Someone told me weddings can become...

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D. Diggler
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p.3 #1 · Someone told me weddings can become...

misty23 wrote:
Hire a roadie to carry a boom box and stay with you all day long. Wear big gold chains, call youself Big Daddy F and rock the wedding

Jan 07, 2013 at 10:21 PM

D. Diggler
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p.3 #2 · Someone told me weddings can become...

julieawhitlock wrote:
The first three years in business I turned down every single client I didn't feel inspired to work with.

Sounds like you had the privilege of being in a position to afford to be so choosey ... maybe you had another job ... maybe you had an old man who worked.

Jan 07, 2013 at 10:27 PM

misty23
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p.3 #3 · Someone told me weddings can become...

Jan 07, 2013 at 11:12 PM

lindabrowne
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p.3 #4 · Someone told me weddings can become...

D. Diggler wrote:
julieawhitlock wrote:
The first three years in business I turned down every single client I didn't feel inspired to work with.

Sounds like you had the privilege of being in a position to afford to be so choosey ... maybe you had another job ... maybe you had an old man who worked.

Being a good at the business of photography gets snide remarks? Sounds like she is smart enough to find the right clients for her and network to give (and receive) referrals from other photographers.

There are plenty of successful photographers who've figured this out. There are others who never will.

Jan 07, 2013 at 11:23 PM

julieawhitlock
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p.3 #5 · Someone told me weddings can become...

Haha. I worked a full time job AND ran my business full time until i had a loyal enough following to go and stay full time. That's not a luxury. That's a smart way to start a sustainable and profitable business. I still turn down any couple I don't feel would be a good match for me. And I book full each year. Super happy clients who book me because they've been referred by other super happy couples builds a solid business.

Jan 08, 2013 at 12:44 AM

widjayaman
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p.3 #6 · Someone told me weddings can become...

lindabrowne wrote:
D. Diggler wrote:
julieawhitlock wrote:
The first three years in business I turned down every single client I didn't feel inspired to work with.

Sounds like you had the privilege of being in a position to afford to be so choosey ... maybe you had another job ... maybe you had an old man who worked.

Being a good at the business of photography gets snide remarks? Sounds like she is smart enough to find the right clients for her and network to give (and receive) referrals from other photographers.

There are plenty of successful photographers who've figured this out. There are others who never will.

+1 million. sheesh.

Jan 08, 2013 at 01:01 AM

RichardLavigne
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p.3 #7 · Someone told me weddings can become...

widjayaman wrote:
lindabrowne wrote:
D. Diggler wrote:
julieawhitlock wrote:
The first three years in business I turned down every single client I didn't feel inspired to work with.

Sounds like you had the privilege of being in a position to afford to be so choosey ... maybe you had another job ... maybe you had an old man who worked.

Being a good at the business of photography gets snide remarks? Sounds like she is smart enough to find the right clients for her and network to give (and receive) referrals from other photographers.

There are plenty of successful photographers who've figured this out. There are others who never will.

+1 million. sheesh.

+2 million.. Sadly, some would rather spend time trying to knock someone down, when they could be finding ways to lift themselves up.

Jan 08, 2013 at 10:32 AM

sozypozy
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p.3 #8 · Someone told me weddings can become...

That's a great opportunity to have. Not all people get to choose their clients, you are lucky

Edited on Jan 09, 2013 at 01:16 AM · View previous versions

Jan 08, 2013 at 08:33 PM

julieawhitlock
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p.3 #9 · Someone told me weddings can become...

It's not easy. Trust me, the temptation to pick the low hanging fruit is always there. I just know if I do book that couple I don't like, wants me to do a bunch of Pinterest poses, wants different editing...whatever the reason I don't really want to book them...it's going to result in images that don't have the same feeling, don't show the same connection and they won't be recommending me to all their friends with enthusiam. Its a dead end booking. We wont stay friends. I'll just be the wedding photographer whose name they cant remember in a year. Also, I get booked a lot based on client care and building client relationships. Really hard to do that if you don't click. Short term pain= long term gain to me. I'm not saying its the way for everyone. It's just the way for me. And thankfully the hard part is over.

Jan 08, 2013 at 09:21 PM

D. Diggler
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p.3 #10 · Someone told me weddings can become...

julieawhitlock wrote:

Pinterest poses

I'll have to look that one up ... never heard that before.

Jan 08, 2013 at 10:41 PM

julieawhitlock
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p.3 #11 · Someone told me weddings can become...

It's painful. They go on Pinterest and pick a bunch of cutesy poses they want you to copy. I once got a 5 page printed list!

Jan 08, 2013 at 10:54 PM

dhp_sf
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p.3 #12 · Someone told me weddings can become...

sozypozy wrote:
That's a great opportunity to have. Not all people get to choose their clients, you are lucky

Julia's not "lucky," she worked her ass off. it's insanely hard to really build a business while working another full time job. I know, I was doing that last year. I finally burned out towards the beginning of fall from working a full time day job AND trying to shoot weddings and build up my business. I ended up deciding I saved enough of a cushion to just go for it and quit the day job. It probably would have been wiser to do as Julia did and just cherry pick and do a damn good job with the weddings I *really* wanted while raising my rates.

Jan 08, 2013 at 11:18 PM

Tajmul12345
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p.3 #13 · Someone told me weddings can become...

actually i never feel boring to do wedding photography,always i do this job with full of energy and want to give best my client.

Jan 12, 2013 at 09:04 AM

jammin
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p.3 #14 · Someone told me weddings can become...

Weddings are DUUULL. They are the same over and over. People think they are doing something different each time but everytime I think, my god, why do people do this to try and be different.

A couple are generally expecting the usual thing. Pictures of this and pictures of that. If you got creative on their day to get a few great and different shots. I am sure they might be very pi$$ed off that you didn't get the knives and forks or got a wobbly reflection but cool shot of her shoes.

On the other hand, which I have been thinking about lately is having a great photographer to shoot all the mundane things and I turn up to shoot the way I want and at my pace..

I drool over some of the shots I see on some sites, but these are few and far between, you visit the full galleries and there ya go...The same old same old again.

You are shooting for your clients. If you can tell them from the get go I don't do this, I don't do that and everyone knows where you stand that's fair enough otherwise you are going to be shooting the same old stuff time after time or a slight deviation from it...

Just my opinion.

Jan 19, 2013 at 08:08 PM

jammin
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p.3 #15 · Someone told me weddings can become...

RichardLavigne wrote:
misty23 wrote:
RichardLavigne wrote:
D. Diggler wrote:
form wrote:

Do you ever feel underappreciated by your clients?

Oh, yes, I do. Way too often! Maybe a third of the jobs or so ... I go through the Big Day feeling I'm not being given much respect or appreciation. And when the client acts that way towards you, the family and wedding party pick up on this and then they, too, hold you in that same regard.

It's a bummer working under those conditions and usually the pictures from those jobs turn out to be nothing special because of the poor interaction between photographer and subjects.

So why are you booking these clients? I'd argue that if you aren't happy working for this type of client... find a way to identify them and don't take their jobs. I think that all of the couples we've worked with have respected us and enjoyed working us... they are personally interested in our success as a business. I think that too few photographers have really sat down and identified what their ideal client is. What they do for a living, they like to do for fun, how old are they etc.... this can seem like a daunting thing to, especially out of thin air. but I've found the best way to get their is to look at past clients and find the ones you've enjoyed working with the most.... then learn about them... what did they do for a living? where did they go to school? what do they do for fun? what music do they like? How did they meet? how did he propose? The next obvious question is... how do you attain all of this info... pretty simple... you ask. If you aren't asking these questions or learning about your couples in some other way then it doesn't really surprise me that they aren't interested in or respectful of you, because you aren't interested in them.... if you change this, your client will change... try it and see.

I've read this so often " only book the clients that you want to work with", but isn't that an over simplistic view of running a wedding photography business ? We turn away work that could pay the bills because we didn't connect with the potential client ? I don't really see how a business can stay in business unless they are a part time "we do it for extra cash" business OR they are a well established business that can do that.
But for the everyday, average wedding photographer, I can't see that happening. We would starve.

Your reply sums it up quite nicely... if you're interested in being everyday and average, continue to book anything and everything that walks through the door.

Honestly though... I'm not actually suggesting turning away clients (okay, maybe that is the right thing every once in a while) but actually, I'm suggesting that you find a way to target your ideal client and design your website, your interaction with them, your presentation... everything, so that it attracts that client. If you do so, you don't have to turn away clients because only the right ones are coming to you.

That's ridiculous and I agree with the other poster. You can't turn jobs away. If it aint your main business fair enough, you can do that but if you are trying to pay the bills raise kids, how the hell can you turn jobs down. You can try to attract the right clients, I agree with that but turning work down....I don't think so...That is a very bad business plan and advice. If you are getting 1000 weddings requests a year at 5k each on a quiet year, then year, turn them down but I don't think any person will be turning them down until they get to that stage..

Silliest thing I've heard...

Jan 19, 2013 at 08:13 PM

dhp_sf
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p.3 #16 · Someone told me weddings can become...

jammin wrote:
Weddings are DUUULL. They are the same over and over. People think they are doing something different each time but everytime I think, my god, why do people do this to try and be different.

A couple are generally expecting the usual thing. Pictures of this and pictures of that. If you got creative on their day to get a few great and different shots. I am sure they might be very pi$$ed off that you didn't get the knives and forks or got a wobbly reflection but cool shot of her shoes.

On the other hand, which I have been thinking about lately is having a great photographer to shoot all the mundane things and I turn up to shoot the way I want and at my pace..

I drool over some of the shots I see on some sites, but these are few and far between, you visit the full galleries and there ya go...The same old same old again.

You are shooting for your clients. If you can tell them from the get go I don't do this, I don't do that and everyone knows where you stand that's fair enough otherwise you are going to be shooting the same old stuff time after time or a slight deviation from it...

Just my opinion.

Shooting things "your own way" and shooting things for the client aren't mutually exclusive.

Jan 20, 2013 at 02:35 AM

D. Diggler
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p.3 #17 · Someone told me weddings can become...

jammin wrote:

Weddings are DUUULL. They are the same over and over.
I drool over some of the shots I see on some sites ... you visit the full galleries and there ya go...The same old same old again.

I'm sure that wouldn't be true for the Big Names on this board, though.

Jan 20, 2013 at 03:37 AM

dariussutherla
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p.3 #18 · Someone told me weddings can become...

Well. Sooooo far and I am new to the business I find them pretty tedious. I do throw myself into them and I try to make them work for me but it's all pretty much standard stuff. I personally need to deviate away from the norm or get those x number of safe shots, so I can be creative.

As I work my way up the wedding ladder, things might change, but so far they all follow the same old boring pattern, this is to do with my clients and also to do with me. I am still a little scared to step outside of getting those standard shots because I know at the end of the day, no matter who the client, they still want them. I am sure a full album of blurry fine art shots is not what someone is looking for.

I personally have some lovely unplanned portraits shots and other shots from each wedding but in terms of percentage these shots are very small in the grand scheme of images I present.

I view it as a job and not one I love I'm afraid but with each job I try my best for the client and for me, but it has become dull very quickly.

Here's to the new year and new clients.

Jan 20, 2013 at 04:06 PM

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