Are you still relying on photos to market your photography business? In an era of vanishing attention spans, Braxton Holley reveals why video is your new secret weapon. As consumer habits shift, photographers face a critical dilemma—adapt to video-first platforms or get left behind.

Episode Highlights 🎤💡:

(04:30) - The secret to hooking your audience fast

(07:09) - Choosing the right platform for growth

(16:18) - How to spark creativity and stay inspired

Connect with Pat Miller ⬇

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Connect with Braxton Holley ⬇

LinkedIn | YouTube | Instagram

Thank you to our sponsor, Sony!

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I'm Pat Miller, and this is the Professional Photographer Podcast. Welcome into the Professional Photographer podcast live from Imaging USA 2025 in Dallas. I'm your host, Pat Miller. Thanks for clicking play. This is the Scale Your Influence series where I get a chance to sit down with content creators and learn how they think, what they're doing, and how they can inspire you to do better work and get it out into the world. Our guest today is Braxton Holley, media professional that's going to help you think just a little bit differently about what you're doing, how you're building it, and how you're sharing your message with the world. I guarantee you're going to love this conversation. Braxton will be on set here in just a minute, but first, I got a gush about Sony. They went all out on our set this week. They are using their Cinema Line cameras, which are just amazing, and the Monitor & Control app. It's kind of been the star of the show. Everything we're doing here is running on an iPad. It's all running wirelessly, and it's causing, like, a traffic jam right outside our booth with people stopping by wanting to see how it works. So look it up for yourself. And a thanks to Sony for providing the tech this week at Imaging. Okay, you're going to love this conversation with Braxton. Let's get him on set. Braxton, welcome to The Professional Photographer podcast. How are you today?

I'm glad to be here. How are you?

I'm great. It's been so fun to talk to all of these creative people one after after the next here in Imaging USA. How's the convention been for you?

It's been absolutely wonderful. I've enjoyed every moment here in Dallas. We've had sunny days until today, but we won't tell anybody about that.

No. I'm in Wisconsin, so I got to go out in an 80-degree day. The other day, I felt like I won the lottery. I'm out in shorts and a T-shirt. All the folks from Texas are in jackets. They're freezing. They're looking at me like I'm a weirdo. But come on, for me, 50 degrees, 60 degrees. It was fantastic.

Are you cheesehead?

No.

Okay.

No. I was born in Chicago.

Really.

So I'm a Bear fan behind the cheddar curtain. It's not a good thing.

Do you wear your bear stuff to the game?

No.

Okay. Smart man. Very smart.

No, I don't do that. How about you?

I am a Rams and a Patriots fan. It's not that long of a long story of why, but when the rams were in St. Louis, I lived there, and I got a bunch of family up in Boston area. So when I was younger, I just kind of adopted both.

That's fine with me. As long as it's not the packers, we're cool.

That's fair. That's fair.

All right, so if someone hasn't met you yet, tell them about what you do.

I would say that I'm a media professional. I not only create content and the part that I love is being able to help other people figure out how to make content. Most people are frightened by seeing themselves or being behind the camera, not knowing what to say, overthinking. And I try to make it simple for them and just say, hey, start with this. Do these little things and just kind of gradually help them grow into being able to, you know, be in front of camera and make content for themselves and their business.

Yeah, I like that title, media professional because it's not just knowing what to do, but it's taking the time to teach others to do it. What are some of the misconceptions that people bring to the game when they think, oh, this is what I should be doing? You have to go, no, that's not what you should be doing. You should be doing this.

A lot of people don't know that they need to make more video now than they do photos. Photos are just, just as equally as important. But the video aspect has grown so much in the last. Really since COVID. But since then it's grown so much, and people are consuming more and more and not so much on websites as they as, yes, book your things and do what you have to do there. But in order to engage people, you have to not only be trendy, but have the knowledge. And you can express the knowledge deeper through video. And then you can just being able to look at a photo and read a caption. People's attention spans are so short. It's like, am I going to take the time to read this paragraph or do I keep struggling? Yeah.

Yeah. I heard someone say that every video is only a few seconds long, but if you don't get them in the first few seconds, there's no reason to even watch the rest.

That hook is important, that first three to five seconds. If you don't have them, then they're gone.

How do I think about that? Get help me out. Help me better understand that first five seconds so I and others could do a better job of grabbing that attention straight away.

So things that I kind of help people do is think about what they will watch. Look at the things that keep you and that catch your attention. Don't replicate them, but make them in your own way that show out for your business or it shows out for yourself or things that are controversial. People love drama. So if you start with something dramatic, you hold them for another 10 seconds at least.

Yeah.

So just different ways to say, hi, my name is. No, no, no, no. Tell them something dramatic, and it doesn't have to be, you know, I'm not going to come up with anything crazy, but it doesn't have to be something that is, you know, controversial. It just has to be something that slows me down for a moment.

It's an emotional response.

Exactly.

Some good, bad, mad, sad, something that makes them stop scrolling.

Exactly.

As a creator and someone that teaches creators, that's the world we're living in. But how do you feel about that world? Is it frustrating to you that it's that way or is that just how it is?

It's really interesting to me, I would say simply because I'm a long form type of person. So I enjoy YouTube videos over TikToks, I enjoy movie series over, you know, one movie hits. So slowing myself down to put not only a story or a storyline in a smaller segment, quicker, that's attention grabbing also helps me grow. And then working with other people I'm able to learn about like, oh, this catches your eye. Let me see how I can take this and be able to help someone else and even help myself in growing in that capacity.

Yeah. I've heard people also say a scene should only be a few seconds if that, but it's cut, cut, cut, cut, cut. Is that how you like to edit or teach people to edit?

A mixture. So it depends on what's being done early on. The first three to five seconds, if you have something to say and then can show a full process quickly and then go back. Think about it as a movie. If you watch the trailer showing you all the great parts, the parts that you can't wait to go see, but the movie always starts off with a slow drone shot or in a car shot. Just something that lasts for 10-20 seconds. But you want to do it in reverse. Create the trailer as that hook, and then go back and then feed them the necessary information to not only make them a customer, but a long-time viewer of your content.

Yeah, this has been so great. I'm just asking all the questions that I want to know.

Thank you.

All right. I don't respect platforms enough. The uniqueness of one platform over another. The difference between TikTok and YouTube, the difference between Instagram and Facebook. Talk us through where you would coach someone to begin. Now, if they're beginning at zero, where would you have them go first?

I think I would ask them or get an understanding of what they're creating their media for and then I explain the different platforms. Like this YouTube is your Billboard movie. This is where you can explain things deeper. You can get people to be long term followers of your content, but where you want to catch them and bring them in is on your TikToks, your Instagrams, your short form platforms, because they're just billboards, they're driving by and if I don't go this way again, I might not see it again. So being able to take, even in your long form, take highlights and build Instagram reels out of those, build TikToks out of those, just being able to grow yourself and how you put yourself out on these platforms because that content is going to be there forever on some back network. Even if you delete it, it's–

Someone's got it.

it's still in a hard drive somewhere.

Yeah.

So just being cognitive of saying, hey, I'm this person. These are the things that are valuable to me and just start. Because if you don't start, you have nothing to learn from and build off of.

It's really depressing though, to know that my stuff is out there someplace. It was really bad, bad, really bad.

I remember the days when there was not Instagram or it was not TikTok and Snapchat. So it's fun for me to have grown up before and now because, so I don't have to sit on social media all day.

Yeah. I'm just glad social media wasn't around when I was in college. There's no video record of anything that could be compromising. Let's talk about curiosity. When you're not teaching, when you're not coaching your clients, when you're just getting better at what you do, what has your curiosity right now? What are you trying to get better at?

I'm focusing a lot on improving how I perform on YouTube simply because I deliver work to clients in one manner. And then I think that I don't deliver the same level of work for my own content. Maybe it's I'm tired or I know what I would like to put into it and sometimes the schedule doesn't allow me to have that extra free time to, you know, take half a day to create a B-roll sequence or intro that I would prefer to make lit. Working on that has been a focus of mine for the last few months.

You shared with me that your focus on working with other people is to help them expand their creativity. Is that a coaching process? Is that a challenging of what they settle for? How do you think about pushing someone to be more creative?

With the people I've worked with, just from brands to actual individuals, it's been somewhat coaching and then just somewhat inspired because I see a lot of people's work and they create things and they don't want to put it out. But what I like to do is I show them other works that are similar. I show them other people that have like-minded work. So it's like, hey, the only way that you're going to be able to grow on this platform and reach the clients and work with the people you want to work with is that if there's somewhere for them to see it. They can't hang out on your hard drive forever. And then with the coaching aspect, some people do need the actual training. Hey, this is how you use this camera. These are a few different angles. This is something that you could be thinking about while you're at this place working on this. So it's like some people need the coaching, some people need the inspiration. And it's nice to be able to work with both because it teaches me a lot about myself and how I can understand to help more.

Yeah. Are you a gear guy?

I feel like I'm 50-50. I love the new stuff. I love the way that technology is growing so fast, but if you don't know what to do with it, it's just another paperweight.

Yeah.

So I think I've grown to be enjoying the craft and doing and teaching more so than the gear now. I have great knowledge of the gear. I study it, I watch it, I read about it. But it's not as big of a focus as it once was for me.

How about post-production using the software and playing with all the tools that are there afterwards?

So in photo and video I play with a lot of different tools. No one really gets on me about really using Premiere, Final Cut and DaVinci. Nobody really gets on me about Photoshop, Lightroom, Evoto, Aftershoot. There's a host of different programs to use now. It's fun because it can do two things based on how you use it. If you're using it correctly, it can speed up your workflow. If you're not using it correctly, people can look at your work and think that you're not doing your work because things can be over processed in some of these software. So I'm enjoying using them because with the volume of work that I have and working with my team, it's like, all right, we got things that we got to get done. Clients need things. So, if there are ways that we can speed up, then let's use them. But quality control is important because if you use them, don't check the right thing. If you just think all the AI or all the technology has done it for you, you're still missing the joy of working in the craft.

You knew that's where I was going. You brought up AI. You knew I was going there.

That's where we all are right now.

Love it, hate it, using it all the time, coming in kicking and screaming. Where are you with AI?

I understand the use case. I understand how it can be abused. I understand that it can go too far. And if you're using it appropriately, if you understand how to improve your processes with it, it's going to be a jewel for anybody using it. But I've seen some things that baffle me, and yeah.

What baffles you?

Just sometimes people get a little overboard, and it's the experimental process. But I'm really particular about my work and, and visualizing work. And I don't want to consume things that taint my eye. So when I see them, I'm just like, why would you put that out? So, yeah, I don't think many people that are coming up in the new age of this AI are going to have the same skill set that we learned manually manipulating an image to not make it look fake, but to give it an authentic feel.

This is similar, but different because I'm significantly older. I came through the digital revolution of audio editing, and I had to learn with a razor blade and tape and actual tape. And the process of doing that made me a better digital editor because I physically remember the different tracks, how everything laid out, because when the tools came along, I was able to take what I knew analog, put it into digital, and then move that much faster. Soon there will be people that are digital natives that are now bringing in AI. Then there will be AI natives who will. I mean, the evolution of how we think about media and how we manipulate it, it's crazy where it's going.

It is. I have my film camera with me, and it's just like, hey, I don't have to look at this right now. Let me slow down. The purity and film, yeah, I haven't cut my film. I don't have that many years on me, but I enjoy that process. I like to see things evolve, and I like to learn from those that got everything to where it is now. Without you doing that, there are things that we wouldn't know and be able to evolve from. So, I appreciate you.

For sure. Well, thank you. You know what, sometimes somebody does around here. No, I'm kidding, of course. All right, so let's end with being a media professional. Someone wants to get better at what they're doing. Last piece of wisdom or advice for someone that wants to do better content and get stuff out there. But maybe they're holding themselves back. They're stuck on the couch. They don't feel motivated. What would you tell them as a media pro to nudge them?

I would naturally want to tell you to just start. But that doesn't motivate you. That doesn't get you up in the morning.

Sure.

Get outside of the box, like, as far out as you can and start doing something that you don't want or enjoy doing and just complete it. Because that body of work has the ability to increase your vigor, to say, oh, I can do this. Now, I can–even if you don't put that out, look at it for yourself, use something as a benchmark and say, okay, so this is a wild creation I made just in this one day. Let me see where I can take this and move forward. All right, let me. Let me just use my phone today in different orientations. Let me use different focal lengths. Let me try some different apps for different looks. So just start doing things that you naturally wouldn't to increase your creative eye. Because if you start using different tools, you get excited. It's like, oh, I've never done this before, or this is something new. Just maybe use the AI one day. Use Sora and see if it creates something based on your text prompt. And then you take that text prompt and go outside and create it. So being able to do something different can invigorate your process, I believe.

I would imagine you've seen people do that. Take your challenge of I hate doing this, but I'm going to do it anyway. Then they see the result, and the light bulb goes on. Oh, I get it now. You've seen that before.

Yeah. I have. And my whole goal is to just start sparking the light bulb. Like, I want to give you different ideas, I want you to think a different way. If you've seen me this week, I've worn ski goggles all week.

Yeah, I saw that.

So just for a creative idea, just do something outside of the box and let the light bulb start going off and watch the house light up.

Yeah. Media professional Braxton Holley. Thanks for coming on the show.

Thanks for having me. I've enjoyed it.

Thanks for tuning in to the Professional Photographer podcast live from Imaging USA 2025 and a big thanks to Sony for making this look great. Well, as great as you can make this look. But we appreciate you being here. So here's what's next. You need to like and subscribe to this podcast feed because we release this show every week where I get a chance to sit down with the leaders in the industry. And our point of view is to help you build a better photography business. So like and subscribe. And if you want bonus points, I'll email them to you. You'll get bonus points if you leave a comment on this episode. What did they share on the episode that you want to make sure that you're going to put into your business so you can get further down the road. One other way you can get further down the road. Become a member of PPA. If you're watching this and you're not a PPA member, come on, bro. You are missing out of all the good stuff that PPA provides. I'm talking about equipment, insurance, top-notch education and a community of photographers around you that are serious about improving their craft. If you want to know more, go to ppa.com. That's ppa.com. At PPA, you belong here. Thanks again for tuning in to The Professional Photographer podcast. I'm your host, Pat Miller. We'll see you right here next time. Talk to you soon.