For Photographers

Take The Long Way

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A US survey, two years ago, asked kids what they wanted to be when they grew up. One of the most common answers was “a celebrity.” When asked what they wanted to be famous for, the kids said they didn’t know or it didn’t matter – they just wanted to be famous. (Here’s a British news article about a similar but unrelated UK study.)

It used to be that someone had to work to accomplish something and then, maybe, they might earn a degree of fame for their achievement.

Today, it seems many people want a shortcut. They want the fame but without achieving anything first. Popular shortcut attempts are: appearing on a reality TV show, releasing a scandalous video, or tweeting provocative pictures of themselves.

Photographers are not exempt from taking shortcuts.
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Pots, Pans and Pictures

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Everyone owns some pots and pans yet restaurants don’t view this as competition. Restaurants know that people will still dine out. Eating at a restaurant is about more than just the food.

Everyone owns a camera and some professional photographers view this as competition. Why? Hiring a professional photographer should be about more than just the pictures.

A commercial photographer has to offer something more than what a camera’s automatic settings can do. Otherwise, they will have no choice but to compete on price, (always a losing situation), and their photo career may be nothing more than a flash in the pan.

 

Why photography?

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There are many photography web sites that offer advice on “how to”.

How to photograph portraits, how to photograph children, how to take pictures of pets, how to shoot sports, how to take pictures at night, how to use a wide angle lens, how to take pictures with a flash, how to take pictures without a flash, how to . . . ad nauseam.

But there are few sites that talk about “why”.

Why photograph portraits, why photograph children, why shoot sports, why use a wide angle, why use a flash, . . . ?
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Don’t call me maybe

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(Sorry about the title and this post has nothing to do with photography.)

Canada’s National Do Not Call List turns five years old in September. If you registered your phone number(s) with the Do Not Call List back in 2008, remember that registration lasts only five years. To keep your number(s) on the list, you must re-register every five years. Thanks to a recent change, once you register a phone number, it stays on the Do Not Call List indefinitely unless you de-register it.

Political parties are exempt from the Do Not Call List. A provincial by-election is being held later this week in the area of Toronto where I live. Today I received 14 phone calls, between 5:00 pm and 8:00 pm, from the three candidates running for election. A few of these calls were from real people but most were automated “robocalls.” This telephone assault started a few days ago and will continue right up to election day.

Business to business telemarketing calls are also exempt. You are not supposed to register a business phone number, or even a personal number used for business purposes, with the Do Not Call List.

Surveys and opinion polls are exempt from the Do Not Call. So some telemarketers will use a fake, meaningless survey as a prelude to their sales pitch. Sometimes they will offer a fake prize for completing their pretend survey. To collect your “prize,” you have to phone another number which leads to their sales people.

Speaking of scams and fraud: the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre.

 

Three Little Rules

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A recent book, The Three Rules (link to PDF), written by Michael Raynor and Mumtaz Ahmed confirms that competing on price is not a successful business strategy.

The two business authors spent five years studying more than 25,000 companies, in hundreds of industries, covering a 45-year span. They narrowed down the list of companies to 344. These were companies whose long-term success was not due to luck but rather to specific business decisions.

They found that these companies did three things in common from which the authors formulated their three rules for how successful companies think:
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More than just cost

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It seems that the mantra of most businesses is “cut costs”. Many companies are not just concerned about controlling their costs but also about reducing costs to the absolute minimum. These companies want to spend less but still, somehow, earn more.

Most companies view a professional photographer as an expense. So they immediately think that photography is a cost like any other and it has to be minimized. This is the barrier that a commercial or corporate photographer has to get around. There are two ways to do this:

1) Be the cheapest photographer in town.

2) Stop being seen as an expense but rather as an investment.

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Consistent Business Portraits

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A potential corporate client reached out, requesting a photographer who could replicate the look of their previous business portraits. Their new employees needed headshots that matched the style of the existing ones.

Matching previous portraits is a common request, and it reflects a company’s understanding of the importance of consistency in business messaging. Consistency fosters a sense of stability, which in turn builds trust.

Trust is built with consistency. – Lincoln Chafee, US state governor

It’s typically easy to match the style of existing business portraits but I asked the company to provide samples of the previous images, just to be sure.

Oiy!
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