Refunding Photography

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Photographers, what’s your refund policy?

While there’s no Canadian law that requires a business to refund a customer’s money or to make an exchange, except if a product is defective or a service is not delivered, it’s probably a good idea for a photographer to have some sort of refund policy.

The easiest refund policy is: “No refunds!” But that won’t inspire consumer confidence.

Note that “Future Performance Agreements” in British Columbia, Saskatchewan and Ontario allow a customer to cancel a contract and get a refund if the photographer fails to give the customer a written contract.
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Recycling The Trash

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Here in Ontario, we’re in the early days of a provincial election and the three political parties are on the campaign trail.

This post could’ve been about the fact that the Conservatives don’t even have a business portrait of its leader and that several of its candidates also don’t have headshots. No portrait = invisible.

Or this post could’ve been about the NDP which had to cut-and-paste its candidate headshots onto a matching background since the party couldn’t figure out how to organize consistent portraits in the first place. [Edit May 13: It appears that the NDP’s first attempt at cut-and-paste onto a high-school blue background was so bad that they did the cut-and-paste all over again.]

Or this post could’ve been about the media handout pictures from the three parties. Those photos have no captions, no IDs, no information whatsoever. They are useless as media handouts.
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Are Press Releases Dying Off?

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A journalism site recently posted an article titled “Has social media finally killed the press release?”

Here’s a truism: any time a headline is in the form of a question that can be answered with a yes or no, the answer is invariably always no. If the answer was yes, the headline would be in the form of a statement not a question.

Social media makes it fast, easy and free to send out information to the masses. But that was never the purpose of a press release, or at least a press release from a smart company.
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Cheap photographer strikes again

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Today I received an e-mail from someone who runs a small clothing store. The subject title of the e-mail was, “I was mislead by a photographer.”

This person had hired a photographer to shoot some advertising pictures for their store which sells children’s clothing and accessories.

It appears that the photographer didn’t deliver any usable images or even the promised number of pictures. The photographer also didn’t deliver the promised, model-released pictures of children wearing the store’s clothing. So at this point, the business has nothing it can use.
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The Average Photographer

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Last week, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics released its semi-annual Occupational Employment and Wage Summary based on survey data collected in May 2013. This provides an estimate of the average wages for most occupations in the USA.

It’s important to remember that statistics often tell only half the story.

According to the survey, there are 54,830 “employed” photographers. This seemingly does not include freelance or self-employed photographers (more on this in a moment). The average annual pay for these employed photographers was $37,190.
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Corporate photos are like sports announcers

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When it comes to producing effective photography for corporate marketing, there are two general types of images: those with story appeal and those that demonstrate something. The former is used to convey an idea or emotion and the latter is used to deliver a fact. The two types can overlap.

Pictures with story appeal are said to have human interest. These pictures, which are usually editorial in nature, will attract attention because editorial photography is the most interesting to, and the most trusted by, the public. Conveying a message through human interest is always persuasive because such photography creates an emotional response in the viewer.
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Is Your Company a Laughing Stock?

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If your company still uses cheap stock pictures and you enjoy irony then keep reading.

Last month, McSweeney’s published “This is a Generic Brand Video”, a satirical piece by Kendra Eash about the generic branding used by some companies.

Many businesses today use meaningless, generic stock photos and stock video. These companies may think they’re sending a strong message to their customers and building a unique corporate image but they’re fooling only themselves. Everyone sees stock images for what they really are: just a quick way to cut corners and save a few bucks.

Now the irony.
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