Negotiating from the get-go

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You might think that negotiating is about the client and photographer haggling over price. But negotiating involves much more than that.

Earlier today, I went shopping for a new suit. At a clothing store, the salesperson didn’t ask what kind of suit I wanted but instead she asked why I needed a suit – at what type of events would I be wearing the suit. [Help the customer get what they need and don’t just sell to them.]

Instead of letting me choose suits from the long racks of clothing, the salesperson selected just two suits for me. [Make it easy for the customer to decide and avoid overwhelming them.]

“I think you’d look great in either of these two. Which do you prefer?” she asked.
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In The Bag

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When shopping for a decent light stand bag, you might find that most stand bags are too small, don’t have wheels or are very expensive.

If you carry just a couple of stands and umbrellas, this may not be an issue for you. But if you need to carry a trunkful of stands, an armful of softboxes or umbrellas, a few rolls of 52″ background paper and more, there is a solution.

Go to a golf store or sporting goods store and check out golf travel bags. These bags are designed to transport a golf bag full of clubs and, in some cases, even a small golf cart. They often have big outside pockets to hold various golf accessories.
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Do you suffer from PAS?

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PAS – Picture Avoidance Syndrome

In a 13-1/2 minute talk, portrait photographer Peter Hurley and psychologist Anna Rowley speak about PAS, which many of us may have. They suggest how someone can overcome their fear of being in front of a camera by changing their relationship with their physical appearance.

There’s often a divide between the way we see ourselves and the way the world sees us. This division can be magnified when a camera is pointed at us. When sitting for a business headshot or any other type of portrait, we may think of who we’re not rather than who we are.

Self-perception defines our level of self-worth which can affect how others see us, or at least how we think they see us, which can create a fear of being photographed. It starts with what, or who, we see in a mirror and how we respond to that mirror.

 

Photoburgers

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Do you enjoy eating a hamburger from a fast-food restaurant?

If you’re a teenager, you probably do. But if you’re older then you probably don’t.

The reason is that younger people generally don’t have sophisticated tastes or they haven’t experienced the hamburgers at higher quality restaurants. If they did visit a better restaurant, they would realize what a good hamburger tastes like.

A Big Mac costs about $5, a burger from a five-star hotel or restaurant might cost $35 or more, and other restaurants charge somewhere in between. But when you buy food, what’s more important, the cost or the taste?
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Getting what you paid for

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For the past few years, a Canadian TV network would hire five photographers to cover an annual live event that it hosted and broadcasted. The photos were used for its web sites, media handouts and its annual report. The photographers were each paid $2,000 to cover the four-hour event.

The photo procedure for the event is that full-resolution pictures, for third-party news media use, are posted online within 15 minutes after it happens. This occurs continuously throughout the duration of the event. Lower resolution images are also quickly posted to the TV network’s various web sites. Two photo editors and a card runner are hired to do this work.

Last year, someone at the TV network decided to save some money by hiring only two photographers and then filling the gap by using three of its employees. The TV network rented three pro cameras, three pro lenses and one pro flash for these employees to use. The cameras were set to auto-everything.
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Conference Notes

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There are many online articles offering tips to photographers on how to photograph a business conference. The authors of these articles usually give such wonderful photo advice as: bring a spare battery, carry an extra memory card, take pictures of the people speaking, etc.

For something completely different, may I humbly offer a few suggestions to conference organizers who plan on hiring a photographer to cover their event. Not only am I a photographer who has covered many conferences and conventions, both local, national and international, but I’m also someone who has helped organize a few small conferences.

Conference photography is of secondary importance compared to the conference itself and your attendees. But a few changes can make the photography better and more effective.
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Memory Lane

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Remember the old days when soft drinks came in glass bottles? After the drink was gone, you could return the bottle to the store and get a few cents back. When you were young, you might have collected a handful of bottles and returned them to a store to get your “reward”: three bottles returned = one free Popsicle; five bottles returned = one free chocolate bar.

What do you do with old compact flash memory cards – 256MB, 512MB, 1GB, etc?
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