You might remember a post called "the secret life of wedding photographers" on ISPWP a few years ago. Apparently photographers lead a great life – you get to spend your time taking pictures, travelling to exotic locations and partying like rockstars! Of course the sad reality is often quite different. This fertile little meme has got a lot more airtime recently because APE and now Seth Godin have posted about it. As always, Seth's post is well worth the read. He makes the point that everyone has a choice: get together the "guts and resources" too do what you were born to do, or spend your time To View More >>

That recent New York Times article caused a kerfuffle by highlighting the impact of digital imaging, photo sharing, stock photography etc. In a nutshell, how does a professional photographer survive and thrive when imagery is everywhere, and generally free or nearly so? Or as Seth Godin put it, how are "average photographers" going to make a living shooting weddings "when the guests can do almost as well and all the photos are going on flickr anyway"? Case in point... Our own Danny married Natalie recently. Needless to say they hired a photographer ... but if they hadn't? They have heaps of photos To View More >>

Jasmine Star had some advice for newbie photographers a few days ago. It was a good reality check, but it left an important question unasked. Basically she says: • It doesn't matter how good you think your photography is (or the guy's down the road), it's what the customer thinks. • It doesn't matter whether you think you're "worth" what you want to charge, it's what the customer thinks. • It doesn't matter whether you're entitled to charge what you're "worth", it's what the customer thinks. The takeaway? You're better off taking what you can, and getting some runs on the board. (Jasmine To View More >>

Three things I try not to do: write about our competitors, jump to their defence, and risk offending people who could be our customers; but today I’m going to do all three. I want to write about the huge outpouring against Smugmug over their price increase – and suggest a few things you should think about before you jump ship, if you’re with them. I must admit I find these outbursts upsetting, no matter the justification. When I started to use the Net back in the 90s, it was all about support, helping each other and respect. In the world I want to live in, you respect the businesses that To View More >>

I know the word "networking" gets bandied about a lot. I used to roll my eyes and put in the same category as "politically correct" and "multi-tasking" but in reality it's where business is today. Once upon a time a photographer could rely on the quality of his images and word of mouth. Maybe a bit of advertising in the Yellow Pages and the odd display in the local mall. Next minute, along comes the internet and screws it all up. Suddenly you have to be on Facebook, Twitter and this that and the other. As a photographer you have a major head start at this. First, you have cool images to show people. To View More >>

Click here for Part 1. Who are those people ... the ones staring back at you thinking, 'What does he/she want us to do?' More importantly, how do they see the unfolding of their day? Is it a fairy tale? Is it some kind of weird reality show? Is it a 'performance'? Is it the beginning of something amazing? Is it a huge party? Is it something their mother planned? Is it theirs? That's the thing. We, as the image makers, also become the storytellers.  We create the vocabulary for describing the unfolding of the day. If we don't photograph something, will it still be remembered in ten years time? To View More >>

To continue my rave on The Junction earlier in the year about image slicing and dicing, here are a few thoughts about designing a pressbook with particular consideration to keeping your mind (and your clients' heads) out of the gutter! Photojunction makes designing a Queensberry album very easy and FAST. But while the layouts look very similar on-screen between albums and press books - in reality these two products are vastly different. When you're working on screen it's really easy to forget that a press book is, well, a book, and the pages don't lie flat. Queensberry press books (like most other To View More >>

Follow the links for "the story so far" in our series on the recession... Yes, times will be tough for a while but you shouldn't assume the sky is falling. It makes no sense to sacrifice your business and market reputation to survive the short term challenge. Instead you may need to pull your horns in and find ways to prosper while others decline. A good place to start is by analysing your budget and business model, and we have a spreadsheet to help with that. Most people react to the threat of declining sales by saying, "I've gotta cut my costs". Everyone needs to work out their own figures, but To View More >>

Well in excess of 2000 aftershocks later, the region I live in still has no idea when the shaking will stop. [caption id="attachment_9611" align="alignnone" width="333" caption="I arrived at the bride's mum's house, and they had a big crack in their drive that went ..."][/caption] On September 4, 2010, Christchurch (New Zealand) was rudely awoken (4:35am) by a rather large Earthquake (magnitude 7.1 on the Richter scale).The energy released in that one shake is still way in excess of the sum of the energy released by all of  the aftershocks, even though many have been over 4 and several To View More >>

Turns out there's a certain stigma attached to the word 'free'. Take a conversation I overheard this morning. A photographer was talking about how they really like the look of Photojunction but was avoiding downloading because, quote, "Although it says free, nothing is ever free." This conversation reminded me of a post Ian wrote about this time last year titled, "F.r.e.e".  In light of this morning's conversation, I thought I'd resurrect part of it which explains why we give Photojunction away free, and why there's no catch... So… why? What’s the catch? Well, we’re building a community To View More >>