FULL TRANSCRIPT: Please note this transcript was generated by AI and may contain errors.

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You’re listening to the Portrait System podcast.

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To be able to see the shock come through and know that we caught that and that’s not going to happen again. Not that combination of where they are in the pool. Bubbles flowing, fabrics flowing. We caught it and that’s it. It’s done. We can we can go back and try to do that same pose again. But that that combination just it’s fleeting.

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This is the Portrait System podcast, a show that helps portrait photographers and people hoping to become one navigate the world of photography, business, money, and so much more. We totally keep it real. We share stories about the incredible ups and the very difficult downs when running a photography business. I’m your host, Nikki Closser, and the point of this podcast is for you to learn actionable steps that you can take to grow your own business, and also to feel inspired and empowered by the stories you hear. My guest this week is Mallory Morrison, and she’s an underwater photographer. And if you haven’t seen her work yet, stop what you’re doing and go look at her website or her Instagram, because what she does is absolutely incredible.

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Mallory creates magic underwater and she shares her whole process with us during this interview. She also talks about how she sells prints to the general public and what that journey has been like for her. Mallory is an amazing artist and it has been such an honor to learn more about her and her work and her business. Okay, let’s get started with Mallory Morrison. Hey, Mallory, welcome to the Portrait System. How are you?

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I’m doing so well. How are.

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You? I’m great. I’m great. Freezing in the snow. But other than that, everything’s good.

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Us in Los Angeles. It’s going to be a high of 73 and sunny just to to rub it in a little bit.

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So it’s so amazing. Sue texted me this morning, she’s like, hey, our pool is 82 degrees. You want to come over? And I’m like, That’s just so mean. No, it’s fine. I choose to live here, so I shouldn’t complain.

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It’s funny because I was like, 82. That’s cold. Yeah.

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I know. Well, the pool degrees is 82.

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Yeah, cool. Yeah.

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Sounds great to me. Okay, so I am so excited to interview today. Like, I was just sitting here scrolling through your Instagram and I’m like, Oh, it’s just jaw dropping and it feels like such emotional work. I don’t even know. I don’t know. There’s just so much emotion in it. I just love it. Okay, let’s have you tell people what you do first.

00:02:26:17 – 00:02:31:20

So I am a underwater portrait photographer and I mostly work with dancers.

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Okay. Such an interesting niche. I mean, when you talk about niching down, you’re like dancers in the water, not just like dancers or whatever. But you used to be a dancer, right?

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Yeah. 24 years of ballet. Yeah. Wow. Okay, I made it through, you know? Well.

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All right. Well, I have so many questions for you about how you even got to this point. You know, where you’re at with so much success around this. But can you can you back up a little bit? Obviously, you said you dance for 24 years, but have you always been a photographer?

00:03:00:09 – 00:03:34:27

I have to say, yes. I mean, how far back does always go? I mean, I learned in middle school, my dad taught me. He got me a little Minolta and and taught me about equivalent exposures and I even did my science fair project on it. Wow, that’s cool. So I was always I had photography as a hobby and my parents were both so supportive of my artistic endeavors, but I was actually really interested in ceramics in high school.

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So I didn’t even take officially a photography course until college. So it was just a hobby for me and I would do multiple exposures and just play around and it was just purely for fun. And of course all film and it was just this escape. And also I have a pretty terrible memory. Same.

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I can relate.

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So and my dad was a hobbyist photographer, so he took a lot of pictures, you know, especially of me growing up and so much of my memories of my childhood, I have kind of conflated with, you know, is that my actual memory or is that me remembering a picture? And then that picture helps me remember it. And so that was kind of the hook that really stuck with me for photography was this helps me document whether it’s really happening because I mean most of my work is planned and conceptualized. It isn’t documentary but it’s it’s just this documentation of of a moment in time as always stuck with me.

00:04:48:17 – 00:05:03:12

Yeah. What a great way to utilize photography. I never thought about that memory wise. Very like, so interesting to think about it like that. All right, so you I mean, clearly, you’re an artist, your creator first, it sounds like not necessarily a business person first.

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Yes, first first was creative. And now it’s the long journey of continually getting better and better at the business side.

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Right? Oh, isn’t it a journey?

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I just think actually I’ve come to a Zen feeling of like, actually, I’m never going to really be like, okay, got it. It’s done. It’s just always going to be a process. It’s always going to be how do I adjust? How do I, you know, stay flexible and also stay balanced in life with the life and business? And how do I keep kind of moving forward with it?

00:05:43:28 – 00:06:03:06

Yeah, I really love that because I think we often talk about how it’s so important to continue to like hone our craft and to become better photographers. But I don’t think we often talk about how we also need to constantly be learning and become better business owners like business minded and and continue the education in that sense. So I’m glad you said that.

00:06:03:14 – 00:06:34:21

Yeah, I think that for better or worse, I think the craft side of things has become a little bit more. Not doesn’t take much thought in my mind. It just sort of comes out of me and I can just show up to a shoot and things happen because of the time I’ve already spent. But the business side, I really am just a definitely a student of space and just trying to learn from not just from other photographers.

00:06:34:23 – 00:07:06:22

Actually, rarely do I learn from other photographers with business because I had such a very specific initiative that there’s not that many of us doing this and we all are. The people that I know are all kind of utilizing that skill set to run a different type of business and mostly having kind of portraiture clients be their way of earning the lion’s share of their income, which isn’t the case for me. The lion’s share of my income comes from print sales.

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So I kind of focus on I am a a business that is creating a luxury product and then how do I sell that luxury product? And so I learn from a lot of different entrepreneur teachers. So basically if you’re a creative entrepreneur, teacher or mentor, that’s generally where I kind of look for information rather than just focused in on other photographers or other artists.

00:07:37:21 – 00:07:57:22

Yeah, like you said. And it’s like more of a fine print type situation, right? It’s not like like the models that you’re photographing aren’t necessarily buying the prints. It’s the general public. Yes. Yes. Okay. And I can see why as I’m scrolling, I’m like, I could buy several of these for my home.

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You’re welcome to.

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Yeah I’m going to be definitely looking through these because I have some huge tall ceiling, like huge empty walls, I should say that I just don’t know what to put on them right now. And as I’m looking, I’m like, huh, I would work. That one would work too. Oh, that’s a good one.

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That’s wonderful. I love large, large, empty walls.

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I’m just, like, drooling.

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I might even have to send you some photos of my walls in my aesthetic and and my home and be like. So what do you recommend?

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Yeah. So what actually what I do for clients is I do a digital mock up for them. So I have them take pictures of their space, the wall that is in question, plus a little extra say there’s like a couch or something kind of to give me some dimension and then have them give me that dimension. And then I actually digitally put in either the image that they’re looking for that they want within a couple of different sizes, or we want this size, but I don’t know which image. And so they can see it in their space as close as possible for, you know, without having to print anything. So smart. So they can kind of see it and that it ends up actually becoming a natural upsell for me, that I don’t have to say, you know what, you should get the bigger size as they.

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Right. I’m able to say, oh, this is the image you want. Okay, I’m going to show you what it looks like at the size you’re thinking. And then one size bigger. And then they naturally say, you know what, the bigger size is going to look better like, yeah, okay, that sounds good. If you if that if that looks good to you. They upsell themselves. Yeah, that’s awesome.

00:09:42:24 – 00:09:52:13

Yeah. This is so great. And I feel like this this wouldn’t just be for selling fine art prints. The general public. Like, you could use that same tactic for clients, you know, photos that you do of your clients.

00:09:52:25 – 00:10:28:10

Absolutely. And I think I will be doing that now because I am getting into the commission portraiture realm as well. Just because I’ve been doing a few over the past few years and I had been before that kind of hesitant to basically out of shoot with the general public compared to models, dancers, synchronized swimmers that I’m used to because they’re they’re looking at my work and seeing the effortless grace that comes from the images, but that’s not effortless.

00:10:28:12 – 00:10:43:29

And it doesn’t just happen. It is years and years of training and and ballet specifically is designed to look effortlessly beautiful. The more effortless it is, the harder it is, and the harder they’re working. Yeah.

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This is such a good point.

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Yeah.

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Yeah, I could see how that would be difficult because it’s like you don’t want to offend your clients, like, you know, general public clients like us. So, you know, your body has to be able to move a certain way in order to make it look like this. And I feel like, you know, as portrait photographers, we’re often advertising, hey, you don’t have to know how to move your body in any way, shape or form. I’m going to be the one to pose you and help you through the whole thing. So it’s like, how do you kind of bridge that gap when you do have someone you know? Because it’s not like, I mean, you can coach people, but you can’t be underwater telling them what to do really.

00:11:19:21 – 00:11:20:06

Right.

00:11:21:03 – 00:11:53:04

I can’t. It’s more of a director role rather than a photographer role when it comes to communicating like on set while we’re shooting. And it’s basically kind of a slow burn of of a drip of information that I’m giving them. So before I even will basically agree to shoot with a client, I have asked them a lot of questions and I have yet to turn down someone.

00:11:53:27 – 00:12:00:18

But I do want to know where, at what point, what kind of skill sets they’re bringing to the table,

00:12:02:15 – 00:12:36:10

you know? So I ask them, you know, do you have any dance experience? Do you have any swimming experience? Why do you want to be shot underwater? What of my images that are you most drawn to? And so with that information, I can piece together a game plan of how I’m able to give them what they want. But before I started doing this, what held me back was because I shoot with dancers, synchronized swimmers and, you know, professional models, they all make things look so effortlessness.

00:12:36:12 – 00:13:09:19

So, you know, people will see that and say, I want to look like that. But not to say they can’t, but it’s going to be different. It’s like if you don’t have dance experience, you know, I’m not going to turn you into a dancer. Mm hmm. You were. You were coming with the skill sets you had. And I can take that. And slowly, piece by piece, basically form you into a pose that feels comfortable for them.

00:13:10:12 – 00:13:44:24

It’s meeting them where they are. And we’re not trying to put them into another box of like, okay, I’m going to pose just like this model this dancer did. Even though they can’t really point their feet or they don’t have graceful arms, you know, that’s going to look forced and it’s not going to actually look graceful or beautiful. It’s going to look like it’s too hard. So I kind of combine the skill sets that I and I know that the dancers I’m working with are bringing to the table and try to communicate that in basically layman’s terms.

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Because when I am working with dancers who were actually able to speak like our own little language, and I do a lot of demonstrating of what would look good or what I’d like them to do. And they’re comfortable taking in information that way because that’s how you take an information in a dance class. So there is just the the translation is it needed to be finessed. But now that I have done it for the past two years, I really like it. And it’s really rewarding to have that experience with someone.

00:14:19:12 – 00:14:33:07

And it’s it’s like you’re seeing a transformation happen in a few hours. Oh, wow. The first few shots of both sides were like, okay, oh, this is okay. It’s going to be a day. All right,

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we’re going to get there. And I have to keep keep having that positive mindset for myself. And then also absolutely above and beyond, have positive energy coming outwards towards them to keep their confidence up and just not overload them with directions and information all upfront.

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Right. Right.

00:14:56:06 – 00:15:26:24

Basically piece it out and I give them the absolute essentials to start with. And then once I kind of get a sense of and seeing how they move, then I’m like, Oh, that, okay, we’re going to take it from there and then we’re going to add this and then looks like that’s working. Okay. Add this. So the first half an hour or so of shooting is kind of like, I’m going to throw these away. These aren’t really going to work unless someone’s just right away. Very comfortable.

00:15:27:02 – 00:16:00:27

Mm hmm. But it just takes some time. And I think that’s what I really love about the water environment, is that you completely reset your idea of I’m in a photo shoot and I’m doing a photo shoot. Like you are either in the studio or out on location. I feel like there’s always this energy of, like a rush of like, okay, we’re going to get the shot, and then we’ve got to change looks. I’ve got to do this, and we got to go here and then this and then that’s good. Okay, moving on. And when I can’t actually step by step, talk to them.

00:16:01:06 – 00:16:23:26

I have to just piece it out. Okay. So then this time we’re really going to focus on extending that ankle. It’s not necessarily, you know, a beautiful ballet pointed foot, but we’re extending that ankle and that extends your line and then that will then create a really graceful movement. Okay. They know what they’re doing. And then we add arms. And then we had this

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step by step. And seeing, especially as a client of mine, Jessica, she said, you know, she’s like, this was one of the most meaningful experiences I’ve had in my life. And it sounds kind of overly dramatic, but to be able to feel that graceful and to feel like not only that experience was wonderful, but then the end result, those images are something that’s so special to me and I get to be a piece of art. That is so irreplaceable for her.

00:16:55:29 – 00:17:13:07

So definitely. I want to talk a little bit about where you’re doing this in in just kind of your setup in general, because, I mean, I can see in the behind the scenes, a lot of this is a pool, but then some of them don’t look like pools. So I’m curious if you can just talk about how and where.

00:17:13:20 – 00:17:35:17

Yeah. So pretty much I’d probably say 95% of my shoots are in swimming pools in just regular backyard pools as long as it’s like eight feet deep or so. The rest of that is that feeling of looking like it’s not in a pool is my handy little Photoshop skills

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I had a feeling.

00:17:37:22 – 00:17:38:13

You were going to say that.

00:17:38:16 – 00:17:55:00

I add water space to the images, usually the sides and the bottom. So kind of create a larger, bigger space. And I also tent the pool, so I cover it to basically create a really large, soft box from the sun. You.

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Cover the whole top of the pool.

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I basically it with a white silk. And so the sun filters through that and lights the pool for me. But it softens everything while it’s doing it. So it doesn’t have those, like, hot, squiggly little lines everywhere that use you in. That’s a swimming pool. Sometimes I add that and I’ve been a little bit looser recently, I’m kind of liking using full sun to get that contrast and to show the bottom of the pool that they’re standing on it, like understanding the space that they’re in.

00:18:35:00 – 00:19:09:01

But I also really love being able to kind of completely transport somebody who’s looking at it into a world that’s just unknown. We don’t know where it is. And the mystery is, is part of the experience of it. And also what I’m doing kind of optically is that I’m shooting in a smaller environment. So I’m able to kind of be about ten feet or so from my subject. But then when I’m adding in Photoshop, when I’m adding pool, water, space on the sides in the bottom, I’m creating a more pulled out, wider shot.

00:19:09:13 – 00:19:42:03

But the perspective is a closer shot. So it’s a it’s a the final image is not something I could ever catch in camera. Wow. And also shooting closer up is more beneficial for color and everything because there’s less water space in between me and my subject. Because the more water, the more murky, the more blue you lose lose light and color. So it’s important for me to be shooting in a smaller environment rather than, well, why don’t you just, you know, rent a tank? I don’t need to.

00:19:43:09 – 00:19:48:00

Plus. Wow, that’s expensive. Yeah. Yeah. So, backyard pool.

00:19:48:23 – 00:20:14:27

Yeah. This is so cool. So, I mean, how do you even find. Well, I guess are you putting out, like, a model call? And I’m just trying to think about the difference between because. Okay, let me back up because I was going to say, how do you even find clients that want you to do this for them? But it sounds like a lot of your career because you focus so heavily on selling prints to the general public that you just find your models through like dance. Yes. Okay.

00:20:15:09 – 00:20:47:09

Yes. So it’s been the last few years now. Five years now. It’s been just sort of this domino effect of the more dancers you shoot. And I’ve been in L.A. for for a while, 13 years or so. And there’s a really large dance community here. And the the person who is both a dancer and an actor and is comfortable in the water and a model, that kind of combination is very common in L.A., more than other places.

00:20:47:11 – 00:21:14:07

And so I’m able to have a pool of of models to pluck from. And then once I shoot with someone, they share it. They have a community of other dancers or other synchronized swimmers. The synchronized swimming community in L.A. is is definitely a close knit one. And so once you post something, they they share images that I’ve shot with them. I actually people reach out to me.

00:21:14:18 – 00:21:15:03

Okay.

00:21:15:07 – 00:21:48:10

Yeah. And then I’m also close with a ballet company called American Contemporary Ballet. And so I’ve been just slowly making my way through their their roster of dancers. And it’s a wonderful experience. I really like working with dancers not only because I feel like my connection to the dance world through it, but also the attitude and energy that they bring to a shoot is so fun. It is just totally up play day in the pool and they have a lot of physical stamina.

00:21:48:15 – 00:22:20:04

And so like we’re able to kind of get in and just do a lot and, and it’s just so rewarding and so fun and to be able to see the shark come through and, and know that, that we caught that and that’s not going to happen again. Not that combination of where they are on the pool. Bubbles flowing, fabrics flowing. We caught it and that’s it. It’s done. We can we can go back and try to do that same pose again. But that that combination just it’s fleeting. And it’s that’s that’s exciting.

00:22:20:17 – 00:22:26:12

Now, are you compensating the models or are they, you know, how does that work?

00:22:27:02 – 00:22:46:07

So early on and for a while, I was doing trade because it’s such a very specialized type of shoot dancers or models who would normally say, no, this is my rate, this is my hourly or day rate. They’re like, Oh my God, I want to try this. Like, sure.

00:22:46:28 – 00:22:47:18

Wondering.

00:22:47:20 – 00:23:27:01

Yeah, yeah. Because then that gives them this other little skill set. It’s almost like a little portfolio piece for them to then say, Hey, I can do this now. Now, somebody else paid me money to do it. And, you know, I’ve worked with so many people that it’s their first time shooting underwater. And so I’m kind of their trainer of how to be able to be an underwater model. And so there is a value trade there for experience and images. And then for me of being able to have there have them in my shot. So but now, just as a matter of principle, I pay dancers because, you know, being professional dancer, you will not get rich.

00:23:27:16 – 00:23:58:13

And that was also kind of I did the math when I was in in high school. I was like that pivotal time of of deciding whether or not to go to college or join a dance company. And I was like, wait, so if I don’t get injured, I last until maybe 35. And if I’m in the court of ballet that, you know, basically the general, not a prima ballerina, you barely scrape by and you don’t have any time or energy to have a second job. But they do.

00:23:59:04 – 00:24:49:22

And then at 35, if your Yeah. If you’ve made it uninjured, then you have no college degree and no other work experience. So you become a dance teacher. It was like, this doesn’t make sense as a career path. You know what? What do you do here? But so I digress. So I, I now offer to see if I’m going to reach out to someone and say, Hey, I would really love to shoot with you. I’m going to pay them if they reach out to me, it depends. I generally say if they’re reaching out to me and saying, I would love to shoot with you, I first ask, Well, would you like it to be a commissioned portrait session? Do you want to pay me? Or would you be open and willing to be a subject within one of my fine art series? And it will be free for you and free for me.

00:24:50:09 – 00:25:21:19

So but yeah, if I’m reaching out to someone, I definitely want to make sure that they’re, they’re compensated for their time and energy. And I’m making money from it. You know, I’m selling the images in multiple ways, but the majority of the time I’m selling prints. But I also license my work here and there. It’s mostly just a matter of if people reach out and are needing licensing, like for book covers or even commercial use of of for, you know, a like fashion expo and stuff.

00:25:21:21 – 00:25:27:29

So it’s interesting the life they, they take on after the shoot and it’s unknown where they’ll go.

00:25:28:18 – 00:25:42:13

Okay. So let’s talk a little bit about how you price this sort of thing. Like if I wanted to purchase a 30 by 40 or an eight by 11, you know, like how do you how do you prices?

00:25:42:27 – 00:26:21:03

Yeah. So my most popular sizes are 16 by 24 and that is 900. And then I have a 24 by 36 for 1600 and then also a square 24 over 24 square for 1150. And those prices I’ve had for quite a while now, but when I first got those prices, I was primarily working with galleries and working with the reps in some capacity of someone else, selling my work and taking a percentage.

00:26:21:24 – 00:27:05:15

And the general percentage was 50%. Mm hmm. And so they’re taking 50%. And out of my 50%, I need to produce the print. So I am I have material costs taken out. Yeah. So when I start, when I initially set these prices, I was quite uncomfortable with how expensive it was because what the end buyer had to pay for me to get what I needed to get because say if you know a $900 print, okay, so that’s 450 to me and say maybe it costs 100 bucks to print it.

00:27:05:25 – 00:27:37:12

So I’m getting $350. I can’t justify having any less than that for that print. Right. And so I needed to say, okay. What do I need to make? I material costs and then double that and then that’s my retail price based on how I was selling where I was selling the work initially and over the years, I have decided to keep my prices where they are and now I am the last few years.

00:27:37:14 – 00:27:57:02

Now I’m very comfortable with these prices, especially because they sell all the time. This price is okay. This is an acceptable price for people to pay for the work, especially because of how unique it is. And so I am most likely going to be raising my prices soon. That’s what I was.

00:27:57:04 – 00:28:03:26

Going to say. I think I was expecting you to say a little bit more. Yeah. So that’s good. I’m glad I’m glad to hear that you’re going to raise those a little bit.

00:28:04:14 – 00:28:23:12

Yeah. I’ve always liked to have a wide range of pricing for people to buy in kind of at any point. So it isn’t solely for the super affluent. I don’t feel comfortable pricing my prints set like, you know, $10000 to $20000.

00:28:23:14 – 00:28:26:12

That’s just not accessible for most people. Yeah, it’s so accessible.

00:28:26:14 – 00:28:56:13

And also that I mean, it is easy. It can be sometimes just as easy or easier to sell those, depending on your reach of who who your audience is and how you market to them. But it’s part of my moral value is that I am not going to inflate my price. Because I think I can swindle people into paying it. I want to feel comfortable and say I feel good on my end.

00:28:56:20 – 00:29:32:08

And I think it is a reasonable price for the work. Right. And so I actually have all these prices and prints are, you know, fine art print, archival, signed, limited edition. But then I also have another line of work that is smaller and it only goes up to 16 by 20 and they’re open edition and they are of the same images. So open edition at smaller sizes and they are printed on different paper and they’re actually affixed to wood panels that I paint over with a clear gel to seal it.

00:29:32:17 – 00:29:56:19

And so there’s a texture and those are my photo wood panels. And those are like the largest goes for 410. And the cheapest one is 90 bucks for a little eight inch diameter circle on wood. And so and they’re all like ready to hang. So that’s it’s kind of like my ready to wear and my couture line, you know, it’s like I’ve got the two.

00:29:57:00 – 00:29:57:18

I like that.

00:29:57:25 – 00:29:59:12

Yeah. So.

00:29:59:28 – 00:30:20:17

Like, for people who are listening, who might want to sell prints, do fine art prints, how do you I mean, particularly for when it’s not the client who’s buying the photos of themselves. How do you market these? How do you get these out to the general public? And I know you said you did do the gallery partnership for a while. Are there is there any other way that you’ve been able to kind of just get these in the hands of people?

00:30:20:28 – 00:30:55:25

Yeah, well, over the past few years, I’ve really scaled back dramatically my involvement with galleries. I’ve, you know, just seeing that loss happen over and over and over again. And when the gallery is involved, most of the time, you do not get the contact information of the buyer. Oh, wow. And so you can never market to them, sell to them. They are the client of the gallery. They are not your client. And I kept seeing all of this kind of potential kind of disappear.

00:30:55:27 – 00:31:05:12

And I realized, you know, I need to sell these directly. So I created an online store and it’s hosted by Shopify, which I have loved working with.

00:31:05:23 – 00:31:07:05

I love Shopify, too.

00:31:07:07 – 00:31:09:04

It’s just they’re so easy.

00:31:09:06 – 00:31:10:06

They make it so easy.

00:31:10:09 – 00:31:46:13

It’s so easy and everything is in there. They have great rates for shipping, and so you’re shipping internationally. I’m able to kind of finagle that a little bit, and I kind of work, work with people shipping internationally with their great shipping rates. And then I also I’ve I consistently source and look for it to build relationships with interior designers. So interior designers, although they do take a commission on the sale, the industry standard is 20%.

00:31:47:12 – 00:31:49:02

Significantly less than the 50.

00:31:49:29 – 00:32:22:06

And interior designers are consistently getting new clients. And so I have the client. My client is the interior designer. And then they continually get new clients and new clients, but they have a certain style. So if I work within their style, most likely they’re going to have another client and another client that they will like to pitch my work for a project. And if someone is hiring an interior designer, most of the time those prints are larger. They have a big home and they want a really big print.

00:32:22:16 – 00:32:49:24

And so I am very happy taking, you know, giving them 20% commission of my work when the print is huge. You know, I’m working with Interior Design Company right now and out of Dallas, and we have a 50 by 70 inch print that we’re most likely going to have for one of their clients. And so that retails for $4800.

00:32:50:09 – 00:32:51:07

Fantastic.

00:32:51:25 – 00:33:23:04

And I just have to get the print made and then ship it in a tube over them. They frame it. So because I really, whenever possible, avoid framing it myself or having it framed locally and shipping the framed piece. It’s just ripe for disaster. So I say, here’s the print. You get it framed. If you need help with, you know, I can talk to the framer and help you with that portion of it, but it doesn’t make sense to have that.

00:33:23:18 – 00:33:54:06

Well, interior designer, is that so? It’s just brilliant. And I’m even just thinking about, you know, typical clients who are getting their portraits done by a photographer. If, you know, you could always ask that client, hey, do you guys have an interior designer who you use? And if they’re overwhelmed with where to put their prints or what size to order or whatever, I feel like that could be a really great thing. Like, Hey, can I have your in? Interior designer. You know, we could work together for you to help you decide what looks best and how large and that sort of thing.

00:33:54:08 – 00:33:59:17

Like, I feel like that could be a really cool business to business opportunity, just like you’re doing. I love it. Right?

00:33:59:26 – 00:34:28:20

Right. Interior designers are just my favorite people. I mean, sometimes a all scatterbrained because they are just literally dealing. I’m one of their vendors and they’re dealing with so many vendors. If you think about like designing an entire home, how many different pieces and where are the all coming from? It’s just there’s so much to juggle. But when I’m working with interior designers, I do have to be flexible to the idea of changing my work slightly.

00:34:29:16 – 00:34:30:01

Okay.

00:34:30:03 – 00:35:08:23

To to make the sale. Some artists are saying, you know, this this print comes as a 24 inch square and a 36 inch square. And that is it. And that is that is the work. And I completely respect that. But for me, because of the work that I do, the layout of it, a lot of the time, there’s a lot of water space that can be kind of either cropped into or extended and expanded. And so I work with them and it’s still up to me to decide whether or not I’m okay with that final piece, if that does still represent my work.

00:35:09:19 – 00:35:46:05

But I like that idea of that fluid sort of process of even after I’ve decided it’s done. It also can have another life of looking in a different way, and it ends up saying something completely different. When, I mean, if it’s a square and then we make it a tall vertical, it will have a very different feel to it. And if I’m okay with that feel, it’s okay if it’s different to me. I’m like, okay, this is a little a different form of this, of the life, of this piece, of this moment.

00:35:46:10 – 00:36:11:07

So what I’ve done for that, it can get a little bit confusing when you are auditioning your work. Auditioning is it can get complicated. And you can also make it very, very simple as long as you just keep track. Yeah. Yeah, that’s the main thing is keep track of what you sell and what number you sold. And you never sell more than you say you will.

00:36:13:05 – 00:36:18:08

Yes. Yes. I think that that’s the promise. It seems.

00:36:18:10 – 00:36:18:25

Like.

00:36:19:05 – 00:36:43:06

You know, what we do with as photographers in general is there are times when we are creating to create for ourselves and for our portfolio, and there are times when we are creating for our clients. And it sounds like that’s exactly what that’s just the same thing where there are going to be times when you’re going to alter what you do because it’s for a client. It’s not necessarily just specifically for you in your portfolio. So I love this.

00:36:43:08 – 00:37:14:01

Yeah, yeah. And it’s like it’s created in my own little silo. And, you know, if someone’s like has a vision for it living in a different way, I’m open to that kind of collaboration of that with, with a designer if they’re like, Well, can we change the color to this and have them wear a pink dress instead of a red or whatever? And I’m like, Oh, okay, I’m not a couch that, you know, that you’re ordering in blue versus red. Like pull it back. Like as long as the designer is coming to me with the respect of saying, I understand this is your this is your work.

00:37:14:27 – 00:37:47:18

This isn’t a couch. This is what we’re trying to work within. And if this image doesn’t work, do you have something similar that could work for it based on this dimension that we need? Because really, a lot of times they’re working with dimension and color. That’s what they’re trying to add to the space is still this amount of wall and add this sort of emotion or this sort of color scheme to it. So if the initial image that they saw is just it’s close but just not good enough, I have so much work to kind of work from.

00:37:47:20 – 00:38:08:04

And also there are plenty of images that I love from a shoot, but they don’t end up going through the Photoshop machine because I have one pretty similar that I like a little bit better. And so I can kind of go back into my archives and I’ve done that for clients, lbut then I charge the additional percentage for that. Yeah.

00:38:08:26 – 00:38:24:15

Let’s talk a little bit, Mallory, about when you do have someone who is like, okay, I want to be I’m a client, but I’m not necessarily a dancer or whatever, but I want to commission you to do a photo shoot of me or my kids or whatever, you know, and in-water. How, how do you price that?

00:38:25:13 – 00:38:59:18

So what I have done is I have a basically two different packages and I have a two hour session that you’ll have three different looks for 2750 and this is just my shoot fee. So they don’t get any images. This is just my time. Yep. That’s great. And then a three hour session with four looks for 34 five. And then I have digital images because each image takes some time and some more than others to Photoshop.

00:38:59:25 – 00:39:35:17

It’s not just throwing a filter on in Lightroom, you know, each thing takes some time to really get it to a point where it looks like a Mallory Morrison print that they they’re seeing in their head and they’ve seen of my work and they want theirs to look like mine. It takes some time. So I charge, if it’s a la carte, it’s just 150 an image. But then I have say if you buy five prints, it’s for 95. So it averages about little like $99 an image. And then I got a pack of ten and a pack of 15, and then you can have al a carte images as well.

00:39:36:06 – 00:40:12:28

And that’s what I just started doing. I did what I’ve done before in the past was having a higher fee and including images. And what I found was it was very hard to upsell them after that. They’re like, I have five, okay, I pick five. Even though, I’m like, you can you can buy more. You’re like, No, no, I’m going to pick five because what if it’s a two hour session and that only includes five, but then three hour session includes ten. If the two hour session was really great and we got a lot of great stuff, now it’s kind of starting fresh.

00:40:13:00 – 00:40:33:18

It’s like, okay, here are the images that we got. Now how many speak to you? And then we can kind of look at that that way so it’s not in their head, okay. I need to whittle this down to five because that’s what I paid for. It’s just not… Out of their mind. They have not paid for anything yet. As far as images they paid for my time and for that.

00:40:34:07 – 00:40:54:19

The documentation on this is interesting because I’ve heard people say like sometimes what they’ll do is have people purchase, pre-purchase a package because then they’ve kind of forgotten that they’ve spent that money and they’re just going to spend more. So it’s interesting to hear both of these perspectives. I don’t know which is better and what, you know, makes sense, but yeah, I guess it just depends. So I’d like this perspective.

00:40:55:05 – 00:41:37:29

Yeah, I got that advice from another underwater photographer who is primarily doing portraits and she she is making a living doing that specifically. And so, you know, it’s a very small community of underwater photographers and it’s just really wonderful to be like it’s generally pretty open. You have to approach someone with an open mind, but rather than, you know, a colleague rather than your competition, because when it’s when you’re such a small, specific niche and you see one other person doing underwater, you’re like, Who is that? What are they doing? What is going on over there? Are they copying me? Right, right.

00:41:38:09 – 00:42:11:28

You know, and that’s just like a hard mindset to have anyway and why. And rather than, oh, look, there’s someone else doing that, you know, maybe they are doing things a little bit differently and we can like learn from each other and we can share resources and hey, what if they have a customer or a client or something that they can’t meet their needs and then they refer me and like, Hey, and that feels so good to have it be like a close knit community rather than a few people that I’m viciously competing against like ick.

00:42:12:00 – 00:42:12:15

Don’t like it.

00:42:12:24 – 00:42:14:24

Absolutely. Absolutely.

00:42:14:26 – 00:42:53:03

Yeah. So I was talking with my friend Jamie about her pricing and it was just hard for her to have people buy more after they’ve bought the package and because they already have something. But if you don’t, if you separate them, it just feels like there’s just so much more mix and match and versatility, you know, balance and flexibility. I feel like it’s just like so much of like anything for your body is going to be balanced and flexible and good for your emotional state and in business balance and flexibility is is what you need.

00:42:53:27 – 00:42:54:12

Yeah.

00:42:54:14 – 00:43:06:08

Oh, yeah. Isn’t that the truth? Yeah. Okay. So I’m wondering how people can learn how to do that. Well, okay. Let me back up before I ask you that. What do you shoot with and how do you protect your camera?

00:43:06:21 – 00:43:44:03

Mm hmm. That’s actually a very common question that I get from other photographers. Like, where do you even start here? How is it safe? What are you actually put your real camera in there? Well, yeah. So I have a Canon five D mark four, and then I shoot with a wide angle, which sounds like what’s happening for portraiture, but it’s a 17 to 40 lens, canon lens. And then I put that in an underwater housing. And so that housing I generally shoot with a company called not a cam and they make pretty high end pro housings.

00:43:44:16 – 00:43:54:14

And then I also have a. Different set up that is made by outex. And that is very, very, very simple. It’s basically a

00:43:56:02 – 00:44:28:19

kind of silicone sock for your camera that, you know, obviously you have to put everything together just right, you know, follow the instructions, but it allows for you to use anyone’s. The way that I’m set up with my not a cam, it is specifically set up for a lens of that size. And also just think about a lens if you’re zooming, if that lens zooms externally. So it actually gets longer as you zoom, that won’t work.

00:44:28:21 – 00:44:37:21

If it’s in the housing, you need something that zooms internally. So when you’re zooming, the lens doesn’t move. Wow. Little fun things to think about. Yeah, you’re.

00:44:38:11 – 00:44:39:29

Like, oh, my gosh, my head hurt.

00:44:40:14 – 00:45:14:14

Right. And then there is a little attachment for that. Go on to the zoom ring. And so I can zoom in the housing, zoom in and out. And so there’s all the buttons that are on the camera are accessible on the housing, but they’re kind of in different places. And so it’s almost like you’re learning how to work with the same camera, learning how to use it in the housing and where the buttons are. Because usually I’m changing settings while holding my breath underwater because yeah, we didn’t even talk about that.

00:45:14:16 – 00:45:16:22

I hold my breath. I don’t do scuba or anything, so.

00:45:16:24 – 00:45:22:16

Right. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. So do you have anything on your eyes or your face?

00:45:23:00 – 00:45:31:03

Yes, I’ve got I swear mask on that covers my eyes and nose and I’ve got a weight belt on that sinks me down.

00:45:31:09 – 00:45:34:27

Oh, okay. That’s what I was. Oh my gosh. That’s. I didn’t even think about that too.

00:45:34:29 – 00:46:06:21

Yeah, I didn’t think about that either. The first shoot that I did, I was like, I go, you go under, you go under, and then you shoot, okay, we’re good. And I just kept popping up because I would take a big breath of air and try to go down. And I was borrowing a friend’s housing that floats because you can get different ones either that sink or float. So I just kept bobbing up like a boogie. And so I had to have my my friend that was helping me out. I had to have him hold my shoulders and hold me underwater while I shot.

00:46:07:02 – 00:46:37:12

Oh, my God. Which is just what am I doing? So then I realized, okay, we built. So these little, little things that are great to know now. But I definitely kind of went through the trenches of figuring out all of these different things of how the heck to get myself under there and to be able to see and breathe. And there’s a lot of factors involved, but once you understand them, then it’s very straightforward.

00:46:37:23 – 00:46:38:08

Yeah.

00:46:38:18 – 00:46:41:15

Is this something you’re willing to teach people if they reach out to you?

00:46:42:04 – 00:46:51:08

Absolutely. You know, actually, I am putting together a online version of my workshop, so it’ll be an online course.

00:46:51:13 – 00:46:52:09

Oh, nice.

00:46:52:20 – 00:47:24:29

Yeah, it’s. It’s called underwater portrait photography. And so you can learn the fundamentals of photographing people underwater. Very cool. Yeah, that’s kind of where my head is this year and especially right now. I just kind of got my my school up. I’m using Teachable to host my school. I just have a whole has like nine different sections. So we just go through everything, all of the elements that are involved in an underwater shoot.

00:47:25:01 – 00:47:55:14

So going through equipment and how to pick a pool, what, what do you need to think about when you’re going to use a pool and, you know, makeup and wardrobe and how do I even pick my subjects or how do you work with certain people if they come to you as a client, the actual shooting process of it. And then I’m also going into actually the the back end because I love talking about I like being an open book when it comes to pricing and money.

00:47:56:06 – 00:48:33:28

So I wanted to actually kind of set a whole section aside for production budgeting. So like, okay, so what does this even cost me? What could this cost you? Here’s the free, the affordable, the expensive options for all those based on current L.A., US dollar prices, that that section will probably be something that I’ll have to update. And then also going into editing. So it’s not a deep dive into editing because I’m not a Photoshop instructor, but you know, here are the things that I do that that are this is what’s on my mind, what I’m working on things and this is the result I want.

00:48:34:17 – 00:49:04:26

So it’s a pretty extensive full, full course. And I had laid all this out for an in-person workshop. And because of COVID of the delays and delays, I realized, you know, I want to have this online, not only because producing a workshop is a lot of work and I have to have the the workshop these small has to be limited but with an online course that I can teach anyone, they don’t have to travel all the way to L.A.

00:49:05:18 – 00:49:39:03

for me. They can do it and they can do it on their own time. So I broke it out into kind of six weeks, but they can kind of take that up, you know, at their timing and use it and then at the end of it be able to have some one on one time with me to kind of go over things. Or if they’ve done a shoot, then they can we can do a portfolio review of their shoots and I can tell them, you know, how to continue to keep working on it and improve. So I’m just, I’m so excited to kind of be really filling in my instructor.

00:49:41:00 – 00:50:22:18

It’s just been this something that’s been really I’ve been wanting to do for a long time and I have taught people in person and one on one tutoring and coaching and workshops in the past. But I think this will just be able to reach so many more people and then, you know, be able to kind of create a community of students that they can kind of learn from each other because there’s there’s so many unknowns when you’re starting out with this. And to get everyone just get this baseline really solid, then they can focus on, now what do I want to shoot now? What’s the concept I want? Not How the heck do I do? What, what, what? That all of those are laid out and taken care of.

00:50:23:03 – 00:50:26:21

And then we can get to the creative fun part. Awesome.

00:50:27:06 – 00:50:41:06

That’s so great. Very cool, because I have a feeling people are going to really want to look into this more. It really is. And I encourage people too to go to your website and Instagram just to just to peek at your work and see what we’re talking about. What’s your website and Instagram, just so people know?

00:50:41:27 – 00:51:12:26

Yeah. So my main website is MalloryMorrison.com and my Instagram is @Mallory Morrison. And then for my online courses, I’ve actually created a school called Mallory Morrison Academy. So it will be the first course will be on there. So it’s MalloryMorrison.Academy is the the website for it. And I think when this airs it’ll be up just about the time where I’m going to be putting the course on pre-sale. But right now it’ll be, you know, signing up to to learn more.

00:51:12:28 – 00:51:46:12

And then I’ll be giving people a little free gift of gear checklist to kind of get them going and get them started of thinking about all the things that you need to bring to set. And then after this course is up and running, I’ll be kind of adding mini courses to that that are kind of like a little bit more, you know, deep dives into a little bit more specifics of, you know, working with a model. And then I’ll probably do some interviews with a couple of models I work with. And so that’s very important to know what you’re asking of someone.

00:51:47:04 – 00:52:08:23

And so knowing from their point of view what’s what’s good to hear on your end from a photographer. So there’s just there’s so much to know. I mean, that’s why I’ve gone I’ve been doing this for 15 years and I’m still so excited about it because there’s just there’s so much to to experiment and to know. So I’m just really excited to share all that with everyone.

00:52:09:06 – 00:52:20:26

Awesome. Well, thank you. Thank you so much for sharing all of this. And I do have a couple more questions for you, though, that I always ask at the end. Before I let you go. Yeah. And the first one is what’s something you can’t live without when you’re doing a photo shoot?

00:52:21:15 – 00:52:37:07

Yeah, my photo shoots are a little bit of a different it’s a little bit a different gear list there. I had actually probably seen my my scuba pro swim mask because I’ve I’m not actually very good at opening my eyes underwater myself, even though that.

00:52:37:09 – 00:52:38:18

Would be hard. That’s very hard.

00:52:40:21 – 00:52:50:25

And yeah, it’s it’s the thing that, you know, you, I mean, obviously camera underwater housing. But I need that mask I need to be able to see very clearly under there.

00:52:52:10 – 00:52:52:25

Yeah.

00:52:53:10 – 00:52:56:27

All right. Awesome. And then number two is how do you spend your time when you’re not working?

00:52:57:13 – 00:53:13:14

So I am really into ceramics. So I was into ceramics in high school and then took a long break. And then actually right before it was like February 2020. So two years ago

00:53:15:14 – 00:53:35:09

I found this ceramics studio up the street for me and they have memberships and so I can just have the key to go in any time 24 seven and just work and throw clay and just get messy and actually make something 3D and physical. And it’s just, I love it. It’s yeah, it’s ceramics.

00:53:35:11 – 00:53:38:17

It’s just such a cool form of art. So, so cool.

00:53:38:25 – 00:53:40:07

Yeah. Awesome.

00:53:40:25 – 00:53:44:01

Okay. Number three is what is your favorite inspirational quote?

00:53:45:07 – 00:54:03:15

You know, I used to because I when I. I’ve heard your other podcasts before and I was thinking about that and I don’t really have necessarily a quote, but is more of just sort of like words I live by or a mantra a little bit and it’s. Thank you. More, please.

00:54:04:13 – 00:54:07:26

Yes. You know what, Mallory? I say that all the time.

00:54:08:18 – 00:54:19:20

I don’t know where that came from. Somebody said it eventually at one point some first. But I just I love I love that recognition, you know, gratitude and recognition of. Yes, thank you.

00:54:20:07 – 00:54:22:11

Thank you, your universe. I’ll take more, please.

00:54:22:18 – 00:54:46:28

Yes. Yeah. And it’s like and it reinforces because I have a hard time asking for help, as do a lot of artists on their own. They’re like, No, I got this. I’m going to use all myself for sure. It just kind of reinforces that asking for help, it’s like, yes, and just yes, you’re on the right track universe. Let’s keep going that direction. I just get excited when I say it. Awesome.

00:54:47:00 – 00:54:58:13

I do too. It makes my heart feel so full. Yeah. I don’t know how else to explain it. I’m so glad you said that. Yes. Okay. Number four is, what would you tell people who are just starting out?

00:54:59:04 – 00:55:34:08

Well, there’s that’s kind of a two pronged. So photographers, generally general photographers, I would say community is invaluable. You know, and I was my first graduated from photography school. I joined what they called success teams, which is kind of like a mastermind group or accountability group, where we get together twice a month and we would each person would have the floor for 10 minutes and just talk about what they’re doing and also kind of say, hey, what did I do these last two weeks? What I’m going to do questions.

00:55:34:10 – 00:56:10:29

This is or can you guys review this this work for me or you know and and however you can get a group of people together to do that, that was so valuable for me of building my business. And if you could find people who have slightly different interests so they can all be photographers. But I mean, it’s kind of fun to have throw throw a painter in there throw, you know, accountant or somebody in the mix. It’s like it doesn’t have to just be artists, but you can then pull from a lot of different resources and you need to do this together.

00:56:11:01 – 00:56:59:00

Like doing it alone is going to be the long, hard way, definitely, you know, definitely do it the together way. But I’d say for people starting out in underwater photography, I would say the one thing that I kind of repeat to the students that I’ve worked with in the past is that. You know, if you have you’ve shot portraits before outside of water. Take all of that all of your standards with you. So posing, light, facial expressions, your composition, don’t let any of those go out the window just because you’re putting your subjects in water and you’re getting a little bit too focused on the bubbles or you’re like.

00:56:59:29 – 00:57:41:11

It’s hard. So, I mean, what do you expect? It’s hard, like. Well, no one’s making you do it underwater. So, you know, maintain your quality level that, you know, look, look, have that checklist for yourself when you are going through your first or few underwater shoots and the images that you’re really drawn to, are those things still to your standard out of water and keep that in a hold that really strong and don’t because it’s very easy to just like get sucked in to, oh my God, those bubbles or look, that one little thing and that’s the float, the fabric right there or the hair.

00:57:41:13 – 00:57:56:29

They’re like, But look at their facial expression. No, no, no, no. Like, that would not fly with you outside. So don’t have this be a divergence of your passion and your skill. Be an addition to your skill.

00:57:57:09 – 00:57:59:26

I love that advice. That’s so, so, so smart.

00:58:00:19 – 00:58:01:28

Yeah. Awesome.

00:58:02:00 – 00:58:16:03

Well, thank you again. Thank you so much for everything. And yeah, I’m really excited to see where this goes. And gosh, you know, with your new course coming out, maybe we’ll see more and more underwater photographers out there. This is really, really cool.

00:58:16:05 – 00:58:16:25

So thank you.

00:58:18:10 – 00:58:51:02

Thank you so much for listening to the Portrait System Podcast. Your five-star reviews really help us to continue what we do. So, if you like listening, would you mind giving us a review wherever you listen? I also encourage you to head over to SueBryceEducation.com, where you can find all of the education you need to be a successful photographer. There are over 1,000 on-demand educational videos on things like posing, lighting, styling, retouching, shooting, marketing, sales, business, and self-value. 

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