Quick Tip: There’s No Substitute For Quality
Last weekend I had to put together a presentation about the wedding and portrait side of the industry and in the process of looking at websites, blogs, images and analyzing who are the Young Guns and the New Guns I realized something interesting. It wasn’t particularly earth shaking, but it did stand out as I surfed the Internet.
Quality is still number one! It’s the one common denominator on every site of every photographer or even company we consider iconic. I know it’s not a revolutionary concept, but we’ve all gotten so caught up in social media, blogging and the buzz in our industry that too many of us seem to forget, a well-exposed, composed and presented image is still King!
All the marketing genius in the world isn’t going to substitute the quality of your photographs. And while lots of hype and discounting might seem to get more business in the door initially, it won’t get you a second time buyer. People won’t come back to you if your work and service was “underwhelming”.
So, the next time you put images up on your website, think quality. Think about if what you’re about to post is really your very best work. Is it representative of a philosophy that suggests you never compromise the final image? Does it really show the skill set you want to present?
I found two quotes that seem appropriate to the topic:
“Quality is never an accident; it is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, intelligent direction and skillful execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives. ” William A Foster
“When you’re out of quality you’re out of business.” Anonymous
This post has 5 comments
February 17th, 2010
While I come at the market from the commercial side, not wedding or portraits, I agree that quality has to be the number one goal when showing and delivering images to clients. Unfortunately that is not always the case to many clients. It seems that some clients have made a decision that saving a few bucks outweighs a good end product. While I will never shortcut my clients on quality, I will lose some work because it is not number one in a clients mind. I know that when it comes to a wedding you definitely don’t want to take shortcuts to save a few bucks. My only hope is that over a period of time commercial clients will come around and see that saving a few bucks can sometimes mean not presenting their product in the best light and come back around to quality being number one!
February 17th, 2010
I have seen too much hype try to make up for not enough quality in photography for many years.
February 17th, 2010
Quality and customer service is how we seperate ourselves from the competition. With a focus on quality the best form of marketing we have is our customers “Word of Mouth”.
February 18th, 2010
Well put Skip… Quality is the goal if we want to keep our heads high. It is the ultimate key to keeping couples coming back for years. My wife had a bride last week say at a bridal event “If I am spending $3k on a photographer I am definitely getting a disk!” Jennifer’s reply stopped her in her tracks…. “In the history of the world have you ever heard of an artist that doesn’t care about how their work is presented? I am not having my art printed at Walmart or any other convenient store for that matter.” Later in the week, the couple booked their wedding with us for dramatically more than 3k. Quality and integrity is always king.
February 18th, 2010
Speaking as a “newbie” to professional photography, I have to say that I think many, not all, but many people do not know the difference between a quality photograph and a mediocre one. Sure, some photos are so bad it’s obvious, but not until I really started studying photographers blogs on a daily basis did I start to see the differences between good and great. Even some of the blogs I was following in the beginning I stopped following because the more I saw, the more amateur they looked. Sadly, I think many people who book an inexpensive photographer are probably disappointed after the fact when they really sit down and look at their photos. We just have to be assured that the people who choose for low price are not necessarily the kind of people we want to be working with.