Matt Stamey: Okay. Yeah. Excellent. Hey, everybody. Glad to be here. My name is Matt. I’m the photographer here at Santa Fe College in Gainesville, Florida, not New Mexico. We’re kind of the community college that feeds in the University of Florida. Yeah. And I’m on the marketing and communications team here. And we’ve got about a ten person staff and, three designers. We’ve got a social team now, which is really nice. And I’m kind of just the photographer that not just the photographer I am the photographer that supplies the content for a lot of the social and whatnot and and all the other marketing purposes of the college. And I’ve been here about ten years now here in higher ed, but here at the college for ten years. And before that, I was a newspaper guy, from Kansas, and I worked in Louisiana for a while. And then was a newspaper here in Gainesville. And yeah, just been been higher ed community college for about ten years.

Jeremy Berkowitz: That’s awesome. I feel like that’s the case for so many university photographers. They start in newspaper or that kind of world, and then they make their way or vice versa. So super cool to hear some of your background. And I don’t know if it’s typical or not. You tell me if it’s typical or not to be to have, a long tenure at a at a college. It kinda feels like it is. But um

Matt Stamey: Yeah. Yes and no, I would say. It kinda depends on the person. I I I like it. I found the right fit. I like the pace, the vibe, and the smallness. I’m I’m connected with with everybody across campus. I I told the story the other day. It was our softball team’s final home game, and I walk in the dugout, and the players are all like, Stamey’s here. What’s up? Alright. And so I I’m just like, I’m part of the fabric of this community here. And so, that’s why I like it. And so I that’s why I stuck around. But yeah, I I know a lot of people advance their way up and move their way to different places, but I like it here.

Jeremy Berkowitz: I love that. Very cool. Alright. Dan, how about you?

Dan Passapera: Hi. Thank you for having me. I’m Dan. I am university photographer at Sacred Heart University, and like Matt, I’m in the marketing communications team. We have a few more members on our team, but speaking just to VizCom, we have one video shooter, one editor. I’m the only photographer on the staff, and we have our creative director and a designer as well. And kinda like Matt, it’s a little bit of everything. I shoot events, portraits, headshots. We supplement a lot of photography for University Magazine, and we work closely with our social team as well. So it’s not every day is the same, so it’s different areas here and there.

Jeremy Berkowitz: Cool. And did you come from a different world, or what was like, how’d you end up here?

Dan Passapera: Yeah. So beforehand, also like Matt, I was doing a little bit of journalism, a lot of freelancing, and before that I was a student worker at my university, which I graduated from, Quinnipiac. So I guess I had a little bit of experience in university work before I got to Sacred Heart.

Jeremy Berkowitz: Sure. Cool. I myself did some photos for Rutgers when I was there, so I’m in good company. We all have some experience, although you two are the pros. So we’ll be talking to you two today about, specifically about commencement because it’s that time of the year. And I know some folks still have some to cover. Some folks have wrapped it up, but we are in the thick of it. And so we wanted to kind of hear from the creatives who are covering an event like that. And so I wanted to start with, like, the before story. And I can circle back to Dan and we can go to Matt. But what what goes into, like, the prep for covering an event like that or a ceremony like that? Is there any, like, beforehand work that you work with your team to kind of set up what’s gonna happen? Or tell us about the planning that’s kind of done beforehand so that everything goes smoothly for a special ceremony like that.

Dan Passapera: I can go first. Yeah.

Jeremy Berkowitz: Go ahead, Dan.

Dan Passapera: Yeah. At Sacred Heart, we cover about seventeen events in total. So that’s commencement, and then we loop in kind of, like, commencement related events and something called senior week. So it’s all kind of looped into one big grand celebration. So, obviously, as a sole photographer, I can’t cover everything myself, so I try to do my best to delegate that work to freelancers, and I also have a student worker as well and some interns. So it’s all about the preplanning. You don’t want any surprises the day of. You wanna make sure that all the stakeholders are able to get photos and that there’s a photographer on-site for everything. So I like to say at least two months beforehand, we usually have all the information on hand, all the event locations, all the event times, and specific shot list, wherever appropriate. So by then I like to say we have a good grasp when we have photographers assigned for all those events. And then, obviously, days leading up to it, we’ll have larger discussions with our social team and VizCom in general, trying to make sure everyone’s aligned on the same page, trying to get specific stories and aligned on everything. And, obviously, prep work of making galleries on PhotoShelter, making sure our hard drives are ready, charging batteries, the whole works.

Jeremy Berkowitz: Yeah. Okay. Yeah. The the little things matter too, right, outside of the the big planning weeks and months ahead. But, yeah, making sure you got all the gear and stuff ready to go too, I’m sure, is important. Matt, is it a similar story on your end? What’s the what’s the planning like for commencement?

Matt Stamey: Yeah. Very similar. I I was about to just say, what Dan said. But, yeah, I I almost got bit this year because I didn’t charge some batteries before a big long full day. I’m like, oh. So it was one of, like, right before I went to bed, I’m like, oh, let me get those charged. So, yeah, the little things matter like that, and and they can be easily forgotten when you’re planning a lot. I didn’t keep track of how many surrounding events because we just have three main graduation ceremonies, but there are dozens of other little celebrations that happen the week of, or two weeks prior. And so, yeah, about a month out and maybe even a week out, we meet as a team, and just kinda plan coverage. And, again, I’m as one dude on staff that takes the pictures, I can’t be everywhere. And so we we kinda divvy up the assignments of, our social team can go do the the day to day, and they can grab a quick picture if needed at some of the smaller events. My boss can also take pictures, our our writer, our communications guy, carries a camera with him. And so we we don’t have, a team of freelancers, unfortunately, or students that we can tap into. Every now and then we can, but it’s mostly a a team coverage. And so we kind of, I have to prioritize, which events will two things. A, make the best photos, b, make the photos that we can use more often than just post on social the next day. And so we we kinda prioritize, hey. This one’s gonna be cool. This one’s gonna make some good images. This one’s gonna have great reactions. Let’s get Matt to those, because those are high priority. And so, yeah, so the week of graduation, do, it’s it’s like every night, I’m at something, some sort of event. One thing that we did this year that I enjoyed, we did last year too, is the social team comes up with trendy ideas and does little videos and gathers a bunch of students in the quad. We call it the Oak Grove, but kinda center campus to do these little video shoots that they can post, before leading up and then during and after. And so I tag along with that, and that’s a great chance for me to get some, portraits and graduation stock imagery, if you will. Because, once you get into the the mega shot list of graduation day, some of those sort of pictures kinda fall out of wayside, because you gotta get the speaker. You gotta get the reaction. You gotta get all other stuff. And so, yeah, I meet with the social team almost every day, during that week of graduation to figure out what they’re doing and how I can tag along.

Jeremy Berkowitz: Sure. So it sounds like a lot of the thinking and planning is thinking, further out after graduation. Like, how can you get moments that kinda live on evergreen content and not just or in addition to, the in the moment kind of next day sort of imagery.

Matt Stamey: Hundred percent. For me, specifically, yes. That’s kinda become my role is, because we now have a social team, and I’m very thankful for that. My role has been what’s the big picture images that I can make that can live on the view book or billboards or brochures or, the president will use them in presentation. We know all those big picture things, not just the quick turnaround for the next day.

Jeremy Berkowitz: Right. Cool. Is it similar for you, Dan? Like, are there other stuff that kinda live on after the the moment that you capture or even talk about making sure you document?

Dan Passapera: Yeah. Of course. And since we’re talking about social media, a lot of photos that live on are specifically not ones that you necessarily think of in typical event coverage. So we like to get detailed shots of caps. So then eventually, maybe a month or two down the line, our social person can post a little cap recap. So graduation isn’t limited to just the week that it’s happening. It can it has a shelf life that extends far beyond when it’s going on. Another example is we have student athletes, and they have stoles. And it literally just says student athlete on it, and we’ll do specific posts just for them. So there’s a lot of content to be had that extends far beyond commencement. And kinda like Matt said, a lot of these images will also be used to promote commencement in the future, will also be used for specific advertisements for program specific needs. So a lot of it there there’s a lot more than just shooting day of and getting it on social immediately afterwards.

Jeremy Berkowitz: Sure. Okay. Cool. Well, let’s talk about this year’s ceremonies. So are there any, like, special moments or stories that kinda stand out to you fun? Matt, you started to describe some of the fun trendy things, but any sort of moments that stand out from, your time covering or from the planning that came to fruition or anything any special surprise moments, perhaps? Anything like that stand out to you?

Matt Stamey: Yeah. A a couple things stand out. And and that’s what I love about commencements and the this time of year is that it’s, a, it’s high energy. Right? It’s always happy and fun. And so being ready to capture that, goes back to the newspaper days of just anticipating that something fun and unique is gonna happen. And the one that stands out to me, this happened last year, it almost happened this year, but not We have a zoo animal technology program, and and these zookeepers graduate, and they have their own little ceremony. And it’s fun. It’s just a unique, fun, different vibe than a a major ceremony or the the main ceremony. But each graduate comes across stage, and they get a a peacock feather. We have roaming peacocks at the zoo. And so they get a peacock feather with their diploma, and then they stand and take a picture with the president or stand with the president and shake hands. And what was happening is they grabbed the peacock feather and turned to take the picture, and the feather would go across the president’s face and just tickle his nose. And it was just hilarious. And the the graduates didn’t realize it was happening, but the president did. And about the fourth or fifth one, the crowd was laughing. Everybody’s laughing. So I you know, it it just made a completely unique picture of the president hysterically laughing, the graduate realizing, oh my gosh. I just tickled the president’s face. And yeah, just one of those off the wall like, if I wasn’t down there ready to shoot these I don’t wanna call them mundane, but the routine pictures, I wouldn’t have been able to capture this hilarious moment that happened. And and yeah, just being ready for things like that. And then and this year, softball team who I’ve become close with because I’ve traveled with them and gotten to know the softball team, they they played a little a little joke during commencement that they told me about beforehand. And so when they’re getting ready, they’re like, Stamey, we’re gonna do this. I’m like, no. You’re not. And they’re like, yeah. And they did. And it was hilarious, and they that so they were laughing, and they’re all standing up in the background of the crowd as each one went across the stage. And so it it just created this fun picture of the softball team. And they’re all wearing stoles. And so they’re all wearing the these blue stoles, and they’re cheering and laughing. And and it was just different. And the crowd got involved with it, and it was just one of those, I’ve never seen this at a graduation, so thank you for doing that. And it created just a big picture or a a good different picture. And so, yeah, you never know what’s gonna happen. You’re gonna get the somebody that does a backflip after they get the diploma. There’s gonna be all sorts of little moments that you don’t anticipate. But, yeah, it goes back to the editorial days of be ready for it. Anticipate it could be hundreds of names being read, but, man, that one that does something silly, you wanna be ready for it.

Jeremy Berkowitz: Right. Yeah. I love that. That makes for a great event. Right? And and a great photo, obviously. But capturing the little things. Even the the feather is a fun example of it maybe in the moment, the president at first feels like it’s and I’m just speaking for that person, but maybe at first, it seems like this shouldn’t be happening or this is a mistake. But then it ends up being the most memorable thing and the I’ve got a lighthearted moment and stuff like that. So it ends up being a positive experience, especially for some great photos. So Absolutely. Yeah. Anything stick out to you from your time photographing this year, Dan?

Dan Passapera: Yeah. So we had a very unique set of circumstances. So we combined our grad ceremony. So it was one large ceremony. So instead of two separate ones, I think it was about three hours long. But that one is fun. The vibes were still high. We actually got good weather that day, so it was really great. And at Sacred Heart, we have a faculty procession line. So once students shake their hand with the president and get off the stage, they’re met by their faculty. So they’re able to give handshakes and hugs, and I think that’s where I can get really nice moments. And it kinda shows you that these students had a great relationship with the faculty members and that they may had a great impact on them. And you can just tell just based on the hugs and the smiles that they and there, I like to move around. I like to shoot from center aisle, getting that head on, and then the hugs from the side. And then some there was a moment during this graduate ceremony where a faculty member took a selfie with a student, and I thought that was a really cool moment that not that you typically see in a university setting. And then, for our undergrad ceremony, which was this past Saturday, it poured. And we do our undergraduate journey off-site in amphitheater. So it is kinda covered, but the students have to walk through the rain in order to get under the awning. So our freelance photographer got some really great images of the students just briefly in the rain. But even in the rain, these students are still happy. This is they’re done. This is undergrad. This is their four years. Maybe they can continue on. But at least for me personally, undergrad commencement, was my favorite time as a student, and I can imagine them as well. So just getting photos of that. And then it’s not often that you see parents or students in ponchos, so that’s another good photo to get. And another thing, kinda like Matt said, you’re kinda leaning into your journalism background a little bit. This is not something that’s happening normally. And the vibes are still high. Not even the rain could dampen the mood of these parents and these students, and I think we got that visually in the emotion of everyone involved.

Jeremy Berkowitz: Yeah. There’s something special about or cinematic about having that moment in the rain. Right? Like, although it’s not ideal, it probably feels emotional and special in the rain a bit in some ways, at least. So let’s talk about creativity. I’ve seen some of both of your pictures and their awesome work. But as you’ve kinda mentioned a bit, there’s there’s some routines to commencement. And so I wanna hear about maybe both of your approaches to kind of getting creative at an event like this. And you kinda mentioned some of the moments that unfold that kind of result in creative work, but I’m curious if there’s an approach on your end that you’re thinking about so that you’re capturing more storytelling elements and less of the the mundane shot list sort of moments that you need to get. Anything come to mind to get creative there? I’ll go I can go back to Dan, and we’ll circle back.

Dan Passapera: So I think, at least for me, in my perspective, I like to get the safe shots first, and then I can get more creative. Because sometimes, admittedly, I get a little carried away. Use one filter for too long, and I’m like, oh, well, I probably shouldn’t have done that. So I’ll get the safe shots first. I’ll allow my freelancer to get a little more creative as I’m getting the safe shots of the speakers and students coming off stage. And then, for the graduate ceremony, once we hit the hour and a half mark, you’ve got already you got students walking off the stage. You’ve got safe shots of all the speakers. So that’s when I think we can get a little more creative. So this year, we tried using filters. So I used a split diopter, which is just a slit in between two pieces of glass, and that got some really nice shots for us as well. We also I don’t know the proper name for this next filter, but we used one and it created a mirror effect. It was very strong. It was like a kaleidoscope. It was a little trippy. Might not be something that we can use in marketing materials, but definitely in the social media realm. And then just personally, a shot for me to keep. And then other than that, in terms of techniques, I love to use shutter drag. So this is a combination safe shot, combination creative shot that I usually like to get when the students first walk in. I like to place myself right in the center as the students are walking down the aisle, and you can see the Sacred Heart crest and flag in the back. You can see the students walk by, and they’re blurred just enough where you can tell who they are, what event this is going on. And those end up being my favorite shots because they can be used for many different things to promote commencement in the future. It could be used for even the program and commencement. And it’s a nice wide establishing shot where you can see the whole venue. Other than that, I love doing kind of extreme close ups with people with classes so I can get reflections off of that. One year, we had a grad, right, the grad year, so it wasn’t something that we provided for them. He already had it, and it was these light up gold classes. So I had him turn around for me, and I got a nice shot. And I still got the crest and the flag in the background. So there there’s a lot of fun to be had. And I also love getting those little details as well. I know it’s kind of a one off situation when you get I don’t know how it is. Have you seen Matt, but we have the year on the stoles. The tassel? Tassel. I guess. I get confused. Mortarboards stole. There’s specific terminology. So we have it on the tassel, and I love to get that little detail. There’s a lot of creative shots that you can get once you’ve got the safe shots out of the way.

Jeremy Berkowitz: All of those sound really cool. We gotta I gotta look more into some of the shots if you still have some to share or anything like that. Maybe I’ll ask you for a few, and we can highlight some of your work, some of the creative stuff. What about you, Matt? I know I’ve seen some of the creative things that you’ve done, but talk to me a bit about them.

Matt Stamey: Yeah. It’s I’m trying to think where to go with this, but it’s one of those events that I I wish I’d have kept track of how many graduations I’ve been to in my career. It’s it’s gotta be pushing a thousand. From my internship days where that’s you’re the graduation guy to now my time in higher ed where it’s once a semester. I’m I’m covering multiple graduations. And so it kinda becomes a how do I make this interesting so I don’t, poke my eyeballs out for all the different names that are coming. And yeah, how do you approach it differently and more fun? And one of the things I did, last semester that I was, yeah, it kind of out of necessity is I bought a 3d printer just because I wanted to play around some 3d printing, and and I I created a filter, with my school’s logo in the middle, kinda like a it’s a gobo, basically. So I put that on my lens. And so all the bokeh in the background, we have trees with little Christmas lights on them. And so all those little bokeh lights turned into my school’s logo. Again, it was just a speaker shot or a handshake shot. But then if you look closely, like, oh, this little SF back there. That’s cool. It made me happy. It made it more fun. It it created a challenge for me. Because after twenty plus years of photographing graduations, I can get that stage picture? I can get the the cheering mom’s picture. I can get the overall shot. I can get all those checklists, but I was like, how do I make these different and better? Right. Yeah. And so that filter was just a fun way for me to play. And I think it worked. I thought it was kinda fun. And then this year is one of those kinda like Dan had a similar thing at his ceremonies where our faculty line the center aisle, and the graduates walk through them, to shake and hug and congrats. And I’ve and I’m I’m ashamed to say this, but I’ve shot it from the exact same position every graduation. I line up at the end. The graduates are walking towards me. Hopefully, somebody cheers. And this year, I’m like, what am I doing? Why have I done this ten years in a row? And so I I got my, a super wide, and I walked down the aisle with them. And, one of the students I happened to know, and she was all excited. I was like, hey. If I walk backwards in front of you, will you dance your way through the aisle? She’s like, of course. She was already dancing. So I just walked backwards, through the aisle and got some great shots of her dancing with my school’s logo in the background and everything. And I was like, why hadn’t I thought of that? But I guess it took ten years for me to come up with that. Yeah. It just and I’ve done it all. When I was doing high school graduations at the newspaper doing time lapses and remotes and just trying any any way to make it more fun and interesting because I don’t know anybody graduating, those names get pretty dull after a while. You’re like, I know you’re excited and happy to be doing this, but I don’t know you. I don’t feel the same way you do. And so, yeah, just finding a way to get my brain engaged throughout the entire ceremony, it’s a fun challenge. It’s a fun way to to shoot an event that you’ve done a hundred times or a thousand times.

Jeremy Berkowitz: Definitely. Yeah. I love that. We have a comment here that says, that’s the coolest idea I’ve heard in a while. I’m gonna have our IT print one for Kish. So

Matt Stamey: Oh, for the filter?

Jeremy Berkowitz: The bokeh. Yeah. The bokeh. So cool. Yeah. I think I’ve seen that before. Maybe we’ll share that one too. That’s a great idea and a great shot. Really definitely unique to take something, like we’ve said, that’s kind of repeatable and kinda add some flare to it. So Yeah. Really cool. So each of you at your universities use PhotoShelter. And so I wanna talk a bit about how PhotoShelter plays a role in your workflow. We can stick to specifically for commencement, but maybe a general overview of how you’re using the tool would be awesome. So maybe I’ll start with Dan, and we can go back to Matt.

Dan Passapera: Yeah. So it’s a pretty important part of our workflow. It starts by me precreating the galleries, just so that’s another task I don’t wanna have to do day out. And then usually for commencements, and we did this this year, me and my freelancer would provide a select amount of edits. So first, this goes to our social person, and then our social person will go from that PhotoShelter gallery and select those photos and then post it, wherever need be. What’s also really beneficial is that all of our commencement galleries are public, So it’s kind of a seen it downloaded situation where we have this available to the public. We have it on our website as a thing where it’s like, yes, every student gets their individual photo, but marketing is also there. So you look through these galleries and see if you can find yourself there. So that’s something that we have available for students as well. And then afterwards, we’ll upload more photos into those galleries, and then we’ll distribute that to our stakeholders. So alumni will obviously use these photos a lot. Undergrad and alumni, that’s the two main stakeholders for us in terms of commencement. And then what’s really nice is that we’ll have some faculty members who had their own kids graduate, maybe staff members like public safety, and I’ll go from there. And those who I know, I’ll go and distribute those photos. I’ll send them gallery links they can have a nice memento the day of. So that’s kind of our workflow. It’s a little bit simple, it’s a very important part of our workflow in order to have PhotoShelter to keep these photos and distribute them.

Jeremy Berkowitz: Yeah. I appreciate that. Yeah. When you say you set up galleries for commencement in particular, are you live transmitting into those on graduation day, or what’s the process during the event?

Dan Passapera: So we have tested it out before, and I think as social media gets more demanding, that’s something we’re probably gonna do in the future. But as of right now, we kind of we have some time after the ceremonies where we spend I think we have an hour deadline for each of them where we just call through our best selects, edit, and then upload. So, yeah, we have a little bit of time, but we have tested it out before, and that’s something that we’re gonna consider.

Jeremy Berkowitz: Sure. Okay. So then once they’re all in there and you’ve kind of made your selects because you have the time, then the folks like social and faculty and stuff are in PhotoShelter and grabbing what they need.

Dan Passapera: Correct.

Jeremy Berkowitz: Cool. Okay. Cool. Well, it sounds like it’s it’s great that you kinda have the different access and permissions so that folks who need it can get it, and then folks who kind of deserve or need the more public access can kind of scroll through and find those special moments of their families or themselves, that kind of thing too. So very cool. What about you, Matt?

Matt Stamey: Yeah. It’s it’s very similar. It it’s a pretty simple process for us. Because like I said, I shoot a lot of things for future use, and our social team takes care of a lot of the, hey. Let’s post this real quick. But similar, I’ve got some time between the ceremonies where I set up the laptop in the gym and download. I I tag as I shoot. That’s kind of a the the sports photographer in me does that. And and so that way when I got an hour between ceremonies, I can grab ten, fifteen of of my faves and, process them, and I drop them into a a preset PhotoShelter gallery that I made. And and that’s specifically just for the social team to grab. Because they wanna post oh, this is gonna sound big headed, but they want some good photos to post. Not that those are bad, but it’s cell phone social folks, and they wanted some some higher quality stuff. And so I I created that gallery. They can go in there and grab them. They’re sitting right next to me too, so we’re we’re communicating at the time. It’s just not like we’re scattered across campus. Yeah. And then afterwards, the next day, next Monday, I’ll I’ll edit everything. I’ll do my batch edit of of every image. And then I’ve got folders set up for every department, with specific access for people in those departments. And so, I I mentioned the softball team. So athletics in my athletics folder, I’ve got a athletes not in action folder. And so anytime I shoot an athlete, at a community event or graduation, I just pop it in their folder, and they they have access. They know how to find it and get it. And I so I do that with any department. If I photograph ambassadors or government, student government, any of those folks that I happen to get a picture of at graduation, I just pop them into their folders. So I’ve got one big graduation folder that my Marcom team has access to everything, and then I go in, the next day or that next week and kind of scatter them out to where they need to be because the health science folks don’t need to be digging through the athletic photos. So I make it easy for them.

Jeremy Berkowitz: Right. And as someone who tags while they shoot, is is that an important part of the process for making things easy to find for these people? Like, is that why why do you tag, and how does it how does it become helpful for those who are looking for things?

Matt Stamey: For for graduation specifically, I I tag because like we said, you’ve only got an hour between ceremonies, and I’m like, ugh. I don’t wanna be scrolling through and finding the ones just to download or you know? And so I can just pull up the tagged images, and and drag and drop them into the photo or, process them and edit and crop and all that good stuff and then just drag them into the PhotoShelter gallery? It just speeds up the process. But as far as distribution to the the different departments, the tagging really doesn’t play a role in that because I do that later. Sure. And so, but it it’s more of game day, if you will. I I can narrow down the top ten pictures a lot faster, as opposed to having to scroll through in Lightroom and find that one smile or that one high five or whatever you’re looking for.

Jeremy Berkowitz: Right. Okay. Cool. Well, you both kind of alluded to this, but I’m curious how other folks in the marketing and social world on your teams kind of collaborate with you. So maybe we can talk about how things move to social, especially during commencement or right after commencement. What does that look like, in terms of how you’re collaborating with the social folks and how they’re getting those moments out to the followers or the families or the students? What does that look like on your end? I’ll start with you, Matt.

Matt Stamey: Okay. Yeah. We we got Google Pixels last year, a year and a half ago, and so we’ve got two of them. And so the social team, our our two person social team, they go out with the Pixels, and they can post right from there, right from their phones. And so that’s what they’re doing for the quick the Reels or the Instagram stories, basically, is what that’s for. Yeah. And so they do all that that fun social things. They’ve got the frames, an Instagram looking frame that they give the the graduates. And I’ll grab a few of those those pictures, but it’s it’s mostly the pixels that they use to quickly get it out. And I’ll I’ll plug this. We we talked with Craig last week about the user generated content workflow. And looking at that, I’m like, oh, that’d be awesome to put up a little QR code in the hallway and let the students populate those galleries. So, yeah, we’re we’re looking into that. Learned more about that last week. So I’m like, I hope we can do that next next year, because that would be man, that would be just a gold mine of of content for the social team to use. But as as it is, it’s it’s a social team grabbing the pictures on their on their phones and grabbing them from my my gallery whenever I could populate it. And I let them know. I’m like, photos are in, and they can just grab and post. Yeah.

Jeremy Berkowitz: Very cool. Yeah. Yes. Good shout for the UGC. I know a few schools. I know Northern Iowa was on the call, at least at the start of this conversation, and they come to mind. But a bunch of universities now are using PhotoShelter through UGC to kinda gather up content from the students, from when they can’t be on the ground. So definitely commencement is a good opportunity for something like that. Those family moments, the moments that you can’t really capture that you can kind of crowdsource. So Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Alright. So what about you, Dan? How does social kind of do its thing once you’re done or in collaboration with you?

Dan Passapera: Yeah. So it’s actually very interesting. So I share an office with our social person. So at the time of commencement, we just had one person social team. So she’s responsible for creating the content, posting the content. So we’re very much step by step with each other all steps of the way. And kinda like Matt said, when we’re editing, she’s right there. We’re actively communicating with each other. And it’s really funny because if you see any BTS photos from our commencement, she’s usually right next to me. And then us saying, oh, sorry. Sorry for bumping into you. Sorry for getting into your shot. I’m over your shoulder, that kind of thing. But it it really is a nice collaboration, especially for the cap post that I mentioned. She’ll have me pull some of the cap photos from PhotoShelter, and I’ll send her the best options. She’ll throw that into Canva. And then, obviously, I trust her judgment, but then she’s like, hey. Does that look good for the lead photo? Is there any other photos that you recommend? So it very much is a collaborative process. And I don’t know much about the trends. She’s very much in tuned with the trends, but I’m definitely willing to help her with that. So before the students walked, this year for undergrad, we gave them classes with their class year on it, we ran around, and we took some nice photos for that. And that ended up is gonna be a video sometime in the future. Spoiler alert. But that should be really fun. So it’s very interesting because she’ll also tell me, hey. I need something vertical. So this year I was very mindful to shoot a lot of isolated vertical students, either holding up their cap or their diploma. So yeah. I mean, social media is very much a part of my everyday workflow. A lot of the shooting is for marketing, but it also is for social media. And, yeah, I lost my train of thought a little bit.

Jeremy Berkowitz: No. That was great. And and as someone with a design eye, I think about that too. Right? You always gotta think about where the photos will end up, how they’ll be used. So I think it’s awesome to kinda hear that you’re collaborating so closely. You’re thinking about the vertical shots that might work for certain channels or use cases, maybe even the designers who make you know, use it for a graphic and need the open space for text or whatever it is. So it’s it’s great that you’re collaborating so closely. Two more questions, and we’ll wrap up for the day. I appreciate both of your time. Yeah. People love to hear about gear. And so I’m curious what’s in your bag, what is kind of a go to, lens or go to tools that come out during commencement, but more generally too? What are you using these days? I’ll go to Matt.

Matt Stamey: Oh, yeah. I I keep it simple. I’m not a huge gearhead. And, again, my my newspaper days come back to me whenever I shoot graduation. So I I carry two bodies. I’ve got the the Blackrapid backpack strap thing. And I’ve got an R5 and an R3 Canon. And I typically have on one, a twenty four to one oh five two eight, which is my go to lens for everything nowadays because it can do so much. And then a seventy two hundred on the other side, and that’s kind of what I carry with me. I can ninety percent of what I need, can do from that? I can get the stage shots. I can get the overall shot from up top. I can do everything with those two lenses, especially going outside afterwards. All the graduates go outside and the families come out and there’s that reunion. I can just sit with a seventy two hundred and pick off hugs and high fives and balloons and for days with that setup. But I also in the bag, I had a was it the eleven to twenty four that is really wide Canon lens that I used to walk walk down the aisle with? Just a little something different. But I I’ve started to use my eighty five one two quite a bit. We’ve we started doing graduation stories and more longer form stories of different students. And we we followed a a guy who’s a he’s a veteran. He’s a professional boxing coach. He’s a USA boxer. He’s just this stud of a dude, and he graduated. So I’ve been following him all semester. I went to his boxing class, but I needed to get a nice portrait of him with graduation gown. So I I busted out the eighty five one two for that, and just get a nice portrait. So, yeah, that’s that’s kinda and then I I have a for the the back hallways, it’s kind of a dungy grungy. I keep a keep a strobe in there, just to light it up a little bit. But it’s mostly just, yeah, twenty four to one oh five and seventy two hundred.

Jeremy Berkowitz: Yeah. I’m glad you mentioned the strobe because I was gonna ask, like, anything other than lenses and that type of thing. Is there anything that kinda comes to mind that you add on or you kind of need in a certain scenario? So a lighting tool, or gear makes sense.

Matt Stamey: Yeah. And I I just got it’s it’s right there. I just got that. I I didn’t have the the brainpower to to bust it out, but these these portraits that I do with these graduates, I wanna start bringing a little studio setup. That way, can really do some some cool lights, and portraits of these graduates, on the day of. It’s different when you put them in a graduation gown a week before because they’re in finals and busy, and they’re not there. But it’s just a different vibe when you can get a portrait of somebody. And so, that that’s my that’s my new thing next semester. I was when I rehashed what I did this year, I’m like, okay. Next semester, I’m gonna do better portraits and actually light the folks, not just stick them somewhere nice.

Jeremy Berkowitz: Sure. Yeah. There’s definitely positives to both. Right? Yeah. Everyone loves the natural light, but then there’s cool studio shots you could do. Yeah. For sure. Alright. What about you, Dan? Any gear that you always have with you, or what’s your go to?

Dan Passapera: Yeah. So it’s very similar to Matt. So I have the Blackrapid backpack strap thing too. I have an R3 and an R6 Mark II. On the R3, I usually have the seventy two hundred, and that’s kind of the bread and butter lens for me. Also, like Matt said, it’s really good at just picking off these moments, getting speakers on stage, getting the hugs, getting isolated students. It’s just a workhorse of a lens and something that I tapped into a lot when I was doing photojournalism as well. And for the R6 Mark II, I usually have a wide on it. So I have the twenty eight to seventy f two, which is a mammoth of a lens. It’s fantastic, but not something that I’m gonna handhold the entire ceremony. So then, for something like that wide shot with the shutter drag, I will use a fifteen to thirty five, especially because our amphitheater, it’s very satisfying to get wide shots in there just because it’s very symmetrical. So it’s pleasing to the eye when you get a wide shot with that. And, also, like Matt, I think you said you had a one two. We have a one four eighty five that I use a lot. So when I transition to more of my creative shots, I’ll just force myself to be in a prime because it is easy sometimes to get into the mindset when I have my seventy two hundred on me. Right? It’s like, oh, I have the flexibility of zooming in, and then sometimes I catch myself shooting a little too tight. So having a fixed prime on kinda forces me to move around a little bit. And we just got our eighty five, so I was having a field day with it at our undergrad commencement. I was having a lot of fun with it with our overhead lights on stage, and just isolating specific students in the crowd. It’s great. We have a fifty one four as well, which I use a lot, for portraits. Also used a little sparingly in commencement this year. And then in terms of lighting, for commencement, I don’t really bring the whole house in terms of lighting because lighting is usually good where we are. Even if it’s overcast, the material at the amphitheater that we’re at is kind of built in diffusion, so there’s nice even lighting. But that tunnel that students line up under, it’s horrible lighting. So I’ll bring a little guy that’s an eighty one hundred, eighty one hundred pro. It’s just a little light, and I’ll just hold the camera and flash someone like this.

Jeremy Berkowitz: Nice.

Dan Passapera: And other than that, we have two eighty four hundred pros as our main strobes for headshots and portraits and stuff like that. But, yeah, that’s pretty much the whole kit that we have here at Sacred Heart.

Jeremy Berkowitz: Lots of cool gear going on between the two of you. I know you both said it was kind of simple, but sounds like there’s a cool an array of cool tools at your disposal, and it definitely shows in the work that you guys do. So, super cool.

Matt Stamey: Thank you.

Jeremy Berkowitz: Yeah. Yeah. Of course. We will wrap up with a question I always love to end with. I’ll start with you, Dan, again, and then we can go to Matt. What’s a a piece of advice you’d give to folks who are shooting photos at universities or aspiring perhaps to kind of get in the field? What would you say to those folks?

Dan Passapera: Yeah. So I have participated in PhotoShelter’s higher ed events before, and I kinda wanna take a little bit of a pivot. And I think it’s important to remember that although these events might be stressful, there’s a lot of preplanning into it. There’s a lot required of you, especially if you’re a one man team, kinda like Matt and I here. I think it’s just important to just have fun. If you have fun, it’s gonna show in your work. And all these students, it would be kind of a disservice to them if you’re stressed, you might be in your head about things and getting the perfect shot, and you’re missing simple moments right in front of you. You’re missing the mom walking across the stage with her student who’s graduating. You’re missing the hugs in the crowd. You’re missing the students high fiving each other. And I think generally, when you have fun, it shows in your work. I didn’t get into photography because I didn’t find it fun. It was a hobby of mine, and I wanted to turn my hobby into my full time job. And the minute that it becomes not fun, think you need to take a little bit of a step back and kind of readdress, how can I make this job fun? How can I make my work fun? So it is a little bit simple, and I feel like a lot of people have said this in the past. But I I honestly generally think when you’re enjoying it, people are gonna enjoy your work. You’re gonna enjoy your own work, and you can feed into the energy of the crowd and whatever you’re covering.

Jeremy Berkowitz: I love that. I think simple, but it’s powerful. Right? And it’s so true. So that’s some great advice. Appreciate that. How about you, Matt?

Matt Stamey: Yeah. Similar. In in okay. I’m I’m thinking about what Dan said. I really like that. Yeah. Approach it with fun. Be happy about it. It’s a high energy event. Right? There’s a high energy, vibes going on, and could be the first time a lot of these students have experienced something like this. We have a lot of first in the family to graduate from college. And so, recognize that it’s a it’s a big moment for the people in front of your camera. It might not be like, it could be mundane for you. It could be just another, ugh, gotta work late tonight again. Jeez. It’s it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity for some of these students. So kind of putting that in perspective, has always helped me with graduations. But bigger than that bigger picture than that and something I work on throughout the semester and throughout the year, and and this is just kind of a photo tip in general, is is the connections and the relationships I build, across campus. Getting to know the professors, getting to know the students, going into their classrooms, going into their events. Our student life folks have events all the time and going to those, whether you take a picture or not, just getting to know the the students and the faculty and the and the folks that are on campus. And so they know you. They’re comfortable with you. And I learned real quickly here at Santa Fe that graduations are a heck of a lot more fun when you know the people graduating. And yeah. In newspaper days, I’d cover these high school graduations, twelve a week, and I was like, I don’t know any of these people. But when you get to high five somebody after they graduate and they’re walking back to their seat and they’re like, Danny, thanks, man, or or afterwards. And just having that relationship and that connection with the people that are graduating makes it so much more pleasurable to be there. The this this veteran slash boxer, I’ve spent all semester with him. I was hanging out with him in his boxing gym. And so when he walked by, he gave me a little wink and nod. He’s like, Stamey. So and I’m like, go get it man. I to feel some of that pride for these graduates that it just made the photography that much more important to me because I’m like, man, I see your pride, and I’m not even your dad, and I’m excited for you. That makes me wanna create a better picture for him. And so, yeah, it just goes back to creating and building relationships and connections across campus, because then it makes them a lot more comfortable in front of your lens. You’re not just some stranger pointing a camera at them. They’re like, oh, Stamey’s taking my picture. Awesome. Cool. And that way you get a little more relaxed, a little more natural, candid moments. So, yeah, so that that piggybacks of what Dan said is that to me is how I make graduations fun is working to get to know these folks during the semester. So when I do see them graduate, I give them a little high five, a little fist bump or something. Makes it fun.

Jeremy Berkowitz: So true. I love that. That’s so fun. And at bigger universities, it it makes a a big community feel small. Right? You’ll get to know all these people, and it makes your job yeah. It kinda ladders up to both of what you’re saying. Makes your job more fun. Makes the community more comfortable with you. Shows in your work. So Yeah. I love that. This has been really cool. I appreciate both of you for joining me for this. I came together rather quickly, and I know commencement is a busy time. So I appreciate you both for taking the time to chat with me and kind of give a behind the scenes look at both your school’s commencement ceremonies and your experience with PhotoShelter and to talk a bit about the creativity and the connection behind it all. So this has been really cool. We’ll we’ll get this recording out to folks, as soon as we can so that if you missed it, you can rewatch it. And, perhaps I’ll ask you both for some of the creative shots so we can highlight some of that too.

Matt Stamey: Yeah. That’d be great. I appreciate you having me. This is it’s it’s fun because it’s such a whirlwind of of a couple weeks, so it’s fun to decompress and be like, oh, yeah. I did do a lot of stuff last couple weeks. So, yeah, appreciate you having us on.

Jeremy Berkowitz: Yeah. Of course. And, yeah, happy to reflect in this moment and to learn more about you guys. So appreciate it again. Thanks to everyone for tuning in. Alright.

Matt Stamey: Thank you.

Jeremy Berkowitz: Take care, y’all.

Dan Passapera: Thank you, guys.

Matt Stamey: You too. See you.