Film Festival thoughts

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The 34th annual Toronto Film Festival has come to an end.

A few things got better, some things got worse and most stayed the same (i.e. bad). One might think that after 34 years, the event could get it right.

What got better

• The main red carpet area was greatly enhanced:

No more TV crews in the background.

The arrival area was lit with just enough light to shoot late-night arrivals without having a jet-black background. Plus, the light was even daylight balanced. In previous years, night events were very dark, lit only by the existing one or two orange street lights. I suspect the new lighting was meant for the event’s own TV needs and not for photographers.

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Square peg for a round hole

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If you live in Toronto, you may have noticed that the city, or at least its politicians, suffer from extreme New York City envy. Toronto copies New York’s tourism campaigns and slogans, follows all NYC trends, and constantly compares itself to the Big Apple.

Back in 2002, Toronto unveiled its newest slab of concrete called “The Yonge-Dundas Square”, which was modeled after New York’s Time Square.

From the “ydsquare” web site: “A unique aspect of the Square is that it is not operated like other Civic Squares … City Council decided to … operate Yonge-Dundas Square as a business venture.”

And this is where the point to this post begins:

The Yonge-Dundas Square has become a magnet for public relations and some other media events.

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Many Returns

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Over the past two months, I’ve had the experience of trying to sell some used photo equipment online.

Most professional photographers try to keep up with technology by upgrading whenever a new tool comes out. Many photo businesses have to stay current to remain competitive.
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Beginner’s Guide To Pricing Photography

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This very long and meandering post is intended for new photographers. It outlines some general concepts behind setting a price on photography services.

 

Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons.

– Woody Allen

 

First rule: Never give a price over the phone or off the top of your head.

Second rule: You’re running a business. You’re supposed to make money by charging more than your costs.

Third rule: Like all businesses, you tell your customers what your services cost, not the other way around.

Fourth rule: Never base your prices on Cost + Profit Margin. Always base your prices on value to the customer. Charge for what you know, not for what you do.
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Ready for your close-up

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I photographed a week-long tennis tournament last week for the event organizers. The media relations folks were, as always, fantastic. They were friendly, helpful and always available. They answered every question, sorted out every problem, had all necessary tournament information available and arranged every interview. They even handed out free pizza and beer at the end of each day. On very hot days, they’ve been known to hand out ice cream!
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A leg to stand on

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I just finished post-processing 1,017 images. Many of those, but not all, will be used for marketing and public relations both in print and online. At this time, the client isn’t able to do any post-processing except to crop and resize the pictures.

Since the client doesn’t know which images will be used in the coming year, all these photos had to be processed now. About 2,300 images were originally shot and those were edited down to 1,017. Yes, I probably should’ve edited it down a lot more but I wanted the client to have a broad selection to cover all future possibilities.
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Timing is everything

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A couple of weeks ago, Editor & Publisher posted statistics from its sister company, Nielsen Online, showing the average time-on-site for the top 30 newspaper sites in the USA. These numbers compare June 2008 with June 2009. Go ahead and take a look.

Some news sites like NYTimes.com experienced a 50% drop, whereas the Boston Globe’s Boston.com enjoyed a 300% increase. With only four exceptions, all the news web sites had numbers far below the average time a reader spends with a daily newspaper. According to the 2008 Readership Institute Study, the average American newspaper reader spends 27 minutes with a paper.

What does this show, if anything?
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