The business of photography and retouching
It’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye. After clinching a playoff spot yesterday, the New York Yankees celebrated in their dressing room with beer and champagne.
Notice that all the Yankees are wearing eye protection. If you look in the background, you can see plastic sheets covering the players’ lockers. Everyone and everything is protected.
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Many clients may already know these things but here’s some information that photographers need you to know (in no particular order):
• When a photographer doesn’t answer the phone right away or doesn’t respond immediately to your e-mail, it usually means they’re busy on a job. The photographer is not ignoring you. Some photography can run all day or longer. We devote 100% of our attention to the client and job at hand. Please leave a message. Your call really is important to us.
• Depending on your proposed photo project, it might take from 30 minutes to several days to produce a full and proper photo estimate. Photographers cannot give an off-the-cuff or ballpark price because it’s meaningless. We have to figure out every step of the proposed work before completing the estimate. This benefits you. We put everything in writing. This benefits you.
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Yes, you guessed it. Today, Friday September 24 is National Punctuation Day in the USA. Someday, maybe Canada will realize the importance of punctuation and adopt this as a new national holiday.
Here are some official tips on how to celebrate.
Remember the consumer saying: “Good, fast, cheap. Pick any two.”
A similar saying is: “High quality, low price, good customer service. Pick any two.”
Of course, we want all three. But that elusive combination doesn’t seem to exist.
When a customer tells a photographer that their photo fees are too expensive, the photographer should then ask: “Okay, I can can give you a lower price but what do you want to give up, quality or service?”
Customers who only shop price are customers that a photographer can live without. These people don’t value a photographer’s work.
Bargain hunters don’t understand that a cheaper price only guarantees them of getting less for less.
What a photography assignment might cost is always less than what it will cost from not having that photography done at all.
Many businesses don’t realize that most commercial photography doesn’t really cost anything. If $1500 worth of photography helps generate $20,000 worth of business, then there was no cost for the photography. The photography was a business investment where the company put money into itself.
The Toronto Star today featured a business story about local artisans who sell their products to a global audience using only their websites. The newspaper’s print headline included “Photos key to online selling.”
The business owners pointed out that, “having excellent photographs helps…” and “you can’t sell without a decent picture.”
This should be obvious. Yet many businesses, large and small, fail when it comes to website photography.
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The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) has ended and, as expected, its idiocy continued right to the last event.
On the final night, the last celebrity event started about 30 minutes sooner than expected which caught a handful of photographers off-guard. These photographers arrived, perhaps, 10 – 15 minutes after the red carpet area was “locked down.” (Yes, it actually uses that term for its oh-so-high security efforts).
When this group of photographers arrived, the actors were about 150 to 200 feet away signing autographs for the fans. Possible film festival options:
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And the hits keep coming.
• Internet access was dead again today. Film festival people had no idea what to do about it.
• A TV videographer wanted to shoot B-roll of still photographers working a red carpet, (i.e. video of cameras clicking, flashes popping, photographers calling to celebrities). He wanted to shoot from an open area behind photographers. Sorry, not allowed.
• Another TV videographer wanted to shoot B-roll of celebrities arriving at a press conference with all the flashing cameras. He wanted to shoot from a far corner completely out of everyone’s way. Sorry, not allowed.
• I wanted to shoot an actor being interviewed by TV, (i.e. a photo of actor surrounded by cameras and microphones), by standing in an open area behind TV. Sorry, not allowed.
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