WAYNE BROWN: Hello, I’m your host Wayne Brown and welcome to the ‘ET project.’ We’re delighted to be delivering this podcast for executive talent all over the world, whom we’re affectionately referring to as ‘Team ET.’ Today’s guest resides in Noblesville, Indianapolis, in the state of Indiana, and is the founder and lead photographer of the corporate branding photography company, Studio 13. Lesle Lane is a third-generation photographer with more than three decades of personal experience in the industry. She serves on the alumni board at her alma mater, Butler University, and earned her MBA from Indiana Wesleyan. Specializing in B2B corporate branding services, Lesle has become an influential figure in commercial photography in Indianapolis and surrounding states. As a certified woman-owned business, Studio 13 has carved out a niche in providing high quality visual content. Lesle showcases daily her entrepreneurial spirit and pioneering efforts in both business and photography, and has a special passion for capturing architectural and industrial images which, by the way, are two of the areas that you’ll hear us speaking about. Team, there’s a stark difference between professionally-shot images and those we happily capture daily on our smartphones. For companies and leaders who are looking to create that lasting first impression, when a potential client accesses your brand, you’ll do well to remember this. As Lesle says, “I believe sometimes people are just born to do something,” and in this case that something is capturing incredible shots through her professional lens.
INTRO: Welcome to the ET project, a podcast for those executive talents determined to release their true potential and create an impact. Join our veteran coach and mentor, Wayne Brown, as we unpack an exciting future together.
WAYNE BROWN: Hello, team. I think, I’m pretty sure, most of you listeners will be aware of just how crowded and visually-driven our world is that we operate in today. Therefore, when we’re trying to build a company brand, we need to think much broader than just our logo and our mission statements. We need to understand how best to capture that adversarial emotional response that people have when they engage with you. And there a few things out there that build the connection more powerfully than photography, at least in my view, and I’m sure in our guest’s view. The right image can tell you a story, it can build immense trust, as well as make your brand feel authentic and accessible. But of course, the question arises, how do you harness that power effectively? And fortunately, here to guide us through the conversation, we’re joined by Lesle Lane, who is the founder and lead photographer of Studio 13. She’s a true expert in using photography to build a company’s brand. So, Lesle, welcome to the show.
LESLE LANE: Oh, Wayne, thank you so much, that was a wonderful introduction. Yes, visual imagery has never been more important than it is today.
WAYNE BROWN: The world of photography, we’ve been on this transition from using film to digital, and then to smartphones, and now we even have this AI, I don’t know if you call that photography, but we have this AI creating fake images. What has it been like for you, having been in the industry for so long, and being on the inside throughout all these transitions?
LESLE LANE: Boy, you know, if you could call photography like deadliest catch, that’s kind of what I would say photography has been like during my career. A tumultuous storm of both industry disruptors as well as economic disasters have happened during my career, but each time, because I’ve come from a family of deep pioneers in the industry, I feel like that most of it I have approached head on, some that have had very positive results, and then when I didn’t approach it head on, that was really when disaster kind of struck in my career, so it has been a fascinating time. I think historians will really enjoy telling the story of a creative field that became less creative, and then I think we’re moving into a more creative time again, and it has just been a roller coaster, some very, very highs and some low lows.
WAYNE BROWN: Yeah. You have some really fascinating areas that you work with as part of that business, we’ll dive into a couple of them in a moment. Were you around when we went from film to digital?
[00:05:00]
LESLE LANE: Sure. Yeah, I was very fortunate, I graduated from college in three years, and so I came into the business very young, and I had the ability to basically learn from the ground up, shooting everything from 4×5 transparency all the way to 8×10 transparency. So, think Ansel Adams, you know, carrying that big 8×10 camera out to the field, but I was doing it in a studio setting, and so… you know, the reason we would shoot those large sheets of film was because we would then scan those sheets of film, and if you were going to put it on a billboard or you were going to put it in a large print, then you would want to shoot a larger and larger piece of film. But we knew, even my father, who was… at that time he was in his 60s, he knew that the transition from film to digital was coming because we were already doing it. We were already scanning the film, digitizing it in order to put it on a press, so by the time I came into the business, my dad was already researching digital cameras. He was already ready to make that change as soon as he felt that the quality was there. And so, I was 26 years old when I bought my first digital camera, it was $210,000, yes, you heard that right.
WAYNE BROWN: $210,000! Okay.
LESLE LANE: And I was so stupid and so young that didn’t seem like a problem to me, it cost more than my house, and it didn’t seem like a problem to me. But we had a very stable client who was shooting product photography on a weekly basis with us, and we knew that in order to keep that client, we had to make the transition. And you had to buy all new lights, you had to buy all new cameras, so it wasn’t just that it was the camera, you had to replace everything you had, every lens, every everything.
WAYNE BROWN: Theme of your work is around embracing technology, as you’ve already alluded to, not fighting it, how do you strategically incorporate the trends, particularly AI at this stage, I mean smart phones, AI, if you like, how do you incorporate that into the professional photography business?
LESLE LANE: Well, a couple of things; I’m very fortunate that most of my clients are in professional services, because where the AI is really taking over right now is for headshots. So, right now, that is a, take a picture with your cell phone, send it in to a software, they convert it to an artificial image with a background or an environment, and they’re taking the price point of about $75 to $100 for that. So, it’s not exactly dirt-cheap yet, but it’s at a less expensive price point than maybe what I would do to create a new headshot. But because my headshot work is in professional services, think accounting firms, law firms, doctors, investment advisors, bankers, those people truly need to present their authentic self, because if you’re going to trust them with your money or your life, you really want to know what they look like, you don’t want something that’s fake. And so, I am incorporating AI through my editing processes, I’m incorporating it as a part of my procedural work so that I’m getting it out the door faster. I’m using it to do some editing that five years ago I couldn’t do, where I was out shooting a model shoot for a physician’s network and they were showing healthy, happy people. And then, of course, a car with a trailer came through the shot, and AI could take that out without a problem, it just takes that car right out. Now on the other side of that, it started raining that same day. So, we’ve set this up months in advance, we’ve got models and makeup stylists, two assistants, the whole nine yards, and it starts raining because that’s life. And I come back and I tell my client, “Don’t worry, I’m sure I can get those raindrops out of their shirts.” And I’m thinking to myself, this is a perfect place for AI to take over and make my life easier, right? How hard could it be? It took the shirt off the woman, like completely took the shirt off of her, it put her in a bodysuit with a yoga mat under her elbow. And I’m like, “what about that is removing the raindrops?” And so, I had to go in by hand and remove every single one of those raindrops because AI simply could not do it. So that’s about where it is right now.
[00:10:00]
LESLE LANE: Now, maybe if I were to have sent it off to an outside editing company, they would have used a different program than what I was using. But for me, it’s a great tool, it’s a great asset for processing, it’s just not quite ready for prime time.
WAYNE BROWN: I saw on your website you’re also into drone video photography, that’s an area that fascinates me, but how difficult is that and how far removed from traditional photography is using a drone to capture aerial shots and do all sorts of things?
LESLE LANE: So, what we do, I have a pool of 1,099 contract workers. So, my drone and my video people are two of those individuals that are well-talented and well-versed at what they do. So many construction companies now, think engineering firms, construction companies, they have their own drones and their own drone operators. And so that business where five, 10 years ago, we were shooting a lot for construction, that has gone away. And so, what we do instead is we are offering tours; where we’re not just recording, here is the spot from an aerial view, we’re flying that drone through the front door and we’re bringing a first-person view into the building. And then the videographer will pick up from where the drone left off and give the viewer a tour, whether it’s a facility, whether it’s an apartment, whether it’s anything like that and we’ll put it to music, 45 seconds, a minute clip at most. We’ll also go into events and we’ll create a summary of a large event that a company may be putting together so that then they can push that out. Again, a 45-second reel that gives their constituents an idea of what might have happened at that event. So, it’s really very, very different from what it was five to 10 years ago, where people were just happy to like, “oh, drone photography.” It’s really not attractive to shoot a building from straight above it.
WAYNE BROWN: Yes.
LESLE LANE: It’s the angles that you take. And so that’s the big difference between ground photography, ground videography and drone work, is getting the lighting of the time of day perfect and getting it from a higher angle, but not too high of an angle because it just doesn’t show you any depth in the building at all.
WAYNE BROWN: Lane, you’re really touching there on how you create the storyline through the photography and through the, in this case, the video and the drone, but you also now introduce another area that I’m really interested in, which is the architectural photography. And I know we spoke about that and the challenges for the novice photographers out there who love to go out, walk down the street and take pictures of a building. What is it that they need to be looking at? When you go and see a building and you’re looking at it from an architectural perspective? Straight lines, is one of the things I believe that we look for and vertical because buildings are vertical, typically, but from your perspective, what is it you look for?
LESLE LANE: Well, I’ll tell you, industrial photography and architectural photography are the two hardest type of work that I do. I have tried for about three years to train another photographer to come in and shoot architecture and I have failed miserably; there is something about my eye that is not transferable yet. Something about the way I see a building, the way I can see the angles that none of my freelancers can seem to get a hold of. And the reason for that is twofold, I think. One, it is the lighting, people they look at, let’s say that they’ve gone to see, I don’t know, Statue of Liberty. Let’s just take something that somebody might be out in America going to visit and the light is not on the face of Lady Liberty. Well, they’ll still take the picture and it’s going to stink because the light is not on the front, because you don’t plan your tour to see Lady Liberty from when the sun is on the front. And so, people, even some of my competitors, some of the worst architectural work I’ve ever seen is they’re shooting the building at the wrong time of day. So that’s the first and most important thing for amateurs that are going out there and photographing something. If you truly have something that matters to you, you’re at the Taj Mahal, you need to know which way that building faces before you plan your tour of the Taj Mahal, if putting a print of the Taj Mahal on your wall is important to you.
[00:15:00]
LESLE LANE: So that’s the first thing. The second thing is that even though many softwares can straighten a building for you, it is kind of difficult because as soon as you start messing with the perspective of a building, that’s why we used to shoot with 4x5s, is because a 4×5 camera could correct the perspective of a building. So, you’re shooting up at it and your angles are off. And so, if you’re shooting it with a cell phone, your angles are going to be off. So, you have two choices; you can fix it in software and it’s good enough or you can shoot it crooked intentionally, which is a lot of times if I’m shooting just for my own pleasure and not for a job, I will shoot the building crooked. When I was in Copenhagen, you can’t get far enough away from a building to shoot it straight. And so, I just lean into the perspective problems and make it more creative at a unique angle.
WAYNE BROWN: It sounds like there’s a personality in photography through the photographer that you try and bring out into the image, how much is your personality represented in the image that you capture?
LESLE LANE: A lot. I’ve gotten in trouble from my clients before because I always shoot the building plum, no contractor wants to go, “you shot my building crooked.” But it is not uncommon that I will also send them something that is just way out there, along with the ones that are perfectly straight. And I have had a contractor once go, “stop shooting my building crooked.” I go, “but it was so creative.” And he’s like, “I’m a contractor, I don’t care about creative.” So yes, there is a personality to it.
WAYNE BROWN: Right. Is that part of the challenge in trying to train other people to capture the image the way that you see it should be captured, do you think?
LESLE LANE: I think it’s part of it, but I have to tell you, so I taught photography for seven years. So, during the recession that spanned like two or three years in America, ‘09, ‘10, ‘11, ‘08, ‘09, ‘10, whatever it was, I had to go to teaching because the business just was not making enough money. And I taught architectural photography and I taught, I would say 115 students over my seven years that I taught and I did not have, but maybe one that could see the angles. And I think that if you speak to an architect, architects and photographers are two of, in my opinion, the closest-linked because we’re right brain, left brain. So, you know, photographers, I want to say Georgia O’Keeffe. I’m updating myself a little bit here. The Georgia O’Keeffes think of artists like probably Van Gogh, you would not sit back and say that they’re literal and business people, they are artists. And there’s a reason people call people ‘starving artists,’ and that’s because they’re either really, really creative or they’re really, really good at business. And I think architects and architectural photographers are people that use both sides of their brains. And so, when I sit on a set with an architect, we speak the same language. But when I put one of my associates that maybe doesn’t have quite my linear brain, I’m very OCD, I’m very organized, I run my business like a business, I just happen to take pictures. And I think architects are the same exact way. And so, I haven’t yet found a photographer that is as equal-brained, if that makes any sense, equal-brained as I am, where I can switch both sides of my brain on a job. So that’s what I’m looking for, I’m looking for somebody that is as good at business and as good as being organized and detail-oriented as I am.
WAYNE BROWN: I can imagine how that comes out in your methodology of capturing images. How much do you look for the soul of the building or the soul of what it is you’re capturing on film to help you tell that story? Is there that element as well?
LESLE LANE: Yeah, if it’s people, absolutely, you have to figure out. So, that job I was telling you about that it rained, the whole goal of that, it was a regional hospital down in southern Indiana, and they wanted their fake patients, their models, to be in landmarks around the county. And so, we were trying to show people what I call lifestyle. So, two people holding hands, walking away from a movie theater, a family walking their dog in a park, somebody having a picnic.
[00:20:00]
LESLE LANE: And trying to get three, four people who don’t know each other, they’re paid models, to look like a family, that is not easy. And so, it’s not just setting up the camera, choosing the right lens, putting the right lighting, it’s making those four models feel comfortable together. And you want them to laugh because you want happy patients out having a picnic. And so sometimes I say the craziest things, not as crazy as my dad used to say, because he was inappropriate, it was the 80s, you could get away with a lot of stuff. But I say some of the craziest things just to get people to laugh at each other, to connect, so that when I turn my back, my models are making fun of me, but they’re talking to each other. And so that’s definitely the case for people. But when you’re shooting a building or when you’re shooting an industrial situation, the client has a particular problem that you have to solve, whatever it is. So, in an industrial situation, so much of that work is proprietary. And you cannot show every single part of a process because you’ll give away the trade secrets. So how do you tell a story where less is more? And sometimes the same thing is with a building because you can show a building and show how big it is, but if you don’t have a person to show scale, then you kind of lose the volume of it. And some people want models in their shots and some people don’t. So as an assignment photographer, I have to solve whatever problem my client has. And it could be volume or it could show a smaller section of it. But I still have to tell the story along with all of the issues that maybe are at the… you know, I’m a problem solver, that’s what I do.
WAYNE BROWN: That’s fascinating. And so how do you go about finding that, capturing not only the beauty but the narrative to make the environment demonstrate the brand?
LESLE LANE: You asked me about, did I shoot film? I am so grateful for that experience because I shot film for, even when we bought the first digital camera, it couldn’t shoot people yet, it could only photograph things that didn’t move. And so, I still used film for many years after that until the technology caught up. And it was unforgiving, film was unforgiving, but my parents insisted, and because I shot with a 4×5 camera, all I shot with were fixed lenses, where today, commercial photographers shoot on zoom lenses. And for me, I tried it like for a year to shoot on zoom lenses because they’re a lot less expensive. But I found that it really stifled my creativity because you’re not thinking about the compression factor of your lens. And that compression factor is half the storytelling of it. So, if I wanted to shoot a proprietary industrial system, well, I don’t want to show the whole thing because I’ll get in trouble. So that lens selection of choosing a long lens, coming at it from a long-distance angle, that’s going to show less of that line, the manufacturing line, but it’s going to get to the heart of the matter. And so, you know, I always tell people that don’t understand lens compression, it’s like looking through a tunnel; if it’s a long lens, you’re looking through a tunnel and if it’s a short lens, you’re looking through a windshield. And so, you know, younger photographers that don’t have the background of shooting with fixed lenses, many times don’t understand that that is a huge part of the storytelling, is the lens factor, the f-stops and the lens compression factor.
WAYNE BROWN: You spoke about you have associate photographers you use for different types of clients, how do you ensure the quality? How do you manage that quality from a business perspective?
LESLE LANE: First and foremost, I do all the editing myself. So even if an associate photographer shoots it, they send me the raw files, I get it into processing that is a standard procedure for Studio 13 clients. So, whatever it is, it has to go through my personal quality control. The second thing is, the majority of what my associates shoot are headshots and events. And so, I have created standard operating procedures. When I tell you I’m right brain left brain, every associate photographer has to sign a non-compete, non-solicit. They also have to sign a guide of how they are to dress, act and behave on a job. And then I have a manual of how to shoot headshots.
[00:25:00]
LESLE LANE: So, in each one of my camera cases, I give them… I have enough lights for all of us, so that they are using the same exact kind of lighting equipment that I am. And then the manual tells them what lens to use, how to set up the lighting and how to do the posing. It still is not like, they don’t shoot exactly like me because everybody is unique, but it is pretty darn close and it has been working extremely well.
WAYNE BROWN: I thought it might be interesting just to give people the broader context. You’ve touched on a couple of scenarios briefly, but I thought it might be interesting if we could step through a scenario as if I was a client engaging you without spending an hour talking through it, what’s the process that you go through to prepare and then finally get to an end output? Because I know it’s very detailed, but I think we often forget as clients just how much work goes into it. Because at the end of the day, we see one or a portfolio of images, we don’t really understand the amount of work and effort. So, would you mind trying to just step us through, if I contact you from that point, how do we get to the end?
LESLE LANE: Absolutely. And if any of you are interested, we actually do have this on our website on a Google Live View under our process. And part of the reason why I have a team of nine people is because I can’t do everything. And so, from the moment we get an inquiry from a client, I’ve got somebody else that has got my back to make sure that we get everything as quickly as possible. We’re in a time where if I get a blind inquiry from the website and I don’t answer it immediately, I’m going to lose the job. So that comes directly to my email box, I reply to it and include my administrator on it immediately. If it is a brand-new client, we are going to have to do a vision casting meeting. We’re going to have to have some kind of idea so that I can… because I’m an assignment photographer, somebody doesn’t come to me just for my ideas, they have an idea or they have a visual guide, they may already have a style guide of what I have to match. So, we have to have a vision casting meeting where we figure all that out. Based on that, we will then quote the job. If we are to win that quote and it is necessary to do a location scout, then I or one of my associates will go and scout that location in preparation for that shoot. Some clients, the bigger the clients are, we will have to have multiple meetings. So, I’ve got a big shoot coming up next week, it’s three days in an industrial situation, the client is out of Michigan. This is the beginning of a three-factory shoot. So, we’ll shoot here in Indiana for three days, a couple of days in Van Wert, Ohio, a couple of days up in Lansing, Michigan. And so, we had a vision casting meeting, I got the job, I went on a location scout, then had to answer back to the client again about my thoughts on the location scout. They’re flying into town on Monday, they want another location scout on Tuesday before we start the shoot on Wednesday. We’ll shoot for those three days, I’ll provide that client with proofs. So, I’ll go through, take out all the bad files, anything that, you know, the lights didn’t fire, I didn’t like the composition. And then they will review the proofs. They’ll choose their selections for editing, we’ll edit those. And then within about seven to 10 days, we’ll return final files to them. I normally invoice 30% upfront, 30% to 50% upfront, depending on who the client is and what their internal processes are, and then the final invoice will go out upon delivery.
WAYNE BROWN: So, from start to finish, roughly, how long?
LESLE LANE: Well, it depends on the client. So, the client for next week actually has had these days booked for a month. I’m already booking into January. So, you know, some of them, I’ll get a quote, the job is next week, we shoot it, we go, you know, somebody else shoots it on the team and the whole thing lasts 10 to 12 days. This one will probably last three months for next week, by the time we met them until the time we deliver three to four months on that one. But that’s very unusual, we normally have a shorter turnaround time than that.
WAYNE BROWN: And if a company was just looking for headshots, I guess it’s considerably shorter than that?
LESLE LANE: Yes, considerably. So, we offer headshots, I work out of my home, I have a home studio. And if somebody just has one employee, then they can come here to my studio. I also do a pop-up studio in downtown Indianapolis about three to four times a year for people that work in the downtown area.
[00:30:00]
LESLE LANE: But most of the time, what we do is we go into a company and we photograph everybody’s headshot anew. So, hundreds of people over the course of three days, four days. And then when they have new hires, then they’ll come into the studio for those one or two new employees that do that. So, it’s always changing, it’s always interesting, never a dull moment.
WAYNE BROWN: Yeah, I can imagine. On your website, you list some differentiators of your business to your competitors, I guess. What is it that makes you special and your team special without going too deep? But is there something that always stands out when you’re working with people that they comment about?
LESLE LANE: Oh, yes, for sure. So first and foremost, most of my corporate clients are getting squeezed tighter and tighter. So, companies are expecting more from their employees as they’re laying people off, they don’t hire people anew or whatnot. And so, we have found that by having a team of photographers where the person doesn’t have to go look for an event photographer, they don’t have to look for an industrial photographer, they don’t have to look for a drone, they can just come to one place and say, “Lesle, take care of it.” With 30 years of experience in this community and really around the Midwest, luckily, I’m relatively likable to most people and they trust me with their jobs. So that’s the first thing, is that we can handle a lot of their visual needs in one place with a high caliber for quality. But everybody expects high quality. Everybody expects that they’re going to go… It’s just different now. And so, I go back to the problem-solving. I had a client who, a large global manufacturer, they haven’t shot any headshots since COVID and the administrator and the facilities manager is the person that hires the headshot photographer. And I went in there to speak to them and they were overwhelmed by the scheduling process of trying to reach out to hundreds of workers to get them scheduled. And so, we created a private scheduling platform just for that company that they could email to all of their associates and the associates could schedule their own headshots with me. And then I went in, I photographed all those people, I sent all the proofs directly to the subject so that that administrator did not have to go talking to all of the associates. And then the associates sent me their orders, what they wanted edited, we processed them all, sent them back to the individuals and then sent the administrator one bulk folder of all of her people in one place. The moment she hired me, she did not have to do anything else. And solving your clients’ problems is becoming the game changer, answering the emails on time, delivering when you say you’re going to deliver, invoice the way you say you’re going to bill it; don’t bill more, don’t bill less, bill it the way you promised them. Keeping your promises and making a difference in their lives is what really, truly separates me from my competition.
WAYNE BROWN: I want to get a little bit personal now with you because you have a very interesting background. We haven’t touched on the background. Ice skating, come on, what was this all about? When was the ice skating and how did ice skating show up in your professional journey?
LESLE LANE: Ice skating was everything. I’m just going to be very blunt about it. So, my parents got divorced when I was six and I was born in Columbus, Georgia. For those that don’t know, American geography, Southeast, very hot, no ice skating rinks. And my mom fell in love with a commercial photographer here in Indianapolis and we moved here. We moved here during a snowstorm, I had never seen snow in my life and my stepfather was a hockey player when he was in high school. And so, immediately upon me moving to Indiana, he bought me ice skates and took me to outdoor skating rinks because they were very rampant back then at the time. We don’t have as many anymore because of global warming. And I fell in love with the sport, absolutely fell in love. My parents could use it for any type of discipline they wanted because all they had to say is, “if you don’t do this, you’re not going to get to skate today.” And so, what went from a… and it didn’t take long, I don’t even think it took six months before I wanted to skate every day. And so, I did from the time I was about seven, I skated every day. The neighbor across the street was an ice skater and so when I heard that she was going to the rink at 5:30 in the morning, I hitched a ride with her to get to the rink at 5:30 in the morning and then my parents would pick me up for school.
[00:35:00]
LESLE LANE: So, I did that all the way through college actually. I skated at a national level, which is a pretty big deal in this country because not everybody can be Olympians, but a lot of people go for that national level and I made it there. But I had more passion than I had talent. And my coach used to always tell me, “I’ll take passion over talent any day,” because I tried really, really hard. But the disappointment of losing when you should win, falling down when you thought you had it right, just even enter rink dynamics, talk about drama, Lord have mercy, is there drama at an ice skating rink, too many girls and not enough supervision. And so, I mean, it just makes an absolute perfect transition into business because sometimes you don’t get the deal when you should. Sometimes you make a mistake and even though you make it… I always make my mistakes right. I’m very, very fortunate I don’t make a ton anymore, but my clients don’t pay if they’re not happy, that’s just the way I run my business. I’ve never had to give it away, by the way, I’ve always made it right. But sometimes they’ll still fire you even if you make it right. Sometimes they choose another photographer because it’s their cousin’s brother. And that disappointment on the ice sets you up for everything. My coach, I wasn’t allowed to cry at the rink, if I lost or if I got criticized by a judge, she’s like, take that outside, go behind the building, do whatever you want to do, but don’t come back into this building until you’re ready to talk to the judge or the coach or whoever with a straight face, that’s business, that’s business.
WAYNE BROWN: Did you ever take pictures after you stopped skating? Did you ever go back and… when you got into the photography, go back and take photos of the skaters?
LESLE LANE: Actually, I did. So, when my father was still in the business, he really didn’t think girls could be commercial photographers, that’s something that only boys did. And so, since I had so many connections in the ice skating world, he sent me to the rink to take pictures of the awards ceremony. And so, we got that contract for a few years until I begged him to not make me do it anymore. But yes, I did go back and capture, you know, everybody wants a picture of their kid get their medals. And so, I did that for a couple of years, yeah.
WAYNE BROWN: Okay. And you have mentioned your parents a few times, so I’m guessing… and your grandparents, you know, they were probably early mentors, but do you lean on mentors or do you have favorite photographers who inspire you?
LESLE LANE: Well, when you have a family full of photographers, you don’t lack for opinions, that’s the bottom line. When my dad, he got sick when I was 22, and his lab technician’s name was Tina. And when he got taken out, Tina… I was the office manager at the time, because again, girls couldn’t do commercial photography, so I had to be the secretary. And she came up to me and she said, “I think you can do it. I think that you can do this.” And I’m like, “what in the world would make you think I can do this?” She goes, “I just think you can.” And so, for 30 years, Tina stood by my side and mentored me. She wasn’t a photographer in her own right, but she was my dad’s assistant. She was a lab technician, she had been in the industry for quite some time. And so, between her and my mom and everybody else in my family, you know, I’m just very fortunate that I have so many strong women in my life that there really was no choice but for me to be strong as well. But Tina would have been… she passed away three years ago, unexpectedly, but she was my rock.
WAYNE BROWN: Right. If there’s any business leaders or people listening to our discussion at the moment, maybe still sitting on the fence about investing in getting professional branding photography, is there a compelling argument you have to help push them over to going ahead?
LESLE LANE: Well, first and foremost, they need to decide what the length of the life of the images are. So, if it is a short-lived ad campaign or if it’s a, you’re promoting something that’s just a day, you don’t want to invest in that. But if you’re truly looking to move your brand, to separate from your competition, to no longer show stock photography because it makes you look like your competition, there truly is no replacement for high-end branding imagery.
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LESLE LANE: And the same goes for video. It all comes down to how do you separate what you’re doing from your competition, because that’s what I do, is I figure out how to put that in a visual asset so that you do that. As we’re going into a recession, because I do think we’re going to have a soft recession, I hope it’s soft after everything I’ve been through in my career, the first thing people are going to do is pull back on their advertising, they do it every time. Advertising is the first to go in and the first to come out. But I’m going to beg people in decision-making positions to think about all their competitors, not advertising. What better time to separate yourself and say, “hey, we’re still here,” because I was reading an article about it recently about that nearly 80% of people pull back on their advertising during a recession and it’s the ones that advertise, update their branding, update their messaging to be appropriate to the times that loses less money during an economic downturn. So, all of you that are out there making these decisions, remember that. Remember that if your competitors are going quiet, it’s the time for you to shout.
WAYNE BROWN: It’s great advice, actually. You can apply that same thing to updating your systems, your processes during those quiet times when things slow down as well from a business perspective. Is there a story that you hope a client’s photographs tell about their brand long after you’ve packed up and left? Is there a lasting story that you’re hoping?
LESLE LANE: Well, yes, but not probably the way you think it is. So, everybody’s company is evolving. So that’s what keeps me in business, it is that if you’re sitting still in your business, you’re dying. So, it’s necessary that my images have to be replaced. But what I hope is that when I’m long gone, especially as I’m attracting younger clients, so, my clients are now in their 20s and early 30s, that they see the impact that I leave on them, that their expectations of their next photographer are higher because of the impact I have in their life. That I remember that their husband is sick with cancer, that I remember that every year they forget to call me to schedule their Christmas party photography and so, I go ahead and I preemptively contact them in October to schedule their Christmas party photography. That I remember, hey, it’s fall break here in America, you probably don’t want to schedule your headshots during that time. And the impact, people think, oh, you’re just a photographer, no, not really, I truly invest in my clients’ lives. I don’t have any clients left that I don’t like, they’re wonderful people, they have an impact on my life. And some of my longest friends haven’t shot with me in 10 years, but they’re still people that I contact every week. And so, my lasting impact truly is just I would love a legacy of concern, care, and investment in my clients’ lives, because each company has to keep taking new pictures, new video, because we have to evolve, we can’t stand still. So, that’s my hope, long after I’m gone, I hope I’ve left an impact.
WAYNE BROWN: The true definition of real partnership, it’s not just about the business. Where is the best place for people to connect with you if they’re interested in finding out more about what you do or interested in engaging as a client?
LESLE LANE: Sure. Studio 13 Online is our website. There’s a Contact Us at the end, just like everybody else’s, and that comes directly to my inbox, so you can do it that way. You can always connect with me on LinkedIn, Lesle Lane. Studio Thirteen is also on LinkedIn. And then studio13indy is my Instagram reel.
WAYNE BROWN: Lesle, I really enjoyed the conversation. Thank you so much for being on the ET project, it has been a pleasure.
LESLE LANE: Thank you so much, it’s such a great conversation.
OUTRO: Thank you for joining us on the ET project, a show for executive talent development, until next time, check out our site for free videos, eBooks, webinars, and blogs at ‘coaching4companies.com.’
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