Satisfy Those Taste Buds

Posted on February 23, 2010

South Bend, Indiana Food Photography | Cinnamon Chicken Salad

YAY! It’s back, my energy is FINALLY back. I haven’t seen it in quite a while. For the past 2 years, I have eaten nothing but junk. Not only did I eat junk, but I couldn’t get myself to workout to at least compensate for all the empty calories, carbs (my personal favorite), and aspartame infested sodas that I had consumed. No matter how many times I tried to stop eating and drinking that crap, it was like crack and kept calling my name.

Since Bryce’s diagnosis last week and reading more on what Sensory Processing Disorder meant for our family, I decided that there was a lot about the way we lived and ate that needed to change. Bryce is going to need to have mommy’s attention more and I need my mind to be sharp to constantly challenge him. I started to read Skinny Bitch in hopes that the slap in the face that they have given so many women about their eating and their health was just what I needed. Well, it was everything and more and let me tell you since I started getting more serious about my eating (I won’t even call it a diet because it’s really a way of life) I have been feeling great.

Last night, I made my favorite recipe with chicken. It’s something that I came up with one day in the summer last year to really spice things up. I always vary the spices, but the main ingredient is cinnamon. When I cook it on the grill, my personal favorite, I sprinkle cinnamon and either old bay or black pepper over one side of the chicken and then rub it over the entire chicken breast. When I cook the chicken on the stove, I warm up the pan with evoo then sprinkle in the cinnamon and the “spice of the day”, cut the chicken into pieces and then, you know, cook it. You can serve this in a salad or keep the breasts whole for sandwiches or accompanied by your favorite side dish. I highly recommend trying this one day, it’ll confuse your taste buds, in a good way.

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Brand Marketing

Posted on February 18, 2010

South Bend, Indiana Wedding Photography | Finding your Brand Market

I have always enjoyed hearing other photographers say that they have a particular niche that they market to. I never truly understood how to do this, but in my endeavor to re-brand myself, I started to put the pieces together. Your brand is absolutely THE most important thing that you have in your business. The brand you choose has to be wrapped up in everything from your logo, your font, your colors, your pricing, and yes even the way you photograph.

Let’s say you are doing some advertising and you design it with just your logo, if your logo looks like Ed Hardy, chances are you will attract the Ed Hardy client. If they go to your website and they see that you photograph in any other style than edgy, they probably won’t even inquire because of the mismatch between your brand perception and your photographic approach. The Joy of Marketing has some really great resources on this topic.

So, how can you market for the clientele that you are trying to attract? There are a few ways that you can do this. First, research other photographers. They don’t have to be in your area, but take a critical look at their work and see if you can identify with their photography. What about their photography do you like? Now, what does their photography and their client have in common? Here are a few examples: Jasmine Star is very crisp, clean, and makes you feel like you were there with her images. Chenin Boutwell is very sharp, retro and earthy feeling. Jerry Ghionis is artsy, unique and completely blows your mind. All three of these photographers attract the brides that resonate with each of their styles.

Secondly, decide which genre you fall under. If you are just starting out, I would evaluate the way you shoot or start learning to shoot the way that will attract that particular clientele. If your images, branding, and website eloquently state Chanel but your prices scream Wal-Mart at the $500 price point the high end market just won’t “buy it” and the low end market may feel the “deal” is too good to be true. Amanda Wilcher once told me that “sometimes people will buy something because it’s expensive”, that statement applies to both sides of the market.

I want to encourage all photographers to price yourself appropriately and effectively. Please, Plesae, PLEASE don’t under cut yourself. I have friends that are amazing photographers that are afraid to raise their pricing because they do what David Jay calls “Photo Disorder” where they constantly compare themselves to other photographers. This is a business and you have to protect your assets with the biggest asset to your company being you and you are completely worth every penny, charge accordingly.

So, tying everything together, take the time to write down your bottom line as a business owner. What are your expenses as a business owner for one year? What is your cost of living? What is the brand perception you are trying to aim for? Finally, is your pricing going to match your brand perception? This is a very time consuming task, but it is crucial and will pay off in the end (I swear, that wasn’t a pun intended). Have fun with this activity and make your money work for you, not the other way around (as Dave Ramsey would say).

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I Spend HOW MUCH on my business?

Posted on February 12, 2010

South Bend, Indiana Wedding Photography | Cost of Being an Entrepreneur

After reading Part 2, you may have said to yourself, “I have a camera and I’ve always liked to take pictures and I’d love to make $500 profit for one weekend.” Maybe you or your spouse (possibly even both) have amazing jobs that you love doing during the week and this could bring in some extra cash. I can see how this would be alluring, but please keep reading so you can understand why $500 for photographing a wedding is just not your or your brides best interest.

To the new photographer or even someone who is still struggling with their pricing, this part of the series is about what goes into running your wonderful business. Sometimes, the simplest things can be made too difficult so let’s put down some basics of what you may want to consider when your starting out based on questions I get from new photographers. Let me begin by saying that this list is incomplete, very incomplete but for the sake of our conversation, we have to start some where.

Business Phone	$1,200.00
Studio Samples	$1,000.00
Business Cards	$350.00
Branding	$250.00
Website w/ Hosting and Online Proofing	$500.00
Camera (Canon 5D)	$1,500.00
Back-up Camera (Canon 50D)	$800.00
CF Cards	$200.00
Batteries for Camera and Flash (Eneloop Rechargeable)	$150.00
Zoom Lens (Canon 24-70mm 2.8L)	$1,000.00
Telephoto Lens (Canon 70-200mm 2.8L)	$1,500.00
Back-up Prime Lens (Canon 50mm 1.4)	$400.00
Flash (Canon 580x)	$400.00
Total Cost	$9,250.00

Like I said above, this list is very incomplete, you’ll notice that this does not include equipment maintenance, association fees, insurance (both equipment & liability), savings, workshops you might want to attend, computers, software, business improvements, the list can honestly go on forever (especially if you know my husband). I know photographers that spend $100,000.00 in business expenses alone. Each.Year! So, to keep our heads from spinning right off our bodies, let’s just talk about just the numbers from above.

Your next step is to figure out how much it costs for you to live. You probably already have this list written down somewhere of all your bills, but if you don’t, here is a link to Dave Ramsey’s Budget Forms that are SUPER helpful. Let’s say you need to make $30,000.00 per year to live, add to that the $9,250.00 from our list above, and we get $39,250.00 per year that you need to stay clothed, feed, sheltered and run your business. Now we’re going to pretend that this is your only means of income because you never know what life will throw at you. In order to get our starting package price you’ll need to ask yourself many weddings do you want to photograph per year? The photographers I know say they will take any where from 15-25 weddings per year. If you want to keep costs at their lowest, then divide $39,250.00 by 25 weddings to get $1,570.00 as the smallest package you’ll need to sell in order to just break even. This is not including any way cool products like albums, proof books, and even the custom DVD and holder for their “always included” disk of images.

We’re going to finish up this series next week with discussing how to target the clients that you want to attract and how it relates to the $500 wedding photographer.

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A Stitch in Time…

Posted on February 10, 2010

South Bend, Indiana Wedding Photography | Pricing for YOUR Time

We all know that time is valuable. Everyone has something that they look forward to doing when they have free time. Some like to shop, play with their children, have a candle light dinner with their spouse, movie night, or even a night out with the girls (or guys). Whatever your fancy, you understand that your time is so precious. If it wasn’t, would you count down to the time you leave work every day, or how most of us live our lives for the weekends? Probably not.

With that said, I think we are all on the same page that every moment you spend on anything you do for your business should be valued. Now, let’s go over the time generally spent by newer photographers on the average 8 hour wedding.

Initial Contact:	15 minutes
Meeting:	1-2 Hours
Contract Signing:	30-60 minutes
Contract Processing	30 minutes
Planning the Engagement Session	1 hour
Time it Takes to drive to and from the Engagement Session	90 minutes (we’re going to the beach)
Photographing the Engagement Session	1-2 hours
Editing the Engagement Session	8 hours
Pre-Wedding Meeting	1-2 hours
Rehearsal:	1-2 Hours
Wedding Day	8 hours (on average)
Working the Wedding Images (Editing, Album pre-design, proofing, etc)	40 Hours
Total Time Spent on One Wedding	58.25 Hours

Now that we have the average time that is spent on one wedding, let’s take the $500.00 pricing scale that has inspired this series. Of that investment, we would make $8.58/hour (this does NOT include a second photographer). Not too shabby? However, that is just paying yourself for your time, this isn’t going to keep your business afloat. So, just how valuable is your time?

Stay tuned for part 3 of the “We Fix $500 Wedding Photography” series.

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We Fix $500 Wedding Photography

Posted on February 4, 2010

South Bend, Indiana Wedding Photography | Wedding Photography Pricing Resource

Well now that we have your attention, I want to state that I was once a $500 wedding photographer so this is not me hating on the low budget bride or photographer. This blog post is about all the factors a professional should consider when creating their prices and to give our fellow photographers a few resources on why what you charge is SO important.

As for our clients that blogstalk us, or a potential client that is reading this, I still encourage you to continue reading. You may see your wedding photography in a different light.

When I was pregnant with Bryce in 2007, Chris and I decided that we wanted to go into business together as wedding photographers. I would spend EVERY lunch hour trying to come up with pricing that I felt comfortable asking my clients to pay. I had two weddings already under my belt, but I had grown as a photographer and my style had changed enough so that those images were not a true representation of my skills. Though I knew that I was worth more, the question still remained: what is a “fair” price?

One day, Chris found a blog where a photographer told his readers that he started at $500 and that would include a proof book and DVD slideshow. Hence, our first pricing structure was then born. This worked really well for our first year, but it wasn’t enough to run a business. Over the last few years, I’ve learned the basics of what it takes to run a business, but when I read Jodie Otte’s guest post on the MCP Actions blog I realized there was so much more.

Another great resource posted on the MCP Actions blog is from Stacy Reeves. She posted a FREE pricing guide that she put together with the help of several other professional photographers (the basis from our upcoming pricing revision). It’s very time consuming, but it makes you look at every aspect of the pricing process. However, it is so worth it.

One last resource I would recommend is Alicia Caine’s Easy as Pie Cookbook. Alicia is such an amazing woman that I would highly recommend following her work and success. She is a mother of four, with one on the way, and her drive completely inspires me. Oh, and by the way, as if running a business and chasing after 4 kids isn’t enough to admire her for, she also home schools her children. She’s a woman after my own heart.

So, why scrutinize your pricing? Most photographers do not take into account how valuable their time is before and after the event. Second, photographers way under estimate the actual costs of running a business. Lastly, what segmant of the market are you marketing your brand towards?

I will be going into further detail over the next couple weeks on my thoughts for each of these points. If you have questions or would like me to ellaborate on anything within this series, please comment below.