portraits

$900 Headshot

11 Comments

Many professional photographers do business headshots. A quick web search shows:

• One Toronto photographer charges $29 for business headshots. One wonders why he even bothers to charge anything at all. In the end, $29 is the same as $0 to his business.

 

• Another Toronto photographer, who claims 18 years in the business, charges $60 for headshots – cash only, please. Many of the sample photos on his site were stolen from other photographers. Using Google, it’s easy to trace the pictures back to the original sites. In this case, buyer beware.

 

• A Toronto-area photographer, charges $1,000 for “unlimited” business headshots. The fine print says that, for $1,000, he will come to your office and shoot as many portraits as you want in three hours.

This guy states that he once did 84 headshots in three hours. He even brags on his web site: “that’s one headshot every two minutes!” If you do the math, that’s about $12 per portrait.

Continue reading →

Consistent Business Portraits

No Comments

A potential corporate client called to say they were looking for a photographer who could match the look of their previous business portraits. The company needed some new employees photographed in the same way as its existing pictures.

Matching previous business portraits is a common request. It shows the company understands the importance of being consistent in its corporate communications. Consistency shows stability which enhances corporate credibility.

It’s usually easy to match the look of previous business portraits and most professional photographers can do it. But just to be sure, I asked the company to provide samples of its previous portraits.

Oiy!
Continue reading →

Failing a class

No Comments

It’s not even necessary to read the news story. The picture says it all.

In a Grade 2 class photo, all the students are grouped together in the centre. Except one. A student in a wheelchair is off to the side. The child’s father said he cried when he saw the photo.

The picture is not just thoughtless, it’s also bad photography. It shows how not to do a group photo. It shows what happens when a photographer doesn’t know what they’re doing. It shows what happens when a photographer or school portrait company, in this case, Lifetouch, is too busy being fast and cheap.

Lifetouch says, “Our school photographers take their role in preserving memories seriously” and “Our school photographers are committed to making each child feel special and valued.” It seems the company failed this class.
Continue reading →

Fear Photography

No Comments

As a photographer, which would you prefer: lots of low-paying customers or only a few high-paying customers? For example:

Photographer A shoots three business portraits every week at $100 each. His annual gross revenue is 3 X 52 X $100 = $15,600.

Photographer B does only one business portrait every other week at $600. Her annual gross is 26 X $600 = $15,600.

Which is better: low price with high volume or high price with low volume?
Continue reading →

There’s no money in cheap

5 Comments

Some photographers still insist on pricing below cost or competing only on price. In the race to the bottom, these photographers will always win, or lose, depending on how you look at it.

If a photographer sells very cheaply or works for free, hoping that customers will one day agree to pay much more or that a huge volume of work will magically appear, then this photographer will be greatly mistaken.

On April 6th, CPI Corp., the company that owned and operated all of the Sears portrait studios and about 20% of the Walmart portrait studios, in the USA, shut down its US operations. Its Canadian in-store studios are, so far, unaffected.

CPI, (in)famous for its dirt cheap portraits and free prints, was ….. (wait for it) ….. losing too much money. It owes about US$174.8 million. Creditors gave the company until April 6th to repay US$98.5 million. So CPI is a winner in the race to the bottom!
Continue reading →

Opinionated Portraits

No Comments

A quote from US portrait/fashion photographer Richard Avedon in his book In The American West:

A portrait is not a likeness. The moment an emotion or fact is transformed into a photograph it is no longer a fact but an opinion.

When a portrait photographer chooses lighting, lens, camera angle and the moment to click the camera shutter then it’s the photographer’s opinion that matters most. This is the “opinion” that Avedon refers to in the above quote.

But for commercial portrait photographers, when the subject looks at their proofs and chooses their favourite picture then it’s the subject’s opinion that matters most.

When a viewer looks at the finished portrait, it’s the viewer’s opinion that matters most. The viewer gets the last word.

This is why, for a commercial portrait such as a business portrait, the first two opinions have to work together to help positively influence the third and final opinion. A business portrait has to be done with care to create the desired response in the mind of the viewer.

 

Stealing Souls

No Comments

During a portrait session, if the subject jokingly asks if my camera will steal their soul, I’ll answer, “I hope so.”

It rubs me the wrong way, a camera. It’s a frightening thing. Cameras make ghosts out of people.

– Robert Zimmerman (aka Bob Dylan)

Sometimes a photographer will try to steal a bit of their subject’s soul. This is what separates a great portrait from an average one. Ideally a portrait should allow the viewer a moment’s chance into the subject’s world.
Continue reading →

css.php