066: Dean Dampney – Approaching Weddings Holistically & Attracting Couples That Align With Your Values

June 30, 2022

“Always be intrigued with the connections between people in front of your lens.”

DEAN DAMPNEY

Hey everyone! It’s Sally here, from Studio Ninja. Today’s episode is all about Dean Dampney.

Check out some of the biggest points from Dean’s interview below:

How has being a counsellor affected how you work with your couples?

It’s always been how I’ve worked with my couples and I think that’s been really good testing ground for me to move into this part of my professional life. Not a testing ground in a negative way, but a testing ground in a really positive way. That’s been where I’ve gained more wisdom than any other aspect or facet of my life. And I’ve always been extremely curious and intrigued when it comes to the human condition with self but even more so when it comes to interacting with others.

I guess without trying to draw too much into it, without drawing that bow out too far, I’ve always, at least subconsciously, been intrigued with the interactions of all the people that are in front of my lens and particularly the bride and grooms. And on a day too that’s obviously heightened and comes with a lot of expectation. And normally with obviously a ton of love, which there’s a real emphasis in all my work to try and depict that aspect of our essence. The one and only foundational aspect of our essence as authentically and honestly as I possibly can. So yeah, that’s been a study that I’ve been conducting for a long time now, photographically, and now even without the camera in front of my eye.

Sally Shaw:
I guess that evolves every day as well if it’s never complete.

So how would how you work with your couples be different to how I might work with mine? What’s different about your ideal client and how you work with them?

For sure. I guess the really simple summarizing way of answering that is that I don’t strategize anything and this is just me. Not to say there’s a right way or a wrong way, but yeah, I don’t approach life strategically, these days more than ever. So for one, I’ve always advocated, or at least in my practice in terms of how I project myself out into the world with my… I don’t even want to use the word “branding,” but with the way that I portray myself, which is like the rest of us through my website, or at least through social media and my website historically was a website first. Social media came along next. And then last but not least the way that we do that is person to person. But it’s always been really authentic, just truth telling and trying to paint the picture of who I am with as much complete unabashed honesty as possible.

And with that again, whether it be through social media or through my website or otherwise, I’ve attracted the people that are right for me. So I’ve never had a incongruency. I’ve never had a disconnect with my clients, with the exception of one or two over the years. And at this point it’s crazy to think, but I photographed well over 800 weddings and I have just totally loved every single one of those clients. Again, that one exception that there’s no way I even want to go there, but it’s all good. It was a great teaching. That’s from the inception of the process in terms of attracting the right people. I just trust that they’ll be right for me. They can see on my website that I represent myself and something in a way that they’re obviously attracted to.

And I think that’s simply relatively laid back if not very laid back also super confident and professional and with an artistic eye. I think people would see through my imagery and also sense above all and most importantly to me, a sense of naturalness. So it’s hard to find those key words that don’t sound cliche these days, but definitely with a sense of something that just simply feels not contrived, something that’s uncontrived. I think there’s an essence. I know there’s an essence of that in my work that people are magnetized to. When it comes to actually photographing my couples or anyone, any human, any person on any given day, but let’s say it’s their wedding day for instance. I rock up without any preconceived ideas. As a sort of out of the normal, I don’t tend to meet any of my clients before their wedding.

And that’s not because I don’t want to. It’s just because I’m geographically quite isolated. And I live still on the south coast of New South Wales, a good three or four hours from the closest… Or at least three hours from the closest city. So most of my clients who are coming from the cities are coming down here having destination weddings. And it just doesn’t tend to be the case that we are able to find the time to align, to meet face to face prior to the weddings. I encourage that because that works for me, time wise. It also works… It doesn’t detract from my process. I’m able to arrive to my clients on their wedding day and feel just as connected to them as what I feel like I would if we spend hours beforehand. It’s not to say I don’t encourage them to come and hang out and have a cup of tea with me or whatever it might be.

But on the same note, I’m happy to have another couple of hours up my sleeve and on a weekday to put my myself into my other passions at the same time. So yeah, it starts on their wedding day with just hanging out and just being there and just being really open and being without any judgment, without any strategy of what shot I’m going to take next and just totally receiving or being receptive to the environment. Particularly the personal environment, the environment of the people around me and what draws me on a instinctive level as being a heightened moment from an emotional perspective or from a connected perspective, really what I’m looking for.

I’m just looking for those cues of connection often between two people or a group of people or from one person and to themselves. Those moments where people are anything but contrived. Where those moments, those real moments are just… They don’t have to be raw, but they have to be real to be real. Obviously they have to be poignant to speak to what really matters. And on a wedding day, there’s a context of what matters. And I think almost all of us would agree that that’s lovingness.

How can photographers attract their ideal client?

Yeah. Such an interesting question. Yeah. Look, I want to sort of have that nature reaction and just blurt out loud that, yeah, it’s always no matter what all about straight up honesty, authenticity, but I don’t know… It’s not like I’m writing down that I had three shots of tequila last night. I didn’t have three shots of tequila last night, nor did I three months ago, or over the last three months, but before that, I caught up with a bunch of friends, all turning 50 around the same time and we drank bottles of it and that’s so not representative of who I am and I don’t necessarily blog that either. So there’s a skillful means or an approach I think taking that middle line of between authenticity and not oversharing. I’m all about sharing. I’m all about giving what is, but it’s all about giving ourselves in a way that we really are representing ourselves and we definitely do things that don’t represent a standard day to day or intentions otherwise from time to time.

Thank you!

Thanks again to you all for joining us and a huge thanks to Dean for joining us on the show!

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That’s it for me this week, I hope you all enjoyed this episode.

See you soon,

Sally