25% Off

As I have written before in Discounts and in Discounts Discounts that I don't like to give discounts. I am very firm on that policy. I give "freebies" and extras but not discounts. So why did I give in April a 25% discounts to a customer?

Last year, one of my biggest customer went "belly up", closed, bankrupt, sort of. They did file for bankruptcy after they paid the "small guys", including me. They owed me $400, which they paid.

6 month later, I get a phone call from Travis, the ex-owner. He's trying to get back in business and there are a couple of photos that he'd like to use, but he can't afford to pay me anything.

A few years ago, I met Michael. Michael was Rivka's boyfriend. Michael was a real "wacko".

I rarely talk about advertising and mostly write about marketing. What's the difference when it comes to your photography business?

• Advertising: the purchase of time or space in a media. You can buy time on the radio, on the TV or... You are buying the time to show your information. You can buy space in a magazine, in the newspapers or on the Internet such as banners or Google to show your information. All in all you are paying for the exposure. The more "eye balls" the more you will be paying. To advertise you will have to pay.

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.

All other things being equal, people will buy the cheapest one. Luckily for us¹, we are not all equals.

• 2 photographers with the same equipment at the same event will take different photos².
• 2 photographers with the same computer and the software will process their photos differently.

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 trustworthy?
• Are you embellishing a little or even a lot?
• How do people feel about you?
• How do people feel about your photography?

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.

Yesterday: Tuesday 6-May-2008, was the US democratic primary in North Carolina and Indiana. Big news:

• Obama won North Carolina by a wide margin
• Clinton won Indiana by a narrow margin.

Last night I was one of three photographers at a reception. Three photographers, three different clients covering the same people. We all know each other. I arrived first, unloaded my equipment, and started to make the rounds to find the best spots and the best angles. The other two guys arrive and Joe asks for my help to unload his SUV, a Land Rover LR3, which he left at the front. I go and help when I notice at the back the warning sign stuck on the rear window: Baby On Board

Badmouthing The Competition

With the recession my business has slowed down, a lot. I am now 55% below February 2008. My 2 largest customers have closed. I am reexamining my marketing. Before I spend more money on marketing, I need to figure out:

1. Where do my customers find me? Ads, word of mouth, Google? I started phoning my old customers to ask. Guess what? From that I already have 2 small photo shoots! That wasn't the purpose, the purpose is to find where I should spend my time and work on my marketing.
2. What's my percentage of people, who call/email with questions, becomes customer?

How do you raise your prices? The standard answer is to build a brand. Oh Yeah? What does it means to build a brand? How many photographers have built a brand? Two or three dozen of photographers have done it. Here are some:

• Henri Cartier-Bresson
• Edward Weston

What's burn rate, you ask?

Cameras and Competition

Every professional photographer screams bloody murder, there are millions and billions of free photos on the Internet. The 2 largest websites for photos are:

• Facebook: 17+ Billion photos [Nov-2009]

When I take photos, I always get:

Last week, I was at a presentation where some photographers displayed and projected their photos. Some were outstanding, better than anything I ever did. One guy spend 3 month tracking a tiger to get photos of the tiger in the sunset. I don't have the time or the patience to spend 3 month to make a photo. It was amazing. When the presentations were finished, we started chatting and he asked:

Can You Help Me Justify Spending This Much?

The Saddleback Leather Company sells leather bags. Everybody else sells leather bags, but these ones are expensive, tough and look great. Did I say that these leather bags are expensive? So how do you compete with Prada, and Tumi? Their bags are expensive, tough, look great. They have massive advertising dollars and the Saddleback Leather Company is small without the millions of dollars in advertising.

Last month, I was just leaving the office, when the phone rang. I picked up the phone; it was a company that I never heard from. John³ wanted me to quote for a large construction job.

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 50kg⁴ to the car to slow it down. It didn't work, the Nissan GT-Rs still won their races, so let's add another 50kg⁵. That's a total of 100kg⁶, the Nissan GT-Rs still won all of their races. So let's add another 100kg⁷, that makes a total of 200kg⁸ just to make sure that Nissan can't win all the races.

Competitors

Cash For Clunkers

I have received the following email from PhotoShelter.

I was talking this week with Sam, a friend of mine. He was "complaining" that he has all the cheapskates customers. His customers don't want to pay for the 14x14 or 16x20 prints. So I started asking where he gets his photography clients. Many of his clients came from his wife, Airin. Airin is a "barterer". She loves to barter. Barter is exchanging good or services without using money and the keyword is exchanging and not the word paying.

Sam doesn't barter but many of his photography customers do. It turns out that he promotes, actually his wife, at places where cheapskates congregate. A cheapskate is a cheapskate. a cheapskate doesn't pay for things that are not a necessity. A cheapskate pride themselves on being cheap and how little money they paid for ... including photography.

The Christian Science Monitor will be the first of the "major" newspaper to stop having a print edition and will be switching to the web: See Monitor shifts from print to Web-based strategy. They will be switching in April 2009. The Christian Science Monitor is planning to print a weekly version of the newspaper. The cost of producing, printing and distributing a physical daily newspaper is very high. Cutting all of those costs will remove many constraints, both physical and financial. On the web, there is no printing cost, no paper, and space is: "free and unlimited"⁹.

My first reaction is: "Another paper biting the dust!" Upon further thoughts, I think that it's a great boon for photography and photographers. The Christian Science Monitor will "consume" and buy more news photos than before.

SWMBO¹⁰ aka The Boss started looking for a Gucci watch for her birthday next February. She has a collection of them. Gucci watches mean "mucho dineros" i.e.: expensive. Last week she got a phone call from one of the most expensive jeweler in town, that they will be having a "sale" on Tuesday. Luxury and Sales. The recession must be on and it must be hurting. She went, saw the watch she wanted, asked for a big further discount, another 20% below the sale price, that the store manager approved. What a deal! I can't afford to save money.

Lets examine the situation:

Your worst nightmare: you finally got "a live one", a customer, a real one looking to buy your platinum extra deluxe package. She's convinced, she wants it, but she has to check with her husband, her boss, her best friend, her cat and her dog. Meanwhile, somebody tells her about how her friend used this guy that did everything, including washing the dishes, for half of the price!

What are you gonna do?

Either you differentiate yourself, you compete on price or you will go out of business. Can you compete on price? You think you can?

1. With her cousin who just bought a "real camera" and will do it for free!
2. With millions and millions of photos on Flickr that is available for the tidy sum of $0.

You've delivered your photos. A couple of month later, you hear through the grapevine that she is very unhappy with the photos of her kids. What is she complaining about? She selected the pictures during the review, so what's the problem?

You are part of the problem

• What's the cost difference between being polite and being rude?
• What's the cost difference between presenting photos and just throwing your photos on a website?
• What's the cost difference between a calibrated monitor and one that is not properly calibrated?
• What's the cost difference between a well composed photo and one that's not well composed?

The craft fairs can be either a very lucrative market or a black hole that will suck down everything I have. It depends on how well the pictures relate to the people coming to these craft fairs. It also depends on how well I relate to the people coming to these craft fairs.
These craft fairs can be quite expensive, especially to setup until I have a workflow that works for me.

Costs

• Exhibition fees: I need to rent a table. Some of the craft fairs do include electricity, at other I will need to pay extra for the electricity. The fee also varies depending on the day of the week, with weekdays being cheaper than the weekend.

How to Ignore Customers

This morning, I was the Granville Island Public Market, in Vancouver, BC, Canada. Granville Island is a very small island in Vancouver, a little bit industrial, a little bit craft, a lot of arts, a lot of boats and marinas and a public market. Inside the public market, in the middle of the permanent stands, they have "craft pods". Each craft pod is made of 4 tables in a square, with the owners/craft people in the middle of the pod.

Every year, in February, all the craft vendors have to go through a selection process to know if they will be approved for the year. Then, when they are approved, they will be assigned 7 days per month. There are many photographers, trying to sell their prints, the prices range from $5 for the small 4 by 6 to hundreds of dollars for the large prints on canvas. They've approved too many photographers, some days there are as many as 6 photo stands.

I received an email from "anonymous photographer" asking me if it's worthwhile to advertise on Craig's list.

There are all kind of people asking for photographers and many photographers at prices unheard of.

In business CRM: customer relationship management, is the magic powder that allows you to improve your interaction with the customer so that s/he will happier and therefore buy more. Eventually that customer will become more profitable. With CRM, you capture as much information as possible about the customer's birthdays, family info..., the sale info interaction, profitability, how good the customer was...

With a good implementation of the CRM software, you can offer customers better deals for them and for you. You can remind/congratulate them on their birthday, anniversary, promotion...

CRM goals

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.

A couple of days ago, I got this email:

I hate discounts. I sell both prints and licenses for my photos. I regularly get asked for discounts. So I hate discounts (I love a discount when I buy something, but that's another story). Asking for discounts is part of the human nature. Look at all these people who are asking for deep discounts or even want your photos for free, when it's not even their money! They have no problem asking for perpetual rights and unlimited number of prints but they still want their salary and would never work for free.

Dealing with discounts

Do you know who your customers are? My guess is that you know their name, maybe their address, sometimes the company name and that's about it.

Do You Specialize?

A few months ago, I wrote an article about squirrels. In the article also mentioned rabbits. So last week in the evening, very late in the evening, I got a phone call from a photo buyer from Switzerland¹¹, who was looking for at least a hundred photos of rabbits. Rabbits in the wild, rabbits in the home, rabbits as pet, rabbits as pest, rabbits as food…

He spent a couple of days looking for photos of rabbits, without much success, a photo here, a photo there but no collection, no choice. I mentioned “what about iStockPhoto, Fotolia and the other microstocks agencies with millions of photos”. He said that they didn't have anything. That was already his first thought. It's too bad that in the end I wasn't able to help him, the budget was over 10 thousand Swiss Francs or just under 10 thousand US dollars.

Dumb Email

I received an email from an photographer¹². It was an email blast with mail merge that inserted my name and my email address. He just requested that I go to his website to “enjoy” his “fine and exquisite“ photography in the hope of getting assignments.

There were a couple of problems with his email:

Email is one of the main communication form. we expect it to be almost instantaneous. When are away, they usually set an auto-responder to let others know that they can't reply or deal with their email. Here are some examples of what people have done:

Email Checklist

Email is the critical application. Everybody on the Internet has and uses email. I wrote about a few email stats in: Email Stats - Part 1 and Email Stats - Part 2.

• 25% of Internet users check their email immediately after waking up.

Last week, I had a discussion about email with one of my customer. He was "complaining" about my email being too hard to read. Most of the time, he uses his Blackberry. Nobody ever complained about my emails before. So I started investigating:

1. I have always been assuming that everybody uses their desktop, even the people with a Blackberry. I have always been assuming that they'd just looked at their Blackberry, just still get their emails on their regular computer/laptop.
2. The Blackberry has a resolution of 320 by 240. My desktop has a resolution of 1600 by 1050.

I don't know about you, but for me email is one of my important tools for my photographic business. I use it all day long. I get around 1 500 emails/day. Yes that's one thousand five hundred emails per day. With 1 200 to 1 300 emails as spam¹³.

I'm always interested in how people use email or receive emails

Email Statisitics — Part 2

This part 2 of Email Statistics 2008 - Part 1. Just a reminder that for me email is one of my important tool for my photographic business. I use it all day long. I get around 1 500 emails/day. Yes that's one thousand five hundred emails per day, with 1 200 to 1 300 as spam.

Everyday I get between 1,200 and 2,000 emails. Yes, you read it correctly between one thousand two hundreds and two thousands emails per day. You can buy CDs with 100 million email addresses for spamming, half of these addresses are mine. I am so well organized that it takes me only 20 minutes to half an hour per day to go through it. In another entry, I will explain my system.

What makes people open and read an email? The subject line. Here is a list of the best email subject lines used for marketing from Mail Chimp

I stumbled upon this surfing website. It's very different from any other that I've seen. They are trying and it looks like they are succeeding in becoming the MySpace of surfing. It has been up since June 2007. They are a portal for surfing. Photographers, any photographer, can upload their images, videos and any "dude" can order prints, mugs, t-shirts and sweatshirts.

What makes it special is:

I was at this very fancy/expensive restaurant with SWMBO ¹⁴ aka The Boss. We had a reservation, arrived on time, the Maitre D' showed us to our table.

The table was so small, at a terrible spot, just next to the entrance of the kitchen. I asked if we could get another table, the Maitre d' said NO! That's all there is. So I asked what about this other table? NO! It's already reserved! So I asked, "Are we getting something special for having this terrible table?" Outraged the Maitre d' shouted NO!, so we left.

Are you using Facebook for promoting your photography? At least 2 photographers, that I know, are using Facebook to promote their photography business by posting regularly new photos. The only problem is that they've never read the terms of use: Facebook terms of use. In case they change their terms of use, here they are:

Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt or FUD was first defined by Gene Amdahl after he left IBM to found his own company, Amdahl Corp.:

I had an appointment with a photographer. The appointment was for 10:00am, we confirmed it over the phone the day before. I arrived 9:50am, I waited. 10:00am: he is not here, 10:05am: he's still not here and he has not called. 10:10am: still nothing and nobody. 10:15am: I left and I didn't call him. 10:45am: he called and screamed "Where are you? You are late!". I replied: "No, I waited until 10:15am, you were not there and you didn't call me to let know, so I left."

He was fuming. How could I do that? That wasn't his fault, the traffic, the weather...

1. An acquaintance of mine got an iPhone from Apple and showed me web surfing. We ended up at a photo website that was only Flash based. It could not open the website.
2. Almost a year after the release the iPhone from Apple, and the iPhone still does not have Flash support.
3. Many photo websites are 100% Flash based websites.
4. Cutting edge people bought these iPhones and are using them. These cutting-edge people are photo editors, designer.. they are also the people that want to see your pictures. If they can't see your website, they can't buy or ...

Regularly I receive calls and emails, asking if they can use my photos for free. I don't know about you. If you are a professional photographer, and you give away your photos and your rights for free, you will not stay a professional photographer for long. I rarely give my photos for free. The keyword is rarely, meaning that I have done it.

How fortunate I am, that they have chosen to use my photos for free! It will raise my profile in the "industry." Most of them are outraged that I dared not give my photos for free. Some have even suggested that I should pay them for the benefit of being published. I don't give way photos willy-nilly. I have a policy. Depending on who asks and how they ask, I have agreed but under the condition that they fulfill my policy:

Free Publicity

As a photographic business, we will take any publicity we can get, especially the good one. Publicity is good, especially free publicity.

1. Free publicity is cheap.

As I have said in many postings, I don't like to give discounts. What I give frequently are "freebies".

I have used this website to talk about the business of being a photographer and about Lightroom. How many photography websites are out there? One hundred thousand, a million websites? Nobody really knows, but my scientific, fully fact checked, gut feel is closer to a million photography blogs/websites than closer to the hundred thousand mark. How many of these blogs/websites deal with the business of photography, I would say about a dozen. Good photography business information is very rare. I could say that photo business information is a rare commodity, but commodity and rare in the same sentence is an oxymoron.

Photography books, there are so many photography books. I just did a search at Amazon.com and found 217,434 Results. How many photo business books? Not that many, may be a couple of hundred and very few books are:

Here are sections of Getty confidential info memorandum. How confidential and secret it is? Not too much since they posted it on the web. It's on the SEC¹⁵ EDGAR¹⁶. The full document is available at: Getty SEC fillings
— Getty: EXCERPTS FROM CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION MEMORANDUM — Jun 2008

Trends in Imagery Market

Here are sections of Getty confidential info memorandum. How confidential and secret it is? Not too much since they posted it on the web. It's on the SEC¹⁷ EDGAR¹⁸. The full document is available at: Getty SEC fillings
— Getty: EXCERPTS FROM CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION MEMORANDUM — Jun 2008

Trends in Imagery Market

Gift cards are a huge industry! All the big companies are using them, from Best Buy to your neighborhood mall. Gift cards are so big that are gift cards conferences!

Time to issue your own gift card? Lately, I have been giving away $50 gift cards. My own gift card for my own services. So basically, I am giving away $50 discounts. But, it's not a discount... It's different from a discount. People ask for discounts, they work you, they nag, they complain, they threaten to get the discount. Once they receive a discount, they always want the discount. A gift card is different:

Every once in a while, there is a book that can have an actual impact on your business. It's very rare that you can actually take what they mention in a book and apply it. It's rare, extremely rare. The book is Yes!: 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive by Noah J. Goldstein (Author), Steve J. Martin (Author), Robert B. Cialdini (Author). It's available at Amazon or any other bookstore.

They did an experiment:

Groupies and the D300s

On 30-Jul-2009, Nikon announced the successor to their very successful D300, the Nikon D300s and... Nothing. Last year, Nikon released the D90 and every single photography blog, website... was saying how great the Nikon D90 was, sight unseen, without trying it or without taking any photo. I wrote an article about the Groupies and the D90. There was much more press and blogger coverage for the Nikon D5000 that was announced in April 2009 at the bottom of the recession.

Why?

Florida based photo agency http://prphotos.com is giving 50% commissions to their photographers! Great, that's a decent commission. But a commission of what? They charge LESS THAN A PENNY PER PHOTO.

Check: Rates

You receive a phone for a photo shoot, they ask you for a quote. How may quotes do you give? One or two?

I always give 3 quotes, like Goldilocks:

I work for a living making photos¹⁹. My specialties were construction photography²⁰ and events²¹. A week ago, somebody called me to photograph a wedding. I don't do weddings, I had the choice of:

1. Sorry, we don't do weddings and hang up the phone.
2. Sorry, we don't do weddings. On the other hand, Martha specializes in weddings, her number is:... Oh by the way, when you call her, could you please mention that I gave you her name and number, that'd be appreciated.

How Often Should You Promote?

This year alone there will be at least a thousand new titles about photography and there will be approximately half a dozen new books on the photography business. Since the start of the new millennium, there has been only been 45 new books on the business of photography. I will have to say that the very best is: "Successful Self-Promotion for Photographers" from Elyse Weissberg. I already wrote about "Successful Self-Promotion for Photographers" in my article: Getting The Appointment

I'd like to quote another anecdote from the "Successful Self-Promotion for Photographers" book.

How To Charge Full Price

If you think the photography is a cut throat business, let me introduce you to a really cut throat business. The sneaker's²² business is a cut throat business. Sneakers Runners are being routinely discounted 30% to 60%. Who cares were you bought your runners? As long as you have your Nike, your Addidas, your … Most people will go to the standard stores that are everyday 30% off, and some items are 50% off or 60% off.

There's a company in Canada that's doing very well, selling runners and running clothes at full price. They rarely have discounts, and they are doing well. It's the Running Room. They are mostly in Canada, but they also have a few stores in the US.

How To Make $1,000 A Week In Your Spare Time From Your Photography

I regularly see these ads:

• Make $1,000 A Week In Your Spare Time From Your Photography

In the mid-90s, in the business world and the computer world, the buzz word was CRM.

How to Start as a Pro?

There are 3 ways of becoming a pro.

1. You are the lucky one. Somebody asks you to take their photos. Usually, it's a family or a friend. Or somebody asks you to sell them a photo you took for … Those photographers are the lucky one, and shouldn't be professional photographers. Photographers never become rich and since they are the lucky one, they should use their luck on winning the Lotto.

I don't know about you, but there are days when I run out of ideas. What should I write about? What should I take photos about? Sometimes, actually too often, I draw a blank, zero new idea. Google to the rescue! Every year, Google posts a summary of what people did search during the year.

Google Zeitgeist

Idiot at the Helm

AP, Associated Press, is a co-op owned by over 1500 newspapers. They have 240 offices around the world with local reporters to “gather” the news. AP has many problems of late on deciding and implementing an Internet strategy. Lately, they have often “stolen” news from the local news. But that's OK: “we are only reporting the news.”

When Google shows the headlines, the AP claims “It's theft and we should be compensated”. If you read the news headlines at the newsstand, should you pay for the newspaper? Should I get paid for having to look at their advertising?

All photographers [like everybody else] want to raise their income. There are two basic ways:

1. Work longer hours
2. Raise your rates

All photographers [like everybody else] want to raise their income. There are two basic ways:

1. Work longer hours
2. Raise your rates

A customer got her photos, you get paid. That's the end of the story? No, not really, a month after you have cashed the cheque, you receive a letter from the customer complaining that the photos are not what she expected. The pictures were too artistic, the mole on her cheek still shows on the picture, the hairs on the children where not straight...

You reply to her letter with a phone call, that:

1. We discussed the look of the photos before the sitting session.

Is The Sky Falling?

If you follow the photography business news, the sky is falling:

• All staff photographers have been laid off. Every week, a media organization is laying off their staff photographers.

Is This A Good Workshop?

I just had coffee with Jane, an “almost” friend. We talk regularly but we're not really friends. Jane took photography as a hobby last year. She wants to improve so she decided that in 2010, she will take a couple of workshops and asked for my advice. So she paid for my coffee and muffin. There's no free advice…

Jane brought the flyer with her. I won't name the company since they are quite big in Vancouver. I know of them, but I haven't taken any workshop there. Here are some of their programs:

John Lund's interview with Charlie Holland

John Lund has been involved in stock photography for decades, centuries, even millenniums, so far 2 millenniums. His blog is: John Lund. He recently did an interview with Charlie Holland, she was the Director Of Photography at Getty Images, dated: Sunday November 8, 2009.

A point of view is from the other side of the glass. She was the buyer. Please note that the emphasis is mine.

Keeping your eyes on the ball - Part 2

I have already written about keeping your eyes on the ball in many articles, especially with “Keeping your eyes on the ball”. Why am I bringing this subject again? Everybody knows that you should keep your eyes on the ball. So why again today? Because we have one of the “best” example of what happens when you don't keep your eyes on the ball.

President Obama. He has very important things that he needs to concentrate on. He doesn't seem to get it. This morning it was the Olympics for Chicago, the afternoon he “deals” with Afghanistan and the evening with health care.

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.

When I negotiate rights or prices, I always:

1. Listen
2. Slow down the negotiation

I am in the process of diversifying my business. One of the items that I am looking at is: Limited Print Edition. So I started to look into it, and what's a Limited Printed Edition? Many photographers on the web show Limited Print Edition with some 250 prints, some 100 prints and some 50 prints.

So I started to investigate: There is an actual definition of the Limited Print Edition: Limited Print Edition was defined in Basle, Switzerland in 1896 at the convention that defined the international copyright laws.

Lots of Visitors, Low Sales

I get a lot of emails, over a thousand emails per day. The majority is spam, and I have an extremely effective anti-spam system that cuts out at least 99% of the spam. But from time to time, I receive emails asking for help. Here's a recent one from Kathy:

Magazines & Newspapers Going Out of Business

Conde Nast is closing some of their magazines, Time Inc. is closing publications and laying off people by the thousands. Everybody's blaming the Internet. The Internet is killing all the newspapers and the magazines. There are plenty of websites that keep track of which publications are dying. The 2 big ones are:

• Magazine Death Pool

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?

Money Back Guarantees

Seven weeks ago, GM, yes that one the bankrupt trying to get revived, announced in North America, Canada and the US a 60 days money back guarantee on Chevrolets²³, Cadillacs and Buicks. I don't know if they have the same program in other countries. You can drive the car, the SUV or the cross-over for 60 days and up to 4000 miles or 6400 kilometers.

What large companies do when they offer an expensive guarantee such as money back guarantee on expensive items or good weather guarantee? They buy insurance from an insurance company, and it's cheaper than I thought.

This weekend, I met a "wealthy" photographer! He makes a few hundred thousands of dollars per year in stock photography, seminars and workshops. He is well off, drives a Lexus, but he's no Bill Gates or Larry Ellison. He will never be rich. Why is he so successful, because:

Moo Business Cards

Last week I ordered 50 Moo business cards. By the time the shipping was included it was $30. $30 for 50 cards, that's $0.60 per business card. Wow, expensive. Kind of.

The moo cards allow you to upload photos, as many photos as you want, up to the total number of business cards. This means custom business cards. I went to my local printer, he can't do that, but he could farm it out and it would cost me around $8 per card! Now 60 cents per card is not that expensive.

Naivety

I am amazed at people's naivety when it comes to the Internet! Somehow people think that they can control what's on the Internet. The latest example is Obama²⁴. The Obama team has removed many policies²⁵ from their website see: Agenda vanishes from Obama's transition website as reported by CNet.

• Did you put in foot in your mouth on your photo blog²⁶? and now wish to retract it?

The New Year is coming soon, meaning that the existing year is ending (duh!). It's a good time to pause and reassess the situation. For me, as a photographer, many things have changed this year. I have 2 groups of customers:

1. Corporate
2. Private

Obama's Coronation

Obama has been sworn in, he's now President #44 of the United States. The royal coronation²⁷ 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 hope²⁸. 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.

The other week, I was at a nice reception as a "plain" guest. We were all well dress, no tuxedo but half of the people suits and the other half with nice casuals. There was a photographer with 2 Canon 1D Mk3 cameras with an assistant holding a wireless flash with a small Lumiquest softbox. Too bad it wasn't me doing the reception. The photographer was dressed in jeans with a smart-ass t-shirt and runners.

He was in everybody's face, interrupting people, rearranging everybody by pushing and shoving people with his assistant. Worst of all, this guy was a very loud and obnoxious. Every third word was either:

What if you only had one customer? Basically you are an employee without a regular paycheck. In my country, Canada, the Income Tax people²⁹ will deem you to be an employee³⁰ and therefore your employer has to collect taxes, unemployment and all the other payroll deductions.

So if you had only one customer?

Paparazzi: photographers that take candid photos of celebrities. They usually do it through following, ambushing, and stalking the celebrity. Many celebrities share their schedules with the paparazzi so they can raise their profile in the media.

There various surveys, but these surveys are from photographers that volunteer for these surveys. The average income of a paparazzi is around $100,000 per year with the possibility of getting the shot that will make them a million dollar. Good paparazzi earn around $250,000 per year with the possibility of getting the shot that will make them a million dollar.

Everyday, I hear on the news that a whole bunch of workers are being laid-off. GM will lay-off another 24,000 layoffs as part of its bankruptcy. Many photographers are feeling the pinch of the recession, but very few hare being laid-off. Why? Because photographers as employees have been an endangered species since the late 90s. In the eighties, 25 years ago, I knew of at least a couple dozen of full-time photographers in the lower mainland³¹ receiving a monthly salary. Today, I only know of 2 salaried full-time photographers, and 1 will either loose his job or quit this year.

Almost all professional photographers are self-employed, and we aren't receiving any bailout. I want my money! I want my bailout, but... In spite of the recession, and the contracting of the economy, the photographic requirements are expanding. People are still getting married, families are getting babies, kids are still graduating from schools and they still want their photos to remember these events. Businesses are still advertising, flyers are still being printed, billboards are still being used... In spite of the recession, photo usage is significantly higher, whatever it's source.

These forums are a very good source of information and interaction with other photographers than can answer your questions:

• Advertising Photographers of America
• APAnet Professional photographer business forum

Every year Photo District News does a survey of wedding photographers. The 2009 survey is at: PDN's 2009 Photography Wedding Business Survey Results. It does yield some interesting results that I think apply to most "retail" photography: weddings, portraits, children...

1. Fewer bookings with a 6.5 percent drop in wedding photography income with a few less hours per week on wedding photography work.
2. Wedding photographers who offer a la carte services have raised their prices by 1½%. The wedding photographers who offer packages have raised their prices by 3%. The most interesting part of it is:

The other day, a radio station interviewed Sharman King about books and book business. Sharman King owns a chain of 7 bookstores, the Book Warehouse in Vancouver, BC and around Vancouver.

Pissing Match

Photography is the intersection of technology and art. Painting started on the walls of caves. Music started with the voice. Sculpture with made with stones. All these arts do not need technology. Photography does. We need some kind of media to record and some kind of optics to direct the light. So there is no photo without technology.

There are millions of forums on the Internet, there are a few big forums that are dedicated to photography, the biggest ones are:

I am on one of those credit card reward program that is tied to an airline company. To be part of it, I had to give them my name, my address, my email, my first-born, my dog and my dog. So every month, they send me a promo email. Part of that email is a statement of how many points I have. According to the email, I am missing over 5,000 points!

At the top of that email, it says:

I don't receive postcards any more. I use to, you know the cheesy postcard, the photo of a local landmark shot at 2 in the afternoon, but nobody sends me those postcards anymore. My friends email me photos instead.

In the direct mail advertising business, the standard response rate is between 1% to 2%. This means that 98% to 99% of these letters end up in the recycling box. And if you are like me, the vast majority of them don't even get opened before being tossed in the recycling box. Instead of the closed envelope that needs to be opened, you can use a postcard. The person receiving the postcard does not need to open it. She MUST look either at the front or the back. It's not possible to discard it without actually reading it³². This gives you a much higher response rate, as high as 7%, but more realistically 3 to 5%.

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?

There are some photographers that are extremely successful, some are moderately successful. Some photographers even earn a good living from being a professional photographer. What's the common thread between all of these photographers?

People! How they interact with people. The number one skill to master to become a professional photographer: people skills. Wedding, portraits, fashion, advertising, photo journalist, paparazzi, travel, food³³, corporate, industrial... all of them require you to deal with people at some point during you job. Note that these times, where you have to interact with people as a photographers, are the critical times to being a professional photographer and earning a living from professional photography.

The main goal of a photo business, as a matter of fact all businesses, is to make a profit. It's not me who says so. In Canada, CRA³⁴ aka the income tax police, has made the decision for me:

You can only operate a photography business, any business, for 3 years, if you are loosing money! After 3 years, the business must start to turn a profit or break-even. If the business does not at least break even, then it's not a "real business"³⁵. CRA will reclassify your photo business as a hobby. Converting your business to a hobby means that CRA will disallow all of your expenses and reassess retroactively your taxes and penalties…

Questions for 2010

This is already January 2010. Photography is a tough business, prices are going down, competition is growing and the market is expanding significantly. To be ready to get a good piece of the pie, here are 3 questions that will shape your year in the business of photography.

1. What are you promising?

• Scalped tickets at the concert cost more than tickets ordered month ago.
• Airport food is so not only more expensive than any other place in town and the quality is...
• Out of town towing is always very expensive.

The recession is biting, and the photography business is hurting. Photographers are not immune to the general economics. "The Boss", aka SWMO³⁶ is looking to buy new appliances, she walks out of the store if she can't even get a 20% discount! And I'm looking at raising my prices.

The only purpose of cutting prices is to be cheaper than the competitor to grab their customers. So let's make a leading promotion of $25 for the portrait session to grab market share. The $25 portrait session will include:

Every photo business must have customers, or it's not a business³⁷. To grow, you will either have to sell more to those existing photo customers or find brand new customers. The recession will make it easier to grow. Why? Because many photographers will not stick around, and more people will be asking their brother-in-law to take their photos, and will have been severely disappointed.

• How easy is it to contact your existing customers?
• How easy is it to get referrals from your existing customers?

Everywhere you read or anybody you talk to always say:

Religion

I have known Danny³⁸ 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.

Joe M. died last year at the age of 77. I am not here to tell you how good of a man he was, that he was a good father, a very good husband and so on. As a matter of fact, I only knew him professionally. He worked for 27 years for the RCMP³⁹ as a crime scene photographer.

When he retired, he decided to do a couple dozen of weddings per year to keep him busy and have some extra income. This was a complete "flop", it didn't work, and weddings were so different from working with other cops that...

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.

Sitting on the side of a curvy road, take photos of cars and motorcycles as they pass by. Can you believe that not only you can make a full time living but also employ a few more people. This is exactly what Darryl Cannon of Killboy and his blog: Killboy Blog is doing. By the Smoky Mountain National Park between Tennessee and North Carolina, there a famous road, the "Dragon". People travel hundreds and thousands of kilometers to drive the "Dragon". Darryl and his people park their cars on the side of a nice spot and take their photos.

And now for the important question: How do they sell the photos? Their cars have the website name painted in huge on the side. People go to their website to buy prints of their riding. This is nothing new; this was done for decades with river rafting. Except that the photos done, with the river rafting, were done in conjunction with the river rafting company. What attraction exists in your area?

Rolex Watches

What's Rolex watches to do with professional photography? Actually, plenty. We have a lot to learn from Rolex. Rolex sells watches, not just watches, expensive watches and extremely expensive watches for as much as five hundred thousand dollars. Rolex official retailers are reporting good sales. In spite of the worldwide recession, 2008 has been the best year ever for the luxury watch industry, Rolex, Cartier, Patek Philippe, Breitling, Panerai… 2009 looks like another great year of the luxury watch industry.

Rolex sponsors many high-end sports tournaments like yachting and tennis. As a sponsor of Wimbledon Tennis, Allen Brill, President of Rolex Watch, US was attending the men's final when asked:

I work hard. Not only I work hard, but I try my best to keep my photo customers satisfied. Why? Because a satisfied customer = $$$$. A satisfied customer will refer me to their family/friends. It's not a theoretical, it happens. It happens to me on regular basis, a couple of photo jobs with referred customers every 3 month. This means an extra $500 to $2000 every 3 month.

I work hard at keeping my photo customers happy. Since I am already doing the hard work, why not offer them the satisfaction guaranteed? My guarantee is: 110% money back satisfaction guarantee. You are satisfied or not only you get your money back but more. I never had anybody collect on my satisfaction guarantee.

What's a schmexpert you ask? A schmexpert is somebody that is:

1. A schmuck
2. An expert

School of Stock

Every stock photographer always asks the question:

If you are operating a photographic business, you must have clients. It's very simple, No client = No business then you would be operating a photographic hobby. If you want to sell more, there are only 2 solutions and that's it:

1. Sell more to your existing customers.
2. Find new customers while keeping your existing customers⁴⁰.

Did you know that you can sell your photos on eBay? As of 15-aug-2008, there were only 1891 photo prints on sale, directly from the photographer.

Home -> Buy -> Art -> Direct from the Artist -> Photographs -> Search results: 1,891 matches found. eBay breaks it down by category.

It does not matter what you sell, people will only buy if they have a problem. It does not matter if you are selling photos, coffee, cars or food. Food is easier, people get hungry and need to eat. Coffee is different, it's a luxury, as Starbucks is finding out⁴¹, when people realize that they have bigger problems than wanting to buy a "good" coffee.

Everybody's dream is to have Google show their website as #1 when somebody asks for photography and they'll be rich, beyond belief. Now everybody and their dog⁴² claims to be an SEO expert.

Most people are creatures of habit. When we found something that works for us, we keep on doing it. I was speaking last year with Wayne Kaulbach of Skylight Images. He specializes in portraits, high-end portraits, and expensive portraits.

During the conversation, I asked him how he gets new customers:

How narrowly can you slice and dice your photo specialty? Apparently, extremely fine. Have you ever heard of Park City, Utah? I have not, but David Kirkland, a Park City photographer, earns a good living by licensing his stock photos of Park City, Utah.

I do not mean to be impolite or belittle the people of Park City, but living only a few hundred miles from there, I have never heard of Park City, Utah.

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.

Would you prefer to be smart or be lucky? Personally, I'd rather be lucky than smart. If you are lucky, you can always hire somebody that's smart.

A few decades ago, the previous century, it was the previous millennium, when I came to Canada, I tried to meet with Pat H., a senior managing editor. I spent 6 weeks, trying to get that appointment. After contacting the man who saw the man, who saw the bear, I finally got my appointment. Pinni and I went to the meeting, it was with somebody else! Pat couldn't make it; his wife delivered their second baby just the day before. So we met with Dan S. Dan was a consultant that assisted Pat. We got the job and 2 month later, we were done.

I was looking at a website that offers what looked very interesting workshops. It looked very interesting, so I clicked on the workshop link. Here is what was on the page word for word:

Specialties

Yesterday morning I was downtown, when I bumped into an old friend, actually more of an acquaintance, than a friend. We went to the nearest coffee shop and had coffee with muffin. We started to yak... How's it going? How's business? I'm a good listener, and I let him talk. 30 minutes later, his business was doing very poorly. Eventually he gave me his business card, he specializes in:

1. Database programming

The largest European photo magazine is Chasseur d'Image⁴³, a French photo magazine. The January 2009 issue had a very interesting article on one of most misunderstood critter, the squirrel. Many people see them as cute and friendly, other see them as pests. It was not a one pager on squirrels like in Pop Photo magazine, but a full 10 pages on how to make photos of squirrels: the good, the bad and the ugly...

Squirrels are everywhere, in almost every park, people feed them, and people take photos of the squirrels eating in your palm.

On 10-Nov-2008, Starbucks announced that:

Stealing Keywords

Keywords are one of the most difficult task in the photo business. Most photo buyers do not browse the photos, then decide of what to get. My experience has been that they search by keyword, then look at the photos based on the keywords.

Yuri Arcurs claims to be the most successful stock photographer. He created an "almost great" tool for keywording Keywords. The great idea is that by entering a few basic keywords, Arcurs will return you photos that will match these keywords, then you select the photos that look like yours, and he will show you:

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 letter⁴⁴

Yesterday, I was in Krakow, Poland and I just spent an hour and half long distance on the phone with a "could have been a customer". Who knows how much this long distance phone call will cost. I should have known better. When he said:

Stop Wasting Time — Part 2

I wrote earlier in Stop Wasting Time about not keeping your hopes up when somebody is only "fishing" for information. Here a couple more sure fire sentences that indicate that they are wasting your time.

I rarely print, I'd rather use a professional lab, but I needed to do a few small prints, so I went buy new ink. In Vancouver, BC, Canada: $39.95 per cartridge for a cartridge with 55ml of ink. That's $726.90 per liter or $2733.75 per US gallon or $3300.13 per imperial gallon. In my case, I estimate that I lose 50% of the ink due to nozzle cleanup... so my costs are doubled⁴⁵. Ink is so precious that I should keep it in a safe.

It's more expensive than the price of an ounce of gold. Gold is a finite good. Nobody makes it anymore. There's only what's inside the earth and that's it. Ink is a manufactured good. Ink is unlimited.

In the western world, that's North America and Western Europe⁴⁶, photography is treated as a marketplace. It's subject to the basic laws of supply and demand, and the customer is always right.

The law of supply and demand is what has governed the world for the last 75 years. You can argue whether it's good or bad, but as photographic businesses we are all governed by the law of supply and demand.

Do you take photos? or do you make photos?

There's a huge difference in the quality of my photos, in my fulfillment. It turns out that there is also a huge difference in the business of photography. If you take photos, you will also wait for the phone to ring, you will also wait for the email to arrive and you will wait for the customer to walk through the door... You are waiting for other people and you will do their bidding. If you make photos, you will build your business by:

Take The High Road

I was sending emails back and forth with a guy about some interview, then suddenly out of the blue I got the following email:

You receive a phone call from somebody making inquiries about your photographic services. Great! Finally they call you, instead of you, cold, calling them. Now what? Do you answer their questions? How much do you talk? How much do you ask questions and listen? Do you give your prices? Answer: Yes, yes, yes and yes.

1. You should answer their questions as much as possible.
2. Part of your answer is to ask them more question, so they can describe their photographic want and you can understand better their photographic needs.

Thank You Note After Meeting

The meeting went well, they haven't decided yet. I have a good feeling, the presentation went well, and they seem to know what they wanted.

Now what? If I need to change the proposal that's OK. But if I need to sit tight and wait, I hate that. Patience is not my forte. Have they decided? What are they discussing? I can't push. But I can write a handwritten thank you note. I have a whole bunch of cards that say "Thank You".

You have the great idea. You are going to do it. You prepare your website. You are ready to launch. You can either "go big" or "go incremental".

I have tried the "big launch" and the "go big" spending half of my marketing money only to go flop. I did buy advertising. I did print and delivered over a thousand invitations. I got the reception, the caterer, the food...

Vincent Laforet wrote a great article on June 2008 at sportshooter.com where he says there's plenty of blue sky above - and the possibilities are endless.

Vincent Laforet left voluntarily the New York Times, a union staff job to become independent. As he realized what he described in the "the cloud is falling" article, he is extremely successful. He is the guy behind the "reverie" video shot with the Canon 5D Mark2. Over 2 million downloads!

As the official photographer of many people or even of some strangers, I am regularly asked:

The Information Age and Photography

I'm sure that you have heard this many times over: “we are in the information age”. With the Internet, information has multiplied exponentially⁴⁷. The growth of the Internet is so big that even Google can't cope with it and has abandoned many sections / areas for the Internet. If your website doesn't follow Google's rules, your photographic website will not be indexed.

Then you have some academics or digerati that say there's too much information. I think that they are missing the boat. They are confusing data with information.

The Last 10 Years

The last 10 years have been the most momentous years of the whole 150 year history of photography. In January 2000, digital point and shoot camera were starting to come on its own. The Sony Mavica family had 1 and 2 megapixels and was a big hit. Kodak had a DCS digital back for the Nikon F5 camera with their 2 and 6 megapixels DCS series. Kodak also had a DCS digital back for the Canon EOS-1n. Almost all professional photographers were using film cameras. A few newsprint photojournalists were already using digital cameras so they could transmit their photos in black and white, but that was it.

The Kodachrome 64 was a fading king. The Ektar 160 was the bread and butter of the wedding photographers. Kodak was still huge but with the cheap Japanese point and shoot cameras coming at 1 and 2 megapxiels, it's power was starting to wane. Kodak could not control the photography market any more. Kodak use to be one of the Dow Jones Industrial 30s. It went from a 14 billion dollars company that dominated the photography world to a 7 billion dollar company that is mainly a health care supplier now.

She has looked at your photos, asked many questions and still no sale. She needs these photos, and she knows that she just needs to click on the "Buy Now" button and still no sale. Why? Where's the urgency? Why should I do to make them buy?

• Should I discount?
• Should I make bigger website?

Times are tough everywhere, even Hasselblad is feeling the punch. Hasselblad is feeling the heat from the latest batch of full frame cameras, especially at the "low-end"⁴⁸: the Canon 5DMk2, the Sony A900 and the Nikon D3x. So they came up will a couple of promotions.

1. "Special pricing" aka discount on their "low-end" H3DII-31, a 31 megapixels for US$13,000, until 30-Jun-2009.
2. "Buy Now and get the full credit for it" when you buy a new Hasselblad H3DII-50, before June 30, 2009, you will be able to upgrade to the even newer H3DII-60 the moment it's released for the difference in MSRP price.

John Lund did an interview with Tom Grill. Tom Grill is:

1. One of the founder of Comstock
2. One of the founder of Blend Images

When I travel for business or pleasure, like most tourists I take photos. The problem with "professional photographers" is that many of these photos cannot be used commercially⁴⁹ unless you get a model release.

Everybody knows, that if you take a photo of somebody and want to use it commercially, you should have a model release. The problem is that many places, buildings and events, have been either copyrighted or trademarked. You will either have to get permission or buy a permit, if you can get one.

Next weekend I will be going on assignment to Eastern Europe. On the side, I am planning on doing some stock photography, weather and time permitting. If you follow the various newsgroups, and some of the blogs related to stock photography, you will notice a huge amount of people complaining about their photos being rejected by the various stock agencies.

Photoshelter with their school of stock photography has published a couple of great article on why they accept and more importantly examples of photo they have rejected including the why of their rejection:

Turning Down Business

Every so often, I get phone calls asking about wedding photography. I don't do weddings. Why? Because of the stress, not of dealing with the BrideZillas but with the parents. Too many of them go nuts. So usually I turn them down and depending on my mood and where the wind comes from… I will recommend some other photographer.

I don't take job that I can't do. Some people would say, take them as a learning experience. I don't, I prefer to specialize. I can earn a better living, I can charge more, and I'm more pleased with myself.

Here is an email sent by Bill Gates, yes, the big kahuna of MS fame. This email is from 2003, but I feel that it still applies today. Bill Gates was recently asked about this email, if it was his, and he said "Yes, I send emails like this daily, it's my job⁵⁰."

Vancouver, BC, Canada is a small city of only 600,000 according to the 2006 stats but the region has almost 2 million people. There are 1243 registered photography businesses in the City of Vancouver itself. There is another 5194 registered photography businesses in the Lower Mainland, the suburbs. On top of that, there are at least another 5 million people that will take "commercial grade" photos of their aunts, nephews, brother-in-law, weddings,...

Unless you have a multi-million advertising budget⁵¹, you will need to differentiate yourself.

If you want to grow your photography business, you will need new customers. Duh! What an obvious thing to say. It's obvious but too many people forget it. In marketing lingo:

1. Identify and reach the customers. Who are they? Demographics. Young, old, an income between $75,000 and $200,000, reside in... Can you reach your potential customers? Do you have the money to buy the advertising to reach these people. Will you phone them one by one? Will you send them emails or snail mail? Or they find you on the web?
2. Your potential customers must have a problem that they want to solve using your photos. It could be memories such as wedding, portraits or editorial to bring in advertisers to their publications. Your vision must be in close relation with their vision of their problem.

As I mentioned a few times, I live in Canada. For most times, Canada is a quiet place, without big fireworks. We've never had a civil war. There is even an official party, elected in Parliament, whose only official goal is to break up of the country. In any other country, their leaders would have been jailed, run over by an errand truck... Here, in Canada, we elect them to the Parliament. Some countries have "drive-by shooting", we have "drive-by nagging".

Currently⁵² we have a minority government. The Conservatives⁵³ form the minority government. The 3 other parties⁵⁴ signed an accord to topple the government: Liberals, NDP, Bloc sign deal on proposed coalition. People were going to demonstrate in the streets of the major cities either in support of the government or in support of the opposition.

With millions of photos from iStock and Photobucket available for $1 how do you compete? Selling photos is a dying business, millions and millions of photos are available for free from Flickr the value of a photo is $0 [zero].

What The Duck: Work For Free

As usual, What The Duck recently had a great cartoon:

Attach:What-the-duck-work-for-free.gif Δ|What The Duck: Work For Free

I was looking around the web when I went to a UK photographer's web site. He claims that he specializes in:

• creative location
• lifestyle

• Microstock commissions are in the pennies per photo.
• The brother-in-law of your first cousin is shooting weddings for only a $100 with all the photos on CDs.
• 65+ millions stock photos are available for free on Flickr.

Who Are Your Customers?

“Repeat a lie, long enough and it becomes true”. We've all heard that newspapers can't compete in an Internet world. The newspaper industry is dying, unless we give them bail-out money, kill all free Internet so they are privileged and don't have to compete.

Many newspapers and magazines are closing. David Radler, the ex-associate of Conrad Black and COO of Holinger Inc from Sun-Times fame, who served 8 month of a 29 month sentence for “diverting $32 millions from the shareholders into their pockets”, is currently owning 11 newspapers and is looking to buy more newspapers with his “Alberta Newspaper Group”, if he can raise the cash.

I live in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Vancouver is fairly large city with 2 million people including the suburbs⁵⁵. In 2010, Vancouver will be hosting the Winter Olympics. Over 1200 photography businesses are registered in the Lower Mainland. There are many more photographers, but they are not registered as businesses with the tax people⁵⁶.

I was talking to a photographer friend and we were discussing wedding photography. How many wedding photographers?... and the like⁵⁷. Then we went to the web and going through various wedding directories... we estimate that there is around 4000 wedding photographers in the Lower Mainland⁵⁸. Some photographers only do a couple of weddings a year, but I know of at least 2 photographers that do more than 100+ weddings per year.

I often scour the Internet, lurk in photographer's websites. I look for ideas for myself and too often two hours later, where did the time go? But sometimes I find gems, here's one from photographer Anon Ymous⁵⁹

Occasionally I get a request for free images:

December, Xmas⁶⁰ and New Year is coming. Many suppliers send Xmas cards, food, candies, and chocolates to their customers. Should you do it? I used to give very elaborate Xmas cards, and cakes or custom chocolates. Used to, up to 2 years ago, now I have stopped.

2 years ago, I was at my largest customer, talking to the owner, John, when one of his supplier⁶¹ brought a fully catered meal, including wine and beer! Guess what? They didn't remember my $125 trifle⁶² for 30 people. It didn't matter what I did, I wasn't even on the radar. So why bother?

Let your fingers do the walking! This was the slogan of the yellow pages. Even today, in the Internet age, businesses advertise in the Yellow Pages. Are you advertising in the yellow pages? I'm not! Why, because I tried. I did it for 2 years. The first year, I did a 1/8th of a page ad. How much business was generated? 0, Zero, Nada, None. Every month, I would get 3 or 4 phone calls, but this was from people trying to get the cheapest deal they could get.

If an eighth of a page is not enough to generate business, what about a quarter of a page? The second year, I took a quarter of page ad. How much business was generated by a quarter of a page? Again 0, Zero, Nada, None. Every month, I would get a dozen phone calls, but again this was from people trying to get the cheapest deal they could get and I am not the cheapest or wanted something I did not do. Once I was able to actually ask a few questions like where did you get my phone number,... The most important was:

• 1001 Noisy Cameras Digital Camera Reviews and photo links.
• A Photo Editor Rob Haggart, former photo editor. Updated daily.
• Chase Jarvis Very interesting photographer. Updated almost on a weekly basis.
• Epic Edits For the aspiring hobbyist. Updated daily.

Doing stock or need ideas on subjects?

Take a photo's always easy, it's there in front, but how to create new photos and new ideas? The way I do it, is to look at what others did. Am I stealing, no, but I use it for:

• Inspiration: Their photos give me ideas either on what to do or how to do my photos.