Intro: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the Posers podcast, the place where we skip the fluff. Say the quiet parts out loud and dig into what really matters. This is where photography, psychology, and business collide. I'm Jody, your host, and I'm bringing you my raw takes, hard wins, and a whole lot of unfiltered honesty about what it takes to build a photography business that actually connects and makes money.
So ladies, grab your headphones and get your tits up and your ears open because we are going to build something really incredible together.
Hello, hello, hello my beautiful posers and welcome back to another episode of the Posers Podcast. Before we jump into today's episode, I need a quick temperature check on Love Island. 'cause really like how deep are you? I had a triple header of photo shoots in the studio yesterday and whenever I went home I hit a wall and I needed to.
Zone out. I needed to decompress. [00:01:00] You know what, actually yesterday I was Rob from last season. Do you remember whenever he had to swim underneath the bridge? He took his mic off. Cameras couldn't get to him because he just needed a minute to himself. Yeah, yesterday I was robbed. So, I got into my comfy and I slid underneath the blanket and love island literally just lulled me as if I was a newborn baby.
Straight. Into Sunday evening, so. Hoodish Crash out has me absolutely captivated. And if you're not a Love Islander, first of all, what are you thinking? I might need to pull you for a chat later and like set you straight. And if you're not a Love Islander, you also did not get that joke. But for right now, I will give you a tiny recap just so that you understand the incredible segue that I am about to give you in today's episode.
Because honestly, my ability to relate trash reality TV to running a photography business is kind of like top tier [00:02:00] energy and it's the best thing that I'm loving about this podcast. Okay. Alright. So. Love Island is basically a show where everyone makes out with everyone during these crazy challenges that they do.
But then whenever they're not doing these challenges, they are coupled up with their connection during non challenge days, and it's the craziest. Fishbowl experiment. Ever wear gorgeous. 20 somethings put on this spectacle of psychological mess for viewers at home to watch. It is. It's, you know what? It's basically the Truman Show in real time, except with like really hot people who wear the most insane amount of makeup and heels for being in that level of humidity.
Because right now, like these islanders are all in Fiji as we speak. And editors are working around the clock to churn out episodes like faster than, I dunno, faster than Butter gets churned on Taylor's farm. Again, if you're not watching, you don't understand that joke, but it was [00:03:00] really good, I promise you.
Alright, so the speed at which these like quote unquote relationships move is literally. Wild to wrap your head around. They couple up and then they're put basically into this like love incubator because they all spend every waking moment together. They breathe the same air, they sleep in the same bed, they eat every meal together, and they watch each other like hawks watch their prey.
There isn't a single move made that isn't clocked by someone. And then. Word spreads like wildfire throughout the villa. Also the, there's a whole nother element that bombshells come in every single week, but that's too much for us to get into right here because what I wanna talk about is one Islander in particular, her name is.
Huda. Now, Huda and Jeremiah attracted one another like moths to a flame. The second they went into the villa, they were like magnets. Like you, you see those tattoos or like those [00:04:00] bumper stickers of like face sucking little kissy fish? That was Jeremiah and Huda. Okay. But also note that Jeremiah is a literal fever dream to look at, and his eyes were like, they were like a tractor beam for Huda.
She stood no chance against him really, but. Anyway, they both fell really hard and really fast and basically closed themselves off from getting to know anyone else. And you can imagine that if this kind of romance went at like love bombing speed, then it also crashed out with a ton of fireworks. It all came crashing down on them whenever America actually got involved and voted to intervene on their little like love smash.
And they, America forced Jeremiah to recouple with a new bombshell, which meant that. Was left, single and vulnerable, which led to her crash out. That was heard and watched worldwide. Okay. Now, as much as I would love to just keep giving you the dish on everything that happened between the two, I [00:05:00] wanna take a quick second here and talk about what really matters for us.
As photographers and what happens inside of our brains when we crash out like Hooda, when we panic, when we are put into the same kind of fishbowl kind of position, and we're having to perform in front of our clients that we care so much about and we're having to represent our business and we even have our work like judged online, we have to cave to that pressure in the same, well, we don't have to, but sometimes our brains do.
We. Cave to that pressure in the same way that Hooda crashed out because our brains just go blank and they don't work in the same way that they're supposed to now. I've been a photographer for over 17 years now, but I vividly remember this happening on my shoots whenever I was first starting out, and it could really happen at any moment during the shoot, like right as we were starting or midway through, and I would just panic and blank.
Or maybe even after we had gone through the whole entire set of poses that I had [00:06:00] already planned. But it wasn't timed well enough to where that like. Perfect golden spot happened and I needed to come up with something fresh and amazing to like knock the shoot out of the park. These shoot panics, they happen depending on the pressure that I was putting on myself, the caliber of images that I had studied and that I wanted to like recreate those poses.
Or if my clients were kind of particularly difficult to pose or direct, that's whenever these panics would sort of set in and happen. But let's also take a second and recognize that. We all have easy shoots where our clients show up and they are like already styled. Amazingly. They're just kind of naturally photogenic and they know how to perform like right out of the gates.
But those are really lucky shoots. For the most part, the majority of our shoots are just normal people. People who feel like. They don't know what they're doing. They don't know how to relax easily on their own. They don't know how to move effortlessly with one another. Or sometimes they don't even feel comfortable in their [00:07:00] bodies because they have curves that they don't want showing or they're comparing themselves to everyone else and they feel like they don't match up.
So basically like it's our clients who are usually like the deer, and we as the photographer are the headlights, right? But. In those early days, I would be standing behind the camera and I would have clients in front of me. There would be gorgeous, light, gorgeous location, and my brain would just go dark, gone empty, panic, just as blank as hood's, emotional intelligence, as she crashed out and spiraled in front of the whole entire world.
Okay, but. I remember feeling the panic creep in through my chest, like this slow leak in a balloon, and I was supposed to be on, I was supposed to be directing. I was supposed to be guiding. I was supposed to be creating, but instead I would panic and not be able to think of the next pose, no matter how much I studied and tried to like memorize a shot list.
I would try to find every reason to pull my [00:08:00] phone out from my back pocket because I wanted to look at the screenshots that I had saved so that those screenshots could kind of rescue me out of my panic. And honestly, even talking about this right now, this is all giving me PTSD as I talk about it, but.
Of course we're years out of me studying the psychology of why our brains crash out whenever we need them the most. And I know that understanding what's happening was my very first big sigh of relief because I learned that I wasn't broken. So I. This podcast is to teach you that if you've ever gone blank during a shoot, ever forgotten your poses, like stumbled through directing, or even felt like your confidence had left the villa.
You're not broken and you're not behind. You're simply a human, and your brain is acting exactly how it's hardwired to act. It's actual brain chemistry that is causing that crash out because going blank is actually a stress response. Let's break it down. Your brain has one job. The [00:09:00] one job that it has, the only single one job that your brain does is it keeps you alive.
It does not keep you creative. It does not help you get published in Vogue. It is not keeping you making out with Jeremiah in the villa, okay? It is just to keep you alive. So whenever you step into a photo shoot. Especially one where you're feeling a little nervous, a little unsure, maybe questioning whether or not this client is gonna like you, whether they're gonna like their photos, or God forbid that you have to post these photos on the internet, which is a whole entire sidebar topic that our brains weren't made to handle the pressure of being on display in front of the whole entire world.
But what's happening is your nervous system is actually scanning your environment and asking. Is this safe and is this familiar? And if the answer is even slightly no, your brain flips the switch. It pulls energy away from your prefrontal cortex, which is the part that thinks creatively, and it problem solves and it speaks [00:10:00] confidently.
And instead. It reroutes to your amygdala. Your amygdala is basically like your primal brain. It's your fight or flight or freeze control room. It's the control room that is on the Inside Out movie. Okay? This is called amygdala hijacking, and it's a very, very real thing. Honestly, Google it. Actually, don't just keep listening because I've already done this work for you.
Okay? So when you're hijacked, you're not going to remember your best poses. That list that you created is going to go out the window and you're gonna revert back to your cookie cutter. A land every day go-to poses, because that will keep you safe. You're not going to feel confident. You're going to freeze, you're going to fumble, and you're gonna forget.
And then you're gonna wonder, what in the fuck is wrong with me? Right? But I'm here to tell you the truth. You are not underqualified, you are not a fraud. You are just dysregulated. And this is a solvable problem. And what most photographers are missing is a [00:11:00] method that regulates them just as much as it regulates their client.
You've been sold a lie. By other posing guides that say to just memorize these poses and these prompts, and you'll be fine. And you've probably tried this and realized you're not fine and it won't be fine because you're still not getting the results that you want. And the reason why this doesn't work is because your brain isn't a hard drive.
It is dynamic, it is emotional. It is chemical releasing. It is living. It is breathing right, and whenever cortisol is present, creativity simply. Cannot be. It's impossible to create fluidly without regulating yourself and your clients first. And this is why I teach something totally different. Regulating yourself and your clients first before you pose, and then managing it throughout the shoot is basically like.
It's like the chemical choreography that has to happen before any sort [00:12:00] of like posing choreography can happen. And I teach how to drop brain chemicals that actually block these stress hormones and replaces them with feel-good hormones like dopamine and oxytocin so that the awkwardness and the nerves, they can't even physically be present during the shoot.
They are literally dumped and asked to leave the villa. I. Okay, that all sounds kind of complicated, but it's actually really simple and it's just three sentences that you have to learn because I've formulated it into something that works immediately on every single shoot, and it works on every single human.
And here's what happens after you learn it. You show up and you shoot completely calm and regulated, and you know exactly what to do and exactly what to say, and also exactly what not to do and exactly what not to say so that you're not causing fight or flight to trigger. And then you can easily activate your client's brains and the shoot [00:13:00] just simply flows.
And before you know it. The shoot is over. You have a camera full of incredible images that you will be sprinting to edit and post in front of the whole entire internet. Okay? Your clients are gonna be walking on Cloud nine. They are telling all of their friends to book you because of how you just blew them away.
And the word of mouth referral machine is literally revved and purring for you. One of my students sent me a voice message a few weeks ago. Chelsea told me that she's been a family photographer for over five years and that she's taken a mastermind and that mastermind got her all messed up in the head because she was shooting to sell framed prints instead of shooting to create beautiful images.
So she was stuck, even though she had been doing it for years, she had lost all of her confidence and kind of even lost herself. As a photographer and she sent me this voice note the second that she left her shoot the other day, and she said, I only watched half of your video before I came on my shoot, and I watched the family session in [00:14:00] module seven.
I listened to you teaching a few things that you not only talk about during the video, but then you show on a real session, and they were just. Iconic and game changing for my session tonight. I can't wait to go home and watch the whole entire thing. She said, I feel so good leaving this session. And normally whenever I leave I'm like, oh my God, I forgot to do this.
Or Why didn't the kids warm up to be? But no, it was literally I iconic, and this is the key to selling so much more in my business. She went on to say even further in our conversation, because of course the minute she gave me this testimonial, I was like excuse me. I'm going to DM with you. I wanna talk to you.
I wanna know everything that's in your brain. And she went on to say that being able to tap into how a child thinks at each developmental stage was monumental and that the experience that she gave her clients on the very first shoot whenever she was implementing this method was next level. [00:15:00] Now I'm telling you, I.
The way that I would've made out with Chelsea if we were in the same city at the same time as I listened to her voice note would easily rival the early days of Huda and Jeremiah. Okay? But the best thing about our Makeout would be knowing that there wasn't going to be any sort of crash out happening later on.
So. If you'd like to make out with me too, and you're someone who's been feeling like your confident shrivels, the minute that you step behind the camera or that you keep on crashing out mid shoot, or if you've ever walked away from a session thinking like, I should have done better. I know better, but you don't know how to make that happen consistently, then I want you to know that there is another way.
It's not about working harder, and it's not about memorizing more. It's not about cringey prompts that. Make our clients feel more silly than connected. It's about learning how your nervous system works and having a method that works with [00:16:00] it. So if this episode has your fanny fluttering, then I've made you a bonus video that teaches you the exact three sentence formula that regulates your clients.
It drops dopamine and oxytocin, and it blocks awkwardness from ever bombs shelling your shoot. So. I swear to you this is not fluffy information you guys, and in fact, Regina even said that this isn't the same cookie cutter, 15 poses in 15 minutes kind of information. This method somehow changes everything, and that's coming straight from the mouth of Regina, not me, but the link to the bonus video can be found right here in your show notes.
And in your email inbox if you're subscribed to the list, and if you're not on the list to get my weekly emails, then you can find the link for that in the show notes too. Like I said. There is nothing about this that is fluffy tips and tricks. It is just real relief from the mid shoot crash out. So until next time, keep your T up and your ears [00:17:00] open and get out there and create something incredible with me, and maybe most importantly also DM me Your Love Island Takes because I cannot go through this alone.
Okay? Love you mean it, even if that makes it weird. Bye for now. Posers.
Outro: Okay, so that is a wrap on this episode of the Posers Podcast. If you loved it, please subscribe, rate, and review because honestly, algorithms are needier than all of our ex-boyfriends combined. And ladies, I need all the help I can get. If you've got thoughts, questions, love letters, even hate mail, please send them my way.
I actually read every single one of them. So until next time, stapled, stay messy and don't let the bullshit win. Tits up. Ears open and go build something. Incredible. Bye for now, friends.
