Photography value and quality

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When hiring a business portrait photographer or other corporate photographer, you might be tempted to shop by price. You may think that the lowest price means the best value.

With some tangible products, the lowest price can be the best value. But this doesn’t apply with services like photography and especially not when quality matters.

What’s the difference between value and quality?

Value: Usefulness or importance.

Quality: How good or bad something is. A degree of excellence.

Ideally a photograph has both high value and high quality but that’s not always the case. For example, a poorly exposed, out-of-focus family photo can be very valuable to you.
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The (F)utility of Low Prices

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Photographers, how much would you charge to deliver 24 business headshots, 12 full-length environmental portraits and 4 environmental group shots?

Well, a Toronto photographer quoted $800 for this recent corporate job. This works out to $20 per delivered picture. The corporate client turned down this quote because even they knew the low price was ridiculous.

Photographers who try to discount or lowball their way into a job only hurt themselves. It’s been shown that customers are not fooled by bottom-end prices. So why do some photographers keep doing it?
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Product Photography Standards

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Many commercial photographers do product photography and it’s usually done on a white background. This style of product photography is very common. Web sites, catalogs, newspaper ads, brochures and billboards all frequently use “product-on-white”.

A white background is popular because: it reproduces easily and consistently in any medium; it doesn’t distract from the product nor cause any colour cast; it won’t go out of style; it’s easy to drop out or overlay with text; it’s easy to merge multiple product photos together. White is simply the most versatile product background.

Crazily enough, in 2014, Amazon was granted a US patent for product-on-white photography. This caused quite an uproar. Tens of thousands of photographers petitioned the US Patent Office to cancel the patent. But photographers can still shoot products on a white background. Amazon’s patented technique is somewhat specific in nature and it’s also unenforceable.
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Accounting for yourself

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If you haven’t learned this by now, you must have organized records for your business and these records must be kept for at least six years.

Here’s a brief, alphabetical list of software for accounting, small business management, estimating and invoicing that may be of help to photographers. Some of these are expensive and some are free.

Acclux
Blinkbid
Fotobiz and Fotoquote
Freshbooks
Light Blue
Minutiae
Quickbooks
Studio Cloud
Studio Plus
Tave
Wave
Xero
17 Hats
Zoho Books

 

If nothing else, business portraits

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You’ve probably seen or heard a movie advertisement that used a phrase like, “If you see only one movie this summer, be sure to see . . .”

On a somewhat similar theme:

If you hire a photographer only once this year, be sure it’s for business portraits.

If your business sells a service, the photos on your “About Us” page are the most important pictures on your web site.

A 2013 survey showed that the About Us page is the second most important page on your web site next to the home page. Anyone who views your About Us page is more than a casual window shopper. Taking the time to find out who you are means that these people are starting to kick the tires. They’re looking for credibility.
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Through the looking glasses

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It’s amazing how many business portrait photographers don’t know how to properly photograph someone who’s wearing eyeglasses. Photographers like myself, who wear prescription eyeglasses, might be more sensitive about this than photographers who don’t wear glasses.

Creating a good business portrait of a subject wearing eyeglasses is not difficult to do. The photographer has to pay attention to the position of the glasses and the lighting. The subject’s eyes are the highlight of the photo and should always be unobstructed.

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Insurance for Canadian Photographers

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(Updated August 1, 2023)

It should be obvious that insuring your camera equipment and your business is very important. Some customers and some locations may require that you show proof of insurance (i.e. a certificate of insurance). In some situations you may have to increase your coverage or temporarily add a customer or venue to your policy as an additional insured. Any such additional insurance costs should be billed to the customer.

Here are some Canadian companies that offer photo-related insurance. This is not meant as a recommendation.

Disclosure: I was insured with CG&B Insurance (aka. Unionville Insurance) from about 1985 to 2016. I’ve been insured with Front Row Insurance since 2016.

For annual insurance, I currently pay about $1.22 per $100 of equipment insured, plus $260 for $2M liability insurance, plus other insurance options, plus provincial sales tax. The cost may vary from province to province.

 

PhotoPac from Arthur J. Gallagher Canada is insurance for photographers and filmmakers. Photographers may recall PhotoPac from Unionville Insurance Brokers (late 1970s to mid-1990s). Then it became PhotoPac from CG&B Group (late 1990s to 2010s). It’s now PhotoPac from Gallagher which is part of an international insurance brokerage. Note that the provided link to stepinsure.com is correct but it doesn’t always work which isn’t reassuring.
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