The following article is a guest post by Zach Prez, an SEO expert with a series of books and workshops designed for photographers. The information presented in this article is written independently of SLR Lounge, and the accuracy of these methods have not been tested by SLR Lounge staff. However, we feel as if the information is relevant and useful for our readers; and as always, we welcome your comments below.

Hey, Zach Prez here to talk about a very specific piece of search engine optimization for blogs. Hopefully you already blog into the wee hours of the morning, describing your photo sessions in equisite detail in order to capture the fascination of potential new clients? New, is the operative keyword. I expect most photographers blog for their existing audience, but blogging with search engines in mind will quickly grow traffic by a factor of 10x. Your same 50 friends will no longer make up 90% of your traffic, but shift to make room for the 50% or more of traffic you should be getting from Google. Let those new clients become satisfied customers and then refer even more business.

I know making a shift to writing for search instead of your existing customers is a tough one to swallow. But keep this in mind. Potential clients don’t go looking for blogs to read. They search for a phrase and find a relevant result – a page talking specifically about the topic they searched. Google finds those topical pages by looking for similar phrases in the keywords of your page or post. All you have to do is get the keywords you think your users are searching for into your pages.

If you’re reading this post, I bet you already know a bit about search engine optimization (SEO). You may think you already know everything about keyword placement and are already doing it. That’s why I’ll focus this post on the last place I see photographers using their keywords. URLs. Google first looks for keywords in the page title, then second it looks to the URL. That’s right, URLs are more important for keyword placement than in the first paragraph of text, images, or even H1 tags. Blogs make it fairly easy to control URLs. I’ll show you how with this excerpt from my latest ebook, Blog SEO Zen for photographers.

Types of URLs

When a user searches for a phrase like Napa wedding photographer (broad keywords) or Ritz Hotel Napa wedding (specific niche keywords), one of the first places Google checks for those words is the URL of your blog page or post. There are 4 parts to a URL:
1. Subdomain name: myblog.blogger.com
2. Domain name: myblog.com
3. URL Path: myblog.com/category/post-name.html
4. Slug: myblog.com/category/post-name.html
Example: napa-photo.com/weddings/ritz-hotel-outdoor-reception.html

Subdomain Names
Google devalues subdomains, which is a shared domain name. A blog using a free domain like mysite.blogger.com should immediately switch to use its own URL or face an extremely difficult time in ranking. The reason is that Google thinks a shared domain is not a serious blog site and may disappear from the web at any time, thus it won’t risk ranking that site in its results.

Domain Names
The domain tells Google and users the main focus of the blog. If your domain name is yourname.com, then Google assumes your site is about YourName, making it more difficult for you to rank for other keywords. A domain name is best suited toward broad keywords that you intend to rank for since those appear on all pages of the blog. Dashes (hyphens) are perfectly fine, telling Google “This is a space between keywords.” By the way, purchasing a domain with quality keywords to forward to another domain does not work.

URL Path
The path to blog pages and posts are generated via a permalink structure. Permalink just means the permanent link or URL location for a blog page/post. Here are some of the ways a blog will generate the permalink structure for a blog post:

Default: myblog.com/?p=123
Day and name: myblog.com/2010/05/23/post-name.html
Month and name: myblog.com/2010/05/post-name.html

No post keywords are used in the default slug, and numbers meaningless to search are used in the paths of the other two. Ideally, the URL would include quality keywords in the path and the slug.

To change this in WordPress (sorry – not available in Blogger or Typepad) go to Settings > Permalinks and select the radio button for custom structure. Enter one of these:

/%category%/%postname%/
/%postname%/

The first one puts the post’s first category name into the URL path and the second one doesn’t. For example if your Ritz Carlton post was in a blog category called weddings, the URL would look like this:
napa-photo.com/weddings/ritz-hotel-outdoor-reception.html

Categories are a cool way to integrate keywords into the URL without having to think about it.

Note: By changing the permalink structure, all the URLs in the blog change. Links within your blog should continue to work, but anything linking to your old locations (like from other sites) will be broken. To avoid broken links you need to upload a file to your FTP server telling it the old URL and the new URL for each post on your blog. THis gets rather technical, so hopefully you have a developer who can help you out with that part.

Slugs
Slugs are the keywords in a blog post that appear at the end of the URL, telling Google what the post is about before it even starts reading the text. Most blogs (like Blogger.com) create this automatically from the post headline, but you can click Edit to remove any unnecessary words so that you end up with about 3-7 words, separated with dashes, that describe your post using the best possible keywords for search (not a list of keywords). If you’re a Napa Wedding Photographer like Tinywater Photography, you might update your slug permalink like so:

Post Title: Ritz Hotel Beautiful Outdoor Reception in Napa
Default slug: ritz-hotel-beautiful-outdoor-reception-in-napa
New slug: ritz-hotel-outdoor-reception

So if your using WordPress, remember to update the keywords at the end of the URL to be useful. If you’re using Blogger or similar platform then use quality words at the beginning of the post headlines since they will automatically get added to the URL. Remember that changing the permalink will break any outside links pointing to the post (if you are going back to old posts). I would not advise editing this field for all existing posts, but develop it into standard practice moving forward.

Video Demo for the Above URL Updates

Image URLs

Every image has its own URL, often times helping that image to rank by itself at images.google.com, which can be a secret source of huge traffic for people searching for photos. The image URL also appears in the code of each page where that image is embedded. Using keywords in the URLs to your advantage helps both images and pages rank well, especially for a page that might have 10 posts on it, and 10 images per post – that’s now 100 key phrases in one spot!

Get keywords into the image URL by:

• Name the image file properly
• Change the default upload location for images

When Google sees hundreds of default named images on your site, it assumes your site is about nothing. Not good for search results. Help it visualize your photos with names like bride-holding-roses-at-ritz-hotel.jpg instead of img004.jpg. Simply describe the photo in the filename. No need to include broad keywords like Napa wedding photographer because your image/post will never rank for it, and when those start repeating across images it looks like spam to Google. Note: I would only make it standard practice to name images moving forward and not spend the time to go back, except for your most essential images and blog posts.
A step beyond a great filename, is choosing a great URL path where the image will live. If you manually upload your images through an FTP location and embed the location in your post, then just make sure your folder structure uses quality keywords in the folder names. If you’re just clicking the image icon to upload the image to your blog from your computer, figure out where that image is being held and if you can customize the location.

In WordPress under Settings > Miscellaneous you can see the default folder for uploading images and change it to a folder that has keywords in the name.

Using the two recommendations above, my future images will change:

• From napa-photo.com/wp-content/uploads/image004.jpg
• To napa-photo.com/wedding-photos/bride-holding-roses-at-ritz-hotel.jpg

A rockin’ update moving forward considering I post a hundred images a month.

Zach Prez provides photoblog SEO and template reviews. His ebooks and free photography SEO email class have helped hundreds of photographers improve their search engine position to grow their businesses.
Also by Zach Prez on SLR Lounge:
Understanding SEO (That Search Thing) – A Basic Starting Point for Photographers
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – Backlinks!

Related posts:

1. SLR Lounge Photography WordPress Blog Theme
2. Understanding SEO (That Search Thing) – A Basic Starting Point for Photographers
3. Optimize Your Images for Search Engines

Big news in the photography industry was announced today as Pictage, a photography community and service for marketing, selling and fulfilling photography products acquires ShootQ, a business management service for photographers. The move brings Pictage one big step towards being the one-stop solution for mid to high volume photographers. Before the acquisition, both companies were already providing valuable services. Pictage’s services included, among other things, marketing and fulfilling print orders, designing, printing, and binding albums, serving as a third party backup of jpg files, and other important functions. On the other hand, ShootQ simplified invoicing clients, signing electronic contracts, managing bookings, and other business management functions. In our view, the combination of the two services makes perfect sense. Feel free to read the official press release below; and as always, we welcome your comments.

“Torrance, CA July 7, 2010 – Pictage, the leading professional photographer community and platform for marketing, selling and fulfilling professional photo products, today announced the acquisition of ShootQ, a web-based software company offering the industry’s most advanced business management solution. The combination of Pictage and ShootQ will create the first comprehensive platform for photographers to manage their workflow, promote their brand, connect with community, and sell their work.

“This is a deeply gratifying and exciting day for Pictage and I believe for the photographers associated with Pictage and ShootQ. This step creates the first single source, end-to-end solution with most of the support services necessary to succeed in the business of professional photography,” says Jim Collins, CEO of Pictage.

Pictage and ShootQ combined will offer the services professional photographers need to drive a successful business in today’s market. Pictage provides a full suite of services and products to help photographers with “post-shoot” workflow, however, photographers increasingly looked to Pictage to extend support for the advanced “pre-shoot” workflow that ShootQ provides. Together, Pictage and ShootQ will offer their clients the best of both worlds; empowering them literally from the moment they make the choice to pursue photography as a full-time career.

“ShootQ exists to help photographers create purposeful, profitable businesses. As a small, bootstrapped company, it has been difficult to achieve our vision with limited resources. While watching the Pictage management team in action, we discovered kindred spirits who are devoted to making photographers’ lives easier. We are convinced that Pictage and ShootQ will grow together to enable photographers’ success,” says Andrew Niesen, CEO and co-founder of ShootQ.

Pictage and ShootQ share a deep respect for photographers and a passion for the art of photography. Both companies also believe that images can change lives and are committed to envisioning, coordinating, and sponsoring programs that strengthen that belief. ShootQ’s Grant Program annually awards $10,000 to a photographer to raise awareness about important social, environmental, or economic issues. In that same spirit, Pictage has programs like “Lens & Learn” and “Katrina Families” that create opportunities for photographers to inspire and give back to communities and people in need.

Plans are in place for the joint development and integration of Pictage and ShootQ, as well as multi-city town hall meetings. These meetings are designed to provide an in-person opportunity for both companies’ customers to talk through the opportunities, plans, and benefits that arise from such an exciting, impactful collaboration.

About Pictage
Founded in 2000, Pictage is the leading community and business enabler for professional photographers. Pictage empowers professional photographers to manage their workflow, promote their brand, connect with community, and sell their work.

About ShootQ
ShootQ.com is the first web-based management software designed specifically to automate photography businesses. ShootQ is a photographer’s virtual business partner; assisting them from the moment a prospective client contacts them until the final product is delivered.”

Related posts:

1. Business – Online Printing & Proofing (Pictage, Zenfolio, SmugMug, & more…)
2. Pictage Slideshow Example and Review
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The common bond that most wedding photographers share is our humble beginnings. We didn’t buy an office and a client list as a dentist might do. Most of us weren’t lucky enough to inherit a family business. Nor did most of us build a client base, a reputation, and a network without a time of struggle. The duration of that struggle, however, varies from photographer to photographer with some seemingly stuck in it. Some are doing everything they can do to grow their business, while others are relying on luck, wishful thinking, and marketing tips that they learned from a 2 hour DVD.

You’ll probably never hear a photographer at conventions like WPPI giving speeches on Craigslist marketing. Actually scratch that, one photographer who we greatly respect is Robert Evans. During a presentation, Robert actually showed us his very first wedding he shot. He gave us a glimpse of the truth and where his humble beginnings started. The wedding looked so depressing that if every “aspiring professional photographer” saw it, 90% would probably reconsider their choice of profession. It is because of this reason that we so greatly admire Robert Evans. Because we know what it took to get where he is today as a celebrity photographer.

Truth is, showing these events and these humble beginnings simply isn’t sexy. Catering, or should i say, bargaining with budget couples isn’t considered “living the dream.” Instead, the majority of the industry has bought into a dream of $10K weddings and mailboxes overflowing with inquiries through marketing techniques catered to high end brides. It’s not that the photographers promoting these techniques are being unrealistic or telling anything other than the truth based on their experiences. Rather, I think the interpretation and application of these high end marketing theories, coupled with the “anyone can do it” sentiment that’s almost ubiquitous in the industry, have made some photographers unable or unwilling to hustle just a little bit. I’m not implying a lack of work ethic or devotion to their business. But I’m asking, are these people doing everything that they can to grow their business?

We all need to start somewhere and build up; and I think it’s important that we use all of the resources available to us, including free classifieds like Craigslist. There are important rules and tips to follow for creating effective posts dealing with the time of day to post, the content and titles of the post, the cities to post in, and the frequencies of your posts; and I will talk about creating effective Craigslist campaigns in another article. But for this article, I want to focus on convincing those photographers who are just starting their businesses that Craigslist, despite all that you may have heard, is a good resource to help grow your business. So here are 5 reasons wedding photographers should post on Craigslist.

1) Free Targeted Traffic - Almost everyone who clicks through to your post will be 1) looking for a wedding photographer and 2) located in your area (or an area you’re willing to travel to). This seems obvious, but contrast this with an advertisement in a magazine where brides, ex-brides, and wannabe brides are viewing your ad from locations all around the world. To reach such a target audience as the one you’ll reach through Craigslist is any marketer’s dream. And it’s free!

When our studio was posting, we were getting an average of 2 hits per post to our main website linandjirsa.com according to Google Analytics. Two potential clients for the 2 minutes of work for posting is a very good return on investment by anyone’s standards. Contrast that with a $3,500 ad we placed on a large national website where we received around 30 hits a month. Annualized, we probably paid just under a dollar per visit, mostly from brides in irrelevant locations around the nation.

2) Some Mid Range Budgets – While most couples who contacted us through Craigslist were on tight budgets, we had a few here and there who were ready to allocate a fair amount of money for their photography. With the right post, good photography, and good sales techniques, you could land a few $3k to $5k weddings here and there from clients who don’t see Craigslist as a place for budget brides but rather a website they are accustomed to visiting for finding local goods and services.

3) Low End Can Lead to High End – When we first started, we did plenty of 6+ hour weddings for $500 bucks. Ridiculous right? In actuality, I’m sure this is a common story for most wedding photographers. In our case, we treated them like $10K weddings, bringing out the whole team, trying advanced photography techniques, schmoozing with the clients, etc. Just because a bride has a $500 budget doesn’t mean all of her guests do. From one of these gigs, we booked our first high-end destination wedding.

4) Experience and Practice – You can second shoot forever and still not know how to deliver a consistent, high-quality wedding photography product. There’s nothing like learning through the pressure of posing your couple and getting the right shot when a wedding’s running late, getting a crisp shot of a first kiss in a dark chapel, or improvising when equipment seems to act up. Monetarily, these $500 dollar gigs might amount to little more than minimum wage after you factor in a 2 photog team, post production, sales time and delivery of the final product, but the experience is priceless.

5) Book Without Damaging Your Brand – With very good reason, many photographers fear that their presence on Craigslist will affect their overall brand image. For example, you might not want a Google search bringing up your website along with all of your Craigslist postings. Though this is a valid concern, there are certain ways to avoid the potential damage. For example, you don’t have to mention your studio name in the ad. Instead, you can say “click here to view our work” and link directly from the “click here” or link directly from the image collage you include in your post.

Conclusion: I’m not arguing that Craigslist postings will solve all of your problems, or that it’s all you need to be doing. Concurrently with posting on Craigslist, we were putting in a lot of time and effort building our web presence, networking with planners, florists, and other wedding professionals, and most importantly, learning new techniques and improving our skills in order to differentiate ourselves from others in the competitive market of Southern California. After some time, there was no longer a need to post; but I can’t imagine how much longer it would have taken to get our business to its current state without the hustle of posting on Craigslist.

As always, I would love to hear what you think in the comments!

Related posts:

1. Business – The Wedding Photography Market Size (Estimating The Number of Wedding Photographers in the United States)
2. Understanding SEO (That Search Thing) – A Basic Starting Point for Photographers
3. Equipment – Canon Vs. Nikon – What Do the Best Wedding Photographers Use?

Earlier this week, Sandisk announced their professional photography contents on Facebook. Participants can submit in four categories: Nature, Wedding/Events, Action, and Fashion. Winners receive $1,000; and they are featured in the online Winner’s Circle gallery, while eight runners-up receive $250 worth of SanDisk imaging cards. While the prizes and accolades aren’t enough to change your photography career, it might be a great opportunity for you to showcase and promote your work while gaining some recognition for the art that’s collecting dust somewhere on one of your harddrives.

Here’s the official information:

“Milpitas, Calif., June 8, 2010 – SanDisk Corporation (NASDAQ: SNDK), the global leader in flash memory cards, today announced that it will launch a professional photography contest on the SanDisk Extreme Team Facebook page starting June 8. Participants will be able to submit photos in four different categories – Nature, Wedding/Events, Action and Fashion. The Facebook community of SanDisk Extreme Team Facebook fans can vote for their favorite photos, and a SanDisk panel of professional photographers from the SanDisk Extreme Team will review the quarterfinalists and select the contest winners.

The grand prize winner will be offered a one year spot on the SanDisk Extreme Team and the grand prize winning photo will be exhibited in the “Winner’s Circle” gallery showing during the PhotoPlus Expo in New York City. The four finalists, the winners of each category, will each receive a $1,000 cash prize and their photos will be featured in the online Winner’s Circle gallery. Eight runners-up will receive $250 worth of SanDisk imaging cards and their photos will be featured in the online Winner’s Circle gallery.

Who: Anyone eligible can enter, but the contest is recommended for professional photographers. Simply complete an official entry form and submit a photograph to the SanDisk Extreme Team Facebook page. See Official Rules for eligibility restrictions and entry details.

When: The contest begins June 8 with a submission deadline of July 31 at 11:30 p.m. PT. SanDisk Extreme Team Facebook Fan users can vote for their favorite photos from August 1 through August 31. The ten most popular submissions in each of the four categories will proceed to the final round of the competition where a panel of professional photographers from SanDisk’s Extreme Team will pick the finalists and then select the winners for each category as well as the grand prize contest winner. The winners will be announced on or around October 31 and the grand prize winner’s photo will be showcased at the Winner’s Circle gallery showing during PhotoPlus Expo in October.

Where: SanDisk Extreme Team Facebook page.

About SanDisk SanDisk Corporation is the global leader in flash memory cards, from research, manufacturing and product design to consumer branding and retail distribution. SanDisk’s product portfolio includes flash memory cards for mobile phones, digital cameras and camcorders; digital audio/video players; USB flash drives for consumers and the enterprise; embedded memory for mobile devices; and solid state drives for computers. SanDisk is a Silicon Valley-based S&P 500 company, with more than half its sales outside the United States.”

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1. Business – The Top Photography Contests and Competitions
2. Wallpaper Stories – “The Professional Buddhist Monk”
3. Diary of a Landscape Photographer | Part 2

Can you get sued for bad wedding photography? If so, can you get sued for more than the price of the wedding photography package? According to Judge Joe Brown, the answer is YES!

The following video is a must watch for any photographer, mostly for its comedic value. It’s sad and hilarious all at the same time. On one side, you have a “professional” with a Canon Rebel stock kit and a terrible attitude; and other other other side you have a sad bride who was somehow tricked into hiring her. The curve ball in the scenario is Judge Joe Brown’s knowledge of photography. A good portion of the video is Judge Joe grilling her about her F-stops, equipment, use of natural light, and other photography topics. At one point in the video, Judge Joe asks her about the speed her 70-300mm lens; and the photographer has no idea what he is talking about.

I wonder how a regular, non-television, photography-ignorant judge would have handled the exact same case. I also wonder how he would have ruled if the defendant wasn’t so crabby. Any thoughts SLR Lounge community?

Related posts:

1. Business – A Day in the Life of a Wedding Photographer
2. Business – Wedding Photographer Expectations
3. 5 Inspirational Wedding Photographer Blogs to Follow

These days, starting a website or a blog can be as easy as making breakfast. In a few hours, you can have a site up and running for a business with endless options for marketing, branding, and community interaction. But what’s the best way to proceed? I believe in the effectiveness of building a brand name that appears high-end. A high-end appeal increases the perceived value of your services, regardless of how much you are actually charging. So if you’re in the photography industry, here are a few tips for making your photography studio appear more high-end.

1. Post-produce EVERY image– There are surprisingly a lot of studios out there that only post produce a few select images from each event. Make sure you finish your art by post producing all of your images, not only in your portfolio and blog, but also the images in proof books, slideshows, albums, etc. To draw on a popular analogy, a photographer showing non-post produced images is like a chef serving raw food. The ingredients are there, but it’s just not finished. Post production doesn’t have to involve extensive Photoshop work, simple color correction and contrast, exposure, and other adjustments are all that some images need to stand out. If it’s the time it takes that’s keeping you skeptical, software like Adobe Photoshop Lightroom will help speed up your workflow.

2. Register Your Business Online – Registering your business on photography directories, Yelp, Yellow Pages, Google Maps, and other online resources is important, not only as a means of advertising your services, but also as a way to legitimize your business. Most non-business owners don’t understand the ease of registration, and therefore a business on these directories appear very legitimate, a prerequisite to appearing high-end.

3. Remove Compressed Images Online – Facebook, Myspace, and other online communities and websites are great ways to market your studio and establish a following. However, use links to your blog and website rather than directly uploading to these sites, as the compression of file sizes results in a average-to-low quality display. To go back to the food analogy used in the first point, presenting images in low quality format is like a chef serving food cold. The essentials and the idea are there, but the product isn’t living up to its fullest potential.

4. Upgrade the Blog – First off, if you don’t have a blog, consider starting one for reasons beyond this article. Secondly, make sure you’re using an impressive, custom blog to maximize the effectiveness of the presentation. For example, if you’re using standard displays for Blogger or WordPress, consider downloading and customizing a theme that displays your images in a large format, displayed over a custom background with custom fonts and colors. It takes a bit of time to set up and learn to use these custom blogs, but the time and effort pay off when you’re able to update your fans and clients with your work, presented with the look and feel of your brand.

5. Remove Low-end Images – Any images that appear anything other than high-end should be removed from the public eye. To subscribe to this point, you may have to remove some great shots with your portfolio, but it’s important to remember, anything that appears low-budget can damage the perceived cost of your services, and therefore affect the perceived value of your work.

6. Flash Portfolio – Consider upgrading to a Flash Portfolio, with a large display of your work, a smooth transition from image to image, and a nice song that matches the tone of your work. Photography these days is more than just the product, it’s about the entire experience. If you can get your client to feel the emotion in your images, you’re that much more likely to get the sale.

7. Clothing & Apparel – In our modern world of online shopping and email communication, it’s easy to overlook some traditional aspects of any client-serving industry. Appearing high-end in person is just as important as appearing high-end online, especially in such a referral-based industry. Be conscious of style, trends, and high-end fashion. Also consider buying sleek camera cases and bags, such as the Pelican cases and the Shootsac.

8. Use Official Company Documents – From Contracts to Product Catalogs, everything you send to your client should be presented with a professional, artistic, and branded approach. First off, the mere existence of these official documents adds credibility to your studio; and secondly, the branding and design of these documents can give your studio that high-end, consistent look.

9. Upgrade your Equipment – I realize some third party lenses perform just as well, or even better, than their official brand name counterparts. Furthermore, I believe strongly that a photographer should control his equipment, not the other way around. However, if your client happens to know a thing or two about photography, she may not want you shooting her wedding, corporate event, family portrait, etc with an entry level camera or third party lenses. In an industry where client perception is so important, making sure your client feels like she’s hiring the best photographer with the top-of-the-line equipment is a key to success. If you’re strapped for cash, consider renting your lenses, from anywhere from $15-$50.

10. Google Yourself – Many professional photographers these days have turned their hobby into their passion but have only gone knee deep by keeping their day job. These days, our online profiles are our personal brand, and we have to make sure we are delivering a consistent message. Furthermore, even if you’re part time, you never want to appear part time. For example, if the Google search results for Dave Spectrum return Dave Spectrum Real Estate and Dave Spectrum Photography, with clear relations between the two businesses, there may have problems. Other cases I’ve heard of are photographers being associated with political organizations, religious groups, and other institutions that may alienate certain demographics for their photography studios.

I hope you enjoyed this article, if so, please share the love and feel free to comment and add additional insight below!

By: Lin and Jirsa Wedding Photography, Los Angeles and Orange County Wedding Photographers

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This week, we had the opportunity to interview our friend, Timothy Riley, a wedding photographer based out of Portland and Augusta, Maine. Besides being a great photographer, Timothy is an entrepreneur and innovator, as he came up with the brilliant idea of RPG Keys, a tool that dramatically increases the efficiency of photographers’ workflow around the world.

Check out his websites:
RPG Keys: RPG KEYS.

Portfolio: www.rileyphotographic.com

When were you established?

RPG KEYS = Oct 2008. Riley PhotoGraphic = 2000

What type of photographer are you? I.E. do you focus on weddings, commercial work, head shots, venues, food, portraits, seniors, or do you cover the whole gamut?

I shoot weddings to put food on the table, but I adore portrait work. The one-on-one time I get while shooting high school seniors and babies is the best part of my job. While weddings are great, it’s the ability to be creative in a portrait shoot that I love.

How would you define your photographic style?

Mixed! I am happy to be flexible and offer any style to make my clients happy. I realized about three years ago that it’s all about the client; make them happy, and you’re going to book five of their friends. So when it comes to style, I try to be flexible. But, when given the opportunity, I prefer to bring a bit of edgy fashion photography into my weddings.

How did you get started in photography? At what point did you decide to do this professionally?

I was shooting weddings while putting myself through graduate school (Masters degree in engineering & BS in Geology). Then, while working as an engineer, my boss told me I had to work 7 days a week for 6 to 8 months. I quit the next day. Now I work 8 days a week—EVERY WEEK—but I love my job and I get to spend time at home with my family.

Everyone says word of mouth is the most effective form of advertising, but that doesn’t really help new photographers getting into the industry. How would you recommend new photographers get those first few gigs to get them going?

Get out the flame thrower! I booked 10 weddings at my first bridal show. Shoot a friends wedding and display the images at a wedding show. A $500 investment could pay off big!

How long did it take you to get established and to the point where you were at least substituting your wages in Corporate America?

3+ years

If you had 60 seconds of advice to give a newly turned professional photographer, what would that advice be?

Keep your day job while turning pro. Put $4k in advertising the first year. Save all the revenue from your first year and put it in advertising in your second year. If you don’t advertise, your phone may never ring no matter how good you are. Even after 6 years, we still find that if we don’t put money into marketing, we will do fewer jobs the following year.

Where do you turn for photographic inspiration? Which photographer’s do you follow and admire?

Tough question… Our company is owned by two brothers. Me (Tim) and Chris Riley. Our styles are different and we seem to inspire each other to create new and exciting images. It might be a bit of competition from our younger years, but it still inspires us.

Obvious question, Canon or Nikon and is there a why?

Canon. When I got into photography Canon was a better system. Now it seems to be a 50/50 split and I already own the Canon equipment.

What do you enjoy most about your photography business?

I enjoy the business side of this line of work most. The challenge of keeping our revenue numbers above the previous year’s numbers is always a challenge. On the creative side of things I enjoy portrait work the most. If I could make a living only doing portraits, I would be a happier man. 

What do you least enjoy about your photography business?

Having just had my first child, I think the time away from home is the most tough. Travel sounds so fun, but after a while, it is hard to leave home for a weekend.

What is the biggest misconception in the photography industry in which you specialize (i.e. commercial, fashion, weddings, food, etc)

No clue. :)

Are you looking for assistants, second shooters, or shooting partners? If so, what are you looking for in said positions?

Always! We have just found a second shooter who is amazing and really fun to work with. I also have a super office manager who does my editing, but if I could hire a second manager for a month it sure would help us get some extra work done.

Do you make time for personal photographic work? If so, what do you enjoy photographing?

Not often enough. When I do have time, I enjoy landscape photography. I am about to try a new (new to me) process in which I will print a few images on canvas and then take a texture gel to the print with a brush. I have seen others do this with amazing results.

Second most obvious question, Mac or PC and why?

Both! PC first and now MAC. Owning RPG Keys requires that I have and use both platforms so I can offer the product to a wide audience and deliver tech support. The RPG KEY product was first designed for PC people and later for Mac users. (Shameless plug )….. Cut your editing time in half by trying the RPG KEYS for 30 days! If you don’t like it, send it back for a full refund. Many people have cut their editing time by 80%

Give us your favorite line or jokes you might use to make your clients feel at ease when in front of your lens.

At a wedding just before family formals… “Okay folks, I am the only thing between you and the bar… so play nice with me and you will all have an umbrella drink in your hand in 20 minutes”

Where can we find you on a Friday night at 9 p.m.

Spending time with my wife. She is the real secret to my success.

What online or offline learning resources do you use to continue your photographic education?
DWF (Digital Wedding Forum).

How many weddings/portrait sessions/or events do you shoot each year and where do your clients fit in the budget range?

Between my business partner and me, we normally do about 50 weddings and 200 portraits a year. However, the numbers are less this year due to the economy and the focus on RPG Keys.

Take us through the process of what you do to win over a potential client? How do you schmooze them?

I try to make a connection with each client. The moment we find something in common, I immediately see them relax a little. Then we spend most of the time talking about what they want and ways I can make sure they get it. My best advice is to leave the ego at the door and offer ways to make sure they get just what they want. Scheduling meetings over drinks also helps brides relax a little.

How do you differentiate yourself from other studios?

Personality. We actually advertize the fact that we have fun with our clients.

What do you tell people who are simply looking for budget “turn-and-burn” services?

We used to turn these people away. Now we offer to shoot their wedding on a non-peak date such as mid-week, on a Wednesday or Thursday. All of our clients see our price list well before we meet them, so price is not very often an issue.

What is one effective way you use to market and personalize your studio? (SEO, bridal shows, online pay per click advertising, print advertising, etc)

BRIDAL SHOWS! As a guy these are a little painful and expensive, but they work for us! If you are just getting into the biz and your prices are low, you can clean up at a bridal show.

By: Lin and Jirsa Wedding Photography, Los Angeles and Orange County Wedding Photographers

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If you’ve found this article informative, please consider donating below:

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2. Photographer’s Interview – Kelly Melissa Brown
3. Business – Wedding Photographer Expectations

Our photography SEO expert and friend, Zach Prez, author of Photographers SEO Book, is back to share some more tips about link building in the photography industry. We hope this information is useful and informative for your photography studio.
After reading our previous post titled Understanding SEO, you know that your best time spent in search optimization is building backlinks – quality links from others sites to your page. This post covers some more tips when establishing links for the purpose of search engine optimization. Simply tips, these are not listed in any order of importance. But very important – create a spreadsheet to track your backlink plan, otherwise you may forget which directories you submitted to, which community profiles you created, and usernames and passwords. Plus if you ever create a second site (or a blog), your tracking list will come in handy the second time around.

Build Links Over Time
Remember that spreadsheet I strongly suggested two seconds ago? Use that spreadsheet to document all of your links, dates, text used in the links, usernames and passwords, contact emails, etc. Plan out a link strategy before you begin the process so you can focus on critical links first and figure out your keywords relative to the site where the link will exist. Search engines value sites more that have a consistent stream of activity, whether it’s fresh content or links coming into the website. Space your links over time because it tells Google that you are not “spammy.” Guess what will happen if you get 50 links in one day, and then no new links for the next month. You may rank high for one day, then disappear into oblivion, or you may even get blacklisted (probably not, but I don’t risk it).
Submit to Easy Link Sources
Cherry-pick easy links from free website directories, local search sites, and business listings. It takes only a few minutes per listing and some appear at the top of search results and can outrank your existing site (like Google Local or Yelp). Be prepared to get contacted by some of these sites that want you to upgrade or buy advertising, so setup a unique email address for those listings. The amount that these listings help your search rank is not overwhelming, so take this into consideration and don’t spend huge chunks of time on this step.
Check PageRank Before Requesting a Link
Lots of people know about PageRank (PR), which is a Google indicator of how important a page is on a scale of 1-10 (you can see PR with Google Toolbar from toolbar.google.com). The point is that Google does not value all links equally and your task is to get links from pages that matter. A link to your site from New York Times (high page rank) is more valuable for your search optimization than a link from a friend’s blog. It is not worth any effort to be linked from a page that has zero PageRank. Typically this is because Google does not find the page valuable (and can sometimes devalue who it links to) and search engines rarely crawl those pages to even see the links and give your site credit. The problem I see most often is that photographers find a site with a high PageRank homepage, and think they are getting value from a link from deep inside this site. Remember it is the PAGE where your link will appear where you want to check the PageRank. It takes many links from PR 1 and 2 pages to start impacting your search rank, but only a few links from PR 5+ pages to see a noticeable change.
Link to Deep Pages
Search engines do not like controlled activity. Example: a photographer establishing a bunch new links in a short amount of time that all point to its homepage. In reality, the most popular sites will have real users linking to many different pages of the site, and not just the homepage. When building links, it is best to link to multiple pages to avoid being seen as spam-like activity. Impress Google by mimicking human nature and link to subpages of your site, like galleries or blogs.
Use Multiple Anchor Texts
Search engines look at the words in the hyperlink (called anchor text) to understand what the website will be about. It values these words more than the words that are on the site itself, because these words span many other websites and are less likely to be manipulated. It is very important to use highly searched keywords within the links that point to your website. For example my blog might have a link to my main website that says “San Diego Wedding Photographer” instead of “www.mydomain.com” because I want Google to know my site is about San Diego wedding photography. If you read the previous tip, you will understand that the normal process of linking would not produce the same anchor text in all of the links pointing to a site, so change your keywords slightly from link to link to “act natural.” This will also help you rank for similar keywords that users might be searching.
Build Profiles in Communities
Do a search to find forums and communities for photography or your specialty and start a profile. Put your website in your profile and in your signature (remember to use quality anchor text, and different anchor text in each forum). Every time you participate in the community with a post – your name will link to your profile (which will link to your site) and your signature will link to your site. All of these links; and you only have to set it up once. You will get great value from your new network at the same time.

For more tips from Zach Prez, Check out his e-book, Photographers SEO Book. It provides a step-by-step guide for improving your search rank. It provides a simple formula for finding your key phrase, an optimized splash page text example, plus a list of places where photographers can get free links.

Good luck and if you have any comments or additional ideas, please list them below!
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Written by Zach Prez, author of Photographers SEO Book (Edited by Lin and Jirsa Photography)

Related posts:

1. Understanding SEO (That Search Thing) – A Basic Starting Point for Photographers
2. Optimize Your Images for Search Engines
3. How to Get SEO Keywords into Blog URLs

For this entry, we asked our Photography SEO expert and friend, Zach Prez, author of Photographers SEO Book to share some insights on how to get started on SEO in the photography industry. Enjoy!

Search engine optimization can provide your website a constant stream of new photography clients. SEO for short, has been my home for many years, as I’ve helped many photographers improve the search engine ranks of their websites. This first post starts very general for beginners with simple background. I’ll explain a little about SEO, the two basic techniques (Yes, just 2… I told you I would make it simple), how search can help your business, and how to get started. Feel free to ask specific or more advanced questions at the SEO Q&A web page or check back for future posts.

SEO Defined: Search Engine Optimization is the process to improve your sites ranking and placement on popular search engines. SEO involves making minor adjustments to your website in an effort to appear higher in search engine results. I’m talking about the non-paid, sometimes called organic, links that appear down the middle of the search results page. The paid sponsored links that sometimes appear at the very top or right side of search results is a different subject called SEM (Search Engine Marketing or Google Ad Words). I use “search engines” and Google interchangeably. Google captures over 60% of the US searches, and if your site ranks high in Google it also typically rank high in the other major search engines. Do yourself a favor and focus solely on your rank in Google. To get there, learn a little bit about how it works.

Google’s ranking process uses an algorithm that is extremely complex and in many areas compeltely secret. Furthermore, it is always changing. But, the fundamental principles are commonly known. Two basic SEO techniques take advantage of these principles are 1) text on the page and 2) links to the page.

1) Text on the Page – Keywording Page Content

The goal of keywording your page content is to match your page text to what Google users might type into a search. Google returns the best results by looking at what a user typed into search, then finding web pages that use those same words. If you are a San Diego based commercial photographer, then placing the keyword term “San Diego Commercial Photographer” throughout your site content is key to being recognized as such by search engines. Google looks for words from the search phrase in a number of places on the web page including:

• The URL of your site (domain name)
• Your site title, description, and keywords (meta data)
• The text words on your site

So, now we know that when a user searches for something like “San Diego Commercial Photographer,” Google looks for web pages with that specific keyword content. This keyword comparison makes up the minority portion of the search engine ranking process. However, developing the appropriate keywords within your content should be the first thing you approach when optimizing your site for search engines.

2) Building Backlinks – Quality Links From Other Sites to Your Page

The ranking portion of Google’s process looks at the links (commonly referred to as “backlinks”) coming into your page from other websites. Google ranks sites higher that have lots of links pointing to it, since it figures that sites that have lots of external references must be of higher importance and value than those that don’t. Some factors that go into how well your site ranks include:

• The number of websites linking to your site
• The popularity and importance (otherwise known as Page Rank or PR) of the websites linking to your site
• The link text used in the link anchor tag itself

Building quality inbound links is defintely the more difficult and time consuming portion of our two basic steps to SEO. A few link ideas to help you get started include getting listed on partner websites, local websites, directories, etc.

The above is plenty for the average photography business, but by no means comprehensive or in depth. To give you an idea of a more ideal and complex search optimization strategy, take this social media illustration.

Add a blog and forum to your website, as well as Twitter page where you can promote and invite others to join, comment, and contribute. Interlink your sites appropriately in addition to writing articles or blogs for others websites (that link back to yours). Put buttons on your pages that make it easy for users to share and save your pages via social media bookmarking sites such as Digg, Stumble Upon, Delicious and more. Post your well-tagged photos and videos to multiple sources. Assuming you did the right keyword research ahead of time, all of these activities create web pages with many different content types that are rich in keywords and lots of backlinks – all the things that search engines love.

Before you get heavily into improving your sites SEO, it is important to go into it with the right expectations. SEO is a long process and in the best of circumstances can take anywhere from 12-18 months to begin yielding solid results if your industry is already full of online competitors (which photography is). In addition, if you want to yield results in a 12-18 month period, expect to spend a good month preparing your website content, and around 10-20 hours each week thereafter doing activities to seek out quality inbound links. Obviously, the amount of time that you put into this area will directly impact the amount of time it will take you to get onto Google’s first page of organic search results for your respective keyword.

Because SEO is such a time consuming process, this area of the business is often outsources to companies that specialize in this area. However, regardless of what you hear, never believe anyone telling you they can “Guarantee your site on the first page of Google’s organic search results within 6 months.” Any SEO professional will tell you that they can never gaurantee a specific deadline or time when your site will appear in the first page of organic search results. In fact, many keywords are nigh impossible to obtain a high enough search engine ranking to appear on Google’s first page of organic search results. It all depends on the industry, and how competitive are your targetted keywords. In general, the more broad your search term, the more difficult it will be to capture a high search ranking.

The very first search result gets 25% of the clicks! Search is such a competitive space that I would not expect any measure of search engine referrals without a top 10 Google rank. There are too many sites to rank in the top 10 without effort, so at least a minimal amount of optimization is mandatory if you expect users to find you, because they certainly aren’t picking up the yellow pages! Optimize your photography website once for search engines, and expect to spend time maintaining your search engine position for a long time. Imagine the value of promotion the first page of Google search results provides. Tens, if not hundreds or thousands of searchers are exposed to those free listings. Consider what your competition pays for banner ads, paid ads, or event booths. True, these can have ROI, but rarely do they offer the residual client stream that a high search rank will continue to provide. Your website link will appear long after you have completed the search engine optimization process – free advertising. Consider how much time, effort, and money you’ve invested in your website. Don’t let it become a billboard in the dessert. Invest a percentage of your time or budget toward website promotion so that your beautiful website can be found. In my case, I spend about 10 times more energy promoting my website than on the site itself. Many times you win a new client from the promotion alone (or search result title, as it were).

Get Started with SEO The best thing you can do is start simple, check your results, then build from there. Focus on developing one important phrase that you want to be found for in search engines, then experiment with some of the basic optimization techniques to see if you can improve your rank for that phrase. For example, use that phrase in text on your homepage and then after a week or two see if it made an impact on your Google rank. Then begin building quality links back to your site and check again to see what impact that has made. In some cases you may have a photography niche or a location that does not have a lot of search competition and your optimization efforts will quickly be fulfilled. Sometimes phrases too competitive to rank for and you may have to settle for something more unique, or in a less populated location.

If you’re looking for additional information, you can check out Photographers SEO Book. It provides a simple formula for finding your key phrase, an optimized splash page text example, plus a list of places where photographers can get free links – everything you need to get started without a heavy investment.

Good luck and if you have any comments or additional ideas, please list them below!

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Written by Zach Prez, author of Photographers SEO Book

Related posts:

1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – Backlinks!
2. Optimize Your Images for Search Engines
3. How to Get SEO Keywords into Blog URLs

Here’s a tip for building traffic to your website: Optimize your images for search engines.  Most artists don’t take advantage of this, and all it takes is a little extra effort each time you add an image to your site.

Search engines work mainly off of text and links.  Because of this, search engines have a hard time reading images.  They can do it, but not effectively in all cases.  There are things you can do, however, to help your images show up on the search engines.

Why would I want my Images on the Search Engines? Of the hundreds of millions of searches that are done online each day, about 15% are exclusively for images.  Think about that.  If you are a painter, photographer, or other image based artist, your work could potentially be seen by hundreds, or thousands of people each day if you know what you’re doing.  Copyright issues aside, you want your images to show up where people are looking, so you can attract more customers, gain notoriety, and make more money!

Name your files – Most people save their images with file names like “photo1235.jpg.”  When they upload the file to their website, whether it be a blog, Flickr, Etsy, Imagekind, or other site, the image file shows up as “www.site.com/photo1235.jpg,” which doesn’t tell the search engine anything about the photo.  Name the file with descriptive text.  If you are a wedding photographer, try something like “John_Smith_Wedding_Banquet_Hall_Name.jpg” and you will find your file being read and understood by the search engines.

Use Alternative (Alt) Text – Most sites with a visual editor, like Flickr, WordPress, or Imagekind, allow you to plug Alt text into your photo.  If you know what keywords you want to show up for online, then this is the place to plug those keywords.  Again, similar to the file naming, you might try Alt=”Los Angeles Wedding Photography Bride & Groom Photo”  Limit your description to 50 characters.

Talk about the images on your page – Search engines will often pull information on images from the text around the image.  If you are posting an image, make sure you talk about it a little bit.  For example, you might post a photo of a wedding dress on your blog, and in the blog post put a paragraph describing who wore the dress, who designed it, and how you shot it.

Bigger & Better is better – Larger images rank better than thumbnails.  Google claims that they can check the quality of focus and exposure in photographs and scanned images.  In other words, better quality work is recognized by Google.  Remember to balance your file sizes.  Larger images may rank better, but a slow load time will kill your rankings.

Color, size, and type filters - The search engines are getting smart.  If you are selling prints or other products with your images, this is especially important.  Make sure you use color (R,G,B, etc) and size specifications (600×400, 150×150, etc) in your image descriptions (on page and alt/file names).

Have a social media presence – Sites like Flickr, Picassa, Imagekind, FolioTwist, Facebook, and Myspace are huge sources of traffic by themselves.  People search for images there.  Pick one or two of these sites according to your style & genre and create a presence there.  Make sure your social media pages point back to your main website so you can let people know you are a professional.

Leave questions or success stories related to image optimizing in the comments below.  Have a great day!

Cory Huff works for a search engine marketing firm in Portland, Oregon and also runs the website TheAbundantArtist.com where he teaches artists of all kinds how to sell art online.

Cory Huff
801-809-0237
Follow me on Twitter: http://Twitter.com/agoodhusband
How artists can make more money: http://TheAbundantArtist.com

Related posts:

1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – Backlinks!
2. Understanding SEO (That Search Thing) – A Basic Starting Point for Photographers
3. Top 10 Ways to Market Your Photography Studio Online

How many cold calls a week does your studio receive from SEO or marketing “specialists?” How many online magazines, blogs, and directories have tried to get you to pay thousands of dollars for banner ads or “premier listings?”

With thousands of ways to advertise online, it may be difficult to find legitimate, effective, and targeted forms of advertising. First and foremost, it should be mentioned that the most effective form of growing your business is still the old-fashioned method of word-of-mouth referrals. Whether you have wedding planners, past clients, or friends of friends raving about your studio, nothing is more effective than direct word-of-mouth testimonials. We will cover methods of maximizing these resources in another SLR Lounge wedding photography tutorial; however, this article will focus solely on online forms of advertising.

The rankings below are based on the highest total scores; and the scores are based on the following factors:

• The ease of implementation – This rating has to do with the time and knowledge required to get the method up and running. (Hard=1, Average=2, Easy=3)
• The time it takes to yield results – This rating has to do with the speed at which the results begin to materialize (Slow=1, Average=2, Fast/Immediate=3)
• The cost – This rating is the monetary cost of the method (Expensive=1, Average=2, Free/inexpensive=3)
• The quality of leads – This rating has to do with the quality of the leads generated based on a variety of factors, including budget, location, demographic, and other factors. (Poor=1, Average=2, Good=3)
• Additional Factor – An additional -3 to +3 score is added or subtracted to and from the total score to account for additional factors associated with each specific method.

1. Facebook – Facebook is number one on our list because it bridges the gap between the most effective way of growing your business, word-of- mouth referrals, and online social networks with one of the largest, most up-to-date online communities on the web. Essentially, everyone in your network needs to be current with your work. It’s not enough for your friends and family to simply know that you do photography. They need constant reminders; and they need to all become true fans in order for them to actively engage in promoting your business. Facebook is perfect for advertising within your network, with tools like status updates, fan pages, and a calendar of events. Update your status when you finish posting your images, start a fan page for your business, and invite everyone to any photography exhibitions or events you hold. Consider asking your friends to ‘suggest’ your fan page to their friends and add every person you come in contact with, expanding your reach.

• The ease of implementation: Easy = 3
• The time it takes to yield results: Fast=3 Facebook gets you started immediately with the ability to import your contacts from other networks like Gmail and Twitter. Your friends list will grow quickly, and with it, awareness of your photography studio.
• Cost: Free=3
• The quality of leads generated: High=3 People who find your work through Facebook will likely be a friend or a friend of a friend, high quality leads.
• Additional Factors: none
• Total Score: 12

2. Search Engine Local Listings & Maps – Google Maps and other local listings in search engines like Microsoft’s Bing and Yahoo search are gaining importance in the world of search engines, as they appear before actual search results.

• The ease of implementation: Average=2 Registration is simple, with basic online forms. However, confirmation can take a week or so, depending on how fast you receive the confirmation letter and input the confirmation code.
• The time it takes to yield results: Average=2 Depending on where you live, your studio could come up on the first page or not at all. In Los Angeles, for example, your listing may not show up for a while, if at all, depending on the content of your listing and a variety of factors. This requires some level of Search Engine Optimization research and implementation. On the other hand, in Provo, UT, you’re likely to be on the first page with the right content. The variance puts this factor at a score of 2.
• Cost: Free=3
• The quality of leads generated: Good=3 People finding you through these listings are going to be local and targeted
• Additional Factors: none
• Total Score: 11

3. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – If this were an easier and/or shorter process, this would be number one on the list, as it leads to very high quality and relevant leads. However, the process is very cumbersome, as it involves optimizing your pages, link building, and a whole host of long-term processes.  Despite all of the work, SEO should be a constant process that will eventually pay off.

• The ease of implementation: Difficult=1
• The time it takes to yield results: Slow=1
• Cost: Varies/Expensive=2 It can cost you nothing if you do all of the research and implementation yourself. However, if you aren’t designing and programming your own website, you’ll have to pay your webmaster to implement changes, and you might hire an expensive SEO consultant.
• The quality of leads generated: Good=3
• Additional Factors: +3 An additional 3 points is added to this method because of the high amount of relevant traffic this method can deliver
• Total Score: 10

4. Adwords and similar Paid Advertising Services– Google Adwords and other similar services are good ways to advertise online. You can target your customers with precision based on keywords searched, location, and other factors.  However, effective implementation can be a lot of work and the costs can quickly exceed the benefits if your campaigns aren’t well planned and monitored.

• The ease of implementation: Difficult=1 Setting up your Adwords account, creating your campaigns and managing your keywords is a long process that requires constant management and planning
• The time it takes to yield results: Fast=3 Your advertisements should start appearing immediately
• Cost: Average=2 Depending on your location and keywords, your cost varies widely.
• The quality of leads generated: Good=3
• Additional Factors: none
• Total Score: 9

5. Image Searches, Flickr & Other Free Online Image Sharing – Believe it or not, some potential clients are actually using services like images.google.com and Flickr quite often to search for wedding ideas, venues, and photographers. They might find your work there and fall in love with your style.  Make sure your images are optimized and linked directly to your blog or portfolio.

• The ease of implementation: Average=2 While it’s easy to add images to your blog, your site needs to be optimized for search engines and you may need to do some research of image naming conventions. Furthermore, it may take some time to upload your images onto some of these sites.
• The time it takes to yield results: Slow=1 Google needs to crawl your site before your images will appear in their search results.
• Cost: Free=3
• The quality of leads generated: Average=2
• Additional Factors: none
• Total Score: 8

6. Twitter – This service is unlikely to lead directly to booking weddings, but it definitely spreads awareness of your work in the photography, wedding, and general online community. Use hash tags so that people can find your tweets when you post your blog entries; and others will likely “retweet” your “tweet” if they contain useful or interesting links.  This resource has the potential to drive a lot of traffic to your site.

• The ease of implementation: Easy=3 You can begin “tweeting” immediately.
• The time it takes to yield results: Slow=1 Although there is integration with Facebook, Gmail, and other services, it takes a little while to build a solid fan base on twitter.
• Cost: Free=3
• The quality of leads generated: Poor=1
• Additional Factors: +1 The additional point is for Twitter’s extensive online reach and presence. While Brides might not be on Twitter looking for photographers, it is a great way to participate in the photography community, gain some credibility in the industry, and establish a following for your work.
• Total Score: 8

7. Paid Banner Ads – Paid banner ads are costly; and their effectiveness varies from site to site.  In general, the percentage chance of a potential client seeing your advertisement, clicking on the advertisement, and actually contacting you is low.

• The ease of implementation: Average=2 You may have to design your own advertisement, which can be difficult depending on your design experience. In other circumstances, the website might design it for you.
• The time it takes to yield results: Slow=1 It takes a lot of impressions for this method to yield any results, and therefore it takes quite a bit of time.
• Cost: Expensive=1. These ads can cost anything from $100 dollars to several thousand, depending on the site.
• The quality of leads generated: Good=3
• Additional Factors: +1 The additional point is for the notion that these sites are likely to choose their featured articles from their pool of paying advertisers.
• Total Score: 8

8. Dedicated Wedding Websites – Weddingwire, PartyPop, The Knot, Wedding Channel, Mywedding.com and most dedicated wedding websites offer anything from free to paid listings on their sites. While it is easy to start free profiles on most of these sites, your profiles often get clumped in with the rest and standing out from the others is difficult. Furthermore, you’re likely to receive repeat cold calls from these sites trying to sell you ‘premium’ listings or memberships.

• The ease of implementation: Easy=3
• The time it takes to yield results: Slow=1
• Cost: Varies (Often expensive)=1
• The quality of leads generated: Varies=2 If you do happen to receive a lead, you’re often competing with dozens of other photographers for the job, driving prices down and products delivered up.
• Additional Factors: +1 and -2 A point is added to this method for its assistance in providing external links to your website (helping with your page rank and your SEO). However, two points are taken away from this method for the cold calls and their lack of reach.
• Total Score: 6

9. Photography Directories – Listing on Photography directories is a great way of getting some external links to your websites, but they serve little purpose beyond that. Brides are unlikely to stumble upon these websites, and if they do, you’re competing with the hundreds of other photographers listed on the same site without a good way to stand out from the crowd.

• The ease of implementation: Average=2 These are usually simple registration forms, but they may require an exchange of links.
• The time it takes to yield results: Slow=1
• Cost: Free=3
• The quality of leads generated: Poor=1
• Additional Factors: +1 and -2 A point is added to this method for its assistance in providing external links to your website (helping with your page rank and your SEO). However, two points are taken away from this method for the cold calls and their lack of reach.
• Total Score: 6

10. Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon – If you have a very interesting article or image, using Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon and other similar services can give you thousands of visitors to your site.  The catch is that there is very little targeting; and it’s difficult to get your article enough votes for good visibility.  Furthermore, it’s not enough to simply have beautiful images.  Your articles really need to be funny, relevant, and/or extremely interesting.

• The ease of implementation: Difficult=1 You may have to contact your webmaster to incorporate the buttons on your site; or you can submit your own articles one by one to each of the sites, a very time consuming process.
• The time it takes to yield results: Slow=1 It may take a while for your article to get enough votes for any visibility.
• Cost: Varies=2 Listing on these sites is free, but you may have to pay your webmaster to implement the buttons on your site.
• The quality of leads generated: Poor=1
• Additional Factors: +1 A point is added to this method for its assistance in providing external links to your website (helping with your page rank and your SEO).
• Total Score: 6

These results are based on experiences with operating a studio in the competitive environment of Orange County and Los Angeles.  Every business has its own niche market, and there is never a universal method of advertising in any industry.  If you have any other ideas; or if you have disagreements, please feel free to comment on this article.

By: Lin and Jirsa Wedding Photography, Los Angeles and Orange County Wedding Photographers
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If you’ve found this article informative, please consider donating below:

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Related posts:

1. 10 Ways to Make Your Photography Studio High-End
2. Business – The Wedding Photography Market Size (Estimating The Number of Wedding Photographers in the United States)
3. Business – Online Printing & Proofing (Pictage, Zenfolio, SmugMug, & more…)

It is safe to assume everyone reading this is a photographer of some sort or another, whether professional or a hobbyist. As photographers, we enjoy using our creative vision to create artistic works. We don’t mind waiting for long periods of time, or trying repeatedly in order to get that perfect shot. We even spend hours reading photography tips and tutorials to learn new things. And the result is that the work that we display and are proud of typically have great compositions, use complex techniques, and are stunning works of art.

Early on in our career as a professional photographer, our clients would always rave about our artistic vision and imagery. What puzzled me though was that those artistic engagement and wedding shot images usually were not the images that were purchased by the clients or their friends. In fact, clients and their friends would typically purchase the images that I thought were the most boring or standard. I quickly realized, that while we photographers love creating unique imagery, there was no point in creating that imagery if it wasn’t what the client would end up purchasing.

From a clients perspective, while they are not choosing the most “amazing” shots, their choices do make sense. After all, if you had to choose a single shot to frame and put on your desk, most likely you would choose a shot with all of your close family/friends, which would most likely be a standard formal of some sort.

So, we studied what types of images clients are most likely to purchase so that we know where to spend most of our time and energy. Don’t get me wrong though, we still spend quite a bit of time capturing our artistic imagery, but we are also very aware of what shots we need to get, vs what shots are nice to get. So here is our list of images clients are most likely to purchase from a wedding shoot.

1. The Classic Portrait – That’s right, the simple classic portraits of your bride, groom and bridal party are some of the most important pictures to your clients. These pictures typically aren’t oozing with artistry, but it is key to follow good portrait photography rules by finding the appropriate light, properly posing and framing your subjects. Check out the samples below:

2. Bridal Party Formals - That’s right folks, the most sought after image by brides, grooms, their respective families and friends are simply group formals. While some of you may cringe at the thought of these images being so important, it actually makes sense if you think about it from the clients perspective. That being, if you were to choose one single shot to frame on your desk to remind you of an important day as well as the important people that attended, a group formal shot would be your best choice.

Wedding photographers often rush through formals in order to get it over with. But, these shots are key! There needs to be a lot of thought put into the planning of these shots. From location, to lighting, to posing and positioning. Oh, and don’t forget, just because they are formals and they are done at every wedding, doesn’t mean you can’t use your artistic vision. Check out the samples below:

3. Large Group Formals and Table Shots – Large group formals are challenging and are a blast to shoot. You get to stand up and direct a huge crowd, and really get yourself into the mix. Table shots may not be quite as challenging or inspiring, however, both of these types of shots are extremely popular to the guests and friends of the bride and groom for the exact same reason as the bridal party formal shots; they are nice shots of the bride and groom with the respective friend/guest. They are what we call “sum up” shots, which are shots that sum up the evening. Here are some samples below:

4. Great Candids Moments with the Bride and Groom - There are many important instructions that are implied by this title. First, these candids shots must be “Great” in that they show great expressions and emotion of all of the people within the picture. Regardless of how good your composition is, how perfectly you exposed the shot, etc, nobody will want the image if there is a awkwardly open mouth, a strange blink or any type of bad expression present in the image. Secondly, people don’t typically buy candids of just themselves, regardless of how good they are. They came to their friend/family’s wedding and on that important day, they want to be remembered with the bride and groom. So, rather than spend your time focusing on just shooting guests alone, spend it focusing on shooting guests as they converse and have a good time with the bride and groom.  Here are some samples below:

5. Unique Dancing Shots – Now I say unique dancing shots because everyone already has their point and shoots out on the dance floor in the first place. If you are not capturing something significantly better and more unique than they are, then they will opt to keep their free shot vs pay for your “professional” image. How can you create unique dancing shots? Well, there are many techniques including: creating nice compositions, using flares, using a fish-eye lens, shooting motion blur and twist shots, etc. Here are some samples below:

6. Children Shots – Now, many parents wanting to take better pictures of their children, invest in decent if not very nice DSLR cameras and lenses. So, if you are going to sell Children Shots they need to be shots of priceless moments that the parents cannot capture on their own, or they need to be unique and professional images that the parent’s cannot reproduce. Here are some examples:

7. Artistic Couples Shots - Artistic couples shots are great for the bride and groom and sometimes for their immediate family. However, that typically is the extent of their use. We notice that usually the bride and groom love these types of shots, and occasionally even the immediate families will purchase these images in print forms. However, more often then not, these images are simply used in albums and books rather than framed images. In addition, you are unlikely to have any guests purchase prints of just the bride and groom for their own picture collection. It would be a little weird if you walked into your friends house to see framed pictures of other couples on their walls.

8. Detail Shots – Detail shots are fabulous, interesting and a treat to look at. However, rarely are these pictures ever purchased by clients or guests on their own. A few of the best detail shots will be selected and used within an album, but that is typically the extent of their use. However, this makes sense. While a beautiful ring shot, or flower shot is great eye candy. You wouldn’t necessarily print it out and frame it to put on your desk by itself. Does this mean you shouldn’t take detail shots? Absolutely not, detail shots are an important part of the day. Just keep in mind that you don’t need to spend the majority of your day shooting them as often amateur and newly professional photographers do. Here are some samples below:

9. Visionary Images – Visionary images are the images that we as photographers love to look at. They are images that incorporate everything we talk about in our article “10 Characteristics of Great Photos.” These are the images that win awards in print competitions, they are the images that are often used in our portfolios to show our artistic vision, and are the types of images we artists and photographers would print and hang on our wall. However, interestingly enough they are almost never purchased as prints by clients or their guests as prints. They usually will end up in albums and books, but they are not stand alone print images. While it is unfortunate, that is just the way the cookie crumbles. So take your visionary shots, and use your artistic vision, but just make sure you understand that these are typically not the bread winners.

10. Individual Candids – Individual candids are great individual shots of guests or the wedding party members in a wonderful candid moment. Early on in our career, we captured a lot of these and were baffeled when they weren’t being purchased. When we got to thinking about it, it actually made sense as to why people weren’t purchasing these images as prints. There are very few individuals that would want a print of themselves alone in an image appearing to have a great time all by themselves. Rarely are people into themselves enough to purchase and frame one of these prints. Instead, people want to purchase candid images of themselves having a good time with others. More importantly, if you are at your friends wedding, you want nice candid images of you with your friends that are getting married. So, grab a few of those individual candids for the bride and the groom to remember who was at their wedding and to remember how much fun everyone had. But, don’t expect to make many print sales of these images. Here are some samples of individual candids below:

We would love to get your opinion on the matter, please comment below if you have any additional ideas. If you enjoyed the article, share the love by tweeting and digging us!

By: Lin and Jirsa Wedding Photography, Los Angeles and Orange County Wedding Photographers
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Related posts:

1. Business – A Day in the Life of a Wedding Photographer
2. Business – Online Printing & Proofing (Pictage, Zenfolio, SmugMug, & more…)
3. Business – Wedding Photographer Expectations

Everyday we come across people, whether they be hobbyists, assistants, professionals, clients, etc, who seem to have severe misconceptions about wedding photography as an industry and job. So, I wrote this article not to discourage anyone, but to make sure anyone getting into the wedding photography industry has the right expectations of their studio and business.

A lot of people are lured to the wedding photography industry due to false expectations. Some are lured by the idea that you can earn a great amount of income by working part time on the weekends. Some are lured by their shear enjoyment of photography, “I love taking pictures as a hobby, therefore I would love doing it for my job.” Even more are coaxed into the industry by praise from friends and family, “you take such great pictures, you should do this professionally.”

But Regardless of how or why you got into the industry, we welcome you, and want to make sure you have a clear understanding of what you are getting into:

1. Income Expectations – Starting a photography studio is no different than starting any other business. You need to be prepared to spend 50-60 hours a week building your business while not really earning much money for the first couple of years. Expecting to jump right into the industry and have clients knocking down your door is unrealistic. In fact, make sure your income/expenses are covered by savings or a spouse for at least your first 1-2 years, as during that time you will not be generating much income. Also, recognize that the Joe Buissinks, Dennis Reggies and Jerry Ghionisis of the world are the outliers and are the exception to the rule. Here is an idea of what you can expect to earn during your first 4 years.

Income Figures (Before expenses/equipment costs)
Year 1: $5,000 – $10,000
Year 2: $20,000 – $30,000
Year 3: $35,000 – $50,000
Year 4: $50,000+

Certified Compensation Professionals median expected salary for the average experienced photographer $53,906

2. Equipment & Cost Expectations – Many self proclaimed professionals are using sub-par equipment to create their product. While you may be able to get away with this for a while, you are doing yourself and your clients a major disservice. We agree wholeheartedly that it is the photographer not the camera that creates the images, but there are many images (particularly low light scenes) that cannot be created with sub-par equipment. You will need a minimum of around $8,000 – 10,000 to get a base set of professional equipment. Here is a basic equipment starter list:

Basic Professional Equipment List
Body: Canon 5D Mark II (Nikon D700) and Canon 40D/50D backup body (Nikon D300)
Lenses: Canon 70-200mm F/2.8L IS USM, Canon 24-70mm F/2.8L USM, Canon 50mm F/1.4 (or Nikon equivalents)
Flashes: 2 x Canon 580EX IIs (or Nikon equivalents)
Flash Cards: 2 x 16GB SanDisk Extreme III (or better); 2 x 8GB SanDisk Extreme III (or better)
Misc Equip: Pocket Wizards, reflectors, Flip-it Bounce Card, extra camera batteries, etc.

Other Misc Costs
Keep in mind that, although the margins are high in this industry, there will be other costs that you will have to factor in before you can estimate your bottom line.

Insurance: Depending on your coverage, you may have to spend $300 to $500 a year on General Liability Insurance and between $500-$700 a year for Equipment Insurance
Accounting fees: Accountants may charge anywhere from $1000-$5000 a year, depending on the complexity of your organization; and software like Microsoft Accounting and Quickbooks will cost anywhere from $250-$500, in addition to the time and effort it will take to learn and research basic accounting concepts
Other business fees: There are fees associated with getting a business license, forming an LLC or S Corp, establishing a DBA, and more. These time and money costs can be very overwhelming.

3. Time Expectations – Regardless of what people may tell you, being a wedding photographer is not a part time gig. While you may spend the weekends shooting, you need the rest of the week to advertise, answer client/new client emails, meet with new clients, assist existing clients, edit images, post produce images, backup images, write blog entries, train, manage finances, complete administrative business tasks like taxes, etc. While after several years you may be able to get your business down to a science, it is a full time job requiring at least 40-50 hours a week.

4. Development Expectations - If you are new to photography and starting a business, you need to give yourself time to grow your company, as well as time to develop as a professional photographer. We recommend that those who have not studied photography professionally spend 1-2 years shadowing an established professional photographer in order to gain experience. While you wont be making much money, give yourself time to grow as a photographer and to gain a portfolio. For those that are more experienced in photography, or have studied it in school, take at least 6 months and work with one or more established photographers to understand the business. This was our development timeline:

Lin and Jirsa Photography’s Development Timeline
Months 1 – 6: Shoot with various established professionals (often times for free)
Month 5: Begin compiling and finishing our portfolio
Months 6 – 7: Complete our online website, portfolio and blog
Months 8 – 12: Begin advertising and accepting our own jobs, while still shooting with other established photographers

5. Package Pricing Expectations - While new in the industry, you will be tempted and told by many people to make sure you are always charging what you are worth and not to accept low budget jobs ($500 – $1000). I agree and disagree with this statement. While it is important to charge what you are worth, when you are starting out in the industry its more important to get experience, get exposure and meet potential clients. Accept as many jobs as you can your first year simply to get experience. As you become more and more in demand, raise your package prices accordingly. You will develop much faster as a professional photographer if you can overcome the elitist mentality that plagues this industry.

6. Pressure Expectations - Don’t for one minute let people convince you that photography is an easy job. It goes without fail that the first thing most of our new assistants say after their first shoot is, “this is a lot harder than I thought.” Wedding photography requires you to be on your feet, hustling and bustling for 8 – 14 hours each shoot. You are expected by brides and grooms to get every important moment without fail, to capture the day with your artistic vision and to deliver a flawless professional product. A wedding photographer needs to be prepared and know their equipment through and through in order to deliver results in any lighting situation. Could you imagine a client forgiving you for shooting blurry or underexposed first dance shots because “it was too dark?”

In our opinion, to be truly great wedding photographers, you must be a master of every type of photography including:

a. Portrait & fashion photography – Shooting engagement sessions, couples shoots, bridals, etc.

b. Photojournalistic photography – Shooting timeless imagery in the moments they occur (a much harder task than it sounds)

c. Macro photography – Capturing beautiful close ups of ring, dress, bouquet and other detail shots

d. Architectural & event photography – Shooting breathtaking grand venue and establishment shots

7. Personality Expectations – Wedding photography isn’t for everyone. You must have an A-type (energetic, outgoing, take control) personality if you want to truly do well in this industry. Don’t give up though, because while difficult, this can be learned. One of our good friends and an amazing photographer worldwide once told me, “Sometimes I feel like I should be teaching charm school rather than showing photographers camera techniques.” While his statement was made as a joke, there is a lot of truth to it. Wedding photographers not only must be masters of photography and of their equipment, but they must also be masters of people and social interaction. As a wedding photographer, you are tasked with becoming friends with the bride and groom, making your clients feel comfortable in front of the camera, posing and assisting your clients, being gracious and entertaining to their friends and family while not being a distraction during their wedding day. This is a people industry and those that do well with people, will do well in the industry.

Hopefully this little article will give you better insight into what to expect as a professional wedding photographer. If you have any additional insight or experiences you would like to add, please post in the comments below, we would love to hear from you!

By Lin and Jirsa Wedding Photography

Related posts:

1. Business – A Day in the Life of a Wedding Photographer
2. Business – The Wedding Photography Market Size (Estimating The Number of Wedding Photographers in the United States)
3. Photographer’s Interview – Timothy Riley

When I was choosing my career path, I always found it useful reading blogs and websites that had articles talking about what a day is like in the life of a “blank.” It was an extremely useful way of trying to figure out exactly what I would enjoy doing all day, everyday.

So, I thought I would write “A Day in the Life of a Wedding Photographer” to give you guys an idea of what a typical day of wedding photography is like. I broke it into a normal weekday (taking care of office and administrative issues) and a weekend (going out for a wedding shoot).

We love our jobs, but wedding photography is a lot of difficult work. Hopefully, this article will serve to help anyone considering a career in this field better understand what it is like being a wedding photography. Enjoy!

8:00AM – 9:00AM: Start work by getting online and checking my emails. Respond to sales inquiries, client requests and vendors requests.

9:00AM – 12:00PM: Post produce images from last Friday’s engagement session.

12:00PM – 12:15PM: Grab a quick lunch in the office.

12:15PM – 1:15PM: Call and follow up on prospective clients.

1:15PM – 2:45PM: Complete the blog entry for the engagement session which I just finished post producing. Post the blog entry and send out emails to the client.

2:45PM – 3:00PM: Post social media notices on our Facebook/Twitter pages regarding any updates on the blog so everyone can check out our pictures.

3:00PM – 3:30PM: Handle special request from one of our wedding coordinators. She wants an image DVD showing her last venue that we shot.

3:30PM – 4:30PM: Complete about 1 hour of web work including: SEO checking on our site analytics and advertising to improve website traffic, as well as fixing any issues that our website might be having.

4:30PM – 6:30PM: Work on post production from last Saturday’s wedding (2 hours a day for about one week to complete the post production on an entire wedding).

6:30PM – 7:30PM: Answer sales phone calls and follow up on clients and sales inquiries as they are getting home from work.

7:30PM – 8:00PM: Start uploading any completed wedding and engagement events to our online image hosting and proofing website.

8:00PM – 9:00PM: Work on administrative tasks such as accounting, taxes, payroll, etc.

9:00PM – 12:00PM: Workout (if I still have enough energy), spend some time with the family, and hit the hay.

Prior Night: Charge all necessary equipment

8:00AM – 9:00AM: Prepare equipment by cleaning and packing up all needed lenses, camera bodies, lighting, stands and tri-pods, etc.

9:00AM – 10:00AM: Meet with second shooter and drive out to wedding prep location. If we are not shooting out of state, most of our in state wedding locations take around 60 – 90 minutes to drive to.

10:00AM – 12:00PM: Lead photographer shoots bride and bridesmaid preparation while second shooter will cover the groom and groomsmen.

12:00PM – 12:30PM: Second photographer will lead groom out to a pre-set location for the “first look”. Then the lead photographer will bring out the bride and shoot the bride and groom during their “first look” moment.

12:30PM – 1:15PM: Try to grab a quick bite of something on the run. Drive out to bridal party and couples shoot location. However, we hit traffic so we are running behind schedule.

1:15PM – 2:45PM: Arrive on location and quickly begin the bridal party shoot. Since we are running late, we have to reduce our shoot time by 60 minutes and complete both the bridal party and couples shoot in 90 minutes.

2:45PM – 3:15PM: Drive back to ceremony site.

3:15PM – 3:45PM: Quickly shoot the family formals prior to the ceremony (originally we planned for one hour, however, we are still behind schedule so we only have 30 minutes).

3:45PM – 4:00PM: Set up in our positions for the ceremony and shoot candids while we are waiting for the procession to begin.

4:00PM – 5:00PM: Shoot the ceremony from all angles capturing key reaction shots (i.e. crying, smiling, etc) from family members and close friends of the bride and groom.

5:00PM – 5:30PM: Lead photographer shoots the couple as they greet and hug each of their guests while the second shooter will head to the venue to capture venue shots while the room is still empty.

5:30PM – 6:00PM: Lead photographer and second shooter meet back up to shoot candids during cocktail hour, as well as to shoot bride and groom formals with their guests.

6:00PM – 7:00PM: Guests are seated and dinner is served. Photographers will take a 20 minute break to grab a quick bite to eat while the guests are eating (since nobody likes pictures of themselves eating anyway).

7:00PM – 8:00PM: Toasts begin, lead photographer covers the person giving the toast, while the second photographer would cover the reaction shots of the bride and groom as well as the guests.

8:00PM – 9:00PM: Cake cutting and first dances. Again, lead photographer takes main position covering the primary subjects while secondary photographer shoots reaction shots of the bridal party and guests.

9:00PM – 11:00PM: Open dancing. Both photographers on the dance floor covering all the dancing. Lead photographer capturing the bride and groom dancing with their guests while the second shooter covers just guests.

11:00PM – 11:15PM: Setup and shoot one last large group formal with everyone on the dance floor.

11:15 – 11:45PM: Pack up all of our gear (while hoping nothing was lost or stolen).

11:45PM – 12:00AM: Say goodbye to our bride and groom (collect final portion of payment if needed) and take our stuff out to our car.

12:00AM – 1:00AM: Drive home. Second shoot begins backing up the images in the car on our laptop.

1:00AM – 2:30AM: Arrive at home, put equipment away, and continue backing up all images to ensure that we have duplicates of every image shot at the event.

2:30AM: Collapse in bed.

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Article written by:
Pye Jirsa
Lead Photographer | Partner
Lin and Jirsa Wedding Photography
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Related posts:

1. Business – Wedding Photographer Expectations
2. Business – The “Long Tail” & Wedding Photography
3. Business – The Wedding Photography Market Size (Estimating The Number of Wedding Photographers in the United States)

Speaker: Bambi Cantrell

Website: http://www.cantrellportrait.com/

Lecture Title: The Wedding, A Photographic Essay

SLR Lounge Lecture Usefulness Grade: A-

Overview: Finally, a speaker that actually talked about what they said they would talk about! Bambi Cantrell’s platform lecture was designed to inspire and educate wedding photographers in the area of using lighting and posing techniques to capture decisive moments in the wedding. While Bambi covered some other general business areas as well, her speech managed to stay pretty much focused around the topics of lighting, posing and composition. Read on for the notes.

Notes & SLR Lounge Commentary:

For the most part, the following notes were taken in the order presented. We did do a little bit of organization on the speech topics to make them flow better.

Bodies: Canon EOS 1D Mark III & Canon EOS 5D Mark II
Lenses: Canon L Lenses
Lighting: Frezzi Video Light w/ dimmer
Production: Wacom Intuos3 9 x 12-Inch USB Tablet
Calibration: X-Rite Eye-One Display LT
Printing: Epson Stylus Pro 4800and 9800 (want’s to upgrade to the 9900)
Music: Triple Scoop Music
Software: Adobe Lightroom 2 Software, NIK Software
Actions: Cantrell Actions, Kubota Actions, Marcus Bell Actions

Anyone curious as to the details of Bambi Cantrell’s typical shot, will find these facts interesting.

1. Shots taken during typical wedding:  Bambi typically shoots around 1200 images for a full day wedding

2. Delivered images for a typical wedding: Bambi delivers only 500-600 images from the 1200 images that she shoots for a full day wedding

Pye: I would think 500-600 images is a little low to deliver to clients. Depending on the length of the wedding, we typically deliver 800-1200 images to each client.

3. Camera settings: Bambi Cantrell’s typical camera settings are as follows: Spot metering in Manual mode shooting in RAW using AWB (Auto White Balance).

Pye: Our studio shoots the exact same way. You can’t go wrong with these camera settings.

1. Identify your clients: Identify the most important people and serve them first, the general order is:

i. Bride

ii. Mother of the bride

iii. Father of the bride

Pye: This is a decent rule of thumb. We all know that the groom really only cares about whether or not the bride is happy. Though I would like to mention that it is important to make sure you are showing enough attention and care to both the bride, groom and their respective families. Nothing would be worse then hearing after the wedding, “the photographer was great, except he/she didn’t really pay much attention to the groom’s family.”

2. Get to know the client during the engagement session: Get to know their personalities. For example, are they more relaxed, or more serious individuals? Do they like having fun doing silly things? Are they the kind of people that would be OK sitting down on the ground in nice clothes (i.e. wedding dress and tux).

Pye: This is a great practice that we try to stick to whenever possible. There is no better time to get to know the bride and groom prior to the wedding than at the engagement session. For clients that can’t afford engagement sessions, we even offer them discounts so that they are persuaded to try it out. Doing so ensures that we get comfortable with the client and vice versa. This allows us to deliver much more natural imagery and in the end, a product that is much more catered to that individual client.

1. Lighting is the foundation: Lighting is the foundation for every picture, so look for it first.

Pye: This tip is obvious, but it is a good reminder.

2. Direct sun: When shooting in direct sun, do the following:

i. Meter the face and let the rest fall off – Get the best light and create the “perfect” image under the circumstance.

ii. Dramatic fashion lighting – Direct sun makes for great dramatic lighting for fashion shots if you use it correctly.

iii. Wind always rules out – Don’t try to pose your subjects against the wind for light purposes, the hair and veil will cover the face and ruin the shot.

3. Short lighting: Short lighting always makes your subjects look thinner and is generally the most flattering form of light. A quick tip to make sure you are shooting short lighting, is to make sure you are shooting from the shadows.

Pye: These direct sun lighting tips are quite useful. I should say that often times there are beautiful scenes that you don’t want to let “fall off” by just metering the face. In those situations, you want to meter for the background, and use off camera lighting (i.e. pocket strobes such as the Canon 580EX II) to illuminate your subjects.

I have to say that Bambi Cantrell had some amazing fashion-esque shots where she just used direct lighting from the sun. I think the key in these images is to make sure you use the shadows to your advantage since they will be so strong. Also, while we always use short lighting for our subjects, I loved that rule of thumb. It was such an easy way of remembering exactly where your position should be when shooting short lit subjects, simply stand in the shadows.

4. Lighting from above: When lights are above your head, like ceiling lights and what not, pose the subject and get them to look up into the lighting. Turning the face towards the light source eliminates the harsh shadows underneath the eyes and nose.

5. Highlights for emphasis: Use highlights to emphasize certain features with short lighting. Bambi used an example of a woman sitting in a chair that was shot with short lighting with a nice highlight along the edge of her leg outlining her figure.

6. Exposing dark skin: For darker skinned subjects, you will need to under expose the shot a little when you are using spot metering. Otherwise, the camera will try to compensate and make their skin too bright in order to reach a “proper” exposure.

7. Light the background: Make sure the background is lit, or even use a background light to bring out the background. Otherwise, the background will not be separated from the subject.

Pye: Bambi’s lighting techniques are quite useful. While most photographers will quickly grasp and use the concept of short vs broad lighting, often we forget about using highlights to outline our subjects.

1. Tummy press: Always have the female subjects press their tummy’s forward thus straightening up their backs.

2. S-curve: Make sure that you are always getting the girl to form an S-curve with her body. These poses are more flattering and emphasize the female form.

3. Posing communication: These are tips from Bambi on specific verbiage that is appropriate for posing the subject.

i. Don’t use words like “left” and “right” that are relative and hard to understand.

ii. Show them examples without getting all touchy-feely with everyone

iii. “Feet shoulder width apart” rather than saying “separate the feet” or “spread your legs” (inappropriate)

iv. “Push your hips toward your back leg, then lean your front should (opposite of the hip shift) down

4. Don’t stand flat footed: Ask them to “turn your feet towards me” then proceed with the hip shift shown in step iv above.

5. Get the arms away from the torso: When the arms are touching the sides of their chest, it looks like one big piece of chest, thus making the female subject appear much larger.

6. Cross their legs: Have female subjects cross their legs while standing by putting one foot in front of the other to create an hourglass shape with their figure.

7. Shoot from above when possible: When possible, shoot a little from above the subject to minimize double chins.

8. Lean together: Have your subjects lean together to make them seem closer and more intimate.

9. Lean forward from the hips: Leaning the chest forward from the hips pulls the shoulders back as well as tightens the skin around the face. Making your subjects appear younger.

10. Bend the elbows: Bending the elbows on female subjects makes the composition more graceful.

11. Putting on earrings: During prep shots, such as putting on earrings, elbows can tend to become large and compete for attention with the face. So, it is important that you shoot from the side or even crop out the elbow so it doesn’t scream for attention.

12. Posing on a chair: When sitting on a chair, ask them to sit forward so they are barely on the chair. Then ask them to scoot back in the chair as it will make them sit up straight in the chair.

Pye: These are wonderful posing techniques. If you want a way to differentiate yourself from other photographers, learn how to pose well. Look at the details which is what turns a good photograph, into an amazing image. Bambi is definitely a master of posing and lighting techniques.

1. Shooting ideas/poses:

i. “The Walk” – The Walk is a great shooting idea, especially for shy girls. Have the bride walk towards the camera walking with one foot in front of the other. Be funny with her and tell her that the first time wasn’t good enough. Tell her to “get her runway stuff on” and play with her to get a good reaction. Instead of shooting full length shots, focus on her face as she walks and laughs at herself.

ii. “The Hang” – The hang is a standing pose for guys to get them to just “hang.” Have your subject shift his weight to one of feet by asking him to lift the other foot off the floor. Once he is standing with one his weight on one foot, have him relax and stick a hand in his pocket.

2. Shutter speeds: Bambi Cantrell is typically shooting with shutter speeds around 1/60 – 1/125 of a second.

3. Available light: Bambi loves to shoot available light wherever possible. While she will use a flash when necessary, she tries to avoid it.

4. Apertures: Bambi hardly ever shoots above f/2.8 in order to get her subjects to pop off the page (except for group shots which are taken at f/5.6).

Pye: Shooting at low apertures is key for really making your images “pop.” Making your images pop, cropping garbage out of the image, and such are all techniques that will differentiate yourself from the amateurs with “nice cameras.”

5. Flash bouncing: In normal sized churches with nicer high ISO cameras such as the Canon 5D Mark II+ or Nikon D700+, try turning up your ISO a bit to 1600-3200 and bouncing your flash off of the wall behind you. The higher ISO will pickup the light flash and create a really nice exposure.

Pye: I thought this was a unique tip that I am going to have to try out. Whenever I use flash, I am always bouncing, but I have never had good success with bouncing off the wall behind me. I will have to try out this technique on my 5D Mark II.

6. “Save my seat”: During the wedding ceremony, Bambi asks the person in the second row of the chapel that the bride and groom have requested she shoots from that spot, so you request that the person “saves your seat.” Bambi states that requesting this favor gets the person on your side, rather than asking them to move. Then during the ceremony, Bambi likes to shoot from that seat.

Pye: This “save my seat” idea sounds interesting. I will have to try this at one of our next weddings; with the bride and groom’s permission of course =).

1. Proofs: Bambi provides a complete set of proofs to each client along with a digital negatives DVD. She states that she charges what she deserves up front in her commission and doesn’t expect to make anything off of print orders. Since she is already well paid up front, she doesn’t mind people copying and distributing her work. Whatever she makes on top of her commission she just considers icing on the cake.

Pye: I really like this pricing strategy. Eventually, I think we will modify our pricing to match this style of charging what you deserve up front, and not relying on prints to make up the rest.

1. 3 Equal separate payments:

i. The 1st payment is Bambi’s retainer which is required to book.

ii. The second payment is due 90 days prior to the wedding.

iii. The third payment is due a week prior to the wedding. This payment is required before the wedding rather than on the wedding day. Doing so ensures that you don’t have to worry about collecting the day of, or after the wedding.

Pye: This is another great tip for payments which I think our studio will start doing as well. Collecting everything up front gives you one less thing you need to worry about the day of.

1. Attitude: Don’t let you clients rule your photography. Bambi states that when she has aunts, uncles, or relatives that try to be “backseat photographers,” she gently tells them, “your job today is to just relax and be dad/mom/aunt/etc. Let me worry about the photography.”

Bambi Cantrell’s platform lecture was quite useful. The best part was that she actually talked about what she said she was going to talk about, ha! Anyway, we would like to thank Bambi for her informative lecture. We wish you the best Bambi and we look forward to hearing from you again next year at WPPI 2010.

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Article written by:

Pye Jirsa

Lead Photographer | Partner

Lin and Jirsa Wedding Photography

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2. WPPI 2009 – Platform Speaker Notes – JB & DeEtte Sallee
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The popular business book Long Tail, by Chris Anderson details the phenomenon of selling “less of more.” With the proliferation of the Internet, online businesses like Amazon.com and Netflix are able to turn a significant profit from selling low volumes of rare, less-popular, or hard-to-find items, instead of the traditional business model of selling large volumes of popular items.

Wedding photography is anything but a traditional business, and in all honesty, most of the concepts in the book don’t apply. Diversifying our product offerings runs the risk of hurting our brand image and our quality of wedding photography service. In addition, as we talked about in our article “Presenting LESS Not More,” showing too much of our work dilutes the product and overwhelms our clients.

So how can we apply the concepts of “The Long Tail” to wedding photography? Well, in the book, Anderson talks about an important concept that Netflix and Amazon.com utilize very effectively. They both have a very strong, simple, and intuitive system of categorization and recommendations.

As much as we are in a completely different business than online retailers or services, the majority of us are using online proofing to sell our end product. Our balance is between showing too much and not showing something that someone would potentially buy. In general, l do believe that “less is more,” but even then, we’re still dealing with 1,000-2,000 images from a single event. This is when we have to apply the long tail concept of categorization, and we have to separate our images into powerful, simple, and detailed categories, so that our clients and their guests can easily find an image they’re looking for.

For some of you, this might mean making small changes in the way you categorize your images. For others, this may mean actually having to spend the time to categorize your images to begin with. You might even consider separating preparation into bride and groom or separating the reception into cake cutting, first dance, table shots, toasts, etc. You never know what images people will buy, but one thing’s for sure: they won’t buy anything if they can’t find it.

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Article written by:

Chris Lin
Lead Photographer | Partner
Lin and Jirsa Wedding Photography
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2. Business – The Wedding Photography Market Size (Estimating The Number of Wedding Photographers in the United States)
3. Business – Wedding Photographer Expectations

The wedding photography market in the United States, i.e. the number of wedding photographers in the United States, is a difficult number to compute.  First of all, the term ‘wedding photographer’ is such a loose term that defines seasoned professionals, as well as your typical uncle with a digital camera.  Secondly, as with many independent contractors, not every photographer follows all of the rules of a legitimate business.  For example, any statistics based on United States tax information might understate the true number in an industry with so much unreported revenue.  Furthermore, many studios do not register their businesses; and others do not join professional organizations, making these measures unreliable as well.  With so many ‘under the radar’ and part-time wedding photographers, the actual number is quite difficult to estimate.  

Number of Wedding Photographers in the US

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Article written by:
Christopher Lin
Lead Photographer | Partner
Lin and Jirsa Wedding Photography
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Recently, we had the opportunity to interview with Tyler Garns about how we started our photography studio. Tyler is an experienced sales person and marketer who is currently interviewing various photographers in order to discover exactly what business and specifically marketing practices, are pushing certain studios into the limelight, while others struggle and eventually die in the dark.

He is using this information to write a book designed to help photographers market their business called Over[Exposure]. While the book won’t be realesed until mid 2009, you can check out all of the informative interviews and articles that will be going into Over[Exposure] on his blog Think Big Art. You do need to register for the blog to view the articles, but registration is free, and might we say quite worthwhile.

So, head on over and check out Think Big Art and keep an eye out for Over[Exposure].

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Article written by:
Pye Jirsa
Lead Photographer | Partner
Lin and Jirsa Wedding Photography
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2. Top 10 Ways to Market Your Photography Studio Online
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A great way to gain recognition in the photography community and to establish legitimacy in the eyes of your clients is to win respectable professional photography contests or competitions. Some of these contests offer cash prizes and other tangible rewards; while others offer publication in magazines and books. Some of these competitions are primarily photography communities, with competitions as a feature of the site; while others are primarily focused on photography competitions, with aspects of learning and community as a side feature. Here is a list of competitions we have heard of, participated in, and/or found on the internet.

Wedding & Portrait Photographers International (WPPI) – http://www.wppionline.com/

Cost per contest submission: members $50, nonmembers $65

WPPI holds annual competitions in a variety of topics, including album design, 8×10, and 16×20. The two 8×10 photo competitions are for members only, and the Awards of Excellence Print and Album Competitions are open to all. These are some of the most prestigious competitions for wedding and portrait photographers, with a few perennial winners and very stiff competition. Submissions are usually due in mid January.

International Photography Awards – http://www.photoawards.com/en/

Costs:
Professionals – Single Image: $35, Series (2 to 5 images): $60, Each Additional Category: $25
Non Professionals – Single Image: $25,
Series (2 t0 5 images): $50,
Each Additional Category: $15
Students – Single Image: $15, Series (2 t0 5 images): $20,
Each Additional Category: $10

The International Photography Awards conducts an annual competition for professional, non- professional, and student photographers on a global scale, creating one of the most ambitious and comprehensive competitions in the photography world today.

The winners of the main categories will compete for IPA’s top award of International Photographer of the Year. Those finalists will be invited to attend the Lucie Awards at the Lincoln Center, New York, where one photographer will be announced as the grand winner, earning the coveted Lucie Statue and
a cash prize of $10,000. In addition, the nominees in the non-professional and student categories will be invited to the Lucie Awards to compete for the title of the Discovery of the Year, a Lucie Statue and $5,000 cash prize. Six nominees comprised of all levels of profession will be invited to the Lucie Awards for the title of Deeper Perspective Photographer of the Year, where the story behind the images are dually judged, and to compete for the coveted Lucie Statue and a cash prize of $5,000.In addition to earning the chance to compete for the cash prizes, the category winners (nominees) will each receive two tickets to the Lucie Awards, a free copy of the Annual Awards Book and other titles.  Furthermore, the IPA will invite an established curator to select 45 images from both the professional and non-professional pools of first, second, and third place winners to be exhibited in an exclusive show in New York City, during the week leading up to the Lucie Awards gala. The Best of Show will then travel to various countries to be included in photo festivals, galleries, and other photography related events.  The work of all first, second and third place winners will be published in the high-quality, full-color, hardcover award winning Annual International Photography Awards Book.

JPG Mag – www.jpgmag.com

Cost: Free

At jpg mag, any photographer can join and upload photos and stories to their member page. At any given time, there are three different photography competitions, or “themes,” open for submission. Photographers and readers upload their take on these themes, such as “Zen” or “Fairy Tale.” The community votes and comments on these image submissions, and the winners of the competition are published in their magazine. The strengths of this photography competition are its strong, active community and high level of readership. Not to mention that winners are automatically published into their magazine. 

Daily Awards – www.dailyawards.com

Cost: Free to participate. Various subscriptions from $5 per month to $100 lifetime membership for access to “DA” points and rewards.

This site operates on the following philosophy: “Those who have proven success have more voice over those seeking success.” DailyAwards.com is based on peer-review, but weighted to give more influence to those who have repeatedly proven success and experience. Winning contests and competitions get you “DA points” that can be used to purchase pins, certificates, and shirts. Furthermore, winning awards gets your image pasted on the home page for the duration of that contest; and winning annual awards gets your image and a link to your site “pinned” for an entire year.

Competico – http://www.competico.com/

Cost: varies (i.e. $2 to $10 per competition)

In this competition, members submit entries in various categories, ranging from “cutest pet” to “beautiful scenery.” With a free membership, anyone in the community can vote in the photography competitions; however, the cost and payout of each entry varies by contest. In general, most entries are beginner to amateur.

Digital Photography challenge - http://www.dpchallenge.com/

Cost: Free for limited access, $25 per year or $5 per month for full access

In DP challenge, members submit to challenges, cast votes, and participate in the forums. Strengths of this site are a strong community, with community feedback and ‘favorite photographers,’ and an effective learning aspect, with the settings of each image displayed as well as user-submitted tutorials. Free membership is all you need to submit, comment, and vote; and paid membership unlocks exclusive competitions, 100MB of storage, and other features. Winners of these competitions receive recognition for their work and badges on their profile.

Photo Konkurs – http://www.photokonkurs.com/

Cost: Free

Photokonkurs.com runs regular photography contests with prizes; and adds new contests every 2-5 days. Prizes vary from cash to watches, books, and sunglasses. In general, the sites presentation and layout are confusing and poorly constructed.

Other Competitions:

As we are not able to compile a complete list of available photography competitions, feel free to comment in the section below with any other competitions you may have found.  In addition to the communities, contests, and competitions listed above, you may want to check out the following as well.

View Bug – www.viewbug.com

Photo Points – http://www.photopoints.com/main/

Worth 1000 – http://www.worth1000.com/

Better Photo – http://www.betterphoto.com/contest.asp

The Photo Challenge – http://thephotochallenge.com/

Fan Art Review – http://www.fanartreview.com/

Foto Fanatic – http://www.fotofanatic.com/

E Snips – http://www.esnips.com/community/photography

Apogee Photo – http://www.apogeephoto.com/

Photo Friday – http://www.photofriday.com/about.php

Shutter Bugs – http://www.shutterbugs.info/

Picture – http://www.picture.com/

Photo Eye – http://www.photoeye.com

Photo Life – http://www.photolife.com/contests.php

Photography Corner – http://www.photographycorner.com/forum/index.php

Photography Unlimited – http://www.photography-unlimited.jp/Rules_eng.html

National Photo Awards – http://www.nationalphotoawards.com/

Proof Positive – http://www.proofpositive.com/contests/photocontests.htm

Mom’s Life – http://www.momslife.com/contests/

The Color Awards – http://www.thecolorawards.com/

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When it comes to presentations, always remember that less is more. It doesn’t matter if you are presenting photos to a client, or if you are pitching a business plan to investors, the rules are the same. Regardless of the specific audience, attention spans are generally very limited. Having worked in Corporate America, I cannot tell you how many times I have seen presentations that are far too long.

From our experience, we have noticed that photographers, including wedding, fashion and commercial photographers, have the exact same problem. We have attended numerous photography trainings and lectures from formal WPPI (Wedding & Portrait Photographer International) classes, to informal peer sharing sessions. The common thread is that almost everyone starts their presentation with a 10 – 15 minute long photography slide show.

There are a couple problems with this presentation method. First and foremost, it dilutes your work. As a professional wedding photographer, I understand the urge to show your entire portfolio. After all, you have hundreds of gorgeous images that you want to be seen and appreciated. However, showing more than 20 images simply dilutes your work. You are better off selecting your 20 best shots than showing a presentation of 100 great shots. What if your audience’s attention is already gone once you hit some of your best work? Not to mention, if you show only amazing images, aren’t you perceived to be a better photographer?

This same rule applies to websites! Most photography websites show far too many images, and in all honesty, non-portfolio-worthy images. Showing more than 20-30 images per category is not necessary. In addition, you should be extremely critical of the pictures that you display on your site given the amount of time someone will be viewing your site. While you may have minutes to make an impression during a presentation, you have seconds on the web. The average visitor will see and leave your site within 20-30 seconds. You need to catch their attention with a few amazing photos from the start of their visit.

As a rule of thumb, remember that you are better off only showing only 10 amazing images, than 40 good images. Always leave your audience wanting more, not wanting less.

The second problem with long presentations (web, lectures, trainings, etc) is that by the time you get to the “meat and bones” of your presentation, your audience is already in wonder land. Push all of the interesting content in your presentation to the beginning, and reduce the presentation time if possible! If your audience is interested and they want to know more, they will come to you and ask for additional information. Don’t shove information and images down your audiences throats because you “need to cover all your content.” This is unnecessary and always ends in information overload. Instead of your client or audience coming back for more, they will most likely leave only to forget most of the presentational content.

We hope that this helps in your photography business. Please feel free to comment or share this article with others.

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Article written by:
Pye Jirsa
Lead Photographer | Partner
Lin and Jirsa Wedding Photography
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In the August/September issue of Modern Bride Magazine, there was a list of top 10 honeymoon locations. We thought we would pass on this useful information, because we feel it’s important to stay on top of these trends for various purposes. First off, if your positioning yourself as a “Destination Photographer,” these locations will all be important keywords for your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and other online marketing campaigns.  Secondly, as wedding photographers we’re expected to know everything from fashion tips to good venue recommendations.  Knowing good honeymoon locations is just another aspect of the wedding that we may be expected to know.  So take a look at some of these locations and do some image searches on Flickr or Google; you’re bound to find some beautiful photographs and inspiration for your studio.

1. Tahiti
2. Italy
3. Hawaii
4. Greece
5. Bali
6. Maldives
7. France
8. Fiji
9. Seychelles
10. St. Lucia

1. Turks & Caicos
2. Tahiti
3. Hawaii
4. Anguilla
5. Seychelles
6. Maldives
7. British Virgin Islands
8. Cayman Islands
9. Fiji
10. U.S. Virgin Islands

1. Italy
2. France
3. California
4. NYC
5. Spain
6. Argentina
7. St. Barths
8. Chile
9. Australia
10. New Zealand

1. Switzerland
2. Colorado
3. Canada
4. New Zealand
5. Chile
6. Austria
7. Italy
8. Utah
9. Argentina
10. Wyoming

1. Tahiti
2. Brazil
3. Italy
4. Bali
5. Maldives
6. St. Barths
7. Greece
8. Seychelles
9. Fiji
10. France

1. Costa Rica
2. New Zealand
3. South Africa
4. Ecuador/Galapagos
5. Australia
6. Alaska
7. Botswana
8. Kenya
9. Chile
10. Antarctica

1. Las Vegas
2. NYC
3. Brazil
4. Argentina
5. Spain
6. Monaco
7. Mexico
8. Italy
9. Greece
10. France

1. Mexico
2. Las Vegas
3. Jamaica
4. Costa Rica
5. Florida
6. Dominican Republic
7. Belize
8. Canada
9. Argentina
10. Thailand

1. Seychelles
2. Maldives
3. Tahiti
4. Bali
5. Fiji
6. Nevis
7. Cook Islands
8. Mauritius
9. Anguilla
10. St. Vincent & The Grenadines

1. Italy
2. France
3. Thailand
4. Greece
5. Turkey
6. China
7. Spain
8. Morocco
9. India
10. Bali

1. Belize
2. Australia
3. Cayman Islands
4. Tahiti
5. Maldives
6. Turks & Caicos
7. Fiji
8. Bonaire
9. Syechelles
10. Hawaii

1. Dubai
2. Croatia
3. Vietnam
4. Argentina
5. Turkey
6. Bhutan
7. Dominican Republic
8. Cook Islands
9. Belize
10. Panama

By: Lin and Jirsa Wedding Photography, Los Angeles and Orange County Wedding Photographers
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If you’ve found this article informative, please consider donating below:

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Shot at Victoria Beach in Laguna Beach, CA with a Canon EOS 5D Mark II with a 17-40mm f/4L at ISO 200 f/5.6 1/250

Because of the extra time it takes to travel to, cover, and post produce images from engagement shoots, some wedding photographers are no longer offering engagement sessions in their packages (or they might be the first things to go if they’re trying to fit within a budget).  However, our studio (Lin and Jirsa Photography) still believe that they’re almost as important as the actual wedding day and here are a few good reasons why:

1) Getting to know the client – Engagement shoots allow you the photographer as well as your clients, to get a better sense of each others’ personalities. Are your clients fun and flirty? emotional? stoic?  Knowing their personalities will give you clues as to what moments to look for during their wedding.  In addition, the friendship that you establish will give them the comfort and trust necessary to produce the best product.  Put yourself in their shoes, would you have a hard time acting natural in the lens of a complete stranger? Would they feel comfortable with that stranger in their dressing room for prep shots?

2) Marketing at the event – Shooting the engagement allows you the photographer to create a stunning set of engagement pictures that can be displayed at the wedding. This marketing display at their wedding grants you access to the couples’ entire network as their friends and family see what a wonderful job you have done for their engagement pictures.  In addition, these pictures also serve as great marketing tools before and after the event.  For example the pictures can be used in, engagement announcements, save the date cards, wedding ceremony programs, party favors, thank you cards, or any other products will market your name to everyone who receives them.

3) Word-of-Mouth Marketing – Furthermore, the additional time spent together will help you establish a friendship that will make them more likely to proactively promote and “rave” about your business. In short, you promote a friend’s business much differently than you would an acquaintance, regardless of how good a job that acquaintance did.

4) Practice (for the client) – If your client has never been professionally photographed before, this will be great practice.  Many people are shy behind the camera, and the engagement shoot gets them accustomed to the attention.  Furthermore, since you don’t have time at a wedding to explain the aspects that bring out their best features, this engagement shoot time is a perfect opportunity to “coach” them before their big day.

5) Understanding the client’s positive/negative features – The session will also give you a chance to find out which poses and styles work best for your client.  Does he/she blink a lot?  If so, you’ll know to watch out for it during the formals and employ the various techniques to prevent them from blinking in every picture.  Does he have a double chin when he looks down?  There are a million things you can notice during an engagement shoot that will help you photograph their wedding better.

So, what’s the moral of the story? Whether or not you build in engagement shoots into your packages, sell the engagement shoot to your clients. Teach them the same things that you read here to help them understand why it’s important. In the end, if they decide not to purchase the engagement session, it may even be worth it to you to provide them a short engagement session for little or no cost. But, for the reasons mentioned above, it will be worth it in the long run.

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Article written by:
Chris Lin
Lead Photographer | Partner
Lin and Jirsa Wedding Photography
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Online printing and proofing comprise the second half of your clients’ experience with your studio (with the actual photography time being the first half). There are only a handful of companies out there offering full online solutions making it difficult to find the “perfect fit.” And while there’s no simple answer, after doing our research, we believe the best solution depends on your studio’s specific needs.  Our studio started with Pictage, but was shocked at how much of our bottom line they were eating up. So, we looked around, tried out other services and researched many options only to end up back with Pictage. This article explains why we choose to stick with Pictage.

Our primary issue with Pictage lies in the price of the service; not so much the monthly studio fee, but more so the cost of prints and the 15% markup commission.  Pictage’s monthly studio fee is $100 which includes unlimited events and uploads. However, Pictage’s print pricing is where they truly stick it to you. A basic full service 4×6 print starts at $2.00 cost to photographer, anywhere from 8-10 times more than other labs! In addition, they charge a 15% commission on your markup to your clients. For example, if the retail price of your 4×6 is $5.00, Pictage would take $2.00 for the cost of the print, and another $0.45 for the commission leaving you with a measly $2.55 of revenue. Taking home only 50% of the revenue from a sale is really the main reason why we started looking for other solutions.

Our research in looking for other full service solutions lead us to Collages.net, Zenfolio, Exposure Manager and SmugMug; mainly because there are not that many professional full service solutions out there.

Beginning with the area of price, the differences between Zenfolio, Exposure Manager, and SmugMug are negligible. All have annual fees ranging from $100-$150, offer 4×6 prints starting from $0.21 to $0.30, and have markup commission fees ranging from 10% to 12%, etc. Collages.net is priced more closely to Pictage at $70 a month for the membership fee, though they take a whopping 30% off the top of any sale for their commission, service fee and credit card processing. Right off the bat we were shocked that we found 3 solutions so quickly that were far cheaper and seem to be much more profitable than Pictage.

While originally we were very excited to find so many other solutions, the wind left our sails when we started comparing the overall services provided with each solution. Is Pictage worth the high monthly fee and expensive print costs? The short and simple answer is yes; and here’s why starting from our number one reason:

Credit card processing – Pictage has a feature they call P3 (Pictage Payment Processing), which enables photography studios to run credit card payments for your wedding packages, your album purchases, or anything else you might bill a client for (with a minimum of $100).

While all of the other companies allow clients to purchase products with credit cards, none of them allow studios to accept credit cards for custom transactions, such as wedding packages, frames, etc. If your studio wanted to set up its own credit card processing system, the credit card processing fees would range between 2-3% and would often include monthly membership fees, POS (Point of Sale) terminal leasing fees, etc.

So, let’s assume we find a processing solution with a low 2% and scrap the monthly fees all together. The fees from these credit card processing solutions would surpass the $100 monthly Pictage membership fee after $5,000 a month.  So if your studio would normally process anything over $5,000 in credit card payments, the P3 feature alone is worth the monthly fee. Now whether or not you need credit card processing is debatable; but we feel that it adds to the customer experience by making payment convenient. It can also add to the overall confidence of a client in hiring a “legitimate” studio.

That said, is Pictage worth the expensive print prices and the 15% commission?  In all honesty, it’s hard to justify paying 10 times the price of some of these other sites.  Pictage charges over $2 per 4×6, while these other sites charge a fraction of that.  As we discuss the features that Pictage offers, keep this in mind, as this is definitely the biggest drawback of Pictage and may tip the scale for some studios.  For us, we believe that Pictage’s high costs are (just barely) worth their additional features mentioned below.

Offsite Backup – Backing up your events is critical. Pictage offers unlimited storage and will always keep a backup of your uploaded events. Thus, Pictage is also a wonderful offsite backup service. None of the other companies mentioned above offer unlimited storage and data archival. Similar offsite backup solutions with unlimited space and archival cost more than the $100 Pictage monthly fee alone.

Full Resolution Uploads – Pictage, Zenfolio and Exposure Manager allow you to upload full resolution images that are archived indefinitely. SmugMug only allows you to upload full resolution files once the client has ordered those particular prints. While this method is quicker in the initial upload, it often ends up being much more time consuming later since with each order you must select and upload the ordered image. Collage.net allows full resolution uploads, however each event is only available for 3 months and not archived for backup.

FTP upload – SmugMug and Zenfolio do not support FTP upload, while Pictage, Collage.net and Exposure Manager do.  We find this useful because using FTP software will automatically pick up where it left off if there is any sort of disconnection during the upload. In addition, we can control the bandwidth of the upload.  While SmugMug and Zenfolio’s image upload process is easy to understand and use, they are not as passive, and that can be an issue when uploading thousands of pictures.

Website Appearance – While we like certain things about the user interface and appearance of all the solutions, we found Pictage to have the best match between form and function. It should be noted that Exposure Manager does allow you to customize your own interface, however, this is another relatively time consuming process that your studio must handle on its own.

Marketing – Also important is the marketing aspect that Pictage handles for us.  While some say that they “spam” their customers with “two for one prints,” or “last chance to purchase” emails, we’ve found that the majority of our purchases are immediately following the release of these emails.  So while they may not appeal to some customers, they are serving as useful reminders to those who have it on their “to do” list to purchase the images but may have forgotten.  The other companies do not offer email marketing services.

Client-side Favorites Folders – We upload thousands of pictures per event. Customers don’t typically purchase during their first visit to the site simply because it takes time to browse through everything. Pictage’s “Favorites Folders” is important to the user experience with the proofing and purchasing system since it allows them to store all the pictures they like for later purchase. SmugMug, for example, does not offer this.

Categorization and Navigation – While the other sites allow you to categorize images, none allow you to categorize in an efficient manner. Through Pictage, we can categorize everything in Lightroom prior to uploading. In addition, while you can categorize your images with these other sites, the list of categories is not presented in a menu on the right side at all times for the client’s ease of use. Therefore the overall navigation and client usability suffers significantly.

Hidden Pricing – Pictage and Collage.net pricing is only available to professional photographers while anyone can view the pricing for the other services.  With the margins for prints as high as they are in our industry, we don’t always want the client knowing exactly what their “$1,000 print package” is costing us.

Gift Credits – To get the guests of the events onto the site, photographers offer Gift Credits toward their purchases. This is a service not offered by any of the other solutions.

Customer Service – Pictage gives you a customer service representative, available directly via phone or email during regular Pacific Time business hours, while the others respond (quickly) via email only.

Name, Image, Brand - While we never like to follow blindly, the fact that almost all top photographers use Pictage (with varying degrees), adds legitimacy to the brand and thus your studio.  In addition, simply from a marketing standpoint, the name Pictage sounds higher end than the other services such as SmugMug.

Bottom line, because of these reasons, along with several other perks like free album design, an exclusive contract with the makers of the Willowbook Sequoia, customer satisfaction guarantee, Pictage User Groups (PUGS), etc – our studio has decided to stay with Pictage. However, if there is another solution out there that can offer the same or better service without the price tag, we will be happy to consider it =).

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Article written by:
Chris Lin
Lead Photographer | Partner
Lin and Jirsa Wedding Photography
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As professional photographer, or amateur turning pro, one of the first questions that may come to your mind is probably: do I need a sellers permit? If you’re a wedding photographer in California, the unfortunate answer is … yes.

According to the California State Board of Equalization, the government entity that collects California state sales and use tax, you must obtain an seller’s permit if you sell or lease merchandise, vehicles, or other tangible personal property in California. The best resource we found for California Photographers is the “Tax Tips For Photographers, Photo, Finishers, and Film Processing Labratories.  According to this document, as well as the application for the permit (BOE-400-SPA) found on http://www.boe.ca.gov/, photographs are unfortunately considered a tangible item, with the few exceptions listed below.

So how much tax do we need to pay?

As wedding photographers, since part of our product is services, and services are generally not taxed, we originaly thought that we wouldn’t have to pay taxes on the entire package prices.  However, upon further research, we learned that when you sell art prints or shoot photographs for noncommercial use, i.e. wedding photography, the taxable amount of your charge will generally include all of the following: 1)Your charges for the physical product you transfer to your customer, 2) Any labor and services involved in producing or fabricating the photograph, and 3) Any reproduction rights associated with the photograph.

What are the exceptions?

According to the aforementioned Tax Tips document, “common nontaxable sales include sales of photographs transferred electronically, sales for resale, sales to the U.S. government, and sales in interstate and foreign commerce. Tax applies to your sale of tangible, physical products, including photographs.  However, if you transfer a photograph electronically and do not include any physical product in your sale, tax does not apply.  You should document any electronic transfer of a photograph so that you can show why tax does not apply to that transaction. For instance, if you electronically transmit a photograph to a customer by e-mail, you should print out a copy of the transmittal e-mail and retain that copy in your records”

When and how do we pay?

Returns are filed quarterly through the BOE website.  E-filing is free and fast.

Who to ask for any questions?

Unlike most government agencies, the field offices have very few prompts; and it’s pretty quick to talk to a represenative.  My questions were answered the quickest and best by the offices in small, wealthy towns. You can find your local California State Board of Equalization office phone number from http://www.boe.ca.gov/.

What form do I need and where can I get the form?

BOE-400-SPA California Seller’s Permit Application for Individuals/ Partnerships/ Corporations/ Organizations (Regular or Temporary)

How to apply:  Download form from the website mentioned above and send or take your application to the district office nearest your place of business.

How long does it take to get my permit?

Approximately two weeks from the time of receipt.

Do I need to charge my clients sales tax?

YES! That is, unless you want to pay the sales tax out of your own pocket. Either way, the state will get their sales tax one way or another.

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Article written by:
Chris Lin
Lead Photographer | Partner
Lin and Jirsa Wedding Photography
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