14: Portraits with Passion: WW2 veterans with Glyn Dewis, boudoir photography with Emma Finch, Adobe terms of use saga

The Photography & Video Show Podcast, Season 2 Episode 2
Published on Thursday, 4 July 2024

Hosted by David McClelland with Glyn Dewis and special guest Emma Finch.

In this month's show: Emma Finch on why boudoir photography is so popular, and why it can be a journey of self-discovery for photographers as well as clients; Glyn Dewis on his emotional mission to honour the UK's remaining WW2 veterans through portraits; and we get to the heart of the Adobe 'terms of use' controversy and understand the broader implications for creatives and their work.

Stories in this episode:

• https://www.digitalcameraworld.com/news/what-the-hell-is-going-on-at-adobe
• https://www.theverge.com/2024/6/7/24173838/adobe-tos-update-firefly-generative-ai-trust
• https://www.adobe.com/uk/legal/terms.html
• https://www.digitalcameraworld.com/news/things-just-went-from-bad-to-worse-for-adobe
• https://techmonitor.ai/policy/big-tech/us-sues-adobe-over-alleged-trapping-of-subscribers
• https://emmafinchphotography.co.uk
• https://sessiondays.co.uk  
• https://belleprive.co.uk 
• https://glyndewis.com/
• https://3945portraits.com

The Photography & Video Show Podcast:

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Transcript

David McClelland: 0:11

Hello and welcome to the Photography and Video Show Podcast for July 2024. I'm David and coming up in this month's show, We hear from Emma Finch, founder of Belle Privé Studio, about why boudoir photography is so en vogue right now, and why it can be as much of a journey of self discovery for the photographer as it can be for the client.

Emma Finch: 0:36

It's only recently that I've understood that I like to help people. I like to feel valuable to people. And the reason why I've been so drawn to, to the genre of, of boudoir is because I want to help women with their, with their self confidence, with their body image, get something that I've struggled with in the past, as most women have. I did a boudoir shoot years ago after I had the kids, and it really. It made me feel good about myself. And I wanted to pass on that experience to other women.

David McClelland: 1:08

And joining me to chat over the news this month is photographer, educator, YouTuber, best selling author and founder of the 39 to 45 Portraits Project, Glyn Dewis. Hello Glyn, how you doing?

Glyn Dewis: 1:21

I'm very good, David. Very good. Looking forward to discussing what we're going to talk about. So, yeah.

David McClelland: 1:26

Yeah, we, we've got, um, There's been a lot of news across the industry. Lots of new kit launches and stuff over the last few weeks since we were last on the pod. But we're going to focus in on one area in particular this month. But before that, uh, Glyn, it's been a few months since I've seen you. People who've visited the Photography Show over the last ten or so years will maybe have come across your work. But what have you been up to? Certainly seen on your on your socials you've been out making the most of the great british weather uh down where you live in the in the southwest of the UK what you've been up to?

Glyn Dewis: 2:02

Yeah, primarily, as you'll know me, I was a portrait photographer, but over the last few years, which it was all purely motivated because of COVID restrictions. I started to dabble in the old landscape and seascape and obviously living down in the southwest sport for choice with the Jurassic coastline. So. I was getting out doing more of that kind of stuff because while I didn't have a portrait to do, rather than my camera just staying in the bag, I was getting out and doing stuff to keep the grey matter going, keep creative, and I kind of moved from doing the stuff with my regular camera to then, for quite some time, really pushing the mobile side of it to see what I could do with that, and I've thoroughly enjoyed it. I've got to the stage now where there's pictures I took with my mobile that I'm very happy with. But I kind of wish I'd taken it with my main mirrorless now. So, uh, but yeah, that's kind of what I'm doing. Working on some other things, working on some courses, doing a lot of stuff to do with printing and got some, uh, some great photoshoots lined up. So it's all good. Yeah.

David McClelland: 2:58

We'll be hearing some more about some of your uh project work and portrait work I mentioned the 3945 portrait project early we'll come back to that later on uh but for now Glyn the the reason i wanted you to join us on the show this month is because in a word Adobe. And that's not the, the brown brick made from clay and horse manure and other organic matter. Yes, I did look up what Adobe actually means. But instead, it's the company that produces the software that whether you work in photography, video or design, you almost certainly have used Photoshop, Lightroom, Premiere Pro, After Effects, InDesign, all of that stuff. Omnipresent in many creatives workflows, Adobe has been, well, pretty much ever present in their social media timelines over the last few weeks because of a couple of pretty red hot issues that have enraged, inflamed users, and well, I dare say practically engulfed Adobe itself. So, Glyn, a lot's been said, a lot's been written over the last few weeks. You've been, across this more than most, I think it's fair to say, trying to filter out some of the fact from the if not fiction, then certainly the exaggeration. So, let's start with the first of the two stories, the Terms of Use changes. Can you give us a kind of timeline as to how this story snowballed over the last few weeks?

Glyn Dewis: 4:19

Yeah, I certainly can. It was, but before before I do just want to kind of just get out there that I I am a freelancer. I do my my what I do is purely for me. I don't work for Adobe, although I do occasionally get contracted by Adobe. I have used their their sort of software, their apps for many, many years. But ultimately, over the years, my my goal and my intention is to build a business of trust, and I'm very fortunate that I do have a good following of people. That like that subscribe to what I do the white in the style of what I do what I create and how I how I teach it and present it my ultimate kind of, um, commitment is to them the well being of them. So I've built this trust over the years. So what I'll say is what we discussed now about Adobe. I'm approaching it from somebody who uses their stuff. But if in any way I wasn't happy with how that was, um, sold to me or any kind of hidden terms that I wasn't happy with then that would damage my business, which would ultimately damage the people that follow me. So I'm only, I'm going to now, we're going to talk about this, but it really is, as you very politely said, it's been exaggerated purely because it's been a bit of a knee jerk reaction to some of the terminology. But I would only want people following me when I know that something is trustworthy. And I can say hand on heart that my experience with Adobe over the years has been incredibly, it's been a very good relationship. If I've ever done anything with them, they've paid. I've got friends who work at Adobe. But if there was something hidden, which I now found out about, I wouldn't be happy. But that's not the case.

David McClelland: 5:52

And trust I think as as we will come to discuss over the next 10 or so minutes, uh is very much It's a trust or a lack of trust that underpins a lot of I think what the response from the community has been in fact, you know, you mentioned your your background in the industry and the stuff that you've done with Adobe in the past. You and I met doing, uh, it was 12 years ago at the launch of Creative Cloud in 2012. I was hosting this week long, uh, Adobe Creative Week and you were a guest on the show. That was the first time that you and I met and we had a, a heated discussion then, if I remember, with a, with a studio audience. about airbrushing and

Glyn Dewis: 6:32

I remember it very well.

David McClelland: 6:34

sure you do. It's still somewhere there on the on the internet. But likewise, you know, I think many of us, Adobe's got a very good community outreach program. It works with a lot of people in the community. So there are a good number of people who over the years have rubbed shoulders with Adobe directly as well as indirectly by using their software. But that being said, trust is what we're about. Right now and there's certainly been a kind of fracture of that trust and that started to manifest itself a few weeks ago when Adobe issued an update to its terms of terms of use. Tell us a bit

Glyn Dewis: 7:12

It was Terms of Use, Terms of Service, and this happened at the very beginning of June. And it's rather than a new Terms of Service, it's actually a reacceptance of the Terms of Service. And it's, and Adobe, I think, would be the first to put their hands up that the way this was done was questionable. It could have been done a lot better whereby people were opening up their applications, you know, just going to do their regular stuff. And a pop up would appear to say they are to accept these terms. If they didn't, they were no longer able to use their apps. And it's like, what? And understandably that caused a lot of anger because it was, you know, it seemed to be thrust upon them. But I think what's happened then is that has then caused people to then dive in to see what, what are these terms that I'm agreeing to? Or I've got to agree to, to use these applications. And once they've dived into them. Because the lay person doesn't necessarily understand legal terminology, on the face value, when you look at it, it can sound awful, absolutely awful, particularly in one section of the terms of service where it explains what it gives wording such as that it gives Adobe authority to reproduce, distribute, publicly display, sub license all your content. So that was, that's where the problem started. However, I was initially made aware of this by several emails all of a sudden seemed to come in and one in particular said, Glyn, is this true? Is it true that if you use any Adobe app, Adobe have got their rights to have it be online or offline. That is how ridiculously inflate. Absolutely. That is how inflated this became rather than, you know, taking on face value, what the words are. This is how very quickly the terms of service became exaggerated. And people were believing all kinds of stuff. So that's when I thought, hold on a second, just to hear that sounds ridiculous. It sounds absolutely ridiculous. So that's when I kind of dived in to have a look at what was going on. Then I started to notice that there was many videos being published across social platforms, in particular, YouTube. And sure enough, Adobe responded to that on the 10th of June to say, look, we've recently rolled out the Terms of Service, and there are certain areas that people are concerned about. So they clarified certain things like, we do not own your content. Because again, that was one of the things that cropped up. People were concerned about ownership of content, the fact that Adobe were looking on their hard drives. Which again, they clarified saying, look, we're not looking at your local content. It is content that is actually uploaded to the server. And there's certain things about that. It's not as cut and dried as what it sounds just because it's on the server doesn't mean to say it's being looked at. So they kind of clarified this. Then there was a follow up blog post again, because that didn't, you know, sort of stem the fire. That sort of seemed to fuel it even more because people were then doing more videos saying, blog posts aren't legal documents. And it was just, it was just getting ridiculous. There was just, nobody was listening. It just said, that's how it seemed from the outside looking in. But what Adobe then did was, and you know, all credit to them because they didn't need to do this because legal terminology is, is the same across many, many companies. But what they did was on the 18th of June, they then reissued the terms of service. They published it again, and that was misinterpreted because people were saying that Adobe are backpedaling and they're reissuing a new terms of service. Absolutely not reissuing a new terms of service. They were rewording it for the layperson like the likes of me, the likes of you who aren't in the legal profession to be able to understand what those actual words mean. That's what they did. Um, And I think then a lot of people were like, all right, now I get it. Because you see, David, my my priority here was I was having followers who would clearly getting a bit distressed about this, and they're very anxious about using the Is it true they can do this? Is it true they can do that? And I have a duty to ensure that look, I need to get the facts for you. I'm not gonna I'm not gonna kind of take any sides. I'm gonna go right down the center here, and I'm gonna just take it on face value. But what? What is actually being explained here? And when it's all explained, it's like, now I get it. Now I completely get it. And so it's great that there are people now that are understanding it. Um, because it's had to be explained. And I'll, you know, I'll say, I didn't, when I first read them, I was like, that doesn't sound good. It really doesn't, because I didn't understand what they meant. But when it was explained, it's like, right, now I get it. You know, they're not. So Adobe clearly state that they don't own your content. You own your content. They're not looking at your, um, content on your hard drive. It's purely on the server, but there's certain sections like section two covers, you know, have the ownership and the privacy and why they would look at it. And if I, I mean, I've got some of these tabs open here, I can just kind of go through it. Section two basically says it covers the access to your content and, you know, I'll read it verbatim here. It says no one, but you owns your content. But we do need access to your content as necessary to operate Adobe's applications and services. Now, the only time they would ever look at it, if you imagine, I mean, you'll, you'll know, because you've, you've used the Adobe apps, you've used generative fill. There may be the odd occasion when you try to maybe fill in an area, you submit it, you see it go up there, you see that contextual taskbar there, you tell it what you want, it then sends it to the server. And every now and again, you might get a response back that says that it's not going to do it. I'm paraphrasing now. It's not going to do it because of inappropriate content. Their server has maybe seen a bit of skin and it's thought, Oh no, I can't. That's inappropriate. I can't do it. That is their servers looking at your content. Now, if you imagine how many people are using this stuff, You know, there isn't a team of millions of people sat in offices at Adobe waiting for David McClelland to upload something using generative fill to look at it to see if it's okay to have a look at it, but it says they may look at your content and examples of when a human might look at it. It says here is because basically when, um, something is flagged up that it's not appropriate, and when I say not appropriate, it could fall into the lines of, you know, is it spam content? Is it phishing content? All that kind of stuff. Okay, that's when they would dive into it. So it says a human review of the cloud content would only happen when you ask us. So if somebody contacts saying, Look, I'm I've seen this, it's not appropriate. When you make cloud content publicly available, like on Adobe Stock or Behance, that's fair enough. When your cloud content is flagged as illegal or abusive, and when you opt into a pre release beta or product improvement program, which obviously you can opt out of, so those were the options there, you know, when, when it would generally be looked at. The op, the actual terminology in section four, which I think is the one that really caused that knee jerk reaction, which has got those things.

David McClelland: 14:04

section, isn't it

Glyn Dewis: 14:05

Your content where it says about you, you are giving Adobe authority to reproduce, distribute. That's when I first read it. I was like, wow, that doesn't sound good. But when you read it, it's absolutely fine. It basically, I mean, a perfect example is to reproduce or distribute. Even let's say it talks about Adobe can distribute. That doesn't mean externally. That basically means, let's say if you're using your, I don't know, Lightroom, let's say, or Photoshop at your home on your main computer, and you want to do something on Adobe Express, they've got to distribute it from Photoshop into Adobe Express. That's what it kind of means by,

David McClelland: 14:44

Yeah,

Glyn Dewis: 14:44

and you might want, you might create a document in Adobe Express that's in English that you think this would be good to have this translated into French. That there is creating a derivative work. It's not changing what you've done and selling it and what have you. Yeah,

David McClelland: 14:59

But the problem is, here, Glyn, is that when you, when you have somebody practically hold your hand to walk you through it and say, right, this is what this actually means, then, then that's fine, but if the wording is vague, if it's unclear, and, frankly, if it's in the context of the, Hmm. the whole world being a bit paranoid about Tech and what generative AI, anything else really to do with technology accessing our personally identifiable information and our creative works, of course it's not that difficult for our own brains to start going on a bit of a journey the same as a Gen AI does when it starts hallucinating. Um, that will, um, It will automatically go towards the negative side of the story here. So, is the problem, is the problem how vague, how blunt, how impregnable these terms of services generally are anyway? And again,

Glyn Dewis: 16:00

Yeah.

David McClelland: 16:01

the terms of service, by the way, that Adobe, uh, reissued that we had to re agree to back at the beginning of June 2024 were not actually that radically different to those that were already there. Um, and I, I'm looking in a story here, I'll post a link to it in the show notes from The Verge, they actually highlight the differences between the Terms of Service issued on February the 17th compared with the one that was issued at the beginning of June and it's pretty minor changes. But, because a few people obviously flew the flag, because of the way that attention was drawn to it, because you had to click through in order to continue using your Adobe apps, that's why it's raised a lot of, uh, a lot of noise and, frankly, because it's free. Do we trust big tech anymore? Well, whether or not you believe it, Adobe always has its users best interests at heart. In a way, that's by the by, because there are lots of other examples of companies that also big question marks hanging over their head, and I'm afraid Adobe gets lumped into the same big tech bucket as some those other companies as well. So, we need to simplify this language. We can't have a Glyn Dewis on hand all the time.

Glyn Dewis: 17:15

Well, and this is what's something this is what's positive going to come out of this. I mean, it has been, you know, pretty horrific. And yeah, sure enough, Adobe have really faced a backlash. They really, really have. And I'm sure they regret the way that this was initially introduced at the beginning of June, it could have definitely been handled better. But I think if anything's going to come from this, and it's not just Adobe, because there are other companies, which I've done all my research to find that in their terms of service, they have identical wording companies like absolutely a like Blackmagic who make DaVinci Resolve identical terminology in their terms of service on one. Topaz labs. It's identical. Absolutely identical. But this the problem here is, is that the way that this was initially done by Adobe where people were receiving that pop up that they had to agree to these terms. I think what that's done is it's it's caused people for the very first time to actually look at the terms of service because ordinary we're all we're all guilty of it. You know, we sign up to something. I'd be fine. And away you go. But this kind of like full stop of like, if you don't click on this, you can't use the apps has made people go and check it out. And when they've checked it out, by no fault of their own, have they maybe misinterpreted the terminology. Very easy to do when you take it on face value, what those words are. So in a kind of perverse way, it's good that this has happened because it's forced Adobe to say, look, in simple terminology, this is what this means. But really now, now this has happened. Other companies should be doing the same because if people do their own, do their homework and go and look at other terms of service, they'll see identical terminology. So, you know, if you're going to get annoyed and angry and misinterpret Adobe's terms of service, then surely that means then you need to go and do the same with On1 and Topaz Labs and Skylum and all those. Theirs are the same. In fact, Skylum's one even says they can monetize your content. That's not in Adobe's. So there are differences in some of them, so,

David McClelland: 19:14

thing I will comment on is Adobe's reaction to the noise throughout the journey, because I think it would be fair to say that right at the beginning of this, as people were noting their objections, Online um, Adobe kind of put the barriers up a little bit and it was only after that when we started to see people from Adobe the Adobe evangelists the Adobe community lead people actually responding very personally, whether that was, uh, Paul Trani or Scott Belsky, you mentioned my hearts earlier on, um, addressing these directly and really being on the front line of the, of the social media, um, uh, face there trying to, um, address the loudest voices head on. I mean, I think, of course, they're never gonna, they're never gonna win, but it was notable how they definitely were out there in the battlefield. And then, yeah, the number of responses, Adobe did take this very, very seriously. And like you, I hope there, if there is something that we can learn from this and take away from it, it's that, well, we don't go through this again, and that other companies will also follow suit. And, uh, uh, simplify the terms and conditions because we're all going to benefit from

Glyn Dewis: 20:32

Absolutely, yeah.

David McClelland: 20:33

Now, the terms of use isn't all that's been keeping the Adobe legal team busy this last month, is it Glyn?

Glyn Dewis: 20:41

No, no, not at all. Obviously, there's the, there's the, uh, legal action that's being taken in the U. S. regards to the subscriptions, um, and if you depending on what you read, it's basically to do with the difficulty in closing your account being one issue and the hidden fees, how expensive it can be for people to leave.

David McClelland: 21:03

So this all comes down to what they call APM, isn't it? This Annual Pay Monthly. And very often when you will sign up, and this is, as I'm sure we'll discuss in a moment, it's not just an Adobe thing, this is pretty much any something as a service that you sign up to. You will see a monthly fee, and then, well, I guess it goes in a couple of different ways. Usually the default one you'll see is the monthly fee As long as you sign up for a year and then if you switch that little radio tab away or whatever then you will start to see the monthly fee if you just pay month by month and it's a lot higher and what the what the part of what the legal action in the u. s. Is about it seems is that this has not been particularly transparent and customers have found themselves tied up into annual contracts when they do didn't believe that they were being tied up into, uh, into annual contracts. Now for me, I, I, again, maybe I'm not a typical consumer because with a good part of my work I go through these terms and conditions. That's, that, that's part of my job to understand that and to try and find the points at which consumers get, get tripped up. But then the other half of this, is the cancellation piece as well, and how difficult it is supposed to be, or it is alleged that it is being, to cancel your subscription to these services. Now, I've been through this process myself when I was doing some client work. I had two Adobe Creative Cloud subscriptions, and I had to cancel one of those. And I honestly don't remember it being all that difficult. Now, I'm aware that I'm in the UK, and maybe it's different process for me over here than it is in the US, so maybe with that caveat, I would say I didn't find it to be too difficult to process personally. What's been your take on this one?

Glyn Dewis: 23:04

Um, interesting one is the reason I wanted to look into this was because whenever I tried to explain the terms of service, this was inevitably thrown back as being well, how can we trust them when this is going on? So it made me look into it, but I've kind of gone through it to see what what is the process? How easy would it be for me against somebody in the UK if I wanted to come out of this? Now, when you go, you quite rightly mentioned there that there are different tiers. Now, if I was going to go for a new person, I was going to subscribe to the Creative Cloud. Let's say I wanted all of the applications. So we're talking everything across the board. Now, if I did that, I've got to open up on here. Now I can give you the actual prices for it. UK now. We've got a number of different ways. I could actually get the Creative Cloud. The first one being a monthly. Now this is this is purely a monthly, not a monthly, but a year contract is a monthly, which I can cancel at any time, and that would cost me 85 a month. However, if I paid monthly, but in the annual plan, which 12 month contract, that would be 56 a month. So a significant difference. And also for the first three months, 50 percent off. So I'd be paying 27, just under 28. But that is paid monthly for a yearly contract. And then the other one is where you have, you can do an annual prepaid, which is just shy of 700. So you're going to most people, which is what we used

David McClelland: 24:28

used to pay for the box.

Glyn Dewis: 24:30

Absolutely. We did. Yeah, we didn't own it. We, you know, we got an end of user agreements and we were licensed to use it and we would get the updates. It'd be 18 months if we were lucky. Obviously, now we get them, which can be on a weekly basis. So look at the prices there. Most people would go for the, uh, the monthly, and it could maybe be a little bit confusing if you think you've signed up for monthly, but you end up getting the annual. However, what I will say about the annual one is You are tied in for a year. And it says that when you go to click on that, it says see terms. Now, you know, again, I'm, I could be guilty of this. When you see C terms, you think I cannot be bothered. That's going to be reams upon reams of content to find exactly what I want. However, I clicked on it. It's four lines of text. When you click on the C terms, all it is is four lines. The second line says, again, I'm paraphrasing you are in, this is a 12 month contract. Okay, so you're going to have to pay that thing for 12 months. Now, the problem is that people aren't happy that if they've signed up for that, and they want to close that subscription sooner, they are being charged. Now, my thoughts on this, again, I'm trying to remain impartial on this and be on the fence here, is that this is no different to me now, if I was going to get a new broadband contract with, say, BT. Now, if I, if I liked that contract, I thought I liked the price of it, I'm tied in for two years. If I want to leave that to a different provider within that two year period, I have to pay the remaining cost of what it would be to had I stayed in for two years. With Adobe, what I've seen is that if you try to finish your contract early, yes, there is a cancellation fee and you would expect it to be how much it would be to the remaining term. However, what they say is You pay 50 percent of the remaining term. Now, the only company I'm aware of that actually does that rather than making you pay the full price is the RAC, breakdown recovery. If you, you know, if you want to come out of their contracts early, that's what they do. But everybody else, like we've got BT, EE, house insurance. We, if we finished it early, we would have to pay that. So that's, that's basically my little bit of digging that I've done. So I'm, I'm intrigued to see how this goes. But what I will say is Adobe haven't been sued. There is a legal process going ahead because you'll see somewhere that people say, Oh, Adobe have, have been sued as in past tense. No, no, no. There's a legal process. in place now. Do you know what I mean? They're investigating. And clearly, Adobe are going to investigate it. But I, I think I'm going to do a little bit more digging because I'm curious to see what the process for closing your account, which like you, I went to do all but press cancel. And I found it very easy. I went to my Adobe account, then to my plan, manage plan, and then cancel. I didn't click the cancel. So I'll be intrigued to see that. However, I do find it funny, David. And when I say funny, I don't mean ha ha, I find it kind of weird, probably the best thing to say is that when you look at the terms of service conversation we've had, and now the subscription, you'll see lots of comments within YouTube videos, Where people have said, you know, they're leaving Adobe or they've left Adobe. Yes, I did it yesterday. I left loads of people saying they've left. Not no mention of how difficult it was, how much they were charged.

David McClelland: 27:48

Oh yes, of

Glyn Dewis: 27:49

that's kind of weird. kind of weird that all these people are saying they're leaving in droves, but not one person said I tried to leave, but couldn't, or I was charged a fortune. So I'm intrigued to see how all this goes.

David McClelland: 28:01

Yes. So, uh, just to address one of your points there about where this, where this allegation, legal action is, I'll, again, I'll post a link to this story in the show notes. The FTC, the Federal Trade Commission in the U. S., filed a complaint in California on Monday, which would have been the week, uh, around about the 18th, maybe a bit before then, my calendar in front of me, saying the company, Adobe, Behind Acrobat, Photoshop, and so on, has harmed consumers by failing to clearly disclose its planned terms. And again, things may be different in the U. S. than they are here Europe, or in other markets as well, so Glyn and I are speaking about our experiences there. But, um, one way or another, it's certainly another headache for Adobe, and will track

Glyn Dewis: 28:48

certainly hasn't helped them fight the terms of service. It really hasn't. It's not, uh, you know, talk about, you all things coming at once, you know, they say it comes in threes. I'm hoping that's not the case with this.

David McClelland: 29:00

Well, a lot going on at Adobe for sure, and I'm pretty sure it's not the last we'll hear of this similar kerfuffles with other providers of online services, too, and Glyn mentioned a few of them there. We're also seeing similar stuff right now about, uh, Uploaded user content, uh, for Gen AI uses at Meta platforms, including Facebook and Instagram. But I think the discussion on that's maybe for a different podcast. Anyway, let us know your takes on the Adobe fiasco, drama, call it whatever you will. Get in touch on the socials. Leave us a comment on one of the podcast posts on the Photography Show Facebook page. And well, later in the show, I'll even let us, I'll even let you know you. how you can get in touch with us using good old fashioned text message. Time for a change of gear for now though. Let's hear from this month's feature guest. Emma Finch is a Manchester based, multi award winning portrait photographer. Starting her professional career with children and family portraits in 2016, she opened Belle Privé, a Manchester studio specialising in boudoir and lingerie photography. As well as capturing images for private and commercial clients, Emma lectures and trains extensively, including a popular talk on portraits with impact.

Emma Finch: 30:29

Portraiture, it's all about the connection, um, to the person. It's all about the person. The first thing you want to look at, um, in any portrait image is the person, it's the eyes. Um, having said that, I think all the elements come together. So composition, lighting, um, posing, styling, all these things come together to make Uh, a powerful portrait.

David McClelland: 30:50

I think when you're starting out, you, you know, you've got lots of think about settings, lighting, you know, how to work the camera, and you're not really focusing on the person in front of your lens as you get more experienced, um, and it becomes second nature, you know, you just know your settings, you know, your lighting, you know what to do. Uh, you can really connect with the, with the person in front of the lens. and I guess there's, there's, there's two ways of looking at that. portraits with impact. Firstly, for me, because I shoot mostly clients, I want them to look at the images and go, wow, is that really me? Um, I want the, the impact to be for them. I want them to be really happy with the images I'm shooting for them. but secondly, the other element to what I do, because I do competitions, if I'm shooting for a competition, so I'm not shooting to take a flattering image of a client, then I want that image, not necessarily to be flattering, but to have some impact, whether that's in the lighting or in the styling or in the expression of the, of the person, but just something where you have a connection to that image where you feel some emotion to it. So I think really to create an impactful portrait, all the elements of, of photography really, really need to, to come together. And it's interesting what you talk about there. It's something that I enjoy hearing from creatives about and it's about that connection with your client, and I guess depending upon the context in which you're shooting and whom you're shooting as well a professional model, on the one hand, versus someone who might be, in a, what could be seen as a vulnerable environment, somewhere where they aren't familiar. Not every day someone goes into a photo studio and is surrounded by lights and all has professional photographer front of them. So what strategies do you have for creating that connection, when it's that connection that you are creating? Trying to nurture in order to create an impactful portrait What are the strategies that you have to try and ensure that you do create that connection?

Emma Finch: 32:43

So with clients who, you know, sometimes this is the first time in front of the, of the camera, as you mentioned, you know, it's intimidating walking into a studio, particularly if it's boudoir, you know, you've got to be standing in your underwear in front of someone that you don't know with studio lights. It's very intimidating. Um, really the whole process starts. with the first communication that they send to me. I want them to be as prepared as possible before they arrive at the studio. So I give them lots of information, um, you know, this is me, this is what I look like, this is the studio, this is what the studio looks like, this is how to get there, this is what you should bring, this is what happens on the day. I want them to be fully aware of what's going to happen before they sort of step into the, into the studio, so they're not arriving uh, You know, flustered, there's no shocks. They're not, they're not late, you know, there's, there's no surprises there. I usually work with a hair and makeup artist, which is perfect because they've got two hours, um, you know, relaxing with a very chatty makeup artist. They're looking good. They're feeling good. the studio tends to be, it's quite girly. It's quite, uh, it's very comfortable. There's lots of soft furnishings. I don't have all my, um, kit out. I don't have all my lights out. So I only have the lights out that I'm going to be using. so try and make it as, as relaxed and comfortable as possible. Um, when we start the shoot, you know, I will always say I'm just doing a test of the lights. You know, I'm not doing a test of the lights. I've been doing this long enough to know what the lights are going to do. I want them to know what it feels like, uh, in front of the lens, uh, with the lights flashing, which, you know, if you've not been in a studio environment, they're bright lights. I want them to get used to, you know, me being in front of the lens. and then once we start, and this goes for whether I'm shooting children or grownups, I always have the camera up near my face. My camera's ready, but it's a very, it's a very sort of fluid process. You know, chat, chat, chat, click, chat, click, you know, it's not, okay, we're going to shoot and then it all goes silent. And then I start clicking. there's lots of fluidity. of communication, lots of positive reinforcement, lots of compliments, um, you know, if I'm shooting with kids, you know, we're chatting about dinosaurs or princesses or whatever it is that, that they enjoy. I want the people to be as comfortable as possible. Um, and you can, you can physically see that, um, they come in, they look nervous, they look tense, their shoulders are up and you can see after about 10 minutes, the shoulders relaxed. They start to sort of smile more naturally. They're moving more naturally. and it's just having that communication, um, going through that, the whole, the whole process. and you can see from the start of the shoot to the end of the shoot, there's a whole transformation. By the end of it, they are posing like a professional. I don't even have to tell them what to do. Um, and they will sashay down the corridor, like a supermodel at the end, because they feel amazing. and really it's, it's down to sort of the communication and, uh, and just keeping it positive at all times.

David McClelland: 35:22

You spoke about the importance of the makeup artist there a chatty makeup artist and I can absolutely back that up working in tv for goodness knows how long particularly when you have nervous or first timer contributors who have never been to a Tv studio before that 15 minutes, you know having two hours in makeup that that that doesn't happen in Tv but having 10 minutes five minutes or something with a makeup artist and they are fantastic, not only at the craft making somebody look look their best look at uh a good version of themselves, whatever it is on the day but at relaxing them at not not distracting necessarily but helping them to feel comfortable in the environment because they're kind of inside but on the outside as well Uh, and that role really cannot be underestimated. So, uh, yeah, i'm i'm pleased to hear that you you find the value in that as well. Uh, so you started off, uh, you have two young children. You started off in family portraiture work with, work with the client group. that, that, you know, I'm sure you've got some fab family portraits of your own, but then you chose to specialize, uh, Belle Privé was one of the outcomes of that. What drove that decision to specialize for you and what was it that inspired the direction? Was, was there a moment when. Belle Privé and the boudoir lingerie commercial photography became, became clear to you, or was it a bit of a journey? Did you try some other areas first and what fit?

Emma Finch: 36:56

As with my whole career, it's, there's, it's never been planned. It's been very, very organic. Um, how I got into photography originally. Was my, my two girls. I wanted to capture, them growing up. They were very tiny. They, they changed so fast when they're little. And I really wanted to improve my photography purely for me. So I could capture good images of them. It sort of grew into a business. Um, you know, I had a website. I think somebody scrolled to the end of the internet to find me because was the most basic website. Um, you know, I, I, I did it. I took the client it's all been word of mouth ever since it's still word of mouth terrible at marketing. So the family, you know, the family and children are very much specialized in the under fives because that's how old my two were at the time. So what you show in your portfolio tends to be what you attract. So it was very niche area to start, start with and starting with the under fives, which are tricky clients to work with. Uh, very fast moving, a little bit temperamental, a little bit grumpy. It really got me used to camera settings and knowing them really fast, and working with slightly awkward, uh, impatient clients. So it was a really good grounding in, in portraiture. If you can shoot a two year old in the park, then you can, you know, working in a studio with a grownup is, is easy. So a couple of years after doing the, starting the, the family business, I wanted to get to grips with, with studio lighting, which I thought was a, you know, a complete dark art. I was a natural light photographer. Um, I thought you needed 12 different lights firing in 12 different directions. turns out it's not just as complicated as I thought. so I spent about a year in the studio. Um, you know, learning studio lighting, working with models and really understanding posing because particularly with boudoir, it's all about the posing, you know, there's nowhere to hide, you're not hiding under a dress from the toes to the top of the head. It's got to be, it's got to be in position. again, it was kind of organic. I've always loved lingerie. I've always been drawn to sort of vintage Hollywood and that of glamorous, that's, I'm very inspired by, by that. period of time. and I sort of started to build a portfolio. I started to get some awards and publications and I thought, Oh, quite good at this. I'm really enjoying this. it's only recently this, this sort of past year, I've been through a sort of A journey of self discovery, which sounds a bit cliched, but it's only recently that I've understood that I like to help people. I like to feel valuable to people. And the reason why I've been so drawn to, to the genre of, of boudoir is because I want to help women with their, with their self confidence, with their body image, get something that I've struggled with in the past, as most women have. I did a boudoir shoot years ago after I had the kids, and it really. It made me feel good about myself. And I wanted to pass on that experience to other women. the clients that come, they've always got a backstory. Uh, there's always a reason for coming. they've had surgery, they've got cancer, they've had a difficult past. They want to sort of reconnect with themselves. These images are never going to be shown to anyone. I can never use them in my portfolio. This is purely the experience of doing the photo shoot. I often say to, to people that often the images are, the secondary to the experience. So it's the experience of doing the photo shoot for themselves. and you can see the transformation, as I mentioned before, throughout the shoot. Uh, and it's fantastic. It's so rewarding. And I think boudoir can be Often a misunderstood genre, but it's incredibly rewarding. just to see that transformation, in the client, I absolutely love it. I, I really love it.

David McClelland: 40:29

I find it fascinating how you talk about photography being a journey of self discovery as well, and although it maybe wasn't apparent to you earlier on in your journey, the penny dropped for you more recently about art. Okay. This is perhaps why it resonates with you. I have this, this thing that I feel as though I need to do, and that is now manifesting itself through the work that I'm doing with my clients. I find that fascinating. And you talk about how your clients go on a journey from Whatever they have going on in their lives, why they are coming to see you in the first place, to that moment where you, where you show them the selects, you show them the first edits, and it's like, Wow, is that me? Well, yes it is. I'm curious as to, and you've obviously touched on it there, how has that journey felt for you? How do you feel? reflecting back on your journey over the last 10 or 11 years and those moments where you're showing your clients, yes this is you, how does that make you feel?

Emma Finch: 41:37

I eat, sleep and breathe what I do. I am so passionate about what I do. it is incredibly rewarding. you know, to see that, um, transformation in clients and to get the messages back from, from people. Again, this sounds. Cliché, but it's almost life changing for some. you know, I had a client recently, she'd had a, a difficult childhood. She, she'd been abused. She always felt shame and negativity around her body. She wanted to come into the studio, no makeup, she'd shaved her head, no fancy lingerie, anything like that. She just wanted, you know, draped bits of fabric and she wanted to sort of reconnect with her body and see herself, um, in a different way. And she was kind of nervous when she came in. And again, you can, what you can literally see the transformation, it happening in front of your eyes. And you can see that in the, in the progression of the images throughout that shoot, and she opened up towards the end and told me why she was, why she was doing this, um, and you could see the joy in her face, other times I've had clients cry at the end of a shoot, you know, they've cried, I've cried, you know, it's been, it really is a transformative and profound experience for some clients. I mean, some clients are just coming for bridal boudoir or something like that, you know, but a good chunk of them are coming with a, with a backstory. Um, you know, there's a psychological reason why they feel they need to do it. Yeah,

David McClelland: 43:03

these clients are sharing their, their stories, their backstories with you. My wife is a psychologist, she works with, with children her client group and professionally She needs to go through therapy or have supervision of her own just so that she can help to make sense of the journeys and the things that her clients are sharing with her. Sounds to me as though your role as a photographer and how your clients, just by virtue of the kind of work that you do with them, sounds to me as though there's a lot of psychology that plays out Uh, in in your interactions with them too. That must be quite difficult sometimes to to take on some of the stories that your clients are sharing with you. A real privilege but a real responsibility too.

Emma Finch: 43:47

it's, they do tend to open up. It's, it's, as I say, it's, it's quite a, it's quite a girly experience. You know, when we're shooting, it's just me and my client. So, uh, and it's quite a small studio. It's quite comfortable. They, they do open up. It's like. When you go to the hairdresser, you end up telling the hairdresser everything. It's that sort of experience. But for me, I, I find it so rewarding. It's always a positive experience.. It makes me want to try and explain to people who are a bit like boudoir really What it's all about, you know, it's not about taking pictures to give to the husband. It's more than that, you know, it's for the women. Maybe it's the way I've branded myself or the words that I've chosen to use on the website. I do get women who book for themselves just for themselves. No one's going to see the images. It's purely an experience for themselves. Uh, and I love that.

David McClelland: 44:31

Let's take a quick side step from the boudoir for a moment and looking at your output, apart from the family portraits you've spoken about, apart from the boudoir work, I also see, nuzzled in there, some dramatic and character portraits too, where Mad Hatter and Child Catcher were two characters I saw in your portfolio I think they're, they are well, they look to me to be dramatically different. Um, maybe they are, maybe they aren't, but where do they fit into your body of

Emma Finch: 45:01

Yeah, a little bit different from the, uh, from the children and the, and the women. So I run events, um, through photography session days and, uh, the events are always themed. So you know, different themes in different locations, but it's all about portraiture. So often the character portraits that you see are, test shoots for events that we're going to be doing. Also, my business partner, Graham Curry on the events is a character model. So if he has new characters, To, um, to try out, then I will test them for him. It's win win for me because I do competitions. I do, you know, the Guild of Photographers, societies, competitions. As I mentioned before, most of my work, I'm not allowed to share. I don't have a release to share it. No one's ever going to see it. So in order to be able to do these, competitions, I have to have images that I've got permission to use, which is where the character portraits, come in. And I'm finding that actually I seem to be doing quite well with these, uh, character portraits recently. But I, again, I think it's to do with the impact and the images. You know, if it's a costume or a character that you, that the judges haven't really seen before, then it's something a bit different. You know, it might stand out from, from the rest, you know, rather than just a, a, you know, a, a nice portrait. I think gone are the days of, you know, a nicely lit portrait doing well in competitions. I think judges want something a bit different, a bit more, a bit more creative. So, that's where the character portraits, come in slightly at odds with everything else that I do, but, uh, still enjoy it as fun.

David McClelland: 46:26

Well let, let's try and draw a line then because going back to how we started off our conversation about creating those portraits with impact and we lent into the connection between the photographer and the person, if you are instead taking images that are character portraits where you have a character actor like Graham or someone else, how do you still create that connection? That, that connection. Is the connection necessary for a successful portrait, or do you think that there are other things, other technical things, but other, more, I don't even know, somewhere that kind of, uh, crosses both the technical and the connection line to create that impactful portrait?

Emma Finch: 47:09

Yeah. So I think again, all the things that we talked about before is important. So the composition, you know, I do like dramatic lighting. I, I, I really, I do like dark and moody lighting and something I like to do something with my lighting. Um, you know, the pose is important. The styling is important. The connection to the, to the character. It doesn't necessarily have to be a positive connection, you know, you can be, you know, you need to feel something, whether you're scared or a bit, ooh, what's that, you know, you need to, the image needs to make you feel something. so you really want to show the personality of the character that they are portraying. so recently had some success with the Viking, shoot, you know, and he looks scary and you look at it and you think, ooh, I wouldn't want to meet him on a, on a dark night. So you're, you're feeling something. Um, and again, that's down to, you know, Graham's ability in front of the camera and his expression in his face, but also all the other elements that are sort of tie it all together. So you get that sort of emotion, not necessarily positive, but you feel something when you, when you look at it.

David McClelland: 48:08

And what are your tactics then for, creating that, uh, well, antagonistic you mentioned there a viking, or you work with a variety of different characters I'm sure, you have to change your, skills, behind the camera in order to create those reactions back from your talent.

Emma Finch: 48:30

so again, I'm not shooting to be flattering now. I'm, you know, I'm shooting to create some drama in the image and, um, to create some, you know, more impact. Um, so I'm mindful of the pose. I tend to let them do what they want to do posing wise and then just tweak it. So obviously anything coming towards the camera is going to look bigger, anything moving away. You know, you want to see both hands, you want to see, you know, all these sort of basic elements with posing need to be mindful of. But when it comes to facial expression. you know, with the Viking, you know, the village is burning down, but you know, if you'd lost the fight, you, you know, you just sort of, you know, give them some sort of backstory to sort of get that expression, in their face, because the more expression you get in the face, the more impact it's going to have.

David McClelland: 49:10

Yeah, hot seating, role play, I I like it very much. So, Belle Privé, as we mentioned, that's the name for your boudoir and lingerie studio portrait business. And boudoir, burlesque, it's an area of work that has blossomed in popularity in recent years, hasn't it? What are the reasons for that, do you think?

Emma Finch: 49:33

it's sort of grown with the, me. The rise of sort of femininity, you know, it's sort of, Boudoir sort of started off as, you know, with the burlesque dancers back in the, in the 20s, and it's sort of, it's sort of grown, and with the sexual revolution, people have got more used to seeing, you know, it's more accepted, I think. These days are, as I mentioned before, they are, they're booking for themselves, you know, that maybe sort of ten years ago people would do it as a present for the husband or present for the boyfriend. I don't get that anymore. That's not what I get. It's always, for themselves, um, you know, they want to have enhanced self image. They want a new perspective on how they look, um, they find it liberating. They find it empowering. Um, it's quite a healing process for many as well. So, it's becoming, yeah, definitely is more accepted. I think a lot of women have either done it. Or would like to do it. You don't always know about it. You know, you're not going to see the images. They're not going to be posting the images, but it is a very, um, it's a very empowering experience for, for clients. Um, and with, with burlesque, because I work a lot with the burlesque community. it's a very Body positive, a genre of, of performance. and that's actually how I started. So when I was, starting in boudoir, I needed people to, you know, to try the lights, to, um, you know, to, to practice my posing direction. and I did some burlesque classes. a few years ago, I absolutely loved it. It was, it was so much fun. It's such a all inclusive, community of, of, of people. Um, you know, any shape, any age, any, any demographic can, can do it. it's so much fun. So I was working with burlesque, people who were, um, just sort of starting out in burlesque. They needed content for their social media. I need somebody in front of my, um, my lens. They were fairly confident with not always being fully dressed. So it was win win.

David McClelland: 51:23

You mentioned lockdown there. How challenging was that for you? I mean, it's what, four years, more than four years ago now since that whole fit hit the shan, but a business point of view there, and you mentioned that the number of different business outlets that you have, how were you able to sustain your business personally as well as financially throughout that difficult period?

Emma Finch: 51:48

it was difficult, particularly having two kids at home and having to, having to homeschool. I was,

David McClelland: 51:54

Ha

Emma Finch: 51:54

I was quite fortunate in that I got Um, a commission from, um, a lingerie company just to shoot the, the flatlay, the lingerie. So I'd homeschool until three o'clock, then I'd clear the dining room table, put the, the lingerie on the table. And, and this is quite a skill to it. You've got to stick it down with tape to make sure everything is sitting correctly, put the lights up and then shoot into the evening. And it was just the sort of cutouts for the, for the website. and then one day I went up to my, daughter's bedroom, it was quite young at the time, and she had her knickers on the table with a lamp. And I said, what are you doing? And she said, I'm just photographing my knickers. Mommy, like you. don't tell your teacher. Um, so I, I did have that work, which was, you know, it was fortunate to, to have that work, but yeah, I struggle through lockdown because. I didn't realize I was a people person and it turns out that I am and I need to be around people.

David McClelland: 52:45

And this, this all comes back to this journey that we all go on, uh, I guess whichever area we work in, but we learn things about ourselves and it sounds as though you've learned a lot about, about yourselves and your family as well. I'm curious, you mentioned there that your, your daughter was copying mummy basically. What do your, what do your kids, what do your family make of the work that you do? And I'm thinking specifically of the boudoir and lingerie stuff.

Emma Finch: 53:12

Yeah. So the girls, the girls know what I do. Absolutely fine with it. I would never shoot anything that I wouldn't show them. So they, um, they know what I do. They've seen my work. I want them to grow up in a, in a very body positive environment. Uh, I don't want there to be any shame around, female bodies, anything like that. So they're absolutely fine with it. Older members of the family were, it took a while to come around to it. You know, I, I did get smutty work under the counter work, a little bit of, um, pushback on that. But as I say, I think this has made me more, determined to, to do well. And the fact that I'm, you know, I'm speaking nationally on, on this and I'm getting the awards. Uh, I think it shows them that I'm, I'm reasonably good at what I do now. So, I'm happy.

David McClelland: 53:59

Emma Finch, thank you very much for joining us here on the podcast.

Emma Finch: 54:02

you very much. Thank you.

David McClelland: 54:10

And we've put links to Emma Finch Photography, Session Days and Belle Privet into our show notes for this episode but if you just put a co. uk onto the back of those words then you'll be able to find your own way to her websites. right, Glyn, let's steer clear of Adobe stuff for a few minutes time, because I want to chat to you about a project that you've been working on for a little while now, but it's continuing, as indeed does its importance. We've just had the 80th anniversary of the D Day Normandy landings in June. In a nutshell, what is the 3945 Portraits project, and how did it come about?

Glyn Dewis: 54:50

Uh, it is basically a self funded project that I set up in the beginning of 2019, uh, and it is my way of saying thank you to veterans for what they did during World War II, because I always felt that on Remembrance Day, saying thank you wasn't enough. Uh, I've always had a fascination with the history of World War II. I love my photography and retouching, so marrying the two together just seemed the natural thing to do. And it basically, in a nutshell, it means me traveling, I was traveling the UK, visiting veterans in their own homes to do a classic timeless portrait of them to then then be able to give that to them so it would remain with them and then their family for generations to come. So it was a, like I say, self funded, best thing, bar none, I have ever done in my life, most humbling thing I've ever done. Um, most emotional thing I've ever done and the biggest lessons in photography ever.

David McClelland: 55:45

Oh, that's interesting. Biggest lessons. What, what, what do you mean? Um,

Glyn Dewis: 55:50

The, well, ordinarily being a portrait photographer prior to the project, when I would photograph people, it would be environments where there was plenty of space, there was plenty of kit, such as a studio, everything was perfect. Where, and also generally photographing people who were willing to be photographed and were happy to be photographed. Now, Veterans generally, they, they didn't want to be photographed, although they did because they knew the reason for it being was that their parents or their family were going to get portraits, so they agreed to it. But the biggest lessons came from photographing people who didn't necessarily want to be photographed and weren't used to it. So it was how would I get these people to relax in front of the camera so that I don't just capture a pose. I actually capture them. So when somebody looks at the go, that is so then that was the most important thing, but also being adaptable to my environment because everybody's home that I went to was very, very different and had its own challenges regards to space and lighting and stuff like that. So I had to really Learn to adapt my lighting setup to get the same look, regardless of what modifier had and what environment I was in. So it was a huge, huge learning curve, which I'm really grateful for.

David McClelland: 57:03

And you certainly have achieved that uniformity when you go and have a look at the portraits and on the on the project's website there is quite you know you've got so many of them there that there is a real uniformity amongst all of those uh veterans and it wasn't just the still images that the portraits that you were capturing as well I also saw towards the bottom of the of project page you have a lot of video interviews as well

Glyn Dewis: 57:31

Yeah, I did. It wasn't. And this wasn't something that was done with every single veteran because it was very much my decision to do that was on a case by case basis because every veteran was different. And there were veterans where I would photograph them seated or standing like a three quarter length shot and then do a headshot because it felt it felt acceptable to do that. Whereas for some of them you didn't want to step over that boundary and maybe you do that next time once they felt even more comfortable with you. Yeah. But regards to the actual interviews, there were a number of ones I did, but my, my intention with that was never to talk about the horrors of war, because that's what people are always asked about, and these veterans are always asked about it. So I made a point of asking them things like, you know, What was your training like? Now, do you remember any characters? Um, you know, what did you, what was life like after the war? Because, you know, we're talking about six, six year period here. There's now, you know, 80 years of life that could have, you know, happened there. What did you do then? So it was really brilliant to some of the stories that came. There was, there was so much laughter, that came from those videos. So Yeah, it was wonderful. Absolutely. The best thing I've ever done. But, um, it got to the stage. COVID had a massive impact

David McClelland: 58:45

Well, so, so you started in twenty nineteen.

Glyn Dewis: 58:48

early 2019. Um, and I did 16, 000 miles in the in the space of a few months traveling the UK for that. Um, but it sounds really daft. But considering what the project entailed, photographing very elderly people, I never I never gave it a thought. that eventually we'd be losing some of them. Some of them would pass away. And when that did start to happen, you know, cause there were certain veterans that I became incredibly close to, you know, Alan Scott was like a grandfather. We became so incredibly close. I would do some shopping for him for quite personal items. It got that close. So when he passed, it was like a member of your family and it became quite a common thing that every, you know, another month had lose somebody else. So when COVID happened, it was almost a very natural. line in the sand to either finish it or to have a break. But as you mentioned there, we've recently had the 80th anniversary. That has now given me the motivation now to think, you know, do you know what? I can do more of this. And there are clearly more veterans out there. So now I'm on a, I'm on a mission to, uh, to get as many more as I can to be eventually put into this book that's going to be produced.

David McClelland: 59:57

Oh, tell me about the book.

Glyn Dewis: 1:00:00

Yeah, it's going to be a book which isn't going to be one that's sold for profit or anything like that. But I've got ideas for this really, really good quality coffee table book that will contain the portraits, any interviews that were done, they'll be appearing on the pages as well. So as you turn them, you'll see all this wording and then there'll be photographs of when they were younger. Some of the veterans have managed to get some of their portraits from when they were younger. So they'll be in there as well. So it'll be a real history of those people that were captured. But then the second half of the book will be, this is why it was done, and this is how it was done. So it'll go into the whole process about everything to do with how the photographs were taken. The exhibition, there'll be stuff, you know, pictures from that as well. So it's a whole, a book that will encompass the whole project, um, and that, that's going to be for me, however, it will be available to purchase, but not, you know, whoever purchases it can get it for the same price that I'll be getting it for. That's, you know, that's how I want to do this.

David McClelland: 1:00:55

What have been the responses like from the family members? You say that part of the, of the project is to, uh, capture the portraits of the, of the veterans and provide the images for them Yes. But also for their family members. How, how have they responded on the whole

Glyn Dewis: 1:01:14

Unbelievable. And again, it's stuff I didn't expect to happen, but I've made some incredible friendships. with families now that, you know, where the veterans themselves have passed on, but incredible friendships. But I think the biggest, most humbling and upsetting thing really, but in a positive way that happened on several occasions was when veterans passed and I was invited to attend the funeral, which during COVID, you know, we had limitations of, I believe 30, and I was invited along with my wife, which was an incredible honor. But unexpectedly, when the casket would come in. The portrait I'd taken was on the casket. And that's like, Oh, my God. And I Yeah, exactly. Just completely took the wind out of me. I mean, what an incredible, incredible thing to happen. You know, on that day, that's what they wanted to be on display. And I've had, you know, they've used the photos in order of service on the front covers. And it's like, this is just stuff that I never, ever saw happening. But, you know, God, it's the most, it's the most precious thing I've ever done in not just my photography career, but my life.

David McClelland: 1:02:24

So, taking the work that you've done there and appreciating the moments and the power of the portrait, you know, you were in these veterans homes, maybe for a day, maybe for a couple of hours, or something like that, yet you've taken, you've captured something that is so timeless and important to them. Has that, uh, influenced, affected, played into, how you approach your portraiture work outside of capturing veterans.

Glyn Dewis: 1:02:54

Absolutely, it has, because it's made me even more somebody that doesn't photograph models, people who are used to being in front of the camera, I get much more, um, satisfaction and what have you from photographing people and capturing, it sounds really corny, because this is what my opinion was before it, it sounded corny when people said, photograph the personality. I know you can do that now. I know you can. And this that out of all the things that I learned doing it was how to get people to relax in front of the camera. And I came up with my own methods for doing that. But that's what I employ now to help people. You know, you don't the photography when I'm doing a portrait is secondary. The most important thing is the relationship that I have with that person. So you know, there's no talk. There's no kit setting up or anything at all. It's just time spent with them. First of all, And I was, you know, there's so many lessons I learned from it. And one of them is to listen, to listen to, you know, what people have to say, you know, the old comic saying of, you know, we have two ears and one mouth, use them in that proportion. My God, is that, it's a jokey thing to say, but it is so incredibly true. And there's a veteran I can think of that, that worked so well for because he was somebody who was literally on the edge of crying as well, speaking to him.

David McClelland: 1:04:08

Hmm,

Glyn Dewis: 1:04:08

And he was explaining this one story, but, you know, the long story short is it ended up with me not using a flash to, to photograph him, but I used a video light so that there was no flash going off because I had this feeling that if I had used that, would it give him the flashback to what he explained to me? Um, and, you know, it's okay for me turning up from my happy home to go to this veteran's house, getting what I want and then leaving, but leaving this elderly man in a state of distress that couldn't do that. So by listening, the most important thing of all, it taught me to think, right, how should I approach this? I feel like that that period of me doing this project matured me as a photographer because it forced me to, to learn how to photograph people who weren't used to or wanted to be photographed. That's the, that's the best learning ground. It really, really is. You know, you can stick a light on a stand, you can get your camera settings, you can get somebody in front of that camera who can really work it, you're going to get a great picture. But when you've got somebody who is uncomfortable, they're anxious, although they don't like having pictures taken themselves, how do you get the best out of them? That, that is the skill of a photographer. That it's not, it's not the kit. It's, it's the personal communication skills is the ultimate skill of a portrait photographer. And I learned that big time.

David McClelland: 1:05:27

Glyn, thank you for sharing that story. I'm sure given the nature of the interactions that you've had and continue to have with the veterans, the conversations you have with them. It's not just as a photographer that you're growing. It's as a Glyn as well. Um, thank you. Thank you so much for sharing that with us. That is all the time That is all the time that we have for this month. Uh, to mark your cards, the in person Photography and Video Show 2025 will be taking place not at the NEC in Birmingham, but at the Excel in London from Friday the 8th to Tuesday the 11th of March 2025. It's the same Photography Show that you already know and love, but for 2025 lifted and shifted to London, uh, By the banks of the River Thames and on the shiny, super fast Elizabeth Line. We'll be talking about that on the show more in due course, but if you're already locked and loaded, then now's a great time to get some great deals on those hotel rooms. If you want to get in touch with us, perhaps let us know your take on the Adobe Terms of Service fiasco. Call it what you will. And then of course you can pop us a comment on our Facebook and, and we're giving a go to a new exciting way to get in touch with us using good old fashioned text messages in your podcast app at the top of the show notes for this show you'll see us a send us a text message link simply simply tap on that it'll take you to the messaging app on your phone or your PC. Mac or other device if you've got messaging set up on there. Obviously do check with your bill payer but in the UK certainly text messages are included in many people's plans and don't worry we don't get to see your full mobile number that is all being handled by our podcast host. So yeah, get in touch. If you're listening to us for the first time then, well, where have you been? We're delighted to have you with us though here on the first Thursday of every month, so do hit subscribe. And we've also got lots of great episodes in our back catalogue too, so why not go back and have a listen? Glyn, thank you so much for joining us this month. It's really, really great to speak to you on here. Uh, where can best, where can people best keep up with what you get up to online?

Glyn Dewis: 1:07:37

Very, very simple, it's just look for glindewis. com, that's Glyn with one N and Dewis spelt like Lewis but with a D. And also check out the 3945portraits. com

David McClelland: 1:07:49

Super stuff. Thank you Glyn, and thank you all for listening, watching, whatever you're doing. Until next time,