The business side of photography
You’ve probably heard that Canada has negotiated the so-called “NAFTA 2.0” trade treaty. This US-Mexico-Canada treaty, which has yet to be ratified, has both pros and cons for Canadians.
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My annual, very, very long rant about the recent 2018 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) from a photographer’s point of view. If you’re not somehow involved with TIFF then it might be better to skip this post. I’m just trying to reach a certain audience. The reason is that each year, TIFF sends out a survey asking for journalists’ thoughts about the film festival but there are no questions for photographers. The film festival treats photographers as an afterthought and never bothers asking for their opinions.
TL;DR: This year, some things got better, some got worse and a few things sadly haven’t changed. TIFF has no real focus as it tries to be everything to everyone. Middle age is showing as TIFF just reiterates what it did the previous year. Final rant at the end of this post.
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Are you thinking about starting a photo business in Canada and do you speak French? Then do yourself a favour and read En photo et en affaires written by Quebec City photographer Francis Vachon.
This is one of the very few Canadian books about starting and running a photography business. It covers starting a business, getting customers, pricing, licensing, contracts, taxes and copyright.
The book was written in Quebec but most of the information is applicable anywhere in Canada. But keep in mind that Quebec’s privacy laws are different from most other provinces. There might also be some small differences when it comes to contracts as this falls mostly under provincial laws.
British photographer Neil Turner wrote a post on his blog about customer expectations and customer-supplied photo guidelines.
Almost every commercial and PR client had a prepared guide that let you know what they wanted from a commissioned shoot and a few pointers of what they, or their end client, liked and didn’t like in their pictures. These ranged from really helpful pointers about what kind of clothing should be worn for portraits or whether or not images should have unfussy backgrounds through the obvious such as “images should be properly exposed” to the mildly bizarre “avoid any and all references to money”.
– Neil Turner
Photographers, stop calling yourself a freelance photographer. “Freelance” suggests temporary and, perhaps in the worst case, even fly-by-night.
Always refer to yourself as a professional photographer. It creates a much better image in a customer’s mind. For better or worse, titles are important in business.
So while “freelancer” may be more akin to how you see what you do, it might be selling you short. After all, your livelihood doesn’t depend on your own self-perception, but on how potential clients see you and your work.
I’ve shot at least two thousand portraits over the past thirty-three years. Business portraits, environmental portraits, editorial portraits, magazine portraits, author and writer portraits, political campaign portraits, athlete and team portraits, headshots for actors, models and musicians, some family, children and pet portraits, a couple dozen prom portraits, a handful of bride and groom portraits and two maternity portraits.
The Globe and Mail today published an article titled, Fed up with traffic, contractors refuse to work in Vancouver, which stated:
[Vancouver] homeowners are facing the high cost of renovation and maintenance as tradespeople either opt out of working in the city entirely, or charge extra for having to go there.
A big reason for the premium cost of hiring the trades is the city’s traffic, contractors say. Vancouver traffic is so congested, and so time-consuming, it makes working there a losing proposition.
