Amazing Boudoir Competition Winners

Late last year I ran a competition on my Facebook Page.  The prize was a 2-hour Boudoir Shoot with a selection of pictures on disc. A prize worth £150! The only catch was that the winners had to allow me to use their photos in my publicity; on my iPad portfolio, on my website and on social media...

I thought I might get 2 or 3 entries, but I was amazed when 32 ladies contacted me! I chose 3 and some of the results are below! Yes... I know there are only 2 girls there... Number 3 has decided she's not quite ready yet. Keep an eye out for hers coming soon though! Hopefully...

Thank you to Joss and Dawn and well done!!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Surviving in a Recession

Before I start, this isn't a bit about saving money, recycling old furniture and finding bargains. If that's what you're after you're better off looking at Martin Lewis... This is more about being self employed at a time when people have less disposable income.

My business, like many others, falls into the category of "non-essential" or maybe even "luxury". It's not something people absolutely must have (like food) and it's not something people need in an emergency (like a plumber for a leaking dishwasher). Photos are very much a "nice to have" item. It's nice to have fun family photos to display at home. It's nice to have some sexy boudoir photos to give your other half as a gift. But these things are not necessities.

In a recession, people have less disposable income to spend on niceties. And the media's over hyped, sensationalist reporting of the situation makes people think they have even less than they actually do! The first things to be sacrificed are the luxuries. Fewer people will come to have their photo taken and the ones that do will spend less on prints and canvasses. So how do we deal with this?

For me, it's about making the most of what I have and trying to maximise what's available. I try to make myself as visible as possible so as many people as possible know about me. My website ranks well in Google. I have a virtual tour on Google and on my website, I'm on Facebook and Twitter, I have a visible shop front, I have leaflets and I network. I've also extended the range of products and services I offer to maximise my audience.

But what's more important is that I work hard to build and maintain my reputation and high level of customer service. Happy customers will come back. But what's more, they will recommend you to their friends which is worth more than any expensive advert I could put in the newspaper!

My business started in a recession so I haven't had to deal with a fall in revenue. In fact, year on year, my business has grown, which gives me a lot of confidence. So if I can ride out this recession and continue with the trend I've started, when the newspapers finally tell people it's OK to start spending again I can only grow even more!

Why Does Pro Photography Cost So Much?

I've posted before here, here and here about why we charge what we do, but I thought it was worth adding a section specifically about bespoke studio work. This is inspired by another blog I read. Have a read yourself here if you fancy it!

Everyone has a digital camera these days and it's getting easier and easier for anyone to produce reasonable quality photos with little or no experience. You can pop down to Max Spielman or even Tesco and get them printed for less than a quid. Or get the right website at the right time and all you pay is the postage! Which is why people are often forcing me to justify charging upwards of £15 for a single print...

It comes down to a few factors which can basically be split into 5 categories: time, equipment, premises, advertising and expertise.

Time
There is a lot of time and effort that goes into a shoot that most people don't realise...

• Booking the shoot: 15 - 30 minutes - chatting with the customer, answering questions, filling in the calendar
• Shoot preparation: 15 - 30 minutes - tidying, putting the heating on in advance, checking equipment, switching on, etc...
• The shoot itself: 1 - 2 hours
• Clearing up afterwards: 15 minutes
• Uploading photos from cards: 15 minutes
• Editing the photos and creating a slideshow for the client to view: 2 - 3 hours
• Sitting with the client to view their images: 30 minutes - 2 hours
• Finalising and ordering prints: 30 minutes - 1 hour
• Ordering handmade frames: 1 hour
• Delivering photos when required: 1 hour

OK, these are approximate times, but a single shoot can take anywhere between 6 and 11 hours to complete! And that doesn't take into account difficult customers...

Equipment
A professional photographer won't be using an iPhone. Not for taking photos anyway. They also won't be using a £250 point and click camera from Jessops.  They'll be using a dSLR which is likely to cost upwards of £1,000. They'll also have a selection of lenses costing at least £500 each. A good set of studio lights will set you back upwards of £2,500. There'll be a computer that won't be cheap and a genuine copy of Photoshop costs in excess of £700! Then there's the smaller things like background papers, props and reflectors. All of this needs servicing and/or repairing every now and again. Not to mention insurance costs...

Professionals will also not get their photos printed at Tesco! They will use pro labs which are infinitely better quality. They are also a lot more expensive...

Unfortunately, as a business owner I have to pass these costs onto you, the customer.

Premises
I may have mentioned it before but I have a studio. I think it adds an extra special something to the whole process and lets me take photos that amateurs or pros without studio space can't take. It's the style and method of photography I've chosen and it's why my clients come to me rather than anyone else. That all costs (a lot of) money though. I have rent, electricity, phone, broadband, water, business rates, and insurance to pay. And again, this has to be passed onto the customer...

Advertising
I do a lot of advertising, online and in the real world. The online stuff is mostly free but can be very time consuming. The offline advertising can be very expensive. Wedding fairs can be upwards of £100, leaflets are £50 a batch, newspaper or magazine adverts can be anywhere between £200 and £600 and networking can cost £1,000 a year! And all of this has to be done on an ongoing basis...

Expertise
This one is a little harder to quantify. I have studied, been on courses and gained years of experience. Over my time I have developed a particular style which is unique to me. I think that's something worth paying for!

And let's not forget I'm doing this for a living! Yes I enjoy it, but I still need to make a profit from what I do...

So next time you're paying for some photos and wondering why a small piece of paper costs £15, please try and bear some of this in mind.

Coping with Competition

Every industry has competition and every industry has its competitors. It seems (to me at least) that photographers have more competition than most! I've mentioned in a previous post that photography is an easy business to get started in and it seems that anyone with a posh camera can call themselves a photographer! The local newspaper keeps printing stories about new photography businesses in the area...

But just because someone is in the same industry it doesn't necessarily mean they're competition. Yes, we're all looking for people to sell photos to, but are we all looking for the same people? I don't think so.

Photography customers all have different criteria when choosing a photographer. Particularly regarding wedding photography. Some people are on a budget and will book the cheapest photographer they can find (not something I recommend!). Some people like the kudos of booking the area's most expensive photographer. Others will book the best photographer they can afford (a much more sensible approach...). No one photographer can appeal to all markets so we have to pick one to work in.

There are literally dozens of 'professional' photographers in Grimsby and Cleethorpes, but I really only count 5 or 6 of them as genuine competition. We're all full time and fully insured. We all put a lot of time and effort into marketing ourselves. We all offer good customer service and excellent attention to detail. And we all supply the best products from the best suppliers. We don't appeal the the 'cheap is best' market, but none of us is the most expensive in the area either.

But even that competition isn't really a problem. There are about 150,000 people living in and around Grimsby and Cleethorpes so there's plenty to go around! There are tons of weddings in North East Lincolnshire every single weekend, so again there's plenty to go around without us all stepping on each other's toes.

And don't forget, photography is very subjective. We all have our own particular and distinctive style which some people won't like. It took a while to get my head around it, but I genuinely don't mind any more if someone books a different photographer over me.

Having said that, I still like it when I win a customer ahead of my competition!

Photoshop - How Much is Too Much?

Photoshop (or any number of other editing packages) is an essential tool for all photographers. There are many film purists who believe it's cheating, but it's really just a different development process. In the olden days you had your film and paper and dunked it in a series of chemicals. It's a skilled process and takes time and practice to get it right. You could also add variation to the chemicals, time and light modifiers to give special effects.

Today, with digital, it's exactly the same. You just do it on a computer! But you can take it further than you could with film. Exposure and white balance adjustments are easy and done all the time to correct a poor original, or just to enhance an already good picture. There is an argument that says it makes photographers lazy. "It's OK. I'll fix it in Photoshop!"  Well, yes. But if you take a lot of photos that need fixing you quickly learn to spend 5 minutes getting it right in-camera to avoid hours of staring at a computer screen... And don't forget, every edit you do in Photoshop degrades the original slightly.

I use Photoshop (or more often Lightroom) on all of my pictures. I'll improve the crop and boost the contrast and colour vibrancy. Occasionally I may need to get rid of a bit of red eye or brighten up a flash photo indoors. For studio photos I'll generally add a bit of punch and remove the background or clean up a dirty floor. I can also remove spots if you want me to.

Which brings me to my point. How much is too much? There are some excellent examples here of celebrity photos that have had 'work' done. But where is the line? My personal view is that I will get rid of anything that isn't permanent or that the camera has exaggerated. By this I mean I will remove spots, bruises, rashes, cuts and scrapes. I'll also remove baby dribble where I can. I can clean up fluff from clothes and even swap faces from one picture to another so everyone is smiling at once. I'll also remove ugly fire exit signs from the background in wedding photos. And I can reduce wrinkles and lines that look worse under the studio light.

What I won't do is give you longer legs or bigger boobs. I won't take 2 stone off you either! There's plenty of discussion about the damaging effects of Photoshopped celebrities to young girls (and boys) which I won't go into. But to me the issue is more fundamental. A photo is a memory captured forever. If the photo doesn't reflect the way you actually looked at that time, it's not really a memory, it's a fantasy. There is a place for fantasy, but that's not really my business. My job is to make you look your best. But importantly you are still you!

Why Use a Studio?

In the current climate, photography is a very popular profession for people going self employed, whether following redundancy or just to supplement an existing income. It's (relatively) inexpensive to set up and you don't need any special qualifications or really any experience to get started. (OK, you'd be daft just to start up without a bit of ability, but you'd be surprised the number of people who do...)

The easiest way to get started is to go mobile. Whether it's in the home or on location, by far the highest number of 'professional' photographers don't use a studio. It has its obvious financial advantages to the photographer, but there are also advantages to the customer as well - no need to pack the kids up in the car, no need to find parking, no need to leave the house at all! Location shoots are good to put the shots into context and can help people relax. Kids are often more comfortable in the park than in a studio, for example...


But I still have a big soft spot for studio work. But why? Well, for one thing it's a bit of an event coming into the studio. It's nice to make an outing of it. It's as much about the experience as it is the photos. My studio (and many others) is set up to make individuals, couples and families comfortable and relaxed. When you walk in it has the 'wow' factor! It's not just a photo shoot, it's a Photo Experience!

From a technical point of view, there's a lot more flexibility in the photos I can take in the studio. There are no space concerns that you can have in a living room, so I can fit a lot of people into one shot, I can get in close or back away to give different perspectives. I also have everything I need in one handy place. If I want to take some contrasty black and white pictures I have the kit to do it. That's not so easy in your home...

I have a whole load of props to use to add a bit more interest to your shots that I can't transport, such as chairs and two chaise longues!

I also have the space for you to come and view the pictures on a big screen. I don't need to invade your house for a second time and we don't all need to crowd around a laptop screen to see your shots!


As always it's down to personal choice, but please do think carefully before investing in your memories!