The business side of photography
Confucius was wrong when he said:
Choose a job you love and you will never have to work a day in your life.
Running a photography business consists of short moments of photography broken up by long periods of business. But those moments of photography make it worthwhile.
While photographers do need to make money, the need to create pictures may be more important. It’s not always about money.
Making money is a job. Making good pictures is an accomplishment.
Internet scams that target photographers have been around for years. Over the past couple of years, there’s another scam involving credit cards.
A scammer, posing as a customer, will ask to hire a photographer for an upcoming event but only if the photographer accepts credit cards. If the photographer agrees to the work, the scammer will mention that they also need to pay another event supplier who doesn’t take credit cards.
The scammer will offer to send extra money to the photographer so the photographer can pay that other supplier. To tempt the photographer, the scammer will promise the photographer a couple hundred dollars extra for their trouble.
The scammer will use a stolen credit card to pay the photographer’s fee, the other supplier’s fee and the extra money for the photographer’s trouble. The unsuspecting photographer will be told to pay the other supplier immediately – it’s urgent!! – but only in cash through Western Union.
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Are you planning a business conference, workshop or other corporate event? Would you like to add more value?
Arrange to have a business portrait studio at your next event. People could get a new business headshot while they’re at your event.
This is not to be confused with those photo booths you might see at parties and other social events. A business portrait studio has no silly props, no crazy backgrounds. It’s a no-nonsense, business photo studio with photographer, assistant(s) and, perhaps, makeup artist.
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If you accept mobile, point-of-sale credit card payments by using something like Square, there are a couple things you need to know.
Apple has removed the 3.5mm headphone jack from its new devices. Lenovo has also started doing this and it appears Samsung may do the same. The problem is that credit card readers currently use the headphone jack.
The move to the proprietary Lightning connector and the concurrent move to USB-C ports (which can accept proprietary restrictions) greatly increase Apple’s control of third-party devices that can connect with Apple products.
This move is expected to generate a lot of money for Apple since third-party manufacturers will have to pay for licensing, pay for Apple’s proprietary MFi chip and other components, and pay a royalty on each and every device they manufacture. By contrast, USB and 3.5mm audio connectors are royalty-free, OS-independent, device-independent and they fall outside of Apple’s control.
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Been sitting at your computer for a while? Need some exercise?
A long time ago, a Yellow Pages advertisement used the slogan “Let your fingers do the walking.” Now you can let your fingers do your exercising by scrolling for a mile. (That web page is a mile long: 6,082,560 pixels at 96 ppi (monitor resolution) = 5,280 feet = 1 mile).
Twenty years ago, web-page scrolling was considered bad design maybe because most folks used slow dial-up Internet and page content had to be kept minimal. As broadband Internet became the norm, longer pages, and scrolling, became popular. Five or six years ago, scrolling went out of fashion maybe because it took too much effort or because people were in too much of a hurry to go below the fold. Today, scrolling is trendy again probably because scrolling is easier and more preferred on mobile devices.
Both the photo pages and blog pages on my web site have several long pages with lots of text. Scrolling is often required on my site. This is intentional and the reasons are:
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Nikon Canada implemented a repair tracking system, two or three years ago, that lets you track your equipment while it’s being serviced. This system tells you when your gear has entered the repair process, when it’s being repaired, and when the work has been completed. It will also tell you the cost. Sometimes you might be required to pre-approve a repair.
This system doesn’t provide up-to-the-minute or up-to-the-hour tracking. It seems to be up-to-the-day but it can vary a lot.
The problem is that the web link to check your repair status has always been wrong. Nikon Canada knows this but it’s never been corrected.
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You may have heard the trendy phrase “gig economy” which, I suppose, is the opposite of a job economy. Of course, if you’re a self-employed photographer, you’re probably laughing at the discovery of this “new” economy. Another laughable trendy phrase is the “sharing economy.”
In the old days, someone could have one job for their entire life but that is disappearing. Today, more and more people are self-employed and they freelance for a number of employers. A short-term job here, a temporary job there.
As every self-employed person will tell you, the problem is that freelancers fall through every crack in every labour law. No minimum wage, no set hours, no legal overtime, no guaranteed meal breaks, no sick pay, no holiday pay, no statutory holidays, no benefits, etc.
Canadian freelancers aren’t covered by any labour law. In fact, Canadian freelancers aren’t even guaranteed that they will get paid for their work.
A few days ago on October 27, 2016, New York City passed what could be a landmark new law in the USA. The so-called “Freelance Isn’t Free Act” will help protect freelancers from late-paying and non-paying customers.
Recognizing the shift toward the gig economy, a British MP yesterday called for a minimum wage for self-employed people. The United Kingdom already has a late payment law which helps freelancers collect on late payments [link to PDF].
The number of self-employed and freelancers is going nowhere but up (and here). And it will get worse.
Canada is doing nothing.
