Wootness | the blog of christine walsh-newton

I received an email from Becca. She asks a series of questions that have been asked by others and will probably garner some interest from the Wootness crew, so I told her I’d answer her email here. Put on your big girl panties, though, Becca, I’m going to say some things that might not be to your liking, but I’ll try to say them gently…

Hi Christine, I subscribe to your Wootness blog, and I have a question regarding packing and pricing — maybe your other readers are in the same boat. Someone once told me that photography is like prostitution: first you’re just fooling around, then you do it for your friends, then you do it for other people, then you do it for money. I guess you could say I fit somewhere between doing it for friends and doing it for money. I’m not a professional photographer. It’s mainly a hobby, but I also help at a studio for their weddings. I’ve been asked to do a few photo shoots for friends (weddings, senior portraits, family shoots, etc.). I don’t have any kind of pricing structure set up, so I usually end up quoting them a ridiculously low price and giving them a CD with 20 images or so when all is said and done. When you consider my travel time, time at the shoot and editing after, my hourly rate is embarrassingly low. At first my philosophy was that this was giving me good experience too, so it was okay that it wasn’t a huge money-maker for me. But now I’m ready to make this side work count. So — where do I start? Instead of giving a CD, what kind of packaging options would you suggest? And what is a reasonable price? I’m hoping to have my policies and pricing in place by January 1. My next step is talking to a CPA to figure out how to do this legally! Thanks for any advice you can give. I love your blog! -Becca

OK, where to start…

First of all…prostitution? That just made me laugh, considering the whole Passionate Patty series and all. 😉

I’m not a professional photographer. It’s mainly a hobby, but I also help at a studio for their weddings.

Oh dear. How do I say this nicely? This is not a fence you get to straddle. If you are accepting money for doing photography, then it’s not a hobby. If you feel you are not good enough to be called a professional, then stop accepting money and stay a hobbiest. When new photographers straddle this fence, this causes all kinds of problems. This is the mindset that new photographers use to justify selling their services at ridiculously low prices and slapping the files on a CD.

If you are helping a studio, and they are paying you as an independent contractor – they should issue you a 1099 at the end of the year if they paid you more than $600 during the year. If they paid you less than $600, you still need to track this income and report it to the IRS when you file your taxes on April 15th at 11:59 pm.

Furthermore – if the studio you are currently working for (sorry, there is no “help out” in this business) had you sign a non-compete contract, you will need to refer to this to determine if you can legally go into business on your own. You wouldn’t want to violate a contract and besides, it’s just bad karma to take all the skills someone else taught you and then compete against them. (Now, I happen to know that Becca lives 2 hours away from the studio she does weddings for, so this may not be an issue). Another thing to think about is what you are going to use for a wedding portfolio. If the studio you are working for gives you permission to use the files you shot while in their employ, then you’re fine. It’s a generally accepted practice to note “photography ©Becca for ABC Photography” in the credits so that there is no confusion. This is the proper good-karma way of things.

I don’t have any kind of pricing structure set up, so I usually end up quoting them a ridiculously low price and giving them a CD with 20 images or so when all is said and done. When you consider my travel time, time at the shoot and editing after, my hourly rate is embarrassingly low.

Aaaah, grasshopper. You have learned the first lesson. You must price yourself correctly. Low pricing is not correct. You must figure in all of your time, expenses and overhead. I have to give you some credit here for staying within a certain number of files. It’s discouraging to hear of photographers giving every single photo on disc and not retouching or culling down. You only want to present the absolute best images to your clients, so it sounds like you are following this philosophy well. Even if they are on a disk.

At first my philosophy was that this was giving me good experience too, so it was okay that it wasn’t a huge money-maker for me.

Wrong. You should never be paid to get experience. But if you’re a reader here, you know that.

Instead of giving a CD, what kind of packaging options would you suggest? And what is a reasonable price? I’m hoping to have my policies and pricing in place by January 1.

I’m going to tick you off now and give you an answer by not giving you an answer.

I can’t tell you what to price yourself. I can’t tell you what packages to put together. Packaging and pricing is an extremely personal thing and you would be wise to not ask for advice for pricing. What you need to do is figure out your costs and your overhead and what amount of profit you deem acceptable for your work and use that as a basis to figure your prices.

Everyone has a happy price. Figure out what yours is. That way, when you are doing photography work, you will be doing it gladly and not be angry that you don’t feel you are being paid what you are worth.

As far as packages go – that’s a whole different can of worms. Again, put together packages that make sense to YOU. Personally, packages don’t make sense to me and I don’t like the whole discount on larger packages to entice people to spend scads of dough philosophy. I price everything a la carte with bonus items for bigger purchases. That’s it. That works for me. Either that, or I shoot for an hourly fee that includes the files (weddings and events ONLY). Now – this may not work for anyone else in the whole world. But that doesn’t matter. It works for me. So figure out what works for you. And don’t be surprised if you go through some trial and error on this. It might take awhile for you to get things figured out. You may even want to put together one small basic package and then as you gain experience with your client base and market, start adding more packages in as you see a need for them. That’s a lot easier than putting together scads of packages and then changing them all when you discover they don’t work well for you.

And…. don’t totally scrap files on a CD. Sometimes that’s an appropriate way to do things. Don’t be forced into ditching them because other photographers talk smack about photographers who slap files on a disk. The REAL issue is when all the files are slapped on a a disk with no retouching or culling and said disk is as cheap as a case of redneck beer & a sack of pork rinds. Capice?

My next step is talking to a CPA to figure out how to do this legally!

High-Wootness-Five to you! Another good step is to visit your county clerk of courts and apply for a vendor’s license to get you started on paying your sales taxes and be all legal that way, too. Good luck, and if you’re ever in my neck of the woods, please stop by for a visit.

Oh, isn’t that cute? You’ve got yourself a big girl camera, you’ve done a couple of sessions and now you’re taking the next step. You’re opening a studio. You’ve ordered a set of lights and are anxiously awaiting their arrival. You’ve let all your friends and fans know that the lights are coming in and you’re making plans to start shooting once they arrive.

That’s REALLY cute.

Kind of like when you see two little 4 year-olds playing house with a baby doll. They cuddle and coo at the doll and tell you they’re married. Awwww! If they only knew…

Yeah. That kind of cute.

It’s time to get your head out of the glitter cloud and think about what you’re doing.

Those lights you are waiting on? Let me guess…you got them from eBay and they cost less than $300.

Let me tell you a little story…

In 2007 I decided to try and learn studio photography. I had already shot for a newspaper for a couple of years and did weddings and events, but I didn’t know a thing about studio lighting.

I decided what my budget was and bought my first set of lights.

Unfortunately, I didn’t know any photographers I could ask for advice and the research I did was pretty inept. I decided my budget was $200 and bought a used set of lights off ebay.

OK, feel free to laugh your ass off.

When I opened the box, I had no clue what I was looking at. I figured out how to make the lights go off and discovered that one of them did not fire. I wrote the seller and they sent me another used light that was better, but didn’t match the other set.

Cue laughter track…

Why am I laughing? Because mixing lights of different powers from different manufacturers is NOT something you should throw into the mix when you’re just starting out. I messed around with this oddball light forever until I decided to just take it out of the mix and stick it back in the box it came in. It’s still there.

After some bumbling around, I realized that I couldn’t shoot with bare lights and each of them needed a modifier.

The lights remained unused until I could scrape up another couple hundred for some soft boxes. And shoot through umbrellas. And reflective umbrellas. I’ll laugh loudly all by myself here – since that time I have spent that entire budget on ONE modifier. Yet, I digress.

To make a long story short….. I wound up spending a BUNCH of money on CRAP. Yep. CRAP that is still in my possession because my ethics are keeping me from re-selling them to some poor unsuspecting schmuck.

I bought lights, cheapie triggers, soft boxes, shoot-through umbrellas, reflective umbrellas, rickety light stands and a bunch of other stuff that wasn’t worth the money. The lights didn’t even have replaceable bulbs. Once they are burned out, you have to throw the light away.

The only two items I bought that were useful was the calibration target and the light meter.

I began teaching myself studio lighting. I took some courses and did a LOT of experimentation. It times it seemed that I would never get it right. I posted my work on some photography forums for critique and was blasted. Woah! Yeah, they were lit, but they were flat-lit. What the heck is flat-lit? Look it up. I did.

About a year later, after struggling with this cobbled-together studio, I bit the bullet and spent about $5000 on a lighting system. (I’ve since added to my arsenal and have no clue what I’ve spent on equipment at this point. I’d have to consult my accounting records to determine that, but I’m going to guess that I have more than $20K invested in my studio now.)

This didn’t result in instant lighting success, but it was SO much nicer to have equipment that worked well and lights that were strong enough.

So, I spent a LOT of money and a LOT of time learning and honing my studio photography skills. It was over a year before I felt confident enough to charge a client actual money for studio session.

So – yes, it’s really cute to see all you newbies excited about your purchases and making plans to begin shooting studio sessions as soon as you open the boxes.

But it’s cute in a sad way. It’s almost like a little bitty train wreck.

I know, and all the seasoned pros around me know – that you’re gonna fail at this. You’re going to post the most horrendously lit and posed photos we’ve seen in awhile. Your photos may even be submitted to YANAP by someone with less kindness in their heart than I. You’re going to struggle. A lot.

And I will shake my head and wish that you had slowed down and asked some advice from a professional. And taken some lessons and classes. And practiced at least for a couple of months before trying to shoot a client.

It’s not too late.

PS – The very best thing you can buy for yourself when starting out in studio photography is this book. My friend Twila mentioned this book ALL.THE.TIME. until I finally bought it. It’s my lighting bible, now.

Well, hello. It’s about time I got my ass back in gear, isn’t it? It’s been a full week since I’ve posted to Wootness.

So, here’s the deal:

I stay with my father-in-law during the week while my sister-in law works (she’s teacher). Last week was Thanksgiving break, so I didn’t have to stay with FIL. The time I’m away from the house is when I do all of my writing for Wootness. That’s how I justify the non-income producing project that it is – I work on it when I am unable to work on photography.

So, I didn’t have designated time to write and I didn’t make substitute arrangements and I got all wrapped up in cleaning and decorating for Thanksgiving ( we were hosting all the kids/grands) and well, one day turned into seven days and now here we are.

To be honest, I wasn’t happy with how the 61-derful project was going. It started off as a bright idea – hey, there’s 61 days left in the year and I will do a supreme business reorganization, and oh, hey, wouldn’t it be cool if I blogged about that?

Yeah, right.

I didn’t sit down and plan out the 61 days. Mistake #1. And seriously, who has the attention span to hang in there for a 61 day program? Duh!

My business required certain actions that your business may or may not require. It was risky taking you along for *MY* ride. So, I did what any intelligent person would do. I did my own stuff and then created additional activities just for you. Oh hello. So now I have regular blog features to write, plus revamp my business and then invent ways for *YOU* to revamp your business.

Not a well-laid plan.

So, you know what?

I’m chucking the 61-derful plan. For now. There’s just too much on my plate at the moment and with the holidays coming up and my own business revamping, I just don’t have the proper amount of attention to give it.

So, we’re going to go back to the way things were before.

Sort of.

I’ve noticed the blog is a little on the ADD side, so I’m going to be cleaning up categories and features and consolidating things. Nothing will go away, things will just find better homes within wootness.net.

I hope you all had a great holiday. I’ll be chatting with you later.

Take care,

Christine

I have a problem with books. And magazines. And any other reading material.

One set of shelves in my office (I have 2 sets) is devoted to books and magazines. I bet you’ve got some bookshelves, as well, so today is the day when I want you to clean them up.

Pare down your books to industry-only. Fiction and Harlequin Romances go back to the living areas of your home. They don’t belong here.

I have devoted about 1.5 shelves to my books. The middle shelf also holds a basket. This is my basket where I stash things that don’t belong in my office, like tools and cups and other items from the kitchen that have a habit of wandering into my office. I referred to this basket as “special box #3” in THIS ARTICLE.

The top shelf is for magazines. This is where I need help. I had hundreds of magazines before this purge. Almost 5 years’ worth. After careful consideration, I am keeping all of the issues of the PPA Magazine, Studio Photography and Photoshop User. The other ones are being donated – and I’ve already found a willing victim…uh, I mean person who wishes to receive this valuable resource. 🙂

I have decided that once the top shelf gets full of magazines, that another purge should happen, but under no circumstances should the magazines be stored anywhere else – I need to keep my magazine problem under control.

So, today’s job is to clear out your bookshelves and get them organized. Go!

I’m so thrilled with this I just had to share.

Last weekend I was at the PP of Ohio Fall Conference and of course, I checked out the trade show while I was there. One of the frame vendors was having a closeout sale on frames and other packaging items and I grabbed up all of these that they had.

“These” is a small leather-looking briefcase kind of thing that holds a CD case. The whole thing is just elegant as all get out and at $10 a pop, it was a no-brainer. I’m using these for wedding digital files. After dropping mucho bucks on a CD, there’s no way my client is going to be handed a paper envelope with the clear circle cut out of the front for their CD packaging. You know what I mean??

I have no idea who the manufacturer is of these, but I will be doing some research to hunt them down. These are deluxe!

UPDATE: These are available from DNL Photo Packaging HERE.

So, here’s some photos of a wedding file package I’m leaving the house to deliver in like 5 minutes. Enjoy!

 

 

Yesterday we started on our filing cabinet purging. Everything that is not business-related should now be gone from your files.

Since we deal extensively with clients over a period of time before their order is complete,  I like to have a folder for each client. I also have a pretty OCD filing system in place that I will share with you. It may be overkill for some, but it keeps me organized perfectly.

You will need a file folder for each client, with LAST NAME, FIRST NAME on the tab. This folder will hold any notes, model releases, etc pertinent to the session. On the outside of the folder I write the address, email address and phone number for my contact as well as the session appointment date. That way I can find the really important information without pulling the whole file from the drawer.

You will need a number of hanging file folders with the tabs marked as follows:

TO SHOOT

TO PROCESS

NEED ORDERING APPOINTMENT/UPLOAD TO GALLERY (depending on how you run things)

WAITING ON CLIENT ORDER

TO PROCESS & ORDER

ORDER OUT

TO PACKAGE/INVOICE

WAITING FOR CLIENT PICKUP

DONE

I think these folders are pretty self-explanatory, so I won’t go through my process step by step – basically I just move the client folder from category to category as the order progresses through my system. I can tell at a glance how many orders are out at any given time or how big my retouching load is just by opening up the file drawer and seeing how many file folders are in each category.

As I move the folders from category to category, I generally place them in time order, so that, for example, when I schedule some retouching time, I get the first file, which is the oldest file. This way I am processing clients in the order that they were photographed or when got their orders in. However, when the folders move to the DONE category, they are placed in alphabetical order for easy retrieval.

In the beginning of the calendar year, I put the DONE folders in this same drawer, but as the year goes on, those get to be too numerous, so I move them to their own drawer after I  get the previous year’s folders archived away after the taxes are done.

I hope this helps you out – if you have a good filing organizing tip, please share it here. Happy filing!

 

Well, hello!

It’s been an entire week off of our path to Wootness, so it’s time to dive back in and get some good work done.

Today is Saturday, so I want you to abandon your daily list (you HAVE been keeping up with the daily list, haven’t you??) and do some hefty organizational jobs.

First, I want you to remove everything PERSONAL from your office. I don’t mean photos and decorative items. I mean papers, bills, insurance policies, etc. This office is for your photography business, not your household business. You want your time in this area to be as productive as possible, and if you have household stuff here, you will be tempted to work on that, instead.

While you are doing this, I want you to empty your filing cabinets of anything non-business related. Which brings us to the second job of the day – organize your filing cabinets. Seriously. A filing cabinet is not a place to stuff stacks of paper in a misguided effort to straighten up your office. It’s also not intended to be an alphabetical order-only organizing system.

My office has 2 2-drawer lateral file cabinets. That’s 4 drawers of organizational opportunity.

Drawer #1 has empty file folders and hanging folders. This is also where I store printer paper and and other printable items. My printer sits on top of this filing cabinet, so this is a convenient place for it.

Drawer #2 has all of my current jobs/bills. There is a folder for each month of this calendar year and that’s where all my receipts, bank statements, invoices and packing slips go. When I do my taxes, everything I need is in this set of folders. The remainder of the file drawer is filled with current client files. I have those organized into a complicated system that I’ll go over tomorrow.

Drawer #3 is my vendor drawer. This drawer contains information from each of the vendors I actually use (remember, we cleaned out all that extra stuff awhile back?). This is also where I have folders for each of the organizations I belong to and their marketing materials.

Drawer #4 is where I store my completed client folders for this calendar year. There’s no sense having the completed stuff fighting for attention in the current job drawer. Once I’ve wrapped up a job, I don’t want the folder in my way, but I do want it in a convenient place in case I need to refer to it again or a client decides to place a re-order.

So, there you have it – an example of a simple way to organize your files. Figure out a way that works for you and get your files up to snuff. Today. GO!

PLAY HOOKY

Yeah. Kind of. There’s always a “But” with me, isn’t there?

Yesterday I had a date with my 96 year-old father-in-law. I spend my days with him at his house and do most of my writing then on the laptop. But, Ohio had a burst of very pretty weather and I thouht a field trip would be nice. We spent most of the day in the car driving around and visiting a few places and admiring the fall colors.

It was such a relaxing, wonderful day. The best I’d had in months and months.

My intent was to then go home and work my tail off for the rest of the afternoon until the late evening to do my photography work. I still have a little bit of workload that I wanted to get done before this weekend.

But I didn’t.

I felt so relaxed and happy that I just could not bear to go into my office and buckle down. So I didn’t.

I am leaving today for my state Fall conference. I will arrive there early this evening and spend the evening with some friends traveling from out of state.

The conference is Sunday and Monday. I will be working my tail off as the event photographer. Yeah, you want stress? Have the president of a state photography organization appoint you as convention and conference photographer. GAH!!!!

We’ve also talked about shooting some video as well, so I’m taking my handy dandy little videocam.

The point is, I will be working my tail off most of the weekend. The last thing I wanted to do with work my tail off right up until I left the house. Boo. Hiss.

So, I’m going to be all airy-fairy (not to be confused with fairy-bearing-unicorn) and say that I gave myself permission to take the day off and begin my “vacation” a day early.

YOU’RE SEMI-ON-YOUR-OWN

I’m going to be very busy for the next two days. I may check in and write a brief article, but I’m giving you the assignment of determining your own activities for the next 2 days.

Do you need the days off? I’m taking them. I need them. Permission granted to take a leave of absence.

Maybe there’s something that you have been wanted to work on that’s just creative – go for it!

We’re all grown-ups, you know what you need. Do something just for you. I am. I know it sounds crazy, and I’m going to be running around like a mad-woman, but I get a weird kind of recharging from attending PPO  conventions and conferences.

OK, I’m signing off – I’ll be touching base – have a great weekend!

Christine

This pertains to everyone, not just photographers, but we are pretty guilty of it and take it to extremes.

Your cell phone is not a VITAL function to your day. You CAN forget it at home. You CAN forget to charge it and let it run out of battery power. You CAN shut it completely off for an hour. Or two. Or eight.

The world will not fall apart if you do  not answer your phone every single time.

While we’re talking about this – I’d also like to encourage you to turn off your email notifications on your smart phone. Fine, look at your emails when you want, but turn off that annoying audio signal that chirps every time you have a new email. Between phone rings, voice mail notifications, email notification, twitter chirps, alarms and text message sounds, the smart phones are starting to sound like a deranged musical instrument played by ghosts.

Make a concerted effort to focus on people instead of your phone. I used to attend business lunches a lot before photography, and I was always amazed at how many people would place their cell phones right beside their silverware. If the phone made a sound, they were out of their seats and off to a quiet corner to take the call. If we were lucky. There were others who were not so mannerly and would have their conversation at the table. Of course, all conversation ceased at this point, either because we couldn’t talk over the person on the phone, or we could not continue our discussion without the person that just removed themselves from the table to take a call.

Seriously? Think about this – we have become SO RUDE because of our addictions to our little noise-making electronic devices. Do yourselves and every one else a favor, shut the damn things off and spend some quality time with your family, friends and colleagues.