The MOOD Podcast
In The MOOD Podcast, Matt Jacob, renowned cultural portrait photographer, dives deep into the world of photography and the visual arts, with guests from all around the creative industry, across all parts of the globe, sharing inspiring stories and experiences that will leave you wanting more. With years of experience and a passion for storytelling, Matt has become a master of capturing lesser-told human stories through his photography, and teams up with other special artists from around the world to showcase insights, experiences and opinions within the diverse and sometimes controversial photography world.
You can watch these podcasts on his Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@mattyj_ay.
You can also follow Matt's work on his Instagram @mattyj_ay and his website: https://mattjacobphotography.com.
The MOOD Podcast
Capturing the Past: How Photography Tells Stories We Can't Forget with Glyn Dewis, E065
What if photography could tell the untold stories of our past?
Glyn Dewis is a distinguished photographer and educator renowned for his compelling portrait work, particularly his viral World War II veterans project. In this episode, he shares his journey from retouching to becoming a prominent photographer, exploring how he blends storytelling with technical mastery.
Glyn's insights provide a fresh perspective on overcoming challenges in the photography industry, showing the importance of authenticity in an age of social media and how creativity should always take precedence over technicality.
What you will discover:
- Transitioning from retouching to photography
- How to create impactful stories through portraits
- Learning to use editing tools easily
- The importance of genuine connections
- How to embrace authenticity over viral fame
Find Glyn’s work here:
Website: https://glyndewis.com/
Instagram: @glyndewis
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If there's one thing you can guarantee in life, it's change. If you do something for the right reasons, good things will happen.
Matt Jacob:How do you balance the monetization of your education and the free?
Glyn Dewis:side. I've made some good money on YouTube. I really have, and it's nice to have that residual income there. But you can't rely on it. I certainly never would want to put all my eggs into one basket when somebody else owns that basket. When I do create content and it is a tutorial, I somebody else owns that basket. When I do create content and it is a tutorial. I've lost count the amount of times people have said I've brought that because you share so much.
Matt Jacob:Give us two or three tips on kind of YouTube growth.
Glyn Dewis:Don't stick to the same day every week.
Matt Jacob:Do you spend a lot of your time?
Glyn Dewis:in the online world. I have fallen into that feeling sometimes of, oh God, I need to post something. I need to post something Even when there's nothing to post.
Matt Jacob:just enjoy the silence and this will be a controversial comment, I know it will be. Welcome to the Mood Podcast where each week, we bring you inspiring conversations with top artists from around the world and creative minds from various fields, exploring their personalities, purposes, processes and philosophies. Whether you are a seasoned photographer, an aspiring artist or simply someone who really just loves to learn and be inspired, this podcast is certainly for you. I'm your host, matt Jacob, and thank you so much for joining me in today's conversation. Your host, matt Jacob, and thank you so much for joining me in today's conversation. And our guest today is Glyn Dewis, an acclaimed photographer, educator and best-selling author known for his expertise in photography and Photoshop techniques. Glyn has worked with clients like the BBC and Sky TV and has been featured in the New York Times for his signature invisible black background technique as a Photoshop World Dream team instructor, benq ambassador and Adobe Max master. Glyn has a wealth of knowledge to share, both in front of the camera and behind the editing screen, and in today's conversation we really dive into Glyn's career, exploring his approach to dramatic portraiture and his style, his philosophy on storytelling and how he balances photography with post-production. Glyn also shares insights into his passion projects, including his powerful 39 to 45 World War II veterans portrait project and the challenges of translating visual techniques into his best-selling books and huge YouTube channel. For anyone passionate about photography, education and especially editing and post-production techniques, this one is certainly for you. So now I bring you Glyn Dewis.
Matt Jacob:Glyn Dewis, welcome to the Moo Podcast. Great to have you. He's laughing because we were practicing pronouncing his last name. Where's that name from? Is it Welsh or is it it is.
Glyn Dewis:It originates from Wales and I was never born there. It was my parents, my grandparents and my dad's side that were from there. So if you're, if ever you're, in Wales, it's Glindawy, glindawy.
Matt Jacob:Oh, I should have. I should have. Let's restart. The way I wanted to start with you is a very broad question and, um, you know I don't want to kind of get bogged down too much in it, but the question that I wanted to just put up front for you was what do you do? But, more importantly, why do you do it?
Glyn Dewis:What do I do, god blimey? If you'd have asked me this a few years ago, I'd have said mainly retouching. But then it kind of moved on to the photography side of things the portraits and now it's moved on even more and it just seems that I seem to have my thumb in lots of pies. So I do photography, I do retouching, I do teaching, I write, I create content. And why do I do it? It sounds corny generally, but anybody who knows me would vouch for this. I do it because I absolutely love doing it. I get I'm probably more excited now about what I do than when I was when I started out. I just absolutely love doing it, and I get very restless when I'm not doing it. Yeah, that's me.
Matt Jacob:That's infectious and inspirational. What do you enjoy the most If you were to pick one of those? What is your go-to Get up in the morning? And you can do? Do you enjoy the most If you were to pick one of those? What is your go-to Get up in the morning? And you've got it. You can do anything you want, what's your go-to?
Glyn Dewis:I love I'm really enjoying just getting out. I mean, I'm in a very fortunate position whereby I can kind of I don't take on clients as such. I'm very picky. If I do, it's very, very picky as to who it is so what I love to do is to kind of get up and plan and say, right, I'm going to go over there today and we're going to do this, that and the other, record it, create some content and see what I can come up with. So that's one thing I love. I can't just say there's one thing I love, because I do generally love it all, but there's different things.
Glyn Dewis:If I was going to take a portrait, it is just the best feeling when you get what you want from that portrait. And then when you give that person that portrait, I mean that I kind of had the most incredible feeling so many times doing when I was doing the Veterans Project, which I'm sure at some point we'll talk about. When you give somebody a portrait and they're genuinely like, oh wow, that's me. There's no better feeling as a photographer, so I love that and they're genuinely like, oh wow, that's me. There's no better feeling as a photographer, so I love that, but I love also educating, when you can take somebody who didn't know something to show them in a way that you explain it and they get it. That light bulb moment goes on and then they can go on and repeat it. There's nothing like it. That's nothing. There's nothing like it. It's brilliant, it's absolutely brilliant. It is Like you said earlier it's infectious. It really is what started then.
Matt Jacob:You talked about almost your post-processing. You know, teaching techniques came before really diving deeper into photography, or was it?
Glyn Dewis:Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, I started out. I was. I was a researcher. That's what I did. I worked all the time in photoshop and that all happened very, very quickly for me, um, from when I was first introduced to it and I know it was never on the horizon in my you know I was never kind of thinking, oh, I want to do that. I think I've always been a creative person in some way, like I did um non-residential drama school as a child. So I've always liked being in the creative kind of zone, if you like, creative world.
Glyn Dewis:But I was retouching and I got kind of involved with Adobe purely by accident. It was it's just a case of me just deciding to share stuff. That's how it happened for me. Do you know what I mean? There was I, I very, very early on, when I was doing the retouching and I was starting out trying to learn stuff, I started to share and I had a blog and the only person watching or reading that blog was, well, two people me and my wife. That's all it was. Do you know what I mean? So I wasn't doing it with any intention of developing a following. That wasn't the intention back then. The intention was to give me some motivation to get out and create and when I committed to say, look, every Wednesday I need to have something to write, it gave me a purpose. And that kind of just started to snowball and I got noticed and I got invited to come along to an event at Adobe when they were doing some filming for a week. It was on the release of their it wasn't the Creative Cloud, because it was way before then. I forget what they actually called it now, but it was like a week of creativity and on the final day they had TV studios and it was all being filmed and all being put out on live and there was an audience and stuff and I was one of the panel and there was a number of us on the panel. One of these, one of the people on the panel, was an agent, a, uh like an agent, photography agent, retouching agent and we got chatting and it kind of went from there. So I ended up doing freelance work for these agents and I started doing work for the BBC and sky and working on some programs that you know. You know, we know, like you know, the apprentice and miranda hart and great expectations, and there was another program called most haunted and I was doing all the researching work for that and it was great fun. And then I started sharing those techniques. It was just, I think I've just always liked to share what I do. And yeah, again with no intention. And all of a sudden I remember once I was, I was taught I'd been to america. Actually.
Glyn Dewis:Then, if I just backtrack just a little bit, when I first got shown Photoshop, I was kind of like I've got to learn this, I've got to learn more. Do you know what I mean? I want to cause? I'm just one of those people. I am kind of an addictive personality or not not necessarily addictive but if I do something I can't play at it. If I decide to do something I've got to do it to the best of my ability, because the worst thing for me would be to have a regret that I didn't push myself up.
Glyn Dewis:So within a matter of weeks of being shown Photoshop, I saw these adverts that were saying if you want to learn it, you've got to come to America. I'd never been to America, I'd never been, so I thought I've got to go then that's it. So I said to my wife I want to learn this All right off. You go then. So I went to Las Vegas and it was quite funny because when I was out there, everybody in America who's from there was saying listen, don't judge us by Vegas.
Glyn Dewis:You know, it was my first time there, but that was to an event called Photoshop World and it just kind of went from there and it back and I just ran with it and I remember being in a coffee house where we used to live and I was there with my laptop just doing odds and sods and I was doing some of that read that, that freelance researching work for the Red Bee Media and then I got a phone call American number I thought I recognize that and it ended up being Scott Kelby, who was the head of the organization that I was teaching from. I was like, uh, he said, hi, glenn, it's Scott Kelby. I was like, oh, hi. He said, listen, are you coming to Photoshop World again this year? I was like, yeah, yeah, I intend to. He says, oh great. He said, will you teach for us? And I'm in a packed coffee shop and I was like hold on a second.
Glyn Dewis:And I kid you not, as true as I'm sat here, I put my phone to my chest like this just to muffle the microphone, and I outwardly said I didn't whisper. I outwardly went fucking hell, really loud, and I was like you know, I swore and I went compose myself. I said yeah, yeah, that's no problem, it'd be great, yeah. And he says great, I'll get my gene, my PA, to get in touch with you, it'd be great to have you happen. Do you know what I mean? I was just. It was just me getting out as often as I could, every spare moment that I could which I still do now to get out and create because I love creating. So I'm always, I've always been, a big believer If you do something for the right reasons, good things will happen. You can't force it, it will happen.
Matt Jacob:Yeah, I love that. What a great story, and I wrote down a couple of quotes Scott has said about you. One of the things I love about Glyn as an educator is that he takes his audience beyond just the technical nuts and bolts of photography and emphasizes the creative side of building an image. And there's something nuanced about that that I think could be overlooked but very, very important, especially for beginner photographers. If I just kind of dive into photographers a little bit in the post-processing, because it could be so overwhelming, we know what it's like, interesting that you come from kind of the opposite way, from the from, from the editing side to then photography. But a lot of people that you teach I'm sure I'm just assuming, but a lot of them probably coming from the photography side, like with a camera taking photos and then they're like photoshop is a mind fuck, right, it's when you first open it and you don't. You don't know what you're doing. I mean, I know I was like that.
Glyn Dewis:I remember the first time I opened it. Do you remember when I'm showing my age here? But when the internet became a thing and we had our first modem, you're like, oh, I'm going to get on the internet. And then you dial in and you hear that. And then eventually you connect and you go now, what do I do? So you start surfing all sorts of rubbish. It was the same with me with Photoshop, when I got the program. I'll load it in. There it is. And I'm like now, what? What do I do now, you know? So, yeah, it is, it's a total mindfuck, as you say.
Matt Jacob:It really can be. How do you go about? You know, I'm really interested in the fact that you kind of fell into the education side of it just through wanting to share. You're excellent at teaching but breaking down things so that they're easy to understand. That's why I've followed you and hundreds of thousands of other people follow you and watch your tutorials, right. So you know, scott obviously saw that in you early on. What is it about? You know, we're going to talk for the rest of this show a lot about this. But for those watching and listening, why do you think they do follow you or should follow you, or even want to continue watching and listening to this conversation in the way that appeals to them from the way you break down things and the way you explain things? What is it about you and that technique?
Glyn Dewis:Blimey. That's a difficult one to answer because you kind of it's almost like you're giving yourself an appraisal, isn't it? But I guess, if I just think about how I, if I step out of myself and look at what I do and say, and how do I do it, first of all, I would say that those who, those who've seen me present in person on stage and then they're kind of like, met me afterwards, and friends who have along the way, and friends I've made along the way, I think they would all pretty much vouch for the fact that there is no stage glint. You know what I mean. It's not like here we go, put that stage mask on, and it's what I'd like to think that people realize what you see is what you get. And and I'm very, very honest, and maybe in the way that I break it down, is just, I have to have things nice and simple. Do you know what I mean? And I always I've always kind of whenever there's anything in my life that I've got involved in, I've always kind of thought hold on a second, let's just. Let's just look at this in a real simplistic kind of way. How do I understand this? And maybe that's how I put it across because I'm very self-conscious. I'm very conscious of how all of this stuff because the world that we live in, with photography, with software, cameras, kit, do you know what I mean? It can get very overwhelming and very techie and geeky and you can very quickly lose people. And I just want people to enjoy it as much as I do and again, this is going to sound really corny, but I just love doing it, I love sharing it and I try to share it in a way that if I was a newbie again, I would understand it.
Glyn Dewis:And I've also had some very, very good mentors. I mean, I've been incredibly fortunate with the friends that I've made along the way, who were people that I followed and still continue to do so. To be honest with you, because there's always more to learn People that I've followed and I look at the way that they presented and I give Scott as an example Scott and myself very different personalities, but Scott has a way of breaking things down and making them very simplistic. You know there's other people that I've followed Chris Orwig, ben Wilmore, the list goes on. Do you know these people? Deke McClelland, all these people made it simple. They made a very difficult what could be a potentially very difficult process, very simple, but also enjoyable.
Glyn Dewis:But saying that, I also think that when people do start to get hands on and do this stuff, they suddenly start to realize that they're the one that's been the problem. And what I mean by that is they thought that what I generally what I mean by that is and it's by no fault of their own, because we're all guilty of it when we're doing this is that we think it's going to be harder than it is, and that becomes a mental block. And then when somebody explains it, you go ah, I didn't realize that, or why was I fixed on going this particular route to do this technique? And this person here has just shown me I didn't need to do any of that. I could just go bang, bang. It's like oh, what do you know I mean, and then then that's, and that's good.
Glyn Dewis:Then, because you think it's me, I'm the one that's made this difficult. It isn't difficult, so that that's kind of the way that things go, and really the only challenge with this stuff is once you get your head around the basics. It's a good thing that there's never there's no just one way of doing things. You can do things in a multitude of ways. The only barrier that you have, the only difficult thing to have in this whole thing, is the limit you put on your creativity, because anything, anything you can imagine you can do with this. You can do it, but only if you don't put that barrier up of thinking that's way too hard.
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Matt Jacob:All right, let's get back to the episode. I think that's the biggest breakthrough you can have as an educator or as a student is understanding that 90% of any difficulties you find with actually anything in life but photography is a perfect example is limiting beliefs, like, as you said, like a limited you know, telling yourself a story that this is so difficult or this is so overwhelming, or where do I start, or I need some help and I need that. Well, we all, we all have that feeling, especially at the beginning. But I'm interested in how you can impart maybe a little win on students where you can then transfer that passion that you have and transfer that kind of enjoyment of a little success. It could be anything, it could be.
Matt Jacob:I've just started learning jujitsu and just learning one submission technique. I've got 10 years ahead of me if I want to keep doing it right. But learning one submission technique makes me just, oh my God, this is amazing. I get it, I can do it, and more and more and more. Same with Lightroom, photoshop, cameras and, like you said, there's so much out there. I kind of like the fact we only have Lightroom and Photoshop really, let's be honest, the two main editing softwares for photographers Lightroom and Photoshop. Yeah, there are others, but the majority of people will use those. I kind of like there are only two options, otherwise it would just be. Yeah.
Glyn Dewis:I'd probably agree with you there. The mass market is certainly going to be the Adobe based apps and platforms, but you know there are some incredible alternatives out there as well. Do you know what I mean, like Capture One and stuff? But that can be very niche. I would say generally most people. Well, affinity as well. Affinity is another good platform out there, but I think most people would certainly have, if they're not still using it, that it was still. You know if, unless I've moved on, photoshop and lightroom is the things that people would be familiar with.
Matt Jacob:Yeah, well, how do you balance the you know, going into a little bit more the business side of it how do you balance the, the monetization of your education, and the free side of education? So I'm thinking you know youtube channel, where you know you, you're essentially giving tutorials for free and then either side of it, you're selling digital assets. How do you balance the those two and how do you choose kind of what to, what to go down and what to do.
Glyn Dewis:That's a very, a well-timed question with the way that I've changed things up recently, because it can be be a challenge how much do you give away for free as opposed to how much can you then charge for? Do you know what I mean? Because people could quite easily say hold on a second. You've just shared all of that. Why would I need to buy that? So you have got to get a balance, and that's the challenge that I've certainly had with YouTube over the years. Have got to get a balance and that's the challenge that I've certainly had with YouTube over the years.
Glyn Dewis:Youtube is a fantastic platform. I love sharing on it. But I've kind of fallen into the trap before of feeling compelled to do a video every week with YouTube and it then started to feel like a job and I started to not enjoy it. So I pulled back and that's happened to me a few times, don't get me wrong. It's been YouTube. I've made some good money on YouTube I really have and it's nice to have that residual income there but you can't rely on it. This is like the realization that I had that you can't rely on it. This is a platform that somebody else owns and somebody else controls, and when you've kind of built up this following and you think you've got it sussed, things change. If there's one thing you can guarantee in life, it's change. And I know that I was recently speaking to a friend of mine, unmesh Dinder, and we were chatting about this because obviously Unmesh has developed a fantastic following on his YouTube channel with regards to Photoshop tutorials and he was saying that things are shifting. Viewing numbers are down on Photoshop videos across the board, not just for him, but if across the board, for people who share this stuff. What's the reason for that? I don't know. So my kind of thought with this was I can't rely. I can't rely on YouTube to be my income. I certainly never would want to put all my eggs into one basket when somebody else owns that basket for a startup. So I've always wanted to have multiple income streams. So like the writing, the books, the tutorials, the YouTubes, all that kind of stuff.
Glyn Dewis:So my attitude towards YouTube has changed in that now, youtube for me is you hear this word a lot, don't you? With marketing it's a funnel. Youtube for me is a funnel, it's for, it's a way for me to keep in touch with everybody. It's a way for me to share stuff occasionally, but really my focus is on my, the people who I'm really grateful, who choose to sign up to my newsletter. It's those people that I should be looking after, not necessarily YouTube. I you know people who go, go out of their way to say, yeah, I like this guy, I want to, I want to hear from him twice a month. Um, and for those people, I feel like it's it's my duty to reward them with saying, look, I'm going to the stuff I would have ordinarily put on YouTube that's for you folks now. So I'm going to make it subscriber only and that develops a bit of a loyalty there. Now, that kind of stuff.
Glyn Dewis:I have no issue with thinking that if I'm sharing content like that with them or on YouTube, am I then going to kind of cut my you know my financial kind of income when it comes to selling tutorials? And the answer is no. What I found is, surprisingly, that when I do create content and it is a tutorial, a full-length tutorial do you know what I've lost count of the amount of times people have said I've brought that because you share so much, I felt it was right to buy something. Wow, okay, there is always more that you get when it comes to the full-length tutorials.
Glyn Dewis:Full-length tutorials are the full movie. The YouTube videos is the trailer. Isn't it really that you see to entice you to see the full movie? That's how it should be and that's how my mentality is with it now. But I use YouTube now, like I said, for my keeping in touch with people and do my live streams. I love doing live. I miss doing live in-person stuff. So for me, weekly, that is my therapy. I guess that is my one stage. I've always liked to be in front of people, so that's what I use YouTube for.
Matt Jacob:Yeah, fascinating, and how do you? Youtube is still an online platform, right? So it's almost a funnel and it's. You know, you use it as a funnel, but it's almost like its own echo chamber. Do you ever think about, you know, making sure you balance your online presence with something in the real world? Right, it's, it's so easy. You know, I'm on YouTube as well. I know how easy an Instagram or social media specialist photographers once you kind of get in, you get pulled in, you know, because of the way it's built the business model around all these things. How do you balance that? Do you spend a lot of your time in the online world or do you try and still get out there and about and do projects?
Glyn Dewis:Listen, priority for me is getting out there doing the projects, and my intention is that the social is sharing that I'm out there doing the projects. But I won't deny that I have fallen into that feeling sometimes of, oh God, I need to post something. I need to post something Even when there's nothing to post. It's like just enjoy the silence. If you've got nothing to say, don't say it. I remember years ago doing some work with a guy. We used to do quite a bit of Photoshop stuff together, teaching together, and I remember him saying to me that he makes it. He makes a point that he has to post on Facebook and Instagram nine times a day and that's just what exactly? That is exactly it. That was my kind of reaction internally. I didn't say it to him, but I'm like oh my God. And that there, when you're, when you're feeling that need to post that much, it becomes what Zach Arias referred to as noise. It's just noise. I don't know if you've seen the videos that Zach did quite a few years ago. If you haven't, you've got to check them out. It's just noise and I don't want to create noise.
Glyn Dewis:If you feel compelled to write something when there's no real desire to share something. That's when you start to say look what I had for dinner. It's just like oh God, look at this coffee I'm having. It's like no, basically what you're telling me is that you've got nothing else to say, so just enjoy the silence. It makes me laugh when you hear people saying sorry, I've not been around for a while. It's like I'm sorry, but I didn't even notice, don't worry about while. It's like I'm sorry, but I didn't even notice, don't worry about it, it's okay. I mean, you don't need to share.
Matt Jacob:No one cares.
Glyn Dewis:But on the other side of it, you've got to be on it because that's the way of the world. Now you know you can be very you know you can be very easily forgotten, very quickly forgotten. You know, if you're not posting, if you disappear off social media, let's say for six months, people are going oh, that person, what was his name? Oh, yeah, yeah. And then when they do reappear, oh, I thought I didn't realize you were still doing it. Well, yeah, I am, it's just that I've not been posting on these social platforms.
Matt Jacob:I'm still out there enjoying what I'm doing. Yeah, it's not just that, is it? It's the algorithm as well. It's not. All of these are algorithm based, so when you do come back, it's not gonna wanna, it's like, well, no, you know, it's gonna punish you. Essentially, I hate that, so I really hate that having to do something because of the algorithm.
Glyn Dewis:you don't? I don't I haven't heard that so much now but people chasing this algorithm. It shouldn't be that way, it really shouldn't. You should be posting because you just love doing what you're doing and you want to share what you're doing, and I know that there has to be an alternative reason for it, but not all the time. I mean, it's like when I send out a newsletter. If I send out five newsletters, one of those is saying there's something to purchase. The other four are me just having a chat letting them know things.
Glyn Dewis:I treat my newsletters like when I was at school we used to have pen pals, so I used to set up this scheme and you'd have somebody abroad that you'd write to. That's how I want it to be. Do you know what I mean? That kind of feeling, not because I'm doing this, because people aren't stupid. You know they get this newsletter saying hi and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Load of waffle, waffle, waffle, small talk, small talk, buy this. And you think, well, you could have cut all that. You really were just emailing me to tell me that I don't want it to be like that.
Matt Jacob:It's like music to my ears what you're saying. I 100% agree with you. However, I understand, you know I say that to people who say, oh, it's okay for you, you already have a following, right, you already have an audience. So well, yeah, maybe I'm still trying to. I'd still like to grow it and still like to kind of leverage that can, because business model at the end of the day, but, um, you know, for, for newbies starting a game, someone just starting a YouTube channel, and they want to do it and they want to share and they just, you know, they, they want to want that to be their job essentially, or part of their job, or a diversified business model.
Matt Jacob:Same with instagram or any of these fucking platforms. Right, what you there has to be an element of that where you are strategizing. You're not just throwing stuff out there, otherwise you don't know what works. It could just fall flat in the face and you're not. You know, until you have a thousand, two thousand, ten thousand, whatever the number might be, you're just speaking to no one. Essentially. So I, I, I, 99 of me agrees with you, but I understand the predicament in today's society that new photographers, new artists, new content creators, whatever industry sector might be in. I understand the difficulty and the desire that you kind of get pulled into that kind of track to be.
Glyn Dewis:Again, you know we're going to go back and forth with this. I'm sure and I do agree with you what you say there there has to be a strategy. But ultimately the priority is that you do it because you enjoy it and you're sharing because you want to share, not because there's some ulterior motive. I'll give it, I'll give an example, I'll try. I'll try and tie this in right.
Glyn Dewis:When I was doing that that veterans project, which took off far more than I ever expected I remember I was contacted by a guy, guy in America, who said that he loved what I was doing and he wanted to do the similar thing in America. And there's been a few people that have said that, which is great, because there's only one of me and I can't travel around photographing every veteran from every conflict. So what I would do is when I would post a picture of a recent veteran portrait, I would put, let's say, john Smith. John Smith was a paratrooper in the British Army, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That's what I would post. And I noticed that this particular guy, he started doing his project in the States and he would post the picture and he would say John Smith, veteran, and then there'd be six lines I'm not exaggerating six lines of hashtags Hashtag photographer, hashtag, canon hashtag, hire me, hashtag, this. And I was thinking you're doing this for the wrong reasons. And I remember I went to do a. I was teaching at a conference in America and I knew this guy In fact it was Photoshop World and there was four photographers who were four instructors, who were asked to do a special event on one of the evenings and it was a closed door event to 400 out of all the attendees that had paid extra to come just to listen to this particular evening. And I was rubbing shoulders with people who've become friends now, like Joe McNally, you know, and Joe Grimes and what have you. And we're there, and my friend, I think, aaron Blaze, was there from Disney, he was there as well. So we're on the stage and we all get up to do like a half an hour talk. And then I get up to do my talk and I'm talking a little bit about doing things for the right reasons. I couldn't help myself. I just went for it hell for leather and I kind of said that you've got to do things for the right reason. But when I talked about it I said, right, I've been contacted by this one guy who was doing this project and I explained what I've just explained to you about he's photographing veterans and he was putting all this stuff in there. But I changed it around. I said, oh, you know, he was a Nikon shooter. I tried to disguise who he was and I could see him looking at me in the audience and I just kind of I pointed yeah, I pointed in his direction, he was in the audience. Oh, yeah, he's in the audience. And I pointed in his direction.
Glyn Dewis:I says don't ever treat people like a, like a resource. If you're going to be doing something like, do it for the right reasons. And if you're doing for veterans, how dare you do this? And I wasn't saying you, how dare you, but it was in that general direction, but he would have felt like I was giving it. Don't you ever do that. Don't treat people like this. You're going to do something, do it for the right reasons and things will happen, but don't treat people like they're your cash cow. And that was it.
Glyn Dewis:Never heard from him again, but it really got me, it really wound me up and that's kind of like the social. That's the way the social media can go. Do you know what I mean? It can be very it can be very artificial, whereby people are trying to say or trying to convince you they're saying one thing when really they're saying another, and you can see it there. And yes, there's got to be an element of that. But just, you don't have to be so cloak and dagger about it. If you've got something to sell there, you go, it's something to sell. If you want to share a portrait, share a portrait. But don't try and treat us like idiots thinking, oh, that's nice, read, read, read. Oh, I'll buy that. I just don't like it. Maybe it's just me, I just don't like it. It's. Um, maybe I could have had a much, much bigger following by now if I'd have done it their way, but this doesn't sit comfortably with me yeah, but yeah, and you wouldn't, the longevity wouldn't be there.
Matt Jacob:And I tell this to people all the time, students or or new friends I have here in Bali. Bali is very kind of um, I kind of put this politely. It's quite an influencer central community here that I kind of keep arms, arms legs about and they're all about that. You know that. They introduce people to me by the way of how many followers they have on TikTok. It's like it makes me want to vomit, right it's. I mean, it's fine for the moment. Like you said earlier, everything changes. It's not genuine. So only genuine things, genuine feelings, genuine passions, genuine people last and sleep well at night and do better in the long run.
Matt Jacob:Yeah, you might get a few viral videos and people go on to me about virality all the time. I had an agent who I don't work with, but they were trying to kind of get me on their books, telling me about how I should be posting more on stories about my personal life and what I'm doing. No, fuck that. A it just doesn't feel right. B why would anyone be interested in that? And c I don't want to do it, which means I'm not going to do it, so that there's no point. It becomes like a chore and then you fall out of love with it, and that's what I agree with you so much. How much?
Glyn Dewis:do people want from this? There is a huge pie out there Everybody. There's a slice for everybody. But how big do you want that? Don't be greedy, do you know what I mean? You don't have to be. You know the Casey Neistats, the Marcus Brownlees of having millions and millions of followers, who are incredible amounts of money from YouTube and from sponsorships and all that kind of stuff. You only need a fraction of that and you've got a very, very good lifestyle and your conscience is clear as well. I love the way that Casey does his stuff. I love the way that Marcus does his stuff. They enjoy doing it. They do it really, really well and you're under no illusion when they're doing a video what it's about and what the intention is.
Glyn Dewis:But this, this, all this kind of like making a name because of how many followers you got, it's like the thing on TV. Now, every other program that you see on TV is such and such with celebrity or celebrity such and such. It's like celebrity really. Let's have a look here and I said never heard of you, never heard of them. They just happened to have been on television, they work on television. They're not celebrities.
Glyn Dewis:Celebrities. Celebrities are your, you know, tom Cruise's, your Schwarzenegger's, your Stallone's, you know, your Ryan Gosling's? These are celebrities and, you know, not doesn't have to be just film stars, but other people in other walks of life who've done incredible things. They are celebrities, sports personalities and so on and so forth. But it's just, it's just gone a bit weird. It's like everybody wants to be famous and it's like you know people in our world, everyone wants to be famous and their neighbors don't even know what they do. It's like, well, you're trying to run before you can walk. Have you had a local exhibition in your village hall yet to let your neighbors know what you do? Meanwhile, you're trying to conquer the earth. It's like come on, let's just slow down, build some solid foundations, you know oh, glenn, we could talk for hours about this.
Matt Jacob:I love it. Um, yeah, dude. Just people forget that the online world is the online world. It is no more than that. It it really translates to the real world and people think, like you said, they chase fame. Back in 2000, 2005, you were the likes of Big Brother and you know, celebrity was like a thing that I just want to be famous. X factor, I just want to be famous. That's not a thing Like. That's not a job, that's not a career, that's.
Glyn Dewis:I don't watch those programs now, but when they first started out things like Pop, idol and stuff like that you'd get some 10-year-old kid would come on stage and go. All my life I've wanted to be a singer. You're 10. Do you know?
Matt Jacob:what I mean.
Glyn Dewis:All your life. What do you mean?
Matt Jacob:Yeah, yeah, all the five years I've been able to talk, yeah.
Glyn Dewis:But it's not their fault, it's just the way that society has gone and this push, push, push, for you know, you've got to be out there, you've got to be famous, you've got to get numbers follow him, and it's just. You know, in some ways I feel really sorry for the, the new generation, because that is a stupid amount. People that they've got to contend with before they even know their craft really, before they've developed a following and stuff like that. They've got all that to deal with as well, when really all the effort should be going into getting out there, developing a look, getting comfortable with your kit and and that kind of making loads of mistakes. Making loads of mistakes and learning from it. It's all right being told something, but until you do it wrong yourself, you'll keep making that mistake. When you do it wrong, when you do it wrong yourself, you'll keep making that mistake. When you do it wrong, when you do it wrong, wrong yourself, you won't forget that. Do you know what I mean? It's, um, there's nothing beats getting out there and doing it, but there's all that pressure as well They've got.
Glyn Dewis:Now I kind of I gave myself too much pressure, but because it all happened very, very quickly before I even knew, before I even had a style. That was bad enough. But to have this pressure about, you know all these social media platforms and there's more and more happening every systems like. Every day there's a new platform that's come in and that, oh, I've got to be on that. Now threads and stuff. Have you really got to be on that, or are you just duplicating what you're already saying on another platform?
Matt Jacob:how do you feel, then, about being a kind of part of the problem you know I always think about when someone gets an audience big enough, there must be a crossover where it's like, well, now maybe I have some responsibility to do the right thing and talk about the right things in the right way and not get sucked into the more and like you talked about earlier quite rightly the greed of it, right, the more and more and more, but with, I think you've got roughly 300,000 followers, which is absolutely unbelievable on YouTube, me being one of them, and I'm sure most of them are very loyal and I know a lot of them are engaging, and quite rightly so. Do you ever, does that ever come into your mind? It's like, well, you know, I've, I've got to keep feeding, feeding this horse, and I'm now kind of part of this, this system. I imagine that that was part of your decision to kind of pull back.
Glyn Dewis:yeah, yeah it was the free stuff. It definitely definitely was. Um, because and I I'd never name names, but I've got plenty of friends, colleagues across the industry who are also on youtube producing content, and it gets to the point where you can see that they're having to rehash stuff or they're putting stuff out because I've got to put a video out this week and that's happened to me several times in my career, if you like, when it comes to my YouTube side of things. And when it got to that stage, I thought this is wrong. I should be putting it out because, oh, look at this, I want to share this, not then getting to the Wednesday of the week and going, oh God, I've got to put a video out next week. Oh, my God, what shall I do? Right, let's go back on my old videos. How can I update this? I'll put that out.
Glyn Dewis:And that's just like, well McKinnon would say You're feeding the beast, but you're feeding it the dregs. If I feed something, I want to make sure they're getting a good diet. I want to make sure I'm sharing something quality with them. If I don't have anything to share, then I won't. That's why I have pulled back on it For me to do the weekly live stuff that I do. There's no stress's no, there's no stress. I love doing it Like we're talking now. What's not to love about having a conversation with somebody who was also in that creative space is it's good. You know, we can be honest with each other and have a good chat. So I love doing that.
Glyn Dewis:Every now and again I think, ooh, I've just found out something, I'll do a video on that and I will drop in, I pre-record and I put it onto my YouTube channel. But my priority, my priority, isn't YouTube, my priority is my newsletters, the people, like I said earlier, who have gone that extra mile and gone. I like this guy. I want to hear from him on a regular basis. And you know what? It's nice because when you share stuff with people who make that decision not just to follow on YouTube, because you'll find that when you look at your YouTube channel, the percentage of people who subscribe, as opposed to the percentage of people who watch you aren't subscribed, that's much more. Do you know what I mean? So people are just kind of not seeing your stuff because maybe you've been pushed up the viewing space in YouTube oh, what's that recommended? Oh, watch that. Whereas when people are on your newsletter, your community, if you like when they're watching your stuff, it's because they want to watch your stuff.
Glyn Dewis:And YouTube, as good as it is and it is really good and I've gained and continue to gain so much from it there is always a negative to it. I always think of YouTube as being the video version of Twitter or X, as it is now, because if you're going to get abuse, you're going to get it on Twitter or X, and if you're doing videos, you're going to get abuse, you're going to get it on YouTube, and some of it can be horrific and you have to develop a very thick skin. So if you're somebody who's new doing this and you want to share on YouTube because you think that's the way to do it, just be prepared to be knocked back. You know what I mean? Because it can hurt. It really can, and I defy anybody to say it.
Glyn Dewis:Anybody who says it doesn't hurt is a liar and you'll get people saying no, don't listen to the naysayers, ignore the trolls. Yeah, to a point. Sometimes you have to bite and I can't help it. That's me and I will buy it and a matter of times I've gone to reply and then delete, reply, delete and I'll leave this. And then you say oh, you know what, hide from channel You're not going to. I can't even bother engaging with you because I have responded in the past and I nearly made a real fool of myself doing it, um, but it's when they're right that it really hurts, you know, when they force you to look at yourself.
Glyn Dewis:Yeah, yeah, yeah, and, and unmesh said exactly the same thing when I was speaking to him. He said when you do get these comments, initially it hurts, and then you read it and you go, but they're right. They're right that I didn't do that as good as, or I could have done it that way. It's like oh man, now that that's. That's like that's two sucker punches, yeah, but still hide. Yeah, it's like, oh, but you know, there you go.
Matt Jacob:Give me an example. What's the worst troll? What's the worst comment you've had?
Glyn Dewis:Well, I can think of two. Two come to my head straight away, or three in such a straight way, but one of them's not really connected with social media. It's more to do with my previous tutorial platform. The first there was one on one on YouTube. I remember I didn't. It's going back a few years now.
Glyn Dewis:I'd show this technique and get comments coming through and this one comment said straight away that doesn't work and you can't help it. You're going, you what you know. You wake up today. You think you what you go reply uh, does work. You've just watched a video, it does work. I reply yeah, I've just done it, you know I mean. So then you get in a follow-up comment no, tried, that doesn't work. So then I reply again no, what you need to do is and I started to get a little bit and I thought I, I was that close to giving it, you know I mean. And then the reply back I don't know how to do that. I'm only nine, oh, I'm thinking, oh man, thank God I didn't go for it. Do you know what I mean? So that was one where I thought, yeah, okay, keyboard warriors.
Glyn Dewis:Yeah, you don't even know how old they are, let alone who they are. It's like okay. So there was that one. And then the other one was to do with my blog and I explained this to somebody the other day. It's a funny story actually, but I did a picture of a friend of mine when he used to own this farm and I did a picture in his workshop at the end of the evening and the sun was coming down and I put a light outside with a CTO gel on it, so it made it look like a nice sunset coming in, as he's in his workshop there working around some tools, and I really loved it.
Glyn Dewis:I posted it online and I remember the next morning waking up and there was a comment on my blog from this one person and I'll kind of paraphrase it, but basically saying you effing waste. That's the exact copy of X photographer who I'd never heard of. How dare you You're a waster Just really going for it. I was like oh God and really went for it. Now, before that happened, I'd met up with Scott Kelby and we were having dinner one day and I was chatting to him and we were talking about negatives and comments and stuff like that. And he said you know what One of the best things you can change their comment. So I thought, yeah, all right. So then what happened was that person's comment comes in really going for it, having a real dig at me. So I change it and I type in hey, glenn, love that new picture you've posted. It looks just like such and such photographer. That's really cool. Would love to know your process a bit more. They see that and they reply again Loads more expletives. You come to America over here when I know you're there, I'll cap your ass. No, I'm really going for it. I mean proper, like whoa, you're unhinged. So I changed that comment and I put hey, I forgot to say if ever you're in America, I'd love to show you around my area. Never heard from them again. Do you know what I mean? So it kind of goes on.
Glyn Dewis:The worst one I ever had was to do with one of my tutorials. It was on the old platform that I had when I first started selling tutorials and it could be quite temperamental. Sometimes people would purchase something and they wouldn't immediately get the automated reply with the link to download the tutorial. And this one guy dear me he must have been having a bad day, but he proper went for it, really went. Where's my effing tutorial? You effing, really. That's the first email I got and I was going whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold on a second. Let me know, when did you order? What's your order? I'm not effing giving you, really, really going for it. I said tell me what you want and I'll sort it out for you. I'm going to go on the internet, I'm going to slate you off, I'm going to get your following ruined, all this kind of stuff. I thought, right, that's it.
Glyn Dewis:I became Liam Neeson in Taken. I found exactly who he was. I found his house on Google Maps. I found his front door. I found his phone number and I rang him. Nice, I rang him and he was in America and ring ring and I recorded it and I actually played it on one of my videos. So this ring, ring, ring, ring, the guy answering goes hello. I went, say call him John Smith. John, is that you? Yeah, I said, hey, john, how you doing? Glyn Dewis from the UK, the uk silence. And he went. What are you calling me for?
Glyn Dewis:phone down, that was it really so I sent him his money back, full reimbursement. But I was like, wow, you, yeah. But you could just see how the timing, oh mate, how he was totally shocked by. He reminded me of this thing I saw on social once where there was this this guy in this film crew went out into the streets in one of these cities in in the uk and they had this fake uh display board with a footballer on it. Can't remember who the footballer was and the football is there and it was in that hometown. It was that hometown's football club, right.
Glyn Dewis:So he was pulling people over men, mainly men bringing them over and saying, here, this footballer, here, what do you think of him? Oh, what a waste of money. What would you say to his face? If you saw him? I'd tell him he's rubbish, he shouldn't be being paid blah, blah. And then the footballer walks around from the your autograph. It's like do you know what I mean? So that was like my version of that. The guy was like I don't know what to say. What are you calling me? Phone down?
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Matt Jacob:I think that's why I was very interested in an earlier question where how you balance the on, you know, immersing yourself in the online world and then kind of trying to keep yourself grounded and balanced, which sounds like you do perfectly. But you know, it's not the real world, Like all of these trolls, they're just, they're just keyboard. It's like walking along. I had this analogy with uh, with, with, with another guest the other day in real life, walking along the street and you see, you know a bum on the side of the street in a bin covered in shit, and he pops open the bin and goes. I fucking hate you, you twat. What are you going to do? In real life, it's like well, I'm not going to give you my time. Look at you. You know you're just a waste of space. Walk on, move on, and very, very easy. Probably easier to do in real life, in kind of the real world, than it is to do online, because they're, you know, it's black and white, it's there. It's like, oh no.
Glyn Dewis:Have you ever seen that Ricky Gervais sketch where he's talking about social media and he says that it's like having some kind of advert in your local town? You see it and it's advertising guitar lessons with a number and you get on the phone and it's like are you doing guitar lessons? Yeah, I don't want fucking guitar lessons, it's like guitar lessons.
Matt Jacob:It's like oh yeah, that's. That's a perfect analogy.
Glyn Dewis:Yeah.
Glyn Dewis:Yeah, I don't know when we're going to get out of this and just coming back to you know, when we're talking about social media, we forget that this should be about photography, not about certainly photographers with social media Totally, and I think I think really they'd never admit it, but I think for the majority of the cases of the people that do give it some of that, do you know what I mean? I think jealousy, I think it's jealousy, but let me just say and you're, I'm sure, everybody I know that is out there putting the miles in and doing the work is has been given to us. Nothing has been. And you know and I've got a tiny, tiny share of what some people have got a massive, massive but nothing's been given to us. I get out, I am out there all the time to do stuff you know and what I'm able to able to do. I wasn't born able to do it. I had to learn how to do it. You know when's a lot of stuff that went on beforehand to get to that particular point and you know what as well.
Glyn Dewis:One thing I have learned, because I've told you already, I've made some incredible friends, and this will be a controversial comment. I know it will be, but I used to do this all the time. Any nasty comment that I've had has never come from somebody who has got. A really good that I've had has never come from somebody who has got a really good, a solid base, good good kind of um business, great kind of style and what have you. Every time I used to get a bad comment. I'd make a point of doing a bit of research about them and finding their portfolio, and, dare I say, not one of their portfolios was worth anything and that's controversial to say that, but I always found it was the people who had nothing to shout about would shout the loudest, and I think the intention was and really I think it was because they were jealous. They won't admit it and a lot of people will disagree with me, but I've had a lot thrown at me and that's a common denominator that I've found.
Matt Jacob:Yeah, I have to agree with you and even if I was to point the finger at myself, I've never trolled, never, never commented hateful things. But I have sometimes looked at people on. You know, I mean this is back in the day when I didn't know anything right, it was just ignorance. You know, subconsciously it's probably. Well, why have you got something and I haven't? Or why have you got this and I haven't? And I'm sure a lot of it comes, comes through from that, and I do the same. If I get a really bad comment, I'll dig a little bit and go okay, who is this person? Why do they feel like they can talk to me like this Nine times out of 10, they're worth nothing, or they've got nothing, or they don't have anything to back up. Their claim is basically what I'm trying to say.
Glyn Dewis:Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. I know exactly what you mean and maybe that sounds to some people listening now or watching that that'll sound a little bit arrogant, but believe me, it isn't. It really isn't. When you say that, there, matt, I can totally, totally relate to it. When you look at some people's work, you think, hold on a second. Why did you feel it was okay to even say that in the first place? Because now you've got my backup and I've got a really good memory and if I ever meet you and you want some help, I probably will help you. But you'd have to really squeeze it out of me to help you or to give you the best I possibly could If you'd have just said well, if you've got some, we're all human, you know, none of us are infallible.
Glyn Dewis:If we see something online, we might occasionally go well, that's bloody rubbish, that is. You know what I mean? Not, there's, no, nobody's a saint. You might look at it and go, oh, don't like that. And you, we don't bother saying it, nothing nice to say, guitar lessons. Yeah, exactly, because sometimes you'll get comments and you think, all right, okay. So now that you've said that, what do you expect to happen. What do you want me to do? Well, I just thought I'd tell you. Did you need to? Did you really need to waste your time telling me that, because I'm just going to go delete and you're not going to get that time back? You didn't need to do that.
Matt Jacob:Did it help anyone? Did it help you Exactly?
Glyn Dewis:Yeah, what have you gained from that? Have you learned anything from it? Do you feel better? Do you feel better for that? Do you know what I?
Matt Jacob:mean Also go and do something better. The world is a wonderful place, and let's just say this is the minority.
Glyn Dewis:Oh, of course it's absolutely the minority, but unfortunately Not on Twitter. But yeah, you know, no news is good news. You remember you could have a thousand. I keep in my email. I've got one folder called thank yous and every time somebody emails me to say thank you or I really enjoy that I drag it in there Because you know you can get a thousand thank yous you get one comment that can get to you a little bit. Take a pause. Let's dive into the thank you folder, scroll through random, pick one, bang. I feel better now. That's all right. No, that's the reality. That guy's an idiot. That's the reality. So you have to remind yourself of that. But yeah, those are the. The occasional ones can get to you. But you know it's life, that's. That's anti-social media for you.
Matt Jacob:Let's, let's move, let's move on a little bit. There's a couple of things I want to I want to talk about. Well, we'll stay on YouTube a little bit because we're going to kind of jump between YouTube and editing and stuff. Give me a couple of in your time being on YouTube and growing, the way you've grown and seeing obviously the software change over so many years and how you've maybe changed your perceptions and stuff. Software change and over so many years and how you've maybe changed your perceptions and stuff. Give us, give us two or three tips on kind of YouTube growth, youtube um authenticity, how to kind of, you know, put yourself out there on YouTube and how to do it well and not so well, things that I've looked what do you mean?
Glyn Dewis:Things that I found that work and don't work on YouTube, that can help, okay. So things that have helped me, um, keeping content regular, that's gotta be a thing. You know you don't want to be somebody who posts once every six weeks because then that'll just there's. There's absolutely no point. You would go out and you'd be like that again. You're constantly having to start pushing that ball and then eventually you've got to start pushing it again. You know what I mean. So regularity is one thing. You've got to start pushing it again. You know what I mean. So regularity is one thing.
Glyn Dewis:Don't stick to the same day every week, because if you do that, that's going to feel like a chore Eventually, when you're having to really think about content to produce, because when you first start out your mind's flooded with ideas. Eventually that's going to start to empty and you're going to have to really start to think about hard and end right, what content can I put together? If you've put the pressure of a certain day every single way to do content, that's when you're going to start putting out stuff. I mean just stuff, because you've got to put something out. Put it out every week, but don't stick to one particular day. Don't put music in the video unnecessarily unless it does contribute to the video, and what I mean by that is like having a really long, like a 30-second intro to your videos every time, with music going on and things flashing around. Don't bother doing it. Don't bother doing it If you don't have to have music in the background that you're talking over. Don't? Do you know what I mean? It can be annoying. Um, I mean I start video. If I do a prerecorded video now, what you'll notice is that literally my four second with my GED comes up and that's it. I'm straight into the video, because time is precious, and you find that when you look at the analytics on how people are absorbing your content, the mobile viewing world has got a lot more. Do you know what I mean? Whereas before it was always desktop, now how people are consuming it a lot is mobile. So they could be stood at a bus stop, they could be in a cafe shop and what have you. So it needs to be punchy straight out there.
Glyn Dewis:Another thing to do is always make sure that you have captions and don't leave it to the automatically generated ones. Nowadays there's no excuse, because Premiere Pro is fantastic at creating captions. And also, if you don't know how to do it, shove it into Adobe Express, because you can literally drag and drop a video into Adobe Express and it will create captions for you and then how they look as well, all different ways that they can look. If you want them to appear word by word, or maybe a block of colour appearing behind the words, it can look amazing. You don't need the technical skills to be able to do it now.
Glyn Dewis:So I would say always do it, because people are going to be watching it in places where they haven't got the headphones, but they're in an environment where there are other people. Now, if you want them to watch it, if they're watching it and they can read it, they will watch it. You're also missing out on another part of the community, which is people hard of hearing. Make sure that you know. Don't leave those people out. You know they want to learn content, like everybody else, so it's important to have closed captions.
Matt Jacob:Interesting. There are a couple of tips there I haven't been told before. That's good, and you know. When it comes to YouTube, I mean I'm speaking from personal experience now you know I've watched probably I don't know 50 of your videos, most of which are Lightroom, photoshop, really cool techniques, and I love the way you stay up to date with new software updates and new little things that come out that you know I can't stay up to date with them, so every three months there's a software update.
Matt Jacob:It's like, oh God, what do I need to do now? But so I kind of know you more as a retoucher and you know post-processor, even though I'm going to get into your photography a minute, cause your photography is just as amazing, thank you. But I want I want to hear about your, your thoughts and philosophies surrounding editing, and we talked a little bit about kind of trolling and hate comments. I'm sure you've got some where it's like, well, editing's cheating and you know just, you know, just tell me about that line. You know how far do you go with editing and how do you know when, when it's too much, if that makes sense.
Glyn Dewis:Yeah, yeah, god, that that questionnaire how much is too much? Now, that's. That can only be. You can only answer that when you've done a lot of retouching. And it's one of those things that you eventually wake up to and you go, oh, that looks a bit, but I've overcooked that a little bit there. And the prime example is when hdr became a thing, wasn't it? And everyone was really pushing that stuff. But, um, retouching, is it cheating? No, and who? Who is it cheating? Who? Who's the person being cheated?
Glyn Dewis:If I was saying, if I was touting myself as an I am an in-camera only photographer, then yeah, then I'm lying to you, but I don't. I am a photographer, and part of the creative process as a photographer is to finish the image, to produce it as I want it to be produced and to tell I hate the phrase to tell a story. It's not telling a story, it's a mood and atmosphere that I want the picture to portray you, be it dark and moody, or bright and cheery, or whatever. So that is part of the process and, without going down a rabbit hole, that has always been done Pre-digital. It was always done. So I'm not cheating, I'm not lying to anybody. I've never had a client when I would work for clients. I've never had them go. Well, hold on a second. I love what you're doing, but did you use Photoshop on these at all? Have you edited these? Are these out of camera? You go well, no, well, I'm afraid you know we only wanted out of camera. That's never happened. That is exactly what we want. So why and why, when I you know I am, I'm a creative person, I just love it. I'm left-handed, is there? Is there a connection? Now, I don't know, but I'm, I'm, I am a creative person and I'm not going to limit this creativity just by the camera I use. My creativity can only come out when I combine my camera with my editing software.
Glyn Dewis:Now, there is also a line that you need to draw and that depends on what it is that you're photographing. Now, my thing is obviously portraits mainly, and I always remember the best, best bit of advice. Again, this guy has been such a mentor and a help to me. He really, really has.
Glyn Dewis:Best bit of advice I ever got with regards to retouching portraits was from Scott Kelby and he always said to retouch the portrait to how that person looked like when you looked at them through the viewfinder. Obviously it was pre-mirrorless. So when you looked at them through the viewfinder. So when you do that, if I'm taking your picture now you know I can't see, I don't think you have. But let's say, if you had like a little blemish or something here, and it wasn't a temporary one, it was one that you've always just born with just here. Now when I'm taking your picture, I might not notice that or it might be a spot, let's say a little a kooky spot. I'm taking your picture. I might not notice that when I'm taking that, because I'm thinking about so many other things your position, the lighting, so on and so forth. Now when I get that picture into the computer, or let's say it's a birthmark when it's into the computer, scott always said retouch that picture to how they looked through the viewfinder. So if there is a spot did you see that? Remove it. Unless it is something that they are very identifiable by, like a birthmark, don't go ahead and remove it, because I did make that mistake very early on in my career. And if a, don't go ahead and remove it, cause I did make that mistake very early on in my career and oh God, if the floor could have opened up and swallowed me. I wish it would have done it.
Glyn Dewis:Was, you know, this woman saying why have you removed that off my I'm not well, do you think? Do you think that makes me look ugly? Is that why you did it? I was like, oh man, mistake I made, never to be made again, do you know? I mean so, um, yeah, retouch that, unless it's a project that you're working on. Like I'm gonna be working on a vikings project soon. I'm gonna go to Denmark and the Netherlands and stuff like that. I'll be, I'll be really pushing those portraits. They won't be looking like they did through the viewfinder. So you know, it's, it's, depends, depend. The retouching is very is dictated by what the end purpose is for, I guess absolutely.
Matt Jacob:It's the artistic intent, isn't it? And you know I I always buy. I think I've said my piece on this enough. Now to the people that have commented I've done a few light room, not tutorials, but like this is how I edit a photo. This is all I know, but this is how I edit a photo. And then you get comments like, oh, there's too much editing. Yeah, but great, hang on a minute. Photography is editing. You're editing 90% of your view out of it. Whether you're shooting with a film camera, even going back to the old analog days, you're not only editing in reality, by putting what you want in this frame, you're then obviously editing the way you want to develop it and then obviously fast forward to digital world. You've got a bunch of AI and software in a digital camera, so don't give me the shit. That's like well, I'll just take it straight out of camera. It's like well, you've got a computer working for you in the camera. I mean, what are you doing? It's just an untenable argument. I mean, what are you?
Glyn Dewis:doing. It's just an untenable argument. It is. And also you get people saying, oh, you've done too much of that, that's too much there. I think that's too strong. Why bother saying that? Do you know what I mean? Because do they want everybody's images to look the same? It's good that some people push it in a certain way because it separates them and they're not like yours. Nobody wants everyone to be the same, so we've all got our own thing. And, yeah, there are times when, maybe early on that you push it a bit too much. But the way you learn for not pushing it too much is not from comments on social media, but it's from building a relationship with somebody that you admire in the industry another photographer or whoever that can be honest with you and tell you you might want to just back that off. And they don't just say it. You have to ask them to say can you just have a look at this for me? What do you think about that? I've had many people do that for me in the past and it's been invaluable. And you know people like you know the Zacharys's who sat with me and went through stuff and said, right, you need to just maybe think of doing this. This was early on and it's invaluable. But they didn't just say it, they I had to ask them to help. Do you know what I mean? It's like the.
Glyn Dewis:I liken a lot of the creative world to my, my bodybuilding world from when I used to compete in bodybuilding and I'm still training now and I love it. But I was, you know, when it comes to the bodybuilding. The one of the one of my mentors was a guy called Sean O'Reilly and he is married to a lady called Helen who was Panther in the original Gladiator series, and they were very, very good friends of mine, very, very good. I mean, they became like parents in a way. They're when they're preparing me for shows and meals, everything. But I remember one thing that Sean said. He said a good, a true friend, will never let you go on stage until you're ready, until you are 100% ready, whereas you, you speak to your mates, your family, they'll tell you you look like Arnold Schwarzenegger, you're going to win this. Do you know what I mean? And it kind of gives you a full sense of security, whereas a true friend will say you might want to miss this one out. I think you need another few more weeks to get the condition right, or maybe we should just take a year out. Let's work on the calves a bit more to get it more in balance. And that's like with the photography side of it. You know what I mean. A true friend will tell you exactly what you want to hear, but not in a way to knock you down, but in a way to build you up.
Glyn Dewis:I remember doing a photo critique. I was asked to be one of the people doing this photo critique session where people would come in and sit with you for 15 minutes, show you their portfolios and what have you. And while I'm doing it, there's a guy called Alan Hess, who's a good friend of mine, concert photographer based in San Diego, and he's speaking to somebody there. And this guy sat in front of me with his portfolio. And you kind of do that because you know if you're on the receiving end it can be quite damning, can't it? But you do that sandwich effect Good, bad, good. You know what I mean. Tell them something good, give them a little bit of advice, finish with something good so they have a good taste in their mouth by the end of it. So this guy's pictures I was saying I really like they were landscapes, and I said, oh really, and the other.
Glyn Dewis:And every time I made a suggestion in the good, bad, good bit, it'd go no, I like that, right, okay. So we go to the next pitch, I'll do the same kind of thing. Yeah, but I like it like that, right, okay. And I never said it. But in your head you're thinking why have you sat with me for this? You know, I, I, maybe I could, maybe I could help, you know, because I kind of I see a lot of stuff and I kind of know that maybe that would help if you just did that a little bit differently. But it was almost like he was like no, I want you to see me, to see how good I am. It's like okay, whereas I've always been, I've always been a sponge. I really have always been a sponge yeah.
Matt Jacob:Well, I think that's probably what makes you so great and I think, in my experience and seeing what makes really the people great photographers or great artists, it actually could be in anything right, especially in the creative world and what the difference is between those people and the people who are stuck and can't really progress and, you know, don't really, don't really move forward in in those types of things, is humility. It's exactly what you're talking about the ability to take constructive criticism. Obviously, if someone comes go, yeah, that's shit, that's shit, shit, do it again a bit different. But for someone who's been there, done it, um, you know that the the ability to absorb constructive criticism, be willing to learn from it, is such a key virtue to have in order to be a good artist.
Glyn Dewis:I totally believe in that the person giving that advice is doing the the right intentions with, with your. Your progress is being their priority. I remember very, very early on when I started out on the photography side of it. I went to a show in Birmingham in the UK and it was the I forget what it's called, focus. I think it was called back then Focus on Imaging and it was before it became the photography show. And I remember walking around a newbie, completely kind of new to all this kind of stuff, and there was a stand there and it was a raw photographic stand, raw photographic society stand, elevated stand. I remember walking around there was all these images that were almost like being exhibited and I saw this two guys. There was this one guy who's who was clearly having a portfolio review on that stand but people could walk around him while he was having this review and as I got near him I remember that I just never forget it the guy who was giving him the review had his book and he's saying to him well, I just don't get it. What, what are you trying to tell me here? What? What is this all about? I mean, what's what? What is that? It's like jesus. I mean that there was.
Glyn Dewis:I was very surprised if that guy continued to be a photographer after that. He completely kicked the life out of him. There was no good, bad, good. It was bad, bad, bad. You know what I mean? It's like blimey now that's brutal. So maybe in the back of my mind when I was doing, when I do stuff as well, seeing stuff like that has influenced how I am or have. Seeing stuff like that has influenced how I am or have became when I was speaking to people, I thought that there's no way I'd ever want anybody to feel like that if they were speaking to me.
Matt Jacob:Geez awful do you find there's also. It's also quite difficult. I think about this all the time because some people say to me you know, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, art is subjective. And then you know, my kind of more rational side goes well, there's still the difference between good and bad. As a, as an educator and someone who does these types of reviews and has student stuff, do you find that's quite a difficult line as well, like, okay, this is just someone's style, maybe compared to where this is technically not so great yeah, it's um, that it's a difficult one, that I can give an example of that.
Glyn Dewis:In a way, I've got a friend of mine I won't name him, but he's got a. He has got a very specific style in a certain genre of photography and it's all, and it's based around compositing. He does hours upon hours of work on these composites. Now, if anybody who was in you, in you, know people I know who do a lot of compositing work, if they looked at it they might go, oh, shadows are well off. I mean, they don't look real at all. It looks like they're floating and he's clearly just put a bit of black brush mark underneath their feet and the perspective's wrong and stuff like that. Now, if you looked at it, you'd go, oh, but this person's been doing this for a long while and I know that that particular look is their style. They are more than capable of doing it so that it is more realistic, but that's not the look they're going for. Now. That's him, whereas there are other people that are doing sort of stuff and they kind of live in this.
Glyn Dewis:Again, going back to the bodybuilding thing, they've been told they look amazing by the wrong people. Do you know what I mean, whereas you've got somebody here who's convinced no, I'm really good at this and that looks brilliant. I don't care what you say. My mom said it looked great. It's like, yeah, but maybe you should. And I think that's where it gets difficult, because you want to kind of help people say, look, maybe you should work on that, but they're not having it. It's humility, again, it's humility. You know, I always knew. Maybe it's just my personality and maybe that's why I did love the bodybuilding thing, because when you do the bodybuilding you've got to have a long-term vision. It's not an overnight success, regardless of what people think. You don't go and pop a few pills and then the next morning you wake up looking like Lou Ferrigno. It's not the way You've got to have a long-term vision. It's the same with this world.
Glyn Dewis:I've always wanted to be in the creative world for the long-term, the longevity of it, of it. Do you know what I mean? So, yeah, it's, it's difficult, it's difficult, but I just, I just love it, I, I love. I lost my track then for a second mentioned, I'm sure lou frigno, and I just went. My mind's gone. But, um, yeah, I always wanted to be in for the long term and I was always willing to learn and progress. I knew that where I always wanted to actually that's what I was going to say is I've always had the mentality of you're only as good as the last job.
Glyn Dewis:I'm not one of these people. Oh, I could have been in the Beatles. Do you know what I mean? It's like no, my last job, my last image that I shared is where I'm at. So I've got to get better. I've got to get better. I've got to get better. I've always had that, whereas I think you can see a lot of people they'll rest too much. They rely too much on previous successes. But previous successes, eventually they become history. Now, what are you doing now? What's your latest thing now? So you look at somebody's portfolio. When did they last update their portfolio with a new image that they did? You know what I mean? It's 12 months in the year. The year flies by. Is it unrealistic to maybe have one new image a month and, if not, maybe 10. 10 in a year? 10 in a year to update your portfolio? Don't ride too much on previous success. Always have the mentality of you're only as good as your last picture. I don't know where that came from, but it's still relevant to say it.
Matt Jacob:No, no, no, absolutely With editing as well. It's I don't know if you find this with some of you know your audience or with yourself, certainly when you started the importance of perspective, like in a figurative sense, like stepping back and, you know, maybe editing a photo, coming back to it the next day, right, I think that there's a so such a powerful and free tool. You know, if you don't have a mentor, like a lot of people don't have those people, those other kind of um, experienced people they can call up and ask for a review or advice, just to Just take a day away from it or take some time, sleep on it, come back and 99% of the time, you're like, oh God, it doesn't even need to be that I mean.
Glyn Dewis:The fact is that nowadays it's a very go go, go kind of society, isn't it? You go out, you take a picture, you come back, you edit it quick, got to share it, got to share it. That's when mistakes happen. Matt Kloskowski gave me again fortunate to have so many people who've helped me along the way. But the best advice Matt ever gave me was to slow down, put your images into your computer, step away and also, you know, work. This is where working non-destructively, retouching non-destructively, is a blessing. Obviously, that's very, very simple to do that in Lightroom because everything is non-destructive. But working non-destructively is the way to go because so often you would find that you do your retouching and you'd sit there and just slog away at it and you then become and it's very easy to happen, especially when you're doing things like dodging and burning to become pixel blind. You don't see what you've done, you've done too much, you've overcooked it. If you go away, even for half an hour, just step away from the computer for half an hour. I guarantee you'll come back. You will then see what you need to do and what you've done too much of, if you've worked non-destructively, then you can kind of reverse it just a little bit. But it's amazing how just stepping away from the computer can give you a totally new perspective on what you've done. You'll come back and go oh my God, I have well overdone that. I have well overdone that. So yeah, slowing down it is a very. You know there's a go, go, go side. You've got to share it, got to share it. No, you haven't got to get it out there now. Just take your time on it, because people will remember I did that on an image.
Glyn Dewis:I did a composite of a soldier as a friend of mine dressed as a soldier. He liked guns and stuff way too much, but you want, I did a picture of him in the army and I did a composite of him on the ground walking. And I remember I had the I was doing full length, three-quarter length shots of him in the studio. So so I had three lights set up, two strip lights to create a nice rim light around him and then one beauty dish above, and I do as I do, I get well excited. So we did the three quarter. Oh, there we are. Tell you what, let's do a full length. So I moved back and I'm photographing full length and we've got the gray psych, so it's all there, forgetting to turn one of the side lights off, one of the rim lights. So I do the shot, I edit it. There's a sun in the sky, blah, blah, blah, and I'm thinking I love it. Fantastic, that's one of my best composites so far.
Glyn Dewis:Comments are coming in, love it, love it, love it. You know, you look amazing. You look amazing. Those kinds of comments. And then all of a sudden one person comments hey, sure enough. Oh yeah, he's got the sunlight hitting him that side. Weirdly, it's hitting him on that side as well. I'm thinking, ah, right, okay, yeah, and that was one of the like the unmeshed thing I said earlier on.
Matt Jacob:When you know they're right no, ah, tell me about the, the um. Speaking of veterans, you know, I one of the um, one of the things I stuck out to me when I first found you, and I think you'd either just done the veteran project or, um, yeah, you must've done, cause I saw the photos like, wow, these are, these are fantastic. Um, tell me, tell me how. You know there's obviously a slowing down project over time, and that's why I love projects, because it's more mindful, it's more immersive, it's, you know, over time you get to think about stuff, try stuff. Tell me everything about this project.
Glyn Dewis:I want to, I want to hear about it uh well, the well hand on heart, the best thing I have ever done not necessarily, not just, rather, in my, in my world as a photographer, but in my world, in my life best and most rewarding thing I have ever, ever done. Um, obviously it was a project. It wasn't the very first project that I came up with. I think the first project I did was an animals project, and then something else, and eventually that kind of naturally led me to this. But yeah, it was a project that I did, a purely self-funded project, and it was my way of saying thank you to veterans for doing what they did during World War II. Because every year when we have Remembrance Day, just saying thank you to veterans for doing what they did during World War II, because every year when we have Remembrance Day, just saying thank you and wearing a poppy just didn't seem enough for me. I thought I want to be able to do something Now. I'd been doing a certain style of my lighting, one light, classic kind of look, if you like, and really backed off with the amount of retouching I was doing. I wanted to look a little bit more human as opposed to pushing the effects, human as opposed to pushing the effects. So I thought what I could do here I could. I could. Actually I'd love to be able to photograph veterans, but I didn't think of that initially, you see, because what happened was I went to the cinema and saw a film as a remake of the film dad's army, which was the series. That was obviously, you know, was it like 70s, early 80s, something like that, maybe, I can't remember um, and they remade it and I remember thinking, god, it'd be great to photograph people like that Characters. You know what I mean. So that then led to me speaking to my friend Barry, who was the guy I photographed with the two sons in the picture, and he told me that, where we used to live, local to see them and explained what I wanted to do.
Glyn Dewis:But what I did was to get them on board. Rather than me try to verbalize what I wanted to do, I took pictures along to show them the kind of thing I wanted to do, and that's something I learned very early on. That worked way better than trying to explain to people, because if you're talking to somebody who's been photographed many, many times and now you come along wanting to photograph them, no matter what you say, they still think it's going to be like every other picture they've had. So I got pictures from Annie Leibovitz and Yusuf Karsh and said, look, this is the kind of thing I want to do. And they were like, oh, I like that. So they were on board so I started to photograph them and I loved it, absolutely loved it.
Glyn Dewis:And then, while I was doing that, this kind of just thought came into my head wouldn't it be great to photograph real veterans? And then the reason why, you know, to say thank you, and so on, so forth. So I reached out to a group on Facebook who were a veterans family group, introduced myself, showed them a couple of pictures, gave them, um, links to my things, so that they would hopefully realize I wasn't some weirdo that just turned up out the blue, that wanted to go to old people's homes. You know, I mean because you think it just sounds a bit weird, just what you want to photograph all people. Yeah, exactly yeah, you've got to be so careful these days.
Glyn Dewis:And then one woman wrecked. One woman, uh, I wouldn't say, trusted me. She tried me out to see. Like, who is this bloke? Is he? Is he really doing, prepared to do what he says he's going to do so. I then went to, I met her and she introduced me to a guy called laurie whedon who'd been a glider pilot during world war two. An amazing guy, spent a lovely time at his home, photographed him at his home and then the following week I returned with his portrait in a mount.
Glyn Dewis:And then that, just because I'd followed through with it and Jane, the lady who originally introduced me to him, kind of saw that I did what I said I was going to do she then speaks to other family members and it just spread. It just completely spread. Next thing, you know, I'm getting contacted by family saying, oh, my uncle, my dad and I started to keep a book of people that, oh right, I need to go and see them. Go and see them. And I started then traveling around the country. Literally, I mean, in five months I did like 16,000 miles traveling all over the place, and it was all self-funded, because it was something that I wanted to do and I would always give them their portrait back, and because it just grew and grew and grew.
Glyn Dewis:Unintentionally, you know, this was something that for me, was to remain under the radar. It was something that I was doing, it was personal, giving me satisfaction, feel good factor and something great for them to be able to keep the portraits. And it just grew. And next thing, you know there's. The radio stations got to hear about it. Then they thought, well, I have to have an exhibition then. So it's a day for the veterans, a special day for them, where they're just treated like royalty. The BBC got hold of it, so the BBC camera crews came down, it went out onto the news channels. It just grew and grew and grew and grew and grew. And what's lovely about that is that it always remained as being about the veterans.
Glyn Dewis:But on the back of that and this is what I meant earlier on when we were first talking about doing the right thing was that because I'd done that project what I noticed happening was that, more often than not, when people would say oh, you know I wasn't getting people saying what do you do? And you say I'm a photographer oh, what kind of photography do you do? I'm a portrait oh, what kind of portraits do you do? It's like a continuous conveyor belt of questions that you get it suddenly became you're the guy doing the veterans project. Ah right, yeah, I have. Yes, I've seen that. So never was I. I haven't been asked again what, what's my style? Like? You know that there has given me this kind of I don't know recognizable style Identity. Identity, yeah, it's given me an identity. The project, and that's what projects will do. They will give you an identity. But it wasn't done with that intention. But my God, on the back of it, it's just been. It has done so much, it really really has, and I'm very grateful for that. But at the heart of it, it's the veterans.
Glyn Dewis:When I speak to people, I did a chat with a friend of mine called Renee Robin, lovely, lovely woman, fantastic photographer and compositor, and she got really emotional when we were talking about it. She said that just really hit me. That project, yeah, and that's the feedback I've had from that has been incredible. You think, wow, it was, it was a. For me, it was a marriage made in heaven. Really, it was always. It felt like it was the reason that I I first picked up a camera. It's almost like this you know, I'm watching vikings at the minute. They'll talk about destiny and fate. It feels like that was my destiny, if you like. That's why I picked a camera. It just felt so right that I was doing it. I'd gone through these years of retouching, learning how to take portraits, and then it it that connected with the veterans, so I was able to put all those years behind me into this to make it what it was. Um, and yeah, most rewarding emotional roller coaster, uh I've ever been on.
Matt Jacob:Yeah, it's emotional listening to you talk about it and I think you know I totally agree with you in the way we use storytelling, the word storytelling photography. But I think that project was storytelling at its best through images and people don't understand the amount of work that goes into the pre-production process, the thoughts, the logistics, the getting to know these, these old people, explaining to them all the communication and which, as a photographer, I know, and even that makes it almost more impressive, that really connects to the story and just having these people, that there was this cohesiveness with the project. I think that was profound, you know, not just aesthetically, but just the way, um, these people came across in the images and obviously it being this undercurrent of an emotional story the war and the survivors of the war it just, like you said, it all brought it together and we can see that in you and your work and the way you talk about it, which makes it even more special. So kudos to you.
Glyn Dewis:I think it's um, really, really, really it was I've in that period, which was from sort of yeah, early to early 2019, up until just before the covid outbreak. So we're talking literally maybe 14 months worth of a project if that. But I learned more in that 14 months than I have in the previous 14 years about photographing people. You know what I mean Because you do when you're going through the process of learning and stuff like that in the photography world, there's so many things that are said that just sound so cliche and corny.
Glyn Dewis:You know, oh, you've got to connect to show the real person. It all sounds so airy-fairy, but when that realization hits you certainly as a portrait photographer, when you realize that you're not the important part of the equation. The important part of the equation is that person, and the biggest skill that you have or you should develop as a portrait photographer is people skills, because if you can't communicate with somebody, you'll never get a portrait of them. You'll get a posed portrait, but you won't get a portrait of them. So you know you can, you can get your latest this, that and the other and one of you, but if you can't communicate, then I think your portraits if that's the kind of stuff that you do will never be completely as they could be for you.
Matt Jacob:How can you be a people person if you are, say, introverted? How can you connect those lines If you want to be a portrait photographer? But I'm a little bit shy.
Glyn Dewis:Yeah, and how do you talk to somebody? What do you talk about? I can't remember who it was who told me, but they always said remember that the person in front of you has got four letters stamped on their head. Mmfi, make me feel important. Talk about them. You know they don't want to hear about you.
Glyn Dewis:You're going to choose another four letters, then, yeah, just talk about them. People always want to talk about them, it's just the way it is. So get them talking about them and then the conversation will happen. It's not easy when you're thrown in front of somebody that you don't know, but if you remember those four letters, ask them about their family, their job, what kind of things they like to do. So when you're not doing that, what do you do then? Oh, I like to work on computers. Oh, like to work on computers. Oh, what are you doing on your computer then? Oh, wow, have you got that? Then, oh, what kind of? You know, I like going bike riding. What bike you got is that? There's so many things you can go down there, but it just gives you that starting point, um, and then, once you've got that I mean, for me, when I was photographing the veterans, it was always a priority the kit always remained in the car.
Glyn Dewis:You know, I didn't knock on the door laden down with bags that was in car. The important part was that we felt comfortable with each other, because if we didn't, I wasn't going to get the portrait, so the kit would stay in the car, and if I was there for half an hour 45 minutes, before we even thought about doing a portrait. It's fine, absolutely fine, because the portrait itself really, in reality, it took maybe five minutes to set up and a couple of minutes to take the picture once they were relaxed. But if I tried to do it straight from the get-go, as soon as I turn up at their house, it wouldn't have worked.
Matt Jacob:The hidden but probably the most important technique, isn't it for portraits? Is all of the work you do prior to get them comfortable and to break the ice. Give us an example of when you might have, I mean, maybe two questions here. Were there any times where you were conversing and you were doing your kind of initial interviews and getting to know these people with the gear in the car? Were there any times where you just kind of backed off and just went, oh, this isn't going to work.
Glyn Dewis:No, there weren't any times that that happened, but there were times when, if I'd gone there with the intention of saying, right, I'm going to get a headshot, a three quarter length shot and an interview that was always in the back of mind that you wanted but, um, being compassionate and, uh, having that time talking to them real hard and getting to feel for how they are I would then make a judgment call as to what I would come away with. So there were many times I purely ended up with the headshot because it didn't feel right to push it a bit further. Maybe there was just something I felt. No, maybe next time I'll come back. There's always another time to come back. I can do that Because gut instinct I've always been a big believer in just following your guts, because it's pretty much right most of the times. You know what I mean. Unfortunately, there were times that I couldn't go back because that person had passed, but I got their portrait.
Matt Jacob:Wonderful. Well, it's been an absolute pleasure talking to you and I've got another five, six pages of notes that we could talk about for hours. Maybe we have to do a part two to this, but there's just one kind of question I wanted to put you on the spot with, and there's nothing crazy. It's about Lightroom and Photoshop. It's because there's so much here and there's so much that you've covered actually in your tutorials, certainly in YouTube and other paid assets, I'm sure. Give us three tools, tips and tricks. You can choose Lightroom or Photoshop or both. Give us three that you may not have covered but you think are important for photographers to at least experiment with.
Glyn Dewis:Oh, wow, okay, I'm going to kind of try and twist this in a way that is is saying this these tools here I would suggest that they get to know because they will learn them, it'll be beneficial to them. Three things um, okay, well, yeah, okay, god, I'm on the spot now and I the remove tool in photoshop. Amazing. I think that remove tool in Photoshop has just become amazing. Obviously, we've got a similar thing now in Lightroom, but it's not something I would suggest. No, okay, all right, let's rewind just for a second. Then a tour.
Glyn Dewis:Even though, even though technology is moving on massively with this software, obviously we can't ignore the introduction of the AI, particularly when it comes to making selections for us in both Photoshop and Lightroom and being on the early release team, we get to see stuff coming out before it goes into beta and I can tell you that I mean the next 12 months is going to be a hell of a ride. I mean, with Adobe Max coming up now, we're going to see some updates. It's just phenomenally exciting what's coming up. However, that said, we can't completely rely on the software to do the job that we wanted to do on every single picture. So, one of the tools I would suggest that people get to really dive into and understand, because it is one of those ones that we think is harder than it is. Again goes back to what we said earlier about overthinking things.
Glyn Dewis:The pen tool Get to know the pen tool. I've got videos on it. I know lots of my colleagues and friends have got videos on it. It is not the beast that people think it is, but it's a really good tool. I love, love, love the pen tool.
Matt Jacob:Why is it?
Glyn Dewis:so good Because it's just so much you can do with it. The control you have is just phenomenal. It's absolutely phenomenal. Do with it. The control you have is just phenomenal, it's absolutely phenomenal. It's incredibly accurate.
Glyn Dewis:Um, because there are times when you know a selection won't be as tack sharp as you need it to be. It will be with the pen tool and you might you know, you might get so far with some of the new tools that we've had now, like select subject and select object, but you might need to kind of you know that's that's not the end result of the selection you might need to fine tune it and by using the pen tool you can maybe fine tune some of those curves and the pin sharp lines and stuff like that. So I would say, just dedicate a bit of time to the pen tool. Get a notebook as well. And because I've got notebooks photoshop, lightroom, premiere pro uh, you know I don't expect everything that I learn, because I'm still learning to stay in this school. You know I'm always making notes on things. So the pen tool for one. Um, brushes, really get to know brushes in again, I'm talking photoshop, I guess, here, because they can. There's so much you can do with it. You've only got to look at the work of people like Burt Monroy and Uli Steiger to see the kind of stuff that they do with brushes.
Glyn Dewis:Brushes aren't just for brushing, as you'd expect, but brushes can also help you out with selections. There is so much you can do with brushes when it comes to selections, because we're not we're not being, you know, it's not an examination here that we have to pass to get the perfect selection. The idea is to be able to cut something else or add something in. Now, if we can do that by making a perfect, perfect selection, fantastic, sometimes we might need to fake it. We can use brushes to help us to fake a good selection by making it look as if we did something that was really difficult to select. We can use brushes Hair, for example. We can make it look like we cut out hair when we didn't. We used a brush to make hair, so it looked like we did a cutout.
Glyn Dewis:And the third thing it's not a cop-out is just to say embrace the AI. Obviously, there are times when you can't, but don't think of AI as taking over. Think of it as a tool. That's all it is. It's a tool. You know, it's like the old select and mask when that first came in the filter for select and mask. And you know, yeah, but we've got the pen tool, now we've got select and mask. Wow, look what that can do.
Glyn Dewis:Ai is, again, is a tool that we can use. We don't need to use it to, you know, do all kinds of weird and wacky things that people see us doing, but it can be used for those little things, those little time-consuming things that are kind of like. We want to get that done, because now I want to carry on and do this, I want to get on with my creativity, but this is really hard for me to do here. Think of using the AI for it. It ain't going to go anywhere, you know, if any, it's just going to get more and more involved. So you either embrace it, or you go backwards, or you stand still. That's as simple as well. No, you can't. You never stand still, do you? In the creative world, you're either. You're either moving forward or you're coming back. So just embrace the ai. There are times when you can't use it. I get that, I totally get it, but don't dismiss it. You might find that there is a particular thing you can do with it. That is incredibly useful.
Matt Jacob:Well, there we go. Top three tips from from from the, from the top photoshopper uh, go and check out these. Uh, these tips on your channel, I guess well, I'm looking forward to it.
Glyn Dewis:I'm going to do some compositing now.
Matt Jacob:I can't wait to show more of those techniques because I'm going to get back into it where can people find you and you know what's coming up for you over the next few months and few years okay, so easily find me nothing fancy with the names.
Glyn Dewis:It's just Glyn Dewis. Everywhere G-LL-Y-N-D-E-W-I-S that's on Instagram, facebook, the website and YouTube. Everything is Glyn Dewis. And what's going to be coming up now? I've just released a how to print course, which I'm really happy with. The feedback's been amazing. But going forward now that that's done because that's been quite a not a burden would be the wrong thing to say, but it's been on my mind. It's been all consuming for quite a long time.
Glyn Dewis:Yeah, it's been a lot of work. So now I have things that I want to get on with. I'm going to be revisiting locations that I photographed with my mobile device. I want to revisit those locations and photograph them with my main mirrorless camera. That's just something. I think I've got to do that with my main mirrorless camera. So that's just a personal thing.
Glyn Dewis:I'm also always looking for projects. I'm going to be working on a Vikings project. I'm just fascinated by the Vikings. I love that cinematic kind of look that the program has the Viking series. So I'm going to be traveling to do a series of at least 20 images and I've mentioned that to Westcott in the USA who are huge supporters of me.
Glyn Dewis:And there's some kit that we're going to be using some big eight foot by eight foot scrims to fire light through to create a normal daylight, and so I'm looking forward to doing that and showing the plenty of behind the scenes and compositing. It's almost like it's gone full circle. I started out doing the compositing. It's almost like it's gone full circle. I started out doing the compositing and now I want to go back to it because it's been a few years now since I've really dived into it, Now that I know we've got all these new tools and there's more coming I'm intrigued now to get back into doing just a little bit of compositing, to see how I would do it now, as opposed to how I used to do it.
Matt Jacob:So, yeah, that's what I'm looking forward to Fascinating Well, I'm looking forward to seeing what you do and looking forward to new releases, new projects. Certainly, the Vikings sounds fantastic, so I wish you the best of luck. We're all going to be watching out and rooting for you and rooting for you to hide those hate comments.
Glyn Dewis:Yeah, we'll reveal them.
Matt Jacob:Yeah, exactly, rooting for you to hide those hate comments, yeah, or reveal them, yeah. Yeah, exactly, uh, until the next time, hopefully, we we chat again and, um, yeah, thank you so much for your time. I really do not at all.
Glyn Dewis:Thanks for inviting me, and I've really enjoyed chatting all right, see you soon.
