Whether you’re brand new to photography, a seasoned veteran, or somewhere in-between, learning and re-learning the ins and outs of your craft is an essential part of the continuing education that comes along with being a photographer. If you’re a professional who makes a living on taking photos, then this is even more vital.
I have learned a lot over the years regarding pricing and bidding commercial photography. I still have a lot to learn. I've made mistakes (lots of them) and had some victories (fortunately).
A big portion of my work comes from clients in the tactical and law enforcement industry. This past week I attended a trade show for my industry. I knew this was going to be an amazing opportunity to network, make connections, and, fingers crossed, make some new clients.
Over the last week, a story unfolded about a newlywed couple in Dallas upset with the services they received from their wedding photographer, Andrea Polito. A few days ago, Polito issued an open letter to share her side of the story. This story serves as a lesson and caution to all wedding photographers to consider when handling clients and business dealings.
One of the formulas to success is to have a website that is remarkable! If you are not staying on top of design trends and continually developing your site, you will find yourself behind times and will lose business because of it. Gone are the days when we could set up a site and let it sit idle for a few years.
As a busy photographer, productivity is key for my work. I'm often finding myself blocking my own access to Facebook, Twitter and Reddit throughout the day, forcing me to work on the tasks at hand. And while I truly believe photography is the best job in the entire world, a lot of our days are filled with simple mundane tasks - which is why I love Gmail's Canned Responses.
Branching off from their web-based portfolio service, Format has launched a free iPad app named Kredo. The app allows users to add and organize their images into portfolios, exhibit portfolios to clients in a sleek-looking presentation, publish their work to the Kredo Discover network, or share their portfolios with anyone else on any device with optional password protection.
Photography equipment is expensive, and regardless of whether we are amateurs or full-time professionals, losing your equipment to theft or damage could be catastrophic. A single event (be it theft, natural disaster, etc.) could completely devastate your business and leave you without means of income to recover the loss.
Do you ever feel like a "small fry" compared to the "big names" that are established in your area? Ever wonder if you are missing out on business because you don't have the same accolades on your website? Rather than let that get you down, why not embrace being the underdog, after all it has a lot of advantages!
I must be getting old. This year I will turn 32 and as each day of my life passes I care about social media sites less and less. I can remember when a Facebook "like" used to excite me. Those days are long gone, I simply do not care anymore, and my business is struggling because of it.
With every passing year, we see many professional photographers go out of business and twice as many aspiring professionals try to pick up their mantle. If you want to stay in business, it's as easy as investing in your clients.
When people walk through my living room studio, they are puzzled that I do not own or rent a permanent studio space. What many do not know is that when I’m contracted for a commercial assignment, about 80% of the time I must travel to a location or shot at the client’s home base. And, in many cases that requires transporting several 9 foot seamless backdrops and a whole lot of equipment.
Each year over 150,000 people flock to Las Vegas for CES, the world’s largest consumer electronic showcase. Major tech innovators from all over the world kick off the new year by showing off their latest and greatest gadgets and innovations to the public. This year, SanDisk unveiled three new products that are designed to increase your productivity and give your workflow a boost.
Getting your clients comfortable in front of a camera is always a challenge. I still get a little nervous before a shoot so I can imagine what my clients must feel like. In part one of this series, we talked about the importance of the pre-shoot consultation and how it can start you off on a good path toward a successful headshot or portrait session.
Last week saw the release of ‘Anomaly’, a film that is redefining the approach and model for independent, narrative film making. Co-Director Salomon Ligthelm outlines how he managed the project as it grew from “a 2 minute art film” into the astonishing 38 minute-long final masterpiece, and provides key takeaways for all of us that we can apply to our own stills or motion projects.
When you offer a service, the amount of people who come out of the woodwork to claim their "family and friends" discount is incredible. You can save friendships and avoid family drama simply by setting boundaries that separate friend time from business time. Here are a few helpful pointers on how to prepare yourself and never feel taken advantage of again.
With the year drawing to a close, and the new one just around the corner, it is at this time many of us reflect on what has happened and what we plan to achieve. Year after year it is the same story. We make a couple resolutions, we give it a good go for a few weeks, and then we fall back into some old routines that keep us from making progress.
What is the value of a photograph? What is the right price for an hour of your work? Those are questions we tackle on a daily basis. Each of us has a different pricing structure depending on the type of job, overhead costs, difficulty, length and reputation.
Pressure, fear, joy, excitement – these are not uncommon emotions on any shoot. A few weeks ago, I spent a few hours in a helicopter above New York City with Vincent Laforet where we experienced all of these emotions.
When I first began shooting headshots, it was a daunting task. Figuring out a rhythm for how a headshot session should go felt like an overwhelming problem. I slowly began to solve the problem through trial and error. It was when I began to realize that we have no control over almost anything in life that I began to find my own rhythm in this crazy photography business.
It is the time of the year when we look back at the past 12 months and decide what worked and what didn’t work in our businesses. This is the most common time of the year to re-vamp pricing for the upcoming season. There are many things to consider when it comes to pricing products and services. The worst possible thing to do is to compare your business to another’s business.
I recently read a survey that said the average time a person spends driving a car is 4.3 years. Let me break that down for you. Let's say you live to be 75. That is 37,688 hours spent behind the wheel of a car! Most of us listen to music while we drive, but what if we took that time and devoted it to expanding our craft and making us better photographers?
Photographers around this time of the year, portrait and wedding photographers especially, tend to have clients banging down their doors for holiday photos and other must have product deliveries in time for Christmas. While the rest of the world is gearing up for a relaxing holiday, we often experience anything but.
I guess I’ve always been different; I’ve never really yearned for a big studio space. As a freelance photographer, the majority of my clients require that I come to their location and shoot on-site. I have a strict organizational-mobile system to transport all my equipment which includes over 8 strobes, 2 scrims and a plethora of staging props and modifiers.
Everything starts from nothing. Thousands dream of being full time photographers, but knowing how to start a business - and how to grow it - are really tricky parts of a complex equation. Emily Soto today celebrates 4 years of full time professional photography.
Last week Facebook rolled out a relatively minor update, but it may be one that has important consequences for your business' exposure on Facebook. Taking a break from changes to the the ever-evolving newsfeed algorithms (changes that have steadily decreased pages’ organic reach), this time Facebook switched their focus to the search capabilities of the social media platform.
This week has been a big one for Instagram. The social media platform announced that it is cleaning up spammers, and Fortune noted that Instagram has left Twitter in the dust with 300 million active users. What does this mean for our businesses? If you aren’t on Instagram, or using it actively, you are missing out.
Yesterday, we showed you some of the very best gifts for photographers and videographers under $75. Today, I wanted to show you some of the very best deals and must have tools for photographers and videographers everywhere that cost less than $200 that are all part of our Annual Holiday Gift Guide.
While people around the world prepare for the holidays, photographers have something else on their mind. For all of us it's that time of year to buy your conference pass, make your hotel reservations, plan shoots with friends and highlight the classes you want to attend at the annual WPPI Photo Conference in Las Vegas from February 26th thru March 5th.
It's that time of the year again, where your loved ones ask what you'd like for Christmas, Hanukkah, or any other celebration you may partake in. Rather than fumble around trying to make a list of things you might need to further your photography career, I thought I'd break down the absolute best gifts for photographers under $75.
Peter Lik must be one very happy camper. Earlier we broke the news of the sale of the “Phantom”, a black and white image of Arizona’s Antelope Canyon, sold for a record breaking $6.5m, making it the most expensive photograph ever sold.
Our latest article in the Seniors Ignite series with Jen Basford from 3 girls photography covers how to create a year round senior business. Jen has created a studio that doesn’t slow down in the off months. Instead, she is constantly building her portfolio and generating revenue. How does she does do this?
As an admin in a few photography Facebook groups about once a week I receive a private message from someone complaining about another member in the group.
My studio receives client inquires anywhere from once per week to several times a day. Obviously not all of these inquiries turn into paid work, some are a downright waste of time. Dealing with client inquiries is not my favorite pastime, but if everything goes to plan, at least a few of them get me behind the camera and end up paying the bills.
Remember that time you planned a business and it worked out perfectly? Neither do I. Starting a business, any business, is a daunting task. The reality however is that most of us overcomplicate the starting process and do some severe damage to our business before it ever takes off. Let’s put things into a bit of perspective.
While sharing drinks with a friend, he started inquiring as to how I’m able to supplement my income with video editing projects. The more we talked, the more I realized that a lot of people have the ability and skill to do it, but they don’t understand the small things that can make or break being successful at it.
Once you have decided who you’re going to sell to and have worked on your portfolio enough to be confident with it, as discussed in Chapter 1, it’s time to get started in the game of marketing. Like any other part of the process, selling your product or service is something that requires planning.
Jen Basford with Seniors Ignite and 3 girls photography joins us for another interview about building your senior model program. In this article, Jen touches base on what her models receive as part of her program.
Up until now we've talked mostly about how to shift your thinking away from the unfortunate standard of the professional artist. However, we can't really talk about how to build a thriving business without addressing the stretches when nobody is walking through the door. In fact, many of us are probably running head first into that season right now.
It's not often that we feature book series here on Fstoppers, but I personally found that the three piece series by 99U was worth mentioning. In their latest book entitled "Make Your Mark - The Creative's Guide to Building a Business with Impact", author and editor Jocelyn K.
I have always associated a romance with being a specialist photographer, whether this be in the area of weddings, fashion, automotive or dreamy tintype portraits. You are valued as a master in your field and people want you for the style that you create. On the other hand, there are positives in working in multiple industries as a photographer.
Self-promotion is an aspect of photography that many, if not most, photographers struggle with. If you’re a photographer who’s in business for yourself, you know that a good portion of your working hours is spent exploring ways to stick out and stand out from the pack.
The holiday season is right around the corner, and for many photographers it’s one of the most lucrative times for print sales. If you’re selling framed prints of your work, it’s imperative that you package your products correctly in order save yourself a lot of money from damages, and to avoid having disappointed customers.
Freelance photographer is a term widely used inside our craft. Yet what does it truly mean to be a freelancer? And more importantly, what aspects should you take in consideration in order to make freelance photography work to your advantage?
As a wedding photographer I understand the difficulties of running a business, shooting weddings on weekends and editing photos during the week. It can really eat up a lot of time in the schedule and if you let it, it can take priority over your family life. That's why as creatives we have to set limits on ourselves and make sure we always put family first.
As Director of Photography for Sports Illustrated, Brad Smith is witness to a lot of freelance photographers trying to get their foot in the door. Albert Ayzenberg of A.A. Productions sits down with Brad to talk about what freelancers should be doing to get noticed, and ultimately be hired, by photo editors.
The use of Photoshop by companies is changing and it’s indicative of a much deeper trend. Earlier his year, American Eagle stopped retouching the models in their 'Aerie' lingerie shoots. They claim that the 9% sales increase last quarter is directly related to this position.
Last year we hosted our very first Fstoppers Workshops in the Bahamas and it was the most rewarding experiences of my life. So many amazing friendships were made, long last memories were created, and most importantly so many photographers were able to take their businesses to the next level.
Why is it so hard to hire someone to fill a creative position? At this point I'm afraid that art school might be making most graduates unemployable egomaniacs. I know this because I used to be one.
As photographers, we are all subject to the “I saw this photo on Pinterest” or “I love this photo of my friend” requests. Below are three tips on how to handle these requests without killing your creativity and keeping your client happy. First off, there is no need to be offended by these requests.