He was excellent then and so it was no surprise to me when I got my plastic out out and booked a place at the new seminar in a very nice Manchester Hotel. I got there a bit early as it only took me 20 minutes when the Sat Nav. said 30.
No problem plenty of coffee needed to wake myself up, and a chance to have a chat with other like minded fellows.
The first person I met was Ryan sat to my right from Sheffield, nice guy, seemed to be doing really well which is unusual in itself in this profession at the moment. To my left was Mark from Morpeth, again a really nice guy and I enjoyed his conversation throughout the day.
We had a brief 20-30 minute talk from the Graphistudio, which kept us up to date on new ideas and innovations, I must say I liked the new Pearl paper and the small hard back books. We also had a very brief talk from the MPA Rep. about planned activities.
Then it was Joe’s turn- an interesting shot greeted us of his wife and child, one which really showed the moment and the emotion, beautiful image.
Joe’s overriding message appeared to be that I was to sell MYSELF to the customers not the images, they had already seen these on your website and therefore it was you that they were interested in. Would you be suitable to take their images?
Joe told us of how he tells the story of the images, How he builds up the emotion in the story of each of the images that he shows only allowing the customer to hold them after he has told them the story behind the emotion, He creates the atmosphere with each image he shows.
This was clearly shown when he told us the story of a little page boy and 6 images which defined the emotion of that wedding. This story lasted 5-10 minutes THEN he showed us the slideshow. Somewhere in the middle of this slideshow appeared the first of the 6 images and all of the those watching gave a smile and an approving nod as to the story unfolded.
Afterwards Joe told us “That we had been played” It was a set-up and we all fell for the 6 fantastic shots in the middle of this slideshow. `He proved to us that, we could create the atmosphere for our shots, we could tell OUR story of OUR images to OUR New customers.
Yes he talked about the mechanics of photography - the difference between ‘P’ for professional or ‘M’ for Master. Yes he told us about AE Lock and recomposing. Yes he told us to try f4.5 -1/4 second with flash and underexpose by half a stop as the bride and groom come down the aisle. All really useful points, but when he asked us at the end to “do just ONE of the things that he had talked about” Well - I know which one I am going to do!!
Thanks Joe
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