The Photo Life

Photography for the Professionals {10 Truisms} by R.J. Kern

I’m a fan of age-old photography wisdom that’s still relevant today.

When I stumbled upon the book “Photography for the Professionals,” written by Robin Perry in 1976, I thumbed through the dusty pages. What I found surprised me, no different than this 1937 gem.

If age-old wisdom stands the test of time today, imagine future value? That’s something a new book won’t buy!

Despite being published over 37 years ago, the abundance of ‘golden nugget’ information relevant to today’s professional photographers inspired me to write this post for The Photo Life. Here are Ten Truisms from the book “Photography for the Professionals” that are applicable to today’s professional photographers.

Ten Truisms, 37 Years Later:

10. The key to success in photography (or anything else for that matter) is education.

As Mark Twain said, “Never let school interfere with your education.” Going into debt for photography school isn’t a sound investment. At all. However, self-improvement …

How to Engage Your Audience and Kickstart Social Media Conversations

If you’re tirelessly working on ways to capture the attention of your target audience on Facebook and Twitter, welcome to the club. You, along with millions of other businesses are in the same boat, trying to turn the social media microphone into a way to make more money. While many companies make the mistake of thinking that the number of fans and followers they have is what’s important, true social media ROI (the kind that translates into dollars and cents!) isn’t just about popularity. It’s about ENGAGEMENT. In other words, is anything meaningful happening with those fans and followers?

Audience “engagement” can mean anything from someone re-tweeting your content, replying to your posts, clicking on a link or getting more information from your website. This type of engagement is meaningful because it can help you see if you’re reaching your target audience. This engagement also is a starting point for tracking whether those engaged audience members are following through and contacting your company (which is what you really care about!)

If you want to increase your audience engagement and kick start social media conversations, keep these guidelines in mind:

1. Initiate timely conversations. News travels at breakneck speeds because how instantaneously information spreads online. Because of that, it’s critical to capitalize on conversation starters when they’re relevant. Don’t make the mistake of posting on old news and falling behind. If you don’t catch your window, your audience will have moved on to the next thing and won’t be as interested in that conversation.

2. Make sure your content is mobile-friendly. Your audience is likely surfing content and social media on mobile devices, so you want the content you’re sharing to be easy for them to consume. If you want your audience to be able to easily engage in conversation with you, keep things easy-to-read, follow good formatting practices, and make sure everything you’re sharing is mobile-friendly.

3. Go back to the basics. What is your ideal audience’s picture of happiness? What challenges do they face? What types of things are consistently on their mind? Ask questions, share content, and initiate online conversations that speak to these topics that your customers genuinely care about.

4. Don’t forget to make it visual. Don’t forget about sharing images and videos via social media. Including photos and/or video in your posts radically increases engagement. It keeps things more exciting and interactive and is a whole lot more fun to read than a page full of text.

5. See if it’s working. Sounds basic, but don’t forget how important it is to look at whether your efforts are actually paying off! Are you customers engaging with you? Are they striking up conversation online, and from there signing up for your email list, filling out contact forms, or opting into offers you’ve created? If so, then you know what you’re doing is working. If not, it’s back to the drawing board so you can make improvements. There are lots of great tools we love for measuring and tracking engagement but two that we think are particularly helpful are Awe.sm and Hubspot.

About the Author:

Katie Humphreys is co-founder and Chief Action Officer of Plume & Post. Find more musings from Katie on Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest.

When I started my business, I was solo, working out of my apartment while working a 9-5 job too. Needless to say, it was hectic. So I knew that IF I went full-time as a professional photographer, I couldn’t do it alone.

I am a people person; I love working in collaboration with others. So I knew that building a studio team would be essential to both my success AND my happiness. Today, I have three associate photographers who work in my office, helping me manage my studio.

Do you want to build a studio team?

A team looks sexy, but it isn’t for everyone. If you’re considering adding photographers or staff to your growing studio, ask yourself a few key questions.

Do you want to be a boss? Managing a team means setting deadlines, dress codes, company policies and occasionally having to discipline them. Do you want to make more money? If that’s the …

Options. We think we like them. We actually hate them.

There’s a hamburger chain out in my neck of the woods called In-N-Out. Many of you have probably heard of them, if not had a hamburger from there at one point. They have a bit of a cult following, with consistent lines out the door at all of their locations. They’re focused on fresh (never frozen) burgers that taste delicious.

To appeal to so many people, you’d think they’d have lots of options on their menu. Lots of people = lots of different wants and needs = lots of options. Wrong. In-N-Out has three options: a hamburger, a cheeseburger, and a double cheeseburger. That’s it.

I have a rant I do when I present on this topic, and it generally addresses an area where I see photographers offer WAY to many options: ALBUMS. Think about all of the CHOICES you give your client when …

Documenting the story of a same-sex wedding is really not that different from documenting the story of any wedding, at least from the perspective of a wedding photojournalist. In both, a photojournalist’s job is to capture the personalities, the emotions, the moments, the context and the details that work together to give viewers a sense of the love shared by the couple, their family and friends on that one special day.

So, how do I go about booking same-sex weddings?

1) Seek this business only if you are truly supportive. If you have any reservations about the right of gays and lesbians to make meaningful, legal and sacred commitments to each other, that uncertainty will likely show when you meet with couples.

2) Make it clear on your website that you’re open to photographing same-sex unions. Show photos of same-sex couples if you have …

what-i-learned-from-buying-a-commercial-space_2

As a multiple photographer studio, I quickly learned that having my staff work out of my home wasn’t the best option. Who wants their team members wandering around when you’re trying to finish breakfast? But I was still scared to death when I signed my first three-year lease for a 600 square foot space at over 600 dollars a month. What I didn’t realize was that during the next three years, I would grow my dream then BUY my own studio space. Here’s what I learned from buying a commercial studio space.

Why buy?

I hate paying someone else money. Doesn’t everyone? I’d rather invest in my own future. Buying a commercial space for my studio meant lower overhead for my business. A mortgage is typically less per month than rent.

Consider these questions I had to ask myself:

Should I buy a BIG building and then sub-lease space(s) to other businesses? Or, should I buy a …

I am living my dream. It’s the truth. I wake up every day and create art. I’m sure many of you feel the same way. Beyond the blessings I feel that I have being a photographer, even more important to me is that I am shooting work that inspires me and others. I ask myself all the time, “What am I shooting that not only inspires me, but others as well?”

If you are familiar with my work, you have seen an image of a bride facing a giraffe. It’s my favorite image right now and, admittedly, I’ve put it everywhere! The home page of my website, and on most of my marketing materials. I am asked often how I created this image. How was I able to get a bride and giraffe together for a shoot?

The real question is, what can YOU DO to create images you are proud of? Do you think they just happen on an average wedding day? Perhaps….but not always. My question is: how can YOU create an image that is truly from your heart? How can you create an image that will truly inspire?

It starts with a client who trusts you – totally trusts you. When my client booked a post-wedding shoot, I knew that she would let me do anything I wanted to do. In an opportunity like this, the first thing you should do is delve deep and articulate what inspires you as an artist. How can you create an image that you’ll love, and also something that’s unique and sets you apart from everyone else? You must put your unique stamp on it.

I have always been inspired by Richard Avedon’s photograph of a woman with elephants (you probably know the image I’m talking about). I knew I wanted to do something with animals. Once that was in my head, I started scouring my brain for contacts who would give me access to awesome animals. Then, I remembered a bride from a few years back who worked for Safari Park in San Diego. Because of my relationship with her and the park, we were granted permission to shoot with majestic animals. In exchange, we let the park use the images for their marketing materials.

Next, it was time to assemble a team of trusted vendors. The bride and I collaborated to discuss dress options, accessories, and any detail I could think of. The shoot ended up being an incredible day of shooting all over the park and included experiences with cheetahs, birds, and of course the now infamous giraffe. The end result was an amazing shoot that I was very proud of.

In the end, my bride was equally as proud and inspired by the image. But there’s something else that I needed to create such an inspiring image: TIME. Time to be creative, time to research, time to collaborate with my client.

Time is precious. For me, inspiration is made possible through time. Time to build trust with clients and vendors, and time to be inspired personally. The way I carve out time to create inspiring images is by trusting a specialist with my post-production. As simple as it sounds, that partnership frees up TIME for me to be creative. Trusting a specialist with my post-production is the biggest decision I’ve made in my business to get back time. You can’t expect to be inspired, nor can you expect to grow your photography business, while sitting behind a desk. You know exactly what I’m talking about – the stress of being all things to your business stifles creativity.

So, protect your time. Take steps to share tasks with trusted partners, perhaps in post-production or other key areas of your business. You won’t regret it; you will have more time to collaborate with clients to create inspiring images.

About the Author and her trusted specialist: Sara is the founder and owner of Sara France Photography, Inc, based in San Diego. In business since 2001, they focus on weddings and events in the greater Southern California region. Sara is a passionate Aperture user and a member of the Aperture Advisory Panel for Apple. Alongside her professional wedding photography career, she also developed Aperture training workflow materials for professional photographers and trains them to become more efficient and effective using this awesome tool produced by Apple, Inc.

ShootDotEdit is the first choice post processing partner for the Wedding Pro, and everything they shoot. ShootDotEdit provides custom color correction on your RAW and JPG images, making your images look consistently awesome based on your chosen color profile. With dotPreview, you can be garaunteed that you’ll like each event that you submit. Fast is Best, and no one is faster – ShootDotEdit offers standard turnaround time as fast as 48 hours!

I once had a professor who told me to always think like a child. Out of all the things I learned during my university days, I took these simple words of wisdom and carried them through my years as a professional photographer.

Children get excited about the smallest things; they see life innocently and they don’t have filters. As they grow and mature, they adapt their thinking and perspectives based on parental principles and societal pressures.

They learn to judge, to hate, to see a cloud as a cloud – not as a big, roaring lion or a unicorn floating in a sky. Things become “normal” and nothing is as exciting as it once was.

I think my professor was onto something when he compared artists to children. We must keep our innocence – in both our vision and our thoughts. Our thoughts carry over to our vision; our vision creates …

To Glorify Your Own Success or Help Your Audience Find Their Own?

When you run a small business, it’s hard to find the line where your business ends and you begin. Because of how closely linked you are to your business, it’s often easiest to focus on yourself and your company instead of creating content that’s client-focused and provides your audience with real value.

But what’s easiest isn’t always what’s most effective.

You’ve probably noticed that some lucky folks have built a large audience of fans and followers by focusing on themselves. They’ve done it mostly glorifying their success instead of showing others how to find their own success.

However, there’s a downside to making your audience want to be you instead of providing real value in showing them how to be the best version of themselves.

1. Fans and followers don’t always equate to big-picture business success.

Don’t be fooled by 1,000,000 Twitter followers! Just because 1,000,000 people find you interesting in 140 characters, doesn’t actually mean they’ll buy anything …

Today’s modern bride is classy, confident and fearless. As a boudoir studio that’s been around since the 1990s, we’ve seen our share of brides. We’ve been shooting bride’s boudoir photographs since 1997. Today’s brides want the best of everything, they know they deserve it, and they’ll stop short of nothing to get it. From booking reception locations to florists and caterers, they spare no expense. This is also true when it comes to giving the groom a gift he’ll never forget. Boudoir photographs have become the number one gift on the bride’s list.

Many brides ponder booking a sexy boudoir photo shoot, but when it comes to actually making that call, they have all kinds of questions and doubts that go through their minds. That’s why we send brides a helpful list of tips when they book their boudoir photo shoot. We want them to be prepared long before they come in to …

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Dispatches

Photography for the Professionals {10 Truisms} by R.J. Kern

How to Engage Your Audience and Kickstart Social Media Conversations by Katie Humphreys

How to Build a Studio Team by Tracy Autem

Why Options Stink. by Jared Bauman

Tips for Booking and Rocking Same-Sex Wedding Shoots

What I Learned from Buying a Commercial Studio Space by Tracy Autem

How to Collaborate with Clients to Create Inspiring Images by Sara France

How to See the World Like a Child by LA Photography

To Glorify Your Own Success or Help Your Audience Find Their Own? by Elizabeth Villa Ippolito

Tips to Give Brides Before Boudoir Photography Sessions by Denise Adamo