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Don’t ruin your wedding photography career before it starts

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So, you are about to embark on your first solo wedding shoot of your career.  You’ve got butterflies in your stomach, you’re stressed, and the pressure is most certainly setting in.  Don’t panic, read this carefully and you will be well prepared for photographing the most important day of someone’s life.

A little background on me, I’m the founder of Mott Weddings destination wedding photography studio in Vietnam. I’ve shot weddings all over the world for over a decade. I’m also on a reality TV show about photography show so I obviously know what I’m talking about because the TV doesn’t lie :).

Now that you know me well, do you take me as your lawful wedding photography coach? Read this and then say, “I do” in the comments section.[Read More…]

Honest advice to all starting wedding photographers

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With the article below don’t want to ruin someone’s life and business. Or stop them from pursuing their passion, dreams or whatever they’re after.

I want to speak about it, as my frustrations with unprofessional wedding insiders has been slowly building up in the last few months.

Wedding professionals that base their recommendations to their client because of fees they receive from other vendors.

New competition in area that offer smaller prices, and directly is threatening to ruin your business if you don’t send any recommendations their way.

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Avoid these three mistakes if you want to make a successful photography business

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Starting a business is a struggle, as well as keeping it successful. When you’re just starting out as a professional photographer, you’ll face a lot of challenges and might make some mistakes that will cost you the business. In this video, Chelsea Nicole talks about three common mistakes that could potentially ruin your business. If you’re just starting out, pay attention not to make these if you want to start and run a successful business as a photographer.

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How To Become A Wedding Photographer In 10 Easy Steps – Photographers Hate This

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Starting a career as a wedding photographer is EASY – all you have to do is follow these 10 EASY STEPS TO BECOME A WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHER!

If you have ever wanted to start a fun, glamorous and profitable ($$$$!!!) career as a wedding photographer, I will share the secret to success that professional wedding photographers don’t want you to know.

The best part is that you don’t even need to know how to use a camera – or even have a camera to get started!

And you can learn it all FOR FREE – just read the rest of this article (and then be sure to buy our eBook*)!!![Read More…]

Wedding Photography Is Dead

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Professional Wedding Photography is dead.

Change is afoot.

I see it all around me. Photographers who once charged £2k for a wedding, now putting themselves forwards for jobs less than a grand. Award winning photographers getting part time jobs to supplement their income because they can no longer afford to shoot weddings full time.

And it’s all a dirty little secret.

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Bride ruins wedding photographer’s business by trashing her online, needs to pay $89,500 fine

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Trashing someone all over the internet is not an adequate way to express your dissatisfaction with their services. A bride from Canada learned this the hard way after the court ordered her to pay $115,000 CAD (nearly $89,500) for trashing a wedding photographer online and ruining her business.

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How to photograph a wedding – Tips for professional photographers or anyone thinking about trying this!

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This blog is written for anyone who photographs weddings professionally or is thinking about doing so, but it is also beneficial for future newlyweds to truly understand the planning, thought processes, coordination, work, skill and endurance that we go through to get the images. I decided to write this blog post not to showcase the photos from this weekend (which I love doing as well) but to explain to all of you the process of capturing this momentous day for people.

I am writing this blog post on Tuesday, after a really long weekend of photographing a wedding, and I am still feeling the exhaustion from the long days. Photographing a wedding is an all encompassing event and, if done correctly, will leave you drained mentally and physically.

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Photographer puts a Samsung Gear Watch in a Kodak TLR to attract clients

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Wedding fairs are a hard competition. If you are a wedding photographer, there is sometimes no way around those, though. Finnish photographer, Aaro Keipi, found a cool way to attract clients to his booth. He replaced the insides of a Kodak Duaflex II twin lens reflex with a Samsung Gear watch to attract clients and initiate a conversation.

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10 images for the price of none?

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Here is why (I think) you shouldn’t sell your files in bundles!

Doing IPS (In Person Sales) does not mean that you cannot sell your files – but it does mean you shouldn’t be giving them away as a Shoot and burn photographer (S&B). And now some of the S&B’ernes will object, they are not giving them away, they are selling them as an all inclusive package!

The S&B’s I know, are priced from 60-180£ (67€/70$-200€/220$) for a CD/USB/Download with 5-30 files included. And this is telling your clients that your images has almost no value. For the client it looks like they are only paying for your time, not the art you create.

If we break the numbers down, depending on your CODB (cost of doing business), best case scenario, you will make somewhere around 20-25£ pr image – worst case scenario – 2£ pr file (!!). Do you really, deep in your heart, believe your art should be sold that cheap?

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Yes! You have ALL of your pictures!

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I covered an event some months ago over a period of a few days, where as you can imagine, many hundreds of photos were taken. Due to the popularity of this event, (we’ve covered it over a number of years thankfully) I knew the folks that were a part of it were really going to be anxious to see, share, print, etc. After editing, and uploading their photos to the online gallery, they ended up having a really great selection of photos that told the story of their event quite well. All images showed people having a good time, shaking hands, hugging, smiling, laughing, posing for group shots; basically enjoying their evening.

Any photographer that has been doing this for awhile can judge the evening pretty well. Actually, more than that. We can judge the day, the event, the evening, the shoot, whatever it is, we can sum it up and pretty much determine how it’s all going to roll. Once in awhile curve balls are thrown, but if you do it long enough, nothing is really a surprise- and that is a good thing.

The evening was slow, not much was happening. You can only get so many photos of the same people doing various activities, while there are infinite poses and different combinations of people you can pose with, after awhile, you’ve gotten everything. Seriously…everything.

After sending the gallery to the clients, I get a text a few minutes later.

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