Lessons

Lesson Info

Infant CPR

Infant CPR, we talked about this earlier. Kenna brought it up which was a great topic and we all hope that we're never put in a position where we have to potentially save a baby's life ever but it could happen. And then you might have a couple come in and the baby might stop breathing, it might have mucus, it might have something still after the birth like my friend's situation. And if they don't know CPR and you don't know CPR, by the time the ambulance gets there it could be too late. So, the great example that we had before was having, inviting people in. Stephanie said she's had like specialists with the ambulance or someone like that come in and actually teach. Get a group of local photographers around you and get someone in to help teach you some of those really important things that could help protect and save a baby's life God forbid if you were ever in that situation, but it's so important to know even if you're having your own children. I know so many photographers that are, ...

go on maternity leave, they have their own babies and things like that. It's not gonna hurt you to have it. And if you do have that and you've got your qualifications and all your training, have all of that on your information about you in your website. Have it in that section potentially for your clients or have it in the about me section or any type of training, professional training that you've had that should be in there. I'm not gonna tell you how to do CPR because I'm not a trained professional and that's not my job. And if you then went on to do it and it didn't kinda work or something went wrong I'm gonna be liable so it's a no brainer, I'd never show someone else how to do it. Because I'm, yeah, we know, I'm not qualified. But what I am saying is look up who does certified courses in your area and go with a group of people or get someone to come into your studio and do it, do the training by someone that is a professional and practice those steps. Let's get some questions. Let's do some questions. So if you'll pass the mic down that'll be great and we'll find out if people at home have questions, let us know. For the client agreement, I'm just wondering when you have your clients sign that. Is that at the session or before or yeah. Good question. Sorry I was sipping a drink there talking all day. When my clients first contact me obviously I send them my pricing and information. They might come back, they might book me. I'll then be in contact with them again to let them know that I've made a note of their due date and I let them know to contact me once they've arrived home from hospital with their baby so that then we can confirm a time and date for their session. At that point when they come back and say, "Yes, I'm free this day." And I go great, let's lock that in at 10 a.m. blah, blah, blah, give them all the information, that's when I send out my what to expect guide so they can prepare for the session, and that's when I attach my client agreement. So that they can read over it prior to the session so if they have any concerns, it actually says in the email, please find attached my client agreement. If you have any concerns whatsoever or any questions please contact me prior to the session. I will have one available for you at the session to sign but it gives them a little bit of information, like it shows them what it is. And in that way they can determine whether or not they're really comfortable with it or they're not. And it gives me that leeway of well, if they no longer wanna go ahead and book me because of that client agreement, not that that's ever happened. I think 99.9% of my clients have just signed it and been very, very comfortable in signing it knowing that we actually do have an agreement between the two of us and we understand each other from a business perspective. So yeah. And that your session workflow and all of that we're going to be covering more in depth at the end of the class tomorrow as well I believe. Yes, definitely. I'm actually gonna go through how I created my session workflow in terms of, I don't wanna tell you too much because I'm gonna do it tomorrow. But yeah, well I'm gonna help you come up with a workflow that suits you and what you're confident with and in terms of how many images your clients get, how long your sessions can go for, how many setups are you comfortable doing, how many different images can you get from the different setups, and those sort of things. And working with your clients to create those beautiful timeless images. Well, we have some other questions coming in kind of from that have come in throughout the day and then if you wanna grab a mic as well. Just some little questions that tie in on some of these sanitization things. Certain things like little headbands, tie backs, things that aren't necessarily obviously washable, what would you use for those and are you doing that every time they're used? Yes so if I am using a headband during the session I can be a little, I can put things in a corner and things like that, once I'm finished using them I'll create a pile of things that I've used. So that way at the end of the session I can then go through that pile and sort out what needs to be hand-washed, what can be machine-washed and what needs to be wiped. Headbands and things like that obviously you can't put them in the machine. You would hand-washed them if they have become soiled from for whatever reason but just giving them a little wipe over with like a, I have these sanitary, how do you call them? Like the sanitizing hand wipes. They're like a wet wipe but they come in like a little pack. I just go over everything like that, hang it back out so that that way you just, some babies obviously have like a lot of peeling skin and things like that, and I have my clients help choose a lot of those things. Help choose the bonnets, help choose the headbands or the little pantsuits and things like that. So you wanna make sure that they're always clean because if they're going through them and you haven't washed it and you put it back in a basket, and I did use to have an assistant and I did once find a wrap that was put back in my basket and it hadn't been washed and I was mortified. So, it's really important that's why I have this system. I'm a little bit crazy in my shoots because I will go through the process with my clients of selecting what it is that they'd like to use. Once it's been used then goes into a pile in the corner away from where we're working. And then that way at the end of the session I know I've used all those things. They definitely need washing and so forth. But yeah, it is tricky with a lot of those, those sort of crowns and headbands. You don't need to wash all of those. If they're just sitting on top of the baby's head I can't really see any type of issues in terms of spreading germs or diseases and things like that. But just be, it doesn't take long to get a wipe and wipe over things as well and hang them up. We're always vacuuming our studio, we're always mopping the floor with any bacterial sort of floor wash and things like that. We're creating a safe environment for our clients to come into. It smells clean, it's tidy all the time and everything is clean. Wools actually, the, what do you call them? The felted sort of wool rugs that we use and that add a lot of texture to our things they are very difficult to wash if they get soiled, if a baby poops on them or something like that. But yeah, I just tend to use a little bit of hand wash and a little bit of warm water, rinse it off and putting them in the sunlight to dry helps as well. All right, fantastic. Maybe one more question that is around the contract or the client agreement because again, we're talking a lot about protecting yourself, protecting the client. Do you continue with the client if they have objectives and won't sign certain things within your client agreement? Have you ever had that happen? I haven't actually had anyone come back with oh, I don't agree to all of these things. If they have agreed to things that mean I can't shoot their baby then obviously I can't photographer their baby like to their needs. But in terms of the intimacy of what it is that we do we have a client come in with the baby. We photograph them, the photographs go to the client. If they specify in that agreement that they don't want them shared anywhere, they don't want those photos used for any advertising material or anything like that, I have to abide by that. And yeah and it could be for whatever reason. We don't know people's personal situations. I do always say at the end of my session if I haven't had a chance to go over my client agreement because sometimes when they're signing it and during the session it's on a clipboard, it's on the coffee table when they come in along with all of my products, if I haven't had a chance to actually see that when they're leaving or read it because I'm not gonna stand there and read it before they leave. But they've usually brought any concerns to my attention anyway if they have any. But at the end of the session I'll say to them I'm gonna edit a photo for you from today's session this afternoon. Would you like me to share it on social media or would you like me to email it to you? If they say that they don't want it on social media, that's fine. I'm gonna email them a copy, a very small file with my watermark on it from that session 'cause it's gonna get them excited. They might have a very, very private social media sort of following. They might only have very select people on their following. If they then share it to their social media page that's fine, I'm still getting, my images are still out there. They're still sharing it with the people that they love. They might not want the 94,000 people that are on my page to see it or share it for whatever reason, and that is completely fine because that's... There's a reason why and I just have to understand that and abide by it. But yeah, there is, I have never really come into a situation where I've had any difficulties but what I have found with talking to so many photographers is how many don't have client agreements and they're really not that expensive. Really not that expensive. It's an investment, it's a business cost into your business. It protects you. It's an agreement between you and your client, how those images can be used and so many other things. But when you do click on some of those links or you go to some of those websites with the client agreement areas, you'll see in there all the information that can be included in those client agreements. And it's important that it's specifically designed for you and your business, and what it is that you do and in your state and territory. Like I can't emphasize that enough, yeah. Kelly, this is an amazing first day of our two-day course here. I wanna make sure that everybody knows how to contact you. So, if you wanna again tell us where everyone could connect with you in all the different ways. Yeah. I often get asked actually how I came up with my business name and nearly 13 years ago my husband and I were like, well, I can't be Kelly Brown. There's too many Kelly Browns out there. There's a famous football player, there's the Kelly Brown handbags, there's even a Kelly Brown wedding photographer. So I was like, it's taken, you know? All the URLs are gone. So I was trying to come up with a business name that really kind of projected what it was that I wanted to do. And I at that point the Little Pieces kinda stood for a lot of the flowers that I was photographing. When I first started out I would photograph beautiful flowers and I would make gift cards and sell them to boutique gift stores. So that's my first experience into the photography industry. So yeah, I was photographing little pieces of whatever and it went across everything so it just kinda stuck. And then yeah, it's excellent. Like my website is littlepiecesphotography.com.au and most of my content is on my blog. I do have a website which is about to be updated which is very exciting. I have a new website sitting in the background there that's very new and fresh. But my blog has all my information for photographers, for clients and things like that. So if you're wanting to know about any of my stuff or even if you're after my supplies guide to download for free, it's in my shop on my blog. And on Facebook I am Kelly Brown Little Pieces Photography and I put the Kelly Brown there first because so many people didn't know that my business name was Little Pieces Photography. They obviously knew who I was but didn't know I had a business name that was different to my actual name. I have Twitter KABROWN 77, Instagram LITTLEPIECESPHOTOGRAPHY or Kelly Brown which is kabrown on Instagram as well. And then we have The Baby Summit. This is a photography conference that we now run annually in Australia and we're bringing it to Atlanta in October this year. And it's an amazing event and it's grown bigger than I ever, ever anticipated. But it's for three days, I'll give it a little plug if I'm allowed. Yeah. Yeah. It goes for three days. It has 33 speakers in Atlanta. We have I think 24 speakers in Australia and over those three days we cover everything from posing to business and all the different business aspects. We have post-processing, we have lawyers, we have accountants, we have everyone that has all the information people need to put their business in the right direction. And it's all focused around maternity, birth and newborn photography which is incredible. So, and even Stephanie Robin who's here, she's one of our actual speaker coming into Atlanta in October so we're so excited that she's gonna be a part of our event. There are lots of different sessions going on at the same time so you get to choose which session you want and I keep getting asked, are there still spots available. Our venue can take so many people so it's not an event where we've actually allocated a number. The more people there the merrier because we have lots of room and we have seven sessions going on at the one time so there are lots and lots of seats, and it's a really amazing event. We even have three social events that get everyone three and the price of the actual attendee includes, those three days includes all the social events and includes your meals throughout those three days, except on the Saturday night. (giggles) The only one and we have our beautiful Kenna who's gonna be a part of it as well which we're very excited about. As am I Kelly, as am I. (laughs) That's really an exciting event to also get together with Yeah. In person with the community. Yeah. Again, this is all about raising the industry standards within the community. Yeah. And what I realized with meeting so many people in our industry is that I might not be the best teacher for you. I might not be the best mentor for you but there what we've done is we found people who mentor, people who teach, people who are running successful businesses who should be teaching other photographers, who are qualified to teach. And in that way everyone can come along and they can hone in on the subjects that they wanna learn from the mentors that they wanna learn from. That's the beautiful part about it because we all learn differently and then we wanna learn from different people and we're drawn to different photographers and their work or different educators. So, yeah the exciting part is is bringing such an incredible wealth of knowledge to one place and anyone can go and cater it to their needs, cater it to their business. And I wanna say if you are coming don't pick classes that your friends are choosing. Pick classes that you need. Pick classes that are focused on the areas of business that you're struggling with or you just wanna know a little bit more about because when you are investing in your business it has to be for you. You get to catch up with all those people at the social events in the lunch breaks.