Ep 185: It’s never too late to become the person you were meant to be with special guest Frank Romano

31 January 2018

We chat to Frank Romano, who transitioned from a successful career in the corporate world when he finally gave in to his side passion for photography.

For the past two years, Frank has totally immersed himself in his newfound passion. He conservatively estimates spending more than 3,500 hours studying, learning and developing his skills and claims that he is only just beginning to develop his competencies as a photographer. And like everything else he commits to in life he won’t stop until he reaches his goal of becoming a true professional at his craft.

Gina and Valerie love bringing this podcast to you.

Hope you enjoy the podcast.

Join the dynamic Gold Membership in our Community which delivers monthly tutorials, live mastermind and lots of behind the scenes videos into the creative process.

Click play to listen to the podcast or find it on iTunes here. If you don’t use iTunes you can get the feed here, or listen to us on Stitcher radio.

Show notes

Listener Question

Beth Alexander, Ottawa, ON, Canada asks:
Instagram question! What are everybody’s thoughts on having separate accounts for separate types of photography that you do?

For example I am a pet photographer but I also love macro photography should I separate the two?
Is it best to separate your work or is it acceptable to keep everything under one account?

Your question is answered in the podcast!

Frank Romano

In this episode Frank shares the secret behind his rapid success.

Topics covered:

Bluffing his way into becoming the drummer for an iconic Aussie singer’s band by pretending to read music and how the lessons he learned from this experience influenced his approach to photography.
The importance of knowing how to “read the music of photography”
His motto “say yes and then figure out how to do it”
The importance of quality training
How he used his strategy at mastering golf to master photography
The importance of finding an unreasonable friend.
There is no such thing as failure, only feedback.
Working with Brian and Geoffrey

Above Frank Romano

Frank has been “taking photos” for the past 45 years. at age 15 he built his own darkroom at the back of his parents house and was developing his own B&W images. At this time his interest in photography was purely a hobby and never considered to be a professional career. His true passion at the time was music. He left school at age 16, and enjoyed a modicum of success as the drummer in a rock band for the next seven years. At that point he decided he needed to get a “real job” so began his career in the corporate world as a professional salesman.

Today ,Frank is an internationally renowned, Award-Winning Sales and Customer Experience Mentor, who has delivered over 3000 workshops and keynote presentations to thousands of sales, service and management professionals Worldwide.

For the past twenty five years, Frank’s leading-edge Selling techniques have helped many Fortune 500 companies such as Mercedes Benz, Nike, and Emirates, and Multinationals like Nintendo, ANZ Bank, Stanley Black and Decker and Accor Hotels, reinvigorate their Sales Teams, through the design, implementation and facilitation of improved management, sales and customer contact Models.

During this time, his underlying passion for photography continued simmer in the background and his camera has been his traveling companion throughout his world travels.

The defining moment occurred one evening in early 2016 when he called Gina Milicia and asked if she would spare a little time to how him how his newly acquired camera worked. Gina generously agreed and In just over one hour, Gina gave Frank a crash course on how to take his camera off auto and start shooting in manual mode and raw format. Gina also introduced Frank to Lightroom and showed him basic post processing. Frank’s creative fuse was now well and truly alight and his pent up passion for photography was about to erupt like a dormant volcano.

Later that year Frank joined Gina’s photography workshop tour in Sicily and was totally overwhelmed with the volume of knowledge and experience that Gina shared with the group.