Unlock the secrets to making every girl feel special and beautiful with Sheryl Bashore, the visionary behind Sheryl Z Photography. From her early days in her father's darkroom to her thriving career in event and dance photography, Sheryl shares her incredible journey and the passion that drives her. Learn how she transitioned from hobbyist to professional, blending efficiency with personal attention through innovative techniques like using posers, pose charts, and mapping charts.
Discover the essentials of creating engaging photography sessions for kids, where loving what you do and hiring the right team makes all the difference. Hear how Sheryl’s standardized setup processes allow for meaningful personal interactions, and get inspired by her inventive silhouette shots that leave parents mesmerized. Sheryl's transparent and engaging approach ensures a memorable experience for parents and children alike, balancing regimented setups with creative flair.
Get a firsthand look at evolving business strategies in the photography world, from mastering advanced compositing techniques to leveraging online sales platforms like GotPhoto. Sheryl's journey is filled with challenges and learning curves, but her persistence and support from mentors have paved the way for success. Join us in celebrating the joy of teaching, mentoring, and building a supportive photography community.
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Unlock the secrets to making every girl feel special and beautiful with Sheryl Bashore, the visionary behind Sheryl Z Photography. From her early days in her father's darkroom to her thriving career in event and dance photography, Sheryl shares her incredible journey and the passion that drives her. Learn how she transitioned from hobbyist to professional, blending efficiency with personal attention through innovative techniques like using posers, pose charts, and mapping charts.
Discover the essentials of creating engaging photography sessions for kids, where loving what you do and hiring the right team makes all the difference. Hear how Sheryl’s standardized setup processes allow for meaningful personal interactions, and get inspired by her inventive silhouette shots that leave parents mesmerized. Sheryl's transparent and engaging approach ensures a memorable experience for parents and children alike, balancing regimented setups with creative flair.
Get a firsthand look at evolving business strategies in the photography world, from mastering advanced compositing techniques to leveraging online sales platforms like GotPhoto. Sheryl's journey is filled with challenges and learning curves, but her persistence and support from mentors have paved the way for success. Join us in celebrating the joy of teaching, mentoring, and building a supportive photography community.
Energize your sales with Shareme.chat, the proven texting platform.
ShareMe.Chat ShareMe.Chat platform uses chat-to-text on your website to keep your customers connected and buying!
Mediaclip Mediaclip strives to continuously enhance the user experience while dramatically increasing revenue.
Welcome to the Dead Pixel Society podcast, the photo imaging industry's leading news source. Here's your host, Gary Pegeau.
Gary Pageau:
Hello again and welcome to the Dead Pixels Society podcast. I'm your Gary Pageau, , and today we're joined by Sheryl Bashore, who's the owner of Sheryl Z Photography in Central Pennsylvania. She is a guru of event and dance photography a frequent speaker, and now my new best friend. Hi, Sheryl, how are you today?
Sheryl Bashore:
I'm great. How are you, Gary?
Gary Pageau:
Good, we just spent half an hour talking about everything, and now we finally get around to recording. So here we are, so one thing we didn't talk about in the preamble, though, was how you got started in the photography business. You've been. I don't know if you want to say how long you've been in the business, but it's been a few years 30 plus years so as a small child you started, and I do love you forever now.
Gary Pageau:
And so talk about how you got into the photography business, and has it always been in the volume space?
Sheryl Bashore:
When I was young, my dad was into photography and we had a dark room in our basement and all the equipment to make pictures and blow them up. And my brother was into it and in high school I took a course and the rest is history. I went to college for it. That was what I was in magazine graphics and photography, in the school of journalism, because I was going to write for magazines and travel the world and take pictures and that's how, and that turned into becoming more of a hobbyist for years. And then when my daughter was little, she did dance and was terrible and she did cheer and was terrible and gymnastics and not so good. But if I was going to be there and I would watch the other photographers, I'm like, oh, I can do this. I was already doing like family portraits and weddings and bar mitzvahs and all of that kind of stuff and that evolved into me trying my first cheer gym when she was like five or six my other daughter and that was it and I fell in love with it.
Gary Pageau:
Talk a little bit about the idea of what you thought you could bring to that craft that you weren't seeing happening in your area, that you were like hey, because everyone says I can do that better. But what was the great question?
Sheryl Bashore:
That is a really great question, actually. And it was because I came from that portrait creative side and I wanted to. I always had this thing that I wanted every girl to feel beautiful, every girl to feel special and feel like a star. And I drive that point home every time someone hears me speak, it's the first thing I talk about and it's the last thing I leave them with. I am a nut about it.
Sheryl Bashore:
So when I started I saw the pictures that were being produced and they were terrible. It was just like how fast can you get the kids on and off the backdrops or, you know, in the field or whatever? And I did the boy stuff too. But for me I wanted each kid to feel special, have their two minutes, five minutes of feeling beautiful. And as time evolved it became so much more important in our world. That was such a big deal to these kids and their moms.
Sheryl Bashore:
And I specialize in the girl stuff because as time went by, that's where my heart was and what kind of you know the creative side of me. It rocked my world. Doing you know the, the gorgeous dynamic dance moves and gymnasts and cheerleaders. Just capturing all of that excited me. And how could I make every single girl walk away feeling absolutely special. And that was it and I strive that at every shoot. I'm a nut. I talk to every kid, I know every kid, I hug every kid, I hug every mom. It just became almost my mission was and my love of children I guess grew with that was that I wanted to offer that and then teach that and instill that in other photographers.
Gary Pageau:
Which is how the teaching came about was if you stop for five seconds and do this and make these kids feel special, in the end you'll make a lot of money right and you'll always be asked back and you'll, your business will grow and grow and grow and it all, I guess, stumps from the heart let's talk a little bit about being able to do that, but in a volume environment, right, because I mean you know, like you said, you go to a lot of volume shoots and you know if you've got to shoot a thousand little leaguers and, yeah, you've got maybe 35 to 40 seconds for a kid, if that right, um right, you know how do you kind of manage that on site. Now, I mean, you're probably not doing a thousand, but you're you're doing a lot of people, right, a lot of dancers, a lot of gymnasts, a lot of cheer and whatnot. And so how do you balance that where you want to provide this great personal experience and get it done without it taking too long?
Sheryl Bashore:
Well, I am of the mindset that if a kid needs five minutes, they get five minutes, and if that kid needs 10 minutes, they get 10 minutes. So I don't rush my shoots. I shoot boutique volume. I've done the 1500 kid. You know baseball leagues and that wasn't my fit because, again, I was. I want to make sure every kid has their moment and my shoots would.
Sheryl Bashore:
They're unproficient. We're fast, I have posers, I have pose charts, I've mapping charts. I have the most proficient setup. It's insanely where this whole creative side of me is. Here. There's this whole other side of me, the business end and my business head.
Sheryl Bashore:
Everything is dialed into perfection, which is something I teach about. I give that away, I give a PDF away of my setup and all of those things. And once I'm dialed in and I have photographers that are phenomenal, we set up multiple stations. It's never just me anymore, so I can take that extra time, but for me, that 300 is my sweet spot. I don't want to go higher than that, will I? Sure? But if I'm going higher than that, then I'm going to have four stations instead of two or three, like things like that, because I'm still. My first and foremost thing is how that child felt and because of that, mom's gonna buy. Because the pictures are gorgeous, because you took the extra two minutes to get a kid to stop crying. I've had kids sit on my lap and 20 minutes until they were ready to go get their picture done. For me it's a successful picture day is what the parents get in their hand when it's all done and what those look like.
Gary Pageau:
So when you were kind of launching your business, what was the thing you wish? Someone would have told you back then.
Sheryl Bashore:
That you're not going to have a life.
Gary Pageau:
No, I're not going to have a life.
Sheryl Bashore:
You're going to drink a lot of wine. Yeah, you're going to turn into a Chardonnay Sheryl, I guess for me. I remember someone sat me down and taught me about lighting and he's still in the business. He was phenomenal and he's kind of like still out there doing it, but I don't know if he's shooting anymore, but he was the first one that taught me what I felt like I was missing on the lighting end. So now I knew how to beautifully light them, but it was just having.
Sheryl Bashore:
I didn't have a mentor back then. And then I met a couple of people along the way, like David Grupa. I don't know if his name rings a bell to you or not, but I met certain, certain mentors along the way that sat me down and took the five minutes one-on-one with me to help me figure this out, and lots of trial and error. But I wish someone would have said this is the system that works, set up like this do a B and C for success. But the love of kids thing, you either have it or you don't, and I hate to say that. And if you don't have it, hire people that do. You don't have to be the ones in front of the kids If you don't have the personality for the moms, hire someone that does. If you don't have the personality for the moms, hire someone that does. So maybe those things along the way. I mean, we used to shoot with the big, huge backdrops. You know the huge.
Sheryl Bashore:
I would pay this little old Italian lady to sew together two 10 by 20s to make a huge 20 by 20. And that evolved into the Marley floors and that involved into I shoot with. Elastolite was along the way was how do I become efficient? How do I fit everything from having a trailer we took everywhere into my small SUV? I guess that would be the biggest thing is somebody just sitting down and taking the time with you.
Gary Pageau:
It's interesting You're kind of saying two things at the same time, which is, you know you enjoy the creative, you enjoy making the subjects look good, because you know you bring on that sign. But just do these setups, set it up like this, don't deviate, put the light here, put the feet there, make the hand. So how do you kind of balance that? Because, like part of is a regimented area, you want kind of a similar look, but on the other hand, you do want to have a personal touch, because that's your brand right.
Sheryl Bashore:
Well, that's what I think gives you the time and space to make it personal, because the setup's the same every time we set up, we time it and we run a timer and I show that on my Facebook group and then you know online and stuff. It takes us 17 minutes, start to finish. That's our setup and then we have all that time to spend with the kids. Nothing changes. Our lights don't change. Our setups don't change. With the Glamour Headshots which I evolved into starting them I guess about eight to nine years ago, 10 years ago, I started adding that and that became that next little boost for me. So those I changed. The gel lights I add a fan, I take the fan away. Those are a little more one-on-one, personal.
Gary Pageau:
Right.
Sheryl Bashore:
The last light isn't. So I have more time. My staff pays attention to the kids. My staff is dialed into them. I hire posers that is one of the make or break it things for me that are trained and employed by me. They don't work for the studios or the gyms and so I my brand. I walk in and that's your brand, is you? And I always tell people, like, make sure what you walk in the door with is what you want seen. So if everything's dialed in perfect and you still have to set your cameras and you know, make sure your lighting's the correct light and all the rest, I mean you have to know how to take a picture. But because everything's dialed in, but because everything's dialed in, I can just totally focus on the kids.
Gary Pageau:
So along those lines you do some different stuff that I don't usually see in the volume of sports space, which is the silhouette thing. Yeah, now, how on earth do you do that?
Sheryl Bashore:
I have to like I'll have to send you a little video clip because it'll. Actually it's great for people to see it. But when we first started it silhouettes we would take a kid, three or four pictures and then pose them for silhouettes three or four pictures and turning lights on and off, and all of this craziness. And it started oh my God, I don't even want to know 12 years ago. I lost track. It was a while ago, the first silhouette and it worked because of the last light, the last light backlights, and if you turn your front light off and it's backlit, you get this gorgeous, ethereal silhouette where there's a bleed of color. It's not going into Photoshop.
Gary Pageau:
Right. Well, that's my point. I mean, it's taking the color out I I highly encourage people to go to sherylzphotographycom and look at the silhouettes, because it's not just, you know, a knock out the background, you know, replace the color, kind of thing.
Sheryl Bashore:
this is actually shot right and they're, they're beautiful to me, they like. When we first shot them I was like, oh my god, is a mom gonna like this? Or is mom gonna think the? The flash didn't go off and a mom like crazy, and I still get one. Mom will text me and go do you have that picture? That same thing, but lit. And I'm like, no, it's shot like that.
Sheryl Bashore:
So so again it evolved, evolves like back from paper order forms to going online. Everything evolves with photography digital, mirrorless, things like that. So for me, the silhouette, my photographers are trained so well. Every shot is on. That light is on and off so fast. Every shot they take is done both ways and the kids don't know what happened. They're not posing special for it. They're still in front of us the same amount of time. They're not there longer for gymnastics or cheer. They're in front of us two and a half minutes, three minutes, that's it. But in that time frame we get their team shot because it's composited. We get all their individuals with the silhouettes and action and every every single thing is shot, like I said, so fast both ways.
Sheryl Bashore:
It's like boom boom, boom, boom, that the kid jumping doesn't know what happened. And I am one of those people. By the way, everyone out there, listen to this If you're making the moms run away from your shoots, stop it. Let them video, let them take pictures of it. What they see is not what you produce. Get the excitement. I'm always like take all the videos you want and tag me, tag me, tag me, tag me, so that's part of they.
Sheryl Bashore:
they can't see the silhouette happen right they have to wait so they can't steal that image. They didn't even know it took place, and if they see the back of the camera then the excitement is wow.
Gary Pageau:
So I don't keep the moms away, I love the moms, yeah because there always is that dichotomy that we get people, like you know, close set, keep the mom away, mainly because they don't want the kid being distracted. I imagine that's part of it too. Is you want to make sure?
Sheryl Bashore:
And I avoid that. My posers are on top of these kids, so the mom is not close enough that she's interacting with the kids. But if the mom wants to video the whole experience, that's today's society. It's such a social media society that if a mom wants to video this and throw it on Instagram because their kid had professional pictures, go for it.
Gary Pageau:
Yeah, but just make sure they tag you Right.
Sheryl Bashore:
Just tag me. But that's the beauty of the silhouette it is so fast and one of the things I teach everywhere. I teach, as I always have live shoots when I'm teaching, because I want people to put their hands on a camera and understand it and feel it, because I can teach it all I want. But when you show somebody and it clicks, they're like oh, oh, I could do that and they're beautiful and the part of the silhouette is pumping up your gallery size. The more mom sees, the more mom spends. Which Kate that whole catchphrase buy it all started because you want mom to buy everything and if you give mom two images to look at, she'll buy both. But she just spent no money. So the more you give her, the higher you can charge.
Sheryl Bashore:
Same thing with pricing. I teach pricing classes because people undervalue themselves as photographers. They're not charging enough money. But if you don't take enough pictures, you can't charge that money, right.
Gary Pageau:
Do you do any digital besides compositing on this? I'm looking at some of the pictures in your gallery here and it looks like there's some digital work that's being done after the shoot, or is it all in the camera?
Sheryl Bashore:
No. So everything is set off and extracted. I used NextGen Photo Solutions Forever, which now GotPhoto has acquired, but everything goes out to be extracted from the Last Delight and they give me all the digital graphics and all the wonderful team composites After photo day. I don't touch those photos, they go to NextGen and GotPhoto. They make me look like queen, they're just. I mean, they make you look so good. The compositing is phenomenal, the pictures look gorgeous. And then, and the silhouettes, the shadows, reflection, so gives me that old school marley floor, without dragging a marley floor everywhere, which in dance, that's what people drag, these big laminate type floors to get reflections and shadows. And those are created through me, through the extractions with next gen. So I don't have to drag the big equipment anymore and it's perfect Every time. The lighting's always perfect, their reflections perfection, nothing's ever off. And then the glamor headshots. Those we edit ourselves and they're just very minor. We shoot those to look the way we want them to look and it's very minor editing with that.
Gary Pageau:
Okay. So, when these digital processes and the digital products started coming along, like you know digital composites and things like that. Well, were you an early adopter or did you have to get sold on it?
Sheryl Bashore:
So when the gentleman who started NextGen his name was Wes is Wes Kroeniger and I went to God Sync Sports, it was in my town, in Lancaster, forever ago 10 years ago I think and I walked in and I didn't know anybody and I remember being really shy and I wanted to leave and if you can imagine, I was shy People are always shocked by this but I was very shy and David Grupa that name I threw out there before convinced me to stay, him and Darty, which the two of them convinced me to stay. And then I met my first friend and my second friend and to this day they're still my best friends in the industry, which is so funny. But I stayed and I went to west's class and he had this last delight and was teaching compositing and I'd never seen it before. I walked out, bought an 800 hour last late, signed up for next and called my husband and he he was like you did what. I'm like we're going to do this. He's like are you out of your mind? I'm like no, this is the next thing. I this is perfect for what we do. I want to try it.
Sheryl Bashore:
And I went to my first gymnastic studio, which was 300 kids, and tried it on them, which was stupid. You should try it on something small people. But I didn't know and I called Wes, panicking because I had all these perfect charts made of how I was going to pose these girls. And he's laughing on the phone and he's like keep it simple. What are you doing? Why are you trying to do? It's your first time.
Sheryl Bashore:
So Next Gen made me look good on that shoot because that was a struggle and I'd already been shooting gymnastics forever, but never in compositing and that's how I learned. And again you asked what I wish someone would have taught me that I wish someone would have sat me down and taught me compositing. I just from there, winged it and drove Wes crazy. He would laugh at me. I was driving him crazy. This morning I still drive him crazy and I am very needy of him, but I literally wish that would be the thing the compositing thing. As things evolve, people don't know how to use that. I'm not in school anymore. I go to conferences and I try to soak in everything I can.
Gary Pageau:
Conferences have such great value and to learn, but I tried to just grab this last light and do it. So let's talk a little bit about the, the parent company of next year, which is, you know, the Got Photo platform. Now, again, there are other options out there. There are other options out there, and what were some of the things that you picked? As someone who was, hey, listen, you know, you probably use paper, which is probably super time consuming, right, you were looking for an online platform. And then it's like you know, I didn't mean to make you laugh, I should have warned you.
Sheryl Bashore:
Because I'm like people think I have it buried together, right, and I do now, but I didn't always. I had to learn, like everyone else, and I remember walking into a trade show and all of a sudden there was this new platform where you could sell online and I had the most gorgeous order forms. I worked so hard on them. I love them, and I was like I don't want to go online. But it was like I started compositing. The next thing is going online and I went to the first company and I I won my little photographer. Friends at we were at SPAC at the party. I'm like what did I just do? Oh my God, I just spent all this money on this thing. And and again, it's like the compositing. This didn't fit for me, so that I returned it, walked back into the trade show the next day and just started talking to GotP hoto and I wasn't sure. And then they did a summer camp. I remember Benedict the CEO was on the summer camp talking and you know how someone's just talking to you, like you know they're speaking to you, but they're not. You're on a call with all these people. I just felt like he understood me and understood what I needed.
Sheryl Bashore:
And with GotPhoto, even today, there's options. You can do the QR codes, you can do it in tag you can do there's all these options. So you're not a one-stop shop. It's what works for you. So, like Bob who's a really good friend of mine he was on here not long ago he does intact. That works for him. I don't like intact, just like I didn't like barcoding. I'm not computer techie, believe it or not. So QR codes were my win. That was gave me that paper that mom took home, had my name, had the coupon code, had information. I felt like mom still had something in their hands. So it worked in my brain. But it was that day and I switched, started a small job and GotP hoto and it did really well. So then I took a job that I had done, always traditionally a really small cheer team that nobody bought. It was one of those small schools I did more as a charity it it tripled. I was like what? I didn't do anything different.
Sheryl Bashore:
I took the same pictures. I did everything the same. I just went online and I was like, cause online you have communications going to parents, reminders, urgency, coupon codes, the Walmart mentality, so many things take place and mom's sitting at home hopefully having her Chardonnay and buying pictures. But it worked and it was just kind of like wow, like I couldn't get over it. So then I put the next team in and the next team in and my sales that first year doubled or tripled from paper order forms and I was like started singing their praises because I could not get over not how well the system worked, how well the communications were. The parents I've heard the jokes that you know it's a hard system to learn. So was compositing Everything. It isn't always easy to learn, but that doesn't mean it's not beneficial to learn it.
Sheryl Bashore:
And when you learn it Right, and when you learn it and your business takes this whole new level, it was worth the work. So I always tell people stay the course, learn it, understand it, ask the questions, go to the conferences, go, like in this case, gut photo has their, their camp. It's a workshop. Go to the workshop, sit there, ask the questions and learn. And you know there's a bunch of educators just like me that are really giving in the community and give back. Hook yourself up with one of them. Everyone offers mentoring. Some do it, you know, just out of the kindness of their heart. But Got Photo was a game changer for me and there's many others out there for me, and there's many others out there others have tried to sway me over the years.
Gary Pageau:
It's too good, it works. So I find it interesting that you change how you're gonna shoot and you do it at 300 people, right, but you change your commerce platform and you said well, I'm going to just ease into that one, I'm not going to change.
Sheryl Bashore:
I learned, if I tell you that 300 kid I was dripping with sweat because I'd already shot them for years, so they knew me Right. So they were gracious and kind and again, it's the connections the gyms love me, the owners, the parents, it's the connections you, the gyms, love me, the owners, the parents, it's the connections you make with these people. So they were very gracious in letting me learn how to composite on their prestigious dance school Like oh my God, oh no, gymnastics. So and the pictures came out gorgeous. So thank God that NextGen was what it was, because I had no idea what I was doing with compositing.
Sheryl Bashore:
But and that's one of the things that again evolving and when I went into an online platform, I was smart enough to know okay, take something really small, and it might've been a 50 kid team for cheer, like a high school cheer team, which high school cheer is not the money of all-star cheer, it's just not. But that's okay. You know what, going into things, the season of things, the money of things. So I took that one high school team and it tripled and I was honestly blown away and I thought, well, if it worked for that, because that's a team that doesn't buy, this has to be a good thing.
Gary Pageau:
Well, I always thought I find it interesting, cause I always thought the rule of thumb was the more equipment, the higher the buy right, like hockey. You know they spend the most on equipment, they buy the most, baseball the most, football the most and and the other things is not so you're disputing that?
Sheryl Bashore:
no well, I shot all that, everything you just mentioned, and I'll never forget shooting hockey. My husband was so happy and I shot ski racing. I grew up ski racing, so did my husband, so that was. I used to be on the mountain all winter, every winter. That was my thing. It just was there was no money in it.
Sheryl Bashore:
And the girl stuff I don't know what it is, but volleyball is another one the girl stuff is where the money is. I mean, I talked to many photographers that shoot the boy stuff and if you shoot my way, it translates into all the boy stuff and you'll make more money at it. I promise you that. But I would say my price list. We've got to change it a little for the boys. You're not going to make. You can't throw those kinds of prices at the boys. But I know photographers that charge $10 or $15 for a 5x7. I'm like are you out of your mind? This is 2024. So my 5x7s are $25 to $30.
Sheryl Bashore:
And I hope to never sell them. I want to sell digital. That was the old school photographer in me, that was the creative would never have sold a digital. But again, you have to change and now a digital is my best friend, that's our highest profit and setting yourself up with labs are super important to us who your lab is, your relationship with your lab. There's so many good ones out there, but I think it was what you just said that evolution that GotP hoto. Now you're online. Online, you're doing composites. You know I don't have to physically edit a picture anymore if I don't want to right, I don't color, correct, I don't crop, I don't touch them well and honestly, if you've got a system where you're capturing right in the camera, right, you should have it all dialed in at this point, right.
Gary Pageau:
I mean, that's not where you should be tweaking things and making you know. You know I want to change the aperture or you know, whatever it's no do not do that, and with compositing.
Sheryl Bashore:
When you start shooting, you're stuck right wherever you are, wherever your camera is, whatever your settings are. They're not changing for that day, and my goal in teaching this setup was my setup is the same everywhere I go, identical down to the inch. So what happens is I, a kid, can come to my studio missing picture day, get their picture taken, be put in the group picture. No one knows right, because everything's that dialed in. I'm talking we have. We take measuring tape everywhere we go it. It's in our camera bag. So that was what evolved. The whole setup was how do you composite successfully? And that's that. So I always think the action and drama and dynamic shots are very different than your composite shot.
Gary Pageau:
Right.
Sheryl Bashore:
Your composite shot is a very specific. I came out actually with mapping, and I'm calling it mapping for no better reason. It's like a workbook that you take on site with you and it literally people can print ahead of time two through 50 of gymnastics, two through 50 of cheer. You take this workbook, you cross it off so that every kid is posed exactly how it should be, so it just again it takes. You're saying what I would have wished.
Sheryl Bashore:
I wish someone would have handed me all these tools so that I didn't have to figure it out. So I evolved when I broke my back skiing of all things, and everyone knows this about me and now I couldn't be at a shoot. So what evolved from that was this mapping, was I had to send something? Because my husband came home from the first shoot without me and I was screaming at him. I'm like what is that? That kid's knees are the wrong way, oh my God. And that kid's facing the wrong, how am I going to fix that, what? And he was like we did the best we could.
Sheryl Bashore:
And then I involved stick figures and I made stick figures to send to the next shoot. This is what I want, don't mess this up. And that came back and it was better and that's how this whole mapping evolved. So it's just a tool that like a workbook that goes with photographers. So the same thing. I think that GotPhoto gives your online forum to sell and it's if a photographer can put everything in place before photo day, so photo day successful. You're concentrating on the kids, the pictures are gorgeous, then you have someone extracting, doing what you need and then you put them online. So it's just all of those factors come into mom spending three $400, not 50.
Gary Pageau:
All right, here's a question. You mentioned tape measure. What is the other thing that is the must have thing in your, your onsite kit that is a surprise, or the thing you didn't expect, the thing you have to have that you didn't think was going to be there? And you can't say tape measure, because you already said that.
Sheryl Bashore:
Oh my God, if my husband hears this, I'm going to have to listen to this forever. So, my husband, do you ever hear leaning? There's some guy out there that does something called leaning and I have to look it up. I'll send you a link. It's something that my husband decided to lean our world, and so every drawer has foam inserts oh, lean manufacturing.
Sheryl Bashore:
Lay off my camera bag. I'm a messy brain, don't do this, what are you doing? And this went on and on and on and I was like you are making me crazy. So he took every light stand, every softbox, every camera, every single thing that goes on a shoot with us is color coded. So there's a red station and I'm a pink girl and nothing's pink. So we did fight about that. But orange, red and yellow, ok, there's nothing for chance. So my 14 year old posers, which I hire at 14, they really love kids still and all that good stuff, and they can set up and that's how we set up so fast. So for me, that those stupid color coded tape, you can buy them on Amazon. Yeah, that would be like. Now every single thing has this stupid color-coded tape on it, which I was very mad at first and then I'm like I was like, oh, this is genius that's awesome, that is awesome yeah, and he would love this so so you do some mentoring, so talk a little bit about that process.
Gary Pageau:
What's well and that's?
Sheryl Bashore:
I should mention. That was the other thing you asked. We always have post charts and mapping on site, because the pose charts make or break your day, the mapping make or break your composites and my poser. So all of those things into that are what create the perfection. Without the pose charts, people don't know what. They can't figure out what to pose. Without the mapping your compositing isn't as easy. So that's kind of the feedback and they all evolved to help me.
Sheryl Bashore:
I didn't make any of this, thinking other photographers would want it. It was. It was my way of leaning before I knew what leaning was, or admitting, calling it that and the mentoring came about with that. I started. I talk at many conferences, as you know, and teach everywhere, and people want the one-on-one, they want what you asked me. What I wish I would have had back then was that Someone who sat me down and said this is how you do it and I always tell people I can teach you and then you have to evolve it into yours. It's not necessarily everything I do is going to work for you, but I have women.
Sheryl Bashore:
I give my price list away everywhere I go. It's there, I don't hide it. I hand it to people. I show people my numbers, I don't hide my numbers. I always feel like if you're going to talk about pricing, you have to show people. You can't hide your numbers. And that was a hard thing for me at first. But I give it to them and then people don't apply it and they're like I'm like well, I gave it to you. They're like yeah, but your prices are too high for me. So I'm like okay, sit down, show me your pricing and let's change yours to get closer to mine. But for you everyone's individual. So I sit with people and redo their pricing so it works for their business model and they didn't jump from here to here.
Gary Pageau:
Right.
Sheryl Bashore:
So that became the mentoring and just teaching people how to sell online, how to take the pictures, kind of all of it, and I love it. It's just a lot of fun. I love the one-on-one connection.
Gary Pageau:
So, speaking of connections, how can people find you and connect with you if they want to learn more about Sheryl? And Sheryl Z photography.
Sheryl Bashore:
So my Instagram is Sheryl Z photo. That's a great way to find me. I'm not great at it because I'm old, but I'm trying, I'm like, I always like I'm trying, but you know. So, Sheryl Z photo. And then my facebook is Sheryl bashore um I don't have my I do have with an s.
Sheryl Bashore:
I have a Sheryl z photography facebook. Don't use it, I'll be honest. And then my education website is Sheryl Z education. com. Okay, great, so that's pretty easy to find, and those are probably the easiest ways to find me. Even so, talk about you. You mentioned my website earlier. I don't ever use it. I have it and the pictures on there are probably old at this point.
Gary Pageau:
Well, the copyright date is 2020. I was going to mention that after.
Sheryl Bashore:
Right, right, I don't use it and I'm actually getting ready to shut it down and with the education one do another website through that, one that has for parents and things like that. Because I don't use it, because all the parents go to my GotPhoto one.
Gary Pageau:
Okay.
Sheryl Bashore:
So I have no use for. Every single thing I shoot GotPhoto in . I don't I even corporate headshots. I do a lot of that just because it's it's easy, great money, but even that I run through GotPhoto. There's nothing I use that website for anymore. So, and there is a contact page, so I still people contact me, which is fine but, awesome oh and and wait, I have a facebook group.
Sheryl Bashore:
Come join it. That's my favorite, okay, I forget, it's mastering cheer and gymnastics and dance, I think hold on mastering cheer dance and gymnastics photography.
Gary Pageau:
Mastering Cheer Dance and Gymnastics Photography.
Sheryl Bashore:
That's you right there. If you're a photographer, come join. We try to make it fun and easy and people constantly are chiming in with their questions and what they're doing and all of that. And if you're available, come to the conferences. So worth it. You get so much one-on-one time with all of us. I know me. I'm that person. I stay downstairs and I talk to people the whole time. I don't go hide, I'm an open book and I feel like all the other speakers are.
Sheryl Bashore:
I love the teaching aspect. I love watching that fire go off in somebody else. That when I was in my twenties and how I felt, and when you ask that question, it was so head home for me. What do I wish I would have had? And I wish I would have had somebody like me or Bob or Heather you know that that truly cared and wanted to spend the time and help us.
Gary Pageau:
Cause, really. I mean, it's not like they're going to come into your backyard and take your customers away, right? Why not teach it?
Sheryl Bashore:
I have. So at SPAC this year, which was so cool, I had a bunch of my local competition there and I joke about it because they're not my competition, they're my friends and they hid in the back of the class and I called them out and I was like, guys, I know you're here and you better come hug me Like I love that. No one takes a team away from you unless you deserve your team to be team. It's your relationship should be so strong.
Gary Pageau:
So Good Well, thanks. It's been great talking to you, great to meet you and looking forward to seeing you at an upcoming industry event.
Sheryl Bashore:
You better.
Gary Pageau:
Awesome Talk to you later.
Erin Manning:
Bye, thank you. You thank you for listening to the dead.
