hardlyboring Offline Upload & Sell: On
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Nathan
Nice write up. I suck at writing so I can appreciate a well put together post that makes sense.
What gets me about this whole "competing for couples attention" is that I really don't see how it does our couples any actual good. I realize that competitions sometimes help people grow and stretch and become better but my question is, at who's expense are we doing this?
I see a lot of people get really really hung up on taking the next award winning photo or whatever and I wonder if that gets in the way of seeing other things or interacting with other people at weddings.
Winning awards has almost become a "brand" of its own.
I have won these awards therefore I will be shooting this way to try to win more.
Of course no one comes out and says it that way but a LOT of people start out by saying how many times they have been recognized for this or that and check out all my avatars from "best of knot", "SMP black book", "green wedding shoes", etc.
I am not sure if any of that actually means anything to 99% of brides or if it makes us provide a better finished product to brides.
Perhaps I am just hung up on some peoples over the top need to win awards or to be recognized. I would be interested to here brides perspectives on these matters.
Brides who have hired these award winners and if they think those awards actually made a difference with the overall experience and not just with pictures.
From my limited experience in wedding photography it seems like the experience people have away from the camera is just as important is the actual creative photos one takes.
Where are recognitions for "best brand", "best client experience", "best initial consult experience", "best after wedding experience", etc.
Those things seem dumb like "who would give an award for that" but in reality, at least to me, they are the things that matter even more than the photos.
Lets face it sometimes our photos are just normal, not every couple has a rockstar wedding, and not every set we produce is home run. That doesn't mean the client experience and business side of things has to fall short in anyway and for most people they are going to remember how they were taken care of just as much as how the photos were.
Do we focus on the non photo stuff too. Yes of course we do. No one ever talks about it though.
Todd Reichmann used to spend quite a bit of time here and was the authority on branding (still is). He never really got into talking about the actual photos because quite frankly as long as the photos were passable they didn't matter as much as everything else business wise.
Where are the "Sexy Business" awards to go along with our Fearless Awards?
Anyway great write up, very useful and well put together. You are going to be teaching me some climbing skills in CO soon hopefully
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