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“Show Notes”
Kirsten Luts is a commercial portrait photographer in the outskirts of London. He is also the host of the camera shake podcast. Kirsten uses podcasting and video (on Youtube) as a large part of his marketing.
The first thing to think about before starting a podcast or Youtube channel, you’ve go to think about why you are doing it. It could be getting more clients, it could be a passion project. For Kirsten it was to give him something creative to do during covid lockdowns when all his photography work had stopped. He says he learned a lot from some of the best photographers of our time.
Kirsten says that initially he spent a lot of time and money on the podcast. It didn’t being in money. But it has brought him a lot of opportunities, for example speaking at photography shows. So the podcast has brought opportunities rather than directly make money. And those opportunities often lead to making money and to doing interesting things. Consistency is important when making a podcast of videos. There is a whole show about consistency here [link].
Working with someone else is also very helpful. This can motivate you and help you to be consistent. Kirsten started their podcast on Youtube as well as on Spotify and Apple. He says that his podcast was terrible at the start, but they learnt and got better and it’s important, in any project, to make that start, and not wait for perfection. Kirtsen is amazed by the guests that he managed to get on the show. Before he started he made a list of guests he would love to have, and he’s managed to have all of those guests on the show.
Marcus asks Kirtsen for tips if you are going to start a podcast or youtube channel. Kirsten says the first thing is to think about your audience and the topic. The topic has to be interesting and engaging for your target audience.
We move onto video and Kirtsen says that if you are not offering clients video as part of your work a using it as part of your marketing you will end up behind other photographers that are offering this. He thinks video is much more of a threat to a stills photographer than AI is. It’s not a big jump to go from stills to video. Much of the technique is similar such as lighting and exposure.
Speaking of video Shoot to the Top is now on Youtube and you can watch it here.
“Show Transcription”
Sam: Hello, Marcus, how are you?
Marcus: I am very well, Sam, very well indeed, deep in the heart of the British summer here, so we’re having a lovely time.Yeah. Have we got a guest on this week?
Sam: We do, of course, Marcus. We have another guest, otherwise people have to listen to us. That’s the last thing they want to do. So we have with us Kirsten Lutz from the Camera Shake podcast. Kirsten, welcome to the show.
Kirsten: Hey, thank you so much for having me. I’m really looking forward to this.
Sam: Great, and as we usually do with guests, would you like to introduce yourself?
Kirsten: Hi, my name is Kirsten Lutz. I’m a commercial portrait photographer based over here in London, or on the outskirts. Well, the burbs of the burbs of London. Yeah, and in the glorious leafy, you know, hamlet of half a chair. Like I said, I’m a commercial portrait photographer, which basically means I deal with headshots, you know, businesses, actors, and so forth. But I’m also the host of the Camera Shake podcast, which I’ve been running for the last five years now, believe it or not. And that’s really what I do. The podcast has taken over my life and my family’s life.
Sam: And excellent, Marcus. How have we got Kirsten here? How have we allowed another podcast on here?
Marcus: I’ve done Kirsten’s podcast.
Sam: So you’ve been a guest on it?
Marcus: I’ve been a guest on his podcast. I had a great time. It’s a different format to our show. It’s, you know, it’s an hour and a half long. But Kirsten’s a real expert in—he’s not going to say this—I think you look at your YouTube, you’ve had about, you’ve got 500 videos out there, which is your podcast and teaching videos as well. So I just thought, well, this is what an expert who can talk about the benefits for photographers of using YouTube and podcast to raise your profile.
Kirsten: Absolutely. It’s just—it’s a perfect platform. I mean, if you’re a little bit extrovert, I think I would say, you know, that’s really kind of the—that’s at the basis of it. But yeah, YouTube and podcasting—or video and podcasting in general—are forms of media that have become more and more important over the last, really, over the last 10 years. You know, I’ve been in this business long enough to remember a time before YouTube even, you know, before smartphones, before YouTube and podcasting. You know, it’s not that long ago. In fact, pre-pandemic, you know, people used to go, “Podcast? I’ve heard of it. What is it? Where do you—where do you get—where do you get that, you know?” And now everybody seems to be having a podcast.
Sam: And so presumably for photographers, as we say with all marketing, you’ve got to think about who the audience is. So yeah, presumably your podcast, I’m presuming, is aimed at photographers, Kirsten. But obviously not all photographers want that, do they? Because for some photographers, they’re doing training and they want their guests to be photographers, but for lots of photographers, they want other customers. So what sort of thing do you think kind of, you know, a regular photographer—say commercial photographer, wedding photographer, whatever—could have as a podcast? Because obviously, you know, talking about photography is great for photographers, but not if you do other types of photography.
Kirsten: Yeah, so the first and really most important thing that you’ve got to think about before you start anything like a YouTube channel or a podcast, per se, is actually—you’ve got to answer the question: why? Why are you doing it? What’s your raison d’être, basically? You know, it could be that you want to attract more clients. That’s a perfectly viable reason to start, you know, a YouTube channel or a podcast or something like that. Or it could be that you have other reasons to do it. In my case, in particular, you know, I started at the beginning of the pandemic because, in actual fact, my photography work had collapsed completely, you know, from one day to the next, and I needed to do something creative. And I felt that, you know, I wanted to have conversations with other photographers because, you know, the reason behind it wasn’t to grow an audience or, you know, to build it into anything. It was just literally to give myself structure during a time when there were extreme lockdowns happening over here in the UK. You know, so I recorded an episode on a Monday, you know, I edited it, I brought it out on a Thursday, and immediately my week had structure. And in doing that, I had all these fantastic conversations. And I, you know, I realized that actually, I learned a lot. You know, I learned a lot from talking to, you know, some of the greatest photographers of our time. And so I realized that if I learned a lot, then my audience has the opportunity to learn too—join in and also learn a lot. And, you know, I kept getting more and more messages from listeners, especially, you know, through the first couple of years of the pandemic, you know, people saying, “You know, I love listening to the show whilst I’m editing. It just helps me, you know, because I’m also a victim of the pandemic,” you know. And it was just—it was actually aimed at the community of photographers, rather than a thing—a vehicle—to get me new clients. What it has done—and this is, of course, one of the things anybody who doesn’t really have any idea about things like podcasts, anybody who’s not involved in the creative field, or, you know, even my wife or something in the beginning—she’s like, “Why are you doing this? Why are you spending so much time doing this? Like, is this paying you any money? Are you making any money with this?” One of the biggest questions, like, “Do you earn money doing podcasts?” And, you know, for a very long time, the answer was, “No, I don’t. I don’t really make money,” you know. In fact, I spent money on subscriptions and this and that and the other, and I spent a lot of time on it. And what it has done is it’s opened up opportunities for me over time. So you can either—you know, whether that’s speaking opportunities at things like the Photography Show, or, you know, it’s taken me across the world to shows like Imaging USA. And I’ve met a lot of people, done a lot of collaborative projects, and it’s opened up opportunities for me that have meant that I have been able to, you know, gain financially, you know, down another few avenues that are a direct result of the podcast. But the podcast is the vehicle that opens up these opportunities. So that’s one way.
Sam: Okay, that’s interesting because it’s really similar to—we were talking to Jeff Brown a while ago, and he was saying a very, very similar thing about books. He’s written quite a few books and he’s saying, you know, the books themselves, they don’t sell that many, they don’t make money themselves, but exactly the same—it’s that vehicle so that because you’ve got a book, because you’ve got the podcast, you’re seen as the expert. So then it leads to all sorts of other things.
Kirsten: And, you know, the truth of it is, you know, nobody seems to be taking you seriously—I mean, because like I said, you know, it seems like everybody has a podcast. I found that, you know, in the beginning—you know, let’s say, I don’t know, when we did that, because I started with a friend of mine—and let’s say when we hit like 40 episodes, you know, we’re super proud. We’ve made 40 of these episodes. Awesome. You know, people went, “Oh yeah, you’ve got a podcast. Okay, nice. Okay.” You know, I think when we hit three figures, I think when we hit sort of 100 episodes, that’s when—you know, that’s when people were starting to take us, in the industry, were starting to take us more seriously. Because then it was like, “Oh okay, you know, there’s obviously—there’s some serious work and effort and, you know, dedication that’s gone into it.” And so really that’s when it—for us, that’s when it started. And I’ve been doing it on my own now for the last 160 episodes or something. But, you know, that’s really when the tide started to shift. So this is a marathon, as they say, not a sprint. And this is the thing I think that people have to bear in mind no matter whether they, you know, go into YouTube or podcasting—whatever. This is a marathon. This is a long-term—you know, this is a long game. There’s no immediate success. It’s not the thing that happens overnight. You know, it does.
Marcus: I think these days, all marketing is a long-term game, isn’t it, Sam?
Sam: Yes and no. There are some things you can do in the short term. So yes, usually the best stuff is the long-term and you build it like Kirsten’s saying. But there are, as well, often things you can do to kind of fill that gap while you’re waiting, because you don’t want to be saying, “I’m waiting for the long term, but in the meantime, I’ve got no money.” So there is often things you can do in the short term. You can always—Google Ads are always a great one. You can always turn on the Google Ads and people will arrive at your landing page. But yeah, it’s expensive. But yeah, you can do things like that while you build something for the longer term. And the stuff you build in the long term does pay back really well over time, doesn’t it? But you’ve got to put that time and effort and consistency in.You’ve got a whole show about consistency, because that is so important. Isn’t it, Kirsten, as part of?
Kirsten: So the consistency is, again, you know, it’s this thing, it’s about showing up. You know, I’ve—in 270 episodes—I’ve missed, I believe, two weeks. One time because I was stuck on a mountain in Wales during a storm, and the internet went down, and that was it. And the other time was actually when my co-conspirator, my friend Nick, who I started the podcast with—when, after the pandemic, he had to go back into the workplace, basically. And, you know.
Sam: Inconvenient.
Kirsten: Well, I mean, you know, it’s one of these things. Yeah, I mean, we started during the pandemic, and nobody knew, you know, because in the beginning, if you remember, it was like, you know, oh, this is going to be a new force.
Sam: Yeah, no clue did we know.
Kirsten: Exactly. It took two years. You know.
Marcus: I think what you mentioned there—sharing the load—is a really good way. Certainly, I found out. Well, we found, isn’t it? Yeah, that’s helping you be consistent. And I was just thinking that of the photography shows that I listened to, quite a lot of them are two people.
Kirsten: Yeah, it’s got—it definitely has—advantages. You know, it’s true that sometimes you just need that little bit of motivation. You need the other person to go, “Hey, come on, you know, you know we’ve got to do this, let’s do it,” you know, even when you’re feeling maybe a little bit demotivated or something like that. And, of course, that’s going to happen when you do something over a long period of time. You’re not always going to be switched on and ready to go. There are going to be moments where you maybe, you know, maybe you feel a little bit under the weather, or, you know, something in your life happens that you have to deal with. So, you know, and I think for me, it was actually brilliant to start this whole thing with Nick. And I remember this—I actually remember the conversation I had with Nick at the very beginning of the pandemic. This was literally like a few weeks in. You know, my diary had completely collapsed. I had virtually all my bookings—I used to shoot conferences at the time—and all my bookings had basically been cancelled, you know, because conferences were dead in the water, like literally from one day to the next. And yeah, from a marketing point of view, of course, I made a cardinal mistake. I built my whole business on one pillar. You know, if in 2019 anybody had told you the conference industry is going to collapse, you would have gone, “Mad, wouldn’t you?” Yeah, it’s crazy. So, you know, what could possibly happen? Well, a pandemic can happen. Nobody thought, you know, and then it happened. And so, you know, I realized a number of things. I realized, you know, I didn’t have any smaller business clients. I didn’t have any local clients, because all of my clients were the international corporates. So I had nothing to fill the gaps. And, you know, I watched a lot of Netflix for the first couple of weeks, and I did the Marvel movie marathon a couple of times. And then I really—you know, I really—I couldn’t stand it anymore. I had to do something creative. So I got on FaceTime with my friend Nick, and he was a filmmaker. He was in the same predicament. And so, you know, we were talking about it, and we said, “You know, do you remember this idea about starting a podcast that we had, you know, a few months ago?” But, you know, when life is going its normal course, then sometimes you have ideas and you kick them down the road, and it’s just one of these things. And so I said, “Do you remember this podcast idea? This might be something to do for us now.” And then, of course, you get into the—and I don’t know if you had the same experience—but in the beginning, you go, “Oh, that’s a great idea. How does this actually work? Where do podcasts live? Like, how do you get something on Apple Podcasts or Spotify? How does any of this work?”
Sam: Yeah, I remember in that research.
Kirsten: Yeah, and you know.
Marcus: I’m still doing it. I’m still doing it.
Marcus: Kirsten, did you go to YouTube straight away, or were you just doing voice-only podcasts when you started?
Kirsten: No, for us—I mean, it was an absolute no-brainer. You know, it was going to be a podcast about photography, which is a visual medium. So there was absolutely no question that this was going to have to be on a visual platform. I mean, no, there was no question about it. On the very first episode, it went straight into YouTube. And it wasn’t that we thought that YouTube was going to be the right platform, but we didn’t know, to be honest with you. But it was just a no-brainer, you know. We had cameras.
Marcus: Yeah, and you did it with a filmmaker as well, so that would make perfect sense.
Kirsten: Absolutely, yeah. And, you know—so, yeah. And I think at the end of that initial conversation, which was like a Friday afternoon, you know, I said to Nick, “Look, man,”—because you get to this point where you start talking yourself out of a good idea because you’re constantly coming up against obstacles—and you go like, “Oh, how do you do this? I don’t know how to do that, and I have no idea how…”And at some point, I said to him, “What are you doing on Monday at 4 p.m.?” And he goes, “Well, nothing, because, you know, it’s lockdown, so I’m stuck in the flat.” So I was like, “Cool, because Monday, 4 p.m., is when we’re going to hit record, and we’re going to record the first episode, and we’re just going to have to figure it out.” But we now know—and we called the first episode Done Is Better Than Perfect—because sometimes you just have to get stuff done, and you just have to accept that it’s not going to be perfect. And, you know.
Sam: We have that conversation a lot, don’t we, Marcus?
Marcus: We do. And I’ve got to say, Sam is really good at it. I mean, obviously, being creative, I’m a bit of a perfectionist. Sam is great—and Sam, being a marketing person, is great at getting stuff out there, whether it be… And yeah, you need to have that.
Kirsten: Yeah, you just have to actually make a start. And then it’s just a matter of showing up. And, you know, the thing that we realized also was the first episode is going to be terrible.And it really was. You know, I challenge anybody to go back and listen to the very first episode of the Camera Shake Podcast, and you will agree with me—it is absolutely shocking. But we also figured that, you know, if we made it to episode 10, most likely we would have learned a couple of things. And episode 10 is probably going to be better than episode one. And episode 20 is going to be better than episode 10, and so on and so forth. And, you know, we didn’t know that we were going to make hundreds of episodes—at the time anyway—but, you know, things have… you go through a process of changing things and, you know, trying out different things. And you have to, because that’s what makes you a better podcaster. It’s the same in photography—that makes you a better photographer. It’s the same in marketing. You know, you can try different things. Some things work, some things don’t. That’s why as a marketer, you always adjust and amend, you know, in order to get the best result.
Sam: Now, and I think there’s a few things—we’re doing other people, because I think often photographers do feel quite isolated. I mean, you can help with that, can’t it? And what I found as well is not just that there’s somebody else to pick you up, but also the fact that it’s Thursday, it’s half past 10, I should be doing a podcast. But often going, “Oh my God, does this go on? Does that go on?” But the fact that there’s Marcus—I know he’s about to jump on the call—it kind of forces you to do it too. Just that kind of, you know, that you kind of don’t want to let the other person down. And that suddenly, automatically, I think, steps you up a level. Because that’s very different to just letting yourself down. Like, “Oh God, yeah, I could just spend another hour on, you know, editing my photos or doing my accounts.” Well, suddenly, as my co-host sat there, I better bloody get on and do it. It is a big impetus to get on with it.
Kirsten: That’s why I love having guests on the show, you know, because that’s basically—that’s my accountability. You know, the reality is, when we first started the podcast, I mean, in no way—in no way—would I have thought that I would be able to get the guests on the show, the caliber of guests on the show, that I managed to get on the show. You know, I had a—this is totally true—at the very, very beginning, I made a list that I called the Wouldn’t It Be Cool If list, you know? And I just put names on there—pie-in-the-sky names that I thought would never in a million years agree to come on my little stupid show, right? You know, people like Pete Souza—Barack Obama’s photographer—or Scott Kelby, or you name it. You know, you name it. And, you know, I’ve had them all on the show, multiple times. It’s like, how the heck did that happen? You know, and it’s just, it’s persistence. You know, it’s accountability. And, you know, if somebody agrees to come on the show, and, you know, the reality of it is, I’m, you know, I’m sitting in my front room recording this. I mean, I’m talking to a screen. This isn’t like a big TV production. You know, if somebody out there agrees to give me a couple of hours of that time and allows me to ask them anything I want to ask them, then I’ve got to respect that, you know, and I’ve got to commit. And that’s the thing that makes me show up, you know, ultimately, because somebody else is, you know, taking time out of their life. They don’t have to do this. This is not paid. But to me, it’s just, you know, I have to show the respect and show up. And, you know, likewise, you build that relationship with your listeners over time. You know, and if I say that, you know, my show comes out on a Thursday at 2 p.m. UK time, which is in the morning, North America time… You know, people, you know, form habits. They get into their car on a Thursday morning on a way to work. And they put on, they want to, you know, listen to the latest, you know, they’re looking forward to the next episode. And if I’m not there, if the episode is not there, I’ve caused disappointment, and I don’t want to do that.
Sam: Yeah, and they find something else, don’t they? And so the next day, they’ve got something else.Yeah, yeah,
Kirsten: Absolutely.
Sam: Anything is a newsletter. And with any of your other marketing, some of those things that are just regular.Yeah, people know when to expect it. And that’s very powerful.
Kirsten: It’s like a TV program back in the days of the programming, you know, back in… Do you remember? I mean, I’m old enough to remember the days when, you know, you had to wait for a whole week for the next episode or something.
Marcus: Yeah, right.
Kirsten: And imagine if you… I mean, I remember this as a kid. Just remember, like you sit in front of the TV, you turn the thing on at 7 p.m. on a Thursday or whatever, and you watch it. You know, you’re waiting for the next episode of Magnum P.I. That’s how old I am. Magnum P.I. to come on, and it’s not there. And you go, what? Yeah, what was happening? You know, and that’s the reality of it. So I think when you, you know, when you decide to… And this is actually, this is the thing that you guys know — you probably know this — but for the listeners, this is interesting. Do you know what the average lifespan of a podcast is, in terms of numbers of episodes?
Sam: I know it’s under 10 episodes. I can’t make it — like seven?
Kirsten: It’s seven episodes.
Marcus: I mean, that’s the average.
Kirsten: Okay, that is the average.
Kirsten: Unbelievable.
Marcus: Minimum.
Kirsten: Yeah, crazy.
Marcus: So just with that. So, Kirsten, obviously, we’ve hopefully sowed the seeds in our listeners’…And viewers’…now minds about the benefits of putting together a podcast or a YouTube channel. Maybe just one or two, maybe three tips on putting together something that you’ve learned over the years?
Kirsten: Sure. Consistency is one — absolutely, without a shadow of a doubt, that’s the most important thing. The other thing is the why — is the, you know, the thing that we mentioned in the beginning. Why do you want to do this? Is it something that you want to give something back to the community? Fantastic. Do you want to do this to gain more clients or more business? Then you get to really think very carefully about what kind of podcast you’re going to create, and especially what audience you’re trying to attract. Like, let’s say, for instance, if you’re a wedding photographer, you know, creating a podcast about wedding photography is not necessarily — you’re teaching how to do wedding photography — is not going to be of interest to potential future brides and grooms. You know, at that point, you need to create something that is of value to that particular audience because these are the people you’re trying to attract as clients. So, you know, creating, you know, creating a podcast around wedding planning, for example, makes a lot more sense. Maybe you have guests on that come, broadly speaking, from the area of everything that’s got anything to do with wedding planning — you know, wedding planners, cake makers, whatever they’re called, you know, venues, florists, all that kind of stuff. You know, the kind of stuff — all of the stuff you need to make a wedding happen. You know, again, you’re building your own position as an expert in the industry, and you’re more likely to find potential future clients that way. But again, it’s the why that’s important. If you have clarity about why you’re doing this, it’s easier to stay consistent and it’s easier to push through these walls, you know, that are constantly trying to stop you from doing something.
Marcus: Very good, cool.
Sam: And then we talked a lot — kind of about making a podcast-style of thing… And then do you have thoughts on using YouTube, just as a photographer, as a general promotion tool — making one-off videos, using for that type of thing?
Kirsten: Yeah, I mean, you know, I would say that if you’re a still photographer in 2025 and you’re not looking into video, you are going to be at the back of the line. There is no question.
Sam:Video for your marketing or video for your clients?
Kirsten: Both. I’m telling you, you know, since the pandemic — so we’re in 2025 right now — you know, the pandemic is five years back. But since the pandemic, in my business, video has increased massively. I’m being asked to, you know, to make video projects a lot more regularly now than certainly pre-pandemic. A lot of the time, the projects I’m working on are basically hybrid projects, you know, where video and stills photography are required. And of course, if you’re doing stills photography, given the fact that you have to promote yourself and your own business across social media, video rules across all social media platforms. So therefore, you’re constantly thinking, okay, you know, what kind of behind-the-scenes footage can I create that I can then use as marketing collateral when I’m promoting myself or my business to other clients? And, you know, the need for that is so vital in 2025 that if you’re not looking into video, you are going to lose out. AI is not the threat right now. It’s actually, in a sense, to stills photographers in many ways, you know, the ability to — or the inability to — embrace video is much more of a threat than AI is.
Sam: That’s interesting. Yeah, so just kind of, in some ways, get over yourself a bit. Get on with it. It’s not like the photography’s evil twin. It’s kind of just part of the business and it’s kind of part of what’s needed nowadays.
Kirsten: The funny thing about this is, you know, when I speak at camera clubs, for example — this is one of the things — you know, I’m a great proponent when it comes to video. You know, when I was a kid, I started with video. I come from a family of stills photographers. And I used to rebel when I was a kid, you know, because I wanted to make a movie like Star Wars. I used to think, like — back in the 80s, even — I used to think that stills photography is… nobody’s going to look at stills photos in the future, you know, because it’s all about movies. But, you know, I talk to an audience of stills photographers and, you know, it occurs to me that every single person sitting in the audience is holding a camera, you know, that is a lot more powerful — for video — than any of the video cameras I used to have when I started out in the 80s. So you’ve got the tools. You know, video is… if you know photography and, you know, lighting and exposure and all the rest of it, you’re 80% there. If you know how to tell a story in one frame, all you have to do is expand that over time. Now, with video, you’re able to tell a story over time. You know, it’s not a major leap to go from stills photography to video. The rules of exposure are exactly the same, you know. The rules of lighting are the same. The rules of storytelling are the same, you know. It’s just — you’re just telling a story over time. It’s not that — it’s actually not that difficult. The learning curve is a lot less steep than people think. And like I said, for you.
Sam: presumably actually telling story over time is easier than trying to compress it into one single moment. You’ve got the voice. It’s easier in some ways rather than harder.
Kirsten: It gives you, you know, it gives you additional creative opportunities as well because, you know, when you tell a story over time, you can, you know, you can confuse the viewer, you know, you can lay false traps and, you know…
Marcus: It’s a different — yeah. I think a photograph is more of a fixed viewpoint, isn’t it? I mean, there’s no truth in photography, but there’s more truth than there is in making a movie in a film narrative, sorry.
Kirsten: Yeah, you can — because you can make somebody think one way and then all of a sudden, you just, you know.
Marcus: You can switch it.
Kirsten: Yeah, and, you know, you can reveal things. It’s, you know, it’s a fun… from a creative perspective, I think it’s a fun medium. But like I said, you know, purely from a marketing and from a business perspective, it’s very, very difficult — or it’s going to be increasingly more difficult — to promote your own business without video, you know, in 2025 and in the future.
Sam: Nice week, man. Okay, okay. Amazing. We are running out of time, aren’t we, unfortunately? Yes, but as Marcus mentioned earlier, we are now on YouTube. So if you really want to, you can come and watch us. So yes, head over to the new YouTube channel. The link will be in the show notes. Come and follow and you can get all of the new shows on video — in the car as well as listening. Kirsten, thank you so much for being with us. It has been a really, really interesting show. And Marcus, I’ll see you next week.
Marcus: See you next week, Sam. And thank you very much, Kirsten. Been a pleasure having you on.
Kirsten: It’s been an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much.
