That’s a tough ask. Are there professional retouchers in the world who could do it? Yes? But we’re talking about people who specialize in retouching and are probably earning a few hundred dollars an hour…. Easily costing more than you spent for the shoot, likely significantly more. Most photographers don’t have that level of retouching skill. You’re asking them to basically draw their eyes shut because they don’t have a reference to copy it from. Thats a huge ask. Everybody thinks anything can be done in photoshop these days but it’s really not the case. Creating something from whole cloth is difficult. I don’t think it’s a fair ask.

The Met in NYC just had a run of displaying Avedon’s murals. They had the one of Andy Warhol’s Factory crew and one of military/ political figures among 1 or 2 others. If you haven’t seen them, he shot groups of maybe 10 people using a large format (not sure 4x5 or 8x10) and made 3-5 frames side by side to show the whole panorama of people in each mural. Very cool stuff. The prints are maybe 8-10 feet tall, when combined in the mural each mural was maybe 20-30 feet long. Each individual print of the mural was just a free hanging print on the wall. No frame, glass, mounting, etc. I think they were just clamped at the top and hung from the ceiling or the wall. Really cool presentation.

Just find other sources… there’s plenty of places where people will share that kind of info with you for free. Not gonna knock people for trying to make a buck out of their podcast but it seems kinda silly to pay for that when you can learn similar things elsewhere for free until you can recognize it yourself.

But if you like their content as a whole and feel like there is more to learn from them than just that? Im a believer in supporting what you like and what you want to see staying in existence.

I run a small wedding studio in addition to my corporate work. I do between 10-15 weddings a year for the last 10 years. I have pretty high end clientele as all my work is through referrals by a few planners I have a relationship with. This is what I need a s a baseline from my seconds…

-Probably the most important is I need to know youre not going to embarrass me. Youre going to be on time. Respectful but can joke around a bit too and know the line. Dress accordingly. Not be huffing down snacks and drinks at the bar, etc… And I also need you to have the attitude that this is not your “art”. You are working and providing a service. I like that you are a good photographer, but if a family member asks you to get a pic of them with the chocolate fountain I cant think you’re someone who is going to look at that as beneath you.

-Next I need to know if I can count on you to get me a good 10 picture photo story of the groom getting ready?

-Next I need to know if you have the technical chops that if someone stops and asks you to take a picture, you can make that picture. I cant have the Father of the Bride stopping you on the dance floor to take a quick shot of him and his friend only to find out later you missed your focus, or your flash was was over or under, or whatever. If someone sees you or asks you to take a pic I need to know you’ll stick it. This isn’t journalism where you can shoot ll day and only need to produce 10 pictures… your keeper rate has to be pretty high.

-If I ever see a second schmoozing a planner of mine, passing out cards, or trying to get work out of my event in any way I’d never hire them again, and I’d tell my other photog buddies as well. My Event. My client. My leads.

Hear me out….

Shmamazon!

You may have a bad teacher or you may be running into a reality that all creatives face when they try to take a hobby beyond that… at some point it does become work, and you have to learn how to manage that transition.

I’ve been a pro for 27 years. When I was a student, the gains came so damn quickly because I knew absolutely nothing. A year or two in your gains slow down very sharply and you have to work harder to make those incremental improvements. You can learn 75-80% of what you need to know to be a great photographer in a year. That last 20% is gonna be a bitch. If you want to take it beyond a hobby, you have to realize it won’t always be fun, and you will have to learn how to work at some point. If you can’t get past that jump it may not be for you. …. Or maybe you just have a bad teacher.

Not so much an exercise but a really simple concept that I came to late in life.

-Every picture should have a very discernible foreground and background.

It may not be for every picture… and it’s something I was definitely doing a lot of the time anyway… but being obvious what your foreground and background are is a really simple piece of compositional advice that just clicked for me. You’re build a little visual stage play; there should be different things going on.

High level of maintenance work for probably very little profit. No thanks.