035: Rebecca Colefax – Capturing Those Inbetween Moments & How Studio Ninja Could Change Your Life

July 20, 2021

“Know your worth – and feel confident about it.”

REBECCA COLEFAX

Hey everyone! It’s Sally here, from Studio Ninja. Today’s episode is all about Rebecca Colefax.

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

How do you get your couples to relax in front of the camera?

Interactions with the people I think, and just making them feel comfortable from the word go. From the moment of interaction I think is really important. So the first email out, the information that you provide, you develop a rapport without even sometimes speaking to them, just through the information on your website, on social media, they kind of get an idea of who you are and what you’re about. And then just before the shoot, I do this sneaky little thing. I’ll actually go into my studio ninja app on my phone and I’ll look at my client’s questionnaire and I always ask them exactly whom I’m photographing.

And so they give me all their names and their ages so that when I turn up to the shoot moments later, I’ve memorized everyone’s names. And so I start off with knowing everybody’s names right from the get go. So it sets this real rapport and this comfortability, I suppose, with everyone. And then, like I said before, I really allow my clients to be themselves and I’ll give them little scenarios to do, and then watch those moments unfold. But I think one of the key tips I do first and foremost is I always photograph from the get, go from the very beginning of the session wide angle shots. So I never put a camera in someone’s face really close and personal at the beginning of this session. So I start by allowing them to have some space, and then I show them that first photograph out of the back of the camera and they’re like, wow, that’s amazing. And slowly bit by bit, I’ll get closer and closer.

So by the end of the shoot, I’m literally in their face. But just allowing those natural moments to unfold within scenarios, I think is the key to capturing those in-between moments rather than posing. But to be honest, I have actually asked people to pose, but it’s not that pose that I’m actually after, it’s the moments directly after, or the moment just before that poses, the actual natural capture that I’m looking for. So I play little games and ask some silly questions and get them to do things. And yeah, it’s fun. It’s really fun.

Who inspires you?

Look, this is really off topic, but Jane Goodall is my hero. I mean, for obvious reasons, she’s changed science. She’s changed the world with her studies and her photography too, over the years. So she’s my superhero. But in terms of photography, look, I really love Jodi Lynn. She does some amazing colors and connections and things. And because I photograph at the beach a lot, I’m often drawn to people that are not photographing at the beach, just something different. So she’s up in the mountains and she has some beautiful colors and things. And I also, I love Darren Jews’ work, Darren Jew is an Australian photographer shooting I think for Canon, I photograph Nikon, by the way, but he does some amazing underwater photography with whales and he’s a big advocate for the environment and things like that.

So I really enjoy looking at his work and look, I’m really inspired by Stephanie Bower’s creativity. She’s a photographer down in Brisbane. A lot of these are Australian. I like so many photographers, but yeah, she’s really creative. She’s really pushing boundaries. And I really like that, but I also love that she’s really pivoted. She used to be a family photographer and a newborn photographer, but she’s pivoted into boudoir, and she’s really owning it. And I love the creative aspect, but more so her focus, her determination and her business mind. I’m really passionate about that because I think … I mean, it’s great to be a hobby photographer and photography as a passion to drive your creativity. But if you’re using it as a business, you really have to put that business hat on and think your profit margins and things like that, if you’re going to be successful. So yeah. I’m inspired by people that push the boundaries.

If you could start your career all over again, is there anything you’d change? Anything you’d do differently?

So the one thing I would have done sooner, I think is implement studio ninja into my business earlier than what I did. And the reason why I say that is because I had my whole business in my head and I had a maternity session booked and a client booked for a sunrise session, which meant that I had to meet the client in the car park, near the beach in the dark. And then we were going to go to the beach and went to the sun came up over the horizon to get these magical shots. And I went to bed, not even thinking about a shoot in the morning. And I got a call. It was still dark outside saying, where are you? I was still in bed, had nothing prepared. It was slightly raining, had completely let my client down. And I have never been so devastated for my client, for myself, I was embarrassed.

And I had been researching CRMs for years. I’ve researched many of them and I’ve trialed many systems over a number of years. And studio ninja was just so simple and so easy to use that it was that moment that said, right. I need to get all of this out of my brain, which was very fuzzy after having three children let me tell you, and then get it into a system where I’m notified. I know what’s happening. My workflows are the same. Every single time I can tick off to make sure I know where exactly I’m at. And I have never missed a beat since. So it took me a long time to actually say that I needed this because I didn’t know I needed it until that moment. And I think I got so busy, wrapped up in photography, equipment props for newborn shoots, doing seminars, doing courses, all of that kind of thing. If I had my time again, I would probably just focus on using my camera and get studio ninja dialed because honestly, those two things are the only things that you really, really need, possibly YouTube as well.

Thank you!

Thanks again to you all for joining us and a huge thanks to Rebecca for joining us on the show!

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