Pro Photo Business Forum

The Business of Marketing your Business

Written By: Houston Wedding Photographer Scott Villalobos

It’s a short yet not so simple statement, infact it’s probably the most complicated aspect of any business and it is especially true of photography. Fact of the matter is it’s probably the first thing that came to mind after I decided to become a professional photographer. How in the world would I make any money with my photography and who would buy it? There is no shortage of information on this topic, to be sure, but with good reason.  If you’ve found yourself struggling in the current economic climate or worse are just starting out in the current economic climate you will benefit by reading the rest of this article.

Identifying the problem – this is easy. You either need to bring in clientele or you need to bring in MORE clientele. Simple right? Not so much. You need to make sales to those clients. Before I go any further I need to give credit where credit is due, many of the ideas I’m about to expound upon are merely the arthritic echoes of those who have come before me.

There is an old proverb which holds true for every aspect of life, and for the sake of this article I’m going to apply it to the business of wedding photography. “There is salvation in the multitude of counselors.“ – Proverbs 11:14. That being said, in my meanderings across the information super highway I have encountered some profoundly interesting personages with much to say on the subject of marketing and success. Rick Brewer is one and his website, getmorebrides.com, is dedicated to the marketing aspects of wedding photography. Another would be Keith Lee of American Retail Supply, Denis Reggie of, well, Denis Reggie, and finally Mark Victor Hansen – coauthor of Chicken Soup for the Soul.

Now that I’ve mentioned the above I can say the following with unobstructed clarity – FOCUS PEOPLE! Over the top, maybe, but keep reading you’ll get the point in a minute. Focus is essential to becoming successful. I like this statement because we are, after all, photographers and we understand how important focus is to our images. However we’re not talking about taking pictures here, we’re talking about bringing business through our doors. So lets focus our imaginary cameras on the inevitable fact that you must become your biggest cheerleader, the star quarterback, the great American hero within.

If you were asked what business you’re in how would you answer? Your first response might be something wild like; oh I don’t know – wedding photography… And this is where you’d be wrong. The correct answer if you want your business to be successful would be the business of “marketing” your photography business”. This is why you must be you’re your biggest cheerleader. Who else cares as much about your business as you do? Who else is going to put in the blood sweat and tears that you do? Who else besides you is willing to sink all that cold hard cash into your baby while its still in diapers? Nada…

So this is where focus really comes into play. All the talent in the world doesn’t mean squat if you can’t make a sale, and you can’t make a sale unless you can attract customers. It’s a lot like fishing; you won’t ever catch fish in a lake where there are no fish. So move to a lake that not only has fish, but also the type of fish you want to attract.

One way to attract the right clientele is by getting people to advertise for you. I recently shot a wedding at an amazing venue, a venue that attracts the type of clientele that I wish to work for. I was invited to send them an album from the shoot and they in turn would show that album to their potential clients. Two great things are happening here. 1.) I’m getting great referrals from an amazing venue to people that can afford me. And 2.) I’m not competing with the 509 other wedding photographers that show up in the Google search for Houston Wedding Photographers. These are qualified leads that are interested not just in wedding photography, but in me personally.

Here’s a well-kept secret that you should already know but that bears saying for those of you who are unaware of it. If you’re not on page one in the web search engine you might as well not exist. Potential customers rarely go past page one when searching for a product or service.  (This is a whole other topic so let’s not go there for now.)

Save yourself allot of frustration and money and make sure that you market to a targeted, qualified audience. Set clearly defined, realistic, short and long term goals for yourself and have them written down somewhere you will see them every day. Think about those goals every day and figure out how to achieve them progressively. You might even write them down on the back of a business card and put them in your wallet to look at during the day. Meet with and befriend people who can help you achieve your goals, weather they be with venues or organizations that cater to the clientele you wish to attract.

Remember Newton’s third law of physics. “For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.” This law applies to the business of marketing your business. If you’re not exerting force or action there can be no reaction. Force yourself into action. However resistant you are to the idea of marketing, learn to embrace it and it will embrace you. But remember marketing is a process not an event, it doesn’t happen overnight, it may be months before you see results. Think of it as planting seeds, sooner or later something’s bound to grow. Plan now to succeed in the future.

Avoid negative people and negative thinking at all cost. There are no positive side effects to negativity. Instead direct that thinking into creativity. Seek out positive, creative, successful people and allow your thinking to imitate there’s. Be like Thomas Edison when a young reporter who boldly asked if he felt like a failure interviewed him and if he thought he should just give up. Perplexed, Edison replied, “Young man, why would I feel like a failure? And why would I ever give up? I now know definitively over 9,000 ways that an electric light bulb will not work. Success is almost in my grasp.” And shortly after that Edison invented the light bulb. He did not allow negative people to prevent him from attaining his goal and neither should we.

You are 100% responsible for your results. Evaluate yourself from a third person standpoint. Imagine that you’re evaluating a paid employee. Would you be happy with your results? Do you show up for work on time? Do you go the extra mile and are you creative and innovative? Are you bringing in sales or are you unknowingly pushing them away. Take a good hard look in the mirror and be honest with yourself. If you were working for someone else would your job be in jeopardy?

Brides are a lot like Gazelle. If you’ve ever watched animal planet you’ve seen Cheetah stalking Gazelle. Oh occasionally you will see a Gazelle wondering about the tall grass paying no attention to the Cheetah hiding in the tall grass only a few feet away, that never works out well for the Gazelle, but for the most part Gazelle are somewhat paranoid because they know that there are Cheetah near by and they know that Cheetah eat Gazelle. So they tip toe around looking for grass to eat, but they never take their eyes off the tall grass and they are always ready to bolt at the first sign of danger.

Brides are much the same, they are ready to bolt at the first sign of danger, but what are the signs of danger to a bride? There are many, but one of the biggest is when a photographer won’t let them speak. It may be totally unintentional, the photographer may just be really excited to be selling to a bride and telling her all about his new gear or his – dare I say it – photojournalistic approach.  And really there’s nothing wrong with that, nothing that is unless the bride wants to say something and you don’t give her the chance. This is like spots moving among the tall grass to the potential bride. She could care less about your dual digic IV processor or the difference between L series and consumer grade glass. All she’s hearing is that you don’t care about what she has to say. You may not even notice it, but her eye’s have glassed over, she’s checking her watch and is wondering about the studio she passed on the way to see you.

Learn when to speak and when to keep silent and listen. Really pay attention to what your bride is saying and respond positively. Learn what works and what doesn’t. Learn to put out the right message, and learn how to shorten the process by understanding the process in which brides buy. If at all possible never ever say no to a bride. Saying no to a bride is like saying no to opportunity. You never know what good things might happen by saying yes.  Don’t believe me, go out and rent “Yesman” staring Jim Carrey. Although the movie may be an over dramatized example the principle still applies.

Ultimately you want to dig your well before the drought comes, plant your seeds before the harvest has arrived. By doing the marketing you will ensure your continued success. And when the inevitable disappointments come look at them like Thomas Edison. Not as failures but as learning experiences of how not to market your business. In the end you will become what you think about becoming if, and only if, you put those thoughts into actions.

Houston Wedding and Portrait Photographer - Scott Villalobos www.rsvpstudios.com

Let’s face it. Just about everyone out there is on Facebook. According to Facebook, roughly 45 million users log on every day in the United States. Everyone uses Google too though. So what makes Facebook so much more powerful? Connectedness. In a Big Brother-ish way, Facebook knows virtually everything about you. While Google can make good guesses about you based on your searches, you’ve actively told Facebook all kinds of things advertisers want. You’ve revealed your age, education, marital status, interests, and all kinds of other things that can help advertisers find you. Not only that, you’re linked to all your friends through updates, news feeds, tagging, and more. Facebook connects people in a way no other website ever has. While it’s a great tool for finding old friends, it’s an even better tool for helping photographers find new clients.

Facebook Ads for Photographers

One of the most powerful ways Facebook can aid photographers in connecting to potential clients is through ads. Unlike Google AdSense which requires you to pay for certain keywords, you pay for placement or clicks for a set of parameters in the user’s profile on Facebook. This allows you to target people who aren’t looking for wedding photographers. You can get your foot in the door before they even begin researching photographers.

Wedding photographers can easily target soon-to-be-brides who will likely be the type of client they’re looking for. On Google AdSense, when someone searches for “New Jersey Wedding Photographer” Google has no idea whether it’s a client or whether it’s just another photographer researching the competition and spending your ad budget. Neither does it know whether the person is looking for a $500 wedding photographer or a $5000 wedding photographer. But with Facebook, you can target women in 20 surrounding towns from 25-40 who have graduated from college. This type of person is likely to have a larger budget.

Senior portrait photographers can seek out married women from 40-55, the group most likely to have children graduating from high school. You can have ads appear for people on their birthdays offering them a birthday discount. The possibilities are truly endless. With Facebook ads, you can target the clients you want to find at the price you think they’re worth.

Facebook Fan Pages for Photographers

You don’t necessarily have to spend money to be a successful Facebook marketer. Facebook allows businesses to create a fan page for free. There you’ll have your own dedicated space to post photos, updates, and more. You can offer your fans exclusive discounts, keep them up to date on studio promotions, and much more. But where your fan page can really become powerful is when you start adding photos.

Facebook Photos for Photographers

Photos are arguably the most powerful way for photographers to use Facebook. Tagging allows us to get our photos from an event or portrait session seen by all the attendees and friends of the client. It’s basically free advertising. As easy as this is, many photographers are missing out on the opportunity by making a few fundamental mistakes.

The dos and don’ts of posting photos on Facebook:

Do:

• Watermark your photos with your studio name and website. In the event people choose to steal your photos, at least you’ll have your name and site on them. Don’t make the watermark too obtrusive, or people won’t want to look at the photos. Don’t make it too discrete either, or it might as well not be there.
• Upload the photos to your studio’s fan page. It should be easy for the viewer to navigate back to a page with your branded with your logo along with your phone number and website. A fan page has all of this.
• Shrink your photos to 604 pixels on the longest side. Facebook currently displays photos at a resolution of 604px on the longest side. If you resize your shots on your computer, although Facebook will still re-compress them, in my experience they will look better.
• Send the link to your client
• Ask that the client tag all people in the photos. This is key. This will ensure that everyone who attended an event will see the photos.

If you do all those things, you’ll be able to sit back and watch the comments, like, fans, and eventually clients stream in. But be careful not to make a couple of simple mistakes that could lessen your chances at winning new clients.

Don’t:

• Post your photos without watermarks. You’re just asking for them to be copied. When they are, they’ll be of no value to you without your branding.
• Upload your photos to your personal Facebook profile. This makes it difficult to find your business information.
• Send small JPEGs to the client and allow them to upload the photos to Facebook. Now no one can find your fan page. You will also not have control of the photos your client posts, whereas you can delete inappropriate comments and resolve other issues on your own photos.

That’s really all there is to it. With a small investment of money for ads and time to create a fan page and begin uploading your shoots, you can begin taking advantage of the tremendous opportunity Facebook provides photographers to reach out to potential clients.

Ben Drucker
PPBF Contributing Writer
Maplewood Event and Portrait Photographer: Ben Drucker Photography

Welcome to the first of an ongoing series of articles about albums for the professional photographer. In this article we will examine the album as a professional value added product. Not just being a material object, the album is another way for your client to have an emotional re-connection to his or her event or moment. Sure, photos will be framed and hung on the wall and there may be a DVD; but unlike these, the album is a treasure to be viewed at one’s own pace. The experience will be an amazing and visceral time. The reason for this impact is that an album is an emotional, artistic and unique platform for photo presentation. It will become a family treasure, a keepsake allowing your client the ability to relive the moment in a stylish and personal way. Most importantly, your client has the ability to bring it anywhere he or she goes. This is what we call mobile marketing.

These are your images that your client will be showing off to everyone she or he knows. With your studio logo and contact info placed strategically into the design on the last page, your work will receive attention and be known as yours by your client’s family, friends and acquaintances. This is a key feature and benefit of adding an album to any package or making it a hot item that your client cannot ignore. An album also allows all kinds of different marketing purposes by getting it to your vendors and by displaying it in the studio so it will highlight and showcase your business and your best images. Beyond marketing purposes, an album is another avenue for studio branding. With an album, you get another chance to show off your style to your potential and current clients. So by adding an album to your current package you are increasing the importance to your package and increasing your earning potential. By offering an album, in a package or a la carte, you are offering another product that helps you, as a professional photographer, stand above all the amateurs and prosumers trying to undercut your business. This is especially true when you offer an album product from a professional album company like Forbeyon.

Through product differentiation, an album is an exciting and unique value added product that allows your client another way to view his or her pictures and reconnect with his or her event or moment. The album is also a professional product that increases your earning potential, differentiates you from the prosumer market, heightens your studio branding, lets you stand out from the other photographers and can be your strongest marketing tool. See your studio take off in this changing economy by adding this wonderful product into your product and service lineup. Next time we will be talking about image selection and how it relates back to the album as a professional value added product.

Jay Michael Stevens
Forbeyon's Customer Care Manager
Forbeyon is the photographer's sole album destination
Find us at:
website: www.forbeyon.com
twitter: http://twitter.com/Forbeyon
facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Forbeyon-Inc/92723162750

Turning Your Wedding Imagery Into Art | The Dramatic First Dance

Through out the wedding day there are certain milestones that must be documented without fail, without deviance, without a doubt. These are the shots that you must perfect, nail down, secure, capture, whatever it takes just get them and everything else is icing on your wedding cake. Why are they so important? Because as a wedding photographer you are there to tell the story of the wedding day. If you miss these images you not only leave your clients story incomplete, but also you can bet your going to have an upset bride, or worse yet an upset MOB. You pick your poison, but I’d rather walk around the mountain if it means avoiding the bite of the Black Mamba.

What does this have to due with turning your wedding imagery into art you ask? Well when you know that you have certain images that you take at every wedding shouldn’t you have developed a certain style? Shouldn’t you have a particular set up? And if you do have a set up you use each and every time, are you happy with it? Could it use some refining? The truth is if your not pushing yourself how will you improve or perfect? We’ve all heard the old saying that, “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it.” Really all this is just a cop out to not push yourself to the next level. If this has been your motto, perhaps you could look at it from a different perspective. Maybe something like, “It ain’t broke, but how could I polish it?”

One area of my wedding photography that has evolved over the years is the way I approach the first dance. This isn’t to say that facial expression; eye contact or tears in the eyes are irrelevant, not at all. But wouldn’t it be great to capture those dramatic moments in dramatic lighting? After all, lighting is everything. Don’t believe me try photographing without it. The problem in creating dramatic light for the first dance is often time the venue’s lighting isn’t. Many times the venue’s lighting is quite flat or even worse, fluorescent. But lets just say that you’re shooting in a nice venue with decent lighting, beautiful chandeliers hanging all around as in the photo above. In this case one of the most effective ways I know to create dramatic lighting is to backlight.

Back lighting or lighting your subject from behind can do a few things, some good, some not so good, but when done properly it’s some of the most beautiful lighting I’ve seen. It’s dramatic, it’s colorful, it can create beautiful lens flare or horrible lens flare, and it creates long dramatic shadows across the dance floor and these shadows lead the viewer’s eyes to the subject. Backlighting can be accomplished using one light or several.

Exposure is key when it comes to back lighting. While silhouettes are nice, I like to see some detail in the faces of my bride and groom. To accomplish this you need to balance your strobe with the ambient light, or you can use a second on camera strobe dialed down as fill. But for now lets stick to a one light setup.

Controlling your lighting using one strobe. This is pretty easy, if you’ve done a few weddings you will find that you have particular settings that your always using during the reception or at least within a narrow range of those settings. I’ve found for the most part that I’m shooting at an ISO of around 1200 to 2000 with an aperture of F2.8 to F5.6 for nighttime receptions. My shutter speed will vary from 1/10^th sec to 1/60^th depending on the available light and the look I’m after. The beauty of this is that once you have your basic settings you will be able to control your fill simply by adjusting your shutter speed, while your strobe will remain constant as long as you don’t adjust your ISO or aperture.

You will hear a lot about modern strobes being TTL, ETTL, or I-TTL. My experience has shown these automated “SMART” settings to be unreliable at best and detrimental to creative lighting. The solution I use is to shoot in manual, always. The perks for this is longer battery life because I’ve set my strobe to either 1/8 or 1/16 power and sometimes even to 1/32. I know with these settings my strobes will last 3 to 4 hours on a single set of rechargeables.

Position is key and slight adjustments to positioning will yield quite different results.  You will find yourself constantly moving, twisting, stretching or bobbing to get just the right angle and height for an effective backlit image. In the image above I positioned my strobe directly behind the couple at seven feet high. This meant that I had to squat down slightly to block the light source behind the head of the bride. I wanted the light to be as close too visible as possible without showing. This would ensure the most amount of rim light around hers and the groom’s heads. My ambient light was underexposed about 1 ½ to 2 stops so that I would have detail but not silhouette. What you don’t see is my assistant holding the light, but you don’t need an assistant to pull this off, a light stand placed strategically will suffice, but using an assistant that knows by hand signals where to be is invaluable and if needed they can make adjustments to your power out put without interrupting your work flow.

Remember, backlighting isn’t the only trick in your bag, but for the first dance it sure is a crowd pleaser.

Tech Data: Canon EOS 5D, 17-35 2.8L, Speedlite Transmitter ST-E2, ISO 1250, 1/50 @ f-3.5, Canon 580 EX II off camera set on manual @ 1/16^th power.

Next Time: Taking Your Wedding Imagery to the Next Level – “Romantic Portraits”

Houston Wedding and Portrait Photographer - Scott Villalobos www.rsvpstudios.com

If this is your first ime here, then welcome! I’m so proud of this site and its members!

My name is Aric Hoek, and I have been a professional photographer all my life. 100% of my income has been, and always will be from photography. I’m the host of The Pro Photo Business Forum.

Anyone who knows me, knows that I love talking about the business of wedding photography to just about anyone that will listen, so the creation of the Pro Photo Business Forum was a very natural progression for me.

You’re either the type of person that likes to hang out in forums, or you aren’t. There isn’t much in between. If you like forums, then you are going to notice one fundamental difference when you visit the home page of the Pro Photo Business Forum. The difference you see is in what’s NOT there. You don’t see a listing of recent posts. You don’t see forum statistics. You don’t see a listing of members. You don’t see calendars.

What you do see is information that can help photographers, which is what this community is all about. What you do see is a blog, created by the members of the forum. And we’re not just talking about how to take great photographs, but we are talking about the things that really matter to professional photographers. We’re talking about the business of photography.  We’re talking about the bottom line.

Would you like to join us? Would you like to contribute to our blog as a PPBF Contributing Writer?

We’re looking for experienced photographers to help contribute to our new experiment. In return for two scheduled blog entries a month, PPBF Contributing Writers receive the following:

1. Free access to the Pro Photo Business Forum.
2. Recognition on the PPBF homepage.
3. A link to your homepage from the PPBF homepage.
4. A link to your homepage in the signature of your articles.
5. Access to a privte staff forum on the PPBF.
6. Profile page with a listing of all your articles.

Contact us today if you are interested in filling the a position. Currently we have five contributing writers. My goal is an ambitious fifteen. With fifteen Contributing Writers, each writing two articles, the blog will have fresh information for it’s readers every day of the month!

Come and join the ride! Contact us today!

You’ll never be the same. You’ll be better!

Aric C. Hoek BFA, CPP, Author
PPBF Administrator
Join The Pro Photo Business Forum
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Houston Wedding Photographer, Aric Hoek

Art it seems is a term used loosely among photographers these days. Yes we would all like to think of ourselves as artists with our own unique vision of the world, that what we do has never been done before and that our prospective clients couldn’t live without us. But the truth is for the vast majority of photographers art is an alien word that is not completely understood. Think about it. When was the last time you actually painted with light? If you’re a studio photographer you do it all the time, but if you’re a wedding photographer working in the real world you may need to ask yourself if you have ever done it. The truth for wedding photographers is that theirs is a chaotic world. After all weddings are events made up of micro events which must be micro managed to be documented adequately, and for the wedding photographer this means running from one micro event to the next with no break until the limo drives off. So in all of this madness where is there time for art?

If you are a solo photographer you will simply wear yourself out trying to lug around the tools you need to really create and control the light by which we can take our imagery to the next level. (Trust me it’s exhausting!) So what’s the solution? Hire an assistant; see how easy this can be… Oh if only! Yes having someone to lug around all that gear will indeed make your life a lot easier and your time shooting much more enjoyable, but that being said, having all the gear in the world won’t make your images any better unless you learn how to use it. And by the way, turning your strobe to ETTL is not learning how to use it. In the coming weeks I will discuss in greater detail the lighting techniques I use for various images through out the wedding day. I will also go into detail of the post processing that takes place to finish off the image. But for now I will address what I think may take your images to a new level right away.

Though it is not a new concept, getting your strobe off camera will be like putting tires on your car. Yes you could drive on your rims for a while, but sooner or later your going to get tired of the lack of control you have. The same is true of getting your strobe off your camera. Direct flash always looks unnatural. But once you get your light source off axis you create depth, your create highlight and shadow, and you create contrast. Bounce the light you say emphatically! Well, yes you could bounce the light, if there is a wall or ceiling near buy, but often times there is not. Or what if the ceiling is dark wood and thirty feet high, then what? Solution – go out and buy yourself some radio slaves and take control of your lighting.

The Bridal image above was not taken in a studio; it was taken at the venue. (By the way, The White House Farm is an amazing venue especially for bridal sessions) In this image there were a few factors I took into consideration. (1) The chandelier over her left shoulder. (2) The abundance yet flatness of the available light coming from the bedroom to my left and the bathroom to my right. (3) Placement of an artificial light source. (4) I wanted to match the color of my strobe to the much warmer light of the chandelier. And finally (5) I needed to control the spill from my light source on to the floor and background.

(1) The chandelier. If your not careful these are easy to over look and over expose. A simple exposure check on my LCD ensured that this didn’t blow out.

(2) The available light was sufficient for fill but if used as only light would be flat and unflattering. Solution, introduce key light with a lighting ratio of 4 to 1.

(3) Artificial light source was a 580 EX II set high a top a light stand with shoot thru umbrella placed camera left at 90% angle to subject.

(4) Matching the color of my strobe to that of the chandelier. Here in Houston I’ve found it harder to locate color correction gels, but in LA they are abundant, however thanks to the Internet you don’t have to fly to LA to get them. Purchase yourself a set of these little gems via Calumet Photographic and it may just rock your world. For this image I used ½ CTO to balance my strobe, which burns between 5000 to 5600 Kelvin to the much warmer chandelier, which burns around at 7500+ Kelvin.

(5) How do you control your spill when using an umbrella? First remember I used a shoot thru umbrella not a regular one, I could also have used a small soft box but they take to much time to set up and time is of the essence. Second you will need to do one of two things or both in conjunction depending on how narrow you want your light to be. You can always zoom your flash head to 100mm or you can do like I did and place a set of SP video light barn doors over your strobe. If you’re a Strobist subscriber you know what I’m talking about. If your not you should be. (www.strobist.blogspot.com)

Finally I used a gold reflector on an assistant stand to camera right for fill. Mind you this is a venue I had never shot at before and I didn’t see this spot until we were heading into another room.

The post took about 5 minutes in Photoshop. Some levels adjustments, a little burn and dodge, and +10 in saturation. That’s it.

Original image capture RAW, Canon EOS 50D, 24-70 2.8L @ 24mm, ISO 800, 1/25^th @ f – 3.5.

Next time: “The Dramatic First Dance”

Join the Pro Photo Business Forum to talk with me further.

Scott Villal0bos
Houston Wedding Photographer – RSVP Studios

Houston Wedding and Portrait Photographer - Scott Villalobos www.rsvpstudios.com

If you’ve been a professional photographer for any amount of time, you’ve had friends and family ask you to shoot their wedding, birthday, or portrait. For amateur photographers, this can be a great opportunity to build a portfolio in a more relaxed environment. But for the working professional, this situation could end in a nightmare unless you treat it very carefully. For this reason, many photographers refuse to work for friends, afraid of repeating a bad experience that they or a colleague had. But if you keep a few things in mind, working for friends and family can be a rewarding experience that is beneficial for both you the photographer as well as your friend or relative.

Making sure the whole process runs smoothly starts when your friend or family member asks you to photograph them. Nothing is more critical at this first step than ensuring that you understand their true expectations. Look out for dangerous phrases like “snap some photos” and “take a few shots”. Very rarely does anyone actually want just a few snapshots. Otherwise they wouldn’t have asked you. A fellow photographer I am friends with recently spoke on the phone with another friend of ours about doing a few “quick” portraits of his daughter. What he described as “passport-style shots” turned out were going to be used as senior portraits. Had the photographer taken some boring passport photos, the girl would have surely been disappointed, and worse, would have expressed her disappointment to her friends. There’s a clear lesson in that story: ask questions, and don’t stop until you’re absolutely sure about your friend’s expectations. Whether they are direct about it or not, your friend is asking you to photograph them because they trust you. They trust you because they’ve seen your top quality work and level of professionalism. Don’t let them convince you that they are interested in anything but your best work.

More than trust, price almost always plays a factor in family and friends requesting your services as a photographer. Most people’s budgets are tighter these days, and you as their friend the professional photographer are a perfect way to fit in under budget for their wedding. There are several ways to approach pricing yourself in these situations, all of which are valid and depend on both your business and your relationship with your friend.

The first way is to charge your regular rate. If you are a busy wedding photographer and your friend’s wedding will fill a date you will likely get other inquiries for, this is a good option. Your second choice is to give your friends a discount. Lower your normal rate, and treat the discounted amount as your wedding gift to them. The third and final option is to only charge them for expenses, but not your time. To properly photograph an event, you’ll need assistant(s), possibly rental gear, and other items. Don’t ignore these or you may very well end up losing money by photographing them. This is only appropriate for photographers with low rates such that only charging for expenses would not be a huge discount. Notice that doing the event for free is not mentioned here. If your friend is not even willing to cover your costs, that likely indicates that photographing them will be far more trouble than it’s worth. When you don’t charge any money, you are no longer a professional, but a volunteer. If you cannot respect your business enough by charging friends and family members, they surely won’t respect the fact that you a professional.

Once you’ve agreed on a price, the worst mistake you can make is deciding that because you are such good friends, a contract is unnecessary. A contract ensures that both parties understand each other’s expectations and binds them to a set of terms. The same way a contract protects you in the event a regular client is unhappy, it ensures that you are not liable for anything outside of your friend of family’s expectations. What happens when your friend who just wanted you to take a few “family snapshots” at his wedding is upset that you haven’t delivered a stunning portrait of his bride? Photographers worry that insisting on a contract could upset their friend and damage their friendship. In reality, not signing a contract could do just that. Signing a contract and then having to use it to defend yourself to a friend is an unfortunate and uncomfortable experience, one that we all hope to never be part of. But having a friend sue you and demand that you pay for a restaged wedding and a new photographer will surely sever your relationship with that friend. Don’t opt to skip a contract. You’ll only be sorry later.

Photographing family and friends can be a fun experience. Because your subjects know you well, the session can be more relaxed and produce beautiful portfolio quality images. But if there is confusion about the expectations of the photographer and the client, it could also be your worst nightmare. A solid understanding of expectations and payment formalized in a contract will prevent future hassles. Be friendly, but be professional, but remember: make everyone’s expectations clear. With that in mind, have fun photographing your friends and family and providing them with beautiful images they will cherish forever.

Please leave a comment below, or join the PPBF to discuss this topic further.

Ben Drucker
PPBF Contributing Writer
Maplewood Event and Portrait Photographer: Ben Drucker Photography

I have a saying, “100% of the photographs I do not take, will not sell.” So it stands to say that the more photographs I take the more opportunity I give myself. Wedding photographers have always known this to be true, which is why over time we’ve seen an evolution of what we offer our clients as final products.

Today I’m going to share with you a radical idea.

Honeymoon photography. I know at first it sounds like a crazy idea, but why not take a few minutes and read a bit further.

I don’t know who the first wedding photographer was, but you can bet that his or her first photographs were of the ceremony. And one can easily assume that wedding photographers soon after expanded their services to include the reception as well. From there came the Bridal session, and then the engagement The session.

One would think that with the natural progression of things, after adding first the reception then both the bridal and engagement portraits, that adding honeymoon photography would be next. But it would seem that this is not the case.

As it turns out, the industry of wedding photography skipped the natural progression and invented a completely new product, which is spread through most of the country. The day after sessions and trash the dress sessions have become an overnight fad. And why is this? My guess is that the mere thought of offering honeymoon photography to our clients seems so utterly impossible to sell that we had to add a completely new product so we can create more images to sell tour clients.

So I say now is the time to start offering honeymoon photography tour clients. It’s the final frontier for wedding photographers. It’s the next step. It’s the next thing we can offer that will allow us to take more photographs of our clients to provide us with more opportunity to sell additional images.

Join the Pro Photo Business Forum and lets discuss how to make this happen for your photography studio.

Examples of my honeymoon photography can be found on my site at http://www.solarisstudios.com 90% of the images that you see which are destination images were taken on my client’s honeymoons.

Aric C. Hoek BFA, CPP, Author
PPBF Administrator
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Do I really need a contract before I shoot a wedding?
by Bryan Lindsey
BCL Photography

Well, what is the purpose of a contract? On a principled level, it spells out the expectations between two parties – party A agrees to do THIS if party B agrees to do THAT. It avoids confusion and misguided expectations. On a legal level, it is the basis for lawsuits, arbitration, and all sorts of stuff that lawyers get big bucks to dispute. Will YOU ever need a contract on the legal level? As a photographer, will you ever need to produce a document in court as part of a legal dispute with one of your customers? Probably not (hopefully not!). So the benefits of a contract are really in principle – the contract preempts future disputes by spelling out what services the photographer will provide and what price the customer will pay. Personally, if a customer is not able to easily sign and return a contract or if I book something at the last minute, I often require just an email stating that they have read and agree to my standard contract. I want agreement in principle, not necessarily a legally binding document. Some other photographers will contend that point, but again, I value the clarity and principled agreement that the contract provides over its legal value.

What should be included in the contract? At the VERY least the contract should include the agreed upon date and time that shooting will commence, the duration of shooting, and the price to be paid. Also to be included are the deliverables – the number of prints, an album, a DVD of images, etc. There should be no confusion as to when the contract is fulfilled. It is when payment is made, and the deliverables are delivered. Residual sales items (prints, albums, etc.) will often not be part of the contract (since the customer wants to see what you shoot before they commit, which is understandable), although it doesn’t hurt to have your price list and lead times for these items included in your contract. This will help prevent future confusion/discussion/negotiation for those items.

What else? A complete contract also includes language that limits your liability. Is there a retainer required? What if the wedding is cancelled? What if things are running late? What if you are told to go left by one person and then told to go right by another person? What if your camera spontaneously combusts? What if, what if, what if?!? The more scenarios that you can cover in your contract, the better off you’ll be IF those scenarios arise. I often tell the customer that the reason these items are covered is because they have come up before, perhaps not with ME, but they have caused a problem for someone in the past and have resulted in a dispute. The contract is for the protection of both parties, and the customer should welcome the fact that these things are down in writing. If they don’t value the contract or try to put it off or wiggle out of signing, WATCH OUT. Many photographers will not book a date without a signed contract and paid retainer – there are logical reasons for this. If you are looking for ideas for contracts, just Google “photographer contract” and several templates come up in the search results ranging from simple to complex contract templates. Use protection – protect yourself and your business. Save yourself a bunch of hassle. You really need a contract before shooting a wedding.

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Whose Pond Is It Anyway?

Writen by: Scott Villalobos

In the wedding and portrait photography business, sooner rather then later you are going to have to ask yourself this question, “Why am I competing with Uncle Bob?” Perhaps the real question we need to ask ourselves is, “Why am I attracting people that would rather hire uncle Bob as opposed to me?”

In the words of wedding photojournalist great, Denis Reggie, “If your fishing in a pond with little fish in it, don’t be surprised if all you catch is little fish. If you want to catch big fish, fish in the pond that has the big fish. This often means changing ponds.”

Many people just starting out get stuck in this exact situation. They charged low, low prices to attract business and build their portfolios. Then the brides friends start calling wanting the same deal their friend got one or even two years later. The problem is now your more confident, have gained experience, have a decent portfolio, and you’ve finally figured out that you weren’t making any money so you decided to raise your prices. That’s great, but is your clientele willing to pay the extra? Not if you haven’t gotten new clientele and I’m not talking about new faces but different clientele. So as Denis says, “It’s time to move to a new pond.”

If you are just starting out how can you gain valuable experience without getting stuck in the low-end market? There are many ways to gain experience and build your portfolio without having to slit your wrist for your clients.

One of the best ways is to learn by proxy. This means working for other photographers either as an assistant and working your way into a second shooter roll, or if you’ve already cut your teeth on a few weddings and want to shoot your own, look for a studio that uses associates. No you’re not going to get rich this way, but you will gain experience without having all the responsibility of being in business for yourself. You will also be able to create relationships with other vendors. Why is this important? Because other vendors may be able to help you drop your lures in the big pond, so treat them well, they are like fish finders.

One thing that I’ve noticed in the last three or four years is that many people think they can follow in the steps of the Bella Pictures of the world. The business model is volume driven and nationwide service. This means they use alot of local photographers especially in the bigger cities. While there is a market for this type of service, there is an even greater opportunity for new photographers to gain experience and knowledge of the industry by going to work for one of them. However, this can also be a double edged sword as you may find them to be your greatest competition in later years, and these guys work cheap and create albums cheap. But if you think you can handle your own weddings and want to perfect your style and technical savvy this might be the way to go. You won’t get rich, you may not even make enough to pay the rent, but you can make a name for yourself and if your good get referrals for future jobs.

But let’s look at the problem. You keep hearing that your competing for business with either a family member, a photography student or a relative who is an avid enthusiast. What do you do then?

The answer is not necessarily saying that I’m a pro-photographer with years of experience. I was at the Bridal Extravaganza back in July and one of the best photographers in Houston ($10K+) came up to me and said, “There sure is alot of great photography here.” Many of these photographers are in their first couple of years in the business and the truth is they were darn good at their craft. There are alot of uncle Bob’s that are also darn good at their craft even though they are not professionals. How will you convince a bride and groom or even worse, the brides mother to lay down 3 to 7K with you?

To answer this question you need to know that being a professional means alot more then charging to photograph wedding or portraits or whatever. It means being a businessperson, a marketer, customer service oriented and good with people. If your not good with people you won’t get very far in this business. People have to like you. When people can make a connection with you they will be drawn to you and your services. You have to give the customer a professional experience. You need to show professional products in a professional way. You need to have a polished presentation & pricelist. You need to offer products that stand out. You need to let your customers know that you are not just a shoot and dump photographer, but that you actually care about them and their finished products. (I’ll get more into detail about this aspect in a later post.)

Ultimately if your choosing to compete with uncle Bob you will find that your not going to get anywhere fast. On the other hand, if you choose to compete with professionals, be a professional. However you choose to do it, if your starting from scratch and you find that your greatest competition is a guy named uncle Bob, you may consider changing ponds.