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Spreadsheets, whiteboards, and “the one person who knows everything” can keep a volume photography studio running, right up until the moment they stop scaling. Gary Pageau of The Dead Pixels Society is joined by Seenu Yellapu (ScheduLink) and Michael Rak (Artona Group) to talk about the overlooked side of school and volume photography: the operational admin work that surrounds every shoot, from scheduling and staffing to task handoffs, notes, and repeatable processes you can actually trust.

We get specific about what breaks with Excel: no true data ownership, multiple versions of truth, and tribal knowledge that disappears when staff turns over. Then we unpack how ScheduleLink approaches studio workflow automation by building your SOPs into the platform with templates, default values, task assignments, and visibility across each step. We also talk about onboarding reality, why implementation can feel daunting, and how importing data and iterating while you use the system can make adoption faster for real working studios.

Privacy and student data security come up as a serious differentiator. We discuss role-based access, limiting what contract photographers can see, and secure ways to collect school data without leaving it scattered across inboxes and laptops. Finally, we look ahead to profitability and decision making: combining operational data with revenue inputs so studios can understand which schools are truly profitable, not just busy. If you care about volume photography operations, studio management software, and running a tighter production season, subscribe, share this with a studio owner, and leave a review.

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Hosted and produced by Gary Pageau
Announcer: Erin Manning

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You can put a famous face next to a brand and still end up with marketing that goes nowhere. What actually moves people is trust, specificity, and a story that feels human, especially in the photo imaging industry where the product is memory, emotion, and identity.

Gary Pageau sits down with Katherine Tuominen from Catalyst Brand Strategy to unpack ethical marketing in a practical way: serving the customer’s needs, avoiding misleading edits or “Franken-grabbing,” and building a message you can repeat without sounding robotic. We get concrete about brand storytelling, from finding the turning point that sparked the business to adding the gritty details that make someone say, “I’ve been there.” Tuominen shares how to keep your core narrative consistent while refreshing it with timely lenses like AI, anniversaries, and local moments.

We also talk photography business marketing beyond discounts, including how to sell the value of photo printing, photo books, wall art, and prints by leaning into tactile, analog appeal. If you’re thinking about in person events, we break down “event activations,” strategic partnerships, sponsors, and how to track ROI with QR codes, UTMs, email nurture campaigns, and clear objectives. Wrap it all with a hard truth for small business owners: growth often requires saying no and focusing on what actually moves the needle.

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Hosted and produced by Gary Pageau
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The Dead Pixels Society Podcast host Gary Pageau interviews Julia Bocchese of Julia Renee Consulting, an SEO, AI search, and Pinterest consultant in Philadelphia, about how she shifted from corporate publishing and a travel photography site (plus a Viking Age history master’s) into nine years of SEO and Pinterest work. She explains Pinterest is closer to Google than social media because it’s a visual search and discovery engine designed to drive users off-platform to websites, supporting long-term traffic and conversions rather than follower-based engagement. They discuss Pinterest’s focus on user-requested features like hiding AI-generated content, improving on-platform shopping, and an ad model aligned with search intent where ads can be saved and keep driving traffic after spend stops. Bokeyze recommends testing multiple content types over 3–6 months, linking pins directly to relevant website pages, using captions for muted video, and optimizing site speed, UX, and calls-to-action. She highlights Pinterest Trends, seasonal posting 3–6 months ahead, demographics (about 70% women, strong 30–50), and limitations for analytics with third-party sites like Etsy.

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Hosted and produced by Gary Pageau
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The Dead Pixels Society host Gary Pageau interviews sports photographer Kirby Lee of USA Today Sports about his path from an electrical engineering student to covering major events including the NFL, Olympics, and upcoming FIFA World Cup matches in Los Angeles. Lee explains how a beginning photography class and constant shooting of high school sports led to newspaper work at the LA Times as a writer, then a shift toward photography, with his writing background improving his ability to anticipate storylines and caption images. He discusses transitioning from film to digital around 2003, joining WireImage, and the demanding preparation, gear, remotes, and selective shooting required for pro sports. Lee recounts an accidental iconic NFC Championship photo and describes Olympic pressure, including a 2008 100m final where his camera buffered due to memory card speed, emphasizing equipment reliability.

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Hosted and produced by Gary Pageau
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Gary Pageau interviews Montauk-based photographer James Katsipis about his shift from self-taught surf photography—shooting New York winters and campaigns—to selling fine art through galleries and his own Montauk space. Katsipis describes learning to present work effectively, favoring large anti-glare acrylic prints for big installations and collaborating with interior designers and installers. He explains early print sales models, then the operational problems of manual order handling, shipping damage, and customer-service fallout. Katsipis details adopting WhiteWall’s Shopify app integration: syncing high-res files, one-tap order acceptance, drop-shipping, improved packaging, fewer damages, and reduced weekly stress, plus easier global sales due to European production and faster shipping. He notes a wishlist item for multiple crop ratios and credits streamlined checkout (including Apple Pay) for reducing abandoned carts.

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Hosted and produced by Gary Pageau
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Most businesses do not have a marketing problem. They have a clarity problem. If you cannot explain why customers choose you, what lever actually drives profit, and what you deliver that competitors cannot, no amount of digital marketing will save you for long. That is why The Dead PIxels Society sat down with Joel Miller, a business coach and marketing expert at The Sky Floor, to get practical about what makes growth repeatable.

We talk about why Miller resists “niching down” in the usual way, and how curiosity and learning across industries can become a real advantage. From legacy businesses that assume online marketing should be cheap, to brands that chase change for change’s sake, we unpack the moment when a company loses the plot and starts confusing tactics with strategy. Miller shares concrete ways to define positioning, build a competitive advantage, and sell value instead of competing only on price, with specific examples that translate well to photo printing, local services, and creative businesses.

You will also hear hard-earned lessons from the wedding photography world on pricing ladders, audience fit, and social proof, plus a sharp take on the “fail fast” culture: learn from setbacks, do not celebrate them. We finish with the human side of business, including humor as a trust builder, why marketing cannot cover for broken operations, and how to use AI for repetitive work without trapping customers in automated loops.

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Hosted and produced by Gary Pageau
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The Dead Pixel Society host Gary Pageau interviews Andy Edwards, CEO and founder of GeoSnapshot, about the company’s origins and the overlooked privacy and governance risks in school photo workflows. Edwards explains GeoSnapshot began 12 years ago to centralize fragmented equestrian event photos and has since expanded to sports and education, now operating in 161 countries with 51 million photos and videos and about 1,000 events per month. He describes how schools often store images in scattered “shadow” systems (Google Drive, Dropbox, SharePoint, email, closed social groups), creating consent, security, retention, and reputational risks amplified by deepfakes and AI. GeoSnapshot for Education addresses the full media lifecycle with centralized storage, direct capture without saving to teachers’ devices, identity-aware multi-level consent integrated with student information systems, inappropriate-content filtering, and end-to-end auditing.

Edwards explains how centralized media management, identity-aware permissions connected to student information systems, and end-to-end audit trails create a clear chain of custody when a parent asks, “How did that photo get there?”

The conversation also get into the pressure cooker schools face right now: AI-driven misuse, deepfake concerns, and fast-changing regulations like retention and deletion requirements. Finally, we explore what video governance can look like, including optional facial recognition, finding a student inside long recordings, and generating short highlight snippets or show reels for events like graduations and performances.

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Sign up for the Dead Pixels Society newsletter at http://bit.ly/DeadPixelsSignUp.

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Hosted and produced by Gary Pageau
Announcer: Erin Manning