Tech-Enhanced Photography – Maciej Suwałowski on Modern Workflow Mastery

Maciej Suwałowski: [00:00:00] I hate emails. Like I, I have a what now? 7,362 unread email. I don't, I just look at them, I forget about them. ​ Scott Wyden Kivowitz: [00:01:00] If you don't already know who Magic is, you are in for a real treat. Here's a quick summary of this incredible person. Magic is an eighties kid and a father of four. He has been a destination wedding photographer since 2012, and a Sony Europe ambassador since 2018. You may recognize his work, voice, or face from his many speaking gigs around the world, or maybe from his YouTube channel, which has been pursuing since 2011. I'm so excited for this conversation with my friend. Magic What's up Magic?. Maciej Suwałowski: Hey, Scott, how's it going? Scott Wyden Kivowitz: It's going well. It's like we haven't done that already. Yeah. Maciej Suwałowski: And finally, two worlds collide, my online presence and Scott's online presence. Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Oh man, the, the, somehow the screen just vibrated when you did that. That's weird. Maciej Suwałowski: [00:02:00] imagine. Scott Wyden Kivowitz: so I got, I, my, my, my first question to you is how, what kind of impact or how fun is it? Or like, you, you get to play off the word magic, so Maciej Suwałowski: so cool. That that's cool, right? Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Yeah. Like, so what, how has, how has that like, impacted you just in general, being able to use that word and play off, you know, what magic is in general, in your, in your brand. Maciej Suwałowski: yeah, yeah. That's a, that's a good one, man. So like, basically it, it comes from my name, which is Maciej. I'm from Poland, Warsaw of Poland. and yeah, and long story short, I became magic because it was just simpler. It was simpler for people to remember, you know, no one remembers name magic. if, if I would tell you, hi, I'm magic. Five minutes later, you're like, what was his name? Like something, something. and then if I would try to write it down for you, it would be M-A-C-I-E-K. It would be like Maciek, so even worse.[00:03:00] so. That's how I kind of became magic because I was serving mostly clients that are English speaking. So I was not serving my local market. I was serving like European market and then American Market, and then Americans getting married in Europe. and so I, I, I started using this name magic and it just works so well, like the importance of having a brand name. That is recognizable, easy to remember, catchy. like it, it feels obvious, right? It, it feels obvious, like Right. No, yeah. Brand has to be catchy. But when you get to experience it on like a personal level, you know, going to a wedding and be like, oh, these are photographer magic, and then all the bridesmaids go like, oh my God, what a cool name. Magic. Awesome. Awesome. Or, so yeah, just works so well. And then, you know, I, since the word magic itself, it's, it's, it's a hard word to have Instagram, like just magic or, you know, Google just magic. it will find the [00:04:00] magic tricks and stuff like that. So this is like a bit harder part on this side, you know, SEO wise. And so that's why I kind of always use Magic Wedding Photographer. So three words. Magic Wedding photographer. So, hey, what's your name? Hey, I'm Magic. Oh. How do I find you online? Oh, it's magic wedding photographer.com. Oh. It's. Instagram at Magic Wedding Photographer. Oh, it's YouTube at Magic Wedding Photographer. So like three words, and then this makes my brand, I should have some stickers here for video, watchers. Then I, I have tons of, you know, kind of like a branding materials, like stickers, like wooden boxes with my magic logo. so it all kind of works really well. I, I, I love using the brand. it's like, it also kind of like my goal with the brand is to also present my personality with, with a simple thing like a logo, colors on my website, boxes that my clients get. it [00:05:00] all combines all together with like photography that is like funny, colorful, yeah. So it's a whole thing. It's a whole philosophy. Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Yep. Yeah. When, when I, when I think, I think, when I think about your photography and your brand, it, it stands out because of, of what you've built with it. You know, you, you've definitely, you, you played off the name so well. Your personality comes through in everything you do, whether it's YouTube videos or your photos and, and so on. so like, it's, it's, to me, from the outsider perspective, it's already come across as something that is recognizable, which I think is so well done. Maciej Suwałowski: yeah, yeah, yeah. That's like, that, that was the whole goal. But it's also, you know, it's been years building that name. I, I kind of rebranded to Magic Wedding Photographer in 2017. so yeah, so it's been like years of kind of building up on this and, you know, adding things to it. Like, you know, the, the, the, like the, the brand [00:06:00] materials, the boxes and so on. It all like started coming together. Like each season I was like, let's say upgrading, my personal presence, both. Within the world of my clients. So, you know, so they get a lot of stuff that is branded, you know, they recognize my name and, it just works. But then outside, like with my education, two wedding photographers, it just also works. now I've built like two different websites. One is like for photographers, one is for my brides, and they have like different color themes, kind of similar, funky, and so on, but also different, because I want, like, oh, this is for my clients. Like this is the color of like, brand color for my clients. This is the brand color for my education stuff. And so in my YouTube videos, you will see the education colors. then, yeah, so it's kind of mixed together. But yeah, it's a fun thing to do. I, I like stuff like this. It's, with my brand, my, like, my goal is al always with the, with Brent, with my. Business. The brand was always to [00:07:00] be the one who's shooting. I couldn't pull that off if, if I was building a studio, like there would be like a different approach, different thinking behind this, you know, maybe similar steps, but, you know, every, I, I find it that if you are, I dunno, building a wedding photography business or a portrait photography business or a family photography business, like, you start with the idea, okay, what do I want to do? What is down the road for me in the next couple years? because then you, you start building steps based on your kind of roadmap, right? Like, I feel like what many wedding photographers, I know I'm jumping through the subjects. Sorry. Sorry dude. But I, I wanna just finish one. this is how my brain works by the way.when I. What I wanna say, oh yeah. When we are, we are photographers, right? So when we are starting business, usually it starts from a passion to wedding photography or to photography in general. Like you start with like a passion to camera lenses, [00:08:00] taking photos, and then you try to monetize this. So you start taking someone's photos, someone ask you to shoot something, and then you end up being wedding photographer. I feel like this is a path to be a wedding photographer for like 90% of wedding photographers out there. so you don't think about business map, what is my business plan for the next five years. You don't build this as a business. so that's, that's why I think a lot of people like lost in translation. The bits about the branding, the strategy, the website, and so on. So I just want to throw this out there. Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Yeah, I, I mean, I always, I, I, I've had this conversation so many times about, photography education versus business education. Like, I had a formal training in photography, in, you know, for, for college and I. I apprenticed for photographers, through that process and even after, and I've been in the industry on the business side of things for basically since I left college. But like to me it's like if I, if I could go back, I [00:09:00] wouldn't do formal training in photography. I would do formal training in business and marketing and then learn photography by assisting in doing, and so on. So it's just very, I mean, everybody's different, you know, everybody has their, their desires and of course, do what best for you. But like, that's what I would do if I could go back again. Maciej Suwałowski: yeah, I kind of agree with you because there's this, this, this balance between, a service and art. That we always struggle with, kind of, you know, when you start with photography, this, it's, it's more of an art for like, you treat it as an art, so it's harder to sell it. It's always hard to sell stuff. Like for people who are not used to, you know, marketing strategy and Okay, how to be salesy, how to sell this, how to sell albums to my clients, which might mean that you'll end up being a miserable photographer is not making enough. but yeah, that's, that's, that's, I think that's the part of this like business that combines both art and [00:10:00] service. Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Yeah. Yeah. So Maciej Suwałowski: the way, I dunno if, if you have seen, that's for video viewers. Water bottle with my logo. Scott Wyden Kivowitz: gotta have the brand. Gotta have the brand. Embracing Technology and Creativity in Photography --- Scott Wyden Kivowitz: so, so let's, let's step back to the photography part of things for a minute. And I wanna know What is one thing you do for the photographic process that has saved you time? --- Scott Wyden Kivowitz: if you could share one thing you do for the photographic process behind the camera that saves you time in the long run? I. Maciej Suwałowski: Cool.so I, I shoot mirrorless cameras. Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Mm-Hmm Maciej Suwałowski: I think that's the biggest one, to be honest, like in the shooting process, photography process to have photo as close to finished as possible when you're shooting it. so I, I think it, it became easier when we all switched to mirrorless and who did not. There's a bright future, still a waiting thing for you. because it's [00:11:00] such a huge difference. you know, when we were shooting like 10, 12 years ago using DSLRs, and we, we would just look through the mirror, not seeing the result, and we'd end up taking photo, looking at the screen, correcting, taking another photo, looking at the screen, missing moments at the time when we are looking at the screen, and then, you know, compensating and then, you know, thinking about the spot mattering versus whatever other mattering methods there. It was just a mess, I think. so I, I think that technology came, with big help for us, letting us, see the final results while we're shooting. So for me, setting the fi like Settings, and that's including, sorry, I. And that's including, wide balance. So exposure, wide balance, everything. I want to have as close as possible to the final image while shooting. 'cause then the whole process is just gonna be way simpler. Scott Wyden Kivowitz: [00:12:00] Yeah.you are the type of person, type of photographer who likes to experiment with adapting lenses on your Sony body. Correct. Maciej Suwałowski: Correct? Scott Wyden Kivowitz: So are you regularly when you're shooting a wedding using adapted lenses, or are you typically using native Sony lenses? Mm-Hmm Maciej Suwałowski: So I, I, yeah, I kind of divide my gear. you could just like literally put the, put them on the two different shelves. they are actually on two different shelves in my little,wardrobe thing for lenses. How do you call this? I don't know. I, sometimes I lose words in English. but that, that's actually a wardrobe that I just use for lenses instead of clothes. But, so I have, I divided my lenses into fun lenses and workhorse lenses. Okay. So my kind of work lenses are, I use g master lenses, so I have 24, 35, 50. These are my main three. and they will be on [00:13:00] my cameras for like, during the most important moments, like during the moments that I know I have to be fast during the moments. I know I have to take the shot no matter what, and I have to use all the tech that there is, you know, granted to me by the engineers from Japan, meaning like the best AF system there is the, you know, the sharpest image and so on, like all that stuff. I need for the moments that I want to have captured perfectly, during the wedding day. And there, there are slower moments during the wedding day. Like each wedding is gonna be slightly, you know, different. Some weddings I shoot, they have super long getting ready time, especially when I shoot, like I shoot a lot of destination weddings in Italy. And the ceremony, usually is like five, 6:00 PM so it's like quite late in the day. So, like, leading up to that moment when I arrive around 1:00 PM let's say something like that, there's like three, four hours of me shooting prior to the actual ceremony, [00:14:00] which usually means hang out with, you know, bride and the bridesmaids when they're getting ready or, you know, the, the, the groom or like, whatever, you know, hang out with a couple their friends. So just moving around, roaming around. And usually that means way more time for experimenting. And during that times, I will play with lenses. so thanks to the nature of, of what I do on YouTube, which is like reviewing lenses, cameras and, and, and so on. I have a lot of lenses. I I, I get to try a lot of lenses and I have access to a lot of lenses. And so, so yeah, so there's no, there is no like one set, like a of of fun lenses of different lenses that I will take with me. But usually it's gonna be something like, I love tilt shift lenses. So it's gonna be either some adapted 24 tilt shift from Canon on my Sony or 45 tilt shift from Canon on my Sony, or they're like new two kind of native now lenses that are like third party ones. [00:15:00] tilt lens from Titi Artisan 51 4. Amazing lens for like, just playing around with like different planes of focus and creative images. they're like free floating lenses. There's just so much. And so many of these lenses, so much stuff that you can use. so I'll just use those slower moments to, to try to, you know, do something fun, do something else, do something different, do something, creative. And funny enough, it all like every time I then blog the wedding like this or, you know, make a gallery these fun and creative moments, they kind of go into the highlights. 'cause they're just different. They kind of, you know, pop on the, in, in the gallery from like a really interesting, Boca or really interesting flair in the background. Something like this always happen with these weird lenses, which never happens with like a regular lenses because they're just too perfect. Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Yeah. They're designed not to do that. Maciej Suwałowski: Exactly. They're, they're men. They're built to not to do any of [00:16:00] that. But, but I need that too because I, mm-Hmm, this is what I need for. All the main stuff. And to be honest, you know, when you have a perfect photo, it's, it's, you, you can, you can mess it up in later on in the edit, you know, or you can, you can put a mist filter on it. you, you can even add,you know, flare, you can add flare, you can add grain. You can, you can do so much stuff to ruin the photo, let's say, in terms of like the perfect, perfect sharpness and everything. And you, you cannot do the opposite way. So if you mess something up because you're using your creative lens for the important moment, there is no way back. so that's kind of why I have this division. I always shoot with two cameras, so it's easier. Sometimes I might just use one camera with like a proper G master lens and the second one with a fun lens. But yeah, it's. It's playing around, on the wedding day. And so that's gonna be probably getting ready and, and portraits and then later in the day too, [00:17:00] reception is also can be slower. so yeah. Scott Wyden Kivowitz: is one of the tilt shifts your current favorite adapted lens, or is, or is there something else that you're playing with that is currently at your favorite, Maciej Suwałowski: with, yeah. Yeah, with, with tilts, I'm going back and forth like this year, I think like every wedding was something else, and I ended up using my good alt 24 mil tilt shift lens the most because, it's just the, was the, the most interesting to me and I'm just so used to it to that wide angle tilt look, Yeah, so I would say probably that, I have not, I, I've tried anamorphic lenses as well, recently for a couple of my, like, let's say U YouTube shoots. so I really love the results, but I have not yet translated it into a wedding work, so it works. Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Yeah, I feel like that would be, I feel like, like the, the mirrorless bodies would need an, anamorphic correction in camera to Maciej Suwałowski: sadly Scott Wyden Kivowitz: [00:18:00] really be able to Maciej Suwałowski: Yes, you can, you like, you don't see the kind of final image, but the, but so it's kind of like a guessing work because like when, when we're talking anamorphic lenses, we're talking lenses that what, that are squeezing the image, in your, like inside the lenses that are built to squeeze the image. So you have to unsqueeze the image in post production. Making it a lot wider and having this kind of panoramic aspect ratio to it, which is like something like 20 something to nine something. It's, it's a very panoramic, panoramic and it's amazing. It's an amazing look. but yeah, it's slightly more difficult to shoot because you, you see everything que in your review finder on or on screen. So, and then you have to focus manually. So you have to rely on focus speaking and, you know, stuff like this, which is also not easy. But then the results are just so good. And then on top of that, my best part, the best part. [00:19:00] My favorite part is the anamorphic flare. So if you watch stuff like Star Wars by JJ Abrams, you see these strips of light, like these blue, blue streaks of light like coming, horizontally across the frame. So these are just like natural panoramic, natural, natural anamorphic, flares. And they just look so fire, man, Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Yeah. Have, have you tried any of those? those, there's now, like I know moment is making, and I think a few others filters that just do the flare from an Maciej Suwałowski: I've seen it. I like, I, I want, like, I have a problem with moment because I'm in Europe. They like the shipping to Europe costs, costs like three times what the product costs. So it's just like, I never, I, but I'm, I've been following these and I, I, I wanna try one of, one of the, these things too. yeah. Scott Wyden Kivowitz: it to 'em. Maciej Suwałowski: Yeah, moment. I think I reached out to moment on Instagram once and they just, you know, went silent on me. So one minute of silence for magic. No, joking [00:20:00] aside, I like, I kind of feel like there is a space for. The flare, the um,how do you, the filters that would just ruin the image. 'cause now, because all the lenses are so perfect, you're, you're putting the, the, the filters that are doing the mist things, so, you know, blooming the highlights and so on. And, I saw like, I dunno if you know, Pierre Bert, the YouTuber photographer, French photographer living in us, so he had this series of, like, he accidentally dropping a filter that has a crack in it now, and he puts it on a, on a lens and it creates amazing flair. So, so I, I think someone could just make Scott Wyden Kivowitz: That's a good idea. Maciej Suwałowski: different ones. So maybe someone is making them and, I'm not aware. But yeah, there's, there's a space for that for sure. For like ruining the images now. They're just too perfect. Scott Wyden Kivowitz: yeah, yeah. Imperfection Maciej Suwałowski: do you use? Do you use, wait, what do you shoot with? Scott Wyden Kivowitz: So I, I shoot Nikon, Nikon's in [00:21:00] my blood, and I've tried all the other cameras and I, I keep, I keep coming back to Nikon, so I'm, I'm, I'm a Nikon guy for life at this point. but I do have, I do have some others that I like to play with and stuff, but mostly Nikon's Maciej Suwałowski: Are you, are you adapting anything to it? Scott Wyden Kivowitz: not right now. I mean, there was a time when I was adapting the, the FM mount lenses, but now I'm purely Z mounts. but I, I would, I would love to do some TT artisan lenses and stuff like that at some point, just not Maciej Suwałowski: yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They're great. I was playing like, a couple months ago, some herd was in Poland. we were doing like a little workshop here and, and a shoot. and he had the new NIK icon. ZFC, is it? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And we adapted my zf. Oh, sorry. ZFC is the crop one. Yeah. Yeah. So the zf and, he had the, like this adapter for like a lenses. Modernized one. I have one for Sony as well, and I've, I have as, like a lens Simulx 50 millimeters, F1 0.4, which is the best lens in terms of [00:22:00] flare that there is, in my opinion. and we mounted this on his, Nikon, and it was amazing, like the way it was focusing, tracking the subject, it was just so fast I could, like, it was better than through an adapter on Sony. I think that these adapters, particularly these ones, the tech card adapters just worked better on the icon one, but I was amazed. so yeah, there's a, there's a potential, there's a chance for you. You just need to spend like, what, $5,000? Like, like a lens? Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Yeah. No, that's it That's all I, that's that's, Maciej Suwałowski: That's all. Yeah. Like, Scott Wyden Kivowitz: yeah. Easy. Yeah. Right. so, so let's move into, to business for a little bit. what now is one thing you do and we're gonna get to Imagen eventually? So. Let's skip Imagen for the time being. What is one thing you do for your business that has saved you time or money? --- Scott Wyden Kivowitz: what is one thing you do for the business that saves you either time, money, or both? Maciej Suwałowski: yeah, so funny, like, interestingly enough, maybe not, funny enough, I did, [00:23:00] started my YouTube channel in during the pandemic, but it was like a second year of pandemic. So 2021. I wish I had started in 2020. This was like a really good year to grow a channel because everyone was at home, but I was kind of, I dunno, trying to survive. and then in the January 21, I started my, my channel and, because I had nothing else to do, obviously. and then weddings came back, but I decided to, I, so I, I used to shoot like around 20, 25 weddings and all per year and. Almost every wedding would be travel, traveling somewhere. so not local weddings in Poland, but traveling to Europe, traveling, traveling, you know, around the world, various places basically. and during the pandemic also, I had like my fourth child just before pandemic in 18. so, so during the pandemic while spending just this time at [00:24:00] home and with my kids when like, it kind of started coming back, it was like I was just too tired to travel all the time, like, like this. And since I started my YouTube, channel, it felt like a good side hustle that I can just do along the wedding photography. So I kind of divided myself into YouTube magic and magic Wedding photographer. Okay. So doing two things at once. and I. After shooting weddings for so many years, I feel like everything wedding related and wedding business related just beca became so effortless to me in terms of like the whole workflow. so before that, I was just like constantly polishing my workflow, workflow thinking, okay, how can I make things faster for me? Okay, I need a faster cable between my computer and my NA station. So the, when I do the archive, it's faster. Okay. Oh, I need a faster SSD drive, but I need to make sure that the [00:25:00] card reader is as fast as I can. And then my memory cards are having the fastest readout speed so I can quickly dump the file and so on. So I was like polishing my workflow. So when. The time came back with weddings and I was doing YouTube and weddings and I was doing like YouTube every week. And then I was doing, weddings during the season every week. I felt like weddings, it's just so simple. I just, you know, I just need to make sure that I have my batteries charged, and, and my memory cards, you know, empty and that's it. And then I would show up at the wedding. I would shoot the wedding, I would dump the files the next day and, you know, call the wedding, like really quickly, edit, get it edited, bam. Done, and then I could focus on YouTube. so I dunno if I have any cool stuff for you. I was so, you know, I have Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Well, I mean, I think. Maciej Suwałowski: culling that is like fast. I'm really fast in terms of 1 0, 1 0. This one goes, this one doesn't go. [00:26:00] so yeah. Scott Wyden Kivowitz: well, I think, I think, there's two things in there that, one is diversifying your, your revenue portfolio, like how you're, how you're making money in your business, diversifying that, and you've got YouTube to, to, you know, create, to, to make money. You've got your education to make money, like for, from workshops and things like that. You've got the wedding photography.but at the same time, specific to the wedding photography, it's you're getting your, your, your, your workflow so streamlined that, it takes no, no, you know, enormous amount of effort in order to do the, all the processes you need to, which in turn saves you time in the long run, Maciej Suwałowski: yeah, yeah. Like, maybe one, one thing that could be a good, tip for our listeners, this is something new. So I, I just set it up like a couple weeks ago. so I, I redid my website and my new website has this automation so that, that when someone fills out [00:27:00] the contact form. It gets this like, not, not yet the pricing brochure, but it gets like the first part of the email marketing. I use the Flodesk for like email marketing, so they're like connected. So my contact form is connected through Zapier, to add. A person to the segment of like new inquiry, it sends the email like, Hey, thanks, I did get your inquiry. This is my basic information. This is the galleries you can watch. I'll review the inquiry and come back to you within 24 hours. And it's nicely branded and just looks amazing, like the email itself.and it just helps so much. I dunno. How many of you struggle with email? I, I told that to you. Scott. I hate emails. Like I, I have a what now? 7,362 unread email. I don't, I just look at them, I forget about them. And sometimes I have to be honest, I forget about inquiries that I get Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Oh It happened few times [00:28:00] because the, the parcel, like for me, automations like this, like really help. j just to, just to plug another episode, you mentioned that you used Flow Desk one or two episodes prior to yours. Natalie Frank, the Head of Community at Flow Desks was, was our guest. So anybody listening, if you're interested in hearing from Natalie from Flow Desks, check out that episode. so had to do that plug. Maciej Suwałowski: connect me with her. I have to do the networking with the people at Flood to to be better. Email. Email her. I, yeah. Yeah. I, I love Lowdes. I love Lowdes. It's so good. It's so good. Unlocking Efficiency in Photography: Editing Workflows and Hardware Insights --- Maciej Suwałowski: I was setting up things today earlier for like my educational stuff. It's just so amazing. It's just so good, man. Scott Wyden Kivowitz: yeah, yeah. It's come a long way and it's, there's still so much, you know, potential for, for them to go. So, Maciej Suwałowski: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Scott Wyden Kivowitz: so you briefly, I, I think I cut you off when you were moving into culling and Editing. So I'm gonna ask you now again, let's not talk about, Imagen right now. Let's talk about, maybe even things that you were [00:29:00] doing prior to Imagen, but What is one thing you do for editing that has saved you time or money? --- Scott Wyden Kivowitz: what is one thing that you do for Editing that has saved you time? Mm-Hmm. Maciej Suwałowski: Yeah. Yeah. So I, I had like, that's, that's been always for me, like a very simple, Editing workflow. So first of all, my, my, my first step would be call images. Okay. So, and I put them in two different folders. So I call outside of Lightroom, there's like a big debate out there, or like people, should we do Lightroom culling or should we do like photo mechanic or like other software or like bridge or like, whatever there is, out there. and yeah, for me it's, I prefer to do it outside of Lightroom because my goal is to import Lightroom. Things that will be my final images to like most, most of them will be my final images's. Okay. So, and then, big thing, maybe I should have started with that. I am one Lightroom guy. Okay. One Lightroom catalog guy. [00:30:00] That's the full sentence. I'm a one Lightroom catalog guy for entire of my stuff. Like everything.I keep my Lightroom catalog on my MacBook Pro 14 inch and one max Apple. Please send me the new ones for free because this is really expensive, but really amazing stuff. No, I'm joking, but yeah. M1 max amazing. top spec and I have my livestream catalog on the drive. I hate doing external drives because of so much traveling things. Dangling off of my laptop is just the worst nightmare for me, like when I have to put something, eject something. So I prefer to have everything on the SSD that is on my laptop. so I have all the working files, the main catalog. Okay. Then I come back home to my office and I plug my, my MacBook to my call digit TS four docking station. And that fires up like a 32 inch display speakers, 10 [00:31:00] gigabit connection to my. NASA archive, system. one more drive that is here, ethernet connection. So everything just like connects like this. And then I have access to my archive that is like 40 terabytes of data that like automatically backups whatever is in my laptop, and I do all the copies and blah, blah, blah. Okay. but the general idea is one livestream catalog for the reason that every time I need something, I just open my laptop. The livestream catalog is always open on my computer. Yeah. You never, you never turn off Mac computers. Right? That's the rule. so whatever you have open, it's always open. So for me, LightStream is like almost always open and I have access to everything. that's very convenient because like I have access to all the. Weddings that I'm working on right now. Maybe one wedding, maybe one session. I have access to my education file. So I'm doing reviews, so I'm like, keep comparing [00:32:00] lenses, keep comparing cameras. So I, I need like constant access to the reference lenses. For example, I, oh, I need to find this image that I've shot with, I dunno, 35 1 0.8 Sony. And I just do all my files and there's like couple hundred thousands of them and we like metadata filter, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay. So that's like, that's a big part of my workflow, having just one catalog. People say it slows computer down. I dunno, I dunno Scott Wyden Kivowitz: depends on the Settings of Lightroom, of course, but Maciej Suwałowski: it's, it's been working for me for years. No problem at all. Scott Wyden Kivowitz: funny, I've, I've asked that question to a lot of people at this, at this point in, throughout this podcast, and, you're the first person I believe bring up hardware as one of the answers. And I think that's an interesting, I mean, to me it Maciej Suwałowski: I'm a hardware guy. Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Yeah. I mean, so am I, we're very similar in so many ways. I, you know, it, it makes sense that having, a good [00:33:00] hardware setup, for, to make you more, it makes you more productive, right. I just asked internally in, in the Imagen Slack for all you know, employees. I asked, I did a poll the other day. It was last week, I think. and I said, what, how many screens do you need to make yourself productive? 1, 2, 3, or four or more? Now I was expecting all the product team to be like four or more, but, the most popular was two. I think that's so interesting. 'cause I, I can't be productive. I mean, I can be productive if I have to on just a laptop screen and that's it. But I'm more productive when I have two things side by side and I can just glance. so I just, hardware it makes a difference. It really does. Maciej Suwałowski: it, it does a hundred percent. Because, like, it if, for me, I, I've, I've used to have, have this travel workshop when I would do one presentation on workflow. And for me, workflow always start, starts with the question to you. Okay. Oh, what does make you productive? Do you prefer [00:34:00] working at night? Do you prefer working in the morning? Oh, do you have any other things that you have to work on? Do you have kids that go to school? Like there's so many things that. You know, that are important. That makes sense when you're setting up your workflow, because for some it's gonna be, oh, I don't need my, my memory cards to be fast because I just put them in my computer. I go to sleep and they're downloading. Okay, maybe some of us don't have this, let's say luxury of l leaving computer on the table for night because they have four kids that we're gonna run around and we'll just like, accidentally drop your comp. There's just so many things that like are very individual and I think that hardware, hardware part plays a big part in this. Like in just setting up, your workflow while you mention the screens. Funny enough, I've al like, I've been always one screen guy. So I have 32 inch display right here on my left. but I've been playing around. I have another 1 32 inch. I've played around with two of them. It was just too much for me. [00:35:00] I couldn't handle 2 32 inch screens. Even though I'm constantly switching tabs, I'm constantly putting two things on the screen next to each other. When I had two of them, it was just like the real estate was just like too much. And recently, like, literally like week ago, I set up my laptop. So I'm looking at you right now, Scott, like via, via screen that is on my laptop. And on the left I have my, 40 32 inch. So I have like now 32 inch and a 14 inch laptop. And that's kind of easier now to me to manage two screens like that. So I've been rocking this kind of setup for a week. So that's how I would answer your screen question. But back to the, workflow with the files. So. That, like, that one Lightroom catalog is the reason I prefer to have called images elsewhere. 'cause I don't wanna dump six, seven, 8,000 files from like entire wedding into my Lightroom catalog. Call them there and then delete and maybe accidentally delete something. [00:36:00] I don't wanna, you know, play with that idea. So I have just two folders. One is rejected files and one is picked files, and then I just import the one with the files that are picked. I keep both folders for maybe a year or even two. So until I feel like my me, like my NAS archive is running low and I need to invest in a lot of data, I might go through rejects from like the past years and delete the reject. But, I'm, I'm keeping most of my rejects like from the last season. I have all of my rejects at this point, which is a lot. It's like, you know. Sometimes 200 gig, 300 gigs from a wedding. I shoot like a seven R five, huge files. and yeah, so it's a, it's, it's a part of my kind of, I want to keep all my files. I don't delete the files until I really have to. And I, until I'm really sure I delivered everything like years ago, I also had this kind of pro probably, I dunno, each of us that ha have been shooting for so many times probably had similar situation, like bright, [00:37:00] reaching out a year late and there being like, oh, someone from my family like passed away. Maybe you have more images's from that person. So I literally had this question like a month or two months after the wedding, after I delivered the wedding and I still had the reject so I could go over all the rejects and being like, oh, I found like three more. Maybe not perfect. but you know, it was just some minor person. It was not like a. Someone who is like VIP that I would have like hundred photos of. 'cause it was someone from like the background. but still I could go through the rejects. so that kind of was probably the reason why I started doing, doing things like I do. but yeah, so import the catalog. I imported with the preset, so my preset import, and that's it. And then I go one by one. So I used to do the Editing myself. Then I used to outsource Editing to a person. And now you know what I do? Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Yeah. Which, which we're gonna get to very soon. We're gonna get to that [00:38:00] very soon. Maciej Suwałowski: We were like, kind of like, get, we were getting there, Scott Wyden Kivowitz: we're getting there. Maciej Suwałowski: building the momentum. Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Yeah.this is my favorite part of the show. I started doing this in season two, and it becomes a really fun thing. pick a color. Maciej Suwałowski: Oh, interview deck orange, please. Orange oop. I just hit the microphone. Okay. We're gonna do a magic trick. No, I'm just kidding. Nice. Scott Wyden Kivowitz: I'm gonna thumb through it. Just tell me when to stop. Maciej Suwałowski: Okay. Stop. Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Okay. Your next question is, Ooh, oddly, we talked about school. So what was the most memorable class you've ever taken in school or college? Maciej Suwałowski: Damn. Okay. Scott Wyden Kivowitz: That's a, Maciej Suwałowski: Memorable class. Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Mm-Hmm. My, my, my answer would be really funny and totally American.[00:39:00] Maciej Suwałowski: Can, can I hear your answer first? Scott Wyden Kivowitz: So, so when I was in college, I had one more like health, class that I had to take for like an, for like a couple more credits. And, the college I had, I was not near a beach or anything like that, but they offered canoeing as a class and so I took it. So the most memorable was learning how to canoe, and do emergency things like, okay, what ha if the, if the canoe capsizes, how do you get back on it and flip it, you know, all yourself. So I had to do all that. how do you drag a canoe when it's filled with water? All that kind of stuff. you, we started in the, the Olympic sized swimming pool that was on campus, and then when the weather got warmer out, we went out to this, this manmade lake pond thing and did it out there. so that was the most memorable because it was totally useless education wise. Just fun. Maciej Suwałowski: Yeah. Scott Wyden Kivowitz: so Yeah. Maciej Suwałowski: I, yeah, I, I, I [00:40:00] think European system is more useless. I remember a lesson that we were, I remember a lesson it was called, what was the name of the class?the knowledge of society. Maybe I, I'm not even sure what was the class, but I remember we went outdoors to, to like a soccer field, football field we call it. and we were supposed to throw rocks, guy, like our teacher, like drew a line and be like, oh, you have to throw Dar, and it's like, really close, like maybe just, you know, a couple meters, couple of feet. And, and then he told us it was to, to teach us how to throw a grenade. Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Oh Maciej Suwałowski: It was just, it was just so like, what, like, doesn't make any, any sense, like how, like, does throwing a rock, translates to throwing a grenade? we, yeah, so that was a weird one, but yeah. For like, yeah. So when you said that for some reason I haven't [00:41:00] thought about that experience for like 20 years, and it just like. Pop, in my pop in my head. but yeah, I was Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Workflows Photography podcast. You might be talking about weird stuff like that. Maciej Suwałowski: weird stuff like that. But yeah, I was a math guy. I was like a math and English, lessons guy. Although like my, I remember my English teacher, like she hated me and my colleague who was sitting next to me. 'cause like we, we, we were keep like, joking and stuff. my friend would keep drawing, like not censored things in his like, you know, book. Funny enough, now he is a prof. Like he does this for money. Like he draws not very nice things for like a major news stream, news stations, like a satire, comic art kind of thing. So like, he kind of became this, which is interesting because we were both drawing this and now he gets to do it for money. That's just Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Yeah, but you get, you get to have fun for money too, though. So that's, Maciej Suwałowski: Right. [00:42:00] I, I drew my, drawings on my website, so maybe I'm also making money out, out of it. Scott Wyden Kivowitz: yeah. Yeah. Your website definitely stands out. So, we'll, and we're gonna get to, even though you've mentioned where everybody can already listen, you know, listen to you, learn more about you and, and all that stuff, we're gonna, we're gonna, you'll have an opportunity to say it again, in a, in a minute or so. so my last question before we dive into that is, How did Imagen impact your life? --- Scott Wyden Kivowitz: how did Imagen impact your life? Maciej Suwałowski: it, it's very simply, it just saved even more time, because like so prior to Imagen I was, for a year, for one season, I was outsourcing my edits. So I would call my images's and the bunch of images that I had selected, I would send over via livestream catalog to my colleague who would edit them. It would take couple days, it came back, and I would go one after one after one image, like slightly correcting, and [00:43:00] making my finals. So now like the process and, and, and I would pay, like let's say X amount. I, I don't wanna like throw her under the bus or, or something with like the, how much I paid, because I dunno who's listening to this. Maybe, maybe I like a special price or something. so let's say it costed X for 1000, images. Scott Wyden Kivowitz: mm-Hmm. Maciej Suwałowski: And now the process is exactly the same, but the difference is that when I send the photos to Imagen, five minutes later they're back. And then I go one by one by one by one, and do exactly the same process and pay one, like one third of X Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Right, right. Maciej Suwałowski: And my images can be delivered the same day that I called them, which is usually the, the case. so that's a huge, that's just like, you know, releasing so much of time because like, because nowadays I'm just so much into ma making other things like scripting, writing a lot of things. So I, my, my [00:44:00] time is divided into many things. What is one thing you do after a session that has increased business? --- Maciej Suwałowski: I usually, when I want to edit photos and have it delivered, like keeping that thing, you know, as a one process. It's just so much better that I don't have to, especially that I'm doing this last minute, very last minute. I'm thinking I need to deliver. So I try to deliver between four to six weeks, and that means that, so first I'm gonna do the sneak peeks on the day one. So right after the wedding I deliver whole bunch of sneak sneak peeks. So my sneak peeks are like 50 images. so it kind of fulfills my couple needs until the full gallery is ready. they, they have things to share with their family. So in my sneak peeks I do, it's like a storytelling sneak peek. There's like, there's a scene setting, there's getting readies, there's couple group shots, couple portraits. So there's like a couple photos from each section of the wedding day. So this kind of fulfills the purpose of my couple being like super happy right [00:45:00] away. And then I delivered a rest within like. Four to six weeks. So usually in week five I'll be like, okay, that's the day I'm doing this today. and then having to wait another couple days after that was like always like a little bit, little bit struggle for me. So it just like, it just zipped that process into one quick process, which is nice. I like this. Scott Wyden Kivowitz: It's nice that, to, to like loop it back around to, you know, when we, the, the beginning of the conversation, you know, you, you. You during the pandemic, diversified your revenue portfolio by starting the YouTube channel. you know, you're, you're doing workshops, you're doing all these things. And now by using Imagen in your Life, you in theory have even more time to work on those revenue opportunities by still taking, taking on the same amount of weddings. So where some people might be like, you know, I'm gonna ramp up how many weddings I can do. 'cause now I have more time and it's faster for me to turn [00:46:00] around things. You know, you're, Maciej Suwałowski: For me it opens the Scott Wyden Kivowitz: level of weddings, but Maciej Suwałowski: to doing Scott Wyden Kivowitz: a lot of time Maciej Suwałowski: all the other stuff. Yeah. Yeah. I, Scott Wyden Kivowitz: that. That's beautiful. The Power of Social Media: Navigating Platforms for Photographers --- Maciej Suwałowski: so, so now I have a question. When Will Imagen make a tool to edit my web, my YouTube videos? This is my, Scott Wyden Kivowitz: It comes up a lot. It comes up a lot. Yeah. Yeah. It comes, it comes up quite often. It came up a lot at Imaging USA as well, which by the time this episode airs Imaging, USA is long past, but, but, it came up a lot in person, comes up a lot in the community and so on. But, okay. Now you've already mentioned this earlier. Let's, I'm gonna ask it again. Where can all listeners learn more about you? Connect with you and of course, see your incredible photography and also your YouTube videos. Maciej Suwałowski: Yeah, three words. This is what you need to remember. Magic Wedding Photographer. So magic wedding photographer.com is my website. Education dot magic wedding photographer.com is my education website. And then there's YouTube Magic Wedding Photographer, Instagram [00:47:00] Magic Wedding Photographer, TikTok, which I do in Polish. Actually, that's, that's, my thing that I started beginning of this year. And I started this because I wanted to reach local audience and I found, this might be a tip for those of you who have not been using TikTok that is just so well, you know, connected with the geographic placement where you are. So when I was trying to do like, whatever I'm doing on Instagram, which I do for like. Kind of worldwide audience. So I have people from all over places watching my, my Instagram stories, my Instagram, reels. When I would try to repost this stuff on like the TikTok, which had like zero followers yet, 'cause I just started this, it would just not fly at all because like TikTok would try to show it to, to local people because they would see, oh, you're in Poland, we're gonna switch. So show it to your local people. Zero engagement. And then I would, then what I started doing was I started watching [00:48:00] local tiktoks. So I started seeing like what people around me are doing and would just do kind of similar, but with my spin on it, but in Polish and it started picking up sim so simply, so simple. So yeah. Scott Wyden Kivowitz: What Maciej Suwałowski: that's actually interesting question. So, so there are like, people may maybe struggle to do something on TikTok. Maybe try changing your audience like, like idea for your audience because also, I dunno, like many wedding photographers, have followers of wedding photographers on Instagram. Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Oh yeah. Maciej Suwałowski: Like Instagram became this platform for wedding photographers basically. so that's also a huge thing that I discovered, you know, last couple years probably, that there's just so many wedding photographers that I, I'm still am trying to keep my Instagram as a place more for the bride. So my feed will be mostly weddings and wedding photos, and I do book weddings through [00:49:00] Instagram and couples do connect me through Instagram, but then whenever I post a story or reel in the comments, it's always only photographers. so, so with reels and stories, I started more. Targeting my education side, it's always a problem with, like, in our kind of business, when you're like both ser you service your clients are, couples and your clients are wedding photographers, like how to divide it. So my YouTube is a hundred percent photographers. My Instagram would be 50 50. It used to be mostly couples. Now it's mostly photographers. So I'm trying to kind of please both. But with Instagram reels and stories, I'm targeting photographers with my feed. I'm trying to keep it like as a gallery for my clients that will just, if they find me, they'll, they're gonna search me for Instagram 100%. So I want them to see wedding photos on my feed.and then with TikTok, it's 100% for my brides and there's no gear talking, there's no [00:50:00] showing lenses and cameras. There's just like fun wedding Scott Wyden Kivowitz: Yeah. In interesting the, as we to, to wrap it up, that that takeaway is like, that's an, a very valuable tip to, basically, recognize and address the fact that not all social platforms are the same. You Maciej Suwałowski: Oh, a hundred Scott Wyden Kivowitz: what, will, what works well on Instagram may not work well on TikTok. Some of them might. But they may not. And at the same time, I've als for years, I've always been in the same boat as you, where I've got two audiences, my, either my education or, or my photography clients. And when it's been brought up, like, why do you, why do you not have a separate Instagram account right, for each? And I'm like, well, you know, in a way it's really nice for your clients to see that you're teaching as well because it shows that you are, you have that, that knowledge and that, that experience. Maciej Suwałowski: So it adds more value to you as the photographer. So I do what you do. It's, my feed is basically photography. My stories and [00:51:00] reels are majority for photographers. So, so I, I think it's a, it's a definitely a great approach. so, do you and TikTok, do you do TikTok before you thank Scott Wyden Kivowitz: I do, I'm not taking advantage of it like you do. I mean, I basically, whatever I put on Instagram's going on TikTok, I don't put much effort into it, but Yeah, Maciej Suwałowski: yeah. Try, try doing something else. I wonder how it would, would serve you. I'm, I'm not big on TikTok by any means. I maybe gather over like two weeks of posting like couple hundred followers, couple thousand likes. So that's nice. And I had a couple inquirers, like on for my local weddings, which I think might have, come through TikTok. So, and, but one last interesting fact when I look in my audience demographics, YouTube, 90% male audience between like 30 and 50. All the geeks, obviously I'm doing lens reviews, gear reviews, pixel peeping, like who else will watch that? [00:52:00] Other than the, all the dudes like we are like thinking about like pixels and stuff and lenses. Then my Instagram is like 50 50 male and female, between 25 and 40. So it's kind of both. And my TikTok is 100% females between 19 and 35, which is the audience Scott Wyden Kivowitz: ideal. Yeah. That's the ideal audience Maciej Suwałowski: and a hundred percent Polish local, Scott Wyden Kivowitz: That is so interesting. Maciej Suwałowski: just mixed everything. So that's, I wanna leave with that. Scott Wyden Kivowitz: That's Maciej Suwałowski: Look up your audience and think about creating for that specific audience and demographics. Scott Wyden Kivowitz: A hundred percent. Nice. Fantastic. way to wrap this up. Well, thank you so much for, for chatting with me and sharing all of your insights and, all that fun stuff. I'm so glad we were able to do this. Maciej Suwałowski: The pleasure is mine. Thank you so much for inviting me. ​[00:53:00]