view from the office

Perfect Business Headshot is worth $1,000

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Nineteen-year-old US tennis player Serena Williams holds her Jack Russell terrier named ‘Jackie’ after a morning practice session in 2001.

This is another view-from-my-office photo.

Would you pay $1,000 for a business headshot?

The Wall Street Journal published an article about the value of professionally done business headshots for people seeking a career boost. (This alternative link doesn’t have the photos included in the original article but that’s actually a good thing. The glaring irony of the original article about the value of headshots is that the headshot examples are rather plain or poorly done.)

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Low Expectations

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Canadian goalkeeper Milan Borjan celebrates Canada’s win over Jamaica in their men’s soccer match in the final rounds of the Concacaf FIFA World Cup qualifiers in Toronto, Canada, 27 March 2022.

This is a view-from-my-office photo from a cold, rainy-snowy soccer game.

From the past two weeks:

 

• A Toronto professional photographer does family portraits for $500 according to his web site. The price includes a 45-minute session and 50 “fully retouched” pictures.

Fifty images in 45 minutes? Fully retouched? Ten dollars per photo?

At that price, who should have low expectations, the customer or the photographer?

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Price for the End Result

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A 19-metre-tall rubber duck floats in Toronto Harbour in Toronto, Canada, 01 July, 2017. The duck was in the city as part of the celebrations to mark Canada’s 150th birthday.

This is just another view-from-my-office photo.

Corporate customers don’t buy photography, they buy outcomes or end results. How much is that end result worth to the customer? Or to rephrase that, how much does your photography contribute toward achieving the customer’s goal?
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Summer Hockey Memories

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The plexiglass around a hockey rink in Toronto is scarred by hockey pucks. This is another view-from-my-office photo.

NHL hockey players from various teams used to practice together each August. These casual practices helped the players get in shape before the start of their respective team’s training camps in September. These Toronto-area practices were organized quietly so as not to attract public attention. But if you knew which ice rinks were being used, you could go and watch some top-level NHL players.
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Purchasing Photo Gear in December

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I rarely photograph US college sports but this is a men’s basketball game between Harvard University and the University of Buffalo. It was shot for, you guessed it, the Basketball Hall of Fame.

This picture has nothing to do with this post. It’s just another view-from-my-office photo.

Are you thinking of buying new photo gear or other expensive business items? If so, December offers a couple of tax benefits.

Many businesses, especially sole proprietorships, have their fiscal year match the calendar year because it makes doing your income tax easier. If this describes you then December purchases might be beneficial.
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Political Campaign Notes

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While photographing federal political leaders arriving for a debate in Gatineau, Quebec, on 11 October 2019, this was the view right behind the photo area. That’s a police boat on the Ottawa River.

This is another view-from-my-office photo.

It was obvious while photographing some of the federal election campaigns over the past two weeks that news media turnout has drastically dropped over the past three federal elections.
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The customer is right even when they’re not

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This photo has nothing to do with this post. It’s another view-from-my-office photo.

If you thought your home office was small or ugly, here is someone’s “vintage” 42-square-foot home office before it gets renovated. It has no functioning lights or heat. But it does have lots of nails in a wall, a very sloping floor and a sewage pipe in the corner. I didn’t ask about the dark red stains on the floor.

A small financial consulting company last week sent me four business portraits they wanted fixed. Another photographer shot these portraits three months ago and I don’t know why he or she didn’t fix the photos.
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