Thanks to all who have shown interest in this new and specialized group. Here is a sa

[Ed Shapiro]

Thanks to all who have shown interest in this new and specialized forum in the "business of Photography forum.. Here is a sampling of the kinds of important issues in PROFESSIONAL photography. I am really depending on y'all to participate with you feed back and opinions.I can not do this successfully single-handily and unilaterally. I do not want this to become my "blog" but instead a repository all of our collective ideas. So here goes:

WOW! This idea started as a group but JD has given us a place where this special forum will be more visible and hopefully better populated! Thank you JD! NOW here is the first post!

One complaint I have always had throughout my career is against professional photographers' tendency to ignore many important principles of business that the majority of successful entrepreneurs incorporate in their business policies. Somehow many artists/photographers feel they are exempt from some of the must haves to keep their businesses running smoothly and profitably and this is much to their detriment.

The idea of BURN AND SHOOT policies, to me, is one of the worst ideas I have ever seen or heard over the last 5 decades. This is very prevalent in the wedding and portrait sectors of the business and is no rapidly seeping in to the commercial part of our industry. For the uninitiated there is where the photographers comes in and shoots a large wedding or family event or makes family portraits, returns to his or her office and burns a CD of all the images then hands over all the printable files to the client, collects his money and "never darkens their doorstep again". We all need to profit from our skills and talents! As potential top pros we not only want to generate good profits but we need to generate good "art" for our clients and our own edification as well- we need this to maintain our enthusiasm for our work.

The client then goes off to Wallmart or their favorite amateur photo finisher and has their prints made at cut-rate prices or worse yet, take them into their offices or home-computer desk and make their own prints. Both scenarios usually end up with terrible prints with your name attached to them because you are the photographer of record. The worst part of this is that unless you charge a goodly amount of money for your shooting time, your further profitability on each of theses jobs is severely limited. Once you hand over those files nay print orders, accessory albums, gift albums and portraits are off the table forever and you have lost any and all quality control as per your final images.

Some folks who are computer savvy may begn to believe that are good photographers or editors nut many of them can take a pefeclly and turn a silk purse into a sows ear!

Most retail and service businesses highly value the principle of AD ON SALES, SPIN OFF SALES AND GREAT BUNDLE AND PACKAGE DEALS because theses sales will greatly affect the bottom line of their/your year end business statement as to PROFIT OR LOSS.

Then there is the issue of strong merchandising. Even if you do not burn and shoot and have total control of your product; the question is do you have sufficient and precisely controlled shooting routines to service theses potential story telling album pre-sales? You can't sell what you don't shoot! Do you carry or make available a good range of services that result in substantial add on sales such as fine albums, picture framing and mounting services, restoration services, fine photo-mounts and folios and casual presentations of all kinds? You can't sell what you don't show? Is the quality there- good sales are based on quality images and great service and public relations.

Do some of you agree? Will some of you make improvements in your sales potential? Do some of you totally disagree? Most importantly, I want ideas from y'all as to what you do to increase sales and unleash your full potential?

All your input please! A reminder- This group needs to pride itself on total professionalism if it will grow into a full fledged forum. So! State you ideas. give straight forward ideas and suggestions and answers, and if you disagree with anyone NEVER become combative or resort to name calling or rude remarks. Being able to agree to disagree is a highly professional attribute and a way of getting all kinds of ideas out there for people to make up their own minds about.

Ed help!

[Ed Shapiro]

JUST TO AVOID CONFUSION! The proposed new a special group is now a SUB FORUM- I am very pleased . For those who expressed interest and made suggestions- THANK YOU! Anything in the old threads now apply to the new sub-forum so let all pitch in and make a success of the new place. Above is a sample of what we can work on. If anyone wants to add to the first post or start another post, article or comment-GO!

Ed

[Bobby Deal]

One of the adages I constantly remind myself of is that I am only as good as my worst image. If I spray and pray, shoot and burn then I have lost all controll over what is my best and or worst image.

Sadly in the commercial and glamour industries the shoot and burn is becoming the expected norm. I feel there are several factors contributing to this and that they are all interconnected and self perpetuating in that one feeds the other and the nets fuels the advance of the others.

1. GREED - the leading cause is simply the greed of clients wanting all they can possibly get for the money. Never mind that they will never utilize more then 2-3% of the delivered images they still MUST HAVE THEM TO SATISFY THEIR GREED.

2. Laziness - photographers, especially photographers who are new entries into the professional ranks or simply ametures who have accepted a paying project become lazy . They want the gratification of the payday but do to either an unwillingness or inability to do the post production they simply hand off the raw files and greedily move on to the next project. In doing so we know they leave significant income and potential profits on the table. I believe this practice grew mostly out of the inability of the photographer to professionally finish the images. This willingness to give bulk images for less money further feeds the greed of the client so that they expect the same service from the next photographer they work with.

3. The need for Instant Personal Gratification

The incessant march of technology continues to breed a need for instant personal gratification in all aspects of our lives. Where once we waited many minutes for a single image to load to our screen with a dial up connection we now expect even demand that whole pages of graphic heavy content load in nanoseconds. As the Beast that is technology continues to deliver more for less it will continue to feed the greed.

All three aspects are interconnected and form a vicisious inescapable circle that is self perpetuating. While education of those coming up in the ranks behind us is crucial to the survival of not only our ancillary product lines but the very concept of copyright and content ownership so is the education of the consumer.

Only problem is that the GREED will prevent the consumer from seeing the need. The more rights the changes push away from us the more rights the consumer gains. In a digital world the phrase "content is king" has always been the very backbone of the content creators existence. Sadly with each new client that is introduced to shoot and burn a future where "Work for Hire" is the norm is on the visible horizon.

Ultimately the issues of this discussion go much deeper then ametures VS professionals. The issues speak to and feed the very core issues of our business existence. The ideals behind copyright, images usage, licensing and sublicensing of images and ultimately the control and ownership of the content it's self all lie at the core of this issue.

[Ed Shapiro]

Bobby! Every word of your last post has gotta be gospel in terms of the realities in the industry nowadays. The unfortunate thing for us as professional photographers is that every consumer probably understands the difference between a Lada and a BMW or a Rolls Royce but comparatively few consumers can tell the difference between a well crafted great image and poor photography; at least until they finally receive their own results and find that themselves or their products simply don' t look good in the pictures.

I don't know how many times my estimates have been rejected on the basis of price and then I am contacted by the very same clients with a deadline looming like the Sword of Democracies and I end up working half the night to create something that will actually work for them. I am surprised just about every day that even industrial clients, art directors and folks who one thinks are in the know fall into the machine gunners and shoot and burn sub culture of the photography business.

Some of my best sources of referral business are two of the best quality oriented commercial printers (lithographers) in town. They get high end printing jobs where their clients are spending upward of $75,000 for a high class jobs where the pictures are unsuitable for reproduction and don't even tell the "story" that they should. Hence, another couple of all nighters for Ed . Thing is- I won't gouge them with rush charges and give them a piece of my mind because as a businessman and I want their future business on a better scheduled basis. I have made some great return clients with this outlook.

In the portrait and wedding business, sadly enough, the hacks have taken over. The only reason I have not raised the white flag or thrown in the towel is that I have some solid commercial accounts and after 5 decades in the business I do have a following of wedding and portrait clients who (thank goodness) keep calling; oftentimes after bad experiences with some of the inapt photographers.

I love the OIL FILTER TV COMMERCIAL: "This is an oil filter- it costs $16.95. This is a complete engine job- it cost's $3,000. Pay me now or pay me later! A bit of humor is the only way I can sleep at night and it is a sorry state of affairs that our business has come to much of this.

Unfortunately enough, for most LAZY photographers this entire malaise is a self inflicted injury to their businesses that has spread like wildfire through the entire industry killing everything in its path.

My only suggestion as to a remedy is what I have to do at 68 years old and 5 decades in the business. I always seek improvement in my own work, keep up with the trends and times without creating lousy photography, educating my potential clients as much as I can, doing trade shows, home shows and bridal shows and hustle my butt off just like a rookie out of photography school. I never shoot and burn or release files to clients without paid license fees and this is reserved for occasions where the printer needs high definition files . I have to stay a head of the subculture and produce images that are a cut above the rest in order to maintain my price schedule and keep on working way past retirement age. When I see cut-rate photography and poor imagery, I run as fats and as far as I can from that philosophy and stick to my guns. I don't want to compete on that level of pricing and poor merchandising.

Bobby- thanks for you input- I am now in combat mode! !

Ed

[Steven G Webb]

Notice what follows is long winded:

I see where two worlds have collided. The shoot-n-burn business model has been around longer than digital. I believe it took hold about the time when the 35mm camera began to emerge as a viable option for professional photographers. The 35mm camera, cartridge film, mini or 1 hr. photo labs sort of rent the veil (or at least lifted it) from the mysterious world of professional photography. The mini lab business helped to separate the two basic areas of photography, the camera part and the darkroom part. We very quickly defined a photographer as a person who takes pictures with a camera. The specialist who developed negatives and made prints became accepted as a separate specialist, a lab technition .

Now relieved of the responsibility of darkroom duties, photographers (even those equipped and capable) found it cost effective to outsource some, part or all of the processing (developing) and printing. While this made life easier for the existing, experienced and able photographer it also opened the door to a new breed of photographers who had and would never step into a darkroom. Enter the shoot and burn photographer of the day.

A photographer could pick up a few bucks being paid only for the labor he exerted. By having a bride and groom purchase a set number of film rolls, the photographer could gauge the coverage expected and charge accordingly. 12 rolls of 24 exposure film coverage might cost $250, for example. So the photographer would take the purchased film, shoot the wedding, get paid and hand over the exposed film then walk away. Many felt this is a legitimate offering. Customers paid only for the participation of the photographer and were able to do with the negatives as they wished. Anything from 1 hr 3.5 X 5 prints to custom lab enlargements were as available to them as any other Photographer. The same opinions were held by some serious and dedicated photographers that are held today. Once the negatives left their hands there was no assurance that the final images would be representative of the quality the photographer could produce.

We have a lot of debate about what a "real" photographer is today. Not many photographers on any level coat their own metal or glass plates or concoct their flash powder. While it is inarguably true that a photographer who develops his own film, enlarges and prints his own proofs and re-touches his own final images IS a photographer, it is no longer a requirement.

We've heard that the only absolute is there are no absolutes. So, what once defined a photographer really no longer does. The digital age has changed everything about everything. We aren't just faced with a change in the medium (pictures on a display screen v.s. printed pictures on paper) but in the speed of delivery and the perceptions about the worth and the ease with which images can be copied and reproduced. We can not control these changes, the most we can do is manage them.

Some more traditionalist absolutely refuse to deal and deliver in digital images. They are print photographers and they will not expedite the exploitation of their work. I think they are akin to the portraitists a century ago who refused to put down the brushes and paints in exchange for the camera. While there are portrait painters who have excellent skill in a craft, that craft is very limited as is the market. We may want to produce, market and sell only print pictures but we can't make customers want what we want. Not bending to market demand will remove one from the market. No answer from me there, who knows the answer? No one. We just have to speculate based on our experience and our ability to move forward.

Just because there was a profitable business model at one time, does not mean it will be sustained throughout eternity.

We can beat our collective head against a wall but there are areas of photography that are no longer profitable to pursue. This is a painful pill, even for me, to swallow. There are too many factors involved to explore exhaustively why some money pools have dried up. Wishing they had not, being angry that they have and even trying to revive them will not bring them back. The appreciation by paying customers for a high quality, professionally produced picture has fallen off the chart. It's like the pizza business. Do you remember going to a pizza parlor and seeing a dough press? Have you ever watched a guy toss a pizza crust? Even in a chain pizza joint, the dough was raised and hand-made in the store. If you eat a pizza today from a corporate pizza joint the crust was trucked in frozen. The sauce from a can or plastic bag will be carefully measured for portion control though it may not be placed on the crust with quality in mind. The pie won't be baked in one of those once familiar pizza ovens but in a precisely calibrated conveyor belt driven oven designed to produce, not the best baked pie, but the most consistently mediocre one. A product that is uniformly average nation wide. And the price of a pizza today? Ridiculous considering the fact that it's essentially a kit that you could put together yourself. Millions of corporate pizza parlors thrive today, cranking out their facsimile pizza pies and being gobbled up by people who now know of no other option. So it is with photography customers.

In the retail setting people have evolved to accept the cheapest option that is nearly as reasonably possible similar to what they want. Thank you Walmart, Furniture Warehouse, and the whole volume buying discount store mentality. Studio portraiture nearly died 40 years ago with the high volume department store photo mills. While the average customer spent upwards of two hundred dollars and many laid out over three hundred for shoddy collections of substandard pictures which turned orange after a few short years those $5 advertised specials and "no sitting fee" offers gave the illusion to shoppers that they could get a passable picture on the cheap. They may have gotten a better product for even less than they ultimately paid from a private studio but the private photographer lost the race coming out of the starting gate because he could not afford to give those 54 pictures for $19.95 including the beautiful 10X13 wall portrait.

Its more absurd today. Even those standard high-volume companies like PCI, PCA, and Olan Mills have been dealt a heavy blow or succumbed to the evolution of the professional photography business. If you are a pro photographer today your competition is NOT an established corporate owned business or even a traditional legitimate photographer. The competition today is buyer perception. It has been so long since most people have seen a good picture, they don't know what one looks like. Just like the Pizza example, they've been limited to seeing substandard products for so long that it has become the benchmark. Garbage photography comes at a good price and is available from every teenage kid or laid-off uncle Ned or frustrated mother in every neighborhood on the block. We cannot make people want good photography and we sure as hell can't make them pay for what they do not want.

I take very fine photos of jumping horses and for over a decade there has been a good market for the kind of pictures I take. I also take note of what options are available to my potential customers. As my income dwindles and sales continue to fall off I search for explanations why. My contemporaries are suffering same as me. Is there someone else offering a better product? No. Is someone offering an equal quality product for less? No. Are there others who are giving away for free a substandard inferior product? Yes. And what I'm finding is that free trumps quality hands-down.

I've developed the conclusion that like it or not, no matter how well I do what I do, I'm essentially in the carriage whip business. So, I'm exploring a different avenue for a profitable business in the photography field.

If you are in business, has your model changed? If you are going into business have you explored the earning potential for what you want to do? Discussion welcome.

Steve

[stef@apl]

Like it or not, make no mistake: shoot and burn is here to stay, and being done by people who consider themselves pros. Whether their images can compete with yours or not doesn't matter -- they are your competition and have courted clients that might have hired you.

So the question is no longer "Why would you shoot and burn when your reputation is on the line?" and is now "How do you deal with those who do shoot and burn, and don't care about their reputation?"

That type of shooter starts with a huge advantage. I understand why Ed has such an issue with it, since it's done two things. First, it completely hammered the business practices of old pros and significantly cut their profits and the average cost of photography. Second, it lowered the overall quality of "professional photography" enough that people don't know the difference.

Here is how I've attempted to deal with this. It basically requires the photographer to take the side of the client.

• Social Media. I've embraced the fact that people want to post their pictures on social media. I provide smaller web-friendly images, on-line and linkable, with a small watermark for them to use. This is probably the biggest reason people want their images on a CD. If you have a policy that doesn't allow someone to post a picture on facebook of their own wedding, which they paid you to take, every bride under 40 will think you're a jerk.
• Creating their own prints. The handling of negatives and skill at enlargement no longer applies. Copies and high-quality prints are now very easy to make, so I don't insult my clients into thinking these files are anything different than simply computer files. As such, I have to stress only the fact that I shot and edited these files, and the raws are nothing like the final product. That is what they are paying for: my skills at shooting AND my skills at editing. Those who want the edited digital images can buy them, but the raws are not for sale (because of reputation issues). I based the cost of the digital files on expected print sales from the type of client who insists on getting them. For weddings, it's reasonably cheap because this type of client won't buy a ton of pictures. Some people simply really want to make their own album. The expected print sales is generally low on this type of person (which I also happen to be), so I base the cost on selling a 15-20 page wedding book with many 8x10s.
• I never delete images. I don't disrespect my client by holding their feet to the fire by charging "upkeep costs" for galleries or some such. Having your photos deleted after 6 months just encourages people to want the shoot & burn photographer. If they don't buy prints now, they might want them later, so I keep their gallery active forever. I might offer a discount on print prices in the first few months, though. Call this a new type of Brand Loyalty, which eliminates the main advantage shoot & burn photographers might give the client. Brand loyalty is your primary advantage, so if you eliminate the advantages of the shoot & burner, you should do okay.

Even online galleries is an area of contention amongst old pros who like to hold their client hostage in a room and upsell them. There are certainly advantages, especially because people don't calibrate their monitors. The simple fact is that the 20-30-somethings getting married now have NEVER KNOWN A WORLD WITHOUT THE INTERNET. Think about that. It's no longer just some communication experiment; it's the basis of all communication by the vast majority in the US under 30. To mitigate the calibration issue, the first two images of all my galleries are calibration instructions and images.


[The following comment isn't aimed at anyone in particular on these boards, but a general observation.] An old pro pissing and moaning about the times changing is becoming the sad stereotypical "photographer" that young people are making fun of ... if you must be one, then maybe you should embrace it. Make it yours, and make it desirable. Retro has always been popular among many groups. Advertise that you'll use film and old cameras along with your modern gear, which is something no shoot & burn photographer can do. (They can't even work a light meter.) Parents funding a wedding often want an old school photographer, so make them part of your target audience. I even bring lomography gear to a wedding, just for some experimental stuff. I would use flash powder for some shots if I could get it easily. Old gear gets bizarre looks, but I'm a showman and it's fun, and those bridesmaids are going to want a photographer sometime, too. And most of all, I'm not an old-school photographer. I'm new to the business (as a business), but I definitely respect the art.

[Ed Shapiro]

Setf! Great observations! I think you have encompassed all of the problems and trends that led to the SHOOT AND BURN generation. Add a bit of ageism and the good old "generation gap" to the mix and you have a perfect snapshot of the photography scene as it is now- t's the reality. Being in denial or reactionary to this is indeed fruitless. I have been around the professional scene for half a century and I have seem many fads come and go but this shoot and burn scene ain't going away any time soon. My long tenure in the business has also taught me that when setbacks occur and a general malaise hurts the business on a global scale, it is the true professionals and dedicated photographer/artists use their creative talents and STICK-TO-ITIVENES in order to find solutions to problems in their business environment.

Our choice: You can take the attitude that "if you can't fight them. join them. I am not particularly fond of that approach simply because it does not add to the profitability of my business and it is totally incompatible with my business model.

We can stick the head in a hole in the ground and ignore the competition thinking that we are so superior to the new guys and the shoot and burners that the will go away some day. That is totally dangerous because older established photographers who ignore the modern market place are fooling themselves. We may not want to emulate our competition but we sure gotta know what the are up to.

My solution (and it has worked for me so far) is to start from scratch and analyze the basics of sales promotion and making better sales. First off- we have to have a desirable product that is a cut above our competition or way above what they are doing. You then have to bring you products to the market place and select you market based on socioeconomic conditions (people have to be able to afford you work), tastes within you market place and existing buying habits of the people there. You can not be everyone's photographer based on the aforementioned observations. You have to closely examine the buying motives of the people in you selected market place; things like appreciation or art and the finer things in life, "snob appeal", pride of ownership, bargain hunters and simply an appreciation for well crafted fine photography.

I never really compete with cheap shopping mall studios, low quality price cutters or shoot and burn photographers. I will not survive, business wise if I were to do that. My overhead and the time and care I put into my work will not even begin to produce profit at low prices. Customers will still pay well for perceived value- we just have to find theses customers and target their market.

It's all hard work that requires the utmost in consistency. I firmly believe that I can not effectively tell other photographer what to do in their own businesses especially if the are well immersed in a business model that I disagree with. I am not a reactionary guy so I don't hold any false nostalgia about the good old days of the "old school"- in retrospect, some of that "old school" is part of the BAD old days. I want to progress and provide my clients with great contemporary photography but in a more classical style- that is working too. My choices are; do I want to become a trend follower as opposed as a trend setter? I prefer the latter.

In future articles I will write about making yourself and/or you studio into a class act for clients of all ages and traditions.

Ed