Hello, I'm Bonny Snowdon, ex-corporate person and mother turned successful artist entrepreneur. It wasn't that long ago though that I lacked the confidence, vision, and support network to focus on growing my dream business. Fast forward past many life curve balls, waves of self-doubt, and so many lessons learned. And you'll see Ignite, my thriving online coloured pencils artist community, a community that changes members' lives for the better, and gives me freedom to live abundantly whilst doing what I love and spending quality time with my beloved family and dogs, all whilst creating my best artwork with coloured pencils and mentoring others to do the same.
But this life wasn't always how it was for me. It used to only exist in my imagination. I've created the, It's A Bonny Old Life podcast to help increase people's confidence, share mine and my community's experience, and hope through fascinating personal stories, champion the other amazing humans in my personal, professional, and membership community, and create another channel through which I can support others to realize their dreams. If you're a passionate coloured pencil artist or an aspiring one who's looking to create their best work and a joyful life you love, you're in the right place. Grab a cup and a cream. Let's get cracking.
My guest this week is Kristine. She photographs the Milky Way. And this week's episode is just absolutely fascinating. Honestly, please listen to it all. It's absolutely brilliant. We're talking, getting up early in the morning, late at night in the freezing cold. We're talking, watching out for Bears. Honestly, the most wonderful conversation and if you get a chance to have a look at her work as well, her photography is phenomenal. So absolutely delighted this week to be talking to the most fantastic photographer, Kristine Richer.
Hello. Hi, how's it going? Hi Kristine. Oh my goodness. Look at you all setup and looking amazingly professional.
Well, this is my, it's actually Mondays are my podcast recording day. So like I'll be after this, so I'll be recording my podcast. Oh, who's that in the background? Sorry, I'm going Distracted. Oh, so I've got, oh, I've got all sorts. So I've got Slipper, this one's Slipper.
Slipper. Hello.
And then I've got, hold on, I saw a little smaller, I've got Dora.
Oh, oh, oh my goodness.
I've Got, oh, I've got Nelly in the back there.
Yeah, This is just like whatever.
And then I've got, I've got Vinny down there. Oh my God. He's the biggest, he's a dear hound. So you'll appreciate that because I, I've, I've been reading all about you and I, I, I was, Lucinda sent me some stuff, stuff today and I went on your website and the first thing it says was Crazy Dog lady. And I was like, oh my God, this is gonna be amazing.
My dog though is like, she hates when I'm like talking at the computer. She's like, Nope, this is weird. I'm outta here. Like, she never sticks around. Even like, this is, I'm downstairs in our basement, she's upstairs. I just gave her some chicken before I came downstairs. But even like, if I would do a Zoom call upstairs or something and she would be in behind and my students would be like, oh, it's Jazz. And then they would just be out of there. They're like, Nope. Jazz is just like, she has no interest in this. This whole thing is not not her thing.
Yeah, No. Oh, bless my name with, normally with me all of the time, which is fine until they start barking and snuffling around and Yeah, Honestly, honestly, people know me for, for my dogs and how they just wander around when I'm doing my videos and everything.
I kinda wish Jazz would like, cuz I talk about her a lot since she exists in photos. I feel like it's okay. But then like I kind of wish she would, you know, just like come mosey through every now and then. And so people would be like, oh she is real. But anyways, yeah, she doesn't, she wants nothing to do with this.
How funny. Mine are all, when I, when the, the end bit where I'm going. Oh, it's so, it's so nice spoken to you. Thank you so much. Yes. We'll catch up soon. Okay. Bye. That's their, their cue to all get right. Ok. Where are we going?
Yes, We're doing stuff. That's so funny. Oh, that's so funny. I love it. Well thank you for having me.
Oh no, well thank you. It's honestly, I've been looking through your stuff, your photos that are just incredible and I, and I, I really want to talk about that, but I also want to talk about your, the journey cuz you are in business, business by design. Are you in next level? I am, yes. Yeah, I've been in next level for two years now. I'm probably not going to renew this year, but I I've been in it since,
yeah, it'll be two years now. Yeah, 2021.
Yeah. Oh, it's, it's amazing. And you got to meet James as well and go on the...
Yeah, I went, not this last retreat, my dad was in the hospital so I had to cancel, but the one in March previously, yeah, I went too, which was great.
Oh, it's just, honestly, it's just, I find his whole, everything that he does, just, just fascinating, you know, and it can just be like a little tweak to something or a, you know, have you tried this or have you tried that? And it's so useful for people who are, you know, in that sort of digital me membership space.
Yeah.
Which you are as well. So you, you, so talk to me. Tell, tell me, tell me a little bit about what you do and how you got into doing what you do and you know, all of that stuff.
All of that. Yeah, that's a big, that's a big, that's a big question in terms of like my current, where I am right now and what I'm doing. I got into the online world, COVID, basically I went into this program business by design. I bought that when I was pregnant. I was 36 weeks pregnant with my second kid, my daughter in 2019. And I was like, all right, you know, at this point I had been teaching in person now for quite a while by then. And I was like, if I'm going to make it bigger, if I'm gonna scale, it has to be online. So I live in a very rural kind of place. I live in Canada, I'm on the east coast of Canada in Nova Scotia. I don't, Bonny where are you at?
So I'm in the UK and I in the north of the UK. So you might have heard of York or Leeds.
I have a, so my students are Canada, US and UK. That's where all my students are. So, so I'm just across the, across the Atlantic basically. I am almost as far east as you can get in, in Canada. And so where I live is quite small. So, I knew if I was going to start taking my stuff online, like actually branching out and making more money and taking my teaching as a full-time that I was gonna have to go online. And so I invested in the BBD program. But I will say like I invested in that when I was going on to maternity leave and I joke that like on maternity leave cuz when I'm in Canada, so we do get a year of maternity leave here. I joke that like most people will binge like Gilmore Girls or something and I was just like, I at midnight feeds like I'm listening to business by design video videos and like I'm just going through all of that. So, even with all of that, I still wasn't quite ready to take stuff online. But I was ready to start teaching again when my daughter was six months old. Cuz at that point, you know like I'm not the sole food source for her so I could, she could be potentially fed by someone else while I go and teach a class. So, I started to run these ads, it was March of 2020, I started to run these ads to these in-person classes and I remember very clearly I was sitting upstairs from where I am right now at my kitchen table talking to my husband and I was like, no one is, is biting on these ads. Like normally I have a few sign-ups by now people who are interested, no one's signing up for my classes cuz I had been teaching in-person classes for quite a while and I was like, I wonder if it's this whole Covid thing.
Anyways, like verbatim, that's what we said. So of course it was and that those courses didn't go through. So then I started teaching online basically out of necessity and I, for the first bit just kind of taught some things for free online and then that kind of rolled into what's now my main program. So I have what's called my Milky Way photography masterclass, which is my main big program that I do. And I launched that a couple times a year and I have other things I teach too, but those kind of came from my masterclass students being like, but we need to know Photoshop or we wanna use this other technical piece of gear called a star tracker. And so I have a couple other courses that I run as well, but they all stem from from the Milky Way stuff. So yeah, so that's kind of to the point where I am now and where my business is in terms of my digital course products. That's kind of the, the evolution that got me there.
Yeah, Amazing. So that is your niche then is taking photographs of the Milky Way?
Yep. Yeah, I am a Milky Way photographer. Other or other ways to say a nightscaper or so like landscape, but at night or astrophotographer, I don't generally call myself an astrophotographer because they are more so focused on just the sky and celestial objects and things that are in the sky. I am interested in the connection point between what's up in the sky versus the actual terrestrial landscape as well. So for me, it's very much that connection between the land and the stars at the same time. So I am, I don't necessarily call myself an astrophotographer, but some people will know that term more. But yeah, I'm a Milky Wave photographer.
Oh, That, I mean it sounds unbelievable and your photographs are incredible and you've always been a photographer. You did your training as a photographer. Was it just like general photography or when did you realize that you wanted to really kind of focus on Yeah...
Yeah. Wanted to focus on not sleeping Well.
Yeah, I guess. I guess, yeah.
Yeah. So I did, I am went to Nascad University here, which is a local university. So in Canada we have Nascad, which is the Nova Scotia College of Design. Then there's OCA and acad, two others and it is, it's a straight up art university. So I did a bachelor of fine arts with a major in photography. I also did a bachelor of design with a major in air disciplinary design. So I actually felt really called to do both and they were like I, milky wave photography was not a thing when I was in university. And in fact one of the things with this particular genre is it's the advent of the technology that has made this imaging actually possible. It wasn't, you know, like 15, 20 years ago you couldn't see images like this because film had these issues. They're called reciprocity failure issues with actually capturing enough light basically. So there's some images but not that many. When I went to university, it was all film. The last year that I was in university is when it actually switched over and we, I took the very first digital class.
So it was a very like general and art-based program that I went to. I had to do drawing classes and everything lot. I was not good at trying, which is funny based on the podcast that I'm on. But that was my, that was my worst medium when I was there. So, I went through all, all of that and then I came out of that and what I actually, I went into what I call commercial corporate. I went into working at a toy company where I was the lead photographer. So, it was very small when I first started working there, like 12 people. The owner of the company was doing all the photography. So I came in and I took over the photography studio and also was designing kid's toys. So I had a product design focus from university and I spent 11 years there. So I worked up, I led the photography department and I've designed like thousands and thousands of kids toys and produced them and, and when I say design, like from here's the idea, here's the sketch to here's how to produce it. So we would work with the factories, I would go overseas to the factories, to doing the packaging, to taking all the photos to going to the toy fairs, like all of that stuff.
So I did that as one thing. But then in addition, when I was in university, I also taught photography. They asked me to start teaching photography at the university while I was still there. So I was doing that at the same time. And then outside of all of that, for me, I would go ahead on hikes with my dog and take landscape photos. Like that was like my thing. It's like okay, I have all these other creative things that are within specific rules. Like I have to do this in this way for this client or for this thing. Like, you know, it wasn't really exactly what I wanted to do. I still really enjoyed it, but it wasn't a hundred percent my interest. So for me to just be creative for myself, my dog and I would just like go out on hikes. So my dog Jazz, which was black lab, we would just go out on hikes and I would just take lots of pictures and it was great.
Then I had my son love my son dearly. I have two kids now and my son's six, my daughter is three. I had my son and this thing happened where he needed me all the time. I had to be home all the time. And you know, I had a little bit, I guess of identity crisis because I was so used to being so creative and all of a sudden I'm just like this main food source and caregiver for this person who needs me to stay alive. And I was honestly having a lot of trouble with it. So I used to just go out with my dog and go out hiking and take pictures and now I wasn't able to do that anymore. And it kind of got to the point where I was just like, look, I just want to get out. And the only time that I could find to get out to leave the house was after my son was in bed.
So I would put him to bed and then I would go out at night and take pictures. It was just the only time that I had, it was my only free time should I have been sleeping, probably, very likely I should have been sleeping. But it was more important me, for me personally, to be able to have a creative outlet. And my first photos were not very great. I didn't know, I didn't know anything. Like people were like, oh you must have a background in astronomy. No, not at all. I didn't know what the milky white core was. I didn't know that the movement of the earth. I didn't even know that the moon rises and sets at different times each day. Like I didn't know any of that. All of that came in learning. It was really just like I needed to get out there. Then once I was out there, it became more and it spiraled and snowballed into what I have today.
Isn't it? Isn't it funny how things that feel really uncomfortable can make you then move into a space that maybe you didn't ever think, you know, if you, if your son hadn't been, you know, I know I, my youngest son was like that I couldn't go back to work because he wouldn't take a bottle and it was just like, oh my god, this is a nightmare. You know? And he'd just scream and it was just, it was impossible. And people are like, oh, just give him a bottle. No, he will literally starve. But, but you know, and it's, and I mean I had this, I just had this thought that this was something that you'd always been interested in, but literally it was a case of I need to get out and the only time I can get out is at night.
Yeah.
And then you, you've kind of made this whole, that's, that's amazing.
Now one of the things that I will say is that it is not that being out at night was foreign to me, but it's something I took for granted. I grew up in the middle of nowhere in Nova Scotia, like just absolute middle of nowhere. One of the things here that's different than in the UK. I know in the UK there's a lot of light pollution and I, my mom is from Switzerland and so, you know, I know our density of people here, it's a lot less for the most part. So where I grew up, there was very little light pollution. I was just used to going outside and looking up and seeing the stars. And especially in the winter, you know, it's dark here at four o'clock in the, in the depths of the winter. So like you're coming home from school and it's dark, you know, so it's not, I was so used to just being out and looking up at the stars and being in this environment, I didn't realize that I missed it.
So I moved, when I went to university, I moved into what we called the city here. We've got like one main city in Nova Scotia. I moved into the city and I had been living in here at that point for 13 years or something like that. And so I, I, I guess I just didn't realize how much I missed it. So it was by necessity that I, I started going back out. But then as I was like, geez, I really like this. Like why do I like this so much? What I started to understand like, oh, like I missed this. This was a big part that I just never paid attention to. Cuz you take things for granted when you're growing up or when you have it all the time.
Yeah. Gosh. And then what was it that kind of sparked your need then, or your want to learn more about it? Cause it, it's not just a case, is it of going out where it's nice and dark. I'm, I'm lucky I live, I live away from sort of like major cities and there is a, it's over near where my sister lives and you can actually, it's like you can't, there's no light pollution there and you can actually see, you know, the night sky properly. She goes up there quite a lot sort of, you know, stargazing and everything. But what was it that made you want to really kind of focus on that and think, I need to know more about this? Cause it's all very well just looking up at the stars, isn't it?
Yeah, yeah it is.
You know.
Yeah, it's a, that's a, a good question. A big part of that is that it was a challenge. So up until that point, a lot of what I had done in photography was fairly easy. You know, at university wasn't easy, but it was very intensive. And so my skillset in photography was pretty high. And that I've photographed most genres that are out there and then I start doing this and you know, I'm like, I'm a professional, I'm gonna do great. I get out there and I do not do great and I'm like, I see these other photos. Cuz once you start doing it, then you start looking things up and you start seeing other people who are out there and you start to like get to know a little bit more. And I was just like, yeah, I see what these other people are doing, but my images don't look like that at all. So a big part of it, especially when I was starting, was like the challenge of creating something that matched what I knew could exist because I knew my skillset wasn't there yet. So that in conjunction with just like being able to recharge and be out there, that probably also is a huge thing.
Life with small kids is chaotic, very chaotic. Sometimes being out under the night sky is the complete opposite. So I think for me it was just this perfect storm of the technical piece. And I talk about this a lot with my students. Astro photography, Milky Way photography. It is very technical and very creative at the same time. Like you get the, the two of them together and having that and then also having just the, the rest and the, the quiet and the peace and the opposite of the busy was a big piece for me. Just wanting to keep doing it.
Amazing. When you start something new because you know you, well, you'll have, you'll have the same, we both teach and, and I imagine you are teaching people right from the very basics to you or do you or do you tend to, yeah. How do, how do you cope with learning something new and being in that almost like that that conscious incompetent stage, you know, where you, you know that what you're doing is, is rubbish, you know, when you first start something, is that something that you, I mean I'm, I'm guessing because you kind of teach people, you understand that process and you know how that works, but some people can't cope with that and it actually, we're doing something that's creative. My mind, creativity is a fantastic thing, absolutely fantastic thing. And it helps with mental health issues and all of that kind of stuff. But then, then there's an element that comes in where it's like, well I'm trying to do this and it's not working and I can't do it. And then you get the frustration.
Yeah.
And then you get the, you know, some people are like, well I'm just not gonna do it anymore. I'm guessing you are not like that and you understand that process, but how do you kind of cope with that new, you know, when you're picking up something new?
Yeah, absolutely. I, I know what you're talking about because I, it is the type of thing that I have these conversations with students all the time and they'll say things like, you know, I put away my camera. I, I was shooting, taking pictures for a while and then that I just didn't, you know, there's six months where I just put it away, I just couldn't look at it. I wasn't getting what I wanted. And it is very much like when you start out something new, the very first of it you're like, yeah, I'm gonna do it. And then all of a sudden like, you don't get the results that you think you should be getting or you see other people, all of a sudden you start to just get way more knowledge about everything. And then it's like, oh, also more knowledge about knowing what you don't know. And so I do see that I, in a lot of students, which is partially why, you know, we create and we educate to help people and to, to bridge that gap for myself, that type of thing. It it, I have to say it depends. I'm not, this is not me across all areas of my life, but when it comes to something, especially creativity wise, if I start something out and I don't know, I just go and find all of the knowledge possible and I just keep doing it. And one of the things is I give myself permission to not do something perfect. Like I'm just going to keep iterating and keep doing it. And I know that maybe the first time it's gonna be kind of crap and that's okay and I'll do it again.
I remember I was trying, this is very early on, there is this one bridge and I wanted to get these star trails. So, star trails, if you take multiple photographs in a row, the landscape will stay relatively the same based on whatever's going on. But the stars are moving now, of course it's us moving in relation, but you'll get this movement so you get the trailing of the stars in the sky. I always think that's super cool, but you have to take, it's anywhere between an hour to three or four hours worth of images in order to record that movement. There was this one particular spot, there was this bridge that I wanted to go and photograph and it was close to where I lived, but we were moving soon. So like I wanted to get this, cause I didn't wanna have to do the like 45-minute drive there, after we moved.
The first time I went complete wash, like the, you know, just nothing worked out. I even, I had a friend who took me to this place cuz I didn't know how to get there it was like a weird way. I got there and I sat up and I did all, and I came home, it did not work. So I'm like, all right, that's fine. Go back again the next time. Make a whole host of other mistakes did not work. And finally the third time it wasn't perfect, but it was good enough. And it's really just the permission to be like, okay, first maybe it's not gonna work out. That's okay. What can I learn from what didn't work out? And then where are the knowledge gaps? Where are the things that I don't know? And then figuring out how to find those things.
And of course there's a multitude of different ways, but a big part is just for me with creativity because it's such a part of my mental health when I don't have it, I'm not a fun person to be around. So I know it's just something that I prioritize and it's, I feel grateful that I, I, when I do start something new, I give myself grace to be like, you know what, it's, it's maybe not gonna be perfect. I took up leather working as a hobby and the first things that I tooled out of leather, not great, not not great. It took a lot of practice and just doing it and giving myself that permission to make stuff that didn't look great. But also looking back and seeing here's my progress and that checkpoint for me of being able to see progress is something that really helps me too.
Yeah. Completely resonate with that. With when it comes to, because I, I almost pride myself on being a non-perfectionist. I'm really Laissez-faire with everything that I do, to be honest. I'm, I'm very, I'm very laid back and people look at my drawings and they go, oh, you know what you're talking about. They're absolutely perfect and they're really not perfect. I, I create illusions of detail rather than, you know, trying to pack everything in and, and I try to teach in a way that everything is sort of broken down into steps so that people who really, truly believe they can't draw and they don't have a creative bone in their body, could it actually create something, you know, very credible because I've made it into almost like a process. Now some artists would say that, you know, art should never be a process, but I, I guess for me it's about making it accessible to anybody who wants to do it. But the perfectionism side of stuff I'm not interested in at all. I don't want anything to be perfect. I want, I want to just, you know, try different things and yes, you know, sometimes I'll do something and I'm a little bit, I wouldn't say I'm disappointed or anything, but you know, I'm always proud of what I've done always. But some pieces I'm more proud than other pieces. And like you said, you know, kind of anything that you're not quite sure of being able to create a plan and then those knowledge gaps, you know, but I mean do you find that with your work, do you kind of just keep at it and at it and at it until, cause I'm guessing there's quite a lot of production around after you've taken the photograph.
Yeah.
Do you find you get really stuck in that trying to get everything absolutely perfect or is that not something that you are That bothered?
I would identify as a recovering perfectionist. It's, you know, I used to try and get things absolutely perfect. Now the answer is, it depends. It really kind of depends on, on what I'm doing. If I am doing prints for, I work with a gallery here where I have limited edition prints. If I am doing a limited edition print that's going to be big and people are gonna be able to come up close to and that type of thing. I will spend time, you know, I have this one print that, it's called Sister of Mars. It's this conjunction between the Pleiades and Mars and there's this one lone tree on a hill. Very, very technically difficult to create. That image is basically like an hour and a half photographing the Pleiades and Mars, setting and then you process all of those images together and then there's a separate foreground image. So there's a process where you have to basically get rid of the sky that's in the foreground image. It was a lone tree on the hill in winter and it was all of these tree branches coming out. I probably spent 10 hours masking the tree branches. But in order for the vision in my head to be believable, that's what was necessary.
Now for me it's what is the output? So in this case, this particular image, this one NASA apod, they have their astronomy photo of the day, which is, it's kind of like, it's like the highest thing that you can get when you're like an astrophotographer and you get an apod, it's a big deal. So it won that and I put it into my fine art catalogue and do limited edition prints of it. If someone's gonna be paying me thousands of dollars for one print, it's gonna be really good. Like I'm gonna take the time to go into the details. Now is it literally absolutely perfect? No will other people think it's perfect? Probably. But I can look at something and say here are the issues with it. But do I give that level of detail to absolutely everything I do? No, no. And I, it's funny cuz I had another image that got an apod and there's this forum now forums can be a tricky place to go on the internet. So there's forums where you can discuss the images that have won.
So I didn't realize I probably shouldn't go and read the forum and see people talking about this image. But one of the very first image and I just, honestly, it was the first time that I ever submitted, I didn't assume think I was gonna get an apod for this cuz it is a big deal. So I may not have put all of the time and attention and effort into it that I might have if I thought I was gonna get it and I coined the forum and there's just people like pointing out all of my mistakes like at a micro, micro level. But it's, a lot of my work has that, like a lot of my stuff, it's, I might not spend those 10 or 12 or 20 hours on something if it can get across what I'm trying to do without it.
So, a lot of my deciding at this point, how much perfection am I going to point into something does come down to what is the, the reason that the thing exists. And depending on the output and the technical, the technical necessities of the output as well, I will have an up or down basically amount of time and effort that I put into something because I definitely find you can get across what you want through your work without everything having to be a hundred percent perfect. Not every single detail, not every single single thing has to be check marked on it to have someone else have a feeling and an interaction with it. So sometimes maybe I am a perfectionist that's a, I'm a Cancer, but I try not to be in most instances because I, I don't always, I mostly don't think it's necessary.
Yeah. And and how do you cope? Cause I'm guessing going on to a forum specifically and and reading what people are saying. Yeah, not, not, probably not a great idea, but you know, I, I don't know whether you get that same thing sadly with the way we live these days. You know, you get all sorts of people coming and saying feeling they can say whatever they want to say about your work. I mean, do you get, do you get those sorts of things on your social media or.
Yeah, I do. So I get those kinds of things when I'm running ads to my courses. My, my community online are all lovely. Like, they're, they're really lovely. Most of the people that I interact with online have come in to my world at a like a, a front point of coming into one of my free trainings. I run those free training called Your First Milkey Way photo where I literally teach people, like people who are just like, that's cool, I can never do that. And I'm like, yes, no, you literally can come. Like it's three trainings and they're out there and actually like getting their first photo. So a lot of people come into my world in that way and I'm very particular about the way that I build communities and I don't let negativity, that's not constructive. Like sometimes you can be constructive about it, but I don't let toxic negativity or comparison or those types of things come into my communities cuz I just don't think it's conducive for growing as a creative, you need a safe space if you're gonna put yourself out there when you're learning.
So I'm very fortunate in that my online community is crazy supportive. I don't get very much trolling I guess. And when I do get feedback from people, it's always in a way that's constructive. So, I'm very fortunate in that way. But when I run ads, they go out to the whole world and yeah, trolls definitely find my work and you know, the, they're all triggered different people, you know, someone will see me and they'll be like, who is this girl? I've never heard of her. Who is she to do this? And then they'll go look at my work and they'll just rip it apart. You know, there will be days when I'll just like look at my phone and it's like multiple notifications from like one person who's gone and looked through every single one of my photos and said something terrible about all of them.
The first couple times it happened, it was like, oh my heart, you know, it's like, oh. But then I, I reframed, and this is a big part and this is things I talk about with my students as well. If I'm having a reaction to what someone else is saying, it actually has nothing to do with them. It's just a reflection of something that I might be thinking. And if someone is saying something and it's making me feel bad about it, it's really like has nothing to do with them. It is reflecting of vulnerability that I have. And so I try and stop and be like, okay, whoa, yeah, I am getting triggered by this. I am having a reaction to this person saying that my work is crap and I don't deserve to do this. Why am why is that? And so I try to go into it a little bit more. And then on the flip side of it, I also bring it back to what people are saying about me also actually has literally nothing to do with me and everything to do with the person who's saying it. So I have those kind of reframes. Doesn't mean that I always am like, I'm fine. Like sometimes I'm like, okay, jazz, we're going to take a walk. Like I feel a little bit triggered right now, but I'm generally able to then kind of turn it around and be like, okay, this is, this is what it's about.
Yeah. It's it's so true, isn't it? And they, and they say as well, you know, if you don't have any trolls and you haven't made it.
That's right. That's right.
Oh gosh, I dunno. So I'm, I'm intrigued with your, so I, I have a, a wonderful community, really, really supportive community. But there is, there are times where it doesn't get negative and it doesn't get, you know, but there are times where people get frustrated, I really want to do this, I can't do it. My, you know, I've done this and it looks terrible, you know, I've tried this, look at it is rubbish. And I try and encourage them to always find something positive and to, you know, look at where maybe they've struggled or they've found a bit of a challenge to bring that into part of a development point. And, you know, and I mean I, I worry that I, I have this almost this toxic positivity. I'm trying to keep anything negative out which, which I don't. And I, you know, I, but I, I really encourage people to try and use positive language rather than that I can't, it's rubbish, this hasn't worked, that hasn't worked well there, there's always something, there's always something positive that you come in and if you practice bringing around, you know, whatever you can find that's positive in something, it then becomes a habit. And also, you know, if you, if you do find something, a challenge, if you start almost labelling yourself as well, I can't do that and I'm rubbish at that, you know, that's kind of how of how your brain takes over and oh well, you know, this is kind of what you are, you are wanting it, it gives you what you are, what you ask for basically, doesn't it?
Yeah.
So how, how do you, how do you work that in the, in your community then to try and keep that, that, you know, positivity, but in a way that's really a useful positivity.
Yeah. Not the toxic positivity. Yeah. As you said that I was like, yep, I resonate with that. Cuz I've, I've been in the experience before where I'm like, everything is fine and everything, you know, is not fine. And I was living out through a toxic positivity in my own life. So I am cognisant of that for sure. I know what you mean too because there are always frustrations. Like there's always like, oh, this isn't working, this happened again, this happened again. One of the biggest things that I talk about in our community is comparison. And so I love the Teddy Roosevelt quote, "comparison is the thief of joy". I think there's more to it than that. But what I always talk about with people is to compare yourself to your past self. So look at yourself a month ago, six months ago, a year ago, look at your work and look at the progression because everything that we're doing, every point along our journey, it's just the next step. And if we didn't get something, if something didn't work out, then what's the lesson behind it and what can we learn from it? And one of the really great things inside the community is that everyone is supportive. So we've made it a safe, that space. You're not ever gonna put a photo up in one of my communities and someone's gonna come and be like, that's crap. Why are you even trying? You know, there's never gonna be anything like that. So people then feel safe to put their photos up and be like, I'm really struggling with focus. Focus is probably the biggest thing that people have issues with at the start. Like they're just getting blurry stars and it's, there's so many reasons for it and it's a safe place. Someone will put up a picture and it might only have like two little dots in it and they're like, I'm really struggling. And then you'll see someone else put up an image where, you know, they've spent an hour, they've tracked it, they've taken a long exposure foreground, like they've put everything together and they're both welcome and they're both welcome to also have issues that they need help with. And the I keep for, for my paid communities, for my paid courses, I keep everyone inside of the same community. So we have people who are just starting now and we have people who've been in there for three, three and a half years and everyone is very supportive to each other as well.
So I, I think the biggest thing inside of the community is that it is a safe place so people feel comfortable to put up and then everyone is always supporting each other. In the start it was just me supporting people. It was just me being like, you could do this. Now. It's like, I check in on my communities during the week and I'm like, oh, here's this question. Oh, here's all these people who answered it better than I could. Okay, it's fine. You don't need anymore. It's fine.
And, and isn't it, isn't it wonderful when you get to the point where you know, people are taking what you've taught them and they're sharing that and they're passing it on. Yeah. As a community that is just one of the most amazing things that can happen.
Yeah.
You know, and it, and it means that you can not step back because of course we'll always, you know, keep an eye on things and everything, but it means that you don't have to be in there sort of like going, well just need to make sure that everybody's okay and what have you. Yeah. Yeah. I think that is the, is the most fantastic thing about a good community.
Yeah. Yeah. And probably for me, one of the, not necessarily a surprise, but a little bit because most of my career had just all been in person and there's just not as many people where I am. You know, I, it was funny every year, like we're, I'm in like bookkeeping and doing stuff now and there's like, you know, the, the cra the camera agency and they're like, well, but you haven't charged tax. I was like, well hardly any of my students live in Canada. Like most of my people are all from away. And it's, it's just the fact that I get to be a part of a community of so many people who are so excited and supportive about the same thing is really is really wonderful. You know, like we're right now the Milky Way core is coming back in a couple weeks, so we're just, we just had the full moon, so the Milky Way photography, we run on moon cycles cuz you can't be out photographing the Milky Way when the moon is up in the sky, it drowns everything out. So, the Milky Way core is coming back and so everyone's super excited. Like a lot of us live in very cold places and it's gonna be, when we go out and shoot at night, it's gonna be minus 10, minus 20 Celsius, you know, like it's cold. But we're all still super excited to get up at two in the morning and drive two hours and photograph from four until five in the morning, you know?
So to have a space and a group of everyone with that collective energy all at the same time is just, it's so cool. It's so cool. And I, it's not something that I necessarily thought I was trying to create, but it's a really cool by product.
Yeah. Amazing. It it, it is. Do you know, it is the, the most lovely thing, isn't it? Imparting knowledge to make other people to, you know, to help other people sort of upskill but also make them really happy, it's amazing.
Yeah, And we, especially in my communities, we have, so when I run these free trains, I would ask people questions like, why do you like to get out? And that one person, I don't remember who, who it was, I wish I could remember their name, but they said going out at night is my star therapy. And I was like, oh, that's really good. So in that training I called that person out and I was like, I'm taking that, I love that term. So now that's actually something that we talk about, like where, you know, in our community someone's like, oh, you know, I've been having a rough go. Like I just really need some star therapy.
But there's actually, especially in my community, there's a lot of people who have a lot of grief, just a lot of, a lot of life happening, a lot of grief. And this particular genre of photography, being out at night, looking up at the stars, that connection, that ability to reset all of that, that is actually a big thread through everything that I actually personally do and that I talk about with people.
So, you know, when you get this group of people who are interested in being out at night as a form of therapy, not, you know, everyone, if we need therapy, we get real therapy as well. But it, it definitely lends itself to a community of people who are connected in a, in a much different way, which is really wonderful. To be able to, to be someone who brings those people in and creates a space is wonderful and a little bit different. Like, you know, in my genre of photography, there are a lot of photographers who do stuff like me, but they're like adventure, you know, like, I am going to hike to the top of a mountain and be there all night. And I'm like, that sounds like way too much work. Like that's, that's not me. There are, there are communities that can exist for that, but that's not, not yeah, not my gig.
Yeah. I mean I guess you've got, you've got a, a six-year-old and a three-year-old. Yes. So I'm, I'm guessing you've also got, you know, somebody who helps you know. Yeah. When you're, you know, when you are, when you're out about and Yeah, So my husband will just be at home asleep. So basically, I, I like to joke that in my twenties I used to like pre-game, not really, I was not a big drinker, but I'm a joke, you know, it's like we were pregame before, now I pre-nap. So basically depending on the time of year, if I'm gonna be getting up, I'm gonna take a nap. Like as soon as the kids are in bed, I'm in bed and then I sleep until I have to get up to go out and shoot. This time of year, basically what will happen, if a, if it's a clear night, kids go to bed, I go to bed right away. I'll get up somewhere between two to three in the morning, maybe one in the morning. Depends how far I have to drive. Like, sometimes the max that I'll drive in a night before I do an overnight is two hours one way. So if I'm going two hours one way I might have to get up about one, I will go and I'll shoot until sunrise, then I'll come home, I'll get the kids up, get them to school, then I'll come back and I'll nap for a bit.
So I still, I don't sleep a lot. If it's a really big thing, I might take a night away somewhere. That's hard to plan though. Like, so Nova Scotia is a new Veco or New Scotland, think about the weather in Scotland, it's the same here. So it's very difficult. I can't be like, okay, the new moon is on this date, I'm gonna plan a night away on this date. It's like, no, I'm gonna see when it might be clear and it might like, it might say tomorrow night is clear. And then it's not like our, our weather is fluctuates very much cuz we're on a peninsula. The farthest away you can be from the ocean is like a 45 minute drive. So it's, you know, our weather is, is very, fluctuates quite a bit.
So I can't necessarily plan ahead that much. It's like, these are the dates where I potentially will go out and then I will know maybe the day of. So, I am fortunate now to run my own business where it's like during the new moon cycle, I don't book a lot of stuff. I don't book calls with my students. I don't book interviews. I, I don't book stuff to do during the days. So if it is clear, I'm able to basically I sleep before I go out, come back. If it's later in the season, I would go out earlier, come back and get like three or four hours sleep, get up with the kids, get them to school in daycare and then come back and nap basically. So yeah, my life revolves around a lot of series of naps basically. That's True. That's pretty much It. Yeah. So I'm, there will be the odd time where I say to my husband like, look, I'm going out, I'm just gonna sleep, but I can't yet sleep through my kids. I just like, I hear them and it's like I have to be awake, gotta pay attention. Like it's still, I, I can't just sleep through it. So I just, I just work with it. I just am sleepy and they look at me and they're like, mommy were you out shooting the stars last night? I was like, yes I was. Can you tell? I'm like, you look tired. I'm like, you are blatantly honest.
Oh, that's children for you, isn't it? Oh, amazing. So, so your membership, is your membership quite, is it, does it run quite seamlessly? Is it quite a, you know, do you do a, a a, you know, like a huge amount with the membership or is it just sort of during the month you maybe put one or two things up? How, how does your membership work?
Yeah, so at the moment I don't actually have a membership. So at the moment I have courses right now, right. But my courses have communities that are exist in them. So my main program runs basically April through to like September and I do two Q&A calls a month and one critique call every second month. And for my, my program, I'm a photography math class, it's a much higher investment than what photography classes normally are. But I've done it that way because it's, it's hard to be like, okay, here is a six week course and then someone's like, I didn't get one clear night that I could go out and take pictures. It's very, very based on schedules and weather and you know, if you, you don't live somewhere that has nice weather, it can be very difficult. So I structured it at a higher cost but in a way that I could support myself so that the people who are in, like, once you're in, you're in it for as long as it exists basically. And so people can come and get access to the two Q&A calls a month, or there's a critique call and they get basically critique credits cuz those calls are, are very long. Like our critique calls will be four plus hours long where I go in and I, I will edit images and I'll work with images. So with the masterclass, that's basically the, the structure of it is you get the full course and it is, it's a very big course.
So we were buying, you and I were talking about this program that we were in called Business by Design together. In that program it teaches you like, don't make a huge course. I did make a huge course, but I I on purpose there's a lot of different pieces and, and different ways that you can explore the artistic medium basically. So because of that, I like to have it as an ongoing place so people are continuously learning and trying new things and like, okay, last year I worked on getting single shots. This year I'm gonna work on doing panoramics or this, I'm gonna work on blending photos. And, and so there's always stuff that people can learn. So that's kind of my main thing that I focus on through like April, March-ish. I tried March last year and no one wanted to quit and take pictures. Like it's too cold, it's still winter. And I was like, all right. All right. So this year we're starting more in April and goes until about September, October and then in the off season, so basically when the Milky Way core is up in the sky during the day, so that's in the winter for those of us in North America. Summer for one South America or Southern House story northern versus here I am in, in the, in the Americas in my head. So in the off season when we don't have the Milky up in the sky, that's when I shift to teaching Photoshop. Photographers generally don't wanna learn Photoshop. It's a huge technical program. It's not very fun. It's also a very, very critical piece of learning this type of photography and being able to do it well. So I shift into teaching that in the off season and I actually run that through as a cohort base. And we go over two and a half months and basically I have Q&A calls, but then we also have these calls that are like classroom sessions where we actually go and we do everything together. And I have multiple people who come in and help and we go into breakout rooms and people will share their screens and it's, it's very technical, but it's very, very useful. So that's kind of my off-season and those are my two main things that I do.
I have one other small course that I run only for alumni. It's on a very technical thing. It's called a star tracker. Basically it's a thing you put on your tripod between your tripod and your camera and it counteracts the rotation of the earth. So you can take longer photographs, but they're super technical. You have to polar align them with the north polar celestial pole. And there's just all these things that come up with it. So I do have another small course that I run, but it's like a, a secret, like only my students know that it exists. And I do that generally around summer-ish. So late spring to summer I run that with them, which is just kind of fun for me cuz I already know all the people who are coming into it. And so we just kind of get to hang out and, and people start to get their first like deep space pictures, which is really cool. They start to like photograph with really long lenses on very small pieces of the sky. So that's super fun.
So yeah, right at this point everything that I have are courses and then there are communities that are attached to those courses. I am in the process of launching a new membership. It will be a business-based membership for fine art landscape and night-cap photographers who are ready to go from hobby to monetization. And so that's what that membership will be. Doesn't yet exist. It does in lots of post-it notes you can currently see, but are everywhere. So that will be coming actually in the next month and a half I'm gonna be launching that. And again, for me, everything comes from, this is now what my students are asking for. Like, my students are like, "okay, people wanna buy my prints, what do I do, Kristine"?
Yes.
And you know, I try and tell them and I'm like, but there's so much more to it. Like even before where you were talking about when people are getting into being critical about themselves and where they're starting to be like, this is who I am now. Like, you know, I can't do it. I'm not an artist, I'm not this or I'm not good enough. And getting into all of that, like, that's even a huge piece when you take the next step from, you know, deciding that you wanna take something that's purely a hobby and then into monetization. So, you know, there's, there's so much that has helped me personally that I'm excited now to, to bring that to my students too.
Yeah, Yeah. Yeah. Fun. Funnily enough, I've got, I've got a very similar thing that I'm, it's in my head. I'm writing a book about it. I've got three chapters done.
Ooh.
I've got a course that's gonna run. But I, I just, I don't quite know how it's gonna be, so I, I know what it, I know what I want it to be, but, you know, I'm, I'm conscious that I, I'm, I'm quite time poor. I, I do an awful lot of stop stuff and I don't wanna end up doing more stuff and taking more time out. But I know that there are so many people out there who really want help in, you know, getting started with running a business.
Yeah.
And, and actually, you know, well you, you and me both, you know, we've done it. We, we, we've got successful businesses. Yeah. You know, and, and really successful businesses.
Yeah.
You know?
Yeah.
And probably far more successful than we ever thought we possibly could.
Yes. Yeah. Literally never.
Yeah. Beyond Crazy craziness.
It is. It's, you know, it just goes to show that creativity you can make a really good living.
Yeah.
You know, from creativity. But I think you also have to be, not necessarily be a, a, a certain kind of person, but you have to, you do have to have that mindset shift.
Yeah.
You know?
Yeah.
And you have to, it's like, I, I imagine it must be, there must be nights where you just lie in bed thinking, I just, just wanna just not get up and I just wanna go to sleep while my dogs stop barking. That's so naughty in the background. But that, how do you, how do you get through that? How do you get through the, I just don't wanna get up.
Yeah. Oh yeah. Like, you know, especially now, the next three to four months, it's really cold. Like, it's just, it's really cold and I'm in my nice warm bed and it is like, I will sleep first before I get up and go. And that's hard. And two things. So, one is I schedule to go out with friends and then I have to go cuz they're expecting me. I have a couple students, but they're local that I tend to go out with and go out shooting with. So that really helps. And that's, you know, they always say, you know, like, you are trying to lose weight or go to the gym or something, like, get a pal to come with you. It's like the same thing. It's like, okay, well I know Marley is going to be at Tim Horton's at two 30, so it's two 10. I better get my butt in gear. Tim Horton's is only seven minutes down the road. But so classic Canadian of me. But, so that's one of them. But I don't always go out with other people. The other is, for me, it's like having that end in mind, like a deep, knowing how much better I will feel when I do it. And like, keeping that. So like, I'm there and I'm like, I don't like it outta bed, but I know it will be better. I know I just have to get over this little bit of uncomfortableness to be able to go.
Now I've done other things too. Like, I'll sleep in like my Marino wool stuff so I don't have to like, get completely freezing when I get outta bed.You know, there's like all of these, like, what are the things that make me not wanna do it? How can I make that better before? So like, my car is packed and in the garage, my snacks are already in my car. I've got my, you know, like, I make it as easy as possible for me to literally get out of that bed and then just go downstairs, put on my boots and get it in the car. So I take away the barriers so it's easier, actually easier. And then I keep always like, okay, this is gonna be good. Once I'm out there, I do really like it. And I will remind myself of that as I'm laying there for the two minutes being like, okay, gotta do it. Gotta get outta bed. Yeah. Yeah. And it's a bit odd too, like, I'm creeping around the house and like, you know, my kids are asleep and my dog kind of like lifts her head. She used to come with me, but she's 13 now and she's, her sight at night is not as good.
So she, we had one particular, very, very scary night. I went to one area and it was a new area and she actually fell over a 50 foot cliff and survived. But very after that I was like, okay, maybe we're gonna not go out as much. So, yeah. So, but she kind of gets up and looks at me and I'm like, it's okay. Go back to sleep Jazz. And she's like, all right. She's like, I know what's happening here. But yeah, it's a little bit odd. Cause I'm creeping around my house in the middle of the night, everyone's all asleep and I'm like, okay, see you later everyone. Yeah.
Oh gosh, gosh. How terrifying that she dropped over the edge. That's a.
Yeah, that was a, I now use it as a safety talk that I, I go into with my students quite a bit. But yeah, it was, this happened during Covid and we were in severe, severe lockdowns here. Like, if you can't walk to it and it's not the grocery store, you don't go to it basically. And we had just gotten out of that and there was this one place I really wanted to go shoot. My rule of thumb is I don't go somewhere at night for the first time ever. I go there during the day first, so I scout it and I know the location I just couldn't, like, I couldn't drive there during the day with the kids because of Covid and everything was shut down. There was no daycare, there's no school. And so there was a really nice clear night. My friend had been to this area, but had been there a different way. And it just so happens this particular area, you're walking along a farmer's field and then all of a sudden it's just a cliff drop off. And so we missed the, the area to walk down and she missed that there was an edge and just went straight over. Yeah. Scariest night of my life. Ran, went back, ran down, got her, got her back up to the car, drove an hour and a half to the emergency and miraculous that she lived like, actually like, it wasn't like a 50 foot drop where it was like a tumbledown, it was like a straight 50 foot drop.
Oh.
Like we went back during the day to this area and looked up and it's like, that's sheer, it's a sh Yeah. Anyways, it's actually miraculous that she, she came out of it. I got her to the emerge at 1:00 AM and by 6:00 AM I waited until 6:00 AM to call them. She was already so much better by that point. It was, it was quite better.
And there was nothing, I was Nothing broken or anything. She didn't have Any broken
blood, nothing broken. She had a little bit of internal bleeding and that was it. So, yeah. Yeah. Crazy. Like really crazy. But a good tale for my students to be like, do not, yeah, do not skip the scouting part, the safety part because it is, you know, we rely on our vision as our primary sensory input and at night you don't have it. It's working at such a diminished capacity. So there's so many things that are attached to that. That's a big thing that I talk about with my students, especially people who are like, just getting started.
Yeah, Yeah, yeah. Cause I, I guess if you've got a dog, you're gonna, you are gonna say kit along, aren't you? Well, yeah, especially, you know, like coyotes and bears and stuff out here. Like, you know, I like to have my dog with me. I like not to be alone.
Do you, do you get to see quite a lot of those then? Do you, do you get to see quite a lot of wildlife then when you're out Of this?
I get to hear the coyotes. I've only, I've only run into them once. Our coyotes here are bigger than a lot of people think of coyotes. So they've mixed and mated basically with wolves from Quebec. So our coyotes are quite a bit bigger. They're not like in the southwest where there's like little small, ours are big, like they look more like wolves sometimes if they're healthy. So if they're not, they look very gangly. But there's lots of them. You hear them. I've only actually run into them once. And this was my dog was with me, my, just myself and my dog going on this one trail. We've been on it before. She likes to run ahead. She knows where we're going. She's running ahead on the trail. And I've got my headlamp on to hike in. I have a really big, bright headlamp for hiking in, not good for your night vision, but I'm very clumsy, so necessary for me. And I am looking and I shine it up and there's these two eyes, but they're like way up on the hill. I'm like, Jazz, how did you get up there? I'm like, jazz. Then jazz comes from the undergrowth to me and I look back up and then another set of eyes comes up top and I was like, okay, Jazz we're going to go back this way. I was like, let's just head outta here.
Yeah. But otherwise, I personally haven't, we do have a lot of black bears. I have one student in front of mine, he had an incident where he was shooting in an area, it was an abandoned house, but he would talk to the neighbors and they're like, there's a bear on. He's like, oh, it'll be fine. And he heard the bear and so he kind of like threw stuff, you know, our, we don't have grizzlies hair, so black bears are generally not super aggressive. You don't have food, they probably don't care too much about you. They eat berries. So he like threw some gravel and was like, whatever. And then he is working and then he hears this noise and he was like, the bear was like right here. And so he actually has the picture. He was in the middle of taking a shot. He just took his gear and dived into his car. I'm fortunate that I have not had close encounters like that.
There have been some hikes and trails that I've gone on that are kind of a little bit more dodgy. There's this one particular that's called Skyline Trail. It's beautiful, beautiful trail. But you're going through moose territory. Like it's, I've gone on that trail during the day and been walking along and literally six feet in front of me, a moose just comes across and it's like, okay, I'll just come back here. You do your thing, you go ahead. So this particular spot we really wanted to shoot at is perfect for the Perseid Meteor Shower, which happens in August. You won't get full dark there in August. So you, you probably don't get, you don't get that meteor.
No, it's quite, yeah, it's, it's, it's light until like midnight ish. Really?
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Over in the UK after, over in the UK it's like after May you're, you're out of dark night for a while. But, so here in August, the Purseids is beautiful. So we wanted to go out on the trail, but I was like, look, I'm not hiking this trail at night. Like we're, we're not doing this. So we got and packed our stuff, we went in at sunset and stayed the entirety of the night. We weren't shooting for the entire of the night. The last couple hours were cold cuz it's right on the Atlantic and the winds were blowing, et cetera. But do we do everything we can to mitigate being in situations that are dangerous? And so if there are certain places that I know there is this type of wildlife activity, I'll do my best to be as safe as possible about it. Bring bear spray with me and stuff like that as well. So, yeah.
Oh my goodness. And there's me thinking we were going, I was coming back with my dad, was it yesterday? It was yesterday. And we're coming out of his village literally in front. We, we just have deer, so nothing like a moose. Probably about a third of the size of the moose. We just had about six deer kind of jump out of the hedge across the road over to the other one. That's kind of, as far as it goes in the UK.
It's, it's funny cuz we have the conversations and we'll talk about this stuff in our groups and we do have a lot of people from the UK and they're like, we don't have any of that. Yeah. Like I have some people who are over like in California and this one particular student, he is up in Mammoth Lakes and he's like, he's like, well it's all right. He is like, you know, as long as the mountain lions still have food, then it's fine. I don't have to worry about it. I was like, mountain Lion's great, I don't wanna be out. Or students like in Florida. And they're like, well I had this one student and they said they were shooting, but it was by a Panther Reserve. So it was like safe. Yeah. But it was still full. And they were like, I was shooting and then you heard these cats and they were so loud. And he is like, and I knew instinctually, like I knew in my head logically rather that they were contained. And he was like, but instinctually I couldn't. He was like, I had to go like, it was two. So yeah. So there are some of my students, you know, even like Florida and they're like, you know, one of my students bought me. He's like, well my wife watches out for the Gators. And I'm like, I Just wouldn't be shooting in a place where there would be alligators, you know, that's all I'm gonna say. Like, I just, I would choose somewhere else. Yeah.
So I mean we've got, I think the worst thing we've got around us are, well the worst thing, we have red kites around us. Really big bird prey. I mean, not nearly as big as like the bird prey you've probably got, you know, I mean, dog is trying to get on the beanbag and it's making awful noise. And the the biggest worry for, for me is that they could take my smallest one. That's the only, that's the only worry. I don't think they would, but she's the sort of size of a, of a hare really. But I'm not sure that that, I don't think they would. But that's probably the most dangerous it gets in the UK.
Yeah.
They're all starting to get, they're all starting to get silly now. And she's going into a bag behind my, behind my bag. It's probably probably our cue to to That's right.
They're Like, Excuse me, are you done talking about You're gonna me. That's funny.
Naughty.
I love it. Oh Gosh. Oh goodness. That has been ab so fascinating. Listen to all of that. Absolutely amazing. Absolutely amazing. It's, I, I, it's something I'd never kind of, I mean I guess I must have known it was something that that existed, but it is never kind of been in on my radar that this was a, this was a thing. Amazing to talk to you. So nice to get to know somebody who, is in the same program as me.
Yeah, yeah. Absolutely.
It Really is. It really is. You know, cuz when you are, it get, normally it gets lonely, but you know, you're running a business, you're thinking, right, I know, I know what I'm doing, I know what I'm doing. But then actually when you can, when you can kind of meet other people and learn how they're doing stuff and what they're doing, it just gives you more ideas, doesn't it? You know?
So It really does. Yeah. Yeah. I mean it is, you know, this right here, what I'm doing, you know, I'm sitting in my office in my basement, my husband is two levels up working in the office upstairs and this is it. Like, I'm just here with my computer by myself pretty much all the time. So to be able to actually interact and talk with other people and other people who are in the creative space as well. Because so many people in online education, it's not in the creative space, you know, and especially when we get into programs like the program that we're in, we're a little bit more in the minority, you know, so it is nice to talk to other people who kind of get things from their creative perspective as well. Yeah. I get really excited to be able to talk and interact. So it's been really Lovely too.
Oh dear. Oh, that's been, yeah, lovely afternoon. Thank you so much coming and talking to me. And then hopefully we'll get to, we'll get to chat again soon.
That would be lovely. Yeah.
Yeah. Maybe see you in some of the coaching sessions.
Yeah.
Session with Coach Mark last week.
How was that?
Pride.
Oh Yes, that sounds about right. That's Coach Mark. Yeah.
He's good. He is so good. Oh my goodness, He's good.
I was talking to James about last year and he was like, Mark is the head coach. He's like, because everyone consistently says that when they are like in feedback and stuff that Mark, like everyone loves Mark. Like he's just, he's yeah, he's really good. Yeah. I really enjoy all of his.
He's, he's, I trained as a coach and he is a coach, so he asks questions, question, question, question, question, question digs deeper, deeper, deeper, deeper. Not, he's not, a lot of coaches will just go, this is what I think you should do. And it's more of a mentoring role. Whereas he is really, you know, digging deep, getting you to really think about stuff and oh my goodness, honestly, I have this very, very sort of level question that I wanted to ask. And then I was like, I think this goes much deeper. And of course it did go much Deeper
And of course it does.
Yeah. Weeping. Yes. Yeah.
A lot of weeping. Yeah. Yeah. We, there's a lot of that. Yeah. I going into like this whole world, you know, never really did a ton of self-development. I did a little bit after I had my kids, but then like gain into this world and it's just like, oh my gosh, you know, I, everything is deeper. Like take, everything just goes down a notch. Yeah, yeah.
Definitely. Definitely. Well all of the dogs are walking around now.
They're like, you're done. Right? I hear that you're done.
Yeah, they're, yeah, they're like, you know, this is it Now we're finished now.
Well, and it's evening too. What? It's six o'clock there if I'm Right.
It's five, nearly quarter past five Past five.
Okay. Yeah. What's it, what time is it with you?
One o'clock In the Afternoon. Oh. Oh, so it's not that big a time difference Then.
Yeah, four hours. Oh, it's five hours to Switzerland. Oh, my brain is mush. Sorry,
Your mum is Swiss. Well my dad is Swiss,
Is he?
Oh yeah, yeah, Yeah. And he's been in the UK now since the late sixties.
Yeah, Well, yeah, my mom moved over here in the eighties. Well, when she had me. So in 86, moved over here. But I have so much family over in Switzerland, but, so my brain always defaults to the five hour difference instead of the, the four hour.
Right? Yes. Yes. Europe. Very good. Oh, well it's been absolutely fascinating talking to you. Thank you so much for your time.
It's very lovely.
Yeah, well hopefully I'll, I'll catch up with you in some of the calls.
Yeah, that would be lovely. And I look forward to seeing your posts and stuff in the group. I read your debrief and I was like, that's fantastic. So yeah, you're latest one, one.
Yeah. I, I'm still, the figures completely baffle me still, I'm still like, I have no idea what that E p L thing is. No idea.
Your EPL is based off of your total revenue generated. And then divide that by your leads. So the people who said yes to be in the training. So, cuz I think I remembered looking at that and I don't think it was either of the ones that you posted.
So it's yes to being in the live, the live streams?
Yeah, yeah. Cuz yes. To being in whatever the launch mechanism is because it are your live streams. The main thing that is doing the Launch.
Yeah. So it's a, it's an email campaign that goes into a live stream.
Yeah.
That then we then open the thing. So it's probably the live streams, which is the,
You Know, I would say if you find that most of the, the conversions are happening from the live streams, but you could track from both, you could track from like the, the thing that James will generally say that I see him saying in the group over and over again is basically like, just however you do it, do it consistently.
Yes.
So if you're going to track from the amount of people who are emailed the invite to the livestream or the amount of people who said yes to the livestream, like do you have like a sign-up or registration?
So not necessarily the people who actually joined the livestream but just said, yes, I'm, yes, I've Got seven said yes to it, 7,000, nearly 8,000 who said yes to it.
Yeah. Yeah. So that's your, that's your launch list. Right. Then another metric that you can track is of the people who said yes, who showed up. Cuz that's your show up rate?
Yes.
Because like I'll have, my last launch had 5,000 people there, but the people who consumed it, it was only like 750 people. So then that's another metric that I track from launch to launch. How many people sign up, how many people actually show up.
Yes.
And then converting out of that. Yeah, yeah, Yeah.
And this is, this is all things that I'm, I'm becoming much more interested in and, and it's, it's, it's making me really becoming quite passionate about the business side of stuff. So I have the part side of things and then I have the business side of things and I'm passionate about both of them because, you know, you can get so much from, well, it just fascinates me.
Yeah. And then, yeah, me too. I really like, I enjoy being able to track and see things now and just have data, you know, like being able to be like, okay, well you know, this launch isn't performing as well as the last one, so let's actually just look at my metrics and how are these metrics performing up to the last one? Where is there a disconnect? Then that disconnect starts to tell me ways that I can change things.
Yeah.
And it's almost like the whole process of the business is another way to be creative. Like, it's just another, like, even making the courses, it's just like, it's creation again or like where you're writing a book, like it's another way of being creative. Yeah. But being able to have the processes in place. Just like with art, when you have processes in place, it's always better. Yeah, no, I agree.
Awesome. Well, I might get in touch with you then when, when I need help with my figures.
You just, lemme know. Send me a message I'll, cause I, yeah, I, I, you know, I joined Next Level in 2021 and at that point my business, it hadn't hit six figures yet, almost for the first six, 12 months that I was working online. It hadn't yet, but it almost did. But like when I first joined I was just like, I'm not even a business. Like what is this? And so I, I learned a significant amount just from being in there and almost like osmosis too, from like other people of like, here's what people are doing, here's what's working. Yeah. Yeah. Those been really great.
Amazing. Oh, well thank you so much. Thank you so, so much for, for giving me your time. It's been absolutely brilliant and yeah, we'll hopefully we'll catch up again very soon.
Yes, absolutely. Have a good, have a good, I guess I will take, I will take, that's what they are wine, isn't it?
That's what it's Yeah, we want tea. Alright, Kristine, speak soon. Bye. Bye.
I really hope you enjoyed listening to this episode of my, It's A Bonny Old Life podcast. If you did, I'd be so grateful to you for emailing me or texting a link to the show or sharing it on social media with those you know, who might like it too. My mission with this podcast is all about sharing mine and my community's experience and hope by telling your fascinating personal stories, championing the other amazing humans in my personal, professional, and membership community. And to create another channel through which I can support you to realise your coloured pencil and life dreams. If you haven't done so yet, please help me on my mission to spread positivity and joy throughout the Coloured pencil world by following me on my socials @Bonnysnowdonacademy or by getting on my list at Bonnysnowdonacademy.com. And remember, I truly believe if I can live the life of my dreams doing what I love, then you can too. We just need to keep championing and supporting each other along the way in order to make it happen. Till next time,
