Hello, photography lovers!

Welcome to another episode of the fashion photography podcast, the one and only place you can find everything you want, and also everything you need to know about the fashion photography business. And maybe at the moment, you’re asking yourself, how am I supposed to get this information? And I’ve got the answer for you. Every Wednesday, we’re here with another guest, a person from the industry. And every other Friday, I’m answering your questions. And I’m also giving you some little tips and cool tricks to leave a live out of your photography business. And when I say we, I mean me, your host, Virginia. I’m a fashion advertising photographer with more than 10 years of experience in the fashion photography industry. And the gorgeous producer of this show and also my soul mate- George.
Today is Wednesday, and it’s time for another interview, but lately, we have provided you with lots of interviews with our fellow photographers. So we decided to spice it up a little and this time, you’re going to have a meeting with a retoucher.

And because it’s a big transition, she’s going to tell us how to make this transition from photography to retouching because she used to be a photographer, and because she had to learn a lot about retouching, and she’ll tell you how to improve your retouching skills. And there is something very interesting when we talk about working with clients, everyone is going to tell you that it’s very important to usually make a personal meeting. But my guest today will tell you if you can work remotely without even ever meeting your clients. And of course, because if you don’t ever market yourself, it’s going to be very hard for you to get clients. So today we’re talking about marketing yourself. Let me tell you about our friends from Lucy’s magazine. They’re waiting for your next beauty or fashion editorial and one of your images can become their next cover. And now it’s time for a podcast. 

So say hello to our latest guest!

Luca Szalmas
Hello, I’m Luca Szalmas. I’m a retoucher. I’ve been doing retouching professionally for about two years. Before that I did photography for a couple of years. And that’s how I got into retouching. And I feel like I’m at the right place. And I found my true passion. So I’m very happy to be interviewed about that.

Virginia Y
So nice. Just two years and your yet the so good. Oh, thank you. Tell us more about your experience. How did you learn retouching?

Luca Szalmas
Wow, okay, so um, I started out when I was doing photography, I was in high school. So I wouldn’t really say it was a very serious adventure for me. But it definitely opened some doors to retouching because I loved processing my photos. And I was also a little bit of a control freak. So I tended to overdid everything. And it was just really bad. But it was probably the most enjoyable part of the image creating process for me. So I gravitated towards retouching after a couple of years. And honestly, the reason why I’m doing it professionally now full time is because I was in desperate need of money. And my partner recommended me freelancing websites, and I just started doing it. Because if I can do it for myself, why not try it for other people? Absolutely. And I did it for a little while. But again, I did not study retouching or anything. So it was a completely self taught thing. And I was doing that. But I wasn’t really satisfied with it. Because I didn’t get jobs that were challenging. And I wasn’t really developing my skills because I didn’t need to, Did you at least got the money? Neither? Well, not really. But it was fun enough that I kept going. And after a while I realized that, yeah, what I’m doing is bad. It’s really bad. So I kind of stopped doing what I was doing. And I dived into many, many Facebook groups about retouching and I read creative criticism, I read a lot of them. And it was till this day, I wouldn’t dare to post my work for criticism, because they were absolutely brutal, but very, very useful. And that’s how I started doing research in the proper way. Because I learned what not to do. Before I even started, the criticism was ingrained into my brain before I even knew what layers or kind of had a direction I knew how to start and what not to do not to do, as in, you know, when people fight about frequency separation and stuff like that, I tried to just do it the quote unquote, proper way. And that’s where it started. I don’t think I’ve asked for criticism much. Because I was just too scared, I tend to learn by myself, no matter what. And that’s probably not the best way. But so far, it’s been working for me. And if I’m really, really desperate for help, I asked for help.

Virginia Y
Would you recommend right now to people that don’t have such thick skin? To go to groups like that and get a little bit of criticism? Two words stare work?

Luca Szalmas
Absolutely. Do as I say, do because I wouldn’t dare to do it just because I can’t really take it. But if you want to learn, it’s amazing. Seriously, I think I learned more from those groups than anywhere else.

Virginia Y
When you were just looking at other people’s mistake and learning from those I think it’s super amazing because you’re ready to consume information. And I think this is the main thing that is going to lead you in the future for by results. You know, people usually say Learn from your mistakes. But I’ve always been thinking you can learn from everyone’s mistakes. Absolutely. So you’re like the living example of that. And after you continued with this learning process, when was the first moment that you just had this first job for someone else? Once you were done with it, you were just like, oh my god, I did a good job here. You felt satisfied?

Luca Szalmas
I say that I started retouching probably about two years ago. But I’ve been working as a retoucher before that it’s a weird concept. I know. And I’m not proud of the worst I did before that. But I did have moments then when I felt like oh, okay, I accomplished something. And this satisfies me. But if we have to talk about the stuff that happened after I actually got into retouching, and I did things the proper way. And as a business, I remember there was a shoot for a company that makes beautiful, beautiful head wraps. And they shot these group shots with black women because it’s a company founded by and owned by in the everything that they do create is created by black women. And the shots were just absolutely wonderful. That was my first favorite series. It was a lot of pink, a lot of pastels. Beautiful. That was the first moment when I finished and I thought, Okay, this is what I want to do. And I will use this shoot forever, because I really loved it.

Virginia Y
And where are you based?

Luca Szalmas
I’m based in New Zealand.

Virginia Y
Whoo. Well, that’s across the whole world. Yeah, it is. It’s so amazing. Because working as a retoucher, actually, you can do it from your home. And those images can end up everywhere.

Luca Szalmas
Tell me about it. It’s amazing.

Virginia Y
Have you ever been on a shoot along with the photographer.

Luca Szalmas
No, that’s the interesting part. I’ve never met anyone I work with Whoa, yeah. Because I live in the middle of nowhere on a farm. my whole career at this point is based out of my office. Yeah. Which is crazy. Because I work with people all around the world, mostly from America and some from London, you’re But yeah, I never thought I could reach out and meet so many people. it’s mind blowing.

Virginia Y
Yeah, it’s crazy, as you said. So you should be very good with your marketing strategy.
Do you want to share with us how you reached out to so many people that are so far away?

Luca Szalmas
I think the Facebook groups definitely played a huge rolling in, I met pretty much 50% of the people I keep in touch with regularly in Facebook groups. And I think a lot of my inspiration and a lot of recommendations came from that. But I also tried to keep active on Instagram and communicate a lot with people and ask for help for advice. Or just discuss creative concepts or share inspiration, you know, like just regular, everyday stuff that is not necessarily work related. But those relationships did get me a lot of work, which is so nice. It is because I would prefer working with people that I have some sort of connection with instead of just getting a random email from somebody across the world. And I don’t know them. I don’t like to go way beyond the professional relationship. But I like to have friends that I can count on.

Virginia Y
And when you’re closer you can understand each other or what is the other person into and you can provide the right results.

Luca Szalmas
Yeah, and I think the reason why I like to talk to artists is because, wow, shocker, they get me it’s not the same with regular people who don’t really know about how the industry works. And you know, the struggles. I feel like sharing struggles with people helped me tremendously. And I hope I could help some people

Virginia Y
It’s so cool. That’s exactly why we’re here. Right? Yeah. So when you mentioned the emails, this is something that we can be truly helpful with it for the photographers, and also for the researchers that are listening to the show. Maybe you can tell us what’s the perfect email that you can receive? Maybe it’s not something that you have received so far at the moment, but the perfect one as a structure, what is supposed to send to you a photographer? How are we supposed to explain as photographers what we want as a final result from the photo, from your retouch, and not to mess up the situation before it even started?

Luca Szalmas
I really appreciate this question. What usually happens is I get a lot of Instagram DNS and emails saying, What’s your rate? Or how much you charge for images, I usually don’t like to reply to those because that to me screams that this is not that important. And I’m just shopping around for the cheapest person. So what I would like to see instead, first of all, say hi, because that’s just basic respect. And first of all, say hi, tell me who you are. don’t have to go too much into detail. But just tell me, do you do fashion or beauty or lifestyle or wedding or whatever? Tell me what you’re looking for. Exactly. Because most of the time people ask me very vague questions. And retouching is it has so much to it, I can give everybody a black and white answer to this very, very simple question that doesn’t really target anything. So I like it. When people say what they do, tell me what they need, show me what they need, because I like to ask for images before I give a quote, because an image can take five minutes to retouch and it can take five days to retouch. Yeah, and I can tell without seeing the images or having just a basic idea of what the images are. So I like to get a couple of samples. I like to know how many images are there in total, what the deadline is if they have a budget, although I usually don’t like to ask what their budget is because I feel like that question is a bit of a repellent. For some reason people like to disappear if I asked about the budget. So I tend to just share that information from my side first year, although I it’s not the greatest solution, because we all know that the first person saying a price pretty much closes. But so far, I’m not super concerned about the business side of retouching, because I try to treat it as art. On top of these things, I usually only need this information to start with and then we can progress into some deeper information. But that’s pretty much all I need.

Virginia Y
Do you ever do stuff just for your portfolio when you really love the project?

Luca Szalmas
Yes, I do. I used to do a lot of collaborations, it was mainly what I did a barely worked for money. It just worked for exposure, which is horrible. I really hated it. But it did get me a lot of great portfolio pieces, a lot of amazing connections and a lot of practice. And I think the time I spent on collaborations was probably the best way to spend my time. Because although it didn’t pay me, they do give me a lot of knowledge and a lot of connections that I find very valuable. And those got me jobs.

Virginia Y
I think this is actually the natural process. Because even if you’re a photographer, you always starting with collaborations you’re always turning with personal projects. Those are usually project that you are paying for. Absolutely, yeah, if we talk about hiring a model or buying something for to shoot, or just transport, these are all money that are coming out of your pocket. But these are also the projects that the clients are seeing. And that’s the reason why you have clients because they’re seeing those projects, and they’re coming to you, especially in such saturated market as our market today. You can be a brilliant photographer, retoucher, makeup artist, but if you’re not showing to the world, what you’re capable of no one is going to come to you. So collaboration projects are so amazing for this.

Luca Szalmas
Yes, but I gotta say, lately, I haven’t really been doing much, because I just don’t have the time for it anymore. And I think I have good enough pieces already. But so my default position right now is no, I will probably not collaborate. But when I say something really nice, and I know the person who’s shooting it, for example, I see some behind the scenes shots, or a friend is telling me that they’re going to shoot something. And I really liked the concept. And I really liked the friends portfolio, I might ask them to show me some images, and I might ask them to collaborate. But yeah, nowadays, I feel like I have more control over what I collaborate on. Of course, yeah, when I started, I didn’t really think about that much about the quality of the images, I did like them, they will be alive to say that all they’re not good. I just don’t like them anymore. Because my style and my tastes and my vision. Obviously, during the years developed, and it was a good practice, I would not change anything, it was very good to start out with. But now I don’t really do them. Because time and and also, there are photographers who exclusively use researchers on a collaboration basis. And first of all, everyone knows that they don’t pay. But also you go to their portfolios, and you can instantly see the huge differences in the quality and style. And I feel like that’s just not beneficial for the photographer. Because there is no signature style, there is no consistency. And that’s why brands don’t really like to hire those people because you don’t really know what you get. When researchers collaborate with those photographers. We know that the photographer doesn’t pay, everyone knows that the retoucher did it for free. other photographers think, Oh, this researcher is doing this for free? So I’m going to try because why not? And then those requests keep rolling in that Oh, hate collaborate? And I don’t feel good saying no. But I have to because it’s not sustainable. So yes, when people start out, collaborate, yeah, I shouldn’t say that. My word is the word. But do it collaborate and network and practice. The practice part is what makes this the most valuable. And second is the networking part. And then the portfolio because as you get better, your portfolio will get better, but you got to do it first.

Virginia Y
It’s again, the natural process, because it’s normal for you to start to develop to bring your work to another level and then start having jobs. And these jobs are going to take away a lot of your free time. Because it’s no longer free. Yeah. And then when you’re such a retoucher, you’re just starting in connecting with amazing photographers, which means that you your work and your portfolio are always evolving. And at the end of the day, your portfolio looks so amazing without even the free part.

Luca Szalmas
Which is so good. I think there’s still plenty of free stuff in my portfolio, I’m not going to take them out just because they were free. Of course, I keep the best pieces. And when I collaborate, I only collaborate on stuff that is better what I have now, I have to benefit from it. Because now I still don’t make a lot of money. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not rich or anything, I’m broke as hell. But I make enough money that if I do those collaborations, they take a lot of time away from jobs that would pay me a proper amount. But if that collaboration is not good enough, that’s a double lose for me.

Virginia Y
Yeah, I think it’s very nice. And you mentioned the point where a photographer should stick to retoucher. Can you tell us a little bit more about it?

Luca Szalmas
Yeah, absolutely. I believe that retoucher is can be a huge part of your style. As a photographer, if you have a retoucher. And if you have somebody good stick to them. If you don’t have any reason to change, why would you just stick to one retoucher? There are a lot of surfers who who do this collaboration thing regularly. And you can see the differences. And, look, it doesn’t matter if a photographer has like two, three and three touches because busy, we can always do the jobs. And sometimes you have to find a different person. But if you have a very small set of researchers, you will have consistent quality, consistent style and your images will be recognizable. And not just because oh, that person is a lot of researchers and I can kind of pinpoint the style. But Wow, that image is so overdone, because that’s what you see usually happens. I noticed pictures. And I can tell that Oh, it’s from a specific photographer. But Houston retoucher I have no idea. And it’s different from every single picture. And I look at the photographer’s profile, and I think Yeah, I would never hire this person because I won’t get consistent quality.

Virginia Y
That was it for today guys, and you’ll be able to hear more next Wednesday when we’ll be back here with the second part of the interview. And until then you can go to photography podcast.net where you can find all of our previous episodes and also some additional cool spicy stuff, like special articles just for you. So guys, if you want to know more, go to photography podcast.net or you prefer listening, just make sure to subscribe to our podcast. Thank you guys so much for being with us today. And I’ll see you next Wednesday.