One on One with the PPA CEO David Trust

Pat Miller: 00:00

I'm Pat Miller, and this is The Professional Photographer Podcast. We are in for a treat today, boys and girls, because somehow I've got the golden ticket. I've been invited to sit down with the big cheese, the CEO of PPA, David Trust. And when I get the chance for us to go in and sit down with him, I wanna make sure that I'm ready with all the stuff that we need to know about. So I'm gonna ask him about AI. Like, what is really going on? What do lawmakers think about AI? What is the organization doing about it? I wanna ask him about copyright and how that is coming along. I wanna ask him about what the organization is doing to help you build a better business. I wanna ask about imaging, because, oh my gosh, it's coming up real soon, and why is that such a big deal to the organization? And I wanna ask about the economy too. Is it gonna get better? Is inflation gonna go down? Like, what is he seeing from headquarters in Atlanta? So I got a big old list of questions that I wanna ask him about. And if you're a PPA member, I think you wanna hear this stuff too. So we are going into the corner office. Are you ready? PPA CEO David Trust standing by. We'll talk to him next. David Trust, welcome to The Professional Photographer Podcast. How are you today?

David Trust: 01:30

I'm doing really well. How are you doing?

Pat Miller: 01:32

I'm great. I'm excited for this opportunity to sit down with you and kinda, like, go in your office and close the door and just see what's on your mind and talk about how PPA is serving members and what members can expect about what's happening now and what's to come because I know that you're working a lot of exciting things. But let's start here. From your seat as the leader of the organization, what are the realities of being a professional photographer today from what you see?

David Trust: 02:00

Great question, by the way. That's an outstanding first question. It's fair to say that they've changed. It's changed since when I first got here. Right? The expectations of what professional photographers need, and what it means to be a professional photographer. In the most foundational terms, it is the same, and that photographers are, you know, the keepers of our family histories; we're the keepers of what is real. Right? The keepers of our societal memory. And so that hasn't changed, and we can talk more about that if you want later. But it is, and so that is the same, but the business models and the processes have changed. And the reason that has changed so much is consumers have changed. Right? I mean, none of us are the consumer that we were five years ago or certainly not 10 years ago or 20 years ago, you know, 25 years ago. So I got here 27 years ago last month, and in that period of time, of course, photography has changed. And some people say, wow. You know, the industry has just changed so much. Well, it's because consumers have changed. Right? And every industry serves its consumer. And so, consumer expectations have changed. The way they purchase have changed over depending on where you are in financial cycles. The amount of money they have to spend has changed, and some people think, wow. This is the best. Photography's really hit its stride. And then five years later, it's a little bit different, and they're down in the dumps, and they're saying it's the end of photography. And then, you know, and then it goes back up again because the economy is always cyclical. And so it's always adapting. It's always changing. And Pat, it's always been a technology industry. Right? I mean, before some people don't think of it that way, I guess. But before photography, you know, the way we captured those moments in time was called paintings, portraiture, you know. And, you know, it was sketching and drawing and painting, and that's how we froze a moment in time, although that was not freezing it. So, it's always been a technology industry. From its very, earliest days, the technology was mind-blowing, and it has continued to progress, you know, over time, and that hasn't changed today. I mean, it's still at the very cutting edge of technology and what it can do. And then when you throw AI in, which is not photography, but obviously is tangential to photography, When you throw that in, you know, it poses all new kinds of situations and questions to answer, and in some cases, threats, and in a lot of cases, opportunities and those kinds of things. So photography, the really long answer to your very concise question, you know, is that photography is, you know, it's changing. And our advice to photographers is you have to be nimble and you have to continue to be open to change because all great photographers in the past have been.

Pat Miller: 04:51

A hundred years from now, the CEO of PPA will look back on your term, your time at PPA and think, how in the world did he do that? Because when you started, we weren't using Photoshop. We weren't using computer editing. The technology is so different now to be proficient at what you do and how you deliver and create products and satisfy customers. Everything has changed. It's as if your job changed. Do you find yourself doing completely different stuff now than what you were doing when you started?

David Trust: 05:23

Yeah. I will mostly. Right? There are some things that are always gonna be the same. Right? There's the leadership part of it. There's working with boards of directors and with committee members and our national council. And, you know, those folks are all wonderful, and they've been a pleasure to work with over the years. And that has been fairly consistent. But the job changes because everything about our offerings needs to change, right? And to stay relevant, you know, just like a professional photographer or a podcast has, you know, just to stay relevant, you have to be offering something that consumers need. Right? So when our members have a new reality, a new problem, we weren't as litigating of us as society 25 years ago. Although, you know, Americans were still litigating back then, but we weren't as litigating as we are now. So protections end up being a little bit different, right? And so our job changes because we have to remain relevant to our customers just like any other business. You know? And our business a lot of people think that our business PPA's business is photography. In reality, we love photographers. We promote photography. We sustain photographers. Our business isn't photography. Our business is benefit and value creation and dissemination for professional photographers. Right? And then also, we are the industry watchdog because photographers would have a hard time being that themselves. But, I mean, it's our job to protect the industry from themselves. It's our job to protect the industry from predatory products or techniques or new technology, you know, AI, in some cases, or predatory laws, or, you know, or the lack of laws to protect photography. So the absence of laws would protect photography. So, to remain relevant, we have to change. And I'll tell you, I would be surprised on the inside here how much we talk about remaining relevant and what it is we need to do to serve our customers. It's 100% about customers. I mean, it always is. I've been asked by so many associations over the years, How did you do this? I mean, how did this happen and how'd you make this happen? I mean, how did how did we happen? And the answer is, listen, you figure out what's keeping your consumer awake at night, you know, this month or this year, and solve that problem. That's how you remain relevant, right? I mean, you just have to constantly be assessing what the issues are and trying to find new ways to solve the problem and still be a company of only about 50 people, just a little bit less than 50 people. So, you know, we fight above our weight class a lot, and we're proud of that. But, you know, it can be difficult at times.

Pat Miller: 08:09

I have a thousand questions of what it's like to go to Capitol Hill and advocate for the industry about AI as well. But the thing that I really love about my background is that there are two parts of your name, photographers, so you're advocating for the industry. But the professional part, you're an industry made up of primarily small business owners. So as you look at the industry of small business owners, if you were sitting down with one of your members trying to make profit at the end of the month, where would you guide their attention? What would you ask them to start focusing more on right now?

David Trust: 08:43

You know, sometimes it's a tough sell. Okay? And I understand why. Because these are artists, and they're great artists, and they're committed artists. They're passionate artists. And what they do is important to our world. Right? I mean, you don't have to look any further than every office and every home in America, every office building in America, to see what professional photographers contribute to our world, the color and the interest and the, you know, that they contribute to our world. So they are important. And, you know, to them, you know, we want to make sure that they realize just how important they are to our society and to help them understand, you know, what their role is in our world. And so, you know, for us, we have to remain relevant by, you know, teaching them exactly who they are. Now they wanna instantly, they all pick up a camera, and they wanna take pictures, and that's a giant part of it. Right? And they need to be great photographers. We want them. We teach them that. We teach them how to be great photographers. And most of them coming out of universities, colleges, and universities, they'll be the first to in fact, the colleges and universities will be the first to tell you that they don't teach them how to hang out a shingle. Right? They only teach them how to use the camera, lighting, and that kind of thing. And they give them their first steps kind of like being, you know, maybe, well, probably not even a 1st degree black belt, but, you know, maybe a brown belt or something, you know, coming out green belt or whatever coming out of, colleges or universities. And then we take that and we help them become a black belt. And then eventually, a second degree black belt, a third degree, and a 4th degree because photography, and I'm so fascinated by all of our friends and all these people I've met. I've been just blessed to meet over the years, you know, who are professional photographers. They continue to strive to take it to another level, a greater level, you know, to do more, to explore more, and, it's remarkable. So they're good at that. You know, what they're not good at is handling the business part. And so the thing that I think is most important is to help them see the balance that you can't be one-sided. If you're all business, you know, all sizzle and no steak, then you're not gonna succeed if you if it's just all about the way you brand yourself and market and and but your photography is bad, you're gonna destroy your brand. You can't do it that way. And you can, but you can also be a great photographer and not get your business and not get the entrepreneurial parts of things, not understand branding, you know, the need to sort of develop habits that get you out of bed in the morning and make you go do the things that you're supposed to do, all those entrepreneurial things, you know, that you have to work on. Those are the things that I think are tougher sometimes, Pat. And so the thing that I would emphasize or think about the most, you know, when I come into the office, is how do we help photographers understand all of it? How do we help them be successful? And remember, most people on PPA staff were not photographers. Most aren't. We have some, but most are not photographers. They are event planners and finance people, right, and salespeople and leadership, you know, people. And, our job is to understand our customers and what their needs are through research and other things to help them through that kind of. I don't know if I answered that question. I probably over answered the question. No.

Pat Miller: 12:16

It's fantastic. I love hearing you talk about it because business is so important. If someone doesn't have the capability to sell something for more than what it costs to make, they won't be a professional photographer for much longer.

David Trust: 12:28

Yeah. And honestly, a lot of people, when you just talk about selling it for more than it costs to make, I mean, a lot have struggled with that. Right? They don't understand their cost of sales. And they don't understand the cost of them just working on something their own value, their value of their own labor, you know what I mean? And they don't charge for those things. And then when they get to their finances at the end of the year and they realize, I mean, I didn't make anything. In fact, I lost money. Well, that's why because they don't understand that. And so our education, everywhere we offer education, our education is broken into three silos basically. We don't love to talk about silos, but three verticals, basically. And so the first vertical would always be photography, professional photography. The second vertical, of course, is business; understand your business. And listen, I remember working with one of our past presidents, Ann Monteith, and all of our past presidents, and back in about 2000, the idea of teaching business was, I mean, it was frowned upon. We couldn't drag people kicking and screaming into a business class. We almost tried, you know, and there would be seven people in a room that was set up for 300. And then slowly that grew, and then business actually became as popular and then more popular than photography classes because we are professional and photographers, right? It's we are both of those things, and they started to get it. And then we added the entrepreneurial skills. We call that gap education because it's the gap. It represents the gap between the consumer and the photographer. For some reason, there was this gap that had appeared there where photographers weren't relating well and understanding how they needed to reach out to their consumer. And so that's a gap education, but that's really entrepreneurial skills, eliminating negativity, understanding how to create an actionable vision, you know, understanding, you know, how to speak to people, how to get help, you know, if you need, you know, making presentations and those kinds of things. And there's a lot of gap education, but we have three very distinct verticals when it comes to our education. And that's why, you know, because it's not enough to be a good photographer, and it's not enough just to be a good business person. You need to be balanced and do well. But being a starving artist is overrated.

Pat Miller: 14:45

Being a starving artist is overrated because food is good. And I think we can decriminalize the business side of things for a photographer if we can reconnect the purpose of business. The purpose of business is not to be a salesperson, used car salesperson. The purpose of business is to solve someone's problem. And I wanna circle back to something you said earlier because I think it's really inspirational to help people frame their business. Photographers get to stop time. They get to capture the moment. They are, I think you said, the recorders of history. That kind of mission and problem that's being solved is not something that's going away. And perhaps if an artist that needs business could understand that's what their business provides, maybe that would warm them up to the idea of improving their business skills.

David Trust: 15:33

Yeah. I you know, it sounds a little dramatic, I believe, to some people. I think most people appreciate it, but it is true. And I say this, you know, pretty frequently, I think, in that from that first moment in time when when a photographer, Louis Daguerre, was able to capture a Paris street corner in 18/39. First time mankind actually froze a moment in time with a person in it, actually froze a moment in time. From that moment on, professional photographers became the keepers of what is real in our world. It is them. You know, they are the keepers of what is real, and that hasn't changed. I mean, they have recorded our huge successes, you know, our centennial celebrations. They recorded our worst disasters, you know, the Hindenburg and wars, and our worst social injustices, our greatest achievements, and, in life, and they are the keepers of what is real. But along with that, included in that, yeah, they're the keeper of our societal memory. You know, our family histories, our personal histories, our national, our world histories. It is photographers who are the keepers of that, and that comes with some responsibility, right? But it means that photographers and photography are valuable And when we're up on Capitol Hill, that resonates that everyone agrees with that nobody disagrees Everyone says yeah, photographers are the keepers of what is real. Now lay that over. Overlay that onto where we are in our world right now with, for instance, AI, which everyone loves, and at the same time, everybody's terrified of it. Right? Yeah. So we have that we have that love and terrified relationship with AI. Everybody does. And so lay that over AI, where it's the differentiation between what is real and what's not real is becoming blurred. Professional photography will save the world in that way; it is the keeper of what is real, and it will always be the keeper of what is real. And that's gonna be more and more important. So photography is not dwindling in some ways. I've heard photographers say that this strange negativity bias that's built inside of them that photography and the importance of photography is going down. No. Photography and the importance of photography is ratcheting up because of AI and because it's hard to know what's real in our world. Let me ask you this, Pat. You and I are out, and we see a beautiful image: Aspens on a mountainside, the sun exactly at the right place. Just, gorgeous image. Right? And I ask you, wow, that's really beautiful. And we're just sort of, you know, ogling this amazing, beautiful image. And then I ask you, is is that something that maybe you would consider purchasing? And the answer is probably, you may not purchase it, but yeah, I'd consider purchasing it. Right? That would probably be your answer.

Pat Miller: 18:33

Sure.

David Trust: 18:34

Now if I say, well, it turns out that image is AI. What just happened to the value of that image? I mean, it went through the floor.

Pat Miller: 18:40

Yeah.

David Trust: 18:41

Right? Because putting fake nature on our walls is not something that really is attractive to humanity. We are all drawn to what is real. We are not as drawn to sci fi and fake nature and that kind of thing, right? And so nobody's gonna be putting AI children on their walls. Now there is going to be some loss because of AI, but I think some of that is gonna cycle around. For instance, there's a lot of fake nature already out on the Internet that you can buy. You can buy fake nature. And so you have to look at what that means for a nature photographer who jumps on an airplane, you know, rents a jeep, goes and camps in the wilderness, you know, wherever for three weeks or five weeks or or whatever shoots 17,000 images, brings them back, goes through those images, you know, works on them, sorts them , hopefully files a copyright for those and then tries to sell them. So just to recoup that expense of all of that time, you know, food, travel, and the stay and the work and the days not working because you're working on these images. I mean, you have to be able to justify that. So that's the problem that, for instance, nature and wildlife photographers are facing and will continue to face for a while. But pretty soon because fake nature is all out there, on the Internet right now, but that's not gonna last. Why? Because humanity doesn't really value that. And there's already this pendulum that has swung back some, and there's already beginning to be a significant backlash against companies that use fake images. People don't like it. They don't want even if it's even if it's beautiful, I don't want fake nature. You know what I mean? We want real. So there's patience.There's a cycle that's gonna be, you know, that will that will continue to work. There's a patience that's gonna be required. Do we think nature wildlife, as an example, you know, is gonna have some difficult times? Yeah. But, I mean, they, as some of them have said to me, it's always difficult to be a nature wildlife photographer. And so there's that. But do I think that AI is going to replace photography? Absolutely not. I think it's gonna shed a bright light on the importance of what's real in our world. And, ultimately, I think that's gonna be a good thing. I do think it'll hurt commercial advertising photographers some, and, you know, for a while, and I think that the same human backlash will occur in that situation also. So I think we're in a cycle, and photography has been in many cycles over the years. We're in one right now as a result of AI.

Pat Miller: 21:25

And this is new, but I'm not sure if the entire concept is new. Every photographer that's done their own editing has fiddled around in Photoshop or Lightroom and gone too far to where the image is no longer authentic. It's as if we can all have this meter or intuitive feeling of the value of imperfection. When it goes too far and that person doesn't look like them anymore, it's almost as if we all know that's too much. Dial it back a little bit. And how do we articulate the perfection of imperfection as we're capturing the reality of the moment? Because AI will generate a, you know, aesthetically perfect picture, but that realness factor, it's just not there.

David Trust: 22:06

Yeah, Yes. I mean, you know, it stinks to get old. Right? So we want does. So we want the photographer to make us look the way we remember ourselves, which is always about 38. Right? 38 to 44, that's where we freeze our lives. And so we want the photographer to make us look like that, but we don't look like that, and authenticity and being real is much more important in our world and in our life than just looking artificially good. I had this very discussion; you know, a lot of head shot artists photographers were concerned, you know, because you can grab several of your own images, you can feed them into these head shot companies, and AI will spit out some head shots for you. But, you know, and while some people say they are getting better, they're still all pretty terrible. And not only that, I have very specifically heard backlashes from employers who don't appreciate the fact that they get an AI head shot from a prospective employee. You know what I mean? And, you know, that they don't like it. I mean, they don't like that. They don't like the artificial nature of it. They don't like the fakeness of it. They want authenticity and authentic people, and they don't want someone sending them something that doesn't look like. Right? So I think that the pendulum is going to swing back. But and I think so what is going to be acceptable in retouching? There's always been, I guess, sort of a code there, hasn't there? I mean, the portrait photographers have always known there's a certain amount of retouching, but no, I'm not taking 20 pounds off of you.

Pat Miller: 23:33

Darn it.

David Trust: 23:34

And, so there's always been that out there and good for photography for recognizing how important they are in our world and for rejecting the idea that they're just gonna create something that's not real, that's fake by caving in and retouching every little thing that this customer, this client wants. And then creating something that people look at and say, well, that's not David at all. He doesn't look like that anymore. He maybe looked like that when he was, you know, a lot younger, but not anymore. And so I think that's important. There are copyright issues, though. Right? And so the more of that they do, not so much Photoshop, you're gonna be okay. But the more AI elements they include in an image, the less copyright able that image becomes; you can't protect it. And that really matters if you're doing some commercial work or other things. And so AI is at this point not considered creation in illegal terms. People debate that, and they argue about that kind of stuff. I'm just saying right now, in legal terms, AI is not considered creation and therefore can't be copyrighted. So copyright can be sort of murky enough; protecting an image can be kind of murky enough. And now you start adding in that was an AI image, and that was an AI image that I included in this. Now you've made it almost impossibly murky to ever protect anyway. And so there's all kinds of new considerations in that.

Pat Miller: 25:02

As I get a chance to sit down with you in your office here, I want to ask about how this plays out, then we'll move on to a bunch of other stuff. But everyone's so curious about AI. You go to Capitol Hill, you sit down with the lawmaker, you're talking with them about AI. It's not only where it is going so it is used responsibly and ethically, but it's also where it's been. I would imagine you've had conversations with them about training data and how we even got here and scraping images. And it's gotta be a hornet's nest when you sit down with lawmakers to talk about this topic on behalf of your membership.

David Trust: 25:34

Yeah. Here's the strange thing. It was a crazy mess at the beginning of last year. Right? So March and April, maybe February, March April May of 2023, it was the Wild West. It was nobody knew what was going on. Everything was happening. It was craziness there, and everyone was saying, well, it's too late. The cat's out of the bag. Remember that AI is doing amazing things. It's doing amazing things, and it is going to create a better world for a lot of people. I mean, a lot of people. Maybe all of us. In its wake, though, it's doing jobs that other people had done, right? And so, as a result of that, it means that jobs are being displaced. People are losing work, and the projections for how much work will be lost in all kinds of fields, you know, and in the customer service fields and, just all kinds of, you know, the estimates are astronomical. So we love AI. It is going to displace a lot of jobs, but you know, we love AI, but it's going to displace a lot of jobs. And so that's kind of one of the realities. The big thing that hit, especially in the photographic world, is the generative AI. So there's AI, and then there's generative AI. Right? This small area of AI, and it's generative AI. And some of the players in the generative AI area just scraped the Internet. Right? They just took everybody's work without permission. And everybody thinks, well, they got away with that, but they haven't necessarily. There are lots of serious discussions and serious bills and things. It's not too late to talk about forcing some of that to be rolled back. Now these companies made billions of dollars in the meantime, so, you know, they've won either way in that circumstance. But the continued scraping is occurring, but not nearly at the rate we think of what it was early on. Right? Because there are bills out there. We're supportive. We're on several bills that are about transparency. That is, they have to show where they're getting their information that they're training their AI on. There is legislation that's out there. Our problem, the world's problem actually is, you know, Congress, our Senate, and House have, through years of conditioning, taught themselves to move very slowly and do very little. This sounds like a political commentary. It's really not. We just when you look at the output from Congress, it's so much smaller than what it used to be. I mean, it's just a tiny fraction of what it used to be. So they are conditioned not to go very fast. And because of that, AI is this enormously complicated issue, and it's hard for them. They're going very slowly, and everyone's just not sure what to do because they taught themselves to do so little. And those are from actual conversations that I have with people on Capitol Hill inside, you know, different Congress congressional offices and different Senate offices. And I mean, we have those conversations. And they say, yeah, it's just hard. I mean, we're having a hard time moving because there are so many moving parts. So they can't focus on one thing. They keep looking at the whole picture, and then that stops you. It's like when your mind just rambles, it's hard. You need to stop and focus at some point on the thing at hand, and they have a hard time doing that. So, I'm not sure what's going on with AI, up on Capitol Hill. There are other copyright issues. I mean, up there that don't include AI. But, you know, AI on Capitol Hill is a is a giant one, is a really interesting one here. You know, we think professional photographers ought to be careful, you know, to choose companies and partners that they work with that don't, you know, steal and don't abuse children and don't abuse animals, and you know what I mean? There's morality in companies that we choose to work with, and this should be no different , you know, the issue of AI and knowing how they and you can use it. Funny thing is you can do a little AI search on how these individual companies trained their AI, you know, and how much of it was used from scraping the Internet. It's really not difficult to find out. And so, yeah, we think that people should be careful about the companies they partner with, whether it's your belief in how chickens are arranged or raised, or you know how AI is trained, or you know any of that. So there's some interesting issues.

Pat Miller: 30:21

Before we move on from Capitol Hill, how frequently are you talking to lawmakers?

David Trust: 30:26

Monthly. Sometimes when there's something bigger going on, it's more than that. We were there in late November, and we were there just a week ago. And so we were a little bit more this time. And we have been for years and years and years. I mean, it's one of the major things that you know, we just decided back in 1999 actually that the largest association for professional photographers, we weren't that large back then. We were about 10,500 paid members, but, the largest association for professional photographers is not up on Capitol Hill, and it didn't make sense. And so that became a priority for me. I just felt like we needed to get ourselves up there and start having a presence. And it took a lot of years for us to start having a recognized presence. I'm really happy with where things are right now. I mean, they call us, you know, up on Capitol Hill when it has anything to do with photography, when it has anything to do with small creators, you know, the House Admin Committee, Senate Rules Committee, House and Senate Judiciary Committees, the Copyright Alliance. But I mean, so I sat on the board of the Copyright Alliance for a while, so that was part of that. But the copyright assembly when it was first created, you know, needed us there because of the Napster issues that were going on. And then you---

Pat Miller: 31:47

Oh, wow.

David Trust: 31:48

They needed a friendly face. That's a fun story. And so the Copyright Office, they know us. They consult with us. We have a sort of a love-hate relationship with the United States Copyright Office, but we're there quite a lot. And it's almost all about copyright issues like the case act of the small claims process. I don't know how familiar you are with that. It's been a couple of years since it passed. But that just wasn't something we supported. That was something we wrote. That was a PPA idea that we had lobbied for years. And then we finally got other organizations. It took a long time, but we finally got the other creator organizations on board, and then we were able to get that passed. And so for the first time, there's actually a small claims process for copyright holders, and they are getting paid, and it is bringing people to the table to negotiate with them, and that never existed before. And so those are the kinds of things you know that we're working on up there on a regular basis. Our major issue now is modernization of the copyright office processes, which are, you know, so laughable, antiquated that it would make you want to laugh if you didn't need to cry so much.

Pat Miller: 32:59

Yeah, right.

David Trust: 33:00

If we're going to be honest, it was just like, they're so bad, and that's what we're working hard on right now. It's really about modernization of the copyright office processes, and they're listening to us and they're mad at us because, you know, we go to Congress, which is their boss. When we don't get what we want out of the copyright office, which is never, we go to Congress. And, you know, if we get enough good friends working on the same issue in Congress, you know, then they start telling the Copyright Office, you need to do this. We're gonna pass some legislation to make you do it. And it's a strange system I know, but one that's close to us and one that we feel serious about as a responsibility to the industry.

Pat Miller: 33:36

We appreciate it.

David Trust: 33:36

It's how we were founded. Right? I mean, we were founded out of the famous photographers of their day back in 18/68, the Mathew Brady's or Rambo Gardases [phonetic] and the Hessler's the Lincoln, you know, portraitists and those guys, there was a a predatory patent that was being filed, had been filed. And these guys all got together and said, wait, we can't sit there and let this happen. So they all got together, and they created a little organization to help fight that patent and won. And that organization they created was the National Photographers Association, the NPA, which then changed its name later to, Photographers Association of America, which changed its name later to Professional Photographers of America. So that was us back in 18/68. So we technically kind of always been on Capitol Hill, but we went through a big hiatus. We went through a big hiatus there for awhile.

Pat Miller: 34:28

You were around before it was cool.

David Trust: 34:30

Oh, yeah. Speaking of which, I remember walking back and forth across past the Capitol from the house side to the Senate side, to a hundred degree weather, just nobody listening to us. And I spent years doing that a couple of times a month; it was long. So to be where we are now is pretty exciting. Not very exciting to our members. Copyright is like the water fountain; you don't really care where the water comes from. You just want it. You want it there when you push the button. And I think that's how people feel about copyright. I don't wanna really wanna know too much about where it comes from. But–

Pat Miller: 35:07

Sure.

David Trust: 35:07

Definitely when I push the button, I need it there. You know?

Pat Miller: 35:09

Thank you for the update on AI. I know it's on a lot of our members' minds. Let's change topics to the other thing that's on everybody's mind, the economy and inflation. From the smart people you're talking to, are they thinking it's gonna cool? And how have you observed customers behaving during this high inflation period?

David Trust: 35:26

You know, it's been the most bizarre thing. And this is one of the areas that I think our members could do a better job of just being more I mean, they're you're small businesses. Right? They're all small businesses and entrepreneurs, and that means that they should be, need to be up to date where they need to understand what's actually going on, where you don't get financial data. You don't get it from Fox or CNN or NBC, or you don't get your financial data from there. You don't get it from Facebook. You don't get it from your Facebook friends or from inflammatory, but that's not where financial data comes from. You get it from the US Census Bureau, the financial section, which tells you exactly what people are spending and what they're doing, and the more you look at it, the more you start to understand, so durable goods are way up, and housing starts are starting to increase. That means the economy is about to start turning again, and it's turning in the short term. And they can sit and watch all of this. And, you know, my argument has been, yes, you're creators and you're small businesses, but it doesn't mean that you shouldn't take some responsibility for understanding what's actually going on, not what our highly politicized media is telling us is going on. Right? So you can just throw all of that stuff out from both sides, in my opinion, and get real data that will help you make real decisions. I think it's been interesting. The strangest thing going back to your question Pat is consumer behavior is admittedly more unpredictable now than than at any time I can remember. And what I mean by that is we were spending crazy spending coming out of the pandemic, which we shall not name, right? Everybody's so tired of talking about the C word. And so we were spending out of that. And of course, that caused inflation, right? That this giant amount of consumer spending causes inflation. Right? So they're spending more and more, prices go up, you know, supplies start to go down, and there's a giant amount of inflation there. And so to change that in 2023, the end of 2022, the last quarter of 2022, and in 2023, the Fed started raising rates. Everybody understands how that works, right? You raise rates to try to get people to stop spending so much so that supplies increase and demand goes down and prices stop. They don't necessarily go down. Sometimes they do, but they stop going up. Right? So the inflation stops. And that didn't happen. So they raised rates several times, and people were still spending crazy amounts of money. Durable goods were still just flying off the shelves, cars, and refrigerators. You know what I mean? Things like that. So, you know, they were flying off the shelves. And so sometimes, as professional photographers, our members think, oh, well, that's a million miles away from me. That doesn't really affect me, but it does all of it. It is what it shows you. It gives you a peek into where your consumers are about to be and how to position yourself with them and maybe how to change your marketing message to make your photography at that moment more palatable. I'm not saying drop prices necessarily, by the way. I'm just saying, but let's sell to them based on emotion and on, hey, your child, regardless of inflation, your baby is going from 1 year old to 2 year old, right? Your child's about to go from elementary school to middle school, or high school, or playing sports. Or it's about the emotion, no just about hey, here's what we can do. We'd love to do this. It's time to do your photographs. That's got to be about more about emotion. And so it's been interesting because I don't think anybody can really predict consumer behavior right now. That said, to answer the question, the one you asked about 17 minutes ago, but let's start answering. That's all my answers. Right? I love this stuff. I get excited about it, as you can tell. And to me, it's interesting. I think the answer is, yeah, I do expect inflation will start coming down because spending is starting to come down. And people are spending on kind of different things; the things that they are spending on are generally a little bit bigger and taking more money, and they're not like the there's a little bit less trial. There's less travel going on. There's less spending going on right now. And the result of that is it looks like inflation will start to come down. And you know what? I wanna make sure everyone understands. I don't look at the political aspect of this. I'm not talking about one president being elected or another president being elected or any of that because presidents are going to be elected and they're going to come and go and Congress, and it's going to be Congress and, you know, that kind of thing. I think it's important for real business minded people to depoliticize stuff and just look at numbers, focus on numbers, and why the numbers are what they are. And yeah, it might be a policy decision by, you know, by a politician, a president, or it might be a policy decision or something created by Congress, but, well, Congress said do policy. But, you know, it's it is true, but just focus on the numbers and get rid of all the other garbage, all that other baggage, all, you know, to run your business, you just need to know why the industry is doing what it's doing and why those finances are behaving the way they are and why inflation is still up and why inflation will probably be coming down now. And I do this in a program at Imaging USA almost every year. I'm not this year, but I do have people who come to the program and come up to the front afterwards and say, this is the reason I come every year is I know you're going to give us real numbers that have no hint of Republican, Democrat, Facebook, CNN, Fox, and, you know, that you're gonna avoid all of that stuff. And I think all of us should. I think we make better decisions if we take all of that baggage out of it.

Pat Miller: 41:48

Listen. The only presidents I care about are the ones in my wallet. That's what I care about. And you mentioned imaging. This gonna drop like the Tuesday before Imaging USA. It's a big commitment by the organization every year. Why is it so important that Imaging USA as a show happens, and what does the organization get out of it?

David Trust: 42:10

Well, this will surprise you some. What the organization doesn't get out of it is much money. The kind of show that Imaging USA is would sell on the market for, I mean, legitimately $850, $950 I mean, it would be a very expensive show on the market. And, when I got here before I came to PPA, alright, Pat, this has been 27 years ago, I was working as director of National Corporate Marketing for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, and I used to go to marketing. It was mostly focused on, you know, consumer marketing and cause-related marketing. And I used to go to an event, every year and it was $1500, $14.95. I remember that. And it was a room of about 30 people had a reception that was a few little cheese cubes and some pretzels. That was the reception. And we sat in there, you know, and it was $1500 back then. And we still have to go to some conferences every now and again that we send different tech staffers or different staffers to different conferences. And they're expensive. Ours is so cheap. I mean, you know, it was $219 a couple years ago, $229 and then $2.39. And it's just, you know, which barely pays for the parties alone, and then we have all those keynotes. And we have, you know, all of the networking avenues. This year, we're introducing a really cool thing called United Behind The Camera, which is just a togetherness, event that's gonna be a lot of fun. It's right before Networking Avenue, right in the same spot, and all of the educators that we have, all of the pre-cons that we have, and you know, all of the leadership meetings that are there. So we have a lot of leadership meetings at Imaging that are very important as we get together with our PPA Council and our board of directors, you know, different meetings with just all of our members. It's the only place you ask why it's so important. It's kind of the best place for us to just get to and talk and interact and rub shoulders with our members, you know, for a week. And so it's big, and it's also just a great show. It's just so much fun. And we're really excited. Pat's gonna have a giant presence there this year, folks.

Pat Miller: 44:30

I'm telling you.

David Trust: 44:31

He's gonna be there, and that's gonna be exciting, Pat.

Pat Miller: 44:33

You're not talking numbers, but we are having a party for this show. So if you're going to Imaging, come hang out because we are gonna have fun, and I'm gonna get the chance to meet you, which I'm really excited about. Now listen, we've taken you over time, and it's so generous that you've given us these inside thoughts of what's going on from the CEO's office. I wanna end this way. Is there something that you wish every PPA member knew about the organization or what your team is doing that they can take so they're better informed as a member as to what's happening at home office?

David Trust: 45:08

Yeah. We compete with all of these companies around us here in downtown Atlanta, for talent, for good people. And, you know, we can't necessarily compete with them on price. We try to be competitive, but we can't necessarily compete with all of these folks. And so it's sometimes hard for us to keep good people, but we have amazing people, and here's the way we're able to accomplish that, because we sell them on cause. We hire people here 51% based on who they are and 49% on what their skill set is. Now everyone else hires 95% on skill set and 5% on I don't care, just get your job done. Right? That's how businesses work. We hire 51% on who you are and 49% on skill set. We value skills just as much as everybody else does. But the reason they stay that who you are part of them; the reason they stay is is because they care about this cause. We sell cause. Our cause is that the importance of photography, professional photography in our world, the keepers of our societal memory, the keepers of our world history, the cause of professional photography and how important it is. And then the second part of that cause, there are three prongs, the cause of small business because small business is important to our world. When times get tough, it's not big business that pulls us out of the economic doldrums. It is small business that saves. Small business pulls our irons out of the fire. And so it's the cause of professional photography in America and the cause of small business. And the 3rd prong on that is and the cause of entrepreneurism in America. The idea that you can still want to go into business for yourself and work hard and learn a skill and create something and sell that and do good things for other people and create family, mementos that will last for generations and their families, you know, that you're making a difference through what you're doing. The cause of photography and small business and entrepreneurism is what we preach here. And I wish everybody knew just how committed PPA staff and its board of directors, they work so hard. That board works so hard. They give up so much of their time. They're photographers also. They give up so much of their time, and sometimes I see people being critical of them, and I just think, well, it's just not fair because they work so hard. And then, our national council as well. I mean, they come in once a year, and they devote a tremendous amount of time, you know, to help PPA be successful. I wish we could infuse and inject into our members an understanding of that, Pat, just how much this organization, staff, board, council, committee members, how much they care about this industry. This is very much a cause for us. It's not just an association. And I think that shows in our membership. I think our membership responds to that, you know, because we are far and away the largest organization representing photographers anywhere in the world. And it shows that our staff and our board and council care that much. I wish there was a way for our members to see that.

Pat Miller: 48:30

David Trust, thanks for your time, thanks for your service and thanks for joining us on The Professional Photographer Podcast. I really appreciate it.

David Trust: 48:36

It's my pleasure, Pat. Thank you so much.

Pat Miller: 48:39

That just happened. Hope you enjoyed this week's episode of The Professional Photographer Podcast. I am so excited to continue our journey, and I appreciate you being a part of every conversation. Before I go, can I ask you for a favor? If you enjoyed this episode, leave us a comment. Tell us what David said that stood out to you or something that inspired you or maybe a question that you have for him because the folks here at the podcast can make sure that we get it in front of the team in Atlanta. But leave a comment and let us know what resonated with you. Also, we want you to like and share and buy a billboard in your hometown about how great we are. You know how that stuff goes. The other thing is you heard about what PPA is doing for photographers. So if you're not a member yet, just a reminder: you're kinda missing out. We're talking resources like equipment insurance, top-notch education, and a supportive community of photographers ready to help you succeed. It is designed 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 Founder of the Small Business Owners Community. Thank you for joining us on this journey. I appreciate that you're tuning in. I'll be back soon with more tools to help you build your business with The Professional Photographer Podcast. See you next time.