Transcript
Speaker: Hello, Lauren Phillips.
Speaker: How are you?
Speaker: I'm doing pretty good.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: Good.
Speaker: I'm so excited to have you on the podcast today.
Speaker: Thank you for joining us.
Speaker: So if you're out there listening, Lauren is an incredible, incredible photographer based in Australia.
Speaker: She's going to tell you a little bit more about her business.
Speaker: So just take it away, Lauren, please tell us everything about you.
Speaker: Oh, goodness gracious me.
Speaker: How do I put this together without sounding like a robot, you know, like something I've heard before?
Speaker: That's a habit.
Speaker: I sound different.
Speaker: Well, you know, I'm a photographer and all sorts of things.
Speaker: I can't remember how Kylie worded it on your website, but I read that and I was like, oh, she's good with words.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: She said something about like, I don't know, all round artist or something.
Speaker: And I was like, yeah.
Speaker: So yeah, I mean, I'm a lady of all the things basically.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I do photography.
Speaker: Of course.
Speaker: I sell my presets, love her well presets.
Speaker: I run retreats and I'm just doing a whole bunch of online stuff.
Speaker: So I'm one half of the primitive method.
Speaker: I am.
Speaker: What else do I do?
Speaker: Not really mentoring so much these days.
Speaker: And I'm a potter as well.
Speaker: So, you know, I do all of the things.
Speaker: I feel like I've been around the traps for a really long time.
Speaker: Whether that's in business or not, but always, you know, been doing bits and pieces here and there with photography.
Speaker: And that sounds really boring.
Speaker: Yeah, well, it's not, it's not, but it's not.
Speaker: So when you first like, how old were you when you first started doing photography?
Speaker: What kind of got you into it?
Speaker: Oh, God.
Speaker: The thing is, like, everyone has a story, but I have, like, so many stories.
Speaker: That's the thing.
Speaker: It's really tricky to navigate and narrow it down to, like, one particular story.
Speaker: I just, I was, you know, always sort of, I remember getting a digital camera and walking around the backyard of our little house in, like, the hinterland of Byron and taking photos of, like, pegs and shit, you know?
Speaker: And I was like, ooh, yeah, but I loved how pretty the pegs looked.
Speaker: To me, that was really beautiful.
Speaker: And all like the herbs in my kitchen bench and just little things, you know, there's, there's that sort of thing.
Speaker: And then one day, like jeans West had a competition and I was studying interior design and I was procrastinating and I found this jeans West competition to like, you could have your photo on a t-shirt.
Speaker: This was when I was like, I don't know.
Speaker: This was probably easily 12 years ago or so.
Speaker: And so I submitted, it was when like phones first got cameras.
Speaker: And so they were pretty bad quality.
Speaker: And I was like, having no idea about JPEG or like quality of photos or anything.
Speaker: And I just sent over this photo of this person walking with their surfboard in Byron.
Speaker: And anyway, it won.
Speaker: And they were like, can you send us to it in a higher res?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: What is res?
Speaker: Anyway, whoops.
Speaker: I've got no idea.
Speaker: I didn't expect anything out of it.
Speaker: So then that was printed across Australia.
Speaker: My friends were always like, you should do photography.
Speaker: Like whenever you're taking photos of us, like just hanging out, you're always moving around.
Speaker: And taking a shot and then moving to the next shot spot and blah, blah, blah.
Speaker: And I just never did it.
Speaker: And then, you know, there was all this stuff, like I had a baby and then I lost all my photos from her when she was one and a half.
Speaker: And so I started taking photos again and,
Speaker: And then there was the point where I got to in, I'd moved from, I had like Lucy was one and a half.
Speaker: I was a single mom and moved back up to Byron and I couldn't get work and I was basically homeless.
Speaker: I, for two months, I was just sleeping on people's couches and Lucy would wake up seven times a night and like disrupt their family.
Speaker: Like it was just hell.
Speaker: And unless I got work, I couldn't rent a place.
Speaker: So yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, a friend of mine randomly created this GoFundMe account and said if Lauren could just get a camera, then she could make money.
Speaker: And like, I didn't even think of that.
Speaker: I was never like, oh, I'll be a photographer and I could make money.
Speaker: It was never even in my vortex at all.
Speaker: And so she just had this insight and then she, it was all raised within a day.
Speaker: And then, so I got a little camera and then, yeah, it all just kind of went from there.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: That's so awesome.
Speaker: So I don't really have one story.
Speaker: There's just like.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Many, many paths leading to now.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The ironic thing was, right, on Lucy's birth certificate when she was born, I was not employed because, you know, I'd left a relationship.
Speaker: I had to move to Tassie.
Speaker: I had no job.
Speaker: And I remember saying to my mum, like, oh, my God, what am I going to put?
Speaker: Like unemployed?
Speaker: And she was like, no, no, no, just write down when you'd love to be.
Speaker: And I looked back on it the other day and I wrote photographer and designer.
Speaker: Oh, wow.
Speaker: And I was like, ooh, I kind of just manifested all of that, really.
Speaker: That's amazing.
Speaker: That's exactly what you are.
Speaker: Well, yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker: Yeah, so.
Speaker: That's really cool.
Speaker: So that would have kickstarted the whole thing then.
Speaker: And now we're here and there's been lots of, I'm sure, ups and downs along the way.
Speaker: And you have always sort of seen you as a family photographer, but you were doing weddings for a while, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: did you start out doing weddings uh no no okay but you just were you doing them along with the family stuff yeah sure was yeah but absolutely like the thread that I see within your work is motherhood like that's quite strong um and it's absolutely beautiful very nostalgic stunning work so um
Speaker: what you are coming to teach at unfiltered is about virtual shoots.
Speaker: So can you tell people out there who are listening what that even is?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: This is always so hard to explain when, as you like, okay, back, back, back, back to basics.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So virtual photography is basically like jumping online using particular software so that you can then, you
Speaker: use that software to capture the people wherever they are in the world from your computer.
Speaker: So you don't have to physically be there and you do it through a phone.
Speaker: So basically you don't do it through your phone, you do it through the person in the room's phone.
Speaker: So, yeah, that's essentially what it comes down to.
Speaker: And can it be any phone?
Speaker: It can be any phone, but the quality will be dependent on that person's phone that's in the room.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So I've done it once.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I never offered again.
Speaker: It was good.
Speaker: Like it was fun.
Speaker: I did it for a client who like it's because I don't shoot a lot of newborns.
Speaker: So it was my only client that they had had a baby in the middle of COVID.
Speaker: And I, we had a shoot scheduled and I couldn't go to them.
Speaker: And I just said, let's just do a virtual shoot.
Speaker: And we
Speaker: at least you have something.
Speaker: So I know from my own experience of what that was like, how kind of daunting that is to think, oh my gosh, how is this even going to work?
Speaker: But then once I started doing it and I was like, this is so cool.
Speaker: It's like just such a different sort of experience.
Speaker: So what is it that you have found?
Speaker: Like, has there been anything for you where you've been like, wow, like this is
Speaker: unexpected.
Speaker: This is something that I didn't think I would get from this.
Speaker: Or has there been any sort of like, what's been the coolest thing that you've gotten out of it?
Speaker: I think the coolest thing that I've gotten out of it is a, that I'm really surprised at how well the person holding the phone takes direction.
Speaker: I thought that would be incredibly difficult, but somehow I'm able to communicate much better when no one can see me through a computer.
Speaker: And the other thing is they can't hear when you're taking the photo.
Speaker: And they don't know when you're taking the photo.
Speaker: So I get a lot.
Speaker: I'm like, getting all of these in between shots.
Speaker: And some of my favorite photos ever, like just curating photos, just the last few days for some stuff.
Speaker: I'm looking at my photos and I'm like, it's always when I'm talking to them like this and they like, they kind of look at me and they wait, like listening and like, and then sometimes I stopped talking and go to get the shot and they stopped with that listening face.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: And I like, it's the listening face that I really love.
Speaker: It's a weird thing to love, but I love this listening face.
Speaker: And so they always like, they don't know when you're about to pull up your camera and stop and take the shot.
Speaker: And so they're always kind of like off guard.
Speaker: And so you get these incredible in-between moments and it,
Speaker: Looks very filmy to me as well, because, you know, there's different angles and, you know, I can say to the partner or whatever, like tilt, you know, I like it tilted to the side or, hey, can you move up close and then back again?
Speaker: And I'm going to like get a little bit of movement here, you know, so I can kind of get away with a lot more.
Speaker: And I think that the thing that I love is that I always get the best shots when I just shut the fuck up.
Speaker: you know, like as well.
Speaker: So in that there's, there are a lot of like silent moments too, where there's almost an awkwardness and they're dealing with their kids, for example.
Speaker: And I just sit there and wait very quietly so that I'm not some random alien in the phone.
Speaker: And yeah, it's just, you just get the most, yeah, magnificent in between things going on with that.
Speaker: So that's a really cool.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It sounds awesome.
Speaker: I think that people probably are just like, it seems really daunting to think like, how do I even set it up?
Speaker: So that's it's, I'm excited for people to hear from you talk about all of that stuff at the, at the retreat.
Speaker: How long, like, when did you start doing these?
Speaker: Did you start doing this smack bang in COVID during COVID?
Speaker: Like,
Speaker: How was it like maybe a year into it?
Speaker: When did you start doing it?
Speaker: So I like with most of my life, I normally wait until that golden moment's gone.
Speaker: And then I go into it.
Speaker: You know, I could have really smashed that out in COVID, but I did not.
Speaker: I think I did my first one maybe a year or so ago, something like that.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Was there anything that like made you like want to do it?
Speaker: Like, was there a specific reason or was it just like a, Hey, I was just so interesting.
Speaker: I might give it a go.
Speaker: No, I was just so sick of driving around to shoot.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's a totally valid reason.
Speaker: This is really hard.
Speaker: And, you know, like my partner works and what do we do?
Speaker: Like I have to wait for him to get home.
Speaker: Then I don't want to drive out for a sunset shoot or whatever later on.
Speaker: Like I don't want to, like I'm tired at the end of the day.
Speaker: I can do this anywhere, anytime.
Speaker: Anytime.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Do you find yourself doing them like at a certain, like do you have a favorite time of day to do them or do you sort of do them whenever the client wants?
Speaker: My main goal is with very strong light.
Speaker: And that's been like a really big theme in my life the last, I don't know how long, just before the floods.
Speaker: So like I got to a point where, you know, we lived in an isolated sort of place and I was really struggling being at home with a baby.
Speaker: You know, I clearly had postnatal depression and I was just struggling.
Speaker: And so I got to a point where I was like, I'm going to start
Speaker: taking photos of how I see light coming in.
Speaker: If I'm going to be stuck at home, I'm going to take photos of how I see light falling into my house and all my children.
Speaker: And so that became this kind of project of mine.
Speaker: And then, yeah, it's just kind of become now morphed into like how I do most of my photos, really.
Speaker: I have to have this kind of strong light coming in.
Speaker: So I'm not talking about like a soft thing.
Speaker: I'm talking about when you see like the light coming in and casting shadows on your floor and all that stuff.
Speaker: I'd much prefer that.
Speaker: Your house has great light.
Speaker: It really does.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: It does.
Speaker: I'm jealous.
Speaker: I could shoot in your house all day.
Speaker: Oh, man.
Speaker: I have so many photos as well I've never shown.
Speaker: I have this mad collection of just like the light...
Speaker: flowing through my house throughout the year and how it's changed.
Speaker: Yeah, it's good.
Speaker: That's cool.
Speaker: You should make a coffee table book.
Speaker: I'll buy it.
Speaker: So many things I want to do.
Speaker: So you talked a little bit about when you were, you know, like moments where it's been a bit silent or maybe a bit awkward where people, you know, people are
Speaker: dealing with their kids or whatever but have there been like what other challenges have you faced has there been any any other challenges that you face with doing virtual shoots um I mean one of them the internet was a bit slow so I changed it over to my phone and it was um Nina Gox she had a new baby and she was just such a thing that I wanted to this essence that I wanted to photograph yeah and it saved nine photos oh
Speaker: No.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: It was their first shoot since I had a baby.
Speaker: Yeah, it was kind of, you know, but that's, you know, it's just like with a camera when you, you know, when you learn and you go, okay, well, I need two card slots because this can fail or, you know, things like that, not backing up your photos.
Speaker: It's things like that that you learn along the way.
Speaker: And that was just one of my lessons, just a really unfortunate lesson.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Have you seen, has anyone like, have your clients, have you had any clients print any of these photos yet?
Speaker: I actually don't know because I'm not that person who, you know, follows up those sorts of things.
Speaker: That's just who I am now.
Speaker: I'm very happy to offer my services of shooting, but I just don't have the capacity to follow up that sort of stuff.
Speaker: But look, I have phone prints and they look great.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: I just wonder if it would be super cool if they, like, if someone took that and then kind of made like a wall collage of it or something.
Speaker: I just didn't know if anyone had done that and just shown you because I could see that being really cool.
Speaker: Well, I mean, I should probably just print them myself and test as well.
Speaker: But I know that, like, you know, if it's a decent iPhone, then you're going to get some decent shots.
Speaker: But I'll ask around, actually.
Speaker: It's a good question I should probably ask.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I'm interested.
Speaker: I think it would be really cool to see.
Speaker: And do you find yourself like when you go into to edit these, do you find yourself editing them similarly?
Speaker: I know that you already had like mobile desk or mobile presets.
Speaker: So you were you were already experienced with editing phone photos.
Speaker: So is it similar to that?
Speaker: Like, is there anything that you do differently with them?
Speaker: Um, yeah.
Speaker: So like, I still use my Lightroom presets on them and I, uh, what do I do?
Speaker: I know that like with phones, you know, you don't really want to add grain because they're already going to be grainy and they look so grainy with grain added.
Speaker: So I usually actually remove most of the grain for starters and then
Speaker: yeah, I might reduce the contrast a bit because I find things like really weird, tacky sharp and I don't love that for me.
Speaker: So yeah, I just kind of play around with like contrast and grain and maybe reduce a little bit of texture because otherwise every like, I don't know why, but with phones, like every floor will show up in someone's face.
Speaker: So, you know, I just remove a little bit of that and that's it.
Speaker: But the colors all work the same for me.
Speaker: So, and I've got, I just, I just love it.
Speaker: It works out really good.
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: One other question we had was, what's something that you wish that you knew when you first started out as a photographer?
Speaker: This is so hard.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I'm going blank.
Speaker: Hang on.
Speaker: Hang on.
Speaker: Hang on.
Speaker: What do I wish I knew when I first started?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So let's say like in business, because as a photographer, you know, you've been doing it for such a long time.
Speaker: So, and business is always the hardest.
Speaker: And I feel like as creatives, that's where we really struggle the most.
Speaker: So I would love to know, like, if you could kind of go back in time and say to yourself something, what would that be?
Speaker: Oh, the biggest thing is there's so many things that I would want to say.
Speaker: So how do I navigate it to one?
Speaker: Choose three.
Speaker: I would start with burnout, but I just feel like it's so done.
Speaker: Everyone talks about burnout, you know, like, but God, I've burnt out like so bad.
Speaker: So what do you think?
Speaker: Like, why?
Speaker: Why do you think that is?
Speaker: I just completely overcooked myself and said yes to too many things and didn't have a balance.
Speaker: I probably didn't charge enough at the start and all those things that lots of people already know.
Speaker: I think that, yeah, I just didn't leave enough space for life events.
Speaker: So I was just completely consumed by work.
Speaker: But that's also me too, you know, like I've now discovered I have ADD.
Speaker: And so one of the things is like hyper-focusing and
Speaker: you know, to the point where you're just completely all consumed and then everything else builds up.
Speaker: So that's one of them.
Speaker: The other one, of course, is, you know, I think, God, it's just like, as we've spoken about before, the industry is just so stagnant.
Speaker: And if I guess I learned this pretty quickly, so I was lucky, but I definitely would have said,
Speaker: just shoot however the fuck you want to shoot because people don't know what they need until you show them, you know, like you need to be the one who's out there putting it out, how you experience it.
Speaker: Like just finding poetry in the mundane, sort yourself out, find your cosmic order and then stay with that.
Speaker: You know, like it's just,
Speaker: I think we all consume so much on Instagram that you start to become what you see.
Speaker: So yeah, it's very true.
Speaker: That's such good advice because it's very easy.
Speaker: And I think as well, like a lot of photographers fall into the trap of, you know, I'm not going to work for free.
Speaker: I can't keep working for free.
Speaker: I can't keep working for free.
Speaker: And like the problem that I see a lot of times is that they're, they're working for the client.
Speaker: And so they're doing what the client wants.
Speaker: And I feel like you can easily get stuck into that cycle of just producing what you think the client will want.
Speaker: And it's not really fulfilling you and it becomes frustrating.
Speaker: And then all of the things that bother you about business make it really hard to keep going when you're not producing the work that you want to be producing, but you have to just go out and create the work that
Speaker: that you love without being restricted by expectations from clients or what anyone else thinks you should be doing and just go out there and create for yourself,
Speaker: And that's going to require clients, but they don't have to be paying.
Speaker: And when you take away that and then you start doing enough of that, then the clients who see that and they're like, I want that, they're going to pay you.
Speaker: So that's when you're going to find that fulfillment.
Speaker: So it's so important.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: To do that and to just shoot whatever the fuck you want.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: And I can tell you right now that the weirder I got, the more successful I got.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I think too, like we, I think that one thing I've learned is that I don't show a lot of work and I, and I know that some people will disagree and say, show everything you've got and blah, blah, blah.
Speaker: But for me, that trains me to be able to enjoy that experience and it, for it to be this beautiful place of art and not just about outcome.
Speaker: I'm not shooting so that I can show everyone and they can tell me it's good.
Speaker: I'm shooting because I want to be weird with my camera and
Speaker: You know, and so that essentially brings me to a place of being completely comfortable with who I am in my art and craft.
Speaker: And sometimes I share it and sometimes I don't.
Speaker: And I just don't really care what anyone thinks anymore.
Speaker: Like, yeah, like, let me just do my weird thing.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's really, that's so good.
Speaker: It's such an, it's such an important perspective.
Speaker: And like, you know, there's like, I would have come to learn is that there's two, I mean, there's lots of, there's lots of different types of people out there.
Speaker: So I don't want to necessarily box anyone in, but there's like,
Speaker: When you're kind of working and you're creative and you're really passionate about the creative side of it, it's hard to do that and run a business and feel like you kind of always have that pull.
Speaker: And then there's the other kind of photographer who's there and it's like, I'm just here to make money.
Speaker: So I'm churning out like what people expect and that's okay too.
Speaker: Like it's okay to do either one, as long as you are not limiting yourself or holding yourself back.
Speaker: If what you really want to do is weird shit, just go and do that.
Speaker: Like, don't feel the pressure to be the photographer that's churning out the expected aesthetic, but also it's okay if you want to be that photographer too.
Speaker: Like, and you want to just go there and make a kill in doing it.
Speaker: That's cool too.
Speaker: Just do whatever you want.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And what I find and I love and what I used to have on my website when I was offering shoots is, you know, I'm not that photographer.
Speaker: That photographer is great.
Speaker: And they have a place in this world too.
Speaker: If you want that, I can recommend you to people, but I'm not that person, you know, like, yeah, so there's, you know, there is space for everyone and I respect everyone equally.
Speaker: I'm just in the weird place.
Speaker: I'll.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I was good.
Speaker: I'm with you.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So let's talk real quick before we wrap up about the unfiltered retreat.
Speaker: So, um, if you're listening in, we are hosting a retreat for photographers and filmmakers in August, um, August this year, later this year.
Speaker: in the blue mountains.
Speaker: And we are just so, so, so excited about it.
Speaker: And, um, so Lauren, I'm curious from you, like, what are you the most excited about for the retreat?
Speaker: I know that I'm not meant to say this, but I am excited to get away from my family for a little bit.
Speaker: I think that's a given for everyone.
Speaker: It's a nice excuse, isn't it?
Speaker: Really?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But, you know, on the more professional side.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: No, look, I'm excited to get away.
Speaker: I'm actually really excited to get away and see the amazing input that you guys have put in to make this
Speaker: phenomenal thing happen because it is a big thing.
Speaker: It's amazing accommodation and it's really, I've seen the background stuff.
Speaker: It is really, really professionally constructed.
Speaker: And I think that there's not a lot of stuff out there like this, you know, like you've got things for like on my side, you've got retreats that are the complete opposite to that.
Speaker: You know, this is, this is formatted, it's constructed and it's very, very carefully, carefully
Speaker: curated with the teachers as well.
Speaker: And it's, you've got different aspects and different views and it's just so goddamn well thought out.
Speaker: So I think that I'm most excited to see the outcome of this grow because I know that it'll be something that goes on and on from here.
Speaker: Oh my gosh, you're going to make me cry.
Speaker: I feel so excited.
Speaker: Gosh, that was just so lovely.
Speaker: We have put a lot of thought and care into this and we're really excited and we're so thrilled to have you at the very first one.
Speaker: It's a bit cool.
Speaker: Oh, so cool.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Well, thank you so much, Lauren, for being here and we will see you soon.
Speaker: Thank you guys.
Speaker: Thank you so much.
Speaker: Bye.
