The business side of photography
Customers say the darndest things:
None of the photographers we hired last year knew what we wanted.
None of the other photographers knew how to take pictures we like.
We’ve had such a hard time finding a photographer who knows the right price.
I know this is what we asked for but it isn’t what we want.
If our budget changes, we may not be able to pay you.
We need a portrait of our CEO done this afternoon and we’re willing to pay $75.
Earlier today, I received an offer to photograph a sports event next month. A US photography company is seeking a few photographers to cover an all-day athletic event. The photographers just take pictures and no editing is required. Does this sound like a good assignment?
The job pays $225.
Does this still sound like a good assignment?
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About two years ago, a US survey asked kids what they wanted to be when they grew up. One of the most common answers was “a celebrity”. When asked what they wanted to be famous for, the kids said they did’t know or it didn’t matter – they just wanted to be famous. (Here’s a British news article about a similar but unrelated UK study.)
In the old days, someone had to work to accomplish something and then, maybe, they might earn a degree of fame for their achievements.
Today, it seems many people want to take a shortcut. They want the fame but without achieving anything first. Popular shortcut attempts are: appearing on a reality TV show, releasing a scandalous video or tweeting provocative pictures of themselves.
Photographers are not exempt from taking shortcuts.
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Everyone owns some pots and pans yet restaurants don’t view this as competition. Restaurants know that people will still dine out. Eating at a restaurant is about more than just the food.
Everyone owns a camera and some professional photographers view this as competition. Why? Hiring a professional photographer should be about more than just the pictures.
A commercial photographer has to offer something more than what a camera’s “Auto” setting can do. Otherwise, they will have no choice but to compete on price, (always a losing situation), and their photo career may be nothing more than a flash in the pan.
One of the interesting(?) features available to web site owners is the ability to see what search phrases are used to find their site. One such phrase used several times to find this site is: “photography companies hiring photographers”.
Very few “photography companies” have staff photographers:
• Newspapers. But the newspaper industry is collapsing and the hiring of photographers is rare. The number of staff news photographers in the USA is expected to drop by 30% over the next seven years. Canada should be similar.
• Government. A few government offices have staff photographers but this has been mostly replaced by freelancers and occasional contract work. It’s surprising and short-sighted that municipal governments don’t all have staff photographers and photo departments.
• The military. But I doubt it’s much of a photography company.
Photographers, do yourself a favour and read this article by US brand strategist Patty Soffer:
Freebies are the scourge of freelance workers everywhere. Beginners notwithstanding (yes, we all pay our dues) many are tempted to work for free because they believe it will lead to paying work. News flash: it won’t. It leads exactly nowhere. When the un-payer decides to ante up, they hire someone else because they want to work with professionals who value themselves. Clearly you don’t if you were willing to give it away for nothing.
– Patty Soffer
When someone asks you to work for free, it means they think your photography is worthless. When you work for free, it means you agree.
The best situation is to charge what your photography is worth. But if you must offer a discount, rather than work for free, simply charge less than what your photography is worth but more than what it costs.
My web site offers three ways for prospective customers to contact me: telephone number, e-mail address and a contact form.
I thought that most people would use the e-mail link. My assumption was that people would prefer and trust their own e-mail software more than a plain web-page contact form.
Over the past three years, 5% of potential customers used the telephone number, 30% used the e-mail address and 65% used the contact form.
Forms can capture not only the person’s name and e-mail address but also any other information you might need. However, asking too many questions risks turning a simple contact form into an interrogation and frighten customers away.
Contact forms are easy to implement. Web hosts usually include CGI-based e-mail forms. Blog software either has contact forms built-in or there’s a free plugin available. There are a few third-party-hosted form services.
Contact forms do attract spammers and there are ways to minimize this nusiance. But any spam that does come through a contact form is far outweighed by the benefits of having such a form on your web site.
