|
Articles and Reviews
|
Home >> Learning >> e-Book on Wedding Photography Table of Contents Wedding Photography e-Book - Meeting the Clients and Packages Offered
One photographer I know of works out of his condo and while it is his personal living space, he’s dedicated a significant portion of the environment to being his meeting place for clients. His fridge is famously stocked half with film and the other half for “drinks”. If meeting in your own location, obviously ensure that your meeting room is clean and dusted. Vacuum the carpet or sweep the floor, plump up the throw pillows and make sure that your cat or dog has not shed all over the couch. Some of your most outstanding photos should be properly mounted and framed on the walls and your albums should not be in excessively used condition (leather is a nice touch that ages well). When the couple arrives, invite them in to sit down and offer them refreshments. Conduct your presentation and answer the questions that follow. Ensure that your comportment and attire reflect the professionalism that you want to be known for. For others without easy access to a dedicated meeting place, alternatives must be sought, such as meeting at a coffee house convenient for both parties to reach. This is problematic because of the need to bring along presentation material such as albums, prints and even notebook computers. Coffee houses can be busy and noisy and just not the best environment to meet in and get to know one another for business purposes. The next alternative is to hit the road and meet the client at his or her place with your presentation material. While you must still haul out the albums, prints and computer you at least know that there won’t be competitive distractions around and you can present your photos and pitch in a relatively relaxed environment. While others may question the value and amount of work required to make house calls, it should show the prospective client how dedicated you are to the business.
Once you are able to meet the clients, the presentation can follow a basic structure, but much of it has go by feel. Is the rapport there with the couple, did you hit it off with them right away? How was their reaction to your photos and albums, did they remain silent or were there oohs and ahhs heard? Most times you want to zone in how the bride reacts because in most cases, the bride drives the decision making process. If she didn’t take to you and your presentation, no matter how the groom feels about you, you’re not likely to get the booking. I cannot say much more about the presentation process because it is largely instinct as to how to react and interact with the couple. You may go into a meeting deciding that your pricing is going to be by the book, but find that in the course of the presentation, the couple has really taken to your photos, but you can sense that your price may be the dealmaker or breaker. You have to decide whether or not to cut the price or offer additional sweeteners to seal the deal. Packages Offered There can be any number of packages offered to prospective clients, but having a core of three or four will allow the couple to easily compare your packages to other photographers’ offerings. While some photographers choose not to discuss pricing in the beginning, many now post their package pricing on the Internet. Reviewing these local web sites will provide you with a very good sense of what the market is tolerating. There will always be the wonder photographer garnering five-figure bookings and of course this is the goal you desire too, but everyone has to start somewhere and the trick is to price yourself just right, so that people will find you competitive enough to call up for further discussions.
I can offer no pricing in this section because pricing is all about the market you reside and work in. The California and New York markets may be able to bear starting rates of US $5,000 and up, but middle America may consider US $2,000 as extravagant and $1500 as average for a full day wedding. So, it all depends and you want to ensure that your prices reflect what the local market accepts. Big time pro Gary Fong charges US $20,000 for a full day shoot, not including albums or enlargements! Of course, your prices must be realistic in being able to cover your expenses and return enough profit in order to make this business worthwhile. While a certain amount of capital expenditure may have to carried in as debt because gear is expensive, if you cannot make enough to pay off all expenses including the debt and leave enough leftover to expand the business or replace gear, you won’t be in business for long. Only you can determine what is the right amount of money to make to ensure that a wedding photography business is worth the effort to pursue. If you are not so good with business, or lack the desire to go full-fledged into the business but still desire to be involved in wedding photography, becoming someone’s backup or second photographer is a good option. You won’t enjoy the monetary rewards of running a business and obtaining the full profits of a booking after expenses, but then you have none of the worries or work involved, such as setting up the business, advertising the business, finding clients to support the business, meeting the clients, photographing the clients, dropping off and picking up the film and prints, meeting the clients again. As a backup photographer all you have to concern yourself with is the photographing the clients part. The money probably won’t even come close to covering your personal expenditure in photography, but for a few hours per weekend, it isn’t bad and what else were you going to do with all that equipment and time on you hands J
For packages, you really do need to see what the other photographers are offering in your local market. If you see everyone including proof albums and negatives as part of the mix, chances are you’re going to have follow suit because anything missing from your package will be leveraged against you by prospective clients trying to squeeze more out of you. Packages are most often tied to hours worked and number of photos offered, e.g.
Some very basic packages may offer little more than the proofs and negatives for a much lower cost than the full package above:
Eight hours is certainly a full day by anyone’ definition and sometimes the eight hours is not linear meaning it is not from 1 pm to 8 pm, but could be from 1 pm to 10 pm or later, not including traveling times and breaks for the photographer. Meaning one hell of a long day for the poor working stiff and a hell of a deal for the couple to get much more time for less. Sometimes though this is what a person must do to clinch the deal.
Besides a full day package, there should be additional packages that offer couples on a budget with shorter hours and more limited photos and albums, perhaps for a three or four hour time period. For the truly ambitious, there could be super full day package of 10 to 12 hours offered, as there are definitely brides that want coverage from the early AM getting ready right to the last guest leaving in the very early AM of the next day! Set yourself with at least three options that offer a package for the minimum amount of hours required to justify you taking the job, because, as Murphy would probably state that as soon as you commit to your minimum package, another person will come along wanting you for your maximum package. On this basis, many photographers will not offer or accept short three or four hour jobs from couples on a budget and start their pricing based on six-hour jobs and up.
This makes sense in that even for a four-hour job, you still have do as much preparation as a full day job and the four hours that a couple wants you for are probably in the prime hours or in hours that prevent you from double-booking. But, you would also be giving up a potentially large market because there are many couples that can only afford a good photographer for a few hours. In the beginning stages of a business I think you need to take the short hour jobs and build the business to the stage where most of your bookings are true full day packages. There is much economic consideration when working on creating packages. The more you offer the more that you must charge the client and if most of the clients walk in and say your photos are great and we want you to be our photographer, but…your package is more than what we want pay... Be prepared to offer variations of your primary packages on the fly if that occurs. It may not be a case of the couple being thrifty, but genuinely not wanting a full-blown package of albums and enlargements. Having a stripped down, bare essentials package is worthwhile to have, as long as the hours and compensation are there, because it should be noted that all the extras offered by a photographer is where a lot of the profit can be made. A custom 16x20 print might only cost you $50 to order from a pro lab, but you can turn around and price it for hundreds of dollars to the couple. A custom $10 8x10 print can be sold for three-times as much money. When my wife and I reviewed proofs from our photo session, we were only allowed to take 25 proofs for our album and when we enquired about what each 4x5 print would cost, we were told $20 per print. Knowing something about labs and their prices, I was quite impressed (in a bad way) with the increase in cost for a print that cost less than $1 to produce. A nice $100 leather portfolio album can be similarly increased in turnaround cost to the client. So, find your balance between the extra work required to order albums, enlargements and copies of extra proofs and determine what the general market price is as charged by other photographers. Albums and Presentation What kind of album you choose to present your work is going to be largely determined by what format you shoot, film or digital. You shoot film and there isn’t much variation from the standard 4x6 proof print put into an album of 4 prints per page. As the name implies, these are merely proofs meant to showcase the event and allow the couple the opportunity to select the prints for enlargement and a more formal album. For a special event as a wedding, you obviously do not want to pick up the dollar store specials for floral pattern albums. A classy looking album using archival materials is a must but even so, the cost does not have to be very high. Peruse the pro labs and other stores catering to photographers to see what is available.
Digital breathes some new life into the concept of proof prints or images. There is the obvious, no proof route in which the couple receives a CD of low resolution JPEGs to review to printed images ganged up by traditional fours, or sixes, or even eight images per page. Some high-end photographers even create magazine booklets of their proof images. Others choose to post the whole shoot to a web site gallery for the client to review in the comfort of their own home. Digital also presents the opportunity to do away with the awkward landscape to portrait transition that so often accompanies film proof albums. Now, the photographer can organize the images to always be right side up with no rotation of the album. Other unique presentations include montages, a la Gary Fong, to combination large image surrounded by smaller images. The presentations are endless and you are only restricted by your imagination, as to how to present your work. Think outside the box, or in this case, the typical 4x6 proof album. How larger images are presented is also a key with a clean white border to simulate a matte being nice to draw the viewer in. Digital makes the use of drop shadows fairly easy to accomplish too. |
|
Correspondence & About this website Copyright © 1998-2008 Edwin Leong |
|
 |
|
As
a part time photographer, being able to meet with clients may present
some challenges. If you have space in your house that you can dedicate
as a meeting room, this is the best route to go because then you keep
costs down by not having to rent an outside studio or office space.
Unfortunately, not all of us have the luxury of being able to dedicate
a room and furnish it tastefully and comfortably just for prospective
clients to meet and relax in while reviewing your albums and photos.
You
do not want to price yourself too low, as the thought may arise that
you are desperate for business, or are a complete rank amateur with
quality to match the prices. There is a potentially huge market for
this lower range of the market, but best to leave it alone for the college
students and amateur photographers to exploit. Once your name and reputation
have been tagged as a low-end photographer, it is hard to get it back.
