Commencing 27th August inside Collingwood House, this masterclutz of a one day werkshop is an intensive and practical probing. I think it’s time. You weddy?

‘Smoko Season’ refers to that long-awaited break time in which us industry folk get to take a backseat for that joyous n’ nippy part of the year. Oh.. you’re still editing? Nevermind 😏

The morning entrée is where we we’ll spin yarns on delectable pricing guides (Jacko reveals all!), plugin hacks for website, desktop AND Lightroom, as well as how I go about locking and loading the creme de la creme couples, the ones who appreciate and see themselves in our folios.

Mile End Bagels, Free to Feed as well as Jamsheed Wines are providing grub, cuppas and piss’a’plenty. The real main course however is a live shoot from Jackson, and an honest conversation that redefines the ‘getting ready’ stage. All of us will then pull apart what we should be asking inside our questionnaires, before I embark on a live edit and a cheat sheet inside Lightroom 🧑‍🎨

Dessert is the last hour of me chewing your ears off. I’ll be palming off ways you can light your speeches n’ d-floor, to bring colour into often moody environments (without lugging around a trolley of equipment). I'll also throw ya my favourite ways of working with on-camera flash so that you aren't left with a bunch'a underexposed nightmares!

We’ll rehearse approachable email lingo, from the initial enquiry, all the way through to ticking that beloved ‘Job complete’ box ('Kind Regards' is absolutely banned). To wrap up, a cuppla generous giveaways from Godox, PicTime and Backblaze couldn’t hurt.. before hitting the pub of course 🍻

‘Education’ is one thing, but Smoko is forever 🤘

I was invited to speak at the 2024 Way Up North conference in Florence, Italy. I challenged assumptions about our industry, gave the finger to ‘consistency’ and spoke with unfiltered honesty. Mum, if you're reading.. Take a look!

How the Europeans understood my bogan lingo I have no clue... but the feedback from the larger than life audience lit a eeeeuge fire under my ass, and reminded me that everybody has something unique to share.. mines a shoey.

"Don’t let his exuberant approach fool you – there’s nothing careless about the way he does things. He takes on 25 couples a year and is intentional and generous with his time. His is a no-shortcut approach to inquiries, client communication, photographing, culling, and editing, and he’s willing to spend time on each stage of this process. Today, we’re diving right into the virtues and benefits of a workflow that doesn’t hold maximum productivity or efficiency as the pinnacle of success." - Anna Hutchcroft, Unscripted

"It all began on Mum’s lil’ eBay camera back ’round 2010 – how glam. Remember those slide-down lil’ underwater point-and-shoots? I loved a MySpace selfie (top-down angle, of course), and I frothed an edit full of stickers ‘n over-saturation. From there it was pretty much a game of luck, really!

Fanged it down the Hume Highway and started a life in the big smoke, copped an invite through one of Mum’s friends to some dazzling duo’s wedstival, bought along me fresh new cam (not the MySpace one, could you imagine?) and realised I was a sucker for a portrait over a landscape any day." - Speaking with Kate Streader.

God knows why, but Oli Sansom rudely interrupted my Euro holiday and threw me in front of a projector in the middle of Ghent, Belgium.

I wouldn’t doubt there were some eyes glazing over when I started talking about analytics, but I think my biggest take home was conveying the value to wedding photographers on triple-checking your terminology to tick the oh so important inclusivity box.

My non-linear and guest heavy Insta carousels seem to be popping off nowadays too, so I spun yarns on how I whip those up, and how this influences my ‘tick box’ approach prior to exporting sneak peek photos for my couples 🙂