By Megan DiPiero   Frustrated with this situation? You’re talking with a hot lead. Conversation is going smoothly. She loves your work! She’s excited about the possibilities for her shoot! And then her biggest question arrives: “How much will this cost?” You tell her your “starting at” prices and then… crickets. Hmmmm… maybe she didn’t love your work as much as she thought. The convo quickly wraps up and you have this pit in your stomach knowing that another one just bit the dust. : ( What to do? Here’s a sales adage for ya. “If To View More >>

We’re proud to be supporting David and Luke Edmonson at WPPI this year. They’re talking about perhaps the most important challenge facing every professional photographer – how to transform their passion for photography into a successful longterm career. Luke and David want to be known for producing great photography, and serving their clients — but of course every sustainable business needs to generate profits as well. We’re going to publish an article about their sales strategies shortly, along with some of their work, but first we thought you’d like To View More >>

Written by: Kate Hopewell-Smith Come summertime you can’t open a newspaper or magazine without articles about getting your body ‘beach ready’. Many women are secretly terrified at the prospect of getting into swimwear publicly, because whilst very few people actually suffer from body dysmorphia (the belief that one's appearance is unusually defective) most women have body issues. The truth is that I deal with this reality on a regular basis because I shoot a lot of boudoir photography. Last week I put a few pictures on Facebook from a shoot that both I, and the lady To View More >>

Kate Hopewell-Smith believes that the more confident you are, the better photographer you'll become. But she worries about the lack of confidence in our industry, and wonders how many photographers are considering whether to carry on or not… From my experience meeting and communicating with lots of photographers there is a serious problem out there with lack of confidence, which for some can become quite debilitating. In fact I describe it as an “epidemic” –extremely prevalent, widespread. I read a lot of photography magazines but I can’t recall ever To View More >>

Written by: Clare Breheny When I worked in a corporate environment we would have literally hundreds of company-specific terms and acronyms that we used in meetings and emails to describe processes, systems, customers, products etc etc. When someone new joined the company we’d forget and spout out all these three letter acronyms, and we would see their face glaze over as if we were speaking a foreign language. For us, that was how things worked and what things were called. It was our day-to-day language and modus operandi. It would take a new person joining to remind us that To View More >>

Written by: Clare Breheny When someone asks me what I do for a living and I tell them I’m a boudoir photographer, the usual response is, ‘Oh, women getting pictures for their husbands,’ or ‘Oh, like a bride giving it as a gift on a wedding day’. Every time I shake my head, and explain that’s it’s WAY more than that… but how do you say modestly that the time you spend with them might actually change how they live their lives? Whilst working with a bride embarking on her wedding day is very rewarding, some of my favourite clients have come to To View More >>

Written by: Koby & Terilyn Brown – Archetype Studio Romantic. Ethereal. Timeless. These are the words we want brides to think of when they look through our boudoir portfolio. As artists, we are always striving to define our style and break away from the pack. After a little more than a year of research and development focused on launching our boudoir line, a clear direction began to emerge and we have been refining it ever since. Walk with me and I’ll take you down our little path along the process. Koby and I had photographed a few boudoir sessions by request over the years, but To View More >>

Written by: Cate Scaglione - Life As Fine Art “Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.”― Aristotle In addition to my portrait photography business I’m a brand consultant to businesses, big and small, all over the world. One could say I grew up in the luxury business. I’ve attributed most of my business practices to a keen understanding of how luxury brands work – and how their loyal followers feel about them. Large or small, from corporate enterprises to sole proprietorships, almost every business struggles with building a solid brand. What might To View More >>

Here's a handy tip if you're using our free design service. Please hit the SEND button, or we won't get your feedback. (SAVE adds them to the database but doesn't pass them to us.) You'll find the button at the bottom right of the screen, as in the graphic. We normally have design edits done within 24 hours, so if you don't hear from us promptly, take a look in Workspace to double check that you sent the comments. By the way the same applies to feedback from your clients. If you haven't heard from them, ask them to check that they've hit the Send Feedback button, To View More >>

As told to Cate Scaglione - Life As Fine Art “Fear is the lengthened shadow of ignorance.” ~Arnold Glasow As artists we are a different breed within the human race. Our right brains guide us with a heightened sensibility, to help us translate the world in an emotionally meaningful way. We’ll witness the same events and circumstances entirely differently than others, and often with more intensity. These are our blessings, except perhaps when the worst demon surfaces. Fear. All humans experience fear in one form or another. But is all fear bad? Is there such a thing as beneficial, To View More >>