From Darkroom Dreams to AI Innovations: Liz Snyder's Photography Journey

Ever wondered how a childhood fascination can shape an entire career? Liz Snyder, the creative force behind Elizabeth Snyder Photography, takes us on an inspiring journey from her early days in her aunt's attic studio to becoming a full-time photographer. Snyder candidly shares how her passion for photography was ignited by the magic of the darkroom and how personal upheavals guided her back to her true calling. We explore her transition from analog to digital, including a stint in a one-hour photo lab, illustrating how life's challenges can steer you toward your destiny.

As technology continues to redefine photography, Snyder provides fascinating insights into the parallels between Photoshop's impact and the current rise of AI tools. Discover how she leverages AI in her business processes, from CRM tools to Lightroom image selection, to enhance efficiency without sacrificing her creative edge. Despite the growing trend of AI-generated images, Snyder explains why skilled photographers continue to hold a unique advantage. With a resurgence in film photography at weddings, Snyder's innovative use of a Hasselblad showcases how traditional techniques can beautifully complement modern workflows.

Trust and authenticity are at the heart of Snyder's approach to glamour photography. She highlights the importance of creating a comfortable environment that fosters natural, body-positive images, reflecting a broader societal shift. Learn about her transition from a shoot-and-burn business model to a curated experience that values tangible outputs like prints. We also explore the evolving landscape of professional photography services, from boudoir sessions to senior portraits, and how today's youth are weaving personal storytelling into their photos.

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Transcript

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Photography Journey

Erin Manning 0:12

Welcome to the Dead Pixels Society podcast , the photo imaging industry's leading news source . Here's your host , Gary Pageau . The Dead Pixel s Society podcast is brought to you by Mediaclip , Advertek Printing and Independent Photo Imagers .

Gary Pageau 0:28

Hello again and welcome to the Dead Pixels Society podcast . I'm your host , Gary Pageau , and today we're joined by Liz Snyder of Elizabeth Snyder Photography in Buffalo , New York . Hi Liz , how are you today ?

Liz Snyder 0:40

I'm very well . Thank you so much for having me .

Gary Pageau 0:42

I really appreciate it so Liz talk a little bit about your journey as a nine-year-old , starting in photography , because I think that's a little unusual .

Liz Snyder 0:53

It is unusual . Yeah , I was very fortunate to have aunts that were kind of close to my age , so my aunt was 16 when her grandfather she's my half aunt her grandfather retired from his photojournalist job , gave her everything that she needed to start a modest headshot studio and darkroom in her attic and I helped from start to finish until she went off to college . So we were doing a lot of actor headshots , a lot of model headshots . She would go to Canada all the time and pick up boy dancers that are also models and actors . So we would help with that and my mom didn't know at the time . But that's fine , she does now .

Liz Snyder 1:38

That's a whole other podcast , whole other thing , yeah , but I mean honestly , it was the dark room that did it for me . Like watching an image appear on a blank sheet of paper where there was like nothing was like alchemy , it was magic .

Gary Pageau 1:53

I was completely 100% so were you helping out with , like schlepping the lights and the gear and going to shoot to rita's working in the dark room or what was ?

Liz Snyder 2:02

both , actually , yeah , so she would mostly have people come to her because she she had the studio and everything and all the lights and all the old-fashioned boy boy actors exactly , yeah , exactly , but yeah , so , yeah , I would help with , you know , posing lighting , and and she had um other photographer friends that would use me for like model work or you know , if she's paying them to like teach her how to do something , I would go for that right so it was yeah , it was a lot of fun you know , a lot of times people , when they do a job , when they're a kid helping out , they don't really want to make that their career .

Gary Pageau 2:37

What was that ? Something you really thought about doing ? Cause , I mean , you know , I , you know , listen , when I was flipping burgers at Burger Chef , I wasn't thinking , well , I want to be a cook the rest of my life , right , it was just .

Liz Snyder 2:53

I did something else and came back . So through high school , like I , that was like my goal . I wanted to be a photographer . I wanted to learn everything I could , so I exhausted all of the art classes that I was allowed to take and school was not my thing . So I ended up going to trade school during high school Like I still have a diploma and everything . But I went for cosmetology so that I learned how to do hair and makeup for photo shoots . And then life happened .

Gary Pageau 3:19

So was this the glamour shots .

Liz Snyder 3:22

You know , it kind of it was the late nineties , so it was kind of past that .

Erin Manning 3:25

Like yeah , that was , that was starting to go away a little bit .

Liz Snyder 3:29

Exactly yeah , but no , I mean like my first like real job was at a one hour photo lab too .

Liz Snyder 3:35

So , it was just something that I was always like . I knew that that was what I was supposed to be doing . And then , right after high school , my parents got divorced and I had nowhere to live , so I started doing hair because that was the easiest way to kind of like make money . And then , after my kids , after my divorce , after all of the things kind of happened , I was brought back to photography . A friend of mine at the bank that I was working at at the time had asked me the question of what would you be doing if time , money , age , whatever didn't matter ?

Liz Snyder 4:12

And it was a hundred percent photography and it just kind of like oh , I'm not in the right place anymore . Within a year , I was able to quit my job at the bank and it was perfect Lined up .

Gary Pageau 4:22

What was it about in the bank world or the real world that you found unsatisfying ?

Liz Snyder 4:28

Office work . So people who know me know that I am very ADHD . I'm very dyslexic . I am not made to sit in a cubicle for eight hours a day . I need to move . So it's kind of like torture , like school , like the fluorescent lights and the learning modes Right , right . Yeah , and I mean no , if that works for you . Great you know . But I was in business banking foreclosures great you know but I was in business , banking , foreclosures , so I was like closing on people's dreams .

Gary Pageau 4:59

Yeah , so it sucked . That's kind of a downer and overall right . So were you still doing photography on the side as sort of a release or oh , for sure , yeah yeah , you never really gave it up .

Liz Snyder 5:08

You were no , I was still doing it . I didn't have like a great camera anymore because film was kind of gone by the time that kind of came around and I had like a canon rebel or something , but I still , like kept my hand in it like I was still practicing . I was definitely stealing company time by watching youtube videos , everything and you know yeah well , that's interesting .

Gary Pageau 5:28

So you know you started in the film days . Right , magic of the dark room is really what kind of sucked you in .

Gary Pageau 5:35

But then the magic went away because it's digital right and , like you said , you work in a one-hour lab , so you saw the printing side of it and that piece of it and then again that kind of went away for a lot of people . I mean , there's a lot of quote unquote photo labs still around , but clearly not as many as to be Right , and they're surely not printing a lot of them on wet labs anymore . So how did you like progress from kind of the wet experience to the digital experience , and what kept you engaged ?

Liz Snyder 6:06

With digital film is cheap , lot easier for me to just fill an SD card full of images and work on them from there and get that immediate gratification with , you know , checking the chimp in at the viewfinder too , just to make sure you're doing it right , it was . It was a little bit difficult for me to shift in like knowing what ISO I needed , because that was always the film choice . So it was , you know , a good practice for me to be like oh okay , this is kind of relating the same . And then , of course , photoshop . Um , the original Photoshop was kind of set up like a dark room and had all the tools named exactly like how we would use it , so , like learning , that wasn't too much of a jump for me just being in the dark room as long as I was .

Liz Snyder 6:54

So yeah , it was

Photography, AI, and Business Insights

Liz Snyder 6:55

. You know . It's funny too , because everybody blames Photoshop for all the heavy editing and all the you know , liquefy and all of that . And people have been doing that since the beginning of photography .

Gary Pageau 7:06

Oh , exactly .

Liz Snyder 7:08

It's just been the world you know .

Gary Pageau 7:10

Yeah , well , it's sort of like today's conversation with AI , right ?

Gary Pageau 7:13

I mean oh yeah , ai is going to change everything . It's like well , I I think of it more as like well , this is like , just like the introduction of Photoshop . It's going to be another tool and , yes , it will be abused , just like Photoshop has been abused . But you know what ? People were altering negatives on prints for ages , and everyone knows that . And everyone who thought you know that people weren't staging photos and film photos , you know , to create scenes and create misinformation or whatever . You know it certainly was happening back then , right .

Erin Manning 7:42

It sure was .

Gary Pageau 7:43

So you know , AI or Photoshop is really a different tool . So what you know as a person who's kind of been through some transitions , what are your thoughts on AI ? Because , like you mentioned Photoshop , you know they're throwing all kinds of features into Photoshop right now about AI , and I was wondering photographers aren't asking for this really ?

Liz Snyder 8:01

I mean , in my opinion , I mean I didn't , but I'm here for it . I love it , to be honest .

Gary Pageau 8:10

How are you using Firefly , for example ?

Liz Snyder 8:12

So I am using it in my CRM . So I use 17 hats , which does integrate a little bit . I use Grammarly almost exclusively instead of ChatGPT because I already paid for it and it's already helping me a ton . And I'm actually almost ready to go for this AI program that I'm sure you know who Cliff Mountner is . He had just posted this thing , this program I forget what it's called , but it will look at all of your images through Lightroom and as many albums as you want to feed it , and it gets your taste for global yeah .

Liz Snyder 8:53

And it'll just do it and I'm like , all right , so that's the next thing , I'm not afraid of it . It's like a lot of people that I've talked to are like , oh , but now they have this AI headshot thing and now they have you know , whatever , it's never going to really take the place of photographer . Like , if you know what you're doing and you do it well , the AI is never going to be a person . So I don't feel like threatened by it or anything else . I just feel like it's cool .

Liz Snyder 9:18

You know it's only going to get better , and we got to embrace it or we're just going to die out .

Gary Pageau 9:24

Right , well , exactly that's one of the things I think you know you've hit on . A great point is , you know , I think it's a threat to people who maybe aren't as skilled or don't know how to run a business as well . Right , I mean , there's certainly a lot of people who you know in the analog days because they had access to a camera , which a lot of people didn't . They weren't as prevalent back then . They could call themselves photographers , right , they could do weddings , but they weren't so hot . And then nowadays , you know , there's still a lot of people who have know more . There's more access to cameras .

Gary Pageau 9:53

Right , there's still iphones and drones and video oh , for sure and , but you know , still , photographers need to know how to use all that stuff . They have to be more skilled than the main , and that's just how it's just going to have to be . Their skill level is going to have to be that much higher right , yeah , no , there's no room for mediocrity anymore at all .

Gary Pageau 10:12

Um , because mediocrity is what people can do on their own um , and I can be just as mediocre as the next guy exactly , yeah , um , you know , it's funny too with the fact that we all have a camera on us at all times .

Liz Snyder 10:26

Um , and they're better quality than what my first digital camera was for sure um , you know , but it just goes to prove that it's like you can buy a $10,000 camera and still not know how to use it . So you know it's , it's in , it's , it's just knowing light , really like it's . It's knowing how to bounce it , it's knowing how to fill it , it's posing to make sure that you're you know getting getting it done right and I do not feel threatened by it .

Gary Pageau 10:55

What do you think about the trend of people going back and shooting film ? Right , I mean , sometimes you go to a wedding or something these days and you see , you know they got the digital back , they got the second shooter and they've got , you know , a film camera or two around their waist as well . I mean , what do you think about that ? Is that an actual offering , or is it just people saying you know , I'm better than the mediocre guy because I can shoot film ?

Liz Snyder 11:45

I don't know about other people , but for me , about 10 years ago I started doing this , so I got a 1972 Hasselblad .

Gary Pageau 11:53

Oh nice .

Liz Snyder 11:54

Yes , it's beautiful , I love it and , of course , the film is super expensive . So I usually shoot . If I'm doing a wedding , I'll do like one or two rolls of actual film and I send it out to Richards or Richardson they're in Michigan , I think , or Wisconsin and and what they're able to do is give me the the digitals back and I can tie the color profile into my digital images and make everything look like film , which I love to do . That's like one of my favorite things .

Gary Pageau 12:24

So what's the ? What's the objective of shooting the film in the first place in your workflow ? Is it to get that color ?

Erin Manning 12:30

is it to get ?

Gary Pageau 12:31

that film , look at that thing . So you can basically transfer it to the digital images .

Liz Snyder 12:36

Exactly , that's all I use it for , and nobody's asking for the negatives or anything else . So it's just a fun thing that I can do for them , and especially if they are people that , like , appreciate good film and you know , yeah , so it's , of course it's it's expensive to do , but it is an . It adds to the wedding experience , I think , and a lot of people really love that older , like pastel film look .

Gary Pageau 13:02

Yeah , the Kodak Portra look . I mean , even though there's all those film , looks on all the cameras , they still haven't quite dialed it in .

Liz Snyder 13:11

Yeah , no , it's still not quite there .

Gary Pageau 13:14

So how do you market yourself , then , as a photographer , right ? I mean , like you said , you went and did some other things . You always love photography and , as we talked a little bit before this , there's a lot of photography . That doesn't mean it's a business , right ? And now you've been doing this over a decade and you know you've got a business and a following and you know customers who come back and that kind of thing . So what was the key thing you learned that said , wow , I can really actually like have a business doing this .

Liz Snyder 13:43

You know , the first thing I did was I hate to admit it , but I was a burn and shoot photographer at first I was like I just needed to get out of the bank and this was like my dream thing . So I was doing it real cheap to begin with , which was a total mistake . But it did give me experience and I didn't feel so bad like on somebody's weekend family pictures if something didn't go right , bad like on somebody's weekend family pictures if something didn't go right or whatever , and it just kind of like gave me a little more field time before I was ready to like really take the plunge . And then , once I was actually quitting the bank and getting the LLC and everything else I had already had , however , many thousands of hours of practice time and I knew that it was it was a good move to make and I wasn't worried about the steady paycheck thing anymore and all of that . Like I knew it was just going to come in .

Liz Snyder 14:36

But at first I was doing like I was . I didn't have a studio so I was doing all on location or weddings or graduations or whatever . But it was after somebody close to me passed and the first thing , of course , that you do when somebody passes is look for pictures , and she did not have a current picture like past the last 20 years when she had passed , because she hated her picture taken . And it hit me because it was . It's not for you , it's for your family and it is extremely important and there's so many of us women so I do . I say that I'm a women's portraiture artist , but it's . It's basically that I'm very good at getting women very comfortable in front of the camera and I know how to shoot them in a way that they are going to actually like their pictures .

Gary Pageau 15:28

Right .

Liz Snyder 15:29

And a lot of that is , you know , talking beforehand and making sure that you know everything is right and they aren't nervous and all the rest , sure , yeah , but it was kind of a long road from you know , shoot and burn to having a studio and actually specializing in headshots boudoir . You know , shoot and burn to having a studio and actually specializing in headshots boudoir , glamour , whatever they wanted to do Mostly headshots . These days , though , yeah .

Gary Pageau 15:55

So yeah , tell us a little bit about kind of the boudoir phase that seems to have to come and go right .

Liz Snyder 16:00

It does yeah .

Gary Pageau 16:01

What do you think is driving the coming and going of that ? I mean it just . I mean I'm not a close follower of that form of portraiture , but it seems like you know , you look at , you know schedules of the big conferences and you kind of see what's hot and what's not right . It's just like you know . Well , they're not a lot on that this time . So so I mean , why do you think that is that it goes ?

Liz Snyder 16:23

Honestly , I think it's the economy . People are ready to spend money on something that they think they're going to see a return on first . So if it is headshots or branding for their business or stuff for their website like just getting their own stock photos for their own website they're going to spend the money there before like civilian is going to come in and do boudoir pictures and spend five grand on a package . So I think people are starting to kind of feel the price of eggs right now and you know , just kind of going with that , but I have been getting more trickling in lately , which has been nice .

Liz Snyder 17:01

It's one of my favorite things to do because it is fun . It's a lot of fun for everybody one of my favorite things to do because it is fun and like it's . It's a lot of fun for everybody , um , and you know you really get to know a person

Building Trust in Glamour Photography

Liz Snyder 17:10

when they're , you know , just kind of out there with you . So you know , like trust and comfortability and all of that are like .

Liz Snyder 17:18

That makes a big difference and it's also getting away from kind of that cheesy 80s , 90s kind of look to something a little more finer . Black and white , very contrasty , which is more or less what I tend to do .

Gary Pageau 17:32

Now do you do the ? I'm just curious because it just occurred to me do you try to do the film look thing with that as well ?

Liz Snyder 17:39

I do . Yeah , I don't shoot film with them because it's fine , but as far as the lighting and stuff goes , like I'm lighting as if I would for film , so that I am getting those like really deep shadows and really high highlights , um , because I do mostly black and white when it comes to that stuff so it helps to have known how to do it before . We had a viewfinder on the back of our cameras for sure .

Gary Pageau 18:03

yeah , so let's talk a little bit about kind of you know , we talked a little bit before the episode about like kind of body positivity , how that's kind of been growing over the last four or five years . How has that affected how you approach a glamour type subject ?

Liz Snyder 18:21

So I had always kind of shot that way only because I didn't want people to feel like they needed to lose weight to be worthy of having their picture taken . So I usually tell people , just in posing and lighting alone I'm good for about 20 pounds and that usually makes them feel a little better . But I do edit and I do tell them I edit , but it's not . I want it to look like them on a really good day . I don't want it to look like somebody else .

Gary Pageau 18:47

You're not using some of those Photoshop tools we were talking about to .

Liz Snyder 18:51

Exactly . Yeah , we're smoothing but we're not , you know .

Gary Pageau 18:56

So when they get it back , they're not like , well , who is this ?

Liz Snyder 18:59

Exactly , yeah , and I mean , for the most part they're doing it for their partners and their partners want them , not somebody you know from a magazine . So it's kind of a fine line . And even with the dub commercials and I , everybody's kind of doing it now , like I have a teenage daughter and she goes to American Eagle and everything like that and we're seeing the pictures up of , like , real teenage girls or real women and cellulite and all and it's fantastic , but people don't understand that those are still edited a little bit like we aren't ready for just no editing . Yeah , not yet we're getting there but that's certainly where you know .

Gary Pageau 19:37

Where did you learn the skills to put people at ease like that ? I guess is where I'm going with that , because I mean , you know there's a lot of people who are very good technically behind the camera , but when it comes to interacting with a subject , you know , like you said , you've got to put someone at ease , you got to develop a relationship . Where did you learn about that ?

Liz Snyder 19:55

That is something that kind of happened organically for me . I guess I didn't really like learn it . It was just kind of I knew that , once we started talking and could kind of go into those deeper subjects , that people were opening up a little more . And when you're shooting somebody , like they're looking into your lens , they're not seeing you , the photographer , they're seeing themselves . It's kind of a mirror , and making sure that they trust that you are going to do a good job and that they are amazing is the only way to make a really great picture . Unfortunately , like you , you to do a good job and that they are amazing is the only way to make a really great picture . Unfortunately , like you , you have to be good at people in order to get results . Um , so one of the things that always fascinated me because I knew what I wanted to do so young is how did you get into the career that you're doing now ? So if you wanted to be a rock star when you grew up , why are you now foreclosing on people's homes ? You ?

Erin Manning 20:51

know what .

Liz Snyder 20:51

I mean , so it's , it's . It's a very wide gap here . And and that also kind of opens up , like what are your hobbies ? What do you love to do ? What do your kids do ? What are your ? You know , what do you ? What is your most favorite thing to do with your partner ? And just kind of like getting into the fun stuff helps them trust and grow and feel comfortable and feel happy that they're there . Because there are times that , like women will come in for a headshot or branding because their boss told them that they need one and they're almost angry sometimes that they have to do this , angry sometimes that they that they have to do this and I am blessed enough to have them walk out and they can't wait to do it again . And I often get repeats just because they they trust that I'm going to do a good job . It's just you got to be kind of people . You just have to be . You can't be tied up in the equipment or the numbers or the . You know . You have to make room for the people part .

Gary Pageau 21:46

The transition from the shoot and burn world to the I have a studio world . What role does output play in your offering , right ? Are you like , hey , you know when I , when you do this glamour shot I shouldn't call it glamour shot , but you know what I mean , you know ? Do you give , like , a portfolio of prints ? Or you know how you maintain that elevated thing when most people just dump things online ?

Liz Snyder 22:10

Yeah . So that was actually kind of scary because I was like I have this huge following and I have all of these clients that are coming in at a hundred bucks a person because of course they are and I'm going to go to selling per image . And that was terrifying but it was totally worth it because once I raised my prices I started getting more people in that actually trusted that I knew what I was doing . They weren't like kind of a pain in the butt about everything . So it kind of opened up to a new type of person , a new type of client .

Gary Pageau 22:42

Yeah , because when you price yourself at a certain level , you sort of you create an impression in people's minds that there's a reason why you're charging , that You're not very good .

Liz Snyder 22:51

Exactly exactly . So yeah , it was scary , but it really did not take more than a few months to really start building up the studio and per image kind of deal . So what I usually do , depending on the session . So like , if it's boudoir , it'll be 50 to 75 images that they get to see ,

Photography Business and Trends

Liz Snyder 23:11

both color and black and white , and all of that . If it's something that's headshots , it's usually just a flat 50 images that they're going to see .

Liz Snyder 23:18

And then if it's branding it , I have different packages . So some of them include everything . Some of them are like you know , your top 50 or whatever , but that that's usually a few hundred pictures . But it's also like details . If it's a chiropractor , it's it's your rooms and your products and you working on somebody , so it just has like a whole bunch of different things tied into it . But I am not like stingy with the pictures , but I want them to be really good . So like if I'm giving somebody 200 pictures , how many of them are going to be like up here , you know , versus just the mediocre stuff . So I'm like I'm looking for the best of the best in order to show them what they needed .

Liz Snyder 23:59

I used to print everything and like hang them in the studio and have them go on and they could see it like in print . But they don't really care , so I just do a digital review . People are just kind of like , oh no , this is great Cause I have a big screen and everything and that they can they can look at them when I'm done .

Gary Pageau 24:15

So but ? But printing is part of your offering , right Is ?

Liz Snyder 24:19

it , it is .

Gary Pageau 24:19

Yeah , now do you feel like , is it more of an add on or is it a core component of your marketing , in the sense that oh , no , yeah , it's a core component for , especially for , like the personal shoots , so like things that aren't corporate , like branding and headshots .

Liz Snyder 24:33

It's going to be more , you know , family , whatever , um , and those are the ones that I'm selling albums , and I'm selling like big wall art or I'm selling even metal prints . Everybody's been nuts about the metal prints lately , so , no , printing is definitely something that's very important to me anyway , because I , I love it . But yeah , like I have a ton of stuff to show people like here's , here's an example of what it's gonna look like and I can do mock-ups , like right there for them on the computer . So but .

Gary Pageau 25:02

But the interesting thing is , because you've got such a variety of substrates now . I mean there are times where that you know , heavily edited high contrast black and white portrait may not look great on metal .

Liz Snyder 25:17

It usually doesn't no , so that yeah no , so that is something that we talk about as well . So , like , whatever their choices are , we go into here's how this is actually going to look for you and I suggest maybe going this way and they're they're fine with that .

Gary Pageau 25:33

Usually they don't have their heart set , usually by then they I mean , if they trusted you to pose them the way you pose them , then they probably trust you to recommend an output , Exactly . Yeah , that's cool . So how ? I mean , how big is your studio in the sense that you know , can you do bigger setups or do you do a lot of location stuff ? And when the chiropractor , when you're doing his thing , he's not coming to your studio , you're going to him , right ?

Liz Snyder 25:56

Yeah , I go on location for those and I it's , it's me , and I bring my assistant with me and we're we're usually together Pretty good with just the two of us . The studio itself I've done 15 , but that's a stretch . It's usually like I would prefer to do . If anything , I would prefer to do like maximum five at a time and then just kind of put it together later and just composite it , because it just it never , it never looks right if everybody's just kind of spread out against a background that doesn't quite reach the edges of them and everything else . So the studio that I have is it's a pretty big room , maybe 20 by 20 or something like it's . It's not small , but the ceilings are kind of short because it's not in my house , so they're only eight foot ceilings and but I'm able to control the light completely in there . So I do prefer working in the studio because I never know what I'm walking into .

Gary Pageau 26:48

I'm kind of a control freak .

Liz Snyder 26:50

I've kind of got yeah yeah , yeah , no , and I'm really like I want to give a certain quality of product and I can't always do that if I can't control the light . So it's yeah , it's very important to me that I do it here if I can do you do any like senior portraits or that kind of stuff ?

Gary Pageau 27:08

and the reason why I asked it here if I can , do you do any like senior portraits or that kind of stuff ?

Liz Snyder 27:08

And the reason why I asked .

Gary Pageau 27:09

That is because I was talking to some photographers in like the school volume space . You know people do like you know entire schools and things and they were talking about how today's kids , youth , teenagers however you want to refer to them are so much more image conscious now and they really are like . You know they . You know they can't . They want to do a senior portrait , but they want to be posed in front of a car . You know they want to have like a story told within their senior portrait . How are you encountering that ?

Liz Snyder 27:38

It's so much fun . I love the kids . I love it . I absolutely adore doing them , and this year especially , my youngest is a senior , and so you know it's her , it's her friends , it's all of these kids that we've grown up with , all these weird places that all the kids want to go to , and I'm honestly I love that these , like gen z and gen a , are going to be the most photographed generations of ever and they know exactly what to do like they're eight years old and they know what their good side is and they know how to like hold themselves . And I mean , I don't advertise that I do school , for I do senior portraits fine , but mean I don't advertise that I do school .

Liz Snyder 28:28

I do senior portraits fine , but not like I don't go into schools and do like the yearbook .

Liz Snyder 28:34

Except for my daughter's school , so they asked me to do that for the first time last year . She goes to a private school . There's only like 200 kids in the school so I'm like fine , I can do that and watching these girls . She goes to're all girls school watching them come in one after another and just give me the same , like almost the same pose and I'm just like this is fantastic because I'm trying to like angle them and everything too . But they know exactly what their face needs to do . They know , you know it's , it's amazing .

Gary Pageau 29:05

It's only a cultural moment in a way , where , like , they're very conscious of their brand and how they look and how they're presented . And you know , I mean back in my day , and we're lucky if we had our shirts tucked in .

Liz Snyder 29:14

I mean we got the one shot and hopefully you didn't blink you know , yeah .

Erin Manning 29:21

Yeah .

Liz Snyder 29:21

Yeah , no , and something because it's such a small school that I'm able to do is kind of I give them like six proofs each and they can look at the back of the camera while we're doing it and just make sure that they're happy with it .

Gary Pageau 29:32

And I have one for my Insta .

Liz Snyder 29:34

Exactly , yeah , but it's kind of nice too , because then the parents have more to choose from and they often want more than just the one pose . So you know , yeah .

Erin Manning 29:48

Yeah .

Liz Snyder 29:48

But , I mean most school photographers .

Gary Pageau 29:49

Couldn't , you know , do that ? No , no , no , no , no right , absolutely not . No , it's not something you're pursuing , clearly , no , no , no , thank you so where do you see the business going just just from a standpoint of you know you always hear things about . You know , well , everyone's got a camera , everyone's you know can take a picture and the software is so great and everything . Are you at all concerned about that ?

Liz Snyder 30:10

I'm not only . I mean , I am starting to do some more extra things that aren't just photography , just just in case , but I'm also like I have a book and I have a . I'm not done with it yet , but I'm writing a book . I'm starting to speak a little more . Um , I've got some other things kind of in the works that are happening .

Gary Pageau 30:27

But you're not foreclosing on businesses .

Liz Snyder 30:29

No , no , no , and I'm not .

Gary Pageau 30:32

Still in the realm of the industry right .

Liz Snyder 30:34

Yeah , and I'm not like I don't think we are going anywhere . I think that we are going to be okay . It's just that we have to up our game and we have to make sure that we're offering what people actually want . You know , and people don't always know that they want prints , but once they see them they're like oh yes , I'm very happy I have this now .

Erin Manning 30:52

Right .

Liz Snyder 30:53

Like , as long as we are doing a better job than they can do with their phone , then we're okay , you know , and ? And as long as we do the work and we have our tens of thousands of hours in , and you know , you , you , it becomes innate , like you're not questioning what .

Liz Snyder 31:10

F-stop should I be using or anything else , you just know it , and that's where you can start getting a little more personal with people and really start cultivating your brand . So it's , I don't think we're going anywhere , but it does mean that you do need to up your game and know exactly what you're doing .

Gary Pageau 31:28

So where can people go for more information to learn about what you do need to up your game and know exactly what you're doing ? So where can people go for more information to learn about what you do and all the various things you're doing ?

Liz Snyder 31:35

Yeah , I have a website at ElizabethSnyderPhotographycom . It is very long , I apologize . I am usually either Elizabeth Snyder Photography or ESP LLC , just about everywhere . So Instagram , pinterest , facebook , tiktok , all of them , yeah .

Gary Pageau 31:55

Great , well , great . It was great talking to you and hope to see you around . Liz , thanks a lot .

Liz Snyder 32:00

Absolutely . Thank you so much , Gary . This is fantastic .

Erin Manning 32:05

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