Every corner of your studio or office doesn’t have to have images of past clients.  Put a little of your own personality into the mix.  And, if you don’t have a studio or office and meet with clients at their venue, a coffee shop or restaurant, then have an album of your family.   Doesn’t it make sense to be able to say, “Let me show what I’m talking about with some images I put together of my own family!”  It has a certain ring of credibility and it suddenly puts you in a position of sharing something about yourself, even showing a little vulnerability.

I have a new favorite wall in the guest room at home – it’s “Relatives Row” as my grandparents share a wall with Sheila’s…here’s where you see what a melting pot America really is as my grandfather who came over from Poland in the early 1900’s shares a space on the wall with Kitty Gentry, Sheila’s full blooded Cherokee great-grandmother.  This is where a portrait done by Don Blair of my Dad and I at a convention 15 years ago shares space with  an Olan Mills portrait of my grandmother done fifty years ago.  The roll top desk belonged to one grandfather, the chair to another and the typewriter to an uncle.  It’s all about our roots.

If I wasn’t in this industry I don’t know if we’d have put the images up on display, re-framed a few of them or let them tell the story they do.  It’s an understatement to just say this stuff is “fun”.   It’s something bigger, but I can’t find the right word – old photographs are a kick and together they tell a story of who we are, where we’ve been and what makes each of us different.

There’s a great quote by Tennyson, “I am a part of all that I have met!”  We’re all a part of our past, from people who touched our lives an hour ago to past generations no longer with us.  We stay connected and even grounded thanks to everyone who makes up who we are. 

At this past WPPI, photographer Dawn Shields from Missouri won Album of the Year.  It wasn’t a wedding album or a day-in-the-life children’s shoot, but a documentary piece she did about her grandfather who spent most of his life in prison, in Alcatraz.  Imagine the strength of her images and the story she told in order to win Album of the Year!

The bottom line is simple, bring a little of yourself into your studio.  Don’t be afraid to share a little of your past with your clients.  It shows your human side and the love you have for imaging and the craft.  It also helps to demonstrate the value of the service you provide, capturing memories!

Most of us look at the weekend as the last great BBQ of the summer – soon the grill’s put away, the porch furniture is brought in and we’re headed into winter.  What if this year, for those of us in areas that get snow, you left the grill out and fired it up when the snow was the worst?  Seriously, there’s nothing that tastes better than a hot dog off the grill in the dead of winter!

Now take the analogy of the unexpected hot dog off the grill when it’s twenty degrees outside and apply it to your photography.  What if this year you just mixed it up a little?  What if you put some new promotions and products out there when people least expect them? 

What if you expanded the products you offered to include framed prints?  Albums Inc., for example, has a full framing division – your albums, packaging and frames all from one supplier – one-stop shopping couldn’t be easier!   What if you threw some new techniques into your images?  How about starting to bring Fusion Technology into your skill set?   How about offering your clients holiday cards with their images…or their own stationery with thank you notes featuring one of their photographs?

The list can go on and on, but it’s Saturday of Labor Day Weekend and it’s time to just enjoy your family and friends, kick back and remember, it’ll all be there on Tuesday morning!  Have a great weekend everybody!

Here’s the cool thing about business today, nothing is forever, especially in photography.  If you’re unhappy with a direction you chose then take a break.  Stop long enough to think it through and then refocus your energy towards something new.  It’s not easy making a change, but it is easy to let yourself dream and come up with a new strategy for the future of your business.

Implementing changes just takes time and you need to take baby steps.  The wonderful thing about photography is, you can make changes all along the way.  Let’s assume you wound up as a wedding photographer, but really want to photograph kids, on location.  You don’t have to throw away your business and start over.  Sooner or later your wedding clients are going to start a family. 

If you’ve done a great job with your wedding clients then your data base is already in place for children and family work.    A well written letter to your past clients along with a special offer for an on location sitting will start to build your client base, while still keeping the business going on the wedding side.  

So, if you’re hearing that little voice in your head that’s screaming at you that it’s time for a change, then start working in a new direction.  Start the process to change so that a few years from now you won’t be saying, “I should have…” There’s nothing worse than shoulding all over yourself!

There are very few promotional elements for your business easier to do than a holiday card.  It’s one of your images on the front with a short holiday message on the inside, but it’s the back of the card that’s really significant!  On the back, centered at the bottom just like a Hallmark card, is your name or your studio name, with your URL and all your contact information.

Next, is putting together your data base for the mailing:

1) All of your past clients and there’s no such thing as going too far back.

2) All the vendors you might have worked with over the last year or two.  As a wedding photographer that might mean wedding planners, venues, limo companies and florists.  As a children’s photographer it could mean local groups you’ve worked with, the president of the PTA, the local children’s store in town etc.

3) Business associates and other vendors in town.  Here’s where the card is a reminder you’re in business and a “neighbor”.   Don’t forget the presidents of groups like Kiwanis, Exchange Club and Rotary, just to name a few.  Then there’s the mayor’s office, the Chamber of Commerce etc.

4) Buy a list!  This might be the year to test 250 or more names pulled within a zip code range for your area.  Remember, when purchasing a list, you can pull by lifestyle categories.  A children’s photographer would want to pull from a data base of new parents, summer camp prospects, parents of elementary school kids etc.  A wedding photographer would want new engagements.  A commercial shooter would want to mail every business within a geographical area.

5) Last but not least, don’t forget your friends, neighbors and associates.  There’s nothing wrong with mailing your competitors.  There are only so many days a year to shoot.  Sooner or later you’re going to be booked and need to refer business to another photographer, but you need to build those relationships.

Now, here’s the tricky part…you’ve got to mail them!  (Sorry, it’s Sarcasm Thursday!)  Seriously, this little project won’t do any good, if like so many photographers out there, me included, you procrastinate through the key time benchmarks and miss the opportunity!  So, your goal is to have your cards stamped and in the mail EARLY – you want to get through the noise and be one of the first cards people receive and that means they need to be in the mail just before Thanksgiving!

For those of you who buy a box of Hallmark cards at CVS a week before Christmas, Molly the Wonder Dog and I will hunt you down and you won’t get a decent night’s sleep until Spring!

Quality:  They don’t do anything halfway.  From their images and the products they deliver to their clients, there is never a compromise, but the word quality runs so much deeper.  In a presentation they keep us in our seats.  Their slides, if they’re doing PowerPoint, are dead on target with the theme of their workshop.  In their friendships and support to the industry – everything they do is done with quality!

Involvement:  They’re involved, not just in the photographic community, but their own.  You’ll often hear about them doing a program with a charitable tie-in, something they believe in that gives back.  They give more than they take!

Enthusiasm!  Ever seen a depressed icon?  Okay, everybody is human, so we know they have their private moments, but their persona when we see them just makes us smile.  They’re always upbeat and they’re always excited about something new.

Early Adopters:  They’re the trend setters.  Often it’s as if they’re sitting in their offices waiting for technology to throw something new out there.  They’re pioneers at adapting new ideas and picking up on the trends that set the pace for the rest of us.  In fact, many of them are responsible for the key components in the way photographers shoot today, especially when it comes to work-flow.

Confidence:  When it comes to the craft, they know it cold!   Put anything in their hands that “takes a picture” and they can shoot with it.  They understand film, digital and now many of them are adapting and jumping on video with Fusion Technology.  There’s no hesitation, they know exactly what an image looks like with every focal length in their bag and you’ll never see them “chimp”.  But, like quality, confidence also runs deeper.  They’re confident when they share with us.  They’re confident when they’re working to convince us to change.  They believe in themselves and what they’re sharing with us.

Exceeding Expectations:  Whether it’s with their clients or any of us in the audience, they always exceed expectations.  They deliver more than we expect.  Now translate that into working with a client and it becomes one of the strongest reasons for their success in business – they give their customers more than they ask for!  They make themselves habit-forming!

Optimistic and Happy!  Okay, it’s the closer – they’re just plain happy.  They smile a lot and they absolutely believe in laughter and having fun!  Remember fun?  It’s one of those words lost in business today and we all tend to lose it now and then.  We become so wrapped up in trying to second-guess the economy that we forget to have fun!  Isn’t that why you got into photography in the first place?   It’s that zest for life that only comes when you’ve got a camera in your hands and you’re sharing what you do best with a client, a friend or a member of your family.

We all attend the workshops and programs taught by our favorite icons, but, at least for me, what I learn from each of them at every program is about their outlook on life – they simply love it!  

And from theologian, Howard Thurman:

Don’t ask what the world needs.  Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it.  Because what the world needs is people who have come alive!

The issue of outgoing quality is so serious, that industry icon Tony Corbell, at IUSA not too long ago, put his program aside and just talked about quality to the point where he made everybody pledge to stop taking the shortcuts and “stop producing crap!”

Fortunately, Tony, along with countless other icons are starting to get the message through.  I think a lot of people are slowing down a little and paying more attention to what they deliver.  They’re also working with some great labs, instead of trying to do it all themselves,  but here’s a challenge I saw recently that everyone needs to pay more attention to:  inconsistent flesh tones.  

Recently I was looking through an album being submitted for competition and there were at least six different versions of the bride.  At one extreme she looked anemic, then Asian and finished the book dark complected with a horrible sunburn.  The solution to the problem was all in the photographer’s hands, but he pushed to get the book done and never paid attention to flesh tones.

Okay, here I go sounding like my grandfather… 

In the “old days” the lab would print to the Shirley.  Shirley was the nickname for the manikin Kodak used for flesh tone balance – she was the standard.   Shirley, was sadly caught in a horrible accident.  She was run over by the 18-wheeler of digital and came back without a consistent flesh tone, as thousands of photographers, often on uncalibrated monitors, stopped paying attention to her and eyeballed her images and said, “Yeah, that looks good!”

So, the thought this morning is this:  When a potential client looks at your work, either in a real album or on line and they see an inconsistency in quality from image to image – don’t you think they wonder which photographer they’re going to get if they hire you?   Don’t you think they might just question how they’re going to look in your images?  I’ve seen images on websites so inconsistent that as a potential client I’d wonder, “Will I get Jekyll or Hyde?”

It was inconsistent flesh tones that got me going today, but think about quality in general, on everything you do.  NEVER compromise on the quality of the finished product.  We’re in a word-of-mouth business and there’s no stronger calling card than consistent great quality and exceeding your customer’s expectations!

If you’re fixing it in Photoshop later, then you’re wasting valuable time you could be working on your marketing efforts, building awareness for your business and getting to know more people in your community.  Yeah, I know it’s easy for me to think about, I grew up on film.  Actually it’s too bad that every high end digital SLR doesn’t come with a disclaimer that you’re not allowed to use it until you’ve shot a case of chrome, with perfect exposures on every frame of the last roll!

Here’s the point:  Your success as a professional photographer is based on you building brand awareness for one single product…YOU!  Nobody can do that as good as you can, which means you have to invest time into building your business.  You can’t do it if you’re behind your monitor cleaning up the mess from the last assignment! 

Get your exposures and composition right in the camera and a huge part of your time, the only commodity you will NEVER have enough of, comes right back to you.

However, the theme for whatever reason over the last few days has been talking about networks, the value of a photograph and simply the incredible gift all of you, as photographers, have the ability to provide your clients.

Well, photographs do tell a story and that’s Sheila highlighted in the front row and me in the back…and it’s 3rd grade!   A big thanks to whoever the school photographer was at the time and thought he was just taking another photograph that didn’t matter.  Where would we be without photographs?

To look backward for a while is to refresh the eye, to restore it, and to render it the more fit for its prime function of looking forward.  Margaret Fairless Barber, The Roadmender

So, have some fun thinking about all these links…

Tony Corbell is the educational manager over at Nik, but he and I worked at Hasselblad together.  But we met when he was working with Dean Collins, which led to working at Brooks Institute and co-ordinating with just about everyone in the industry.

Kayce Baker over at Fujifilm and I link back to her days in retail at Samy’s in LA, but most recently  Scott Bourne and I just used one of her amazing images in our new book GoingPro. 

Image by Kayce Baker – All Rights Reserved

Scott Bourne and I go back at least 15 years when he sent me images at Hasselblad taken with the then new Hasselblad X-pan.  I sent them over to Studio Photography (no longer in business) and they ran a profile story on Scott and his images, which led to a monster project in the middle east.

My good buddy Bob Rose and I go back to his Ilford days, but the fun really started when I needed a dive buddy for a trip to Bonaire.  Then came working together on all sorts of projects, including Bob writing for Rangefinder Magazine.  He’s a writer, (Google him and you’ll find things he’s written all over the industry!) a photographer and the ultimate tech-weenie!  The computer I’m working on right now wouldn’t be working if it wasn’t for Bob’s help!   During all these years life has just been one amazing adventure.

Kenny Kim came to a program we were doing on the road in Cleveland five years ago.  Also speaking were Mike Colon and Jeff Jochum, which was a Pictage sponsored series.  Then Kenny seemed to show up at every program.  He recently published a new book and took some great images at the last Skip’s Summer School.  Then, two days ago I was talking to Tracy Moore, a photographer from Montana.  She’s assisting Kenny at an upcoming wedding in Chicago in the next week or so.

Vern McClish, now at Hallmark, was at Polaroid for many years, although we really didn’t work together until I left and joined Hasselblad.  Polaroid at the time made a back for Hasselblads.   We’ve worked together on and off for years on various projects related to Hallmark Institute, but the most fun is that we actually went to high school together!  For years he’s been suggesting I get to know lighting expert, Bobbi Lane, who recently just co-anchored the Lighting Lab at Skip’s Summer School.  Now throw in good buddy, Rich Parker from The MAC Group, who brought in all the Profoto lighting gear.  Rich and I go back to before his MAC Group days when I tried to talk him into leaving the west coast and moving to NJ to work for Hasselblad.

The other day I did a blog and talked about Ansel Adams…well, John Sexton, Chris Ranier and Rod Dresser were all assistants of Ansel at one time or another.  They all went on to become incredible photographers in their own right.

Okay, the list could go on and on, but here’s the point – no heavy thoughts – just pay attention to the incredible roots of everybody you meet in photography.  The longer you’re in the industry the more you’ll realize we’re all addicted to it! Nobody ever really leaves.