Streamlining Headshot Workflows and Payment Models for Immediate Growth with Seshu Badrinath

10/01/23 • 45 min

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In this episode, Scott speaks with headshot photographer, Seshu Badrinath, about his photographic and photography business workflows.

Seshu is a headshot photographer from Connecticut, known for his knack in capturing the friendly essence of professionals through his lens. With a warm approach, he ensures his subjects are at ease, even amidst the studio lights, making every photo session a comfortable experience. The journey began in 2009 with Connecticut Headshots, initiated through a humble Twitter campaign. Now, Seshu is the go-to photographer for small business owners, executives, actors, and healthcare professionals keen on distinguishing themselves in their fields. Residing in Avon, Connecticut with his family, he continues to make people look their relaxed best, one headshot at a time.

(00:00) - 026
(03:12) - What is one thing that you do for the photographic process that has saved you time?
(07:51) - What is one thing that you do for the business that saves you time or money?
(12:11) - What is one thing that you do for editing that has saved you time?
(17:33) - What is one thing that you do after a session that has increased business?
(23:27) - Can you share an outlined breakdown of your workflow from lead to delivery?
(31:13) - Can you talk about your headshot photography pricing structure?
(36:57) - What does the future of AI in photography look like to you?

Discussed in this episode

Importance of guidance and expertise in photography decisions
- Purpose of the photographs and building trust with potential clients
- Payment structure and business growth
- Communication for an effective workflow
- Importance of lighting and attention to detail in photography
- Client outfits and session environment
- Pricing and delivering photographs to clients
- Personal connection and gratitude for collaboration
- The importance of headshots and impact on business opportunities

Join the Imagen Community on Facebook to continue the discussions between episodes.

In this episode, Scott speaks with headshot photographer, Seshu Badrinath, about his photographic and photography business workflows.

(00:00) - 026
(03:12) - What is one thing that you do for the photographic process that has saved you time?
(07:51) - What is one thing that you do for the business that saves you time or money?
(12:11) - What is one thing that you do for editing that has saved you time?
(17:33) - What is one thing that you do after a session that has increased business?
(23:27) - Can you share an outlined breakdown of your workflow from lead to delivery?
(31:13) - Can you talk about your headshot photography pricing structure?
(36:57) - What does the future of AI in photography look like to you?

Discussed in this episode

Previous Episode

Why a quality photography backup workflow is so important

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In this episode of Workflows, host Scott Wyden Kivowitz shares his personal experiences of losing his precious photos not once, but three times. These stories serve as lessons on the importance of having a quality photography backup workflow in place. From his camera's memory cards being corrupted to an external drive crash, Scott learned the hard way about the significance of safeguarding his images. Join him as he reveals the steps he took to improve his backup workflow and how he ensures the safety of his photos today.

Key Lessons:

1. Travel Backups: If traveling, backup your memory card to multiple places before returning home. Scott's experience with incompatible memory cards highlights the importance of selecting devices and types less vulnerable to corruption, ensuring the safety of your photos.

2. Invest in multiple backups: Losing all his band photographs due to a single external drive failure taught Scott the lesson of investing in backups. Having multiple physical and cloud backups is crucial to protect your images from permanent loss.

3. Develop a cloning system: Scott's backup workflow involves cloning his local drive to an identical RAID drive, which is then cloned to an offsite location. This system ensures redundancy and safeguards against hardware failures or disasters.

4. Utilize backup software: Using reliable backup software, like Carbon Copy Cloner, can simplify the cloning process and ensure that all your files and external drives are backed up consistently.

5. Combine high-resolution and low-resolution backups: Incorporating software like Imagen allows you to have high-resolution backups of your RAW files while also saving storage space by having low-resolution JPEG backups. This provides flexibility for editing, culling, and preserving your images.

Join the Imagen Community and share your own disaster stories and current backup workflows. Learn from each other's experiences and enhance your photography backup workflows.

(00:00) - 025
(01:10) - A mistake I couldn't avoid
(02:54) - This mistake was totally my fault
(04:15) - I hope you never make this mistake
(05:20) - My photography backup workflow

Next Episode

Incredible Photography Tools Behind Perfect Colors

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Discover the fascinating journey of photographer Scott Wyden Kivowitz, as he overcomes obstacles in his photography business on the latest episode of Workflows. In this episode, Scott shares how he tackled challenges arising from his color blindness, and the innovative tools and workflows he leveraged to ensure accurate and consistent colors in his photographs.

Join host Scott Wyden Kivowitz as he opens up about his struggles with dyslexia, color blindness, and anxiety, and how workflows became his rock.
- Learn how Scott's professor in college and the introduction of digital tools helped him achieve accurate color in his prints and edits.
- Uncover the game-changing tools Scott utilized to ensure precise color calibration in-camera and during post-processing.
- Learn about the invaluable role his wife played in ensuring accurate colors in his work.

"The most amazing part is that Lite Personal AI Profiles learn from you over time. It's a way for anybody and everybody to get started with Imagen" - Scott Wyden Kivowitz

Tune in to this insightful episode of Workflows and learn how Scott Wyden Kivowitz conquered colorblindness to become a successful photographer. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast platform to never miss an episode.

(00:00) - 027
(00:50) - Introduction
(00:54) - Colorblindness Struggles
(01:17) - Career Trajectory Change
(02:37) - Tools for Accurate Color
(03:32) - Calibrating Monitors
(04:11) - The Magic of Wife's Color Perception
(04:50) - Imagen's Lite Personal AI Profiles

Key Lessons:

1: Overcoming Colorblindness - Discover Scott's personal experience as a colorblind photographer and how it initially posed challenges in their career.

2: Assistance from Professionals - Learn how Scott's college professor guided them in the darkroom and later in Photoshop to achieve accurate color representation.

3: Essential Tools for Color Accuracy - Explore the tools Scott relied on, such as the ColorChecker Passport and ColorMunki, to calibrate colors in-camera and on their monitors.

4: Leveraging a Unique Perspective - Find out how Scott's wife, with her extraordinary ability to perceive colors, became an invaluable resource in ensuring accurate color reproduction.

5: Introducing Lite Personal AI Profiles - Dive into an exciting new technology that allows photographers to create personalized AI photo editing profiles based on their preferred Lightroom presets, resulting in dynamic and intelligent adjustments.

Join the Imagen Community and share your photo editing struggles with other Imageners. Learn from each other's experiences and enhance your photography workflows.