3 Mistakes Photographers Make When Selling Wedding Albums

If you photograph weddings, you probably have a package or two in which you offer an album. And in many cases, your package probably looks something like this:

Up to 5 hours of photography
Over 200 images on copyright-free CD
20 page bridal album
11×14 Portrait Print
Online gallery of your wedding photos to share with friends and family worldwide

The bride knows she will receive a CD full of images, and be able to view the images online, and share them with her family and friends from around the world.

She also knows she can take weeks or even months to select a few of her favorites, and have them put into a bridal album.

But it doesn’t matter what photos she selects, how they fit together, or how the will look side by side. She simply selects her favorites, and you as the photographer will force them into some type of order, and create an album from the final selection.

I’ve seen books like this.

An image of the bride walking down the aisle is set next to a formal of the bride outside at the reception. The first dance is placed along side of the couple kissing by the limo.

In other words, there is no rhyme or reason to the way the album is put together; it’s simply a hodgepodge of images thrown together to form a book of pictures.

Wedding albums aren’t meant to be a book of pictures. They are meant to be the story of the wedding day.

First Mistake: The Photographer Lets The Bride Make The Selection

If you allow a bride to choose her favorite images, she thinks from an individual level, not from a cumulative factor. She can’t see an album because it hasn’t happened yet. She doesn’t imagine how they will look together side by side; she simply chooses based on her best expressions, and her favorite moments.

When she receives the album, it will simply go on the shelf because it’s a book of pictures. It has no meaning – its just 20+ large images from her event.

As a photographer, you should be photographing a wedding to tell the story of the day. With wedding photography, photos work together in order to bring you back to the memories of the event itself. A formal out in the gardens is great, but it’s “just” a photo of the bride and groom. But when you have a series of images of the bride and groom walking through the gardens, talking with their flower girl, sneaking kisses along the way, it becomes a story – and a memory.

As a photographer, you need to think in story format. You need to take one photograph, and then another, and another – all to work together and provide an intimate look into the event itself. Its up to you to tell the story, and present the images in such a way that the bride and groom relive the wedding again and again. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Wedding Photography Tagged With: mistakes, photographers, sales, selling, wedding albums, Wedding Photography, weddings

A Guide To Getting Started In Selling Microstock

by Virtual Photography

There are two ways to make a full time income. Price your services high and select a few customers to cater your services to. Or price your services low and work for volume.

Increasingly people are looking at the low price high volume model, and seeing how lucrative it can really be. You can build apps (I would love to be a part of Angry Birds model), ebooks (think Kindle and Nook), or in the photography world, microstock.

How Does It Work?

If you want to sell microstock, the best place to start is with microstock agencies. There are a number of great agencies, and more are being created every day.

Dig Deeper: 65 Stock Photography Sties To Find And Sell Photography and a couple of new ones

Stockfresh

Pixmac

As you visit an agency, head to their photographers section, and find out what it takes to build an account. Each agency has their own set of guidelines. They want serious photographers only, so you will have to meet their requirements. They usually do that in two ways: [Read more…]

Filed Under: Microstock/Stock Photography Tagged With: images, microstock, photographs, selling, stock agency, stock photography

7 Types Of Clients You Should Fire Before You Hire

by Virtual Photography

Chances are selling isn’t at the top of your list of fun things to do within your business. Sales takes a certain knack and a lot of practice to get it right.

When someone comes into your studio, you spend a fair amount of time with them talking about their needs and desires, and using that knowledge to show how you can fit within those needs.

But sometimes it just doesn’t feel right. There is something between you that makes you nervous. You might not even be able to put your finger on it, but you know they put you on edge.

Yet you’ve spent time with them, and with the economy the way it is, the last thing you want to do is turn away business. Right?

Working with a client – any client – is hard. It takes time, energy, and a lot of emotional input to see a client through from beginning to end. When you are finished with the great ones, you can sit back and say “YESSS!!!” because you know the images are great before you even look at them. And when you do look at them, every one of them has positive energy, and puts a huge smile on your face. You gave it your all and it shows.

The bad ones? Well, if you’ve ever experienced that feeling, you know it well. You’re emotionally drained. You have no energy. You hope and pray you took at least one image that is acceptable, and that they will love enough to buy.

If you had nothing but great ones, you could handle 10 of them a day. That “YESSS!!!” feeling would come again and again, building up your energy in such a way that your clients could feel it. And respond to it.

If you add even one bad one in to the mix, your energy is depleted, and you might as well quit for the rest of the day to recover.

So why take the bad ones?

If you have that feeling when you are meeting them at the beginning, listen to your intuition. Fire them before you ever hire them. Don’t take them on. It will only deplete your energy, and cause you to lose that “YESSS!!!” feeling that will help you move your business to the next level.

So who is a bad client? How can you define them? Here’s what I’ve noticed over the years, and what I look for when I’m making a decision on who to accept as clients.

1. People who don’t show up for their appointments, and have excuses on why they didn’t. We all have emergencies once in awhile. But if people don’t make it a priority to show up for initial consultations, and don’t treat your time as valuable, they will probably continue that way throughout the process. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Sales Tagged With: gaining customers, getting clients, growing your business, sales, selling, types of clients

Make Pet Personalities Steal The Show

by Virtual Photography

If you have a pet, you know they have more personality then some humans. Take away their favorite toy and they pout. Or if you leave without them, they may ignore you for a while upon your return.

If you have a photograph of your pet on your desk, wall or iPhone, why do you like that image? Chances are it shows their personality. They are doing what they love, and look that much cuter doing it.

One of my favorite photographs of my first dog was of him sitting in a pile of socks. He would steal socks every chance he got, and run all over the house, hoping you would chase him. You couldn’t leave socks out anywhere without him grabbing a pair. So when he found a pile of socks fresh from the laundry, he sat in the middle looking like he was in heaven. I couldn’t resist the shot – and its still one of my favorites of him to this day.

That’s the beauty of an amazing portrait. It not only captures your pet, it captures the essence of him as well.

Instead of having your clients bring in their pets, and photographing them on your standard backgrounds, why not learn more about your clients in the process? [Read more…]

Filed Under: Pet Photography Tagged With: cats, dogs, niche photography, Pet Personalities, pet photography, selling