Another little known piece of totally useless trivia – the first Hasselblad University was a dismal failure, but the logo won an award! Designed by Kalmar Ad/Marketing,  Sweden liked it so much it became the trademark for all of their educational programs around the world. In the 90’s, Tony, along with a few different people from the company, were all over the U.S. doing some incredible educational tours with great photographers like Nick Vedros, Chris Ranier, Ralph Romaguera, Larry Peters, Bambi Cantrell, Lisa Jane and Roy Madearis, just to name a few.

Since we ran one light and two lights yesterday, it sure makes sense to bring in three and four light setups. That’s four different setups in the last two days and a great resource for you to reference. 

One of the reasons Tony is such a great instructor when it comes to lighting is simply he’s to the point. In less than two minutes he builds the shot, shows you the components and the effect of each different light and why.  Now it’s your turn to practive and develop the skill set to the point that it becomes second nature. Again, nobody does it better than Tony! A big thanks to Profoto and the MAC Group for creating and posting the videos.

Okay, this is just a bonus and everyone who knows Tony needs to watch this! It’s from the Texas School and when I found it on YouTube, I had to share it. Every year they do a tribute to something or someone from the entertainment world. That’s Tony playing drums with Joe Glyda and Walter Eagleton - I don’t need to say anymore, but I promise it’ll make you smile! (The fun starts at 30 seconds!)

The secret to success in this industry is twofold – being multi-talented and having a great sense of humor!

As business slowly starts to improve, you’ve got to stay focused on more than just your subjects.  Just because the government is quoting statistics showing the improvement and Ford and GM have record sales doesn’t mean the challenges are over.    It’s great news, but, at least to me, what it really says is that we’ve all got an even better chance of making 2010 a great year.

Last year I promoted a recurring theme, “Just because the media says it’s going to be a bad year, doesn’t mean it has to be!”  That theme still holds – everyone has the power to rebuild providing they stay focused on the challenge.  You’ve got to keep building your brand.  You’ve got to keep fine-tuning your skill set.  Most important of all, you need to deliver the very best product and exceed your client’s expectations every time.

All the major shows are over and the wedding/portrait season is about to kick off.  Now is the time for you to take out that shoebox of new ideas you collected at every program/workshop and start to blend them in with your business.  Do it gradually, with just one new idea at a time.  This could be an amazing year for everyone, but only if you think through your goals and work to develop your business and reputation one image at a time!

At the risk of being overly anecdotal, there was a great story put in circulation by the advertising community in the early ’90s.  I’ll save you from the long, original version and summarize:

A very successful hot dog vendor is hitting record sales. He’s advertising,   cross-promoting, staying open longer each day and business is fantastic. His son comes home from college for the summer and says, “Dad, don’t you know we’re in a recession? You need to watch your spending and be ready for business to slow down.”

The father, concerned, stays awake all that night worrying about what his son has said. The following day he pulls down a lot of his signs and puts the money he would have spent on advertising and promoting in the bank. By the end of the month, business is terrible and all he can say to himself is, “Wow, it’s a good thing I listened to my son. There really is a recession.”

I’m not minimizing the challenges of today’s economy, but I’m frustrated with hearing photographers cry the blues when they haven’t made an effort to evaluate and restructure their current business model.  Those photographers whose businesses are pretty solid this year are doing new things to reach their audience. Nobody is working any less, just smarter.   Every photographer who has told me they’re doing okay this year always follows with, “But I’ve NEVER worked so hard in my life!”

There is no secret to surviving as a professional photographer today—survival is all about marketing, promotion, hard work and utilizing every aspect of new technology. But there are some aspects of running a photography business that one should keep in mind during the next few years of slow economic growth:

Diversification: Are you hitting the same old target or developing new markets? If you’re a wedding photographer, how many of your brides in the last few years now have children? If they loved the wedding album you created, how about photographing their young family?

Years ago—sorry I don’t remember where—there were statistics suggesting that 95% of brides under 30 have a baby within three years of their wedding date. Every bride you’ve ever photographed is a potential customer for family portraiture.

The demand for professional portraiture still runs in this order: brides, babies and then pets. So if business is down, take a look at your client database and find the opportunities that will create new clients or new applications.

Market and Promote: Our hot dog man, in an effort to stave off the recession, stopped reminding people he was there. What are you doing to promote yourself? Are you involved in the community? Are you advertising in local papers? Do people recognize your presence?

Years ago, leading senior photographer Larry Peters told me one of his best marketing tools. At the time, he was photographing a half dozen seniors each year at no charge. They, in turn, became his ambassadors and helped spread the word among the various high schools in his area.

Well known pro David Ziser tracks anniversary dates and does a first anniversary sitting at no charge. The younger the bride, the more friends she has who will soon be getting married—it’s a publicity manager’s dream!

The Internet: You can’t be in business without a website, but how about the message you’re presenting? Look at blogs, for example. Everybody wants to have a blog, but only a handful of photographers are doing it the right way.

The key to a successful blog is in two parts: First, you need good content—topics that people really want to read about and comment on. Not everybody has the humor or the skill set to create a following like Jim Garner with his video spoofs. However, Jim’s getting leads from these videos mainly because they’ve made brides laugh. The videos are a testimonial to Jim and how much fun he and his staff are to work with. Jim is, of course, one of the best photographers in the country, but this extra exposure he gets just adds to the excitement he creates for his clients.

Second, if you’re not updating your blog at least once or twice a week, don’t bother to have one. Blogs feed the search engines. Constantly updating your material is the only way to ensure that the search engines recognize your blog and drive traffic to your site.

And when it comes to social media, you’ve heard me mention Scott Bourne’s name a half dozen times.  Check out his guest posts here and learn to Twitter – (here’s where I sound like my Dad – do as I say, not as I do – I’m still Twitter dysfunctional!)

Attitude: When was the last time you did an attitude check on yourself?    I am reminded of the unspoken oath we all took when we fell in love with photography!   That oath, we all share, is about quality, service and responsibility.   It’s everything I’ve been writing about since this blog went live in early July.    Your clients trust you to be their eyes at a wedding.  At a portrait sitting they’re trusting you to see them the way they see themselves.  They’re trusting you to deliver a product far better than Uncle Harry could ever dream of! 

Think about how much you love the craft and all the excitement that is in our industry today.   I’ll go anecdotal one last time—we’re living in our own version of Who Moved My Cheese? It’s a business parable that was on The New York Times Best Seller List in the late 1990s and well worth a two to three hour investment of time to read. If you’ve read it, you’ll understand that the only thing that’s changed in our industry is that the “cheese has been moved,” and we simply have to work harder to find it!