What if your greatest obstacle could become the secret sauce to your creative genius? This episode dives into the story of Zeiss Global Ambassador Tracy Bosworth Page, a renowned Atlanta photographer who turned face blindness, a condition that prevents her from remembering faces, into her defining strength.

Episode Highlights 🎤💡:

(03:41) - Why actors want to look interesting, not just beautiful

(09:42) - Building an eye-first photography style

(22:01) - How Zeiss lenses shaped her signature look

Connect with Pat Miller ⬇

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Connect with Tracy Bosworth Page ⬇

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I'm Pat Miller, and this is the Professional Photographer Podcast. It's funny how life works. Something happens and you think, that's the end of it. I'll never become who I want to be. But then that same limitation is something that helps you discover a new opportunity and ends up making you who you are. That's the story of today's guest, Zeiss Global Ambassador Tracy Bosworth Page. Tracy discovered during art school that she had face blindness, meaning she could look at you, see everything about you and your face, and as soon as she turned away, not remember what you looked like. She's gone on to be a leading photographer in the industry for actors and actresses and celebrities. She's one of the best. How is that possible? She discovered that what would have been a limitation has helped her develop a unique, beautiful style that has made her, her. This story is inspirational, and it's fun. You're going to love hearing from Tracy Zeiss. Global Ambassador Tracy Bosworth Page is our guest. I can't wait for you to hear what she has to say. We'll talk to her next. Tracy, welcome to the show. It's so nice to have you here. How have you been?

I'm great. Atlanta is really busy. You know, I work in the film industry, and we are starting to really pick up, so it's been really nice. We've got great things filming here. I think the new Scooby Doo is filming here. Superman, the second one is filming here. I mean, it's just. It's so much fun to go around town and see things picking up and going.

Now that is such a fun thing, doing what you do. And I know what you do. So when you talk about movies and all the cool things that are happening, someone might wonder, well, why is Tracy mentioning that? If someone hasn't met you yet, tell them why that's important and what you do.

I am a photographer in the film industry. I do media. Oh, my goodness. I work with agents, publicists, managers. I do actors for their headshots, and I do their publicity images. And I've gotten to work with publicity departments at Disney and Netflix and HBO. It's been a lot of fun. I really have a good time doing what I do.

That must make an interesting group of people to work with, people that are frequently being filmed and photographed. What is it like to work with subjects like that as opposed to just regular people on the street?

Well, you know, it's so funny. I think the people who are actually making it in the industry are the easiest to work with. Because they come in with the mindset that they're doing their job and they're not trying to make my life hard. It's all collaborative. They're working with me. It's, you know, I've met some really fantastic talent, and I'm not going to drop names, but I try not to do that. You know, everybody comes in prepared. In some cases, they've worked with a coach and in advance, and they have things in their head that they know that they need to accomplish. In other cases, we're working on publicity images, and again, we know what we're trying to accomplish. And sometimes they just come back to me because they want graduation photos or photos of their kids and. Which. I'm not a retail photographer, but it's, you know, it's just. It's such a pleasure to be a part of their lives.

People with your kind of talent can make anyone look beautiful, but it must be a lot of fun to make beautiful people look really, really beautiful.

You know, and that's the funny thing is I don't think that a lot of the talent I work with don't necessarily want to look beautiful. They want to look interesting. There is a certain science to what I do where I'm trying to the actor or the subject. I'm trying to get them to communicate with the viewer. And in some cases, the viewer is somebody flipping their magazine. In some cases, the viewing as a casting director or a publicist or a manager or a talent agent, whoever that, a writer, whoever that viewer is. I'm trying to create a connection. Um, so interest is more important than being beautiful. And realism is important because, you know, they want to see every ounce. That is the real estate of a face when they're casting somebody. Gosh. And I thought I turned off my notifications. I'm sorry. I, like, went through and tried to turn everything off, and I obviously missed something. But they want to see every ounce that is the real estate of a face. If they're casting someone, if it's a magazine, then I have more latitude and I can try to, you know, make someone feel beautiful. But I think it's more important that I make somebody feel authentic.

And this is interesting, especially for you, because your personal style has been developed based on your personal circumstance. Can you share that about how you're helping people cast their personality and the way that their face looks and you have a personal style that's developed based on that. Can you share that story?

Yeah, certainly. I'm face blind. I. I didn't know this at first. It's called prosopagnosia. When I was in college, I was studying painting and drawing. I'm a classically trained artist. I was at Lamar Dodd School of Art at the University of Georgia. And I realized my professors kept telling me there was something wrong with the way I portrayed people, and they couldn't quite put their finger on it. And at some point, I realized that my classmates were better at it than I was, but I didn't understand why. I just. We were doing a life drawing model at some point, and I, you know, I drew her, and then she, you know, her two hours were up and she was roving and getting ready to leave. And so I stopped. And I realized my classmates were still working. They could still remember what her face looked like. And I couldn't. And it kind of stopped me in my tracks. I changed my major to journalism so that I could study graphic design. And I graduated from Grady School of Journalism at the University of Georgia. But it wasn't until I was really older that working with a doctor, that we realized that I was face blind. And I completely have no memory of what someone's face looks like when I'm not looking at them. So as long as I'm looking at them, I can see everything, all of the details. But when I'm not looking at them, it's just not there for me. I don't know what it's like. I've never been any other way. I don't know what it's like to remember someone. But I can see people through my camera, and sometimes I can remember people through my camera. And when I was painting, I would take photos really close up of a face to tape to my canvas so I could try to, you know, fill in details of the face that I couldn't seem to remember. And I didn't know why I was doing that. And then when I was. When my kids were starting to act when they were little, I had done. I did like 1200 headshots of my daughter with the encouragement of a good friend who's now one of the top casting directors in the Southeast, or, I'm sorry, talent agents in the Southeast. And I sent them. We narrowed them down to, like, 40, and I sent them to our agent. And I was so afraid they were going to be mad at me for being a parent photographing their own kid. And instead they called me and asked me if I wanted to do this for a living. I was just, you know, it Was. It was a moment, but they said that the. Because I really focused on this part of the face, that it would translate well to headshots. And I had never thought about that. I just did it out of desperation trying to photograph my kid. And, and then, you know, that was almost 20 years ago. So I've been doing this for almost 20 years. I still work with that talent agent talent here in Atlanta, but eventually other talent agents. Jay Purvis, Atlanta Models and Talent, of course, East Coast Talent, which is my friend, ECT. A lot of the larger talent agents in Atlanta. They started sending me clients, and before I knew it, I was busy and left my corporate marketing job to do this full time. And I've been doing this full time now since 2009. And just really, I think I started around 2006, and I've been full time since 2009. And I'm just. It was just such an. I'm an accidental photographer. It was an accidental blessing. I knew, I think, from my classical art training. I. I have good sense of color theory. I have a really good sense of composition. So those things came natural to me. But I had to learn my camera and, and I had to get to a point with myself where my camera was an acceptable paintbrush. I was used to painting in light. You know, I knew where the light in the eye should belong, and I knew how to paint it where I wanted it, but I didn't quite understand how to capture it where I wanted it. And that took me a little bit of study to understand how light worked and how to get it in the right place and really be able to capture light. And just through a lot of good mentorships and advice through friend friends, I. I kind of developed my style, which is eyes first. I always light the eyes first before I light any other aspect of the face. And, you know, then I think just my personality, I, I talk to my clients, and we just have a real communicative time. I have even sat on the floor and made farting jokes with kids who wouldn't laugh just to get them to laugh. But it's. It's tapping into real emotion and capturing that real emotion instead of just telling somebody to smile or not smile and. But also doing it with their eyes first. And everything I do is based on capturing that eye. I will, I will give my clients color palettes, palettes based on their eye color to try to make sure that their eye. If we're using color theory, that their eye is the most prominent thing in the photo. I watch where I photograph to try to have complementary colors to what my clients are wearing and also to set the mood for the photo. But in a headshot or marketing photo, you know, my environment is never my first thing. It's the client's authenticity that is the first thing. And so all of this kind of leads to me being able to get that authenticity on, on film or on, you know, digital media nowadays. And that's really, I think that's kind of set my reputation for who I am is that I give them the authentic person and I make the actor feel authentic and true to themselves.

And I just, you know, it's turning my handicap, which was prosopagnosia, into hopefully my strength.

Is it possible that the condition may give you the gift of constant curiosity? That every time you see a subject, you're seeing them again with, with fresh eyes because you're, you're taking in all of this information again?

I try not to go back and research my clients. I try not to have preconceived notions of who they are because I want to kind of see them with fresh eyes every time. And I also, you know, this is so funny. I think you and I touched on this before, but I get nervous every time I'm with a client. Every single friggin' time. It's, it's, you know, because I'm constantly trying to one up myself and do a better, deliver a better shot than I delivered last time. And I have a lot of repeat clients, clients who've been with me. Some clients have been with me for almost 20 years. I just, I really focus on every time trying to see them with a fresh perspective and just who they are in that moment and not try to recapture magic that we, magic we've had in the past, but create new magic.

You have this really interesting job that happened kind of by accident and now you're just doing such a great job with it for so many years. But that's not the only amazing thing that's happened to you. You have this almost patronage relationship with Zeiss. Can you tell us about the Zeiss relationship and how this started?

Oh my gosh. And I know this is going out to a PPA audience and this happened to me through PPA. So I was at a PPA event and Zeiss had a booth set up and I noticed, and this is not the lens, but I noticed that they had the lens that I typically shot with and it was an 85 at the time. Now I usually shoot with a 135, but they had an 85 sitting on the camera that I used. And I was frustrated with another lens company that I had just bought an expensive lens from. And I walked over to the table, picked up the camera, asked if I could play with it, and, you know, the. The man standing there said, of course, that's what they're there for. And I played with the lens, and I noticed. I noticed how smooth the transitions were. I always thought I would have trouble with manual, but it's just. It's. It's so smooth and easy to shoot on these lenses. And I do do a lot of. I do a lot with their autofocus lenses as well as well. But that just. It was the original Otis 85, and it just sold me. And so he asked if we could, you know, he asked me if he could see some of my work. And I took out my iPhone and started showing some images. And then he asked if he could call me in a few weeks. So he did. And then he asked if he could send me a few images. Just. He said, we'd like to see a few of your images on our lenses and just see, you know, what you do with the lenses. And I just thought he was trying to sell me lenses, but I agreed. He sent me two lenses, and then I shot some images and sent them in. And, and then he called me and he asked me, he said, can you write an article for us? We had this website, part of our website, called Lenspire, and we feature a lot of, you know, photographers who work for us, and we'd like for you to write an article for that. And I. So I did, and it was something I knew absolutely nothing about. So I faked my way through the article, completely faked my way through the article. It was about photographing babies, and I don't photograph babies. So that was, that was kind of funny. I borrowed every baby I could find from. From the talent agents I knew that had had babies to casting directors I photographed their babies and their grandbabies and wrote this article about photographing babies. And my dear friends got some free photos out of it. And then they called me a couple weeks later and said that they wanted to offer me a contract. And later on, something that they said really, it's really inspired me. They said that it wasn't my reputation as a photographer. It wasn't that I was. Oh, oh, my gosh, an influencer. I didn't have a huge following. It was how my photos made them feel that made them pursue me. And I've just always been so appreciative of that's what they think of me. They think that it's how my photos make them feel. And they've lifted me up as a photographer and allowed me to pursue myself creatively. And also because of the fall off on the lenses, they've allowed me to create a distinguishable look that I don't think other headshot photographers and publicity photographers, media photographers really have. So I'm appreciative of the whole process. The other thing they did early on, I think the first batch of photos I sent them, I had heavily photoshopped. I photographed one of my favorite models, actresses laying out on a sofa and this dress she designed, it was just gorgeous. And we put in fresh flowers and the room was really cool, but the brooks were crooked in the photo. And I'd gone through every photograph and learned all my techniques for straightening out my horizons, straightening out the, the, the brick. And they called me and they said, hey, can you send us the unedited versions of these photographs? Because it's not what you can do with Photoshop that we're after, it's what you do with our lenses. And that really changed who I was as a photographer because I realized I had to get things right out of camera for them if they were going to be showing my images. And now my workflow is such that everything I do goes straight to the client out of camera with no editing. And the only images that I edit are the images that they're that the client or the representation asked to be edited for use. So nothing else. When I'm shooting, I work with an assistant and all of the images go straight to an assistant right as I'm shooting them. And then when the client is done shooting, they sit down with my assistant, not me, and they review all of the images and they come up with a titer set to send to their management or their agent or their publicist, whoever they're working with. And then from that titer set they go, you know, they go straight out, I don't see them again. And then they contact me, email me back with, you know, 1, 2, 10, whatever, how many images that their representation or themselves need me to edit. And I don't look at them in the, in between times. So they have to be correct out of camera to go through that process.

How long did it take to get used to doing that? Because I would imagine when you started doing that, you would take a photo and think, I want to play with that. One a little bit in post production. Like, how did you go from using Photoshop to just doing it and letting it go and just putting your hands up thinking, okay, I got it. I hope they love it, because I'm not going to do anything with it.

you know, So I. Sometimes I'm shooting, you know, Now a busy week for me is because I'm in Atlanta full time, so a busy week for me is maybe five to seven sessions. But at the time, I was coming back to Atlanta once a month, and I was doing, you know, 15 to 20 to 25 sessions in five, seven days. Yeah, and when you start shooting that kind of volume, you have to decide what's important to you, you know, which is the life beyond the camera. And at some point, I had to decide that I needed to let go. So it was really on me to learn to shoot correctly in camera so that I didn't have to spend hours fixing somebody's session before they went to their agent. The real changes for me started probably around 2014, 2015, when my assistant, Carrie Petty, started working for me full time, because Carrie started taking over a lot of those tasks of calling and looking at the photographs and getting them out quickly. And when I realized that Carrie could turn things around quickly and enable me to do more sessions and spend less time in front of my computer, I had to really let go of certain things and shoot better in camera. And then the. The second part of that process happened in 2017 when I started working with Zeiss, and they made that comment to me about, you know, we. We need to see what our lens does and not what. Not what you do in Photoshop. Photoshop. And I realized I really have to shoot cleanly because people are going to see my images and I'm not gonna have any control. And at some point, you know, some of my actors that I photograph have 20 million followers, and they get 60 to 70 images from a session sent directly to them that I have no control over. And at some point, I had to learn to let go and stop trying to control every part of the process. It just. It became important to my workflow, but it also became important to working with my clients.

Yeah. And I know this is a naive question, but I can't help but ask, do you find yourself scrolling Instagram or social media and be met with a photo that you took and not know that it was coming? Do you have that happen?

I have, actually. This is really strange. I have. I found photographs that I don't remember taking that I don't really remember working with the actor. And sometimes I have to go backwards and figure out if it was my photo. And often it is because, you know, at this point my style is very distinctive. But it's odd when you come across a photo and you're, you don't really remember taking that. Or maybe, you know, you've worked with the client, but you don't remember the specific photograph.

Sure.

And I go back through and look because, you know, of the 60 or 70 images they might get, they might be you. They may be using two of them with a representation. Or maybe they're using like breakdown services allows, I think, for nine photos on, on an actor's site. So maybe they're using nine of them on breakdown services, but they are using the other photos untouched for their social media. Or maybe they like one for IMDb, and it's not one of their main shots that I've edited. And it's, it's just interesting to run across photos and think, wow, that looks like my. Oh, that is mine.

You touched on this earlier. Zeiss paid you the compliment and said, this is what we want you to do. We're challenging you to make your awesome work in camera. But you also shared that the Zeiss lens powers part of your signature work with the eyes and the fall off. Can you explain that?

Yeah, we call it. I know I'm gonna mess this up. It's like micro contrast. It is the. If you look at the sharp areas or if I, if I, if I had photographed my blouse very sharply, I should be able to see the, the threads. The contrast is just very, very good. The detail, the sharp areas are extremely sharp. But then there is, and I'm photographing myself right now on a Zeiss lens. So you can kind of see it. There is this really smooth, kind of creamy fall off in the background and the foreground areas. And so it's sharp where you want it to be sharp depending on where you set your aperture. And smooth. It's just a really smooth fall off where you want it to fall off. Which is important for me to work with a good makeup and hair artist because the last thing I want to be doing is taking stray hairs out of a smooth background. But, but I, I set, typically set my camera, I've set it a little shallow today because I didn't want you to see all of my wrinkles. But I typically, I typically set my camera around 5.6 so that the actor or the subject's eyes are completely in focus. And then there's fall off by the time it starts to reach the ears and that way the, the faint, I can't speak. The plane of the face is in focus and is the focus of the image and everything else becomes background or foreground. And that helps me communicate with the eyes the way that I want to communicate. And it's the, the ability of the lens to create that sharpness and that fall off that really has become my signature style. But the other thing, it's kind of funny when, when we popped on and populated this feed, I noticed that the color was slightly warmer than where I have it set. I can see myself in my background too and the color is more neutral. So our lenses are very color neutral. And I can't show you my camera because it's photographing me right now. But, but I shoot with a very color neutral camera. And a lot of modern day cameras are not color neutral. They are set slightly warm because especially as Americans, for those of us here that are viewing this, we expect our colors to be warmer and more saturated. But the Sony camera that I use is more neutral. And our lenses, which are German designed, I think this one is Japanese made, are very neutral, color neutral. If you're not used to the color neutrality, you would almost think that it is cool, but it's not, it is extremely accurate. And I was talking to my Sony rep yesterday who was helping me figure out a technical glitch on the camera because I never, I'm not an influencer, I don't do video, I don't do a lot of, of these type of situations. But when I was talking to him, I said, you know, I've been doing this long enough, I can look at my environment and know what my Kelvin temperature is. And he was like, no, seriously. And I'm like, no, seriously. I know that my outside temperature is usually 5600-5800 depending on the weather. If it's really, really cloudy and, and I have a lot of saturation being trapped by, by the environment, you know, I may be down 5200, 5300. If it's a really, really white, bright day, I may be at 6,000, but I kind of know that that's where I live. If I'm working with a studio flash, I think my bronze color is, if I'm not mistaken, is 55,800. It may be 6,000, but usually if I set my camera on 5,800, it's correct. And I have, right now I don't have it turned on because it was bright enough in here today that I didn't have to do it. But I have a little Roscoe Dash set up right next to me. And I usually keep that around 5,800 because it is set for the outdoor lighting where I keep my camera and kind of know my environment. So when I'm shooting indoors, I try to make sure that I'm shooting with color, correct light that also match my environment. And that way if, you know, if the outside is because I'm sitting in front of big windows right now, if I had to boost my light with my little Roscoe Dash, it would match my outdoor light and I wouldn't have, you know, conflicting light coming in. And just knowing that my camera and my lens are color neutral helps me really nail my coloring camera. And the other thing that I learned to do is that you always shoot with a lens hood because the, the light comes straight into your lens. And, and Zeiss lenses, as are all lenses, should be designed, but these lenses specifically are designed to read the color accurately when it comes straight into the lens. So the lens hood keeps the light coming straight into the lens. I know they say light doesn't bend, but it does refract. And this keeps it straight so that I can keep my color accuracy.

You shared your style with us and some of these lighting choices as well. What about just overall creative choices? You're working with a client, you're working with an actor and you want to communicate their personality. How do you go about making the creative choices so you get the shot in the camera that you're looking for. Is there anything you can share?

Well, I always ask them to. So I have two different kind of sessions that I do. I do creative sessions as well. You know, every three months or so we just have to like blow it out and do something completely off the wall creative or we will go just bonkers, just bored to tears. But with a client, I have them bring in a variety of clothing. I recommend color before they come in. I recommend sty. I kind of give them a multi page list of types that they might consider themselves and what to do for those types. But really for my clients, if they're coming in for headshots and marketing materials, we try to keep it very neutral. We have colors that work best in certain situations that we recommend. We have styles we recommend and that really helps a lot. And then I always, I have a lot of places I can shoot around my building, in my studio, around my building. And I try to adapt that to the client and the mood that we're trying to portray. Although the background should always be not important. But I still, I use that a lot when we're doing creative sessions, which I have several people I work with who are creative muses. Especially my key makeup artist, Pam Pimpleton. She's fantastic. I also work with Saab Wood and Deborah Carr and just some really great people. Donna Martin. I just have some really great artists that I work with. But usually if we're working together on a shoot, you know, Pam and I do a lot of these creative shoots together. We will create mood boards between the two of us. We'll just do a Pinterest page and start tagging images that inspire us or past photography projects or anything to communicate an idea between the two of us. Sometimes I have a costume designer I work a lot with. Sometimes I will do rough thumbnail sketches and send them to her and she'll start building costumes around the thumbnail sketch. It just, you know, I have, I have a team of people that keep me fresh and collaborate with and it just, you know, it's what you have to do. You just have to keep pushing every. It's a challenge to keep coming out with different things. But I think the more we push ourselves. And then these have led to some really great publicity shots with clients, the creative sessions. Because now I have concepts and ideas and techniques that maybe I didn't have before and, and you know, just everything leads to something else. Work with some fabulous hair people. I've done some award winning photography for probably Atlanta's number one luxury hair salon. The artist there is just, you know, fantastic and comes up with some really off the wall ideas and sometimes really challenges me. He had one last summer that I'm not sure I really accomplished. It was. It was going to be a little out of my league, but. But I keep trying.

Yeah. Thinking back on all the work that you've done, do you have any favorite sessions or favorite work that you've done along the way?

Oh my gosh, yes. We've actually been talking some with scad about trying to get into Scad Vash. I have this costume designer that's just amazing and she comes up with these concepts that just blow me away or sometimes they're inspired by concepts I came up with. I drew one time I had this shape of a dress flowing out like a butterfly. So she, I sent it to her and she created this silk creation and, and weighted it with fabric weights so that it would fly in the shape that I had imagined. And that still has to be one of my favorite images. Another hairdresser that I work with a lot, Bobby Stevens, created this wig. I told him that I didn't want to worry about where the light hit the hair. So he painted the part of the wig that was closest to her hairline. He painted it black. He painted. We were going to do the images in black and white. So we painted the center of the wig with like an 18% gray. And the very edge of the wig he created, he painted white so that that would be the highlight. So that I wouldn't have to worry about where the hair hit the, the light hit the hair. And then I had, we had fan. We had industrial size fans blowing on it to help flow the dress. I had two assistants on each side of her to sing the dress. It was just. The whole experience was fantastic. And something that. Will Brookly did the makeup on that. She's now in dc. She works for ABC News, Good Morning America, does a lot of films. She's actually. My cousin is Kate Bosworth, the actress. And Brooke has been key makeup on some of Kate's movies. So that's kind of fun. I'm always like, hey, Brooke, give my cousin a hug for me.

Tell her I said hi.

I said hi. I don't ever get to see her. You see her more than I do.

You have all this support from Zeiss and they support you creatively and you're working with literally famous people in one of America's great cities. As an artist now, just inside your gooey little artist soul, how does it feel to have that kind of trust that these people are telling you? Here are these famous people. Here's all of our gear. Do it all in camera. We know it's going to be great. How does that feel as a creative?

Sometimes overwhelming. It's sometimes overwhelming with the amount of trust and just the amount of belief in me. And I again, the nerves come back as to whether or not I can really pull off what I say I'm going to pull off. But that they, they trust me to do it. I just really, really blessed. I'm sorry, I have to. I'm going to make myself tear up. It really is the support of me as an artist. It is just really, really, some days just blows me away. They've just been this fabulous partner. But not just Zeiss, Zeiss is a fabulous partner, but the actors, the costume designer, the makeup artist, the, you know, the companies that have lent me lenses, you know, if I want to do something, Broncolor will send me what I need. If it's not gear I already own. There's a dealer in Atlanta, Capture Integration, that the owner, Dave Gallagher, is amazingly supportive. He's arranged for me to get gear I shot at. I did a project I wanted to do, you know that classic Elton John where his jacket is flying in in the wind and he's jumping at the piano. And so I was. One night I was talking to a friend of mine and I said, I want to do this shot. And it was my friend Kyle Nichols, who's now a casting director in Orlando. And I think he's doing special events. I don't know if he's doing casting right now, but he was a casting director at the time. And I was telling Kyle, I said, this is the shot I want to do. And he said, tracy, did you know I. I was like Elton John's muse? I posed, I traveled with him. He did some of his own photography. I was the model. He goes, I can do that shot for you. And I was like, okay, that's amazing. And I said, do you think you could. I said, I'm thinking about these 8 inch platform hills. Do you think you could jump from a piano in these? He said, elton's had me do it in 10 inch heels. I can do it. I was just blown away. So I found this jacket at H and M that was just all fringy. And then my costume designer, Jennifer Schat, took a pair of. This is kind of funny. She took a pair of free people female pants and sewed eight inch. They were bell bottoms. And she. She sewed eight inch fringe on them. And then Kyle put them on and he said, you realize I'm a male. And I was like, that they fit you. And he goes, there's no fly. He's like, these are not men's pants. And I was like, okay, can you wear them? He said, of course. So. So he did that. So then I was talking to a dear friend of mine who is Anthony Harper, who owns the goat farm here in Atlanta. My studio was in his building. And I was telling Anthony what I wanted to do. And I said, I just need to find a piano and a stage to shoot this at. And Anthony said, well, how about Atlanta Symphony Hall? And I thought to myself, well, good luck on that one. I was like, oh, yeah, that sounds great. But I'm like, right? And two weeks later, I get this phone call, and the guy says, hi, my. My name's Rick. I'm the stage manager at Atlanta Symphony Hall. I understand from Anthony Harper that you want to use our piano and our stage and I'm just like, really? And then at the same time, Zeiss was doing a video, and I said, you know, I don't want this to be me talking into a camera for the entire video. I'd like for this to be about a creative project, and this is the project I have in mind. And they were kind of like, you had us at the beginning. Anything you want to do, we're good with it. We believe in you. And so I talked to the. The. The woman that was directing the project for them, and she flew down to Atlanta, and we went over to Atlanta Symphony hall, and we scouted the location and met with Rick and. And then Dave Gallagher over at Capture Integration. And the great people over at Mac Group supplied all of my lights for that through Dave. You know, they shipped them to Dave, Dave got them to me. And so we were able to spotlight Kyle as he jumped with the lights they provided. And I was working with Constance so that the film group could film it at the same time that I was photographing. So I was not using a strobe, and we had one flaring into the camera, and it was just such a magical. I had to wait until the symphony finished rehearsing before we could load in. So we were all on the loading dock for about two hours waiting for the symphony to finish the rehearsal. And then we started loading in, and we got it done. And I think we photographed it like the middle of the night. But Kyle was so dead on with his jump. And I just will never forget the whole experience. It was just incredible.

With the opportunity that you have and the support that you have, and being a naturally trained artist, that's expressing yourself through photography right now. I love the way that you look at your future. You're not just trying to capture some great pictures. You're trying to change things. Can you share how you look at what you're hoping to do in the coming years and months?

There's a great quote by, oh, my gosh. My brain is just mesh, I think, because I'm mush, because I'm on air. Imogene Cunningham, I think, was the artist who said it. When she was asked what her favorite photograph was, she said, the one I take tomorrow. And I think that's kind of my philosophy. I'm always trying to figure out how to be better tomorrow than I am today. And that's just. You know, I'm constantly. Some of the talent agents have told me to stop asking them questions because they're tired of giving me the same answers. But I'm Always asking, you know, the people that I shoot for, am I meeting your needs? What do you need me to do differently? What do you need me to do better? It's. It's. And then our. Our gear is changing a lot too. So there's a little struggle sometimes with keeping up with technology. And I tend to. Once I find a combination that works for me, I tend to want to stay with it. I don't. I don't change a lot. I'm not the kind of person who feels like they have to buy the latest and greatest camera or lights. I think Broncolor is still hinting at me that I need to upgrade to the latest, the latest model of lighting. And I'm still using the last model. But I think there's a point too where the way I operate my camera is now second nature. So I don't think about really how I'm setting up my camera anymore. I just do it automatically. And so that needs to be. I need to be very comfortable with it. I'm extremely comfortable with my Sony Alpha 1. I love that camera. And I'm extremely comfortable with Zeiss lenses and the way I use them. And so there's not a learning curve for them for me. And I'm extremely comfortable with Broncolor and Roscoe lighting. And. But really, my Broncolor lighting, it's. It's. It's very. Again, it's very color neutral, it's very accurate. It doesn't vary, it doesn't change. Time after time, when I put my remote on my camera, I know it's going to trigger. I know it's going to work. I know my lens is going to deliver. I know my camera is going to deliver. I have a backup camera. I have backup lenses. I have two of everything. But, I mean, I rarely have to use it because I depend on my equipment. And so the question for me is how to get a better connection and better performance with my subject or maybe try to find a creative angle that I haven't explored yet that lets me explore something differently. And a lot of that comes through my collaborators pushing me. Pam will call me with these off the wall, kooky ideas, and we'll just make them happen. She. She's so funny. One day she gave me grass eyelashes. She literally created. She brought in blades of grass in a. In a plastic baggie and she got them on as eyelashes. And I have an actress, Alex Alexa Louder with grass eyelashes. And she looks phenomenal. It was the coolest thing ever. It took Pam four hours to do it. And I waited. I was very tired by the time we finally got the eyelashes on, but I had already worked a full day and then we were doing that. But the eyelashes were amazing. Incredibly out of the box. I had never seen it before. And she gave me something completely different to photograph. And I just. I can't be more thankful if someone

wants to see all of your awesome work or follow along. What's the best place to do that?

Following me on Instagram is probably the best place to do that. It's, you know, just my name. Tracy Bosworth Page, B O S W O R T H, page is P A G E. That's also my website. I'm the same on Facebook. I'm on LinkedIn. But Instagram is probably where I post the most images. I tend to. I know my, My. The company that runs my website, I think they. I'm the bane of their existence because I said it and forget it. Most of my work is referral, you know, so I'm not out there searching for clients. I'm extremely fortunate that most of my work is referral. So I tend to not update my website as frequently as it should be updated. But my Instagram, I love posting images, so I will, you know, sometimes I forget, but I try to keep some current images there. And if you really want to go back and see the history of the images I posted, it's. It's all there on Instagram. I don't, you know, you'll see some of my personal stuff there too, because I'm a big believer in treating my social media like a blog. You know, I talk my life, I talk about my kids. I call my kids Girl one and Girl two. They've asked me not to use their names in public, but, you know, they're all over my media with their stories and the quirky things they say to me and/or just the weird life experiences along with the, you know, some of the actors. You know, I can't always post everything that I take because some of it is proprietary or yet to be released or needs to be released by the client and not by me. But my Instagram is probably the best place to kind of learn about me and see my work.

What a fun conversation. Zeiss Global Ambassador Tracy Bosworth Page, thank you for coming on the show. I appreciate it.

Thank you for having me.

Thanks for tuning in to this week's episode of the Professional Photographer Podcast. Now, wait a minute. Before you go, click, like, and subscribe on this video. When you hit like the algorithm gets really happy and we get to introduce our show to more people. And when you hit subscribe, that means that we will pop up in the your feed next time we release an episode. If you could do it, I'd really appreciate it. The other thing is, if you're not yet a member of Professional Photographers of America, you are missing out. PPA offers incredible resources like equipment insurance, top-notch education, and a supportive community of photographers ready to help you succeed. It's perfect for photographers who are serious about growing their business in a sustainable and profitable way. At PPA, you belong here. Discover more about membership at PPA.com. That's PPA. Com. I'm Pat Miller, the Fridays Off Guy, founder of the Small Business Owners Community and your host of the show. Thanks for tuning in. We'll see you right here next time. Take care.