$100 Wedding

It's Friday 5:45pm, I just got a phone call from Joe¹. He wanted me to shoot his wedding, in 2 weeks. A good friend of his brother in-law is offering to shoot his wedding for free. But he wants a "real professional" to shoot his wedding and his budget is $100.

I was both angry and wanted to "understand" Joe, so I started asking some questions, he was spending:

Aggressive Pricing

Price is rarely THE number 1 factor when hiring a photographer. Price plays an important role in determining where and when you are on the buyer's list. If a buyer is looking for the highest quality, she will not start by looking for the lowest prices. The higher the prices you charge, the higher the perception of quality of your work.

Some people are more sensitive to prices than others.

Alligators

The number one rule to avoid alligator attacks:

Amateur photographer vs. professional photographer

I was at a reception taking pictures when this guy (it's always a guy) came. He began gloating about his new Canon EOS1d MarkIII while I only had a small Canon G9.

Canon EOS1d MarkIII

Archival vs. 200 years

• Are you saying: "We use archival quality photo paper."?

Or

• Are you saying: "Your photos will last 200 years."?

Are You Selling A Service or Are You Selling Photos?

What are you selling? Are you selling a service or are you selling photos?

If you are selling photos, you sold the photo and now the transaction is closed. There may be another transaction with the same photo but that's stock. With today's prices, selling stock will get you from $1 to $10 per photo, if you are lucky, many photographers are getting less than $1 per photo.

Badmouthing The Competition

Can't Win?: Change The Rules

The Nissan GT-R, as a racing car, is so good and successful in the Japanese GT racing, that they decided to penalize Nissan, by added 50kg² to the car to slow it down. It didn't work, the Nissan GT-Rs still won their races, so let's add another 50kg³. That's a total of 100kg⁴, the Nissan GT-Rs still won all of their races. So let's add another 100kg⁵, that makes a total of 200kg⁶ just to make sure that Nissan can't win all the races.

Competitors

CNN Trade Secrets

Here are CNN's "trade secrets" to take great photos so you will be published by CNN. This is a summary, the full document is available as a PDF at: CNN Trade Secrets. The same "trade secrets" are also at: CNN Trade Secrets with the "trade secrets" to shooting great videos and recording great audio:

Customer Service

On 11-Nov-2008 Grover Sanschagrin did an interview of Craig Mitchelldyer at Photoshelter. The interview is available at: My Nose, Your Business.

Dealing With Deflation

Every day on the radio, on TV and in the newspapers "they" talk about the impeding disaster of the coming deflationary era.

He's a Thief

I regularly go to networking events:

1. It gets me out of the house.

How To Say No

I received a phone call for what would have been an important photo shoot. During the conversation, Sheila⁷ mentioned that she already spoke to 2 other photographers. She was trying to get the 3 of us to bid against each other. As I was asking questions about her requirements for the photo shoot, she mentioned that "another photographer" was going to do it for $3,250 less than my price. Was it true? or not? It was clear that was around what she was willing to pay.

I couldn't do it for that price; I would have lost money on this project. At this point, I knew that it was time to bail out.

I Am A Purist

The other day, I met this photographer who shall remain anonymous because... Very nice black and white panoramic landscapes, he makes a good living selling prints. Within 2 minutes of our conversation:

Liability Insurance

What's that got to do with me? You are walking down the street, photographing a brand new fire hydrant; somebody turns around, looks at you taking your photos, falls on the street and gets hit by a car. You didn't touch the person, you didn't push the person or you didn't even take a photo of that person. You still get sued by the insurance company of the driver and by the person injured⁸, because:

1. You are a photographer.

Lost Photos

Wednesday morning, 7:15am, I just came back from walking my dog, and got a panicked phone call from "Hank"⁹. He can't find the CF¹⁰ cards from last night's reception. We were both at the reception and he was the photographer, I was just a simple guest. Luckily it wasn't me.

Make Your Own Luck

Stock photography is a numbers' game. The more photos you have in stock libraries, the better your luck. Or is it?

Obama's Coronation

Obama has been sworn in, he's now President #44 of the United States. The royal coronation¹¹ had the same worldwide coverage as the opening ceremony of the Olympics, the final of the FIFA soccer world cup final or the 1997 funeral of Princess Diana.

What's that got to do with the business of photography? Apart from the photo coverage of the ceremonies, the photo coverage of the people in Washington DC, the photo coverage of the people watching the sworn-in ceremony around the world. Obama did an outstanding sell job. What did he sell? He sold hope¹². Hope is something that is in very short supply and it's something that everybody wants. Hope is an attitude. Hope makes everything else better.

Photo Ideas

Traveling to an "exotic" location? What do you need to photograph? What should you photograph? What's out there? And much more importantly, what's missing? What can you differently?

1. Go to iStock

What's The Price Of A Photo

What's the price of a photo? You can buy photos for $1 on iStockPhoto and use it forever for whatever you want. You can get millions of pictures for free on Flickr. So what's the price of a photo?

Religion

I have known Danny¹³ for years, we often bump into each other. He's a good photographer, but business is not what it should be. He always complains about how bad business is, then he always asks, if am too busy, that I send him some customers. I have not. I have recommended a few other photographers but never Danny. Why? Because he wears his religion on his sleeves, he makes everybody uncomfortable with it.

1. I can't remember a conversation where he didn't quote the bible.

Retouching vs. Enhanced

• Are you saying: "All our photos are retouched with Photoshop."?

Or

• Are you saying: "We use Photoshop to retouch your photos."?

Returning Phone Calls

Last month I got a call from Junique, never heard off her before, 2 phones and 3 emails later, I got this small but interesting job, photographing her in the South Shore of False Creek in Vancouver, BC.

After the photos were delivered, I was chatting with Junique as why she used my services, since it was not my specialty.

Revisiting the $100 Wedding

Here is the link to the original entry: $100 Wedding

School of Stock

Every stock photographer always asks the question:

Selling A Commodity

Do you need to lower your price? or do you need to increase your value?

People don't want to pay your prices? Are you delivering enough value for those prices? You are selling a commodity because you do not provide enough value.

Setting Prices

How do you set prices? Setting prices is one of the most complicated part of the business of being a photographer. You only have 3 choices:

1. Charge for your time: either on an hourly basis, half day rate, the photo session...

Show Yourself As A Professional

I was at a reception, taking photos of the guests, and suddenly this guy¹⁴ turns around with 2 Canon 1DMk3 cameras around the neck, a monster flashes and L lenses: $20,000 hanging around his neck. He had more gear than me¹⁵. I think he said he was the cousin of the master of ceremony, not that I actually listened to him. I'm the "professional", he's the "jerk" who followed me around, and whatever I did, he always said:

Small and Medium Businesses

Large corporations spend hundreds of thousands to do market research. Often they release them to the public. This is what Getty did in the UK for iStockphoto.

Tickbox.Net did the following study in the UK for iStockphoto/Getty and Octopus Communication released the following press release on 12-Jun-2008.

Stealing Photos

Somebody stole your image, and is using it on their website! You are pissed off! They stole your photo! Slow down.

1. Send a cease and desist letter¹⁶