There’s a number in this episode that’ll make you rethink what your images are actually worth — and it’s not about day rate. We get into the pricing conversation almost nobody has out loud, plus a straight answer to the question every unrepresented photographer wants to ask: what does it actually take to get signed?
Beyond that, there’s a look at what a real agency production involves once the cameras roll, an initiative built to open industry doors for people who’ve never had an “in,” and a clear-eyed take on where AI actually helps a working photographer — and where it doesn’t.
00:32:26.66 Marcus So we’re going to record another show with you here and now, and this will come out at a later time. um So let let’s start getting into those questions.
00:32:40.79 Marcus Right. So first of all, what does a photographer need to have before that you could even consider taking them on?
00:32:48.86 HARRY Gosh, mean, other photo agencies, lots of commercial work, lots of clients, proven track record of doing it.
00:32:59.48 HARRY With me, I kind of like ah you know an element of that, but it’s not it’s not a deal breaker. I’d like to see, it has to be at a level. um
00:33:08.18 Marcus Yeah.
00:33:09.10 HARRY I’ve got quite high taste levels. I mean, friends and family and partner would disagree. It’s a lot.
00:33:14.95 Marcus laughter
00:33:16.09 HARRY listen and watch But when it comes to photography and, you know, visual kind of media, like a cinema stuff like that, I do, my i you know, I like to be quite high brown. What I like has to, it has to, it has to look really good, but it also has to feel like it is that made from that person.
00:33:34.17 HARRY um I feel a lot of the time you will find photographers who will take a photo or something because, you know, they will show you all the colours, everything’s a perfect image of that image.
00:33:46.77 HARRY And a lot of the time that doesn’t tend to interest me.
00:33:46.87 Marcus Yes.
00:33:52.12 HARRY I want to know, how do you see the world? What does your world look like?
00:33:56.34 Marcus Yes.
00:33:57.50 HARRY Because we all view things differently and we all perceive um and to do that through a camera and for obviously a lot of lot of the heavy lifting through post-production or whether you’re shooting on film and doing your hand, well how are you you making your work?
00:33:59.54 Marcus Yes.
00:34:11.83 HARRY um it’s really important to have that voice and have, and not necessarily the confidence, but have the kind of, you know, gall and gumption are really good things to have as a photographer, to walk into spaces and say, I should be here and have that sense of like, this is what I want, but also have zero,
00:34:31.22 Marcus confidence
00:34:32.15 HARRY Yeah, and zip but zero expectation of the person you’re talking to. And that’s one thing that I’ve kind of learned over the years is don’t expect anything. If they get back, even if they get back to you to say no, but I try to give, when there’s people who email me, I give them, I i can’t work with them for multitude of reasons that I’ll have in my head. But ah ah I’ll civil that down to things which are actually helpful for that person because I don’t really i don’t see the need and you know just saying no, not for us and they’re like, okay, cool, well, what is for you?
00:35:03.89 HARRY I try to kind of give something because I know there’s you know i know there’s nothing there’s nothing harder than trying to get an agent but you don’t always need an agent. you don’t need and’t you know we’re not We’re not the end of the we’re not the start
00:35:14.94 Marcus No, that’s that’s right. I think people think, oh, I need to earn more money, therefore I’ve got to get an agent. It’s really the wrong approach. um Yeah, so basically, ah would you take on photographers who have not worked on campaigns before?
00:35:30.78 HARRY It would, it depends. If they’ve done kind of smaller bits and pieces and and then I saw something in their work and a lot of the time, we do have a few photographers at the moment who are who i theyre theyre are amazing people and they’re so talented and they’ve got that real hunger and drive. And I see the quality in their work kind of like you know there’s these bursts of magic that happen across their portfolio but it’s not consistent across the entire thing it’s not all singing singing from the same hemshi so it and so i spend time with those photographers i’ve got two at the moment who are spending once a week we have an hour’s chat and i’m interested in representing them but we both we’re both fully i’m i’m an open book with everyone i meet they you do
00:36:01.75 Marcus Yeah.
00:36:15.22 HARRY take it or leave it type of situation. They will, I tell them what they need to do and what I would like to see. And, you know, they might just say, can we talk in a couple of weeks? gonna work on that. And then we basically have loads back and forth where I can essentially say, this is what I will need for you to be on my books.
00:36:30.96 HARRY And like, if you want to be on my books and you want to work with me, great. This is what, this is the work you need to do. and obviously not every conversation I have with every photographer, kind of offer that to them to help.
00:36:42.30 Marcus Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course. ah You saw something in these people and you wanted to develop them and work with them.
00:36:44.02 HARRY kiss Yeah.
00:36:49.85 Marcus So tell me some of the brands that your photographers have worked on, the kind what campaigns they’ve worked on.
00:36:57.53 HARRY So we’ve done work with, oh, God, Nike. We’ve done recently Comic Relief. We’ve done and Google.
00:37:09.00 Marcus Puma, you’ve done Puma.
00:37:10.55 HARRY We’ve done Puma. We’ve done… you’re making me actually… had it
00:37:14.38 Marcus I do know why. here Come on, mate.
00:37:15.94 HARRY I don’t know.
00:37:16.23 Marcus Where’s your elevator pitch gone here?
00:37:18.39 HARRY whereas i don’t don i don’t think have learn to happen on availabl page i think it’s
00:37:21.87 Marcus You’ve done some big campaigns. The boys done some big campaigns, let me tell you.
00:37:23.48 HARRY this ah you are I can get them up now or a rattle them off to you. We’ve done things Yorkshire Cancer Research. We’ve done stuff with BAFTA. We did Affinity Water recently.
00:37:31.40 Marcus Yep.
00:37:33.08 HARRY Hero, Visa, BBC.
00:37:36.28 Marcus Yep.
00:37:36.50 HARRY Here we go. Now they’re all coming. United Airlines, Timberland, um Topic, Dish, Podcast, McCain Foods. We did some stuff with Kneecap, the Irish band recently.
00:37:48.31 Marcus Oh, yeah. Yep. Yep.
00:37:50.04 HARRY We did stuff with Airbnb. More comic relief.
00:37:52.76 Marcus Yeah.
00:37:53.37 HARRY Yeah, loads
00:37:53.53 Marcus Okay. So it’s a very very, very diverse portfolio there, might I say, of clients.
00:37:57.05 HARRY hold at mine most them moa kind it and Yeah, we’ve done a lot the time, not what we’ve done, it’s what we haven’t It’s well um is what I’m going on to next is usually where my brain is at.
00:37:59.52 Marcus Molston. Yep. Oh, you’ve done a lot. There you go. Yes.
00:38:09.05 Marcus Yeah.
00:38:12.46 HARRY Yeah.
00:38:13.37 Marcus so So obviously, you’re a bona fide company and you’re but you’re developing photographers. You’ve got photographers about how they’re working. How many photographers are on your books at the moment, do you know, Harry?
00:38:23.64 HARRY Nine, nine. I know
00:38:24.63 Marcus Nine. Okay, that’s a nice number. That’s a nice number. I mean, some agencies like art and comics, well, other agencies, I shouldn’t mention names, really have a lot of photographers on their books, don’t they? Filmmakers, makeup, painters.
00:38:35.03 HARRY that’s… Yeah, they i mean they I mean, it’s a model that’s working. it work it work obviously works and obviously they wouldn’t be doing it. um But for me, I’ve always been, and and you get some photo agencies that have like 25 photographers on.
00:38:48.31 HARRY And you look at it and just go, my God, that’s it I just think it’s kind of like, I tend to run, you know, I’m a massive foodie and I tend to run my my books as a restaurant menu.
00:39:01.37 Marcus since instance
00:39:02.12 HARRY Here’s all the food you can have.
00:39:02.84 Marcus I like that
00:39:03.93 HARRY But it’s not 25, if it’s 25 things and laminated, you’re less likely to have a good experience.
00:39:08.02 Marcus yeah yeah yeah love it now look na he’s a while he’s on a roll the boy’s in a roll I found his sweet spot that’d be a cool analogy
00:39:09.91 HARRY We’re more of kind of side street chalkboard limited menu type place.
00:39:16.29 HARRY Yeah.
00:39:19.12 HARRY We know you’re going to have a good time. We know you’re going to get good And that’s kind of how we operate. We always kind of, you know, it’s the old models have kind of changed. And one thing that we, I mean, and just talking back to kind getting people, I mean, I launched something start of this year and we’ve done three of them so far, which is we launched this initiative called Opening Doors, which is essentially that, which is trying to open doors for individuals who have, you know,
00:39:48.05 HARRY essentially no the qualification the kind of way to get it and to be part of it is that you’re from a working class or low in class or low middle class background and you don’t have any experience you’ve never been on set or you’ve got limited experience on set what we do is when we have a production i bring two or three or the last one for uh young people on um to come on and dinner that doesn’t necessarily be young either um
00:40:01.02 Marcus Right.
00:40:12.63 HARRY come onto set and whilst I’m running the set, I might not be running the set, but I might have a producer running the set for me, but I’ll be on set and they can ask me questions and the producer and the creative director will, you know, and the photographer, everyone on set will know that those people there are there to learn.
00:40:18.86 Marcus Mm-hmm.
00:40:27.89 HARRY I don’t kind of like stand up and say, oh, we got these people with us today who are joining us like work experience. They’re very much part of the crew and they will muck in. If I need them to move a light, they need to move a light.
00:40:36.15 Marcus Yeah.
00:40:37.15 HARRY Like if I need them to go get ah there’s a delivery for some backdrops that have arrived last minute, they’ve got to carry of them in.
00:40:37.34 Marcus Oh, lovely.
00:40:43.07 HARRY I’m not going to, you know, there’s, there’s an element of coming in and we, we, we pay them for their time as well. So they come in, they get paid and, um, And we do it from a sense of, as they, I never had that in my, when I came up through the industry, it was all me just bumping into people in what we, could you know, there was no, I could have gone, you know, there’s none of this could have, ah could be doing completely differently if it wasn’t just by luck and chance of meeting the right people.
00:40:57.24 Marcus No. Yeah. yeah
00:41:06.40 HARRY So you know, we’ve run opening doors with the idea of, no, it’s not luck and chance. You can see It’s something we operate and we can do and you get in touch. And we, we basically, we we try not to bring on the same people twice.
00:41:17.22 HARRY We tend to go through the list and get as many people on. So they’ve got that experience. And I say them, when you’ve got an interview or you’re applying for a junior, but whatever job you’re applying for or production, whatever it is in the creative industry, just slap my name on it and say I’m a reference.
00:41:32.84 HARRY And then I’ll be your way in and I’ll sing your praises and win and that and that and that’s and that’s but that’s how it should be and it but isn’t and it’s not and i and it’s really frustrated me so
00:41:35.86 Marcus and That’s
00:41:40.55 Marcus that’s how it should be exactly.
00:41:44.98 Marcus It is. it’s ah it’s a funny It’s a funny old business. And just talking about the business model, so basically these photographers, you’ve taken these not these photographers on board, you’re representing them. So you’re at that stage where you’re putting their portfolios out to get them work and you’re putting in front of the campaigns and director art directors who are appropriate.
00:42:04.63 Marcus And you’re also negotiating that thing that is just such not talked about except only in advertising photography and that’s usage.
00:42:13.75 HARRY yeah Yeah, usage. the the deal
00:42:16.33 Marcus Usage.
00:42:16.92 HARRY that that’s ah So it’s licensing and usage is essentially when you work with a client.
00:42:17.29 Marcus Let’s talk about usage. What is usage?
00:42:24.58 HARRY So let’s let’s say you’re the campaign with a client, and they had 15 KVs, and KVs is key visuals. So that’ll be the key artwork that you’ve shot. And they might ask 15 KVs and 24 additional images that could be you know just website, you know smaller social bits. but The key big hero campaign work that you’ve got with the client, that’s going to go on billboards. It’s going to go on website. It’s going to go on you know promoted…
00:42:53.70 HARRY Promoted emails, comms, all their social accounts everywhere, basically plastered, digital display screens, um basically wherever you can stick it, it will go.
00:43:04.75 HARRY um in terms of where you might, and TV as well, if you’re doing, um we do a lot of there’s a lot of, plenty of campaigns where they just use photography and in, and Airbnb probably of the most famous one.
00:43:05.85 Marcus Yeah, right.
00:43:08.41 Marcus yeah i
00:43:15.27 HARRY did They do, but I think they’d actually do it the best um in terms of using still images on TVC campaigns. So though each of those images cost money for the client to then use.
00:43:25.19 HARRY So they’ve got the usage of it, also the licensing contract. So all of our production, we we whenever I do like a budget for a client, they’ve got the production, they’ve got pre-production, production, and then they’ve got licensing and usage, and then they’ve Yeah.
00:43:37.82 Marcus Yes. We’ll come into production. Sorry, we’ll come into production in a minute. We’ve got about 15 minutes left to talk in. We’ll talk about production in a minute because I know that’s another arm of your business. But yeah, just coming back to the usage.
00:43:48.25 HARRY Yes, i ah the use so so everything is split up. So the client can then see clearly, like, what are they getting for this? like So you’ve got like 15, what is the markup? are you charging, you know, you charging 500 pound per image?
00:44:01.56 HARRY Or if it’s a global one, are you charging more than 2,000 pounds an image?
00:44:03.38 Marcus Oh.
00:44:06.31 HARRY Yeah.
00:44:06.30 Marcus Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:44:07.59 HARRY Basically everything that you create and do for the client, there is a fee for, and it might be, you know, then you work it out based on, you know, is it six months? Is it three years? Then you show, and what I tend to do, I do on all all basic, anything anyone’s talk to you, licensing usage. If they say they want six months from you, the best thing to do is say,
00:44:26.42 HARRY this is what six months gets you but this is what 12 months get you but this is what you know 18 months get you and then you can price it all up and then but bring bring the cost slightly down on the 18 months and then oh god if we did just just ran this for a year for example we can actually get a lot more for our budget and do that so so ah book it and buy it so um yeah it’s basically wherever your images live you need to need be paid and obviously there’s a licensing contracts which we have our own original licensing we have our own business terms and conditions we have our own um
00:44:57.37 HARRY which covers all the photographers in the production, but we also have our own licensing and usage contracts. So, you know, those things are like, for example, there’s, you know, the either the agency and the client.
00:45:09.10 HARRY So if I’m working with an agency, if the agency and the client has has rights to use these images within this timeframe. You know, that timeframe goes, I expect them to take it down or pay me more money give more money.
00:45:19.67 Marcus yes if yes yes
00:45:20.63 HARRY Or give me another job. And and then there’s the things like third parties. So the client might have a partnership. Let’s say it’s, you know, Heinz and they’ve got a partnership with Coca-Cola or something.
00:45:36.42 HARRY They’re doing a collab. and they want to use the images that you shot, you need to make sure that any third there is payment for third-party usage and additional usage coming in. Because before you know it, you’ll see yourself splatter on brands that you’ve never even shot it for.
00:45:46.46 Marcus oh my god
00:45:50.38 HARRY um So yeah, it’s quite as it’s not as complex as it sounds. You better say, you know, how much do you want?
00:45:54.93 Marcus it’s it’s it’s it’s not but it’s it’s not it’s not but if you’re just like a regular jobbing photographer like myself with not not being represented just getting my own work it’s something you doesn’t even come into the equation I think I think in America as a commercial photographer you talk about uses but in the UK it’s never discussed unless you’re at that level you’re talking about
00:45:55.22 HARRY is How much do you want?
00:46:15.90 HARRY Yeah, I mean, we we do we are lucky enough that we there’s an agency where we do have, I mean, we had, i think the biggest one we charged was £250,000 year for about ten images um
00:46:29.85 Marcus I mean, i mean it’s it’s where the money is, isn’t it?
00:46:29.98 HARRY so
00:46:31.89 Marcus it’s you And that’s why that’s what you’re good at. And I see, you know, when you started talking about these figures and these different ways of doing it, that’s what agency does. They can really ramp ramp it up.
00:46:44.21 Marcus and Because a photographer, as photographers, as you know, because you start off, you know, as one is still no doubt are, you just want to talk about the work and put who you know but who’s going to model and the creative side of it.
00:46:56.58 Marcus And all the other side is just like, oh, gosh.
00:46:58.62 HARRY you I mean, I mean, what I i have a, I have a, like I can agree with my photographers where we all have a, I have an open dialogue. So my photographers see my budgets. They see how much I’m charging.
00:47:09.69 HARRY um A lot of agencies won’t do that because they want us, you know, we’ve got X amount of markup, which we’re keeping for us.
00:47:12.31 Marcus Yeah. Oh,
00:47:16.42 HARRY You know, the yeah budget could be 120 but they tell the photographer it’s 90. So they siphon off that money for them.
00:47:22.20 Marcus God.
00:47:23.01 HARRY I’ve been in plenty of rooms. I’ve heard that happen and and seen it.
00:47:25.38 Marcus Wow. Harry.
00:47:26.38 HARRY I’ve kind gone, what? That’s insane. Yeah.
00:47:28.21 Marcus That’s insane.
00:47:28.38 HARRY So everyone sees it. So the photographers know what, everyone knows what I’m charging and what I’m saying and what I’m, what I’m doing. And, you know, so it’s all open. Everyone everyone can see it. I mean, i’ve got, you
00:47:37.56 Marcus ah love Yeah, no, I can.
00:47:38.55 HARRY the
00:47:39.00 Marcus i’ve come Yeah. And that’s how you and you know, putting that you’re doing that as well. you You’ve always been a very open person. Okay, let’s just go into the last or bit now, which again, our viewers might or our listeners and viewers might not ah know so much about, which is the production side of your business.
00:47:56.38 HARRY mean Yes, so production is very much just like how do you… You’ll get like a brief in and it can range from something incredibly simplistic. So it’s just like, you know, products on a different different colored you know different colored backdrops and different products being moved in or…
00:48:13.30 HARRY you know or it could be people wearing product or it could be a real life campaign. We could be campaign with real people and it could be on the go. We’ve done a few kind of, we’ve done like four now, documentary style kind of, they look commercial, but it shot with real people on real locations, think.
00:48:26.06 Marcus Mm-hmm.
00:48:28.51 HARRY And a lot of that is like, they gave for you the say, this is what we want to do. This is how much money we’ve got. And then you’ve got to give us 20 images at the end of it. And this is what the creative is. This is what we want to see you make.
00:48:39.00 HARRY And then they go, said, we do you want us to, lot of the time, it’s brands coming direct. They want us to do the the production. And creative agencies, a lot of the time, will you know but When we can, we’ll we’ll get the production.
00:48:50.93 HARRY So we basically say, right, we we need, you know, we’ve got to get the casting. You know, there’s things like ah getting the casting together, getting all your crew together, all your equipment, all your drivers, making sure everyone’s going you know, if it’s outside of the M25, people are getting paid the right fee for driving outside the M25.
00:49:09.05 Marcus Yeah, yeah, all these little tables and figures.
00:49:11.21 HARRY Yeah, it’s basically just like, how do you go from like, we’ve got to get like 30 images together, and the brand wants to be on set every single day, and the the brand has sign off and everything.
00:49:23.04 HARRY And sometimes it can be very simple where you’re just doing, you know, you’re just, ah there’s some campaigns I get where I’m like, I can do this really easy. And then sometimes when look at it and go, oh this is really complex.
00:49:34.67 Marcus Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:49:34.88 HARRY It’s got blue screen and grease green screen. We’re doing this massive CGI. We’re doing huge amounts of stuff. We just did one reason it’s coming out quite soon, which is a huge CGI and then small animation like set building and real life.
00:49:49.07 HARRY you could do You’re shooting plates, which are shooting things. you know you’re shooting the back when You’re shooting a building, and then you’re going to use that as the backdrop in post to put the people front of things like So there’s so many different moving elements.
00:50:01.41 HARRY You’ve got art directors who will you know be in charge of all the props and sourcing all the props and signing all those props off then managing the props on set.
00:50:08.95 Marcus yes yes
00:50:10.46 HARRY And then if if it needs to be moved slightly, someone’s got to come in and move that slightly. It’s not you and the photographer doing it. So it’s a big old like village of people coming together to make it happen.
00:50:19.64 Marcus i love it love it yeah long days
00:50:20.79 HARRY and and i love I love being on a set more than anything. It’s my favorite thing in the world because so it’s it’s so much fun and it should be fun. It’s hard work. I mean, you’re and i mean long days, but yeah and and I’m in, a lot of the time when we’re doing a Darwin production, I’m the producer, I’m the front facing with the client because I’m the person I’ve dealt with.
00:50:41.30 HARRY So I’m being producing my team. I’m also managing my photographer. I don’t even manage them.
00:50:44.98 Marcus ye Yeah.
00:50:46.85 HARRY My photographers will laugh at the idea of me managing them on set. ah don’t I don’t manage them, but what i do do is I’m with them and I’m saying, you know, I’m moving the shoot along like any good producer does to make sure we’re on time.
00:50:50.78 Marcus Yes, yes, yes.
00:51:00.58 HARRY Also making sure they’re really happy. I’m also there to make sure clients happy, but also the client isn’t asking things which, you know, sometimes you get clients to go, oh, do you think we could get this extra thing in?
00:51:10.77 HARRY You’re like, well, you know, we weren’t briefed on it and it’s not been added. And sometimes the photograph photographers will just do it to please the client. Whereas I’ll kind of say, you know, I’ll set them aside and say, yeah, we’re happy to do this, but it does mean, you know, additional, it will push the budget out.
00:51:24.46 Marcus just do fees and again that’s what you’re so good at harry that’s what you can do that’s the advantage of having somebody representing you and looking after you they they can deal with those questions because you know we just we just want to shoot and just take as many photographs as possible and keep going
00:51:39.03 HARRY Yeah, I mean, a lot of the time, mean, it’s only happened a few times where the photographers look back to me and we’ve gone for a pint after. And they’re like, well, I had loads of fun. Didn’t it like you were having fun at like yeah a lot of the time i always tell it to my face because i’ve got a very grump when i’m when i’m where i have to actually deliberately be like this when i’m working otherwise people think become bloody miserable but um yeah so some some things are a bit more you know a lot of the time it’s not client being tricky a client will want it to they you know they’re very specific in what they want in their head and You’ve got, you know, sometimes you’re working with people who this isn’t, they don’t, they’re not on set every day. They don’t do this for a living. This is just, they were you know, the one or two big campaigns they’re doing this year. So even though they might’ve been on plenty of sets before, you know, sometimes articulating the exact thing that they want is, and I’ve seen it before when I’ve been producing other sets for other of the other other people um where, you know, tensions come as when you’re not giving the client the, uh,
00:52:40.34 HARRY the kind of the platform and the freedom to express what they want and have that conversation with the photographer because a lot of the time you’ll be shooting it and you know we’re doing post-production this isn’t the final this isn’t the final thing I did have one client who I’ve not worked with in a long time we shot part of it on film and then
00:52:46.49 Marcus Okay. Yes. Yes.
00:53:00.12 Marcus Yes.
00:53:07.33 HARRY grabbed my ah film camera and said, can we see um can we see the shots? was like, no, no, no.
00:53:12.44 Marcus say What? I know. Well, that would be, mean, I can imagine people. Yeah. I was in, I saw a comment the other day on some Facebook something about, he talked to his kid about film and he had, didn’t know what a film was. Yeah. And yeah, look let’s, let’s not go. Okay. Let’s just start wrapping up a little bit here, Harry. And um yeah. So what about the future then? What you think the future is going to be?
00:53:40.02 Marcus You know what I’m talking about, don’t you? I’m talking about the two letters, of course.
00:53:44.15 HARRY but about ai I mean, look, embrace it where it’s good, use it where it where it’s good, and and challenge it where it’s crap. And challenge it, you know, it’s great for sparking ideas, it’s great.
00:53:57.05 Marcus Yeah.
00:53:57.34 HARRY AI is fantastic for pre-production. To go into mid-journey and…
00:54:02.42 Marcus Oh, my gosh. Must be.
00:54:03.64 HARRY and create what the what they want to see and say and pitch them that saying this is what we’re going to create but we’re going to create it for real we’re not you know to show them so they can physically um so they can physically see it uh it’s great from those kind of like perspectives but it’s not good i got a i do i have a plumber but he can wait one second um
00:54:04.92 Marcus Yeah.
00:54:20.76 Marcus Oh, you have got a knock at the door.
00:54:25.82 Marcus we Go on, just pause it there. like Do what you need to do. And we’ve only got five minutes come in. We can. OK.
00:54:32.72 HARRY Okay, give me one second. move
00:54:34.49 Marcus okay
00:54:35.32 HARRY Yes, so with with with with AI, with the pre-production, there’s actually quite a few, i know two companies that started up now and their whole thing is they’re creative directors who basically use AI to do the entire pre-production visualization
00:54:51.42 Marcus Wow.
00:54:51.54 HARRY of campaigns for clients it’s expensive it’s like 250 pound on image to to get them to make it for you but um to to do it but then if you’re pitching on something and then you’ve got all that it ai you know the future of ai it’s you you’ve got you it’s not going anywhere it’s
00:54:52.25 Marcus Yes. Yeah.
00:54:59.16 Marcus Yeah.
00:55:11.29 Marcus No, definitely not. No way. It’s here, man. It’s here
00:55:14.62 HARRY And the thing is, this iteration of AI that we have is learning based on what we tell it and the information it can get from that. That will that’ will balloon and collapse in on itself because you know it can’t go anywhere.
00:55:28.91 HARRY The AI currently is based on learning. I mean, the next iteration of AI is going to be the doing version.
00:55:36.28 Marcus Yeah, well, okay.
00:55:36.69 HARRY That’s the thing.
00:55:37.88 Marcus That’s a long way.
00:55:38.07 HARRY that’s the one
00:55:38.44 Marcus i think that’s a long way off yet, personally.
00:55:40.15 HARRY the one when That’s the one which I think people should be worried about. But it’s ah currently, it’s very much on photographers. Post-production, it’s amazing. you where You can bring in different tools. You can get things mocked up very quickly and show, say, hey, look, I’ve mocked this up. Do you like it? Great. I’m going to go away and and and and build this and make this work.
00:55:58.59 HARRY i’ a firm I mean, me and my boyfriend constantly log ahead of this. But… I believe that storytelling, originality, creativity, those things are so core to the human experience that I don’t think we’re going go buy books made by AI.
00:56:15.24 HARRY I don’t think we’re going to enjoy watching films made by AI. And I think going to very quickly disconnect from, we’re already doing it now.
00:56:18.71 Marcus I agree.
00:56:23.27 HARRY You see an ad made by AI, it’s usually very local level, let’s be honest, it’s usually a local window cleaner who’s AI’d a thing up. or it’s so i’ve seen some campaigns come out from some people but those campaigns would never create ever interesting in the first place so i’m not you know let’s leave them alone but they um i think people very much bored naturally think some uh some data came out about a couple of days ago saying that ai budgets for brands in terms of creative content has dropped by 60 has been slashed by 60 so
00:56:54.59 Marcus 60 percent kind but yeah
00:56:55.54 HARRY I don’t think in the current ah two years, I think it’s probably going to be. I think and then there’s a lot of people. You look at all the big Cannes Awards and all the big commercial awards, which we have a lot of big photography and video campaigns. Nothing AI gets through.
00:57:11.42 HARRY and I think a lot of brands want to. I think you can use it in your workflow, and I think you can just be great. But I think the final actual product, I think, you know AI saves you so much money, why shoot this when you do an AI, half the cost, blah, blah, blah.
00:57:25.98 HARRY My argument is, yeah, but you’re probably blocking a river somewhere and killing loads of animals. so let’s there’s the There’s the ethical and moral argument.
00:57:30.42 Marcus No, it’s very true.
00:57:34.04 Marcus the Well,
00:57:35.92 HARRY Embrace it where you can, use it where it’s good, and where it’s not you know, where it’s not, where it’s not helpful or useful for you as a photographer or as a creative, or you just find it, oh or, you know, don’t use it, but it’s here to stay.
00:57:49.05 HARRY It’s not going away. So you, I mean, you basically, you’ve got to,
00:57:51.07 Marcus you’ve got to Don’t be a Luddite. Yeah, you use it. Okay, so let’s just get to the last question. And um it’s you’ve already touched on this a little bit earlier. And um the question is obviously going to be, how how does a photographer get into ah get represented by an agent? And you mentioned earlier about finding your voice, um which I think is a great, great answer. Anything else you can think of?
00:58:16.22 HARRY knowing my name if like could you dont
00:58:19.58 Marcus Do people get wrong?
00:58:21.08 HARRY the amount of emails I will get from someone who doesn’t know this is a hello sir or madame or to who it may concern I’m like
00:58:29.27 Marcus Oh dear, that’s a red flag.
00:58:30.92 HARRY I’m like, i I’m one person at one agency and I’m on LinkedIn very vocally.
00:58:31.06 Marcus Really?
00:58:33.75 Marcus Yeah, man.
00:58:36.06 HARRY You know, you look at, you clicked on the Darwin Studio kind of LinkedIn page. It’s one employee. It’s me. I’ve got my email on every post that I do and I’m posting twice a day on LinkedIn.
00:58:46.98 HARRY There’s no way you can’t know who I am or just connect with me and listen to the whatever rubbish I’m chatting about that week. You’ll get a very quick understanding ni who I am and, you know, how to…
00:58:57.31 HARRY You know, it’s just that basic research. It’s just, you know, I’m not for everyone and everyone’s not for me.
00:58:59.90 Marcus research
00:59:03.21 HARRY And I think a lot of it is finding someone that’s kind of right for you and and not. um and being ru I mean, the first email, the first thing you send to someone is, you know, sink or swim type situation.
00:59:18.81 Marcus it is really in this very competitive well written now mate you’ve got it you’ve got to start off well that’s for sure
00:59:19.15 HARRY You’re right.
00:59:23.98 HARRY You kind of got to do I shoot my shot? And say, I want to rep by this, but me or whoever you’re talking to, Or do I see an email saying, hey, look, I’m i’m looking for representation, so suchation you know not right now, but it’s something I’d like to explore.
00:59:38.49 HARRY you know what Where do you think? i think when you when you have expectations of people for things, I think that’s when, as humans, we’re very instinctively saying no.
00:59:51.07 HARRY cause Because they didn’t they didn’t want that email, they didn’t ask for it, and they got an email they didn weren’t expecting, and it’s already got an ask out of it.
00:59:51.42 Marcus and no No.
00:59:55.22 Marcus Yeah.
00:59:59.03 HARRY And you kind of go, well, You know, why am I committing to this? And I i basically, you know, i I do so much outreach myself to clients. I constantly have to go, wouldn’t, would I want to get this email? And it could be the best email you’ve ever sent. And it’d be amazing, and really direct. And most of the time is no, most people don’t want to hear from you, but they’ll, you know, they’ll clock you. I clock everyone who emails me. Oh, that person will come in handy if I, if I’ve got a shoot and I think they’d be great for assisting or styling or, you know, if there’s something that come, i you know, I don’t,
01:00:30.31 HARRY I respond to everyone, but I don’t, you know, I don’t make make their demands happen like instantly. But I think it’s clocking what’s in, seeing what’s important. Also, if you’re looking, looking for an agent, look at the photo agencies that are out there and try and, you know, just say, look, I just want to have a conversation about, you know, I’ve listened. I’ve done quite a few talks. I’ve done a few, I’ve done,
01:00:50.01 HARRY two other podcasts no i’m very vocal on linkedin i’m very vocal on my socials i’m like most people should be able to find the answer from from from the answer from that i would give before they ask me
01:00:55.19 Marcus Yeah.
01:01:01.30 Marcus Exactly. Exactly. thats and that That’s a great, Harry, that’s a great way to and do the research. And if you’re going to be contacting somebody, find out about them first, at least get their name right.
01:01:12.34 Marcus Harry, Harry, thank you so much. You’ve done, it’s just great to go back over the years with you when you first, and be there when you first started. Well, not be there directly, but certainly overseeing you and seeing where you are now. You’ve done incredibly well. You’re a lovely person. You’ve got such a warm spirit. um
01:01:31.34 HARRY you, mate.
01:01:31.54 Marcus Thank you so much.
01:01:33.24 HARRY Thank you. Really enjoyed it. Thank you.
01:01:35.81 Marcus Nice one, mate. Look after yourself.
01:01:37.70 HARRY Cheers, mate. Bye-bye.
