For Customers

Stop me if you’ve heard this (II)

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Just before leaving on a big assignment to photograph a client’s overseas factory, a Toronto corporate photographer went to a drugstore to pick up a tube of ointment. The directions read: “Apply locally, twice a day.”

The photographer said to the pharmacist, “I can’t apply locally, I’m going overseas.”

Since the client was very low budget, the corporate photographer had no choice but to fly on a very cheap, small airline. During the overseas travel, the flight attendant asked the photographer if he would like dinner.

“What are my choices?” he asked.

“Yes or no.”
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Cheap stock pictures too expensive

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Another example that using cheap stock pictures can be too expensive, especially when it mangles a company’s reputation.

A US magazine called VegNews is all about being vegetarian or vegan. Rather than using custom food photography, the magazine decided to use some cheap online stock pictures because they were, uh, cheap.

The problem is that the food photos were not vegetarian or vegan. The magazine just passed them off as being so.
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Stop me if you’ve heard this

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What’s the definition of an optimist?

A freelance photographer with a mortgage.

 

What’s the definition of an optimist?

A freelancer who opens a savings account.

 

What’s the difference between a freelance photographer and a savings bond?

One of them eventually matures and earns money.

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Canonize your Canon

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Some wedding photographers offer free prints to attract new customers. Others will offer lower prices. But if a wedding photographer really wants to stand out and increase their value to the soon-to-be bride and groom, then perhaps that photographer should also offer to perform the marriage ceremony.

Imagine the photographer’s sales pitch:

Our full-service Platinum wedding package includes engagement photos, albums for the couple and the parents. Plus, if you act now, you’ll get a free marriage ceremony!

To offer this service, the photographer just has to get ordained by a church and perhaps, purchase the lovely $6.99 certificate which “proves” they were ordained.

As a bonus, an ordained photographer may also perform funeral services. Imagine the business to be earned from:

Add some fun to your next funeral with our Heavenly FotoFuneral package. Free souvenir 8×10 glossy if you book today!

 

A Federal Case

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There’s a Canadian federal election coming in early May. One would think that if a party wants to run the country then surely it can run a web site:

• The Liberals have the slowest loading site of the bunch. Almost painful, but let’s be charitable and assume the site was just busy today. This site uses free WordPress blog software but it fails XHTML validation. The design is consistent and it uses the party’s traditional red–white colour scheme.

The two-year-old portrait of Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff is outdated. What does it suggest when the party couldn’t be bothered to get a new business portrait for something as important as a federal election? But again, to be charitable, let’s say the Liberals used an old picture just to save a few bucks.

The site has photo captions and credits on many of its pictures. The party has hired at least one experienced news photographer, but the site suffers from either non-existent or just plain bad photo editing.
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Make Sense

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A few things that don’t seem to make sense:

• If you order a $1.49 precooked and prepackaged hamburger at a fast-food joint, you have to pay before they give you the food.

But if you order an $85 steak dinner at a restaurant, you don’t have to pay until after the food has been cooked, served and eaten.

 

• Why do some amateur photographers spend many thousands of dollars buying top-of-the-line camera gear just to photograph things that a $400 camera could do equally as well?

 

• Why do some professional photographers like to brag how they used a cheap toy camera to shoot a multi-thousand-dollar assignment?

 

• Why would a company spend about $47,000 to buy five full-page B+W ads in a Toronto tabloid newspaper and then budget less than $500 for the photography for those ads?

Why not budget $25,000 for five half-page ads and then budget, say, $2,500 for the photography? Not only would this save the company thousands of dollars but the better quality photography will earn the company more attention.

 

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