For Photographers

Yellow Brick Road Photography

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Queen Elizabeth II watches the 151st running of The Queen’s Plate horse race in Toronto, Canada, 04 July 2010. With the passing of the Queen and the accession of Prince Charles to the throne, the race will become The King’s Plate.

This is another view-from-my-office photo.

Most photography web sites are about equipment. I’m referring to photography web sites not photographer web sites. Such photography sites write about gear because it’s quick and easy.

There are some web sites that offer photography advice and instruction. But these “nuts and bolts” sites are superficial and intended for beginners. Quick bites of junk food. Tastes good for the few minutes you’re consuming it.

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Hiding Photographers

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An obvious group of photographers, 09 September 2014.

And just for fun, here’s the reverse angle:

British actress Keira Knightley at the Toronto Film Festival, 09 September 2014.

 

A Toronto dentist recently told me that when he graduated from dental school in the mid-1970s, there were about 1,300 dentists in Toronto. He said that number has since increased at least 600%.

When he opened his own practice in Toronto, there was one other dental office within a one-block radius of his office. Today there are eight other dental offices within that same one-block radius and those eight dental businesses collectively employ about 18 dentists.
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Low Expectations

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Canadian goalkeeper Milan Borjan celebrates Canada’s win over Jamaica in their men’s soccer match in the final rounds of the Concacaf FIFA World Cup qualifiers in Toronto, Canada, 27 March 2022.

This is a view-from-my-office photo from a cold, rainy-snowy soccer game.

Observations from the past two weeks:

• A Toronto professional photographer does family portraits for $500 according to his web site. The price includes a 45-minute session and 50 “fully retouched” pictures.

Fifty images in 45 minutes? Fully retouched? Ten dollars per photo?

At that price, who should have low expectations, the customer or the photographer?
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Price for the End Result

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A 19-metre-tall rubber duck floats in Toronto Harbour in Toronto, Canada, 01 July, 2017. The duck was in the city as part of the celebrations to mark Canada’s 150th birthday.

This is just another view-from-my-office photo.

Corporate customers don’t buy photography, they buy outcomes or end results. How much is that end result worth to the customer? Or to rephrase that, how much does your photography contribute toward achieving the customer’s goal?
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Increasing Your Photography Prices

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A fun photo by Canadian-born photographer Joseph Ernest Pasonault in his studio in Cando, North Dakota, 1902. (US Library of Congress)

Joseph Pasonault’s family moved from Newfoundland to the US, circa 1882, when he was six years old. In 1896, a twenty-year-old Pasonault opened his first photo studio in Cando. He later moved his studio to a larger town in North Dakota.

Canada’s pandemic case numbers today (April 2022) are the highest than at any time in the first year-and-a-half of the pandemic when everyone was panicking and hoarding toilet paper. But no one is panicking today and, figuratively speaking, the news media is no longer reporting in all caps. What’s changed?
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