Headshots Taken Just Outside Our North Raleigh Studio

Brenda and I have been at our current location for almost 2 years as of this blog post. What is interesting to me is that it is just 2 miles from where we were located about 25 years ago. We have no intentions of moving anytime soon and that is one of many reasons that I have to continue to explore how to do things inside and just outside the studio to provide variety for our clients.

Be Aware Of Your Surroundings
The two headshots above were taken within 30 feet of our front door. As you can see, the backgrounds are different. What’s interesting to me is that I just started shooting in this particular area within the last few weeks. The key point is to encourage you to look at your surroundings and see what opportunities are in front of you that you may be missing. In addition, keep an open mind as you continue to shoot and find new opportunities.

Change Up The Lighting Inside And Outside
One of the most important areas in photography is lighting. You can easily change the appearance of an image shot on the same background inside or outside to get a different look. Experiment with your lighting by making simple changes to see what happens. For example, on the inside, you can simply cut one light off if you are using two lights and create shadow on once side of the face for a more dramatic look. On the outside, you can under expose the background which makes it darker but expose for a speedlite or strobe on the subject to create a more dynamic look. The example below which was shot outside shows both situations in use with light on one side and the background under exposed.

Oh, You Don’t Have A Studio? So What!
Sure, there are advantages to having a studio, but it also adds extra overhead which means you have to have enough business to support a studio. Don’t let not having a studio be a barrier for you. You can easily switch out two different backgrounds for headshots on location and change up the lighting to give a lot of variety in under an hour. As for outdoors, you can shoot outside at the clients location or find a spot like Joyner Park in Wake Forest that you ask clients to drive too. FYI, people will drive 30+ minutes. You just have to sell them on the value of what you are offering them and convince them that it’s worth their time.

Note To Photographers: As part of my ongoing blogging commitment to myself and to you the reader, keep in mind that this post is less than 500 words and only took a few minutes to write. If you are not blogging, what are you waiting for?

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Take a look at the calendar on the left. Today is Friday, January 29th which is the last official business day of the first full month of 2016. How did it go for you?

It a great time to assess how the first 20 business days of the new year went for you. If you were off on Monday, January 18th for MLK, it may be only 19 business days for you. After 19 to 20 business days, are you achieving your 2016 goals? If yes, that’s great. If not, what are you going to do different for February?

You should already have your ideas for February in place, but if not, you still have this upcoming weekend to spend some time evaluating January and looking at what you will continue  to do in February or change in February to make things better than January. The key is having a plan in place and consistently taking action on that plan.

What are you doing TODAY that will help you be where you want to TOMORROW?

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It’s true Detroit is a city and not rural North Carolina, but Shawn Lee has managed to have success in a city known for it’s financial troubles. Detroit is not New York City or LA.

In this article from Shawn Lee, Shawn shares 7 tips: 1) Identify Your Community 2) Adapt To Challenges 3) Stay Creative 4) Evolve 5) Keep It Simple 6) Promote Yourself 7) Allow Your Community To Inspire You.

I have framed the article within this blog post. You can either use the side bar to scroll through it on my blog or find it here on B&H.

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Workweek 2 of the new year (2016) is coming up. Are you already losing motivation for your 2016 photography business goals? If so, snap out of it. Remember, it is possible. That’s exactly what this short video will tell you over and over throughout the 5 minutes. It is possible. It is possible. It is possible. Keep your head held high and motivate yourself. You have to stay focused. Don’t let 2016 take you down. Let 2016 be the year that you excel beyond any year so far.

Photography is not an easy field to be in. But nothing in life is easy. So if you have a passion for photography and want to succeed, you have to stay on track. Yes, there is a lot of competition. Yes, there are a lot of wannabee’s. Yes, there will be more and more new photographers entering the field. However, it is possible for you to succeed, for you to excel, for you to grow your business, for you to make a full time living with photography. It is possible. If you give up now and throw in the towel, you may look back one day and say WHAT COULD HAVE HAPPENED if I had of just stuck with my passion of photography.

It’s not easy! You have to treat photography like a business if you want to make it full time which means you have to put a full time effort into photography whether you have full time work in the field or not.

Some Notes From The Video: Life is hard. Easy is not an option. You have to have faith. You have to believe in yourself. Faith drives you into action. It’s possible. Things can get better. A warrior creates how they want to be. When other people are giving up, creat a mindset that it’s possible. It’s hard. Easy is not an option. Learn more by spending less than 5 minutes watching this video. If you want to let it sink in, watch it more than once and take some notes. Enjoy your week ahead.

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One of my goals in 2016 is to post something motivational on Sunday before the coming workweek. That might be a video like this one or just a quote or maybe a few quotes. I’m doing this to help myself out before the new workweek as well as you the reader of this post. Whether you take advantage of it or not is up to you.

I first started listening to Tony Robbins in the 1980’s, so at this point I am familiar with his message which in my opinion can be summed up in one word: ACTION. Although I’m not a fan of some of Tony Robbins live seminar language, I do love his overall message which is both inspirational and motivational. However, if you don’t TAKE NEW ACTIONS TO CHANGE any part of your life that needs changing, you will not be beyond where you are now.

As a photographer, I take consistent actions and continue to push myself. On the personal side, I need to lose 75 pounds. That seems like a lot of work to me. But I’m not taking the actions needed to make that happen. However, I see the writing on the wall that the extra weight doesn’t help on the photography side. I do push myself physically when on location doing photography, but if I don’t lose some weight, it will not be good 10 years from now.

Fear is what stops us all. Leaders exude the sense of certainty. They bring certainty to the situation. Learn more by spending less than 7 minutes watching this video. If you want to let it sink in, watch it more than once and take some notes. Enjoy your week ahead. It’s the first full workweek of 2016.

Visit: https://www.tonyrobbins.com/

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1) Update Your Photography Portfolio – Joel Grimes is one of my favorite photographers. On a video that I watched recently, Joel said that he tries to shoot ONE personal project per week. That surprised me because ONE per week is 52 in a year. He gave the impression that he is able to make that happen most weeks. Joel is likely far busier and far more financially successful than most photographers reading this post. My point is that he makes time to do personal projects to build his portfolio. What would your portfolio look like at the end of 2016 if you worked on making it better with personal projects even every other week?

2) Actively Market Your Photography Business On Social Media – It is the easiest way to promote what you are up to. Post images and updates on your Facebook Personal & Business Page, get active with LinkedIn updates (it’s super easy and quick to do – updates not the full blown writing part) and find one other social media platform that you can stay committed to (Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, Google Plus, etc.). Tip: I don’t agree with those that say you should post all your ups and downs about your business on Social Media. It doesn’t really help your brand and your business to say “This was a slow week. I wish the phone would ring more.” Whether that is on your personal page or your business page, what message are you sending out about your business? Keep things positive not woe is me. Who wants to do business with woe is me?

3) Stop Worrying About Other Photographers – If you know of another photographer that’s has been doing photography for a shorter time than you, that has less impressive work than you and appears (things are not always what they seem) to be busier than you, don’t let it drag you down. Find a way to stay motivated and stop worrying about other photographers. Follow the ones you like, stay motivated and skip the ones that are bringing you down.

4) Write A 300-350 Word Weekly Photography Blog Post – In case you don’t know how long that is, it is actually about the length of this blog post to this point. So look above and ask yourself, can I write this many words once per week? If the answer is no, then you are lying to yourself. It only takes about 30 minutes or so to crank out 300-350 words once per week. I started writing this post at 6 a.m. (+/-) on a Saturday. You need to make CONTENT a priority in 2016: Blogging, Social Media, etc. Google loves fresh content.

5) Do Some Networking For Your Photography Business – There are multiple ways to network to build your brand and stay motivated about what you are doing in your business. It doesn’t have to be joining a BNI group for $500 (or so). You can find FREE or Low Cost groups by using Meetup.com or find some strategic connections. What do I mean about strategic connections? Find 1, 2 or 3 people that you can meet with on a regular basis that may have the kind of connections that you need. For example, Steven David Elliot (the guy behind North Hills Networking in Raleigh) might be a good guy to buy a cup of coffee for to ask how to approach Real Estate Photography. Speaking of North Hills Networking, it’s FREE and once per month. Yes, it’s in the evening, but it’s once per month. There are plenty of ways to get out and network without paying for a membership that may not be in your budget.

6) Find A Photography Mentor – If you are having trouble staying motivated, seem to be in a rut or just don’t know what you should do next, you should consider finding someone you know, like and trust that you can sit down with to discuss what you are doing or what you are NOT doing that you should be. Don’t waste a mentors time if you are not willing to take action on the advice he/she provides. Be upfront if you don’t have money to spend on your business. Have the mentor not only provide advice but to hold you accountable by asking you questions like “Tell me what you have done this week to grow your business?” Accountabity makes a difference and it’s often better to have someone other than your spouse ask the tough questions and hold you accountable. Sadly, you are more likely to snap at your spouse than a mentor.

7) Learn Something New About Photography Every Week – It’s easy to learn new things in photography with all the FREE You Tube Videos, Blogs and Social Media right at your fingertips. If you are not learning new things on a regular basis, it’s easy to get stuck doing the same old thing.

8) Put A Minimum Of 40 Hours In Every Week In 2016 Into Your Photography  Business – There are only 7 things listed above. They are not the only 7 things you should be doing, but it’s a start. The 8th thing is to actually put a minimum of 40 hours per week average into your business in 2016 for all 52 weeks and see what happens. It will be almost impossible to not be better off than you are at this very moment.

Some of the things above will yield faster results than others, so if you want two things that you should likely put the most initial effort into, here you go: 1) Build Your Portfolio and 2) Network – If you put 70% ( 28 hours of your 40 ) into those two things, you will likely see a difference in your business and in your motivation in a matter of 6 to 8 weeks. Notice that I left 12 hours in there which could be spent on the other 5 things. The weekly blog post is an hour maximum. You are likely already on social media most everyday anyway, so just maximize that for your business.

If you are putting 40 hours in every week building your business, when will there be time to do real projects? Well the goal is that you replace some of the time with paying projects, but initially it may be more getting ready to get paid than getting paid. Remember This: No Effort = No Money.

Hey, if you know someone that is self employed, still in the building phase and only working 40 hours per week, please let me know because I’d like to meet them. The reality is that you likely need to be doing 5 to 6 days per week of 10 to 12 hour days which is 50 to 72 hours per week. WOW! 72 hours per week – “I cannot and will not do that.” FYI, don’t complain about other photographers who seem to stay busy that are putting 50+ hours per week into their business. It’s hard to build a business on 40 hours of effort. 40 hours is just the starting point. Oh and by no means am I saying sacrifice your marriage and family, you have to find the balance. The reality is that should be between 40 to 72 hours per week.

I have one final question for you: Have you seriously put 40+ hours per week minimum for all of 2015 in your business? If you did and have truly, 100% without a doubt put 1,000+ hours into building your business in 2015 and are still not busy enough, then I would agree with you that maybe you should find another career. On the other hand, if you can honestly admit that you have put far less than 1,000 hours into your 2015 efforts, now’s the time to change that. 2016 is fast approaching. Put 1,000+ hours into your 2016 efforts and then tell me this time next you that you wasted your time. I doubt that will happen. Effort = Reward.

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As a photographer, you need a portfolio. And it’s not uncommon to begin to build a portfolio by shooting for FREE or even shooting for “Peanuts” as the saying goes which is basically shooting for free because you are likely charging so little for your services. But at some point, the madness must stop and the money making must begin provided you want new gear, food on the table and to maybe actually make a living as a photographer.

How much is enough?
There is likely no right or wrong answer, but I hope the information below will get you thinking about what is enough for you to go from charging peanuts to charging an actual long term sustainable rate.

Some Things To Think About…

Example 1: I recently met a young photographer that has lots of images of individuals that are really nice. He also has lots of videos that are really nice. In my opinion, he is ready to stop working for peanuts and start charging a fair market rate for his services. But he struggles with actually charging more than peanuts for his services. He, like most photographers, especially the new ones, has his eyes set on some new equipment. It will take him a very long time to save up and pay for new gear or a very long time to pay off any debt he incurs (pay for gear when possible and avoid debt) at his current rates. He may be helping his current client base out with low rates, but he’s shooting himself in the foot. His work is good enough to charge more.

Example 2: This one is a theoretical example. If you want to shoot events, it’s OK to shoot 2 or maybe 3 charity events, anniversaries, weddings, birthday parties, etc. and shoot for peanuts to build your event portfolio, but you don’t have to shoot 10, 15, 20+ before you start charging more than peanuts. Now for weddings, you may need two or three of them specifically to actually get some wedding business because most brides will likely not care that you can shoot a charity event and the same is likely true about a corporate event. Most companies don’t really care that you can shoot a wedding. They want to see something in a corporate style venue which is when a charity event may help. With all this said, you should gradually ( or even jump right to it ) charge more and more until you get to a fair market rate. For example, it seems the top tier wedding photographers in Raleigh are charging $3,500 to $5,000. Yes, there are wedding photographers that shoot for less than $1,000. Where do you want to be long term?

Example 3: The tale of two cities and a traveler (multiple states and hundreds of miles). This last example is a real world one of 3 male photographers that I know and one or all three may read this blog post. All 3 are doing real estate/property type photography as a core part of their businesses. One has already done 300+ houses this year, another has done about 175 houses this year and the other one is just getting going but staying busy. Although I don’t know what the traveler makes and can only speculate of X per property based on what I know about the real estate side of photography, the Raleigh market typically pays $100 to $150 per house and the guy that I know is easily $150+. He is AWESOME! The Atlanta market pays better at about $250+ per house. I said that to say that the Raleigh and Atlanta guy stay local to their area and do well for themselves. As for the traveler (multiple states and hundreds of miles), in my opinion, after his next round of travel, he should have enough in his new portfolio to hit a 60 mile area of where he lives and be home every-night with his family. He may or may not be working for peanuts, but based on what I know about the Raleigh and Atlanta market there is plenty to do right at home.

If you are looking to become a residential real estate photographer, you should know note a few things: 1) It’s very competitive. 2) Typically there is only so much you can charge because of the market. 3) Just like events, you don’t need 10, 15, 20+ homes before you start charging a fair market rate. 4) Finally, it’s not always about the lowest price because both the Raleigh and Atlanta guy are VERY GOOD and they are not the lowest priced in their market.

When are you going to say ENOUGH IS ENOUGH?
Before you misunderstand this paragraph, I’m not referring to a charity golf event that you get involved with as a way of giving back to the community. I’m referring to a corporate golf gig like the one a friend mentioned on Facebook “We are looking for a photographer that wants to add to his portfolio and network” because as long as you are willing to shoot for FREE or peanuts, there will be someone happy to let you do it. Don’t buy into the “shoot for exposure bit!” Shoot the golf tournament because you want to, because it will help your portfolio and NOT because it pays peanuts and you were told you’ll get lots of exposure that will lead to some serious business. My take: Hogwash! Just pay my fee! Stop the madness at some point and say ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!

The madness really never ends:
In closing, the age of digital photography has drastically changed the industry. There are lots of wannabee photographers out there because they think they have a nice camera that works magic. This means that there will ALWAYS be someone who will shoot for FREE or shoot for Peanuts. ALWAYS! ALWAYS! ALWAYS! Accept it and move on.

If you are losing projects to those shooting for FREE or those shooting for peanuts, you are TALKING TO THE WRONG potential client. Why? Because some people still care about quality and experience. You need to find those who will pay you more than peanuts. They are out there. PRESS ON!

Happy Shooting!

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The View From The 23rd Floor Of SkyHouse In Downtown Raleigh

Near the end of this post, you will learn more about why I posted the image above.

I have been providing some advice to “a mom with a camera” that wants to be a part-time photographer to bring in some extra money for the family. Like most good moms, her top priority is her children. For the rest of this post, I will refer to her as “Jane.”

Jane is currently charging $60 for a 60 minute session with 20+ photos on a CD. She has two thoughts on this price point and package: 1) I was the mom that couldn’t afford photography and I don’t want to be that photographer that charges too much. 2) I want to charge a low rate to help me get work to build up my portfolio. Although I understand both, I have advice to any photographers thinking like this.

Rates…
There will always be someone cheaper including someone shooting for free because they just love photography and want to help people and/or they are trying to build a portfolio to start charging for services at some point. Furthermore, price is relative to Jane’s target market because if Jane is providing services for under $100, Jane will attract that market. I personally know a veteran photographer that charged $6,000 for family portraits and the client said that she could not recommend him to her friends because he was too cheap. Now how’s that for price? With that said, I’m not suggesting someone go from $60 to $6,000, but below is another more relevant example.

One of my headshot clients asked me about family portraits which I don’t do, so I recommended a photographer that I know that does a 90 minute session for $300 or a 1 hour session for $200. To help me gain better knowledge of pricing in the Raleigh market, my headshot client told me that she had been getting quotes from $150 to $700. She further stated that she didn’t want to go with the lowest or the highest and was looking for quality at what she felt was a fair market price. Again, this is just an example, but it’s a real world example for the Raleigh market.

Portfolio Building…
The opinion among the photography community will vary tremendously about how to handle building a portfolio. My take is just one opinion to consider.

Jane should find a few people that she knows to photograph completely FREE and tell them that she needs to build her portfolio in order to start charging for her services. Let them know that she will likely charge ____ which is a fair market price based on what she knows about the area, but for now, she is hand selecting a few people to work with to make it a Win-Win. The flip side of this is that $60 is Jane’s discounted rate (or whatever that number is) but that her regular rate is _____.

In both cases above, the goal is to charge what Jane is worth based on the market pricing of the area and based on the market that Jane wants to target. If Jane charges $60, she will continue to attract $60 clients, but for Jane, those who consistently pay $350 for what she is offering will likely never do business with her even if her work is great because their perception is that Jane is too cheap.

People Will Pay – The Market Is There…
In closing, Jane will need more equipment and Jane’s time is valuable. If Jane prices her services like a minimum wage employee, Jane will set herself up for failure. Jane should be charging enough to buy near gear along the way and actually have some extra money to live off of to help support her family.

The average hourly rate for a photographer is $18.44 an hour in the US.  But Jane cannot take that $60 session for 60 minutes and say she is making $60 an hour. Jane has to calculate everything involved in her part-time business and she also has to calculate all her non-revenue generating time to build her business. To truly make the average hourly rate of $18.44 after all expenses, Jane will have to charge a lot more than $60 for a 60 minute session.

Let’s say Jane works in her business 17 hours per week and wants to average $18.44 per hour which is around $315 gross per week for all her efforts in those 17 hours. How many of the 17 hours is actually revenue generating hours? Let’s say Jane does (3) sessions in one week that take 60 minutes to shoot, 90 minutes to do some basic edits to a CD ( remember there is loading time, editing and exporting  and this example assumes the editing is color and exposure correction not detailed like my wife who will spend 30+ minutes on one image ) and 60 minutes for driving and client communication. In this case, Jane has put 3.5 hours in per session x 3 sessions for a total of 10.5 hours leaving the other 6.5 hours as non-revenue generating time to build her business. In this simple example just to get Jane thinking about calculating her rates to make the $18.44 per hour, Jane would have to charge $105 per session not $60 to average $18.44 for 17 hours worth of effort. This example is simply to get anyone reading this to think through things in more detail. There is so much more involved than just this simple scenario. In this example, where’s the room for new equipment, marketing, insurance, etc. etc. etc.?  Jane might need to use $38 as the hourly rate which is twice the average wage and charge $210 per session not $105. Ah, that should be an eye opener.

My Image At The Top Of The Page…
The image at the top of the page was my view from the 23rd floor of a Luxury High Rise Apartment building in downtown Raleigh for an Executive photoshoot. My target market is executives, businesses, corporations and other commercial type photography and video. That doesn’t mean that they all have unlimited budgets because they don’t. I simply know my market well enough to know where the price points are in order to make a full time living doing photography. If I had of quoted this executive $60 to go on location to do his shoot, he would have wondered why I was so cheap and likely never hired me because something just didn’t sound right.

My take on my personal example above is that I’m not showing up with $10,000 worth of gear and an assistant for $60.

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Well, if there are any photographers who have kept all their eggs (leads from here out) in the Thumbtack.com basket, they may be in for a shock. Thumbtack was hit by a manual action from Google for unnatural links.

In the Raleigh area of North Carolina, Thumbtack rankings plummeted temporarily. It was only days ago that Thumbtack dominated page 1 for photography terms in the Raleigh market. Now after a brief drop, Thumbtack seems to be back in good graces with Google with their rankings recovered at least for photography terms.

Thumbtack is a lead source for many industries and photography is one of those industries. On the photography and video side, up to 5 quotes can be given for one project. That means 5 photographers or videographers (theoretically) could quote on one project. In that case, there would be a 20% (1 of 5 theoretically) chance of getting the project. However, on the other side of the coin, Thumbtack is often a place for bottom feeder projects: people wanting something for nearly nothing.

So is it really a loss by not being able to get as many leads currently through Thumbtack? That depends on how successful a business has been at closing those leads and whether Thumbtack has served as the primary lead source for the business.

Personally, I have a love/dislike relationship with Thumbtack. I have got some good projects off Thumbtack, but I have had lots of frustration with the system as well which is mainly related to people getting a quote (which I paid to provide) and NOT communicating.

Whether your #1 lead source is/was Thumbtack, the Chamber of Commerce, your website, a networking group, etc., don’t rely on ONE source to be your primary source of leads. You have to constantly work at building numerous channels of revenue, so that if one goes away (even temporarily) that you have enough options to keep your business going.

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It’s funny how often people who know me and especially those connected to me on Facebook say things like, “You are so busy or You have some great things going on with your business  or Your business is exploding or That’s a great project to be working on or How did you manage to get that project.” What I don’t think most people truly grasp is the dedication and work that goes into my craft: Photography.

There is nothing else, career wise, that I had rather be doing than working with people with a camera in my hands, but like the title of this post states, “Photography Is Hard Work – You Have To Keep Working At It If You Want To Stay Busy.”

Below are a few things that may help you as a new photographer. If you are established, the things below will likely get an AMEN.

1) I spend money on my/our business and it’s not because I have loads of it. I spend money on advertising because it’s part of what keeps me busy. I spend money on gear because without the proper gear, I cannot provide the level of quality expected of a full time professional photographer. I spend money on the overhead of a studio because without it, I would not have as much work as I do. Many of the business professionals that I work with like the convenience of a studio. But most of my big work is on location including larger headshot assignments.

2) I spend countless hours each month blogging and staying active on numerous social media platforms and it’s not because I have nothing better to do or because I have those hours to spare. These two key areas help keep the phone ringing and also help build my brand. It’s no uncommon that I am writing blog posts between 5 a.m. and 6 a.m. in the morning. As I type this one, it’s on a Saturday morning at 7:05 a.m. which is actually later than I usually write on a Saturday. This post will be set to go live at a later date. TIP: TIME MANAGEMENT.

3) I never stop sharpening the saw. Whether it’s collaborating with other business professionals about business or photography, I try to stay on top of business (especially marketing/advertising) and photography because if I don’t, I’ll be left in the dust as time goes on. I have other photographers that I can reach out to. In addition, I invest in training which is still very important even a a full time pro.

4) I physically work my A** OFF! on the projects that I do. I’m no longer the 15 year old kid shooting high school sports with a light weight consumer camera back in the early 1980’s. I’m now nearly 50 hauling around lots of gear (50 to 150+ pounds) and busting my A** to get the job done right when I’m on a project. It’s true that I often have an assistant which does make things easier, but there are lots of assignments that I do, including the ones with an assistant, that are very physically demanding. Here’s how my upcoming California trip will likely go: Fly to California (solo) with 75 +/- pounds of event gear, arrive at hotel, check in, go to the event and start shooting, go to bed, shoot 3 days in a row from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. with the downtime being used to download files and barely relax, then on the final day, get up and pack, shoot that morning and head to the airport to fly back to Raleigh. Yes, I am thankful to have the work. But thinking it’s all a glamour, jet set lifestyle is not what some may see on the surface. As a newbie photographer, if you want to work for peanuts for all that work, you are doing yourself an injustice. Charge what you are worth keeping in mind what the market you are in will bear.

In Closing…..

New Photographers: When you see a full time pro that stays busy, remember the hard work and commitment that it likely took to get there.

Established Photographers: You know what I mean above. You also know that there is even more to it than I shared, but this is a blog post and not a book.

To Both Groups Above: Happy Hard Work! Happy Shooting! Happy Growth!

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