Doug Boutwell was once a wedding photographer.  Along with his wife, Chenin, he founded the international award-winning Boutwell Studio, which Chenin currently still runs.

Doug, however, is best known as the author of the Totally Rad family of Photoshop tools which are used daily by thousands of photographers all over the world.   He has taught Photoshop and wedding photography at workshops and seminars all over the United States.

Lots of changes have come Doug’s way in the past five years including home ownership and parenthood.  Doug’s success points to the amazing skill he has behind the camera as well as in post-processing, but there is so much more to him.  Doug is also a pilot, surfer, baker, musician, husband, and father, in addition to shooting the occasional personal photography project at www.dougboutwell.com.

I really love Doug’s edgy style that you’ll see in his images throughout this interview.  What I also really love about this interview is his complete honesty and candor in his journey.  Love the challenge he puts out there to keep learning something completely unrelated to photography.  Like baking bread.  I like that idea.   Read on, you won’t regret it. Q:  LEARN: What is something that you feel like you’d like to learn more about, something you are continually learning? What is something that you wish someone would have told you before you had to learn it the hard way?

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A: First of all, I think that continuing to learn is one of the most important things you can do, for yourself personally. A few years ago, I decided that I’d try to take on one new thing every year, to learn something new. So far I’ve learned how to surf, to fly airplanes (and will probably have my pilot’s license in a week or two), and to be a dad. This year I’m working on learning piano. Those are just the “official” ones…

I’m also learning how to bake bread, brew beer, and always have some little thing on the side. I find that having something to challenge yourself with, that’s a personal endeavor instead of a business one, keeps me feeling young, and keeps me from getting bored with life (all without just sitting in front of the TV or whatever). Hopefully one day, when I’m getting to be an old man, I’ll be more like the guy in the Dos XX commercials, and not some guy just sitting around being bored and waiting to die.

The other thing I’ve found about learning is that the more you do of it, the better you get at it. You can literally learn to learn, and by continuing to challenge yourself with learning new things, you’ll get better and better at it, keeping you fresh and able to adapt to new tasks, technologies, and circumstances.

A lot of the work that went into making our latest product, Dirty Pictures, involved learning new programming skills, and being able to learn things quickly is what made it possible. I wish I started making a hobby out of learning random things earlier, because I spent way too much time just passing time in front of an Xbox. I have nothing to show for those hours, really, but the real world stuff that I’ve taken on will enrich me for the rest of my life. And it’s every bit as fun. So even if you aren’t challenged in your work (which is fine!), find other ways to keep yourself busy learning new things. GROW: How have you grown in the past five years in your business, in your own personal quest for growth, in your awareness of the world around you? How would you recommend others grow do you have a favorite marketing tip, workshop suggestion, or convention to attend?

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It’s been tough for me to get my brain around the idea that your business doesn’t have to be your life. If you put everything into your business, it’s easy for your life to go off the rails with any business crisis. That’s not to say that you can’t seek to make money by doing something fulfilling, but just that you shouldn’t demand that your business is what gives your life purpose every day.

This goes against my own idealism about what an artist’s life is like, and for most people in photography, it probably sounds like sacrilege. But the truth is that sometimes the work you need to do is boring. The opportunities that come your way aren’t the ones you want. If you have something else in your life aside from your business, it’s easier to weather those things with a smile.

I learned this the hard way. I had a lot of my sense of self-worth and emotional energy tied up in my career 5 years ago. Things began to get rough when I realized that I wasn’t making pictures for me anymore, but for my clients… it had always been that way, but I could feel good about selling them on what I wanted to do for a while. Then I started realizing that, more and more, the photos I wanted to make weren’t really anything that people getting married wanted me to shoot. Not that I couldn’t sell it to them, but just that I felt they’d look back years later and wonder what the hell I was thinking. Weird conceptual photos of people with their heads cut off, or making blank faces or whatever – those look cool, and they’re dynamic and exciting, but it’s really just camera gymnastics that serve to entertain the photographer (I feel).

It wasn’t really 100% fair to turn someone’s wedding day into an opportunity for me to make a weird photo of them in a dumpster or public restroom or whatever. If I wanted to do that stuff, I needed to be shooting for an editorial or advertising or fine art market. Stock, even. But weddings weren’t it, and I just didn’t feel good about shooting what I wanted, and wasn’t really artistically fulfilled by shooting what they wanted. Meanwhile, photography had come to mean everything, and all I ever shot was weddings. So I soldiered on for a year or so, helping Chenin shoot something our clients would actually cherish years later, shooting my last wedding in 2007 (as I recall… it’s been a while). She’s since turned the Boutwell Studio brand into something that’s still contemporary and artful, and even quirky, but that is also a beautiful expression of the love, connection, and joy that is a wedding. And I basically became a full-time Photoshop guy. I didn’t plan it that way.

If the money was no object, I’d be shooting fine art projects, with some editorial and ad jobs thrown in to keep things interesting. In fact I did shoot about half of a fashion photography portfolio in 2007 in prep for a career shift. But that’s a steep mountain to climb, and there’s a lot of macaroni and cheese dinners to eat along the way, so to speak.

Learning to allow my career to be one thing, and my personal fulfillment to be another, has allowed me to escape a situation that had me feeling burnt-out on photography, and also probably saved my marriage. If you’re a photographer full-time, the best thing you can do is make yourself do something else besides photography on the side. Most people can’t have their personal and business lives wrapped up together for long before they start coming unwrapped. Besides which, having more than one thing going on in your life allows your personal and your business sides to enrich one another. Grow another you by separating your personal life from your business life.

SHARE: How do you feel that you contribute to the industry? What is something you would like to share with your follow colleagues?

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One of the goals at Totally Rad is to create a community where photographers can learn and be inspired. Our blog, our recipes site, our video tutorials, and our support page are all places where people can come to pick up new tips, explore the possibilities that are available for their images, and gain a deeper understanding of the tools, people, and issues that are relevant to them. I believe that a rising tide will generally lift all boats, and that if you want more pie, you should just bake a bigger one instead of trying to take someone else’s slice (insert any other colloquialisms you find appropriate here).

Part of what’s made Chenin and me successful, both with Totally Rad and with Boutwell Studio, is being open with our colleagues (who you could also think of as our competition, if you wanted). Southern California, for whatever reason, is full of people doing the same thing for a living, who wanted to have a community of their peers to learn and grow from (and hang out, play poker, etc). Chris Becker was a big advocate of that when we were just getting started, and he helped introduce us to a lot of people who felt similarly. The Digital Wedding Forum took that a step further.

We made lots of friends, who we would compete for jobs with, but who were also some of our closest friends. Those people have helped us spread the word about our products, answer tricky business questions, get backup gear in a pinch, and most importantly to meet other people who can help us. And we try to help them whenever possible. Meeting and engaging our competitors has been the single best thing we’ve ever done for either of our businesses, and most of our best friends grew from those relationships as well.

So share. Be involved with your industry, and engage your peers. Help them with advice. Refer them jobs you can’t take. Loan them gear. Buy them drinks. Go to their kids’ birthday parties. Provided you find the right people, it’s a win-win-win. You’ll benefit, they’ll benefit, and your clients will benefit.

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THANK YOU Doug for being so open and honest in this interview.  I have to say this is probably one of my favorites.  I’m so glad that you are part of this industry, you certain contribute to making it a better place for everyone.  Also, make sure you check out Olive’s monthly contest for a chance to WIN your own copy of Doug’s Dirty Pictures!