00:00:00               Welcome to the hair of the dog podcast. I'm Nicole Begley. And today we are talking with Travis. Pontin OD from stink-eye photography. You might know Travis as the guy that photographs all the Gallegos or the Spanish greyhounds. And that is actually on purpose. As you'll discover in our conversation, this is his why to tell the story of these dogs. And this conversation should inspire you to get out there and do some work that inspires you.

00:00:30               And I think you'll really enjoy it. Stay tuned. Welcome to the hair of the dog podcast. If you're a pet photographer, ready to make more money and start living a life by your design, you've come to the right place. And now your host pet photographer, travel addicts, chocolate martini, calmness sewer, Nicole Begley. Hey everybody, Nicole here from hair of the dog.

00:00:54               And today I have a special guest Travis<inaudible> from stink-eye photography outside of Chicago, Travis. Welcome to the podcast. Hi, Nicole. I'm completely honored to be able to be on your show. And so thank you very much for that. Oh my gosh. Of course. I can't believe it has been five years almost since we first met. Travis was one of our students at our very first Barca Barcelona outside of Barcelona back in April, 2016,

00:01:26               which is yeah. Coming up on five years. Can you believe that? Yeah, I'm still amazed and I look back at it and I, I feel so lucky to have been in that first group and watch everyone else business grow and what they've done between Craig cat and everyone else. It's been amazing to see that. So it's and all of that's been a huge inspiration for me to continue going.

00:01:50               So I love it. Ah, I love it too. It's yeah, it's definitely one of the most rewarding things about teaching is being able to watch the people that you've helped continue to go on and evolve and grow and blossom. And you've done quite a bit in the past five years and your work is absolutely amazing and beautiful. And congratulations on your recent GEA,

00:02:12               third-place win for your one image that I'm sure all of us in the hair of the dog community have seen saying goodbye. That was gosh, just such a impactful moving image and yeah. So very proud. So congratulations. Well, thank you so much for that. And it means a lot to me. Yeah. Oh, I love it. So tell us,

00:02:30               tell us just a little bit about you and your journey and how all of this, this crazy pet photography thing started for you. That's a prudent answer or hard question to answer, but at the same time, it's basically the way I put it is I'm simply a voice for the hunting dogs are spanked. I was lucky enough to be adopted by a galago,

00:02:54               who we adopted, that I had no idea of how that adopting this dog would change my life and literally saved my life from adopting her. You know, we started adoption group and I had to learn to take photos, the adoption photos, and they started with point to shoe camp with the point shoe camera and just very basic. And I was lucky enough to have a member of her speak,

00:03:17               come out and take photos of our adoptable dogs at the time. And seeing those photos, I knew I had to do something to actually learn how to use the camera and be better take photos. And from lat their first trip out to Spain, I bought my little point and shoot camera. I was taking pictures and I caught one picture that is actually behind me.

00:03:39               You could see it. And that one, when I showed people, I saw the reaction that people having and it made me realize that I could possibly tell the story of these dogs through photography. And from that, I just dove head first into learning as much as I could of tography and just trying to learn the storytelling and how to tell the story of these dogs.

00:04:02               I love that because an image can be so impactful and just, it stirs something inside of people that just telling their story doesn't always have, when you have images that go along with it, it brings those stories to life and just make so much more of an emotional connection for them. Right. And what made it so much better for me is the fact that the photo is there is no language barrier.

00:04:25               You have to try to explain it. Everyone gets that image. And that was the biggest thing for me. Yeah. Have you seen well for those of you guys that aren't maybe familiar the galago, it's a, the Spanish Greyhound that's used for hunting quite a bit and you know, are, have you seen Travis in the years that you've been working with the rescues over there?

00:04:44               Has the, the plight of the hunting dog, has that been getting better? Is there more education over there? I know there's always still so much more work to do. Yeah. That's unfortunately they make one step forward and two steps back. Every time they create laws that looked good in the beginning, but you read behind it and it's actually worse than what it was.

00:05:04               So, you know, it's, you know, at one time they stopped, okay, you cannot euthanize dogs. So they wanted to stop making no kill shelters, but they also made it too. You could donate your dog to the universities to be used for testing. So instead of find all these dogs now went to universities to be in lab experiments,

00:05:28               which is far worse also in where they've done things to where they've made it legal for the hunters to shoot straight docs. So people just release it dog and shoot it and say, Oh, there was a stray dog. Yeah. So it's these things that just continue to unfortunately go on and never actually improved the situation Philadelphia Yeah. Becomes one of those grassroots efforts of educating and maybe starting to change people's perceptions as kids and,

00:05:58               you know, going up just going through the years and trying to change that. I know our dog, Zoe, we adopted from Puerto Rico and it's, you know, it's not hunting dogs per se, but it's just, it's just a similar fate. There's just so many dogs, so much overpopulation. A lot of people don't have the means or they don't think it's cool to get their dog neutered.

00:06:19               And there's just, you know, stray dogs coming out of their ears and people have them and just dispose of them in whatever means they can. And gosh, yeah, it's just, it's, it can feel like an insurmountable problem, but you know, with doing, helping with rescue, you know, I love the quote that basically you can't save them all,

00:06:39               but you, I forget what the quote is. Something about like, you can't save the world, but you can make a world of difference for the ones you can save. Right. And you know, so certainly focusing on those specific cases of, of what, of what we can do and continuing to help, it's always a good thing to do.

00:06:58               Exactly, exactly. And it's, it's amazing to see, you know, as other people adopt the dogs of the impact that these dogs have on other people recently, I had the chance to fly down to Albuquerque New Mexico, to visit with two add-ons. We adopted out there are now therapy dogs. And the amazing stories I hear from them is, you know,

00:07:21               she was telling me the story that they were walking through the hospital, doing their visits and an elderly man came out of the doctor's office. And the name of the dog just walked up to him and, you know, started, he started petting him, but he turned out the man just received some bad news from his doctor that he was dying. But the doctor wasn't sure if he actually realized or understood what they told him.

00:07:45               And as he started to talk to the dog, you told him that, yeah, I received some bad news and you know, so they knew he understood it. His wife came over and asked her to bring the dog, visit him in the hospital several times in which she did. And her whole family met the dog. And unfortunately two months later he passed away and they invited the dog Rizzo to come to the wake and they even made the restaurant move everything outside,

00:08:10               so it could be attended. So it was just those simple things. And there's another story of, he goes to visits. We have center where they have a bunch of bills that have been involved in sex trafficking and abuse. And they have one girl that very tall slender black hair, and the dog is black. So she automatically went right to him and she would lay on the ground with them and just pet him and she would stop and he would nuzzle her and socio step heading again.

00:08:40               And she just kept doing that. And that's, that was the best therapy for her sharing those stories that, you know, these dogs that were trashed dogs in Spain and how much of a difference and impact they're having on other people's lives is amazing. And that's what continues to push me for less. Right. Right. I love that. I love that your whole reason for photographing and starting a business and just growing your skill,

00:09:10               like you have always had a very clear why, you know, we always talk about it's important to know why we do this. And you know, a lot of us sometimes have a hard time putting that into words. It's just like, well, I don't know I needed a job to do, and I liked dogs and photography, so I'm a pet photographer.

00:09:26               But when you have that, just, you know, drive and passion and a real reason why behind what you want to do, I feel like there's just like, there's nothing that can stop you, you know, that you will just keep on pursuing and going. And it just brings a spark. And it's that why in my motivation of why I'm doing this is all to repay Lena,

00:09:50               my first Calgary that I adopted for saving my life, the fact that this is all trying to repay her, I know I'd never be able to, but it's all that effort. And being able to do that has allowed me to change my mindset on quite a few things. I hear it. I won't talk about that. They see all the photographers and they're just blown away.

00:10:09               They put them on a pedestal saying, you know, I could never be that great in my mindset to that is no they're able to do it. So there's absolutely no reason why I can't just taking that mentality and just making, turning myself into the learner and learn as much as I can to do it. And that's why I love Harold the dog.

00:10:31               You know, it's a phenomenal group of people that the photographers from all levels that share that information, constant inspiration. And that's what I love about the group. And that is what keeps me going, keeps me motivated. Yeah. I love that. And even no matter who, you know, for you guys listening out there, whoever you look up to and say,

00:10:51               man, I wish my photography looked like X person or this person's photography is so beautiful. I don't know if my work will ever be like that. You know, it can be if you just continue to work at it and practice and remember that even, you know, the most award-winning amazing photographers out on the planet still picked up the camera for the first time.

00:11:10               At some point They all had to start somewhere and they had that same feeling. And that's what I love listening to Kaylee talking about, you know, you think that she's these overly happy girl that has no fares and you have those things and it's, she has the same issues that we all do. So she's just as human as. Yeah. Huh?

00:11:29               Yeah. If there's one thing I think we all have in common, it's doubting, doubting our abilities periodically. We have all been there. For sure. So, yeah. So Travis, when did you start? When did you start your rescue? How long ago was that? Or we started that in 2013. Okay. Okay. And how many dogs have you brought over from Spain?

00:11:53               140. Oh wow. This past year with the COVID it's put a screeching halt to everything since we can't transport right now, we've, we're trying to get three dogs over and the downfall is normally it's about $900 per dog. And now it's about 3000 per dog. Oh wow. So, and we've unfortunately had to cancel a flight twice because the airline changes the flight on us.

00:12:20               The first one, they changed it to where the dog would be sitting in London for two days so that you have enough that's not happening. Right. So unfortunately the airlines know they have rescues, you know, the way they want them so they can charge what they want. But we're trying to get these three over one has been sitting for a very long time in the shelter for about two and a half years.

00:12:41               So trying to get him over then we have two other that are adopted. So try to get them into the homes. So it's, it's been interesting this year for the fact that you know, that this connects, that we can't travel to Spain. We can't bring dogs over. And that's been the challenge for me this year because a lot of the dogs I photograph are my foster dogs.

00:13:00               Right. So it's been interesting in trying to keep myself occupied and continue trying to grow and spread the word for the dogs. So it's been interesting. Yeah. Do you guys adopt a lot of the animals or the lot of the dogs to come over, end up adopting them? I guess the ones in Albuquerque, are they, you adopting them throughout the States?

00:13:20               Are they mostly staying in the Chicago region? We usually keep it in the Chicago region. The Albuquerque one was a very unique situation. Normally wouldn't adopt out that far, but after we found out who she was then to turn out to be the lead investigator for animal cruelty for the, for the New Mexico state's attorney. So it was like, okay, we kind of,

00:13:43               we think we're going to be safe. He'll be good. But what's also Very cool. Is she also started the Albuquerque animal courts. So she wrote the entire curriculum for the animal courts, got a judge that is all up-to-date on all the laws for animals. So anything that happens with animals, they go through that court system and they end up talking to her afterwards going through classes.

00:14:09               So it was, you know, when we talked to it was like, okay, we absolutely know it's a good, That's fantastic. So yeah, you started doing your rescue and then started learning more about photography. What was the thought process when you decided to start stink-eye photography and you were thinking, Hmm, maybe I should create a business out of this too.

00:14:32               What does that look like? When I started stinky guy that ended up becoming, because I had to become a member of Hertz speak, I had to have a website set up. So it was pretty much the way I saw it as a lot of the photos I was getting, I kind of always go for the dark chemical side of things. So a lot of the photos I was getting the dogs,

00:14:52               giving me stink eye. Yeah. I was like, all right, I'll just use, think I photography. I couldn't expect business anything to do any, anything. So it's just like, I was keep that as my inside joke, but a lot of, kind of what my thought process on doing this was is same as when a dog gets lost.

00:15:12               The first thing you want to do is get flyers out to get as many people, many eyes was searching for that dog. So my thought process was if I could target market towards other pet photographers and photographers to try to get them to take a picture of a gal, go and share the story because all of the followers adopt animal that was also allows it to spread out a lot quicker.

00:15:36               That was really my main goal behind it. I thought there's no way I could actually learn photography. Right. Cause I always thought it was something that you had to have that gene. And it's just, it's nothing, you just can't pick it up and learn. It's like being born to be able to be a dancer or a artists like can learn so much,

00:15:57               but can't go all the way. But yeah, it's not, not the case. If you want to do it, I firmly believe if you have a desire to do anything, whatever it is like you wouldn't have that desire to do it. If you didn't have the ability to create the skills, to be able to do it. And I think that was probably one of the best advice that I got when I started taking pictures is I was told,

00:16:21               shoot, what are you passionate about? And it will show through in your images. And that's finally why I decided 100% just focused on Gallegos, forget landscape and stuff like that. Yeah. Just focus on the dogs. Cause that's where my passion's at. And that does show through in the images. So, and what I eventually found was I was actually putting a lot of myself into the images through the goggles.

00:16:49               And that was a realization for me, that kind of was ad. And it, sometimes it was about two, three years ago. I started going through another deep depression after Lena passed and you know, my muse was kind of gone and trying to figure out what to do. And I was finding a lot of the stuff I was putting out was actually me calling out for help again.

00:17:13               Yeah. So once I realized that it kind of woke me up and made the changes, but from that I saw how I was putting myself in the Lee images, you know, everything from the dog's expressions to the way I see the dogs for the photos was stolen reflection. I saw as a reflection as me. Yeah. Wow. That's crazy. That's pretty.

00:17:35               Yeah. That's fantastic. It's even, you know, the saying that by image, that one was very hard for me to actually put out cause so personal, deep, personal, and be able to kind of open myself up that way and the whole story behind that and what was phenomenal for me for winning a grand imaging would in a sense, it all came back to full circle.

00:17:58               For me, the fact that Lena is the one that actually gave me this gift of photography and that story is now getting an award for that. So that was, you know, very emotional, Oh, that's, you know, it's just such a beautiful circle that the, that image goes through. And you know, I totally understand that it is so hard sometimes to share our work,

00:18:19               especially when we do personal work and especially when that work ends up being such a, a reflection of us and putting it out into the world can be so scary. But the amount of, of people that, that image touch, I mean, it went, it went viral pretty early on. It did it, it got some, some traction all over the planet because it was such a,

00:18:47               an impactful image. Right. I think the last time I looked at spin shared over a million times now. Wow, completely. That just blows my mind on that. You know, it's, it's amazing to be able to have an image, you know, that I could share myself, but it's so much more amazing that it's touched so many other people.

00:19:05               And for a while, I actually had to stop reading the comments because people are sharing the stories about their dogs and the passing. And it was just, it was getting way too emotional for me that I just, okay. I had to stop reading that. Right. But it was, it was great to see that it brought a lot of good memories for people.

00:19:26               Yeah. If you guys want to see that beautiful image that Travis made, we will put the watermark copy on our show notes page, which is hair of the dog academy.com/five five, the number five and the number five 55. And you can see that there it's really just a, an incredible, really beautiful and moving image. And once you see it,

00:19:46               you'd be like, Oh yeah, I saw that around the, around the hair of the dog podcast community, if you've been there for a bit, but it's absolutely absolutely gorgeous image trip. It was even more amazing is with that image. I want to contest for a pro photo. Yeah. So that gave me another Avenue to be able to kind of show the story of these dogs through pro photo.

00:20:08               Right. Reaching so many more people. And that's, that's, what's been so amazing about it. And with that image, even for that, sorry, the PPA competition was hesitant not actually submitting it, but I kind of had to remind myself that I have to be true to why I'm doing it. Yeah. Why were you nervous as submitting it?

00:20:29               Just because it was so close to you. Yeah. It was close to me in getting that feedback or things like that, that it wouldn't do good. It's just like, you know, I was too attached to the image basically trying its best to not be attached to those. Yeah. Well, but sometimes you can't help it. I know I put one in this that it was total mixed reviews on people saying if it would do okay or not,

00:20:52               it didn't alone, but it did merit and it was, it was titled what's forgotten. But then I changed it to, Oh, I forget the name of it right now. But anyway, it was a captured when I was in Brazil and visiting my stepbrother and patter T and it's like this old colonial town, these amazing architecture, like all the cobblestone streets,

00:21:14               just really, really cool. And there were these dogs or be out during the day that at first I thought they were all straight dogs, but they actually, they have collars. They go home at night, you know? So they're the, their owners are, you know, the people that are out selling things on the street or doing things in town and the dogs are just having heavy the day in town,

00:21:31               but they are taken care of which, you know, warms my heart, which is good. But I was able to, you know, take an image of those streets. And then I found one of the dogs lying on the, you know, it was just taking a nap and just put that image together to just tell the story of gosh, so many dogs that aren't that lucky.

00:21:47               And you know, it was one of those things where people were saying, man, I don't know how well it'll do. And I'm like, I have to put it in there. I just like, felt like that. I needed to share that. And you know, and yeah, I think it's worthwhile. So I think anytime that you are kind of creating more work from that kind of personal,

00:22:05               personal view and sharing a little bit of what, what your, you know, what it's meaning meaningful to you. It can be a little bit scary, but totally worthwhile, Strongly agree that it's, you have to be true to yourself of what you're doing and why you're doing it. And you shouldn't have to change images to fit certain criteria and things like that.

00:22:26               And the reason I got into pre-competition is I get into it for the awards or anything I wanted. I wanted the critiques. I wanted to learn and improve my images. That's what I strongly went in there for. You know, all the other stuff is just, you know, cherry on top of it, but I wanted to learn how to improve my images.

00:22:45               And that was the best way to do it. And the least inexpensive way of doing it. Yeah. I agree. The it's absolutely impossible. I mean, there's so many different kinds of print competitions. I've really only dealt with PA's international print competition, but it's impossible to do those and get some feedback. Sometimes. Maybe it's not the feedback you want to hear,

00:23:08               but it's impossible to keep doing those, get the feedback and not improve and to be able to be inspired by all of the different images that are in those competitions. Even though you're not competing against others, you're competing against yourself. It's, it's just so inspiring. And it has definitely improved my work over the past five years that I've been doing those and makes it makes it,

00:23:30               Oh, it does. And it's I had another image. I think it was my first show during the print comp it's the dog wearing the rabbit mask. Oh yes. I love that one. And that one it's that was told people would not understand it. Wouldn't get it. And bought one to me was there was a couple of things with that image.

00:23:48               One is once again, it's exactly my goal of my why of why I'm doing this, showing that story. And that one was the first image that I actually had a true concept in my head that I was able to put in to an image. And that's also one that I've learned that I think I did about 300 photos and four different sessions to try to get the picture because getting the mask,

00:24:15               the stay on, because she was actually wearing the mask the time, getting her to sit correctly, getting the light. Correct. And I think by the fourth time my wife was ready to kill me. My dog was never going to look at me again. And I was at the point of saying, okay, fine. I'll just have to deal with,

00:24:33               I got what I got. And then she gave me that exact look and I'm just like click clicker questions. Thank you. So What that taught me that, you know, to keep trying failure is not a bad thing. You ha you've learned from failure. So that's the whole point of it. Yeah. I think that's such an important way for people to look at anything,

00:24:55               whether you're learning the craft, whether you're opening your business and personal life and professional life is that failure is nothing more than the opportunity to start again with some more information. And if you, yeah, if you look at it from that lens that it's there to teach you something, then it just allows you to, to have, make it turn into a positive where if you allow yourself to just say,

00:25:20               Oh, that didn't work. Oh, okay. I can't do that. And just like shut doors in your face because you're just really, you're allowing yourself to make an excuse because you know, maybe it's a little scary to push through and try again because you might fail again, but who cares then you get to learn more and you get to try again.

00:25:39               So it's definitely a great, great lesson. Try to use that as much as I can. You know, it was a couple of years ago, I did a whole photo shoot with models and the dogs that one was, I threw myself out way into the deep end. And I'm, I feel it's important that you should be able to be so far in the water,

00:26:02               your head just above it, but you got to tread the water because otherwise you're not going to learn anything where it becomes stronger. So I ended up doing 10 different photos to that shooting one day. And when I kind of put a model call out, I was only expecting maybe five or six models to reply. I had 65 models reply saying they wanted to be proud of it.

00:26:24               So it was like crap. Now I got to decide which models I want to use. I just find if you want to do a go it's all I used all of that as a learning experience, I took some paintings from Louis e-card and I was using those as my inspiration. And it was a phenomenal learning experience for me, you know, not only of,

00:26:48               you know, being able to do the photos, lighting, having to deal with people cause that's a completely different posing and teaching the models that the dogs run the show, if they're not comfortable, it's done. So I don't care how much time you've spent in makeup. It didn't matter if the dog's not comfortable, sorry it's done, but it's learning all of that and doing the whole mood boards for everything,

00:27:11               the show, this is how I want the makeup done. This is how I want the hair done. And so that was a very challenging, but awesome learning experience. So I definitely recommend, you know, throw yourself out there and have fun with it and use that as the learning experience. And you'll be surprised of what you come away with, even if it doesn't come out great.

00:27:33               Right. There's something to learn from it. Absolutely. And I think having those personal projects or testing new things like that is also the key for us not to get burnout because creating the same, same stuff for your clients all the time, you can start to be a little, you know, you still enjoy it, but it starts to get a little routine where when you really take the time and say,

00:27:55               Hey, I'm committing to doing, doing something that I have in my head. That is just for me, you don't have a client to please, you don't have to figure out how this is going to get printed. You're just like, I just want to create this. And that can do so much for learning and improving your craft and finding more definition in your style and just igniting a new passion for Your work,

00:28:15               keeping that fire burning. Yeah. For those of you guys out there that are interested in maybe learning a little bit more about print competition. I just had three episodes ago on episode 52, we had Lisa asks from Tangerine house of design. We'd talked all about print competition. So definitely check that one out. If you want to learn a little bit more,

00:28:33               At least apps becoming the queen of competition, more diamonds and rewards. And so, yeah, and that's the other amazing thing about the photography and pets is, you know, it's amazing of how supportive everyone is and that's what I love about it. And I've met so many people from doing this and that's, what's, I, I cannot thank everyone enough.

00:28:57               And I'm a big fan of showing appreciation that everybody that has helped me in some way and showing that they have helped. And you know, one of them that, you know, broke alone out the first one that I was probably the biggest newbie there and poor Greg had to room with me and deal with me that whole time. It's, you know,

00:29:18               it's been phenomenal that I, out of all the other workshops, provolone is still the only one that we still all talk to each other. That is the biggest takeaway from that, that I know I could bounce questions off of everybody and they're going to be honest and talk and talk. So Something does magic when or happens magic when you spend five days with,

00:29:41               in another country doing nothing but pet photography. And the other nice thing is pet photography does attract an awesome type Of person, right? So Travis is For pet photographers out there that, you know, have this cause in their heart that they want to help. If it's a certain breed rescue or a particular rescue or just something that they want to help out there because they feel called to do so.

00:30:07               Maybe it's not, you know, starting their own rescue, but with photography, what are some of the best ways or best advice that you have to encourage them to explore? Some of the things I've learned from photography side is, you know, as you start learning photography, you kind of fall into some of these quicksand areas. One of them is style then in building your own style,

00:30:32               that tends to be a quicksand area that you get so focused on trying to figure out your style and build that. You know what that is, as you learn photography. One of the most important things to think about before you start is what do you want your image to say how you want people to see them and the message you want that image to come across the people.

00:30:55               And once you have led, that is what will help guide you through creating your style and creating your, the images that you want. So for me, when I was doing it, the main things I wanted to show was the elegant soul, the dogs, the grace, and install some empathy for the people, seeing it. And with that, that's kind of where the photographers that I wrote was really drawn to and I've pulled from is between Chris Knight and Tim flack.

00:31:27               So I love Tim flax images for the fact that he looks the animals look like the humans. You never remember the scientific term of how people put their personalities And momorphism, that's an anthropomorphism. I can never remember that, but that is what I wanted my images to say. And I wanted people to do that because that creates that connection. And if you create that empathy for other people that makes them act and want to learn more about these dogs possibly adopt,

00:32:05               or it gets more information on it. So once you figure out what you want to images to do, it's just finding those people, learning from them and just doing the time of practice. And it's what I've told people for. As they try to learn Photoshop things, that's the way I used to do it out in Chicago. It's a chook during the summer and during the winter,

00:32:30               we wouldn't that wouldn't do any photos. Cause my dogs hate the cold. And so it was my wife. So I spent the winter doing nothing but Photoshop. And I was very specific about how I learned is I would look at one tool at a time and I would focus on that one tool, edit as much as I can on that. And then go to the next one.

00:32:51               And I set it. So this is what I want alone. These are my goals from learning from it. And I moved on that way. I had very specific goals for those and very methodical. I looked at it because everyone kept saying practice, you have to practice. Okay. So what's practice, you know, you sit there and say, well,

00:33:10               you got to go take photos. It's like, well, if I take photos, I just learned bad habits. Right. So I took it as being an ex musician of when you practice, okay, you sit there, you practice your scales, you practice your chords, you practice the strumming and all the music theory. So I took that same melodic,

00:33:27               that same theory towards the camera, during shooting, as you want to practice on, you know, the triangle of exposure. Right. So, okay. You said your exposure now, what happens when you change the shutter speed? What if changed for aperture and ISO? Right? How does that all affect each other? And there's a change app or how does that affect the image compared to shutter so forth?

00:33:49               So it's making sure that before you do that, you know what you want to practice and what you want to learn from it. And you set those goals, Setting that intention, I think is so critical and everything, no matter what you do, if you take nothing else out of this conversation, it's just to say, before you do anything before you learn anything,

00:34:08               before you create anything, before you get up in the morning, out of bed to set your intention for the day or for your goal, for whatever it is you're about to embark on. It just adds so much clarity because I think so many of us just wake up and we go through the day or we go through learning their craft and we're just like,

00:34:25               Oh, well now I'm supposed to learn Photoshop. Okay. Now I'm supposed to learn light room. Oh, now everyone likes to have this blurry background. I should learn how to do this. You're just getting pushed and pulled based on what all the external forces are to learn these different things. Instead of saying, what's my intention here, what story do I want to tell what animals do I want to photograph?

00:34:44               What what's calling to my heart. And then that helps clear that up so much With that it's as you start doing it, editing is getting your workflow set up. One of the biggest things I've done this year is I've actually created an action that will build out my entire workflow for me in Photoshop. So any image that goes in it creates that workflow for me.

00:35:05               So I know exactly what I need to do. And it's the exact same each time. Nice. And that's, that's helped me so much in consistency, right? Because that's usually one of the hardest things to get through is find the consistency through all your images. So then it's, and as you learn from other people it's, as you've talked about before is not cloning,

00:35:25               although photographers, their styles, and same thing with editing is you take the little tidbits and you mix them all up and you make your own editing. And I've recently somebody I've been working on for about two years of being able to bring out detail and for, and I finally had the final part of it locked in. I was finally able to find 200 all this past summer,

00:35:48               since lockdown. I had plenty of time to kind of play. And so I finally had that lockdown down. And once I did that, that's when everyone started saying, okay, your image is so detailed and clean that, you know, that tells me, okay. I finally got to that point and it's finding those things of, you know, it's nice to learn from other people.

00:36:10               Once again, I always put it back to music. When I learned guitar, I learned, I mimic all the guitars. You know, you learn how to play like Jimmy page, Eddie van Halen, but I don't want to be in a cover band my whole life. So when I go to write my own songs, those going to be influences of it,

00:36:26               but it's going to be what I want and my message with that. So it's continuing to take that and take those little tidbits, add it to your own style. Yes. Yeah. A hundred percent. Because when you're starting, I mean, you need to learn something. So you need to have this picture. You don't have enough knowledge to create your own picture of what you want to create when you're first learning.

00:36:44               Like, Oh, how do I get the proper shutter speed here? What's this aperture and that ISO, you just need to do something. And then you're learning these different techniques. And yeah, it's all about, I like, I love to learn as many different techniques as I can. And I will often go learn a technique that I have zero interest in actually moving into my workflow just but like just something to learn and something's new.

00:37:06               And you never know when you're going to get a spark of like, Oh, that little piece is brilliant and I could take that and apply it over here. And that will make that so much better. And that's another reason that, you know, all of you guys out there, there's so much local education and your state and local, you know,

00:37:26               photography affiliates that it's usually really affordable to join. And they have speakers all the time. Even this year, they're virtual, usually it's in person. And I heard so many people in Pittsburgh when we had our local Guild there that they would say, Oh, well, I don't like that photographer style. So I'm not going to go learn at that,

00:37:47               talk this one, smack them and say, you don't have to shoot just like that photographer. Why don't you go and learn? And you never know what amazing tidbit you're going to learn, where you least expect it. Exactly. And that's the whole thing it's, I've been awhile. I kind of fell into. I was like, ah, is that interested in that?

00:38:04               Cause I'm not going to shoot that as like, but then again, there's that one tidbit that they'll tell you that little thing that the way they edit or the whole issue that clicks for you, gives you a new idea that they explain how they did an image. All of a sudden it clicks a idea for you for a new image. But that's why I learned to try to attend as many workshops as I can because it's those little tidbits that you never know what spoke that's gonna,

00:38:33               and I've learned so many different little things. And it was one I did in January, right before the lockdown of always looking for advanced workshops. So where it's not just, okay, I'm going to set the lights up, you shoot. And then I'll set the lights up again. You shoot again. And it's like, well, it's really not my images because you set the lights up and did everything,

00:38:54               right. So I found one where, you know, he'll do that for the first two, but then we have to come up with the ideas and set all the lights up ourselves and then we all tweak it. So it's those little things that I've learned so much from. And once again, it's shooting people to where we had to dress the models of set up all the backgrounds and everything.

00:39:13               And that was a phenomenal class. Yeah. Those are hard ones to find. But then again, you also have to go back to the basic ones to remind you of the basics, you know, to keep that in, in, in the back of your mind of, you know, making sure that you have the exposure sharpness set up. So it's,

00:39:32               it's a constant learning and you never know what you're going to learn from it. Yeah. I agree. Travis, this has been such a great talk and I hope it's inspired people out there to continue to try new things and learn new things and follow their heart and figure out if there is a message that their artwork wants to share through them. And before we finish up,

00:39:56               do you have any last words of advice for people that are, you know, just starting to discover? Well, maybe there is something more that I want, I guess pretty much a quote from Les Brown. I've gotten so used to watching, listening to motivation speeches. Now, just to kind of keep myself going to one of those things that you say that from a Zig Ziglar that,

00:40:21               you know, people say motivation does not last, but either neither does bathing. That's why you have to do it daily. Right? I love that quote. So, but it's, it goes back to, you know, when you look at someone who's been successful, don't make the mistake of putting them on a pedestal at your expense. You're capable of doing everything they are.

00:40:40               It's just leveraging the mentality via minds to become the Lanner and take that and use that for your motivation and drive to become a better photographer and to be able to tell those stories. So it's, that is been my key thing is we go there's any speed bumps I run into, or I see other people images that I look at those like, Holy crap,

00:41:03               how did they do lists? I turned that into inspiration for myself that this I can add. I could do, like they could do it. I could absolutely do this. And that is the biggest key behind this is using that motivation and drive to push yourself. Yeah. I love that. Thanks so much. And before we go, Travis, go ahead and let everybody know where they can follow you online and Instagram or a website or all those good places.

00:41:30               So Instagram it's think I photography and then Facebook, same thing. My website is obviously stink-eye photography quick and simple, so nice. Excellent. Well, I'll go follow Travis and go looks at some of his beautiful work and thank you so much, Travis, for being here really appreciate sharing your experience and we'll see all of you guys next week. Thanks again,

00:41:53               Travis. Thank you so much. Thanks. Thanks for listening to this episode of hair of the dog podcast. If you enjoyed this show, please take a minute to leave a review. And while you're there, don't forget to subscribe. So you don't miss our upcoming episodes online. If you are ready to dive into more resources, head over to our [email protected].

00:42:18               Thanks for being a part of this pet photography community.