The business side of photography
Everyone has heard the saying that a picture is worth a thousand words. According to a real estate study, a (professional) picture is worth at least a thousand dollars.
A 2010 Wall Street Journal article cited a study done by a Seattle brokerage house which showed that professional photography increases the sale price of a home by anywhere from $934 to $116,000.
The reason for this is simple:
Better quality photography => more attention => more customers => more money.
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Another Black Friday and Cyber Monday have come and gone. The day after the US Thanksgiving (fourth Thursday in November) is “Black Friday” (for in-store sales) and the following Monday is “Cyber Monday” (for online sales). Although, some stores now stretch out their sales to last an entire week. In fact, the Thursday before Black Friday (i.e. US Thanksgiving) is now called Gray Thursday.
While these special shopping days are predominantly a US event, they do get some attention here in Canada. Several Canadian retailers hold their own similarly-themed sales on the same days.
What gets little attention, and absolutely no media coverage whatsoever, is that the Saturday between Black Friday and Cyber Monday is “Small Business Saturday”. The Canadian Small Business Saturday, like Canadian Thanksgiving, occurs in October. On Small Business Saturday, the public is urged to shop at a local small business.
However, none of these special shopping days benefit photographers. One could even argue that these shopping events don’t really benefit consumers (also here, here and maybe even here).
Perhaps photographers should create National Portrait Week which could run during National Photography Month (aka May). This would encourage people to get their portrait made, even a business portrait. This might help many photography businesses and it would most definitely benefit consumers.
The lasting value of a portrait is unmatched by any mass-produced, store-bought item.
(The Irish Professional Photographers Association has an annual National Portrait Day, which lasts a week. Customers can get a portrait for a nominal fee and all proceeds go to charity.)
How does a photographer negotiate their contract?
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio, has a Rolling Stone magazine exhibit which includes two letters from 1982 between Rolling Stone magazine’s (then) chief photographer Annie Leibovitz and its publisher Jann Wenner. No idea why the letters are dated March 1982 and Leibovitz signed the contract as being March 1981 (perhaps a typo or bad handwriting?).
Not sure if it was related but Leibovitz left the magazine the following year.
On Wenner’s web site, (9th thumbnail), there’s a self-portrait of Wenner and Leibovitz from 1973 when she was named the magazine’s chief photographer.
Over the past two months, I photographed in a few Toronto offices, from small to mid-sized. Here are a few random observations:
• Businesses seem to be almost paperless. I can recall when offices had rows and rows of filing cabinets.
• Fax machines are pretty much obsolete.
• At least half of the offices had their employees working on laptops. This may make sense in terms of cost and portability but one wonders about the health cost. Many employees’ necks and shoulders were hunched over as they were working on their laptops.
• No desktop computers meant that the office lacked the familiar sound of keyboard (and mouse) clicking. I guess this keyboard sound will disappear like that of a typewriter.
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Over the past two months, I photographed a total of 49 business portraits for a few small to mid-sized Toronto companies.
What never ceases to amaze me is how different each person looks. If you walk along a street and casually glance around at other people, you may think that everyone looks about the same. But, as with snowflakes, no two people are alike.
Face shape, eyes, ears, nose, smile, hair, skin colour and skin texture are quite different from one person to the next. This is very noticeable when photographing people up-close and later when editing and retouching the pictures.
Speaking of retouching, it’s always better to use a makeup artist and hair stylist before the picture is taken rather than relying on retouching afterward.
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The California Institute of Technology (CalTech) just published a rather silly study with the catchy title of “Perspective Distortion from Interpersonal Distance Is an Implicit Visual Cue for Social Judgments of Faces.”
This study claims to show that “the distance at which facial photos are taken influences perception.” The authors of the study even say they’ve broken new ground. (Every photographer is laughing at this.)
Here’s the CalTech press release and the study. Feel free to read them but the study just duplicates what every experienced photographer, model and actor have known for the past plus-90 years:
• If someone takes your picture with a short lens, the closer they stand to you when taking the picture, the more distorted, or unflattering, the picture will be. (This is well-known physics.)
• An unflattering portrait tends to create unfavourable opinions in people who view that portrait. (This is well-known human behaviour.)
This CalTech study certainly qualifies for a Captain Obvious award.
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With apologies for the length of this post, here’s my annual rant:
The 37th edition of the annual Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) is underway. From a photographers’ point of view, TIFF has always been considered to be very poorly-run event. Although from a movie-goer’s point of view, the film festival might be heaven.
I’ve been covering the film festival since 1988 and little has changed over the years. Off hand, I can count only four positive changes over the past 24 years:
(i) A photo pit was covered to protect against rain;
(ii) Many steel barricades were covered;
(iii) A red carpet was relocated from the small east side of a theatre to the much larger west side;
(iv) The central hub of the film festival (TIFF’s new building) has fast wifi (which works about half of the time – perhaps it’s overloaded during the festival?).
Let’s look at a few things (in no particular order):
