Stiff competition

[geoffsta]

I agree with everything that has been said..... But.... I have learnt that sometimes one has to bite the bullet, and keep quiet.
Trouble is that we are through this forum educated in what appears to be right, and what appears to be wrong. We take an educated view at someone else's work. And because we are encouraged to find the smallest detail in any image to give CC, we tend to do it with any image we see elsewhere.

I have had the misfortune to see three lots of wedding images over the last 6 - 8 months. Where the happy couple absolutely loved the images, but another educated TOG has looked at them, and have complained how this is wrong, and that is wrong.... This is a time for me to keep the mouth shut, or simply say "As long as your daughter/son likes the images, what does it matter."

My Brother today gave me over 1000 images of his daughters wedding to go through, to see if I could fix them up.... Admittedly some are pretty shocking. Some the WB is in the wrong setting. Some have trees or plants through the middle of them. None of them are in focus, or miles too bright. And to make it worse, they are all JPG's, and nothing above 2.5Mb..... Now my brothers daughter got married in Bali, and the photographer came with the deal. They did it that way to save money. The old saying goes... "You pay peanuts, you get monkeys" Have fixed some, a bit of cropping, cloning and hit "Auto" in ACR, but a lot are unrecoverable. And I wasn't planning on doing much anyway, because they really are not mine to tamper with.

I have had a similar story, but with a local photographer. I have discussed this in length with I @ M. And since had had a pleasant discussion with that photographer.

[ricktas]

I think as photographers we also need to sit down and look at a photography business and decide what our market demographic is. There are photographers charging $500.00 for a wedding and photographers who charge $20,000 (and more) for a wedding.

Each photographer in business needs to look at what demographic they are marketing to. Then design their marketing to target those people. No use being a $5000.00 a wedding photographer and complaining about the $500.00 wedding photographer. The customers of the $500 photographer are not in any way likely to even consider you to photograph their wedding at $5000.00 no matter how much you comment about the quality of the $500 photographer, or their facebook page, or the gear they use, or the quality of the photos. It is a different market and if your $5000.00 market is not working for you, then you are either not marketing correctly, or you have misjudged the entire demographic in your area and not researched the region you are marketing to correctly. No use offering $5000 weddings in an area primarily filled with low income/unemployed people. The $500 wedding photographer booms here (without being a great photographer) cause they know the market!

Do we see the BMW dealership complaining about the Hyundai dealership over the road? The BMW dealer knows the people who walk into his office are not even likely to step foot in the Hyundai offices.

What we as photographers need to do, is determine our market and then market like hell to them, selectively and appropriately.

So determine what sort of photography business you want, what your clientele will be and go for it, and forget about the people who are outside your target market(s) cause they are not likely to step in your door or call your phone. So for $5000.00 a wedding, learn what you market segment does, where they hang-out, what their interests are, what venues are 'in', what streets they live in, what suburbs, what cars they drive, what schools their children go to, etc and market directly at your customer, not at the $500.00 wedding market.

And this applies to all genre, not just weddings.

[Redgum]

C'mon guys, there's a dozen people on this forum who can take photos better than I. Currently I have about fifteen clients in this country, some have been around almost twenty years but I get their work week in and week out because of two things - supply and demand and consistency in sales. Even when I'm overseas on a shoot they prefer to wait rather than "breaking in" a new photographer. Why? Their answer is always "they've (the new photographer) got no idea what we want or need and are rarely interested".
It's all about supply and demand AND building relationships with your client - imagined photographic skills are well down the list. When it comes to any form of commercial photography it's all about the CUSTOMER and when you get that clear in your head you can make some headway in business.
If the young lady mentioned by PEARSON is making money from commercial photography, good luck to her. Simply proves she is a better commercial photographer and no doubt she will go a long way in the business.
Then I suppose, that can be said for any trade or profession. I've seen some good doctors go broke.

[MissionMan]

C'mon guys, there's a dozen people on this forum who can take photos better than I. Currently I have about fifteen clients in this country, some have been around almost twenty years but I get their work week in and week out because of two things - supply and demand and consistency in sales. Even when I'm overseas on a shoot they prefer to wait rather than "breaking in" a new photographer. Why? Their answer is always "they've (the new photographer) got no idea what we want or need and are rarely interested".
It's all about supply and demand AND building relationships with your client - imagined photographic skills are well down the list. When it comes to any form of commercial photography it's all about the CUSTOMER and when you get that clear in your head you can make some headway in business.
If the young lady mentioned by PEARSON is making money from commercial photography, good luck to her. Simply proves she is a better commercial photographer and no doubt she will go a long way in the business.
Then I suppose, that can be said for any trade or profession. I've seen some good doctors go broke.

Not sure if I would agree. For some kinds of photography that may be the case but for any photography where there is unlikely to be repeat business, that may not be the case. If you do a wedding for a couple, are you honestly expecting to get more weddings out of them? That's different to do product photography for a customer where it's likely that you will get business from them every month.

[Redgum]

So determine what sort of photography business you want, what your clientele will be and go for it, and forget about the people who are outside your target market(s) cause they are not likely to step in your door or call your phone.

This is such good advice. I have an interstate client that produces high end business plans. I do his Brisbane photography to support that plan and charge around $800 a half day twice a week for 30/50 frames. No photoshopping. I've got two other businesses as well but could happily retire on this work and earn more than most jocks on a regular job. Win/win for everyone involved. Suits my skills and also their requirements.

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Missionman, why compete in the wedding market when it's absolutely saturated. The last thing you need in a saturated market is photographic skills.

[MissionMan]

Missionman, why compete in the wedding market when it's absolutely saturated. The last thing you need in a saturated market is photographic skills.

It was just an example, there are plenty of other areas that are pretty similar with limited repeat business options and no option to build relationships.

It does bring in a valid point though. It's more important to find a unique requirement that allows for repeat business.

[Warbler]

There are different types of commercial business clients too. Some large corporates and government clients have lots of turnover of staff and doing a good job for them does not always result in repeat business. The new broom often goes with someone else. You can get repeat business from wedding clients too, by the way. I've done a wedding for one bride, followed by her MOH's wedding, her brother's wedding and the weddings of three of her guests. Don't discount their own networking ability and don't judge the book by its cover.

[virgal_tracy]

A young lass with a Canon 1100D and a kit 75-300mm lens (I'm guessing) who is (to her credit) taking photos at such things as sporting events like motorsport, equine events, triathalons, etc and selling these on her website on canvas (this is the only option) for quite steep prices ($330 for a 24"x40").

My photography concentrates primarily on motorsports and in particular motocross. Over the last 3 years I have supplied Williams Event Management with images from over 6 different rounds of the MX Nationals, some of which have been published so I think I have a keen eye for that type of photography. Not saying I'm the best, but I can take great shots. It left me angry seeing what will pass for 'saleable images' perhaps because customers haven't seen anything better.

This thread is getting quite long so I may have missed some comments. In the first paragraph quoted I have no problems with what the girl is doing regardless of her abilities because she is not falsely representing herself. She is showing the images and people are buying them as they see them. The buyers are fully aware of what they are getting. Technical aspects of an image mean nothing to people who have some emotional attachment to the image. If she was taking money on spec and then producing poor quality images then I would consider it to be a problem.

In the second paragraph, You mention that you have taken photos at MX nationals and then supplied the images to Williams Event Management. Does supplying mean selling or given in exchange for exposure. If given then we go back into the argument of companies not paying for professionals as eager amateurs are willing to supply images for free in exchange for credit. Supplying images free of charge could start another discussion about devaluing the work of people attempting to make a living

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