The business side of photography
Today is World Intellectual Property Day, as declared by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). Several countries held events to emphasize the importance of intellectual property rights. Nothing is happening here in Canada which is 15 years behind its (1996) WIPO obligations.
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!
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The two-year-old portrait of Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff is outdated.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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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.
One important job at large entertainment events is to let the photographers know who they’re photographing. This is when sign holders come in handy.
It should be easy to find the right photographer for your business photography, right? After all, every city has many, many professional photographers.
Recently, I was reading a web site for photographers who are new to running a photo business. These amateur(?) photographers were apparently hired by various clients to shoot corporate work, advertisements, business marketing or editorial assignments. Yet these photographers didn’t know how to price their work or, in some cases, even how to do the assignment. Why would any business hire an amateur photographer?
How should a business find the right professional photographer?
The best way is by referral from another business or a colleague. If this isn’t possible then a search engine is your best friend (or enemy).
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One problem when a photographer charges a one-size-fits-all photo fee, (i.e., an hourly fee or a day rate), is that the photographer ends up providing a variety of services to their clients all for the same price.
For example: an editorial customer may require the photographer to use one camera to cover a one-hour press conference. A corporate customer may need the photographer to bring four cases of equipment to produce several studio-quality executive portraits within an allotted one-hour period.
Those two assignments require different equipment, different skills and different talents. So why should both clients pay the same price (i.e., the same hourly fee or day rate)?
Charging by the hour can even penalize the customer.
For example: a certain photo might take one hour to shoot or it might take four hours. Either way, the benefits to the customer are the same. Charging by the hour would mean that the customer pays more for the “slower” photographer yet gains no additional benefits.
Pricing based on photography and usage may be confusing to some customers but it allows the photographer to customize the price to suit each customer’s exact needs.
