and it's okay to it's okay to nitpick
and and to take certain things from people's style and say hey I like that but to try to do it like
them you'll never be able to that's what separates um us all as creators and imposte
r syndrome is
crazy because I mean I think everybody deals with it for sure in the creative space it's so heavy I
follow some of the best creators in this area in this in the in the city of Houston and even Beyond
on social media and a lot of them talk about the same things they're looking at other people's work
and well they're getting this type of response and why am I not and it just never ends and so what I
learned to do is how to develop my personal style where people recognize my work
is that I look at
people stuff I like you know I kind of like that maybe I'll try that and see how that works for me
and then eventually I have a lot of stuff that I picked up on from others and then some stuff
I actually just developed on my own like how I shoot how I film how I edit it's very unique I
can't edit like somebody else I can't shoot like somebody else because it's it's privy to my own
style that I've developed over time I I I have to say it's just watching your progression ov
er the
years it just it keeps getting better and better and now I see stuff I'm like this dude just can't
H can't miss right it just everything he comes out with I missed T of time okay all right so uh
any any big major lessons that you have learned over the last you said 11 months that you've been
doing this fulltime that just stuck with you more so than anything else um be patient with yourself
uh especially in this this space like you have to you have to be in there for the long run a lo
t
of people think you get your first cinema camera or a74 or you know fx3 and then all of a sudden
the money is just going to start rolling in and there's so much like on the aspect of business
that we do not h in on a lot of people shoot really well um but then the business side is what
makes the money it's what makes the lifestyle what gives you that and so patience and then understand
the business aspect of like the industry and how to scale and how to Market yourself CU there's so
many
people with untapped potential that I think are way better than me I have a good friend like
that now he just doesn't understand the business side of things who to talk to where to go um the
things to say you know and that's why I love back so much because I'm I think I'm still a beginner
I learn from a lot of people all the time I learn from you all the time we talk all the time and
uh I'd just like to share that information just because I didn't I have to find it on YouTube
and through G
oogle forms and talking to you know entrepreneurs and successful businessmen like
yourself and other friends that I have so yeah and and you know what's interesting about this
is there's such an Allure of Entrepreneurship these days and everybody thinks well I don't like
my boss I'm going to just go start a company and be a Millionaire right well I'm I'm good at
photography and videography I'm just going to go start a company and then and then I'm going to
make all this money it it doesn't
happen overnight first of all just you could be the most phenomenal
videographer period but to your point if you don't know how to run a business it doesn't matter you
can be great at marketing but if you don't know how to monetize your skill and then actually
make sure that you're you're monitoring and keeping track of your p&l watching your spending
if you start making a bunch of money oh I'm going to start buying this camera and this lens and
this bag this like on and on and on right but
if you're losing money it doesn't work so it is
important that while you focus on honing your craft and becoming the best at what you do you
also have to understand if you go out on your own as an entrepreneur while it is exciting you
have to start understanding a little bit more about marketing a little bit more about invoicing
managing cash flow and and managing customers and contacts and I mean there's a lot of steps that
you have to to learn and I think that many times people whenever
they go out on their own they
don't fully understand the magnitude or the gravity of what they are walking into and they
haven't really prepared themselves financially they might give themselves a Runway of a couple
of months in the end of like in the grand scheme of things if you're starting a business going
on your own and if you have a family to support couple of months probably isn't going to get
you there yeah like you're going to end up in a in a world of hurt in in my opinion so once
you
identify you have this passion and purpose in life start building those skills related to running a
company starting up a company and YouTube Google generative AI these are all your friends of course
but also don't be afraid to lean into mentors and people that are good at business and just asking
for their their perspective and guidance because one thing that I have learned there's not been
one single time ever that I've sought feedback from somebody above me that I respect and admire
and they shot me down right all the hate comes from below yep absolutely okay all right so you
want to talk cameras let's do it okay all right so as we talk about upgrading camera equipment I
have these Panasonic G HG 50s or something like that here's the deal I'm going to be three years
ago whenever I was probably about 6 months into starting the podcast and I was looking for
a camera that could record whenever I have a guest on started doing my research saw the Joe
Rogan podcast uses th
ese cameras and I thought well good enough for Joe Rogan good enough
for me right and uh I don't know if I don't have the settings right or what but they don't
look quite as crisp as his and I'm sure they've probably changed cameras uh since then cuz this
was like I said three years ago yeah so I've been using these they actually work fairly well and
then you and I had some conversations a while back and I ended up picking up I don't know if I
just broke this um I ended up picking up this z
ve 10 and this shoots much clearer and crisper than
these do yeah the problem is this guy overheats at about 30 35 minutes common yeah so uh and
as I've started doing more research there's this is a common issue with these what is this
a smaller frame C what is apsc line uh I think yeah I believe that's a apsc crop sensor one that
are smaller more like vlogging um content creator cuz I used to use the Sony a6000 line so I've
had the a6000 the a6300 and the a5100 even so yeah I've had all th
ose smaller frame cameras
so this is great for I think vlogging and and stuff like that and it works great for my short
form content or not short form but we'll say 5 to 15 minutes whenever it's just me talking but
uh a while back I who I think it was I can't remember Michael David that's who I had on the
on the show and that ended up being a very long episode and the camera overheated and so I ended
up just throwing up my cell phone to to record the second half of it I was like okay I don'
t want
to mess with that so I started doing some more research and then came across these Lumix gh5s
and this is the mark 2 in my research a lot of people said this thing is bullet proof it can
run for hours without overheating shooting in 4k and 24 I'm going to screw it up but basically
shoots in 4k for long periods of time so I bought two of these right yeah let's uh go ahead and
open open this up right here and so for any of you listening to this feel free to go to the
YouTube channel c
heck it out it's absolutely free no ads or anything like that um but we're going
to start opening these cameras up and just kind of talking through what what all we've got and
then actually if you could open this up for me6 so this is is this called a fullframe camera so I
believe the GH five I'm not sure if this one is a micro 4/3 or four frame I think this one may
be one of their full frame but it's actually quite a bit larger than this zve E10 that I've got
actually easier to hold on to
and I do like this material so with from your perspective and I think
you said that you shot with one of these long time ago but what is your thoughts on why these don't
have the overheating issues that a camera like this or the cve one does um so I mean obviously
it's a and I have to fact check myself whether or not that is a um micro 4/3 or if that's actually
a fullframe model them but you have things that come into to play especially like with battery
size uh too right the batteries so l
ike a lot of Sony cameras um don't really have that issue a lot
of their newer ones but they also have much bigger batteries um internal fans and stuff like that are
built in certain cameras such like the fx30 that I have U but I just think it's just go me obviously
um Panasonic is a different company they make great cameras I've always wanted to try some of
their photo based cameras it's just a lot of those internal specs are designed and built a little bit
tougher to endure um certain thi
ngs just like Sony makes their apsc line for like their short form
content your bloggers your online content creators like Tik Tok Instagram and then you have like
your um more hybrid lines like the Sony a74 and then you have the a7r series which is for higher
resolution RS for resolution so those cameras are going to shoot at much higher megapixels I have
one and then you have the a7s series which is more so for video and then uh which are beast
of video cameras uh and then you have like t
he FX line which is the cinema line so every company
has these categories that they kind of keep these cameras in and so with those depending on what
you need you're going to shop within that that category of like okay I need something that
shoots 4K at either 24 frames per second 60 Fram per second even 120 if you need that um if
not most cameras has 4K 24 and 4K 30 um so like you running a podcast Panasonic has a lot of great
cameras I think I had the G7 uh I can't remember it was it's ki
nd of it was a little bit smaller
than that but it was a beast it was a micro 4/3 um but it had amazing image quality Greatful
short form content but not the best if I was going to go and do like really professional work
you know so that's the way I kind of lay the the foundation like what you should buy and okay when
you're shopping and what are you shooting with now I'm actually shooting with the uh the fx30
for all my professional video work and um this is probably the best place to say
it because I've
always want to give you uh just open gratitude but you're the one who blessed me and um gifted that
to my business the Sony fx30 um Sean blessed me at the gym um saw me post it on my story and it was
just me kind of just putting it out there into the world like hey this is going to be my next camera
when I upgrade I was shooting on the a7r I and for whatever reason you were compelled internally to
to do that for me and make that happen it's the first time like somebody's alm
ost made me cry
but um yeah that that was a blessing and when I truthfully say this I tell people that was a
turning point in my career I was able to hone the skills of videography and photography with the
gear that I had but when I got my hands on that fx30 because I had the skills and all I needed
was the gear things took off from that point my quality of work went up I was able to take on
bigger projects and honestly that is that was the staple of my career that really established me and
that's not me boosting it that's just me humbly saying like that literally changed my life my
business and everything that I that I do so yeah well yeah I saw that story come across your feed
and because of all of the progress that I've seen you made and how impressed I been I thought man if
if this is something that he needs like it's got to be extremely powerful and I just I heard this
voice get the camera and work with him get the camera and work with him and I thought okay all
right y
ou know what I'm going to do this and then I went and looked it up online I said are you sure
it's not cheat yeah it's not cheat um but yeah it was it was just something that uh I felt compelled
to do and seeing everything that you have created is just so inspiring and motivating and I think
that the message here is when you are passionate about what you do put it out there don't hold
it inside thinking or having impostor syndrome thinking well I'm not good enough or I won't be
there I won'
t be there like put it out into the world hear start calling your shots because what
will happen is the right people in your life will start holding you accountable yeah they're going
to start pushing you and they're also going to do little things here and there to open up doors
that can change your life right so if you are passionate about something like chase that dream
follow it run with it put it out into the world and good things will start to happen yeah so it
has been incredible to s
ee everything that you have created with that camera and I can't wait
to see all the other things that you start doing with it yeah oh man it's been amazing okay so what
do we have here this is what a monitor so we got a external monitor por keys pt6 I recommended
that because um one it's budget friendly so if anybody's out there's watching you need a budget
friendly monitor the P keys pt6 is amazing um well over short under 200 bucks you get false colors
you get the grid lines um it's got
fullsize HDMI in and out I believe you can import Luts into it
which was a big thing if you're shooting on uh SL log or any type of or if you're shooting on Canon
you shoot C log it just comes in handy and when you're shooting like sit down content like this
or even what I do with my profession I shoot a lot of um Cinema work having an external monitor
is literally key literally key yeah so the thing is is this little like 3in screen 2 and a half
3 in screen it's okay but it's not great rig
ht right even if it's the this camera is 3 feet
away from me and it's still just kind of like uh I don't I don't know so yeah definitely looking
forward to seeing getting this this monitor Okay so so here's what I would actually like to do
we started to kind of unbox these things how how quickly can we get these up and running and
start recording as long as there's juice in the battery it's like it's seamless you know pop
the battery in get everything set up figuring out the settings is the
biggest part like all
right let's switch to the video mode SD cards in there and then move selling so all right
so we're going to we're going to push pause on recording see if we can get these guys up and
running in relatively short order and shoot the rest of the episode using these new cameras cool
yeah all right let's do it all right ladies and gentlemen we are not on the new cameras I messed
up and actually ordered the wrong lenses ordered two cameras two lenses but the wrong lenses so
we
ended up throwing up the Sony Z10 and we've got the fx30 over here on leavit so he's going to look
am amazing in this footage and I'm going to look fairly good uh myself hopefully so in any event
so we're going to go ahead and just pick back up where we left off so for frame of reference these
were the old cameras that Joe Rogan was using for a while and now uh I'm upgrading from and then so
these are the new ones that once I get the right gear and cages and screens and all that stuff
I will start shooting on so all right oops but you know what that's life we had a whole bunch of
other cameras to work with and so we just rolled with it so we're justly we're going to figure it
out okay all right so while we were talking you had made a comment oh man what were we what were
we talking about oh okay all right so as as you start building your business and this is something
that I've contended with a little bit but I want to talk a little bit about pricing because when
you sta
rt building a business going out on your own inevitably you're going to have friends
and family hey give me the hookup give me the hookup right and it puts you in a very challenging
situation right because you have a family to feed yeah this is your livelihood this is something
that I I haven't really struggled with as much in recent years but early on in my career when I
was just focused on technology people would always hit me up hey can you fix my computer well what
about my friend frien
ds and family discount okay well that was a side gig and it wasn't as big
of a deal right but now I'm kind of we're at a place where with with WSS the price is the price
and if it's too much I'll refer you to somebody else but this is my livelihood this is my team's
livelihood we have we have employees that we're trying to to pay and support so unfortunately when
you start to legitimize your business the friends and family discounts kind of start to go go away
and I've had this mindset of i
f they were really truly your friend they would be in your corner
rooting for you and saying yes I don't care what the price is I want to take care of you I want
to support you and promote you and be there for you right but the reality of the world is that's
not always the case has that been challenging for you it's been very challenging that's I think um
alongside of like identifying and understanding the business aspect of things that learning how
to create that boundary between like your
close friends and fam it's like it's it's big because
it can hinder you and it can hold you back and then it can also damage relationships as as
well and I've learned that as I continue to scale and I'm still on the front end of things
that already within the first year it's already been very evident that I've had to establish
some clear boundaries because when I started out I mean honestly I go back to my software where
I invoice everything and I think like back when I was charging $35 fo
r photo shoots $75 for photo
shoots and now when people ask for my pricing and I I tell them they're like oh you know I get
the the infamous oh you're big time now like man okay I can't even afford you and it's just like
it's not that it's just now that my value has increased not only does my price increased with
that but the value that I provide to my customer base all right so what I'm providing to them
deliverables the experience all that goes up not just the price so if the price goes u
p well I
got to make sure that I'm giving some value back to my customers and the people who are working
with me well and the reality is your cost goes up right cameras lenses editing software laptops
like all of that stuff costs money and because you increasing the production quality that means you
have to buy nicer and nicer gear and your prices have to raise along with it and then like let's
not even factor in the macro of inflation and the market just everything else that's going on
bu
t it it it is a very challenging situation and this is something that I have had to Grapple with
is as we move and progress through the seasons of our lives there will be times when some people
are no longer part of the journey yeah sadly oh my God that is so challenging because we want
everyone to be better and to come along as we continue to grow and progress like we want our
friends and family to come along with us but the reality is not everybody's on the same path
as as we are and whil
e your friends could very well get there at some point what you can't do
is I'm going to say slow yourself down because of them because if you are on this trajectory
you on your mission and purpose in life you're putting your dent in the universe you can't
successfully do that if you're having to drag people along and they're kicking and screaming
because they're just not quite ready and that's okay you can still support them and encourage them
but you have to be on your journey and there's
a transitionary phase where you're starting to I'm
going to say outgrow certain individuals in your life but you're not quite to that next level
where you able to surround yourself with with new friends and people that are kind of operating
at so there are stages as we progress where things get a little bit lonely and you just got to grind
and you just got to push through the right people that are meant to be in your life they will end
up in your life and so learning to to let go and then
just just love everybody and encourage
everybody that is a key thing that I've had to learn and hasn't been easy but it is it is kind
of important for us it's necessary yeah yeah okay all right so um enough of that let me let me ask
you a question on this we'll say mishap that that I just had in ordering the wrong equipment does
that happen to you or do you are you one of the people that just kind of researches researches
research you know exactly what you're going to get now I am a heavy r
esearcher um my Amazon card
is always full my precision camera card is always full and you know I buy things as it comes but
I have done that I bought um back when I bought lighting and I had to learn what a Bowen Mount
was you know when I bought a Flash and I want to shoot off uh off camera flash I didn't have
a Bowen's Mount and I had to learn what a Bowen Mount was and when I buy filters when I learned
what a filter thread size was I was like so I have this camera land and I went and bou
ght this
ND filter but wait you're telling me that these have um filter threat sizes on them and so then I
learned what stepup Rings were and all that kind of stuff so I've done it with lights I've done
it with filters I've done it with lenses I think I actually did the same thing as you did um I have
the I had a Sony a6300 and um I bought I think the micro 4/3 version of the sigma 16 mm so the sigma
16 mm f1.4 is my favorite vlogging everyday lens and I bought the wrong one for my um thank
fully
it was like a pawn shop I bought it used I just took it back and got my money back and I found one
like on Facebook but yeah I've done it before it happens well I think that's part of the the growth
and well the Journey of learning your craft so I'm pretty sure it probably didn't happen again no
so it's a lesson learned right sometimes those lessons don't cost us anything other than a trip
back to the store sometimes they can be costly yeah right so that's that's always unfortunate
d
efinitely want to make sure that you're you're doing doing your research so talk to me a little
bit about like what is the majority of the work that you do I know you've done a lot in the gym
and around Fitness and you're starting to expand Beyond just that and I know you kind of shot my
car and we're actually going to have we're going to do another shoot with TRX the car yeah we're
going to do both of them so that's going to be fun but talk me through kind of the different types of
videogr
aphy and photography that you do um yeah so as far as videography a lot of people know me as
the fitness guy um I do a lot of Fitness content I've you know been able to shoot with you know
amateur bodybuilders Pro bodybuild and that's been fun now I've been blessed to Branch out I
really want to get into like the business sector um you know Tech and things like that I work with
jury companies now I'm starting to do more real estate I just made a good connection with like um
a gentleman who
has his own roofing business so I kind of want to get into that more business space
and so being able to work with like jury companies and go and shoot and I'm not necessarily shooting
somebody who's um bench pressing you know 315 or for all five now I'm focusing on more the elegance
and the the the the precises of just making clean cut business videos for people to run as ads go on
their websites and things like that so okay so you actually recorded my speech a few weeks ago I did
yes we s
o I am actually going to be posting that and thinking through the timing of these shows
and when this one will drop I actually might set it up so that that drops the week before Okay so
for any of you watching I'll have a link to the previous week's episode I man I hope I remember
that and and you can see my first recorded public speech I was I was pretty nervous if I'm being
honest most of the spee speaking events that I've done have not been recorded because they don't
allow cameras or me
dia and stuff like that but I actually want to start transitioning more into
paid public speaking engagements so that's going to be a big push of mine this year and I know
you came out and recorded that one I actually signed up I might be doing a speech in Austin
later this year so you'll be getting a phone call and we'll be we'll be yeah working through
all of that stuff because I'm going to have start working on a public speaking website and stuff
like that so a lot of lot of fun stuff um
okay so talk me through like the business stuff when
you say you're doing more business you touched on real estate which I have somebody that I'm going
to connect you with but what do you mean exactly by business shots so I guess that was a not the
best way to to word it but um so when I'm shooting Fitness since I shoot I'm I'm doing that every
week you know um and so when it's a different feel right I'm looking at different things uh the
way that I uh compose my shots are differently uh t
he way that I edit this differently but let's
say if I go and if I'm doing a a project or we're shooting an ad for you know some new um necklaces
that came in in rings that they want to showcase well I might not necessarily need a huge Cinema
rig for that I might just only need a Gimbal and my camera some off camera lights and some good
audio and it just needs to look elegant geared towards their intended target audience uh more
so to say so it's just more elegant clean cut nothing's really
if any if anybody's ever seen
my work it's always fastpac hard Cuts hard hits a lot of sound effects none of that is needed
it's very simple it's a different feel and I actually like it better cuz it allows me to kind
of step outside of what I'm used to and to make um more diverse work you know how much of your
time is actually spent on we'll say post or the editing versus taking the shots and setting up the
shots I would say um production time um obviously you have pre-production which is
if I'm going if
we're going like I shoot like ads for different businesses we'll have a you know pre-production
which is like a shot developing our shot list and things like that but as far as production time I
normally most of my shoots normally only range for about an hour to 2 hours max and that's if we're
shooting multiple things the post production takes the longest because I mean editing 13 second
ad or you know most ads aren't longer than 60 seconds that could take me you know 35 mi
nutes to
an hour you know if it's something that like once I get in the groove of things I can knock these
out really fast but obviously there's revisions and then you go back and make revisions obviously
you got song selection and color grading because I shoot everything in log format so I would say
most of my time can be spent from you know an average to an hour to two to three hours you
know just there just as much if not more spent on the back end once the shots have taken place
gettin
g it all touched up and cleaned up and oh yeah okay all right so that's something that
like I I admittedly wasn't even aware of you know Danny Tarver she did some shots for me about
two years ago which turned out beautiful took tons and tons of shots and actually so this is actually
something that I would encourage everybody work with the photographer work with the videographer
get some content I I don't even know like what's an an average amount of money for let's say like
a 1 hour shoot j
ust just ballpark ballpark yeah I would say anywhere between 150 to 400 I have
some with so that's taking the shots and then you touching them up and then final product okay
perfect yeah well are you are you are this this for me or just general well in general yeah in
general cuz I have friends who are in the industry who are really high up and yeah I've seen pricing
as low as 150 for a portrait shoot which is kind of like average um and then for up to $400 just
for an hour shoot obviously
they do amazing work and that's them valuing themselves at that but
yeah you can expect it within that range so this is something that I'm going to start encouraging
more people to do because quite frankly that one shoot from Danny which I don't even remember
what the cost was and the grand scheme thing it doesn't matter cuz I've used us that content for
2 years now so you can get one shot spend a couple hundred bucks get a whole lot of Photography or
photographs and video and then you can
use that content for years to come so I mean it it pays
for itself in attention MH on the back end and whenever I think about the importance of building
our own personal brand attention is is key all we live in this this digital world everything
is off of this and social media whether it's professional for LinkedIn or Instagram or Tik
Tok or whatever but content is King and yes you can be the introvert you can build a career
as an introvert but it is much easier if you put yourself out ther
e and people know what
you're about because you're building your own brand and you're able to actually start building
a reputation and people start to trust you before they even know you right tremendous amount of
value and actually just paying the money I know early on in my career I was like there's no way
like I got a cell phone I'm of course my little razor taking yeah a little bit different this day
this AG it's a different Value Place behind it and I think with a lot of business profe
ssionals
they're waking up and they're seeing that that that high quality um is worth it U it speaks
volumes and then people cuz people we judge each other what we see online you know and that's a big
thing so like like you said LinkedIn I talk with a lot of business professionals that oh I need head
shot for LinkedIn or for Facebook business and or to go on cards and so it's just everything is a
digital age and so how how you're perceived uh is so important which then drives our business t
o
be more valuable because we have something we can offer to businesses entrepreneurs I mean I mean
just TV everything is commercials video somebody shot it yeah you know yeah exactly all right so
another thing that's also I'll say important and relevant and that is just starting you're going to
suck at first that's the reality I left my I leave all my episodes up so that people can go back
and look because I've had people come actually uh somebody came on the show recent they're like
oh m
y God your show like it's so incredible which which is humbling for me I appreciate I still
see things that I want to do better right but my response is used to see where I started right
3 years ago it was mm it was much much different but you and I talking about this earlier just
start the perfectionist in me wanted I wanted the right mic I wanted the right cameras I wanted
and ultimately I ended up just having a webcam on my computer and I I don't remember what mic I
was using but my firs
t few episodes that's all it was yeah I had to just start and everybody's so
afraid of putting themselves out there and being vulnerable say vulnerability exactly that's huge
that vulnerability actually helps people connect to you because it's real it's raw and I have found
that it actually inspires and motivates others to go do that thing that they've been scared to
do just start right don't yeah yeah yeah super important and then and then one day you're going
to wake up and be a professio
nal like you somewhat okay so talk to me what is the what is your future
plans for your business look like obviously heavy into videography and photography and you kind of
touched on getting more into the business realm of It kind of talk me through your vision over the
next few years uh yeah I mean obviously mean most people go the route of like creating a a media
agency and then you build a team and then you take on these projects and I think ultimately
that's everybody's end goal for me
it was it's just I want to do something I love now it's just
me and now I'm starting to I think think naturally you fall into the areas you need to be my end goal
to answer your question um Point Blank I want to move into commercial cinematography I want to be
a DP Director of Photography I want to be that head um lead on sets and work with Crews whether
or not that's a crew that I brought on board with my own business because I do have friends who
are directors I have friends who are DPS I
have friends who run sound and lights I'm starting to
meet all these people in the industry now to where I have my own Standalone business but we've all
come together and say hey I have a project coming up can you run can you be like my my BTS guy or
can you be my sound guy that will and I literally just had a message this morning for one of my
buddies who's an amazing photographer we have two different styles but he's so amazing and we
were going um together on a project me and a few othe
r guys and we had to push it back just to
due to something with the client so for me I'm just focus on really building my um business just
as in photo and video and I Outsource a lot of of those extra roles that I need and so but the end
goal is commercial cinematography and to build a crew along myself underneath JT visuals media
and just go from there it's a big it's a big feat it's a big feet but now that you've thrown
it out there you know I'm going to hold you to it I'm working on it m
an not too much pressure
yeah exactly uh okay all right well I am looking forward to seeing all of that unfold I was making
some notes here because I'm going to be following up with you on that no pressure no pressure it's
all good I need it it's accountability yeah okay all right okay so what is one of the biggest
things and lessons that you have learned in your journey not it doesn't have to be focused just on
videography or photography or anything like that talk me through one of the big
gest lessons you
have learned in life that has shaped who you are um man that's tough I would probably just keep
it simple and just say that keyword that rings in my my mind is resilience I learned um you have
to be resilient not everything is going to work out according to plan we make these plans in our
life and we we want it to go a certain way and it you very well may get to the end goal but it's not
going to be how you pictured it you know a lot of people don't know along my Journey co
ming to this
point now people see me they see the cameras they see all my gear when I show up to sets and like
man I want to be like you but in the grand them of things like I went through repossession of my car
I was evicted over a year and a half ago I had to find a place a new car another job and then that
all led me into you know what I'm just going to go all in I'm already here I might as well just do
it and so I learned a lot of resilience um through that and just learning that when s
omething
happens it's okay find another way you know replan find another way and I think that's what
keeps me going that's what you know I bring to my household too my spouse sees me that I don't let
anything stop me because I learned easily in the military and just being on the outside now you
got to be resilient not everything's going to go according plan and that's okay but how can
you reformulate and re attack the plan a lot of people say oh that didn't work so I'm going
to give up lik
e don't change the the goal but let's let's look at the blueprint that we have
in between on how we get to that goal maybe we just had some kinks in there and we didn't plan
accordingly so let's set some maybe some more smaller milestones in between besides hey I want
to be a cinematographer and for Toyota and then like we got to have some milestones in between
on how we're going to get there so resiliency just being resilient and facing those trials has
taught me a lot over this this time
period I love it David thank you all right ladies and gentlemen
that is all we have for the show today I will make sure that we have all of Le David's contact info
in the show notes please reach out to him for all of your content needs videography photography
all of that good stuff or you know what if you just want to have a great convers ation with
a good man give him a call thank you thank you
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