blog of kaiyen

Get Smart – Tips for Today’s Travel Photographers « Photofocus.

Scott Bourne (no relation to Jason) is kind of all over the place on the internet, though I knew him first from This Week in Photography, which has a useful though sometimes-remedial podcast (I couldn’t think of a word that didn’t sound derogatory in some way – it’s just not geared for tech heads like me and sometimes I am listening to stuff I already know).  

After my recent trip to Thailand, I find this article pretty useful.  Now, I wasn’t ready to be quite on a photo-trip – no photo vest for me or anything like that.  We were vacationing, and photographed a lot while we were there.  But we were not there for photography.  But this is a useful guide nonetheless.

While listening to This Week in Photography, Frederick van Johnson aired an interview he did with Dane Sanders, a well-known (and fantastic – check him out on flickr) wedding photographer that has written a book on getting started in the business – Fast Track Photographer.

One of the items Dane mentioned was about protecting one’s brand, and adding value to existing prices and packages as a way of combatting any decline in sales.  The alternative would be to just charge less.  I think this is very important, but that there are a lot of other things that need to be considered for wedding photographers such as myself, charging between $1000-$1500 for a base package (as compared to $2500-$3500, which is kind of the next step up).

The key part is that if you have created your brand as in a certain part of the market and as a certain type of photographer, it is important to protect that brand.  This is marketing 101, to be honest.  I’ll take myself as an example – I started out charging very low ($550) but made it very clear that it was in order to build my portfolio.  Even when I met with potential clients I stated this quite clearly.  As soon as I had 6 weddings under my belt (an arbitrary number, to be honest), I went up to $1000 for the same package.  After about a year of doing weddings at that rate, I discovered that I was meeting with more couples that saw photography as an after-thought than I wanted.  I have now gone up to $1250 for a wedding, which is apparently, based on those with whom I now meet and talk about their wedding plans, an amount that makes couples think about their overall budget and have made a specific decision to find a solid photographer to capture their memories.  You can read more about what I offer on my wedding photography site, if you want.

Throughout this process, I have pursued developing my brand as a photographer that takes a wedding seriously, offers professionalism and a personal dedication to the needs of the couple.  I book no more than 15 weddings a year and never more than 2 weekends in a row.  I have actually turned down weddings that pushed these limits (despite my honest desire to keep revenues up).  That is my brand.  That is who I am, as Allan Chen the Wedding Photographer.  My pricing has reflected that – I want to work with couples who value those parts of the brand.

Well, if I have spent so much time on that, then it’s critical that, even if inquiries are down due to the recession that I still protect that brand.  However, I also have to recognize that couples are watching their wedding budgets more closely, and have to make some hard decisions.  So the question posed to Dane Sanders was how does one keep moving forward in such a situation?

Sanders’ opinion was that it’s about adding value, rather than cutting price.  What does a couple get for that same price?  Yes, the personal touch, etc – that stays the same, of course.  I can’t be more than 100% devoted to their needs, after all.  But I could, for instance, offer an online slideshow for the same price, or add more prints, or a higher end album, something like that.  Many of these options don’t require a lot of extra time on my part (the online gallery in particular) so they are also cost-effective for me.  I think this makes a lot of sense.

The danger, though, is for photographers that charge about what I do.  If I were to take into account the time I spend on processing a wedding, my margin would be very low.  Even if I add an hour or two, it eats more and more into that margin.  If I offer an additional service as part of the package, same problem.  If I’m doing the same amount of work but am charging $3000 (because I’m in that market, or I’ve established myself to justify that price, or whatever) then the margins are better and it makes more sense.  But right now, it gets thinner and thinner.

So what am I doing, having listened to Dane Sanders and agreed with his fundamental recommendations?  

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While listening to the podcast for This Week in Photography, the hosts mentioned a new flash-based product called ShowItSites.  This is a flash app, that builds flash web sites.  I have only done a very fast fly-by but it looks really exciting and I certainly am thinking about rebuilding my photography site with it.  But it’s pretty cool anyway…