On Mar 7, 2011, at 5:45 AM, Larry Colen wrote: > > What I try to offer to my customers is the best quality photographs for the > lowest cost. My biggest cost is my time. If I were paying myself minimum > wage for the photography work, the company would be running way in the red. > To get great photographs, there are certain things that most customers need > from me: > 1) equipment. It's possible to get great photos with crappy, or makeshift > equipment, but not any time, or any place, or in a reasonable amount of time. > > 2) Skill with the equipment. > > 3) Teaching them to be good models, giving them direction. > > On the other hand, for the most part, they can pick out the photos that they > like as well, or better than I can. If I need to charge $50 per hour for my > time, and it takes me two hours to sort through photos, then I need to charge > an extra $100. Not everyone, when given the opportunity, would basically pay > themselves $50 an hour, for something that they could have someone else do. > >> It also depends on the relationship between you and your customers. If they >> are not totally strange people to you, then it might work. But eventually, I >> think, you would have to optimize your workflow and be able to work >> completely on your own giving your customers completely finalized product. > > I could do a photo shoot, and afterwards pick my five favorite pictures and > give them the prints. Most people seem to want to pick the pictures they get > themselves. In a similar vein, I used to go to a restaurant where, as a > joke, the owner put "Dave's whatever" on the menu. It was whatever the cook > felt like making, you didn't have a choice, and he'd tell you what it cost > when you got the bill. To his surprise, it was actually a very popular > item. It seems that a lot of people do indeed like "home cooking" in the > sense that you eat what Mom puts on the table, and you don't have to think > about it, or get to choose. On the other hand, most of the people who went > to Tara's didn't order the whatever, they actually selected something off the > menu. So, while you might be happy to have someone do a photoshoot of you, > and select and print the photos for you, I think that most people want more > say than that in what they get.
Larry, I would suggest a #4 for your list of what the customer expects: The ability to know the difference between best quality and not so best quality photos. In other words, I agree that customers would like to chose which photo(s) to keep from a portrait session, but they shouldn't have to sort through crap to find the good ones. Or even need to sort through umpteen good shots that are essentially duplicates of one another. I think they expect you to exercise some judgment in pruning down the set by eliminating the obvious bad ones where the lighting or focus are a bit off. Then out of the many good ones you have left, make some quick choices. If you have 17 images 3/4 left front with single light, and you have dozens if not hundreds more with different angles, lighting etc., then make a quick choice of 2-3 from the 17 and move on. stan -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
