Archive for April, 2009

Heidi Ryder is a new client of Fotoworks Pro and we are darn proud of that! She is a fabulous Los Angeles based photographer who caught my eye via her extremely entertaining Tweets! I was hoping to meet her at WPPI but when we couldn’t quite get our schedules to make that work, we decided we’d just have to hang out sometime. I was thrilled when she offered to do a quick photo shoot of me — I always love having new shots to use for my twitter and facebook — and was more thrilled when she accepted my offer to take her to dinner!

Heidi made me feel completely comfortable and at ease in front of the camera (trust me, not the easiest task in the world) and I am so excited about the way these turned out. My mom is too. She’s already requested several of them in various sizes for display around her house.

Most of all, I enjoyed talking with Heidi about the industry – what changes she sees coming, what she respects in other photographers, how she got started, etc. I think I have the most fabulous clients in the world and a chance to spend time with one of them is always a highlight of my calendar.

Heidi, thank you for giving me images to treasure and to update my parents house with. Thank you for the enlightening and entertaining conversation and your willingness to spend some time with little old me. I can’t wait to see how you continue to set yourself apart in this industry and am here to help if you ever need anything!
All the best,

Katie Johnson

When Jon and Sheri of Jon Ogden Photography first came to us looking for a new lab, they were very much newbies in the industry and were looking to begin building a solid business they could move in to full time. We have enjoyed watching their skills, marketing and success grow over the past year and are proud to call them Fotoworks PROs.

With tough economic times upon us, it’s time for all of us to take a look at our current business structures and see how we can expand. One of the great areas that’s available for professional photographers to expand into is sports photography. Unlike family portraiture where print sales are often unsteady and unpredictable, sports photography (especially sports portraits) are an almost guaranteed sale as each athlete wants the traditional wallets and 8×10 to pass out and hang.

It takes a lot of skill and practice to become exceptional sports photographers such as the Ogdens. Shooting indoors at competitions and learning to use studio lighting can take a lot of trial and error. But for those of you natural-light photographers, sports photography might be a great add on to your business as you’ll already have an understanding of lighting in uncontrolled environments such as outdoors or in sports arenas.

I see the possibility for major benefits of branching out into this area. One in particular, is that as the scores of athletes, parents and relatives visit your website to see the shots, they’ll be able to see galleries of your other work as well. — SIDENOTE: Don’t forget to watermark your images as Jon Ogden has. You want your clients to have to buy the images – which means you need to be dilligent in making sure they can’t steal them! — My thoughts are that if done right, doing some sports photography will introduce your studio to lots of new potential clients. As the word gets out, your sports photography could also lead to other local events such as school dances, proms, pageants, conventions, parties & festivals.

According to Wikipedia:   Spring Fever is a term applied to several sets of physical and psychological symptoms associated with the arrival of spring. In general it refers to an increase in energy and vitality. In some uses however it refers to the opposite, an unexpected loss of energy with the onset of spring.

Whether you’re experiencing a boost in energy or are feeling a little lethargic, this sale is sure to make you smile. Just our way of giving you a little break after paying off The Man this week, we’re going to give you 10% off your orders placed through ROES between now and Monday April 20 at 12:01 a.m.  To get the 10% DISCOUNT you’ll have to use the following promo code when you place your order via ROES.

PROMO CODE:  SFS10

Happy Spring,
Katie Johnson

Place an order with us via ROES (available for free download from our website under the Resources tab) between now and Monday April 20 at 12:01 a.m. using the promotional code “SFS10″ to receive 10% off your entire order. No limitations.

Photogen Inc. Promo Video! from eliesa on Vimeo

I read the below article online today and it connected back to the above video I had seen a few weeks ago. So many people are so quick to cut down professional photographers – as you can see at the beginning of the video. I think it’s one of the most misunderstood professions out there. Hopefully the ab

Why are Professional Photographers so expensive?

(This article has been very well received by the photography community, and is now referred to by countless Photography websites, blogs and forums (such as LDPT, ILP and DWF)around the world).

In this digital age where everyone has digital cameras, scanners and home “photo printers”, when people upload their photos to a local drug store website and pick them up a few hours later, we hear this all the time – How in the world do Professional Photographers charge $55 for an 8×10 when they cost just $1.50 at the drug store?

Here’s why.

Simply put, you’re not just paying for the actual photograph, you’re paying for time and expertise. First, let’s look at the actual time involved. If you don’t read this entire page, at least read this first part.

For a two hour portrait session:

- one hour of travel to and from the session

- two hours of shooting

- 30 minutes of setup, preparation, talking to the client etc.

- 30 minutes to load the photos onto a computer (2 – 4 Gb of data)

- 30 minutes to back up the files on an external drive

- 3 – 4 hours of Photoshop time including cropping, contrast, color, sharpening, saving a copy for print and a copy for the internet and backing up the edited photographs

- 2 – 3 hours to talk to the client, answer questions, receive their order and payment, order their prints, receive and verify prints, package prints, schedule shipment and drop package off at Fed Ex.

- For local customers, we also print a set of all of their photos, and meet them at our studio to review the photos and place their order. Meeting and travel time averages 2 hours.

You can see how one two hour session easily turns into more than ten hours of work from start to finish. So when you see a Photographer charging a $200 session fee for a two hour photo shoot, you are not paying them $100 / hour.

For an eight hour wedding:

- I won’t bore you with the details, but an eight hour wedding typically amounts to at least two to three full 40 hour work weeks worth of time. Again, if they are charging you $4,000 for an eight hour wedding, you are not paying them $500 / hour.

Now for the expertise.

Shooting professional photography is a skill, acquired through years of experience. Even though a quality camera now costs under $2,000 taking professional portraits involves much more than a nice camera.

Most Professional Photographers take years to go from buying their first decent camera to making money with their photography. In addition to learning how to use the camera itself, there is a mountain of other equipment involved, as well as numerous software programs used to edit and print photographs, run a website etc.

And let’s not forget that you actually have to have people skills, be able to communicate, make people comfortable in front of the camera – and posing people to make them look their best in a photograph is a skill all by itself.

Think of it this way – the next time you pay $X to get your hair done, a pair of scissors only costs $1.50. But you gladly pay a lot more to hire a Professional.

What about the cheap studios at the mall?

Please don’t compare us to the chain store studios. But if you must, consider all of the time and work that we put into our photographs, compared to what they do. Good luck getting a two hour photo shoot at a chain store. Not to mention they won’t come to the beach! And of course, look at our work compared to theirs. You get what you pay for.

The truth is, most of the mall and chain store studios lose money. In fact, in 2007 Wal-Mart closed 500 of their portrait studios because of the financial drain they were putting on the company. What the chain stores bet on is that you’ll come in for some quick and cheap photos, and while you’re there, you’ll also spend $200 on other things. They don’t have to make money, they are just there to get you in the door.

Conclusion

We hope that those who have taken the time to read this page will have a better understanding of why professional photographs cost so much more than the ones that you get from your local drug store.

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

Shawn, Pamela & Gavin Richter

Caught on Film Photography

Link to source and their other links:

“It’s not whether you get knocked down; it’s whether you get up again” – Vince Lombardi

Being 22 and on my own for the first time – this is the first chance I’ve had to really feel any sort of impact on my life due to the economy. It’s the first time I’ve had friends lose their jobs, I’ve felt the pinch when I go grocery shopping and talked with clients who are seeing their sales drop. This is just a friendly reminder that life is a rollercoaster – these ups and downs are fairly unavoidable – but they’re what keep life interesting.

The greatest failure in life is to quit trying. I couldn’t be more proud of our Fotoworks PROs who are recognizing that if they’re going to weather this storm, they can’t just sit on their laurels. I’m seeing complete overhauls in business models, a renewed interest in extreme customer service, an attempt to use new technology they haven’t before (three cheers for our older generation of photographers who are now starting to blog!), and creative outside of the box thinking.

What I hate to see is people using the economy as an excuse for them not moving forward. We all must march on no matter what life throws at us. I want to remind you that the greatest failure in life is to stop trying. It is better to fail attempting a great deed than to attempt nothing and succeed.

That is simply what tough times and challenges do to us! They make us better, wiser and more resolute to succeed.

Life is all about being knocked down but not out.

Winner Caroline Fontenot. Follow her on Twitter @cfontenot

Winner Patrick. Follow him on Twitter @photogoat

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We narrowed down our favorite entries to the top 6 – and had to choose 2 winners from amongst them!

So, the above 4 are our runners-up – but I just had to post their photos for your enjoyment!

The runners up are Katelyn Leblanc, Jade Easterday, Megan from Brassy Apple and Scott Shoemake. You guys were so close, you just got outfunked. ;-D

I’ll post the winners around 1:00 PST.

One of the topics that has popped up on my radar repeatedly this week is the question of whether to give away your images or not. I know many studios find themselves in quite a predicament over this and I wanted to share with you my thoughts. And I’m hoping via comment here, you will share some of yours!

Deciding to give your images to your client on CD needs to be done only when you have, from a financial standpoint, received all compensation you deserve for the shooting. Before you hand over your images you have to be okay with the fact that from that point forward, there’s a very good chance you will no longer make any money on that job. My suggestion is that you only offer to sell the image files as an incentive to a minimum purchase requirement or as part of a package. This way you have some control over the fact that you have already met your minimum sales requirement to maintain profitability.

My next concern is also my largest – your reputation. When your client takes the CD of their images to walmart, costco or even their local mom & pop print lab, those images (however poorly manipulated or printed) will be what is displayed and shown off to friends and family as YOUR artwork.

Case in point: I did a fabulous shoot for some close friends of the family a couple years back and told them when they were ready to order images to give me a call and I would print for them at cost. Not wanting to bother me, they took the CD of unretouched, un color corrected images to KINKOS (for crying out loud!) and brought home a HUGE 30×40 “sepia” canvas print. I can’t even begin to explain to you how mortified I was when I showed up at their house a year later and saw at the top of the stairs a pixelated, bright orange, unretouched image they had been telling everyone I shot for them. Grrr…. It’s your reputation on the line. When you give away your images, you release the control and have to be okay with knowing your images may end up bright orange at the top of someone’s stairs.

What are your thoughts on keeping or giving away your images? How is your business currently structured to handle requests for images on CD?

Don’t forget to check out our post from a few days ago about the My Funky Camera strap giveaway! Only 2 more days to enter!

All The Best,

Katie

P.S. Thanks to Scott Shoemake for the image on this blog post – it’s his entry in our giveaway contest. Where’s yours?