We’ve all been there before – something runs late on the wedding day, and suddenly that cushy hour of photo time that was on your schedule evaporates into 15 minutes of chaos with a 24 person bridal party and a list of family portraits a mile long. Perfect… The ability to handle the pressure of a late wedding day with grace and ease is definitely what sets apart a great wedding photographer from a good one. But the ability to prevent the day from running late in the first place is what turns a great photographer into a true wedding professional. Jeff and I have identified five of the biggest reasons that weddings tend to run late – at least in our experience – and
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Photo Shoot Do’s and Don’ts
Photographers – when was the last time that you were in front of the camera? No, not for a quick snapshot with Grandma by the Christmas tree, but an actual photoshoot. Doing photoshoots is like 2nd nature to us because we do them all the time, but we often forget what it’s like actually being in front of the camera. For most of the clients we all shoot, it has been awhile since they have had their photo professionally taken (it may even be the first time for them) and many times they come to the shoot insecure and wondering what it’s going to be like, and worried that their photographer might not get a good shot of them (not because you as the photographer
How We Educate Our Wedding Clients on the First Look
In my last article here on the Pictage blog, I walked everyone through The Youngrens perfect wedding day schedule, which is built on the couple seeing each other before the ceremony. Not surprisingly, there were questions about how we get our couples to do a First Look. These days, most couples come to us already wanting to do a First Look, but it took a few years for that to be the case. In the meantime, I had to become pretty adept at educating couples about them. (Notice how I say ‘educating’ and not ‘convincing.’ BIG difference.) In my experience, there are normally two reasons that a couple doesn’t want to do a First Look: (1) they don’t know what actually happens during a First
My $430 Blender: A Lesson in Running My Photography Business
Life lessons come in all forms and usually when you least expect them, and this was the case when I was, oddly enough, shopping for a Vitamix blender. How does a blender have anything to do with business and photography? I’ll get to that. After going through an unexpected cancer experience in 2009 I decided that it was time to step up my health and I was going to achieve that goal through fruit and vegetable smoothies. I picked my random mental number that I didn’t want to exceed ($100) and started shopping around online. After all, $100 was a lot for a blender and it seemed like a fair budget, right? The more reviews I read, the more I decided that I wanted an
The Youngren’s Wedding Photography Schedule
There’s nothing better than a stress-free wedding day when everything runs on time, people are ready to take pictures when you need them, and you have creative freedom to do your job well. Can I get a ‘fo-sho’ from my wedding peeps out there? And you know what the best part is? There’s a lot that you can do as a photographer to make sure that these kinds of wedding days happen more often than not, which is a pretty sweet deal if you ask me. In fact, the photographer and the wedding coordinator have the most control over how a wedding day is run, which means two things: 1) You get to create the best photography schedule to help make you successful 2) You
Keys to A Successful Client Consultation
It’s intimidating! The very first time you sit down across a table from a potential client. ‘Will they like me?!’ Trust me, I understand. I also understand that the client consultation can be the most important interaction you have with a client. It sets the tone and direction for the entire relationship – so here’s a few things that might help the next time you meet with a client. 1. Consider Your Environment. Where do you meet with clients? It might seem like such a small detail, but where you meet with clients is one of the most important aspects of your client meeting. It dictates the very first impression your client will have, and first impressions matter. It seems that photographers are sort of
Preparing Yourself and Your Clients for a Styled Shoot
This is a topic I had wrestled with for years, how do I get my current shoots to attract the type of clients that I want in the future? How do I give my shoots the edge and style that I want to portray to future clients? I eventually learned that a photographer really needs to be a leader to make this happen. We do not necessarily have to do everything ourselves, but instead we can source help and lead them and our clients toward the common vision. Here are four basic steps to help you style your shoots & clients: Step 1. Know what you want. Pick out some samples of work from different photographers or from ads you’ve seen that inspire you, then
Pick up the Phone: How to Do Phone Consultations
I’m not a phone person and to be honest, I don’t think that I ever will be. I’m a quiet and shy individual, and making conversation with new acquaintances isn’t my strongest quality, so talking to a complete stranger over a phone connection scares the bijeezes out of me. I’m talking cold sweats, anxious jitters, and serious bouts of nervous laughter whenever I have to pick up the phone and start sounding official and/or competent to a new person – you know, like I actually know what I’m talking about… So in our first few years of business, I would hide behind email as much as I possibly could (of course, I wouldn’t have admitted that I was “hiding.” I was simply “playing on my
Sales 101: It’s All About Relationships
Most photographers don’t choose to follow their passion for photography because they enjoy selling “stuff.” Photographers are artists, and generally have an aversion to just about anything related to selling. After all, we’re artists, so it’s our inclination that we create art for the purpose of the creative process. At the same time, if you’re running a business, you have to make money. Many photographers – especially wedding photographers – design their business to make most of their money through their creative fees. This is a perfectly acceptable model, if you truly understand your costs, labor expenses and margins, and it meets your businesses needs. On the other hand, I think that wedding photographers (and portrait photographers for that matter), leave a lot on the
5 Tips on Growing Your Business
Here is an article recently posted on the American Express Open Forum for Small Businesses. These are the five tips for small businesses on growing your business from Dina Kaplanm, co-founder of Blip. TV, a video sharing platform for independent web shows. Blip. TV was founded five years ago, and in that five years has grown from serving primarily a small group of video bloggers to thousands of users who now use the site to host their own shows and upload produced videos. In that same time Blip. TV has grown to having 96 million video views a month. You can read the whole article written by Vadim Lavrusik on the Open Forum here. 1. Don’t Try To Be All Things To All People Kaplan