Golden Hour with Denise & Madi

Hey heyyy! Welcome to another episode of Golden Hour Season 2. Today we're talking about one of the most tedious (yet arguably the most important) thing in your business as a photographer: Contracts. We know - BORING lol but these are things we wish we would have known when we first started out in this industry. You may have some of these things in your contract already, but we guarantee there's some new ones in here too that may be helpful for you to add moving forward! *Of course, we are not lawyers, so we will not be covering any sections of the contract word for word. We advise you strongly to have a lawyer (in your state) look over your client contracts and confirm its legitimacy.* Follow us! @denisemariephotos @madi.aldy.photo

Hey heyyyy photographers!! We're back! Welcome to Season 2 of The Golden Hour Podcast, and we're starting off with a little discussion about the latest trend circling around the photography community: AI (Artificial Intelligence). Love it or hate it, it's here and it's making a big impact on our businesses. We're going to talk a little bit about the pros and cons and if it's going to change anything for us personally moving forward. 50% off ALL photography education courses right now through @goldenhouruniversity! You can view the courses by clicking the link below: https://goldenhouruniversity.mykajabi.com/store Don't forget to follow us on instagram for more updates and fun things coming up! @denisemarie.photos @madi.aldy.photo

GHU is officially beginning on March 13th, 2023! We are so excited about this online photography education course that we created together and cannot wait to teach you everything!!! If you're wondering if this course is right for you, listen to this episode where we're talking about everything that will be covered in the 8 week syllabus. We're sparing no details, and seriously putting SO much info into this course. We want this to be a life changing opportunity for you and your photography business. Be sure to enroll before March 10th in order to grab your spot in our Spring Semester! Link to enroll: https://goldenhouruniversity.mykajabi.com/ Follow us! @denisemarie.photos @madi.aldy.photo

We're talking about TAGGING today! A bit more of a controversial topic in the photography industry. We're discussing how we feel about not being tagged in photos, mood boards, magazines, etc. and we have sooo many thoughts! In today's world where social media is booming, it's hard to constantly keep track of where your photos are being shared and by who. But don't let this discourage you from posting or sharing your work! On today's episode, we're going to tell you why it's never really worth the stress and headache. Follow us! @denisemarie.photos @madi.aldy.photo Our online photography education course ---->> @goldenhouruniversity

Oooo we're getting into it today!! LOL join us as we share some of your juicy answers to your "biggest photography pet peeves". I think we all can relate so much to these and we have so much respect and admiration for those of you that experience any of these things in the photography industry. Please remember this episode is all in good fun! We absolutely LOVE our jobs, but with anything in life, it's fun to joke about sometimes. We never want to take ourselves too seriously! Hopefully you'll be able to relate to some of these and have a laugh about it with us :)) Follow us! @denisemarie.photos @madi.aldy.photo @goldenhouruniversity

Whether it's your slow season, or you're giving yourself a much needed break from taking photos, there's so much more you can be doing to help your business grow! In today's episode we're telling you what you can be working on/doing in the meantime. There's so much that goes into photography, and if we never take a break from shooting then we'd never have the time to figure out all the backend stuff. (or experience our own lives! lol) So take advantage of the time you have when you're not actively taking photos and make the most out of it to really help your business thrive in the long haul! Follow us! @denisemarie.photos @madi.aldy.photo

Welcome back to Golden Hour with Denise & Madi! The photographer podcast with a lil bit of life served on the side. Today we wanted to revisit the topic of social media and how we're using it to grow our business in 2023! No one has all the answers, but we're sharing some insights on what works for us. We want to stress the importance of not letting yourself fall into a niche box without being able to escape from it. You can be your own niche! It's important to find the balance between work and personal in an industry like this, and everyone is going to be different in their approach to social media. That's what makes us all unique! But if you've been wanting to start posting more on instagram or tiktok or both, we hope this is encouraging in your pursuit! Follow us! @denisemarie.photos @madi.aldy.photo

Hey guys! Welcome back to Golden Hour with Denise & Madi. Today's episode is a photography advice column where we're answering some of your questions! If you want to be a part of the next advice episode or if you have a topic you'd like us to discuss on the podcast, please tune in on our Instagram's where post question boxes from time to time! We hope this episode is helpful, and that it encourages you to have open communication with your clients moving forward. We'll also be sharing more information with you soon regarding our online photography education course, Golden Hour University! Launch date will be here SO soon!! Follow us! @denisemarie.photos @madi.aldy.photo

IT'S HERE. IT'S HAPPENING! Golden Hour University is officially launching and we are so excited to spill all the details! GHU is our very first online photography education course that takes place over 8 weeks, and provides 8 different lesson plans. In today's episode we're telling you everything you need to know about what's included, and when you can register for the course! We have been working our booties off on this and cannot WAIT until it's actually live! We want to teach you everything we know and help you to be more confident and successful in your business. Thank you so much for being here and being a part of this lil community. We appreciate each and every one of you who listens and supports us, and we hope to do what we can to support you too! Follow us! @denisemarie.photos @madi.aldy.photo

Happy New Year guys!!! We're so excited about the start of 2023, but we'd be lying if we said it was easy to jump right back into everything after the holidays (We're sure you can relate). So we're starting off the year with a little refocus episode where we're going to be sharing a little about how to get sharp focus on your images, as well as how to get some sharp mental focus for the year. We all have a VERY exciting announcement at the end of today's episode, so please don't miss it! We'll be posting more about this on our social media accounts over the next few weeks, so be sure to follow along and get all the details!

Today we are talking all about Mentorships in the photography industry! Denise and Madi both offer mentorship programs and want to share some of their knowledge with you on what that means and how to find the right mentor for you. There are so many photographers out there nowadays that offer mentorship programs and it's important to make sure you're finding someone who's offering aligns with what you're looking for. Let us know if you have any other questions regarding Mentorships, as there is SO much that could be covered on this topic, and today we are just scratching the surface! Follow us! @denisemarie.photos @madi.aldy.photo

Traveling as a photographer with a bunch of expensive equipment can be extremely intimidating. So we're telling you everything you need to know about traveling with your gear! Whether you're traveling for fun, for weddings, or for sessions, you're guaranteed to want to bring your camera along to document so we're letting you in on any tips & tricks we have. Thanks so much for listening to the show, and be sure to rate & review below! We'd love your feedback! Follow us! @denisemarie.photos @madi.aldy.photo

Today is our first solo episode! And Madi is talking all about transparency in the photography community. She's put together a list of 10 things that are just not talked about enough in the industry, and she's sharing some of her experiences, and how she's overcome some of the hurdles. We really hope this episode is encouraging and that after listening you just feel a little bit lighter and more proud of yourself for everything you've accomplished so far in your photography career. The best is yet to come!!! Follow us! @madi.aldy.photo @denisemarie.photos

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We asked you guys for your biggest travel pet peeves and we're sharing them on todays episode! As photographers, we travel quite a bit, so we're all too familiar with some of these LOL. Follow us! @denisemarie.photos @madi.aldy.photo

Thank you guys so much for sticking with us as we go through some real life schtufffff and took a bit of a break from the podcast. This is part 2 of our life update on where we've been and what we've been going through lately. We're super excited to return to our regular photography focused content after todays episode - and we seriously appreciate anyone who takes the time to listen in as we love just being able to be honest and real with you guys here. Love you all so much and we will see ya next week!

We've gotten SOO many messages asking us why we haven't been posting new episodes lately... LOL JK. We aren't that big of a deal! But for those of you who actually do take the time to listen in WE LOVE YOU and we wanted to explain why we took a lil break from recording new content. We're doing two parts of this life update so Denise and Madi both get the space to say what they've been up to lately. And after our updates on where we've been, we can't wait to resume with our regularly scheduled content! We just always want to be open and real with you guys here, and let you know that sometimes life just happens, and that's ok. We get through it with a little help from our friends! :) Follow us! @denisemarie.photos @madi.aldy.photo

We all know the panic of finding out the wedding ceremony is at 1:00 in the afternoon at an outdoor venue. So what do you do?! We're sharing some of our tips for capturing great photos in harsh lighting and we hope it'll eliminate some of the anxiety and stress you feel about that situation. As photographers, we can't always control the lighting situations especially on a wedding day, so it's important to know how to handle it when things seem a little less than ideal. Know that you are not alone and that there are things you can do to make the most out of it! Follow us! @denisemarie.photos @madi.aldy.photo

Sometimes you learn things the hard way! We've all been there. We wanted to share some of our biggest tips and "learning lessons" since beginning in the photography industry in hopes that it might help you out too! As always, we want these episodes to be encouraging and insightful. We ALL make mistakes, and will continue to learn throughout our careers. We love being able to share these things with you and be a part of your photography journey! We're all in this together, and you know what they say: I get by with a little help from my friends! :) Follow us! @denisemarie.photos @madi.aldy.photo

It can be really intimidating to reverse roles and step in FRONT of the camera as a photographer, but we're going to talk about why it's so important. You are the face of your business and people want to connect with you as a human being. Don't be afraid to show who you are! Taking self portraits takes lots of patience and practice, but it's a great exercise to not only help you with your future clients, but to also help you push through those insecurities that we ALL have. Nobody is perfect, and we can all feel a little self conscious in front of the lens, but remember that you are beautifully and wonderfully made in His image. This episode is a bit on the shorter side today, but we hope it gives you just a little bit of confidence and encouragement to start putting yourself in front of the camera more. We want to see your beautiful faces too!!! Follow us! @denisemarie.photos @madi.aldy.photo

We all know the importance of wedding timelines, and as a wedding photographer, this can be one of your biggest challenges. On this episode, we want to share some tips on how to make the most of your couples wedding day, and how to make their timeline your friend and not your enemy. Of course every wedding day and every couple is different, but these are just some general guidelines on how to structure the wedding photo timeline and get your couple the best possible photos from the day! Follow us! @denisemarie.photos @madi.aldy.photo

In today's episode we're giving you guys ALLL the details. We're sharing our individual lists of everything we include in our camera bags for sessions and weddings, and we're even sharing a couple of our BIGGEST wedding day fails as photographers! We got the TEA lol and we hope you learn from our mistakes. It's important to remember that we're all human and we all make mistakes at one point or another, so hopefully this episode will make you feel a little less alone and you can laugh along with us (now that everything turned out okay, phew!!). We love you guys, and thanks for listening! Follow us! @denisemarie.photos @madi.aldy.photo

This is a HUGE topic in the photography community, because as a photographer, we've all been asked for free photos by friends and family at least once in our career. It's not always a bad thing, but you should know where to draw boundaries, and be confident in your decision to no longer provide your services for free. On today's episode we are going to talk alllll about it, and give you some advice for what we've done in certain scenarios!

A couple of weeks ago, Denise asked an interesting question on her Instagram stories: Do you need to wear makeup in order to look professional??? And BOY did she get a LOT of responses from you guys!! We're going to be discussing our thoughts on this topic and even reading some of your DM's. Whether you're a photographer or not, this topic will probably resonate with you in some way, and we just hope that it's encouraging no matter what you think on the matter. Follow us! @denisemarie.photos @madi.aldy.photo

Let's be honest, MOST of us are not super comfortable in front of the camera, so it makes total sense that a lot of your clients won't be either! Being a photographer means that you'll have all different types of personalities in front of your lens, and that's part of what makes this job so fun! But it's important to show up to your session prepared for anything, and we hope that this episode will help when it comes to posing and directing your more camera shy couples. Follow us! @denisemarie.photos @madi.aldy.photo

We're talking alllll about Client Reviews on todays episode! We're sharing some strategies for how we encourage our photography clients to leave reviews and how we feel about getting reviews in general. Reviews are SO important when you're running your own business, and we hope this encourages you to start feeling more comfortable around this topic and confident enough to start asking for them! Follow us! @denisemarie.photos @madi.aldy.photo

We are SO excited to have our very first guest on todays episode, Drey Johnson! We're talking all things Catholic & LDS weddings, and how they differ from traditional weddings when it comes to photos and timeline. Drey is giving us allll the helpful tips for how to successfully capture a religious wedding, all while being respectful and prepared as a photographer. It's so important to remember that all weddings and couples are unique, but we really hope this is a helpful episode for anyone who may need it! Follow us! @denisemarie.photos @madi.aldy.photo @dreyjohnsonphoto

We are back with another episode on the hot topic of Social Media! If you haven't listened to our Part 1 episode on this topic, please feel free to check that out first! And this time we are deep diving into exactly HOW we create our Instagram Reels and Tiktoks. We'll give you a step by step on our process for recording and creating these videos. We're even talking about one of our favorite apps to edit videos and sharing some tips to get the most out of it. So definitely get out a pen and paper, you may want to take notes on this one! Follow us! @denisemarie.photos @madi.aldy.photo

For this episode we asked you guys on our Instagram stories for the biggest Do's and Don'ts of second shooting at weddings! We're sharing your responses and then diving a little deeper on the topic. We'll even share an embarrassing story from one of the first times Madi second shot a wedding with Denise! LOL learn from our mistakes!!! ;) As always we hope this episode is helpful and encouraging, and we're so happy to be a part of your photography journey. Thanks for following along with ours! If you haven't listened to our Part 1 episode on Second Shooting, go give it a listen! And be sure to check out our stories on Instagram for more polls and fun questions that we'll share on future episodes. Follow us! @denisemarie.photos @madi.aldy.photo

What a HUGE topic! We could talk about editing for SO long because there's so much that goes into it and let's be honest, as full time photographers we spend about 70% of our time doing it. Everyone has a unique process for the way they cull and edit their images and deliver photo galleries, so in this episode we are just going to touch on what we do. We're sharing our thoughts on culling, overdelivering, and even outsourcing editing to save you some precious time. You should never feel like you can't live your life because of all the editing you have left to do, so if you're feeling overwhelmed or you're just looking for new ways to get back some free time, this episode is for you! Follow us! @denisemarie.photos @madi.aldy.photo

Alright guys... we're gettin realll honest this episode!! We're talking all about the truth behind travel photography, traveling for weddings/sessions, and just the ups and downs of being a destination photographer in general. We're sharing our real and raw thoughts on this topic, and hope that it will encourage you. If you're feeling a bit burnt out this busy season, we want you to know that you're not alone and your feelings are more than valid. And if you're thinking about getting started in travel photography, we want to be honest and transparent about some things you can expect so that you're better prepared and can prevent burn out in the future! We are both so blessed to have these travel opportunities in our lives because of this job, and we hope that this episode will just shed a little more light on the behind the scenes of traveling, and all the hard work that goes into it! Follow us! @denisemarie.photos @madi.aldy.photo

We wanted to give you guys some practical steps to take if you're thinking of starting a photography business either full time or even as a hobby! It can be really intimidating to think about jumping into the industry without even knowing where to start, so we want to share some tips on how we got started in case it might help! Everyone is different and our paths into this industry will all be unique, but the one thing we all have in common is that we all have to start somewhere! And we hope this episode will be a good starting place for anyone who's eager to get going! Follow us! @denisemarie.photos @madi.aldy.photo

We're diving into the big "S" word today and discussing our thoughts on Social Media and how you can utilize your Instagram and TikTok to really help your business thrive! As with most of our topics on this podcast, we have MANY thoughts, so we plan on doing some follow up episodes on the topic of social media in the near future. It's such a big conversation to tackle and we want to share our thoughts on all aspects of it. So we're using this episode as a starting point and an intro to all things Social Media and Photography. We're talking about TikToks, Reels, stories, and letting you guys in on our strategies for all of it. Social Media is an ever evolving world that is here to stay and it's so important as business owners for us to have some kind of presence out there so that we can attract our ideal clients. So let's get into it! Follow us! @denisemarie.photos @madi.aldy.photo

For todays episode we are talking all about the basics of Second Shooting! If you're thinking of getting into Weddings, being a second photographer for someone is such a great way to start and get the full experience of a real wedding day. It's also so much fun to second shoot even if you currently shoot your own weddings as well. It's a chance to get some photos from a different perspective and also a little less stressful because you're not required to edit any of the photos! LOL This episode covers some of the basics of what you can expect when second shooting and our thoughts on some of our own experiences with it. We plan on doing a Part 2 of this topic soon to talk about some more specific Do's & Don'ts of second shooting, so be sure to subscribe and follow us on Instagram to submit some answers in our stories! We'd love to get your feedback for that episode and hear some different takes on this topic. Follow us! @denisemarie.photos @madi.aldy.photo

Hi guys! We're talking about a VERY big topic this week which is Faith and Business. How the two go hand in hand, and how important it is for us to keep God at the center of everything we do in both our personal and work lives. Spoiler alert! #WeLoveJesus! We know that there are probably some differing views on this topic, but we just wanted to share our thoughts and express how grateful we are that God placed this calling on our hearts. We wanted to share some insights on why we value rooting our businesses in faith and some practical ways we implement this on a daily basis. We hope this episode will inspire you to be bold in your faith as you pursue your business goals! God has given us both a platform in photography and we believe it's super important to use those platforms to give glory to God in all that we do. We wouldn't be here if it weren't for our strong foundation of faith, and it's something that we've both bonded on since we met. This episode is just an open conversation and we'd love to hear your thoughts as well! Please feel free to leave us a review if you liked this episode, and let us know what you're looking forward to hearing more about as we continue this photography podcasting journey! Lots of fun topics and episodes to come, and we're SO happy you're here! Follow us! @denisemarie.photos @madi.aldy.photo

Just two full time photographers with a passion to encourage and inspire others through our experiences in the photography industry. Whether you know us from Instagram, Tiktok, or you've just discovered us from this podcast, we wanted to start out our first episode with a little background as to who we are so that you can get to know us a bit more! In this episode we will be diving into our personal stories of how we fell into the photography industry, what we do, how we met, and who we are outside of photography! We are SO excited to be starting this podcast and SO happy that you are here! We appreciate your kindness and patience in these first few episodes as we learn how to navigate and find our flow of podcasting. We both currently live in different states, Nebraska and Utah, but we didn't want that to stop us from starting something we felt called to do together! So thank you for bearing with us as this is VERY new to each of us but, as with anything, it will get better with time LOL We can't wait to start diving into more topics related to the photography industry, and share more of our thoughts with you along the way! Follow us! @denisemarie.photos @madi.aldy.photo