005: Two Mann – How To Become In-Tune With What Interests You & Shoot For Maximum Emotional Impact

June 19, 2020

“We create our own market. If you think of any hugely successful companies, that’s what they’ve done. Look at Apple, nobody knew they wanted an iPhone. They created their own market by inventing something that they thought the world would want.

Stand on your own two feet and say – this is me, this is what I do.”

TWO MANN

Hey everyone! It’s Sally here, from Studio Ninja. Today’s episode, we welcome the one and only Two Mann!

Erica & Lanny talk about their journey in business so far, how they home-schooled their two children whilst travelling for 3 years, how they create such unique frames, how to maintain curiosity throughout a Wedding Day and so much more!

Check out some of the biggest points from Two Mann’s interview below:

If you guys had to start over, if you had to start your whole journey again as wedding photographers, is there anything you’d do differently?

Erika:
Yeah, there is some things, obviously yeah, definitely that we’d do differently. We’d try and expedite the whole part of the process where we were way more focused on the camera techniques and the gimmicky stuff, than the people because I mean, obviously that led to us finding what we’re interested in. But we’d probably try and expedite that-

Lanny:
Oh for sure, I mean, if we could go back to our first couple of years as wedding photographers, knowing what we know now, feeling what we feel now, the work we would have been making at that time, would have been on entirely other level. But not because we were any more skilled with the cameras or had better gear or anything, simply because all of our experiences now have led us into viewing and experiencing the world very differently. Not even viewing and experiencing the world differently, but now we see the way we see the world and we see the uniqueness of it. And that’s a struggle for any human because that’s all you know. We all think that we don’t see the world in unique ways because we don’t think it’s unique, that’s all we know, but really, we do. Nobody else sees the world the way that I see the world, right? And so once you start to kind of trust that and allow that to kind of guide what you do as an artist, that’s when things start to change.

Do you have perhaps any tips for people that are looking to watch what’s happening more in a wedding and absorb it and just capture it as it unfolds? And then also, on the parallel, the directing couples and being confident in telling them what you want in a portrait session.

Lanny:
One of the most important things, if you are drawn to that kind of documentary approach, you do have to make sure that your clients are on the same page. And that really has to happen before they even hire you. So A, with what they see in your work, but then in the consult with them and the communication, before they hire you, is explaining what you do, explaining your approach. That’s a key part of our process, is being fully open and transparent with regards to our approach and what to expect from us because often, what they’re expecting from our wedding photographer or the last wedding they were at was a photo shoot and it’s like, okay Mr. Photographer, what do we do now? So you can’t just show up at your next wedding and say, I’m just going to shoot what happens and I’m not going to intervene or anything. Your clients better be expecting that from you, otherwise, it’s going to be like a what’s going on here? So, that’s the key.

Erika:
The other thing I’d say is really important, is don’t leave your creativity up to chance because so many photographers sort of leave their creativity up to chance. Like they show up for an eight hour shift, for example, right? If I’m only there at bride prep for 20 minutes, that’s leaving my creativity up to chance. Me expecting myself to be creative in 20 minutes, that’s so much pressure, right? So now, Lanny and I take this approach because we only shoot 10 to 15 weddings a year. I understand there’s some photographers, many photographers that shoot 50 or 60 weddings a year and it would be very hard to take this approach.

But maybe you could just try it for a few weddings. By showing up first thing in the morning, when the bride starts getting ready, it doesn’t leave that creativity up to chance. I’m giving myself the best possible scenario to make creative shots and to notice and observe what’s interesting, right? I show up in 20 minutes and I’ve got… if I show up in 20 minutes, I’m just doing a checklist. I’m like, oh, I got to make sure I get this shot, this shot, this shot. If I’m there for four hours, I know I’ve got time to be creative. So, that would be the other thing. And then what was the other question? Oh, with posing. Tips for posing.

We’ve got a whole module in that Facebook group I talked about too, called Posing for Posers and it’s about an hour. So we’ll go into great depth there if anybody is interested.

Lanny:
In a nutshell I’d just say for us, we’re not the kind of photographers, who pose and sculpt couples into these static positions. We try to avoid the lifeless posed, penguin posed type things. So in order to do that, we try to bring out the emotion or feeling or movement that we’re looking for through actions. Like giving them actions or directions, things to do, to bring out that emotion or to bring out that movement.

Are there any top moments that you think are pinnacle in your career to date?

Lanny:
Yeah, this is, looking back, like maybe a bit of a pivotal type moment or maybe like might be considered like a high achievement. But maybe not for the reasons you would be expecting, 2014 and 2015 I think, ’15 and ’16. Anyways the two years that Erika and I, back to back years were each named Fearless Photographer of the year, was at the time when that happened, it was like a big accomplishment, right? And it ended up being a bit of a turning point for us, in our career and our work. Not because of the recognition or the accolade, it was of a bit of a existential type reflective moment in our career, where it’s like, okay, well A, what now? Where do we go from here? And B, sort of recognising that okay, we’ve reached this, maybe you call it a pinnacle position.

Erika:
Yeah, well I would say, yeah for me, it was like, okay, well I’ve reached this position that I should be proud of, yet I don’t value any… Well, some of the photos I’ve won I value, but many of the photos that were winning awards, were lifeless, were not representative of me and what I found interesting. It was like, oh, I’ve just got this big award for creating imagery that I think is kind of empty. So it really forced us to look inwards at what we’re doing, why we’re doing it and who is it for?

Lanny:
So as a bit of a, it kind of started a shift in our work, that kind of moment that introspection, that searching for how can we make deeper imagery? How can we make imagery that more speaks to us and that we find more fulfilling? And that sort of has helped to guide us into making what we feel is deeper work. And by deeper I mean like more interesting and impactful. Not just eye candy, right? Not just the epic. It’s not to say that we can’t still do that, but we want to do something else. We want to make photos that mean something.

Sally Shaw:
Absolutely, so that’s a great kind of pivotal moment in regards to winning an award. I think a lot of photographers see that as not necessarily the end goal, but certainly a goal on the journey. People think that winning awards across their career is something to aim for and something that you’re worth your salt if you’ve won an award. So it’s interesting to hear that winning that award actually made you guys take a step back and say, “How can we reshape things here?”

Erika:
Yeah, it was actually a pretty dark time to be honest, for me personally. It didn’t bring any validation, which is what you think it would bring or feeling of success. It brought feelings of in-authenticity.

Thank you!

Thanks again to you all for joining us and a huge thanks to Erika & Lanny of Two Mann for coming on and sharing such a deep and meaningful look into their business and life.

If you have any suggestions, comments or questions about this episode, please be sure to leave them below in the comment section of this post, and if you liked the episode, please share it using the social media buttons you see at the bottom of the post!

That’s it for me this week, I hope you all enjoyed this episode.

See you soon,

Sally