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Day 14: Marketing & Shooting the Before & After

My website has had a couple of million hits to it now and, of course, the first place everybody goes is the before and after gallery. Today's challenge is about teaching you about how I use market and shoot the before and after image. Not a lot of people are getting this right, and I would really like you to master this today. It's about making our before shot look very clean and like a beauty image. So you have you have to think, like, women's magazines. Its hair pulled back in a ponytail, it's head and shoulders, it's a very passport shot. I want them just standing in a normal position. You can crop it down to the belly button to show that their body is either lean or curvy, or whatever. I don't guide them at all in their posture. So if their sitting with a slight double chin, I let that happen. I do not want to take bad before and afters, because no client is going to let you show a before shot if it's bad. I have, in the past, retouched peoples skin, if I feel like their skin was n...

ot very nice, and that they were worried about how their skin was gonna look. No, I never get nos to showing before and afters. So I try and make sure that they're really just clean, beauty images as opposed to bad shots. I want you to shoot this at the same angle. I want you to shoot this straight. I want you to shoot this standing. And I want you to shoot this on a white background. Have a look at my before and afters on my before and after gallery. Have a look at the before and afters that I'm showing you today through this sequence, through this hour. And you'll see a consistency in the way that I shoot them. Now, many times over the years I've taken my business to expos, and I tried hiring the big audio, visual display and putting up behind the scenes shoots. And the truth is, is it never worked. Nobody ever stopped and watched the film on T.V. However, one years I put out a table and I put five before and after albums on the table. Just, you opened it up, there was a before shot on one side and an after on the other. I had a line of people waiting to view these. And I realized that the before and after has so much power. Now I've always used the before and after in my marketing, but only four years ago did I start putting the before and after on my website. I had no intention of ever doing that. In fact, I was diametrically opposed to putting before and afters on my website, because I felt like I was sending a message that said, look at these women, how imperfect they are natural and how beautiful they are with their hair and make up done. I had so many email requests to see more before and afters. I actually built the before and after gallery about four years ago. So ever since I've done that, it has really just exploded. Just to have that little gallery on my website. What it does is significantly, significantly tells people what I do in one movement. I mean, people are so captivated by the before and after. I don' know why we are, but we are. Also, it brings a little of realism to the everyday girl that everybody on website are not models, or their not thin, or their not young, that their just normal everyday people. And I think it really, really accurately communicates what I do. I get so many reactions from this gallery. So it's really important we nail this down. Let's look at how I shoot one, and then what I'm going to do is show you the before and afters from 28 days, and then I'm going to talk to you about how I retouch with it, and then we can talk about how we can use these in our studio, and how we can use these on our website. Hi everyone, today's challenge is about the before and after. So let's talk about it. I know that you might think this is an odd challenge, but it's something that I see a lot of people getting wrong. And I want you to master it, get it right, market with it, and use it to leverage your business. And if you're incorporating glamor into a studio or if you're already shooting babies and weddings, it's a really great way to define this whole new genre in your business. I'm gonna tell you why before and afters have worked for me, still work for me, and are doing good. So on my key note right now, I've got, let's look at how I take a before shot and why. So I've recorded a little before shot video, and I'm gonna play that for you now. Hi everyone, today we're talking about the before and after. I'm gonna tell you a few of he biggest mistakes that I think you're all making, and I'm gonna tell you how the before and after works for me. So, this is my gorgeous client today, her name is Kim. And, clearly, she's walked in just like this. She's in her treks, she's got no make up on, and her hair is down. Now when I put Kim in front of my camera, and as you can see, my live view right here, this is how beautiful she looks. So, Kim, look straight into my camera, a tiny little wee smile. If I sit Kim down just like that in front of my camera and she's right there, and my backdrop, and her hairs down. There's not going to be a lot of difference between the before and after. Particularly if what Kim wants is just a casual look. Ya know, or even, just a family portrait look with her hair and makeup done. So what's really important is that I make it look like a beauty shot. Okay, so this is, even just her sitting in her track pants, gorgeous, doesn't work. So, I'm gonna take that shot. I'm gonna show you the difference when I open it in Photoshop. So let's do that with a beautiful, big smile, Kim. Perfect, okay. So let's do a even bigger smile then that. Good girl. Alright, now, now what I'm going to do is get Kim to put her hair up. So I've got a hair tie, and I just want a back knot or a top knot. Okay. Nothing fancy. Just throw it up how you normally would get it out of the way. Then I'm gonna slide a white reflector behind her, just like this, okay. Because I'm gonna make this look like a clean beauty shot. Now with most people with bangs, I'm going to do this. I'm going to take your bangs, sweep them to the side. And this is how she's going to get her hair and make up done anyway. And I'm just gonna clip it up like that, and I could even spray it. Now she looks, straight back to the camera, she looks fresh like a beauty image. Just like you'd see in a fashion magazine, in the beauty series, okay. It's a clean face, very important. Now, I want her hands by her sides, and I want her to sit nice and tall. That's it. I'm not gonna direct her in any way, shape or form in terms of posture, because I don't need her to be pushing her chin forward or looking a certain way. I just need her to look fresh and completely just beauty. I kind of call it the passport shot. Okay, the reasons I put the hands down by the sides is because I want her to have the plainest body line that you can have. And no matter what size your client is, that body shape is absolutely, just, nothing. It's an erogenous shape. It just doesn't really. So I'm gonna take this shot now. And I always take, sort of, a just a looking straight at the camera shot. Then I always say, just a little wee smile. So just nice and easy. Just like that. That's probably closest thing you'll find to a beauty shot in a magazine. And then a beautiful, big smile here. Okay, now, everybody does that. Now I just want a real, Kim, natural slight tilt of the head, big smile. That's it, and that's where I'm at. Now, mostly I would use the smiling shot. The smiling shot for me is, I'm comfortable with no makeup on, I feel really great, I'm about to look gorgeous. There's a big difference between those two shots. So, I think what is really important is I've shot this on Kim's eye level. You can see where my camera is here. I'm not shooting up on her. I'm not shooting down on her. There is no reflector, however, we've got a lot of light in this room. I would rather have a reflector there, and make her look better and clean faced then to make her look horrible. The idea is not to make her look old, or uglier, or bad skin. In fact, I will clean up in Photoshop acne, or anything like that, if I feel like she's not gonna like it. The trick is just to make her look completely as plain canvas as you can. And then show the difference between the before and after. And then, once we shoot the after, I'm going to show which after I chose to match up and why it works. And then we're gonna talk about how we can market it on our website, at expos, at shows and on our business cards. So as you can see, really basic rules. Here they are. If you can, white background. Now, if you go to my website and have look under the before and after gallery, you will see that I did shoot a before shot in a light gray. It doesn't work, it looks too portrait, okay. It does work, because it's a really good before shot of that girl, and an after shot of that girl. But very, very important that you follow these rules when you can. Shoot low, okay, we're not shooting down on people, it's not a side ways angle on people. I'm gonna shoot nice and low just below the eye line, and I'm gonna have them stand or sit with their arms by their side. Okay, square body. I call this square body because it's the most unflattering position for somebody to be photographed in. And I don't want them to have their hands up on their sides. I don't want them to have their elbows up. Although, in one of my examples, my before has her arms up like this. But she happened to have a bat winged top on, which filled her space, and I wasn't too worried about that. I just have to make sure it's square on and no direction. I always say to people, stand there, I'm going to take your before shot. So they stand there and I don't say chin forward and down, or anything like that. Now, what I do is I take the shot, and if they have a very big double chin and it looks really horrible in the before shot, I know that there is a chance they're not going to let me use it. So then I might say, just bring your chin towards me. And I minimize their chin. Okay, I don't do any slimming or anything on the body, I just do a nice, easy before shot. You'll notice how most of before shots, everybody's smiling. So I kind of like the idea that they're casual and smiling, and what I do is, I take them from a serious face through to a smiling face. And I maybe take four to five before shots. So I'll stand them up and I'll say, eyes to the camera, looking at me. And then they'll usually do this expression, cause it's their first photo of the day. And then I say, just a little smile, and they often go, and then I saw nice big smile, and they go. Because it is their first photograph. So I do not want the shot to look ugly. I want it to look like a beauty shot, just like you would see in a beauty magazine. You know, when you see beauty magazines, clean face, hair pulled back. Rule number five, hair pulled back. I don't wanna see bangs down and curls already in their hair. Or hair down and looking beautiful. I want it in a ponytail, or at best, pulled back and a clip goes into the front of the bangs and pull that back. I want you to get a hair tie, tie their hair back, just make it look really fresh and clean so that there's a big difference in the after shot. No makeup on. However, if people do show up with their base foundation on, I don't mind shooting the before shot. It's not about making them look ugly, it's about making them look plain, okay. I just go for that clean, plain, straight on, shoulders down, relaxed, casual photograph. And I usually crop it at around the hips or the bellybutton, and to the top of the head. Photoshop, if necessary. Rule number eight. I will Photoshop a before shot, because I don't want my client to stop me from using a before shot on my website because they don't like it. Okay, you are trying to create a beauty magazine before shot. So, it's really, really, really important that you keep it clean, keep it nice, and that your client likes it. Okay, so I'm gonna teach you how I deal with getting my client to like my before shot. Okay, the before and after gallery on my website is the go to gallery on my website. I only put that on my website four years ago. I've never shown a before and after gallery, cause I never wanted to. However, I got so many requests to show the before and afters that I ended up putting it up. And it has been the best thing that I have ever done. I have put an entire before and after gallery on it's own on my website. And as soon as you start gathering 20 or more, I suggest you do the same. I have another hundred before and afters ready to switch over in that gallery, which I have to get around to, in the next three months. Because people are bored looking at my before and afters. This is how significant it is. I photographed a client and she ended up becoming one of my part time employees. She then tells me that they will be having dinner parties and her husband, who is not a makeup artist or anything like that. Her husband who's a construction worker will take people off and she'll go looking for them, and they'll be in the office and he will be on the computer showing them my before and after gallery. She told me, my husband does this all the time. He talks about you and he sees that I'm working with you, and then he tells, have you seen her before and after gallery. And he tells people to get on there. It is definitely a topic of much conversation. I've also seen a forum written about my before and after gallery. And some of the stuff written on the forum was really, like, oh whatever, like, that's a mystery. Or, and there was some really negative stuff. But at the end of the day, I'm not trying to make my female clients look ugly and then say, hey look, I can make them look gorgeous with hair and make up. I'm just demystifying the final shot. Okay, I'm taking away the illusion that this can't be achieved. I'm taking away this can't be achieved, and I'm communicating really well with two photographs that anybody can do this. Now we are captivated by the transformation. We always have been. We don't know why we love watching people go from, you know, ugly duckling to beautiful swan. We love house make overs, we love weight make overs, we love, you know, hair and make up make overs, and plastic surgery make overs. And we make T.V programs out of them, we love watching them. And so I have always just sort of seen my brand of photography as a beauty brand. So when all the other photographers were marketing family portraits 10 years ago and I was the only person that looked like me. I wanted to market myself more like a commercial makeup brand, then I did a photographic family studio with a brown backdrop and, you know, black and white photo of the kids. So it's really important that you try and clean up your before and afters, shoot them low. So I'm just gonna take you through the rules once more. White background, if you can, do it in front of one of your reflectors. I do not use a reflector. We can add that as one of our rules. Shoot low. Okay, below the eye line. Don't shoot down on people, don't slim their bodies. Square bodies, arms by their side, square to the front of the camera. Do not direct. No chin forward and down. Nothing unless they have a really bad double chin, and then you can take a couple at the end. Now, hair back. Ponytail if you can. Bangs go back with a clip. Fresh, use a headband, but not like a makeup headband. Just like they walked in like this, their trackies. Try not to make I look ugly, just make it look fresh. No makeup, however I will accept foundation. And Photoshop if necessary. Those are the rules. Alright, now, in my before and after gallery, I'm gonna pull 'em up, I'm just gonna show you. Image number one. This is exactly how she walked in to my studio. She came in to my studio with the scarf around her neck, and that's exactly how she looked, absolutely beautiful girl, no makeup on. Now, that is a really straight up and down photograph of her, and it just works perfectly because it was such a massive transformation. Not so much in her makeup, but in her hair. So, she's not actually wearing makeup. She has a natural dark color around her eyelids when she's got not makeup on. And obviously, once Samona gave her her magic make over, then we shot her on set. The difference being is that we can do the white background and then see how beautiful that transformation is. This one I love. And I probably made a bit of a mistake not shooting her directly front on, she's slightly turned in her posture. But that's okay. You get the feeling really quickly that Rachel is a beautiful girl, and her hair and makeup is gorgeous. And she is also a makeup artist, so she did her own makeup for the shoot. And I did her hair. But what was really important was that she turned up to her shoot with no makeup on, so I could take the before and after. Because I really, really like that she's got a clean makeup face. If she had turned up with her makeup on, and I don't let people do this very often, but when they say, I'm a makeup artist, I always say I hire really outstanding professional makeup artists. And I send them my makeup voucher. If they are still adamant they want to do their own makeup, I will let them. That's not a problem at all. I want people to be really comfortable. But just try and get them to do it there, if you can, so you can get a gorgeous before shot of them and then use the images. The next one, Tiffany, what I love about this shot, is obviously, Tiff's big smile. And she's totally comfortable with no hair and makeup. I just like it. She's flat against the wall, but she's actually down on a bit of an angle, so she's using her hip. But it works cause she's laughing. It's still a clean shot on the white wall, and her transformation to Angelina Jolie there is just absolutely beautiful. This is the one I was talking about where my client brought her hands up onto her hips. Actually the reason I chose this image was when she did the big laugh, she leaned forward. She went like this, I said, big laugh now, and she went, laugh, and then she came up and she was still smiling, and then I took the photograph. I chose this one because I felt it was the best photograph of the five that I took of her before shot. I sent her the photograph and I say, I sent her the before and after and I say, can I use your before and after. And nobody ever says no to me, so I'm gonna talk about why. The next one would be my all time favorite before and after. This is what I try to get every single time. I try to get an image where I have a clean before shot. So she's in a tank top, she's in just a gray singlet top. And obviously she's got no makeup on, and her hair pulled back in a ponytail. That's how she walked in to the studio. That is absolutely perfect for me. Like, I see that before and after and I absolutely love it, I get it, it's clean, it's fresh, it makes sense, and there's a significant difference between her before and after, but it's still understandable. I also like that, on the left image, she just looks like how she could look on a Saturday. You know, getting up doing the house work in her trackies and going down to the market. You know, and that's how she would look. Just being herself. So, it's not about being ugly, it's about being clean. I love this before and after. When we were talking she was actually holding a cup of coffee in her right hand, and I photographed her sitting there with a cup of coffee. I don't mind bringing in real stuff like that, as long as it's clean. I probably made a mistake here, I like the red singlet, she's wearing a beautiful, big necklace, we probably coulda taken that off. The mistake I made here would be, here, is too beautiful in her before shot. I could have pinned back her fringe, sorry, her bangs. And I could have put her hair in a ponytail, but we did her hair and makeup and I love the significant difference in her hair and makeup, anyway. But it's still a good before and after and it works. And I used two images here. I felt like in the middle image where she's dancing with the skirt and the bra that it was a beautiful shot of her, but it didn't really showcase her hair and makeup. Then, I love the shot on the right. But if I can, I'm happy to put in two images. And yes, I always right the word before on my before shots, when I can. I absolutely adore this before and after. Not just because I shot it just on the wall, tungsten lights, before I turned the lights off, I took the shot, she's smiling genuinely, she's standing up. But her transformation with her hair down is magnificent and it was such a beautiful shoot. And I love this girl. And I just felt that she just looked so normal when she walked in, and just so everyday girl, and then she just transformed into this model. And her hairs blowing, and she was dancing, and I also photographed her in a traditional sari and it was one of the most beautiful shoots, and I enjoyed it so much. I love this one, too. Now, Maria, when I photographed her, and I photographed Maria five times in seven years. And when I photographed her this time, this was the leanest that she's been. So, she's growin' up and she's really come into her own shape, and she wanted to do a body shot and she looked absolutely incredible. And when she came in she was sitting on the box talking to me, and I just love this casual shot. She's got her glasses on her head. I guess what I'm trying to say is, don't make them look ugly, Don't make them look like mugshots. But be careful that you're not making them look too portraity. That's the problem I'm seeing. I'm either seeing, in fact, I'm seeing more portrait type shots then I'm seeing mugshots. So I get that you're trying to make it look good for your client, but you also need to sell to your market what it is you do. So keep it simple, keep it clean. Right, and again, white background, arms by your sides, nice smile, easy smile, beautiful transformation. Keep it easy. Now, how I do this. I sign my model release on my iPad called Top Model Release. Okay, that is Katherine Hall photographers model release, and she has designed it specifically with lawyers for video and photographers. Okay, it backs us up, it protects us. Nobody, nobody gets photographed by me without a model release. I own the rights to those images. I own the rights to what I create for you. And until I give you those rights back after you've paid for that CD or those images, they stay as mine. That includes the before shot. Now, I would never enforce the use of a before shot on a client without their permission. However, I do want people to want me to advertise their before shots. So I have to take them in a way that they're going to accept them and say yes. So what's really important here is that you take the before shot, is that it looks good. I don't make a big deal out of it. And this is how I roll. When my client comes in, they come in to the studio, and before their hair and makeup, right after I've greeted them and I'm like, hi Kate, how are you, come in, come in. This is our studio, this is my makeup artist Christine. They introduce themselves. Come and bring your stuff down here, there's couple of things I wanna show you before you sit down on the hair and makeup chair. First of all, let's show you all of the beautiful products I have in the studio. And let's take your before shot. And I just don't make a big deal out of it. And they always go (whines). And I laugh and I go, come on, this is the worst shot you'll have taken all day. I make it fun. They come in, I show them the product, and I go, come and stand here, arms by your side. I take four quick shots. Four or five, bang. Little wee smile, cool. Lift up nice and tall, okay, wonderful, there you go. Now you get to go enjoy your beautiful hair and makeup. It's just like that, so easy. Then, I scoot them into hair and makeup, she talks to the hair and makeup artist about how they're gonna do their hair and makeup. I go and look at their clothes, and I have an hour to completely de frag. Not do Photoshop, so that I can walk in to that shoot at full power. Full power knowing that I've got a great before shot. I'm gonna shoot her exactly the way she wants to be photographed. I'm gonna give her my undivided attention for an hour and a half to two hours in that shooting room. And I'm gonna produce images for her that will make her want to spend my highest package. Okay, that is where I need to be. And if you're so busy in your life that you cannot take that time out while they're in hair and makeup to relax, prepare, think about the poses, map out your outfits, map out your corners, then you're doing yourself a great disservice. You really, really are. Try doing this work, and you'll get more money. I used to do three shoots a day. And then I would work til two in the morning. Then I started to do two shoots a day, and I would work until nine at night. Now I do three shoots a week, one a day, and I can easily wrap up my business at 2:30, three in the afternoon, take my client for coffee or lunch, and then process their images before five o'clock. And then I have my evenings free. And now I earn more money then I did when I did three a day and tried to cram them together with a lower average. Okay, it's about lifting your service and your game, and that's what's important. So, I don't make a big deal about that before shot right from the beginning, that is part of my service. You sign that contract, that's it. But, we wanna honor our client. So when we see the entice image after our shoot. When we send out the entice image and we say, thank you so much for being photographed, I can't wait for you to see your photographs. You're gonna show that before shot at their viewing. And it's very, very important that you put it in the slide show and you say here's your before and after. And you're gonna make it look okay so that they're gonna say yes to using it. I don't get people saying no to me. And I wonder if it's because I don't make a big deal out of it, or I just think, because I advertise with before and afters, they kinda think it's part of the service. So just recently I received a Pinterest and email from a Pinterest person who found a photo on Pinterest and followed the link back to my website in America, I was in Australia. And they were like, where are you based and can I be photographed by you? I want one of your before and after shots. So she was actually asking for a before and after, and I realized that if that's the language I'm communicating with in my marketing, then that's the language people are going to be comfortable with and are use to. So, you're gonna show the before shot in the viewing and you're gonna say, this is your before and after, and say, I can't wait to put it on my website. Now, only then would they go, oh, no, no, no, no, no ,no ,no ,no, you're not using that. And that just doesn't happen. So, if you're getting that, you need to just check how you're doing a before and after. Don't leave the head forward. Don't have really beautiful shots. Keep it beauty, plain, simple. The best before and after on the planet is a video before and after. Because anybody can take a good shot and Photoshop it. But not many people can take a good video, and watch somebody being transformed in hair and makeup. My two favorite videos right now, or my three favorite videos right now are not only the two girls that I did in show reels, I did Dawn and I did Christine. Okay, so, basically Dawn and Christine both did their video shot, their before shot, so I'm gonna add them to the show reel so that you can watch them. But my favorite one is from Australia when I did Helen, and I photographed Helen in that warehouse, and you see me taking her before shot, and then you see her hair and makeup be done, and then it's a behind the scenes of the shoot. If that is not the best before and after advertisement for your website and your business, I do not know what is. So you get a show reel, and a before and after out there. I'm gonna play that video, these videos for you now. ("Goddess" by Super Estela) My name is Dawn. I'm 37 years old. I am a wife. I am a mother. I am a business owner. I am a woman. I have not had my portrait taken since I was 17 years old. I feel more beautiful today than I ever have in my entire life. And today, I wanna celebrate it by having my portrait taken. I am Dawn. I am a wife. I am a mother. And I am a goddess. (upbeat tune) ("Why Do I" by Dr. Crank & Jolaosho) Go to show reels, get show reels. It is one of the courses on Creative Live. It is a three day video and marketing course for only $199. And if you don't own it already, it is well worth the commitment, because in it you get all the marketing templates for vouchers, PDFs issue, you get a full days marketing from me, and you get two days video from Hailey, and you get to see how we make those amazing videos. And when we edited those videos on, what was the software we were usin'? It was, Premier Elements. It was, like, a $79 program, and Susan edited it that on Premier Elements, and we shot it on the (mumbles) and we did the sound recording on Garage Band, on the talking on the laptop microphone. So, you can do it easy, you can do it cheap, and you can do it really well. The before and after show reel and videos, by far, best way to market. When you do put your show reels up, see, here's the thing, you could put a video show reel on Vimeo or on Youtube and tag word it. Glamour photography, behind the scenes shoot, and with a million, SueBryce.com, hair and makeup, before and after transformation, tag, tag, tag words. But if you can really only put your before and after images on Facebook and your website. So, just a great way across the board to be marketing yourself. I used to market my business at expos in New Zealand, and we would go to, you know, bridal shows, we would go and do bachelorette parties, we would go to girls day out and do the ultimate girls day out. And we would sell the gift voucher, $79, as a double make over and photo shoot worth two 19. Okay, and that was just for the sitting fee, and then educate them on price. We always, always, always did that with a before and after. Now, one of he best things I learned about expos was we would hire these big audio, visual screens and nobody would stop and watch them. So what we would do is we would, I just realized nobody was watching the big screens. Everybody wanted to touch albums. So the next year we went back and we put before and after albums. Put before and after albums anywhere in your business, and people will stop and flick through them. We love tangible product. We love to touch. We love to look. And you will just be absolutely amazed by how many people just wanna sit and look through the before and after books. So create a physical before and after book, not just a digital one, for your studio, for your advertising and your marketing as soon as you can. Right, marketing the before and after on the blog. I have this rule with my blog. It's called something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue. Okay, I just realized that this was a pattern that I was following. So what I want you to do is, I want you to blog once or twice a week if you can, that would be an outstanding blog. But if you're down to once a week, I want you to break up your once a week into a month, and say first week, something old. Now you can pull something old from anything that you have learned, like an old image you took 10 years ago. Or an old inspiration that you had 20 years ago. Or something you shot when you used to shoot film. Or an old style of shooting, like, look, I've done this with, you know, film noir. Or, look, I've pulled an old brown background, like an Annie Leibovitz background, like they used to shoot on the 80s. Something old, okay. Something new. Something new would be a before and after. Something new that you've just done. Look what I've just shot, beautiful before and after. Showcasing a new shoot. Something old, something new. Something borrowed. You can feature somebody else. You can feature inspiration that you've got from Pinterest. You can feature another photographer. You can feature a great idea. Just make sure you are linking, naming and asking for permission to use any photographers, any photographers work, of course. And not just photographers. If you're a winning photographer, borrow a designers images. And borrow a florists images. Borrow a vendors images. Something old, something new, something borrowed. Something blue. Something blue. Something real, from the heart. Connect a story. A story about one of your clients. A story about yourself. Something that moved you. Something that has some correlation to your photography business. And then, once a week for one month, you are doing a completely different blog. Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue. And your before and after only exists here, in your something new. So that means you're only blogging a really good before and after once a month. Now if you're a really good blogger and you're really getting business through your blog, like I do, I try to do the blog etiquette, which is two blogs a week. I still rotate the something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue. I just try, and I know what you're thinking, because I've been very naughty with my blog lately. But shooting 28 days was one of the hardest things I had to do, so my blog has suffered and I'm about to give it a whole lot more blog love. I believe if you are not showcasing before and afters, stories, something old, something new, other vendors, then why have a blog? And if you're not a good blogger, if you're not a regular blogger, get it off your website. Nothing looks worse than a blog that hasn't been updated for months. And I've even seen a very high, high profile photographer that hadn't updated his blog for a year. And that looks like you have no work, so make sure you're doing it. Old, new, borrowed, blue. Use your before and afters. Rotate, rotate. Everybody wants a great photograph of themselves. If that was my only tagline, then I would put up a before, I would put up an after in Sue Bryce style, and I would say, everybody wants a great photo of themselves. So learn to use the before and after in your marketing and make the most of it. I hope you enjoyed today's challenge. I'm going to post today the natural light images that you guys all emailed me after the natural light challenge. I was blown away by the quality of work that I got sent this week. Never before have I seen a standard of work sent to me and I could not believe it. Yes, I could believe it, I was blown away. After this challenge, I want you to post a beautiful before and after. Please don't send me and old one. Send me a good one that you've done in this 28 day challenge. And I'm gonna blog them, I'm gonna talk about them, and I'm gonna show them off, cause you guys are doing so well. I'm proud of you, keep going with the challenges. Any questions, hit me every Monday morning until the 8th of April, on a q and a at 10:00am, Seattle, LA, eastern pacific, no, this side. Oh, American time. 10:00am Seattle time, Google that. (laughs) Thanks a lot. Thanks for listening today. Go and do good before and afters.