All the time I hear about successful wedding photographers dabbling in portrait photography who can’t figure out how to actually make any money shooting portraits. It has nothing to do with their photography and everything to do with the way they run their businesses. And it’s no wonder, considering that it’s a whole different business model and needs to be approached in a different way. For weddings, we make most of our money up front by selling packages. Prints or album upgrades after the fact tend to be more of a bonus income stream. If portrait clients were willing to spend thousands up front then we wouldn’t need to worry so much about how many prints we sell. But unfortunately this just doesn’t seem to
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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 to Use Photoshop to Get Your Blog Images Ready- FAST!
Everyone knows how a regularly updated blog can be great for your business. Everyone also knows how time consuming writing blog posts and exporting images can be. I created this quick tutorial and Photoshop action to get you thinking about ways you can expedite that process. One thing that used to take us a considerable amount of time was creating the 2-up vertical images with our logo at the bottom. I used to have an action that simply added the logo (or watermark) to the bottom of the image but no really fast way of combining two selected vertical images. Take a look at the video below and the included action, it just might get you thinking about ways you can speed up your bloggin
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
Mastering Reception Lighting, Forever.
I’ve had this problem for years when it comes to an entire wedding collection I would post on my website. Great getting ready, great portraits, beautiful ceremony, and the light is sweet, then we grab the stellar sunset shots and then the reception hits and I’m left with horrible lighting when the DJ turns the lights down low. I was never really happy & satisfied with the quality of the light on the images with my on camera flash and therefore I just hated to use the images. So my slideshows stopped with the first dance. As the years went by I got on camera flash down, but off camera flash was always touch and go. I could get some of the shots to turn
An Outsider’s Perspective: Tips for Developing Your Brand
Early in 2008, I was introduced to the photography world by my good friend, Justine Ungaro. Upon hearing that I was a brand designer and seeing my work she exclaimed, “You should do this for photographers.” To which I responded, “How many photographers can there be?” Two years later, after attending a few conventions, I realized there are quite a few of you…and your industry is growing. Which is why the PartnerCon message of “differentiation” is very sound marketing advice indeed. Being a designer in a sea of photographers, at PartnerCon, I spent quite a bit of time listening and watching. I could not believe how transparent photographers are with their businesses. I was so enthralled by how supportive and generous you are with the
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
4 Tips for Shooting in Manual
1. Manual White Balance Basing your exposure and white balance on skin tones is the best way to get consistent and beautiful results when photographing wedding or portraits clients. I like to use manual with balance when shooting my events. I use the Kelvin Scale, which goes from 2,000k to 10,000k. It’s easy to remember because it’s just like regular temperature, warmer skin tones equals a higher kelvin number, cooler skin tones equals a lower number. Common kelvin settings I use when I am shooting natural light are as follows; (Daylight 5200K), (Overcast 6000k), (Shade 7000k). For indoor lighting I use the following settings; (Tungsten 3200k), (Fluorescent 4000K), and for flash shooting, I tend to shoot around (5,500k). Remember that these numbers are approximate numbers,
SEO Tip – Search Engine Optimize Your Images.
Today I am wrapping up this blog post as we fly to our first wedding in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico! If you are like us, weddings during this time of year are often met with equal parts excitement and that overwhelmed feeling you get in the midst of the busy season. I started thinking about SEO tips that I could contribute this month that didn’t create any extra work on your part since the consensus seems to be that we all have enough going on at the moment. Who wants to add major site changes or web presence growth campaigns to their to-do list right now anyway? We’ll save that stuff for the slower winter months. Besides, you still have to pack for PartnerCon 🙂