The importance of systems & process in a creative business.

Short on time, skip to the juicy bits:

• Tom’s background. 0:00

  • Introducing Tom Barns, commercial photography.

  • How tom got started in the industry.

• Bring structure and efficiency to your creative practice. 2:25

  • The importance of systems, processes, efficiency and structure.

  • Easy wins for people.

  • Automate skin retouching in photoshop.

  • Stream deck, archive mail, create pdf in safari.

• The power of keyboard maestro. 7:44

  • Keyboard maestro, the best bit of software for geeks.

  • Text expander vs keyboard maestro.

  • What james looks for in a good camera system.

  • The worst mistake james has ever made with a moving camera.

• Choosing the right camera system. 13:43

  • Commit to a system early on in the journey.

  • Key things to think about.

  • Choosing the right system for you.

  • Questions to ask yourself before making the switch.

• Advice for buying a new camera. 17:12

  • The pros and cons of switching camera systems.

  • Advice for those who are considering a swap.

  • Shout out to martin london camera exchange in guilford.

  • How to get the best five quid for a coffee and a pint.

• What’s been your best purchase? 23:02

  • Best purchase in the last few years.

  • Moving from stills to motion.

  • Try and edit your own work.

  • Davinci resolve by blackmagic design.

• How do you approach hybrid output? 29:00

  • Tech changes from a tech perspective.

  • Using both continuous and flash for moving image work.

• Birds of Prey video. 31:53

  • Birds of prey website, birds of prey.

  • Process for storage and storage.

  • Keep multiple copies of your data.

  • The three-to-one rule.

• Storage and storage costs. 37:04

  • Storage has never been cheaper.

  • The three-to-one rule, and why it's important.

  • The importance of good habits and good storage.

  • Using chrono sync processing.

• Where to store high volumes of data in the cloud? 41:59

  • Where to store high volumes of data in the cloud.

  • Cloud storage costs.

• What are your top mobile apps? 44:50

  • Top three mobile apps he uses.

  • Apple weather, dark sky, cad rage and icloud.

  • Hazel, the keyboard maestro.

  • Why Jordan joined the wizened fam.

• Weegee’s murder. 50:29

  • Weegee murder is my business.

  • Resources for grading log-in results from stilton stills.

  • Use colour space transform in resolve.

  • Learn more about colouring from Darren Most on youtube.

  • Stretching out the full dynamic range.

  • How to get more information about Tom.

Full transcript

Tom Barnes 00:00

My name is Tom Barnes. I am editorial portrait commercial advertising. Basically I just take pictures of people, but I shoot portraits and stills a moving image basically. And I've worked for Lamborghini, Microsoft, Tesco, Samsung. The British Paralympic Association teamed up, you know, to name a few companies like sage and you know, all sorts of wonderful people basically but I had my intro, ob keep this very brief. I had a season of my career in music photography, so I learned how to be very fast, very efficient, and get treated very badly. And then I decided to move away from that and then I came over to commercial portraiture and has been doing it ever since I started when I kind of went full time pro when I was about 1819 in Sheffield. Really not originally from there, but I was studying an economics degree. Because believe it or not, I'm a fully qualified chartered surveyor

Emma Alexander 01:07

Just throw that in the mix. Yeah, why not see that come in at all. So you didn't economics degree?

Tom Barnes 01:12

Yeah. If you need a commercial property valuation, I'm a few years out of date.

Emma Alexander 01:17

But yeah, I guess my degree,

Tom Barnes 01:19

so I passed my degree, and then I just went off and did photography

Emma Alexander 01:26

these days. Who were you talking with? Who were the people you know? So I used to do all sorts I was, there was a rock magazine called Kerrang. I was one of their principal photographers. I was Roxanne's principal photographer for a time. So I would talk with very heavy bands that was bringing their eyes and it was up to six. It was Biffy Clyro I went and did some stuff with us to go out and do some stuff with Metallica. There was I was on slipknot on tour with Slipknot in the States when that phone call came in, so yeah, so I kind of cut my teeth on some very unusual world. Yeah, and

Emma Alexander 02:01

quite a change from the work that you make now of course.

Tom Barnes 02:04

Yeah, hopefully. I've got it. I love that time, but the only thing I really learned was how to open beer bottles with my teeth. Oh,

Emma Alexander 02:12

are they your own teeth?

Tom Barnes 02:13

No, no. That one's a fulfilling because I want some overzealous and lost it. Then that's when I decided it was actually that at that moment. I decided to come to commercial commercial photography.

Emma Alexander 02:25

Amazing. Where he is talking about systems and processes and efficiency, I guess. You know, systems workflow process, they kind of feel like they kind of feel like yes, they mean different things to different people. They don't necessarily mean the same thing. So from your point of view, how important is it to bring structure and efficiency into your business or creative practice?

Tom Barnes 02:50

It honestly it really, really depends on your personality type. Some people I've met that are completely fine having absolutely nothing and it's like Yeah, yeah, cool. Everything will be fine, but I kind of feel that actually if you want to have some sort of plan and you want to try and get some more time back in your life you know, God forbid we spend so much time either organising shoots, being on shoots, editing shoots, you know, doing all of that sort of stuff that when we come back and then we have to do all that out the admin stuff. Oh, my God. There must be and there is so many ways to automate all the boring stuff in the office and make our life easier there that we can then spend more time going out and shooting personal work or going out shooting for clients.

Emma Alexander 03:29

Yeah, or finding the balance with other things that you love. Yeah, well,

Tom Barnes 03:35

obviously in my life I either have admin or shooting and that's it. But ya know, for for for everyone, you just more time away from doing doing really dark stuff. Like for example, I met someone the other day who was still doing own bookkeeping. And I was like, no, no, no, no, no, don't do that. As a bookkeeper. No, go and get an account and don't don't do any of that yourself. You'll you'll suddenly find that because it's not just about getting time back. It's about lifting stress off your shoulders. And if you suddenly feel like you've got a list of tasks as long as your arm and you are forever not getting through them. Well that adds up and you might not realise it, but there's like a pressure on you there to accomplish things off your list and it can become this overbearing weight. So having good systems in process, and having good systems in place and good processes. I think it's just a really I've personally found it hugely beneficial because now I have you know we'll talk about this in a bit but I have so many things that are automated now and in so many ways that I do things that it makes my life hopefully a little bit easier.

Emma Alexander 04:40

So what are the what areas can you bring process and automation in what what the kind of easy wins for people?

Tom Barnes 04:46

Oh, I mean, the easy wins. I would say most admin tasks could probably be automated to a point. You know, for example, that I won't talk about the plug in names. Actually, I could probably talk about plugging names, but what they do if there are any clients listening, don't do. Listening closure is but you know, there are skin retouching plugins retouch for me, and there's actually a whole fleet of them now currently, if you ever feel that you're sat there and all you ever feel like you're doing is retouching skin, why not automate it, and then kind of bring in a process that gets you skin that you're pleased with a lot of these kinds of plugins, they overcook things well, then create it as a layer in Photoshop and then just bring the Opacity back down. So you get to the point where you're really pleased with what you're achieving, and what that has taken that was done. It's taken you a minute and a half, two minutes maybe to tweak it as opposed to I mean, I used to retouch skin. I know what you're thinking for me. And it used to be so time intensive. And as soon as I got rid of that, I suddenly found I had loads more time and it was great. So there's loads of things that you can do like that. For example. I've got a couple of we'll go on to the part of the software that I use and stuff like in a bit, but I have a system process where I have an email that comes through with a receipt or an invoice attached, and I hit a button so I use a thing called a stream deck, which you can see here and I have a stream deck Excel with all the buttons. They do these little stream decks, they're about 100 and something could buy ones a bit more expensive because it's the bigger one. But each button is assigned to some sort of automation in my workflow. So for example here I can archive mail don't have to hit any shoot keyboard shortcuts, or I can create a PDF in Safari, I can create a PDF in my mail client. And what that does, is I found myself getting really bored every month of going through all my receipts and then you don't get the getting pulling out the PDF or sending them to the accountant and they'd be like, well, well what's this? What's this for? And I'd be like well actually look, why not create? So in keyboard maestro, I've created a system macro that generates its own PDF from the email or it saves the PDF out of the email, and then it will export that over to a folder, which then pings a notification over to my accountant saying that they've got new documents check out he plays a lot. But if they but it means at the click of a button and me saying who it's from and the amount means that it goes into a folder, it then automatically gets renamed with the the amount, the date the Who's it from. And so then my bookkeeper logs into that folder pulls it down into their system. And away we go.

Emma Alexander 07:44

That's brilliant. Let's rewind quickly you mentioned keyboard maestro, this is something you got me on soon. It's been brilliant. When you talk us through keyboard maestro, I'll let you explain much better than me.

Tom Barnes 07:54

Keyboard maestro, some some people might have been using text expander and I originally came to keyboard Maestro because of text expander Text Expander you type in a keyword. For example, I have had lots of pre written bits of text. So I'll type in mail add one word, it'll delete that and replace it with my full mailing address. And I have it for you know no advice. If someone emails me and I say I don't actually have time to do it. Send a reply with loads of advice and I type in no advice. And I have a lovely pre written bit of friendly text that says Sorry, can't reply back. Here's some links to content I've already created. And hopefully this was really helpful. So I came over from that because text expander went to the subscription model and I'm not a fan of subscription models at all I find them a real pain and I felt I find them very you know gouging photographers and you know at no point really have we been asked to pay so much out monthly and fees are quite you know, the fees are the same as they were 10 years ago. So we're not earning any more. But the you know the prices of everything has gone up which is obviously a bit of a killer. So I've moved over to keyboard Maestro and keyboard Maestro is amazingly powerful bit of software where you can basically automate anything. You can tell it to activate certain bits of software you can tell it to place the mouse in a certain position on the on the window you can tell it to honestly it's the best bit of software for geeks like me, because we can do you can do anything if you can imagine something or if you feel yourself doing a repetitive task. You will be able to automate it probably in keyboard maestro,

Emma Alexander 09:36

to me it was the invoices, invoice details. As a producer, I am constantly sending some light and you can invoice me in on you know, here's my details. Here's my data and it was just that unbelievable. Every time. It's made it so much easier.

Tom Barnes 09:50

Yeah, I have so many things I think I probably have 300 different text replacement things but the trouble is I can't remember all of them so we're gonna do is no because key because obviously he will by stroke is very smart. They've already figured it all out. There's a universal launch. So if you hit COMMAND OPTION and Ctrl T, it brings up a keyboard Maestro window and then you can type in what you were looking for. And it will produce it

Emma Alexander 10:16

for you to get a referral link for you for them. Really useful and it's by once only products you pay for it and you own it. That's it. Good. I love that. Exactly. And I want to talk about camera systems with you while we're going. I know from the podcasts that you love talking about kids and I think also know from the podcast, your podcast, you've probably worked with, you know what feels like almost every camera system known to humanity. So what do you what do you look for in a camera system? What you know, you've chopped and changed a lot. What is it that that's a good setup for you what works?

Tom Barnes 10:54

Well, quickly before we answer that I'm seeing messages on the chat that it's saying that the chats disabled Oh,

Emma Alexander 11:02

oh gosh,

Tom Barnes 11:03

I love questions. So that's that's why I thought I'd flag them. But let me get my camera.

Emma Alexander 11:08

I will put that out.

Tom Barnes 11:11

Oh man camera systems The bane the bane of my existence. So I grew up I bought my first I got given access to my first Canon camera and my first camera really when I was about four or five, and it was a 3000 and or something. It was like this old film camera. And I loved it. And over the over the years up until I was about 20 Haldeman no 38 up until I was about 3132 I was canon. And then for some reason because I'm sure a lot of the people may be watching me going oh, maybe I should swap system maybe you know maybe this is this is enough. Well, chances are to be devil's advocate, chances are you absolutely do not need to swap system. I went on a mission and I did nine camera system swaps in about three or maybe four or five years. Is proper chunky. Yeah, I had a good couple of years, but then wiped it all out by being an idiot and swapping all the systems along. And I was what happened then was I was moving systems if you're thinking about moving systems now. Absolutely. Probably don't bother. It depends if you're coming over to mirrorless if you're coming over to mirrorless and DSLR then that's a whole other conversation and yes, you should probably upgrade but the moving camera systems for me I went Carentan AECOM because they didn't have a high megapixel body and Nick onboard out the D 100. So then I didn't like to focus on that. So I came back to Canon when they did the five ds that I use the five DS for oil ages, then I really wanted to push heavy into video. So I bought a C 200. And then I didn't like the fact that I had to have two sets of bodies of massive great rig for the for the video camera. And stuff like that. So then I got rid of that. And then I kept the C 200. And then I moved my stills camera up to a media because a medium format system because I was like, Yeah, this is what all the pros are using. So that's what I have to use. And that was one of the worst mistakes I've ever made. So I sold that came back to Canon and then bought a phase one system and this is when everything becomes really, really stupid, because I went from phase one to fuji film to like to Sony to Canon. I mean there was a Hasselblad as well somewhere. I bought a Hasselblad but that lasted like a week and a half because it was it was it was not very good. So we had to sweat. Yeah, the Hasselblad was the worst camera I'd ever used. It was awful. Yeah. hated it.

Emma Alexander 13:44

I think it's pretty tricky because we photography I feel like you have to you have to commit to a system really early on in your journey and it feels like you know, you invest and then you start bolting on pieces as you go as you're able and building up this kit but it feels like you really need to make that decision really early and actually, you know commit. What should you look for when you when you're actually making the decision if your backpack at the start of your journey? What are the one of the watch outs what are the key things that you think you should think about before investing in a whole system?

Tom Barnes 14:14

Okay, very weird thing to say. But ergonomics, right so here's the thing, definitely big, big old hands and the cannons I use. I've always used the big chunky cannons and they've always just sat really well in my hands. They've always felt really normal to me. It's always just if you put me in and do a blind test, I will always choose the cannon because of how it feels in the hand. And I feel actually that's a really good starting point for people. And the reason I say ergonomics over the tech and all the lenses and whatnot like that, is we're pretty much on a level playing field for most camera systems now. The Tech has evolved to the point where I gave an interview to Canon the other day about my five C's which is the camera I use. I absolutely love that camera. I don't think I'll ever upgrade. I don't need to do this the first time I've ever got to a camera and gone. That is as close to a perfect camera and bear in mind I've shot everything apart. from Panasonic. Yeah, yeah, everything above it honestly it's it's about as close as it gets to the perfect camera for me. And I think when you are choosing a system, if you are moving over from you know, say for example, you've got a Canon five d mark three, four and you've got all the lenses, but the logical step is to get an AR five or an AR six and then an adapter and then run it like that. I don't think there's a there's there's this kind of myth that you have to kind of do these huge, great outlays. I mean, Carrickmines are expensive, obviously, but I don't think you need to do full system swaps and actually having done so many of them it would be the last thing I would recommend to people because all of the tech now is across most of the cameras. You know you're if you are really going for one thing over another, it comes down to personal preference and really splitting hairs because bluntly I'll tell you, there are no perfect cameras they all have their problems. And so it really comes down to your feeling feeling which one is best and also which one you're used to because if you have grown up in you know and you've come to photography and you are used to the Sony menus, obviously Best of luck to you but the if you're used to the Sony menu menus thing great stay with Sony, you totally know where things are. But for me canon, the way the kind of menus are laid out the image quality, the colours, everything I was good, and I'm pleased with it. So

Emma Alexander 16:44

I guess what questions should you ask yourself before you do just offhand everything and do a whole swap because it is expensive like stopping and having to read kind of I guess kind of ingratiate yourself with a with a new system. It's you know it's intense, expensive. It's really costly, but it's it's time as well. time away from your work getting used to a new system. What do you think the core questions are that you should ask before you decide to go ahead and make that choice, make that change?

Tom Barnes 17:12

So I'm a huge fan of doing. I use an app called Mind node and I do kind of a brainstorming kind of charts all the time. And so if I'm kind of doing a really big purchase like that, I'll kind of go up and say though, why is it I want to do it? What are the advantages and what are the disadvantages? The chances are, honestly, you know, bluntly, from my point of view, I can obviously only ever speak from my experience, but when it was my experience it was always grass is always greener. And actually, the grass isn't actually that much greener. It's as green maybe slightly a different shade of green. But like the grass isn't that much greener. So the best thing I would do if you go on YouTube, sorry, by the way, I've got another screen here. So if I just started his talk talking about that as why, if you go on YouTube and you type in Sony to Canon systems, Canada Sr, whatever, you will find people who I mean this is this is a bit of a slight on the youtubers because obviously there are a huge amount of talented guys on the platform. But there are a lot of them aren't or haven't been long time working commercial photographers. And a lot of them are talking from their experience of creating very short clips or not really using the camera and kind of in anger and stuff like that. And so you'll be able to find on YouTube, the argument for and against, right? What I would honestly do and what I really wish I had done is I would have found someone in my realm who had actually done the swap. Previously. I'd call an email that must be like have you got 30 seconds even if you haven't got 30 seconds. Do you do you recommend doing that swap Have you been pleased with the results? Or have it was it is Was there anything that you missed? Because that's the big thing for me is when you move over from a system that you're completely used to and then you move to a new system. There might be things that you miss. For example, I've just moved a lot of my lighting from Profoto to Broncolor. And there is no control for rear curtain flash, because it's done on the camera, with Canons not on the flash and obviously the TTL remote on the Profoto one had that as an option. So I've had to keep some of my Profoto staff to then use that as rear curtain as and when I have the need. So there's always give and take with all these camera systems. None of them are perfect and it does all of it very much come down to personal preference. If for example, you're a lifetime Nikon shooter, and have loads of nickel glass. I would recommend that when you move up from the Nikon DSLR you go and buy the Nikon mirrorless because all the adapters are really good and the performance is fantastic. But also, you know I'm going to I'm going to shout out my local camera store Martin, London Camera Exchange in Guilford, for example. get friendly with those guys. Go in and say Look, don't sell me anything. I'm not buying anything today. Tell me though, or just borrow a body. Most of the guys if you leave

Emma Alexander 20:11

me more money, can you still do that? Okay, well

Tom Barnes 20:16

because because I've already I'm the Hi I'm the highest spender and I think everything's gonna happen for like 10 years. They let me walk in and basically walk out and testify in the street. And a lot of the shops will let you do that.

Emma Alexander 20:29

But actually there are other ways I've been on fat llama for example, that the higher place and actually borrowed. We bought a Sony body last year to play around with. So yeah, you're right. Just go out actually to try and get your hands on the kit and play with it and see how it feels. I think it was put about the ergonomics is a really good one.

Tom Barnes 20:47

But also we know lots of photographers, you know, the chances are I mean, I probably know more than most because the podcast but you know there are photographers who use all these systems, go for a drink. Literally go for a drink. Take your cameras, and then just literally discuss it over.

Emma Alexander 21:02

So nerdy. I love that.

Tom Barnes 21:05

Oh, I love it or so but honestly, that that might be four or five quid for a coffee and a like a pastry or you know, a pint, but that five quid might be the best five quid you've ever spent because it might save you and you'd be like I want actually maybe I'd only be our five maybe the are six with a lower resolution now that we're able to upscale using AI and Photoshop supersize and stuff like that. Maybe actually the six would be a better thing for me because I'll save harddrive space and and things like that, which I think leads you want to think where you're going?

Emma Alexander 21:43

No, no, you'll use your network. I love it. So it took quite a lot of time but using your network differently and it's just it just makes so much sense.

Tom Barnes 21:51

They'll do the same for you. All of the audiences tip tap you know without you funny everyone. Most people not everyone, but there are a lot of people if you help them out, they really will help you. So the more people you help, I would like to think I'd be able to pick up the phone to 20 people right now and be like, I need help and I'd be like cool hanging out.

Emma Alexander 22:10

Yeah, it'd be a competition.

Tom Barnes 22:13

I just I think that time of, you know, I've had my fingers burnt this morning because I found another photographer who's just got off and snipe me on a personal project shot the exact same people using my info from the real. Yeah, it's a bit of a thing. It's a bit about heartache for me today. But the competition over it don't feel that photographers should be competing. Yes, it's obviously a very competitive industry. But we all produce unique work. The least we can do especially with the ship with how it is kind of sailing. Just look after each other and just be nice and and spread it about you know, without being funny. Just Just Just be nice.

Emma Alexander 22:51

No definitely definitely love that. Definitely community over competition is probably one of my biggest mantras. I think we are such a loving leader is such an amazing community. That's really important to keep in mind. One question before we move on to something What's been your best purchase in the last few years?

Tom Barnes 23:08

Oh there's been quite a few. Well, let's narrow it down my best purchasing related to what part of my career my best purchase for the computer has been the MAC studio and the XDR studio. Not sorry, not the XDR studio, the pro XDR display. You know the stupid one was 1000 pounds stand. Yeah.

Emma Alexander 23:33

So off my radar. Okay.

Tom Barnes 23:37

Amazing monitor which is a complete joy to use, and then they charged me 1000 pounds for the monitors don't Yeah, that's a killer but yeah, he's the one to stand. I would pay 240 quid for it. It's such a ripoff. But so that was that was a really good thing is I really love working on it. I created this which is quite cool. Was this is my so this is my director's monitor. So we've all had old Atmos on the front, and then what nice cage handles. The whole thing is built into a cage. And then we have wireless transmission wireless receiver and V lock battery mounts here. So that's pretty cool. That's very cool. In the past few years, I've moved to the Canon R five seat which I absolutely adore and love I mean could very well be the best all in hybrid camera because I want to talk about the hybrid stuff when they want the video stuff. And the hybrid for me, you know, I'm building up this mini rig currently and it's so small and look at the time I've got big hands, but he's got a it's a really really small neat thing and the the footage that this little camera can create. Is is wonderful. And let's talk

Emma Alexander 24:47

about let's talk about motion. You know, you're you're one of the times I've seen do that move really successfully going from stills straight into into motion. And you know what, what stiff did you have to go through to make that move? Was it from the minds?

Tom Barnes 25:04

No, no, no, I try to tell you the moment it happened. Yeah. I was onstage filming a drummer Utah, I think it was or maybe it was in Buffalo. It was somewhere in the States. And I had just got got the five d mark two. This is how far this is how long ago it was. And I flipped the switch and started filming. And I had the screen turned out and flip towards the drummer. And he shared the time my website was Tom bounce photo.com And he reached out to Tom Barnes video.com Which I didn't buy. But I did at that point. I was like, Oh, I love this. This is cool. And you have to think in a really different way. Yeah, you're not you're not thinking about you know, you're not thinking about a single shot. You know, you're not thinking about how can I tell this story in a frame? You're thinking oh, okay, this is the scene. How am I going to tell this story? And then one of the best tips I ever got given and I always I always tell it to people is try and edit your own stories, try and edit your own work. And the reason is, is because I think as those photographers, especially if people are coming over and haven't really shot too much of it and if they're a bit weary of it. There is no better way to understand how your footage is going to work in the edit. Then don't edit it yourself. Because actually you can then have complete control over it. I mean, you can understand how a shot will work best if you go from that shot to that type of shot. Or you know you're going from a wide into a close up. You know you don't want anything to be too jarring things like that. And I think editing it yourself. It takes a little bit of there is obviously a little bit of a learning curve,

Emma Alexander 26:47

massive investment of time to learn new software and also to think but it sounds like part of the process sounds like really?

Tom Barnes 26:55

I really think it's for me personally it's been massively beneficial for me to for me to do I obviously edit and grade everything myself and have them pretty much from day dot because when I was on the road with bands, I didn't have the budget or the time to ship out to an editor. So I had to literally turn around these tour videos at night while everyone was drinking. We're having these crazy party going on and then there just be this guy in the corner beer right created this video. That'd be me editing the video. You know, as it was, you know it's all kicking off and then there's me but the but honestly editing, editing my own footage, editing the work and really helped me to understand. camera movement can be really important but what doesn't doesn't work from a camera movement what you can stabilise for example, if you're going to be shooting a load of handheld footage, you might just be like wow, this looks really cool. And then in the Edit you're like oh actually this looks rubbish. I'm gonna try and stabilise it and then you kind of you come up against the the kind of the the inability of software to work with various types of footage and stuff like that. And I honestly I think meat learning how to edit was brilliant. I would only recommend one bit of software for that because it's completely free. It's pretty much becoming the industry standard is DaVinci Resolve by Blackmagic Design. It's 299 pounds for a perpetual licence for the Pro Studio. Version. And then the the free version has about five or six less features. And that's it. It's honestly it's a fantastic bit of software. We added the podcast in it. It's got a it's got a grading suite that's come over from Hollywood, basically the industry standard grading suite, it's called a door which is a the audio side of things. It's a fan fantastic bit of software and I would wholeheartedly recommend every single person if you want to learn editing. Do that rather than Final Cut do that rather versus premiere. Save yourself loads of money, don't give loads of money to Adobe cutting your subscription right down. Yeah,

Emma Alexander 29:11

amazing. Well, so what changed from a tech perspective from you? Obviously, there must have been a bit of a kick change. You talked about the sort of the synergies earlier about not having to have two bodies. And what have you what's changed from a kid perspective and what's changed from guess how you approach a shoe if you are doing hybrid output.

Tom Barnes 29:36

It depends it depends entirely on the shoe. Okay, so so for me on some personal stuff I will stick a variable ND on the front of the lens and just shoot handheld, super, super running gun, super lightweight, and just grab some stuff like that. It depends on what the intended output is as well. If I so I start filming tomorrow morning at 5:30am for a new personal project. And I am going to be going to this guy 10 times over the next two and a half, three weeks. So I've built I've built up this really small compact little rig to do nice handheld stuff but without knackering my arms out. Sometimes I might kind of pack a gimbal but it depends entirely on what I'm being asked a lot of the time. You can do it with the kit you've just got in your hand and a variable ND filter.

Emma Alexander 30:31

And what about lighting Do you tend to use constantly something now do you still flip between flash and constant what's

Tom Barnes 30:35

so that's an interesting one, I use both. I use continuous for my moving image work. And I use flash my stills work. And the reason I don't use continuous for both is the continuous power that I need to achieve some of the looks that I do with my skills work is not a viable option. A lot of people are like, well, you should use continuous and I would be blinding people with the amount of light I use. You know I shot I did a shoot on Jeremy Clarkson's farm the other day. And so we've got these huge VISTAs, very dark sky stuff like that. I couldn't I couldn't physically couldn't do that without them burning, burning their skin using continuous light. And I feel that Flash has a certain quality that continuous light dozen in the way that it is able to freeze motion in a really unique way. The depth of field you're able to achieve is obviously far greater. And just the overall power output of flash will trump continuous light for me personally with my still stuff that said happy to shoot stills I did a bird project which I think you saw. Use it for that. Thank you. But there's birds of prey it's on the website if you want to go to have a look. It's birds of prey and it's shot stills and moving image portraits, slow motion portraits and then they loop because I copied in there reverse that clip. So they're looping ones birds blinking and stuff like that. But now that's obviously all shot and continuous. But this stills are shot at two and a half 1000 die. So to get the shutter speed high enough. Yeah, because obviously when you're shooting motion and I want to talk about Log footage, this is where we might start to lose people if they're thinking about coming over into shooting motion. Log is a very very flat almost grey washed out looking footage and it basically enables you to retain as much of the dynamic range from a scene as possible. You have to expose in a certain way and stuff like that, but the base ISO for stills is we would consider base ISO 100 200 400 or the base ISO for c log three on a Canon for example is 800 on on a Sony A seven s is I think 2000 It might be slightly lower, but it's a it's a very high base ISO and then also obviously they drop they use the 180 degree shutter rule so it's one over the double the frame rate double the focal length, sorry. So if you're using you know, if you're shooting at 25 frames, you're gonna be using a shutter speed of one over 50 which is much slower than obviously we would need for stills. So using continuous for for both. Obviously it's possible not an issue at all but for my world of work and how I shoot continuous promotion flash for sales.

Emma Alexander 33:44

This place is pretty nice thing to assume to storage but I know you love love talking about stories and dates. Now because adding in this other offering you know this sort of package offering to to your clients has obviously changed your your need for your sort of storage sites and solutions. Take me through your your kind of process I guess actually, I want a couple of WhatsApp groups and I see all the time it's probably it doesn't matter we go past when someone's like, Oh my God, my hard drives corrupts like I've lost everything. I know this would never happen to you because we haven't talked about this beforehand. But talk me through your process and your your approach because it's so critical for photographers for creatives to have really good backup storage. And you have already sort of nice little process, I think, for this talk.

Tom Barnes 34:35

Yeah, I should probably quantify quickly. I used to be endorsed by GE technology and then SanDisk and I used to travel the world doing talks on storage and workflow. It was it was as thrilling as it sounds.

Emma Alexander 34:48

Violence.

Tom Barnes 34:51

Oh no, no, don't get me wrong. We had some good times. What I will say is, please, please, please, please, please always keep multiple copies of your data. The best way and the base way of doing it is to remember the three to one rule, right? So you have three copies of your data. There's two there's two versions of this rule I'll go with I'll go with the spread the data out regardless of media. So you have three copies of your data to two copies in the office and one off site. So if one of them goes down, you've got a copy next to it. Or if your if your backup is down in the shed or down at a friend's house or down at your parents or whatever. It means that if your house burned or got broken into and or something catastrophic, where you've got a copy over there, so it's it takes a whole load of stress out having multiple copies of your data. And I hear all the time that people are like oh my data safe I use RAID. RAID is redundancy, it is not a backup. And that is that is massively massively important to remember, if you have one copy of your data, that could be a RAID array, or it could just be a normal hard drive. But you have to have multiple copies of your data for it to be considered a safe backup. I think what's also really interesting is that with a hard drive for example, this one here with the big failed sticker on it with the big X over it, hard drives fail all the time. It is not a it is not an F it is a win with a hard drive failing. They are so they are so clever. But also massively massively delicate bits of machinery that you absolutely must keep multiple copies of your data. Because here's the thing, if someone if you if you're looking at you know if you're looking watching this chat and you're looking at a stack of hard drives and going I don't know if that's all organised or if I don't know that backed up, you know, imagine if someone came in and just took them all. Would you suddenly be crapping yourself? Or would you be going, sir, I've got a copy in the cloud. Yeah, you know, it's there's, again, it's never been storage has never been cheaper. I mean, obviously we need masses and masses of storage. I'm currently shooting probably about two or three terabytes a year. Of of stuff, which can, which is not right, it's actually that's not true. Actually, way more than that. I shoot. For example, on average, probably, yeah, eight 913 17 terabytes one year, which is a massive amount of stuff. It's a it's a lot but because I shoot motion with almost every single thing that I do, there's always a motion aspect. Now, to all my personal work. There's always normally a motion aspect of most of the jobs and this is editorial. So I've actually had to move my firt my my second on my second on site backup. So I have a large 72 terabyte hard drive in the office, which is my main drive. Yeah, then I use these, which I wouldn't recommend for most people. But these are this is an LTO tape. Kind of this this little tape that I have in my hand can store 18 terabytes

Emma Alexander 38:21

of data. Why would you not recommend that for most people? Because the

Tom Barnes 38:25

tape machines bound nine and a half 1000 pounds. It's possible it's cost prohibitive for most people unless you have maybe more than 40 terabytes of data. And then I think at that point, it starts to make financial sense because tapes are actually really cheap. The tapes like 150 180 quid so then at that point, I now will just create you know, for for seven or 800 quid I can now create a full off site, send it to a friend in the north of England and know that I've just got now multiple copies of my data, securely locked up and looked after all around the country.

Emma Alexander 39:05

As this comes from experience. Have you ever had an incident where you've where you've lost something super important and being able or not being able to get back or if you just just super organised and always known this is the risk?

Tom Barnes 39:17

I know I made this is gonna sound like super super, like, you know, pretty, like big headed. I'm really lucky. Touchwood I have never ever had I've had harddrive failures that haven't. You know, I've literally got one right here, which is really annoying. But you know, I've never lost data and because I got told about the three to one rule really early on in my career, I was able to build it as a system. And so now I always for example, when I backup from a shoot, I carry these little little SanDisk four terabyte hard drives and then I have the slightly bigger ones which is slightly faster as well. And so when I when I come away from a shoot, my assistant gets one of these, I get one of these, and then there's a copy on the harddrive. And then there's normally files on the camera as well. So straight away they are there are backups instantly.

Emma Alexander 40:13

Really it's been good practice making really good habits that kind of James clear, like atomic habits, getting into the regular practice of actually always making sure you're following this process. Not just like, I'll do that one day, right?

Tom Barnes 40:25

Yeah, it really is but also the there's never really been such a great time to be becoming ofay with storage, because everything's now pretty quick. Yeah, we're not we're not talking about when I first started, we were using firewire 400 drives, and I'd be like, Are you are you gonna back up? They were like, Hey, we're gonna be ready in like four or five days. Whereas, you know, I can do a full shoot backup in seven minutes. Yeah. What I do is I there's a lovely little pouch. There's these lovely little pouches they were the guy called Luke created the years ago and then they got ripped off. They called Joey pouches and they are a little thing that just sticks on your laptop. And then when you're backing up on set onto one hand, you just pop the hard drive in there from the cable in there and it just sits on the back of your screen. Like that. Yeah, that's and then kind of brings me on to using something like Chrono sync. Processing is a fantastic pretty much an industry standard, but a syncing software, which is pretty straightforward. Obviously, you can make it as complicated as you want. But Chrono sync is a really great way of backing up and you can have it set to automate through a shoot so I have it set to run a sync every minute. So it means that within the shutter going, I know that there is going to be three copies of that data, one on the camera cards, one on the laptop, and then one on the hard drive. That's straight away at the end of the shoot. We don't really need we'll run one final backup and then that'll be it. Hard drives get kind of spread out and good to go.

Emma Alexander 42:06

And I want to get a quick bite of just conscious probably got about five minutes left, but Thomas has asked the question just where can you store such high volumes of data in the cloud? Right,

Tom Barnes 42:17

what assistance is the best way the best way I found is teamed up with some people you really trust and love and by Dropbox team's plan, because then you get unlimited then you get unlimited data up in the cloud. Plus also has Dropbox has got a really high security level. It has two factor auth for every single user and it's there's a there's no upward limit of how much I think me and whoever else I'm using it with. We've got 200 and something terabytes currently. So it's yeah, it's a lot.

Emma Alexander 42:49

That's it again, using your network goes your community seem up together.

Tom Barnes 42:54

But if you don't have that option, there are loads of other ways of doing it. Backblaze b two, for example, that's a really cheap way of doing it. classier s3, the Amazon one. You know, there's there's a there's a there's a whole load of other cheap places to do it. But but but but but but. But the really important thing that you have to remember with Cloud Storage is it might cost you nothing to upload it and then it might be really cheap to store. But it's the retrieval cost is how they get you. So say, yeah, if you upload say for example, five files to the cloud, you might then be paying sort of terrible example. But you know, you might put up a couple of gig and then you might be paying 0.0001 cents to store it. Then when you put it back, it might be a penny to pull it back. Now obviously, it didn't Yeah, if Yeah, it can it can get really expensive. You know, I think if you're if you're storing 14, these are things of fingers. I'm just plucking from memory. Yeah. If you're storing 40 terabytes it could be depending on which service you're using. It could be 600 bucks to 2000 pounds. But then when you pull it back, that is when the costs can suddenly become astronomical. And I wait I wait it up because I was like, Oh, what am what is I want to do and I tend to only backup my current active year to Dropbox because I don't I don't I live in the country. We don't really have the broadband to kind of upload these huge, huge volumes of files. So for me, the LTO was a really good way of doing it. Because then I can just ship the tapes wherever possible. So it has a 30 year archive life. So I will not be doing this in 30 years. So that's fine, cool. Sounds

Emma Alexander 44:45

good. I want to ask you some really quick questions before we before we close. Yeah. So be concise. What are your what are you what are your top three apps we top three mobile apps that you use?

Tom Barnes 44:57

Oh, Domino's. I wrote these down because actually I really wanted to get this these ones right. Yeah, so Sunseeker brilliant. Oh, yeah. Helps you obviously predict where the sun's going to be. You can then plan your location stuff way in advance. What three words this is an absolute game changer. If you have not heard of what three words, you need to hear for three words. If you if you are going to a location in a field. Now you're going to get people that you're not going to be suddenly sending people coordinates because then if you're trying to tell people coordinates down the phone, it's a mess. Well, the corner field for the corner was whether that's exactly whereas if you just send someone the what three words address, they divided the world up into three by three squares, and then gave it three words.

Emma Alexander 45:44

It's metres and a metre square some evidence. It's three

Tom Barnes 45:47

metre by three metre by three, because that would be a lot of words. I was like, but yeah, what three words I now insist on it on every call sheet that comes out for me. I send addresses all the time to people that I'm trying to meet. It is an absolute game changer and it will stop you having those annoying phone calls where you're like, where are you?

Emma Alexander 46:05

Yeah, location records. I use that all the time for that as well because you know, you go to an estate or you go to his place and you want to park benches. It's the best way just take screen grabs of it. The other thing is actually for emergency services. It's a really good way if you ever see or come across a room for involved in it. It's a really good way for that. So I actually have it on the front page on my phone. Now the front page.

Tom Barnes 46:28

It's honestly who told you about that, by the way.

Emma Alexander 46:30

10 years ago years, Australia. Oh, really long time ago. Before

Tom Barnes 46:39

a game changer for me. It's amazing. Let me quickly run through some of the others some were selected task so I use the iCloud task Reminders app, but I use it via an app called good task. And good task basically makes it way more powerful. So that's really helpful for me. I use Apple weather because rip dark sky CAD rage. Have you heard of CAD rage? No, it's a director's viewfinder on your phone. And so you are able to emulate the lens you're using the camera you're using. Yeah, so you're able to location records. Yeah, and then just literally with your phone be like yeah, the frame here looks good. And then you know you can kind of see you know, copy zooms and you can go to 48 mil for some reason I end up shooting a lot of that 48 mil and CAD reg is really good. I've said Dominos drivers note for tracking your mileage. And that's pretty much this is not to provide value you see

Emma Alexander 47:44

what are the what do you think your top three kind of systems or software that you've invested in that you wouldn't operate without

Tom Barnes 47:50

DaVinci Resolve? Keyboard Maestro. As as easy as that as that easy that one well Hazel Hazel is amazing. But Hazel might be I don't know I don't know the tecnova of the audience but Hazel, Hales and amazing that Hazel will watch a folder and anything you drop into that folder it will then apply a set of rules. So I have that's how I use my without thinking I talked earlier about there but organising things for my accountant. Hazel plays a big part in that because he copies the copies of the PDF to that folder. And then Hazel goes right. That PDF was created on the 13th of June 2023. Well, okay, so we go into 2023 June, and then into and then and it organises everything super, super beautifully. Yeah. I couldn't couldn't live without Hazel.

Emma Alexander 48:39

Is that like, like a Zapier type thing? Like it's never gonna get to that No,

Tom Barnes 48:43

no, it's it's a Mac, it's Mac native. And it just it just you have to create rules. But always run a trial before you let it loose because I found that sometimes it can get too powerful.

Emma Alexander 48:57

Well, let me tell you obviously you have joined us joining us at Weizen people can come in and book an hour come work with your wives and why have you joined us? Tell us why you joined the the wizened fam

Tom Barnes 49:08

honestly it's mainly because of the podcast, right so well obviously, there's two reasons. Number one, me and us started doing sessions way years ago, sometime, and I found them super beneficial. So I thought wouldn't it be nice to be able to pay that back? But also because of the podcast. If anyone doesn't doesn't listen to the podcast, it's exposed negative.com It's available and all that all kinds of podcast services. We've been able to help and so many people have said how helpful it's been and how well it's been received. That actually I was just like, oh, actually, you know what, helping people is quite a nice thing. So basically, I'm long in the tooth in my game like I've been doing this 20 years. So if I can kind of pass on any advice or kind of help people in any way. It's a really nice way to do it. Whilst also still being a working photographer.

Emma Alexander 50:00

And if you could spend an hour with anybody who would you choose?

Tom Barnes 50:05

Right, I find Jordan Peele fascinating, is in the Key and Peele and I also love Barack Obama so I guess if you know Jordan Peele I could actually just see Jordan Peele and then hang out and Brock Obama as well. Now, I think I think people are super interesting. I there's, there's so many people that I would like to have dinner with. But yeah, I think also there's just a lot of kind of photographers. I think honestly, the one photographer that I would love to sit down with would be Weegee and I would I would love for anyone who doesn't know Weegee, Weegee was in the 50s He shot crime scenes before the police turned up. And he didn't know everyone everyone was a How is he getting here? So that's how he got the nickname Weegee murder is my business is one of my favourite photography books. It's a it's a it's a stark read, but he was one of the pioneers for me of on camera flash. He did this lovely series where he would go into like a movie theatre and just fire it fire the flash on the audience, and then he captured these great great scenes really, really cool. I'd love to I'd love to chat

Emma Alexander 51:18

because he used to have didn't have a radio you sort of go in tune into

Tom Barnes 51:24

the story I got told was that he lost all his money. I don't know if this is the true story, but I was telling someone the other day. The story I got told was that he lost all his money playing craps with the guys from the newsroom because he was he was a newspaper photographer. And then he lost his house and then had to move in to where he worked and he moved into the dark from where the ticker was. You remember the news used to come in on a news ticker? Yeah, so in the morning, normal people would come in, they'd pick the ticker up and then they'd go out to this crime scenes and then obviously, by that point, the police got it all closed off everything, but he would get woken up in the night by the ticker, grab the ticker and just go so that's how he was seen even before the police would turn up is that he had access to this ticker because he was sleeping in the darkroom. And I don't know if that's a true story or not, but I love that story.

Emma Alexander 52:17

Well, let me run over a little bit. And so I'm gonna ask you one question that's come through in the chat from Christopher over in Australia. I know any resources you suggest for grading log in results and finally, coming from Stilton stills, Landon catchable. One, two, the resolve workflow?

Tom Barnes 52:35

Sure. So one of the best things you'll want to do as you're starting off point and this is a really helpful tip actually, for grading any type of footage and especially if you're trying to mix cameras, is you need to look into a feature in Resolve called colour space transform. Now, colour space transform is really important because you are able to take your original colour space and gamma, convert it then to rec, 709, gamma 2.4, whatever whatever it is, your intended output is or just rec 709 rec 709. And you are then able, for example, to convert that very nicely to the rec 709 standard. Say for example, you're trying to mix canon and Sony footage, the Canon using colour space transform, obviously you see long three cinema gamut goes to rec 709 You can then on the Sony footage, do a colour space transform and you can have it going from Sony Sony Aslam three with the S Km S gamma cine or whatever they call it, and then you can have a colour space transform to then change that to Canon Log three with their cinema ghanimat and then apply the same look across the Canon footage and the Sony footage because you've coloured transformed the Sony footage to the same standard as the Canon so then whatever edit you then do on the Canon footage will look the same hopefully, because they've converted to the same colour space. So yeah, hopefully that hopefully that helps. But it's also if you really want to learn about colouring, colouring tutorials, there was a guy called Darren Moston on YouTube who is a professional TV and movie colorist. He is really really good at explaining things and and not over complicating things. He's very calm. It's very easy to watch. And he will also talk you through why the gamma gain and offset dials are really really important. For stretching out your Log footage to get the full dynamic range from it because I think a lot of people in their shooting log, just whack a lot on it and then go oh, it looks rubbish. Whereas actually you need to do a little bit more stuff to log to then stretch it out because you've got such a flat profile. You really want to stretch it out to the full dynamic range that is capable of and then work on top of that. So hopefully that helps

Emma Alexander 55:01

made you convinced now that's amazing. You blow my mind. So thank you so much for joining us today. Where can people find you? On the socials? Where can they find you online?

Tom Barnes 55:11

So my website is Tom bonds.com. And my Instagram is Tom barnes.com

Emma Alexander 55:16

DHMC om. And those negative as well of

Tom Barnes 55:19

course, right? Yeah, so expose negative, it's on all the podcast services. We've got 4445 episodes, and then we started doing videos and all sorts of those. Yeah, so a lot of

Emma Alexander 55:31

guys, thank you so much for joining us, Tom, thank you for joining and sharing so much wisdom. Guys. You can find Tom wise if you want to book an hour session with him. Once one to go through anything that we talked about today or something that we didn't touch on today. Go to wizened.com Find Tom and the experts and you can book directly there. This will go out as a replay. If anyone's got any questions you can find me and we'll try and get this answered. But thank you so much for joining us today. We've got one minutes to go before we extend the time. Thank you so much, guys. Have a lovely lovely day and I really look forward to catch up using

Tom Barnes 56:07

absolute pleasure. Thank you very much.