Hacking Photography - one Picture at a time
This article will cover a client case study on how I organised not only myself, but the client prior to the actual shoot day.
Topics I’ll cover in this article include:
Text messaging has become a part of our everyday lives a long time ago. Many of us prefer it to other forms of communication such as emails or phone calls. But what about talking to your clients? Photographer Jessica Whitaker suggests that texting your clients can be not only unprofessional but also far less efficient than emails. In this video, she goes through the reasons why you shouldn’t text your clients, so let’s see if you would agree.
No matter how thorough you plan out a shoot, it happens that it sometimes goes wrong. There can be many reasons for it, and the client could ask you to do a reshoot. This is one of those tricky situations that are not always easy to resolve. Should the client pay for the second shoot, or should you do it for free? Or should you do it at all? In this video, Scott Choucino discusses this topic to help you go through these kinds of situations without a fuss.
We often hear about mistakes in photography. Usually, they’re lists telling us to stop using selective colour or to stop shooting everything at f/1.4. But if photography is your business, there are potentially far greater mistakes that you might be making that while not necessarily detrimental to your photography can be very harmful to your business and your bottom line.
In this video, commercial photography Scott Choucino talks about the six biggest mistakes that he sees professional photographers making, why they’re such a big deal and how they can harm your business.
“You’re too expensive.”
“My budget is not that big, can you lower the price?”
“But the [random other photographer] is cheaper than you!”
Sounds familiar? I believe we’ve all been there. No matter how much you charge, there will always be someone who will tell you that you’re too expensive, who will compare you to other (cheaper) photographers, and who will want to pay what they have, not what you charge. While your first thought may be to tell them “oh, bugger off,” you know that it’s certainly not the best thing to do. In this video, Michael Sasser gives you some useful tips on how to keep your cool and how to react when your potential clients complain about your price.
Since my first photography job, I’ve been commissioned by top brands including Adidas, Jose Cuervo, Amazon, Sony, AEG, Land Securities, Heineken and many more. I hope to be able to help others take their first steps into professional photography.
Beginning with your first photography job, when you first start getting photography commissions as a photographer it can be very tempting to just take them all on.
We’ve all had those awkward clients at some time or another. If you haven’t, then you will, don’t worry. I’ve been working in various creative fields for around 25 years now, and I’ve experienced all of these. In fact, one particular former client springs to mind that single-handedly embodies at least six of them all at once.
Fortunately the folks at Coplex (formerly Ciplex) have come up with this handy guide on how to deal with them. They highlight 15 of the most common types of clients, and the tell tale signs to watch out for.
So you’ve got the knowledge and skill, you know your gear and the direction in which you want to go with your photography. Now it’s time to attract clients. You will inevitably do some shoots you won’t be too excited about, and that’s okay. But you should make an effort to attract clients you really want to work with. After all, doing the kind of shoots you like is what will make you really love your job and enjoy it to the max.
Rachel and Daniel from Mango Street have three quick and useful tips how to attract your dream clients. It takes time and effort, but these are useful guidelines that will take you to the point you want to reach with your paid work.
Another new feature is coming to Instagram, and it can be useful for photographers. People will soon be able to boom appointments with business. For all those who make a living from photography, this means your clients will be able to find you and book a session directly through your Instagram.
A frequent and normal question I often get from my first-time direct clients (non-agency) is; “What is your rate?” (I never work on a per hour rate for many reasons) but often the real question should be, “How much will this cost to create this image?”
Surprises are never fun for a client, so education from the get go is key.
So how much does a commercial shoot cost? Well there are many factors to keep in mind, but let’s keep it simple and break the costs into two categories.
Production costs are easily described as the cost to CREATE the image, where Commercial Licensing Fees are the cost to USE the image.
You can find out more about John on his website and follow his adventures on YouTube.
His videos have over a hundred million views, have been extensively published by news outlets, and has even received recognition from a few film festivals, such as International Ocean Festival
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