Next-day photo delivery

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“And we need the pictures delivered the next day!!!”

A business conference organizer will sometimes want finished pictures delivered the day after the event. It’s no problem to deliver a handful of images the same or following day, if the event needs them for a press release or its social media. But when a day-long event expects hundreds of pictures to be delivered the next day, or even the next morning, then there’s going to be a problem.

Let’s do some simple arithmetic. If you’re expecting 100 finished pictures and the photographer spends a minimal editing time of three minutes per image, then that’s 300 minutes — five hours — of work. If you’re expecting 200 or 300 photos then that can amount to a few days of work.
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The Photographer Kings

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Two decades ago in a television documentary, legendary US photographer Richard Avedon said:

Images are fast replacing words as our primary language. They define our ideas of beauty, truth and history. In our age, the photographer, not the philosopher, is king.

Today the Internet is the dominant means of communication and images are the most effective, most powerful, most universal language. People don’t read, they look.

What does this mean for you and your business?

If you’re not using photography to market your business then you’re not worth looking at, you’re not part of the conversation, you’re pretty much invisible.
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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, catalogues, 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; and it’s easy to merge multiple product photos together. White is 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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