Ep 1. Photography Adjacent Podcast: Embracing Humility with Dwayne Brown
We’re really excited to anounce the first episode of our new podcast Photography Adjacent! In this episode I talk to the wonderful photographer and a friend of mine, Dwayne Brown. Not only is Dwayne a great portrait and headshot photographer in his own right, but he runs Headshots Matter - a curated directory of international headshot photographers, ranging from London, Montreal, Hong Kong, Stockholm and so on.
I love this conversation because we delve into one of the most important parts of photographing people - whether that’s actors or business professionals - humility. Dwayne is a proponent of humility in his own work and life and that really shines through with this conversation.
Watch the episode below on YouTube, and of course like and subscribe.
Embracing Humility: A Photographer’s Entrepreneurial Journey (feat. Dwayne Brown)
Tom Trevatt (00:01)
Dwayne Brown, thank you very much for joining us today. How are you doing?
Dwayne Brown (00:05)
I'm doing pretty good Tom, how about yourself?
Tom Trevatt (00:07)
Yeah, very well, thank you very much. Dwayne, we've known each other for maybe a year and a half, almost two years.
Dwayne Brown (00:13)
Yeah, I was thinking about that this morning. I think that's about how long. We've gotten to know each other online and then we had the fun opportunity of having a visit in person this fall and that was really fun.
Tom Trevatt (00:18)
I think so, yeah.
Absolutely. If you were gonna tell me one thing about yourself that I should know to help me understand what motivates you as a photographer and what you do, what would it be?
Dwayne Brown (00:42)
That's a good question. I think that something that has been consistent in my career from the beginning to the middle to now is I'm really curious about people. And I like to kind of incorporate that curiosity into
my photography and how I can have that photography help the people that I get to meet, learn about and to, you know, therefore I guess sort of help them move their ideas forward with imagery. So curiosity for sure. I would say that's the one thing that I would say that I am.
Tom Trevatt (01:26)
Mm-hmm.
Fantastic. So I know a little bit about you, but let's do an introduction for our listeners, for people who are watching at home. Tell me, Dwayne, the multiple things that you do, tell me.
Dwayne Brown (01:44)
Easily done. So I've been a commercial corporate photographer for a really long time. And it's basically all I've ever done in my adult life career. I started my business in the early 80s back in Edmonton, which is a western part of Canada. And I was 20. And I started...
shooting mostly, I guess we call it advertising work, commercial advertising work where we had to hire models and actors and create sets and work with creative concepts. And then to, and primarily it was all shot in studio. I did that for about eight years or so. And then I moved to Calgary where I had a studio there for nine years. And that was, that leaned a little more towards corporate work.
Which actually kind of resonated more better with me. Less hiring models and actors and shooting more real people. So shooting everybody from you know executives for oil and gas companies to people in the field in an industrial environment. And I really like that. And then in about 2000 I moved to Ottawa, Canada's capital. And that's where I
I guess it I did a bit of a blend of all of those things, but still leaning towards photographing people. And so I've been doing that here for, I guess it's about 23 years, and slowly really just focusing on photographing portraits. So that would be corporate folks, students who do a lot of work for...
universities and colleges and then lots of headshots. You know, about eight years ago or so, I started to sort of see or sense that it wasn't just executives being photographed for headshots. It was more, I don't know, just everybody needed one. You know, LinkedIn was coming on stream really, really hard. And...
And that was fun for me because what we were able to do is to take that same attention to detail for doing executives and apply that to doing corporate headshots for just to about everybody that needed one for their LinkedIn. And then, you know, that sort of spawned an idea that I guess it's about six years ago or so that I wanted to create an online platform.
that wouldn't just help me be better connected with my clients, who are looking for a headshot photographer, I could broaden that to a handful of photographers that were buddies of mine, you know, here in Canada. And then I took it a little further and broaden it to some photographers that I got to know that were in other countries. And that sort of spawned the predecessor project, the Headshots Matter, which, you know, you and I know each other through.
And at the time we just called it LinkedIn portraits. And it was really just focused on helping clients find the best headshot photographer to photograph them for their LinkedIn portrait. And then a couple of years ago, we decided to broaden that project. So it wasn't just focused on LinkedIn portraits, but headshots in general.
So now we have a project called Headshots Matter. That is, we're in various countries around the world with about a little over a hundred photographers. And that project, it helps photographers be better connected with people who are looking for a headshot photographer in their city. So that headshot could be used for head LinkedIn or for a corporate website or for an acting portfolio and that's been that's been a really fun project and a great Evolution of my commercial corporate business, which I still do but I run alongside that the project that we call headshots matter
Tom Trevatt (06:25)
Amazing, thank you. I'm gonna put a pin in the Headshots Matter project for the time being, I'm gonna come back to it in a second. I really wanna drill down a little bit into the early history,
because we've obviously spoken a little bit about what you did right at the very, very beginning and studios that you had, the commercial work that you were doing. How old were you when you first picked up a camera?
Dwayne Brown (06:36)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, again, that's a good question. I guess I would have been 16 or 17. When I was a teenager, I was always very interested in entrepreneurial things. I'd liked making a dollar my own way and...
I was always, I guess, a little on the creative side, although I wasn't a photographer. All of my classes that I was working on in the latter bit of high school were drawing and painting and commercial art and graphic arts. And then in my last year of high school, I took a class, a program called graphic arts. And part of that was to learn how to use a camera.
and how to make prints in a darkroom. I've never done that before. And this is gonna sound maybe a little foolish, but we'll just say it anyway, it was way easier than drawing and way easier than painting. And it was really fun. And I excelled at it in high school, although if I'd looked back at those photographs now, they were probably not very good, but it was sure fun. And then from that, I decided to...
to take a year off between high school and post-secondary. And I worked in a camera shop and I learned everything I could about taking photographs. And then I went to photo school for what was supposed to be a two-year program. But by the half of the year of the second year, I was just bored and it was too technical and not creative enough. So I quit school and I became a photo assistant.
Tom Trevatt (08:36)
Yeah.
Dwayne Brown (08:41)
for a photographer at Edmonton who was kind of the guy that did all the important projects, more advertising, leaning a little bit towards fashion, I guess. He photographed people as well. And that's where I really learned. And I learned more about the darkroom work because he needed me to do that. And then he said he was leaving town. He was gonna move from Edmonton to London, England and as a young 20 year old, I was faced with two choices. One, he was going to leave and I was going to be out of a job or I would go to the bank, borrow a bunch of money and start my own business. And you know, it's maybe the arrogance or innocence of youth that I had no idea how hard it was. All I knew is that I knew how he had done it.
And I thought I could emulate what he did. So when I was 20 years old, I got a studio that was 3000 square feet, 20 foot ceilings and a big garage door where we could bring cars in. And we had parties and bands. It was a pretty fun time. And with him leaving, and I had already met his clients, art directors and designers that he did work for, they seemed pretty keen to just give me the business that they'd given him. And so that's where I really, I guess, went to school, but the school of doing the real deal. And, um, And it was, it was really fun. So that was, that was the early eighties for me. And, and, you know, doing advertising projects is every project that was presented to me, I had never done it before. And you know, my sort of kind of default would be
Tom Trevatt (10:10)
Fantastic.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Dwayne Brown (10:34)
yeah, I can do that. And then you take the sketch, the comp that the architecture presented and you just figure out how the heck can you do this? And, you know, were there mistakes made? Sure, but it seemed to kind of work out. And so that was kind of my eight years of learning and establishing myself as a commercial photographer. Yeah.
Tom Trevatt (11:00)
I I mean, the standout point of this story is that the bank was happy to lend you a 20-something year old kid. A lot of money. Quite a unique.
Dwayne Brown (11:08)
Yeah, it was in the day, it was in the day, Tom, when, when you, you know, you sat across from a banker and he would listen to you and really look you in the eye and shake your hand and, you know, read your reference letters and either believe in you or not. It wasn't so much about the math as it is today. And, um, and He believed in me and he, he lent me a big pile of money for that time.
for my age with very little collateral and it was really more of just a belief in potential, I guess. And I'm very grateful for that opportunity, for sure.
Tom Trevatt (11:50)
Have you, I mean, this means that your career has, which spans, I think, approximately 40 years, it's only been photography. There's been nothing else there at all. No, only photography.
Dwayne Brown (11:56)
Yeah, that's right.
Yeah, only photography. You know, as I, as I'd always, you know, try to kind of share with my kids as they were growing up, I would, I would, because I wanted them to kind of see that you don't just have to have a job to make money. I would, I would say, you know, everything around us, our home, our things, our holidays was every single penny was created by a photograph, by a creative pursuit. And, um,
And I think that was a good lesson for them. And yeah, so it's always been photography. And I guess it's been, you know, I feel really grateful that I've been able to be able to kind of cobble together a career and a living by taking people's photographs. I never imagined it, I guess, when I was a teenager that that's what I would do. I was probably gonna pursue something a little more academic and then went down an entrepreneurial creative path, which has been super fun. Yeah.
Tom Trevatt (13:02)
Mm-hmm.
Excellent. I really love this part of the story where, you know, you're telling me this is, you know, you were super excited at the very beginning to start the business. You know, there was almost no break in terms of, oh, I'm going to try something else. I'm going to get a bar job. I'm going to try it. Like, I'm going to hedge my bets. You just went all in on this and you were so super enthusiastic about it from the very beginning.
Dwayne Brown (13:13)
Hmm.
Hmm. Yeah.
Tom Trevatt (13:29)
And I've spent time with you, you know, we went for a drive into the hills behind Ottawa, you were with your camera, I see you posting stuff regularly on Instagram. There is almost no let up to that enthusiasm for photography. And...
Dwayne Brown (13:39)
Yeah.
Yeah. Well, so I guess what I would say to that is that photography is a really wonderful way for a photographer to participate in life, to observe life, to record life, to share my perspective and to be a creative entrepreneur.
is isn't really there isn't really a I guess a linear line or at least a linear line that's going to you know curve down if anything that linear line just kind of kind of increases and so you know after 40 years of being a commercial photographer I find it really fun to still be challenged technically.
challenge from an entrepreneurial point of view, you know, like example, we all faced the pandemic not that long ago. And for me as an entrepreneur, all I saw it was is just, okay, well, that's another curve ball. That's another speed bump that we've got to figure out. And, you know, I was able to. And so, yeah, it's...
Is it funner now than when it was in the 80s? Yeah, absolutely. Because I guess, you know, in life, you have experiences that you've pulled from, you can handle problems more easily, and it's just really fun to, it's fun to continually create and share and problem solve and keep the ball rolling. Yeah.
Tom Trevatt (15:32)
Mm-hmm. And in a way, you have that kind of buffer of those years of experience, but also maybe a little bit of a financial buffer. It means that the problems that you're solving are more playful. There's a kind of more playful attitude towards the problems, I guess.
Dwayne Brown (15:48)
Maybe, you know, I'm going to say something, Tom, I think about sometimes, and I try to share with other people who are entrepreneurs is, is we will say that we don't really like the roller coaster of, you know, business is great, business isn't so great, business is great, business is so great. And I would challenge it that it's more like this. So when, when business is great, wonderful, that's great, you make a little more money put in the bank. When business is down, that's actually the time.
when it's more fun because there's a sense of humility that gets heightened because even if you're at the top of your game in the city or town you're in, when business is kind of goes down a bit, you think, okay, well, what do I do? It's the kick in the pants that gets you thinking a little more creatively or work a little harder or get up earlier in the morning to send out, you know, social media or, as I say, shake the trees. And so having the length of business doesn't necessarily, it isn't really about financial base. It's more about, I guess, embracing the humility and also knowing that with every downswing, there's gonna be an upswing, but you have to work hard at it. And there's no magic bullet. There's no formula to that. It's typically, work hard, work smart, be nice to people, take care of your clients, and it tends to work out. if that makes sense.
Tom Trevatt (17:23)
Mm hmm. Absolutely. I mean, knowing you for a little bit, Dwayne, humility is absolutely a key word for you. I can tell. Uh, it's how it's how I can see you run your business. It's how I see you run headshots matter. Uh, it's absolutely central to the way you deal with people in the world, deal with the world in general, I guess. Um, a really interesting story or, you know, a sort of memory from this last summer when we were in a cafe, uh, you know,
Dwayne Brown (17:41)
Yeah.
Tom Trevatt (17:50)
anybody who knows Dwayne who's listening, he's never stopping. There's never a kind of pause in Dwayne as a photographer. So we were out for a coffee, you, me and Barry, and you spotted a guy on the street and like, I have to get this guy's portrait. I have to speak to this guy. And it was just, you know, for me, that would be a very difficult conversation, you know?
Dwayne Brown (18:09)
Right.
Tom Trevatt (18:14)
But for you, it just seems that it's absolutely something natural that you come up to this guy, you get an introduction from your mutual friend, and then you get a wonderful portrait of this guy. I think he was wearing an interesting shirt and a hat maybe. Yeah.
Dwayne Brown (18:24)
Yeah, he was wearing a very interesting shirt and he was a character. And I guess deep down, I'm a shy person like other folks are, but I measure what's the pain. The pain of going and saying hello and asking him or the pain in thinking I should have introduced myself and asked him. And so I just, I push forward and I...
Tom Trevatt (18:44)
Mm-hmm.
Dwayne Brown (18:54)
I ask and people will almost always say yes. And if they say no, they say no. And
yeah, I forgot about that. That was fun.
Tom Trevatt (19:03)
And I think that was part of your 60 at 60 portrait project.
Dwayne Brown (19:08)
That particular one wasn't, but I have, so 60 at 60. So maybe I'll explain that Tom. So I turned a year ago, almost to the day, I turned 60 and my wife, Jennifer and I were talking about, wouldn't it be fun to create a fun legacy project actually, always in a stage of creating legacy stuff. But so we...
Tom Trevatt (19:10)
Okay.
Yeah, tell me.
Dwayne Brown (19:36)
We created, and Jennifer has been helpful to me with this, it's a project called 60 at 60. The premise of it is within the year, or approximately a year, I'm gonna do 60 portraits, black and white, all of people who either are very dear to me, family, friends, people who I find are doing really interesting things in my city, or further than my city, or just people that are really...
visually interesting and so yeah, I met close to 40 now and I've got to kind of get to it and And and Tom as you know Maybe the viewers need to know I photographed Tom when he was in Canada. We took the Jeep out and explored the Gatineau Hills and With the doors off the Jeep and we did a little photo of Tom Who is dear to me and I find also very interesting and who is doing cool stuff
Tom Trevatt (20:06)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Yeah, you gotta get on it.
Thank you. Thanks, man. That's excellent. So let's get on to Headshots Matter. So this is actually how we know each other really, isn't it? So to give a little bit of background here, Dwayne, you reached out to me. It must've been approaching two years, if not two years. I think it was on LinkedIn, you might've first approached me and told me about Headshots Matter. So...
Dwayne Brown (20:39)
Right. Yeah.
Tom Trevatt (20:57)
obviously, you know, I wanted to know more about this thing. What's, what's going on. And, you know, you've got an Instagram account, you've got a website and, and really it's a, it's a platform for helping photographers. Um, and like you said, it started out from perspective of being a kind of LinkedIn portraiture project, but now it's much more, like more broader than that. And one of the things that I love about headshots matter is that, and this appeals to me very much is that the headshot really isn't seen as, uh,
Well, the idea of the headshot is much broader than maybe people might think. So you have photographers whose work that you repost, who it might be closer to a fashion image, it might be closer to a beauty portrait, it might be closer to a kind of intimate portrait of someone's face, not necessarily a kind of a commercial portrait. Can you tell me a little bit more about, I mean, the evolution of this project and kind of what you really hold dear about it.
Dwayne Brown (21:56)
Yeah.
Hmm. It's a really special project. And when I started it, it was at its core, we were building one page gallery pages that show about a dozen images of a photographer's work.
The front end, back end, everything about that page is built with really rich SEO content. And I've been able to figure out a way to get Google really liking those pages. And so, you know, at the core, it was about sort of pushing that as the benefit for a photographer to join and to participate. It still is, it's still very important to me.
Um, but what has kind of evolved or unveiled itself, and I didn't really see this coming, but it is just so lovely that what has happened with the more you grow a community, the richer the community gets. And um, so, and, and it's very important that I, I share that it's, We're not really looking for a very narrow kind of style of photography. Every photographer has a creative voice, a perspective, their own view. Also, the type of headshot that one might shoot, like yourself, you shoot actors and people who are more creative, they need an image or a headshot that's more creative. People are looking for just a LinkedIn corporate. It might be a little bit sort of kind of, not more conservative, but it has a certain application.
But what I like to do with this project is to give each photographer that creative space, to be them. And by doing that, they feel championed, and they should be. But then also the other photographers who are a part of the community, they get to see that. They get to be inspired. They get to learn from those photographers that are kind of going down a different path. There's even this young woman.
Her name is Lara and she's in Madrid and she's just a young girl. Like, you know, she might be 22. And, um, and I brought her on when she was still in photo school and her stuff was, you know, really edgy and street and, you know, just, she was photographing her friends and musicians and, you know, does that have an application for a LinkedIn portrait or, well, maybe, but it wasn't really about that. I just, I wanted to kind of put her up the flagpole a little bit so that.
Her edgy style might be inspiring to other photographers. And then, you know, and then your work, Tom, you know, you have a very definite creative style that I think is inspiring to others. Sean in Stockholm, you know, his imagery, it's not commercial, it's not corporate, but it's really, really lovely. And so his work inspires others too.
I'm going and I'm getting excited about this. But one of the one of the really beautiful things about this project that has happened is this the community who no one only a handful of the photographers have met in person. They've become really good friends and supportive. And, you know, we have a what's up group, which you participate in. And and I I'm more of a viewer of that. I jump in and kind of maybe talk about some or bigger picture mindset type stuff, but I get to see the camaraderie, the really wonderful spirit and support that's happening in that environment. Example, Sean, who is a very experienced photographer in Stockholm and he's been in the UK as well. He's put his wing, his creative wing over a photographer we have in Montreal and in Mike. And...Mike's only been shooting a short time, but his work has really improved. And with that guidance, with that support, with someone who is experiencing, that's a great shot. So it started off as really just helping people, I guess, almost technically, or from a marketing perspective.
And now it's just, it's more, it's hard to put your finger on it. And it's just really beautiful.
Tom Trevatt (26:57)
Mm. Yeah. I mean, over the last maybe two days, there's been some really fantastic conversations happening in the WhatsApp group. Essentially, for people who don't know, there's maybe 20, maybe 30 photographers in this WhatsApp group, all who are 30 who are all part of Headshots Matter. And people just post questions, you know, oh, I've got this particular issue with a client, or I've got this particular issue with editing, or I've got this particular, can you help me with this? And then everyone chips in, you know, like Mike the other day posted something that was like, oh, I'm getting these kinds of color issues with my photography, can you have a look? And he'd send a raw file around to everyone and we'd all have a kind of little go at editing it and sending it back. And so this is a conversation that maybe is like, we're workshopping people's problems. And this is an incredible way to find track people's learning. It's an incredible way to actually participate in a community, but I think for me the value there really is that not only are you getting such great help from other people, but you're also understanding yourself.
Like you're understanding your own perspective on these particular questions. So when someone poses a question that, okay, maybe I haven't really articulated this before, I've never put it into words, but okay, now I'm thinking about the answer to that question and now I know what to say when this particular instance happens with that client. Or, you know, it's always when things go wrong that people want help. So if you've not actually, you know, it's almost like role playing the problems before they happen or helping you understand how you might be able to respond to similar kinds of problems. I think it's incredibly valuable. It's an incredibly valuable resource. But I also wanna talk a little bit about how Headshots Matter is a valuable resource for people who aren't part of the team as it were.
Dwayne Brown (28:45)
Hmm. Yeah. So again, we have a really.
really cool resource of resource and network a community of photographers and I think the very the quick way that other photographers who are not a member can be inspired or learn is just by following the Instagram account and lots and lots do and we don't need everybody to be a member.
And it's wonderful that our membership grows, but if we can have an influence in the overall community of headshot photography, I think that's wonderful. And not necessarily just from a style or an approach or lighting or composition, but even how you treat people, how kindness and gratitude and how those sort of things, when you're photographing somebody, how that really helps. So the Instagram account definitely is helpful. We also have been developing sessions and we're still in the infant stage of that, but mentorship sessions with a small handful of photographers who are headshots, headshots matter photographers.
And also we have a good friend and colleague, Barry Keegan, who's a marketing expert and he's been helping, he has a mentoring session that helps photographers with their marketing and a little bit of SEO. That's been very helpful. So the mentorship sessions, the Instagram account, and then if you don't necessarily want to be a member, but you just are kind of your.
You're an emerging photographer. You just have a few ideas. We have a WhatsApp account that's just a desk tailored for that where no one has to be, you don't have to be a member. You can join it. You know, you can access off our website. And then, you know, you're there, Tom, I'm there, Tom, and Barry is as well. And so people can sort of just flush out some ideas about their photography.
Tom Trevatt (30:54)
Hmm.
Hmm.
Yeah, absolutely. For those of you who are watching or listening, and you might hear Barry's name a few times, Barry's the producer of the podcast. So in subsequent episodes, Barry pops up, he's listening in the background right now. Hi, Barry, producer. He's there, he's also, as Dwayne says, an expert marketer. So yeah, I'm sure he's very helpful for lots of photographers there. But I also wanna talk a little bit about the way that Headshots Matter as a network helps people who aren't even photographers. So let's talk a little bit about a project that we worked on together this summer with Snapchat. Tell me about how that happened.
Dwayne Brown (31:54)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, that's a neat project that we obviously it's a neat project, but how it came about was quite interesting. So I received an email query through one of our forms from a woman named Alex. She was in the UK. And she just said that she was working on a bigger project that she needed to find photographers in various European cities. Berlin, Vienna, London, Oxford, Amsterdam, Paris, Berlin, I mentioned that already. And she said, you know, do you have photographers in those cities as well? Yeah, we have everybody except for Vienna, but, you know, I'll find somebody.
And so from that initial email query, we organized photographers in all of those cities. Tom and a colleague of his, and also Headshots Metaphotographer James photographed London and Oxford. I remember that correctly. We have photographer in Berlin, Justin in Amsterdam, Quentin in Paris and Sean, who is a photographer in Stockholm, when I had put out a little bit of a query on social of it for looking for a photographer in Vienna, he says, I'll do that. I'll jump on a plane. And so yeah, very, he very quickly coordinated that and he went there. And then with my conversation with Alex, I asked her if, you know, there's other needs in North America.
And so she connected me to their head office in California. And we then got organized a photographer in, a mod who's in Brooklyn, he shot New York. And then a fellow named Juan who's in, just south of Palo Alto, he shot Palo Alto. And I went to Toronto and I shot Toronto. And so collectively, all of us had to shoot very consistently to a particular brand standard, a very specific color, yellow of course. And then they were almost all shot on the same day. If they weren't all the same day, then there was like a week apart. And it was really fun. It was fun to do that and fun to, and myself as sort of the, I guess the founder and guiding force of this, I didn't wanna be too pushy, you know, “we need everybody to shoot a certain way”. I wanted them to shoot their own way with still that respect to the brand standard. And I think the results were pretty terrific. The client was very happy. We all had a lot of fun. There was money to be made, of course. And most importantly, it was a project that we collectively kind of all slung together and put our heads and hearts together on and did it. Yeah.
Tom Trevatt (35:12)
Mm-hmm. Absolutely. I think the great thing about this is that essentially what Headshots Matter operated as is a kind of hub for all of these, you know, Snapchat is somewhat a unique brand in a sense, but there are other global brands like Snapchat, other global companies like Snapchat. So if they are looking for, you know, a universal style across all of their global, you know, London, New York, Palo Alto offices or whatever it is,
Dwayne Brown (35:25)
Yeah.
Tom Trevatt (35:42)
Headshots Matters got you, right? That's a great thing about it.
Dwayne Brown (35:45)
For sure. And because we have been sort of, I guess, sort of establishing and elevating the brand authority of Headshots Matter, if we don't have a photographer in a city, I'll find one. And they don't have to become a member to participate. It's just really about sort of working together to solve some problems.
Tom Trevatt (36:02)
Mm.
Yeah, we're speaking, I think, must be about a week and a half, two weeks ago about how you must know the markets in each of these cities very, very well, like having a look on insight in each of these places.
Dwayne Brown (36:25)
Yeah, you know, it's you I try to and you get a sense of, of what sort of budget appetites are and you know, what are the industries that are driving certain markets, you get a sense of it. And if what you don't know, it's easy enough to figure that out into research and
You know, Barry's also been very helpful with that. He's got his fingers on the pulse of that topic. But, you know, that brings me to a thought, Tom. So, you know, we have photographers in all of these cities around the world. And you would think that there would be a lot of differences with these photographers, but there's some very simple core commonalities that make me happy and proud to run this project. And that's kindness, empathy, humility, and passion to do the best job, not for the photographer, but for the person that each photographer's shooting. So, you know, that's quite neat. So each market has sort of trends and influences, but good photographers prevail. And that's really important to me. If I can be helpful for clients to find that best photographer, not just from a technique or experience point of view, but from good folks. I think good folks attract good folks. And that includes good clients. And like Snapchat is, you know, I didn't know a lot about them from a corporate perspective, but they're massive. And you know what, as you know, is they collectively were just really good, kind, grateful people. And so it was a great project for us to participate in just from like-mindedness.
Tom Trevatt (38:29)
Great fun, yeah.
Mm-hmm. So what makes a good headshot?
You've got access to lots of different styles of photography. You see all of them very, very regularly. What makes a good headshot?
Dwayne Brown (38:45)
What makes a good headshot?
Hmm. Yeah. Um, there's a whole bunch of different things, but I think there's, there's a, there's a couple of things that are more important than others. And it's, and it's something that even so, so myself as a, as a portrait photographer, corporate portrait photographer, my creative partner, Anita, and I always will say, what's the story? So even a head and shoulders photo that is used in a corporate context.
still tells a story. So story, what's the lighting? What's the background? Black and white color? Jacket? No jacket? No jacket tie? No tie? What color a tie? What kai-fa shirt? If it's a woman, how is she appointed that with with, you know, jewelry? If it's an actor, there's even there's even a funner sort of kind of creative latitude that happens, you know, emotion, composition, a reverence to the approach, again, still comes down to what's the story. And if a, so, this is very important. So if it's all about the story, it's not the photographer's story, it's the person you're photographing story. So that's why I love that Headshots Matter has such a range of styles and because all of those photographers, they're shooting their own creative approach, but really what's paramount to them is that they're helping that person they're photographing tell their best professional brand story, whether they're an actor, a CEO, someone who's just starting out or a creative person, an engineer, government official, it's all about story. So what makes a good headshot? It should...
tell a little story and that it's about the person and not the photographer, if that makes sense.
Tom Trevatt (40:46)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Absolutely. I definitely agree with you on that. I think one of the things that I really care about really is the sense that everybody that you work with is unique, right? And there's no one size fits all for each for those people. So why would you photograph them exactly the same way each time if you care about those stories that those people have got to tell? And I think that in this world, you know, we're all competing for attention. All of those people, all those clients that we're working for are competing for attention. So the best way that we can serve them is precisely like you say, to be able to communicate their story successfully, interestingly, in a way that's gonna capture people's attention. And that for me is not about having a standard approach. It's about having actually a kind of, you know, a bespoke or a collaborative approach to the photography. And that, I think, is something that's unique that comes out with Headshots Matter. It's very clear that people have got those kinds of different ways of thinking about photography, different ways of approaching their clients, which I really, really love. I love watching the stories popping up. I love watching those photographs popping up.
Dwayne Brown (42:19)
So I'm going to jump in, Tom. So something that you made me think about, I was looking at your website. And one of the things that you mentioned in, I believe it's in the About section, that you help the people you photograph lean into authenticity. And so in this time, yes, attention is important.
You know, some people say it's the new currency. But if you get someone's attention and you're not being your authentic self, then what's the point of that? So again, it goes back to the story, goes back to having a photographer's creative humility, create a passion mixed with their creative humility to help that person be their best authentic self.
I think that's what helps to make a good headshot. And so, you know, thank you for saying those words on your site because I actually really, I believe strongly in that. And my own personal style will be always reflective of that. And I think collectively our network, for the most part really sort of highlights that too. So, yay.
Tom Trevatt (43:47)
Mm-hmm. So you've been working on Headshots Matter for four years, five years?
Dwayne Brown (43:55)
I think we're, I think it five or six and, and it's, um, yeah, it started off kind of slow and now it's, um, it's, it's this organism that, that is almost kind of having a life of its own. I, I'm always participating in it every day, several times a day, whether it's social correspondence, talking to photographers on Zoom or WhatsApp or email or text. And yeah, it's a pretty fun going concern. But now it's kind of interesting is that the photographers are like any good community are helping each other on their own. And so I get to sort of kind of just kind of use some of that at times. Yeah.
Tom Trevatt (44:49)
Yeah, so you run your own studio as well, Dwayne Brown Studio. You've just started an experiment into headshot, so Ottawa based headshots. So it's called Ottawa Headshots. What's the future of Dwayne Brown, the photographer? Outside of Headshots Matter, outside of maybe Ottawa Headshots, is there, you know, because I've been seeing a little bit more, you know, landscape stuff or, you know, kind of stuff that's not corporate. What are you up to?
Dwayne Brown (45:24)
Well, okay. So, you know, in regards to the other imagery that I shoot, it isn't necessarily because that's what I want to do instead of what I do. It's really about, my wife has this expression, it's always about sharpening the saw. And so every good photographer, every good musician, painter, writer, they do their craft every day.
all the time. It's what they think, they wake up doing, thinking, feeling. So, you know, the other imagery that I shoot and share is really just about that I don't turn the eye off, right? It's always about observing. But to go into your question, what's in my future is a continuation of what I'm already doing.
I love photographing people and I want to do more of that. I'm already pretty busy doing it, but the more I do what I do, I wish I had just more time in the day. Because every photograph is a conversation with somebody new, I get to learn from them and get to satisfy some curiosity. To touch on why we built a separate website called Ottawa headshots, it was really a kind of for two or three reasons. One, as an experiment to see if we could, from an SEO perspective, present a website and social media, well social media, to grab the attention of folks that may not know who Dwayne Brown is. And so...
So in a short amount of time, we've got that on page one and maybe results 10 or less, which is good. And so my hopes are that will just help us gain a little, just a little more business, I guess, for people that don't know who I already am. But also what I've been learning is that it's been an interesting experiment to be able to share with some of the photographers on Headshots Matter.
A city-based domain is a great kind of cornerstone to SEO. So, you know, someone who's looking for, someone searching for LinkedIn headshots, corporate headshots in Ottawa, you're having a domain that's called Ottawa Headshots is gonna be helpful. So likewise, that could be like Mod in Brooklyn. You know, he has Brooklyn headshots. It may be a variation on that.
So we're working to help some photographers that might consider incorporating that into their marketing. Mike in Montreal, who hasn't been doing things for very long, he doesn't have a lot of name recognition. He took my advice and he bought a domain, Montrealheadshot.com, and he's going to be launching that website in the new year. So that's by doing something for myself.
I can learn about sort of some of the challenges and the benefits that I can share with other photographers. So that's kind of what that project is about. It's in no way meant to replace what I'm already doing. I love shooting corporate. I love shooting colleges and universities and headshots for all of those people. It's just, I wanna be busier. I like
Tom Trevatt (49:14)
Like being busy, of course, of course we do. We love being busy. Dwayne, before we wrap up, is there one photograph that stands out to you as being an important photograph in your career? Or life?
Dwayne Brown (49:29)
Hmm. That's a great question.
Tom Trevatt (49:33)
Doesn't have to be yours, it could be someone else's photograph.
Dwayne Brown (49:35)
Yeah, yeah, you know, there's so many, there's so many images and, and there's so many influences and there's so many things that are kind of in that category. I'll tell you one little story. So my daughter, her name is Claire. You've met Claire, Claire's sunshine. She's, she's one of my best friends and not just because she's my daughter, but because she's a really exceptional person. And
And Claire's 33 now and well on her career successfully. But when she was still in high school, when she was 17 at the time, 17, 18, it was approaching my birthday, which is December. And I said to Claire, on my birthday, I wanna just photograph a really important photo. I wanna just photograph somebody. I don't know who that'll be. And we were just kinda talking about ideas. And she's, well, dad, like, why don't you just photograph me?
And typically she didn't like being photographed, being a teenager. So at the time I didn't have a studio. I was doing art in a location, but I rented a space in the complex where her high school was. And I set up a background and we used a portrait of Kira Knightley. I'm not sure who she was at the time. And it was this beautiful black and white background, bare shoulders. And so we used that as our inspiration.
And that would have to be the portrait that we had got that day, I would have to say is one of my favorite portraits. And because it sort of kind of earmarks or highlight a certain time in her life, and it just it's about our relationship too. So that would be one of them. But you know, there's just so many. I've shot thousands of people over the years. And
Tom Trevatt (51:11)
Mmm, lovely.
Mm-hmm.
Dwayne Brown (51:32)
there's different stories that come to mind. But yeah, that would be a good one.
Tom Trevatt (51:37)
Amazing. Thank you, Dwayne. Thank you so much. Is there anything that you want to just add to this? Can we, where can we find you online?
Dwayne Brown (51:43)
Yeah. Well, before we do that, one thing I will say that photographers will be listening to this, if there's one thing that they can be doing to help their photography and to help their business and to help their life, maybe we'll say, is to reserve and afford themselves time to be curious and to not always feel that you need to figure it out. It's, it's about experimentation, um, and it's about doing. And, uh, but first and foremost, being curious and, and giving yourself time to imagine. Um, I think that's, I think that's truly important. So whether you're at the very beginning of your career, mid career, you know, well onto your career, it's, it never, it never, it never, it never leaves you. And, um, so even though I've been doing this for really a long time, I feel like I'm
I'm just getting started. And it's because I believe that I'm fortunate enough to embrace the concept of being curious. To find me, my commercial corporates studio is dwainbrownstudio.com. And Headshots Matter, of course, is headshotsmatter.com and you can find it in social with all the same, you know, it's just Headshots Matter. And because they do.
Tom Trevatt (52:52)
Excellent, thank you.
Fantastic.
Dwayne Brown (53:12)
And just, yeah, I really appreciate this, Tom, and I'm really excited for your continued success and for your development from a curiosity perspective too. And I just think your work is wonderful, and I'm really proud to have you part of Headshots Matter.
Tom Trevatt (53:16)
Thanks.
That's very sweet, Dwayne. Thank you very much.
Dwayne Brown (53:36)
All right. Well, you have a great rest of the day, Tom. Thanks for this opportunity. All right. Cheers.
Tom Trevatt (53:39)
Thank you. Thanks, Dwayne. Speak soon.