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Why, back in my day...  

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Note: This post is about business, business practices, and human nature. This is just my observations from recent conversations I've had with friends, forum members, and outside observers. Feel free to post any comments (keep it civil!)

Photography is conflict.

Seriously.
It's about art, but it relies on a good knowledge of fractions, angles, and inverse square laws.
It's telling a complete story by only showing moments.
It's capturing an instant by compressing layers of time (while the shutter is open) into a single recording.
It's about giving depth to to a 2 dimensional final product.
It's keeping classic techniques alive with modern twists.

The photographer is a person at conflict. To excel, you must have a very good technical background. I went to school for computers, and I can tell you, that knowledge has really helped. I can explain why f2.0 lets in twice the light as f2.8 (it has to do with ratio of the diameter of the aperture to the length of the lens, and the resulting areas. Don't ask.)
Knowing how to make a good photograph is not the same as taking a good photograph. In fact, taking is probably the worst word. It implies that the image was already there for anyone to take. In fact, a good photographer creates the image, either through manipulating the light, the depth of field, the crop, the angle, the blur, the subject, the props - literally thousands of variables.

Why do I bring this up?

It's this conflict that can really drive people crazy.

On one of my forums I visit, I read something. How many photographers does it take to retouch an image?
100 - 1 to retouch it, and 99 to tell them 99 different ways to do the same thing.

That's very true - in life, and especially in photography. One thing is, there's never a "right" way to do something - just a way that works for you.

Sometimes, people get so caught up in having to know "the right way" to do something, they forget that there's more than one path.

Recently, I was told about another local photographer who was totally upset about our company. This person was actually complaining that we shouldn't be allowed to advertise in the bridal shows.

Why? What atrocity could we have done? Lied to a customer? Left the state with our customers images? Committed grand larceny? Insider trading? Securities fraud?

Oh no - much, much worse than that.

We listened to our customers.

One of the biggest complaints was that we offer "the disk" to our bridal customers. To many photographers, offering the negatives (or the disk) is the same as branding yourself as a factory - a shoot-and-ship company.On another forum, I read "if you feel you have to give away the negatives to sell your services. . ."

Another? Our prices are on our website. How are we supposed to compete with someone who posts pricing on the website?

????????????????????????????

I hope this doesn't sound bitter. It's really not. If you're ever looking for photography or business advice, I'm ALWAYS willing to help. I'm of the mindset that everyone has a style, everyone has a strength. I try to share what I've learned, and I try to keep an open mind to learn from others who have more experience than me. If you want to see, I'm "The Nerd Husband" on the Mpix forums (among other places): http://forums.mpix.com
One thing I don't do is worry about how others are running their business - there's no reason!

For example:
VW offers the Passat. Extremely nice vehicle. Loaded, runs around $32K
The Audi A6, with practically the same equipment, runs $45K
(If you don't know, VW and Audi are the same company. The Passat and A6 are built on the same platform)

Now, there are differences between the vehicles, especially in the details. But for the most part, they are the same thing.

Why the $13,000 difference?

And, more to the point, do you think Audi is complaining about the VW dealers undercutting their price?

From a business standpoint, Audi has marketed themselves as having a higher value, and they ask for it. Is it worth more? Probably. Is it $13k more? I doubt it. Much (if not most) of it is in their branding, and their image.

Many of the photographers who complain about business practices of other companies are extremely talented, and in many cases, are considerably better than their cheaper competition. Unfortunately, the problem is how they react. Rather than examining their own talents, products, and the wants of the customer, they often complain that their competition is "ruining the business for everyone".

I find it sad, really. There's some extremely good talent out there that is being embittered by their own anger. Rather than changing their business model to match what the customers want, they expect the customers to change to match what they offer.
What industry has this EVER worked for?
There's even articles out there about "Devaluing Professional Photography". Guess what it's about! Giving the printable images away on a CD.

Rather than complaining about how the competition is doing, find out what your customers want, and affix a price to it. Are you that good? Sell the images for $10,000. If it's a control thing, make it a requirement that they get the prints (at cost) through you, so you can ensure that only the best quality prints are ever shown. There are some amazing labs out there that are competitive with any cheap 1 hour place. (Mpix comes to mind, as well as Candid2000, White House Custom Color, and others.) Professional Kodak papers and everything.
Worried about lost reprint sales? Charge enough for the images. What do you make in reprints? $1000? $2000? $4000? You can be profitable while providing the customers with what they want!

One thing we do is we regularly try to find out what our customers want. In a recent survey, 92% of those who responded said they expected the images on a disk with their wedding package.

Here's some more fun facts from that enlightening survey:
90% of respondents said they wanted to see all the images, rather than having the photographer show only the best ones.
84% said they expected an online gallery.
75% said they wanted to see the unretouched images, and pay for retouching on the prints.

It's funny - two years ago, we started including the CD with all of our weddings. We have always shown all the images from the wedding (test shots and garbage removed, of course - but usually less than 5%). Online gallery? Since 2000! (I even have my own company selling my gallery system, and I've sold it around the country and around the world! www.on3Galleries.com ) Last year, we started including "finishing" (enhancement and basic retouching) on all of our prints.

Guess what happened? We've gotten more customers than ever before. And, they're happy.
Reprint sales? Of course! Even if the client has them, there is still value in getting a finished and mounted print. By adding value to our service, rather than taking the stance of "if you want anything, you have to get it through me" everyone wins.

One thing I hope is that people realize who the boss is - the customers. I know photographers who don't sell the negatives, and charge $90 for an 8x10. They do amazing work, and honestly, they are worth it. But they have built their reputation with their customers, and now it's a huge referral business. When you can wow your customers, and keep them coming back (with their friends) all of a sudden it doesn't matter what anyone else is doing. Take care of them, and they'll take care of you.

Whatever you think you're worth, you're right.

Oh, and the second biggest complaint from our poor conflicted photographer? Too many calls from customers just price shopping. :-)

Until next time!

Shan

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