I’m setting up a killer silhouette photo and I can hear Anna Kuperberg’s voice in my head. Her face is floating in the sky saying, “This is not human enough.”
Last April I visited Vancouver to meet up with other portrait and wedding photographers at the Canada Photo Convention. It proved to be a worthwhile experience and I’ll be going back in April 2015 to do it all over again. I met a lot of talented and inspirational people. It was super cool to meet and hang out with the photographers that I look up to. I joined photographer Rob Whelan in Kingston for this podcast. You can check out my first interview with Rob here. I should mention that this conversation is very focused on photography and the convention so if you’re a casual listener you might get a little lost – please forgive me!
I’ll briefly give the backstory about one little thing before you jump into the podcast. Anna Kuperberg, one of the speakers, was critical of the current wedding photography trend of using the married couple as little “cardboard cutout” silhouettes in a beautiful landscape. Here’s a quick example of the kind of photo we’re talking about:
She argued that this style causes wedding photography to “lose its humanity” because the photos are no longer about the relationship (or expressions) between the two people, but rather, the focus of the photo is more on “how clever can the photographer be,” or, “who can find the coolest place to create a silhouette?” It was a criticism that stood out in my mind and we discuss it in our interview below:
If you want to jump ahead to a specific part of our conversation, here’s a quick guide:
00:40 – Has CPC helped you?
01:05 – How did you find out about the convention?
02:53 – Were you happy with how many new photographers you were able to network with?
05:25 – Who were your top 3 speakers?
05:30 – Discussing Matt Ebenezer.
07:30 – Discussing Benj Haisch.
08:30 – Discussing Last Forty Percent.
09:40 – Discussing psychology of client meetings.
12:25 – Out of all of speakers at CPC 2014, who would you hire as your own wedding photographer.
13:30 – Discussing Two Mann Studios and increasing the # of frames that you shoot in a wedding day.
16:45 – So, who would you get to photograph your wedding?
17:05 – Discussing Anna Kuperberg.
17:40 – Subject: Wedding photography has lost its humanity.
21:35 – Discussing Photojournalism, Kirsten Lewis.
22:55 – Discussing Matt Ebenezer’s 1st lecture again.
24:20 – Did you notice nobody has business cards these days?
25:50 – Discussing Tim King.
27:00 – Any observations comparing the younger speakers and the older speakers?
28:30 – Do you need to be at a certain stage in your career in order to attend?
31:20 – So, who would you choose as your wedding photographer?
32:00 – Am I hiring them for my work or my personality?
33:00 – Discussing Hailey Bartholomew.
35:20 – Discussing Jonetsu.
36:15 – Discussing rain and bad weather.
38:25 – Discussing Erika Mann’s approach to dealing with one’s “ego.”
For a database of all previous podcast episodes please click here. Thanks to Rob Whelan for chatting with me and taking a few wacky headshots! Don’t forget to check out Rob at either his website: http://www.robwhelanphotography.com/, Facebook page, Instagram, and/or Twitter page.
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