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🗞️WELCOME TO ISSUE NO. 5

Welcome back to “STEADY, COWBOY”, a newsletter I use to document the work I’m doing as a photographer & creative entrepreneur to become world class at the craft and build a profitable business along the way, so that you might accelerate your own journey upward. I’m psyched you’re here.

🛰️CAPTAIN’S LOG

Big week this week. 100 day video challenge ends on Thursday. I’m about 99% done with a mountain of edits that had backed up over the last month or two. My first piece of work in a major newspaper should go to print soon. This summer and fall has been an important couple of seasons creatively. I shot some of the best work of my life, I booked two of my largest paid gigs ever, and I got serious about learning short form video, and I launched this newsletter.

It’s also been a grind. Alone, each one would be cool, but all of them in tandem - it’s kept me busy. I recently met legendary photographer Joe Greer in the Nashville airport, we chatted briefly, and something he said stuck with me: “Sometimes, even Batman has to take off the cape.”

So what comes next?

1. Well-earned time off: I’m excited to put some focus in other areas - the house needs lots of work, I’d like to learn how to work on my car, I want to go for longer walks and more adventures with my dog, and I might just try to run a half marathon in December if I can get my training right. Expect my video output will fall off for a bit. Few weeks, maybe a month, I don’t know.

2. Raising my average: When you gotta post a video every day, they’re not all winners. When you gotta write a newsletter every week on top of that, it might not all be gold. I’ll never bat .1000 but as I reflect on the last three months, I want to move towards fewer, better. I want to raise my average because your time is valuable and if you’re nice enough to watch or read something I make, I want it to be worth it for you. So I’m going to be using some of the time off to take in inspiration, to deconstruct what makes the greats great, and ultimately to figure out how I can make content that’s even more useful, entertaining, and informative.

3. Planning season two for Reels/TikTok: I like the idea that I’m about to hit the finale for “season one” and then shut it down for a minute. Eventually, though, I’ll get that feeling it’s time to get to work again, and that’s when I’ll start planning. I’ll be making more of the stuff that’s been the most useful to you, but I’ll also be trying a bunch of new things. This format is magical because it’s an endless laboratory to experiment in.

4. Studio: It may be completely stupid, irresponsible, and/or undoable for a number of reasons, but I am so interested in studio lighting and feel like I have heaps to learn. I want to find a space to learn in when I have free time. Money may get in the way, but I’m going to see what’s possible.

5. Portfolio expansion: Seattle’s commercial photography market is heavily slanted towards outdoor brands. I don’t have enough of that in my book, and I plan to start shooting spec work to change that.

Ultimately, I feel like a runner that just ran the best race of my life, and I’m a mix of feelings. I’m psyched to have completed the journey, I’m tired, I see where I could’ve ran a better race, and I’m already thinking about how I approach the next race whenever the time comes. And I feel like the work over the last few months has the potential to really change my life for the better in the future. I’m brimming with optimism at what could come next.

But I gotta take the cape off for a minute.

🔬EXPERIMENTS & LEARNINGS THIS WEEK

1. 🎬VIDEO - “Can I make this shorter?”: One of the most difficult things I’ve found since I started making these “talking head” style green screen videos this summer: Being concise ain’t easy. For the last couple of tutorial videos, I’ve tried to keep it as close to a 30 second runtime as possible, instead of a minute or more. It’s working, and the math is very black and white: My average runtime tends to be somewhere between eight seconds if it’s not well-received and 15 seconds if it’s one of my best. So even if it’s one of my best, I’m losing a ton of people really early in the video. My takeaway is when in doubt, keep it short.

2. 🎬VIDEO - Diagrams are surprisingly popular: New learning here: I recently started including top-down lighting diagrams of how the lights are set up in lighting videos. Here’s an example. I think it’s great people dig it, as long as it’s useful, I’ll keep doing it. These are all done with an iPad and an Apple Pencil in an app called Procreate. The lesson? I did almost 15 different lighting tutorials before I realized this could be helpful. People learn differently, keep tinkering with how you teach to see what sticks.

3. 🎬VIDEO - “Scouting report” series: I can’t quite crack why these don’t hit harder. These are some of my favorite videos, analyzing the creative approach others are taking. I did two of them this week, one on French fashion brand Jacquemus & another on an editorial Emily Ratajkowski shot for Self Portrait mag. My working hypothesis is it’s some combination of the hook not being interesting enough &/or the videos not being informative enough. I’m not giving up on these, and if you have any ideas on how I could make them better, I’m totally open to it.

🎞️STILLS

This week, you catch me a bit empty handed: Only posted one set of stills, but it was a good one, I’ll break it down below.

1. 📸 Some outdoor “ring of fire” portraits with Ash

   1. Why I like it: I’ve always thought this concept was cool, and I’m so glad Ash was willing and able to help me shoot it. To me, this is an example of a simple concept with no lights, just a camera, but it’s executed well.

   2. What I learned: Wind is your worst enemy in a situation like this. Even a slight breeze is enough to derail you. The more you can do off-camera to block the wind, the better. And be prepared with safety precautions. We didn’t run into any issues but anytime you’re playing with fire, you’re playing with fire - safety first.

   3. Gear used: Sony A7IV, Sigma F2.8 24-70, Tiffen Black Pro Mist ¼ strength (and of course all the equipment necessary to do a proper fire ring)

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🎬VIDEOS

My fav 3 this week:

All this week’s videos:

10/27: Posing Tutorial, Part 10 IG / TT10/26: Posing Tutorial, Part 9 IG / TT10/25: Scouting Report, Emily Ratajkowski pageant editorial IG / TT10/24: Lighting Tutorial, Part 16: Backlighting your subject IG / TT10/23: Scouting Report, Jacquemus in NYC IG / TT10/22: Lighting Tutorial, Part 15: 80’s Halloween editorial w/ Sammy IG / TT10/21: Posing Tutorial, Part 8 IG / TT

100 day challenge progress: The finish line is in sight, and it feels really good. 96 videos down, four to go. 10/31 is Day 100.

📈AUDIENCE GROWTH

Instagram: 8113 followers, +327 this week, +4% vs. last weekTikTok: 821 followers, +52 this week, +6% vs. last weekNewsletter: 803 subscribers, +47 this week, +6% vs. last week

🙋GOT A QUESTION?

New section this week: Have a question about cameras, lighting, editing, workflows, whatever? Ask me here - your question may get featured and answered in depth in next week’s newsletter.

ASK A QUESTION

🆓FREE PRESETS

If you edit in Lightroom, here’s a link to five free presets, no strings attached.

FREE PRESETS

📍FREE MOOD BOARD OF THE WEEK

For those of you who didn’t get the free “suits editorial” mood board yet, here’s a link. Will have another new one in next week’s newsletter.

MOOD BOARD

🛠️TOOLS

I often get asked what cameras, flashes, etc I use. Here’s all that in one place.

TOOLS LIST

💬COMMENT OF THE WEEK

Audrey made me laugh here.

🔗SHARE

If you saw something you like or found interesting in today’s post - will you do me a solid and forward it to a friend or creator you think might like it?

Everybody have a great start to your week,

Garrett