This month we’re celebrating our third anniversary of my latest generation of photography and camera classes. This seems like a good time to take a peak back to see what we’ve done so far and peer forward to what may be down the road for us.
Back in 2021 we opened the video download option of the John Greengo Photography shop with just three classes and the promise of three more in the coming weeks. I had been working on all six of the classes for the previous nine months, in anticipation of the launch. While classes were being developed, my wife and I were in the process of moving house and setting up a home studio; all of which was a lot of work, very time consuming, and quite expensive.
Sony A7R V, FE 100-400MM F/4.5-5.6 GM OSS @ 400MM | F/11 | 1/80 SEC | ISO 100
As many of you know I had been making classes at CreativeLive between 2010 and 2019. A change in direction, and a new goal for both CreativeLive and myself meant a new, more independent path for my business and my classes.
When trying to explain what I’ve been doing for the last three years, I sometimes joke that I’m “Taylor Swifting” all my photographic education. For those hiding under a rock in regards to Taylor, I’m taking control of all the aspects of production, marketing, and sales. More risk and more control, with the hopes of more opportunities and reward for both you and me.
Sony A7 IV, fe 300MM F/2.8 GM OSS, FE 2X TC @ 600MM | F/5.6 | 1/160 SEC | ISO 200
Camera classes and more
My classes on individual cameras were a unique and popular hit with the CreativeLive audience. I’d created and taught 66 classes covering Canon, Nikon, Sony, Olympus, Fujifilm, Leica, and Panasonic cameras. So after 9 years of evolution, I thought I had tapped out the possibility of what a camera class could be.
Mid way through the development of my new collection of classes I was struck with an idea to reorganize the class into a more logical format with information that would be easier to find. Making a change meant rebuilding 2000 slides that had already been prepared for our six initial camera classes. The restructuring took several weeks and lots of work, but it paid off with a much better product. Looking back, I’m so happy I took that opportunity to rebuild.
Sony A7R V, FE 50MM F/1.4 GM @ 50MM | F/1.4 | 1/5000 SEC | ISO 100
In the last 3 years we’ve produced and published 24 new camera classes covering Canon, Nikon, Sony, Fujifilm and OM System (formerly Olympus). More complicated cameras and a new, more flexible recording schedule has resulted in the average class length growing from 4.5 hours to 9 hours.
We’ve also produced six general photography classes, three camera buyer’s guides, and two lens classes, with three more on the way. We have a long-term plan for future classes, but progress is slow, because quality takes time.
Sony A7R V, FE 20-70MM F/4 G @ 24MM | F/11 | 1/80 SEC | ISO 100
Photo tours
International photography tours re-launched this year (2024) with a magical tour of Bhutan with a full roster of fantastic travelers and photographers. We’ll be returning to Bhutan in 2025 and we also have open tours in 2024 to the Galapagos and Kenya with a few spots available on all tours. As I see it, three continents down, four to go!
Fujifilm GFX100 II, GF 45-100MM F/4 R LM OIS WR @ 100MM | F/4 | 1/250 SEC | ISO 400
We’ve broken the tour business off from our main photography business to become its own company, so technically we’re running two cooperative businesses. The tour business is a lot of work for what it earns, but luckily both my wife and I have a passion for travel. We see value in creating quality photo centric travel-minded journeys that offer something unique and special to other photographer’s like ourselves.
Image Credit: Sal D’Alia
The hope and plan for the tour business is to have a small operation that regularly offers tours to interesting locations around the world. We have more ideas than time to make them all come true, at least right now. We’re contemplating photography tours to: Australia, Cuba, Japan, Italy, Morocco, India, and Nepal. Where are you interested in going? If you’d like to attend a photo tour, let us know where you’d like to go.
Canon R5, TS-E 24MM F/3.5 L II @ 24MM | F/22 | 20 SEC | ISO 100
Future classes
I have a long list of classes and ideas that is sure to take me years to bring forth. The current major project is a collection of Complete Lens Guides — Fujifilm was released earlier this year; Sony will be available next month (July); and Nikon and Canon are next on the list. No promises on time frame as the lens classes will have to work around new camera classes like the Fujifilm X100VI. I’ve also been reading the rumors of new cameras (Canon R5II, Canon R1, Nikon Z6III) and have plans for classes on those cameras, and likely more that I’m not yet aware of.
Sony A7R V, Canon TS-E 50MM F/2.8 L Macro @ 50MM | F/11 | 1/60 SEC | ISO 800
Beyond the equipment classes (cameras & lenses), there are other core photography classes that I’m looking to create. On the short list is a complete guide on focusing, including lots of information about the subject tracking features in all new cameras. A class on lighting, either natural and/or artificial, I believe would be very beneficial.
There’s also two classes that I’m most looking forward to sinking my teeth into — first is a deep dive into composition. Yes, I have the Composition Essentials class, which is a great starter class on the concept of composition. But I’d like to dive much deeper into the subject. Over the years I’ve been keeping a manifesto of ideas for a complete guide on the subject. Bringing all that information to life is something that excites me. I have plans to research composition from a variety of points of view: painting, early art, architecture, and even natural landscapes. Organizing compositional ideas is like herding cats, but I relish the challenge.
Sony A7 IV, FE 300MM F/2.8 GM OSS, FE 1.4x TC @ 420MM | F/4 | 1/200 SEC | ISO 100
The second class I’m awaiting time to devote to is one on black and white photography. I started my photography life in B&W, and I’ve dabbled in it over the years as I still have a keen interest in it, but I want to dive full bore into it. I’m even contemplating shooting only black and white for a whole year. I’m not sure if that will come to pass, but the thought of it is quite intriguing.
The future of photographic education
While we believe we offer a very high quality product, we’re always looking for ways of improving what we currently offer. Number one on our list of desired improvements is – subtitles. We have a lot of international sales with non-native English speaking people and requests for subtitles. We also want to have a product that is easily accessible to the hearing impaired, or those who just want to view the video without sound. We know that the addition of subtitles would make the class a lot more accessible to a lot of people, irrespective of the reason it’s needed. The challenge is that while auto translation devices are pretty good, photography has a lot of technical terms that need to be checked and confirmed for accuracy. Subtitles will happen, it’s just a matter of time. Like all of our class enhancements, anything we add to a class is provided for free to all who have already purchased that class.
Sony A7R V, FE 20-70MM F/4 G @ 35MM | F/22 | 0.5 SEC | ISO 50
We’re also looking at some potential radical changes to the learning experience. Online learning has boomed over the last decade and several companies that specialize in creating learning platforms have emerged. It’s possible to take our existing videos and incorporate quizzes, assignments and allow for feedback with instructors. We’re looking at a number of options and we’re considering where we can take photographic education in the future.
A few statistics
We keep a close eye on several statistics here in the office, and here are a few to share. We’ve created a total of 35 classes, not including firmware update videos that we have done for multiple cameras. The total number of hours of created content is 245 hours and 28 minutes.
We’ve received a total of two thousand reviews, with an average rating of 4.86 stars, 91% of the reviews are 5 star ratings. The reviews that we do receive are from: USA 57%, Canada 10%, UK 9% as well as Australia, Sweden, Austria, Netherlands and many more. The country where our popularity is most surprising, especially considering that English is not the official language, is the Netherlands. Why the Netherlands, well they are very adept at foreign languages with an estimated 90% proficient in English.
Sony A7R V, FE 20-70MM F/4 G @ 20MM | F/5.6 | 1/160 SEC | ISO 100
We’ve sold classes to people in more than 85 countries. Obviously, English speaking countries dominate the most popular locations, but there are a few surprising locations on the list: Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Guatemala, Kyrgyzstan, Senegal, and Vietnam.
Our YouTube channel is growing very quickly; we recently topped 43,000 subscribers and the rate of growth is pretty amazing. So far we’ve just been posting free sections of our classes there, but someday when we have more time we’d like to add more YouTube specific content.
Sony A7R V, Canon TS-E 50MM F/2.8 L Macro @ 50MM | F/5.6 | 1/50 SEC | ISO 200
Finally
We’d like to say thanks to all of you for being part of this journey with us. The business is growing and thriving, and our subscriber base has continued a steady increase from launch day. We’re thrilled every time we get a positive review, hear from you in an email, or meet you in person. We appreciate you being part of this ride, and we’ll continue to provide you with quality information and great opportunities in the future.
Sony A7R V, FE 100-400MM F/4.5-5.6 GM OSS @ 140MM | F/11 | 1/13 SEC | ISO 100
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