The Dead Pixels Society Podcast

Gary Pageau

News, information and interviews about the photo/imaging business. This is a weekly audio podcast hosted by Gary Pageau, editor of the Dead Pixels Society news site and community. This podcast is for a business-to-business audience of entrepreneurs and companies in the photo/imaging retail, online, wholesale, mobile, and camera hardware/accessory industries.If you are interested in being a guest on the podcast, email host Gary Pageau at gary@thedeadpixelssociety.com. For more information and to sign up for the free weekly newsletter, visit www.thedeadpixelssociety.com.

  1. hace 5 días

    Building A Photography Business With PPA Tools, with Angela Kurkian

    Have an idea or tip? Send us a text! AI can generate a believable image in seconds, so why does real photography still matter, and how do working photographers protect what they create? We’re joined by Angela Kurkian, CEO of Professional Photographers of America (PPA), to talk about the parts of the job that don’t show up in a highlight reel: Building a sustainable photography business, finding community, and defending your rights as a creator. Kurkian and Gary Pageau of The Dead Pixels Society dig into what makes PPA different as one of the oldest nonprofit photography associations, including the mission to support photographers as small business owners and the idea of serving both the creative artist and the business warrior. She shares her own path through the industry, what she learned in a high-volume studio, and why so many photographers struggle when pricing becomes a guessing game. Kurkian also get practical about tools and benchmarks that help you plan revenue, cost of sales, expenses, and owner pay so a photographer's rates match the life they desire. Kurkian also talks about industry pressure points, like AI in photography and copyright. She explains why PPA’s advocacy in Washington, DC focuses on intellectual property, what photographers misunderstand about copyright registration, and why AI-generated headshots and images raise real ownership and enforcement questions. We also cover where to get vetted education and community support through PPA, including Photovision and local networks. The Dead Pixels Society Podcast is powered by ScanMyPhotos, serving the photo industry for more than 30 years. ScanMyPhotos ScanMyPhotos provides professional digitization services for photos, negatives, slides, and more Energize your sales with Shareme.chat, the proven texting platform.  ShareMe.Chat  ShareMe.Chat platform uses chat-to-text on your website to keep your customers connected and buying! MediaclipMediaclip strives to continuously enhance the user experience while dramatically increasing revenue.Independent Photo ImagersIPI is a member + trade association and a cooperative buying group in the photo + print industry.Buzzsprout - Let's get your podcast launched!Start for FREEPhoto Imaging CONNECTThe Photo Imaging CONNECT conference, March 2027, at the RIO Hotel and Resort in Las Vegas, NScanMyPhotosScanMyPhotos provides professional digitization services for photos, negatives, slides, and moreDisclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the show Sign up for the Dead Pixels Society newsletter at http://bit.ly/DeadPixelsSignUp. Contact us at gary@thedeadpixelssociety.com Visit our LinkedIn group, Photo/Digital Imaging Network, and Facebook group,  The Dead Pixels Society. Leave a review on Apple and Podchaser. Are you interested in being a guest? Click here for details. Hosted and produced by Gary Pageau Announcer: Erin Manning

    Building A Photography Business With PPA Tools, with Angela Kurkian
  2. 26 ago

    Failure Is The Price Of Innovation, with Mike Grossman

    Have an idea or tip? Send us a text! Your business can be brilliant and still get wiped out by timing, regulation, or a technology shift you saw coming but didn’t act on. Gary Pageau of The Dead Pixels Society sits down with six-time Silicon Valley CEO and author Mike Grossman to talk about the unglamorous reality of entrepreneurship: the wins that arrive late, the pivots that need full commitment, and the failures that happen even when the team does a lot right. Grossman walks us through early experiences in the tech world, including consulting for Apple in the mid-1980s, then into fintech startups that ran into two classic hazards: adverse selection and legislation that changed the economics overnight. From there, we get tactical about startup survival, including how to read leading indicators like lead quality, pipeline shifts, and revenue direction, plus the mindset shift that saves companies: the business model is not the business. If you cannot adapt, you are not stubborn, you are exposed. We also zoom out to Silicon Valley culture and today’s AI wave. Grossman explains why failure can be a useful teacher without turning it into a personal brand performance, and we pressure-test AI adoption with a memorable example of hallucinated outputs that look perfect but are totally wrong. The thread running through everything is leadership and people: strong teams, clear focus, and steady decision-making still matter, even in an AI-driven economy where jobs and workflows keep changing. The Dead Pixels Society Podcast is powered by ScanMyPhotos, serving the photo industry for more than 30 years. ScanMyPhotos ScanMyPhotos provides professional digitization services for photos, negatives, slides, and more Energize your sales with Shareme.chat, the proven texting platform.  ShareMe.Chat  ShareMe.Chat platform uses chat-to-text on your website to keep your customers connected and buying! MediaclipMediaclip strives to continuously enhance the user experience while dramatically increasing revenue.Visual 1stVisual 1st is the premier global conference focused on the photo and video ecosystem. Independent Photo ImagersIPI is a member + trade association and a cooperative buying group in the photo + print industry.Buzzsprout - Let's get your podcast launched!Start for FREEPhoto Imaging CONNECTThe Photo Imaging CONNECT conference, March 2027, at the RIO Hotel and Resort in Las Vegas, NDisclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the show Sign up for the Dead Pixels Society newsletter at http://bit.ly/DeadPixelsSignUp. Contact us at gary@thedeadpixelssociety.com Visit our LinkedIn group, Photo/Digital Imaging Network, and Facebook group,  The Dead Pixels Society. Leave a review on Apple and Podchaser. Are you interested in being a guest? Click here for details. Hosted and produced by Gary Pageau Announcer: Erin Manning

    Failure Is The Price Of Innovation, with Mike Grossman
  3. 19 ago

    How SnapShield protects school photos, with Carl Bott

    Have an idea or tip? Send us a text! One screenshot can feel harmless, until you realize it might be happening at scale and quietly rewriting your sales numbers. Gary Pageau of The Dead Pixels Society sits down with Carl Bott, founder of SnapShield, to get practical about a problem volume photographers keep bumping into: parents screenshotting online proofs, using AI watermark removal tools, and sharing “good enough” images instead of buying digital downloads or prints. Bott shares what he’s seeing across school photography and youth sports photography, including why the old solution of bigger watermarks can backfire by hurting the buyer experience and lowering conversion. Bott shares how he developed SnapShield and how it works. He shows how screenshot attempts can be reported with timestamps and access codes, and how that data changes decision-making for a volume business built on revenue per head. When you can spot patterns, you can separate normal price sensitivity from real theft behavior, decide which schools or leagues are worth revisiting, and understand why some “non-buyers” suddenly start purchasing when screenshots stop working. They also talk about the gray areas, like families who screenshot to show relatives, and how a clear, customizable consent box can educate customers on copyright without turning your gallery into a hostile checkout. Mobile is a huge part of the story. Most browsing and many purchases happen on phones, and that convenience comes with new limits on what web galleries can control. Bott breaks down the tradeoffs between web-based protection and downloadable apps, why parents resist app installs for once-a-year ordering, and why platform integrations (including GotPhoto and more in the works) are key to making protection feel seamless. The Dead Pixels Society Podcast is powered by ScanMyPhotos, serving the photo industry for more than 30 years. ScanMyPhotos ScanMyPhotos provides professional digitization services for photos, negatives, slides, and more Energize your sales with Shareme.chat, the proven texting platform.  ShareMe.Chat  ShareMe.Chat platform uses chat-to-text on your website to keep your customers connected and buying! MediaclipMediaclip strives to continuously enhance the user experience while dramatically increasing revenue.Buzzsprout - Let's get your podcast launched!Start for FREEIndependent Photo ImagersIPI is a member + trade association and a cooperative buying group in the photo + print industry.Photo Imaging CONNECTThe Photo Imaging CONNECT conference, March 2027, at the RIO Hotel and Resort in Las Vegas, NVisual 1stVisual 1st is the premier global conference focused on the photo and video ecosystem. Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the show Sign up for the Dead Pixels Society newsletter at http://bit.ly/DeadPixelsSignUp. Contact us at gary@thedeadpixelssociety.com Visit our LinkedIn group, Photo/Digital Imaging Network, and Facebook group,  The Dead Pixels Society. Leave a review on Apple and Podchaser. Are you interested in being a guest? Click here for details. Hosted and produced by Gary Pageau Announcer: Erin Manning

    How SnapShield protects school photos, with Carl Bott
  4. 12 ago

    How Mixbook uses AI to tell real stories, with Andrew Laffoon

    Have an idea or tip? Send us a text! Your camera roll isn’t a memory system, it’s a backlog, and the bigger it gets, the harder it is to turn real moments into something you can actually revisit. Gary Pageau of The Dead Pixels Society sits down with Mixbook CEO and co-founder Andrew Laffoon as Mixbook hits its 20th anniversary. We dig into a question that matters to anyone who cares about photography, printing, or preserving family history: What makes a photo book feel like a story? Laffoon gets specific about the real friction points that stop people from finishing photo books. Years ago, the problem was missing the right shots. Now it’s the opposite: thousands of images, multiple shooters, and no clear starting point. He walks us through Mixbook’s new Story Mode, an AI photo book workflow that starts with a prompt, interviews the customer to capture intent and tone, then proposes structure, selects scenes, lays out spreads, and writes narrative text that’s meant to sound like your voice. We also talk craftsmanship, why “the last five percent” is most of the work, and why AI has to feel helpful rather than generic, creepy, or oddly robotic. Laffoon also discusses the market, too: who the “chief memory officer” is, why younger generations are printing more than you might think, and why the industry still struggles with awareness compared to TikTok and short-form video. The Dead Pixels Society Podcast is powered by ScanMyPhotos, serving the photo industry for more than 30 years. ScanMyPhotos ScanMyPhotos provides professional digitization services for photos, negatives, slides, and more Energize your sales with Shareme.chat, the proven texting platform.  ShareMe.Chat  ShareMe.Chat platform uses chat-to-text on your website to keep your customers connected and buying! MediaclipMediaclip strives to continuously enhance the user experience while dramatically increasing revenue.Independent Photo ImagersIPI is a member + trade association and a cooperative buying group in the photo + print industry.Photo Imaging CONNECTThe Photo Imaging CONNECT conference, March 2027, at the RIO Hotel and Resort in Las Vegas, NBuzzsprout - Let's get your podcast launched!Start for FREEDisclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the show Sign up for the Dead Pixels Society newsletter at http://bit.ly/DeadPixelsSignUp. Contact us at gary@thedeadpixelssociety.com Visit our LinkedIn group, Photo/Digital Imaging Network, and Facebook group,  The Dead Pixels Society. Leave a review on Apple and Podchaser. Are you interested in being a guest? Click here for details. Hosted and produced by Gary Pageau Announcer: Erin Manning

    How Mixbook uses AI to tell real stories, with Andrew Laffoon
  5. 5 ago

    A privacy first photo network can still feel social, with Darin Myman, Myseum.ai

    Have an idea or tip? Send us a text! Your camera roll is overflowing, your group chats are chaos, and the biggest platforms keep getting weirder about data, ads, and AI. So what would a modern photo sharing app look like if it started with privacy and still felt genuinely social? Gary Pageau from The Dead Pixels Society sits down with Darin Myman, CEO of Myseum.ai, to unpack Picture Party, a new approach to event photo sharing that’s closer to a private social network than a simple shared album. Myman discusses the real differences: A feed where people can post big batches of photos and videos, add context with captions and tags, and react and comment like the early days of social networking. He explains why Picture Party is built so new members can see everything from the beginning, making it useful not only for weddings and parties, but also for long-term family photo archives that can last for decades and be shared across generations. Privacy is the center of the conversation. Myman talks about the concern that personal images get used for AI training on major platforms, and he outlines a privacy first AI direction that aims to deliver features like automatic tagging and auto album creation without exposing your data or letting it feed giant external models. Also covered are the practical controls that matter in the real world: who can invite others, who can download full size images for printing, view only modes, and moderator tools that can remove content, boot users, or approve posts before they go live.  The Dead Pixels Society Podcast is powered by ScanMyPhotos, serving the photo industry for more than 30 years. ScanMyPhotos ScanMyPhotos provides professional digitization services for photos, negatives, slides, and more Energize your sales with Shareme.chat, the proven texting platform.  ShareMe.Chat  ShareMe.Chat platform uses chat-to-text on your website to keep your customers connected and buying! MediaclipMediaclip strives to continuously enhance the user experience while dramatically increasing revenue.Buzzsprout - Let's get your podcast launched!Start for FREEIndependent Photo ImagersIPI is a member + trade association and a cooperative buying group in the photo + print industry.Photo Imaging CONNECTThe Photo Imaging CONNECT conference, March 2027, at the RIO Hotel and Resort in Las Vegas, NDisclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the show Sign up for the Dead Pixels Society newsletter at http://bit.ly/DeadPixelsSignUp. Contact us at gary@thedeadpixelssociety.com Visit our LinkedIn group, Photo/Digital Imaging Network, and Facebook group,  The Dead Pixels Society. Leave a review on Apple and Podchaser. Are you interested in being a guest? Click here for details. Hosted and produced by Gary Pageau Announcer: Erin Manning

    A privacy first photo network can still feel social, with Darin Myman, Myseum.ai
  6. 29 jul

    From skill to system: Turning services into scalable companies with Brad Sugars

    Have an idea or tip? Send us a text! Most businesses don’t fail because the owner lacks talent. They stall because the owner becomes the product, the manager, the decision desk, and the emergency contact all at once. That’s when growth turns into stress, customers feel delays, and the company becomes impossible to sell. We’re joined by Brad Sugars, founder of ActionCOACH and author of "Pulling Profits Out of a Hat," to get brutally practical about what separates a skill-based job from a scalable, sellable business asset. Sugars and The Dead Pixels Society Podcast host Gary Pageau talk profit margins over vanity revenue, and why you should know exactly what it costs to keep the doors open per hour. Sugars breaks down the mindset shift from “I’m great at my craft” to “I’m building a machine that delivers outcomes,” including the trap of owner dependency and how systems, documentation, and packaging make a business transferable. If you’re in a creative or service industry like photography, printing, or local retail, the conversation on recurring revenue hits hard: one-off customers create volatility, while the right customer model can create month-in, month-out stability. Sugars also digs into leadership stages and hiring: Why early growth needs doers, why the next stage needs managers, and why real scale demands thinkers and an executive team. He lays out the clearest signs you’ve become the bottleneck, how to set goals that actually force growth, and why hiring people better than you is the only way to stop limiting your company.  The Dead Pixels Society Podcast is powered by ScanMyPhotos, serving the photo industry for more than 30 years. ScanMyPhotos ScanMyPhotos provides professional digitization services for photos, negatives, slides, and more MediaclipMediaclip strives to continuously enhance the user experience while dramatically increasing revenue.Buzzsprout - Let's get your podcast launched!Start for FREEIndependent Photo ImagersIPI is a member + trade association and a cooperative buying group in the photo + print industry.Photo Imaging CONNECTThe Photo Imaging CONNECT conference, March 2027, at the RIO Hotel and Resort in Las Vegas, NDisclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the show Sign up for the Dead Pixels Society newsletter at http://bit.ly/DeadPixelsSignUp. Contact us at gary@thedeadpixelssociety.com Visit our LinkedIn group, Photo/Digital Imaging Network, and Facebook group,  The Dead Pixels Society. Leave a review on Apple and Podchaser. Are you interested in being a guest? Click here for details. Hosted and produced by Gary Pageau Announcer: Erin Manning

    From skill to system: Turning services into scalable companies with Brad Sugars
  7. 22 jul

    How a travel photographer built an audience without algorithms, with Gary Arndt

    Have an idea or tip? Send us a text! Travel photography looks glamorous from the outside, but the business behind it has been quietly collapsing for years and the pandemic only sped it up. We sit down with award-winning travel photographer Gary Arndt, creator of Everything Everywhere Daily, to trace the real arc: Starting with a high-end Nikon he didn’t know how to use, improving through sheer volume and deliberate practice, and building an audience by posting a photo every single day back when blogs and RSS were the center of online discovery. Then the ground shifted. Phones put “good enough” cameras in every pocket, travel magazines thinned out, newspaper travel sections vanished, and more publications leaned on stock imagery and tourist boards instead of assignments. We dig into how platform algorithms narrow what gets rewarded, why context-heavy photos can lose to easy “wow” landscapes, and how that pressure shapes everything from creative choices to where photography tours end up. Arndt explains why he pivoted to podcasting in 2020 and why audio still feels like the old internet: no algorithm deciding what shows up next, a direct subscription relationship, and a format that compounds over time. He breaks down his daily workflow, how he never runs out of topics, and what monetization looks like with host-read ads and strong CPMs, plus why a listener relationship can be deeper than likes on a feed. The Dead Pixels Society Podcast is powered by ScanMyPhotos, serving the photo industry for more than 30 years. ScanMyPhotos ScanMyPhotos provides professional digitization services for photos, negatives, slides, and more MediaclipMediaclip strives to continuously enhance the user experience while dramatically increasing revenue.Buzzsprout - Let's get your podcast launched!Start for FREEIndependent Photo ImagersIPI is a member + trade association and a cooperative buying group in the photo + print industry.Photo Imaging CONNECTThe Photo Imaging CONNECT conference, March 2027, at the RIO Hotel and Resort in Las Vegas, NDisclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the show Sign up for the Dead Pixels Society newsletter at http://bit.ly/DeadPixelsSignUp. Contact us at gary@thedeadpixelssociety.com Visit our LinkedIn group, Photo/Digital Imaging Network, and Facebook group,  The Dead Pixels Society. Leave a review on Apple and Podchaser. Are you interested in being a guest? Click here for details. Hosted and produced by Gary Pageau Announcer: Erin Manning

    How a travel photographer built an audience without algorithms, with Gary Arndt
  8. 15 jul

    How FilterPixel uses AI to cull and deliver event photos faster, with Aayush Arora

    Have an idea or tip? Send us a text! Your camera can shoot 3,000 sharp photos in a day. So why does delivery still take a week? We sit down with Aayush Arora, CEO and founder of FilterPixel, to unpack the real “last mile” problem in professional photography: what happens after the shutter click. The bottleneck is not capture, it is the post-production workflow, especially photo culling and image selection when modern cameras produce tons of near-duplicate keepers that all look “good.”  We trace the personal moments that pushed Arora toward building AI tools for photographers, then get specific about what makes culling so brutal: repeated sittings, decision paralysis, and the challenge of choosing the best frame from bursts where expressions change by millimeters. From there, we dig into how FilterPixel approaches AI photo culling with genre-aware criteria, why weddings and sports should not be judged the same way, and how transparency builds trust when an algorithm is picking images for your brand.  Privacy is a major theme too. Arora explains consent-driven model training, retention policies, and why a clear privacy policy matters more than the simplistic “offline is safer than cloud” argument. We also explore AI editing as automation for redundant tasks like white balance and basic color correction, not a replacement for creative taste, plus event-ready tools like branded frames, live galleries, and QR-code sharing aimed at same-day delivery for conferences and high-volume shoots.  The Dead Pixels Society Podcast is powered by ScanMyPhotos, serving the photo industry for more than 30 years. ScanMyPhotos ScanMyPhotos provides professional digitization services for photos, negatives, slides, and more Energize your sales with Shareme.chat, the proven texting platform.  ShareMe.Chat  ShareMe.Chat platform uses chat-to-text on your website to keep your customers connected and buying! MediaclipMediaclip strives to continuously enhance the user experience while dramatically increasing revenue.Buzzsprout - Let's get your podcast launched!Start for FREEIndependent Photo ImagersIPI is a member + trade association and a cooperative buying group in the photo + print industry.Photo Imaging CONNECTThe Photo Imaging CONNECT conference, March 2027, at the RIO Hotel and Resort in Las Vegas, NDisclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the show Sign up for the Dead Pixels Society newsletter at http://bit.ly/DeadPixelsSignUp. Contact us at gary@thedeadpixelssociety.com Visit our LinkedIn group, Photo/Digital Imaging Network, and Facebook group,  The Dead Pixels Society. Leave a review on Apple and Podchaser. Are you interested in being a guest? Click here for details. Hosted and produced by Gary Pageau Announcer: Erin Manning

    How FilterPixel uses AI to cull and deliver event photos faster, with Aayush Arora

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News, information and interviews about the photo/imaging business. This is a weekly audio podcast hosted by Gary Pageau, editor of the Dead Pixels Society news site and community. This podcast is for a business-to-business audience of entrepreneurs and companies in the photo/imaging retail, online, wholesale, mobile, and camera hardware/accessory industries.If you are interested in being a guest on the podcast, email host Gary Pageau at gary@thedeadpixelssociety.com. For more information and to sign up for the free weekly newsletter, visit www.thedeadpixelssociety.com.

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