So did anyone else happen to see the Jesh de Rox / Beloved Collective web conference last night?
I was curious after seeing it promoted on Twitter. Wow. I found it pretty strange. This guy obviously has his followers (disciples? kool-aid drinkers?). It was sort of a cross between a religious revival and Amway convention by Internet. He spent the first 15 minutes mumbling in tears and then wrapped up the hour promoting his $250 field guide, his $500 web seminar, and his $16,500 one-on-one session (which to be fair, includes the field guide and web seminar).
Later, Zach Arias decided to be the Twitter version of the little boy who yelled "he has no clothes!" and a minor conflagration commenced in the Twitter-verse. I'm not sure exactly what to make of Jesh yet but my respect of Zach did go up because there does seem to be such a phenomenal level of "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" at that level of the industry.
The thing is, I still don't understand what this "Experiential Technique" is that Jesh is selling. Could someone explain it to me? I don't want the details or an illegal copy of the book or anything, just a summary. It sounds sort of like interviewing techniques that put the clients ( the "muses", as Jesh calls them) at ease so that they can bare their true souls on film. Is that what it is? The field guide includes 30 fine-art prints with I guess some pamphlet or something?
Whatever it is, it must be good. One of his disciples was invited to be a bridesmaid after using his techniques on a shoot. I get the impression from what he said and the Twitter comments from his converts (He looks like John Stamos!), that when Jesh does a session himself, it is not uncommon for the couple to ask him to be the father of their first-born.
Eyeball wrote:
The thing is, I still don't understand what this "Experiential Technique" is that Jesh is selling. Could someone explain it to me? I don't want the details or an illegal copy of the book or anything, just a summary. It sounds sort of like interviewing techniques that put the clients ( the "muses", as Jesh calls them) at ease so that they can bare their true souls on film. Is that what it is? The field guide includes 30 fine-art prints with I guess some pamphlet or something?
The beloved technique is something that I only heard of this past weekend, myself... but from what I gathered, your description is pretty accurate.
From what I surmise, based on random info from FB etc. It sounds like JdR has just come up with a creative way to make money based on a certain approach to working with clients. I am not that interested but in a business sense if it makes money then great for him.
Just another photographer selling stuff to other photographers.
hardlyboring wrote:
From what I surmise, based on random info from FB etc. It sounds like JdR has just come up with a creative way to make money based on a certain approach to working with clients. I am not that interested but in a business sense if it makes money then great for him.
Just another photographer selling stuff to other photographers.
I agree I don't know much about this, except for what was in my Twitter feed this morning~ would I ever pay $16,000 for a one on one workshop with any photog, no way! Do I care if anyone else does, nope!
I understand newbies trying to learn,but it always puzzled me when those with 3,4,5 year of experience would pay a lot of money to attend workshops to try to find that "magic for success".
If you've been doing it for many years and you still in the drain then you're just not working hard enough. PERIOD! You can keep wasting money on workshops,seminars and self help books,but if you are not willing to apply that and go for it, working your butt off 12 hours a day to "make it happen" then nothing good will come out of it.
there is a lot of hullaballoo surrounding jesh right now (and constantly, kind of) but 1 on 1 (no 16k) he is a really nice guy and the experiential stuff is a really great tool. i consider it one of the reasons my work stands out a little bit more than most. the idea is to give people emotional triggers to make them act a certain way.
DmitriM wrote:
I understand newbies trying to learn,but it always puzzled me when those with 3,4,5 year of experience would pay money(any money) to attend workshops to try to find that "magic for success".
If you've been doing it for many years and you still in the drain then you're just not working hard enough. PERIOD! You can keep wasting money on workshops,seminars and self help books,but if you are not willing to apply that and go for it, working your butt off 12 hours a day to "make it happen" then nothing good will come out of it.
This is a different topic I guess, but what the hay...
I see where you're coming from on this, but I would tend to disagree with you. I know lots of people who struggle to book, but it's certainly not from a lack of effort. Most often, it's a lack of truly great work. Not to be totally shameless, but we had a number of people that attended the Genesis workshop last year who have been in business much longer than 5 years and I think a few of them have improved a ton since then and I've seen their businesses growing. Not saying it's necessarily because of the workshop, but I really admire when an old dog tries to learn new tricks.
Maurice Ramirez is a great example. He's someone I look up to photographically and he has success and lots of experience, but he's always attending things to try to keep pushing himself. And I think he's growing because of it.
With all that said, my feelings about this particular workshop shall remain private since the forum is public
I don't think that it just takes hard work. You can work really, incredibly hard at the wrong things and not get anywhere. Until you know what the right direction is it doesn't matter how hard you run.
Where you come to understand the right direction is of course up to you. Some people will research it, get it from a peer/workshop/seminar/consultant/whatever, but the answers are usually out there.
I've seen hundreds of people find "the magic for success" by paying for it. Didn't make their businesses any less meaningful. Frankly, finding a way to pay for the answer and get it faster seemed to take a lot of the stress out of the development process.
1) selling photography to photographers is really profitable if...
a) you are likable (which he is)
b) you have name recognition for a new product (which he does, or in his case a state of mind that goes with eliciting a set of emotions and
c) your product elicits a strong emotional response (both positive or negative) out of your target audience.
He is also a smart man because the fact that he has syndicated the equivalent of a qvc-style "make 2 grand a month selling products on the internet in your PJs with only 4 hours of work a week and then buy a boat" set of DVDs without having to pay a dime to the cable tv companies.
He had 5000 people last night watching his 1-hour seminar, or infomercial, and then had 5000^n people tweet about it. Both the negative response and positive response is good for him because it creates intrigue.
I bet he sold a lot of action sets today.
There is nothing magical about the message, but it is still a good one: "care about your couples, get them to realize how much they love each other through various coaching techniques and then be there to document the emotion with your camera"
Eyeball wrote:
He spent the first 15 minutes mumbling in tears and then wrapped up the hour promoting his $250 field guide, his $500 web seminar, and his $16,500 one-on-one session (which to be fair, includes the field guide and web seminar).
Holy crap, I almost fell outta my chair when I read that sentence! I was on Jesh's 'free talk' last night and I have been trying to put the 'experience' in words ever since. Yep..."mumbling in tears" was right on the money!
For the first half of the talk, every few minutes he would look to the side, or look up and sound like he was about to cry or get all emotional, and then struggle to compose himself and say how beautiful everyone was. I thought, 'Dude, whataya cryin' about?...you haven't even said anything yet!'
You mean there is more to wedding photography than just buying a camera, this is supposed to be an easy profession.
Why couldn't they teach me all this at school
I understand and appreciate what JDR is doing, and teaching....I don't think I subscribe to it the way some of his acolytes do though. The people who follow him are DEVOTIONAL. And all the more power to him for it, I wish him luck, and I see the benefits behind what he's talking about.
I DID get a laugh at Zack Arias calling him out on Twitter last night. I agree with him too, it can get tiring seeing a LOT of "selling the dream" going on, and $16,500 for a one on one with him is excessive. I don't see anyone who NEEDS that 1 on 1 being able to afford it...and those who CAN afford it probably don't need the coaching anymore.
Damn, and here I was thinking Jesh de Rox was a woman (being dead serious about that). I guess I need to pay more attention to these famous photographers.......or not.
