Steffi Blochwitz – Special Guest – Podcast Episode 7

Joe Lenton

Welcome to the Focused Professional podcast. This is episode 7, and I’m Joe Lenton. Welcome to the Focused Professional podcast. Today, we’ve got a special guest with us. This is Steffi Blochwitz from Switzerland. Hello, Steffi!

Steffi Blochwitz

Hello, Joe.

Joe Lenton

Thank you very much for agreeing to come on the podcast. It’s great to have you here. I’ve been gradually seeing more and more of your work winning more and more awards. So onwards and upwards there. Great stuff for you this year.

Steffi Blochwitz

Thank you so much. And thank you for having me in the podcast. It’s really a pleasure for me to be here.

Joe Lenton

That’s great. I’ve seen on your… I think it’s on your Facebook on your profile photo there. There’s a nice picture of you with a cat. Is that your cat? Are you a cat lover?

Steffi Blochwitz

That’s one of my cats. Yes, I’m a crazy cat lady.

Joe Lenton

Excellent. How many cats have you got then?

Steffi Blochwitz

Only two.

Joe Lenton

Okay. Yeah, so have we. Ours are called Ozzy and Sharon.

Steffi Blochwitz

Okay. It’s Nuts. So you see on the photo, he’s Nuts. He is really nuts! That’s why he’s called Nuts. And then I have a little girl, a really fluffy, fluffy one, which is from the rescue from Russia. She’s a little diva as well.

Joe Lenton

I think all cats are divas, really, aren’t they? I think it comes with the territory. And yes, Ozzy seems to like his catnip a little bit. Ozzy doing drugs. I can’t think what the connection could possibly be there anyway. So do you take photos of your pets?

Steffi Blochwitz

Every now and then, yeah. I play around with them a little bit. Yeah, it’s good fun.

Joe Lenton

Yeah, mine don’t get allowed in the studio. They just make too much mess.

Steffi Blochwitz

Yeah, fair’s fair.

Joe Lenton

Which do you find is most difficult to photograph then? People or animals?

Steffi Blochwitz

Good question. I reckon actually people because with animals, if you’re patient and understand how an animal actually works, more or less works, then they’re easier because they’re not so much in their minds, I would say. People can be so stuck in their heads and just really, really think a lot about how they act in front of the camera and overthink stuff.

Joe Lenton

Yeah, cats just see the camera and turn around and show you their backside! It’s more about understanding their behaviour, I suppose, isn’t it?

Steffi Blochwitz

Yeah, I would say so.

Joe Lenton

What photography is your favourite type to do then? Do you like working with animals or do you prefer other things?

Steffi Blochwitz

I enjoy working with animals, but my main work is definitely weddings. What I also just started about a year ago was iris photography. That’s something I I really, really enjoy doing because it’s kind of arty.

Joe Lenton

Yeah, irises as in photographing people’s eyes?

Steffi Blochwitz

Yes, exactly. Everything is unique. You actually… Well, I’m a bit nerdy when it comes to knowledge and all this old knowledge. So you can actually read a lot in the iris about your health. I’m getting a little bit more into this and flying over in April, I think it is, over to Austria and do a four days introduction course into iris diagnostics and stuff like that. So I’m a bit crazy with learning all things.

Joe Lenton

That’s great. I know the feeling. I’m currently reading a… It’s an interesting thing. There’s this series of books called A Dummy’s Guide to…

Steffi Blochwitz

Okay.

Joe Lenton

This one is A Dummy’s Guide to Neuroscience. Now, that’s not really quite the sort of thing I put together with a dummy, but I mean, yeah, that’s what I’m currently reading, learning about neuroscience. It’s an interesting one. Like you, learning is great. It gives you tools to do so much more with your life.

Steffi Blochwitz

Yeah, definitely.

Joe Lenton

So, you’re going to be sending people off to the doctors after they’re having their irises photographed?!

Steffi Blochwitz

Well, I’m trying not to. Well, I mean, sometimes it would probably be a good idea, but yeah. I’m very at the start of this kind of stuff, and it’s more about the art at this moment.

Joe Lenton

Okay. So is that normally an individual that you would do one or both of their eyes? Or, is this something that you offer with couples, for example?

Steffi Blochwitz

Yeah, with couples and families. It’s really interesting to see how all the genes or actually the colours are mix-matching when parents are having kids, and sometimes they have really blue eyes, and sometimes really brown eyes, and something in between. It’s very interesting to see.

Joe Lenton

And it’s not something we ever normally get to see particularly large is it?

Steffi Blochwitz

Exactly. It’s quite a technical set up here as well for doing this.

Joe Lenton

I can imagine you need some specialist equipment because you’ve got to get in pretty close, haven’t you?

Steffi Blochwitz

Yeah, it’s a two times macro special lens for that. And you focus everything manually, which if you would have told me a year ago… I mean, you are a product photographer, and I always say, oh, yeah, I really enjoy these types of photos. It’s like landscape, but I’m so impatient with this stuff. And now I’m sitting there, like fizzling around with this manual focus for getting the iris up. It’s interesting. Sometimes it’s interesting how life takes it.

Joe Lenton

Oh, it is. I mean, for me, it was the other way around a few years ago. I got asked to photograph a charity football match at Norwich City Football Stadium, and I had to look up how the autofocus setting worked. It was such a long time since I’d used autofocus for a shoot, really. I used to use it sometimes for events, and I still do sometimes for portraits, but photographing action. I was thinking, I haven’t done this in a long time. Yeah, I can kind of sympathise. If you’re not used to it, it’s a little bit of a learning curve.

Steffi Blochwitz

Definitely, but also much fun.

Joe Lenton

Yeah. So what is your most enjoyable thing to do in photography at the moment? Is it the iris photography or do you enjoy your weddings more or is it something else?

Steffi Blochwitz

I enjoy everything. That’s a little bit my issue sometimes that I’m so open for everything. So at the moment, I really enjoy being the artist. So working on my panel for next year already, I can introduce the artist a lot into my wedding stuff, which I have already shot. And also during the weddings to do a bit funky stuff if I find the time to do it, which is sometimes hard. But then also I really, really enjoy working with women. I do work a lot with women when it comes to how we talk to ourselves. A lot of head shots, a lot of self-employed people, yoga teachers, and personal branding shoots. I’m doing a lot as well, which I really, really enjoy. Everything which goes a little bit deeper and where we talk a lot about how we’re looking at ourselves and how other people look at ourselves. And most of the times, there’s a mismatch.

Joe Lenton

It’s very difficult. We often guess what other people think about us, but it’s very difficult often to really know because most of the time they don’t actually really tell us very clearly, do they? I’ve seen that you do this coaching side of your business as well, where you’re involved with working these clients that you’re also photographing. Do you find then that being able to coach them in this way actually helps you to get better images of them?

Steffi Blochwitz

Yeah, I think so. I think it has a lot to do with trust. So if you have a client in front of you and they can trust you, that makes a big, big, big difference. I just talk a lot about… How can I say this? So to really, really remind them that it is a choice how you talk to yourself, because I found a lot of people talk to themselves in their head.

Joe Lenton

Yeah, not too much out loud, otherwise you get problems.

Steffi Blochwitz

Yeah, exactly. It’s a lot of their thoughts, but like their worst enemy. You wouldn’t talk to anybody else around you like this, especially for photography. So you show them a photo of themselves, and they’re just like, “how do I look like? I’m horrible. Oh, this is horrible. My eyes look horrible. This is not good.” They’re looking for everything which is wrong rather than just looking at the photo saying, “wow, I actually look really hot in there.” You hardly ever have this. You’ve probably done quite a lot of business shoots as well, have you? You do clients’ headshots?

Joe Lenton

Yeah, I have. I prefer to try and get a bit of time with everybody beforehand. I know some people, the way they’re doing it, they’ve got so many to shoot that they’re almost like a conveyor belt. But I find that so often, especially you come across someone who’s got a bad self-image, who doesn’t feel comfortable in front of the camera. And if you just wheel them in there and try and take a few photos, it doesn’t tend to go very well.

Steffi Blochwitz

Yeah, exactly. So that’s what I noticed a lot when I worked for a commercial agency a couple of years ago. I did a lot of work for them, and they did exactly that. So they sent me to wherever a company and, okay, take 60 headshots of people. And that’s just like, you have two minutes per person, stuff like that. You have this woman coming in and they’re standing over there in the doorway and screaming at you, it’s like, “I have to warn you, I’m really un-photogenic.” I heard this so many times that I started to really, really look this up. What’s behind it? What’s going on with all these people who find they’re un-photogenic? Is there really something like un-photogenic? I don’t think so. What do you think?

Joe Lenton

It depends what kind of a standard you’re trying to refer to, because I think all too often people will talk about images compared to fashion models and things like that. And you think, well, the fact is the vast majority of us don’t look anything like those people. And the layers of makeup that are on there, the amount of retouching that goes into it afterwards as well. Even they don’t really look like those pictures a lot of the time.

Steffi Blochwitz

Exactly. You remember these shootings, like when you had a workshop or whatever? I mean, I don’t do fashion shootings, but I’ve done a lot of work with Lindsay Adler. She does this crazy stuff with all these fashion girls, and the model comes in and they’re wearing the hoodie. You think like, Have you actually seen our model for today? She’s like, Is that her? Really? Then two hours later, they show up, but they’re like, crazily done. You’re like, Oh, wow, is that the same person?

Joe Lenton

Yeah.

Steffi Blochwitz

That’s actually what my research came up with is that, to be fair, there’s a big industry out there which is called the beauty industry, which makes a tonne of money with telling us that we are not okay the way we are, and especially marketing or targeting women out there and telling them there’s something wrong with you. You need to buy this product, and then maybe you get closer to feeling like a supermodel or something like this. And all of a sudden, when you start to be aware of this, life gets so much easier.

Joe Lenton

Yeah. There’s an awful lot of selling and advertising plays on those fears, unfortunately. So am I good enough? Do I look good enough? And even in silly things like photography equipment. It’s like, what do you mean your camera only does 10 frames a second? You might miss a shot! You need the latest one which does 20 frames a second or 120 frames a second. And you think, oh, goodness. It’s always trying to make you feel bad so that you buy something that they make you think that you need. And I think you’re onto something there. That’s not good for people’s self-esteem.

Steffi Blochwitz

And that’s what I invite people a lot to when they’re doing shoots with me, even if it’s really small ones. Or like I told you before, and I just had three ladies coming in that passed away, and they just wanted to have a print of her dad for the funeral. And then they talked about if they wanted a photo at their funeral and like, “oh, I’m so horrible in photos!” And I had to stop them. I had to jump in there and say, “ladies, it’s just something… Let me speak from my heart, please. It is a decision you make. You can make this decision right now and tell yourself, I do stop talking bad about myself” – in my head, obviously. We’re talking about thoughts here.

Joe Lenton

Yes. Oh, absolutely.

Steffi Blochwitz

But it is a decision. And the funny thing is you can change that really quickly just by putting awareness into it.

Joe Lenton

Yeah. Well, it’s like I’m studying with the neuroscience. There’s something called neuroplasticity, which means that your brain can… Well, yeah, you’ve read about it yourself. Your brain can change. And It’s like with habits, in a sense. We get used to talking to ourselves a particular way. If some people are the type of person that as soon as they make a mistake or they do something they’re not happy with, they go, “oh, I’m so stupid!” And you think, if you get into a habit of doing that, it doesn’t help you with your confidence at all. And you can actually change these habits, but you’ve got to make it a new habit. It’s trying to not just do it once or twice, but trying to make that happen every time you have those negative words about yourself, challenging them and trying to replace them with something that’s more positive.

Steffi Blochwitz

Yeah, definitely. And I think it’s also a little bit nearly like my goal in photography or my mission of life to make this world a little bit more of a peaceful world. Because if you’re in peace with yourself, I’m absolutely 100 % convinced that you represent that out there. You’re walking the streets and you’re just feeling happy rather than you’re just being mean to yourself all the time. And so we as photographers, can actually make a big, big, big difference in the world. I totally believe in that.

Joe Lenton

So, this thing is part of what you do when you’re coaching people to become more self-aware and to learn about themselves then?

Steffi Blochwitz

Yeah, that’s what I do in coaching as well. I’m also teaching the students from Switzerland, like the photography students. And I’m always talking a lot about communication, which words you’re using. And you know that as well from judging as well, which I really, really enjoy. And that’s why I love all the judging with the Societies where we actually met, because we get trained to be so aware of which words we’re using. Words can absolutely make somebody’s day or break them into pieces. I really try to pass this on to young people as well to make them aware. Not talk about photos where somebody put a lot of heart and effort into it. Say, this is just a [s***] photo. It’s like, That’s not a comment. This is just… Stop being mean.

Joe Lenton

Well, all too often these things say more about the person making the comment than they really do about the image itself.

Steffi Blochwitz

Absolutely.

Joe Lenton

And I think, as you rightly say, when you’re a judge, you get into that discipline of thinking, “how can I be constructive with what I say here? How do I help people to see what I’m seeing?” Because when you’ve been doing photography for a long time, when you’re highly trained and when you’re very attuned to every little detail, it’s not something that everyone else sees naturally. So it’s important for it to be an educational process when you give them that feedback. Telling someone that their photograph is really no good at all, well, that’s no good to them. That doesn’t help. You need to give them useful tools that they can then use to improve things.

Steffi Blochwitz

Yeah, absolutely. A direction, where can I actually start? I think it says a lot about yourself if you are trying to to make other people big as well. Especially in photography, we do have a lot of people who love talking about themselves and how great their photos are, and you know these people as well, don’t you?

Joe Lenton

I’ve met a few, yeah.

Steffi Blochwitz

I’m sure they’re not only in the German-speaking areas. Even I have to admit, I found it’s very, very common in the German-speaking areas. I don’t know why. And it just makes it different when you talk about somebody else’s work rather than yours. I mean, we all love to talk about our work, obviously. Does that make sense?

Joe Lenton

Yeah, absolutely. But I think it’s a little bit like what I’m trying to do with the podcast is bringing in people with different areas of experience. Yes, because I don’t photograph everything that everyone else does. But it’s also showing that people can have a different personality. They can have a different approach to their business, to their photography, and that’s okay. And all too often, the people are pushed down these routes where if you want to be a successful photographer, you’ve got to look like me and it’s got to be five steps that you have to complete. I guarantee at the other end of it, blah, blah, blah. And you say, oh, no, We’re not here to clone ourselves. If you’re in education, we’re here to bring out what’s good from the other person. Let them be themselves, not make them like us.

Steffi Blochwitz

Yeah. And for myself, I think one of the most valuable advices I actually got from Lindsay Adler, who said in one of her workshops, it’s just find your own style.

Joe Lenton

Yeah.

Steffi Blochwitz

And this is so important because if you start to copycat everything what somebody else is doing, it can be an inspiration, obviously, it can also teach you skills they’re using for their photography. But, if you start finding your own style, it takes sometimes a lot of bravery to do so because some people just will not like your style. But it’s so amazing when people come to you and say, “I don’t need to read the name under this photo. I know it’s your photo.” And this is what makes you unique. You don’t want to look like the wedding photographer like hundreds of other people.

Joe Lenton

Exactly. It also then helps you as a businessperson because you are then standing out from the crowd and people will go to you because they like your work. Yes, there are business practises you need to get in place and so on. But if you can actually be more authentic to yourself, and I personally think that also extends to how you communicate through your marketing and so on, because all too often it’s like, “oh, this is how you have to do sales.” And you think, well, you’re not a faceless corporate, you’re an individual. So if they see one thing in an advert and then they meet you and you’re something else…

Steffi Blochwitz

Exactly.

Joe Lenton

Actually, that sows a seed of doubt in their mind to think, actually, do I want to work with this person? Because they don’t seem authentic.

Steffi Blochwitz

Yeah, definitely. But also, but lately, I discovered for myself, because, having a little bit this arty way in my wedding photography, putting a lot of double exposure and stuff into it, making it look like drawings and stuff like this. And I really, really enjoy this side of my photography. And then I put this all on my website. And which actually happened the last year was that clients were saying, “we do like that, but we don’t want all of our photos to look like that.” And that was a moment where I was really like, “oh, okay, I need to step back here a little bit because it’s only like, what is it? 2% of my photography is that style in the wedding day.” And anything else is like a documentary, really normal-looking photography.

Joe Lenton

Yeah.

Steffi Blochwitz

Sometimes the artist can be in the way.

Joe Lenton

There is a danger of that. They do say you have to show what you want to sell. If that’s what you want to do more of, you put that out there. But absolutely, realistically, you can’t do every photo at a wedding like that, even if you wanted to. It’s just not possible. The amount of time and effort, it would just be totally impossible, wouldn’t it, really? So finding your style is important, but then I think it’s that understanding between being authentically yourself and also understanding your client. Sometimes we go so after trying to please the clients or so after what we think a client wants that we can risk losing ourselves. But the other way around could happen, too, of course. We can lose the client if we just get too absorbed in ourselves.

Steffi Blochwitz

Yeah, definitely.

Joe Lenton

How do you think then your photography has changed as you’ve been embracing these concepts, as you’ve been looking further into it? Your own images – have you seen a development in that?

Steffi Blochwitz

Absolutely. My images changed a lot. Also, I learned through the process a lot in Photoshop. I was always saying that I’m not a good editor. I remember that Rocco Ancora, he’s like one of these wedding… I love his images, and he’s a big inspiration of mine in wedding photography. I did a couple one-to-ones with him during the pandemic. Once he said to me, “you’re taking these beautiful shots, and then you kill them in post.” I was like, “really?” I found all my panel work, all this competition work, I had to just experiment so much with it. You can have people showing you how to dodge and burn and do frequency separation, all this stuff. But at certain points, you just need to experiment with certain things and just enjoy the process. I really enjoy looking at my images these days, three years ago, and feel like, Oh, okay, this is interesting. What just happened? I actually started a free project of mine in 2020, and I put it in a drawer because I was so stuck in there. It’s called Face your Fears, where I was getting involved with a lot of people who had…

Steffi Blochwitz

I had a cancer patient. I could be with her one whole year through her process and her therapy and everything. I felt just like in post-production, I had no clue what to do with it. Actually, now I’m at a point, which is four years later, where I feel like, okay, I can open up this drawer again and start working on these photos again because the base of the photo is probably pretty good. I can work with it. But now I can do editing and do my storytelling because I felt like the storytelling part was for me so hard to do in Photoshop because I was just missing skills.

Joe Lenton

Right. So do you have a workflow that you use now then to achieve this, or do you still experiment a lot with various different things on each photo?

Steffi Blochwitz

I experiment a lot. I have a tonne of layers on my photos. I don’t know. I think a competition photo probably has sometimes like 80 layers on them or so. I mean, I reduce them quite a lot as well. But also lately, I’ve been experimenting a little bit with AI, and I know it’s a bit of a tough one with competitions. But I had one situation where I was taking photos of another photographer, a friend of mine from Germany, and she was in an explosion when she was a child, and she has all these burns on her neck. I took photos of her actually putting some gold colour on them, and she really got in touch with herself and her scars. She was bursting out in tears, and I took photos of the entire process. I wanted to introduce to the viewer the scene she was in. There’s no photo of it because it’s back in the days. Then I was looking on Google, how can I find a photo? How does actually a room look like when it was a heating system just exploding? There was no fire. It was just hot water coming out there.

Steffi Blochwitz

I experiment a little bit with AI, and I found there was a way to show actually the viewer how the scene would look like, give them a little bit more an idea what she went through. I found this very interesting. I’m still in an experimental phase there at the moment.

Joe Lenton

Yeah, that’s an interesting use of the tool there, really. I mean, yeah, you can understand why competitions and that are very worried about people using it. But I think sometimes in a commercial setting, it’s achieving a result without necessarily having to spend a huge amount of money and time creating something that might make it impossible to do otherwise.

Steffi Blochwitz

Yeah, absolutely.

Joe Lenton

Yeah, that reminded me of a story I heard not that long ago here, actually, about a school, a school radiator system exploding and the water spraying around the room. And you think, yeah, that must be terrifying. And it’s the sort of thing that you think, how on Earth do you, even in a composite, how do you shoot bits and put it together and make it look anything like real?

Steffi Blochwitz

Exactly.

Joe Lenton

Yeah, the AI actually helps visualise in that sense.

Steffi Blochwitz

Yeah. And getting the viewer a little bit an idea what actually happened to that person because you know the story behind it because you talk to the person. But as a viewer, it’s nice if they can understand the story and the scene a little bit and feel what was going on there. I think AI can help with these things, definitely.

Joe Lenton

Have you tried CGI as well?

Steffi Blochwitz

No, I haven’t really. No, not yet.

Joe Lenton

It’s one of those where sometimes people don’t really know the difference between the two. But people think, “computer generated images, oh, that’s all fake as well.” And you think, well, because there you can actually build all the elements yourself and run simulations of water and all that sort of thing as well. It’s quite an interesting possibility. I mean, it’s used all the time in movies these days. But yeah, it’s an interesting one that I’ve used as well for a client where they wanted to have a visualisation of a custom product that they could show the client, so the client could okay it before they actually started. So rather than it just being drawings, I could do a 3D model of it and show them at different angles. And it’s fascinating what’s possible. But it does start to blur the lines with the photography a bit.

Steffi Blochwitz

Yeah, yeah. But I think it’s important with these new technologies that we go with the flow. I know so many of this all the traditional Swiss photo shops, and they’re still whingeing about, “oh, back in the days when I sold all these cameras and stuff.” And so I think, come on, guys, get over it. You can use a lot of your energy to whinge about stuff you can’t change. I feel that’s the same with AI. It is just the way… It’s our future. You can jump on the wave and ride it, or you can decide to swim against it. Well, I think there are a lot of things which we still need photographers for. I mean, wedding days. Yeah, you want proper photos of that. Certain things will probably disappear, right?

Joe Lenton

Like my job as a product photographer.

Steffi Blochwitz

Yeah, I can feel you. That’s probably an area where it’s going to be a little bit tough.

Joe Lenton

Well, they already do with a lot of products. They already do a lot of CGI there. But I think it’s those live, real moments where photographers are going to be able to be indispensable, really. And if you can bring a creative twist to that, especially, then you should have a good few years ahead of you yet, I should think.

Steffi Blochwitz

For me, it’s a lot about energy as well. I talk about energy all the time. That photo gives you a certain energy. If it’s your business, if you are really, really into coaching, yoga, whatever you want to teach. You can take some stock photos, of course. We have had stock agencies forever, but I still think there’s a big market for personal branding photography, because when you really sit down with people and say, “okay, tell me about your business.” And you can see the spark in their eyes and how they just light up and they want to tell you about why they’re doing it. It’s all It’s about the why, isn’t it? It’s very Simon Sinek.

Joe Lenton

Yeah, and you only get that if you’re actually doing those personal photos of the actual business, of interacting properly like that. If you just cut and paste images from all over the place and put them together it doesn’t tell the same story.

Steffi Blochwitz

Yeah. And I keep on telling that to people when they call me because I have a lot of personal branding, and they only want a headshot. And then I’m asking them, “what’s your business? How is your website looking? What’s your colour scheme?” Blah, blah, blah. What do you want to transfer to your client? What’s the client you want to attract? And mostly we talk for half an hour on the phone and end up with entire shooting with more than obviously one photo or one business headshot, because people don’t realise, sometimes our clients don’t realise, how important it is to bring your energy on your website to attract the right kind of people.

Joe Lenton

So when you’re doing something like a branding shoot, how do you investigate with the client what type of shots to have? Because sometimes you see people when they’re starting out in branding photos and you see every client they have there’s a picture of the client with a cup of coffee, there’s a picture of the client with a notebook sitting at a desk, and there’s a picture of them standing outside looking off into the distance. It risks becoming cliché, I think. So how do you make sure that you get out of those clichés and actually do something that really is authentic to the business?

Steffi Blochwitz

Yeah, that’s a tough one. I mean, sometimes you can’t invent the wheel new. But yeah, I don’t know. That is really a tough one. I try to get a lot of movement involved, these things. When it’s a part of the person, just really get to know their personality. Are they the person who sits with a mug there like that? Or is it actually the person who loves to dance in the rain.

Joe Lenton

It’s body language as well, isn’t it then?

Steffi Blochwitz

Absolutely.

Joe Lenton

As you say, there are thousands of different ways you can just sit and hold a cup of coffee. So one person will do it – one person who’s very strong and self-assured might do it very differently to somebody who’s much more shy in other people’s presence. So it could still come through. Yeah, it’s bringing the authentic person through then with that.

Steffi Blochwitz

And introduce a lot of fake clients, obviously. I always tell them, bring a client you really want. If you want a woman between 40 and 50, don’t bring somebody 20 years old for your website shooting. Let them interact with each other. It would be their client. I’m having actually a sport photography background. That’s actually where I was coming from. So I’m really, really used to sit back and watching what people are doing. And I think this is probably where you get the most authentic photos when you just watch people being with a client, how they would act with a client. And obviously, you have to jump in then every now and then. You don’t want them with having their mouth open. Sometimes people talk so much. People don’t look good when they’re talking and you take photos, most of them.

Joe Lenton

No, you can get some very interesting, strange photos while people are talking, can’t you?

Steffi Blochwitz

Sometimes you have to tell your client, Okay, now do less talking and let your client talk for a bit and just interact so I can shoot you. But that’s what I do a lot as well, just watching what they’re doing and stepping back a little bit, using a bit of a bigger lens rather than being so close. Sometimes if you’re so close, then they’re just feeling a little bit overwhelmed by the situation.

Joe Lenton

Sounds like you really enjoy getting stuck in and really thinking about this and learning about the people that you’re working with then. So are you somebody who’s naturally interested in people?

Steffi Blochwitz

Yeah, I would say so. I’m interested in what’s behind it. So I’m this nerdy girl who wants to learn why are people doing what they’re doing. Like you said before, body language and studying this and not only copying poses. So to really understand why certain poses are working and why certain poses aren’t. What’s going on in our minds and stuff.

Joe Lenton

The thing is, you might just think, oh, well, we just ask them? But most people don’t know.

Steffi Blochwitz

Yeah, exactly.

Joe Lenton

They just run on autopilot. They’ve learned these behaviours and they’ve become a certain way, and they don’t think about it anymore. So, it’s actually you need to be really observant to bring it out, bring out their character, and to try and watch what happens in certain situations and how they respond.

Steffi Blochwitz

And I do this a lot in weddings as well. So it comes quite natural where you actually sit back. And at the church, there’s nothing else you do. You just sit back and watch the scene. And just by watching people, how they naturally interact with each other or with a different person, you can learn a lot about the person in front of your camera.

Joe Lenton

So does that then, at that stage of a wedding, does that sometimes give you ideas for what you want to shoot later on, or is this something that you would actually plan even earlier than that? The shoots later in the day or some of the creative work you might want to do, do you go with it all in mind, or do you create some of it as you’re watching them?

Steffi Blochwitz

I usually do the work before church. The couple shooting, it always depends on the time schedule of the people, but I [highly] recommend every wedding couple to do their couple shooting before church.

Joe Lenton

Oh, I see. Yeah. So by the time you’re there, you’ve done that part already. I see. Okay. Yeah.

Steffi Blochwitz

But since I’m usually when I’m doing wedding, I’m doing the entire day. So I’m with them with the preparation. And even like watching them during the preparation gives you an idea. Then you see the first look. I usually arrange that. How they interact with each other gives me already an idea. Then just implement that in to what I have in mind anyway. But I usually do creative work also a bit during the evening. I always found evenings at weddings so boring. When this part is when they have food and stuff, and it’s usually when you have the the nicest light ever. I love shooting at the blue hour. I’m the type of person who runs around in the hotel room. Actually, the photo which won the open category, which was in the stairways shooting down on them in the hotel, that was actually exactly that situation. It was shot between them having dinner. I’m this crazy person, and my clients know this, and I tell them beforehand, “you have to be aware that I might get bit on your nerves at certain times!” I’m trying to look out for, obviously, you don’t want to be enemies with the chef.

Steffi Blochwitz

When the main course is coming out, you can’t get your couple and take them away. But usually in between, there is a lot of time, and I’m always shooting with an assistant, so we set up everything. I only need them for maybe 10 minutes. And there’s always 10 minutes in the evening. And usually, they’re quite happy to escape for a couple of minutes, do certain things and then go back. It’s usually the shots people really, really enjoy because they see that you take the extra step, an extra effort, because you could choose in the evening just to watch and see what’s going on, and then they’re playing their funky games and stuff. You have seen them all. And just document that, or you could really set up something. And this is usually where a lot of my competition work is coming from is in the evening.

Joe Lenton

So speaking of your competition work, you’ve had some good successes so far this year already. What difference do you think that that has made to you personally and also to your business winning these awards?

Steffi Blochwitz

I don’t know. It’s still really, really unreal. I mean, this year, last year was the first year ever I won a category. And after that, it started that I was winning nearly every competition I was entering, and I was just like, “what’s going on?” And I get a lot of feedback, obviously. But for me, my clients really enjoy my competition work. A lot of clients come to me because they enjoy that. They feel honoured when I put their photo into competition. The couples with the photos I was winning now in London, they knew all I put their photos in. They checked my Insta stories all the time. They were happy for me. They were really, really involved. Sometimes I get people who don’t care at all. I have now one photo in finals for WPPI, and I know the woman who’s in the photo, she doesn’t care about it. She knows the photo. I have sent it to her, but it’s like, “oh, whatever. Do whatever you want.” And that’s okay as well. But I feel for me, the most different it make really is the community. All of a sudden, it opened up a community to people.

Steffi Blochwitz

Well, I still remember, it’s not many years ago where I was just feeling so small, rather like talking to certain people, and now I’m good friends with Martina Warenfeldt, which makes me so happy. I can still remember two years ago when I walked over to her and talked to her, I was like, “oh, shall I talk to Martina Warenfeldt? It’s Martina Warenfeldt.” All of a sudden, you sit with people at a dinner table and discussing your work. We have Zoom coffees at least once a month. That’s so cool. I love the community. I love the feedback getting from people. We had such cool discussions when we were in London, just in between you judging here, I’m running around there. That’s what I really, really enjoy.

Joe Lenton

I think it’s one of those things that you get to realise that all these people are just normal people, just doing what you’re doing, essentially, in many ways. And I think what sometimes people find is they can be a little bit… they can be a little bit worried about mixing with other photographers when they start out because they might think, “oh, are they competing with me?” But in these situations like that, I think everybody’s actually – yes, people want to win awards – but they’re happy for each other.

Steffi Blochwitz

Yeah, exactly.

Joe Lenton

And you actually enjoy some of these people winning it, even when they collect half a dozen awards on the table right in front of you and you’ve got nothing, you know?

Steffi Blochwitz

What are you talking about?

Joe Lenton

You could still be happy – well, reasonably, kind of, well, happy for them, I suppose!

Steffi Blochwitz

Yeah. Definitely. And especially when you’re looking at photos, which really inspired you. When I was on stage for the final for the wedding couple together and the photos came came up with the other two, I was like, “oh, my God, these are so good photos.” I could so understand if they win. Yeah, it’s an interesting one. But I always keep on remembering, was it, I think, two years ago when James Musselwhite, he won the overall photographer of the year, and he did this fantastic speech. I really, really wish I had it recorded because I thought it was brilliant.

Joe Lenton

I think a lot of people do. Yeah.

Steffi Blochwitz

And he ended up with something, I can’t quote it, obviously. I just heard it once while I was sitting there. But he ended with something like, be aware that awards don’t pay your bills. I think that’s something really, really important that, yes, of course, it’s nice to have a trophy sitting there and your clients look at it and it’s a good marketing tool. But at the end of the day, you need to be out there with your normal people, let’s say that, and be their normal photographer. And not everybody is interested in your award stuff.

Joe Lenton

No. I think even there, people do it for different reasons. Hanna Neret, who’s an incredible photographer, she does a lot of her photography alongside other work. And she doesn’t produce hundreds of images a year. She produces just a few that she’s really proud of and that do really well. And other people, they shoot images and just when a competition comes along, they think, “oh, I’ll pick one or two that I could enter.” It’s all very different approaches. Some people shoot for a competition and some people shoot for work and then try and enter that work into a competition. So, it’s not necessarily the case that everybody there has shot an image to try and get it to win an award. It’s more a case for me, I think, with my images, it’s trying to make myself accountable to the community in the sense that I’m trying to maintain my standards. So when I put images out there and they’re being judged by other people, it’s am I maintaining a high standard within the industry? Or is my imagery beginning to slip? Is it losing its edge? If I can’t score well anymore, then I’d think, well, hang on, have I got lazy or something?

Steffi Blochwitz

Yeah, definitely.

Joe Lenton

So people do these things for different reasons. And sometimes it can help give clients confidence, and other times clients don’t care, do they?

Steffi Blochwitz

Yeah, exactly. And what I enjoy about the community at these awards as well, because you’re sitting there with really, really fantastic photographers, so inspiring people. And I enjoy doing business talks with them as well. It’s so inspiring sitting on a table and just having ideas where you can go with your business. I do this a lot with Martina, actually, on our Zoom coffees as well, where I found she is so incredible coming up with ideas, and I do an online course here and there, and it’s just like, okay, maybe. It gives you ideas where you can start. We all have – for sure we all have moments where the business is not running well. Sometimes you have more clients, sometimes you have less clients. But for me, it makes a difference. You can always find somebody who you can whinge with. You can wipe your tears and be feeling really sorry about yourself. You find these people very easy. They give you this comfort like, “oh, yeah, I know what you mean. I’m a really poor person as well.” But I really inspire people who are just like, what do you want to do about it? So what’s your next step? Okay, I hear you. I can give you a hug, but now, where are we going now? So that’s what I love.

Joe Lenton

If you’re feeling demotivated, is there something that you tend to do to get yourself out of that? Is there something that helps you to get motivated again? Or are you one of these incredible superhumans that never gets demotivated?

Steffi Blochwitz

That’s a good question. I do have a lot of motivation. I think it sometimes just helps, for me personally, I can talk to my boyfriend about anything, and he comes up – he’s such a creative head as well, even if he’s not a photographer. And I just love to extend visions. And he’s like that as well, who says, “okay, so what do you want to do about it?” And I feel this technique asking yourself questions, because our brain loves questions. It’s already giving you motivation to get out of it.

Joe Lenton

Yeah, absolutely. It’s doing something straight away and asking and looking for possibilities. I think if we dwell on those negatives that have got us to that place, it’s like feeding a monster. The more you spend time thinking about it, the more you feed it, the bigger it gets and the harder it can be to get out of that state. So, yeah, it’s really good to have people around you that challenge you to say, yeah, “okay, it’s tough, but what are you going to do instead or what are you going to do about it? How can you change things?” So, I mean, have you changed anything recently that’s made a big difference to your business? Is there anything that you can point to, the changes that you’ve made, perhaps in the last year or two that you found have actually really helped your business move forward?

Steffi Blochwitz

I have actually changed nearly everything last year because I came to a point where I was really at a point where I had to think about, do I want to continue or not doing this full-time? I was really, really blocking myself being against passport photos, for example. Then I talked to other photographers. I actually went to visit quite a few photographers here in Switzerland and talked to them and started working in areas where I never wanted to work. Just opened up my horizon a little bit. Just getting a bit away from this, No, I don’t want to do this. I was just like, Okay, you do this. You open your door for everybody and start talking to people. Actually, it was a simple passport photo, you sometimes get a really good client who comes back and spends quite a lot of money. So that was a big change. And the iris photography was a big change. So I actually changed a lot of things in my business, definitely.

Joe Lenton

Yeah. And do you have any… Sorry, carry on.

Steffi Blochwitz

Yeah, also to think about how many weddings I want to do because I love weddings, but the process afterwards is just very, very full on.

Joe Lenton

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. You’ve got a lot of images to go through. It’s all the work beforehand and all the work afterwards that most people don’t see and don’t realise quite how much there is there to do. So do you have anything, any goals for the coming year or any things that you’re thinking ahead and thinking, I might need to change that? Any targets that you’re looking forward to meeting in your business?

Steffi Blochwitz

Yeah, I’m pretty open for anything. So I have the chance to be this weekend in Hamburg and be for the first time a judge for panels, which is super exciting. I’m super happy about this. So I really enjoy doing the judging work a little bit more. Being an educator as well with young Swiss people I enjoy being with the young people. I think just be open-minded and see what comes up. So creating passive income from different angles as well. So I’m actually taking care of a holiday home for an English family, was here in the Swiss Alps apartment. And I met them because I shot their holiday home. I took photos of the flat. So they were asking us like, “do you want to be the host for Airbnb?” And so that’s for me a passive income as well. I have to deal with the people a little bit. So I’m open for whatever comes my way rather than saying that, No, this is not my business, to say, Okay, I have a look and see what it comes up with.

Joe Lenton

It’s an interesting attitude to think that let’s just be open and see what comes along. Sometimes you get people who think there’s one particular thing that they want to do and they just close off other opportunities and just want to go totally for that. And that can work sometimes. That can help with that focus. But at the same time, you can sometimes miss things if you’re too focused.

Steffi Blochwitz

You limit yourself.

Joe Lenton

Yeah, absolutely. My whole journey with getting into judging and so on happened sooner than I was expecting. It was basically with the judging school. It’s like, “oh, there’s a space left on the judging school. You’re coming, aren’t you?” I was like, What? Am I? Really? Oh, I don’t know. I was thinking I might like to do it at some point. But no, no, just book on this one. Okay. And then I really enjoyed it. And then I realised that to carry on with it, I I have to have a fellowship. And that’s the reason I did the fellowship is because I enjoy the judging. It wasn’t because, oh, yes, I need to be able to have an F before my name or something. I wanted to carry on with the judging. And it brought out the aspect in me that likes to give back to the industry, likes to help maintain standards and things like that. So things can come out of nowhere sometimes.

Steffi Blochwitz

Yeah, absolutely. And I feel the same here that I never wanted to do a panel. And so I felt a little bit forced because I enjoy the judging so much, the judging school, so that I had to put the panel in, which I did last year, which didn’t go through as a fellowship. So I have to do it again. And after I did that, I was like, “no, I’m never going to do it again.” But now I can see what value is behind the panel as well, where you really step back from your normal work and you look from a very different angle because it’s so different to create this body of work of 20 images, which speaks one language. Also being invited as a panel judge, I know now what these guys are going through, rather than if you have never done a panel, how can you be a judge for panels?

Joe Lenton

Yeah, absolutely. It makes sense. I think sometimes what people don’t realise is that certainly the vast majority of us as judges are upset when we have to fail the panel. We know that there are standards that have to be maintained. We know criteria that we have to use to judge it. And there are times when you wish you could say, “oh, no! Let’s just let it go.” But you can’t. You’ve got to keep those standards. And being a judge is not easy.

Steffi Blochwitz

Yeah, exactly.

Joe Lenton

Your experience and your opinion is valued, but you’ve got to listen to your colleagues as well. And having to say to somebody, “I’m sorry, but I can’t pass your panel” is a hard thing, a hard thing to do.

Steffi Blochwitz

Absolutely.

Joe Lenton

And when you’ve been there yourself, you know what that feels like for someone, which I suppose helps you to deliver the news with a bit more compassion.

Steffi Blochwitz

Yeah, definitely. Because I still remember last year when it didn’t go through, and I was like… My first reaction was I was angry as like, “why didn’t they get my story?” And then I had the chance to talk to all the judges later on individually. Now having the distance from it, I totally understand. I absolutely understand. And from where I am now in judging school, I would say, yeah, it’s not a fellowship panel. Because it was a little bit my way as well, where I was rushing stuff through and I was printing on Monday evening and flew out to London on Tuesday and stuff like that. So I was doing everything last minute, which sometimes can work, but this time I’m taking a year or I’m really, really having a schedule on what I’m doing. I mean, obviously, I was doing a wedding panel. It’s a little bit of good luck thing as well because I really want to shoot everything new. I have no idea what’s happening at the weddings.

Joe Lenton

Yeah, you’ve got a certain idea about the venue and that, but you can’t control the weather. You can’t control what happens on the day. And yeah, you’ve only got a certain number of weddings to get some images from. I’ll stop there. I don’t want to make you feel nervous!

Steffi Blochwitz

I have no idea if it works. What I’m – what I have in my mind. And it’s so, so, so precise what I want to do. So we’ll see, we’ll see.

Joe Lenton

But the thing is, you probably wouldn’t even try that.

Steffi Blochwitz

Exactly.

Joe Lenton

Otherwise.

Steffi Blochwitz

Exactly. And that’s the thing. Challenge accepted. And how cool is that? And how motivated am I these days to go to the wedding? I’m just like, “oh, yeah!” I mean, obviously, client comes first. You do your A programme, and then if you have spare time, you can do your fun stuff. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes you have clients who feel like they’re so stiff in front of the camera. You’re really working with non-professionals. What can you really do? But for me, that makes it even… Yeah, it’s a challenge, but it makes it more special, I would even say.

Joe Lenton

Yeah, well, because you know then that everything that you’re bringing out of that image is down to what your creativity is putting in and also how you’re making them feel, how you’re coaching them into poses and so on, because they’re not professionals – professional models. It’s not a fashion shoot. They’re real people at a wedding. And you’re using your insight into how people are to then help them to be comfortable enough to have their photograph taken. And for most people, that’s not an easy thing.

Steffi Blochwitz

Yeah. Again, I can say it, not often enough, I wouldn’t be able to do this thing without my assistant, who is so brilliant. I go with the same one to nearly every wedding, and I can just totally tell people out there, if you don’t have a wedding assistant, get a wedding assistant because it’s so much fun. If you’re a good team, they know what’s in your head. I can see her. We would just look at each other and she’s like, You want to do this? Yeah, I do. It’s just like, Oh, yeah, rain and the light and stuff. It’s really, really cool. It makes the day so much more fun and so much easier as well when you have somebody to chat with as well.

Joe Lenton

Yes, it can get a little bit lonely in a way, I suppose, when you’re working on your own like that. I mean, I sometimes find that with the product photography. I like the peace and quiet a lot of the time. But at the same time, if you start to get a bit stuck with something, it’s nice to have someone to bounce ideas off isn’t it, really?

Steffi Blochwitz

Yeah. And I really enjoy stepping back for the reception, for example. She can shoot that. She’s a good photographer as well. It doesn’t need me, really. I do, usually, the family and group photos and stuff, but otherwise, I just step back. Usually, with a couple shooting, I have done already something so I can create a double exposure with. And that’s when I start going around looking for stuff, I can actually put photos on top of each other and experiment a little bit. Give my brain a little bit of rest as well.

Joe Lenton

Yeah, absolutely. So where can people find your work? If people want to have a look at what you do, where’s the best place to go and have a look? Is it your website or social media? What would you recommend?

Steffi Blochwitz

Yeah. Well, my website is all in German. My social media is all in German. But I would say Instagram is probably the best place. I’m pretty active on Instagram. I posted pretty recently and let people be a little bit part of what’s going on in my stories as well.

Joe Lenton

Oh, that’s good then. Yeah. So I’ll post a link to your Instagram profile next to the the audio link for the podcast so that people can go and have a look. And you don’t need to worry whether they can understand the words. It’s looking at the pictures. That’s what we want to do, is see, get this story through the images.

Steffi Blochwitz

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that’s fantastic. Thank you so much.

Joe Lenton

Well, thank you very much for joining us for the podcast. Really appreciated your time, and it’s been really good talking to you.

Steffi Blochwitz

Thank you so much for asking me. It was really nice talking to you. Thank you so much.

Joe Lenton

Thank you, everybody, for listening. This is the Focused Professional podcast.

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