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Running Time: 40 minutes
Welcome to The Art of Retouching Podcast Episode 008. In this episode, I will be talking about how I reached this point in my career, how I go about pricing a job, and other advice about breaking the nine to five job.
In This Episode:
Transcript: Podcast – Episode 008
When it comes to being a freelancer it doesn't matter if you are doing design, retouching, photography, whatever. You can't just keep doing it day in and day out for the money. At some point your going to get burned out and not care.
What you need is a passion for what you are doing. Follow the passion and the money will follow. Now I am sure that you have heard that type of thing before, now I don't want to put it into the same category as when you grow up you can be whatever you want to be. I have a four year old son and I'm not telling him that because I think it is a load of buck. When he grows up he's not going to be an astronaut, he's not going to be the president, he's not going to be anything like that because that's the reality of it.
I don't know who in the world would actually grow up and say I want to be the president of the United States of America, I mean come on, the amount of trouble, hassle, problems and there isn't any money that goes with it either. That's just someone that has a passion for the power. That's someone that likes the control. Now I don't want to go off on a tangent about that. I want to stay focused on following a passion.
You have to have a passion for working from your own studio, you have to have a passion for working alone, you have to have a passion for the actual creative outlet that your following.
For example, my history when I was in grammar school, I had no direction, obviously I am a kid. I remember when I hit high school and I was around thirteen, I had started developing an ability for drawing. I'm not saying it was anything good, by the time I was fourteen I had one teacher that encouraged me to do better, where I would draw pictures and he would hang it up over his desk. I don't know why he did that, but he did that for me. I don't remember the guy's name, I don't remember what he looks like. but I remember going into his class and seeing my picture hanging up on the wall behind him. That always gave me encouragement and that allowed me to follow the passion for drawing.
When I went through the next few years of high school I had gone into the art program. Now, they always gave away one class a week. I always pushed for two classes a week. How did I do that? Well, I took my free period that I was given where I am suppose to go study or who knows what I was suppose to do, but I took that free period and I went into the art class so that every single day I made sure I was in that art room, I wasn't actually participating in the particular class. I was just sitting in the back doing my own thing, but again the teachers and councilors and whoever the powers that be they let me do that, that was great.
Then, when I got out of high school, where did I go? I went to an art college, and what did I do? I went and I played hackie sack in the parking lot. I enjoyed going to the drawing classes, I liked the painting classes, not so much english class, didn't like that too much, didn't like the math class, didn't like the art history class, and I didn't like the font class. All those I skipped and I was in the parking lot playing hackie sack. No big surprise that I flunked out. That was because I had a passion for the art and not the academics.
I took a year off in the real world doing real work, real labor. Didn't like it too much, I went back to college, this time I went back for two years associates degree so that knocked two years off of my classes so I wasn't being bogged down with math and english this time I can focus on graphic design because by this point I had realized I wasn't a very good illustrator, I liked to draw but I really wasn't that good at it.
I went through the next two years in graphic design. I did pretty good, went to all the classes. In fact I did the classes and I did the work and I did everything that was suppose to be done. When I was leaving the college, when I was like my last semester, something like that, the way that the, I don't even know how it worked, but it ended in the summertime.
So over the course of the summer I had landed an internship. Now, most people do an internship because they have to for credits or whatever. I didn't need credits, I didn't do it for the credits I did it for my personal experience, for the networking, to get to know people and more importantly I did it for the passion.
The internship that I did was at Marvel Comics, yes, in New York City. I went in and I drew super heroes. Because that was something that I enjoyed doing in that point in my life. It wasn't so much the super hero part of it, to me as I really studied it, I think it was the bright colors, it was the dynamic artistry involved in it and I like the figure drawing, I have always been attracted to the human figure and these were the things that I liked. I had a passion for it and I actually went very much out of my way to introduce myself to the right people to get to know them to be accepted in to the program and to go there and do it.
What ended up happening, I will be honest, when I started it was the most wonderful thing in the world, here I am working at Marvel Comics which was awesome, I loved the experience.
Two months later I remember being out in the fire escape smoking. That's what I did I spent my time smoking. Now to my credit while I was doing my jobs around the building because as an intern I was told to go here get this go there and do that so it was a lot of just up and down the stairs and back and forth type of stuff but I remember being out smoking and then as I am wondering back to the office I would go and say hello to people that I had built a repair with whether it was other artists, other interns, not really so much editors which was probably the more important people to know. I mean I didn't know my fair share.
Obviously your locked up in the office all day with these people so you kind of got to know them. But the question was, What happened to that passion? Two months ago it was the most amazing thing in the world. What happened? Well, the reality of it was, that while it was amazing, that I was able to walk down the hallway and I could hear from the offices where they were talking about how they were going to blow up the world this month or how they were going to take over this country or whatever they were planning.
But two months later I realized that the bottom line of it was, business is business. And they had market share, they had investors, and they had very specific goals that needed to be achieved every single month. It all came down to dollars and cents. It came down to readership, it came down to interest. If they produced crap, nobody cared, nobody bought it and then the book was cancelled, and eventually they ended up loosing your job because if you have enough cancelled books obviously you weren't doing a very good job as an editor.
Now, this of course was back in the early 90s where comic books were prolific. They were everywhere, you could put out absolute garbage and sell it, back then. Come out with three different covers, you sold three times as many books. It was pretty crazy back then, but to me it stopped being this passion, this artistic integrity type of thing that I really enjoyed and really just turned into a whole lot of work. It's really what it was. It wasn't so much drawing the human figure, at that point, I was actually fixing the human figure.
Alot of what I did was in the art department, there's a big comic book secret revealed. One of the biggest problems is that these artists that were drawing comics out in the field, in their homes, whatever they were doing when they were producing these comic books they had a very bad tendency to draw female boobs that were way too large and so one of the biggest things that the art department would do is give them breast reductions and make them a little bit more normal. Which is a stretch, given what they look like in the comic books, but yes they would be humungous and they would reduce it.
Now other things that they would fix were hands. These artists that are paid all these big bucks, they never could draw hands. So it was always the guy making ten bucks an hour that was sitting there correcting the fingers or whatever else.
Another thing I remember was one page the character would be wearing winter clothes and the next page it would be wearing shorts or something like that. And all those types of things would have to be corrected. So it was just a lot of work. And the passion left. And the interest left. And it wasn't right for me.
One of the things that happened to me maybe three years ago maybe four when I was going for a job in a photography studio, the photographer had said to me, you know I said I had a passing interest in photography, that I was just an amateur and I liked to take my own pictures and retouch them and make them pretty.
And he had said to me that by coming on board he is always willing to teach me how to be a photographer. To show me all the equipment and the best way to use it and all that other stuff. And I had said to him, point blank, I said No, I have no interest in that whatsoever. Not, that I wouldn't have liked to have learned.
As I had said to him if you watch Sesame Street on TV and boy am I coming out of left field with that one, but Sesame Street that you watch on TV and you have all these muppets up there and they are all attracting and they all got their fantasy role and whatever.
If you ever go to the set or nowadays they have books at the bookstore about behind the scenes type of things. You know what it is? All it is, is a bunch of people under the stage with their hands up in the air directing these puppets. All they have is their hands up these puppet's asses and they are doing all the talking. That isn't as nearly as magical or entertaining as just watching it on TV.
So the same thing with the photography I didn't want to learn the magic behind the photography. And all the f stops and the apertures and all that stuff I just wanted to take a pretty picture, that was really the bottom line of it and I knew that.
By that point in my life I knew where the passion was. The passion was to take a good picture the passion was not to know the mathematics behind taking the good picture.
So for me when it comes to retouching, I have been retouching for many many many many many years. Early on in my career I was doing pre-press which is alot more mathematical. Yes, no, on, off, left, right type of stuff and less artistically inclined stuff and I was dabbling in retouching and I liked it. The more I did it the more I enjoyed it.
And as the years went on I would gradually learn a little bit more about it. I would ask the people that were doing it professionally, generally in the next room, they were doing the retouching while I was doing the press stuff. I would ask them questions, I would get answers, I would sit down and I would watch them usually because I worked late nights, second or third shift so nobody really cared that I wasn't really working and I would just learn.
I would go home and I would do it and I would practice and over the years I became good at it. This happened to be one of those things where no matter how much I learned about Adobe Photoshop I never lost the passion, that interest in doing it. I have always enjoyed it, and I think that what attracts me to photography as opposed to illustration is that illustration your staring at a blank piece of paper it is just white. I don't like staring at a blank white piece of paper, some people do and some people are good at it, I'm not. I acknowledge that. I learned that along time ago.
I learned that I wasn't good at illustration. I mean other people still ask me why I don't do it I was always so good, No No No I don't think I was good. When it came to photography I don't have to stare at a white piece of paper I can just see something in front of me and push a button then bam there it is. It created itself.
The reason that I like the retouching is because I can take that thing that is already good and I can make it really good. I can make it great. I can create something that is, that I actually saw. I mean I don't want to sound cliche, like I saw that in the scene, but I can embellish it so that a sunset is that most magical sunset ever.
That is the type of thing that I enjoy doing. I also enjoy the fact that people that look at my artwork whatever I happen to be doing they think it is good. I enjoy the praise. I'll be honest, I enjoy the fact that people think I am good at it and more importantly I enjoy the fact that I think I am good at it. Because I think that I am good at it I am going to try harder to learn more. Which is the whole reason that I am doing the whole website thing because in order to teach it I have to learn it. And I am not actually learning it new I am relearning it, I am learning the details that I never learned before. I am really getting into the dirt of Adobe Photoshop.
Which is something that I have stayed away from because I didn't want to know. I was always afraid that I was going to lose the passion. But for whatever reason I am not. I am doing the retouching with Adobe Photoshop has always been something that's interested me and something that I stayed with over the years.
I am not saying that Adobe Photoshop has to be your passion. Whatever it is you need to acknowledge what that passion is, and it is not something that you can just know overnight it takes obviously like I said many many years before you realize that you can continue to do that and continue to enjoy it, doing it over and over again no matter what it is.
And after you have built that passion then it is a matter of figuring out how you can make the money follow that. For me I built the website and I have generated some revenue from it and I figured out ways to make that pay me back.
But the bigger thing is I am going off and starting my own retouching studio and bringing in work that way. And while there is the difficulty with dealing with clients or other people's images and just all the things that go with that, it's work and it is what it is.
If I am able to put up with the garbage on the backend I can sit here quietly at night by myself listening to talk radio or music or whatever I want and I can just zone out and do the retouching that I enjoy doing. And I enjoy doing it because it is an isolated activity that isn't being distracted by other people and other interactions. I am an introvert, I know that I am an introvert. I don't like being in loud wild situations, which is why this is ideal for me.
There are so many things that just kind of clicked right for me. And once I saw that, that's when I was able to jump right in. I knew it three years ago but it took me this long to study harder to become better at it. Three years ago I was really good, I knew I was really good, but it really took the extra three years of focused retouching where that was just about all I did everyday.
And to become really fluent in it where I don't think about what I am doing it just comes naturally to me. Every problem that comes up in the retouching I don't have to figure it out it's just a matter of well do I want to do it this way, that way, well that way works, ok, then I do it, and yeah there's definitely a lot of mechanical type of stuff.
When I open up the image I just kind of do the exact same things over and over again. Like anything else you just have to put up with a lot of garbage in order to get to that good part in the center that you really enjoy.
So what you need to do today is to think about what you really enjoy doing. What did you enjoy doing five years ago? Is it still the same thing? Is this something you can pursue? If you learn everything about it do you think you would be still interested? Or do you think it would be too much information? If it is what you are already doing now, then fantastic.
Unfortunately, most people are doing exactly what they don't want to be doing. I was just speaking with someone the other day. What they had done they use to be in design, they use to do design and then life took them in another direction. However, finances several years later took them back into doing something new that they liked to do or something old that they use to do, which is design. And for simplicity sake they decided to go back into this old design routine and the very first job they had said to me this is why I don't want to do this, this is why I quit the first time, this is why I hate it. And the reason for that is because there is no passion there. Now, maybe this new direction would give passion but it is more work, it's a longer haul. Well, maybe you have to do both for a little while.
Life is a long time, if you start thinking about things in terms of years. Now, however old you are and then double that age, are you too old to start something new then? Well, that is probably when you would get around to doing what you are thinking about doing now. Or, that's when you will be out in the back yard doing gardening because you still don't know what you want to do.
The point is if you have something that you want to do then by all means go out of your way to try to make that happen. I said I worked at Marvel Comics, I didn't work at Marvel Comics because the job fell into my lap. It happened because I got up off my ass, rode into New York City and actually on that particular thing it was suppose to be this big convention, this big comic book convention and I was going to go there and show them all my work and I was going to wow everybody and whatever else I thought when I was twenty one years old.
And what ended up happening something did happen and I think there was a flood in the Jacob Javis Center and the convention was cancelled and so when I got there at the front door they said, oh, this is cancelled it is actually across town. Well what's left of it was across town and so now I had gone all that way and so I will go across town so I took another cab across town and they ended up having it in the basement of a church. I was like very last minute something and they dumped what they had down there. As poor as that was and I remember being very very bummed.
So one of the people that was there was Joe Qusada who would one day become the Editor and Chief of Marvel Comics, I remember that he looked at the work that I produced which at the time was something nobody had ever seen before, it was something very different, very revolutionary, very pro-actitive. He looked at it and he loved what he saw and then he said something like "it couldn't be produced in a mass scale", I don't remember what the hell it was. But I was really bummed about that and at the time he was just an artist.
But the point was I had gone over to another booth table thing that was there for Marvel and I just started talking to somebody there who was the recruiter for their intern program. And they were really just there kind of filling in type of thing, just filling space really. But I started talking to them and I said that I was interested in doing the intern program. Not that I was directly interested in the intern program but I would love to get in the door.
And I had talked to them and they handed me like a business card and said get back to them. So that's what I did, I followed up. Like I said it was where my focus was and it was what I wanted and I was hell bent if I wasn't going to get it. I got into the door and once I got in the door and took advantage of the situation. I got to know different people, went to work in different departments. I mean I was hired to work with one editor but I went out of my way to go find paying work within there which was art corrections and at the time they use to past down the word balloons and I did all that because I wanted to move up higher in a chain of, you know, from free work to paid work because that is what I wanted.
And very unfortunately, I do think it is a very unfortunate thing, it was very quickly it wasn't what I wanted and to this day it probably still isn't what I wanted. We all evolve and we all learn but the only way to find out was to get up off my butt and go and find out so that is what I am trying to encourage you to do is get up off your ass and go find what you want and simply do it. And if that is something that can generate revenue for you then that's great.
And even if it is something as simple as like model cars, glueing together model cars, painting model cars, or something silly like that. Everyone has their own hobbies. How do you make money from that? Well I've got several ideas off the top of my head and I'm not even thinking about it.
But that is just from my own experience in my own life and knowing what I know and what can happen when you want something bad enough. And if that was an interest of mine and that was a passion I would find a way to generate revenue from it and that mainly would happen because I have that passion that drives me. To create the website, to create a web store or whatever.
But the thing is if you don't have a passion for that product and that interest wains then that's where the problem comes in where you just don't want to do it anymore you don't want to deal with the garbage that comes along and then you just don't care and you give up and die inside, slowly.
So don't let that happen to you, your listening to this podcast because you are interested in photo retouching. You are interested in photo retouching and I know this because you have come ot the website and you have found the podcast or you are on itunes and you listen to the podcast or whatever the case is. You found me through my website which is about retouching, so I know that you are interested in that. We are all already on the same page.
What you need to decide is if this is something you want to do as a hobby, a profession or as something that is just a little bit higher up on that personal need. I wake up in the morning and I get excited that I get to do retouching, I like to do retouching when I'm sitting there I'm thinking, hey I am still retouching that is awesome. I have taken this image from what crap it was to what awesome it is. And what even more awesome it is going to be. Because that's what I enjoy doing.
What you need to decide is if that's what you want to do. And if it is then you need to watch the videos that I have created for you. You need to watch videos that others create for you. You need to make the time to do it. And I am guessing that if this is a passing interest, you wouldn't still be listening to me, you wouldn't still be watching these videos.
Because that is the interesting thing that I can see. Looking at these web statistics that there's videos that people watch because they have a specific need. But I can always see the base line number going up as a group because people are going back and watching all the different videos because they want to learn things. I am assuming that you are a part of that group, so if you are and you haven't been to the website please go to www.theartofretouching.com where I give you all these Adobe Photoshop insights on how to use the software, on how to use the different tools, how to manipulate everything and to make it all bend to your will. To help you make the most awesomeness awesome that ever was awesome.
That is unless of course you are just the guy that is working at his desk because he is being paid to work at his desk.
I have gone out and I have pulled all these price lists from all different kinds of web pages. The intent was something in the United States on the East Coast but the reality of it was we just kind of went everywhere and found what we found.
In general, most places didn't advertise prices and the places that did advertise prices were very cheap and expensive hack work and that wasn't very helpful. Because if the website looked like garbage then the prices were garbage and the portfolio that they were showing was garbage.
Some of the best portfolios that we saw didn't have prices at all and that made it difficult for us to determine how much we were going to charge for the retouching work that we wanted to do. So, when we did have an idea of what general prices we wanted to charge the problem came in well who were the clients?
I mean we have this idea, this rough range that we found off of the internet but the problem was were those the clients that we really wanted. At thirty dollars an image we really were going to find people that didn't want to spend a lot of money they had a wedding or something they just wanted some quick work, you know, one image, two images, maybe three. And we really didn't want that. We wanted the clients that were going to bring us ten images at once and we'd make our money in bulk.
And we also knew that the work we do is quality so we were really targeting agencies that were going to expect the best, because we can provide the best. And ideally, their the ones that are going to pay the best. It is kind of funny though we did pick up an extension of a client they do other photography with the studio but they wanted us to just do some retouching so we brought them on, and it is funny to me that they came to me to give them an estimation on how long it was going to take to do the job, which I provided.
Then the other person, he inflated the time frame just in case things ran over or whatever so he ended up adding another hour or hour and a half to my initial estimate and then the end client, I think there is actually an agency in between before the end client it's one of those case the money kept flowing down hill I guess. But we gave our time and our price to the agency and they gave the time and price to the end client and they agreed to it.
And what ended up happening was, my partner he ended up putting all this time into giving them the quote, talking on the phone, and emails and then it came back to me time on the phone and emails, I ended up putting some two and a half hours into this, just time talking on the phone and emails and he ended up doing the same plus some because now he is talking directly to the agency and it was more talking involved then there was actual retouching that's the part that I found utterly historical about this whole situation. But anyway, to me it was pretty straight forward here is what they wanted, here is the estimate, here is the price.
To me it was very cut and dry and I don't know what everyone else was doing but they turned it into this big production where if this, then that. Then we're going to have to charge extra for this and they just talked in circles. Meanwhile, they are still talking and thinking about things and I already have all the retouching done and I am ready to go and ready to be paid at this point and they are still discussing well if this then that. And it is just funny because I already had the green light and I did the work and they are still discussing amongst themselves.
So I guess the moral of that story is don't get caught up in the details of, not so much details of the negotiation, because it is always important to make sure that you don't lose money and lose time.
For example, I gave myself whatever it was probably about six hours to do the work and he got us seven and a half hours so he ended up getting us extra money plus extra time that in the end I didn't even use I think I only did about five hours worth of work. So to me it is all profit, with this being all profit this just could have been just so much easier if I didn't let him bring me down into the whole talking part.
I don't like the talking I just like the doing. So I think it just kind of comes down to, if everyone just says this is what we want and this is what we could do then it could have been cheaper all the way across the board. And I could have been on to the next project already. It is what it is.
To his credit he ended up getting us more money, so I guess the lesson to get from that is, don't target yourself as one of these low end people that thinks they are not worth what they probably are if you think you are mediocre then that's the work that you are going to do if you do think you are good, good enough but afraid to ask for the money you should just probably shoot for the sky and ask for the money anyway all they are going to say is no and then you just give them another offer, give them another pitch, maybe they will just come back and negotiate.
A lot of the freelance stuff is about salesmanship I do find a lot of similarities between the freelance and entrepreneurship, the entrepreneurs are creating new products but the ultimate the bottom line of it is, that the entrepreneur is a salesman who solves problems and let's be honest that's what a freelancer does they need to sell themselves that they can solve the problem, whatever that problem may be. So don't be afraid to pad your estimates.
Add an extra ten minutes add an extra half an hour, add an extra hour, it depends on what it is you can probably get away with it and if you do get away with it then that's more money in your pocket. I remember some three years ago when I started my cell phone business I was afraid to charge too much for phones I was only charging like twenty five dollar profit and then I was running myself raggid not making any money it did not take me very long to realize that I dictated what the market would bare because I was the only one out there on Craigslist selling cell phones to the local market so it was very easy for me to say well this is how much I want because I am the only one selling it.
I would put it out there at a higher price and I would see if anyone would bought it and I was always surprised at what people would pay when they wanted something. And if it really didn't sell for awhile then I would eventually drop the price.
Most recently I sold a product two phones in the same week or two that I had for two years I just couldn't get rid of these things over the course of time I just dropped them ten dollars, I dropped them ten dollars, until I finally found somebody that was willing to pay the price for it. Not that you should wait two years but don't just go and looking for thirty dollars when you can probably get fifty for it. That's all I'm saying.
So don't be afraid to put yourself out there and say yes I am very good and this is what I can do for you. As long as you do believe in yourself muster up that courage to present a good solid impression to everyone who looks at your work.
I think I mentioned before that I put together this whole book some fifty page book I did it for myself of my work and then I just started showing people, and one person said to me why are you working here that's when I knew that I was better than what garbage was being handed to me and why I took more of a stand in my life but then again you know it goes back to that whole part of what I said about vacations I am not being paid to be on vacation and even when I was on vacation, it really did irk me at this one, I'm on vacation I'm going to a theme park literally driving in the car I'm fifteen minutes away from the theme park for my kid and my wife is on the laptop in the passenger seat typing what I am dictating to her which ultimately went to the customer about some retouching thing that we were working on and as freelancers you just have to jam this time in here.
That is something else that I can mention when you do finally break away from nine to five type of thing where you just get handed work and you do it and then you go home and then you come back the next day they hand you work and then you go home, as a freelancer and most definitely from this whole weather thing that happened with the storm the electricity is out in half the places, and people are working wherever they can, they're showering wherever they can, that is the extreme, but it became this type of situation where my mental frame of work it mentally it was like on these days I worried about the studio and the retouching work, on these days I was worrying about the website and building the new business, on these hours I'm worried about the cell phones, on these days and on these times I'm being the husband and father because of everything that has happened recently that has just been shattered the past two weeks, actually we are in the third week now where that mentality is gone and I'm much more into a situation where I'm working all the time, everything has just become this big jumble where I'm working either I'm working I'm working all these odd hours on all these odd projects whatever is due first whatever needs to be done first and even this podcast I probably shouldn't be doing it but I just found that I really wanted to talk tonight.
I had some things on my mind I just wanted to get them out that is exactly what I did and sometimes you just need to take a break from what is expected and do something else. Past few days I put in some twenty hours worth of retouching and I am a little burned from it, I just wanted to do something else and so there is this balance that you really have to try and create and as a freelancer you don't necessarily get that option.
Personally, I have liked the fact that I can come down into my office and do work and then when I just say that's enough I can go upstairs to my family and do something different and see my son and then come back down and work again but even my wife she says that it's been almost three weeks now and she's like, I have just had it with you your always in the house you just always around and also now I'm bringing in co-workers and whatever loitering around, parking in the drive way, and whatever else is going on just to try and keep these businesses going. But that's the type of chaos that seems to be generating from not having a consistent times of days that things are suppose to be done because now there is just deadlines and different things need to be done and work just keeps coming in and where I thought I was finally getting caught up I was just dumped two or three more projects that I need to deal with in the next several days.
The beauty of it is, it doesn't matter when I do it, I could have done it tonight, I could do it tomorrow, I could do it tomorrow night, I could do it the day after that it doesn't matter when I do it, as long as I get them done before the actual deadline. And the big thing is to have the personality that is not the wait until the very last minute type I can pretty much say that as a freelancer, if you were the type of person that waited until the end of summer to read your summer reading this is not a business for you. I was never the type of person that would read it in the beginning of the summer either in fact, I think in high school I was the type of person who never read it at all, to be honest. I would just go out and get the cliff notes and oddly enough the questions were never the same questions reading the short version was never anything that they asked me.
But as a side note I remember that there was a book and they had asked me the question was on the billboard what do the eyes represent and the answer was they represented the eyes of god. And I remember thinking, what? It was just a story why do you have to over analyze everything? Just one of my strange things that has always been rattling around in my head ever since I was in high school, because I would always remember they would be talking about these books. Animal Farm, I read that one, I thought it was alright and then they tell me it's about socialism, and I was just like no it was about pigs, now as an adult I get the point but as a kid I didn't care I'm going off on a tangent but point was I always hated how they over analyzed these books and made us over think things when we were kids.
Why couldn't they teach us something useful like auto mechanics, if I'm going to send my kid to school I want him to know how to fix a flat tire which is also goes back to this whole point of this storm with the people just being totally and completely lost, the email wasn't working and then they are coming to someone like me to fix the problem or a mouse isn't working, my mouse isn't working, why doesn't it work because they had to move the computer, well I don't know not that I expect people to know how to fix computer problems it just goes back why don't they teach kids in school some basic computer repair, basic automobile repair, how to do things that are more useful, teach them how to cook.
I remember that there was a school next to us that did teach stuff like that and I just always wondered why my parents never sent me there instead. Although I also remember being in art school and they made us take English and math I think I didn't actually take those classes I was out in the parking lot playing hackie sack at the time, do you remember hackie sack? Yeah, it was big back when I was going. And I just absolutely skip those classes yes I failed those classes and yes I flunked out of that college, but that's neither here nor there.
It is just funny to me that I never went to a single font class, yeah we actually had a class about fonts, I never went I was out playing hackie sack and the part that was humorous to me is that I spent the next twenty years of my career knowing everything about fonts, so I don't know, one of those odd things I am totally rambling at this point.
Anyway, whatever I was talking about earlier… very important… I'm sure; or a complete and utter waste of time. Not sure which it is. Anyway, thanks for listening to another episode and I can't believe that you actually listened to the whole thing. I'm just used to people on youtube just skipping around on the videos I do, and people are just coming and going and leaving. I'm not use to people actually staying til the end. So if you actually stayed until the end and listened to all my pointless rambling then cool and if you haven't gathered from all the talking about storm that happened; that's one big reason I haven't been producing more videos on the website or new content. I've just been busy with the studio doing paid work ,so that is always very important, but if you do want anything specific, certainly send me an email or give me a phone call or whatever.
The email's info@theartofretouching.com and the phone number 203-551-9684. And yes, I do get people that actually ask me to do some things here and there so please feel free. I'm just giving you some quick advise or anything like that make sure you go to wwwTheArtofRetouching.com if you would like more tips and tricks to make you a better photo retoucher.
Thank you for listening to this epsiode of the Art of Retouching's podcast, I really hope that you got something out of it.
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