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No BS Photo Success Digital Photography Shop Talk
Today's Guest: Josh Barry of Josh Barry Photography in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
Today's Host: John Bentley

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ANNOUNCER: Welcome to No BS Photo Success Digital Photography Shop Talk brought to you by NO BS Photo Success Photography Forum. Dedicated to the portrait and wedding photographer who has the passion and desire to grow. Now here's your host, John Bentley.

JOHN: Today on the No BS Photo Success Digital Photography Shop Talk, we have Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, photographer, Josh Barry, of Josh Barry Photography, joining us. Welcome to the program, Josh.

JOSH: Thank you for having me, guys.

JOHN: Well it's nice to have you here. Let's talk photography, ok. Why don't you tell us a little bit your photography business.

JOSH: I'm based out of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. My largest clientele base is Bar and Bat Mitzvah's. I also do families, children, babies, newborn photography. And maternity photography has really caught fire in this area where I get a lot of calls for studio photography for maternity sessions which has become a big craze as well. I often do weddings, occasionally, but I don't market towards them.

JOHN: Ok. You have a studio, then, that you work out of, or are you strictly on location?

JOSH: I do a lot of location stuff, but I also run my studio out of my home. Anything that you see on my website that looks like it was done in a studio was done right my home studio.

JOHN: Alright. Now let's have a little background. How did you get into photography?

JOSH: Oh, boy. That's a good story. My father owns a locksmith business and he has always been quite the Tim the Tool Man Taylor guy, always over doing stuff so when I was much younger, he needed a camera to take pictures of the safes he would work on for his records, but he didn't just go out and buy a Polaroid camera or a point and shoot 35mm. He got a professional SLR with all the trimmings, different macro lenses, and zoom lenses, and flash, and the stands and stuff. I mean, I don't know why he went that far, but he got the stuff, and he told me and my little brother or my older when we were little, he said, don't go near this camera. And of course when you're that young, and your hear "don't touch this", what do you think happened.

JOHN: Yeah, you want to check it out. It has to be cool.

JOSH: And he would lock it up in a camera case with a lock on it. It was a little sliding mechanism, almost like a suitcase where you slide the thing over and then the lock pops, and he would lock it, but the problem with that was I was the son of a locksmith.

JOHN: Yeah, that didn't quite make sense, did it?

JOSH: No. So I always had the tools to open it. So whenever he would leave or go on a job somewhere, I was playing with it constantly, and I played with it a lot and I got comfortable holding it. I didn't really learn too much, though, because any books on photography that my father had were stereo instructions. I mean they were very complicated to read, and I just didn't understand it so I would say right around 18 years old, I visited a friend up in western Massachusetts, and I borrowed my father's camera. He actually had two now at this point. He had two in case one failed him during a crucial photo session with one of his safes. So I borrowed one of them for that...

JOHN: One of his safes, that's great!

JOSH: And he didn't realize it, but I took it up there and I was practicing. My friend who was already into photography saw me trying to teach myself photography, and she gave this book. And it was just a book about a half an inch think, and it was just amazing, and I read it, and I understood photography as far as the the relationship between aperture and shutter speed. So I finally knew how to make this camera work, and after I read this book, I went right out and I took a, and this is still back when I was shooting film. I took some slide film around downtown Harrisburg, and at the time, I was a member of the Art Association of Harrisburg, and I printed out this photo that I took right after I read this book, and I framed it, and they had a coop with the Art Association with different restaurants around the area, and I had my work hanging up, and a local politician who was in charge of putting together an Insider's Guide for the city of Harrisburg. He wanted one for the cover of the magazine that he was putting together for the insiders.

JOHN: Great.

JOSH: And that's when I thought, ok, I must have something here, because it's getting people's attention. So from that point I just started doing landscapes and cityscapes and selling those, and then I really got into photographing people. And that's where my love for photography has skyrocketed. I love photographing people.

JOHN: Let's talk about some of the people and some of the situations that you shoot. You had mentioned to me earlier that Bar and Bat Mitzvah's are the bulk of your business, aren't they?

JOSH: Yeah, Bar and Bat Mitzvah's are the major part of my...I am a specialist in Bar and Bat Mitzvah's. That is 2/3 of my business. I do, I would say, 2 - 3 a month of those. They're a lot of fun. They're exciting. They're less stressful than weddings.

JOHN: Yeah, sure.

JOSH: For sure, you have a room full of 13 year old kids and adults and everybody just wants to party and have a good time, and I try to think of myself as a diplomat and try to be very charismatic, and I am very young at heart myself. So I fit in with that market very well, and I do very well in it. I do most of my Bar and Bat Mitzvah's come out of Baltimore, Maryland. I'm about an hour and a half from Baltimore so I cover a lot of Maryland as well.

JOHN: Well, Josh, we'regoing to take a break here, but before we go, why don't you give your website address and contact information for our listening audience please.

JOSH: Sure. My website is www.joshbarry.com. My email address is josh@joshbarry.com and you can call me toll free at (888) 517-6374.

JOHN: Excellent. We are speaking with Josh Barry of Josh Barry Photography out of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and you're listening to the No BS Photo Success Digital Photography Shop Talk. We will be right back after these messages.

ANNOUNCER: This program is sponsored by NO BS Photo Success Photography Forum. Visit them on the web at www.nobsphotosuccess.com. NO BS Photo Success dedicated to the portrait and wedding photographer who has the passion and desire to grow.

ANNOUNCER: VTalk Radio.

ANNOUNCER: www.morephotos.com helps professional photographers manage their digital images online in over 20 countries. They can help you with domain names, websites, shopping carts, and online proofing solutions. Please visit them at www.morephotos.com. www.morephotos.com the online sales solution for professional photographers worldwide. We now return you to the NO BS Photo Success Digital Photography Shop Talk show with your host, John Bentley.

JOHN: We are back in the studio with Josh Barry of Josh Barry Photography out of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and you are listening to the NO BS Photo Success Digital Photography Shop Talk. Welcome back to the program, Josh.

JOSH: Hey. Hey.

JOHN: Now we've been talking about some of the aspects of your photography; you also do portraiture too. Is that correct?

JOSH: Yes.

JOHN: And family and kids. How is it working with kids?

JOSH: Kids are interesting. You definitely have to have a lot of patience for kids. They are a lot of fun. It can be very rewarding if you're a patient person and can just get down on the child's level and make them feel comfortable with you. Once you make them feel comfortable with you, you get amazing portraits of them.

JOHN: I bet you do. Now also you have some very nice maternity shots on your website. Is that an aspect of photography you really enjoy?

JOSH: I really started to get into that within the last year, and it has sky rocketed as well. It's very popular now. A lot of women are now starting to look for maternity portraits, because they are looking to add that to their wall as their child grows up adding that as the very first series and when done artistically, the clients really appreciate that.

JOHN: Well speaking of artistically, there are a couple of shots in particular I really like in the maternity gallery and that's kind of the mirrored effect. How did you come with the mirrored effect?

JOSH: Mirrored effect was also...well I first saw it actually somebody interviewed James Hodgins. I saw him do it, and he shared how he does it, and I of course copied his technique for doing that...which is legal by the way, but I was amazed by it. I loved it, and I started doing it and when clients in my area started seeing it, that is my most popular, most requested maternity set up per se that I do.

JOHN: You also have a really fantastic shot of a baby sleeping on a bookshelf. How did you come up with that?

JOSH: It was a client who wanted newborn portraits done. Her name was Ella, and she wanted stuff done in her home. She didn't want studio portraits. She wanted on location, and she wanted them done in her home. So during my pre-consult...I do a consultation before the actual day of the session, I walked around her house, and I looked for stuff where we could do portraits, and I saw this book shelf in Ella's room, and I just saw the way that the natural light was hitting it from the side window, and I thought, oh this is perfect, if we can get Ella to sleep, we can put her on the shelf, and you know, I took probably 15 shots of her on that, and she didn't budge at all. She was perfect. She was dead asleep. You could have set off a fire cracker around her without her waking up.

JOHN: It's a really beautiful shot. Now you had mentioned that you had got the mirror technique through James Hodgins of The No BS Photo Success website. What other things have you learned from the No BS Photo Success website?

JOSH: Man. Almost every aspect of the photography business you learn in there, and you learn it to a high degree. You don't...it's not just a share form. It's not just, look how great I am as a photographer or give my work constructive criticism. Every aspect of certain situations of what photographers end up in. Lighting, business and marketing, posing. It is truly an all encompassing forum. A very willing, successful photographer sharing their knowledge with one another. It's truly a Godsend for my business. Because of that site, I have been able to go full time. I used to be a part time photographer building his business working a full time job to now within the last year and a half/two years, I am a full time photographer who lives off of my business solely.

JOHN: Wow. That's amazing that you can get that much information in that little bit of time.

JOSH: You have to be dedicated. You certainly have to put energy into it. It is, you know, just like anything, you have to put your mental energy and your physical energy into it as well. Thinking about it doesn't do you much good, but the information is there, the tools are there if you want to use them. It's, again, I can't say enough about James and Rob.

JOHN: So back to the mirrored shot then. Was this something...

JOSH: You like that, don't you.

JOHN: Yeah I do like that, and I think anybody that is a photographer that likes a little more creative element to what they're doing is looking for different angles. They're looking for interesting contrasts and certainly that mirrored effect is a very cool effect. Is that something you set up in the studio, or is that something you do in post-production?

JOSH: The actual reflection is done in post production. We do that in Photoshop. There is no mirror involved. You just have to get your camera angle low enough to leave enough room in the image so when you flip her that you have enough room for the whole body to fit underneath her. Also what's very important is lining up the four or five points that are touching the floor. The toes, the knees, the elbow, the hand, part of the head and the belly; they all have to be in a completely straight line so when you flip it nothing is overlapping which can be a challenge.

JOHN: Certainly, and this is something you learned through the website isn't it?

JOSH: Absolutely. No BS.

JOHN: Now did you get the idea for the baby on the bookshelf...was it that aspect of lighting is that something you learned also from the No BS site?

JOSH: Yeah, you know, there's tons of video tutorials and one of the things we talk about in the forum and also you'll find a tutorial is learning how to "find the light". Finding the light is important. Looking how the light comes in and how it's going to affect your subject and the props or the environment that you're going to be pointing your camera at and creating portraits. Yeah, it's all there.

JOHN: Well, Josh, it's been wonderful having you on the No BS Photo Success Digital Photography Shop Talk radio program today.

JOSH: Thank you very much for having me.

JOHN: Now before I let you go, though, why don't you give your website address and contact information again.

JOSH: Website and contact information again? Absolutely. www.joshbarry.com and you can also call me toll free at (888) 517-6374.

JOHN: Great if you're in the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, area, I highly suggest you give Josh a call. Thanks for tuning in everyone to the No BS Photo Success Digital Photography Shop Talk radio program. You have a great afternoon.

ANNOUNCER: No BS Photo Success Digital Photography Shop Talk is powered by www.vtalkradio.com . Radio for the 21st Century.



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