Peak Photography Experience

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The word “photography” sounds a lot like “psychology” doesn’t it? :-)

To help market their business, a photographer is often told to be different from other photographers. But most photographers misunderstand what this means.

It’s not about the photographer being different but rather it’s about the customer being different. This is to say that a photographer might be considered different if they can make the customer feel different (i.e. more satisfied).

Psychologist Daniel Kahneman’s Peak-End Theory says that we judge an experience not on the overall experience but rather on our memory of the peak moment(s) of that experience and how the experience ended.
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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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It’s the early days of an Ontario provincial election and the three political parties are on the campaign trail.

This post could’ve been about Conservatives not having a portrait of its leader. Many of its candidates also don’t have headshots. No portrait = invisible.

This post could’ve been about the NDP which cut-and-pasted its candidate headshots onto a high-school-blue background. The party couldn’t figure out how to organize consistent portraits.

[Edit May 13: The NDP’s first attempt at cut-and-pasting was so bad that it did the cut-and-pasting all over again.]

Instead, I’m going to write about the Ontario NDP recycling its policy book from three years ago and the NDP’s love of being cheap. And yes, I’m going to recycle a blog post :-)
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Are Press Releases Dying Off?

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

Here’s a truism: if a headline is in the form of a question that can be answered with a yes or no, the answer is 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 information to the masses. But that was never the purpose of a press release.
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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 children’s clothing store.

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. 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. (In this post, all amounts are converted to Canadian dollars).
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Corporate Photos Are Like Sports Announcers

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Effective photography for corporate marketing has 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 images are usually editorial because editorial photography is considered by the public to be more interesting and trustworthy. Conveying a message through human interest is always persuasive because this photography creates an emotional response in the viewer.
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